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Welcome to the village pump. This set of pages is used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia, and is divided into six village pump sections. Please use the table below to find the most appropriate section to post in, or post in the miscellaneous section. You can view all village pump sections at once here. The village pump is not a place to make lasting comments as inactive discussions are archived after seven days, and then permanently removed after a further seven days. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).

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[edit] News

[edit] Experts rate Wikipedia's accuracy higher than non-experts

It's not a very big sample, but ...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061127-8296.html

User:Zoe|(talk) 23:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, but some of the difference might be caused by the two distinct groups of articles being reviewed. The ones reviewed by experts were selected based on their areas of expertise, and were thus almost certainly fairly academic and technical topics. By contrast, those reviewed by non-expert were chosen with Wikipedia's own random article function, and would reflect a very different array of subjects. - SimonP 22:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
True. It may also be saying that articles specifically within areas of academic expertise are generally of higher quality than the average wikipedia article. — RJH (talk) 16:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Conversely, it might say that Wikipedia articles have reached such a high level of quality that they reflect expert opinions which run counter to popular understanding...I hope that's what it means...but I wouldn't count on it. DurovaCharge! 05:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
This goes to prove my thesis of the Two Wikipedia's. There is the "Good" Wikipedia, which is evidenced by the "Academic" subjects. History, science, literature, etc. contain mostly articles with accessable, well written prose, extensively referenced, and relevent pictures and diagrams. The "Bad" Wikipedia is the one filled with fan-cruft of all sorts, self-created autobiographical pages, company advertisements, and the like. The two don't really mix. The experts don't often find the cruft articles, while the hit-and-run self promoters and the Pokemanistarwarsi16thdivisionenglishfootballleague editors spend so much time in their own little nook they never see the well-written and well-referenced articles. Thus, these two "wikipedias" continue existing, side-by-side, often oblivious of the division even existing. --Jayron32 05:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Wow, did Jayron hit the nail on the head or what. Academic articles are awesome, as vandals don't have enough expertise (nor do they care) to edit them (besides the fact that the editors are more intelligent). But if I see the "number of albums sold" for Justin Timberlake change one more time, I will have blood shoot from my eyes. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 19:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
By contrast I don't necessarily believe that "fancruft" is at all a bad thing, and I would actually like to encourage it to some degree. Everybody has their particular niche interests, but through cross-linking, we can hopefully broaden a few horizons. A dull and dry encyclopedia of all things of scholarly interest, on the other hand, is far less likely to attract young readers. I'm not seeing why people take such offense to subjects that are not in their particular area of interest—it seems pointlessly destructive. — RJH (talk) 19:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the significance of these results. Yes, it's great that experts found Wikipedia accurate, but what's the significance of experts' opinions vs. those of non-experts? After all, if a non-expert finds error, it suggests that said non-expert knows [i]something.[/i]~Kazu 23:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

To paraphrase, experts, who know the subject matter of the articles, and who do not need the articles, find Wikipedia accurate. But those who do not know the subject matter of the articles are not sure, and can only use tangential evidence to detect error. Since the non-experts are not sure, they do not feel confidence in the articles, which shows that they are relying on authority to tell them what's what. But if non-experts can somehow find some other means to confirm the accuracy, then they can make use of the articles. --Ancheta Wis 04:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. I'd heard of this study but I never thought about exactly how they could test how accurate one was vs. the other. Thank you for clarifying.~Kazu 19:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cisco advert

There was a Cisco advertisement on the television last night. During the first scene it showed wikipedia on a person's web browser. Did anybody else catch it? I thought that was kind of cool. — RJH (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That is news of two weeks ago :-) But yes, very nice. For who would like to see the ad;

[edit] Graphics Lab

A Graphics Lab has been created on Wikipedia-en. Based on the highly successful French and German graphics labs, it seeks to better organise and coordinate our graphic design and photo-editing efforts.

The EN graphics lab was just established by a French wikipedian working on that wikipedia's graphics lab. The French group has produced a ton of amazing, high quality work -- everything from svg diagrams and maps to photo retouching. Check it out to see some of their work. Though EN is more advanced than FR, they are far superior in this field. Now, though, we have the proper infrastructure; all we need are skilled graphic artists. Have a look at the graphics lab; maybe you can help. --Zantastik talk 02:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Translation is born

Hello, hola, bonjour, buon giorno, bom dia, здравствуйте, konnichi wa, ni hao, jambo, annyong ha shimnikka, al-salaam a'alaykum...

All those interested in or already involved with translating articles from other Wikipedias now have a new way of doing so, explained at the main project page and further at its help page.

Please remember to sign up by using the new userboxes, as explained in the "How to sign up" section of the main page, or you will not appear in the lists of translators available. This is important as it is imperative that we should be able to communicate with each other quickly and easily.

We hope you will like the new project. Any questions, comments or reports of technical glitches should be communicated to us on the project's talk page. As with all big changes, it may be confusing at first, but rest assured that we will do everything possible to guide you.

Happy editing!

Marialadouce | parlami 13:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC) and Jmfayard

[edit] Policy

[edit] My editing on articles on "Jacques Pluss" and "National Socialist Movement (USA)."

I noted that my recent editing on both of the articles above was removed. It was decided that I seemed to be using the articles to publish my own websites or blogs. New information was contained in those sources, but I do respect Wikipedia's decision, do not wish to contest your removal of my editing, and I thank you for your attention. Sincerely, Dr. Jacques PLUSS.


You're not allowed to edit articles about yourself. Unless you're Jimbo Wales. Sharkface217 04:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not forbidden, but it is considered an undesireable conflict of interests. LeaHazel : talk : contribs 19:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this was taken from Wales article: Following this incident, Wales apologized for editing his own biography, which is practice generally frowned upon at Wikipedia. Wales said in the Wired interview, "People shouldn't do it, including me. I wish I hadn't done it."[7] However, he continues to assert that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia.[15] :) Noobeditor 00:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are articles on shopping centers allowed on Wikipedia?

Hello all. I have been a Wikipedian for a couple of years now, and have edited many existing articles on local shopping centers in Phoenix, Arizona, where I live; and the San Francisco area, where I am originally from. Two of the articles on Phoenix malls were speedy deleted yesterday, citing lack of notability. The argument from the admin was that shopping malls in and of themselves are not appropriately notable since there are few scholarly "reliable secondary sources" available to support the text of each article (outside of local newspaper articles); and therefore such articles fall under the category of directory listings, which I have come to understand are not allowed on Wikipedia at all.

My argument in favor of inclusion would include the following assertions:

  1. Shopping centers are a topic of great general local interest.
  2. Shopping centers are critical in many ways to local economies. Neighborhoods (especially in the heavily suburban western United States) live and die based on the opening, closing, health, or lack thereof, of any one mall.
  3. Shopping centers are notable examples of local architecture - at the very least, they generate debate on architectural merit.
  4. Shopping centers are community gathering places and have become the modern "town square", making them relevant from a social and cultural standpoint.

As I stated on WP:DRV, it sounds like Wikipedia is moving towards eliminating ALL individual articles on shopping centers as they do not fit notability requirements as stated. If the articles I have questioned are deleted (and the consensus is currently leaning towards endorsement for deletion), the same must be done to about 75% of the rest, in the interest of fairness. If that is the case there could be hundreds of articles so targeted.

Can an official policy be formulated and publicly stated on the relevance, appropriateness, and/or notability of individual articles on shopping centers? If they are not allowed, that should be explicitly stated somewhere on an official policy page accessible to all editors.

Furthermore, is there a place where major announcements of page deletions and other policy implementation are made to all editors?

And lastly, can editors have the option to relocate such articles to other wikis or other resources on the Internet that may be a more appropriate home?

Thanks very much for reading.--Msr69er 12:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

  • While I have not yet read the DRV, there is a general and a specific concern. The general concern about any topic is whether an article can be written from the neutral point of view. In order to do that, we require sources independent of the topic and its proponents. If the only sources for a topic are a combination of self-published material and relatively trivial and/or routine news coverage (the annual Black Friday stories on the TV news), then there is no way to write an NPOV article.
  • With commercial ventures, the specific concern is that Wikipedia not be turned into a venue for advertising, and specifically to raise a Google ranking. There is the further awareness that a commercial establishment will employ advertising and press releases to raise its profile, so many editors try to be vigilent to identify puff pieces and unedited press releases.
  • Now, some malls are unquestionably notable, just as some companies are unquestionably notable. The Mall of America is at least as famous as many small cities. Suburban Square is considered by some to be the first mall, and so might be a good candidate for an article. On the other hand, I can't think why anyone who doesn't live within twenty miles of the place would care about 99% of the malls in the U.S., and that includes the ones at which I shop.
  • Your point about "fairness" is a bit off-the-mark. Each mall needs to be evaluated on its own merits, and since Wikipedia is not an advertisement, covering one mall does not mean that we have to cover all similarly-situated malls. There will always be marginal cases, and there is no way to ensure consistency across all of them. Moreover, consensus can change, so you will always find some inconsistency, because articles are written at different times. Robert A.West (Talk) 12:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
If the excellent criterion requiring the subject's relevance outside itself were generally applied, Wikipedia would be lightened of much less-than-marginal cruft. --Wetman 13:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
WP:LOCAL is a useful guideline here. I would agree that many of these deserve coverage, but in most cases the potential for expansion is severely limited; merging into a more general article (or better, initially placing the information in a more general article) is often the best solution. -- Visviva 15:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
What impact has the mall had beyond its own community? A routine shopping outlet full of nearly franchise and chain stores would not merit conclusion, but there could be exceptions. The original Sherman_Oaks_Galleria was in several films and a hit song. DurovaCharge! 16:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like many of the individual articles that exist on malls may indeed be targets for eventual deletion in the future, if the guidelines I have learned about are to be applied on a case-by-case basis. I can tell you right now that several other similar articles to the ones I submitted to DRV, including a few more I have made edits to, do not pass the test. Perhaps this is the impetus for me to investigate alternative places on the Internet, maybe through Wikia, that might serve as a more useful home for this information, which I maintain has a high degree of validity. Please be assured that it is not my intention to come on Wikipedia and knowingly violate rules. Any suggestions on alternate places to go, if you know of any, would be of interest.--Msr69er 17:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

My own opinion is that some malls are notable, but that doesn't mean that all of them are. A mall should be evaluated as any other business per WP:CORP. If it is genuinely notable, meaning that it's had non-trivial mentions in the news, or had a scholarly book written about it, or meets other listed qualifications, and if references which can be used to verify the information are listed in the article, then I can see keeping a Wikipedia article about it. If, however, an article has little information except, "This is a big mall in Cleveland", and there are no references aside from the mall's own website, then the article, in my opinion, should be nominated for deletion. I'd also point out that I've been seeing many new articles show up that seem to be being created by real estate developers who are using Wikipedia to promote a property which is up for sale. Per the request from the Wikimedia Foundation[1], we should be aggressive about getting rid of this kind of spam. --Elonka 19:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Did many of the recent mall deletions end up being a combination of Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles + possible G11(spam)? In my case (Gurnee Mills), that's what it ended up being (there was a spammer who was peripherally involved in the article, turning it into a borderline G11 even though it wasn't necessarily G11 for most of its life; plus it had the forementioned no-sources issue, something we haven't yet been deleting articles for). It just would have been nice to have been given the 5 or 14-day warning to look around for sources before it was deleted. I've managed to find a few, and once I find one or two more, I'll recreate it from scratch. *shrug* Whatever. --Interiot 20:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Submit a deletion review for Gurnee Mills; I agree, that was a perfectly valid article that shouldn't have been speedily deleted (I always check the history of a G11 article before deleting; 42 edits from numerous articles means it isn't a single-purpose article, and at worst, should be sent through AfD). Make sure to drop me a line if you submit a DR. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that there is a somewhat uneven coverage of shopping malls in Wikipedia. In particular, there are not articles for some of the largest malls in the world. I was somewhat surprised by this, given the importance of malls in commerce worldwide. There is also a variety of scholarly investigation of malls, and the evolution of their appearance over the years. I think frankly there should be an organized attempt to rectify this situation.--Filll 19:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You could always make a Shopping Malls Wikiproject...~user:orngjce223how am I typing? 22:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Malls don't completely fit into the mold of WP:CORP. Yes, they are almost always private, but they have, in many cases, replaced traditional downtown business districts. Furthermore, despite being private, they are generally open to the public, and are used for get-togethers. Many also have completely public spaces, often as a result of a tax agreement. For example, they might house a county's library or have meeting space that is rentable to the public. I thus don't see them as purely fitting into WP:CORP. -newkai t-c 22:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

My comment: wikipedia is not a city guide. Someone might develop an interest in "gas stations with friendly attendants", and start listing them on Wikipedia. There has to be some standard of appropriateness. Richiar 17:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe only famous malls should have articles made about them, such as the largest shopping mall in the world, which may be a point of intrest and tourist attraction. Noobeditor 00:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Afd's-Tfd's-Cfd's

I've recently engaged in a couple of template-for-deletion and category-for-deletion exercises. I won't go into what they were, but on both occasions, the subjects clearly did not meet WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV policy in any way. This was shown to be the case by more experienced users in the debate. However, enough of what I would describe as tendentious or misguided users were in support of these templates and categories to kick up a cloud of sand. It would seem to me that the closing admins took one look at the handful of keep votes, judged the subjects "no consensus" and these were kept. My questions are, how seriously does a closing admin take policy when considering votes for deletion compared simply to counting votes? And why would a "no consensus" automatically mean keep? Wouldn't it be wise to consider a "no consensus" to mean delete, particularly in the case of controversial templates that will likely inflame disputes?

Another way of putting this is, if enough goons voted to keep a category called, say, "People who smell", would that lead to a keep on the basis of "no consensus"? --Zleitzen 17:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Ideally the closing admin is supposed to look at the arguments presented rather than the simple Keep vs Delete counts. If you don't like the final decision you could ask the closing admin why they made the decision they made, they might answer your question. As for why a "no consensus" in a XFD would result in a keep, the idea is to make it difficult to actually delete things from Wikipedia. If it weren't difficult than encyclopedic topics that were controversial would suddenly find themselves up for XFD and deleted. On the flip side, if a WP:DRV is created a "no consensus" would result in the topic not being recreated in Wikipedia. --Bobblehead 17:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I too was of the belief that admins were supposed to look at the arguments. In the case of an article, it is the responsibilty of an editor to ensure an edit meets WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV or it will likely be deleted. However, in the Xfd's, it seems to work the other way round. The onus seems to be on the editors who wish to delete the material to gain universal agreement. If this is not forthcoming, which is unlikely due to a few votes by tendentious or naive editors, then we are left with a "no consensus" decision which keeps categories etc regardless of how much they violate the basic tenets. There seems to be a conflict between adhering to policy and adhering to consensus (or lack of in this case). With a lonely admin making the final call. --Zleitzen 17:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the application of the onus being on the submitter to delete an entire topic is rightly placed. An XFD is more a discussion of why the topic should be deleted, rather than why the topic should be kept. If the content of the topic violates the three pillars, then the discussion can be done via the topic's talk page or via the dispute resolution process. If consensus is there to remove content that violates the three pillars, then it can be removed and if certain editors become tendentious, they can be sent through the Wikipedia:Disruptive editing process.--Bobblehead 18:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
if enough goons voted to keep a category called, say, "People who smell", would that lead to a keep -- yes, but then if you go the other way then all it takes is for someone to nominate (say) Mathematics and 'enough goons' to vote to dump it and we have to get rid of it because there isn't a consensus to keep it! In the event of a dispute, we have to favor keeping things to dumping things or a few idiots can dump valuable data. Having a bunch of crap pages (which nobody in their right mind is going to link to or to search for) has very little negative impact on the encyclopedia...compared to great articles being dumped by an annoying few. SteveBaker 00:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
No, sorry, that's not how xFDs work (or, at least, are supposed to work). Consensus/majority vote is not the be-all and end-all of a closing admin's decision. The admin needs to take into consideration the merits of the various arguments. If everybody said, "Keep it, it's cool", and one person said, "But there are no sources", that one exception should prevail. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Admins are supposed to weigh the arguments, precedent and policy, and not just count "votes". As Wikipedia grows this will be more and more important. If xFD's are closed by "vote" counting there will be more and more gaming of the system. If people realize that one well stated argument can trump dozens of impassioned "votes" people will put more effort into discussion. This is the only way to counter vote spamming, and restore civility. More about this here. -- Samuel Wantman 09:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

  • There is an element of the question, however, that is not really being addressed, and that is - when an admin is dealing with this process, does s/he take actual policy into account at all? Many, many AfDs (for example) involve a lot of users arguing for a keep with no basis in policy and ignoring very clear and valid arguments that point out policy violations. Yet I rarely see an admin delete an article per policy when there is a "consensus" to keep it. Wikipedia may be built on consensus, but there are policies in place to ensure that a "consensus" of 15 people out of the 2.5million users can't preserve an article like List of fictional rooms.--Dmz5 06:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
    • There is a role for closer's judgment, but there is also a role for humility. I've seen admins err in the opposite direction in closing AfDs, and simply decide that they like one set of arguments better than another, when the discussion shows that numerous editors have come to very different thoughtful conclusions. Or they invent whole new arguments that weren't aired in the actual discussion at all -- as when an article on a Chinese college was recently deleted for failing to meet WP:N, a non-policy which no one had even broached in the discussion. -- Visviva 15:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of vernacular scripts in India bio articles - 2

I strongly agree with Parthi. This is the English-language Wikipedia. The native scripts can be used in special cases such as Satyameva Jayate. But using native scripts for every article (including Bollywood films is unnecessary). It only leads to stupid linguistic wars between Indian editors, and makes the intro look cluttered. In my personal opinion, all Indic scripts (except some cases such as Satyameva Jayate) should be removed. I wonder if we can have a poll/survey to solve this problem. utcursch | talk 05:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I must note here again: it is not the case that articles are being stuffed with non-English text. Rather, ONLY having the person's name in his/her native script is being questioned. (That's only two or three words at most). Next, the only dispute to arise here are *a few* bio articles. It would be wrong to remove script from thousands of biography articles just because of the edit dispute between a handful of users. I also want to note that Indian biography articles are not something *so special* that a different policy will apply to them. The same policy needs to apply to ALL biography articles, and again, it is totally wrong to remove the useful native language version of the names, *only* because of edit war in Bollywood related articles. Solutions to this problem should be to get a better policy at deciding what the script of choice would be (which is the point of disgreement here), rather than complete removal of native language names. Thanks. --Ragib 06:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This is not just an India-bio problem. As I said previously, I'm starting to see scripts multiply in Islam-related articles. Look at the start of Mecca, for instance. Someone adds Arabic, someone else adds Persian, someone else adds Turkish ... As for the suggestion that we just need a policy to decide what the one "script of choice" will be -- that doesn't seem to me to be possible. I'm arguing, not for REMOVING the scripts, but moving them to a box where they don't interrupt the article, and having as criteria not ethnic group, religion, or nationality (all of which will involve us in vicious internicine conflicts), but the existence of an article in the matching wiki. Ragib, this will mean that editors can't add Bengali script unless there's a matching article in the Bengali wiki. They'll have to write an article! Wouldn't that be fine? Zora 06:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that sounds ok to me. What I understand of your proposal is that, the scripts are to be removed from the header to a box somewhere else in the page. Fine by me. As long as the name in the native script is there, it should be fine. BTW, isn't it something to be discussed in WP_Biography rather than here? --Ragib 06:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
No. it's a stupid idea. The Bengali articles usually have no conflict or fierce edit wars over scripts. Plus, there will never a concensus to go all english and no scripts on wikipedia unless you get ton bots to remove them. Will the chinese like it if their script is removed from an edit war that has nothing to do with time. What about the Russians and the Greeks? I don't think so.--D-Boy 18:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
As the Mecca example shows, this goes beyond biography. As soon as one script gets added to an article, people who feel that THEIR language is being excluded start adding their scripts. We need a policy that applies to all articles. As said above, there would be exceptions for quoting texts. It's standard in scholarship to quote a text in the original so that those who can read it can check the translation. Perhaps we'd also need exceptions for dead languages that don't have wikis? Are there any dead languages for which WP supports a script but doesn't have a wiki? We have Latin and Sanskrit WPs, but not a Hittite or Sumerian one ... though, gee, the idea of a Sumerian wiki is immediately appealing :) Zora 07:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Why on earth is there turkish and farsi for an article such as Mecca? Islam was started by an arab in arabia. The sacred language the quran is arabic which is supposedly the truest way to read the scripture. Urdu shouldn't even be there. Maybe on articles such as Sufism they would have their native language from where it started.--D-Boy 18:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I've said lot about this before and many people here know my views. So my 2 cents/some quick points -

  • Vernacular scripts to be avoided as far as possible.
  • Sneaking in Hindi/Devanagari script into every possible 'India-related' article is reprehensible.
  • Bollywood movies are Hindi movies, atleast thats the "official" line(Posters arent 'official', certifications by the 'official' censor body displayed at the start of every movie are). So Urdu script is superfluous on Bollywood articles.
  • Vernacular script can be used where the ethnicity is beyond question. For e.g., for Chola tamil script is understandable and for Maratha Empire Marathi script is understandable, Jana Gana Mana is a Bengali song, so Bengali script is justified etc.,. But even if there is a semblance of confusion or dispute, I would support NOT using the controversial scripts.(Note: On JGM for e.g., Bengali is beyond question, it is the Hindi script that is controversial. So Bengali script should be allowed and Hindi thrown out.)
  • Now, I know, that above examples cannot be used to generalise, so if the consensus is that vernacular scripts be banned altogether, I would support such a decision. Atleast that should stop people pushing Hindi on all India-related articles ridiculously in the garb of 'patriotism' or pushing 'Hindi' in the garb of 'Devanagari' on Sanskrit/Hindu related articles and such other random BS. Sarvagnya 19:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
And what historic indic article that are located in pakistan? What scripts would we be able to add one those? Devangari? What about article like Sindh?--D-Boy 21:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I take it you meant "what about". Can you tell me why on earth we need Devanagari on Sindh? Devanagari is 'nothing' as far as Sindh is concerned. The only scripts justified on Sindh is the Sindhi script(first and foremost) and then may be... may be just Urdu script because, I believe Urdu is the national lang of Pak(even then, I am not sure that is a good enough reason). Sarvagnya 22:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
But Sindhi as well as punjabi and kashmiri are also written in devangari for their written langauges.--D-Boy 00:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Good, you may note that Hindi is one of two official central government languages in India (the other is english, which falls outside this discussion). Therefore, Hindi should be on every India related page. Of course using a logical argument like this makes me a "POV-pushing nationalist", "Hindutva bigot", "whitewasher" in the eyes of more than one user.Bakaman Bakatalk 03:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Good, you may also note that Official language != National language. India has no national language. And it is for a reason that the govt., has chosen to call it merely 'official' language and not 'national' language. And did u notice the may be.... maybe just in my above message? And in any case, if it ever came to a vote, I'd never vote for using it on the concerned country's pages and you know it. It is as ridiculous as, say, plastering an image of the peacock and the tiger on every Indian wildlife page simply because they are the national animals. huh. Sarvagnya 06:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I still don't understand why these scripts are so necessary here in English Wikipedia. Editors putting theirs views on Bollywood songs and film names suggest that it is for exact pronunciation. If it is mentioned only for accurate pronunciation, what purpose does it serve if most users can't read that script? I can't read and understand any script other than English, Tamil and basic Hindi. I can't understand if Rabindranath Tagore is pronounced as such or otherwise in Bengali. So are many other scripts for many other situations. If accurate pronunciation is to be specified, let us use standard IPA. I think every one can learn a single pronunciation format (if needed) than 100 other scripts from all parts of the world. This situation may seem specific to articles related to Indian languages as of now, but this is Wikipedia-wide issue. As mentioned above, local scripts do nothing more than appearing as gibberish to non-local readers. Believe me, people don't care much about exact pronunciation because of their inherent incapability to pronounce other languages so well. No matter how we try, foreign language speakers can nowhere be close to pronunciation level of native speakers. So let us just get rid of those scripts completely! -- Chez (Discuss / Email) 04:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this will help you pronouce it: Wikipedia:Indic transliteration scheme. I son't know tamil but it's interesting seeing the script of Chola dynasty in tamil script. Seein the script exposes you to different writing systems.--D-Boy 08:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
By that logic, people should start inserting all kinds of scripts in all the articles -- that'll expose readers to all kinds of writing systems. This is simply unnecessary. It doesn't serve any purpose and leads to stupid edit wars among overly fanatic linguistic patriots. I'm not opposed to vernacular scripts because of edit wars. I'm opposed to them because I feel they do not serve any purpose (except in cases such as Satyameva Jayate). They also make an article less readable. Look for example, at the intro of Rajnikanth article. The Marathi/Kannada/Tamil scripts are not there to make the article useful, they are present simply because of fanatic Marathi/Kannada/Tamil linguistic patriots. Why do we need a person's name in his/her native script (Indian or otherwise)? Why do we need a place's name in the native script? This is English Wikipedia. User:Chezhiyan has pointed out rightly -- they're certainly not useful for pronunciation. If people are willing to learn, they'll learn IPA instead. Like Zora has suggested, we need a policy on this. I think it will be nice to put different proposals and then have a voting (like Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign/Final draft vote). utcursch | talk 08:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Utcursch, that's a useful link. I think I can write up my policy proposal, but coming up with a sample infobox will challenge my feeble coding skills. Anyone willing to work with me on designing an infobox template? I think the other proposals have been to eliminate all scripts (no infobox) and to keep one script, which is to be the script most closely associated with the subject of the article (how "most closely associated" is determined should be defined, otherwise the edit wars will continue). Is there anyone at all in favor of the present policy -- anyone can put any script anywhere and then we have an edit war? Zora 18:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Then why is important to Vladir putin's name in Russian or Mao Zedong's name in CHinese by that same logic? Or have Mecca in Arabic? If you're going to go all english, then you should do it for eery single article. Also you should write your policy at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles), if you're going to make one. Maybe people should have input on it and a concensus should be reached. Voting is not what wikipedia is about. Also, the Koreans have a really good infobox for their hangul scripts.--D-Boy 18:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we need a policy that applies to every single article, not just the South Asia or India articles. Zora 19:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

My 0.02 pence.... Firstly i couldnt care less if scripts are there or not. I'd support removal of vernacular scripts ONLY if all non-English scripts are removed simultaneously. Indian articles shouldnt be held to different standards. Re:Bollywood it is really idiotic to add Urdu to Bollywood articles ad hoc, more so for Bollowood bios (Kajol article for example had Urdu but no Marathi!). Unless the said movie uses stresses on Urdu (as understood in post-1947 context) i see no point in adding urdu script to articles like say Lage Raho. अमेय आर्यन DaBroodey 18:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd propose removing all scripts to an infobox. Your declaration that no change should be allowed unless all articles can amended simultaneously ignores reality: we can't amend a substantial portion of 1.5 million articles simultaneously. It's going to take time to educate editors to use the infobox for new articles and to revise the old ones. If the proposal to use an infobox passes, let's first have a period just for moving scripts; we don't apply the criterion (is there an article in the matching wiki) immediately. However, unmatched scripts should show up as red links. We have a year during which any scripts can be added to the infobox and none deleted. At the end of that year, we start deleting the redlinked ones. We should give ample time for editors to create matching articles. Zora 19:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's an example of the korean's infobox: Template:Koreanname

The article Kalarippayattu also has good info box although it's not parameterized.--D-Boy 20:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favour of moving all scripts from the lead to an infobox placed at the bottom of the article. This will certainly improve the readability of the article. However these silly ethnic edit wars will continue in the infobox area. Parthi talk/contribs 21:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see the need for an additional infobox. I think most of us agree that the scripts add nothing significant to an article, especially for the millions who don't read that script. I say, just get rid of them altogether. IPA/ITRANS is all we need. Gamesmaster G-9 23:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, this discussion has gone on for ages. I think we should attempt to reach a consensus now. It would help if everyone wrote down their exact position on the issue in one line. Gamesmaster G-9 23:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it within the rules of the "game" for Dangerous-Boy to be posting messages on the talk pages of people whom he believes might support him, asking them to come vote here? See:
Technically, no it is not. Wikipedia:Spam#Canvassing.--Bobblehead 02:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Most of those people were involved in the discussion. Just making sure they get there input in.--D-Boy 02:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It is generally poor etiquette to notify only your side of the argument (which I'm not saying you're doing), even if they were all involved in the discussion. It tends to skew consensus in a certain direction. If you feel the need to canvas you should hit the proponents for all sides of the disagreement or make a single post on an article that they all are involved in. Rampant vote stacking can be considered a disruption and can get you an involuntary wikibreak. --Bobblehead 02:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Indeed...>_>--D-Boy 02:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Votes

YES

  1. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever). --Ragib 00:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever).--D-Boy 01:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Yes for relevant scripts, in the lead of the page.--AnupamTalk 01:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever). Hindu stuff (unless purely non-Sanskrit) always in Nagari, and bios in the person's ethnicity.Bakaman Bakatalk 03:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. Yes - as far as the stuff I know something about - I would like Sanskrit and Pali in Buddhist articles. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

#Yes I strongly dislike IPA/ITRANS for correct pronunciation, so I prefer the native scripts to stay. GizzaChat © 05:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. Yes Native Scripts should be there for Bios. Most other common stuff should have Nagari script. --NRS | T/M\B 06:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
    Comment Me too.--D-Boy 04:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. YES for native script. 'relevant' scripts should be added only after consensus. Sarvabhaum 11:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Yes for (only) the native script (the language in which the word or its native equivalent is most often used). For example, if its "Krishna", the term should be in sanskrit, and if its "thambi", the language should be tamil; for acchan, the language should be malayalam and so on. ­ If its going to be more than one script, my vote is "no" ॐ Kris (☎ talk | contribs) 14:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Yes for the inclusion of only appropriate scripts in the article.-Bharatveer 14:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. Yes for native script, and relevant scripts after consensus. In the case of Badal Roy (a musician from Bangladesh), the inclusion of such allows, in a "Rosetta Stone"-like manner, one to know the native spelling and to search for websites and photos about the person on websites in the original language or (especially helpful in the absence of a comparable interwiki article in that language). Putting the name in native script in a box to the right side would be a fine idea. This is already standard for East Asian articles (see Jin Hi Kim for an example). Badagnani 17:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  6. Yes for native script and relevant scripts. I'm not opposed to the idea of putting it in a box. And I'm not against using IPA as well (not instead). BernardM 21:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  7. Yes native scripts MUST be kept. This is relevant information for an encyclopedia. See the guidelines I have attempted to devise at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic) for when to use what. The work on this has stalled because of other commitments, but someone's welcome to restart it! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  8. Yes for native script, and relevant scripts after consensus. The Rabindranath example in the previous section convinced me sufficiently although I think in such cases there's also a scope to include both native script and IPA so that those like myself who can't read the native script get some idea of the missing point. While this is the English wikipedia, this appears to be something which adds considerably to the value of the article to many readers and we already do it for Eastern European articles (which I can understand the script for). Orderinchaos78 17:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

NO

  1. No vernacular scripts in the lead. Parthi talk/contribs 00:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC) withdrawing my vote pending proper policy formulation. - Parthi talk/contribs 22:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. No vernacular scripts anywhere for biographical pages. Only IPA/ITRANS. Gamesmaster G-9 00:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. No scripts for bios. Is too devisive. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. No vernacular scripts, whether in biography or any other pages. It serves no purpose (refer this) and can prove a fertile source of many types of dispute, as we have seen in a dozen cases in just these past few days. IPA is more than sufficient, if pronounciation is such a concern. ImpuMozhi 03:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  5. No Unless the page is filled with twenty scripts, there will be people who can't read it. I don't think IPA/ITRANS is much better though because even fewer people understand it (not referring to Wiki editors but to the entire subcontinent). GizzaChat © 22:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I don't think we should vote on this as an India-only issue because as people said it affects Chinese and all other languages. I think we should make a proper proposal like somebody suggested and discuss it in the context of all languages and scripts. It is unfair to have different rules for India and different rules for other countries. Also I don't understand why you say we should use ITRANS. I think ISO 15919 or IAST are the proper things to use. Nobody uses ITRANS in serious articles outside email or places where you only can use ASCII. -- Ponnampalam 01:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I recommended ITRANS over IAST, because I felt it would be convenient for other scripts (Gurmukhi, Gujarati) as well. I have no specific bias in its favour. Gamesmaster G-9 02:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Itrans looks horried and it's not academic standard. It was designed when computers couldn't cope with IAST and other odd characters. I personally recommend ISO 15919 because it can be applied to all Indic scripts in India. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic). Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry to not have read the entire discussion and place my opinion. Probably the problem is due to abuse of regional scripts. Anything that is good and helpful would not be objected by any except by ill-motivated editor. My feeling is 1) Any regional script should be allowed within limits. 2) With Muslim's Jihad movement, there remains a scope of continuous abuse of a policy so there must be a body of editors/admins to monitor. If, the official body finds abuse of policy, the members should have tools to change and protect the page. 3) My feeling is use of national language in limits will be advantageous. 4) I disagree that since other encyclopedias do not use regional scripts, Wikipedia should also not use the same. 5) The policy not to include regional language would also be abused by objecting to necessary inclusions. 6) The grievances are going to remain, instead why not have a body who would concentrate in preventing abuse particularly between hostile societies? Pl. bear with me, if I am wrong. swadhyayee 05:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment: I feel this voting is being done in a hurry. This issue spans a large variety of articles. We should first make an effort to atleast broadly classify articles and then vote for each type one at a time. Bios certainly are a different class from say geography/history related articles. I dont see any harm using native scripts on articles like, say, Chola, Hoysala etc.,. There is no scope for any disputes on these articles. The disputes are really mostly on the articles where Hindi-pushers want Hindi scripts or the Hindi-pushers themselves run into Urdu-script supporters. On bios, I support using the script with which the person is most widely associated. Rajnikanth for example, should have only Tamil because that is what he's most widely seen as being associated with. Hindu/Sanskrit articles belong equally to whole of India and historically(until fairly recently), devanagari was never the script for Sanskrit. So, on these articles, we should just do with IPA. More later. Sarvagnya 06:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Response to Comment: And yet, if the pro-vernacular people have their way, then Rajnikanth would have his name written in Devanagri because his ethnicity is Marathi. Then someone else will add Kannada because he lived in Bangalore. And lets not forget the Hindi-fundamentalist who believe that Indian=Hindi. I have no doubts that people will indulge in non-stop linguistic one-upmanship. Gamesmaster G-9 07:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Completely agree with Utcursch. That's why I haven't "voted." The call for a poll was premature, was interpreted as being a binding YES or NO vote (but YES or NO on what?), and has already led to electioneering. Part of the murkiness here is that the script issue is a cover for yet another, even broader and more divisive issue: the use of Wikipedia for national/ethnic/religious tagging. The placing of a script seems to be interpreted by many of the editors here as a claim that the scripted person/thing/whatever "belongs" to the group symbolized by the script. IMHO, we need to stamp down hard on this use of non-Roman scripts as gang signs, equivalent to spray-painting "[insert name of group here] rulez!" on public spaces. Zora 16:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Response to Comment - When I asked for everyone to state their position in one line, I didn't intend for it to be a vote. I had hoped that this would help list out all the points for and against in a neat way. Unfortunately, people are just copy-pasting each other's positions. Gamesmaster G-9 20:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • CommentAnother vote! you have got to be kidding. I told you in the beginning not to make a vote about this! It's not the way of wikipedia. Even utcursh stated voting is evil. yet Parthi went ahead and did it anyway. The policy for the yes votes are pretty consistant. Also, you'll never get rid of all the chinese, all the russian, all the arabic scripts and so on. I'd really like to see you try to get rid of the arabic scripts because the muslim guild will fight you until the bitter end about such an issue.--D-Boy 18:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment:Votes are pointless in this respect. I agree with Zora. Hornplease 19:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted articles

I would like to know what articles I've edited have disappeared. I know Kate's tool used to do this job. But may be for privacy reasons, it no longer works. I understand privacy is important, but I just want to know only myself's deleted edits. I always suddenly found some of my edits disappear and nobody (the one who deleted it) tells me before. Special:Contributions without a username specified is not used at this time, so how about make this special page show the current users' full edit history including deleted ones? I've submitted a request at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8017 . Yao Ziyuan 10:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Please give us specific examples. You should check out wikipedia's guidelines for speedy deletion and wikipedia's guidelines for proposed deletions and wikipedia's articles for deletion discusions. Of the 3, only speedy deletion generally happens without your knowledges. PRODS and AFDS (the other 2 deletion methods) all leave tags on the page for a minimum of 5 days, meaning that you should have the opportunity to correct them. Speedy Deletes are done only in a very narrowly defined set of examples. Please read the speedy deletion guidelines I put above; even speedy deletes generally take a day or so to happen, so as long as you check into Wikipedia once every few days, you should find them and be able to stop or comment on the. In addition, you can contact the admin that deleted your article, or you can request a deletion review to overturn any deletion. Hope that helps... Again, please give us specific examples of the articles you found deleted, so we can comment perhaps on why they were? --Jayron32 18:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it would be helpful for deleted edits to show up in a user's contribution history, not just so users can see for themselves, but without that contribution history visible talk page warnings are often inexplicable and vandalism histories undocumented. How possible is it to implement this change? Postdlf 18:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess the problem with that is in deciding what constitutes a 'deleted edit'. A literal revert of the article might be easy to detect - but if someone deletes an entire paragraph except for a couple of words - then writes an entire new paragraph using those words in a completely different way - then they effectively deleted your edit - but it would be hard for automated software to figure out the difference between that and a simple typo/spelling/grammar correction. Personally, I think setting up your preferences so that every article you edit is automatically watched - then patrolling your 'my watchlist' is the best you can do. SteveBaker 19:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
No, by "deleted edits" I mean edits that are made to articles that are subsequently deleted. When an article is deleted, none of the edits made to that article show up in user contribution histories. Postdlf 19:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh man, I'd love to see this feature. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if the edits should necessarily be visible (except to admins), but it would be quite helpful to know that they existed. --Improv 21:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
The content of the edits themselves shouldn't be visible to everyone, but the fact that the edits were made should be. Think of all the times you delete nonsense such as profanity or an attack page and treat it as a "test" due to the user's lack of prior contributions, when the deleted history would show that it's actually persistent, reposted vandalism? Postdlf 00:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Per Postdlf's comment, I agree that the contents of deleted edits shouldn't be visible to everyone. In fact, I'd go one further and suggest that the other details of the deleted edits should remain hidden except from admins—one of the most common reasons for deletion of a page revision is that it contains personal information or gross libels; sometimes that information is in the edit summary, or even in a deliberately offensive username.
If we could have something that pops up on an editors Special:Contributions page when an admin visits, that would be ideal. Right now when I visit an article that has deleted revisions in its history, I see a View or restore 3 deleted edits? message above the rest of the article's history. I'd be thrilled to have something similar that appeared (to admins) on editors' Contributions pages: View this editor's 168 deleted edits... or similar. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
There was a tool for this here, but it is toolserver dependent, and the toolserver isn't currently working for the English Wikipedia. Prodego talk 02:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, this is the email that used to be linked from River(Kate)'s archived-contributions counter. Now that we have oversight though, I've been wondering if there's a chance that deleted edit summaries, etc. might be visible again, on-wiki? --Interiot 02:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the edit summaries should be available, but it does seem like it would be worthwhile to see a placeholder in a user's contribution history for deleted edits that listed the date, the page and minor edit flag. —Doug Bell talk 19:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I think no information (other than perhaps the number of deleted edits) should be available to non-admins, but the whole information (pages and edit summaries) should be available to admins so a block or unblock decision can be based on all of the user's contributions, not just those that happen to be easily accessible. Having to note the names of all bad pages created by an editor somewhere for later review is work that should be better done by software. Kusma (討論) 12:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I have an article on my watch list with an incorrect name and is now deleted. It appears a vandal had edited the article and then moved it to a nonsensical name -- therefore the article was probably speedily deleted without proper checking. I don't know know what the page was originally about, since the history is now gone, and my watchlist is too large to remember every article individually. This is a loophole in the system, and allows vandals to get legitimate articles deleted without editors of those articles noticing until it's too late (deleted articles don't appear on my watchlist changes, so I never noticed the deletion). falsedef 11:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I recently had a page deleted within 3 days of creation. It was Heywood-Wakefield, a major business force in furniture in the 19th and early 20th C., particularly in wicker and rattan. They are no longer in business, and consequently somewhat invisible on the interenet outside of antique dealers, etc. I created a stub because I was aware of its existence and historical importance. I anticipated those with more knowledge than I would flesh it out. I thought this was the WP community's goal - group knowledge. I think I detect a move toward only allowing articles that are mostly complete when created, with references satisfactory to an admin who may be unaware of the article's significance because it doesn't exist in the "internet age". I don't know how to find the person who removed it, and can't rebut the removal. Wake 03:14, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You can rebut the deletion — there is a formal process for that. See Wikipedia:Undeletion policy. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll try that. Wake 03:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
There are actually two choices - you can appeal a deletion, or you can simply ask for a copy of the deleted article to be put into your user space (this is called userfication). For a stub, I'd recommend doing the latter, by posting a request at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Content review. Getting a copy of a deleted article is an administrative action; you don't have to convince anyone of the merits of that article, as is the case with a formal deletion review, which is similar to an AfD. Once you have a copy of the article in your user space, you have time to improve it, and then you can place it back in the article namespace, where it is much more likely to survive on its own. John Broughton | Talk 13:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MALL, a proposed notability guideline

User Edison gave me a suggestion for notability guidelines for shopping centers based on one he knows of, WP:CONG, for religious congregations. I used that as a template to write Wikipedia:Notability (shopping malls), based on Edison's direct suggestion, and added some of my ideas and referenced WP:NOT, WP:CORP, WP:NOTE and WP:RS. Thanks, Edison and I hope this is a good next step in the shopping mall discussion. I look forward to everyone's ideas, edits, rewrites and comments.--Msr69er 01:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is a separate subguideline necessary? —Centrx→talk • 02:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The issue I am going to raise with this is the same one I have raised with the numerous other individualised notability guidelines: Malls do not have special issues that cannot be resolved via the Primary Notability Guideline(multiple, nontrivial references from reliable sources). Several mall AfDs have been handled poorly IMHO (such as mass-listing all malls rather than individually listing those that fail the PNC). However, there does not appear to be a "special problem" that makes shopping malls inherently harder to apply the PNC too. Either reliable sources (and newspapers ARE RELIABLE SOURCES) exist from which we can populate the article with verifiable, non-trivial facts, or they don't. If we can't get notable information from reliable sources, it fauls the PNC, and thus should be deleted, even if it is a mall. The places where guidelines exist that extend notability beyond the PNC (such as WP:CORP) contain secondary criteria ONLY in very narrowly defined areas, and ONLY to address a specific-problem which cannot be adequately solved by the PNC. I see no compelling evidence that malls are special in any way vis-a-vis their notability, and so I see no reason why the guideline should not contain one criteria only: A shopping mall is notable if it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the mall itself. Period. Full stop. If it does not meet this criteria, we have no means to expand the article, and thus it must be deleted. --Jayron32 05:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to add to that previous comment that I have seen quite a few mall AfD debates (and I started a couple) where defenders come in and say "Aha! Sources have been found, see new improvements on the article". Most often these sources turn out to be local news article stating either "Yesterday, a man got arrested in the X shopping mall", "Yesterday, Santa Claus arrived at shopping mall X" or "Starbucks opens in shopping mall X". I think it's important to realize that these are not the kind of sources we are looking for as they have absolutely no relation to the content of the articles. As we all know, the content is always "Shopping mall X is at the corner of Maple & Elmwood and has a JC Penney". That makes us the Yellow Pages and, deservedly so, a laughing stock as an encyclopedia. Pascal.Tesson 06:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Excellent points, but none of these are problems unique to malls. Trivial information still cannot be used to establish notability. It still doesn't speak to any special necessity to this (or any of the other NUMEROUS) individualized guidelines. The PNC still squashes these sources, and can still be used to refute these sources as trivial. --Jayron32 06:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm all for using the PNC for malls as well as most other things. I just want to point out that the keep argument used in most AfDs is the "malls are inherently notable" blanket. "Notability" as is (or should be) used in AfD debates is not a measure of the worthiness of malls as institutions in a community but the confirmed or at the very least suspected existence of meaningful reliable sources supporting the content. And if the only meaningful verifiable content we have is a list of stores then this should go per WP:NOT. Pascal.Tesson 06:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
And those comments should meet with the response: "Nothing is inherently notable. If you wish to prove notability, provide sources per WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NN. Otherwise, I think we are in complete agreement. --Jayron32 06:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually there are things that are inherently notable: US presidents, Olympic Games, etc, etc. The key point is whether there's enough information available to make a solid article. There are still people who have no clue what type of information belongs in an article, so a guideline that explains it, as notability guidelines tend to do, would be quite helpful. - Mgm|(talk) 10:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually, they a US president is only notable because all 43 of them have each been the subject of multiple references in reliable, third-party sources. All 15 gajillion shopping malls are not subject to the same level of coverage, thus all 15 gajillion shopping malls are not inherently notable. Nothing is. Notability test are ALWAYS to be applied to EVERY article on a case-by-case basis by READING the article, and DOING RESEARCH to establish if a VERIFIABLE, NON-TRIVIAL article can be written about the subject. If it can, it is notable. But the fact that any one article can pass this test does not transfer such quality to any other article merely by sharing some arbitrary commonality, like they are both about shopping malls. Notability is Not a Blanket.
Malls are not quite the same as corporations; they are venues where corporations rent space for stores. It is like trying to judge concert halls under guidelines for bands. A possible specific guideline for malls would be, for instance, to find an industry organization defining a regional mall as onwe with 1,000,000 square feet of leasable space, and using that to avoid endless debate over a smaller mall having an article if it has no other historic or architectural claim to fame. They do not quite fit in as local places WP:LOCAL either, since they may draw from a large area. A guideline lets the debating get done and perhaps a consensus arrived at in one forum rather than be repeated starting fresh in 1000 AfDs. I like to have some bright-line guides to quickly allow me to decide whether an article should be kept or deleted, so more time can be spent researching the borderine cases. Same for schools, professors, etc. Edison 21:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Malls are not quite the same as corporations or places of local interest, but they're close enough. We shouldn't create guidelines with this narrowly specific application. I'd suggest a subheading in WP:CORP and/or WP:LOCAL. (Radiant) 11:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea of a subheading. I see the problems with having a million notability guidelines, but it's very helpful to have specific guidelines for topics whose notability is often debated in this manner. Just like we have WP:BAND and the db-band speedy, not because they *couldn't* be done with WP:N and db-nn, but because it's a topic that comes up so often that it's worth having guidelines for. Malls seem, for whatever bizarre reason, to be in that category, so I can see how it would be helpful to have something specific written down. Perel 03:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elimination of Fair Use Rationale in Promotional Photos of Living People

So, it's been talked about, hinted at, and finally, appears to have happened -- a group of editors have decided that there should be NO "fair use" rationale for promotional photos of living people.

The short version: If an image is a press hand-out or other "for media use" image, and it depicts a living person, the image is deemed to be "unfree" (the horror!) and replaceable with a "free" image, usually one from a Flikr stream (and usually, an image without the subject's approval). Several hundred of these images have been deleted over the past week; many, without following the proper guidelines for image deletion.

Of course, there are a large number of people who feel this course of action is perhaps emphasizing the wrong word in the Wikipedia goal to "create a free encyclopedia" - valuing the "free" far more than the "encyclopedia." And, I have to say, I'm one of them -- If a promotional photo is distributed for wide media re-use, with the approval of the subject, photographer, and copyright holder, and the image is sourced and tagged appropriately, who am I to say the photo is not "copy-left" enough for Wikipedia? Instead, the previously sensible fair use criteria would seem to allow for such images, but the wording on this policy has been tweaked and shaved so as to be basically nonsensical, and entirely impracticable.

