Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2007-04

New

after some chat on irc the idea came up of starting a central place of discussion here "it could take some load of the lists as well as helping people in navigating meta". best, oscar 10:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

A question: what is the difference of it and Meta:Babel? Also if this page is the discussion aboutt meta, it would be better to go to Meta namespace... --Aphaia 11:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Meta:Babel is about Meta-Wiki, this is about Wikimedia in general, or so I believe. Messedrocker 11:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

It may have a sense to have such a page. However the description on the above says "concerning this metawiki." I feel myself lost. --Aphaia 11:08, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

i do not think it is a duplication, this is about wikimedia in general indeed. Meta:Babel "is Meta's general and policy discussion page". this is supposed to be more informal and with a larger scope at the same time. moving it to the meta: namespace may be a good idea however. feel free to adapt the description :-) oscar 11:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

i changed the description, hoping this eliminates confusion for now? oscar 11:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

When this would be duplication, the pages will be merged in time I guess :) Please let's get started, and find some cool image for above the page ;-) eiaway 11:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for information. Seems nice to me now ... better + image + multilingualzed description. ... Sausages & beer perhaps? --Aphaia 11:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

and sushi, be bold :-) oscar 11:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

little bug

the "button-link" above: [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}&action=edit&section=new}} start a new discussion] leads to the non-existing page Editing Meta:Metapub&action=edit&section=new instead of adding a new section. can anyone help fixing this? oscar 17:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 21:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

thx :-) oscar 21:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Image:namespace

in a chat this afternoon with jon harald soby, the idea of renaming the namespace Image: to Media: was discussed, since the latter would be a more appropriate name (also audio etc is uploaded), would renaming this namespace be technically and practically feasible at all? oscar 17:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This is bugzilla:44 (although to 'File' not 'Media'). --pfctdayelise 21:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Wrong namespace

The namespace Meta: where this page resides suggests that it contains only things related to Meta itself. Maybe we should move it to the main namespace? MaxSem 06:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not unhappy with meta namespace (cf. Meta:Babylon) but agree some people would be confused. I don't have a reason to oppose to move it to main namespace. --Aphaia 19:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

no objection either way. also, it's where i originally started it, at Metapub. in all the available namespaces ((Main)-Talk-User-User talk-Meta-Meta talk-Image-Image talk-MediaWiki-MediaWiki talk-Template-Template talk-Help-Help talk-Category-Category talk-Hilfe-Hilfe Diskussion-Aide-Discussion Aide-Hjælp-Hjælp diskussion-Helpo-Helpa diskuto-Hjälp-Hjälp diskussion-Ayuda-Ayuda Discusión-Aiuto-Discussioni aiuto-ヘルプ-ヘルプ‐ノート-NL Help-Overleg help-Pomoc-Dyskusja pomocy-Ajuda-Ajuda Discussão-CA Ajuda-CA Ajuda Discussió-Hjelp-Hjelp diskusjon-帮助-帮助 对话-Помощь-Помощь Дискуссия-Pomoč-Pogovor o pomoči) i don't find an alternative; either main- or meta-namespace i would say. oscar 01:05, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

AntiSpoof problems

Some hours ago I tried to create a user account for myself on wikimania2007.wikimedia.org. But I receveid the message Login error: The name "555" is not allowed to prevent confusing or spoofed usernames: Does not contain any letters. Please choose another name.. I'm a active editor since July 2004 and use the User:555 in lots of wikis since 23 May 2005. Wikipedia have a article devoted to the number 555.

Is really necessary this in AntiSpoof extension? I don't imagine any vandal naming in numbers-only usernames, but something like User:5559854123 is the phone number of the mother of Jimmy is possible using numbers + letters. 555 01:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess you're right, it doesn't seem to be necessary to put such a restriction, especially on such a small wiki as that. Maybe you could discuss it with the Wikimania_2007_Staff and see what happens. -Tembelejderha 01:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

An admin can create that name for you, so just tell Littlebtc or Alexsh your email address. Angela 10:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

How to start an ArbCom?

