Ameriwiki:Community portal

This page is for discussion by the Ameriwiki community. For issues pertaining to misconduct by user/users or other such problems, please use Ameriwiki:Administrator's desk. For debates, please use Ameriwiki:Debates.

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Contents 1 Mile posts 2 free will practically 3 Displaying images 4 DELETION REQUEST 5 Featured article? 6 Category naming convention 7 Short URLs 8 Proposal for Main Page Right 9 A foundation for the wiki? 10 This is what happens when a nerd gets bored and can't sleep 11 WikiData 12 Geographical data 13 Has CP finally jumped the shark? 14 Pop culture drivel

Mile posts

Please welcome Maryland Transportation Authority as our 1,200th article. Let's add another 1,200. Smink (talk) 08:07, 1 December 2012 (CST)

Congratulations on our 15,000th edit today to Category:Laws. Smink (talk) 19:24, 19 December 2012 (CST)

Our 2,900th page was Carnot cycle‎ created on January 1, 2013. Smink (talk) 17:08, 6 January 2013 (CST)

Our 3,000th page was Lake Mead on February 14, 2013. Smink (talk) 01:04, 17 February 2013 (CST)

Our 1,300th article was Matrix (mathematics) created on February 17, 2013. Can we reach 1,400 within a month?

Our 16,000 edit on March 11, 2013 was to create the article Carlo Gesualdo‎. Smink (talk) 06:37, 11 March 2013 (CDT)

Our 1,400th article was Prosody‎ on March 13. Can we reach 1,500 in another 20 days?

Our 3,300th page was Corvette, which was added on March 25, 2013.

Our 1,500th article was Lugger, which was added on March 26, 2013.

And congratulations to Smink and AlanE who did so much to get us here. --Sam Coulter (talk) 11:34, 26 March 2013 (CDT)

Our 1,600th article was transponder timing, which was added on April 11, 2013.

Our 600,000 page was viewed on April 16, 2013.

Our 17,000 edit on April 23, 2013 was to create the article Torres Strait‎.

Our 750,000 page was viewed on May 8, 2913.

Our 1,700th article was Holly Petraeus, which was added on May 13, 2013.

Our 3,600th page was Billie Sol Estes, which was also added on May 13, 2013.

Our 2,000th user registered on May 14, 2013.

Our 1,800th article was Edward I of England, which was added on May 18, 2013.

Our 900,000 page was viewed on May 22, 2013.

Our 3,800th page was Hyksos‎, which was added on May 25, 2013.

Our 1,900th article was Princess Europa‎, which was added on May 28, 2013.

Our 18,000 edit on June 9, 2013 was to Soviet Union.

Our 3,900th page was Talk:Nintendo Entertainment System‎, which was added on June 17, 2013.

free will practically

I have changed the free will page, to a practical explanation of how free will works. The broad outlines of the logic that people use when they talk in terms of choosing. The common logic about free will is in line with the American constitution, while most all modern philosophy is not. Late medieval philosophy of monks, commonly known as metaphysical libertarianism, is in line with freedom in the way that it is understood in the constitution. I believe that the values of practicality and the constitution are in line with conservatism.

If anybody wants to have a "determinist" notion of free will talked about, they can just put that as a subsection in an article about forces or somesuch, not in the article about free will. That is an organization of articles that follows logic, rather than follows the names of principles. (determinist free will has the same logic as force). --Syamsu (talk) 08:28, 11 December 2012 (CST)

Displaying images

Prior to today, the File links automatically displayed images from Wikipedia Commons. Today, those links no longer display the images. Please help. Thanks, Smink (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2013 (CST)

It appears to be working now. I just checked Norman Schwarzkopf's article, and his picture displayed fine. Crazy Cat Lady^Meow 20:09, 16 January 2013 (CST)

No. Please look at Waterfall the picture there displays correctly on Wikipedia Commons, but only the file name shows here today. (The picture showed yesterday.) Smink (talk) 21:33, 16 January 2013 (CST)