Please note: I am aware of Jimbo's feelings on this, and would encourage editors to refrain from the tired "But Jimbo says..." posting that even now, some editor is composing. I am more interested in OTHER EDITORS feelings about this. Should Wikipedia replace all professional promotional media images with images such as this? :Image:Kristen Bell.jpg Or should we hit the wayback machine a bit, and allow sensible fair use of copyrighted promotional photographs, such as was done until this most recent spasm of anti-promophoto editing? Jenolen 11:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I couldn't agree with you more. A press photo is by law 100% usable for any purpose here on Wikipedia. and should not present an issue for us. It is nutty to think otherwise.--BenBurch 14:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Could you point us in the direction of the law you are refeering to here? --Sherool (talk) 17:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. The massive deletion campaign that has gone on in recent weeks, eliminating thousands of properly tagged promotional photos (many of which are irreplaceable) is seriously damaging our project. The use of horrible photos such as the one you present above supports your argument that such personalities may wish to have no association with our encyclopedia after seeing such an image of themselves here. Badagnani 14:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Were they deleted from the Wiki, or just from where they were referenced?--BenBurch 15:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Deleted. I have a list of such images on my user page. Jenolen 21:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I have lost at least 32 images in the past week as well, not to mention countless hours of work both creating and defending the images. In many cases said images were obtained directly from the artists themselves, and involve persons from around the globe who don't walk into major public forums. In my case, the rule applied has been nearly universal - if the person is alive, your press or promo photo gets deleted, and nothing you can add to a fair use rationale can change it. Period. After this experience, I have stopped loading any images onto Wikipedia at all, and I refuse to ask the artists and celebrities I know for GFDL images - it's insulting at the outset, and opens up major issues for them going forward. Many of them will not give up control of their images in such a wholesale fashion, and they have otherwise been major Wikipedia supporters. Tvccs 05:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. At the very least, the amount of prior discussion with the parties involved should be proportional to the number of images affected. If you are going to delete one photo because you think it's wrong...fine, "Be Bold". If you plan on deleting ten of them for the same reason then you'd better talk with some other editors about it first. When you plan to delete hundreds to thousands - the entire community needs to be involved on a much larger scale discussion with full consensus before proceeding. Talk first, delete later. SteveBaker 14:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • People don't come to Wikipedia because the images are free, they come here because of the information. Never remove a (properly tagged) fair-use image in favor of a free one, if the fair-use image illustrates the subject better. -Freekee 15:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
That makes actual sense if actual quality was the priority, good luck. Tvccs 05:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Partial support. Do replace fair use images with free ones; yes, even ones that are of slightly lower quality. (The example is too blurred to be useful, but anything better would qualify.) Promotional photos will always be of somewhat higher quality because they're taken by expensive photographers; fair use images will be taken by volunteer editors, very few of whom meet those qualifications. If we don't replace them, there will be no incentive to take truly free photos. However, don't remove fair uses images until free ones become available - it is unrealistic to expect volunteer editors to go to the lengths that paparazzi go to to snap photos. AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Also, take a look at this discussion: User:HeartThrobs/ImageTalkRebeccaCummings.jpg. A promotional agent for a "star" specifically puts up a fair use image, when it's trivial for him to put up a truly free one. That's an example of fair use images that should go to provide encouragement for free ones. AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Concern. I am concerned that you might be misunderstanding – or worse, misrepresenting – the choices available to us. We are not forced to choose flatly whether to allow fair use or not. We have before us a more nuanced choice. If it is possible to replace a 'fair use' image with a genuinely 'free' one, we should definitely be doing that. Where no 'free' image exists, we should retain the promo photo until a free image becomes available; I think most people support retention of the 'fair use' images in that case.
If a 'free' image exists, it very seriously weakens any 'fair use' argument associated with a promo photo; it also weakens Wikipedia's claim to be a 'free' encyclopedia when we include non-free images in our articles. You ask rhetorically (I presume) "who am I to say the photo is not "copy-left" enough for Wikipedia?". I'm going to answer anyway—you're not required to decide or interpret. If the image hasn't been explicitly released under a free license (GFDL, CC, PD, etc.) then it's not copyleft enough, and we should seek a genuinely 'free' alternative. It's kind of a no-brainer.
Note also that it's not Wikipedia's responsibility to make stars look pretty. Their agents ought to be well aware of Wikipedia by now; if they want the promotional value of a pretty Wikipedia picture, they can provide us with one under an appropriate license. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Where no 'free' image exists, we should retain the promo photo until a free image becomes available; I think most people support retention of the 'fair use' images in that case. -- But this is not how the policy is being implemented. As has been noted, a "delete all promotional photos of living people immediately" campaign is already well underway. As for star agents/publicity people, they DO make their stars available for promtional photos all the time... it's just that the current system (stars pose for studio photographers, in character, for photos released by the copyright holder) seem to mandate "fair use." You're not going to convince the entire entertainment world to release to Wikipedia, alone, images that are in totality, "free/libre." There will ALWAYS be rights reserved by the copyright holder, which is why fair use MUST be used. But there are plenty of editors who would rather have NO IMAGE than a fair use image, and these editors have been especially vigorous in implementing this new "no promophotos of living people" ban. To me, that's counterproductive, and not making Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. Jenolen 21:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I mostly concur with TenOfAllTrades. I also note that a lot of the photos used are not actually promotional photos released as part of a press kit, and their use is questionable. I am also of the position that having an unfree image up tends to discourage people from taking free photographs: they see that something is already there and will not have the incentive to go out and do so. Unless the image is genuinely necessary to discuss in the article (Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing up is a classic example), where it is possible to get a free photo (i.e., the person isn't dead, retired, or otherwise out of public life) I would prefer to see nothing, in order to provide that incentive: promoting future value in the creation of new free content rather than going for the short-term quick-fix but worse solution. In most cases photos of celebrities are nice but not absolutely necessary for the value of an encyclopedia. There are plenty of reference materials on the web available at no cost to view; what makes Wikipedia different is its being free-as-in-speech rather than simply at no cost and we need to act to further that, our mission. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 16:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

My main concern with the deletion is that too many mass image taggers are failing to consider what relevant information the photo actually provides relative to what a free alternative could actually provide. A current picture obviously could not replace a publicity photo taken many decades ago (though this is arguably relevant only if we're dealing with a celebrity whose specific appearance is important, as opposed to say a scientist), and a free picture could not substitute for an in-character publicity shot or screenshot from an actor's work (yet I have seen pictures of all of these natures inexplicably tagged as "replaceable"). "The subject is alive" is obviously not a catch-all justification for deleting any fair use photo without qualification. Our policies rightfully require that the replacement be able to "adequately present the same information" as the fair use image, and anyone tagging an image as replaceable should not do so if they don't understand what that information is. Postdlf 16:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

  • This is probably changing the subject a bit, but how does wikipedia reconcile discouraging editors from doing original research in articles with encouraging editors to take their own pictures? Shouldn't pictures come from a reliable source, and why wouldn't original pictures be original research? It seems contradictory to me. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    See WP:OR#Original images. Kusma (討論) 16:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    I'm glad someone else sees the inherent contradiction between an insistence on prior publication and no original research in written content and an insistence on original images. Tvccs 12:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Jenolen says, "Instead, the previously sensible fair use criteria would seem to allow for such images, but the wording on this policy has been tweaked and shaved so as to be basically nonsensical, and entirely impracticable." Well, no, it hasn't. The wording of the fair use criteria on this question has not changed since criterion 1 was first added in October 2005. The fair use criteria have always prohibited the use of unfree images where free images could be created -- not where free images already exist. Policy on this issue has not changed in the past few weeks. All that has changed is that people are finally starting to enforce the previously ignored criterion 1. There is simply no excuse whatsoever for using copyrighted images of living people who regularly appear in public. —Angr 17:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The best excuse in the world; If the picture makes the article better, and it is actually fair or permitted use of the material, then the BETTER picture is the one that ought to be in the article. We want to have the GREATEST encyclopedia, not simply the freest one. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Break the rules. Be Bold. And if you have looked, a lot of the replacement pictures SUCK. --BenBurch 18:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
No, we're about having the freest encyclopedia. Having a free encyclopedia means that our work here will outlive all of us, no matter what Jimbo or the board may do. It means that the encyclopedia can be spread to poor families in third world countries, whether whether it's spread solely by non-profits or by market-driven methods. --Interiot 18:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia grows by being a great source of information. Reducing the amount of information here by removing pictures, and replacing them with images that don't well illustrate the subject (or not replacing them at all) is counterproductive. I would have an easier time accepting this rule if someone could explain the harm in having fair-use and promotional pictures here. -Freekee 19:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
We seem to be talking at cross-purposes here. You're discussing how Wikipedia grows—and certainly, nobody will dispute that adding non-free images and other content to Wikipedia will make it larger. The concern is the effect that non-free material will have on allowing Wikipedia to spread or to be distributed. Mixing free and non-free licensed content in our articles greatly complicates (and curtails) the ability of people or organizations to reprint, republish, mirror, or otherwise redistribute Wikipedia's content. For instance, having non-free images makes it difficult or impossible for an article to be included in a book – or, for that matter, a digital CD compilation – and sold.
I feel that the bigger and more helpful the encyclopedia is, the more it will be spread around, but your point is taken. What I don't understand is why we're more concerned about others passing on our information, than we are about having the best information available. And to TenOfAllTrades, just below, I wasn't suggesting we push the boundaries of "what we can get away with", I was questioning why it isn't within the boundaries in the first place. -Freekee 22:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Having a great deal of information here is only one part of what we do—we also have a responsibility (and specifically enumerated aim!) to make our content freely available to as many people as possible. Encumbering our work with images bearing restrictive licences hinders us in achieving that goal. Remember that we're building a free encyclopedia; we're not just assembling a large collection of whatever we think we might be able to get away with on this one particular web site. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Whoa. The whole damned point behind a press release photo is that you can, with attribution, us it in any publication whatsoever. The rights have been given. You'll have to come up with a better excuse to justify this Political Crunchiness than that.--BenBurch 21:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Even the ones where permission is granted for use, they're not free content. You do not unless explicitly granted have permission to modify them, to create other derivative works from them, or to sell them (though you may in many cases sell publications which include them). You might also get better responses by taking a less antagonistic tone. The "political crunchiness" of which you speak is on the part of the project, not on the part of the individual editors you're talking to. (Well, said editors may hold those views too, but that really doesn't matter. :-)) We aim to create content that is free for those uses, not just reprinting, and so content that we cannot do that to is a poor substitute. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 22:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me a non-sequitor that if mirrors and other reusers of Wikipedia content are unable to use fair use material for whatever reason, that Wikipedia should be unable as well. Fair use images are all tagged and categorized as such and so should be easy to filter out; why shouldn't it be up to mirrors to find "free" images to fill in the gaps left by the exclusion of fair use images, rather than Wikipedia removing what it has a legal right to use based on applicable U.S. copyright law?
Regarding "free encyclopedia," the repetition of this mantra does nothing to advance understanding, and suggests that it's an all-or-nothing prospect of a "free" encyclopedia "or" one that "gets away" (?) with fair use. I can understand wanting to minimize fair use, as 1) it makes sense legally to be more cautious than we think the law permits; and 2) there is no need to go out of our way to increase the burden on reusers to filter out fair use content. However, it should be acknowledged that Wikipedia cannot become devoid of fair use-reliant content and "free" without making far more drastic changes than deleting some images, such as the removal of all textual summaries of copyrighted fictional works and textual descriptions of copyrighted fictional characters, the removal of all quotes from copyrighted works... Postdlf 22:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
If there are images that can't be included in a hard copy of wikipedia (or part of it), isn't the obvious solution just to omit those images in that version? Since wp is technology based, it should be possible to have images that are tagged as not being free identified and omitted automatically. And is there a reference to the "law" that says that publicity photos can't be used in a hard copy? --Milo H Minderbinder 22:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section break (images discussion)

Angr says, "The wording of the fair use criteria on this question has not changed since criterion 1 was first added in October 2005. The fair use criteria have always prohibited the use of unfree images where free images could be created." That may well be; the change I was thinking of when I wrote that may have been in the {{promophoto}} template, which, until October 2006, had a more liberal wording with regards to that criteria.

However, I think it's fair to say that the images I uploaded -- and worked with many admins to properly tweak and tag under the fair use policy when I uploaded them (mostly spring and summer, 2006) -- seemed to meet the criteria as they were being applied at the time. Admins I contacted to MAKE SURE my images were properly tagged and sourced agreed that they, in fact, were. And then, the log rolled. A whole new interpretation bubbled up - this "no promophotos of living people, at all" kick that many editors are currently on. I disagree with their interpretation of policy. I disagree with their implementation of the policy. And I'm glad to see some sensible discussion about it here! Jenolen 21:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Just my two cents; promotional images are used as such because (in theory) they are excellent samples of the subject (case in point: Image:Davidsedaris.jpg). In my opinion, it makes perfect sense for us to use such photos until a better photo can be found; to remove a photo just because the person is still alive is a poor concept that does more harm than good. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • And what of the idea that it discourages volunteer photographers from making the effort to find/take free pictures themselves? In the long term, I think that's more harmful, because we don't get anyone with the incentive to take these photos. (For example, does he ever do book tours and signings? If you knew a picture was already there, would you make much of an effort to go seek out one of these events?) If you can find a digital picture of the person to use as "fair use", anyone else can find it on the web too, and we can link to the official site which presumably has them; it's a small inconvenience but better furthers our long-term aims. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 22:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't see what discourages people from taking their own pictures. If I take a decent quality picture of David Sedaris, I know it has a good chance of replacing that publicity photo on wikipedia because "free" photos are preferred if they are available. And for the record, I've met David Sedaris at a reading, and he's incredibly friendly and accessable - I'd be surprised if he didn't agree to having his picture taken. Now I wish I had brought a camera, but now that I think about it, I do have other pix that could be useful to wikipedia. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't buy that disincentive argument either. People are too competitive and prideful; they like to point to pictures they took of an article's subject (or maybe that's just me). Furthermore, all fair use pictures should be reduced in size so that they're no larger than needed to be legible; there will therefore always be the incentive to improve upon these fair use shots with a larger, high-res GFDL photo. Postdlf 23:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
        • The practical experience we've had, however, suggests very strongly that image removal does trigger replacement; already a number of fair use images that had been around for months or years have been replaced in very short times after being removed. I suspect this is largely a question of the need for an image becoming much more visible. --RobthTalk 23:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
          • The above is a lovely sounding anecdote totally unsupported by any actual meanginful facts or actual research. Tvccs 05:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
            • Certainly not one of the promotional photos of very obscure Asian liquors has been replaced, nor likely will be. Despite my justifications to this effect, every single photo of this type was deleted, almost all without serious discussion. The deleting editors, of course, have not lifted a finger to find such replacements, nor likely will they. I certainly will never upload another photo to Wikipedia, after the treatment I was subjected to in this regard. This campaign has impoverished us all, and really for nothing, as our own guidelines state that it is extremely unlikely that one of the producing companies would ever object to our use of photos that they placed online for the very purpose of promoting knowledge of their products. Badagnani 06:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
      • If I had a digital camera, you bet your ass I'd take a picture of a celebrity that I meet and summarily check Wikipedia to see if I could replace a non-free image with the one I took. I think the only people who could be discouraged to replace a non-free image with their own are the same people who wouldn't think about uploading their own pictures in the first place. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
        • I hope one of the GFDL only admins will buy you a digital camera and send you out as the first member of the Wikipedia free papparazzi,and pay all of your expenses. Tvccs 05:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I haven't seen a real clear answer on this, and I'm hoping someone such as Postdlf will jump in, but let's say EVula DOES take a digital photo of a celebrity he/she meets. I understand that EVula can license his contribution under the GFDL, but how are the personality rights issues addressed? How are the rights of the person photographed handled? Remember - 28 states in the U.S. have 28 different laws; doesn't it make more sense to go the fair use route in this instance? So, and this is the crux of the matter, is EVula supposed to contact the person after the photo has been taken, and get THEM to sign off on it, too? Just because they're in public doesn't mean they've given up all rights to their image, of course... Jenolen 23:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
        • It is complicated, and will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and will depend greatly on the use. Making your own "merchandise" (e.g., t-shirts and posters) featuring your favorite celebrity in your own GFDL photograph is undoubtedly going to get you sued. Publishing and distributing a hard copy of Wikipedia articles with a full cover GFDL photo of a celebrity might as well. The most ironic thing is that the First Amendment protection in the United States that gives Wikipedia the right to make informative uses of celebrity likenesses in our own photographs to accompany articles is arguably as jurisdictionally limited and use-contingent as fair use. Postdlf 23:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Lets have a simple study? So why do we want to remove promophotos from wiki? -Because it increases the amount of "Free" content. Why do we want to increase the amount of "Free" content? -Because it makes our work survive even if something happend with WMF, because it increases it usability and because it protects WMF from litigations. Right? Now lets consider each point.

Survival: We do not need freeness for our work to survive. We only need forkability. If an image was a fair use in the contest of a wikipedia article it is a fair use in the context of a fork. For the purposes of forking the fair use is as free as GFDL as far as the "Fair Use" laws in the USA and anological clauses in other countries are valid.

Usability: Wikipedia without images of models, actors, dancers, singers is less usable no questions about this. Most of these images would not be replaced by free images. On the other hand, the fair use image has more limited usage over the GFDL. Users can not use fair images in e.g. an open-source game or as a decoration of a website. In most cases both GFDL and Fair Use are equivalent: we cannot put a GFDL image on t-shirt (without providing the GFDL license and the list of contributors), it is impractical to put anything GFDL into the commercial software, etc. Does a small increase in the potential usage of some images compensate for the removal of many others? I do not think so.

Safety: The less fair use images we have the more we immune to the litigation over abuse of the fair use clause. Since our policy is already strict we are already quite immune to this. Is it the only danger? How about privacy laws? For the fair use images they are the problem of the copyright owner. For the GFDL it is owr problem. The ban on promophotos encourage users to claim copyrighted pictures as their own work. Do you see problem here? By posting images with free licenses we become responsible if the images will become used in an inappropriate way by others (on a website advertising condoms, for example, or in producing photoshopped pornography). Do you know who will be the subject of litigation from the angry selebrity? WMF will. In short I strongly doubt we are to become safer after we remove all the promophotos.

If the deletion of promophotos (even if it is followed by the increased uploads of free images) does not increase our chances for survival, have questionable effect on usability and does not make us safer from litigation, then we do we do it? Alex Bakharev 01:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider the increase in usability of GFDL over fair use images as small as you think; some of the most prominent media in which Wikipedia content will hopefully be reused someday (such as commercially produced books) would be on much surer ground with GFDL images than they would be with fair use images (even promo images).
I'm not sure where you get the statement that "For the GFDL [privacy and other liability issues] is our problem." Wikipedia is no more liable for GFDL images that it hosts than it is for promotional or other fair use images; remember that the holder of copyright over an image retains that status even if they release it under a free license. --RobthTalk 02:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
GFDL require copy of the license and list of contributors. It is not very convenient for most book publishers. Fair use in the context of the Wiki will be in the most cases the fair use in the context of book. The difference between responsibility for the promophoto and the GFDL image is one is a product of a known and accountable person the second is a product of an anonymous uploader. When wikimedia accepted this product on its servers it surely accepted some reponsibility in the case it was a violation of privacy, libel, etc. I guess it could be an important point for the publisher of a book as well. Alex Bakharev 02:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
If someone can find a Wikipedia article about a celebrity, it's very nearly certain that same individual is capable of using Google to find an image of that celebrity. (After all, that's more than likely how we got the promo picture in the first place.) For that matter, our article probably links to the celebrity's website. A handful of 'Wikipedia wouldn't be as pretty without this picture', combined with a dash of 'None of our editors can be arsed to get out and take a picture of this public figure', sprinkled lightly with 'It might take weeks or even months to get a picture, and we can't stand to have an incomplete article about my favourite celebrity for that long', baked at gas mark 7 for thirty minutes, does not a fair use soufflé make.
Regarding your point about 'safety', I would strongly recommend that you consult a genuine lawyer about...well, all of your legal assessments. I'm also a bit confused about the use of the term 'usability' in this context...? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, most of the information on Wiki can be found elsewhere if you spend some time doing googling or doing some research in a good library. In the best case the image is just one click away, sometimes the click goes to a dead link or to a foreign language site, sometimes the image shown on the celebrity's site is not exactly one needed for the text, but who cares about such small things, surely all the readers of wiki do not know what to do with their free time anyway. Alex Bakharev 06:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to me that most of the promotional photos on Wiki have provided much encyclopedic information. An article about singer/actor X is going to stand or fall on the content of the text, not on whether the picture is pretty. What encyclopedic question is answered by saying "person X looks like this" ? In most cases, as far as I can see, none. Thus, although I respect the work that many people have put into finding, tagging and uploading these images, I can't say I'm sorry to see them go. I've noted an unhealthy image-focus in many new contributors, as well... If we treat our encyclopedia like a photo blog, we end up attracting users who think it *is* a photo blog. It's imperative that we keep focused on our goal which not just to create a great information resource, but to create a great free encyclopedia... things which divert energy from that are best done away with. -- Visviva 07:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
"Remember that guy? He was in Groundhog Day with Bill Murray? And I think he was in Memento, too? That guy? You know, he's got that thin kinda' face? Glasses? Damn... uh ... Stephen something? Stephen Tobolowsky! That's it! Yeah... What's he look like?" It seems to me that this is the kind of question that Wikipedia should easily be able to answer without breaking a sweat (or having a massive policy dispute). Promotional photos help answer these types of questions, and in no meaningful way affect the "free-ness" of Wikipedia content. Jenolen 08:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
No, that's the kind of question Google Images should easily be able to answer without breaking a sweat or having a massive policy dispute. Wikipedia is for providing encyclopedic information about him in the form of free content. —Angr 08:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Now that's an interesting line of thought. I'm fairly certain that you don't think an encyclopedia should be devoid of images. And there's quite a difference between a series of random Google Images results and a Wikipedia entry, I think we would both agree. I would even go so far as to argue that images, and the ability to actually illustrate an article, are what make an encyclopedia much more than just a dictionary on steroids. At the end of the day, I still have no idea why people are so supportive of content that is GDLF free, and so against promotional content that is, under reasonable fair use standards, equally free. It's just odd. Jenolen 09:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
No, of course an encyclopedia shouldn't be devoid of images. But a free content encyclopedia should be devoid of unfree images. In the absence of free images, images (which are secondary to encyclopedic content) should be left out altogether. This is what German Wikipedia does, and its quality as an encyclopedia does not suffer for it. —Angr 09:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
But there are very important fair use images in the Wikipedia that are not secondary at all. Marilyn Monroe's skirt was cited above, Elian Gonzales and the INS most of us know, even I uploaded one, Gary Hart with Donna Rice. Those are all easily worth any other thousand words in their article, not just "what does X look like"? So we will always have some fair use images, as long as we try to completely cover the topic. Given that, the argument that we should exclude promotional shots to be completely free is invalid. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Angr, I can't believe you're suggesting that pictures are secondary to text when describing a subject. -Freekee 03:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
You can't? Well, let me say it more clearly then: pictures are secondary to text when describing a subject. If a picture is worth a thousand words, but the only picture is unfree, I'd rather have the thousand words. And this includes things like Marilyn's skirt and Elian Gonzales. We aren't the only site on the web. For historical but copyrighted images like that, we can provide links to noncommercial websites that make no pretense to being free content and so can use fair-use images without compromising their principles. Better yet, if there is one, we can link to the copyright holder's own website showing the picture. —Angr 06:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Heh. And so Angr goes beyond Jimbo Wales' view, which he called "the extreme end of the spectrum". "... Some pictures (Elian Gonzales and the Border Patrol for example) are historically critical and irreplacable...". Shows how naive it is to call anything the extreme end of the spectrum, I guess. AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Amen. To me, ANgr's attitude is the electronic equivalent of using the technology of the Internet at the level of the Gutenberg Bible. I never knew pictures (shudder) were such an evil thing until now. Tvccs 05:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
The argument above what should be how is purely hypothetical as it is based on fairuse images banned from Wikipedia altogether. This is not the case. As such, the fairuse images should be based on existing policies. WP:FUC #1 states: "No free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information. " (in the specific context as any fairuse claim applies to a specific article.) --Irpen 10:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite heavyweight enough to address all the issues being discussed here, but I'd like to chime in that I think that the anti-fair-use crusaders are making a mountain out of a molehill. Outside of this little enclave, the distinction between fair use and free images is hardly noticeable. Promotional photos are provided for the purpose of public release, and I don't see why downstream use of Wikipedia's content wouldn't be acceptable under the fair use doctrine. So why is this an issue? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Because one of the core tenets of Wikipedia is that it is a free content encyclopedia. That does not mean using everything we can get our hands with low likelihood of getting sued. —Angr 08:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I understand, as an intellectual matter, the difference between fair use and free content. However, as a practical matter, in the real world, is there any discernable difference, for the purposes of Wikipedia and its downstream uses? I'm not sure that there is.
I'm just worried that by making a fetish out of strict interpretation of "free content" we may be cutting off our nose to spite our face. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • As a relatively new Wikipedian, with no previous experience in the policy-making end of things, let me throw out my perception of the situation to see if it has more than a passing relationship with reality. 1. Official policy directs that a "free" image should be used rather than a "fair use" image, even in the case of promotional images clearly intended to be widely distributed (which legally constitutes an implicit waiver). 2. Recently, rigorous enforcement has begun, including deletion, as if the policy stated that free images "must" rather than "should" be used. 3. Even the most casual glance through this discussion would seem to indicate that nothing approaching consensus has been reached on whether these deletions are appropriate, let alone advisable. Am I missing something? Is there a mechanism to put a hold on the enforcement until consensus is reached? --Jgilhousen 00:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Support. I see no reason to exclude promotional photos. The purpose that they are released is to make it easier for the media to add the likeness of an artist, author or notable person, when traveling to that person to take a photo might be inconvenient. They are commonly used in newspapers, which follow guidelines on notability, neutrality and conflict of interest that are similar to Wikipedia's.--Dgray xplane 23:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I think there's something to be said for reducing our use of fair use, to ensure that we remain a free encyclopedia. Having said that, I would suggest that there are better ways to do this than to mass-delete stuff that's been here for a long time without problems. These ways would include focusing more on getting rid of new unfree images, and to increase efforts to create/obtain free photos/images. These are probably more productive than deleting ancient images, for which the benefit is more than negated by the alienation of long-time contributors. JYolkowski // talk 23:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Support Hackajar I'm concerned at the requirement of Promotional images being forced into "Fair Use" when the original publisher is dumping images into Public Domain for use. Why does the WP:FU caluse even apply in this case? Hackajar 01:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Concern Just something minor no one's addressed very well - I noted that one other person suggested 'free' images taken without permission could expose WP to as much, if not more, liability due to using a likeness without permission, but one other thing that I didn't see any mention of - did anyone consider that a lot of celebrity appearances outside of "the general public" are conducted in a "closed" manner such as to prevent people from taking such pictures? It hardly seems a good idea for us to be promoting that WP editors deliberately violate venue rules in many cases to snap GFDL pictures that don't carry the picture subject's permission and risk having venue staff confiscate their photography equipment. UOSSReiska 13:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In a nutshell your saying "If I bring my camera to a concert to procure an image that is "Free" for use on wikipedia do I risk 1.) Loosing my camera during entrance search and/or during concert by security. 2.) Open wikipedia to liability because image was procured illigally at concert that prohibits photography." Right?Hackajar 05:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I first thought I'd stay out of this debate but Jgilhousen (talk • contribs) has brought up a point that's being lost in the debate storm. Noone can in good faith say that the mass-deletion of fair-use images is massively supported by the community and it's not right for anyone to go on crusade without getting community approval. Pascal.Tesson 07:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. I have seen many high-quality free images added to articles after the existing fair-use image was removed. Clearly, restricting fair-use images from being used to depict subjects which still exist (such as living people) has, in many cases, resulted in a freer encyclopedia as there's no doubt that freely-licensed images are freer than fair-use images. That said, the law certainly allows us to use promotional images to depict living people, provided they are promotional images of the people and not of a character that person played. Still, our goal is to produce a free encyclopedia and I believe we should rely as little as possible on fair-use; in fact, I understood this was a core principle. --Yamla 05:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

(That is, creating a free encyclopedia is a core principle, not necessarily relying as little as possible on non-free content) --Yamla 05:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with replacing, when one is available, a promo or press photo with a GFDL image of generally equivalent quality. I ran into one of these some months ago and after a revert, left the free image alone, even though I don't think it's as good, and it was of a car, and it least it was properly exposed. However, on the now "magic" subject of living persons, what in some cases is happening is members of the GFDL club are out hunting Flickr for images which may be of bad quality, editing and cropping, and using those. Furthermore, they don't even have the courtesy of verifying with the Flickr user what they are doing, and just take the CC license and run with it. I had one of those with an image on the Keith Emerson page, where a period-specific promo photo of Emerson at his peak was replaced with an awful fan image that was washed out, over-exposed and off-color. When I notified the Flickr image holder, a fan of Emerson's, of what had been done, and sent him the link, he immediately chose to relicense all of his images, some others of which have also been "nabbed" in his words, to prevent any such use. Said discussion can be found at the Chowbok Rfc page, If you're going to be changing policy here, you need to have these Flickr grabbers obligated to send a note verifying the use of the image on Wikipedia as being acceptable, especially when they are cropping it as they did in the Emerson case, or you'll open of a far larger can of potential hornets than a thousand legitimate press photos ever could. This copy and run without notice attitude towards Flickr CC images is frankly, disgusting. Tvccs 06:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand what you are saying here. If the image was posted on flickr with a license that allowed modification of the image (not all CC licenses do), what was the problem as far as licenses were concerned? There's no requirement to notify the original owner of the image, though this may be good etiquette. That the flickr account owner changed the license does not mean that the original image could not still be used under the original license offered by the flickr account owner. The owner of the image clearly and specifically wanted the image to be used elsewhere, this is the whole point of choosing a CC license. This is of course an entirely different matter than the possibility that the image could have been of very low quality and, for this reason alone, unsuitable for use on the Wikipedia. --Yamla 18:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
What I find almost amazing in this instance is that Wikipedians who may be "copyright junkies" don't accept the concept that many of the general public loading images onto Flickr have no real idea how a CC license can be applied, and when they see how, could change their minds, having not understood a CC license in the first place. Tvccs 12:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • An example image. This image is a fair use image. Please help us replace it with a free image.
    Enlarge
    An example image.
    This image is a fair use image. Please help us replace it with a free image.
    Maybe if someone was a bit smarter instead of mass deleting images they could have advertised the need for a new image (using a template) similar to that shown at right. Just a thought. —Mike 06:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Now now now...in the words of the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense. Tvccs 07:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
The "help us replace it" caption seems like an excellent idea. Deleting images without replacing them makes the encyclopedia less informational, and seems disruptive and contrary to current wikipedia guidelines. Is there some action that can be taken to get people to stop doing this? --Milo H Minderbinder 14:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, change the policy. At the moment, images which are replaceable must be deleted after seven days. It is not considered disruptive to follow Wikipedia policies. --Yamla 18:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
It's all about interpreting the policy correctly though. For instance, the Woody Allen article is now illustrated with a picture of a statue of him. Is that as good a representation as the picture that used to be there? Of course it's not and it's not even close. So the quality of the article was downgraded. I understand the objective of free-ness but if we have a fair-use guideline, isn't it precisely so that we can use fair-use images in the event that no alternative of similar or at least close quality? I think editors who are against fair-use altogether are in essence proving their point by deleting them as fast as they can find them. Pascal.Tesson 19:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this one out - it's indicative of the absurdity of the policy being enforced as it is now. In cases like this, Wikipedia appears as a joke. This helps Wikipedia? Tvccs 12:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed completely. I've had three promotional images tagged for deletion recently. All three are of African artists, and all three came from the website of the National Museum of African Art. Which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Which allows such images to be used for educational purposes. Now granted, they're articles about artists, which means that they might be better served by being illustrated with an example of the artists' work. But the images are there, and are available, and I don't see why they oughtn't be allowed for use in this instance. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 00:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Red links in lists of people

I quite often end up in lists of people which have (red links) to non-existent articles. It seems to me that while I am there, I may as well delete them (the red links), as it's just clutter. E.g. Santosh. One could argue that a recently added name may be an article about to be created, but certainly names that have been there for a while are stale. Often they are the result of links to speedy deleted bios/self written resumes, in which case they should be deleted, but it's not always easy to know that. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 15:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • In general a disambiguation page should not contain red links. So removing them from e.g. Santosh is a good idea. (Radiant) 15:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I would say that as an exception if a red link name is clearly notable (i.e. a former members of the United States House of Representatives) it will never become stale and should remain. In the example, the red-link article is supported by a WikiProject and will eventually be written, however long it might take.--G1076 15:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
    • The easiest thing is to write it yourself. Just jot down a few basics and add {{bio-stub}}. (Radiant) 10:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree in principle, but sometimes its not so easy. For example, I work on United States Congressional Delegations from New Jersey, a fairly complex table with lots of information. If I run across a link to the wrong person of the same name, then I have to chase it down and I end up 2 or 3 degrees away from the task that I originally working on. Then to have to immediately lookup the person and create a new stub article brings me 3 or 4 or 5 degrees away from the task that I was originally working on. Maybe I haven't been around here long enough, but I just don't see the difference between red links in articles or lists and red links on disambiguation pages.--G1076 14:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Just for clarification, are we just talking disambiguation pages here or all lists? In disambiguation pages I would agree that red links should generally be deleted. However, red links in lists should not generally be deleted (unless they're blatantly non-notable) as they are good indicators of articles that need to be created. If you have spent a lot of work creating a list of notable individuals it is irritating in the extreme if another editor comes along, however well-meaning, and deletes all the red links, often with the justification that "if they haven't got an article they're obviously not notable enough for the list". This is blatantly not true and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what Wikipedia is all about (i.e. it's an ever-growing encyclopaedia and lack of an article simply means nobody has got around to writing one yet, not that the subject is "obviously" non-notable). This has happened to me and it is extremely frustrating. -- Necrothesp 13:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment about red links on dab pages — Red-links are tolerated on dab pages, folks. The main reason they should be included is not in anticipation of the future, but as the result of some articles referring to the non-existent article. I often add red-links to dab pages when repairing them if I find in the 'what links here' link set one or more articles that link to the dab page and require disambiguation of terms to article titles that do not exist. The corollary of removing this type of red-link from a dab page (one the reflects usage in other articles) is removal of red-links from the referring articles - which is generally a no-no. I do agree that pre-loading dab pages with red-links in anticipation of use is not to be encouraged; but representation of red-links that are used in other articles I think is a reasonable reason for red-link representation. Note that you can see on a red-link whether or not other articles link to that non-existent article as the 'what links here' function works at the title level whether or not the article actually exists. There is a section of MOSDAB that addresses this, but I'm loath to simply say 'you should leave red-links in because the guideline says so' ... I hate being told things that way without additional explanation of benefits of editing in a certain way. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
    • It is not wrong to unlink redlinks to articles that are unlikely ever to be created. This happens sometimes with historical peerage articles -- an enthusiastic editor redlinks a batch of younger siblings and the mother, but there just isn't enough information to write an article on most of them, so someone else unlinks them. If it is not wrong to unlink a redlink in an article, it cannot be not wrong to remove the same redlink from a dab. Automatic removal is wrong, but some should be removed. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Yes, agreed. The 'unlikely to ever be created' criterion remains in force. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citing News stories mirrored on third-party sites

A copy of a news story has been posted on a third-party website. While we would prefer to cite the original source, if that has become unavailable, is it okay to link to the mirror site when referencing it? --Alecmconroy 14:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

My personal action is to source the original in the article without a link, and then either link the website it's mirrored in hidden text next to it, or, if it's possibly controversial, link the mirror on the talk page. As long as you're sure that the copy of the story is accurately mirrored, I don't think there's too much of a problem - we wouldn't hesititate using a news story from the 1940s if all you had was a photocopy from the library, after all. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Need to be careful. Sometimes sites which advocate on an issue are less than perfectly accurate or complete in mirroring content (I've seen some articles that have been selectively abridged). Sometimes they just outright lie, and make up articles, with fake attribution, that were never actually published. Well-known organizations with reputations to protect don't do this, but smaller, practically unknown groups may. Fan-1967 15:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Are you talking about an instance where, oh, say, AP (or Reuters, or any other wire service) has a story and all 5 zillion of their associated papers, magazines, websites, and other news outlets pick it up and run with it crediting the wire? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 18:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
We're just talking about an instance where ABC News ran a story four years ago, but the link has gone dead and we want to link to the mirror on another site. --Alecmconroy 11:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The Template:Cite web code was updated recently to include parameters 'archiveurl' and 'archivedate' to facilitate retirement/merger of Template:Waybackref into this template. A similar addition could/should be made to Template:Cite news. A related dead-link discussion appears at Template talk:Cite web ('Dead link question' topic). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Cite the original, note the mirror, after satisfying yourself that the mirror is a true mirror. If anyone disbelieves that, they can go to Lexis and check the original.And then they can delete the mirror. Hornplease 12:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos by Wikipedia users, ourselves

If I submit a photo or scan that I created myself, would I have to list my real name in either the photo description page or whatever letter I have to send to wikipedia permissions to confirm I created it. Do I send a letter to Permissions dept confirming it, if I create an image myself? Is using our wikipedia username not enough for these licensing issues to identify ourselves; i.e., is wikipedia username anonymity disallowed for this licenses? Can I say "Bebop" licenses this CC by SA? Or tag it CC and say I created this image myself, sign it with my username and leave it at that? I don't want to find out later I have to name myself because I'd rather delete the image or try to find someone else who can shoot the image than do that. But it seems like you would have to do your real name in a copyright issue. Yet I feel certain I have seen images by Wikipedia users that didn't tell their real name and were licensed GFDL. Am I right? – Bebop 02:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If you create it yourself just upload it and tag it. Real name not required although by not useing your real name you have an effect of the length of the copyright on the image.Geni 02:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
QUESTION - What do you mean by I have an effect on the length of the copyright on the image by not using my real name? It's not something I care to restrict at all. KEY ISSUE - It's a photo of a fair use image of a 12-inch album cover. How about that? I just realized that in this case the fact of me photographing an album cover or scanning a cd cover does not matter, right? I would just submit the photo of the fair use "album cover" and not even mention it was me who took the photo because of the fact I don't have any ownership of the image anyway, right? The worry about naming myself would only matter on a photo of other things, I would think, not this situation with photographing a fair use album cover/cd cover (which is similar to when you scan an image)? – Bebop 03:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
The effect on the length of the copyright is that if a work can not be atributed to a real identifiable person a different term applies. If you reveal your true identity then the copyright on your works last for as long as you live and for 70 years afterwards (controlled by your heirs). If you publish your works under a pseudonym and remain "unidentified" however, the term is instead a fixed 95 years after publication (I asume hitting "upload" here counts as publishing).
And you are correct, for all intents and purposes you would hold no rights to such a photo of a poster or albumcover, or at least what few rights you would have would be moot since you would need the permission of the copyright holder of the poster or whatever in order to do anyting with it. --Sherool (talk) 07:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:USURP

Hey everyone. Over at Wikipedia:Usurpation we've got a useful proposed policy to allow active users in good standing be renamed to already existing but totally unused accounts. It's got a fair bit of support, but it doesn't seem to have been commented on by a lot of people, so the bureaucrats are worried the community doesn't really know about it. It'd be pretty good if people would go read it and comment. --Gwern (contribs) 20:16 3 December 2006 (GMT)

[edit] Model infobox, model articles

Riya Dev Varma
Birthplace Kolkata, India
Hair Black
Eyes Brown
Birthdate January 24, 1981 (age 25)
Measurements 32.5 - 25 - 36
Height 5'1" (155.4 cm)
Dress size 5½
Official Site Riya Sen

I've been clashing with a number of editors writing Indian actress articles. They've been using a "model infobox" that was apparently developed for people writing articles about Western models and supermodels. Here's an example of such an infobox, from Riya Sen.

I haven't ever thought of myself as a feminist, but this infobox upsets me, in that it treats women as pieces of meat to be weighed and measured.

I'm also offended as a scholar in that none of these claims to weight (not filled in here, but in the code), measurements, and dress sizes are ever referenced. They can't be: they're bogus claims, or ephemera.

I know that dress sizes no longer mean anything -- there's been a constant "deflation" of sizes, as manufacturers slap a size 8 label on a dress that would have been a size 14 thirty years ago. The rag trade has discovered that no one wants to be a size 14, but will buy a size 14 labeled as an 8. So there's incentive to cheat. If an actress or model claims that her size is X, she's flat out lying.

I've also listened to countless friends talking about how they gained or lost weight, lost inches when they started an exercise program, even gained inches in the bust when they got breast implants. Just how can we publish some measurements, derived ghu knows how, as if they were immutable facts about a woman? One editor, asked where he got his numbers, said they were from a beauty contest web site. I said, "That was years ago, how do you know they haven't changed?" He replied that since they were actresses and models, it was their business to keep their bodies the same, therefore their bodies did not change.

A related issued has been the lavish inclusion of company names in the context of "she was chosen as the Lakme model of the year" and suchlike. I think that this is advertising and I don't want to see it sneaked into the article under the guise of reportage. The Indian editors' comment is that this is OK in the regular model articles (see Kate Moss) so it must be OK in Indian actress articles. Do model and celebrity articles get a pass on the advertising rules? Or do we apply those even there?

If I can convince the community at large that the model infobox and the advertising have to go, there are a fair number of model articles that need to be revised. I posted at Model (person) but no one has replied. I don't know how to get feedback from that community. Zora 23:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Would you feel slightly better if the fields were referenced or had "approx" tagged on them? I personally do not see the problem with this infobox. It no more demeans women than all the articles on porn stars. Infoboxes are only meant to collect general infomation into a nice little box. It's not meant to demean or deavalue anything. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I looked at the porn star articles -- sheesh, I never considered that such things would exist here. Yes, I think those articles demean women too. Questions of taste aside, however, all the comments re verifiability of information apply to the pornstar infoboxes as they do to the model infoboxes. No references, and the assumption that these are eternally true measurements. Adding approx wouldn't begin to solve the problem.
I suppose that, on the grounds of "no censorship," prurient interest in women's bodies might have to be tolerated. However, like any other POV, it has to have references, not just figures pulled out of the ether. A reference would be something like, "On X date, model Y asserted that she weighed XX pounds and measured XX-XX-XX," and then a ref to the published article where she made this assertion. Her assertion is not necessarily true. She is very likely minimizing her weight and waist size, and exaggerating her bust and hip measurements. Zora 00:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but this is not at all "misogynyc" for the same box is applied to men. See for example John Holmes (actor) or Ron Jeremy as it states their penis' size. We can remove the infobox for both or leave it for both. Lincher 02:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Until the day comes where we can spirit models away on a whim for physical testing to ensure Wikipedia articles accurately reflect their physical attributes, we'll just have to take their word for it. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
It might be wise to insist on a reputable source for such measurements. --Improv 03:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
These allegedly witty comebacks are bizarre. Clearly the context matters. Sure there might be an info box on Ron Jeremy showing his penis size. But does that mean there should be one for Abraham Lincoln shwoing his penis size (perhaps it's in his autopsy). Even if we had that information availalbe on old Abe, I don't think it belongs in the Abraham Lincoln article. As for the article Zora's working on, I'm not sure about that either, but simply syaying it's appropriate because Wikipedia publishes Ron Jeremy's penis size si bizarre. I would also say the data should be removed if no verifiable source could be provided for it. --63.250.231.17 04:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I would think penis size to be an appropriate, if not necessarily useful, bit of data for a porn star's article. As for models, there's already a source for this particular models bio, even if its not cited directly. Unless people are just whipping up guesses, I would say such information is readily available and reliable in the case of this particular model. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Back to the infoboxes - vital stats of a female model are clearly relevant information. Agreed, they contain information that is very likely to change, but as long as one mentions the point when measurements were taken, it shouldn't be an issue. Gamesmaster G-9 05:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The advertising stuff is a completely separate discussion issue, not just a minor point to be sneaked into another discussion in the guise of an afterthought. I'd welcome Zora wholeheartedly to initiate a discussion on brand names featured in articles on showbiz personalities who are notable as models, especially as there career highlights. It was most inapropriate to imply that Lakme the brand (there goes an advertisement of Lakme) was made by Riya Sen's endorsement, not the other way round. For someone who declares a war against advertisement, it should be a priority to establish a guideline, by consenus, to differentiate advertisement from information/education.

Now, back to the infobox. The only point in Zora's complaint that I see is that these measurements are not properly cited for source, though the level of precision Zora is demanding may actually put almost all the WP articles to a tough test. Otherwise models are and always was appreciated for their looks and their figure (appreciated as meat if you prefer), and their statistics is much an anti-woman statement as there very existence. If women's bodies and its commercialization is so scandalous, I propose that we remove all female models from WP, they all may represent anti-woman statements (check The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer).

I see no problem with the infobox itself, may be all they require is a request to post the source for the stated stats. By the way, the implied difference between Western models having a right to flaunt their brands and Indian models lacking it was amazingly racist for someone who speaks for women's dignity and stuff. Thank you all. - Aditya Kabir 15:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Aditya, I don't think Western model articles should be full of brand names either. Please don't hint that I'm a racist. But I agree that it might be a good idea to bring up the advertisement discussion in a separate thread.
As for the measurements -- I'd suggest that they be sourced, to reputable sources, and dated. Readers will be able to evaluate ten-year-old measurements with the necessary grain of salt. They may also require a disclaimer on the order of "stated by subject, not verified". We don't otherwise let people write their own biographies on WP. I don't regard pornstars and models as such reliable sources that they should be exempt from this requirement.
I'd also suggest that the measurements be moved OUT of the infobox. The vast majority of WP biographical infoboxes give data like name, birth and death dates and places, and reason for notability. Having a separate infobox for people who are notable only as bodies IS demeaning, don't you think? As someone said previously, imagine the porn star infobox applied to Abraham Lincoln ... or perhaps Mahatma Gandhi. In terms of the Indian actress articles, the use of the model infobox has meant that some actresses, who were never models or beauty contestants, get an infobox of the same type as given to any other notable figure, like a writer or politician. Actresses who were models or beauty contestants get infoboxes that suggest that they're only notable because of their bodies. That's just not even-handed. Zora 01:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Infobox for the occasion, that's how it works. Your assertion that we should somehow blanket infoboxes is ridiculous. That'd be a pointless mess of code and a severe risk to Wikipedia integrity (literally speaking). A model is notable for modeling, Ghandi is notable for humanitarianism, and presidents are notable for being presidents. It is in no way uneven-handed to classify an article on a person by what they're most notable for. If a model is a crappy actor or does it as a side job, are you seriously suggesting we use the actor infobox simply to be more "politically correct?" I'm sorry to say this, but it seems as if you're trying to make Wikipedia seem sexist. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually - models ARE in fact notable for their bodies. Its their job to have great bodies, and they perform that. I didn't understand the Gandhi example. Its like asking - "Can you imagine Cindy Crawford with a scientist infobox". Its not demeaning, just bizarre. Gamesmaster G-9 03:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the essential question is; "If these women do not feel personally demeaned or debased by their use of their bodies to make a living, why should you?" I have many friends who are sexworkers, and several who are current or former "porn stars" and though most of them will tell you that it isn't the world's best job, all of them have reasons why they do now or did once prefer it over other employment. How, for example, is making love with the camera rolling more demeaning that cleaning toilets mucking out stables or asking "Do you want fries with that?" for minimum wage? (And I've done all three of those things, BTW.) Why is how they choose to live their lives threatening to YOU? --BenBurch 05:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no quarrel with the way they live; that's their choice. However, there's no evidence whatsoever that any of them WANT to be represented on WP by the infobox in question. This isn't advertising, or co-eds gone wild, or the Man Show, or any of the other venues in which women get money or attention by appealing to men's prurient interests. If Paris Hilton or Britney Spears don't get model or pornstar infoboxes, despite their public (and pubic) shenanigans, then neither should the women in question now. Zora 05:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thats a complete non sequitur. Britney Spears in neither a model nor a porn star - she's a singer. Riya Sen, Celina Jaitley and the others did have careers as models before turning to movies. Hence they have model infoboxes. And hello - why should a model not WANT to be referred to as a model on WP? Its not something they are or should be embarassed of. I'm afraid this entire discussion suggests a regressive mindset. Gamesmaster G-9 05:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Damn, you're faster at expressing the same sentiment. This is getting ridiculous. Now we're to try and assume what the subject wants? Not gonna happen. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
And what exactly is Paris Hilton? Her bio lists "Singer, Fashion model, Actress, Author", but in line with what you said before, she doesn't do any of those things well and they're not really what she's notable for. In all honesty, she's notable having sex on camera, just like Ron Jeremy. Curiously, she doesn't get {{female adult bio}}, but {{infobox celebrity}}. It seems sometimes we do put some weight into how a person wants to represent themselves. – Anþony  talk  13:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, there are occasions when we need to respect the wishes of the livin person in question, but what Zora is suggesting that some women may be offended if their vital stats were put in an infobox on WP. Now sticking to the example of Riya Sen (the lovely lady whose picture is directly above) - this is a woman who has walked the ramp, who has appeared in a number of ad campaigns, and posed semi-nude for a calendar. The information on her vital stats were put there by me. I got them off a website that serves as a database of Indian models, for the benefit of advertisers. Given that she carried out her activities as a model in the public eye and that her measurements have been circulating among photographers for a while now - how can we make the leap to suggest that she would specifically take offense to the said mmeasaurements being put up on WP? Gamesmaster G-9 18:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the essential question is whether the information is notable enough to belong in an infobox. Personally, I think not. Speaking as someone who likes ogling the scantily clad females, I don't need to see her measurements in the infobox (and dress size is just ridiculous). Or her hair color. Maybe her height. And birthday. How about just use the Celebrity infobox? -Freekee 05:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Apologies. Dear Zora, I have nothing against you personally. In fact I hold your efforts to put WP right in real high esteem. I hope I can be of one tenth of your use and resolve someday. But, yes, I'll hint, smirk, scream and shout at all flavours of bigotry and zealotry whenever and wherever I can. And, trust me, racist overtones can creep into even the very best of intentions. It's dictated by the culture we live in (just take a trip to an international soccer match, or read some of Michel Foucault's thoughts), and, yes, it's the same in Hawaii and Bangladesh, Iceland and Madagascar. My sincere apologies to you. But, please, try to remember your "tanks & Islamabad" comment, to remember how a slip of insensitivity can prove as racism. Thank you. - Aditya Kabir 16:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to Wikipedia not being censored, I'm free to say that these infoboxes are the crappiest piece of shit that ever happended to Wikipedia. All bio infoboxes. Only completely stupid morons can prefer infoboxes over text. --Pjacobi 14:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a lot of patronising nonsense up here. First of all, Gamesmaster's attempt to seize some sort of moral high ground on the basis that he got the information from a modeling website is a little pointless; the claim that some -possibly unauthorised - website thinks that some potential employers would be interested is irrelevant to whether or not WP thinks that that information is relevant to a person notable as an actor. Zora, how the individual wants to be represented is clearly not directly relevant. How she or he is notable is.
Secondly, physical statistics are relevant for individuals notable as porn stars. Height and dress size are relevant for models. Bust size is probably irrelevant for the vast majority of actresses. If someone wants to add the information, it can be sourced, and will almost certainly be deleted unless most users think that it is directly relevant to the individual. To have a box that seems to imply that it is relevant to all individuals is presumptuous, and somewhat puerile. Hornplease 12:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not commenting on the substance of Zora's complaint, but it's mildly irritating to have "dress size" listed as though every country in the world used American standards. I have no idea what India uses, but certainly a size 8 in the US is not the same as a size 8 in the UK. Loganberry (Talk) 05:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trolling: I know it when I see it

Everyone agrees that trolling is bad. It's right up there with vandalism and spam. But often people disagree about what constitutes trolling. Since it is as bad as vandalism and spam, editors often take it upon themselves to remove what they consider trolling. This then sets off edit wars with people who don't consider it trolling.