If a language of Wikipedia does not have an ArbCom, what must be done for them to have one? The ArbCom policies I found on en.wikipedia and Meta wikimedia said NOTHING on STARTING an ArbCom. Thanks. (from an anonymous editor. salvaged from meta:metapub)

Essentially, what you need is community consensus that an ArbCom is needed on your wiki. The power of such a body depends heavily on the fact that its authority is recognized by the vast majority of users. Without that it simply won't work. So just follow the normal decision making procedures on your wiki (probably a poll, a vote, a request for comments... you should know what to do ;)).

However, please note that an ArbCom is probably not something you may want on a small or medium-sized wiki. Also, be sure your conflict resolution procedures are set clearly and are followed closely by editors before you set up ArbCom, otherwise each dispute will end up before ArbCom, which is not what you want.

Good luck. --TOR 02:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Mobile Wikipedia

I would love to see a mobile Wikipedia site so I could read instead of playing video games. There have been many times when I would have to wait in line or the like and I wished I could easily access Wikipedia on my Blackberry. Is there anything on the horizon?

Apparently you can access a 'mobile' version of Wikipedia via mdog. Maybe Eric Zachte's website is also useful to you. pfctdayelise 22:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Wapedia is an extremely useful tool for browsing Wikipedia on mobile devices. Jon Harald Søby 22:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Also this is supposed to be a mobile version of WP that looks good, but I can't get the site to load right now. pfctdayelise 22:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Facts & Figures

Wikimedia press releases/Facts & Figures is a central page about Wikimedia and its project, being developed. It will serve current and possible press contact and people who are interested in our project. You are invited to edit the page to add facts and figures of your favorite project :) --Aphaia 21:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquote-l

Wikiquote now has a mailing list! (It is the last project to receive one! :)) I just got a mailing list (Wikiquote-l) created for the Wikiquote project. You can sign up for it and read the list information at this link. If you would like be a moderator or administrator for the list, contact me (the list owner, I am linked from the bottom of the listinfo page). Unfortunately, I am only willing to make current Wikiquote sysops mods or admins for the list, but everyone else is welcome to subscribe (and please do)! Hopefully, this will be a mailing list for all the Wikiquote projects where we can talk about issues related to us all and ask for help on discussions. Cbrown1023 talk 19:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Revision IDs?

Playing around with URLs has demonstrated to me that every single revision on Wikipedia (and presumably other sites with MediaWIki software) seems to have a unique ID#, apparently irrespective of the name or sorting of the article itself. (Here's a silly example to show how to have fun with this.) I was wondering (a) why it works this way (as opposed to having, say, edit #5 be 005 on every article) and (b) how these numbers are assigned — there doesn't appear to be one for all small numbers in that range, although interestingly, 00000001 is the very first version of w:Wikipedia:Wikipedians, made way back in January 2002. Thanks for any info you can provide… Lenoxus 20:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, I did not realize you can take the diff between versions of different articles. It seems that the title parameter is only used for the edit link etc.--Patrick 23:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason is so that you can have a permanent link to a revision even if a page is moved and has a new title. It also allows comparing 2 articles if the content was copied and pasted to a new page rather than moving the page. Versions before 2002 were made on a different type of wiki software so they are [not] numbered in the same way. Angela 00:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks; that's about what I figured. Question: what do you mean by "in the same way"? Lenoxus 23:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

That was a typo. I meant they are not are numbered in the same way. So, edit number 1 wasn't actually the first edit ever made to Wikipedia. Angela 02:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

A'ight; do you know what generates the numbers then? Lenoxus 22:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Licensing policy

I've noticed that the resolution regarding the licensing policy has been translated to a couple of languages. Is that work done here or on foundation wiki? I'm asking mainly because a German translation is still missing and I'd be happy to help with that. sebmol ^? 05:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Translations are recommended to be done on Translation requests/Licensing policy. Most of translators have made their translations, checked with several eyes and uploaded their version to the foundation wiki. German translators as well other missing language translators will be welcome! --Aphaia 05:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Will do. Thank you for your quick response. sebmol ^? 06:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

if & switch

can someone explain me what's really different in those two expressions (see in edit mode), and how is that supposed to work?

first

{{{1}}}Three

second

{{{2}}}Three

Gbnogkfs 29 march 2007, 14:07 (UTC)

This is a known bug, see ParserFunctions/5678.--Patrick 15:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I see... (well, brobably I didn't get everything, but that's not the point, as long as I can found workarounds that do effectively work) Is there any possibility these bugs be fixed? Gbnogkfs 30 March 2007, 6:33 (UTC)