When I make a trivial change (add a space at end of paragraph), the rendering of the page is purged and the photos display correctly. Smink (talk) 21:45, 16 January 2013 (CST)

DELETION REQUEST

PLEASE delete Category:Propagandists. --Triviality (talk) 18:58, 19 January 2013 (CST)

Done. From what you worked on, you may have deduced that Ameriwiki's early history has had some problems, involving people bringing over their favorite articles from Conservapedia. In this case, it was cold war McCarthyite anti-Communist stuff right out of the 50's. (Ameriwiki started as a colony of Conservapedia refugees.) We have tried to clean things up, putting "hatchet" templates on the things we didn't have time for. Anyway, you tripped over some of that. Thanks for your help. SamHB (talk) 22:09, 19 January 2013 (CST)

Featured article?

Uh yeah- we're over half a month into Obama's second term. Maybe we should pick something else now? --Enchanted13 (talk) 15:51, 10 February 2013 (CST)

I nominate Financial crisis of 2008. Timely. Nobs01 (talk) 20:05, 17 February 2013 (CST)

Category naming convention

I am a firm believer in consensus and also in avoiding wasting everyone valuable time. So, I raise this question with mixed feelings. We have a very inconsistent set of category names, particularly in how they are capitalized. The Ameriwiki Manual of Style says about categories:

Unlike articles, categories are to be in title case with nouns capitalized (e.g. Alabama Cities and Towns, not Alabama cities and towns), and are to be plural where applicable (e.g. Rifles, not Rifle).

Most Ameriwiki editors come over after spending some time at Wikipedia. The Wikipedia rule on naming categories is:

• Standard article naming conventions apply; in particular, do not capitalize regular nouns except when they come at the beginning of the title.
• Names of topic categories should be singular, normally corresponding to the name of a Wikipedia article. Examples: "Law", "Civilization", "George W. Bush".
• Names of set categories should be plural. Examples: "Writers", "Villages in Poland".
• Avoid abbreviations. Example: "Category:Military equipment of World War II", not ":Category:Military equipment of WW2". However, abbreviations that have become the official or generally used name (such as NATO) should be used where there are no other conflicts.
• Don't write the category structure in names. Example: "Monarchs", not "People - Monarchs".
• Choose category names that are able to stand alone, independent of the way a category is connected to other categories. Example: "Geography terminology stubs", not "Terminology" (a subcategory of "Geography stubs").
• As with lists, avoid descriptive adjectives such as famous, important, or notable in category titles.
• Particularly for technical subjects, use words and phrases which exist in reliable sources, so that those sources may be used to support inclusion of articles.

I see arguments on both sides. On the one hand, it makes no sense to have different capitalization rules for article titles and category titles. It also makes sense to follow the convention of the largest online encyclopedia, because that is what most users will expect. On the other hand, article titles are more likely to be used in running text, so that is what drives their capitalization rules. Having different category names will help "trip up" and identify some editor trying to copy blindly from Wikipedia. Right now, there is a confusing mix of existing category names, and is some cases parallel categories exist with both capitalization styles. So, let's get consensus, and then I will gradually work to fix this. Thanks, Smink (talk) 07:32, 31 March 2013 (CDT)

We should either follow the Manual of Style George wrote or revise it. I don't care about categories one way or the other- it's a preference of style, but it should indeed be consistent. --Enchanted13 (talk) 07:42, 5 April 2013 (CDT)

Please excuse the following:

I am all for consistency whichever way it goes. However, part of me has toyed with the idea that all Category Headings should be all upper case – the WHOLE TITLE. In fact go the whole hog and have all article titles in UPPER CASE too. It would stop the doubling up of articles in its tracks. Not like Wikipedia? So what? They may have started it all, but their decisions are not stone tablets.