Reverting mainspace articles to remove vandalism and spam is uncontroversial. But trolling happens on discussion pages. I believe that discussion pages exist to document what people said, and editing them to remove trolling doesn't make what was said go away. It's right there in the history.

Furthermore, I firmly believe that whether a post is trolling is a matter to be decided by the community, not a small group of editors who often are emotionally involved.

At first I thought I was the only victim of this. Then I saw the same group do the same thing to another editor.

I believe this has to stop. I work on Wikipedia for fun, and if it stops being fun I will stop doing it. If the community decides I am a troll, I will be happy to leave. But this is not a decision to be made by a small group.

If you believe I am a troll, there is no need to participate in this discussion. You will not listen to anything I say, and anything you say to me would just be "feeding the troll". It is impossible for me to prove I am not a troll, since by definition everything a troll says is suspect.

If, however, you can look at my edit history and AGF about me, I welcome your input. --Ideogram 06:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally I believe, removal of one user's comments from a Talk page should be against policy for *any* reason whatsoever. It is so outrageously antagonistic that it does not serve any wikipurpose. Actually it serves the purpose of keeping the mediation cabal and the anti-vandal police active, also the sockpuppet warriors... and the vandals for that matter. Go figure! Wjhonson 07:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, with an obvious exception for personal attacks and vandalism. --tjstrf talk 07:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Eh? If the community thinks you are a troll you will leave but if anyone here thinks you are a troll they should keep their mouth shut and not add to this thread? eh? (Never interacted with this editor before) I find that a bizzare statement to make - it's basically saying "speak up if you support me or shut your gob if you don't!" --Charlesknight 20:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I already know who thinks I am a troll. I also know who does not think I am a troll. I am looking for opinions from those who are yet undecided. --Ideogram 20:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


I would be very interested in hearing opinions on this edit. --Ideogram 19:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In my experience, you know the process is doomed when a) people start deleting other's comments, and b) someone accuses someone else of a personal attack for accusing someone of a personal attack. -Patstuarttalk|edits 20:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
What do you think I should do in this situation? --Ideogram 20:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Patstuart. It was debatable whether your post was trolling or not, but it wasn't constructive. Neither was the reaction, of course. What to do? Stop your side of it. Don't make it worse. That's all you can do. AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
It was my view. Are you saying I should not speak my opinion? That the other party should be allowed to say whatever he wants without opposition? --Ideogram 21:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally I believe that you should report this to WP:PAIN, as far as I am concern you obviously were not trolling, and accusing other person of trolling (not to mention deleting his comment) should be a blockable offence per WP:CIV/WP:NPA. Unfortunatly me experience shows that unlike 3RR, abuse of those policies is usually ignored :( -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Piotr, I appreciate your input, but I think it is difficult for you to be objective here. --Ideogram 21:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
"Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech." But, let's look at your statement again. "I am quite certain nothing will come of this RfC." If that's actually so, then there doesn't seem to be a reason to fight about it. If you can avoid hurting someone's feelings, and get the same result, then, yes, you should avoid hurting their feelings. AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(outdenting) For some reason Ghirla doesn't care about hurting my feelings (or those of many other people). Do you really think it is best for the project to let him have his way and just wring our hands? Are you saying his feelings are more important than mine? --Ideogram 21:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

No, and if he had asked for comments on his behaviour here, I would write something similar to him. He didn't, and you did. I could, of course, write for advice to you on how he should behave, but ... I'm a strong fan of being "constructive", as you may have gathered. :-) By the way, "he did it first", and "he did it worse", is not usually accepted as sufficient excuse. AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
You know, I do have a temper. Given sufficient motivation, I can restrain it. But if I feel I am doing all the work to maintain the peace I am likely to decide it is not worth it. In order to follow your advice, I would have to avoid Ghirla and, perhaps, leave Wikipedia entirely. I think there are not a few editors who feel the same way. I honestly don't feel it is right to tell them all, "let him be a jerk, as long as you don't reciprocate". --Ideogram 22:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Do not feed the trolls. Now that that's answered, can you take your personal conflict elsewhere? Fagstein 06:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I would just remind people to assume good faith before leveling accusations. Wikipedia can often get rather ugly when that principle is forgotten. EReference 08:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC) I would add that this type of matter can quickly become VERY ugly when the "assume good faith" principle is ignored, as I have found out. EReference 09:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where did Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep come from?

I'm confused about how Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep became a guideline. From what I can tell, it has never been proposed, attempts to tag it as such was reverted according to the history. There's not consensus on Talk (no active discussions either). Does anybody know something I don't know? -- Steve Hart 08:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Requiring we do those things to it would be instruction creep, wouldn't it? Jokes aside, it was probably tagged a guideline, no-one objected, and since there is a consensus regarding it now no harm is done in having skipped a minor unofficial step of the process. As for the ultimate source, it's from meta:, as the original version clearly shows[9]. On meta: it's been around since 2004[10] and enjoys a nice acting consensus of editors. --tjstrf talk 08:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
From what I can tell from the history, the article originated at Wikipedia:Instruction creep before it was moved (see talk at [11]) into the guideline space on August 3, and briefly tagged as a proposal the same day [12] before the same editor the next day tagged it as an essay [13]. It was then tagged as a guideline by a different editor on September 9 [14] with edit summary: It is a longstanding guideline to avoid ins.creep, as a corollary to policy WP:NOT a bureaucracy, even though the few comments on talk at that time indicated it should be an essay. (btw: I see I put this at the top of page, moving to bottom) -- Steve Hart 09:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The page originates from meta (m:instruction creep), was written in 2004 and has been a guiding principle since before it was written. There appears to be some confusion here about what a guideline is (see WP:POL) and how they are made (see WP:PPP). Specifically, Steve seems to allude that there is a formal process that needs to be followed to make a guideline - but we do not in fact have such a process. We should ask ourselves whether this page is (1) actionable and (2) consensual. The first is obvious, as it specifies a course of action. The second is visible all over the wiki where we, indeed, avoid instruction creep. Note that the talk page lists a total of 43 users who concur. The counterquestion is, can you find me anyone who thinks we should use instruction creep, or bureaucratic instructions for the sake of covering every possible angle? "It sounds like an essay" doesn't really mean anything. (Radiant) 12:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that the process outlined at Wikipedia:How to create policy guided the making of guidelines and policies. And I know that consensus needs to be reached, which we don't have yet according to the talk page. And yes, I believe instructions can be quite handy sometimes. What I disagree with specifically is how that "guideline" is written up, it's unspecified and comes off saying that our policies and guidelines aren't that important (something I can do something about of course). On a second note, I see that the "guideline" now is demoted to proposed. -- Steve Hart 17:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
For the sake of correctness, the talk page doesn't list 43 users who concur, it lists 43 editors who has quote, "referenced instruction creep during discussions". Which was another thing that made me cringe: naming editors who has used the expression at one time or another, found by doing a earch I suppose, thereby giving the impression that all of them support the proposal. For all we know none of them even knows their name is listed on that page. Just saying. -- Steve Hart 18:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • There is something to be said for the idea that our policies and guidelines aren't that important. Indeed, we want people to be able to edit freely without having to learn The Rules first. Note that the 43-list isn't meant to indicate support for the proposal, it is meant to indicate that the term is indeed in use as such, and if you follow the links you'll note many remarks discouraging instruction creep. Sometimes we make a guideline simply by writing down what already happens. (Radiant) 16:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The page says nothing about ignoring policy. What it says is that a lot of proposals suggest long complicated procedures which are complicated for their own sake, when either a very simple guideline will solve the problem, or the problem, if it exists, cannot be fixed with such a policy. Fagstein 06:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be surprised if "instruction creep" were encouraged. —Centrx→talk • 17:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Two issues: 1) One problem with "instruction creep" is that it leads to shoving beans up your nose... People devise all sorts of rules to address problems that don't exist yet. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 2) The other problem is that this guideline is LARGELY being ignored, especially in the realm of Notability Guidelines. People get pissed off over an AfD of a favored article, then go about creating a guideline to prevent it from happening in the future. Many of these proposed guidelines directly violate long established policies like WP:V and WP:NOT, not to mention the very spirit of the original Primary Notability Criteria. Not only do we need a guideline like Avoiding Instructional Creep, we need to apply it more liberally. --Jayron32 04:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You know, I used to think that I'm one of the people who does read instructions, but then I met Wikipedia and I can't seem to read all of them no matter how hard I try, so I'm constantly stumbling over guildelines I've never heard of before...and I'm just wondering if I'm the only one out here having this problem... Cryptonymius 19:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, certainly not the only one. I've built (still a work in progress) an editor's index to try to keep track of all the things I've come across that pertain to a given subject, since I couldn't find anything similar. In general, I think most editors just do their best and shrug it off when they inadvertently make a mistake. John Broughton | Talk 20:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwan/Republic of China

due to a recent act of "content dispute" at the article Chinese Taipei at the 2006 Asian Games, i committed myself to raising this point of order. an administrator treated This, a "content dispute" instead of an act of vandalism. Taiwan, Republic of China or Chinese Taipei is NOT a province of China. my proposal here is: Any direct implication that Chinese Taipei/ROC/Taiwan as a province of China should be considered vandalism and MUST be deleted. the following are my rationale:

  • the Taiwanese Government officially calls itself Republic of China. (an indisputable verifiable fact)
  • the government of People's Republic of China exercises NO active jurisdiction over the domains of Taiwan.
  • the International Court of Law has NO final and executory ruling on this subject.therefore status quo should stand.
  • the claims of PRC and ROC are internal, Wikipedia has no control over it. as per WP:NOT Wikipedia is not a medium for soapboxes.

Since wikipedia is not a democracy, more weight should be given on discussion points raised here rather than mere voting. --RebSkii 19:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

  • I'm not sure how to handle this one - it's pretty sticky. But I can say that referring to Taiwan as a province of China, without explanation of the conflict, ought to be treated as unnecessary POV-pushing. Unfortunately, it's not vandalism, and can't be treated as bannable. -Patstuarttalk|edits 19:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think it's vandalism either, but it's definately POV-pushing. That's why I replaced the original text in this article with the headlines used in the Chinese Taipei article. Somebody making these kind of changes should however be warned. If he/she still make edits like this, then it's vandalism. SportsAddicted | discuss 19:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Systematic POV pushing by one given user should be considered as vandalism but we most certainly won't start creating classes of particularly unwelcome POV pushing. Pascal.Tesson 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Blatent POV pushing of a political agenda without fact to back it up most certainly constitutes vandalism. I realize that I have more experience with the Chinese Communists and their sympathizers than most because I live in Taiwan and am very active in support of the legitimate rights of the Taiwanese people. Chinese use that reference to Taiwan being a part of the PRC to serve political ends, though we have hashed out the most acceptible wording regarding this in a variety of places, the lastest of which was on the 2006 Asian Games discussion page, where we seem to have come up with a workable compromise regarding the use of Chinese Taipei. I will henceforth regard any insertion of this line in Chinese Taipei related sports articles as vandalism and will summarily delete any such references I see. ludahai 魯大海 22:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It's a content dispute. It may be wrong, it may be POV pushing, and it may require warnings be given to the user if this persists against a clear consensus, but it is not vandalism. That policy page makes clear that NPOV violations and stubbornness are not considered vandalism. Fagstein 05:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It is definately POV pushing. The status of Taiwan is NOT resolved in any meaningful way, and any statements on a Wikipedia article implying that it IS resolved (either by stating that it definitively IS a province of China or that it IS NOT a province of China) is pushing a non-neutral Point of View. Any article on Taiwan or the ROC or Chinese Taipei needs to carefully indicate the controversy and the unresolved issue of Taiwans independance. It may be treated as de facto independant in certain contexts (such as international sports competitions or in business dealings) but neither the PRC or major international agencies like the United Nations recognize it as such, so de jure it is not a fully accepted member of the international community. Again, unless and until the status of Taiwan is resolved one way or the other, all articles dealing with Taiwan at wikipedia need to indicate BOTH points of view in such a way that the entirity of the issue can be presented. --Jayron32 04:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question on extent of right to vanish

User:Mike1 has requested that his previous failed RfA's Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mike1 and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mike1 2 be speedy deleted, citing m:right to vanish as the reasoning. The current language at m:right to vanish does not include deleting project pages related to a user's participation here, only to deleting personally identifying information and user and user talk pages.

So the question is, are these valid requests? —Doug Bell talk 22:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Been deleted. --Majorly 22:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Is that simply a statement of fact or an answer to my question? I have no viewpoint on the user or his request, only an interest in the extent of the policy. —Doug Bell talk 22:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea: I twice asked on the IRC channel but no one answered. I guess it isn't policy, but I think they are valid. --Majorly 22:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The real situation is probably more like "anything can be deleted as long as no one objects". I wouldn't so much say it's policy, as say that no one has brought forth any argument against it. I can think of one, but I'm not sure I want to go there. Wjhonson 22:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't generally think such deletions are a good idea. Same goes for user and user talk pages IMO. They can serve the project as a useful record of past events. Friday (talk) 22:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
My opinion is that deleting the user pages is OK, but I share your opinion on the user talk pages. I also don't think it's a good idea to start extending this to project pages. Without wanting to get into instruction creep, it would be nice to have some guidance on this issue in the right-to-vanish policy. The current absence of any discussion of it makes me think this is not a valid request and should not be granted. —Doug Bell talk 23:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Shall I undelete them, for historical sake? --Majorly 23:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I've added a back-link from the Talk page of the Right to Vanish to this discussion. Wjhonson 23:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
OK they're undeleted for now. --Majorly 23:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say my concern with the Right to Vanish in these cases is that you not really just "vanishing" a single user's words and works but rather the contribution of many editors who commented on those pages. What rights do they have for their work and good faith contributions to not just "vanish"? At the very least, there should be some some soft of consistent MfD process that these requests can go through. Agne 23:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It's difficult for RfAs, as they are all recorded on various lists (e.g. Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies). --Majo (rly?) 23:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the meta article, it says that "right to vanish" is intended as a privacy feature. I get the impression it is more intended for people who use their real name, or have info on their user page that would identify them. Looking at the two RfAs, while I can see why he may be a bit embarassed by them, I don't see any information that would identify him. Deleting something like that just because someone feels like it makes them look bad seems unnecessary and unfair to others who posted on those pages. --Milo H Minderbinder 23:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Send them to MFD if it's really thought this is a viable option, but I would oppose deleting any pages that talk about the person who is vanishing. That's just... odd. -- nae'blis 01:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If they're malformed, unaccepted or empty, deleting RFAs sounds reasonable. Otherwise, I'd prefer not to. For instance, there may be feedback from other users here that is relevant for future RFAs. (Radiant) 17:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change to Upload (Image/Media) Form

Where would I propose to change the upload form? My idea is to have several more boxes where the user must supply the source and license tag. The source would require a URL and the license tag would require a valid license template. A description box could still be available and an optional fair use box could be used if they are claiming fair use. Failure to fill in a valid URL or license would prevent the image/media from being uploaded. My reasoning is looking through the categories of unsourced, unknown copyright images and the uploader failed to even try to comply with the rules of providing a source and/or license.

Also, I'd like to know where I would propose a change to the CSD rule of 48 hours deletion after the image uploader has been notified to 24 hours after the image is uploaded. I think even 6 hours should be plenty, but 24 is a nice round number. My reasoning is that a large portion of the images I've seen have no encyclopedic content. Currently, someone could upload images for sharing with friends (Hey, go look at these images I took of my vacation!) and they would exist for 7 days (or 48, if someone took the time to notify them, which doesn't seem to happen much, most go by the 7 day rule once tagged). Any advice is appreciated. Thank you. --MECU≈talk 17:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Changeing the interface would require software changes. Makeing people provide sources would result in nonsense sources which would make them harder to spot.Geni 18:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
A problem with requiring people to provide a URL would be that it would make it impossible for people to upload their own photographs or drawings. Of course, Commons is better for those anyway, but not everyone knows about Commons or has the inclination to create an account there (single-user log-in will help with this, but not solve it). Also, I would take issue with your, "even 6 hours should be plenty" statement. I don't know about you; but I typically sleep for 8-10 hours at a time, and sometimes go 2-3 days or more without checking on Wikipedia. I certianly don't check Wikipedia every 6 hours and I think it's unreasonable to expect anyone else to. I think 48 hours is reasonable. 3 days or more is too long, 6 hours is way too short to give the uploader time to fix the problem. Unsourced images are a problem, and copyvios are serious, but I think the end result of your proposal would be to discourage people from going out with a camera and taking totally free images for Wikipedia's use. In otherwords, it would make the problem worse rather than better. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 14:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Crown Copyright

People have been deleting Crown Copyright photos. While they are technically unfree, they are of provincial leaders. This is pathetic. Is there no way that Crown photos can be kept? See fair dealing. -- Zanimum 20:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In something like this case, can you argue for fair-use in the same way we normally deal with press-release photos? Shimgray | talk | 20:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
How do you do that? Technically, the photos they've been deleting are the ones the press would be provided if they asked for a portrait of the politician. -- Zanimum 19:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Consider dropping a line on WP:DRV. (Radiant) 17:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've already tried and lost my case with Bob Rae on DRV. It doesn't work. No matter how much I battle there, they won't hear any of it. -- Zanimum 19:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sprotect all templates?

Rationale: Generally, only experienced users know about templates, and how they are used. Templates ate frequently targeted for vandalism, due to their wide reaching effects. While we already have many high profile templates protected, there are many more that can be used disruptively, and few, if any reasons why new or anonymous users would need to edit them. Also, it can be reasonably assumed that anyone with sufficient knowledge of templates that would be affected by this and would reasonably need to change a template would also know how to request a change.

Proposed Policy Admins are permitted and encouraged to indefinitely sprotect templates used in the article namespace (only established users able to edit it), in order to prevent their use for mass vandalism.

Current Policy A current de facto policy of full-protecting high risk templates seems to exist, both to prevent vandalism and denial of service.

Comments? - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I see a compelling reason for this; has there been a lot of template vandalism recently? -- Visviva
There was at least one pretty serious bout of vandalism the other day, inserting offensive images into little-known but widely used templates, yes. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Anecdotally, it seems to be a more and more common way to attack the FA-of-the-day; rather than simply vandalising the page itself - which will be reverted in seconds - vandalise an obscure transcluded template, which can take five or ten minutes to notice and track down... Shimgray | talk | 14:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Template vandalism, which can be maddeningly difficult to locate and fix, seems to be increasingly common. The proposer's points are well-taken. Newyorkbrad 14:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Also support. Perhaps I'm missing something, but this change seems to only have positive features. Under what circumstances would we ever WANT to have an anonymous IP editor or an editor registered for less than four days CHANGING a template? If such users should, for some reason, actually figure out that there really was a problem with a specific template, they could always post to the template talk page or notify an admin or even just another user.
On the other hand, we DO know that templates have been vandalized, including some within the past few days that were used in a Main Page article, and we DO know one avenue to attack templates is an experienced vandal doing so anonymously or via newly registered accounts (sock puppets).
Will semiprotection stop all or even most template vandalism? Quite possibly not. Will vandals figure out ways around it (sleeper accounts, for example)? Some certainly will. But changing this policy clearly will stop SOME vandalism, and there really seems just about no downside to this proposed change. John Broughton | Talk 14:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • After looking through the histories of various navboxes I'm familiar with, I would have to disagree with the premises of this proposal -- that unregistered users do not understand templates, or that their contributions are unlikely to be anything but vandalism. Actually, I see lots of constructive (though mostly trivial) changes by anons, like this one to a history navbox... Some templates were even created by anons (not possible anymore, of course). There is some vandalism in those histories too, but nothing terribly out of line. Now, I recognize that Wikipedia is slipping slowly (inevitably?) away from being "a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," but I don't think we need to hasten the process. For my money protected pages are still considered harmful, even when they are templates. I concede that we should be a bit more aggressive in protecting or semi-protecting heavily-used templates, or those which are particularly inviting targets for vandalism; but the ground rules at WP:PPOL already allow for that. -- Visviva 15:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Her'e what WP:PPOL says (in total) about protecting templates: A permanent or semi-permanent protection is used for ... Protecting certain "system administration" pages. This includes many editorial templates, such as deletion notices and stub templates.
I suspect that a lot of admins would be troubled by the leap from "system administration" templates, clearly covered by the policy, and "heavily-used templates, or those which are particularly inviting targets for vandalism", which aren't mentioned in the policy, unless the policy was reworded. For example, I don't think the templates that were vandalized on the Main Page article recently were "system administration" templates, though I could be wrong. John Broughton | Talk 16:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, a lot of heavily-used templates already are permanently protected, in accordance with Wikipedia:High-risk templates, so in practice it seems that they are considered to fall under system administration. That's as it should be; vandalism to something like Template:! would cause a mess to horrible to consider. On the other hand, I don't think that most garden-variety templates really fall under the high-risk category, and I don't see why such templates should be protected. It's not that hard to spot and fix vandalism to a simple navbox or infobox, and changes can be tracked through "Related changes". -- Visviva 16:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'm wrong on that last point; "Related changes" doesn't seem to cover transclusion links at all. Bit of a bug there, if you ask me. -- Visviva 04:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Template vandalism is not effectively prevented by present methods. See recent main-page featured articles and Talk:Main Page. Catchpole 09:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Sounds like a reasonable corollary to WP:HRT. I've noticed that a naughty image on a page is quickly removed, but one on a template can stay there for quite a bit longer as a significant amount of editors don't know where to find it. (Radiant) 17:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment One could argue that actually, anons not editing templates is the real problem. They can't figure out how templates work and so don't edit them. One ad hoc approach I once tried was include an external link to the edit link for the template in the template itself, but this violates Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. Another approach is the software feature that links templates used in the article on the edit page, but this is easy to overlook and not very intuitive. Any other ideas? Deco 10:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't think that's a very serious WP:SELF violation; but there is concern about it, you could enclose the edit link in Template:Selfref. Thinking about it, such edit links are probably most appropriate for navboxes (which are fairly transparent and don't normally take any arguments), rather than for infoboxes and other more esoteric things. -- Visviva 04:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. I can see no reason not to. -- Zanimum 16:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Troubled: Am I misunderstanding, or is this a general proposal driven largely by concerns about articles featured on the front page? If so, that seems to be very much putting the cart before the horse; the front page is a tiny part of Wikipedia, and not really central to our mission of building a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Perhaps WP:HRT should simply be amended to include templates currently transcluded into an article of the day? -- Visviva 04:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Template vandalism in general, and the recent template vandalism specifically, affect tens of thousands of pages, especially the main topics that have many more readers (most of the 1.5 million total articles are more rarely read, whereas the main articles can receive hundreds or thousands of visitors an hour). It also much more difficult to identify and remove. As has been said before, checked/stable revisions for templates would be a better solution, but what other option is there? —Centrx→talk • 04:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support-ish. I believe that while the semi-protection of every template in existence would be overkill, that the indefinite semi-protection of templates with any significant history of vandalism should be made normal practice. In other words, if it would qualify for a few days or week of semi-protection as an article, we could safely bump that to indefinite for a template. This, combined with the full protection of any template that is going to be put on the main page, should be able to curb template vandalism easily enough. --tjstrf talk 05:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. WP:AGF even applies to anon users. There is NO reason why an anon user could not be a long-time editor and get to know Wikipedia well enough to reliably edit templates. If a specific template is a target of constant vandalism, then protection is in order. But we must not enact any restrictive protections of any class of pages simply because some users are targeting some templates for vandalism. Until a page becomes a problem, there is no reason to assume it will be a target. Until any user, even an Anon user, has shown themselves to be a vandal, we cannot assume they will vandalise. --Jayron32 04:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • While there's no reason they couldn't become one, I challenge you to find any anon or newbie whose first edits are legit changes to templates, other than perhaps reverts. They just don't exist. -- Zanimum 19:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Here's one dif, to a template I use and watch: [15]. This user has made several other valid changes to this template. They are minor but real, and in some cases useful and knowledgable, changes. There are many reasons why an experienced editor may not want to make an account. WP:AGF means we don't need to ask why. An experienced but anon user has a valid reason NOT to create an account, and we should not ban them from making constructive edits just because they never register. If a user, anon or not, is vandalising templates, block them. We shouldn't assume all anon users who show a knowledge of wikipedia to be vandals. Many are good, experienced editors who prefer to remain anonymous. --Jayron32 23:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Widely used templates (say, anything transcluded into more than 100 articles, or into any templates transcluded into other templates that are transcluded into more than 100 articles), can be identified and protected. As pointed out above, high-use templates already have full protection. I don't see the real value in extending this to all templates. I agree with Jayron32 that there are undoubtedly long-time anon editors. —Doug Bell talk 16:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protect user pages

I propose that all user pages should be semi-protected by default. I can't see any reason why an unregistered user should be allowed to edit another user's page, or why a user registered for less than four days needs a user page of their own. My user page was recently vandalised, and looking over others, it appears that it is almost always inflammatory in nature. User page vandalism is a problem, and a seemingly preventable one at that. - Jack (talk) 14:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why users registered for less than four days can't have a userpage. If a page gets vandalised a lot, then the user can request it be protected. Some pages are never vandalised. --Majorly 14:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I've always thought that user page vandalism was a healthy test of character... people who can't deal with it are likely to have problems dealing with other aspects of Wikipedia.  :-) -- Visviva 15:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, no. There's no compelling reason to forbid people from making their own userpage for four-five days; sometimes the first test edits are done there while they figure out wiki syntax. Established users/admins are much more likely targets for vengeful vandalism, I'd think, and security through obscurity might actually apply to a new user among thousands. -- nae'blis 17:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I second that, userpages shouldn't be auto-semi'd. Personally, my only "contributions" for the first week that I found Wikipedia were solely to my userpage (making bookmarks to the pages that interested me). It wasn't a stellar beginning, but as Nae'blis said, it's one way to learn wikitext... --Interiot 23:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • We don't semi-protect anything by default (because indeed, some users start with their userpage, and many welcome all kinds of edits). However, I'd be happy to protect yours if you want me to. (Radiant) 17:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • A user's custom css/js is only editable by that user (and admins). Why is that? --*Spark* 16:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • To stop me from going and making every page you view turn into a YTMND collage of shocksite images, of course. If it were possible to vandalize other's css pages it would be quite possible to mess them up so badly that they literally could not edit anything or even fix the vandalism. --tjstrf talk 05:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:AGF. Even anon users are assumed to make all edits, even those to others User Page, in good faith. If your user page is a target of anon vandalism, you may request it to be semiprotected; but we should not assume that all anon editors are potential vandals, and premptively shut off part of wikipedia from them for any reason. --Jayron32 05:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose We'll always have userpage vandalism; a much better solution would be to just disable editing by anyone that isn't an admin. ;-) EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Better yet, let's ban userpages! >:-D -Freekee 05:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:AGF (since this seems to be a spontaneous straw poll now). —Doug Bell talk 05:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A guideline on Positive Contributions Please?

I have had the frustrating experience of putting a lot of work into carefully referenced enhancements of articles, only to have them completely reverted by a few editors determined to maintain the status quo. After a lot of discussion on the talk pages usually some progress is made, but one or two editors just say no-no-no and revert and never offer any positive suggestions as to how the text might be improved. I do not want to name names or personalise this at all, but in principle I think this is unsatisfactory. I wonder if we should have a guideline (PCP - Positive Contributions Please) which:

  1. Reinforces the message that it is WP Policy that contributions should be constructive and not simple reverts.
  2. Allows an editor to reply WP:+P (one problem is that it takes a lot of energy to reply to a negative contribution, most of which is ultimately wasted.
  3. Enshrines the principle that at least no-one should make 3 contributions to a topic/article in a row which are negative, without one positive suggestion.
  4. Allows an editor to reply WP:3+P if someone has violated this principle, with the undertsanding that this editors comments will generally be ignored until (s)he has made a positive contribution.

What do people think? NBeale 16:14, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Your frustration is understandable, but I'm afraid the propsosal is a bit mistaken. In the case of established articles with a long history that have achieved FA status, sometimes the best thing "regular" editors can do is keep the article clean. It's very common for well-meaning newcomers to try "improving" an FA article, but the edits are often non-productive and actually lower the quality of the article. In cases like these, "negative" contributions (ie, reverts) are both appropriate and necessary. Once an article has achieved FA status, there is rarely a need for sweeping changes...if there were, it shouldn't have been made FA. Doc Tropics 16:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I am one of those whom NBeale dares not name. There is of course another perspective, and that is simply that I and others are trying to defend certain articles from insertions of text which are clear breaches of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, and which also add so many microfacts, footnotes and glosses on minor points that they obscure the meaning of an article. That is why the contributions get deleted. Snalwibma 18:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not arguing against all deletions, and such a guideline might not apply to WP:FA. If an Editor thinks text is a "clear violation of NPOV" it should be possible to re-word to NPOV, at least 25% of the time. One Editor's "footnotes and glosses on minor points" (etc...) can be another Editor's "inconvenient facts that people are trying to hide". By collaborating we can make better articles. NBeale 17:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I'm one of those too who dares not have his name spoken and the article is The God Delusion in which there has been resistence to adding words describing why Dawkins uses the word "Delusion". The article has a suitable section decided by consensus and is of an appropriate weight (given the word itself is not a central theme). The anti-consensus view is that unless there is further text added that shows that Dawkins uses the word incorrectly in a non-technical/non-medical sense it is hoped that the whole premise of the book is flawed. A number of editors have reverted various versions of WP:OR for a few weeks now and I feel that if this proposal was progressed the consensus (i.e. the views of the reverters) would be biased away from the consensus as only views positive to the anti-consensus view would be accepted. This proposal would plainly makes a nonsense of consensus. In the Dawkins article if Dawkins felt that a footnote was worthy of inclusion as a central theme then it would be in the main text. That something is a footnote means it was not central to the book. Wikipedia should reflect more or less a degree a similar weight from what the author gives to the subject and not ride off on some tangent. WP:Undue weight clearly applies and this idea of "Positive Contributions Please" smacks of trying to bash in factoids which there is a clear consensus that they are not relevant. Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes is perfectly adequate. Ttiotsw 01:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protection of user pages

What's the policy on protecting user pages? Should user pages be protected or semi-protected simply because the user wants them to be without any evidence of need? —Doug Bell talk 21:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of an official policy, except the general polices on page protection in general, which don't, as far as I can see, allow for routine protection without evidence of need. Fan-1967 21:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
That would be my understanding as well. —Doug Bell talk 23:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm wondering if one could request semi-protection of user pages if one is concerned about retribution from vandals who you have been warning with templates on their talk pages. (I'm in a 'conversation' about this currently) My argument is that, yes, one could justify this in order to encourage signing of warning template additions - the result of the protection would be increasing comfort level of the editor to a place where generally accepted behavior could be engaged in without concern. This would generally apply to those folks who engage in anti-vandal activity as a major proportion of their effort here. Thoughts? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I think that goes against the general philosophy here of assuming good faith. I think we should wait until there is a proven need to protect. Nobody should be worried about leaving notices on vandals pages—any damage done to user pages is as easily reverted as anywhere else and if the problem becomes a pattern, the pages can be semiprotected. So no, I don't think this is justified here. —Doug Bell talk 04:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, my first gut reaction was 'gee, please just assume good faith and if something bad happens - take it from there', and it is this opinion (albeit in a much harsher tone, unfortunately) I espoused in the conversation. I got to thinking then about adaptation of tools to editors needs (perceived or real) versus temperamental/behavioral changes required to be a fully functioning Wikipedian and thought 'well, are there some relatively minor things that could be done to accomodate certain editor proclivities or fears in order for them to fully function.' It's a Wikipedian culture question, and I think my first gut reaction - that there is a culture and adaptation to the culture is part of participating in it - was probably the right one. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
My userpage has been vandalized frequently, as I get heavily involved in vandalism patrolling. I had it semi-protected for a few weeks because of one persistent anon, but that was months ago, and it's been unprotected. Generally, my experience has been that most vandals tend not to target you more than once or twice. You revert it and move on. Certainly you don't anticipate it. The ones who actually do it may well be the ones you least expect, when you least expect it. You don't protect just in case. Fan-1967 04:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It's not a big deal to protect or semi-protect any user page at that user's request (of course, usertalk pages should not be protected as such). If you think about it, how would it hurt the encyclopedia if you were unable to edit User:Somebody's user page? (Radiant) 17:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I protect userpages upon request per the same logic as Radiant! described. I mean, if it's not in the encyclopedia, there's no harm done. It's as simple as that. Nishkid64 21:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Then if that's the case, perhaps we should change the protection policy so that those changes are covered. Not that I'm in favor of encouraging endless requests from users to protect their user pages, but I do think that if this is going to be defacto policy it should probably be listed as an acceptable use of protection. —Doug Bell talk 23:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality?

Shouldn't we be be concentrating on being complete and current too Some people's ideas of neutrality are extremely narrow (such as rabid views of some people on g theory). Reactive / Redactive neutrality is not the neutrality that we need. We need factual neutrality. Complete exposition of the common viewpoint, but not ignorant of the less common viewpoint, but not tolerant of the intolerant viewpoint. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.213.103.55 (talk • contribs) 21:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a rewrite of WP:NPOV; perhaps you might want to discuss at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view, if not already previously discussed there? John Broughton | Talk 01:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds a bit like an "English Irregular Verb"[1]. And if we didn't tolerate intolerance (to some extent) a lot of articles would have to be deleted! NBeale 18:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tribal and Oral Knowledge wiki

The call for a citation in Mukurob (yes, I am the original author) sparked a train of thought which I think is interesting and might be very important.

Throughout the world, but especially in Africa, knowledge, news, fiction and so on are all passed on orally. Only rarely are these nuggets of information (and disinformation) formally recorded, and then often with great differences of interpretation and content.

In the article, I assert that Nama oral tradition predicted that 'white' rule would end when the rock structure collapsed. My statement is based on several conversations in the Seventies and Eighties, around campfires and while travelling through the desert. There are no citations; the Nama stories are largely unrecorded.

The fact that I cannot provide a citation does not particularly bother me; I think that factoid is interesting but not significant. Probably a coincidence. There have been several other similar predictions the most famous of which is the prediction of Nonquase, a Xhosa girl, that two suns would rise and the white people would be driven into the sea by the ancestors who have risen from the grave. Well, that didn't happen.

What does concern me (and prompted my relating the prediction) is that these snippets information are just going to be lost through inattention, and worse, through self-censorship. On the other hand, I do recognise and agree with the policy of NOR; however, these oral nuggets are only unpublished, not original.

Perhaps there should be another wiki for this sort of thing. Before it is too late.

not young enough to know everything 04:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Oral sources have become acceptable to historians and other academics, but unfortunetaly I don't think we can use them in Wikipedia. To ensure accuracy and NPOV all our articles need to be verifiable, and there is no reasonable way to verify such oral sources. - SimonP 15:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Realistically, we have too many pranksters who make stuff up to see if they can get away with it. Some of it is quite reasonable-sounding unless an expert is available. We have to require accessible sources for verification, or risk allowing false content. Fan-1967 16:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
If historians and other academics publish work about such oral histories, then we can use them as a source. --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that having a Wiki (separate from Wikipedia) to record oral history is a very admirable goal. Wikis are perfect for this, since they allow the user to enter the information without requiring an academic to record it directly. Bluap 23:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Would that fall under any of our existing projects? Wikisource doesn't seem like the right place for it. Wikibooks maybe? --tjstrf talk 03:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Here are some thoughts that occur based on the responses above
  • Regarding the need to 'ensure accuracy'; this is a admirable goal, but somewhat elusive as far as history is concerned. And citations and publications will not help much; publications cannot be revised as easily as a wiki, but they can be revised. See how, on the White House website, the words "Mission Accomplished" prominently displayed behind George Bush as he made his 'victory' speech, have now mysteriously disappeared from a video made by CNN.
  • It is true that we can use published work as a citation. That is not the question or concern. The concern is about the rich (admittedly undisciplined) knowledge that is being discarded. One spectacular example. The Khoi-San have known for millenia that a certain plant has wonderful medicinal properties. A large pharmaceutical company discovered this 'fact' from the Khoi-San's oral 'knowledge' (no previous research or publications!), and have started the (admittedly expensive) process or providing it commercially. They refuse to compensate or acknowledge the contribution of the Khoi-San in any way (despicable, but understandable). The case is sub judicae, so please don't ask me for any citations or details. The point I am making is that valuable, real knowledge is being lost.
I don't think that wikipedia is the right place for this knowledge to be recorded. However, I do think that this community could be invaluable in helping to establish and manage a wiki where it can be recorded, and eventually fed into wikipedia.
I would presonally be pleased and proud to play any role in such a project as my skills and knowledge would permit.
not young enough to know everything 04:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of legal cases

Is there an existing guideline on the notability of cases? I ask because Lindon v. First National Bank was recently posted, and an editor asked on its talk page whether it was available online. It's not, without recourse to LexisNexis. The problem is that a reasonable notability guideline, citation of the opinion in law review articles and other opinions, is also not easily available online, and I personally don't like Shepardizing any more than I have to. Mytildebang 17:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Should the discussion be about whether this one-paragraph article should be merged into name change? The availability, or not, of an on-line version of an 1882 U.S. court case seems a lesser issue. John Broughton | Talk
You're right. I was just wondering if there was a law-specific policy that could actually be applied to other cases. Mytildebang 00:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirection instead of deletion

A solution sometimes adopted on AfD is to redirect instead of delete a page. Generally this may or may not be a good idea. My question isn't there though.

Instead of proposing the deletion of an article, an editor insists on redirecting pages instead of listing them for deletion. Is there a policy to prevent this? If the content is to be removed, there isn't really a reason not to list it? -- User:Docu

No, because redirection is not deletion. WP:BOLD. Chris cheese whine 04:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, one can look at it from the vandalism perspective and consider conservation of information. If the redirection essentially eliminates substantial Wikipedia content from view, it is tantamount to page blanking or section removal, both of which are considered vandalism in the absence of good explanations for the actions. Merger+Redirect should be the preferred route over Redirect alone when there is the potential for removal of significant content. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Precisely. And this is why it is important to categorise redirects, or at least to have an easy way of listing all the redirects pointing at a page (the only way I know of at the moment is visually scanning the 'what links here' list for the 'redirect' label). Then the redirects can be examined to see if (a) they contain edit history of text that was merged to the destination (in which case it is vital to not delete the redirect without retaining the history somewhere); (b) the edit history of the redirect contains unmerged text that has been lost. Carcharoth 11:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The editor who changes an article to a redirect has the responsibility to move any appropriate content from the article becoming a redirect to the target article. For moved text, the edit summary should mention the name of the article that has become a redirect. If for some reason there is no content to be moved (e.g., the editor thinks virtually everyting is duplicated or dross), the editor should put a comment at the talk page of the target article saying that a redirect had been done and other editors were welcome to review what the former article said, to see if they wanted to incorporate anything. John Broughton | Talk 15:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Upgrading WikiLawyering to a guideline?

I think we should upgrade WikiLawyering to guideline status. I've seen this used a lot in the community, and it's already being treated like one. Several policy pages, such as WP:NPA and WP:3RR mention WikiLawyering as being a bad thing. It would definitely benefit the community. There's already been a ton of disruptive 3RR violations that sysyops can't do anything that's too uncontroversial because WikiLawyering is a simple essay. With this in place, there would be a lot less edit wars. That's for sure. -- Selmo (talk) 04:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree fundamentally, but isn't essentially the same concept expressed in the Ignore all rules policy? Mytildebang 04:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
IAR and WiliLawyering are related, but I wouldn't call it the same. IAR is more like the be bold guideline: don't worry about the rules, because someone else will fix it. WikiLawyering, while it in a way says we should ignore the rules, it's more focused on ignoring the technical interpretation of the rules, while it still requires editors to follow the spirit. -- Selmo (talk) 04:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
This essay was essentially created in order to document a common piece of jargon, normally used in a pejorative manner, rather than to prescribe a particular course of action. Nobody ever does wikilawyering from their own perspective. Thus it doesn't particularly make sense as a guideline. Deco 10:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't upgrading this essay allow it to be used by those who are wikilawyering? Seriously. Carcharoth 11:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I think Wikilawyering is covered more by WP:POINT than by IAR. Even real courts have the power to say, "Clever argument, and you would appear to be right on the technicalities, but that is not what this particular law is meant to accomplish, and we don't intend to be a party to defeating the intent of the legislature." That is not ignoring the rules, it is implementing them with a clue. If Wikilawyering does not rise to the level of disruption, what is the need for a guideline? Robert A.West (Talk) 12:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that the page as written is guideline material; it doesn't really provide much guidance on what to do. That said, it would be helpful to have a more detailed treatment of what rules are and aren't good for on Wikipedia. For a start, it would be good to have a line in WP:NOT to go alongside "not a bureaucracy" and "not a democracy" ... maybe "Wikipedia is not consistent"? Or perhaps Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not governed by rules as a spinoff page expanding on the various Wikipedia-is-not-government items on the NOT page? -- Visviva 04:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFC on WP:FRINGE

A question has been raised at a recent RfD whether the guideline WP:FRINGE applies purely to fringe theories in the field of science, or whether it should apply to other fields as well. Please pop over to the guideline talk page and comment. Blueboar 15:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability (fandom)

I have proposed a guideline on Wikipedia:Notability (fandom) to help sort out articles on minor subjects. Some of these appear to be self-serving and/or POV, but the fan categories are not clearly delineated by other guidelines.Avt tor 16:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notifying new users when their page is db'd

As a member of the Wikipedia:Welcoming committee, I just wanted to point out some major problems with Newpage Patrolling as it stands.

One of the duties of a NPPer is to mark bad pages with an appropriate db tag. However, while patrolling, I find a large number of users are (a) not notified their page was marked for deletion, therefore creating confusion on their part and not encouraging them to edit, a mild form of biting the newbies, and (b) not notified when their page was deleted, and for which reason. I am not impressed by the handling of these tasks. I admit I used to do the same, but recently I began to always warn the users.

Something needs to be done about this, even if a bot could be assigned. I am interested to see how other Wikipedians think about this. Cheers! Yuser31415 22:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

This is part of the reason why the new article text now says "Articles without reliable published sources are likely to be deleted." New users should read that before creating junk. --Centrx→talk • 22:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
New users should and probably do read the notice. What is considered junk is a matter of opinion, however. And that is no excuse for not notifying the user in question. Yuser31415 23:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
New users should, but rarely do, read anything at all before posting. As a prolific db-er, I have found that notifying them about a db tag actually involves less work than not notifying them. If they get nothing, they will think "Wonder what happened to that. Oh, well, I'll just create it again." It's also not hard, since there are standard notification templates. Doesn't hurt to add the {{welcome}} template above the notice if it remotely looks like they might be a potential useful contributor. Also, on the db-bio's, whenever possible, if the name's a close enough match to the username, or the article uses the first person, and the User page is a redlink, and the content is acceptable for a User page, just move it to the user page. Tag the leftover redirect with a {{db-r2}}. It's easier than having to explain eight times why they can't write about themselves. 90% of new editors will not try to recreate in articlespace if you leave the {{userfied}}. Fan-1967 23:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Disagree with characterization of that as mild newbie bites. It rejects peoples contributions, which is as big as a slap in the face as one can administer here outside of a direct personal attack. I've long felt all deletion tagging should require a mandantory talk page notice and an attempt to email the party.

At the least, substandard pages ought to be duplicated in user space as a courtesy if a speedy delete criteria is being applied, with some boilerplate guidance to where and how the newbie can get help improving the offense, whatever the decision criteria may be.

Ditto for Afd'd pages. Too bad if that takes extra time for the Admins, but it's common courtesy and respect for anothers time. In my experience, many admins are too jaded and perhaps don't appreciate how hard it is to write well, as most are good at that aspect too. That page may have taken someone four hours to put together that one such as they could do in five minutes. That's a lot of effort to smash.

Such courtesy shows we value the attempt, even if the standards are higher than the effort. A newbie doesn't know such deleted pages are retrievable, and may never learn. That should be information included in a parallell notice on their talk when a deletion is made. // FrankB 23:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
At the risk of being impolitic, a huge percentage of new articles are absolute garbage, and did not take any effort from the contributor at all, and quite frankly we don't value the attempt that much. If I see one more article whose entire content is "John smith is the biggest fag in xxx sixth-form college" or "Bob jones is the coolest guy in Watertown." I'm going to hurl. There are hundreds (thousands?) of these a day, and there's a limit on how much effort we should extend on welcoming their authors. Fan-1967 23:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, we get so many very embarassing pages that slip through and stay up for weeks or even longer that I don't think we should be doing anything to reduce the number of people who are willing to do newpage patrol. I've long said we need a better article creation process, I think the solution lies there for this too... if a page has been deleted, it should clearly display on that deleted page why the page was deleted when the creator returns. A javascript tool "notify creator" would be very helpful... just to post the deletion rational on the article creator's talkpage. It would take a repetitive task and make it very painless. --W.marsh 23:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for continuing to voice your opinions. I certainly agree with Fan-1967: "If they get nothing, they will think "Wonder what happened to that. Oh, well, I'll just create it again."" More than 99% of new article creators are intelligent people; even vandals may turn into our strongest contributors in ten years' time. I think we should make a special effort to help all of these people, and the least we can do is to notify them why their page is being or was deleted, so they can possibly resubmit it in a better form. Cheers! Yuser31415 23:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for replying to my argument and ignoring everything I said... --W.marsh 23:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
We don't have the resources to make a "special effort". Last I heard it's several thousand new articles a day, most of which get speedied, mostly from new editors. A very small percentage of those editors will stick around and become useful contributors. We don't want to bite them, but we really can't make the effort to coddle all of them. Fan-1967 23:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that suggested javascript tool would be quite helpful. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:53, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
(encountered an edit conflict) I think it is a matter of common sense as to when a new article's author (and Wikipedia) would benefit from notification of the impending deletion of the article aimed at the author - and what type of notification should be given. The examples put forth by Fan-1967 of "John smith is the biggest fag in xxx sixth-form college" and "Bob jones is the coolest guy in Watertown." are examples of things that would either not warrant notification or would warrant a warning not to add nonsense to Wikipedia. However, a one line (sub)stub on a company in Indonesia would likely warrant a positive and welcoming notification. The latter indicates some effort to constructively contribute to Wikipedia. I've not spent but a short time looking at new pages, so my opinion might change after substantial exposure to the environment, but that's my opinion as of the moment. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
You are correct, and this is my feeling on the matter. We have initiative; let's use it. Vandalism is one side of the story and should be speedied with no notification; a good-faith edit that does not (currently) match our criteria warrants due attention and a friendly message to the creator. Should I put this in WP:NPP and WP:RCP anywhere? Yuser31415 00:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Just as an aside based on one of the comments above. Spend a few hours on NPP. Don't even tag anything, just open every newly created article you see, especially the ones from a redlinked user name. Get a feel for what's showing up. I think some of the people who make proposals on speedy deletion maybe don't have a full appreciation for what's coming in. Fan-1967 00:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

At any rate, until the software is improved, the solution for people concerned about article creators is to do newpage patrol themselves in a manner they agree with. (You might find your perspective changes a great deal once you are actually doing it, rather than commenting on it!) A lot of people propose to fix problems by adding various rules for admins to follow, but this really isn't practical because, if nothing else it's nearly impossible to enforce in any meaningful way. If an admin doesn't follow your rules, what can you really do but nag them? That's just how it is. --W.marsh 00:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought I'd spend a bit of time looking at the New Pages ... I just PROD'd Poloniumed and initiated transwikification of it ... first time I've punted on a brand new article and it seemed the right thing to do - but if I had to do that day in and day out I think I'd need counseling or grow a very thick skin or both. Hope the new user takes it well - it was their very first article, so I tried to be as kind as I could on their talk page. *sigh* User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I have been doing NPP for a little while now and my perspective hasn't changed much. Okay, so blatant vandalism can go, the user expected it to, and no harm done. But when we request speedy deletion on an article about the Rare spotted red horse beetle (ie), it might just be useful and we could help improve it, mark it with 'cleanup', 'expand', or 'stub' templates. A lot of what I've seen are users just too lazy, or who claim 'they haven't enough time' to help that user improve the article. Let's just face it. Thousands of pages are created every day; about, in my opinion, a third of those could become real articles. And we should always notify the creator of the article unless we are absolutely sure it is pure vandalism. Agreement? Cheers! Yuser31415 02:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Vandalism to Monopoly (board game)

Um... I dont know if this the place to post this or not. In the article about the board game Monopoly, the original creator [the person who first patented it] is called "big tit whore monger." This is clearly out of place, and I wanted to bring it to the community's attention. It should probably changed by someone who knows more about the game's history than I do. Thank you in advance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.9.76.149 (talk • contribs).

Dealt with ;) Yuser31415 06:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Human Rights

I am a representative of a non-governmental organization to the United Nations. This entails attending meetings, conferences, briefings; organizing any or all of the above; and lobbying member states for changes in policies that are of interest to our organization. I recently attended a briefing for the NGOs in observance of International Human Rights Day. One of the speakers was from Chile who spoke about some of the things the new president, Michelle Bachelet, is doing to improve human rights in her country. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything in your entry on Chile about human rights. Since this is such an important issue, I would ask that your Board of Editors consider creating a category on Human Rights practices for every country. Whoever is doing the writing on a particular country could go to the independent Human Rights Watch website and the UN Human Rights website to get information. Ultimately, aren't the human rights practices in a country just as important to know about as their art, music, language and culture?

Thank you for your consideration.

Charlotte Hubbell —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.174.5.110 (talk • contribs).

