MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice/Archive 2

message: :This page was archived Oct. 30, 2005 (UTC). The page history is still at MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice. Dmcdevit·t 00:57, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

message: Since this would be a largish change, I'll propose it here first. How about putting site status on the sitenotice message? Like "Wikipedia status: Up"... One could even go further and link to fundraising to say "Wikipedia status:Up. Help Wikipedia servers by donating"? Just some ideas. Dysprosia 14:17, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: But if wikipedia's status wasn't up, then users wouldn't be able to see the notice anyways.  We already have a donation link on the sidebar, and I think that some (myself included) would find it a bit annoying to have a request for people to donate displayed at the top of every page.  Just my two cents :) -Frazzydee|✍ 03:23, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  If wikipedia's status isn't up, it could be "Slow" or "Undergoing database repairs" or whatever. Dysprosia 05:05, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 1

message: On Friday 18 February 2005 at 00:00 UTC, the message below needs to go live on this page:
Wikimedia needs your help in its $75,000 fund drive. See our fundraising page for details.
-- mav 21:21, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: February fund drive notice

message: Er, is the message staying until Mar 4 or Mar 11?  The comment in the source seems to suggest the latter, but mav just said Thursday, which I assume would be Mar 4.  Prumpf 01:49, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The first minute of March 3rd it can be removed. --mav 02:10, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal time 

message: Please, style this in the same way as the fundraising notice.  ✏ OvenFresh² 18:26, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My eyes! 

message: Please, use , not ! See XHTML. --ajvol 07:06, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't matter, since the software automatically converts the latter to the former - see the HTML source. — Dan | Talk 15:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  BR 

message: And how much has been donated in a miserly manner?! :)
That doesn't quite read right to me. Pcb21| Pete 07:19, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the fix Danny. Sorry for being picky! Pcb21| Pete 12:37, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Heh...well..yeah...um... — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:27, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What's that mean? Pcb21| Pete 09:24, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It was just an odd way of putting it (how much has been donated in a miserly matter...) :D — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 15:16, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  65k "has been generously donated" 

message: Of the English-speaking countries, only Ireland has the euro, so adding it as an aid to conversion is more or less useless. Pcb21| Pete 09:23, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The euro is more useful to england, for example, than the USD. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 14:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What makes you say that? Speaking as an Englishman, they are as useful as each other at most. Pcb21| Pete 15:22, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I compute the grand total in USD so that is what I report. The Euro and U.S. Dollar are similar enough in value that providing a parenthetical conversion is of little use. Also, the UK (England is only part of the UK) still uses Pound Sterling. --mav 17:04, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Am I wrong in saying that due to the fact that the UK is in the EU they are phasing in the Euro? Also, saying that is like saying that since we in America compute stuff in US standard that a paranthetical conversion to metric is of little use. 30,000 difference is a lot in my opinion (110,000 USD:89,000 EUR). But that's just my opinion. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:48, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The UK is not bringing in the euro anytime soon, although there's a fair chance it will happen eventually - see the euro article if you're interested. I don't think having the amount in euros is going to be vastly more useful to British readers than having it in dollars - both are major currencies used abroad, even if lots more people will have euro coins and notes lying around at home than do dollars. If we're going to worry about currency confusion I think of greater priority is that we should probably specify that we're talking about USD here, since people in Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, to name a few other dollar users, who are not all that familiar with who is behind Wikipedia and where it is based will have no great reason to assume that a website mentioning dollars isn't based in their own country and talking about their own currency. The fundraising page doesn't appear to mention this explicitly either, and paypal gives you the option of paying in three kinds of dollars. — Trilobite (Talk) 21:27, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Ireland is the only English speaking country that uses the Euro. My vote is to quote the value in Barrels of Oil - its universal and neutral. 140,000$ = 1,980 bbl. :-) Seabhcán 09:14, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The BOO (barrel of oil) is rapidly appreciating against other currencies though.... it may be hard for users to understand why our target is dropping every day! Pcb21| Pete 16:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding the euro adds nothing and looks a little ugly 

message: You did it! Thanks to you we have met our budget goals. Donations are still welcome (the fund drive ends 9 September).
You can also help contribute to Hurricane Katrina recovery and other humanitarian aid efforts.
Trying to combine elements of the different ideas floating around. --Michael Snow 23:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to keep this as event-neutral as possible while maintaining at least one direct donation link. We can feature a different relatively non-controversial charity like this for each fund drive once we meet budget. --mav 04:13, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Event-neutral is even better. I'm still uncomfortable with the implicit endorsement of a specific charity, though. Also, I'm curious as to what other candidates you think would be sufficiently non-controversial. --Michael Snow 05:05, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible new version? 

message: If it's to be kept, the link should be tweaked to make it clear that it takes you to the American Red Cross -- ie, the USA's national society, not to the ICRC or to the IFRCS. Not that linking directly to the U.S. chapter isn't the correct thing to be doing, in light of the header's declared purpose and the current situation, but it should be made explicit. –Hajor 16:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Red Cross" > "American Red Cross"

message: Please do not add links to other charities in the sitenotice.  I'm going to end this edit war by saying that we are not going to do this.  The opposition to it is substantial, the arguments for it are not persuasive to me, and we deseparately need a coherent policy about this in the future, to avoid this kind of edit war.--Jimbo Wales 10:12, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And yet some of the same people who supported the tsunami message on the Main Page are the same people leading the effort against this. That makes me wonder if they would have opposed this if the same scale of event as the Katrina refugee crisis happened anywhere outside of the U.S. The currently fought over wording and linked page is not even specific to any one event and resulted from me trying to address the concerns of people who did not like the event-specific message. I had hoped that the linked page would be improved to the point where it was a comprehensive yet succinct listing of current causes and donation links. It could have served as an experiment on how to manage this type of thing in a sustainable fashion ; simply posting a non-event-specific charity page once we meet minimal fund drive goals for the remainder of fund drives and/or link such a page from the Main Page when there is consensus to do so. Doing that should lesson any clamor for event-specific listings (as occurred for the tsunami). But the VfD process and the edit war with people who did not even participate in this talk page discussion derailed the effort. --mav 13:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do not link to other charities