I interrupt myself here to make a some disclosures. One you all probably know: I come from CP. Two: I go into Wiki about once a month when a question arises like …”How old is Doris Day?” or “Who wrote ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire.’” Three…I’m a book man. I’m surrounded by them. Between 65 and 70 feet of non-fiction- filled shelving in this room alone. Another mob of space in my daughter’s bedroom. I make a point of not using a mouse when, instead, I can go to a book, find what I want, then get interested in the next article and so on until , three hours later, I have forgotten why I opened the book in the first place. Inefficient but fun.

I have been changing headings to Uppercase first word, lowercase subsequent words because I thought that was what was required. I will continue to do this if the decision agrees with that mode. HOWEVER…I believe there are exceptions to every rule and thereby will always lie the problem. Even Wiki is guilty of inconsistency. I have just looked at “Trade Winds” and “Gulf Stream”. Gulf Stream is “Gulf Stream”. Fair enough. Trade Winds is “Trade wind.” Wrong on both counts. To be consistent, Wiki should have it like “Gulf Stream” –“Trade Wind” - and to be correct – to follow the convention of 100s of years of people who know them writing about them, they should be in the plural. There has never ever been a singular trade wind until Wiki came along.

After all that; I will go with what is decided.

However, I find it more natural for me to have the major words of the title in uppercase (like book and film tiles: “Gone with the Wind”, “Ship of the Line”. And if that includes “British History” or “French Cheeses” so be it. AlanE (talk) 20:35, 5 April 2013 (CDT)

There is a good reason for article titles to be mostly lower case. You can slap double square brackets around a word or phrase and it automatically becomes a link. If all words in an article title were capitalized, you would have to "pipe" every link to a multi-word phrase: [[Type It Twice|type it twice]] first in capitals and then in normal lower case. I think that the same capitalization rule should apply to category names and article titles. This facilitates the use of the "cat main" template and means that we only have to learn just one set of capitalization rules. Thanks, Smink (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2013 (CDT)

Okay. fair enough. What about book and film titles? (I'm just thinking it through from the perspective of someone who reads books. Forgive me, mate, I'm not trying to be hard to get on with. Whatever is decided I will go with - within reason. How's that for a sting in the tail?) AlanE (talk) 01:31, 6 April 2013 (CDT)

All right. I'll go with Uppercase first word then lower case following UNLESS it is a technical, historical or traditional term. Remember too there is a thing called redirect - so if I were to create an article on "Roaring Forties" there is nothing to stop me from doing a redirect from "Roaring forties" in the same breath so to speak. Aw, Whatever. :) AlanE (talk) 01:53, 6 April 2013 (CDT)

There are no "category redirects" on the mediawiki software. Smink (talk) 19:37, 7 April 2013 (CDT)

I guess I would side with having both page titles and category names capitalize just the first word, except in cases where there is some reason to capitalize other words: proper nouns and recognized titles of recognized works, which use "title case" with all significant words are capitalized. Gone with the Wind. British history. All's Well That Ends Well. North by Northwest. Quantum electrodynamics. (Or is that a title? Hard to say.)

Roaring Forties? My first guess (from here in the Northern hemisphere :-) would have been lower-case "f", but Wikipedia capitalizes it. So I guess it's sort of a "term of art" (numbers don't roar), so it should be treated as a title.

So there will always be borderline cases. But, in general, capitalize it the way you would want a non-piped wikilink in an article to look, so that it doesn't stick out too much on the page.

And we should do categories the same way as pages. SamHB (talk) 09:26, 6 April 2013 (CDT)

I don't know if it matters to anyone or not, but Ameriwiki already has a policy on categories [1]. Discrepencies have occurred because of articles being imported, etc., but maybe we should stick with established policy. Or not. Crazy Cat Lady^Meow 09:41, 6 April 2013 (CDT)

If we capitalize just the first word except where there is reason to capitalize other words (writing about Pride and Prejudice the book, rather than about two personality traits), and we use the same rule for categories, we will be in violation of our manual of style, but we we will get natural wikilink behavior, and we will be consistent with the Wikipedia convention. I also just did a diligent and comprehensive :-) scientific survey at Wikipedia—one random data point—they have a category "Category:Dothan, Alabama metropolitan area". I suggest that we change the policy stated in our Ameriwiki:Manual_of_style#Categories_2. SamHB (talk) 13:43, 6 April 2013 (CDT)