Is this U.N. spam? —Wknight94 (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • We have "Human rights in..." articles on 83 countries so far, see Category:Human rights by country. Anyone can edit Wikipedia so if you'd like to improve the existing articles or create new ones, you can do it. If you have the pull to get the "UN Human rights website" to release their text under the GFDL that would probably spur development. --W.marsh 19:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Charlotte Hubbell, I hope that you agree with W.marsh. Your idea is good ; no Board of Editors exists here, however, anyone might try to collect help for the task - creating a project, &c. Does this answer your concern ? --DLL .. T 18:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The proposal is a good idea, although I don't think this person understands that she could make that contribution herself - and is probably in a position to supply some very useful information. It's interesting to see how non-Wikipedians think this site operates. DurovaCharge! 22:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Although a speech made at a UN conference, unless published somewhere, is not a reliable source. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New proposal/survey to clarify "use common names" guideline/convention

There is a new proposal and survey to clarify the meaning/applicability of the "use common names" guideline/convention. See WT:NC#Proposal: clarify meaning of "use most common name" guideline. --Serge 00:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] communication = notification be phone [or even] eMail and at least Snailmail

why not ALERT a user that [at the worst] our 'TOPIC' is about to be deleted or [ the LEASTE] an important responce is in your Bit-Bucket ? ! ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by UNiRaC (talk • contribs).

Wait, what? Are you saying you want us to send you a postcard before AfDing "your" page? No. A talk page posting and maybe an e-mail is more than sufficient. --tjstrf talk 06:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
But most of the time, users don't even get a notification on their talkpage when an article is AfD'd. Admins just use their arbitrary powers to delete anything they don't like. Walton monarchist89 10:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Please (re)read WP:AGF - the view of most of us here, I believe, is that admins try their best (and usually succeed) in being objective about deletions.
Having said that, I do think that it could be a major improvement to have an automated system post a message on user talk pages (as is done, for example, with the Signpost), for, say, the person who created the article (but does NOT, as noted by someone else, own the article), and also post the same message on the talk pages of (say) the last ten editors (or, alternatively, anyone editing the page in the last 30 or 60 or 90 days). John Broughton | Talk 14:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
There are huge numbers of editors who fix typos, refine categories and DAB wikilinks on pages they have not made major content changes on. No bot could distinguish them from actual content editors. I would think most of them would be, uh, less than thrilled to start getting their Talk pages filled with notices like this. Fan-1967 14:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Let's keep things simple. Users want their page in good condition : they respect our policy and they put the page in their watchlist. They may use RSS too - see VP:Tech. --DLL .. T 18:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List article title changes

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to change the titles of articles that are merely lists of people (such as List of Jews, List of atheists, etc.) to something more appropriate for its content, such as "List of notable Jews" or "List of notable Atheists". My reasoning for this proposal is simply that the articles are not intended (as far as I know) to actually catalog every Jew or Atheist in existence, but to catalog those worthy of mention. Thoughts? --Jmax- 07:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, and I can see your point - but, arguably, anyone who is included on Wikipedia at all ought to be "notable" in some way. So your proposed change might be redundant. Walton monarchist89 10:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I vote with the "redundant" camp. People added to these lists should either already have an article on Wikipedia, or qualify for one by reason of notability, in which case the redlink listed is a helpful reminder on what articles need to be created in a certain topic/category. LeaHazel : talk : contribs 12:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Original research and griefing

I'm familiar with wikipedia's policy on original research, and understand its value. From my experience, however, the majority of articles on Wikipedia are original research -- there are no serious academic articles on Bravestarr or Friendship Bracelets, and according to WP:NOR referencing websites doesn't count.

Because WP:NOR is an official policy despite the fact that it does not apply to most of Wikipedia, I've noticed that, in addition to its intended use as an extension of "Wikipedia is not for things you made up at school today", it's also being used by griefers to undermine articles about subjects they don't like, or just for random bullying.

For instance, I don't particularly care for Garth Brooks. If I were a griefer, I could "legitimately vandalize" the page by putting [citation needed] tags after almost every single sentence in the article, and drop a big WP:NOR banner on the top, and Wikipedia policy would actually support this vandalism rather than discourage it. Even if someone complained that I was abusing WP:NOR and that my usage was not in the "spirit" of the policy, the policy would still be on my side, and the best recourse the defenders of that article would have would be to wage an edit war against me and any literalists who felt that the word of the policy was more important than the spirit of the policy, and hope that we gave up on the edit war before they did.

I guess what this boils down to is that I think that WP:NOR and [citation needed] need to include sections on "when WP:NOR / [citation needed] is not necessary", because they're already starting to be abused. Luvcraft 16:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a work in progress towards the overriding goal of producing a world class encyclopedia. Someday, we will either have reliable sources for those vast majority of articles on Wikipedia that cross into the original search realm or the articles will be deleted. As for the here and now, a request for citation is a far leap from vandalism and even if it is annoying there is an easy solution to the problem--provide a source. There doesn't need to be a citation for every line since even an editor with minimum skills could craft an article to where an entire paragraph (or several lines) has a single source at the end. Agne 20:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see anything about "the overriding goal of producing a world class encyclopedia" in the Wikipedia article on Wikipedia. In fact I thought that that was the primary difference between Wikipedia and Nupedia, was that Wikipedia strived to be well-written but all-inclusive, while Nupedia was going to be the strict and official one. Is there an article somewhere about Wikipedia's goals that I'm missing? Luvcraft 20:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
To respond to an earlier note (and to keep this on track, maybe), WP:NOR and [citation needed] aren't necessarily related. That most or every sentence or section in an article, tagged or not, lacks a source is a WP:V problem. WP:NOR is where an editor essentially creates something out of whole cloth. Compare:
  • On November 1, 2006, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. announced that Garth Brooks, made history as the company's top selling music artist of all time. That's either true or not true; it needs a reliable source for verification.
  • Brooks' Oklahoma roots account for the wide range of his song-writing. Open skies and low population density -- emblamatic of Oklahoma and Texas - are highly correlated with a need to do a variety of tasks in order to make a living, something that Brooks experienced vicariously through the many jobs that his parents held and the many things that his neighbors did to scratch a living from of the land. That's "original research" (I just made it up). John Broughton | Talk 20:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
How important is it to source that line about the Wal-Mart announcement? -Freekee 02:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
repsonse: WP:NOR says NOTHING about websites not being valid references. Many websites are valid references, and they can and should be used with frequency. There is a difference between a reliable website and an unreliable one; just like there is a difference between a reliable newspaper, and the fanzine written and printed on a home computer. There is a difference between unsourced and original research. If the information likely exists somewhere, and just hasn't been correctly referenced to an outside source yet, it is simply an unsourced statement. It is verifiable even if it has not been yet referenced. Original research is information that is not likely to exist ANYWHERE outside of wikipedia. Its simply; if an article has been tagged for deletion by a "griefer" as you call them, show that someone, somewhere outside of wikipedia and outside of the subject of the article cared enought to write about it. It needn't be a serious academic source as you call it; it just needs to be a reliable source; the threshold for which is actually pretty low. --Jayron32 23:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not using the term "griefer" to refer to people who legitimately propose articles for deletion or ask for citation where citation is reasonably necessary; I'm using the term to refer to people who exploit wikipedia's policies to make "grief" for other people. As for referencing websites, I've gone back and read through WP:NOR, which loosely defines reliable sources as books, journals, newspapers and magazines. I took this to mean that websites were not considered reliable sources, but now realize that journals, newspapers, and magazines published online probably are reliable sources. Luvcraft 00:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
It's a case-by-case basis isn't it? The Journal for Used Toothbrush Collectors which has a subscription base of 12 is probably not a reliable source. However the Journal of the American Medical Association is. It's not whether it's printed on paper, or published on the web that makes it reliable. Rather it's whether it has a history of giving information that it believes is factual and whether many other people share that viewpoint. By "many" let's just arbitrarily say "a thousand" as a number I pulled out of thin air. Wjhonson 05:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Labelling "obviously bogus" theories as pseudoscience

A recent arbitration case (in which I was a subject) noted that:

Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more.
  • Does this supersede Verifiability and Reliable sources, and should it be written clearly into policy somewhere?
  • Should the editor who so labels an article be attributed as the source? --Iantresman 19:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to supersede WP:V and WP:RS. If a reliable source (such as a peer reviewed journal in that field) proclaims that it is "obviously bogus" a mention of that can be made in the article. Similarly, if another reliable source disputes the "obviously bogus" claim, that too should be included as a conflict of views on the subject. I would be weary of editors going around slapping the "obviously bogus" tag (or removing it) without that strong connection to a reliable source. That would seem to trickle into original research. Agne 20:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I have one article [16] described as pseudoscience, and the reference is to a Wired magazine article which seems to reference Wikipedia as its source. I've requested an alternative source, but none are forthcoming. I'm not disputing the critical sources. --Iantresman 22:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CHICOTW

I would like to place {{CHICOTW}} (seen below) on the Chicago article page. It was moved very promptly to the talk page.

Flag of Chicago
Chicago Collaboration of the Week
 Flag of Chicago
Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea is the current Chicago Collaboration of the Week
Every week, a Chicago-related article that is in need of substantial improvement is Selected to be the Chicago Collaboration of the Week. Please help improve it to a higher standard of quality.
Flag of Chicago
Wikipedia:WikiProject Chicago
 Flag of Chicago


The template is used to advertise the COTW on WikiProject Chicago and other Chicago/Illinois ect. related discussion boards and pages. It would be very useful in generating traffic to the WikiProject Chicago and its COTW pages. I think all Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities should be able to place a collaboration notice on their corresponding cities article page. Is there a policy? If not I would like some feedback here. TonyTheTiger 22:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Collaborations of the week are self references and meta content. The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. So not, it does not belong on the article page. GRBerry 22:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I agree. If we all created templates advertising non-article related subjects, it could get out of control, and would dilute the quality of the articles. --Iantresman 23:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

O.K. so I was a bit hasty then. I am attempting to revive an inactive COTW. I thought it would be as simple as reformatting the page and posting a notice on the Chicago page. Will the talk page generate enough traffic to make my effort useful. TonyTheTiger 23:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
For a well-watched article like Chicago, probably. --Carnildo 04:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration appeals

Can arbitration cases be appealed? I found one reference to appealing,[17], but no further details? --Iantresman 22:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I rather hope not. The whole point of Arbcom is that it can produce final decisions, which, whether correct or not, will put an end to dispute and allow us to get on with the business of building an encyclopedia. However, I've raised the question at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration policy, where hopefully an informed response will be forthcoming. --
If a decision is made which might not be correct, then it probably hasn't addressed the cause of the problem, and may reoccur. --Iantresman 11:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I would assume User:Jimbo Wales could do it if he felt the urge, but he'd probably avoid making any such overruling proclamations unless the ArbCom did something totally crazy and against the foundation principals. Otherwise, probably not. --tjstrf talk 05:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, I feel that the recent Arbitration case did indeed produce some findings which I feel (a) were against the foundation principals (b) were not based on evidence (c) were not admissible (d) Were unfair in issuing its decisions. --Iantresman 11:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
You can appeal to Jimbo, but unless you've got a very compelling case, he won't change a decision. He hasn't overturned any decision in the past three years. --Carnildo 10:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dealing with vandals

Well, I don't really know where to put this.. When dealing with an obvious vandal (like the one here), what's the appropriate course of action to take? I flagged it with {{db}}, and went to the user's talk page and used {{test1}}. Was this correct? --Split Infinity (talk) 02:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that was close enough, though there was probably a more specific test template you could have issued him. If he keeps going, you should report him to the WP:AIV board. --tjstrf talk 02:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
That article looked like a {{db-nonsense}} article rather than vandalism. General warnings you can use for nonsense/vandal new page creators are talk templates like {{test1article}}. Usually you will notice when you tag an article with tags like the nonsense tag I provided above, at the very bottom there is a little note which provides a template you could also use to warn the user on their talk page. To research about new page template warnings/db labels check here, it lists warnings used in the category descriptions.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 02:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion criteria for images?

I see a number of images in CAT:CSD with reasons given for speedy deletion that aren't listed at WP:CSD. While I think all of these should be candidates for speedy deletion, are they? Examples:

  1. Image:125 2503.JPG: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  2. Image:KICX2384.JPG: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  3. Image:Moorestours.JPG: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  4. Image:1542372727 m.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  5. Image:Benwald.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  6. Image:Brandonmcclain.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  7. Image:Buggia.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  8. Image:Duhaimemichael.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  9. Image:HEXTEHSEX.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  10. Image:Image-1158287647 l.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  11. Image:Copas.jpg: UE
  12. Image:Ludi Too Bright Tour.JPG: UE, SPAM, childish joke?
  13. Image:Ludi is Back.jpg: UE, SPAM, joke, need I go on?
  14. Image:Ludi.JPG: UE, orphan, vandalism, SPAM
  15. Image:Mackbrownnn.JPG: UE
  16. Image:Me&Ally.jpg: unencyclopedic
  17. Image:Monavista.jpg: used for vandalism
  18. Image:Mustache 001.JPG: UE, Patrick Wensink does not have an article. WP:NOT an image hosting service
  19. Image:Myphoto1copy.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service, UE
  20. Image:OriePaul.JPG: Unencyclopedic - non notable person, picture uploaded for spam reasons
  21. Image:PakFlag7.jpg: Wikipedia is not a private image hosting service...
  22. Image:Picture 42.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  23. Image:Raypirate.jpg: UE, NN person
  24. Image:Route Nationale N1.JPG: UE
  25. Image:Simon new.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  26. Image:Stick Figure.JPG: UE
  27. Image:ThaBeastNewWorld.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  28. Image:ZzzD.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  • First reason listed under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Non-criteria: Reasons derived from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not
  • Presumably UE stands for unencyclopedic, which is not listed as a reason. (Also fails to follow WP:CSD guideline for {{db-reason}} template which states: Please try to write out a reason that will be comprehensible to non-Wikipedians)
  • Used for vandalism is not the same as is vandalism.
  • Non-notable is a criteria for articles, but not for images.
  • Spam is defined in a commercial context, which does not apply in any of these cases.

The above images account for most of the speedy-tagged images in CAT:CSD. Either we need to expand WP:CSD or untag all these images. I prefer expanding WP:CSD to cover these types of personal images that will never be used in the encyclopedia. —Doug Bell talk 09:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: As expected, somebody has gone and deleted the images, but the question still remains regarding the speedy deletion criteria. Being able to see the images is not that useful to evaluating the question: as I said above, they all should be speedy deletable, they just don't happen to meet any speedy deletion criteria. —Doug Bell talk 11:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

So should I remove speedy-deletion request tags from images that don't cite a proper speedy-deletion criteria for images? —Doug Bell talk 07:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
What new criteria would you suggest? The general point seems reasonable; if the images have no conceivable encyclopedic value, I can't see any reason not to speedily delete them. But encyclopedic value can be hard to judge, which is presumably why UE is currently a criterion for IfD and not for speedy. -- Visviva 07:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree, UE should probably not be a speedy deletion criteria. One criteria could be personal images, but then that would create a criteria for people to delete all user page photos, including what would be the few personal userpage photos that are typically allowed for regular contributors. But having to go through IfD for all these is burdensome, so I don't think that should be the solution. Perhaps a WP:PROD process for images? I don't know, but I don't think we should continue with the current practice of tagging and speedy deleting images without setting some guidelines that cover those situations. I'm bringing it up here to stimulate discussion, but it's apparently not a very stimulating topic. :-) —Doug Bell talk 09:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Issue with sourcing, original research and stuff

I was directed here by one of the admins to express my concerns over the issue of third party sources for verification, and how it is affected by original research as well as proving notability and all that.

There are a number of locations in the world where notable events occur and there is no record of it that would under normal circumstances be recorded due to local circumstances - such as the lack of a local newspaper, or the lack of a local subject specific publication. Even though the event or group or anything else is worth recording as it is no different to others that have such sources.

It concerns me that it will leave the WP database incomplete. There is a dispute occuring at present where a number of wrestling promotions were marked for deletion due to an alleged lack of notability and a lack of sources. To me that looked like an over reaction - particularly in the case of one article. PCW

An admin who shall remain nameless alleged that unsourced articles will be deleted - even if the article is not original research. The Carnage Controversy noted in the article I mentioned is definitely a notable event - in that it had a major negative effect on the industry in Melbourne as a whole. But because this fact was never recorded - it could lead to an wholly unacceptable article deletion. It creates a conundrum - if articles like this and events like this are deleted, editors will leave. WP relies heavily on editors to get the information to make WP reliable, and the less editors there are the less reliable WP will be.

Whether WP likes it or not - it is seen by the Internet community as an "Encyclopedia for Everything". It is widely used as a source in this regard - indeed I've used it myself for this reason, and have linked the Aspergers Syndrome article which is magnificent. I mention Wikipedia a lot in other regards as a spot to start research. I am now discouraged from doing this because of the rock hard belief that all articles have to have reliable third party sources. It stops me from providing articles on other independant pro wrestling promotions in Australia, as one place that is not seen as a reliable source as I understand it is the fed's official website. That's a bad thing because mostly in this case it is the ONLY external source.

I hope I have covered the problem sufficiently, and I seek comment. I am seriously considering leaving WP over this issue, because if I hold to this rock hard attitude I have nothing to contribute. And the amount of material that I wanted to place on Wikipedia will not be added. I consider that to be poor form and a bad thing for an online encyclopedia. Curse of Fenric 21:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

An admin who shall remain nameless alleged that unsourced articles will be deleted - even if the article is not original research. How, exactly, does one distinguish between an article that IS original research, and one that simply lacks sources?
The assumption that is usually made in my experience is that unsourced statements and so forth are labelled original research because of the lack of sources. Especially the lack of online sources. I know of one wrestling promotion in Adelaide for example that does not have a website (they aren't listed on the Pro Wrestling in Australia page for this reason - and of course do not have an article. And in that case rightly so). Original research is personal experience. Lack of sources could be a POV issue - ie acting off rumours, not original research (heavy emphasis of "research"). Curse of Fenric 09:03, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Regarding your concern that editors will stop joining Wikipedia if they realize that they can't add articles without reliable sources, that's an interesting hypothesis. Last I looked, new accounts were being established at the rate of something like 10 per second. I suppose if that rate were halved, it would mean something, though exactly what is unclear.
With respect, I consider that stat to be misleading because it is possible that - at a ball park guess - 3 or 4 of them could be accounts created purely for reasons of vandalism and other such behaviour. But I would suggest that if it did get around that the verification rules and all that were going to be strictly enforced - then yes, WP could indeed lose half of those new editors. Notwithstanding the existing ones as well. Curse of Fenric 09:03, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Regarding your statement that Wikipedia is seen as an "Encyclopedia for Everything", that certainly argues for correcting such a misunderstanding, because that's not what Wikipedia is. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. (emphasis in original, from WP:V, one of the three main content policies.) So yes, there will always be holes in Wikipedia. Fortunately or otherwise, there is so more work to be done on what CAN be documented by reliables sources that the editors here are never going to come close to finishing things. John Broughton | Talk 22:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Well you've got your work cut out to eliminate that "misunderstanding". Wikipedia is being referenced for a large number of things over a wide range of subjects - in many cases over other online encyclopedias for the very reason I explained. That's why I say the loss of editors is such a threat. Curse of Fenric 09:03, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
See also my impassioned plea above regarding oral and tribal knowledge....Regarding your assumprion the the 'fed's official website' is not a 'reliable' source, I did see a reference recently here that websites can be cited. not young enough to know everything 07:22, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Could you find where you saw that reference, Pietopper? That would be a useful note if it can be confirmed. Curse of Fenric 09:07, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
See Jayron32's response under 'Original research and griefing'. not young enough to know everything 11:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Technical

[edit] How does image show in bibliography when it is not there?

In Ghaggar-Hakra River there are two identical images of President Bush in the Bibliography. In looking at the bibliography, I don't understand how they got there nor how to remove them. Would you take a look? Thanks. Sincerely, Mattisse(talk) 23:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

They were added by this edit. --BostonMA talk 23:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
More correctly they were added by this edit. It has been fixed. --BostonMA talk 23:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Template:Please check ISBN was vandalized, I just reverted it. --Derlay 23:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! Sincerely, Mattisse(talk) 00:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome. By the way, if anyone is wondering about the edit summary I entered, well, I blame my oversensitive keyboard. I was typing "revert" but managed to hit two keys at once, so it read "refv"; then I reached for backspace but pressed enter as well, and this saved the page with summary "ref". Would it be possible to change the action to preview instead of save, or at least make it a user preference? --Derlay 15:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Mistakes are allowed, and shall still occur whatever delay we put before saving. If you just want to correct the summary, do any minor edit and write again your summary. --DLL .. T 19:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two paragraphs rendering as one

Does anybody know why two paragraphs of source text are sometimes rendered as one paragraph on the page, and how to fix it? This is happening at Banksia epica. The Description section is rendering as one long paragraph, even though the wiki source is clearly written in two paragraphs, with a blank line between them. One blank line between the paragraphs is ignored; two blank lines is correctly rendered as too much whitespace. Hesperian 04:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem was ''B. epica''<div/>'s. The <div/> was intended to stop the triple apostrophe from rendering as bold, but that kind of self-closing style isn't recognized by many browsers and consequently not by the parser, so it interpreted it as opening a div and that led to all kinds of weirdness. If it had worked, it would end up looking like B. epica's with a line break, anyway (except that strangely something is stripping that altogether, feh).

I switched to the usual <nowiki> instead, anyway, and now it's displaying fine. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks heaps! Hesperian 10:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
There were some more instances of <div/> in the article, plus at least one case with no delimiter at all. I fixed them to use <span/>, which is only one character longer but less likely to cause problems (being a text-level element, not a block-level one like div). Of course, Simetrical's <nowiki> trick works just as well. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mass vandalism

Lots of pages have been vandalized with Image:Testicles close-up.jpg. The image isn't in the editing box and it's on tonnes of pages. :/ – Zntrip 06:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Has apparently been added to MediaWiki's bad image list; it cannot be included in image form on all but a few pages. Karl Dickman talk 11:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit box size

In "my preferences", I have the edit box as 25 rows of 80 chars. I use the classic skin on MSIE6 on Win2000 and I find that recently (several weeks) the edit box is no longer 80 * 25 but dynamically sized. Apart from the fact that I'd much prefer it if it didn't dynamically resize, the resize is wrong and the right edge of the edit box is off the right of the window pane. If I resize the window the box fits in the pane until I start typing again when it immediately becomes too big again. The scroll bar is already fully right, so access to this area of the box is impossible. What can I do to fix it? -- SGBailey 09:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Go to My preferences > Editing and make sure 'Edit box has full width' is unchecked. Tra (Talk) 17:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watching 'What Links Here'

Is there any way to watch a page's 'what links here', ie so that when a new link is made to that page it shows up in my watchlist? I ask because there's a couple of disambig pages I like to keep an eye on, dabbing when necessary, and it would be save me having to remember to periodically go to the page to check (they're pages which periodically get a lot of new wrong links)DuncanHill 16:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so; however, it could probably be done with a user script. --ais523 17:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I've made a javascript tool that creates a 'What links here' watchlist (at User:Tra#What links here watchlist). The catch is it only works properly if there are no more than 50 backlinks to all of the pages in your watchlist in total so it should only be used for things like disambiguation pages that shouldn't have backlinks. Tra (Talk) 17:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Tra! That looks like exactly what I need :) Just hope I've done it properly, not hugely confident with User Script thingies (ie I know nothing at all about them).DuncanHill 17:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, you've added it right. Tell me if you get any problems. Tra (Talk) 17:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thumb and other various images

Hi umm...does anybody see a giant thumb where the mediawiki logo should be? Basically this only appears when I use firefox and it is normal of Internet explorer. Earlier there was a pirate flag and a PI sign in place of the logo...but right now there is a giant thumb. What is going on. — Seadog 01:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Graphic Lab to improve Images

A Graphic Lab have Started on Wikipedia-en. You can help by reading its Main page, and helping to its improvement.
The Graphic Lab need some active users and graphists to start and improve it, raise graphic request,and make images improvement.
To request graphic improvement, please see the newly open Graphic Lab/Images to improve (copied from Deutsch and Français).
Please, talk about this to other users who can be interesting by graphism, requesting images improvement or creation, and people interesting by photographs. Yug (talk) 10:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mirror, mirror?

I just noticed this site which appears to be some sort of mirror of our content, but in a commercial venue. I'm curious as to whether or not this is appropriate usage? I recall a similar situation (possibly with this same site), that was considered "not acceptable", but I'm unfamiliar with the technicalities. If this is not the right place to mention this, could someone more experienced give me a pointer to the correct page? Thanks. Doc Tropics 21:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Commercial use isn't a problem, see {{noncommercial}}, but there may be other GFDL compliance issues. --Interiot 21:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Otherpeople template

Apologies if this is in the wrong section. The "otherpeople" template says: "for other persons named...". This is grammatically incorrect, the plural of "person" is "people". So the template should read: "for other people named..." --Salsa man 22:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a discussion best conducted at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation with a cross-reference to that discussion from Template talk:Otherpeople. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 22:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commons tool

Is this tool really defunct? --Brand спойт 23:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

While the Wikimedia databases are being restored to the toolserver's MySQL, yes. It will come back, though. Titoxd(?!?) 21:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] rss feeds

wondering whether i can read my watchlist via rss. i know that rc is available. asked at the helpdesk, was directed here. gracias. ... aa:talk 07:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Not at the moment, but it might be implemented in future. The main problem is that the watchlist needs to be kept confidential. One way of doing this would be to check for the cookie on your system that says you're logged on but this wouldn't work for web-based feed readers. The other option is to include a long number in the URL of the feed that only you know but this is quite insecure. What you could do is add the RSS feeds for all of the pages you are interested in to your feed reader. Tra (Talk) 14:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Tra's answer is out of date; if you're logged in (to solve the privacy issue), you can get a watchlist feed at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=feedwatchlist (see m:API for details). --ais523 10:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Nice! But how would you do it with an external feed reader? --TheParanoidOne 11:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello! It's nice to learn that, where was it first announced ? I'm using the sage Firefox extension. I'll try it and explain how to if it works. --DLL .. T 18:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Done. Just try it : download sage ; then open the feedwatchlist link above and Ctrl+D to bookmark it in the sage directory. --DLL .. T 18:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huh? Is it a Bug or did I miss something

Hi. I created DiaoyuDao (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) as a redirect to Uotsuri Jima (1st edit). Another new editor blanked the page (2nd edit). I rolled it back. The page now redirects to Uotsuri Jima again, but my last rollback is not in the edit history'. Not sure what exactly happened. I am just curious, since the redirect I created was a typo anyway (should be Diaoyu Dao), it could be deleted. I just wanted to know beforehand what happened. Many thanks -- Chris 73 | Talk 10:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

From reading your contributions, it seems you reverted Diaoyu Dao and Uotsuri Jima, but not DiaoyuDao. It's possible you may have thought you were reverting the redirect when you were in fact reverting the page it redirected to. However, you did (effectively) restore Diaoyu dao to its original content after Yeahsoo had moved it to DiaoyuDao (creating a double redirect).
All these redirects, page moves and cut-and-pasting make the histories of these articles really hard to follow. There might be some call for cut-and-paste move repair here, though it would have to be done with extreme care to avoid messing up the histories even more. Incidentally, I note that there is some valid-looking content about Chinese claims in the history of Diaoyu Dao that isn't currently found in Uotsuri Jima; you might want to merge that in. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
The claims (Chinese and other) are all detailed in Senkaku Islands. The new user merely choose to show only the Chinese claims and ignore the others. As for the edit, i definitely clicked on "revert" on this page. The page got reverted, but the revert never shows up in the history. -- Chris 73 | Talk 17:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps this is the revert you're referring to? Tra (Talk) 17:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moving a page to its redirect name

To avoid confusion, the article Jam sandwich needs to have it's primary name changed to it's redirect name Jam sandwich (slang), and then I want to make Jam sandwich into a dab page, pointing to Jam sandwich (slang) and Sandwich, but I cannnot do the move. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 20:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Jam sandwich (slang) needs to be deleted first by an admin. Ask at Requested moves. Tra (Talk) 21:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation & link within article

Could the <ref name=""></ref> be somehow modified to be used both a link within the body paragraph & be listed in the </references> list?

In the Takeshima Island article, there were two links on aerial & water level views of a geographical feature of the island. I want the two links to show up both in the article as examples & also as references. (Wikimachine 20:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC))

I don't think there should be too much of a problem with a link only appearing in one place in the article. If it's absolutly essential, however, you could follow a normal inline link with a <ref> tag, e.g. A search engine [http://www.google.com]<ref>[http://www.google.com Google.com]</ref>. Tra (Talk) 21:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Though 1) that's pretty non-standard behavior, so readers have a good chance of being confused, and 2) you really really shouldn't use an auto-numbered external link for this, you should link a word instead. Otherwise you'd end up with something like "[1][14]" (eg. Wikipedia:Footnotes notes that it's a bad idea to include auto-numbered external links alongside auto-numbered footnote links because it can confuse readers). --Interiot 19:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Items are disappearing from my watchlist

I notice that sometimes I see an item in my watchlist, then when I do a page refresh it disappears. Why is that? It makes me think that I can't rely on my watchlist to keep me informed of changes. Thanks! Tanaats 05:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

If the article was deleted, moved, or protected, then it will not be listed on your watchlist, at least until another edit occurs to the page. It's a commonly-reported issue. Titoxd(?!?) 05:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I kind of doubt that the article was deleted, moved, or protected. Recently I hit "diff" on an item, went over to the article Talk page and responded to something, then came back to the Watchlist to find that the item was now missing. Is that explained by the problem you described? Tanaats 05:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, your response just disappeared from my watchlist! Tanaats 05:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Check your preferences. There's a setting in the Watchlist tab that causes your edits to be hidden from your watchlist, and it sounds like it could be the issue in this case. Titoxd(?!?) 07:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it was your edit that disappeared from my watchlist. Tanaats 01:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, after you edit this page, this page (and subsequently, my edit) should disappear from your watchlist... did you check your preferences? Titoxd(?!?) 02:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, that begins to explain things. What should I check in my preferences? On the Watchlist tab I have "number of days"=3, and all the checkboxes off. Tanaats 04:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diff and hist links

This is a pretty minor issue in the scheme of things, but is there a particular reason why watchlists and related changes pages list the links in the order (diff) (hist), but lists of contributions have them in the order (hist) (diff)? Amazingly, I never noticed this until today. Opabinia regalis 05:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't think there is. It's probably just the way someone originally coded them. Should be trivial to fix, but I'm not sure if it's worth even the minor effort. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I am entering this under your heading because it has to do with this diff/history link: when reviewing the changes under "Diff", there is a line number listed which locates the change in reference to the line number. How can I locate the line number in an artice? I couldn't find the answer in any of the help articles. Thanks!Richiar 17:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Think Unix. E.g., vi (the vi editor) allows to visualize line numbers, just enter :set nu. So you just have to copy the text (editing version) and try it. If you're stuck with Windows, maybe vim (vi improved ?) could do it. --DLL .. T 18:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fixing up columns to fit in next to an information box

on Noctuinae can't get it right, can someone pls suggest how they would fix this up? -- Librarianofages 02:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I fixed it to reflect what you wanted, by sticking the Template into a third column.--Coro 02:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you, that is exactly what I had wanted to fix =) -- Librarianofages 04:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Try it this way instead: rather than spatchcocking the infobox into the columns, which will totally confuse anybody wanting to edit the article after you, kill off that third column and restrict the width of the columns to allow the text to rise up next to the infobox. It still drops down if you reduce the size of your browser window far enough, but this should come as no surprise if you're mucking about like that: furthermore the content of the article should now be rather easier to edit. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temp watchlist

Wouldn't it be great to be able to add a page to your watchlist for a specfied period of time, say, 2 days? You could watch talk pages on which you have posted, or articles where you have reverted vandalism, without ending up with a 971 (and counting...) page watchlist. Solutions? yandman 18:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. It should be possible to have an alternative view (either in mediawiki, or on the toolserver if it ever comes back up) that finds all the pages you've edited in the last n days, and shows you the recent changes on those. It's more indiscriminate than what you're describing, but it would be useful nonetheless and would be relatively easy to implement (it's just an SQL join of the recentchanges table with itself). --Interiot 19:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA confusion

I'm using Opera 9.02 and the IPA transcriptions are giving me considerable trouble since ɪ and ː appear the same to me. Which font should I change to make them display differently? eszetttalk 02:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Until the moment, in every typical font I saw they're different:
  • Chrysanthi Unicode: ɪ ː
  • Doulos SIL: ɪ ː
  • Gentium: ɪ ː
  • GentiumAlt: ɪ ː
  • Code2000: ɪ ː
  • TITUS Cyberbit Basic: ɪ ː
  • DejaVu Sans: ɪ ː
  • Bitstream Cyberbit: ɪ ː
  • Arial Unicode MS: ɪ ː
  • Lucida Sans Unicode: ɪ ː
  • Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro: ɪ ː
  • Matrix Unicode: ɪ ː
(Remember: if you have some font not installed, then characters in that will switch to another font)

—Nethac DIU, always would speak here—
20:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protection undoing itself

The semi-protectection on my userpage undid itself... I know this because my userpage was vandalized by an IP recently. (See the most recent history of my userpage.) What gives? Is this normal? There is no log entry of it being removed. Grandmasterka 03:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleted pages can't be protected (thence WP:SALT), so when you deleted it it got unprotected. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Ahhhhhh right. Good thinking. Grandmasterka 08:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shortcut string bug

Firefox lets you make a shortcut string (like "wp") search Wikipedia and other sites. However, it turns '/' into "%2F". Wikipedia doesn't handle that correctly like it does when Firefox replaces ':' with a similar sequence. Is this fixable or do we have to wait for a MediaWiki update? Will (Talk - contribs) 06:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

In namespaces with subpages disabled, '%2F' should probably be accepted as an alias for '/'. You could open a bug report if you like. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
This is a low-level issue with Apache; see my comments on the bug report. --brion 10:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section headers on my monobook.js page don't work

At User:Will Pittenger/monobook.js, I configured it to make jumping directly to a specific script easier by adding section headers. The section headers are JS-commented out to prevent them from being executed. However, the page is shown in one big <pre> box when I view the page. How do I fix it so the section headers work again? -Will Pittenger 06:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

This has apparently been part of MediaWiki code for over 2.5 years: [18] (although until recently, it seems like it often failed to correctly escape all the html or apply the pre, if viewing a diff, old ID, or other strange circumstances, maybe something was fixed). What you can do if you just want to display (not edit), is transclude it to another page, eg: {{User:Will Pittenger/monobook.js}} on User:Will Pittenger/monobook. --Splarka (rant) 09:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Having investigated further, it appears the only time you'll see your page in a slightly-wikicode-friendly manner is just after you've created it (and only you will see it as such, and only while it is cached, &action=purge turns it into a big escaped <pre>). --Splarka (rant) 00:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Purge might work, but the purge tab does not. Will (Talk - contribs) 01:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean 'does not work' in that it makes it a big <pre> (which you don't want) or doesn't? --Splarka (rant) 09:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IE6 and edit previews

It's come to my attention that IE6 does something bizarre when previewing an edit. Try editing a page, click preview, and scroll down about to where the edit summary should usually go. The exact nature of the problem is well over my head, but it's clear that something isn't parsing quite right. Ideas? Luna Santin 10:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed this when copyediting an article which included {{PMSA}}: you can see the effect by going here and clicking the "Show preview" button. Firefox 1.5.0.8 apparently has no such problem, so it's probably one of those CSS things which makes dealing with IE6 such fun. —Phil | Talk 10:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I had the same problem at Physics (edit) and my user talk (edit). On further investigation, it doesn't happen everywhere. Not sure what the link is -- that template, {{PMSA}}, may be involved, but it's not the sole cause.

After some further investigation between the two of us, we seem to have tracked it down to wikitables which include "align=center" -- case in point:

{|
|-
| &nbsp;
|}

Works fine.

{| align=center
|-
| &nbsp;
|}

Borked, as described above. Luna Santin 10:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It works fine in IE version 6.0.2900.2180 for me. What version exactly of IE are you using? --ais523 16:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Please post screenshots. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-Admin Responsibilities

If I am not an administrator, how am I able to revert nonsense added by IP addresses? Kaspazes 13:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Go to the history, find the most recent unvandalized version, click on its date: "Revision as of X time, Y date", "edit" that page without changing anything, type "rvv" or something similar for your edit summary, and save. The article will be reverted to the previous version that you selected. Alternatively, diffs now have edit links for reverting single-level vandalism. You can click "edit" in the diff on the version before the vandalism and similarly submit the old version without changing it. If vandalism has been buried by legitimate edits, there's an experimental "undo" function in old diffs - try it. Hope that helps, Nihiltres 14:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
See further Help:Reverting. Femto 14:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Searching Wikipedia

I love the site but is there dicussion of a better search engine? I can find information easier using Google to search for information in Wikipedia than searching in Wikipedia. For instance, I did a search for GDDI in Wikipedia and it returned with no information about GDDI in Wikipedia but if I do a Google search, then it refers me to the page in Wikipedia that I can find it. So this is a great concept but if you can't search it, then it is no serving it's purpose.

Thanks, Carl

Well done. You found the solution. Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Google is pretty much the best search engine for most sites. Why would you want to use a local one, when you can just add "site:..." to any Google search? Notinasnaid 00:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I just came upon a similar problem and not sure if this needs a bug report or if I am missing something. I did a search for "Goertzel" and Wikipedia returned 0 search results, however, there is clearly an article titled "Goertzel algorithm". Why did a search for a word contained in an article title not return a result for that article? --MattWatt 01:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Currently it returns many results, of which the article you mention is the second listed. Can you confirm whether you encountered a transient error? If so, the system should have shown a message indicating that the search servers could not be contacted. --brion 10:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok so maybe I've just lost my brain temporarily. Whenever I use the search box on the left hand side of the page I get no results. It says "No page with that title exists.", but then it gives me the choice to search for pages with that prefix and it returns many results. I had just assumed that the search would return all articles that included that search keyword. I didn't realize it was looking for an exact match. I find it very strange that the search feature would operate this way. --MattWatt 22:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
You might notice the search form on the side has a bold Go button, which is the default action if you press enter in the box. To search instead, click Search. --Splarka (rant) 08:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subtle form of vandalism which I can't get rid of.

See this discussion. JoshuaZ 18:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Large reference sections

From Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. Some articles have understandably large reference sections. Now I'm all for this but some have observed that it makes the articles a bit unwieldy and bottom-heavy, even with two-row formatting and tiny text. I'd rather not crop references to correct this (as has been suggested elsewhere). Would it be possible for us to impliment a "hide" function for references in the same manner as the contents sections can be shown/hidden? Sockatume 21:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where is this {{sprotected2}} coming from?

{{Computer Magazines}} is broken and breaking layout on pages it's on because it's transcluding {{sprotected2}} from somewhere, even though it's not directly included. I looked at both {{tnavbar}} and {{navbar-header}} and can't seem to figure out how it's getting into the other template. Anyone know where this is coming from? Hmm, it's been fixed now. found the culprit [19]. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fonts

As a result of deleting superfluous fonts I am now getting Wikipedia pages in an ugly upper case type. What font should be used to display the headings and articles? Laurie

There's no default font for Wikipedia. Your web browser should try to display it in a sans-serif font by default, so installing any one of those (including Arial, the most common), should fix your problem. —Mets501 (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transclusion edits

If you transclude a page through a transcluded template, is there any way to make the little [edit] boxes next to the headings in the transcluded page not edit the template instead, or, at least, to suppress them? For an example of what I'm doing, check out the transcluded Peer review on Talk:Charles Darwin. Adam Cuerden talk 04:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC) I've removed it from there, since it also breaks edit functionality, but since it mostly works on other pages (except the auto-set header....

Peer Review for Village pump (all) edit · history · watch · refresh

Charles Darwin


After two weeks spent citing it up, adding over 140 new cites, I think it's nearly ready for FA. Is there anything we might be missing, though? Adam Cuerden talk 03:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

What's the point of this? If its nearly ready for FA, get it ready and send it to FA. No point wasting people's time on Peer Review. pschemp | talk 04:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
We'd like to be sure before we send it off, as we have a certain amount of finishing up to do involving templating footnotes anyway, and would rather not have nasty surprises once we hit FAC. Adam Cuerden talk 04:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you trust the editors on the page? They have FAC experience and know what is required. If you let them work, there won't be any nasty surprises. pschemp | talk 04:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not that I don't trust them, it's that I don't trust me, and Dave seems a little nervous. If you think something more informal will do fine, right'n. Adam Cuerden talk 04:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Wait and see what Mikker gives you. pschemp | talk 04:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest removing it once everyone's had a chance to look.

  • Only way I can think of is to use <noinclude> and related tags in the article so the header is replaced with large bold text when transcluded and displayed normally otherwise. Anyone viewing the page directly shouldn't notice a difference from how it looks now. --*Spark* 15:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I've made the change, see box above and the associated page. --*Spark* 15:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia default edit toolbar not displaying button images

Finally found the cause of this longstanding bug. It's a Firefox upgrade bug, one most likely to be seen by users who upgraded from Firefox 1.0 to 1.5 or later. In 1.0, there was a configuration checkbox to turn off image changing from Javascript, which was an early way to block ads. In 1.5, the checkbox was removed. But the 1.0 to 1.5 upgrader didn't reset the related configuration parameter. So now the user is stuck.

Then, a few months back, the Wikimedia developers got fancy and started building the toolbar entirely in Javascript. Images inserted that way were thus blocked.

If you have this problem, here's the fix.

Open about:config in Firefox. Just type that in the regular URL window.
Find dom.disable_image_src_set.
Right click on it, and select "reset" to reset it to the default value ("false").

The buttons should reappear.

See Wikimedia bug #5747 for details. --John Nagle 06:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SVG rendering problem

See Wikipedia:Graphic_Lab/Images_to_improve#Relationship_between_dBu_and_dBm. Some characters are out of line with others, and the subscript doesn't show up. It renders fine in Inkscape and I'd like to tweak the SVG to make it work on our site, instead of converting the text to paths or some other workaround. I'd like to be able to make things display consistently in the future. — Omegatron 15:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The WMF uses rsvg, which this is presumably a bug in. This probably needs to be fixed upstream, since we aren't exactly going to be forking. I suggest you upload a version with text converted to paths for use over the current version, which could thus still be accessed by anyone looking to modify your work and could be reverted to when support improves. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Our robot overlords

I'm a fairly experienced editor, but I've never had the occasion to use any automated robots. Right now I have a task which I think would be perfect for a robot to a one-time job. However, I have no idea how to use or create them (I'm a programmer by trade, so I'm fairly technically adept). I need to update all the links from Accolade (video game publisher) to Accolade (company). Anyone know how to get (or develop) a wiki-robot to do this? TIA! — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like the sort of job that's normally done with WP:AWB; you could also try the requested bots page. --ais523 16:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a way to call the parent of a Talk page

In a template that I am placing on a talk page I assigning a Catagory. Right now it is set up with {{PAGENAME}}. Unfourtunatly this is setting the talk page into the Castagory where I would like the parent of the talk page in the Catagory to show. Does anyone know a method of doing this? Markco1 23:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

To do what you're trying to do, you would need to add a template or category link to the parent page. If the template is designed to only be added to talk pages, then adding the talk page to the category is normally considered an acceptable alternative. Tra (Talk) 00:07, 14 December 2006

(UTC)

Actually I did some research and it appears that {{BASEPAGENAME}} returns the Parent of the talk page. Works just placing straight on the page but I am not sure why this not working in my template.Markco1 17:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I suspect you're doing something like [[Category:My category|{{BASEPAGENAME}}]] ?
When you place a category link, the only parameter you have is the sort label which affects how it shows up on the category page, but not the link itself. --*Spark* 17:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes you are correct that was what I was attempting and all I am doing is sorting. shoot no way around this I guess Catagory just does not allow me to do what I would like to do. I will research some more maybe I can hack something together. I just do not want to clutter the Parent page with my template but I do want to catagorize it via the template - there has got to be a way. Markco1 18:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I suspect the potential for vandalism by allowing pages to be categorized from a different page - you'd never see the edit if you're watching the page, and it could be tough to track down - would prohibit this functionality from ever being implemented. --*Spark* 18:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking pages

Hello,

I am a new user to editing. I just edited my school's page, but noticed that it was getting vandalized a bunch, mostly by people from my school while school was in session. Is there a way I can just block unrregistered users from my school from editing that page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cabman (talk • contribs).

There is nothing you can do to prevent their editing, but an administrator could either semi-protect the page, and prevent all unregistered users from editing that page, or block the schools IP, and prevent unregistered users from editing anything. However, in this case neither seems to be necessary, just revert any vandalism you see. Happy editing! Prodego talk 00:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] disabling auto-refreshing with Internet Explorer 7?

Before upgrading to IE7, I could usually enter changes, visit another page, and come back without losing the changes. However, IE7 seems to auto-refresh whenever I use the "back" button, and any unsaved changes would be lost. Does anyone know how to disable the auto-refreshing? Thanks. --Ixfd64 01:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Click Show preview immediately before clicking on a hyperlink and your changes will still be available when you click the back button to go to the Show preview screen. However, if you then make any further changes in the Show preview screen, you will need to click Show preview again before following hyperlinks. Tra (Talk) 01:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The setting you probably want to change is "Check for newer versions of stored pages" in the "Temporary Internet Files" area of settings. [20]. --Splarka (rant) 09:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot for dead links??

Is it possible for someone to make a bot that can view external links on the pages and decide wether they are dead or not? |The Placebo Effect 01:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Bot Idea

I have no idea how to create a bot, but I think a bot for removing red links would be a good idea.

No removing the word (e.g. Sir Colt Watson would become merely Sir Colt Watson, the [[]] would be reomved. Any thoughts? Do we have one already?

†he Bread 02:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery for the systematic removal of red links. However, red links should not be removed indiscriminately; they invite the creation of new articles. Graham87 03:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Red links to encyclopedic topics with potential articles should stay; as such, a bot to remove all red links is highly unlikely. For future reference, though, you can request that a bot be programmed at Wikipedia:Bot requests. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] fun and profit with templates

Hi. I've been trying to make, at User:Morwen/library, a table containing books. The idea is that I would feed in the {{cite book}} parameters, and it spits out a table row, which has the output of {{cite book}} in one column, and then the actual source code to invoke that in the middle. Thus far I have failed spectacularly. Any suggestions? Morwen - Talk 11:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe this is impossible. Because if you write the curly template call braces in to the parameters of the call it is already too late. Because in

{{User:Morwen/metacite|1={{cite book|title=[[The Star Trek Encyclopedia]]|last=Okuda|first=Mike|coauthors=Denise, Okuda with Mirek, Debbie|publisher=Pocket Books|id=ISBN 0-671-53609-5|year=1999}}}}

I would say cite book is already expanded before User:Morwen/metacite is called. So I would say the parser gets:

{{User:Morwen/metacite|1=<cite class="book" style="font-style:normal" id="Reference-Okuda-1999">Okuda, Mike, Denise, Okuda with Mirek, Debbie (1999). <i>[[The Star Trek Encyclopedia]]</i>. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-53609-5.</cite>}}

Which is sure not what you want.
Furthermore, in your subtemplate, User:Morwen/metacite:
|-
|{{{1}}} || <nowiki>{{{1}}}</nowiki>
you are telling the parser with nowiki to ignore that {{{1}}} is a parameter. Impossibilities on two levels. --Ligulem 12:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
So do you have any idea how to accomplish this effect? I'm happy to mess around with stuff, I just want to only have the parameters in one place on the 'library' page, so as to avoid chance of mis-synching. I was working under the hope that it would do my cite book after it had sustituted in the parameters, and wanted it to nowiki after parsing the cite book, but before parsing the wikimarkup of that. Obviously it's not doing what I want. Morwen - Talk 12:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
"So do you have any idea how to accomplish this effect?": No. --Ligulem 12:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not quite certain I understand the confusion. Why not just have your metacite accept the cite parameters, then do a passthru of the parms. Here's a simple example of that, but note you'd have to add conditionals to test if parms are defined to show this cleaner, but I think the concept is there. See User:*Spark*/citeTest. --*Spark* 18:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. Hmm, that has the drawback of not being very generic, but it will do for my purposes. Morwen - Talk 13:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
A book is a book is a book. The question is valuable, if the solution uneasy today. If a template is not made to be put inside another, there could be a way to link to some information from an URI, ISBN or Wikipedia page inside a template. Let's think about that. --DLL .. T 18:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Eh? Morwen - Talk 13:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] copywrited image tag

I am trying to find the correct tag for some images. They are copywrited by my local newspaper company, but I have permission from the media coordinator to use them. What image tag should I use so they are not deleteted? Cabman

Copyrighted images used exclusively "with permission" are not allowed on Wikipedia. A fair use assertion is the only way you could use copyrighted images on Wikipedia, I'm afraid. --Deskana talk 22:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Issue with skin variable

More JS issues that I've been having. As you can see if you view the source of any Wikipedia page, there is a Javascript near the top that defines several variables, including skin="monobook"; or skin="standard"; for classic. I have tried to take advantage of this in several scripts:

function myFunction() {
  //Function code
}

if(skin=="standard") {
  addOnloadHook(myFunction());
}

I see no reason why the conditional statement shouldn't work, because it works fine once the conditional is commented out. You can see some examples at User:Karl Dickman/standard.js and User:Userscripts/Editcount link/source.js. Karl Dickman talk 23:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Did someone forget to close the brackets there? They opened two sets and closed one. --Deskana talk 23:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I.e., addOnloadHook(myFunction() needs to be addOnloadHook(myFunction()); (possibly JS lets you omit the semicolon, I don't recall). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
The comment isn't correct either - they should be forward slashes, not backslashes. Lupin|talk|popups 23:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Just to jump on the critique bandwagon: that js only loads for the standard skin, so checking if it is the standard skin is kinda silly. --Splarka (rant) 08:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

To clarify: my bad JS above (the unclosed brackets and badly formed comments) are not problems with my original code. My original code works, as can be attested to both by some thorough parsing on my part and by Firefox's JS console.
Also, if "that js" refers to the script that assigns var skin="skin name", then it doesn't just load for the standard skin, it loads for any skin. Check the source of a page with monobook. Karl Dickman talk 04:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

That JS referred to using the example code above in a user skin like User:Karl Dickman/standard.js. All user js only load when using the skin of the same name (unless you set up a common.js with document.write). --Splarka (rant) 08:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:AN3RR automated report system?