Yes, mediazilla:5678 shows that people are working on it. Anyway, using an undefined parameter without default is not meaningful.--Patrick 12:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing the default language in a Wiki

I have been asked at ay:Discussion Utilisateur:ReyBrujo a very interesting (and true) question: since Aymara is mainly spoken in four countries with Spanish as official language, why is ay.wikipedia.org using french as default? Is there any way to change that to Spanish? Thanks for any advice. -- ReyBrujo 06:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

This can be accomplished by bugging the developers. However, you'll need community consensus. MaxSem 15:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Template question

Is it possible to create a template which would display different content linked by name to a certain type of input? To pick a random example, {{Example template|dog}} (or {{Example template|magic input=dog}}) would display a dog-related box, while {{Example template|cat}} (or {{Example template|magic input=dog}}) would display a cat-related box? How complicated would the coding be? Lenoxus 21:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Not really difficult. At User:Chlewey/test there is such an example. Feel free to follow the code.

— Chlewey 16:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm afraid it still doesn't quite make sense to me... what does the {{../loc}} mean? Lenoxus 17:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The chlewey version's a bit awkward. Just use switch ({{#switch:{{{1}}}|dog=...|cat=...|rabbit=...}}). Chlewey's template spans multiple pages. --66.185.71.156 21:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, it works! Thanks! Lenoxus 02:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, I feel a need to warn, on the long term effects of having code like this, dependent upon hardcoded content. If you code like this, you have to change your code whenever a new specie is found ! On the other hand, if your code never will (mathematical sense) be bothered by future species, then it might work, until the species you are dependent upon are no longer on this earth. So you see, you'd better be careful.

But, more seriously, doing this on a Meta level, would be even more problematic, since you then build semantics into meta content. To come around this, one should perhaps seek to change the underlying meta syntax instead RosePet 20:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Even someone who does not understand the template can add another species, just following the same pattern.--Patrick 23:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Appendix namespace

At Spanish language Wikipedia, community took a decission to have an appendix (anexo in Spanish) namespace for including contents such as tables and lists that are not encyclopedic articles per se, but that does complement an encyclopedia.

The idea came from a suggestion in the proposal of Wikilists, that instead of a separate project, a new namespace should be used instead. Also, in the original proposal for Portal namespace at German language Wikipedia (see Special namespaces for portals and lists) the idea was that the new namespace would also content lists and related material. Contents in this new namespace would be subject to all Wikipedia policies including free contents, neutral point of view, ban of original research, etc., except that contents would not be articles, so a simple list of links might be appropiate.

Fact is that, after a post in the local pub^(here), an informal consultation^(here), and a formal poll^(here), the community decide to: Adopt a definition of Encyclopedic support contents as official policy^(here), and to create a new namespace Anexo (appendix) for placing this kind of content.

Is there any other Wikipedia or another Wikimedia project that would benefit from this new namespace?

— Chlewey 13:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

PS. Request for the new namespace is reported as Bug 9304, at Bugzilla.

Bugzilla and minor requests

Currently Bugzilla is the correct place to ask Developers to perform some tasks, but this include at least three different kind of tasks:

1. To solve bugs (incorrect or inconvenient behavior of software). This changes will usually help the whole MediaWiki community.
2. To request development of new features, such as having categories be listed in a natural order to each language, instead of machine order (e.g. Bug 164). This changes will usually help the whole MediaWiki community.
3. To request minor changes in the Wikimedia projects, that just need shell access, such as adding a new namespace, allowing subpages in them, etc.. This changes usually affect only one or few Wikimedia projects, and many times are changes that the requester knows how to implement, as they are included in any MediaWiki manual, but, for security reasons, neither local sysops or bureaucrats are allowed to perform. (Administrators of non-Wikimedia wikis would not need bugzilla for this)

Some how, this last implementation, which is an administrative task rather than something needing developement, seems out of place in the Bugzilla system.

At some point I saw a discussion about new MediaWiki releases would allow bureaucrats to manage local namespaces (without shell access), however this seems not to have been implemented or released into Wikimedia implementations.

So, my proposal is that:

1. that kind of requests, that just need shell access but not actual development, would be moved from bugzilla to some other place, such as this meta-wiki. (compare Requests for bot status)
2. if namespaces can be managed without shell access, but just not open to local bureaucrats in Wikimedia projects, at least allow Steweards for this task.