So, we have two options: keeping the existing language in Ameriwiki:Manual of style#Categories and the block quote above (clarified that book titles, proper nouns, etc., will capitalized as usual). I will wait until Tuesday night, and then count the people on each side of the issue. and if those favoring the change are in the majority, I will change the Manual of Style. If not, I will leave it alone and change all of the category names to conform to it. Thanks, Smink (talk) 14:08, 7 April 2013 (CDT)

• If the Wikipedia convention is easier, just go with it then. --Enchanted13 (talk) 14:16, 7 April 2013 (CDT)
• I vote for the WP convention -- "Alabama cities and towns", "Quantum mechanics" -- both for page titles and categories. SamHB (talk) 19:12, 7 April 2013 (CDT)
• I vote for the WP convention - but only on Categories; there are so many variables in Articles that even Wiki is inconsistent in my fields of interest. AlanE (talk) 00:53, 9 April 2013 (CDT)
• So glad the work I did to try to make the categories match policy was for naught. Crazy Cat Lady^Meow 13:41, 9 April 2013 (CDT)

Conclusion: Consensus is to replace the first quoted paragraph with the second. We will allow proper nouns and book titles to be capitalized. We give many thanks to editors such as SharonW who worked to implement the prior policy. Also, many thanks for such a thoughtful discussion. Smink (talk) 22:20, 9 April 2013 (CDT)

Short URLs

At least two other editors have recommended on this page that we have short URLs. Reportedly, this helps us with our search engine rankings, because some search engines do not parse past the question mark in each URL. Thanks, Smink (talk) 09:02, 31 March 2013 (CDT)

Any further progress on this? I am told that it is essential to getting good Google rankings. Smink (talk) 23:53, 26 May 2013 (CDT)

Proposal for Main Page Right

I propose that we divide the main page into two columns. The left column would no longer have the featured article. The right column would have a paragraph from a featured article at the top, followed by links to the last 5 featured articles. It would then have a "Did you know" that would randomly include one question at random from a bank of 20-25 questions. Both the featured article and the Did You Know bank would be changed out at least once a month. At the bottom of the column would be the "Featured Category" that would invite readers to click on the category to explore our content. I welcome your comments on this proposal. Thanks, Smink (talk) 04:26, 5 April 2013 (CDT)

There was actually a MPR, but it was primarily used for the founder to spout off opinion about news, like CP's is. SamCoulter deleted it after some time and thus the current system came about. This MPR sounds too much like Wikipedia. I'm not opposed to MPR or having FAs on that side, but having DYK and stuff seems as if it is too much. --Enchanted13 (talk) 07:39, 5 April 2013 (CDT)

There was also issues with appearance - for some reason, the two columns didn't format correctly all the time. Crazy Cat Lady^Meow 09:42, 6 April 2013 (CDT)

I am confident that I can handle the formatting issue. Smink (talk) 12:29, 7 April 2013 (CDT)

Excellent. I've restored the old MPR. Do your magic. --Enchanted13 (talk) 14:08, 7 April 2013 (CDT)

Thank you for beating me to the list of old Featured Articles, I was research it when you posted it. Again, the goal is to draw people into our content. Any feedback is welcome. Smink (talk) 21:19, 7 April 2013 (CDT)

A little off-topic, but this seems to be what people are looking at right this minute: You have two (different) featured articles; one on left and one on right. Is that what you want? SamHB (talk) 21:21, 7 April 2013 (CDT)

Fixed. Thanks, Smink (talk) 21:24, 7 April 2013 (CDT)

Who did the main page? Looks good! Ten internets to that editor. --Sam Coulter (talk) 21:50, 9 April 2013 (CDT)

A foundation for the wiki?