Over at WP:AN3RR, violation reports are very time-consuming to fill out. Going back and forth from page history and noticeboard, copying all the diff urls as well as timestamps (that's a minimum of five diffs and five timestamps, back and forth makes that a minimum of twenty page switches). It would be more than awesome to have some kind of automated system that helps the user fill out a report. Anybody feel my pain? — coelacan talk — 00:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought I had seen an automated tool for doing a 3RR report, but I do no recall where. I think it is purposely made tedious to discourage frivolous reports. --*Spark* 22:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Searching problem

For the last few days, whenever I search for any page on Wikipedia that doesn't exist, the "There was a problem with your search" text comes up every time, with the Google and Yahoo links. –The Great Llamamoo? 02:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki page failes to show references section or anything after it.

I was editing Lennart Axelsson. For some reason, the page is omitting the references section that I added and two templates after it (that I also added). Why? -Will Pittenger 03:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

YouThe editor before you forgot a slash in the closing tag on the last ref in the article. Fixed. --*Spark* 04:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed the change as that article was listed before this page in my watchlist. I supposed I should have noticed it. Sorry to bother you. Will (Talk - contribs) 05:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] recent changes

I got a quaestion. In this news article, they said that they have fixed the recent changes so you could see how many characters were added and remove to remove vandalism. But I can't see this feature, is this because I'm using the wrong computer, or is it because this feature hasn't been uploaded yet in the recent changes.--PrestonH 05:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The changes haven't been uploaded yet to the Wikimedia servers. The Signpost article you linked says that the changes were introduced in revisions 18237 and 18238, but at the time of writing, special:version was at r18226. It doesn't usually take this long for changes to be copied from the Subversion Repository to the Wikimedia servers though. Graham87 10:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Still at r18226. I recall reading on wikitech-l that the revisions weren't being uploaded onto the servers as quickly at the moment, but I can't remember why. --ais523 12:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Several recent code changes involve database layout changes. While these should be relatively minor, we still need to arrange the servers carefully while making the update (there will be brief downtime while switching databases). Will get done today or tomorrow, with load near weekly low. --brion 20:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
So it is going to take a few days until the changes are up?--PrestonH 06:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding transcluded page edits to watchlist?

I don't know whether this is the right place to propose a feature for MediaWiki... but since this is the largest use of the software (and the only place I have an account) I'll try to get a discussion started here. I know that when a page is edited, the MediaWiki software makes a null edit to all pages that transclude that page. My question is... would it be possible (or "feasible" -- I'm a developer so I know how annoying the phrase "is it possible" is) to be able to watch those null edits as well as regular edits, so essentially I could be alerted when anything on a certain page is edited? For instance, if I was watching Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, I would see a notice that a change was made when any of the subpages were edited. I personally would find this very useful... anyone know if it could ever get added to the software? -- Renesis (talk) 07:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's one place that enhancement requests can be discussed, but if you want the opinion of developers it's probably best to open an enhancement request on Bugzilla. --ais523 12:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My user subpages

Is there some way of making my top, while-logged-in bar, display a link to my two subpages alongside my main user page? So instead of:

Bobo192 my talk my preferences my watchlist my contributions log out

I actually want it to read:

Bobo192 Sandbox (linking to User:Bobo192/Sandbox) MAP (linking to User:Bobo192/MAP) my talk my preferences my watchlist my contributions log out

Is there some uncomplicated way to add these pages to the top of my pages, by editing either my Javascript or CSS page, and is all I need to do after that to clear my cache and refresh the page? I'm not experienced in either medium but have always wanted to do this for quick access. Ideally the bar should still be on the right-hand side at the top. Thank you. Bobo. 07:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Try placing this at your monobook.js file:

function getUserSpaceWikiLink(page, name) { return getWikiLink('User:'+wgUserName+'/'+page, (name?name:page)); }
function getWikiLink(page, name) { return '<a href="'+wgArticlePath.replace(/\$1/, page)+'">'+(name?name:page)+'</a>'; }

function insertUserLink(id, page, name) {
        var talklink = document.getElementById('pt-mytalk');
        var newuserlink = document.createElement('LI');
        newuserlink.id = 'pt-' + id;
        newuserlink.innerHTML = getUserSpaceWikiLink(page, (name?name:page));
        talklink.parentNode.insertBefore(newuserlink, talklink);
}

addOnloadHook(function () {
        insertUserLink('sandbox', 'Sandbox');
        insertUserLink('map', 'MAP');
});
Hope it works for you! You can add more links by duplicating the "insertUserLink" line. -- Renesis (talk) 08:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
edit conflict but pasting this anyways:
You could also try this (although it appends it rather than inserts it):
function ppersonal() {
    var tb = document.getElementById('p-personal').getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];
    addlilink(tb, '/wiki/User:Bobo192/MAP', 'MAP', 'p-map', 'User:Bobo192/MAP', '1');
    addlilink(tb, '/wiki/User:Bobo192/Sandbox', 'Sandbox', 'p-sandbox', 'User:Bobo192/MAP', '2');
}
addOnloadHook(ppersonal);

function addlilink(tabs, url, name, id, title, key) {
    var na = document.createElement('a');
    na.href = url;
    na.appendChild(document.createTextNode(name));
    var li = document.createElement('li');
    if(id) li.id = id;
    li.appendChild(na);
    tabs.appendChild(li);
    if(id)
    {
        if(key && title)
        {
            ta[id] = [key, title];
        }
        else if(key)
        {
            ta[id] = [key, ''];
        }
        else if(title)
        {
            ta[id] = ['', title];
        }
    }
    // re-render the title and accesskeys from existing code in wikibits.js
    akeytt();
    return li;
}
--Splarka (rant) 08:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Splarka. That's exactly what I wanted. I attempted the other version but it didn't appear to do as I wanted, so I've put it away and will look to see what it does later. Bobo. 18:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Characteristics of AD.jpg

On this pic for example I see a kind of pixelized, crimsoned rings on the background. However nothing like this appeared when I viewed the image on laptop. Is it an image or monitor defect? --Brand спойт 15:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The picture looks fine to me; the colour-depth on your screen settings is probably set too low. --ais523 15:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image Problems

the image
Enlarge
the image

Why does this image not show up inthumbnails (of frames, or in nothing). Chris5897 (T@£k) NOTE: The time, which is EIGHT O'CLOCK, FIFTEENTH OF DECEMBER, is left out to avoid automatic archival.

It references an external image, which a) doesn't exist and b) isn't allowed if it did. You need to either remove the image or tell your SVG editor to embed the images into the SVG file. --brion 20:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Those GIF links are not the problem; they are not trying to include the GIF, and removing them makes no difference at all. In fact, the image as uploaded [21] works fine when viewed separately, only inlining it doesn't work (at least in Firefox 1.5.0.8). This isn't related to Wikipedia at all, hand-written HTML has the same problem. Looks like a Firefox bug. --Derlay 03:02, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... It doesn't work on test.wikipedia.org, but it renders fine at Wikia, but we very recently (like, two days ago) upgraded our SVG rendering. --Splarka (rant) 08:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox 2.0 refresh issue

Does anyone else have a problem in Firefox 2.0 where you edit an article, click Save Page, and the resulting view doesn't show your changes until you refresh the page? Just wondering if there is a workaround or fix. Mus Musculus 20:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have that problem as well. Prodego talk 22:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
It's probably that the squid cache hasn't been updated with the changes you made to the page. ?action=purge should deal with it. Titoxd(?!?) 22:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it would be that, because the problem only occurs when the page edited is loaded immediately after the save, after which a soft refresh will load the page. Whereas if it were the squid cache, the page should continue to load the old version, until the squid cache is purged. Prodego talk 22:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
But there we go again: the squid cache doesn't take much to update, but it takes long enough for immediate views to be served using the old page. I have Firefox 2.0 as well, and I only see the problem when Ganglia says that the servers are overloading. Titoxd(?!?) 22:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I have not checked that, however, I do notice the problem only occurs on long pages, so you are probably right, the squid did not update before the page was loaded, then when it is reloaded it has updated. I have no idea what you mean by "here we go again", has there been some debate on something like this? Prodego talk 23:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Well actually you may be right (unless this is a byproduct of the fact that all info is sent from or to the main server when this is selected), since going to my preferences and disabling page caching seems to have fixed it. Prodego talk 22:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] highlighting spaces?

Is it possible to highlight spaces in article differences? Many times I look at the diffrences and have to examine to find the difference. The Placebo Effect 02:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure, there are a few ways to do it, which involve editing your user/monobook.css:
This method gives the differences a light-red background color, and forces all spaces to expand fully. Note that large edit pages may be hard to read with white-space:pre:
td.diff-deletedline span.diffchange {background-color: #ffdddd; white-space:pre }
td.diff-addedline span.diffchange {background-color: #ffdddd; white-space:pre }
If that looks too ugly, you can try something more subtle, like putting a padded border around the diffchange (which will be an empty box where spaces were added or removed, making them obvious) (although they will be collapsed):
td.diff-deletedline span.diffchange {border:1px solid #ff0000; padding:0 2px; }
td.diff-addedline span.diffchange {border:1px solid #ff0000; padding:0 2px; }

--Splarka (rant) 08:55, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Get all page

On the dutch wikibooks I created an automatic referral system for a series of pages that form a book: at the end of every page a "turnpage"-template is added (without any arguments). The template contains information about the book (list of pages included in the book). The template automaticly generates a link to the "next" and "previous" page in the book, but of course the information in the template must be updated.

The template contains the following (input by user):

{{Turnpage|Name=Book

|1=Page1</nowiki>

|2=Page2

}}


(this template uses the template turnpage):

{{#if:{{{2|}}}|<span style="font-size:120%; color:blue; text-decoration:underline;">[[{{{1}}}/{{{2}}}|← Previous]]</span>}} • <span style="font-size:120%; color:blue; text-decoration:underline;">[[{{{1}}}]]</span> • {{#if:{{{3|}}}|<span style="font-size:120%; color:blue; text-decoration:underline;">[[{{{1}}}/{{{3}}}|Next →]]</span>}}

It is possible to generate this page automaticly?

  • How to 'read' all pages with the prefix Firefox (e.g.: Firefox/Installation, Firefox/Extensions)
  • How to input them in the template
  • If someone knows a better way to do it: tell me. 86.39.9.130 08:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Just a thought: if you had all the turnable pages as sub pages in a subpage-enabled namespace, then you could use {{SUBPAGENAME}} sneekily: On /wiki/SomeBook/Page# you have two template inclusions like: [[{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{next|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}|Next →]], where Template:Next is: {{#switch:{{{1|}}}|Page1=Page2|Page2=Page3|Page3=Page4|...}} and Template:Prev is the reverse. You'd have to ask the devs to enable subpages though. --Splarka (rant) 09:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposals


[edit] Redirect on Contribution pages, "redirect=no"?

uhh....i think people just don't really have an opinion on it. I, for one, have almost never encountered the situation you've outlined. On the offchance i do click on a contribution that's a redirect, i just click the history or diff links instead to see what changes the person made. I suppose a better place to ask would be the technical section... --`/aksha 02:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, this is definitely a good idea. `/aksha is right - move this to a technical section and it'll get noticed and maybe even implemented. Good luck. Nihiltres 18:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea (found it annoying myself before), but yeah this may have been better on the technical pump. -- nae'blis 19:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change of autoconfirmed suffrage from 4 days to 100 edits

Although semi-protection is an effective deterrent for all but the most determined vandals, the current suffrage of 4 days allows determined vandals to create sock farms.

I propose that the suffrage be changed from 4 days to 100 edits.

With the change in suffrage, a sock puppet would have to make 100 edits without getting blocked, before they can vandalise a semi-protected article. This should deter even the most determined vandals. If they make 100 edits that are beneficial to the encyclopedia, before making several vandal edits and getting blocked, Wikipedia will have a net improvement. Of course, sock puppets could make many edits in user space and sandboxes, and this is something RC patrollers will have to be wary of.

Do note that 100 is an arbitrary number.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Given a decent broadband connection I can make 100 edits in under an hour (probably much faster if I just sat there and reverted vandalism using pop-ups). It's a lot faster to make 100 edits than wait 4 days. --tjstrf talk 19:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Consider the time taken to create a sock puppet, and the time taken to make 100 edits. This proposal will increase the net effort needed to vandalise (very little effort is needed to spend five minutes creating ten socks, and four days later, using them to vandalise). In addition, consider the quality of their 100 edits. If these 100 edits are vandalism, they will be blocked before they can reach the 100-edit mark. If these 100 edits are beneficial (e.g. vandalism reverts, spelling corrections), they will compensate for the vandalism. Of course, RC patrollers will have to be wary of users who make many edits in their user space or in the sandbox, or use other methods to artificially inflate their edit count. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Account creation is tracked in the user table, but number of edits is not. Hence calculating the age of an account is a simple (low impact) database operation, whereas calculating the number of edits currently requires a full query of all page histories. Given that autoconfirmed status is looked up before every edit, keeping the overhead low is a major reason for using age rather than number of edits. Dragons flight 19:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
That is a valid concern. Instead of constantly parsing contribution/page histories, perhaps there could be an editcount variable, which increases by 1 when a user makes an edit, and autoconfirmed status could be granted once the variable reaches 100. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Look at it the other way around ... wouldn't it be better to multiply by two the autoconfirmed suffrage everytime one vandilizes a page. This could be done automatically, for example everytime that person has a vandal tag on his/her user talk page, hence, the established users have 0 days of suffrage and thus multiplying this value by two gives 0 again which means this could be implemented.
We could do it in another way, everytime one creates an account, he/she has to make an edit to, say, the mainspace, talkpagespace, userspace, userspace, wikipediaspace, wikipediatalkspace in order to be granted this status. This would also assure such users are participating in the general discussions and not just disrupting the system. Lincher 21:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
They could just write a script that would make and revert a single insignificant change to many articles until the limit is reached. No one would think twice. There are plenty of ways to circumvent this automatically. I'm not saying it's not a good idea - making things harder for vandals but not so much for legit contributors is good - but it's not foolproof. Deco 01:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Heck, why not just change the suffrage period from 4 days to two weeks? or a month? there are always talk pages if new editors really want to edit semi-protected articles, and there is still AfC and Requested moves. I would support an edit count combined with a minimum time period. This covers both aspects. Zunaid©Please rate me at Editor Review! 07:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that an an edit count is too vulnreable to fraud to work. Only if combined with the existing 4-day time limit would it work. Also, I cannot supprt the suggestion of extending the time period without some study showing that it would have a significane amount of added beneficial effect. --EMS | Talk 17:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Replace "Editing help" with "Cheatsheet" link

I propose we change the link to Help:Editing to point to Wikipedia:Cheatsheet, in the editing-mode layout. eg:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)

It's technically difficult to add an additional link (as previously proposed and supported), and a few editors suggested it would actually be preferable to simply replace the "Editing help" link (at MediaWiki:Edithelppage), for clarity and simplicity. I agree, but this is a major change and will require strong consensus. Please comment/show support. Thanks :) --Quiddity 21:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC) - Updated per 2nd comment at 02:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Strong Support - The Cheatsheet is significantly more helpful to most users, and the Edit Help link is already standard fare on most welcome mats. Vote Cheatsheet for ArbCom! oh wait, I got my forums confused... Doc Tropics 21:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Conditional Support - I strongly support this change, however I don't support the verbiage change. I think it still needs to remain "Editing help" linking to the Cheatsheet. Simply putting "Cheatsheet" isn't explicit enough and new users will ignore the link out of confusion for what "Cheatsheet" refers to. --Wolf530 (talk) 00:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I hadn't considered the wording, only the utility of the change itself. I agree with Wolf that the term "Cheatsheet" lacks the clarity of "Editing Help", which should probably be retained. Doc Tropics 01:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Proposal above updated accordingly. -Quiddity 02:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support but the cheatsheet would need to be given a prominant link to Help:Editing so that the more detailed information can be obtained easily. Tra (Talk) 02:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    Thanks, that link looks great! Tra (Talk) 02:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    np, you beat me to the reply! I've tweaked the See also section too. -Quiddity 02:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks good, nice job : ) Doc Tropics 03:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for asking a question rather than voting (unfortunately I don't have a strong opinion): is the term cheatsheet adequate in tone for an encyclopedia? My non-native speaker "feeling" would go for quick reference or quick reference card. Just bad feeling? —Gennaro Prota•Talk 05:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
If enough editors feel strongly about it, "Cheatsheet" could be renamed as you suggest; however, there is probably a general understanding that the term has no negative connotations in this context. Doc Tropics 05:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I (months ago) moved it from "Wikipedia:Quick guide" to "Wikipedia:Cheatsheet" in order to match with the existing meta page m:Cheatsheet. Wikipedia:Reference card is already an incoming redirect, so it could be moved there; I'm happy with either.(Also it's not a "vote", people often just add bolded initial words to give an "at a glance" summary of the state of a thread. You could add comment before yours for example :) -Quiddity 05:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I like the change though, as I said above, I don't feel strongly about it (the main reason is: while it may help getting started earlier, which is good, it may also induce skipping a thorough read of the complete manual, which is harmful in the long run). What I would suggest anyway is eliminating the link redundancy at Wikipedia:Cheatsheet: off-hand it isn't obvious to me what's the difference between Help:Editing, at the top of the page, and More editing help (last table row), for instance. —Gennaro Prota•Talk 06:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    Done, it was redundant to the arrow/link back to help:contents too. (Anyone can edit it, it's not locked ;) --Quiddity 06:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Much more readable and accessible to newbies. Lincher 14:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Absolute Support, the "Cheatsheet" is more newb friendly. It's much easier to glance at that the edit help, and I think it will help Wikipedia.++aviper2k7++ 01:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Another Conditional Support: The cheatsheet is much better for syntax, but I think the "Editing basics" bullet points at Help:Editing should be somewhere on whatever page "Editing help" links to. I wouldn't want new users to miss these points, as they are very important. Could we summarize them on the Cheatsheet? Also, I think "Sign comments on talk pages" should be added to the Editing Basics list and the cheatsheet. -- Renesis (talk) 17:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    Signing talkpage posts is already heavily reminded at the top's of those pages via MediaWiki:Talkpagetext and at the bottom via MediaWiki:Edittools. I won't revert your addition at Cheatsheet, but I don't think it's necessary.
    Adding the "Editing basics" bullet points would greatly increase the size of the page, and I think its brevity is one of its strong points. I'd suggest that the mentions elsewhere (intro/tutorial/help:editing/How to edit a page/etc) are sufficient; We want to get people started editing, more than we need them to start off perfectly. (imho, and all that :) -Quiddity 21:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    Wow, I had never noticed the MediaWiki:Talkpagetext template text. Anyway, I still do think it is useful on the cheatsheet. As for the bullet points... I don't mean we need to move the entire text to the cheatsheet but listing a few of those points would be helpful, I think. -- Renesis (talk) 22:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    It's new, in the last few weeks - top of talkpages. As for the Cheatsheet - it's a normal wikipage, edit at will; discuss if drastic or reverted. :) --Quiddity 01:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Is that enough support (with zero objections)? I can announce it at WP:CBB if not; otherwise, I'll put the editprotected tag/request at MediaWiki:Edithelppage tomorrow. -Quiddity 03:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Support; this would reduce confusion for new users (who are most in need of the link). --ais523 14:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the change. the wub "?!" 21:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion: New Yearbook about PC and Video Games

Hi,

I tried to find a place to submit this, but ended up here. It's about a new post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-10-21#the_Book_of_Games_Volume_1_.28The_Ultimate_Guide_to_PC_.26_Video_Games.29

How long does it take before a new article is verified? I am the publisher of the book, and would like to contribute if I could. Is it possible to get in contact with someone that will work on the article? We could send a press copy of the book to the person.

-Bendik Stang

[edit] Expire (delete) unread articles

[Note: This was initially but imporperly placed in (perrenial proposals)] --EMS | Talk 21:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that articles which go unread for an extended period of time be automatically removed. After all, the goal of an encyclopedia is to transmit knowledge. So an article which is not being read is not a useful part of an encyclopedia.

It seems to me that the first thing to do is to obtain statistics on how often articles are being read, and get some idea of what consititutes an unread (or rarely read) atricle. Even without that, I would suggest the following standard for removing articles:

  • An article which goes unread or unedited for 90 days should be automatically removed.
  • Accesses by bots and the "random article" function should not be considered reads for the purpose of this standard.
  • A user which selects pages at a rate of more than 100 reads per hours for 10 accesses or more should not have their accesses for that period counted as reads. The same should also apply to edits. (This is suggested as a way to thwart editors who would access pages to "refresh" their expiration timers.)
  • A page which is deleted under this standard should
    • be replaced by a template stating when and why the deletion occurred,
    • have its article and discussion histories removed to prevent a trivial revival of the article, and
    • be protected against being restarted for at least 90 days.
  • Secondary issues:
    • When the random article function is used, should the use of a link in the article cause it to be considered read?
    • The editing of a article accessed through the random article function probably should reset the expiration timer.

I suspect that this may result in the removal of a substantial number of articles, but if no one comes to Wikipedia looking for information on a given topic, is it at all fair to consider that subject notable? --EMS | Talk 05:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's a few questions: is the usage rate for all articles generally constant or are some articles read on a cyclical basis? Are articles related to Arbor Day and Halloween accessed more frequently as these dates approach? Could there also be articles related to these two topics, which are perhaps of a minor or marginal nature, and which might see no use at all except during some segment of the calendar year? A great many U.S. colleges and universities are operating on a reduced schedule during June, July, and August, and might not the fact that a majority of their students are away on vacation affect the usage of Wiki articles?
Just generally I'm uneasy with the idea of deleting information (because the minute I trash something I'll have need of it) and I think this proposal has the potential to strike at the core of what Wikipedia is, or is not. If the Wiki is to set a standard as a knowledgebase I would think that completeness must be part of the perception, if not the reality, of what the Wiki is. And if the Wiki is not perceived as complete, in some sense, then I suspect it becomes less likely to be used as the first source referred to when a person first 'looks up' a particular subject. I also wonder just who the Wikipedia is intended to serve. Is it to be a useful reference for everyone, no matter how arcane or obscure ones interest may be, or is this to be an encyclopedia for the casual masses, who, for example, are intrigued by The DaVinci Codes and turn to the web just to read a little more and see what's out there?
In other words, do we entertain the hope that Wikipedia might be perceived as a standard tool for serious research of some kind, at some point, if not now, or are we content for Wikipedia to serve as a kind of enormous fan infobase for devotees of a great diversity of topics? Both forms of Wiki would serve a valuable purpose, but they are not the same animal.
Also, I feel it should be pointed out that anyone who wrote an article, only to find it deleted ninety-one days later, might well become disenchanted with Wikipedia, and thus disinclined to ever write to another article, or another, or another, because the fruits of their labor did not, in effect, sell to the reading public (or their search engines). You might also discourage other people from ever writing anything, out of the concern that their efforts would not be sufficiently popular to generate sustained interest, as the seasons turn. Cryptonymius 17:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
With regards to cyclical reading: I find it hard to believe that Halloween would go completely unread for the rest of the year. The goal is to have a bar low enough so that an article that is of any legitimate interest will easily stay in Wikipedia. Perhaps the time on this should be 1 year instead of 90 days. (I actually suspect that much of Wikipedia is accessed daily, but a reasonably long expiration time is needed to protect marginal articles against the effects of randomness. For example, and article that gets accessed twice a week on average could easily have a month where it it not accessed at all. Hence the 90-day period.)
The concerns about Wikipedia as an enormous infobase and the concern over editors being disenchanted in their work vanishes are related. Once again I ask of what use an article is if it is never accessed or if anyone other than the creator cares that it is there. Such articles contribute to the article count, but do not contribute to the mission of the encyclopedia. It seems me that if an editor is not producing usable content that their becoming disenchanted is not a bad thing. In fact, we are constantly deleting undesirable/non-notable content. IMO, this is a wonderful test for non-notability.
As for "completeness": "Wikipedia is not an indiscrimiate collector of information". It is not intended to be "complete". This leads to another consideration: If an article is not being accessed, it is not being checked for accuracy either. Remember the incident of that fake biography which created such a scandal within Wikipedia a year or so ago. That article went unnoticed for months. Under this scheme, it would have vanished of its own accord in a reasonable period of time.
Finally, do note that I have called for there to be a usage study first, so that the viability of this proposal can be determined. The "random article" function currently returns mostly stubs on parks and people that provide little usable information. It would be nice to see that buttom return more in the way of solid content more of the time. --EMS | Talk 19:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
This just increases systemic bias against important but less popular subjects. The Superman article would never be deleted by this, but articles about certain species or chemical compounds might. I just think this is a terrible idea.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 21:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Why in God's good name would you expect Superman to be deleted under this proposal? It is an actively edited article and a regular target of vandals! Look at it's edit history! This article would need to have the Earth demolished by a kyptonite meteorite to go unread for any significant period of time. --EMS | Talk 21:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
He said it WOULDN'T be deleted. Read his comment again. --tjstrf talk 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Please no. The fact that no one on an electronic encyclopedia reads something for x period of time means very little. There's no cost to keeping it, and a detriment to someoen who eventually wants to use it. Trollderella 21:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
If it's not being read, it's not being edited. If it's not being edited, the content is not being validated and/or improved. First versions on this medium are generally lousy, but if several editors are involved an article will improve quite fast. Also, given the current popularity of Wikipedia I would think that any useful article is highly unlikely to go unread for any significant period of time. --EMS | Talk 21:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
This proposal violates my general principle that bots must never be given more power than humans. The community would never allow such a blind massacre on AfD. An admin who repeatedly deleted articles without even glancing at their titles, content, histories, talk pages, logs, or linked pages would be reverted and desysopped. No amount of usage studies will change that.
The software could help us out by generating lists of unread articles, which thoughtful humans would comb through in search of non-notability and vandalism. But the software cannot take any action that we wouldn't. Melchoir 22:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
If an article is completely unread for an extended period of time, on what grounds would you consider it to be notable? --EMS | Talk 22:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Any of them. The existence of multiple, nontrivial, published reviews is a standard measure; there are others. Note that notability pertains to an article's subject, not the article itself. An article's readership can suffer from factors that have nothing to do with its subject, such as a poorly chosen title, insufficient incoming links, or improper categorization.
Moreover, notability is a criterion for deletion only because it tends to single out topics which are impossible to cover encyclopedically: they are so little-known that we cannot meet our content policies of verification and neutrality for an article. Your proposed process cannot identify these non-notable articles; it doesn't even care when the content standards have already been met! Melchoir 01:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This idea is patently absurd. There are many notable encyclopedic subjects which people only rarely would need to know about or research. For example, who's going to look up minor Senators of Alabama from the 30's? However, that is no excuse to go about deleting them when the information they contain is useful and necessary to our encyclopedic nature. Encyclopedias, in case you haven't heard, are supposed to be all-encompassing. Why should we delete pages simply because they are not of popular interest? This would additionally give us an even stronger bias towards the temporal and current vs. the timeless and historical. Rejected. --tjstrf talk 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this for real? This proposal is so absurd that it costs me a major effort to believe it was done in good faith. -- Ekjon Lok 22:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hum. "I suggest that [books] which go unread for an extended period of time be automatically [burned]. After all, the goal of [a library] is to transmit knowledge. So [a book] which is not being read is not a useful part of [a library]." We were reshelving a bay at work today; I'm fairly sure some of those books hadn't been touched in four, five years. But they're still useful books, in potentia, they just need their reader to come along. I think the analogy is illuminating... Shimgray | talk | 22:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Perfect parallel. I remember checking out a copy of Kidnapped from my library which hadn't been read since 1954. --tjstrf talk 22:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I hope you tore it up, it was clearly not-notable. Trollderella 22:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
This is a phenomenally terrible idea. -- BrianSmithson 01:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The proposer of the topic should consider WELL ESTABLISHED policies: 1) wikipedia is not paper. There is no compelling reason to remove a well-referenced article merely to "make space". Wikipedia has infinite space. There are reasons for deleting articles, but simply to remove them because they aren't being used is silly. Consider the average University Library. They have millions of volumes, and only a few thousand are ever on loan. Some LARGE majority of the books in a University Library may go YEARS between check-outs. Yet, the university maintains space for them, not for the fact that they HAVE been used, but that they MIGHT be used. Past performance is never an indication of future performance. 2) Notability is established OUTSIDE of wikipedia, and is NEVER revoked. Once external, independant, third-party sources exist to verify notability, THEY NEVER STOP EXISTING. Thus, once notable, always notable. The fact that an article goes unread doesn't eliminate the existance of the sources used to write the article. Thus, there is no compelling reason to delete merely for lack of utility. 3) Wikipedia is a place to collect knowledge. To delete VERIFIABLE knowledge for any reason runs counter to Wikipedia's purpose. I would agree that this MAY be one of the worst proposals I have seen here. What purpose would it serve to delete a verifable and notable article? --Jayron32 02:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Saying an article hasnt been edited/read for 90 days (excluding bots) so lets delete, I wonder how many FA would fall into that category. Even ignoring that Wikipedia is as much about the collection of knowledge as anything else, while we may write an article on something today because nobody reads or edits that page for 90 days doesnt invalidate the information. There enough stub, poorly formed or unsourced articles that survive AfD, how could it be contemplated to let a bot just delete an FA/GA because nobody as has read or edited it for 90 days. Gnangarra 03:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

What I am seeing are a lot of knee-jerk reactions, as if articles should be here because they are here. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collector of information. I really think that this is an idea that needs to be researched. How often are articles accessed? Are there articles which go largely unread? If so, what kind of content do those articles typically have? From there other questions will follow: Are these relatively unaccessed articles worth keeping? What do these articles say about the Wikipedia notability standads? Noone seems to have an answer to those questions. The concern about FA articles is valid, but I strongly doubt that topics which noone cares about become FA's. At the least Wikipedia should come to know how it is being used.

(BTW - I agree that blindly implementing this suggestion is a truly bad idea. You just plain don't do something like this unless you have a very good idea of what it is going to do.) --EMS | Talk 03:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Any article can become an FA provided someone put the effort into researching and writing. then you proposal should be to find out how and what is being accessed, without the suggestion of deleting stuff. Gnangarra 03:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The two kind of go hand-in-hand. I am making a certain assumption that unviewed material is almost certainly non-FA material. That assumption needs to be validated. It could be that stubs can be removed on this basis, but more fleshed out articles are better manually reviewed if not just plain kept. --EMS | Talk 05:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, wrong implementation. Instead of deleting them, have a Special:Unviewed page (or probably some better name) that would allow these articles to be identified. Then it gives people one more avenue to find articles that need to be reviewed. But certainly no automatic deletion. —Doug Bell talk 04:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That is an intriguing idea, and others have suggested above that a manual process would be more desirable. I can be flexible with this, as my concern is to remove the "clutter" from Wikipedia. Yet in the end I want something to come out of this that is a benefit to Wikipedia. I get a sense that there are a number of articles present that could be deleted but just are not worth the bother to find and flag. A system of this type may be able to cull things more efficiently. --EMS | Talk 05:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The problem is here is that 'clutter' is a thinly veiled term for 'things I'm not interested in'. Why would you think that unread articles are 'clutter' that need to be removed? They are gems waiting to be discovered! Trollderella 17:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
"Ancientpages" is not at all the same thing. I spot checked them and saw a collection of disambiguation pages and a few short (but well done) articles on small towns. I suspect that most (if not all) of these are accessed regularly.
I accept the insinuation about the meaning of "cluter". However, the issue is one of identifying what noone is interested in as opposed to what I am not interested in. 99% of this encyclopedia I will never use. At the same time, the relativity pages (which I edit) will never be read by 99% of the users of Wikipedia. I realize that this proves nothing.
Can anyone answer this question: I there are tracking a article usage currently? IMO, it would be interesting to track the last 10 non-bot/random reads to each article (by when and not who), as well as to maintain counters for the current and previous of each of day, week, month, year. (I don't know how much tracking data can be efficiently attached to an article. I am certain that doing so will make the database bigger, and that could be an issue. Perhaps a tracking database is what is needed.) --EMS | Talk 17:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is mirrored all over the place. This means it is impossible to know whether an article has been read or not; you can only find out if it has been read on a particular service (eg Wikimedia). A statistical survey might yeild interesting information (it would be especially interesting to know how well the read frequency correlates with the edit frequency), but I don't think editorial decisions like this should be made on such a crude basis. Chris Thornett 19:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

At least I am getting support for studying the usage patterns. I would not let the existance of mirrors bother you. The first question is how the mirrors are refreshed: If they only go to Wikipedia for content when it is requested (for example a mirror may seek the current article if it has been more than a day since it last retrieved it), then for the less-used articles the statistics will remain accurate and valuable. Even if mirror-related effects are not visible, Google tensd to send searchers straight to Wikipedia, so once again Wikipedia statistics should be usable and indicative of generally unread articles. As for whether this means is "crude": Until it has been studies, noone can say for sure how good or bad it is. We really should have the data instead of each of us "shooting fromt he hip". --EMS | Talk 20:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
a) Almost all mirrors are running from static dumps of varying age; very few are directly spidering Wikipedia or regularly updating. We have little to no knowledge of most of them, much less ability to get data.
b) We just don't have article-read statistics. We can't generate them, not with the setup as is. Logging pageviews, the fundamental requirement for good statistics, has been estimated at about 7 terabytes of storage space per month across Wikimedia sites - your ninety days threshold would mean having to store and regularly study 20TB of logs. Even stripping that down to nothing more than a timestamp and a page-visited note would still be unwieldily large. The best we can do is very very limited sampling, hopelessly muddied by caching and proxies and so on, looking at about one pageview in a thousand - and whilst that is decent for letting us know what the most useful pages are, it's hopeless for anything in the long tail, the articles that a proposal like this is interested in.
In short, the impracticality of collecting the data makes any proposal based on interpreting that data a non-starter. Shimgray | talk | 20:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
This does not impress me in the least. The issue is how to get it done, not why it cannot be done. Logging all pageviews for 90 days worth is indeed a non-starter, but that is not how you would do the needed tracking! This kind of study relies on aggregate startistics. Suggestion: Create a daily tracking table/database. During the day, each read results in the invokation of a read against the tracking table entry for that article. If the entry exists, then increment it's counter. If it does not exist, then create it with a value of 1. At the end of the day do a file rename to switch the tracking to a new, empty database. The previous day's table is then saved under a name which includes the date. Batch processes can now be used to create aggregate tables for weeks, months, etc. Given a million articles and names which average 25 characters long, the result is a database which is 30-50 Mb big. Ninety days worth is then < 5 Gb worth. That isn't small but it fits easily on most modern hard drives and is far from the 20 Tb that you claim is needed each month. So a properly designed process is very much within the realm of technical feasability. --EMS | Talk 21:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikimedia simply does not have the resources to do a database write at a rate that is anywhere near 1 per read request. It takes a large number of caches and database mirrors just to keep up with the read requests. In addition, many of the dedicated caches are intentionally very dumb, and would not be able to update a read counter without a major architechural change. I am afraid any kind of tracking that needs to respond to every read request is a technical non-starter. (FYI, the read rate for Wikipedia is in the ballpark of 5000 pages per second distributed across >200 servers.) Dragons flight 21:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I beg to differ. Let's first take the external mirrors off of the table, so that only direct request to Wikipedia iteself are considered (which is still a real boatload). It seems to me that you identify boxes that can handle this task, and those that handle reads. Any box that can do both maintains a local read counter along the lines noted. Otherwise, the requests get passed onto a box that can handle the counting task. Note that each box does its own counting in this case to spread the load around. At the end of the day, they all send their data to another box which collects and combines the individual databases from the various boxes to obtain the statistical "dailies" for Wikipedia. I believe that this will introduce a minor (not necessarily trivial) load on the system. It will also need some thoughtful design and implementation to create. So the issues are ones of whether Wikipedia is interested in putting enough of its volunteer resources together to prototype this, and if it does so what level of system impact would be acceptable if this is to go into production.
I strongly suspect that you all will learn a lot of interesting things about Wikipedia if this is implemented. Whether my initial suggestion will be implemented because of it is problematical though. --EMS | Talk 04:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
We should also remember that we are not just writing for the current crop of readers - we are writing about verifiable material for generations to come. We have litterally no idea what they will be interested in, just as past historians did not anticipate what we would be interested in. That is why verifiability, not whether it is interesting to current readers, must be the gold standard. Trollderella 23:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I just love the note at the top that says this was temporarily placed at perennial proposals. I'm a deletionist at heart but this is just a very very bad idea. And I won't even mention the useless technical complications that implementing this would entail. Quality articles are quality articles, regardless of whether or not they're read often. We already have plenty of resources allowing us to identify useless content: orphaned articles, linkless articles, short pages, neglected articles etc. Any attempt to make the deletion process automatic will undoubtedly lead to loss of valuable content. I have a hard time believeing this is a good faith proposal. Pascal.Tesson 06:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I was shown the random article function by my daughter (it's on the left hand side of the screen in the skin I'm using), and she was joking about the kinds of articles that it shows. Try it. It is mostly stubs on trivial places and people. If find it hard to believe that most of that stuff is viewed at all regularly. Often it does little more that documents the existance of the topic. You worry about losing "valuable content", but how is content valuable if it is never used!? I think the silliness of that knee-jerk reaction to this proposal is shown in people worrying that Halloween and Superman could vanish because of it. Most (if not all) of the articles removed under this proposal will be on topics that you cannot name!
Once again, I call for article usage to be studied and unread articles to be identified in order to determine if this idea or some variation on the theme can work. Noone can name for me an unread, quality article because noone knows what articles are unread! Special:ancientpages shows the oldest (longest since last edited) articles, but most of those have good reason for being stable, and most likely are regularly read.
It is silly that I keep hearing the theme of "this will remove valuable content". Once again: Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collector of information. I for one find it hard to believe that unaccessed articles will be found to be valuable. Remember the incident on the fake biography accusing someone of being involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination! That article went unnoticed for months! Why? Becuase noone read it, except accidentally! Unaccessed articles are not being checked for accuracy, nor do they have content being added to them as additional people with additional knowledge become involved with them. Those that may be worth keeping will be on highly esoteric subjects, and even then there may be an issue of whether they should be in this wiki!
At the least, it would be nice if the data was gathered so that I could be shown that this is a silly proposal, or alternatively that I could show you that it (or a manual version of it) will work a lot better than you may think. --EMS | Talk 15:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I do hope you are joking. Trollderella 21:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not a joke. Even if the idea is bad, I believe that the suggestion itself is good because of the questions it raises. After all, if there are unread articles, then why should that be the case? Are these quality articles that will reward the very occasional reader who should be looking for them? Or are they hidden pieces of BS that are waiting to "bite" an unwary user of the "random article" function? It seems to me that it would be very interesting to find out what is unread and determine why that is, and I do suspect that a lot of those articles would end up being removed upon further consideration. --EMS | Talk 22:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
For the second time, no one said Superman would be deleted. The person who commented about the Superman article was saying that Superman wouldn't be deleted but that far more scientifically valuable articles like those on elemental isotopes or rare species might be. --tjstrf talk 23:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that the idea of deleting (manually or automatically) long-unread articles is absurd, being able to view a list of pages that have not been viewed in a long time would be very useful, as User:Doug_Bell suggested. Special:ancientpages orders pages based on creation date, so Special:unviewedpages (wantonpages?) would sort them based on their last access date. This tool could be used to make sure esoteric pages are of acceptable quality. It would also be a way of finding hidden gems! -Kslays 21:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for being open-minded about the possibilities here. --EMS | Talk 22:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry if anyone already wrote it, but - if some page is listed in proposed Unviewedpages list and I someone will have to solve the quality of the page, he will have to visit the page - and if he does it, the page is immediatelly visited and removed from the list... So if the editor thinks for whatever reason it is a valueable page (or if the reader does not think about any reason, just browsing the Wikipedia not caring about editting or removing unread articles), it is safe for years again. So be careful about the list. Okino 23:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The Long Tail is relevant to this discussion (I see that Shimgray mentioned this concept above). I oppose deleting unread articles in the same way I oppose burning dusty books (as was mentioned earlier). The statistics gleaned from the analysis would be interesting and valuable - they would help to focusing certain clean-up efforts and in surveillance for certain types of vandalism. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Dear God, the deletionists are at it again! No, this is an appalling proposal. Just because information is obscure and rarely accessed does not make it useless. I was the first person to check a 1940s book out of the university library where I work. Does that make it useless? No, of course it doesn't. For a start, I was interested enough in it to take it out! Let's just bin this proposal now and move on. -- Necrothesp 17:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

  • My initial reaction is to be against this proposal, it just seems negligent. The only way I could see it working is if 1) The no-read deadline is extended to 6 months, if not a whole year. and 2) If the pages weren't actually deleted, but instead, archived somewhere with the possibility of recreation. -- Chabuk [ T • C ] 18:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree, bin the proposal of anything relating to deletion of old articles. Very bad idea for all the reasons listed above and it merits no further discussion. However, we should thank EMS for the entirely distinct discussion about having a way to see a list of articles that nobody has looked at in a long time that grew out of this failed proposal. As Ceyockey says, it would be a way of finding vandalism, encouraging clean-up, and additionally we could find useful neglected content that should be better linked and integrated into frequently viewed articles to make it more accessible. Who can create Special:unviewedpages? -Kslays 16:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:ADOPT

I cannot see this proposal anywhere; if I have missed it, please don't shout at me.

It seems quite clear to me that many serious new editors, who really want to help our project, do not come across the adopt-a-user setup, nor are they directed to it. I have adopted two users and, since doing so, I have been approached by three newbies with questions which, happily, I could answer. But they were unaware that they could have asked to be adopted. They had all received a {{welcome}} template. I propose that the welcome templates be enlarged to include a link to WP:ADOPT. They then have the option of going there or not, but they will at least know about it.--Anthony.bradbury 19:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like a good suggestion, and I would eventually support it, but WP:ADOPT is very new. It might be best to allow for a breaking-in-period for the program before linking to it from welcome templates. Doc Tropics 19:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Not sure about the breaking-in-period. Do we really need it? —Gennaro Prota•Talk 19:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Without naming names, some other well-intentioned programs have later encountered difficulties and met with a certain amount of criticism. I do think that a longer period for community evaluation and response to WP:ADOPT would be in order before creating an "offical" link. In part because the link would strongly imply an official endorsement, in part because it just seems prudent to make sure the program works the way it was intended. Doc Tropics 20:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Are you talking about Wiki-Bortion? I thought it started out well at first, but then things started to get complicated. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 16:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC) —the preceding comment is a joke.

In support of Anthony.bradbury I would like the Adopt-a-user program to be linked from {{welcome}}, but I do understand the concerns of Doc Tropics. I would like to ask what sort of time period / number we talking about, and where could we get such community evaluation done?

On the other hand the project has been running for a few months now - and we have currently over 65 adoptees - and so far (as far as I am aware) no complaints. Even if it was added to the welcome template, we could always removed it very quickly if there were problems encountered. Beyond a certain point I suppose it is an old circular argument - if we don't have any "official" support we can't advertise the service properly to increase our numbers, but we need to increase numbers before we are allowed "official" support. "Official" support is particularly important for this project because it would help us attract the newest of users (who are otherwise hard to reach).

On a similar and maybe less controversial note, it would be great if we could have a link inserted under Where to ask Questions at Help:Contents - please see Help talk:Contents to discuss. Thanks Lethaniol 15:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

For the sake of clarification, I strongly support the program myself and I'd like to get involved; it seems a very worthwhile project. My only concern was about moving too quickly in adding it to the "welcome mat". I would support the link being added once we are sure that the program works as intended, and so far, it seems to. Doc Tropics 15:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I like this as well. For now, let's try to spread this by text-of-mouth.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 16:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As I mention elsewhere, I do not think that this program is so useful (while the idea is cute). The best way for a user to get involved would be contribute to articles, and the interaction which follows from there. Joining a wikiproject is also a good idea.

Besides, I believe that the {{welcome}} template already has a bit too many links. If this project is found really useful, I'd suggest replacing one of the existing links than adding to it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Could people also comment on maybe adding it to the Help:Contents as well/instead please - many thanks Lethaniol 16:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Per this thread Help talk:Contents#WP:Adopt. Comment here or there. --Quiddity 19:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Another suggestion: Maybe we could make another template (e.g. {{welcome-a}}) with the welcome message and the link for users who want to link to WP:ADOPT to use until the link gets added to {{welcome}}. That said, I'm in favor of adding it. If any problems come up, it can be removed later. I think this would have been helpful for me when I was new; I, like a lot of people with knowledge in kind of obscure areas, edited quietly and didn't have too many interactions for a long time. delldot | talk 21:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I strongly support this addition to the routine welcome template. Requiring a break-in period for the adoption program is superfluous. It is a very simple program and its basic concept has been proven for millennium. -- CyberAnth 08:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Until, which will be hopefully soon, Adopt-a-User is added to either or both of Help:Contents of the Welcome template, people that support its insertion can use an alternative template - Template:Adopt-a-User Welcome - which has only a minor modification to include Adopt-a-User. Cheers Lethaniol 19:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support this idea. I was unaware of it until I followed your link just now!!! - PocklingtonDan 10:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Just so people known, we have increased are number of users involved (combined adoptees and adopters) from 100 to 150 in under 10 days. As the project in continuing to gain support I would like to know at what sort of level of use people think it should get linked from Welcome and Help pages, or whether it should never be? Cheers Lethaniol 12:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. I know that numbers are not everything, but they are one of the measures that, I should think, will be needed to be used to assess the programs importance Lethaniol 13:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MOS for tutorials, primers etc

In some articles, particularly science articles, the material is so dense that it is a bit difficult for nonspecialists to approach the article. One article where this debate has resurfaced a few times is evolution. The article's introduction is becoming inaccessible. Of course, one could simplify it, but a lot of editors are afraid of losing the technical precision if they do that. It has been suggested to link to Simple Wikipedia might be useful as a primer or starting place. Some have suggested an evolution (basic) page, possibly with a link, or a blue box with basic information in it. However, it is not clear what style a link to a simpler version should be. It would be nice to have a uniform link to basic articles as part of an MOS. For example, at the top of the article, a note, possibly in another color just below the disambiguation links to a basic version of the article or a tutorial version of the article. Comments?--Filll 20:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what the best solution here would be, but creating evolution (basic) would probably be a violation of Wikipedia:Content forking. Koweja 21:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the MOS page you want is Wikipedia:Lead section. -- nae'blis 23:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Right now it's at Introduction to evolution. I think the introduction should be clear and simple and not too scientific, and explain in more jargon-detail later on in the article. Either way one article I think is preferable. Fagstein 05:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] offensive material

every now and then ther's a fuss about material that is regarded as offensive by some.Why not implement in the preferences for the viewer a filter/filters that filters out what he might regard as offensive.I presumed that the images would have an exstra template to categorize them.That whay if you live in saoudy arabia or in a naturist island,you can be confortable in reading wikipedia--Zigzag8 01:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

(Naturists are easily offended?!) Slippery slope - We can't distinguish zealotry from conservatism, and shouldn't be required to. See Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. Also, stopping the close-minded folks from seeing other people's perspectives doesn't help the spread of knowledge... -Quiddity 01:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not like you'll find a random image of a dick in the middle of the Teletubbies article. (Oh wait, I guess that does happen...) The bottom line is: if you're offended by sexually explicit content, the best filter is yourself. Just stop typing penis, clitoris, history of erotic depictions, naturist or Cleveland steamer as search terms. That way, the easily-offended can stop being offended while the rest of us write a thorough encyclopedia with relevant images to support the content. Pascal.Tesson 05:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Avoiding and battling the use of potentially offensive images on irrelevant pages (aka vandalism) goes a long way. For everything else, people can get their own blocking software without getting us a whole lot of extra work. - Mgm|(talk) 13:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] equation writer

The way that wikipedia writes equations is absurd. Example:

Z_{vib}=\prod_j{\sum_i{e^{-\frac{E_{j,i}}{kT}}}}

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Invisible site (talk • contribs) 03:10, 7 December 2006.

You must be looking for Help:Displaying a formula. In any case, that example has more braces than it needs, some of which are an indication that it's being typeset incorrectly to begin with. It should be:
Z_{vib} = \prod_j \sum_i e^{-E_{j,i}/kT}
which produces:
Z_{vib} = \prod_j \sum_i e^{-E_{j,i}/kT}
See how much less absurd that is? Melchoir 05:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
For comparison, the originally posted math typesets like this:
Z_{vib}=\prod_j{\sum_i{e^{-\frac{E_{j,i}}{kT}}}}
Honestly, I understand neither Invisible site's question, nor Melchoirs reply. Of course, removing the extra braces improves the readability of the source, and changing "\frac" into "/" may (or may not) be a good idea here.--Niels Ø 10:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It is based on TeX, which is used by scientists (in particular mathematicians) to write documents and books (often using LaTeX). S Sepp 16:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
My point is that the braces are a helpful feature: they alert you when you're attempting to nest too many styles. It isn't a good idea to have a variable with multiple subscripts within a fraction within an exponential, and that's independent of the language used to generate it. TeX forces the issue by requiring you to type out all the code. Melchoir 22:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I though Invisible was commenting on the apperance of formulae at the article page; I now realise (s)he referred to their appearance at the edit page (i.e. to the source). The relevant help page for Invisible is WP:FORMULA.--Niels Ø 19:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, so sometimes people will use a bit too many braces. That's not a tragedy. But having equations written using TeX is a must: most editors of equations are familiar with TeX as S Sepp just pointed out. Sure it's a bit complicated but then again, typesetting equations properly requires some amount of sophistication. Pascal.Tesson 19:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

LaTeX can be ugly, but it's at least human writable -- count your lucky stars we don't use MathML... — Matt Crypto 11:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editable watchlist

Imagine your watchlist was an ordinary document called [[user:<user name>/watchlist]]. Whenever something is to be added to the watchlist, the system should append a line in this format:

[[<link to article or whatever>]], [[<link to associated talk page>]]

The "my whatchlist" button should simply show "Related changes" for your /watchlist page.