— Chlewey 13:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. We have made requests and wait for so many months (e.g. Bugzilla:8887) while it would not take more than some minutes to fulfill them. If developers are busy, let some trusted people to take care of these minor requests that are important for individual projects. SUL may be useful, but some small enhancements are more productive. Geraki 18:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The request to change something for the Wikimedia Project should be a bug marked with the product set to Wikimedia. If I remember correctly there are already different group of "developer" with different level of access, which correspond to different task that can be done. (you can look at Developers, but keep in mind that that page is very out of date).

Two completely different things have been spoken about: the first is request about Wikimedia Project should or should not go to bugzilla. The second one is if there are enough people to act for these request.

Even if the Wikimedia Project are posted and managed by bugzilla, they are posted in a different category and I suppose (I am not a "developer"). Some time ago there used to be several pages here on meta to request action from "developer". If they have been moved to bugzilla there should be a reason (for example, it is easier to track them, to find out who have post the request and to find out which have been fulfilled and which not and the is no more the risk of the wiki page to be messed up).

I cannot comment on the current number of "developer" with shell access.

I have written "developer" in quotes, because this name came from historical reason, but in the meaning used here is broader than the developer of the MediaWiki software.

Note that a person can develop new software and make small enhancements without the need to be in the "developer" group.

Nowadays sysop and bot flags can be granted and revoked by a Bureaucrat and (s)he can also rename a username. The only things that I can think about that can be given to Bureaucrats are adding/removing/renaming extra namespaces and uppercase/non-uppercase of first letter of the title. -- AnyFile 21:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

WaffenSS on the Korean Wikipedia

move from Meta:Babel

I hope I'm posting this at the right place. User:WaffenSS has been undergoing the RfA process on the Korean Wikipedia since January. I'm not able to read Korean, but can pick up enough fragments through translation engines to be disconcerted at the events.

I think I'm on solid ground asserting that a user with this name would be username blocked on the major European language wikis. To have an administrator with an obviously offensive username on any Wikimedia project would be a bad thing for the foundation - particularly as it is avoidable. I am raising attention to this here and not on ko.wiki simply because I cannot communicate in Korean, and events on the RFA appear to suggest concerns from outside have been ignored in the past.

I feel action is needed here for the following reasons:

1. Contributors from other wikis complaining about the name on the RFA are apparently being ignored.
2. Multiple users have approached him on his talk page, suggesting that he contacts a 'crat locally to get his name changed. WaffenSS appears to have ignored them, and may even have been supported by others.
3. The site notice is advertising the RfA. The message "한국어 위키백과 관리자 선거에 사용자:WaffenSS가 후보로 올라와 있습니다. 투표에 참여해주세요" is on every page; including such ones as that on the holocaust.

Firstly, this is a request for attention from Korean-speaking users to investigate further. Secondly, I strongly believe this user should have their username changed. If he cannot be persuaded to alter his name, or the ko bureaucrats refuse to do so then we have a serious problem. At that point I'd suggest a forced rename may be appropriate. Also, I'd suggest administrator intervention to remove the advert from the site notice.--Nilfanion 16:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Generally agreed. I don't think this name stays within our global acceptable line. It would be better however the Korean Wikipedia community make a consensus he or she should be renamed before intervention. As for sitenotice, I don't think it as a sitenotice purpose to advertise RfA. --Aphaia 18:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you both but I would point out that while it is best to allow the community to resolve things, there are a few cases where the community has to be overridden (by direct intervention from the foundation if necessary) if it will not act, or acts inappropriately. It is always a bad thing to have to do that, and so it should be done only as a last resort, and, where possible, with discussion beforehand and notice to the community involved. It's not clear yet that this case is to that point, though. ++Lar: t/c 13:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to comment that my statement is twofold. I do make a request above for outside intervention if ko.wiki fails to act. I'd prefer to have them deal with it themselves too. The comments I linked to above suggest that the user does not see the problem, and needs someone who can communicate in Korean the issue. I personally cannot do that, so this is as much a request for help there - someone needs to explain to the community there why this is an issue.--Nilfanion 22:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