This wiki might need a foundation. It could work? I mean, there is the RW foundation, Wikimedia Foundation. Why not here? It could bring the wiki, some more support to keep the site running.--A Cynodont. (talk) 20:57, 28 April 2013 (CDT)

2^{m / n} = 3,

Wouldn't that just be akin to Citizendium and its excessive bureaucracy? It's a small site and they have an entire wiki dedicated solely to bureaucracy. We don't need it, I think. --Rick Fitzgerald (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2013 (CDT)

When we get to 10,000 articles (content pages), I volunteer to do the work necessary to establish a foundation. In the mean time, let us focus on building up the wiki. Smink (talk) 09:33, 29 April 2013 (CDT)

We could at least setup a donate page on Paypal.--A Cynodont. (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2013 (CDT)

2^{m / n} = 3,

This is what happens when a nerd gets bored and can't sleep

I was glancing at the WantedPages and decided to break down the numbers after wondering how many pages there were on the list and noticing how quickly the number of links dropped off. Here are my findings which I assume will be interesting to no one but me. lol

• Total Wanted Pages: 15061
• Max links to a wanted page: 60(Spain)
• Wanted Pages with more than 50 Links: 1 (0.0064%)
• Wanted Pages with more than 25 Links: 107 (0.71044%)
• Wanted Pages with more than 10 Links: 277 (1.83919%)
• Wanted Pages with more than 5 Links: 540 (3.58542%)
• Wanted Pages with 5 Links: 152 (1.00923%)
• Wanted Pages with 4 Links: 269 (1.78607%)
• Wanted Pages with 3 Links: 563 (3.73813%)
• Wanted Pages with 2 Links: 1602 (10.63674%)
• Wanted Pages with 1 Links: 11935 (79.24441%)

There you have it ladies and gentlemen... We have a lot of work to do. Even with a completely unsupported and extremely optimistic guess that half of the 1 and 2 link WantedPages are misspellings or other simple redirects, we still have roughly 8300 topics ready and waiting to be written! Fnarrow (talk) 01:33, 29 April 2013 (CDT)

Fnarrow, you are correct. This is an indication that we don't have very many "navigation footer templates." If you look at the top-ranked items on the list, they got there because of the red links on the navigation templates (the nations in the world, the vice presidents of the US, the presidents of the US, the SI units). What happens on a wiki is that someone creates a template. After creating about 25 articles that use the template, the remaining red links shoot up to the top of the list. After all the articles on the template are created, the effect of that template disappears. This happens on all wikis, including Wikipedia. Although the WantedPages is a useful tool, it is subject to "template distortion." For this reason, we draw the list of suggested article that appears on the main page from the list of essential articles. Thanks, Smink (talk) 09:38, 29 April 2013 (CDT)

I did a quick test sample of the articles with just one link, and many of them are from Ameriwiki:Vital articles. So. the top of the MostWamted list reflects what other AW editors believe are of interest, while the bottom of the list reflects what a group of editors at Wikipedia believe that every encyclopedia (regardless of language) should have to be comprehensive. Smink (talk) 05:57, 1 May 2013 (CDT)

The point is that we really could use another 2,000 articles for this to become a viable encycolpedia. If each person holding a signon could just add five new articles, either from the list of WantedPages or the list of Vital Articles, it would make a big difference and put us into a great position. Smink (talk) 11:48, 12 May 2013 (CDT)

Forgive me for being remiss in not looking at this for a while. I have spent much of the last fortnight either grubbing around in the dirt or up a ladder. It seems Spain is king of the kids re red links - probably partly my fault. A simple way to fix it is to use the Karajou method: copy and paste from the CIA Handbook. It's free, it's simple and it's legal. (I am assured it is not fattening.) It is not my style, but needs must. Think about it. AlanE (talk) 00:22, 14 May 2013 (CDT)

I am torn. I would hope that every AW article would be a gem that would demonstrate independent scholarship, maturity and perspective. On the other hand, we are a refugee community who grabbed up our prior work as we headed for the lifeboats. I predict that 2013 will be a BAD year for websites that are run by insane or immature people. So, we need to have a sufficiently large and diverse wiki to attract readers and editors when folks look for an alternative. Smink (talk) 04:24, 14 May 2013 (CDT)