I think this would make it easier to manage your watchlist (especialy if it is long) - pruning, adding articles to watch that do not currently exist, etc. Also, you can organize the items under various headings, if you want to (remember to put a heading like "==Unsorted recent additions to my watchlist==" at the bottom!) - it will not affect the functionality, but may still be useful. Does it sound like a good idea?--Niels Ø 10:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea but I think there's already far too much data in the unstructured free wiki text format. Like this discussion for one. Once it's wikitext it can contain syntax errors, it can't be easily resorted based on time of most recent modification (a feature many people find helpful), and so on. Deco 11:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate idea

Instead of having a wikitext watchlist page, how about simply allowing users to filter their watchlist using either standard or custom tags. This could be accomplished by having an additional option on the "Added to watchlist" page that lets the user select a tag for the page in their watchlist. (This page would probably need to no longer redirect back to the watched article as it does now after a short timeout.) On the watchlist page, in addition to the "Namespace" filter there would be a second selectable criteria to select which tags to view. No interface for changing filter tags is needed—simply "unwatch" and then "watch" and set the new filter tag.

Now having proposed this (which I think is technically a much better proposal than an editable watchlist), I'm not sure I see the need for it. But if this type of functionality is desired, I think my proposal is a much better mechanism. —Doug Bell talk 22:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure if you already know, so pardon me if you do, but your watchlist is easily editable at Special:Watchlist/edit. Prodego talk 22:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that is simply how a user can edit what it on their watch list. The proposal here is for changes to how changes are viewed on the Special:Watchlist page. However, your point is good in that an addition to my above proposal would be to list the filter flags for each page in the watchlist on the Special:Watchlist/edit page. Perhaps even list them in the form of a selector widget so that the filter preferences can be changed directly from that page. —Doug Bell talk 22:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A potential use for this

A watchlist document would be handy. Wikiprojects could really make a great deal of use out of that. So that someone who was part of a project(and considered themselves knowledgable about the subject) could watch for vandalism in all of the related pages.(especially helpful with new pags being added to a project, users wouldn't have to manually add everything related to a subject to their watchlist.) Otherwise unwatched topics might become very well watched indeed with this sort of structure. It sounds like a great idea to me. i kan reed 00:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Make the page with a list of links to the pages that need watching, then to use it as a watchlist, people can come to the page and click Related changes. Tra (Talk) 00:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Privacy

People recently commented that this would make a decent guideline to remind people of the hazards of making personal details available on-line. Please copyedit and comment on its talk page. (Radiant) 12:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

That looks like one question that might be up to the lawyers at wikimedia. i kan reed 00:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation for categories

Would it be good if categories could have suppporting citations? I'm imagining some that would look roughly like Category:foo[2]. JoshuaZ 21:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It may be a good idea for certain controversial categories, although I think the software allows something like that. —Mets501 (talk) 22:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Really? How would it do it? I was playing around with my sandbox earlier to try to get something like that and was unable to figure out a way to do it. JoshuaZ 03:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think you can do it with a CSS hack. I'm not so sure if it'd help, though; the cat list is plenty long already in many articles, and I'd estimate superscripted numbers are unlikely to be noticed. (Radiant) 16:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Likely to be noticed wouldn't be as relevant as having a way to source cats which would make the controversial ones much less controversial. Also, controversial cats seem to be more common on articles with only a few categories. JoshuaZ 19:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest just commenting out the citation and putting it right after the category in the article's code. That should work... not optimal but I think it would look pretty ugly even if we could figure out how to put an inline citation after the categories in the displayed actual page. --W.marsh 19:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dealing with "edit creep"

I'm sure I'll get crushed by tons of comments about how this is a horrible idea, but why not add a feature to the watchlist which allows those watching a particular article to rate each edit with a + (this edit is the best yet) or - (this edit is not the best yet). Only one article could be selected as the "best yet" at a time. A total could be calculated and this number could be visible in the edit history to everyone, allowing for easier location a good edits after vandalism streaks.

An alternative (and probably more realistic) measure could be to notify the user after they click the Save page button on a revert of any significant gaps in content from previous versions. For example: Vandal A comes along and removes a paragraph from the page. The removal goes unnoticed and Vandal B comes along and blanks the whole page. This is noticed and the page is reverted to Vandal A's version. The user doing the revert could have his version automatically compared with the last couple older versions and warned if something is still missing (exactly like an edit conflict notice). Noclip 22:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "in the news section"

how come the content of the "in the news section" is always the same articles ... ?, Thanks, Rod Brown159.251.88.50 16:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

  • It's not. It updates at a pretty slow rate, but it does change.But for that to happen, someone needs to update the relevant article and suggest a news item and an administrator must agree to put it up. - Mgm|(talk) 13:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • The speed that it changes depends on the speed at which articles get updated. Some times an article can stay up there for three or four days, sometimes it is gone in 24 hours. Also try clearing your browser's cache to make sure it is getting the newest version of the page (most likely you hold the control key and press F5). Koweja 04:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Graphic Lab to improve Images

A Graphic Lab have Started on Wikipedia-en. You can help by reading its Main page, and helping to its improvement.
The Graphic Lab need some active users and graphists to start and improve it, raise graphic request,and make images improvement.
To request graphic improvement, please see the newly open Graphic Lab/Images to improve (copied from Deutsch and Français).
Please, talk about this to other users who can be interesting by graphism, requesting images improvement or creation, and people interesting by photographs. Yug (talk) 10:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

  • At first blush, this seems like a really good addition. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this is a very useful and needed project, but it should definitely be on Commons. It would be best to have people from all the Wikimedia sites working on the same pool of improvement requests, and since most images are language independent, it's possible. Commons as a multilingual image repository is made for this. --Para 18:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
It is first need to make request. From now, when you see an improvable image : keep the name and submit it to the Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve Yug (talk) 23:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] anti-lowercase blasting

Ok, something has really nagged me. First people fixed the lowercase problem, but now we can't change "Asdfexamplething" to "asdfexamplething". However, an easy way to do this would be to create an admin bot that would search for the {{lowercase}} tag, then turn "Asdfexamplething" to "thisisapageusedbyanadminbot" to "asdfexamplething". It should then delete "Asdfexamplething" and "thisisapageusedbyanadminbot". Anyone like my suggestion? -Slash- 04:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

  • You can make bot requests at WP:BOT. However, note that the community tends to disapprove of bots with admin rights. (Radiant) 17:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't see the use of this. The template is working fine. And it doesn't matter what you type. Why bother? - Mgm|(talk) 13:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Besides, it won't work. It is used on Wiktionary, but we still need the template as Wikipedia still puts in capital letters. Also, there'd be no point in deleting the old entry after moving. We need redirects to remain so outside links don't die. - Mgm|(talk) 13:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Topical ArbCom?

I just read the interesting essay by User:DV8 2XL, who left the project in August 2006.
Given that we seem to have a lot of eager ArbCom candidates, certainly more than the ones needed for the main ArbCom, and many with stellar records (none perfect but no human is), would it make sense to have lower level 'topical ArbComs' as User:DV8 2XL suggests?
Imagine having, say, 6 such topical ArbComs, one for each of the current topics in WP:Refdesk. They would focus on main article space disputes, and on cases where behavior is mostly civil (or maybe we could add a dedicated WP:CIVIL topical ArbCom) and the issues are more related to the core WP content policies, such as WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOT, WP:N, etc. They would have the same power to decide on remedies as the main ArbCom. All their decisions would be appealable to the main ArbCom, who would be able to summarily dismiss the appeal (hopefully in most cases) or accept it.
Of course each topical ArbCom would also be able to select its cases, suggesting continued efforts in other mediation venues where applicable.
The motivation is to clear backlog and deal with disputes much earlier than we do today, per User:DV8 2XL's suggestions. Any thoughts? Has this been suggested/rejected before? Crum375 13:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In other words, a group of subsidiary courts? Well, that does sound like the next logical step in expanding the dispute resolution process. We may not actually be large enough to require them quite yet, though.
Would these subsidiary courts be permitted to desysop? I'm assuming any such decision would probably be appealed, but making it explicitly allowed/forbidden from the start would be helpful. --tjstrf talk 19:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I suggest the topical ArbCom should be able to issue admin remedies (including desysopping), but desysopping would always require approval by the top ArbCom. I would propose that for such approvals a quick process would be instituted, similar to today's 'case closing' vote. If the lower ArbCom recommendation is voted down, then it will enter a discussion phase by the top ArbCom, followed by a possibly modified remedy. Crum375 01:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Can't say I've given it much thought but I like the idea. We could have slightly smaller ArbCom committees which would probably also make them more efficient. Crum375 is right: a lot of very competent, respected election candidates will fail because there are so few spots on the ArbCom. Also, this could mean a somewhat smaller workload for individual ArbCom members, making it more likely that god candidates will apply. Pascal.Tesson 02:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure this would work well. It is one thing to say that with an expanded ArbCom (see comments on Jimbo's page and on the ArbCom voting talk page), not all cases need to be heard by the full committee; de facto, that's the practice now. But the community has been extremely hesitant about giving the Arbitration Committee, or any small number of users, authority over content issues. Newyorkbrad 02:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I fully agree that content issues in general should be settled by consensus, and failing that with the help of voluntary non-binding dispute resolution mechanisms before reaching binding arbitration. The problem that User:DV8 2XL alludes to (as I understand it) is that very often issues spend too much time in various non-binding mediation processes and by the time they escalate to ArbCom, way too much time and energy have been spent, with a lot of acrimony and frustration along the way, leading to loss of productivity and burnout. The concept here is to introduce binding resolutions at a lower level, while still encouraging the non-binding methods, in the hope of achieving better efficiency and reducing debilitating prolonged conflicts. The issue really is: assuming that as we grow we'll have more need for arbitrators, do we want a single tier or a dual tier arbitration system? Intuitively the dual tier sounds like it could do a better job, assuming the division of labor rules between the tiers are properly defined. Crum375 02:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone here suggest a way to get more input on this from the community? Crum375 02:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I think a single pool that draws random panels for individual disputes would make the most sense for dealing with the growth of Wikipedia, plus some procedure to allow escalation to an en banc decision for close or contentious issues. Since ArbComm doesn't rule on content, I don't think topical specialization would be that productive. TheronJ 14:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I can see some scalability problems with the single tier ArbCom, in the long run:
  1. It will be harder to keep track of situations with repeat offenders, as 'memory' will be diluted as we grow and spread out the load laterally
  2. Some cases are simple and some are hard (hard typically involve admin-level conflicts and wheel-wars). The single tier will need to deal with all problems randomly, whereas the dual tier can automatically escalate the hard problems to the top tier while easily dealing with the simpler ones at the lower tier
  3. Although content dispute per se should not be 'arbitrated', many conflicts arise in relation to content. Having the more specialized lower tier ArbCom would improve understanding of the underlying content issues and make the resolution quicker and more efficient
  4. Having the dual tiers will allow a more natural division of labor, as opposed to near-random case selection by a large ArbCom pool
Crum375 14:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
As long as the role of ArbCom is primarily related to user conduct rather than managing the content of the encyclopedia, a topical breakdown doesn't seem very natural. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe so, but ArbCom does need to expand to handle a bigger caseload, and a dual tier structure makes sense, as opposed to random subgroups in a single flat structure. Using generic topics as in the RefDesk as a dividing scheme for the lower tier would be an easy and natural division, and would allow the lower tier group quicker understanding of content related issues, hence more efficient handling. Crum375 00:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The one concern I have with topical arbcom divisions would be that it increases the likelihood that an arbitrator might have a conflict of interest (either through editing the pages in question or personal viewpoint). Also that certain subcoms (philosophy, religion, politics, and BLP) would get much higher numbers of cases than others. However, I can't think of a better division system. Perhaps if arbitrators were shifted between branches in rotation? --tjstrf talk 00:33, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree with your point about WP:COI, in principle. I can see requiring topical ArbCom candidates to disclose any special affiliation related to the topic. Your idea about rotation is good, except we would lose the advantage of greater efficiency due to topic specialization. Maybe some combination is needed? Maybe shorter term limits? (with possible resumption of role on a given topical ArbCom after say 1 yr hiatus.) Crum375 01:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions and Answers Page

I would like to propose the idea of a new top tab - A Q&A tab. This page would allow people to ask common questions about the subject that could be answered by people that know the subject. This is a place where common misconceptions about a subject could be brought up that would be appropriate for the content page. By creating a seperate section it allows the talk page to focus on issues regarding the presentation of the main content. The Q/A page would rather be a compliment to the main content page, dealing with things like Urban Myths, misconceptions, etc. -- Themepark

What about expanding Wikipedia:Reference desk Wikipedia:Help desk to accomodate this? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I think Themepark means that this tab would be present at every article, like how every article has a discussion page. I think a problem of this idea is that questions might often go unanswered for long. The reference desk works well for questions people have, and it seems to work well because question-answerers are concentrated there. S Sepp 18:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Here's the page where I got the idea of seperating the Q/A from the content and discussion pages: [Talk - Particle Accelerators] - see Q/A. Sure some questions go unanswered for a long time, but that's no different then an article taking time to be expanded - we see those all the time. This isn't about getting quick answers, but more about helping explain common questions about a subject. Clearly some of that can make it's way into the main article. -- Themepark
This could be accomplished by transclusion of a topical subpage located within the Reference Desk domain as a subpage. The subpage might be something like Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science/Particle accelerator or Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science/Physics/Particle accelerator. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slidey Uppey Downey Idea

I think it would be a brilliant idea to have the navigation, search and toolbox things sliding up and down, like the 'overview' on this page: [22]. That would be handy on really long articles like United States of America. If someone could do that? Please ?? Jake95(Is it a good idea? Tell me!) 16:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

What would happen to all of the interwiki links. If it slides up and down as the page scrolls the bottom of the language links will not be visible unless you have a massive screen or there are only a few interwiki links. Why not just have a link at the bottom of each page (near to the Privacy Policy and About Wikipedia links) that links back the to top of the page. Chris_huhtalk 16:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree - the box is too big to scroll up and down (would lose toobox and interwiki) - unless we put a scroll bar inside the sidebar. The idea of putting a go to top link at the bottom of every page is good whatever. Cheers Lethaniol 17:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Whoa - what about having a (hide) option on each bit, like the Contents at the top. Or just automatically have each part hidden? I don't know. It's just an idea.

(I like the massive screen idea too. Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha. Bye, bye, any chance of paying off the mortagage ...) Jake95 17:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You can get the links to move up and down by putting the following text in your monobook.css:
#column-one {position: fixed}
#p-personal {position: fixed; right:0}
#f-copyrightico {display:none}
body {background-attachment:fixed}
But it does have the associated problms mentioned above and additionally, the WMF link messes it up so it removes that as well. Tra (Talk) 17:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Yuck, no offence to whoever wrote it. Also I have a very slow connection - and this makes it struggle. Not ideal solution Lethaniol 17:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Your internet connection should have no affect on how the CSS script works. falsedef 21:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Pictures to Featured Media

There is a discussion going on here on if Featured Pictures should be changed to Featured Media. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 05:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section for "Articles Linking To"

Has it already been proposed to automatically include in articles a section listing "Articles Linking To This Article"? It seems to me that it would automatically add a lot of information about a topic.

If this has already been discussed, I wasn't able to find it.

It already exists in the toolbox I think - the link: "What links here" Lethaniol 16:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Indeed, that's what that button does. (Radiant) 17:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Wikipedia Branch

I, LightbringerX, herby decree that a new branch of Wikipedia is adue. A Lyric pool in the form of other Wikimedia productions should be considered. I'm thinking 'Wikilyric' sounds pretty good.

Shouldn't you also be thinking 'Wikiblatantcopyrightviolation'? Pascal.Tesson 07:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Wow this comes up a lot. Most copyrighted lyrics are forbidden by law to be distributed except by their owners, despite their wide dissemination by other sides. Wikisource is a good location for non-copyrighted lyrics. Deco 09:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Exactly: what's more the licensing for the lyrics has to be expressly public domain or GFDL. It cannot be "used by permission" or "everybody knows them." Now, if people want to write lyrics of their own, there is a WikiCities creative portal, I believe. Geogre 15:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Long edit summaries

Ok. I realize that edit summaries are supposed to be just that, a summary of the changes you made. I realise that some editors get really annoyed by long edit summaries. I realise that long edit summaries make it harder to peruse the article's history. I know people think long edit summaries clutter up watchlists. I understand the importance of brevity in edit summaries. I know that if it's too long and detailed to fit in the summary box, it's probably best to take it to the talk page anyhow.

However, detailed edit summaries are useful, especially when a page or change is likely to be contentious. Sometimes, if there is a long discussion on the talk page about a change and I go ahead and make it, I feel the need to expound in great detail in my edit summary just in case someone hasn't been following the talk page discussion, or to avoid bringing material to the talk page that would distract from an ongoing discussion. People often ask me to proofread things they've written, and in those instances I feel the need to go into detail about every little spelling or punctuation fix, no matter how minor.

Most of the time if I run out of space in the edit summary window it's only by 2-10 characters. Sometimes I can trim it down or abreviate words, but when I abreviate I worry that people don't know what "ptl rv, dab, link & mv cntnt" means, so I try to avoid abbreviations if possible.

I did a test in the sandbox, and it seems to me that the edit summary allows you 190 characters or so (I may have miscounted). Therefore I would like to propose an increase to 200 characters. It's a nice, even number that's easy to remember. It's only 10 characters more then the current limit and shouldn't clutter up histories and watchlists too bad, but yet will eliminate (for me at least) most instances where I'm trying to trim my edit summary to the point where it is illegible, but have good reasons for not taking it to the talk page.

I'm sure that this is something that should be taken to the developers, but it's also something that needs community consensus. Hence I'm proposing it here rather than bugzilla (not to mention I have no idea how bugzilla works, only that anything involving changes to the software should be proposed there). What do others think of a 10 character increase in the maximum length of edit summaries? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 15:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. 190 or however many characters seems like a lot, and in many cases it is more than enough. However, if you are putting links into the summary, all of the link target counts towards that limit, though it isn't seen on the edit summary. Why not bump it up to 255 characters or so? Koweja 16:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I originally thought 300, given that if you are only editing a section the software automatically includes the section header and counts it toward your character limit. But then I thought people'd object too much to 300 rambling characters. But considering the limit for sig characters is 250, shouldn't edit summaries be at least that long? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 16:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
From the HTML source of the edit page of this section:
<input tabindex='2' type='text' value="/* Long edit summaries */ "
 name='wpSummary' id='wpSummary' maxlength='200' size='60' />
..the limit's 200 at the moment. --ais523 14:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Then how about 250? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 16:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Require anonymous users to confirm edits

Here is an idea for reducing vandalism: Require anonymous users to provide a valid e-mail address, which will be used to verify that the anon is serious about the edit and to permit identification of vandals. Here is the process:

  • Anon does an edit.
  • Once they hit "save page", they get a screen asking them to provide a valid e-mail address to which a confirmation message will be sent. It is noted that they will have only 30 minutes to respond (which I assume is more than enough time in most cases to reveive the e-mail and respond).
  • If an e-mail address is provided, a confirmation e-mail is sent out, with instructions to either reply to it or click on a coded, confirming URL link to confirm the edit.
    • If no e-mail is provided, the edit is discarded.
  • If there is an edit conflict after the confirmation is done, another e-emil will be sent out with a link to a conflict resolution screen. If this link is used, the final edit will be saved as it is associated with an existing confirmation.

Note that at the end of this process we will have a valid e-mail for the user, and some hope of identification if the edit is vandalism. I strongly doubt that any vandal will be eager to type in "me@myschool.edu", but if they do so and it is vandalism we can then contact "myschool" and advise them of the issue. We can also block e-mail addresses that are for vandals in that case.

Note that I am not calling for e-mail addresses to be placed in the edit history or in any place which is generally accessible. The e-mail addresses should be in a seperate place acessible only to sysops if not a much more restricted set of users. However, it should be a part of our policy that Wikipedia can use that information at its discression to track down and/or contact vandals, and that should be noted on the e-mail address query screen and in the confirmation e-mail itself. --EMS | Talk 17:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The whole point of a wiki is that it's quick and easy. Doesn't this proposal take away from that? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)
All this does is serve to annoy the anons. It won't stop the vandals since they obviously either a)have too much time on their hands and can spare the 30 seconds to confirm their email, and/or b)have an agenda to push and won't mind the inconvenience. Legit users who don't want to join wikipedia but are just trying to be helpful once are less likely to make the effort. And no, it won't inspire people to create accounts. You can't annoy someone into joining - most would choose to simply not bother. Koweja 19:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
As I see it, someone doing a quick and legit edit will have little issue with doing the confirmation. Type in your e-mail (which many current browsers will auto-complete for you), and after the e-mail arrives hit the Reply and Send buttons on your e-mail tool, and the edit is in. I don't see that as a huge bother. This will only get annoying once you start making mutliple edits a day, and if you are committed to doing regular editing here, then you should have an account (and most likely will get one).
The goal is to set up a "low bar" to anonymous edits, but one that will stop casual vandals cold. I admit that it won't stop POV pushing and won't stop vandal accounts or other people who care to be creative about hiding their identity. However, a school kid blanking a page as a joke will be looking at creating a trail that potentially can be followed. That is the target here. --EMS | Talk 18:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Right, so it won't do much to solve the problems, but cause an inconvenience for many potential members. Thanks to the massive number of people who watch recent changes, have pages on their watchlists, and the AntiVandalBot, page blankings and other drive-by idiocy generally gets reverted in seconds. Your proposal runs counter to established policies of assume good faith and don't bite the newbies. Not to mention the core principle of being an open encyclopedia. You have to realize that even though a lot of vandals are anonymous editors, the vast majority of anonymous edits are helpful. Fact of the matter is that "casual vandals" are the least of our problems. Koweja 18:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Not true. In my experience the vast majority of anonymous edits, particularly when done without an edit summary, are deliberate vandalism. Moreover, it does not get reverted in seconds; it can remain for hours, days or even weeks. I used to care, but I'm beginning not to. After all: if Jimmy Wales doesn't care that Wikipedia has become an idiot's playground, why should I? Personally I don't think anonymous editing should be allowed at all, so anything that causes it to be inconvenient sounds good to me. --Stephen Burnett 19:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
A lot of energy goes onto doing these reverts that could be devoted to improving the encyclopedia. In fact, I am one editor who has limited time and who has found the vandal reverts make it hard to track what is really going on it the page. Items that could be of interest often get buried by a vandalism-and-revert. Also, as one comes to be watching a larger number of articles, more and more of them are found to have an edit summary of "rvv" or "rv to prev ver ...". So this noise in the watchlists interferes with the ability to track real issues regard that portion of the encyclopedia that you have chosen to contribute to.
I honestly think that Wikipedia has shown that while wikis can be effective tools for creating a community-wide compendium of information, they also can be too wide open and free wheeling. The issue now is to figure out how to achieve the right balance of openness and restraint. Mine is just one suggestion of improvig that balance. --EMS | Talk 04:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think editing by non-registered users should be allowed at all - the negatives far outweigh the positives. So giving anon IPs a hoop to jump through should be the least requirement. CyberAnth 04:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] printer freindly/ spellcheck on serch

it really queit simple we need to have printer freindly versions and spell check on serch. many i've tryed to print out a artical and goten a usless page of ink. then i have trouble find articals i need because i have trouble spelling. Comeback2009 00:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

For a printable version of an article, click 'Printable version' in the toolbox on the left hand side. Spell check in search is disabled for performance reasons, use Google Sitesearch instead. Tra (Talk) 00:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology and disambiguation

I wish to propose Etymology at the top of the page of disambiguation of each word, or such so you can know the very first version and root of the word. As it is now, it is sometimes very difficult to find the root and first meaning of the word. /Minoya 08:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

  • That's properly addressed at our dictionary, Wiktionary. Encyclopedias generally do not address lexicographical matters or etymology -- both of which are core concerns of dictionaries. Geogre 11:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Depends on the topic doesn't it? I've recently become interested in the origins of the term 'Ripper', which seems to have become the UK vernacular for a serial killer of prostitutes, presumably from Jack the Ripper. However it would be interesting to know where Jack the Ripper got the name from - does it refer to his mutilation of the women (ripping their faces), or because its similar to the term rape, or what?
    • Anyway, my point is that the term Ripper is unlikley to have (or deserve?) a page on wiktionary, so having the etymology of the term on the Jack the Ripper, or Ripper disambiguation page would be approprite in this case. Similaly for the etymology of names of animals, etc. --Neo 11:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think you'll find that Ripper does have a page on Wiktionary. At any rate, it comes from the fact that he ripped the women's bodies open. He did not merely slash faces. The current use is, in fact, just an analogy for "man who kills prostitutes." "Rip" has an origin in Old English for our purposes, but, if you want to go back farther, you'd go to Old West Germanic, then to a Sanskrit, then to the fabled proto-Indo-European, but it, like "reap/rape" comes from a root meaning "to seize," unless it comes from /ras/ roots, when it would mean "rough/abrasive/abrade." It's still a lexical matter, though. Geogre 12:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic proposal and suggestion of words

I wish to propose Automatic proposal and suggestion of words. That is when you search for say Etymology but misspell it(perhaps you write Etimology), a proposal is made of one or several similar words that actually exists and also a suggestion at the bottom asking if the user wants to start a new article under the searched name. As it is now, you have to go to google to find out, because google often gives you good suggestions. /Minoya 05:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree. I looked into Google's API and unfortuantly suggest is not available. An open source spell checked could be used in an extension. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 05:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The subject is already covered. We attempt to create "common misspelling" redirects. If you misspell a word and you believe that the misspelling is common, then, when you get the option to "Create this article," do so. In the new article, do the following: #REDIRECT [[properpagename]], where "properpagename" is the name of where the article really is. In your edit summary, put "spelling redirect." Many spelling redirects exist, but be thoughtful about this, as well as bold, and think about whether your misspelling is common or just a one time only goof. If it's the former, go ahead and make a redirect. Geogre 11:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for the enlightenment. Now, why not #REDIRECT the one time only goofs too, as a user id rather have an article pop up than nothing at all. Better to be abundant. /Minoya 13:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Better to be concise, of course. Although we're not dying for server space now the way we once were, it's still good to conserve storage space however and whenever we can. The common saying is "redirects are cheap," but also "they're not free." Google uses a parser to try to figure out what word you could have meant. Since they already do it, we don't need to ("search using Google"); instead, we should cover the most used, most common mistakes. You can create a redirect for the one-time misspelling, and it may or may not get deleted. I doubt anyone will threaten or throttle you for doing it, and there are certainly easily misspelled terms we need redirects for still. Geogre 13:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, I can say no more.
Remember to use the often-forgotten template {{template:r from misspelling}} on your misspelled redirect. –Outriggr § 04:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Logo Variations

I would like to propose for Wikipedia to use logo variations created by members of the community to mark national and international awareness days, Remembrance Days, notable anniversaries, and observance days. Besides for the featured article, it is important to commemorate special days to show Wikipedia's support for bringing out more awareness of these issues and events. The logos would be chosen from contestants in a consensus of graphic artist users on a project page of its own. This project would be similar to google's [[[23]|sketch contest]]. I would like us perhaps to be ready for our first wikilogo by Hanuka, Christmas and Eid ul-Adha! FrummerThanThou 05:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

  • comment the Wikipedia logo is copyrighted so you would probably have to get permission from the foundation to do this. savidan(talk) (e@) 06:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Question What would be the criteria for dates to be recognized in this way? -- Visviva 06:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
This is an issue that needs to be discussed, I think each religion's two or three main holiday's should be considered as well as important awareness days such as world cancer day, world aids day, breast cancer day and any others that we come to a consensus on. FrummerThanThou 07:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think a better idea would be to make it possible to change the logo via some CSS code, so people could install it in their own monobook.css/js file if they want it. I've tried it before, but unfortunately the URL for the logo is stored in the <a> linking to the main page, rather than monobook.css itself, which means it would require some tricky JS to make it work. |This would allow users to have their own criteria for dates. --172.205.196.44 (Michael Billington logged out) 06:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • That seems like an excellent idea, if it can be made to work... can it? -- Visviva 07:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    #p-logo a { background-image: url(http://mylogo.com/logo.png) !important; } GeorgeMoney (talk) 07:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    Exactly, I agree with 172.205.196.44 - for that matter, my .js has actually disabled showing the wikilogo, so I wouldn't see it anyways. But, not being selfish, I like the idea :) Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 07:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I am for the idea in principle (I am envisaging something like the google logo changes). However, I would not want to see anything national-specific (especially US-specific) or politically-motivated, religiously-motivated etc. What I would not want to see is for example a "4th of july" logo or a "jesus crusified today" logo, these are politically- and religiously- charged. Perhaps "Figure X born today" or "Chemical Y discovered today" etc. I think if we do this it should be a variation that represents the kind of things wikipedia does and stands for, rather than a slavish mimicry of eg the google logo. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 10:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Some great points from a great user. I think there can be "some" politicly and religiously charged versions though, like Christmas. FrummerThanThou 10:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: To keep our headings clear, it's probably good if we switch to numbers from asterisk indents. Geogre 10:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. Comment: That Google does it is kind of the "Diddy did it" thing: more or less irrelevant. I'm in favor of the proposal, although there would need to be a few clear understandings. The globe of letters is the copyright, just as the lettering of "Google" is, and so the graphic alterations would need to be backgrounds, colors, and things around the logo. Also, please make it two words, "Wiki logo," rather than one, as one sounds like "Wiki Λογος." As for the substance and the problems, please forgive the extra indents:
    The project would be properly located at Commons, not .en. This would make the variations available to all projects, so that the .se pedia can put up a 4th of July logo, if they wish.
    National holidays (ones where all government offices close) are non-controversial, but seccession day, failed rebellions, etc. can get tense. Nationally recognized religious holidays (Christmas, Easter, Good Friday), and especially those that are core, would be non-controversial, but regionally or sectarian or denominational ones would be tough.
    If there were to be an include/exclude argument, the best one would be, "Is this nationally recognized in an Anglophone nation for .en, a Francophone nation for .fr, etc." A non-English speaker going to .en may be interested in the funny customs of the Anglophone world, just as native English speakers tend to be interested in the "strange" holidays celebrated by the Swedes, for example. The dominant nature of English shouldn't enter into it, really.
    The proposal carries with it a rather non-wiki element, in that it requires an approval community. The best suggestion I could offer would be that this be done via a Project. There should be a Holiday Logo Project, and it should need to vote and gain consensus on these acceptable variations (and it should be plural).
    Picking which, if any, to actually put on the main page requires a top level admin who enjoys wide, wide trust. The only candidate I can think of right now would be Raul, who is already the FA director, but I'm not sure he'd want to do it.
    Anyway, that's what occurs to me. I really hope it helps. Geogre 10:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I love logos ^^, BUT! First off; what kind of awareness days? And some Rememberance days might be offencive to others, off the top of my head say the Armenian holocaust, the Turks deny it happened and refuse to adit comitting it, but I betcya the Armenians have a day to REMEMBER it. Also, some people don't like The dream factory (to get this joke click the wiki link fore Rememberance days you wrote on me talk page =P). Note: I am very buisy these days for the next two months I've got covers, collections, some more covers magazine and newspaper comics blah blah blah... so I probably won't do it, but here is some advice if it helps. In my opinion, why not, as not a lot of wikiusers go to the front page and read it all if there's an awareness thing on it, but I don't think we should go too much in to it, maybe just slap a small awareness ribbon on the logo and make a more noticible article on the front, or maybe even send an automated awareness message to ALL USERS. The wikilogos are very estetic so we must be carefull in editing them if we are permitted tom we don't want them to loock cheep now do we ^_^? I'd keep it modest. Also problems: Some awareness symbols, ribbons, or collors may stand for more things, so the observer may not get it. And: What if it gets out of hand? Before you know it we'll be having a santa cap on the logos hah. In conclusion: Only if these days are important and regard everyone, not just say Christians or something. Like AIDS day, Memorial day, Give out free candy day, Global warming awareness day, ect. Exactly how, I do not know but don't make it too flashy or just too much. If you're gonna go for it, think simple and clever, it always works ;) --Mudel 11:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. I support this proposal. It is a qay to remind us "Never Again" Booksworm Talk to me! 14:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It sounds like a fun idea on the surface, but doesn't really gain Wikipedia anything other than administrative trouble. It might have some value if, like the cartoonish altered Google logo, it brought people to the front page to see what cute logo-mod Wikipedians had come up with for the day, or if Wikipedia had an unfriendly image problem that desperately needed to be rectified. (And "image problem" brings up other difficult issues regarding tone and style of any illustration, btw.)
I absolutely do not support a religious logo-mod of any sort, and that most definitely includes Christmas ornaments, Channukkah dreidels, Valentine's hearts, Easter eggs, etc. ad nauseum.
I agree with PocklingtonDan that only "a variation that represents the kind of things Wikipedia does and stands for" might be more reasonable than religious or political commemorative days. However, I think the "On this day..." section does that and more.
Perhaps, alternatively, we could choose one event from "On this day..." to call out with a stand-alone logoish graphic (i.e., not a Wikipedia logo-mod). This logo-like graphic might be used something like a dot-whack, and might be valuable for calling attention to the "On this day..." section, as well as adding some graphic variability to the front page... but I'm not sure it's really a problem in search of a solution.
Renice 17:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't like the idea. With Google, they can detect what country you are in and provide you with an appropriate version of Google [24], where they can do cute and culturally appropriate things with the logo. I don't ever see there being a "U.S." version of Wikipedia, a British version, Canadian version, etc... There are very few holidays that are not specific to religions or certain countries. --Aude (talk) 17:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment whilst it is true that that Sweden's Christmas is snowier then Britain's, certain observance days are the same. Obviously D day is no good since some German's wont like it, but that desicion would be reached in the consensus. What are you saying? frummer 03:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Strong Oppose - Wikipedia has a strict NPOV policy. Local holidays and events would not be global. As such, we can't do something like this. I understand that this is a bland, boring decision, but Wikipedia's ideals shouldn't be violated for periodic variations of the logo. Nihiltres 19:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Support - This sounds like a great idea. :) ViperBite 20:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Strong Oppose - I agree with Nihiltres, the whole idea violates NPOV policy. It's important to note that someone's holiday celebration is also a reminder to someone else's failure in history. Or recognizing someone religious event offends those opposed to that faith. It's sad to say this, and I wish any holiday could be recognized and respected but Wikipedia needs to keep the whole "political correct" neutrality. Cyberia23 22:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Strong Support- It could just be on internationally accepted holidays, i.e. Christmas, maybe Rememberance Day. Sooner or later you're going to upset someone about something - its absurd to not do something because someone somewhere may be offended by it. RHB 23:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment - two things:
  1. Christmas and Rememberance day are both biased. Christmas is Christian, and Rememberance Day favors the victors of the World Wars. The article on Rememberance Day reflects that.
  2. It is absurd, on Wikipedia, to do anything that may offend someone in a political, religious, or social way, even if Wikipedia is not censored, because of the necessity for a neutral point of view. See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Bias.
I don't mean any offense whatsoever, but what you've said doesn't seem to hold up. Nihiltres 03:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I apprecaite you don't mean any offense, but where do you get it that people will be "offended" if some laurels where to apear on the logo for christmas and link to the article. Finding out about each other's religion's cultures and values would be a great thing for many of us, instead of being "offended" so badly? Please read the thread, I dont beleive for a minute you've read anything above. The focal points have been discussed, except for this "offended" thingmajig. frummer 03:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I've read the thread, and the main topic of discussion is whether such a project is feasible. On the "cool variation" level, I strongly support this idea. As with Google, it would attract some people to see the latest Wikipedia "doodle". On the other hand, I find holidays to be inherently POV, and on that level such a project is entirely unacceptable. Users can have user scripts to change the image for themselves, but the main page and layout need their blandness and NPOV - NPOV is one of the five pillars! Nihiltres 04:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC) (signed after, oops)
  • Strong Support- Even if it does include something only celebrated by only one religion, ethnic group, etc., that shouldn't matter so long as we include the "equivalent" (if possible) holiday for any other religions, ethnic groups, etc. As well, if someone feels that their religion, ethnic group, etc. does not have a holiday recognized that they think should be, they can always suggest it. Ninetywazup? 23:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • oppose Religion#Demographics list 21for balance, if we consider three Christian dates of Christmas, Easter, Good Friday that means that 63 religious day logo's. Then we add these UN listed special days(note some are weeks) from here http://www.un.org/events/observances.htm , theres another 60, thats 1 in 3 days. Then what happens when day A and day B occurs on the same day how would it be decided which would get the recognition. I think we leave day recognitions to the "On this Day" section that way every event gets equal and fair recognition. Gnangarra 06:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It's a good idea but there could be the problems with copyright and determining which events pass the notability test. We don't want to be following Google day for day though, though I do like the Google sketches. :) Wikiwoohoo 22:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Radical Linking Proposal, making wiki more efficient

Im not sure if it is possible but it would be nice if all words that have an article or page would automatically be links to those pages, but appearing like normal words unless you have the cursor upon them (or click them). So the Articles would appear as today but all archived words would be "hidden" links. This would maybe take more bandwidth but it would surely make the pedia more effective and integrated. /Minoya 08:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

too many links would mean a big trawl. imagine reading an article, you'de never finish it out of curosity of what every word means. at the moment you can link anything to anything, once. An interesting idea. FrummerThanThou 09:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Mouse-over is normally done with Java Script. That would be a developer issue, but I'm rather unenthusiastic about the idea. First, the manual of style (WP:MOS) already discourages overlinking. Second, new readers may get lost in the link maze, but learning when to click and when to click later is part of the experience of Wikipedia. Anyway, I certainly understand the principle, and it's one reason the Manual of Style changed to discourage "overlinking." Geogre 11:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • And I'm not even mentioning the problems words with more than one meaning would cause... - Mgm|(talk) 13:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • WEll well, eventually it will happen, and when every word, every syllable is completely mapped and understood, we will move on, to new frontiers and new levels of understanding. /Minoya 14:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Cool, thats the way i like it! Just, I'd like one color for all text, hyperlinked or not. /Minoya 23:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA Quickhelp templates

I have an idea for making IPA symbols more comprehensible, using tooltips. I have made a template {{Ʒ}} that contains [[ʒ as in beige=beɪʒ|ʒ]], and then a redirect at [[ʒ as in beige=beɪʒ]] to the appropriate phonetic page. (Here it is without nowiki: ʒ, and here's a link to edit the template page: {{Ʒ}}. The discussion of this concept is here: template talk:Ʒ. Without popups, this works wonderfully: someone who doesn't know IPA sees blue text, moves their mouse over the link, then sees the quickie pronunciation help in the tooltip, and if they want to know more, they click and get the appropriate article. The dev version of popups has now been fixed to work with this, but the production version of popups still is not compatible. Again, please do NOT comment here, instead comment at template talk:Ʒ. If and when this starts to get a clearer consensus on whether and how to move forward, I'll be posting this at (policy) and (technical). --Homunq 16:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging fair use templates

Anyone interested in fair use templates should probably see the proposed merge at Template_talk:Game-cover#Merge. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 19:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Limiting the number of edits for new users

Is there a way to limit the number of user edit by implemeting an edit quota, this would for example limit the usefulness of sockpuppets and revert/edit wars that go on. The edit limits can be placed on let's say:

  • new users by limiting the number of edits they can perform overall - after the users have been around for some time, this edit quota can be lifted for example this is lifted after let's say a week or a month
  • special edit limits on selected articles where edit/revert wars are constant


Regards,

Vodomar 20:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Rejected, goes contrary to the purpose of encouraging new users to edit. We aren't GameFAQs where they arbitrarily define privilege levels. There is no purpose to doing this, and would serve only to discourage new editors from being active. Socks are cheap and easily creatable, so they wouldn't be stopped by this at all. Just make another 3 or 4 or 10 or 50 if you hit your revert limit. If a specific page requires it, we have semi-protection. --tjstrf talk 20:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I can tell you right now that it is not going to happen. This site will not treat all new users and/or anons as potential vandals and sockpuppets just because a small percentage are. See WP:AGF for more. If a revert war is going on you can have it semi-protected, but this is not the way to do it. Koweja 20:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Plus, those users who do commit wrongs can be blocked. Ninetywazup? 23:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Of course we have problem new users, but we have problem old users, too (no, not administrators). New users who insert massive numbers of links, who write in their company everywhere, and then do the scribbling stuff are problems, but they're not a new problem, and the scope of the problem isn't growing faster than our vandal hunting tools, so there is no need to curtail our general philosophy. For every two vandals and spammers affected by this, a legitimate and good contributor, and the bad guys will simply use two accounts to accomplish the edits they're now doing with one, so the effect will be strictly to increase suspicion and unfriendliness to good users. Geogre 02:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Branching support

Hi all. I would like to revive the old feature request for Wikipedia:Branching support. What do you all think of the idea? Cheers, --unforgettableid | how's my driving? 00:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do we need a formalized system for creating POV forks? Don't we want to avoid those as much as possible? --tjstrf talk 02:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject Talk-templates Proposal

Almost every Wikiproject has their own template to post in article talk pages. While this does allow users to find other articles in their favorite topics, some articles have several Wikiproject affiliations making some article talk pages very long and hard to convert to the new small template format. My plan is to create a template that can list all of the Wikiprojects an article is involved with, allow users to edit the Wikiprojects it lists, and display ratings and importance classes. Since I have almost no knowledge of template coding, I will need major help. I originally wanted to use the wikitable format using three columns: Wikiproject Name, Rating, and Importance:

Wikiproject Rating Importance
Albums A Significant
China B Core
Microsoft Windows A Core

...but that would mean restructuring the small template setup. I have concluded that I will probably need to use the messagebox format. How should I do this? Any thoughts? Improvements? Know anyone who would be interested in this project? Again, here's my to-do list again:

  • Create a multiple Wikiproject template
  • Give the Wikiproject name, rating, and improtance
  • Allow for the small template configuration
  • Any other ideas...

Thanks. -Blackjack48 04:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a good idea. It would certainly cut down on talk page header clutter. To do this, we will or would need two things: a list of all article-talk-header-inserting WikiProjects, and a format for listing the WikiProjects. I like your mockup, but I think an icon for each, not to mention the usual rating colors, would be a good idea. Nihiltres 04:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I would support the new format for project tags and history tags (good article, former good article, etc.) However, important notices such as reminders about signing comments, that the article might containt trolling, etc. should remain as wide bars on top. We also have {{skiptotoctalk}} which can help aliviate the problem. Koweja 14:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
This has been discussed to death (in many different places); there are a number of problems with a unified template:
  • Different project have somewhat different rating systems. The template would need to code each project's options separately (with the whole mess of categories).
  • The template would be used on nearly 400,000 pages; editing it (which would need to be done fairly regularly) would be a not-insignificant technical concern. (Not to mention that any careless change would suddenly break every project's assessments.)
  • Most importantly, project banners typically contain a variety of options other than article assessment; even if the assessments all used a common template, the banners would still need to be present for all their other features to work.
I'm of the opinion that, given the new small-format layout available, talk page clutter is basically a non-issue. It's quite trivial to enable the small format on any banners that lack it; certainly easier than trying to work with a template common to every WikiProject. Kirill Lokshin 17:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article length templates

Before I'm overcome with boldness, let's try this here first (ok, I'll be bold with colons). Bottomline: {{long}}, {{Verylong}}, and {{intro length}} should be deleted. Let me explain: these temporary templates are placed in articles that someone believes are overly long and requests that someone (ie. not me) transfers to a sub-article or summarizes the content. The flaw is that this is metadata: a comment and request (directed at editors who are familiar with the subject) concerning the structure of the article. This metadata belongs on the talk page: their raison d'être. Theoretically (as some templates say and most people ignore) the template-slapper should also leave an explanation on the talk page. Templates in the article should be addressed to the readers (ie. warnings of NPOV, unverified, current event, etc.). So this clever observation that the article is long should go on the talk page: not somewhere in the actual article. On the talk page the templates would be redundant with a section explaining how it is too verbose: so delete the templates. Right? :maclean 05:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The templates are important, as some articles are ridiculously long and can easily be broken into separate articles. However, as mentioned, they do belong on the talk page since they are a notice for editors, not readers. Perhaps someone running a bot or using some other kind of script can move them over. A notice should also be added to the template pages with instructions to add only to the talk page as many other templates already have. Koweja 13:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Agree that this is talk page material, not article. Rmhermen 18:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Me, I'd send the templates to hell without apology, as I do not want anyone templating "long." If an article is too long, then go to the talk page and argue the position. Templates are far too slap-and-run for my taste, and I don't want anyone telling me that a full article on The Cantos is "too long" because it gets to X kb or Y kb. If they pass TfD, then they're talk page matters and absolutely positively under no circumstances for the article page itself. Geogre 22:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Announcements about Wikibooks

Is it possible to make major announcements about Wikibooks on the main Wikipedia page? Robinhw 11:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

What about one of your nice boxes with:

Wikibooks! From books for university such as Special Relativity to books for infants such as Big Cats Wikibooks has a book for everyone.

Robinhw 12:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with major announcements for sister projects since it isn't really advertising. You're example, however, is just an ad for Wikibooks. What kind of announcements did you have in mind? Koweja 13:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Initially an advert but later on announcements of completed books. Wikibooks is at the stage that Wikipedia achieved about 3 years ago, it ranks about 3000th on the internet (Alexa rank) and is just about to take off. It now has some good content and an exponential growth phase may be just round the corner. I was hoping for a bit of a push from Wikipedia. Robinhw 16:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Announcing completed books seems like a pretty good idea. However, do Wikibooks have to go through a review process before they are declared completed, similar to how wikipedia articles are review before being declared a featured article? See WP:FAC for what I mean. Koweja 16:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Now that the project has quite a number of completed books I would expect a scheme of this type to occur. Until now most of the effort has been devoted to actually getting some books completed. My guess is that Wikibooks will go through the same development cycle as Wikipedia but over a period of 3-5 times as long because books are time consuming. This is why some publicity to draw in Wikipedia contributors would be useful. Robinhw 10:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cell / Mobile phone Project Gutenberg ebooks links

The last 12 months I have been working on project www.mobilebooks.org to have Project Gutenberg ebooks available on cheap cell / mobile phones. And that is not using WAP where the big fat telephone operators make big money to download. These ebooks are in java and work on most java enabled phones. Users can download them straight for the website without needing to pay big bucks for WAP. All this is of course for free, users can download the 5000+ ebooks for FREE.

Now the big question!!! I want to invest time to put the proper links so wiki users can download the cell phone ebooks straight from Wiki.

What do you guys say????

Thanks John Mizzi

Sounds like an excellent idea. Good on you. DurovaCharge! 22:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
John and I have been discussing this via email. He is talking about adding thousands of links to his website (which has Google Ads) to articles. I have suggested that he follow WP:EL and add the link to the article talk page to avoid a conflict of interest. He has already been blocked once under the belief he was spamming and I think that is likely to happen again if he restarts in the same manner. Sarah Ewart 05:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

There are an ever increasing number of fact books at Wikibooks, a Wikipedia sister-project, if you are interested in this aspect Wikibooks staff lounge is the contact point. Robinhw 10:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assistance

[edit] Have I done my wiki right?

Hi. I just set up WikiMe (http://editthis.info/wikime/Main_Page). Question: I set my self up as the admin, the only one who can view, edit, etc. WikiMe. Have I done it right? If not, what do I need to change on Control Panel?

Also: I want to make sure I back up my wiki. How do you do this? Can you save a wiki to a usb key or something?

[edit] Photo not showing on home computer but visible on another computer.

I had an operator at Wikipedia kindly upload a publicity photo to the Gerald Mohr Wiki site recently. She added an infobox template to do so. Oddly, although the infobox is on screen, the photo is not showing at all on my home computer but is showing on my office computer. I've tried purging, cache cleaning, cache bypassing on my computer and also changing the level of protection from my firewell to medium for a trusted site, but all to no avail. Has anyone any other suggestions as to how I can get the photo to show on my home computer, please?

[edit] Vialardi

We appreciate your contributions to the Vialardi article, but for legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text: I am the owner of the Copyrights ! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nicomo (talk • contribs).

[edit] How to make a new user feel hugely unwelcomed

I joined up here on Wikipedia a few weeks ago. So I'm reading an article on baked ziti that's only one sentence long. At the bottom, it says "This cuisine-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." So I did just that. But, my God, I didn't realize my horrible crime -- I added a recipe. Yes, I didn't read endless pages of policy where, stuck in the middle of one, is a single sentence of fine print that says recipes are strictly forbidden, notwithstanding, of course, there actually are hundreds of recipes in all sorts of articles all over Wikipedia. But, by God, we've got to stamp out those evil recipes, so we have more room for wonderful pornographic filth like this and this. Think how dangerous it would've been had a child read about baked ziti; thank goodness that horrid recipe has been removed, so children can spend their time here learning about filth like this and this.

A friend told me "Wikipedia is a perfect example of online lunatics running the asylum." Well, that certainly seems to be the case here. A specific page encourages me to contribute -- the online equivalent of a "welcome" sign -- then I'm treated rudely and shabbily for doing just that. Maybe the tags should say, "This cuisine-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it, but first read these eighteen pages of fine print bureaucratic policy first. Filthy pornography is AOK, but no recipes."