For our consolation, some of Korean Wikipedia people have found it problematic ... they, or at least some of them think it a issue need to solve. I talked with a ja&kowiki active user, and he informed me the RFA in question has been in a dispute already in several points. At least it is not a common vote - it takes already two months from its beginning; no one has wanted to close, I don't know why but perhaps the kowiki admins feel unease. And several users recommend the user in question, he said, to change his username, but the user has denied. Interestingly the user I contacted seem not to have known the account was related to NSDAP before giving a look to this thread; so in a meaning, it is a constructive way of Nilfanion to start this thread :) Courage and patience, folks! --Aphaia 22:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Username guidelines are established on separate wikipedias separately. The English wikipedia has one and I suppose the Korean wikipedia has one as well. If the username would fall outside of the limits of the guidelines at Korean wikipedia then that their admins can take action. However, personally would discourage any attempt to override the autonomy of the ko.wikipedia. What is considered as inflammatory is always depending on cultural and historical context. A swastika graffitied on wall in Western Europe might be considered as inflammatory, but the same symbol would hardly revoke any negative reaction in India. To say that the Nazism/Holocaust would be offensive on global scale is factually incorrect. Large sections of the world population, possibly the majority of it are completly indifferent towards it. Trying to project Western understanding of contemporary history as universal will always depend on a preunderstanding that the experiences and ideas of the Western peoples are of greater importance than the experiences and ideas of the peoples of the South and East. This cannot be seen as detached from economical, political and military aspects of history. In connection with Football World Cup in Korea and Olympics in China pressure is directed towards governments of S. Korea and China to stop the tradition of eating dog meat (offensive to Western pet owners), but never does the West take into consideration that their consumtion of beef is highly offensive to hundreds of millions of Hindus. --Soman 15:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Does cultural differences really mean that registering, for example, username 홍사익 on the Russian Wikipedia or 南京大屠杀 on the Swedish Wikisource is OK? Will Korean and Chinese wikimedians be happy if they see it? MaxSem 15:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Simplistically - if it offends someone, it offends someone and that is to be avoided. On Commons we had a user name that was offensive in Dutch - I am a little ashamed to say that I did not treat it quickly in the way I would have done had the name been in English (not a mistake I would make again). Just my 0.02 --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that I propose giving carte blance to ignore wiki guidelines. What I question is that even before the issue is settled at ko.wiki proposals are raised to override ko.wiki if they take the 'wrong' decision. There are cases with some very small wikis (with perhaps only 2-3 active users) were collective decisionmaking might not represent a broad understanding, but ko.wiki is one of the biggest and I assume they can reach a decision that they find acceptable. The perception that every user at any wiki would have a veto on usernames on all wikis would be impractical. --Soman 16:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

If one wants to feel offended, there are always opportunities. How to deal with the name of en:User:Santiago Matamoro? 'Matamoro' is a commons Spanish family name, its not impossible that its the real name of the user, but also literally means 'killer of muslims'. --Soman 16:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) I note that on en.wikipedia the policy on offensive usernames applies to offensive names in any language not just English. As a practical matter offensive Japanese and Korean names would likely be undetected for a considerable time - but that doesn't mean they should be changed once they are discovered. With the Matamoro username on the Spanish wiki there is reason to allow it (its a plausible real name). There is no reason to allow this particular nam: note if he had chosen the korean transliteration/translation of "WaffenSS" non-Koreans (those likely to take offence) would never notice.--Nilfanion 12:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Localisation of complex templates

Hi, I would like to know if it would be possible to reuse complex templates from the English or other large wikipedias without translating all the parameters but with optional localised parameters. For example the en:Template:Infobox Former Country which has got quite complex syntax that I would prefer to not mess with (especially since it might undergo continues enhancement).

One could of course just translate the visible text which is then very useful for fast translation of instances where an article already exists. It would however be nice to allow template users to use localised parameter names when creating new articles, or if they do want to go to the effort of translating that as well. I thought it would be possible to do something using the #if construct, but that seems to relate to conditional rendering of text rather than assigning or even changing parameter values.