I don't see why not. Copy the basics, and then edit them afterwards. I also like the ideas of tapping into the stats database: that will make all of our lives easier. --Enchanted13 (talk) 09:43, 14 May 2013 (CDT)

I say go for it. As Enchanted says it gives us a starting point that we can build on. --Sam Coulter (talk) 10:09, 14 May 2013 (CDT)

WikiData

Wikimedia Germany is spending a lot of money on a new website called "wikidata", which will bring structure databases to the MediaWiki software. We already use Wikipedia Common's stock pile of public domain images. Should we tap into wikidata for statistics like national populations? Thanks, Smink (talk) 10:46, 29 April 2013 (CDT)

Do you know how to? --Sam Coulter (talk) 18:52, 14 June 2013 (CDT)

Geographical data

The MediaWiki software has a number of extensions to handle the latitude and longitude of locations. We are writing a lot of articles where this is relevant. For example, the location of British castles or American universities or Pacific islands. How do we want to handle such data? Eventually we can put it into infobox templates, but we need to decide whether we should display the coordinates on the upper margin of each article and what happens when we click on the coordinates - do they link to Bing or Google maps? Thanks, Smink (talk) 20:30, 18 May 2013 (CDT)

Has CP finally jumped the shark?

Debate: Should female editors have the same privileges as males on Conservapedia? This has to be parody. At least I hope it is. In either case it's a perfect example of what a conservative wiki should not be. This is not advocating a sensible politically conservative opinion, it's raving WTFery. --Sam Coulter (talk) 18:52, 14 June 2013 (CDT)

It looks like someone's being funny. Just like Ted Nugent being liberal.--Enchanted13 (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2013 (CDT)

There aren't any women at CP. They're all "sons". AlanE (talk) 19:56, 14 June 2013 (CDT)

Pop culture drivel

Ameriwiki accepts some of the most useless asinine drivel as "articles" see Super Mario Bros., The Colbert Report, Speak Now, etc. None of these have any form of intrinsic value or are capable of education or enlightenment. If we accept drivel like this, we'll be on the Wikipedia road to accepting articles on all eleventy zillion Pokemon. What say you? --ATrevelyan (talk) 06:45, 16 June 2013 (CDT)

Wow. I had no idea that Wikipedia descends into such inane detail. Thank you for pointing at that. I guess that's what happens when you try to be an absolutely world-class super-duper encyclopedia about absolutely everything. We, of course, are not interested in going down that road.

I think a reasonable distinction is this: The phrase "Pokemon", just by itself, is actually a fairly well known part of contemporary culture. Many people, including, surprisingly, myself, have heard of it, though I don't care about the eleventy zillion details. I believe it has something to do with Japanese cartoons, drawn in a certain style, right?

Also, The Colbert Report is a popular television show. And Stephen Colbert's "Rally to restore Fear", or whatever, with John Stewart, was widely watched. These are, for better or worse, significant cultural phenomena. As are Saturday Night Live, MSNBC, Glenn Beck, Conan O'Brien, The View, Ellen DeGeneris, Prince William and Duchess Kate, the Chicago Blackhawks, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. We should not pretend they don't exist.

The various Mario Brothers games are sort of in between. Your attempts to eliminate the eleventy zillion games may be a good idea.

SamHB (talk) 18:00, 16 June 2013 (CDT)

I have objected to deletion of the Colbert Report and the NES. We should come up with criteria on what are acceptable article-subjects. To be honest, we have so few articles that if everyone wrote about what interests them, we could go along for a number of years before we need to address whether the articles are too narrow and detailed. Live and let live might be the best call at this stage of AW's life cycle. Thanks, Smink (talk) 23:11, 16 June 2013 (CDT)

I don't see an issue with articles on minor subjects. I really don't see any problem with articles on popular culture. --Sam Coulter (talk) 12:56, 17 June 2013 (CDT)