I didn't violate anybody's copyright here. I didn't post pornography. I didn't post anything with obscenities. I didn't threaten anyone.

I posted a simple recipe.

Congratulations on treating a new user rudely and making a new user feel really unwelcome. I feel like Goldie Hawn in that movie Deceived when she asks, "Is there any adult with a shred of common sense in charge here?" Carmela Soprano 09:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Those thinking of responding may care to read this first. -- Hoary 09:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hoary, I wasn't asking for specific assistance on the baked ziti matter, but thank you for your quick response. I posted this more rhetorically. I feel sort of like I went up to a shop, where there's a big sign in the window that says, "welcome, please do come in," and when I go in, I'm punched in the face.
I read the following on this page: "Newcomers are always to be welcomed. There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers.... The process should be virtually invisible for newcomers, so that they do not have to do anything to start contributing to the community."
How unlike my actual experience. Carmela Soprano 09:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
If deletion of your addition -- even an addition that makes perfect sense, that wasn't a copyvio, wasn't offensive, etc etc etc -- truly felt to you like being punched in the face, there's no arguing with that. I've had my additions of similar length deleted in the past, and though it was irritating I felt much happier than if I'd been punched in the face. All my teeth were in place, my nose was unbloodied, no concussion. But that's just me; perhaps I'm peculiarly thick-skinned about editing, or peculiarly sensitive to brute force. ¶ As for the articles related to sex, I wonder how you even know about them. "Bukkake" (one of your choices) is a newish word to me; "felching" is entirely new to me. Still, nobody can argue with somebody else's statement that he or she is offended by an article on a subject that would appear to need some searching. -- Hoary 09:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hoary, perhaps "slapped in the face" would be a better analogy than "punched in the face." No blood was lost, no scarring involved, but a rude comeuppance, nonetheless, particularly after being welcomed. The problem here isn't baked ziti or a recipe. The problem here is a system that welcomes you on one hand and encourages you to jump right in, then hides complex bureaucratic rules in pages that are not easily found. And I wouldn't have minded if the other party replaced the recipe with suitable information (as I now have done). But simply blanking something without explanation or replacement is rude and counterproductive. It violates everything I quoted from Mr. Wales. As for the dirty words, I had to ask my husband. I was so shocked by what I saw on those pages, I didn't read anything after the first page. I'm still dumbfounded that kind of pornography is welcomed and okay, but a poor little innocent recipe is verbotten. Carmela Soprano 10:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hang on: you were so appalled by your mistreatment that you called your husband over to the computer and asked him to tell you the names of some of the juicier episodes within porn videos so that you could type these in to see if offensive articles existed for them? This is odder and odder. Anyway, Rhobite explained the deletion, which does not seem at all offensive to me. If it seems offensive to you, that's a pity. -- Hoary 10:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hoary, you state, "Rhobite explained the deletion." I'm sorry, that's not correct. Look at the history at that baked ziti page. His first action was blanking with nothing more than "rm recipe." There was no explanation of the deletion. My work was gone, poof. Tossed out like so much garbage. Yes, I was offended. I was treated shabbily. If he was a new user like me, that would be understandable. But he's an administrator. Per the "newcomers" guidelines that he links on his own user page, he should've contacted me. The second time he deleted it, he still didn't explain that it was a policy problem -- he made it out like he, personally, didn't want any recipes. As for the dirty words, my husband is a criminal prosecutor. He already knew, unlike me, about the dirty content here on Wikipedia. It has become some kind of an issue in a local prosecution involving pornographic content filters.Carmela Soprano 10:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Carmela Soprano: I have read over the discussion between you and Rhobite. I understand that you're upset that your recipe was deleted. It's hard, when something we put a lot of work into doesn't fit here at Wikipedia. Maybe Rhobite should have explained his deletion on the talk page first, but a lot of administrators are very busy cleaning up vandalism from, and it can be difficult to determine which contributions are serious. Furthermore, it can be difficult to separate the true new users from the sock puppets. After you reverted the deletion once, I feel that Rhobite dealed with you in a polite and understanding manner. He provided you with the information you asked for, and went out of his way to explain that your recipe belongs on Wikibooks, not on Wikipedia. Yes, the Wikipedia guideline is Be Bold!, and all the rules may seem confusing, but I think the key fact to remember is that Wikipedia strives to be encyclopedic. If you wouldn't expect to read in in the Encyclopedia Brittanica (like recipes!) then it really doesn't belong here. (note that, in everything, there are exceptions to this rule that have been agreed upon by the community). As for those so-called "filthy" links, they are of use to many people. Since your lawyer husband knows about them, there must be other people who hear those words (perhaps in a courtroom) and must look them up. -sthomson 17:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Carmella, I think you're vastly overreacting to this whole situation. The deletion of the recipe was completely reasonable and explicitly supported by wikipedia policy. When you asked for a policy explanation, you got one. Quit blowing this out of proportion and get back to something more useful. Seriously, you posted this to Jimbo's user talk page? --Milo H Minderbinder 00:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Uninvolved administrator weighs in. Recipes do belong in Wikibooks rather than in Wikipedia. If you have more recipes to share then you're welcome to post them there. DurovaCharge! 03:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Somewhat unrelated but I wonder to what degree simply defining terms like "felching" violates WP:NOT a dictionary and should be PROD? I mean I see a definition and then some places where the term was used. I see no real content other than a definition; the other content is trivial. --Justanother 16:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deleting too speedy?

I recently saw that an article on AfD had been speedy deleted after only a few hours of discussion and a small handful of posts. The admin didn't cite any criteria, but a couple people had made arguments on the page that, in my opinion, were simply incorrect references to the speedy deletion policy. I went to the admin's talk page to ask him about it and I saw about 15 comments there from other users complaining of this admin's apparent itchy speedy-delete trigger finger, going back quite a while. I guess my question is, is there a way to propose some kind of small review for admins? Like, can I go somewhere and say "admin X blocks people too quickly" or "admin Y is always closing AfDs too early" and have someone take a look? What's the procedure there? Thanks--Dmz5 17:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:Admin#Dealing_with_grievances — RJH (talk) 18:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Banner for out-of-date articles?

I could not find a template to put on an out-of-date article (e.g. talks about plans for 2004) when I want to mark it but don't have time to rewrite it myself right now. Something like:

{| class="messagebox current" style="width: auto;"
| [[Image:Current event marker.svg|50px| ]]
| '''This article is out of date.'''<br> <small>Future events or plans discussed in the text need to be reconciled with the events that occured after writing.</small>
|}
This article is out of date.
Future events or plans discussed in the text need to be reconciled with the events that occured after writing.

I'm surprised something like this isn't listed already in the template section. Am I missing something? Or what is the proper thing to do?

—Długosz 20:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi there Dlugosz!
I think you mean the template Out of date. To put that in an article, type:
{{Out of date}}
at the top of the page in question. Cheers and happy editing!
Yuser31415 20:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Yuser. I added it to Template_messages/Cleanup right after {{update}} which I somehow must have overlooked when I asked the question. I wonder how many more are out there that are not listed? —Długosz 23:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User: Antaeus Feldspar

I'm having a problem with User: Antaeus Feldspar on Space opera in Scientology doctrine and Supernatural abilities in Scientology doctrine, where any changes made are instantly reverted by this user and his talk-page/edit summary explanations aren't explanatory at all, but extremely rude and uncivil. Can some independent, impartial editors and admins please take a look and suggest what to do next? Is the mediation thing the next step? Highfructosecornsyrup 02:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You're a suspected sockpuppet. I suggest contacting the editors who suspect you and volunteering to agree to a checkuser. It would probably get accepted because the other account is banned. That wouldn't solve the other content/policy issues regarding your editing but at least it could restore some good faith. Suggest Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user regarding your other problems. DurovaCharge! 03:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suicide notes posted on Wikipedia

I just reverted an edit to the 'Suicide' article that reads like a suicide note. I added a neutral message on the anon ip's talk page. I am willing to assume that most if not all suicide note-like posts here are jokes ... and I know that we are not in the business of either crisis counseling or crisis center referral. I just wanted some comment on how best to deal with 'vandalism' of this nature. Thanks. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Your approach sounds more than sufficient. — RJH (talk) 18:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually I beg to disagree. I located the city and state where that post originated and filed a report with the local police. While I don't think Wikipedia policy covers this officially, all suicide threats deserve to be treated seriously. DurovaCharge! 01:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Did you determine city and state based on http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=209.173.24.221, or did you dig deeper using a whois lookup tool (like Alien Whois)? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Basically I just did the standard query, noted all relevant information on pen and paper for reference, and Googled the police for that jurisdiction. Google's top result turned out to be wrong and they referred me to the state police who took the report. The officer was a little surprised at first, but once he understood what I was communicating it was straightforward and businesslike. The department's IT division can handle the rest. If this had come from a registered account instead of an IP I would have requested a checkuser. DurovaCharge! 02:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Well done Durova! I think you did the right thing. I think the user would've been a vandal, but you never know ........... Yuser31415 06:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. It's probably best to err on the side of caution with things like this – Gurch 06:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I also agree that this was an appropriate response. - BanyanTree 14:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the detailed explanation. I think this is a good response, erring on the side of caution. Is there somewhere that this guideline to response could be written up in the Wikipedia namespace so it is preserved? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Users can choose to report edits like this to the police if they wish, and more power to them, but as for a central policy, no. No more than we should have a policy forcing us to report "I'm going to kill u" vandals, like the one who's been plaguing my userpage for several weeks (fyi, I'm still alive). Users can look at each edit as it comes and use their own common sense to judge whether it deserves anything more than reversion. --Sam Blanning(talk) 16:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up: this editor returned a few days later to vandalize more pages. I've blocked the IP for a year, which is about the maximum IP addresses get blocked, and mentioned the police report in my block summary. The address had accumulated four previous blocks this year, the longest of which lasted one month. DurovaCharge! 05:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main page: Somali Civil War

Hello. "Somali Civil War" on the main page links to Ethiopian war in Somalia, a new article created at 22:00 8 December, that says "This article documents a current event", that "The Ethiopian war in Somalia began on 8 December 2006" and that this article is part of the "Military history WikiProject." I am not an expert and don't want to cause problems based on lack of understanding or lack of knowledge but I object to creating and promoting a "Military History Project" page created the same calendar day, and I object to Wikipedia being the source for information that a new war started. What do you think? Can you merge the articles? Or change the Main page link? I have not read every article on the subject but for reference in case it helps, the English language press according to the Google News index as of 6:00 9 December is watching closely but not saying war started in their headlines. Thank you in advance for anything you can do. Susanlesch 06:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC). minor edit at :57.

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history is one of hundreds of WikiProjects that have been started to focus on improving certain types of articles within the encyclopedia. It has been around for months (in fact it's one of the oldest WikiProjects). These projects are simply an attempt to collect together groups of editors interested in the same subjects and allow them to co-ordinate their efforts to improve the articles in their area of interest.
As far as the existence of the article is concerned, the nature of Wikipedia and the Internet means that this is one of the first places information is likely to end up; thanks to the Internet, news can spread around the world in an instant, and thanks to Wikipedia, anyone can create an article about it. As for the question of whether war has started or not, the article cites nine different pages on a number of major news websites, which we consider to be reliable sources. You can find links to these pages at the bottom of the article – Gurch 07:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
The sources may be reliable but look at the dates: the International Herald Tribune 6 November, BBC News 22 July, Sudan Tribune 6 September, All Africa 28 November, BBC News 30 November, and Reuters 30 November. Two are from 8 December, BBC News and Al Jazeera. But of course I defer to you and those with more Wikipedia experience though. Thanks for your reply.Susanlesch 07:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject setup.

I'd appreciate some assistance in setting up, or rather resetting up, the Climbing wikiproject at WP:CLIMB. I don't quite get all the categorization and template stuff, but it's definitely an area that needs a wikiproject. ⇒ SWATJester On Belay! 07:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You might consider cross-posting your query at Wikipedia:Help desk Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council was set up specifically to help organize and coordinate WikiProjects and it would be worth checking them out. - BanyanTree 13:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, that page is new to me; thank you. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New editors whose English is marginal

I have been spending a lot of time working in articles re Indian cinema. Many Indian editors contribute there. Many of them speak flawless English but ... there are also wannabe editors who have studied English in school in India (from non-native speakers) and write misspelled, non-grammatical, non-idiomatic English. When I have to remove or completely rewrite their contributions, some of them get very angry. One editor informed me that he taught English and dared me to find fault with his prose. [25] So I took three of his sentences to pieces [26], after which he disappeared from the film articles.

I probably DIDN'T handle this the best way. I wish that there were some written policy that one could reference that could make some of the same points I was trying to make but in a kinder way, a less personal way. Does such a policy exist in some nook and I just haven't found it? Does anyone have any suggestions, or have the time and energy to work with me on writing such a policy? Zora 00:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is something that can really be delt with through policy. Have you tried pointing them to our hindi and urdu wikipedias?Geni 11:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I have a feeling that the people I'm dealing with would consider that a slur. Anything that suggests that their English is less than OK is a slur ... because speaking English well is an indication of upper class status in India (so far as I can tell). Zora 17:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if they'd react to it any better from an Indian editor... I've been teaching EFL for the last couple of months. I'd be willing to try talking to them the next time this comes up. Again, I don't know if it'll be any better, but perhaps worth a shot.--Kchase T 18:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I thought your response was very polite and tactful. I can see how their feelings might be hurt, but I don't think that there was any more polite way for you to handle it. Also, there's a difference between speaking a language well and writing it well. I speak French much, much better than I write it, yet I undersand it better if I see it written than if I hear it. You might be dealing with someone whose grasp of English (while better than my grasp of French) follows a similar pattern. They pride themselves on their fluency with the language, and were you in a room talking to them you would find their English quite good, but their writing skills lack something that their spoken language posesses. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 15:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need advice

I need an advice on how to group entries in List of operators. Any thoughts?--Planemo 15:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You might consider consulting the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics if you have not already done so. Regards, --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Learning Spanish

I'm looking for a website that will provide me with the fastest and best method of learning the Spanish language. Can anyone help me out?

Try asking at the Reference desk. Tra (Talk) 19:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Best place to pursue an RfC on copyvio/legal issue?

Hi. Can someone please steer me toward the best next step for The Bridge (film). There is an ongoing dispute that cannot seem to reach consensus as to whether it is appropriate to link to a live site for viewing the film seeing as how the rights owner has attempted to remove it from circulation. Some are making very "legalese" arguments that I, not being an attorney versed in copyright law, cannot evaluate. I would like to set up an RfC on this but not in the religion category as the question is more wikipedia policy/copyvio/legal in nature. Thanks --Justanother 22:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I will try this on the Help Desk. --Justanother 19:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs more eyes

Judge Rotenberg Educational Center has been subject to IP vandalism, including posting of a copyvio; controversial subject, needs more informaiton (including non-controversial history etc.) and could do with being on more watchlists, please. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. ViridaeTalk 11:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where can I find editors who can help expand a neglected article?

Is there a place where one can advertise a page as in need of editors?

The ormeloxifene article is embarrassingly short. It is a selective estrogen receptor modulator, but its page is factually lacking when compared to the other medications of its class -- raloxifene and tamoxifen, to give two examples.

How can I seek out editors knowledgable about this narrow, scientific topic? Thank you! Joie de Vivre 17:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You can list it in the Open Tasks section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine. You may also add the template {{expert}} or {{expert-subject}}, specifying Medicine, to the top of the page. It you add an expert tag, please outline your concerns about the article on the discussion page. Cheers, BanyanTree 19:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I do not understand how to use the expert-subject template, if anyone has the time to tell me, that'd be great. As far as the Talk page goes, I'm the person who created the article but I have no more knowledge with which to improve it. Thanks! Joie de Vivre 00:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
To use the expert-subject template, place {{expert-subject|Medicine}} at the top of the ormeloxifene page. Be sure you get the pipe symbol ( | ) correct. You can copy the template from here if you want to; I would recommend previewing the page before saving it. That should do it. Good luck! --Tkynerd 15:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Something happened to this image...

Image:YellowHardHat.jpg is a sherlock holmes hat! 68.39.174.238 22:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The original image was on Commons. Acccording to Commons:Deletion requests/All images by sxc.hu user brokenarts, it was a clear copyright violation and was deleted on November 27th. On the same day, another user uploaded the current image locally. So, the hard hat is gone for good. - BanyanTree 22:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with it really, but it's still a strange name as that is definately NOT a hardhat! 68.39.174.238 05:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christian views on contraception

I was wondering if anyone would mind looking over Christian views on contraception. There is something that bothers me about this article (not content, but format). I believe there are way too many quotes, and the use of headshots of those being quoted seems unorthodox. Just trying to feel it out if others find issues with the quote and image use, or if it is just me. Thanks.--Andrew c 15:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You may have a good point about fair use provisions for copyrighted images. I commented on the article when it was at peer review. My main criticism was that it covered only half the spectrum of Christian views from center to far right, but ignored everything to the left of the middle. DurovaCharge! 23:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image upload broken?

In the last couple of days, I've tried repeatedly to upload (to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload) a couple of plain-vanilla JPEG images. No joy on either -- the current one returns a message that '.' is not an accepted image format. Yes, it says '.' Help?

Pete Tillman 19:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

In case anyone wants to try to duplicate this, try uploading this image (fair use of a book cover): http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n28/n143506.jpg Title it "Telzey & Crest Cats", in case it works... <g> Pete Tillman 20:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help at [27]. I just tried again, using Safari, no joy, same '.' message. Very annoying. Pete Tillman 21:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spammy Links!

Supply_chain_management has a ton of links at the end and I can't distinguish ones that should actually be there from ones that shouldn't. They all look commercial to me. I could use a professional spam-link-remover's opinion. Sifaka talk 21:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MA dissertations in a bibliography

There is currently a disagreement at Bibliography of the Darfur conflict. A user added a section on theses and dissertations with one item, a Masters dissertation. I reverted and was in turn reverted. Can anyone bring up any relevant policy guidelines, or just offer an opinion about the status of MA theses in a list of useful sources, at the discussion there? Thanks, BanyanTree 00:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2 new nav boxes need propagating, maybe populating

I've just created Template:d20 and Template:RPG systems, but I'm not sure if they're complete, and they need to be put on the appropriate articles. NeonMerlin 01:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About your links' underlining

I'm a frequent reader of both the Spanish and American Wikipedias, and even when they both are wikis, I find one difference between them mostly annoying: The Spanish version of the Wikipedia is the only one that has its links to other articles underlined, and it really bothers me and a large number of other users, too. The thing is, I would like to know your reasons for not underlining your links in the articles, so that I can try and propose the same thing on the Spanish Wiki, since the last time I tried to, even when the number of supporters of the idea was rather large, nobody did anything to change it.

So, the question is: Why (and when) did you decide to stop using underlined links in your aticles? --201.250.8.212 05:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Our wikilinks are underlined. --tjstrf talk 05:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Not to me. Keep in mind if you can login you can customize such things. He means that, by default, eN doesn't and eS does.
I have the default customization for links, and they are underlined. Same thing if I log out. This is in FireFox, if that matters. --tjstrf talk 06:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Compare the Spanish article to the American one about Argentina. Can you see the difference in the link format between them? That's what I was talking about.

--201.250.8.212 05:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Why? I really don't know... I suggest asking on the technical VP maybe. 68.39.174.238 06:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify a tangential point: this isn't an American Wikipedia. People from around the world edit the English language Wikipedia. DurovaCharge! 04:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal stub deletion

When adding articles, I find it useful to create a series of personal stub pages to "construct" the basic article. I put these stubs on a separate page. Once the article is created, I delete the page. However, I note a stub page has been deleted, which I did not put a delete tag on - I found a cached version on Google. How do I find out who deleted it? Thank You - Rgds, - Trident13 13:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=User:Trident13/VIrvin and you will see the log. You can use this address for any deleted page by changing the pagename. The reason given was CSD G11 which reads "Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote a company, product, group or service and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company, product, group or service as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion."--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 16:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your help BirgitteSB! The guy left no explanation on my talk page, which I would have thought was a reasonable courtesy. I have left a message on his talk page asking why. Rgds, - Trident13 17:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A specific interpretation of WP:NC-SHIP please

A discussion is being played out at Talk:Royal Canadian Sea Cadets with regard to the naming convention of "Stone Frigates". These are shore based establishments which have a formal designation of SCSTC. This SCSTC designation has resulted in an edit war between one named editor, Quadra, and an IP based editor.

The IP Based editor has (or appears to have) taken an intransigent stance and has been insisting on some form of military regulation being applied to the article.

The other editor is doing his best to work with the IP based editor, but the IP guy is really hard to work with and takes fixed positions and seems to have set himself up as some alleged "responsible authority", making it very hard to continue to assume good faith. Nonetheless good faith is assumed, though the assumption is becoming ragged at the edges.

The edit war resulted in total protection of the page. In the circumstances this is supportable. Even though the IP guy seems not to wish to get an ID, it would have been wrong, I think, to discriminate, since this is an edit war, not vandalism. However this makes editing the article impossible, and there is much to do to it.

Quadra has researched and interpreted WP:NC-SHIP in what appears to me to be a reasonable manner. While it is sometimes hard to interpret what "IP Guy" is saying, it appears that he holds a diametrically opposed view. It seems from his comments on the talk page, notably "...the entire article is good as it is and might remained locked." that he is likely to edit unconstructively if the page is unprotected.

My hope is that the page and the talk page might be visited by uninvolved and disinterested editors with experience of interpreting guidelines such that a true consensus can be reached. At that point it is likely to be sensible to unprotect the article and allow edits to restart.

It's a real minority interest article. Each protagonist has deep loyalty to the service, and it seems to be a simple difference of opinion played out in a challenging manner. My own interest in the article is minor. I have made format and layout edits to it, and simply hope that peace may break out in Canada! Fiddle Faddle 22:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editing issues

I'm helping edit a new section at Talk:Evolution/FactvsTheory. The problem is that what I see on the page is not what I see in the edit box. Here's what is visible on screen:

In science, a fact[1] is an observation or a piece of data. A "fact" in science is a measurement or some evidence or the result of an experiment. For example, there are many observations of gravity and measurements of gravity. Every time an apple is dropped and it falls, an observation of gravity has been made. Gravity is measured every time something is weighed. So gravity can be described by scientists as a "fact". This is because there is a collection of gravity observations that need to be explained. And observations are "facts" in scientific language.

And here's what I see within the editing:

  • In science, a fact[3] is an observation or a piece of data. A "fact" in science is a measurement or some evidence or the result of an experiment. For example, there are many observations of gravity and measurements of gravity. Every time an apple is dropped and it falls, an observation of gravity has been made. Gravity is measured every time something is weighed. So gravity can be described by scientists as a "fact". This is because there is a collection of gravity observations that need to be explained. And observations are "facts" in scientific language.

I've done everything. Cut and paste. Change words. Nothing seems to work. I'm on a Macintosh, and I've tried it in Safari, Firefox and Opera. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. OrangeMarlin 19:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I just cut and pasted exactly what I saw on the saved page, and what I see in the editing page. And when I see it on this page, both cut and pastes look exactly alike. Yet within this editing box, they're completely different. I'm confused. OrangeMarlin 19:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] daily article visits/hits statistics

Is there any way to see how many users per day visit certain pages? For example, I'd like to know how many people visit the World Music page on a given day. This is just one example. Thanks! amla

For performance reasons, this feature has been disabled. However, you can get this data for the top 100 most viewed pages at Wikicharts. Tra (Talk) 23:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External link question at Talk:Cancer#ConfirmPath_external_links

I think we need a couple of extra brains to comment on this current discussion in order for there to be the appearance and reality of broader input beyond the few folks who have engaged in the ongoing (albeit mild so far) addition/reversion activity at Cancer and discussion to date. Thanks for expressing your opinion at Talk:Cancer#ConfirmPath_external_links if you have one you would like to share. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:58, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How do we deal with anonymous vandals?

A page I created was vandalized, and it's impossible to contact the user to complain. I have corrected the page, but isn't there some way to report vandals and prevent them from continuing? Going to the history page, there is no user name for the vandal, only a string of letters, 209.244.187.250, that leads to a so-called special page. Now when I make any edits on a page, my user name is clearly posted. How is it that vandals can change a page without leaving their user name? And what can we do about this problem? Thanks in advance for your help. --Leghorn.

That string of numbers is their IP address, and it's actually a more specific identifier as regards their realname than a psuedonym identity like mine is. This is because it can be used to find their physical location with enough legwork. --tjstrf talk 05:18, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I was able to access the talk page for the anonymous user and leave a warning template. I hope that solves the problem. ~Leghorn.

[edit] Copyvios site with live extraction of content

"Wikidpedia", it's called. [28] I know there's somewhere I can bring this to, but whom? Apparently it's registered with Pipex Communications UK Ltd t/a 123-Reg.co.uk, according to Allwhois. -- Zanimum 14:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

You may be looking for Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. - BanyanTree 14:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Miscellaneous

[edit] 4000metres = ?

On several different airport pages, 4000 metres mean several different things. It sometimes states 13120ft, 13123ft, yet i've gotten 13124 on my calulator using 1*3.281. Which is the most correct? It is very confusing...

The actual conversion from meters to feet is 1 foot = .3048 meters [29]. Multiplying meters by 3.281 is an approximation to this (1/.3048 is actually 3.280839895013, more or less). Using this as the conversion factor, I get 13123.359580052 (which rounds to 13123). However, if we're counting significant digits, 4000 only has 4, so using only 4 digits for the answer yields 13120. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Well actually, 4000 only has one significant digit. It depends on the context, if someone is talking about a 4000m race, for example, then we know that it's 'exactly' 4000m and so an accurate conversion is more appropriate, whereas if 4000m means "nearer to 4000m than it is to 3000m or 5000m" then something more crude would be OK. On an airport page I would expect 4000m to meane "at least 4000m" as it's probably talking about runway length and you wouldn't want to be overestimating their length! You could always remove the imperial measurement. MikesPlant 13:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Beware - there is more than one definition for 'foot'. In the US, there is a "surveyors foot" which is still in common use - and a different definition of the foot prior to 1959(!). From the GNU 'units' program data file:
"The US Metric Law of 1866 gave the exact relation 1 meter = 39.37 inches. From 1893 until 1959, the foot was exactly 1200|3937 meters. In 1959 the definition was changed to bring the US into agreement with other countries. Since then, the foot has been exactly 0.3048 meters. At the same time it was decided that any data expressed in feet derived from geodetic surveys within the US would continue to use the old definition."
Notice that last bit...*MANY* existing US GIS data sources (maps and airport runway data) are still using the surveyor's foot - and lots of references pre-date the 1959 (or even the 1866) laws and have "non-metric" feet (isn't that an odd phrase!). Then of course in non-US countries, the laws changed at different times with differing intermediate definitions. Hence it should come as no surprise that everything is a horrible mess! SteveBaker 19:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
But the difference is small - 1 200 / 3 937 = 0.30480061 So for a 4000 m runway, that is either 13,123.3333 ft for the old definition or 13,123.3596 for the new definition, ignoring sig. digits. For most applications this is within measurement uncertainty. --BenBurch 00:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ninjas or Pirates?

There is a big discussion going on about ninjas and pirates. the disscusion topic is "which is more popular, Pirates or Ninjas?". Everybody has a lot to say about this question so please say what you think and don't be afraid because you need to speak to be heard.

Gogoboi662 11:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Anthony Schade

Pirate all the way! yo ho! yo ho! A Pirates life for me! also people love Caption Jack Sparrow and how many famous ninjas can you list? hmmmmmmmmm? ШнΨ ʃǏĜĤ†¿ ĞІνΣ ÎИ тФ ΤĦƏ ɖĄГĶ Ѕǀɠё фʃ ʈНę ʃФŖĆÉǃ 20:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Let me see. The Ninja Turtles? That makes five for starters? Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
pirates spend alot of time so drunk they can't move, the ninja would have no trouble. by theonlysmartoneherelol
Pirates, naturally. ;)--The Corsair 00:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Ninjas, clearly. Deco 07:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Pirates. The fact that I'm former Navy has absolutely nothing to do with it. ;) Durova 13:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Pirates will own ninjas any day :P --Kar_the_Everburning 22:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I think ninjas may be better disciplined than pirates, but then after watching a docu-drama on the BBC about Blackbeard, I think they might be evenly matched.
Also pirates have cannons. Do ninjas have cannons? I don't think so. :P--Kar_the_Everburning 14:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Then again, do pirates have weapons which can barely be pronounced? I don't think so. --Joti 22:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Are they fighting on land or at sea? I'd go with ninjas if on land and pirates if they were fighting on different ships. If they were fighting on the same ship, I'd still go with pirates since they might be better in a melee and would be accustomed to fighting on a ship.

If it were cavemen versus astronauts, I'd go with cavemen as long as there were no weapons, or only primitive weapons like sticks. I think all of the hard work that the cavemen do would make them stronger and they'd probably have experience from fighting with other cavemen. -- Kjkolb 09:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This is going to change into a whole different subject because of your post, Kjkolb o.O

If a caveman took somthing from an astronaut, lets say... a laser sword(I'm so immature xD), I think you would run 'cause I don't think an astronaut would have any use for a wooden/bone club.--Kar_the_Everburning 15:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ninjas pwn j00 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Laelius1031 (talk • contribs) 22:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Pirates, of course. (Oh, and the fact that my username, minus the numbers, is a synonym for pirate is completely coincedental!) Picaroon9288 00:55, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

ROBOTS ARE CLEARLY SUPERIOR — Omegatron 01:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

INDEED. SUPERIOR TO BOTH PIRATES AND NINJAS (WHILE STILL INFERIOR TO ROBOTS) WOULD BE THE PIRATE NINJA. - Robovski 00:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The answer is perfectly obvious: given that ninjas and pirates are both good, it surely follows that pirate ninjas (such as Chris) are better than either one. -- AJR | Talk 17:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Puh-lease. Just picture the Pirate/Ninja stealthily sneaking into the bedroom under cover of darkness - clinging to the ceiling with tiny bamboo-leaf sucker cups attached to fingertips and toes - and assasinating your enemy with a single drop of lethal poison by trickling it down a fine thread lowered into his mouth....with an eye patch, one wooden leg, a hook for a hand and a damn great red and blue parrot on his shoulder incessantly yelling "PIECES OF EIGHT!! PIECES OF EIGHT!!" ??? I didn't think so. SteveBaker 23:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Pirates, DUH!A7X 900 21:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Given that there are likely far more actual pirates than real ninjas in the world today, I'd say pirates are more popular, even though I personally find ninjas more interesting. But piracy a more popular occupation, judging by acquaintances I have who sail in tropical seas. I've met more people who have encountered real pirates than people who have encountered real ninjas. =Axlq 22:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That's because nobody who meets a ninja lives to tell about it! Deco 09:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Ghost pirates!(i've posted too many times here >.<)--Kar_the_Everburning 14:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • There is a need for more practice of Piracy. Ninjitsu is an overrated and loathesome past time that need not be afflicted upon the peoples of the world. Someday the pirates wil be up in arms and all the Ninja will do is a pretty backflip onto some roof in the horizon, then prance about with flashy stars and I will be in my house laughing and consuming the maids latest affrontary on the consumable medium. May Satan save us all.--R.A Huston 08:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Dude! Ninjas all the way! Kyo catmeow! 06:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Ninjas Clearly way cooler than pirates --Fittysix 03:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Ninjas...for obvious reasons... ;) --さくら木 11:11, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • 20 legit reasons that pirates are better (from a Facebook group; I'm not responsible for any contraversial points as I didn't make them):
  1. Ninjas don’t choose to be sneaky, they have to be. The only way that they can kill anyone is if they sneak up and stab them in the back and then run away. Pirates basically announce that they are coming because they know that no one can stop them.
  2. Ninjas have poor social skills. That is why they are such loners. Do you ever see a loner pirate? No.
  3. Pirates get all the booty.
  4. Famous pirate movie: Pirates of the Caribbean (Johnny Depp is a pimp)... Famous ninja movie: 3 Ninjas (enough said) (What? did you say "what about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?" Well see #10 below duh.)
  5. Pirates get pet monkeys and parrots. Ninjas get nothing.
  6. Pirates eat meat off the bone. Ninjas eat low fat yogurt (it’s the only thing that is transportable enough for them to carry in their black clothes or whatever the heck they wear).
  7. Pirates get to use cool words such as “Yo Ho,” “wench,” and “argh.” Ninjas don’t talk (poor social skills, remember?).
  8. 84% of ninjas are homosexual. Look it up. It’s a fact.
  9. Pirates speak English. People who speak English are BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE. Plus, they have cool accents.
  10. One might say, “Well, what about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?” Now, I will admit that the Ninja Turtles are awesome. Unfortunately, they are NOT ninjas. According to TheFreeDictionary.com, The definition of a ninja is “a person skilled in ninjitsu.” The definition of a person is “a living human.” Therefore, a ninja is “a living human skilled in ninjitsu.” Since they are turtles, they are not ninjas.
  11. George Washington was a pirate.
  12. Pirates have been known to eat up to 70 pancakes in one sitting. Can a ninja do that? No sir.
  13. Pirates have a universal symbol: the Jolly Roger.
  14. Ninjas have no famous Disney characters. Pirates have Captain Hook.
  15. Pirates sing pirate songs. Ninjas just read Cosmo.
  16. No one can make artificial limbs look cool like pirates can.
  17. Pirates get to pillage. Pillage...what a freaking cool word.
  18. Shakespeare prefers pirates. There are pirates in The Tempest. Are there ninjas in any of Shakespeare's works!? No!
  19. In the song "That's Life", Frank Sinatra sings, "I've been a puppet, a pauper, A PIRATE, a poet, a pawn and a king." Frank Sinatra is a pirate, FRANK SINATRA. Beat that, ninjas.
  20. Ninjas don't get to keep the stuff that they steal, they give it to their government. You know what that means?, Ninjas work for the man, that's right, THE MAN. Nobody likes the man.

--Vic226 03:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Vic226 make's a great point.A7X 900 19:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Dural: has everyone forgotten about pirate ninja mimes? they are the best thing imaginalbe! not only can they do everything pirates and ninjas can, they can also use invisible weapons, deflect anything with their glass boxes, and "fly" using invisible staircases! :poseted by Dural (who is currently NOT a member... but that will change within a week)

Kim Arhee: Now lets stay on task here- this is a popularity contest. The constant bickering over these two classic predatorial archetypes has emerged in recent years due to a combination of media campaigns. Notice how the two most popular Shonen Jump (tm) titles, One piece to piracy as Naruto is to Ninjitsu, and their relatively recent introduction to western popular culture. Admittedly One piece does conincide with the fanatical following of Pirates of the Carribean in a very timely fashion, but Ninja have been supremely popular with the youth of the past generation- Power Rangers, the 3 Ninjas franchise et al. Of course we could go into lots of petty disputes over the romanticizing of oriental assassination in various literary texts and how pirates dress not for practice,but how well the aparell catches the fellow sailors' amourous attention, however im sure we can come to an agreemnt on the "more important" facts like who Frank Sinatra referenced in an obscure song. Focus people, this is not a Johnny Depp character portrayal popularity contest, this is to decide which career is the best for toy companies to market as a fad for all 6 year old children in 1st world countries.

Hey everybody, please stick to my topic question because me and probably every one else are getting confused about what this discussion is really about. I would really appreciate it.Gogoboi662 19:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I am a Pirate, trained in Ninjutsu. Gilgamesh Rex 23:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ninjas, arrrr. Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Autogenerated edit summaries

Lately I've seen a lot of edit summaries by IPs and new users that say things like, "Replaced page with 'u r a turd'" or "Blanked page" or "Created page with 'blah blah blah'". This seems... odd. I know there had been some talk about autogenerating edit summaries and I'm wondering if that has now been implamented and if that's what I'm seeing. Especially since almost every thing on new pages now has an edit summary that reads like that... When did this happen? And if they are autogenerated, why don't all edits now have some sort of edit summary? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 17:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Got an example diff you can show us? | Mr. Darcy talk 18:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Sure. Here are some pulled from recent changes and new pages in the last few minutes:
For other persons named Andrew Johnson, see Andrew Johnson (disambiguation). {{Infobox_President | | name=Andrew Johnson FAG')"
~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 19:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-11-20/Technology report, second bullet item. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
So this is a new feature, but only for changes that affect 90% of the article or new articles of 500 words or more. That ought to make life easier for RC and NP patrollers, and anyone looking at their watchlist! Cool. :) ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 20:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Until the vandals figure it out and start circumventing it. :-) But anything that makes their work harder is good. Deco 17:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Update: they do seem to be figuring this out; I've already noticed a drop-off in the Edit Summaries. It sure was nice while it lasted : ) Doc Tropics 20:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I wonder how they did that... maybe by putting a space inside the edit summary thing? ~user:orngjce223how am I typing? 22:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Has anyone noticed that Wikipedia doesn't work any more?

I'm increasingly noticing that Wikipedia is loosing the battle against vandalism. When I started editing here a couple of years ago, there was a FAQ somewhere saying something like

  • But if anyone can edit, isn't Wikipedia open to vandalism
to which the answer was
  • Sure, Wikipedia is vandalised all the time, but it always gets reverted by the many other editors who want the encyclopedia to improve

This isn't really true anymore.

Last night I went over to look for a photograph that I had added to the Guy Fawkes article and was only mildly surprised to find that it had disappeared. Whilst checking to see whether someone had had a valid reason to remove it (they hadn't) I trawled through a large number of diffs and found that the article had steadily degraded over the last month. During that time there were still plenty of reverts, but when there were several bad edits in a row it was often only the last bad edit hat got reverted.

In the same article I noticed that a whole section on 'language' had disappeared, and a sentence in the opening paragraph which used to read 'a group of Roman Catholic conspirators' had been vandalised to 'a group of Roman Catholic' which was then just corrected for grammar to read 'a group of Roman Catholics'.

I think the problem isn't just a rise in anonymous users making random bad edits, but rather an attrition of top flight editors. As a result articles are left with nobody taking a full time active interest in them - some vandalism gets corrected but plenty gets overlooked. It is not feasible (or desireable) for an editor to take ownership of an article and maintain it for the next 20 years, so the system only works if there are enough new good editors coming along who can keep up with the flow of detritus and outweigh the influence of the bad editors. Unfortunately I think the tide started to turn about six months ago.

This isn't an isolated case. I've got several thousand articles on my watchlist that I don't watch avidly, but if I compare an article with its version a week ago, many of them show signs of creeping deteriation. Of course it is much harder to repair an article once bad edits begin to build up, you can't just revert to an earlier version.

The good news is that the Guy Fawkes article is still significantly better than it was a year ago. -- Solipsist 09:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

It's strictly anecdotal evidence at this point but I've been having the same feeling. Haukur 09:39, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Yep. Things that worked when we were small won't work as well when we get big. — Omegatron 15:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
IMHO, the most interesting thing about being involved in wikipedia over the years has been watching the change in its highest-level problems (from 'not enough articles' to 'too much crap' to 'increasingly bad incompetence-vs.-editing ratio') and seeing how (or whether) the system adjusts. I think it's possible it will stop being useful in a couple of years, in which case its Google ubiquity will become a serious liability to the Net; but then again, I've thought that for a couple of years, so what do I know? - DavidWBrooks 15:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
This is definitely a real problem. A similar thing had happened with the Network topology article last spring, with half-reverted section blanking vandalism resulting in the article steadily shrinking to less than a third of its original size over the course of about three months. (Since I reverted it in May, there have been over 150 edits to the article. What has changed? Not much.) The only positive side to this is that, once you do notice something like this happening, it's not that hard to go through the history and restore the article to its original glory. But still, there must be hundreds if not thousands of articles like this around, slowly eroding away because no-one is watching carefully enough. Ironically, it's the controversial articles with constant edit warring that never suffer from this problem, since those always have editors who are quick to spot any changes they dislike. What I feel we really need is some kind of a technical solution. Stable versions and/or patrolling might help. So would some way of hiding reverted edits from the edit history. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
The term for this problem is edit creep. One way to deal with edit creep is to check the page history for the last known reliable version and delete harmful changes that occurred during the interim. The German language Wikipedia is experimenting with a stable versions option that would help address edit creep. DurovaCharge! 17:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I can only add my own feelings of frustration to the mix. While it is annoying to discover, for example, that a few weeks ago, a count of the then last sixty edits to Cape Verde showed that all but two were either vandalism or reverting of such, what's worse is the editors who believe that they can add a contradictory statement to the end of an article with no context (and usually no grammar and no capital or space after the previous fulll stop). If I had a dollar for every time I've seen an article that read something like "Smith died of lung cancer in 1958, survived by his wife and two daughters.in 1933 he scored a century for England against austalia." (sic throughout)

Honestly, have people who add this type of edit ever read an encyclopaedia before? How difficult is it for them to add the piece of information in the right place in the article? If the answer is "too difficult", don't do it. The sooner wikipedia restricts the ability for anons to edit, the better. --Roisterer 23:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it all a part of the love/hate that is Wiki? I love that anyone can edit and contribute. I also absolutely hate that anyone can use that edit to misinform, pervert and vandalize. How can we have our cake and eat it too? Robovski 00:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the only thing able to restore Wikipedia's health in the long term is (1) better antivandal bots and (2) running these bots to analyze the entire history of a page, not just watch recent changes. Once a bot finds a historic vandalism that was never reverted, it is feasible to automatically revert it in the current version without affecting the useful edits that were made in the interim.

Surely no bots can catch all bad edits. But such bots are getting better all the time, and we can rerun them on page histories again and again to fix what was missed last time. It's reasonable to expect that bot intelligence will keep slowly approaching human intelligence - and once it gets close enough, Wikipedia may be considered officially out of danger. Perhaps the main reason for why AI hasn't (largely) happened yet is that so far, it's been something from the "would be nice" category. And Wikipedia is now pushing it into the "essential for survival" category. Trapolator 05:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as a fairly new editor (I guess it's fair to call myself that now), I can say that there is a pretty steep learning curve to getting the hang of editing--especially editing well. Maybe a series of beginner how-to articles should be linked to in strategic places. For example, when editing an article, when looking at a page history or diffs, etc. The articles should be a mix of how to edit well, and why editing is important and the goals behind good editing. Something like an ethics for Wikipedians or how to be a good citizen of Wikipedia. I am sure that not everyone will read the articles, but it might help those who have the "spark" have an easier time becoming good editors. Otherwise, only people with actual "fire" are likely to push through the frustration and become editors. --Willscrlt 06:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

This has the makings of a wikipedia:essay. Part of me wonders whether the apparent change happened because of the the "No anon IPs can make new articles" decision or if the sheer number of articles is outpacing the number of editors. I have heard that Jimmy Wales has asked that people work more on the quality of existing articles. I also wonder if there has been an increase in vandalism simply due to the increase in publicity for wikipedia in recent months. Maybe we have reached a tipping point of some sort. MPS 07:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User complaint about History of erotic depictions on main page

I was thoroughly disappointed to see the Wikipedia main article today on 'History of Eroticism'. The links that the alleged 'scientific' article brazenly provided leads one to explicit pornographic pictures! What were the editors thinking??? Is this to improve your readership?

I always tell children to use Wikipedia for the wealth of knowledge it provided. But unfortunately one has to be on guard now. The sad thing is Even Net Nanny would not stop displaying such pages since they are coming from the trusted Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.173.58.13 (talk • contribs) 05:30, 30 November 2006.