My naive attempt at a template that aimed at this can be seen at:af:Sjabloon:Toets (English parameter order, localised parameter orde) and the use of the template af:Gebruiker:Laurens.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Laurens-af 06:14, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You can replace each occurrence of {{{order}}} by {{{orde|{{{order}}}}}}, and each occurrence of {{{order|..}}} by {{{orde|{{{order|..}}}}}}, or you can replace each occurrence of parameter "order" by {{#switch:{{{lan|en}}}|af=orde|en=order}}. In the latter case one can specify in the template call just "order=..", or "lan=af" and "orde=..". This can be generalized for more parameters and more languages. The first method cannot be used if the translation of a parameter in one language happens to be the same as the translation of another parameter in another language.--Patrick 10:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

However, for someone working on the master template (and for people trying to understand it) this additional complexity may not be attractive. In that case there could be a version in the original language, and an international version. If the version in the original language is enhanced, the international version could be updated. This is a bit cumbersome, but better than having multiple local versions and having to do the updating for each.--Patrick 11:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Patrick. I think I prefer the 1st implementation. If I understand the solution correctly one would still have to make change at every occurrence of every translated parameter. I guess that is not too much trouble and can be done with search and replace. It would have been nice to translations at the start and then have variables that work automatically in the rest of the template, but I guess that is not possible. Laurens-af 12:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a better method is as follows. You can have a main common template such as Template:Multilingual template demo which in this case contains {{{text}}}, and a small auxiliary template such as Template:Multilingual template demo/fr for each language, calling the main template with, in this case, text={{{texte|}}}. The latter can be called with texte=.. In the case of multiple sites, we need to copy the main template, but we do not have to modify it, so updating is easy. The auxiliary template needs to be updated only when the parameters change.--Patrick 17:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

If the main template distinguishes between an empty string as parameter value and an undefined parameter, then to preserve this distinction we can introduce a code word for undefined, e.g. "undefined" itself, and put text={{{texte|undefined}}}. The code word should not be translated. The distinction is lost between really undefined and having the value "undefined". If that is not desired an extra parameter is needed.--Patrick 17:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I have now managed to implement a satisfactory solution at af:Sjabloon:Voormalige Land Inligtingsraampie. It is entirely bilingual in terms of parameters. The template that does the real work maintains the existing English parameters with only visible text translated. If that was to be taken out of the template handling the logic it would be quite easy to make templates that are bilingual. Thanks for your help. Laurens-af 18:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps that could be done with for each language an array of texts such as Template:N en.--Patrick 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

See also Help:Localisation.--Patrick 12:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Proper order of tha main wikipedias

The spanish wikipedia is no longer the 10th in number of articles, i wonder if there is a way to change the order in the logo page (www.wikipedia.org) 66.121.103.30 19:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Www.wikipedia.org_template Lcarsdata 23:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

How has Wikimedia Changed your Life?

This message is being crossposted around village pumps and mailing lists - apologies if you receive it more than once!
Have any of the Wikimedia projects had an effect on you in real life, or do you know of someone, or some group of people, who use our projects in real life? If so, we want to hear from you at Success Stories - How has Wikimedia Changed your Life?. The hope is that this page can become somewhere to which we can point members of the press so that they can immediately get an idea of the usefulness of our projects. Please, take a look, and add your stories! Martinp23 15:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Editing notice

Could someone please change the editing notice when one creates a new page? I noticed it sounds, as it stands, rather...angry, to put it mildly. Blast 01:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, we don't want crap here... we already delete a ton of offtopic pages and that is already there. I don't want to know what will happen if we remove it. Cbrown1023 talk 01:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Meta:No_open_proxies

Please see my question at Meta_talk:No_open_proxies#Unclear_points_about_this_policy_page. The Transliterator • talk 21:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

說明:圖片與其他上載的檔案

 Moved from Talk:Wikimedia Hong Kong

Folks, The aforementioned partially Zhongmen page has been nominated for deletion. It should be a useful page and would some people please keep improving it a bit by bit.---Hillgentleman|書 03:55, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikimania 2007 Call for Participation deadline is extended

Dear all,

The program committee decided to postpone the deadline of CFP until May 15, 2007, we need some help on update the site notice about CFP [...]

If you have permission on others, please also help update the notice, thanks, you may use the phase "The call for participation deadline has been extended to May 15."

Btw, please also help to re-distribute the CFP to the lists, just to remind people do forget about the submission.

http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation/distribution

thanks

TzuChiang

---

On behalf of Tzu Chiang (tcliou) posted by Aphaia 03:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)