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Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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-- GreenC 01:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An impressive journey, originally located quite far inland, the village moved to the coast, then moved again back inland but more to the northeast. (The first and last both seem to be clear villages on google maps, and there is at the very least a street with that name in the location of the second one.) CMD (talk) 02:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It also had a different name from 2011 before losing all its text in 2022, but seems never to have had any source. PamD 05:40, 25 July 2024 (UTC) expanded 08:49, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This source supports the statement in the original version of the article, so perhaps we should revert to that and add the source - and choose whichever of the later-added coordinates seems appropriate. PamD 09:01, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would also say it should be reverted to maintain the original intent, but there will also be sources to support the current version of the article, as the new version is literally for another town. The telugu page (te:పోరండ్ల (జగిత్యాల)) has always been about the current (Jagtial) Porandla, as has the associated Wikidata item (wikidata:Q13003257). The original (Ranga Reddy) Porandla is at te:పోరండ్ల (మహేశ్వరం)/wikidata:Q16340753.
If the original wording is restored, the thing to do here would be to revert, split off Jagtial Porandla, disambiguate Ranga Reddy Porandla, and then switch the relevant Wikidata entries.
(As an aside, the one-up division, te:జగిత్యాల గ్రామీణ మండలం is one of the few Jagtial district#Mandals without an en.wiki article.) CMD (talk) 04:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've done this now, splitting off Porandla, Jagtial district. If anyone can figure out what the page was about in its second iteration, that may need another split. CMD (talk) 00:44, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vote now to fill vacancies of the first U4C

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You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Dear all,

I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now through August 10, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

In cooperation with the U4C,

RamzyM (WMF) 02:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic Wikipedia help

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Hi, I don't speak Arabic well and have been blocked on Arabic Wikipedia. As such, I am having trouble getting assistance to appeal my block there. Can someone help me with that? Ogundareibrahim123 (talk) 19:58, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is the English Wikipedia, we have no control over the Arabic Wikipedia. And if you know you don't speak Arabic well, isn't it kind of rude to try to edit there knowing that it will make things more difficult for them? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:54, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe. I may not be able to make very useful edits, but I was still looking to see if I could fix small things, e.g. errors in links. I first made some test edits in the public sandbox there that may have been controversial, which is probably why I got blocked. But I actually wanted to meaningfully improve the Arabic Wikipedia later, but because they already blocked me I don't have a chance now. Is there a way to appeal their block if I don't speak Arabic? If so, how? Ogundareibrahim123 (talk) 06:33, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ogundareibrahim123: You can communicate with the admin who blocked you as I did when I faced a similar situation on the Chinese Wikipedia (in that case I emailed them, but pinging would have worked too; the manual method of adding a user page link is universal and {{ping}} works everywhere, including in Arabic. The user who blocked you, Dr-Taher, is quite active here per their English user page. Graham87 (talk) 11:50, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We here at the English WP can’t unblock you from a sister project. They have their own set of admins, and you need to talk to them to have the block lifted.
It probably isn’t a good idea to edit in languages you don’t understand, but if you must… my advice would be to leave a message on your Arabic userpage (either in English, or using machine translation), requesting the assistance of someone who understands English… perhaps they can help you sort things out.
Otherwise, just be patient and wait until the block expires… then stay away from anything even remotely controversial. Blueboar (talk) 12:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The editor has been unblocked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question about such protected titles in different name spaces.

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I've always wanted to know this, but after looking at the protection policy for each level the namespace's title is restricted to, there is nothing that states why those levels are set. So, now I believe that I'm in the right place, let me ask you: When searching for such a portal name that likely doesn't exist, (e.g. Portal:X) it obviously shows its nonexistent presence. ("Wikipedia does not have a portal with this exact name.") However, there are 2 differences - when logged in, you have the option to create it, as said: "Start the Portal:X page." The second one is: "This page is semi-protected from creation, so only autoconfirmed users can create it." Checking the logs for such titles - yields no results. So, I'd like to ask, Why is the Portal namespace restricted for editors above non-logged in/IP/not autoconfirmed?

Also, you know how when you're searching for something on Wikipedia via Special:Search, you intend to find what you're looking for. However, when clicking the link, a string at the end of the link is added for just a brief moment before disappearing when the page is fully loaded. There's such an example like this - "?wprov=srpw1_4". But, if you decide to put it on the Wikipedia link (using the URL encoder for the ?, %3F), you get the message of the page obviously being nonexistent. But, there's a catch: "This page is template-protected from creation, so only template editors can create it." How is that possible, if it's not in the Template namespace? As always, checking the logs for the page yields 0 results. But also get this: Putting a string of random special characters multiple times repeatedly (e.g. several dots, question marks, exclamations, etc.) at the end of a blank Wikipedia URL would show the exact same message as to that of "?wprov=srpw1_4". Despite not being in the Template namespace, why is all that? If I could get any answers to this, that would be great. Ṫḧïṡ ṁëṡṡäġë ḧäṡ ḅëëṅ ḅṛöüġḧẗ ẗö ÿöü ḅÿ ᗰOᗪ ᑕᖇEᗩTOᖇ 🏡 🗨 📝 18:21, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Non-auto-confirmed users can't create pages in the article space either. If they search for Create this Wikipedia page, they are told "You can create a draft and submit it for review or request that a redirect be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered" in the search page, and "You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use the article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article" on the red link page. Restriction to other namespaces likely flow from this article creation limitation (although non-auto-confirmed users can create pages in the Draft and Talk spaces). I suspect the Portal message discussing semi-protection rather than something more tailored to the situation is due to it being some default message that no-one has looked into because the Portal namespace is a mostly forgotten realm. If you don't get more specific answers here, you could try asking at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)‎. Best, CMD (talk) 01:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See also wikitech:wprov. This one is sort of like having an internal counter for how many times the search results got clicked on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

EPUB is a good format in 2024; you can even cite Wikipedia with it

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Does anyone else ever feel they could be citing EPUBs more if using them for citations wasn't such a pain?

It seems the primary tenor among both publishing houses and editors is that one should just read a PDF if they have to actually cite something with page numbers. This is a shame, since page numbers in the reflowable EPUB format is actually a totally solved problem: in research work, I am usually very happy when the EPUB version of the book I'm reading actually correctly supports this, as EPUBs are the fastest and most flexible format for me to search and navigate in my Calibre library and on my eINK ereader.

Suffice it to say, I have been some spending time figuring out the best way to use EPUBs for work on Wikipedia, and am curious if anyone else would be interested in a how-to guide listing all the tips and tricks. Remsense 09:33, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As an author, I'd be super interested in how to generate page numbers (though it's veering off topic for the wiki).
What publishers publish epubs with page numbers? Presumably ones matching the paper/PDF? - David Gerard (talk) 22:40, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes; rather, I've never read an EPUB with page numbers not matching the physical edition. I'm also curious whether editors would enjoy Calibre; its ability to search my entire library has been killer for my research.
The one issue is Calibre actually doesn't make have the option of displaying <page-list>...</page-list> in its reader, so I presently use another reader so I can actually use the pages. On the bright side, I've just posted a feature request on the Calibre issue tracker, so maybe support will be implemented soon and my life will be perfect. Remsense 23:09, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]