Wikipedia is not censored. If you wish for your children to not encounter such things, they should probably not be allowed on the internet unsupervised at all. --tjstrf talk 21:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is definately not safe for children, nor did I ever think it was. I encourage my kids to use it for research all the time, but only with me supervising. Perhaps check the featured article of the day from now before letting your students use it on any given day? — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It's important that we retain the right do this kind of thing if we have the need - but I think we should be more circumspect about how we use that privilage. So - yeah - Wikipedia needs to have the freedom to write about whatever we want and publish it without people hassling us about age-appropriateness or censorship. We have that freedom - and if we need to use that power for the good of the encyclopedia - we can certainly use it. However, we didn't need to put this kind of thing onto the front page - and we shouldn't have done so because it will definitely upset a good fraction of our readership - and that will harm us in the long run. It's not like we don't have plenty of other FA's to put there. SteveBaker 23:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
To me, the main page of any Website, not just Wikipedia, should remain appropriate for all ages. I saw the article, and the picture attached to the article was a tasteful depiction of naked people from antiquity. It was not at all offensive to me, but then I see nothing wrong with taking children to see classic works of art in museums, even if they contain nudity. It's a matter of opinion and taste. The problem is that by placing articles like that on the main page, parents are not given a choice about whether they feel it is in their children's best interest to see the articles or not. They are exposed to it regardless. While I oppose censorship, I do think that people should be given the option of viewing controversial issues or not. And Eroticism is not the only controversial topic that should probably be kept off the front page. The tricky thing is trying to strike a balance, because once you say one topic is inappropriate, all topics people ovject to come under scrutiny. There is no perfect solution, but the people selecting main page topics could probably have made a better choice for yesterday. --Willscrlt 01:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The main page was appropriate for all ages. The featured article may not have been, but the main page was kept clean. Anyone who saw the objectionable content knew exactly what they were reading an article on, and chose to view it. --tjstrf talk 02:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with the details of filtering software, but don't most "concerned" parents and public school libraries make use of such things and adjust the threshold to suit their comfort level? It seems a bit unbalanced to let concerns about children drive a debate about an encyclopedia. What the children view is the responsibilty of the parents, however they choose to handle it. Many reasonable parents don't regard this material as problematic at all, so it's clearly a personal and very subjective value. Doc Tropics 02:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
As 205.173.58.13 pointed out, many filtering programs filter exclusively based on the domain name, not the content of individual pages. I'm sure you can understand how trying to keep track of all the pages at WP could be a nearly impossible task for any filtering product. More sophisticated filtering programs also check contextually, but the article might still have passed unnoticed. I did not mean to imply that I felt the main page was inappropriate for children, and I agree with tjstrf that people who visited the article should have known what they were about to see. My comment was more to point out that with the millions of articles available, why could the topic selectors not have picked a different topic. I am sure a kid-friendly welcome page like Yahoo's Yahooligans along with a filtered search engine has been discussed before. This would be a good example of how that type of page could be helpful. --Willscrlt 03:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm with tjstrf - there was one image on the main page, a graphic from a Roman fresco that's no different from what tourists giggle at in Pompeii. There are certainly more explicit images on that page, but that required a click-through. There is a line somewhere - would a porn-star bio really be an appropriate article to feature? - but I think this one was on the safe side of it. | Mr. Darcy talk 03:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Porn star bios of the featured level would almost certainly involve porn stars with substantial notability outside of porn, so it probably wouldn't be as big an issue as you suggest. A more interesting question would be if a porn star bio could be a DYK? feature. --tjstrf talk 03:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
It isn't a priori clear to me why Jenna Jameson couldn't eventually get featured. There's obviously enough material about her to make it feasible. I'll resist making any puns on the topic although they come readily to mind. JoshuaZ 04:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Dammit! That wasn't deliberate! JoshuaZ 04:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
LMAO! It's just going to happen, no matter how hard you try...Doc Tropics 04:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, but its so easy...JoshuaZ 05:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
You'll notice that there actually aren't any pictures in that article which could be inappropriate for minors. Like I said, it wouldn't be as big a problem as you might think. --tjstrf talk 05:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but that depends upon your point-of-view. I agree with you, personally, but I'm thinking in terms of some of the parents I've known and their proclivities with respect to what they would want their children exposed to. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 05:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
It is pretty clear to me that this article being a featured article will make its way into the popular press as something like 'Wikipedia's encyclopedic treatment of porn' and will be misinterpreted by many as it was by the original poster in this thread. The statement "alleged scientific article" says it all, frankly; many many people in the general population believe that erotica and science are like oil and water - 'if it has to do with sex how could it possibly have any intellectual or scientific value'. I'm wondering if we (articulate wikipedians, that is) are prepared to defend the article, its ilk and the principles that abet its existence in op ed pieces in the newspapers where the inevitable news-for-shock-value will appear. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The argument that parents should be careful about what their children see online is a valid one - unsupervised browsing is not something a responsible parent is going to allow small children to do - no more than you'd want them walking through the worst parts of a city at night. I consider myself a responsible parent - and I'm not prissy. (I don't supervise my son who is now 15 - and I know damned well from his browser logs that he visits "certain sites" that I might maybe would have stopped him from going to...but I'm broad-minded - so I pretend not to notice). But let's think about a 4 or 5 year old child. In this case even the closest parental supervision wouldn't have worked. Let's work through the most likely scenario:
So let us suppose that I don't want my 4 year old asking: "Why that lady is sitting on that man's lap and what happened to all of their clothes?"...that's NOT an unreasonable thing for me to wish to avoid...trust me - it's embarrasing to have to answer that question at that age. But I'm a good parent - and I'm going to supervise my little kid so he/she doesn't click on something inappropriate...so I sit with my little kid in front of a blank browser window. Little child says "Daddy - can we read about Elephants?" - "Sure! Let's go to Wikipedia and type in 'Elephants' at the search window."..."Now let me just blindfold you because I don't know what'll be on the front page today"...
Surely we can all agree that this should NOT be necessary. I'm happy to sit with my kid and make sure they don't click on links to "Porn Star" or something - I'm happy to treat the Internet as a dangerous place where you don't want your kid to go unsupervised. But I really ought to be able to visit the Wikipedia front page without having to worry. I don't in the slightest bit mind that this article exists - it definitely SHOULD exist - it's a really well written and illustrated piece and it's worthy of FA status. But it doesn't have to be featured on the front page...really, truly...it's not necessary. We *WANT* children to read Wikipedia - it's the best site on the entire Internet for them - they can ask any question - ask for a picture of anything - and we can provide it for them - with appropriate supervision, sure. But there shouldn't be surprises like this. If you are heading into dubious terratory - you need fair warning - and putting it right there on the very top of the front page is a nasty surprise that no parent, even one who is trying hard to be careful, could have avoided. You can't duck out of it by demanding that parents take more care. It was a stupid, unthinking decision...period. SteveBaker 05:45, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
No, we can't agree there. From a merit perspective it's a scholarly subject, far more traditionally encyclopedic than a front page article of Bulbasaur. I've seen literally dozens of articles on eroticism in scientific (archaelogical) journals, nary a one on Marilyn Manson. If the front page picture had been a high resolution shot of some porn stars bust, then I agree we might have a small problem, but the picture was sufficiently historic to meet any standard of encyclopedic propriety, and indeed quite small in its presentation on the front page. Anyone who decides to murder us in the press for that particular article will have their work cut out for them if they wish to assault its scholarly integrity or encyclopedic worthiness. Call me if autofellatio becomes the front page article. --tjstrf talk 06:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The Main Page also contains a picture of a swastika at the moment, which I'm sure would offend some people. Wikipedia is not censored. Moreover, the featured article's Main Page image was quite tame and unobjectionable - if you click the featured article, which is called "history of erotic depictions", you can quite reasonably expect to see erotic depictions. The contributors went out of their way to hide some of them when it was totally blindingly obvious anyway that they'd be there - I think the images should have been displayed inline. Use some common sense here. Deco 05:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
It's quite simple: a fifteen-year-old son is the parents' responsibility; a four-year-old child is the parents' responsibility. Wikipedia is getting blocked in Tunisia - in China - and otherwise rational Wikipedians want to validate the principle of censorship? No no no. What part of that is unclear? DurovaCharge! 05:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Two responses to this "controversy". 1) The article is quite an academic, NPOV treatment of the subject. It is definately worthy of featured status. 2) I am speaking as a parent: Censorship is not the solution to the wish of some people to abdicate their responsibility as parents. Merely because you don't want to have to supervise your children while they do Activty XXX does not mean that they don't need supervision. Watch your children as they use the internet if you care about them viewing objectionable content. They are children. They need supervision. There is a word for people that don't need this kind of supervision. They are called "adults". --Jayron32 06:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Jayron32: Please go back and actually read what I wrote...yeah actually read it. As a parent of a 4 yr old who does not wish to abdicate his responsibility and who most certainly does supervise Internet use with younger children - please tell me how I could use Wikipedia responsibly when there is material on the front page that is without doubt unsuitable for a 4 yr old. Even with supervision - I can't even go to the Wikipedia front page without risk of presenting my child with an image I'd prefer not to show. I'm not advocating censorship. Censorship would be preventing people from seeing something when they want to see it - I would never suggest that. This is not a matter of censorship. I'm not complaining that article exists - I'm not complaining that you'll find it linked from various places - I'm simply saying that it would have been better not to have chosen it for the front page. I'll agree that we must have the right to put it onto the front page - but with rights come responsibilities. As a free man, I have the right to do all sorts of horribly antisocial things - but as a rational person I realise that society will be a better place if I restrain my behavior in ways that help society rather than hindering it. The Wikipedia front page is uniquely sensitive - everyone goes there - everyone goes there first - it's the starting point for close to 100% of actual users - it's the starting point for people who are responsibly supervising small children who are looking for pictures of elephants. To all intents and purposes it's unavoidable - and consequently we should choose to be more sensitive to the needs of our readers - in that one single place and nowhere else. SteveBaker 16:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Steve, I think that "watching your children" includes not clicking on the link to the article in question. The part of it shown on the main page had little offensive content (unless you have really good eyesight). Just tell your kid it's a picture of two pigs or something...yandman 16:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Sure - there is no way I'm going to click on the link...duh! But the image is only small on a high res screen - little kids have really good eyesight - and telling them that it's two pigs or something is just going to get you into a whole world of hurt with a smart 4 yr old! Fortunately, my 4yr old is now a 15yr old...but I've been there. SteveBaker 16:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
You seem to equate supervision with isolation. My son is likely to see more objectionable things than the one that appeared on the Main Page in any number of venues. At question is not how do I isolate my child so that no objectionable images ever reach their eyes, it is how am I present to deal with the problems when they arise. If the public library lies in a bad neighborhood, I am likely to expose my child to things I don't want them to see. If the children's room is in the back of the library, there is a likely chance that they will observe things even walking through the adult sections of the library that could be objectionable given my son's age. Magazine covers that appear in the Periodicals Rack contain images that are more objectionable than the one that made the main page. That doesn't mean I never take him to the library. That means I am prepared to handle the situation should it arise that he see something I don't want him too. While I would never intentionally expose my child to images such as the one that appeared on the main page, I am also prepared to be there to handle the situation when it arises that he does see it. I do not have the expectation that the entire world is "nerfed" for the protection of my child. --Jayron32 17:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Look, there are offensive images all over the internet. It is the responsibility of parents to protect their kids, not random internet users. If you are afraid of objectionable content from uncensored sources (like Wikipedia.en), then Firefox offers a general image blocker that will hide images unless clicked on. Problem solved, for you. -sthomson 18:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally have no problem with this article on the main page. Wikipedia clearly states that it is uncensored and I agree with Sthomson, just put up the Firefox general image blocker and your kids will be fine.A7X 900 23:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Perhaps this is a silly "what if", and an editor above alludes to it jokingly, but what if autofellatio ended up getting featured status? Stranger things have happened. There isn't much choice there - yes, the erotic depiction article had a tasteful image on the main page, but what if you opened wikipedia innocently one day and the word "autofellatio" was slapped right on the top in bold letters with a the first paragraph right there? And what if the erotic depiction article had not had such a tasteful picture? Blindly citing policy and saying "parents should do a better job supervising their children" seems to me a rather arrogant and dismissive response to this question.--Dmz5 06:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    • It is not dismissive. The concern is real. One SHOULD care if their children are viewing objectionable material. The solution, however, is not to create a policy that is unmanagable at wikipedia. The question must arise: Objectionable to who? As a parent, a person might not want to see an article on autofellatio. As a single adult, with no kids, a person might not care. Why does the parent have a greater right to set obscenity standards than does the single adult? Why does the most restrictive standard have to apply? The solution is not that wikipedia should be censored. The censoring needs to be done at the consumer level, not at the producer level. Any solution enacted institutionally at wikipedia to "protect the kids" is unsatisfactory as an unmanagable policy. --Jayron32 06:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
      • It is important to note that this is a concern for the front page - only the front page - which even a supervising adult will find to be hard to avoid (yeah, yeah - I know - "just browse with images turned off" - that works really well - just try it for one day and see how truly impractical that is!). But we already have policies that work like this: Take a look at WP:U - there is a list of censorship rules for usernames under Inflammatory usernames that say things like that you can't have Names that refer to or imply sexual acts, genitalia, or sexual preference including slang, innuendo, and double entendre. This is much more widespread censorship than I am proposing because it doesn't only affect just one very prominant page. If we are so very, very liberal minded, why can't I have User:penis? SteveBaker 16:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Because there's nothing encyclopedic about you calling yourself penis, while there is something encyclpedic about depicting penes. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Ever notice a common theme with this type of thread? The opening poster does not begin with I'm a concerned parent who wants to shield my children from certain content on Wikipedia. Please tell me some ways I can accomplish this without interfering with anyone else's experience. Instead it begins with Change Wikipedia to suit my convenience and the discussion's initiator usually remains locked on the same point. That's the censorship impulse, pure and simple. Here's someone who proposes a segregation system for Wikipedia articles in which certain pages could never get front page attention no matter how good they are. Who says what goes onto that list, does someone else add AIDS because they aren't ready to explain that reality to a small child? How about if a Chinese government official added Tiananmen Square protests of 1989? People might name Roe v. Wade because of what it represents or 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) because of its title. Every one of these articles got featured because some people cared enough about them to contribute a great deal of unpaid work. One of the few compensations for that labor is the satisfaction of seeing its result on the main page. I spent months improving Joan of Arc to FA, which wouldn't be likely to get sent to the back of the Wikipedia segregaton bus, but I'll fight like hell for the editors whose efforts would get singled out for second class treatment. Go write a featured article, then make your case. DurovaCharge! 21:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Yeah, what she said. --Jayron32 04:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
If we were even to begin to censor Wikipedia, it would open a whole new can of worms. Some people are offended by almost anything, others nearly nothing. Some parents don't care if their five year-old sees a naked person, others consider it a sin for even an adult person to see such a depiction. This is a global encyclopedia, and cannot set up some kind of censorship or rating principle. Just look at how some movies that restricted to adults in some countries are acceptable for kids in others. -newkai t-c 17:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case, then we could always have a "How much content do you want to see" slider in our prefs, much like IE's parental control thing. And by the way, I do not particularly like to see two people in ochre paint going at it. Even if the pic is about 5000 years old.~user:orngjce223how am I typing? 21:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that would open two additional cans of worms - deciding how to classify images to different filter groups and deciding how to choose the appropriate axis for the slider if only one is provided ... there are many different taste axes that people vary on (sex, medical, violence, etc.) ... and how to subsequently prevent the proliferation of sliders that would likely follow. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Let's all condemn the hell out of Chinese Wikipedia editors

[31] What horrifying appeasers.

lots of issues | leave me a message 08:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The consensus of zhwiki seems to be "what a horrifyingly bad article", for what it's worth... Shimgray | talk | 17:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Lets just condem communism in general, as a load of bullshit

†he Bread 08:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The IHT was inaccurate and misleading. We've been discussing it on the Chinese Wikipedia, and frankly most people are disappointed at this complete misrepresentation of what the Chinese Wikipedia really stands for. After all, we've been blocked three times by the Chinese government, but have never made any concessions to them. zh:User:R.O.C has sent an email to the foundation-l mailing list: [32], listing the inaccuracies in the IHT report. -- ran (talk) 23:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The IHT did a poor job in research, which could have revealed more corrupted entries, more damning facts of zhwiki, and how it gets where it is. --Uponsnow 15:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
This can be partly due to zh.wiki's small number of active contributors. Not every wikipedia has the luck that en.wiki has enjoyed having so many contributor from all over the world (or, at least, most parts of the world) to make sure NPOV is achieved. On the contrary, zh.wiki does not enjoy such a luxury of a diverse backgrounds of contributors, especially since the PRC's been blocking zh.wiki for such a long time. In fact, only some very controversial articles (which IMO is very few) can receive adequate discussion/editing to achieve NPOV while the majority of articles are mainly done by one person. In that case, I think a certain degree of nonadherence to NPOV policy is expected since NO ONE can have absolute NPOV (IMHO, a person w/ NPOV does not exist), and no one can avoid that and thus are guilty of not adhering to NPOV to some degree. However, finding a non-NPOV point and not changing it is just as bad as writing something that's non-NPOV. In the end, a wikipedia won't be a wikipedia if its contributors which includes everyone, active members or just passers, stops caring about righting the wrong (or alleged non-NPOV, in this case).-- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 17:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
See also the blog entries by Chinese Wikipedia editor Roadrunner, who was interviewed and then found his remarks misrepresented: [33]. -- ran (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I suppose a picture wouldn't hurt. brought to you by the Chinese Wikipedia. -- ran (talk) 23:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Ran, you can still entertain other fellow wikipedians with this misleading report. Admirable. China (that's the PRC in the "western" context) contributes much more to the world than a reminiscence of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. :) Ktsquare (talk) 19:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
You bet. Now they even have African's blood on their hand, through Janjaweed militia - a fact you won't see in zhwiki (because of their editorial policy). Meanwhile, they insist Slobodan Milosevic never died, but 'passed away', to show their respect, in NPOV style (Chinese context).--Uponsnow 06:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Heh, what do you know about zh.wp's editorial policy? Saying "they" don't follow the standard NPOV is a serious accusation, and you better to have plenty of evidence on your hands to back yourself up (FYI the link is http://zh.wikipedia.org).
And who's this "they" anyway? Attributing one single opinion to all of the zh Wikipedians is so convenient. --Lorenzarius 13:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Uponsnow: what zh.wiki editorial policies are you talking about? Currently the Chinese Wikipedia is the only Wikipedia to have begun a translation of the Nangpa La killings article that you've been working on; does that conform to what you believe are zh.wiki's editorial policies? As for Darfur, if you or anyone else wants to write something on the zh.wiki, conforming to the same standards of NPOV as the English Wikipedia, please go ahead, no one will mind. -- ran (talk) 16:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Meh, I merely want to bring a point across. It's one thing for the IHT to publish a misleading article, which Slashdot promptly spun out of proportion in its discussions. At least you can say that they don't know how Wikipedia works. It's another thing for fellow Wikipedians to misunderstand our community as well. We're already been blocked for over a year, and yet we didn't yield... it's horrible to be accused of doing exactly what we've refused to do all this time. -- ran (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you folks already did a good job to appease Chinese Communists. Look at the entry "Hu Jintao": "His modesty impressed 2 Chinese leaders. ... After assuming the post of Secretary-in-general of the Communist Party politburo, Hu visits economically challenged central and west provinces for quite a many times, showing a more open minded and equal-footing image and more concerned with those have-not in reform era." What a eulogy! Need to read further? --Uponsnow 06:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Uponsnow, I believe u have misunderstood my point. I meant China becomes or is becoming a nation of global influence, not a global bloodaxe, which IMO your interpretation was. Ktsquare (talk) 13:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I wished your way, but reality beats me, squarely. --Uponsnow 15:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Uponsnow: If you want to NPOVize those please go ahead. -- ran (talk) 16:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, but no thanks. Leave it as is, as an epitome of Chinese Wikipedia under Shizhao and other fanatics in disguise of wikipedians. --Uponsnow 15:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
It's especially scary how Shizhao, being the crazy commie puppet that you think he is, would nominate a supporter of the Taiwanese Pan-Green Coalition for adminship. -- ran (talk) 00:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

To Uponsnow: Since you've translated and quoted the Hu JinTao article on zh.wiki so well, why didn't you just change the sentence where you consider it is not NPOV. Isn't it also one of wikipedia's basic function that EVERYONE CAN EDIT; therefore, if you didn't like it, you should've changed it or bring it up to its discussion page so that other people can change it. As of your comment on zh.wiki's NPOV policy, I can guarantee you that most people on zh.wiki adheres to this policy strictly. As a contributor to Chinese Wikipedia, I take this policy seriously whenever I'm editing an article. BTW, I have slightly changed those sentences in "Hu Jintao" article. Thank you for bringing it to my attention ALL THE WAY here at En.Wiki.-- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 15:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your attention. There are 2 reason: 1.Don't you think I have tried, not once, but twice? You just can't beat a determined oxymoron. 2. How many Chinese-speaking people would try to get to know who is Hu by reading Wikipedia? For readers it can result no harms. But it harms Wikipedia! In case you are really concerned. --Uponsnow 16:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
It's my pleasure to NPOVize it. First of all, I'm glad that you actually did try to change it , and it's unfortunate that you met a determined editor on zh.wiki. Nonetheless, it shouldn't have stopped you from NPOVize it. Changing it directly isn't the only way. There is always other routes, and you just need to give it a try. Second of all, I agree with you that non-NPOV can definitely harm Wikipedia, and that's why we need to change it. Wikipedia is about accumulating any knowledge that all people share. In this case, it does not matter the number of readers for Hu's article now, because, if not now, someday there will be someone who's unfamiliar with Hu JinTao and decided to find out some more about him. By then, that will be the true value of Wikipedia.-- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 17:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Nikopoley: Thanks for changing it.
Uponsnow: Please don't let one edit war mar your opinion of Wikipedia. Shizhao may come off as being confrontational sometimes, but he would never intentionally dig up the NPOV policy. Nor is zh.Wikipedia ruled by one person: out of 83 sysops, just 29 are from Mainland China, and a quick glance through their user pages reveal diverse political stances. As for the Hu Jintao article on the Chinese Wikipedia, I'll help keep an eye on it, if you prefer. -- ran (talk) 18:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ran, I fear that you could be easily overloaded. For instance, Chinese Wikipedia claims that Tibet was peacefully liberated by Chinese in 50s. Yet the opinion of how peaceful it was from those on the receiving end of the liberation, is conspicuously missing, as a result of dodged edit war. Like in almost every time, the Russian-speaking Zhwiki Czar won the battle, by design. You can insist that Tibet was peacefully liberated, like your fellow Chinese do, but it's shame for silencing others who do not subscribe to your version of truth and still claim that Chinese Wiki adheres to high standard of NPOV. Shizhao cannot fool all the people all the time.
    --Uponsnow 18:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm surprised to see that you say:"Chinese Wikipedia claims that Tibet was peacefully liberated ". The only mentioning of word "peacefully liberated" 和平解放 in the article zh:西藏, is the title of the agreement signed by Chinese central government and Tibet Authority, which reads:"Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet ". About the military conflict prior to that agreement, comparing to the English version, Chinese version actually has lot more words to say :" 1950年10月7日，由军官王其美率领的解放军四万余人分八路向康区首府昌都发起进攻，很快就打败了只有八千余人的西藏军队。两天后攻克昌都。俘去多麦总管阿沛　阿旺晋美和其随行人员，打死四千余西藏军人。1950年10月7日，西藏政府呈交联合国秘书长的报告：“西藏人民已清楚无力阻当中国军队的前进，西藏人已应允与中国政府进行和谈。虽然长久热爱和平的西藏人民欲要战胜熟练于战争的中国军队的希望并不大，但是，我们相信在世界的任何地方，只要发生侵略行为，联合国是必定会帮助予以抗击的." Roughly translate as: Oct. 7, 1950, 40K PLA troops attacked Changdu, easily defeated 8000 Tibetan army, captured governor, killed 4000 Tibetan combatant. Oct 7 1950, Tibetan government submited a report to UN secretary general saying:"Tibetan people can no longer resist chinese troops' advance. Tibetan has agreed to hold peace negotiation with chinese goverment. although peace loving tibetan people is no rival with chinese army, we believe UN would step in to help once agression happens"." Other than this paragraph, there is no mentioning of peace/peaceful elsewhere in the article. I'm curious to understand how you came to you conclusion. - munford 19:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • BTW, I never suggest that the bias came from sysops' national origin. The most senior sysop from Taiwan once claims that Taiwan has 'no legal ground to be independent from China'(sic). That ends the story. He played a key role to delete dissenting views to ensure his interpretation of NPOV. You need to imagine what it is? --Uponsnow 18:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I went and read this discussion. Anyone who reads Chinese can read the same discussion here at zh:Talk:西藏问题. For those who can't read Chinese, here's a rough summary:
Shizhao: A lot of Chinese people feel that Tibet is the way it is only because it depends on the central government for financial support.
Theodoranian: So are you saying that since Taiwan doesn't depend on China for financial support, therefore it has the right to independence?
Theodoranian (the Taiwanese sysop you speak of) was using Reductio ad absurdum. He took Shizhao's point, extended it logically and arrived at a conclusion that Shizhao may not agree with, thereby showing the inconsistency in Shizhao's original point. In other words, Theodoranian was not arguing that Taiwan has no right to independence, in fact Theodoranian just rebutted one of the main reasons why people say Tibet can't be independent. In addition, his edits and comments elsewhere on Wikipedia show a consistent loyalty to his country, the Republic of China on Taiwan.
So not only have you twisted Theodoranian's point around, not only did you push away someone who was supporting your point of view (Tibetan Independence), you also insulted his loyalty to Taiwan. -- ran (talk) 19:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Uponsnow: Care to mention who it is? More importantly, would you care to point out the exact location in article space in the Chinese Wikipedia where topics about Taiwanese independence have been described in a biased way?. -- ran (talk) 23:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Since this thread is still running, I'd just like to say how honored I felt the day I discovered that a Chinese language editor translated my work at Joan of Arc. Thank you. I'd love to see more Chinese biographies become featured articles in English. I'm an admirer of Chinese poetry (which must lose a great deal in the versions I'm able to read). I realize we're all volunteers, yet may I make a request for Li Bai? Regards, DurovaCharge! 04:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, they did this in zh.wikipedia

  • A photo depicting Chinese soldiers' killing of defenseless Tibetan refugees has been promptly deleted, after it was voted down out of 'copyright concerns', though it's properly credited under 'fair use' clause. A similar one from the same source stays fine in en.wikipedia. --Uponsnow 13:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
According to an Admin on Zh.wiki[34], this photo was deleted because it was submitted under "fair use" licensing and someone submitted it to vfd. Because no one voted to oppose deletion of the photo during the 7 days period of voting, it was deleted by an admin after 7 days. Everything was done according to procedure. If you believe it was a mistake, it will be nice if you upload it again, and vote to oppose deletion in case it's submited for vfd again. Btw, is the similar photo on en.wiki fair use also? or is it under free license? If it's under free license, why don't you upload it to commons. It's always nice to put free licnese stuff in commons.. :) -- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 17:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
As I've already explained on the Chinese Wikipedia, the sysops deleted the picture because it did not meet the requirements for fair use. They did not remove any wording from the article Nangpa La killings, nor did they remove any of the numerous links at the bottom of the article to various news reports, photos, and videos. In other words, the picture was deleted according to Wikipedia's copyright policies, not what you perceive to be politically motivated censorship. -- ran (talk) 18:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
For that matter, why is that picture there in the English version of Nangpa La killings? It might be nice for someone to email the photographer and ask for permission to use his Nangpa La-related pictures on all Wikimedia projects. This way you'll be able to upload to both English and Chinese Wikipedia. -- ran (talk) 18:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Gentlemen, we all know what's happening in Chinese Wiki. These selective enforcement of 'policy' can take many forms, and we all know what those sysops are really targeting. Since when those Chinese suddenly start to respect other's copyright? Come on, give me a break! You must be joking to yourself if you believe they are not trying to appease the Chinese communists. --Uponsnow 23:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
If the Chinese Wikipedia is trying to "appease the communists", then why haven't they tried to remove the entire article about the Nangpa La killings altogether? Why haven't they tried to remove the numerous links to eyewitness accounts, photographs, and videos found at the bottom of the article? What is wrong with deleting an image that violates the copyright policy shared by all versions of Wikipedia, English or Chinese? And doesn't the fact that I suggested a way to ask for permission from the original author to use the photo on Wikipedia, mean anything to you? Honestly, why do you look for motives when there is none?
We've always taken copyright just as seriously on the Chinese Wikipedia as the English Wikipedia. The Chinese Wikipedia is not a reflection of the government of the People's Republic of China, whether in copyright policy or political slant. -- ran (talk) 01:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
To Uponsnow:I don't think this photo has a correct license template. According to Explorersweb's policy, everything on its website should be All Rights Reserved. I don't konw who put the {{cc-by-2.0}} license there but it still does not make it OK to put it on wikipedia. Therefore, I think the Admins on zh.wiki did a legitimate deletion of the photo. Btw, I will submit this photo for deletion here, too, and this has nothing to do with the content. It's just because incorrectly licensed photo, especially unfree content, cannot be used on wikipedia. -- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 06:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A real article from the Chinese Wikipedia: one of the many reasons why we are blocked by the government (updated: this article is now in the "Did you know?" section on the main page of the Chinese Wikipedia)

This article alone is enough to get us blocked, forever, by the Chinese government. And it's merely one of many such articles. We have been blocked since October 2005. We have appealed to no effect. But we have not changed our policies in any way, unlike say Google or Yahoo.

From zh:囊帕拉槍殺事件

Intro

囊帕拉槍殺事件是指2006年9月30日中國邊防武警向企圖穿越西藏與尼泊爾邊境上的囊帕拉山口（海拔5700米，一譯朗喀巴山口）、出境前往尼泊爾的75名西藏逃亡者開槍射擊並至少打死兩人的流血事件。

The Nangpa La killings refer to a deadly incident on September 30, 2006, in which Chinese border military police fired on 75 Tibetan refugees attempting to cross Nangpa La Pass (altitude 5700m) between Tibet and Nepal and head to Nepal, killing at least two.

逃亡者中包括年幼的兒童和兩名帶路的嚮導。2006年9月30日，據目擊者和逃亡者稱，中國西藏邊防武警總隊日喀則大隊定日中隊在沒有預警的情況下，向這些試圖徒步穿越山口的藏人開槍射擊，17歲（有報導稱23歲）的Kelsang Namtso（女）被子彈當場擊中，在山口前死亡。另一名23歲藏人Kunsang Namgyal（男）被兩次擊中腿部後倒下，由武警帶走，事後中國當局承認Kunsang Namgyal死亡。

Among the refugees were young children and two guides. On Sept 30, 2006, the Tingri squadron of the Shigatse brigade of the Tibet border military police detachment, China, fired without any warning on these Tibetans who were attempting to cross the pass on foot, according to eyewitnesses and refugees. Kelsang Namtso, female, 17 (some reports say 23) was hit by gunfire, and died in front of the pass. Another 23-year-old Tibetan, Kunsang Namgyal (male) was hit on the leg twice and fell, and taken away by military police. The Chinese regime later admitted that Kunsang Namgyal had died.

中國當局聲稱，士兵開槍是出於「自衛」。這一聲稱與現場西方目擊者的陳詞有矛盾。事後，41名幸存者抵達位於尼泊爾首都加德滿都的「西藏難民中轉中心」。兩周以後，幸存者抵達目的地印度達蘭薩拉。

The Chinese regime claims that the soldiers fired out of "self-defense". This claim contradicts the testimony of Western witnesses at the scene. Afterwards, 41 survivors arrived at the "Tibetan Refugee Reception Center" in the Nepali capital Kathmandu. Two weeks later, the survivors arrived in Dharamsala, India.

Excerpts

一些外國登山者向外界發佈了照片和視頻，私下或者公開提供了目擊者證詞。這些圖像包括中國士兵押送未能逃脫的幸存者（包括未成年的藏人）列隊經過卓奧友峰先頭大本營的情形。視頻片段包括武警戰士對正在遠去的非武裝藏人平民進行長距離狙擊式射擊。

Some foreign mountaineers sent their photos and videos to the outside world, and gave witness testimony either publicly or privately. These images include Chinese soldiers escorting under custody survivors who could not escape (including Tibetan children) in file through the Cho Oyo forward base camp. Videos depict military police sniping, at a great distance, unarmed Tibetan civilians moving away from them.

我看到一隊西藏人向山口進發，這是司空見慣的，因為每一年的這段時間是通商時節。然後，毫無預警地，槍聲大作，一輪，一輪，又一輪。隊伍開始朝山上逃散，這裡海拔是19000英尺。看起來，中國軍隊得到密報說有人逃亡，於是帶槍出現了。目睹隊伍在雪地上蜿蜒奔命，槍聲四起，我們注意到兩個人形仆倒。望遠鏡下就清楚了：兩人倒下，沒有再起來。

The above is a direction translation from anonymous testimony in English:
I saw a line of Tibetans heading towards the start of the [Nangpa La] pass - a common sight. Then, without warning, shots rang out. Over, and over and over. Then the line of people started to run uphill. Watching the line snake off through the snow, as the shots rang out, we saw two shapes fall. The binoculars confirmed it: two people were down, and they weren’t getting up.

Sergiu Matei對媒體表示：「我把他（槍擊幸存者）帶進帳篷，給了他極地保暖毯和一雙襪子。我沒拍下來，我不想再回去，只希望他穿越山口，不要成為那些嗜血的中國人的活靶子。我給了他一些牛奶和爆米花。然後我告訴他得儘快離開，因為中國軍人在搜捕兩名失蹤的藏人，很可能會搜查帳篷。我給他指了穿越冰川的捷徑，他就上路了。他穿越槽口的時間大約是凌晨兩點。」

The above is a direct translation from the English original of Sergiu Matei's testimony:
"I took him into our mess tent and gave him one polar fleece and a pair of socks that Cosmina had bought for me. I don't know why I didn't film the scene – I just didn’t seem relevant for me back then; all I could think of was to see that guy crossing Nangpa La without becoming a practice-target for the blood-thirsty Chinese boys. I went again in the tent and gave him some milk and cornflakes. Then I told him to leave as soon as possible, since the militia was on the prowl after two missing Tibetans and they might search the camps looking for him. Thirty minutes later I showed him the shortest way across the glacier, and off he went towards what they call their spiritual father. He crossed the col at around 2 am."

To Uponsnow (zh:User:澍子, who wrote this article and made it even more detailed than the English version, I express my gratitude and respect, for making the Chinese Wikipedia an avenue for freedom of expression. I also ask Uponsnow to reflect on the fact that to date, no sysop on the Chinese Wikipedia has tried to delete this article or compromise its truth or neutrality in any way. I understand that you're angry towards the policies of the Chinese government, censorship or worse, but this article alone should elucidate the fact that the Chinese Wikipedia is NO PART OF IT.

-- ran (talk) 02:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this is why Wikipedia HAS been blocked by PRC government for a long long time. But who cares about what PRC gov't thinks, keep up the good work!!;) -- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 06:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: this article is now in the "Did you know" box in the main page of the Chinese Wikipedia. -- ran (talk) 04:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, they wrote this in zh.wikipedia

  • Under zh:中国地质大学(China Geology University), zh.wikipedia goes: "In 1978 it restored its operation in Beijing on the approval of Comrade Deng Xiaoping... Its first president was Liu Xing, a Proletariat Revolutionary and Educator." --Uponsnow 13:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
That's why this article has a NPOV template on the top of it. Once again, Please edit it as you see anything that is incorrect, and suport it with reference. I believe you can find something like this happening on any wikipedia. Such a thing is part of wikipedia's nature while edit out wrong info as you see it is how we build wikipedia up.-- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 17:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Don't you think it's just the tip of the iceberg? Such unscrupulous propaganda inundates Chinese Wiki, though it's against stated policy even from language style point of view. That's why I call Howard French's poorly researched essay newsworthy - it at least raises a legitimate issue. --Uponsnow 22:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
This "tip of the iceberg" is currently tagged with an NPOV tag, which is an indication that the Chinese Wikipedia community in general finds that article to be of an unacceptable quality. There are plenty of such flawed articles on every version of Wikipedia. If you feel strongly about it, you should take the time to change it yourself. -- ran (talk) 01:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
To Uponsnow: It is the tip of the iceberg, there are more out there that needs our attention, and they grow more and more everyday. Good thing someone has already smelled the iceberg by putting NPOV template on it; otherwise the wikiTANIC will soon hit the iceberg and sink. It is unfortunate that if wikiTANIC ever should sink, so many good people on it would die, too, just like poor Jack Dawson. It's always sad to see good people die.-- Nikopoley✪尼可波里 ✏Got Something on Ur Mind? 06:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "The munchies

I wrote an article on "the munchies" on one of the effects of marijuana that I thought wasn't to bad. I haven't done much on the Wikipedia and I figured it was a relatively easy topic. I added several cultural references to the term and wonder what was wrong with it. I fully understand if I broke a set standard I was unaware of but The article wasn't changed or improved whatsoever, it was just redirected to Cannabis(drug) almost as soon as I wrote it. I understand getting rid of it if their was something wrong with it (which there very well might have been, it wasn't all that long though the movies I mentioned did reference the term). I would say that if it was a terrible article that needed deletion it should have redirected to Cannabis culture.--Colin 8 06:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Your article was probably moved because there's only so much to be written about "the munchies", and it really should be covered as a subsec within a larger article. However, a redirect to Cannabis culture sounds much more reasonable than Cannabis(drug). You could certainly request a change to the redirect. Doc Tropics 07:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
This is crap. It properly redirects to Cannabis(drug) because it refers to a specific pharmacological effect and not something that is culture based. WAS 4.250 07:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Crap, eh? How about a pharm-stub or something constructive? Besides, I would hesitate to call those two sentences scientific. I think Colin's efforts would be better aimed at expanding existing content rather than creating new articles. Xaxafrad 05:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page that copied the info from here, say their content is copyrighted

This is self-explanatory: [35] A website shows content copied from here (how do I know? because I wrote most of it myself) and they have the nerve to say their page is copyrighted. Thosehere that are in the know aboutthese things perhaps should send anemail to those guys. Anagnorisis 04:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say you have a strong case for complaining. On 7th Nov 2005 you changed the distinctive sentence:

 "She was trapped in the Antarctic ice in the Weddell Sea for 281 days,..."

...to read...

 "Endurance drifted for months while remaining beset in the ice in the Weddell Sea and drifted with it."

...which is verbatim what it says here: [36]. According to the www.archive.org site (the wayback machine), the solarnavigator site didn't have an article about the HMS Endurance at that time (although the remainder of their site looked pretty much as it does today). Even as recently as TWBM's most recent archive, (April 2006) there was no article about the Endurance.

It's pretty clear then that SolarNavigator.net (a) Violated the GFDL by not giving us credit for the article and (b) is illegally claiming copyright on text they don't own.

Naughty, naughty. There is a WP: page somewhere for reporting this kind of thing - I don't recall where it is. SteveBaker 05:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

These might help: Wikipedia:GFDL Compliance and Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter and Wikipedia:DMCA takedown notice and Wikipedia:Copyrights and Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content and Wikipedia:Request for copyright assistance. From, these, you might be able to find what you are looking for. --Jayron32 05:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

In a convoluted sort of way (imo), they are now giving credit to Wikipedia. Thus, I guess the issue has been resolved. Anagnorisis 22:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for someone to check sources on James Allason

I'm hoping that an uninvolved someone can look into this issue. I've had a disagreement with User:Balliol over the biography of intelligence historian Rupert Allason (aka Nigel West). I noticed that he'd also edited the biography of Rupert Allason's father, James Allason, in October, and that he'd referred to a forthcoming publication (due this month) of the memoirs of Allason senior[37]. The publishers are said to be Blackthorn Press of London. Googling, I could only find reference to a Blackthorn Press of Pickering, who, when telephoned, told me that that they are not the publishers.

I think the references need to be checked for soundness (we can't cite unpublished work, for example) and would appreciate someone who could have a look into this. I don't want to dig in myself, as it would likely inflame bad feelings. — Matt Crypto 14:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a biography of a living person so I've deleted the disputed material. DurovaCharge! 20:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Just for the heck of it, try asking for mediation if this happens again. ~user:orngjce223how am I typing? 22:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temple garment

Just a note to let the community know that a group of editors is attempting to have the photograph in this article removed. They claim it should be removed because is it offensive to members of their church and doesn't add anything to the article. It has been pointed out that the mere mention of Xenu is offensive to Scientologists and that other photos some people find offensive can be found at Penis also because Wikipedia is not censored for any religious or "moral" veiwpoint. While the photo is admittedly, not a thing of beauty, no editor involved has found or is willing to provide a replacement yet. (The fact that a better illustration could be used is about the only thing everyone agrees upon, but we don't have one.) The whole thing has become a nasty mix of people accusing others of being "pro-Mormon" and "anti-Mormon" and worse, while some editors on the page seem to think that if they get "consensus" to remove the only free image available, that that will override our anti-censorship policy. If anyone is a skilled hand at drawing or has access to a better illustration, please let this talk page know. Anyway, be aware. I suspect this issue will be seeping out into the larger community soon. Oh wait...i just did that...pschemp | talk 06:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

What? That thing is still going on? Stand by for multiple iterations of WP:NOT. Doc Tropics 06:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I think we have a bit of misinformation; possibly gross misinformation. It is true that there are several LDS that are offended; garments are considered sacred. However, what is the crux of the discussion is does a picture of two people wearing underwear improve an the article. pschemp obviously feels it is; I don't and for the life of me I don't see why a picture of two people in underwear imrpoves any article. I am not concerned about anybody's religous issues or lack thereof, but I am concerned about producing excellent articles; the picture does not fall into that achievement. Storm Rider (talk) 07:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The above is a perfect example of switching the removal strategy from "its offensive to our religion" to "its not encyclopedic" in an attempt to skirt WP:NOT. I've no doubt the editor honestly has convinced himself that it is unencyclopedic, but I think the larger community would disagree. Even if the picture isn't perfect, it still is illustrative. Again, why not spend your time looking for or creating a replacement you like better? It is a simple solution to the problem. pschemp | talk 14:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
"The above is a perfect example of switching the removal strategy from "its offensive to our religion" to "its not encyclopedic" in an attempt to skirt WP:NOT". That is it in a nutshell. "To show pictures of two individuals wearing garments demonstrates a lack of respect by Wikipedia and I think that it is a distortion of policy". has gone to this: " ... the crux of the discussion is does a picture of two people wearing underwear improve an the article". The sands keep shifting. Duke53 | Talk 17:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Without looking too deeply into it, I think I'd support pschemp - it shows the subject of the article. Provided it's an accurate depiction, what could be more relevant than that? Deco 07:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
If the article is about underwear then it's appropriate to show the underwear. See G-string, Jockstrap, etc. There's nothing prurient or disrespectful about the photo itself. -Will Beback · † · 08:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Sure - the photo is 100% relevent. It's a picture of the thing we're talking about - and it's much easier to understand the nature of the thing from a photograph. SteveBaker 14:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Storm Rider, don't accuse others of "gross misinformation". There is a photo of people wearing a garment in an article about the garment, just as there is a photo of people wearing G-Strings in the article about them. Where is the problem? yandman 14:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think there are MANY other "offensive" truths about the LDS - should we not write about those, either? --BenBurch 14:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I would amend Storm Rider's comment to say "misunderstanding" rather than "misinformation", but I do think that the way the controversy is portrayed by pschemp above unduly casts the LDS editors in a negative light. I do not accuse pschemp of bad faith in this regard, that is probably just the perspective that pschemp has taken from the discussion. But please understand that the debate at Talk:Temple garment is a bit more nuanced than a band of LDS editors trying to censor any depiction whatsoever of Mormon garments. There are objections to the photo currently used as an illustration, sure. Its offensiveness to Mormons is not grounds for removing it from the article; most involved in the debate actually do agree on that. But there are a lot of questions about whether the photo is appropriate for other reasons NOT based on whether it offends Mormons. There are questions of provenance and verifiability, of educational value, of what might constitute a more acceptable replacement image and whether one can be found, of the photo's ties to anti-Mormon sites, and so forth. Now that people here at the Village Pump have been alerted to the debate, I respectfully suggest that opinions and commentary be continued at the talk page instead of here to minimize confusion and duplicated comments. alanyst /talk/ 18:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes analyst, there you go with the switch to the "its not encyclopedic" argument for removal. The "other reasons" have been manufactured because the "offensive to Mormons" argument tried at first has been shot down. There is no question about the copyright or subject of the photo. If it wasn't really temple garments, why are some many Mormons offended by it? People may comment wherever they wish btw. pschemp | talk 22:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
"There are questions of provenance and verifiability", "..the photo's ties to anti-Mormon sites". The owner of the copyright has released it for any use; feel free to E-Mail him and ask. That this image might be displayed elsewhere is inconsequential to its use here. You say "anti-Mormon sites" as if they are a bad thing and somehow are dishonest ... they aren't a bad thing for many, many people. Duke53 | Talk 19:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
p.s. Again, feel free to provide a different image, with clarity and resolution at least equal to what we have now. I would welcome seeing one.Duke53 | Talk 19:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Anti-religious sites are not bad things in MY book. And given what I know of the history of the LDS, well, I'd say they are particularly fair game. --BenBurch 20:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
That is not helpful or civil. I view it as an unprovoked insult and request that you remove it from this thread.
As a temple-going member of this church, I do find the precence of the photo very uncomfortable, but I also accept that there is no reason under Wikipedia policy why it should not be allowed. I therefore cannot support its being removed. However, I do support the finding of a better image. If the existence of such a photo must be included despite its distastefulness to church-members, some effort should be put into finding one that at least triggers fewer alarm bells. (And no, I won't supply one.) --Masamage 06:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Off topic Mormon bashing removed.- Discuss the image or don't make incivil and hateful comments. pschemp | talk 18:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry - I just reviewed the page's history [38]. I'm missing where known, registered LDS editors have removed the image in question. Rather they are discussing the issue and many are undecided on how they feel from a wikipedia perspective, as the current image is not as descriptive as they'd like it to be. Rather what I see is LDS AND non-LDS editors reverting non-registered editors' removal of the image (and new user's removals), and in at least two cases, LDS editors supporting the image being in the aritlce. Clearly LDS editors are not unified as to the inclusion of an image in the article as it is. Even in previous discussion on the page, COGDEN and Visorstuff (me) said that they thought linking to an Anti-Mormon portrayal of Garment changes was a good addition to Wikipedia, although neither sought permission from the copyright owner to pull the image into wikipedia, as has the person who has apparrently obtained copyright permission for the current image from the rightful copyright owner (which I'm not sure Packham owns the copyright, but that's another issue, as that is where the usage approval is said to come from him, ie, I'm not sure how an Austrailian activist obtained the copyright for an image that elsewhere is said to come from a California couple taking a picture of themselves in garments, but I'm not questioning the permission granted). (long run on sentence). It is ludicrous to claim Mormon eidtors are trying to censor, when no long-term mormon editor seems to have removed the image. -Visorstuff 19:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I've been involved in this a bit. The picture isn't great, but it's the one we have. Some people have asserted that it's sufficiently bad as to be worse than no picture at all. That is the only relevant question, in my opinion. If anti-LDS sites use the picture, we cannot help this- it does not make it an "anti-LDS" photo. It's a photograph, pure and simple. Unless people are asserting that it's not a photo of Temple garments, the relevance to the article is obvious. Friday (talk) 22:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
And I'm the person who's probably made the most noise about it being such a poor picture that it's worse than no picture at all; I'd be happier if that picture wasn't being used -- and would be happier still if a picture that was more revealing of the special Mormon symbolism (as described in the article) was used. We don't have one, and the consensus is that we need a picture, so that's the picture we're stuck with until a better one comes along. We don't really need to worry much about this article; we've got several strongly neutral observers and participants there. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 05:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Persuasive Essay Outline for College

I have to do an outline, and I am not to sure what is meant by sub-details in reference to supporting details. Can someone please explain this to me. I would greatly appreciate it. Thankyou

[edit] Undue Mormon influence and excess of LDS content on Wiki

I am astonished at the amount of Mormon content on Wiki. Please see this list:

List_of_articles_about_Mormonism

Every minute aspect of the Mormon Church, its history, and mythology has its own article. While these topics are undoubtedly important to Mormons, many of them are not notable enough (or based on anything but Mormon mythology) to be included in a general interest encyclopedia.

Many Mormon myths are also written as 'fact'.

Journey to the Promised Land - Mahonri_Moriancumer
Moriancumer was then instructed to build "barges" or boats. [4] After building the boats, Moriancumer worried about how the insides of the boats would be lit during their journey across the sea. The Lord told Moriancumer he should figure out a way to light the boats, and so he produced sixteen stones from molten rock, two for each ship, and they were white and clear, just like transparent glass. [5] Moriancumer then asked the Lord to touch each stone he had made so they would shine in the darkness.

The Mormon church was just busted for editing one of their own articles as well. I am concerned that Wiki is being misused by well-meaning Mormons whose membership in the Mormon Church colors their sensibilities as to what content is sufficiently notable to non-Mormons to merit inclusion. Isn't the Wiki software available free if they want to create the definative encyclopedia on Mormons, instead creating it on Wiki?

Thanks - F.A.A.F.A. 02:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

At the very least we can categorize these things as myths, and cite some of the historical debunking of Mormon claims. --BenBurch 02:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
There are several possible solutions to this. One is tagging articles with problematic content with {{verify}} or {{pov}}. Another is trying to improve the articles yourself by identifying some of that content as church doctrine rather than historical fact - but if you choose to do so, please be considerate of other editors who may object, and try to avoid shifting the article's POV to an anti-Mormon one. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I am supportive of making any article better on wikipedia. This interest is focused upon making Wikipedia better. If articles have merit they should remain; if they do not they should be deleted. This happens daily on WIkipedia, no? Mr. Darcy's counsel is both wise and helpful for all editors. I also appreciate that what is good for the goose, is good for the gander. I anxiously await each of you editors going to the Jesus and Christainity articles, just for starters, and labeling them mythology. After I see that successful effort I will lead the charge with you. If you are not willing to do that, I would appreciate having a more indepth conversation on individual motivations. It would strongly improve the assumption of good faith that I possess.
Please tell me what "busted" means and how it applies. Who got "busted", how were they "busted", and who was the "buster"? I would encourage you to drop this quality verbage from your lexicon when referring to other editors or groups; it engenders hostility and contention. Please also show me any article where NPOV does not come into play given the diverse caliber of participating editors. Citing one example becomes almost laughable given the daily editing that goes on. Please set down the axe and just help to make articles better wherever your expertise and interests rests. Cheers. Storm Rider (talk) 08:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The Jesus article has been so-categorized. As will all of the Mormon myths. --BenBurch 16:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with MrDarcy. Let wikipedia process work for itself - improve articles that are junk - whether Mormon-related or not. Don't just censor articles because you don't agree with their religious beliefs.

I see no verbiage in the Mahonri Moriancumer article that is not found in Hermione Granger, Uncle Tom, or Huck Finn or other "character"-type articles. I think most wikipedians are smart enough to understand and recognize faith-based and religious articles discussing people - from Xenu to Job (Biblical figure) to Jesus - especially where there is a question of historicity.

As for the claim that Mormons have too much influence on Wikipedia - that is discrimination at its best. No other segment of people are singled out - from Star Trek fans to Blacks to Catholics. Wikipedia editors can (and should) write about topics of interest to them. Latter Day Saints, including those who are not LDS or Mormon can write about any topic of interest to them, and if the community thinks that it doesn't meet standards, articles are removed. However, the bulk of articles about Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement are not only encyclopedic and well-written, but most editors go out of their way to get non-LDS folks to help balance any possible NPOV that could creep in to the articles. The WP:LDS has been very good at recruiting non-Mormons to help and have had a history of doing so since 2003 (and I'd venture to say that about half of the editors who contribute sigfinicant content on LDS-related articles are not LDS). LDS editors have also supported their fair share of deletions of Mormon-related content that is not appropriate for an encyclopedia or cited at wikipedia. For sure, not "Every minute aspect of the Mormon Church, its history, and mythology" is included at Wikipedia. Not even close.

I would also like more information about "The Mormon church was just busted for editing one of their own articles as well." I've heard nothing of it, and think this is a myth. Not even their PR firm (edleman) has bandwith to worry about wikipedia. -Visorstuff 19:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see here LDS church involvement in editing? - F.A.A.F.A. 00:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for posting the link. respectfully, I believe your conclusions are incorrect, however. And I should have guessed how that was dug up. According to these two sites, Geobytes, ip2location and the IP address accused of being from the Church (216.49.181.128) is located in Iowa. Another locator says its in Salt Lake here- so there is some question about location. In any case, even if it was someone working at church headquarters, that doesn't make their edits non-valid. Nor does it make their edits official. Is everything you post from your office official from your company? Most of the users edits have been spelling and grammar changes [39], and the editor has been warned about the perception of their editing [40]. Church public affairs is done by Edleman public relations, and this editor would be not be officially clarifying anything, as that is not a job of church employees, other than the Public Affairs dept, which responds to criticism via their newsroom (see the hundreds of releases at LDS.org) or to reporters, as general policy. Organizations such as FAIR or FARMS do apologetics online of their own choice and is not official (neither would be coming in from this location. I wouldn't say that is any evidence that the church was "busted" for editing their own articles. In any case, the user has only had one post since the warning of the perception appeared. On the other hand, I think this accusation shows a lack of understanding on how the LDS church works. just my $0.02. -Visorstuff 01:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I did a bit more digging around. The IP address is owned by the church - the address comes from the offices of "property reserve," the group that manages all church real estate (its counterpart is Intellectual Reserve which owns church copyrights and communications equiptment). I doubt property managers decide church responses to wikipedia. -Visorstuff 02:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, this Wikipedia whois report [41] says just the opposite: the address resolves to NameServer: NS1.INTELLECTUALRESERVEINC.ORG. Duke53 | Talk 02:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I shouldn't have said 'busted for editing their own article'. My apologies. - F.A.A.F.A. 02:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
It would have been fairer to say that someone from that location was making edits; some of the edits went far beyond "spelling and grammar changes" ... they were simply wholesale deletions of content, without comment. Duke53 | Talk 02:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, someone please explain how Visor stating that the IP address is owned by the LDS church, works under "property reserve" with a counterpart of Intellectual Reserve is the opposite of which states it is owned by "IntellectualReserve". Anyone please explain how the same thing is the opposite of itself? I love this type of logic it makes for stories where truth becomes strange than fiction. Storm Rider (talk) 03:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
So they have been editing their own articles. Not a problem, I say, but apparently they're introducing some POV problems. -Patstuarttalk|edits 05:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
All we can say for sure from the evidence is that some person posted some edits to LDS-related articles from an IP address owned by the LDS church, and those edits are generally agreed to violate NPOV. Whether the person intended to represent the official church position, or had authority to do so, is questionable and, in light of Visorstuff's research showing the internal assignment of that IP address to the property management arm of the church, highly unlikely. Occam's Razor suggests that it's an individual employee acting on their own, pushing their own POV, and ceasing their behavior after having been warned. There's no evidence that there's a "they" in this, if "they" means the church authorities. alanyst /talk/ 06:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
"... in light of Visorstuff's research showing the internal assignment of that IP address to the property management arm of the church". I have seen no evidence showing that this 'internal assignment' is true; he's claiming it to be true, but not showing it.
Here is the contact info for 'property reserve'.
Property Reserve
5 Triad Ctr Suite 650
Salt Lake City, UT 84180
(801) 240-5862
Nothing there about Ames, Iowa. Nothing in the arin.net report shows anything about 'property reserve' being assigned this IP address.
So, what we do know is that someone using an address assigned to the LDS church was making edits at Wikipedia with a definite LDS church POV. Period.
When the ownership of this IP address was first brought to light the first reaction went from: " ... and how do you know it is from an LDS IP address?'; to a real quick "I'm comfortable that that was a well-meaning but unofficial church member". Quite a leap of faith there, without even a tiny bit of actual proof of that being the case.
Most everybody involved in the original thread wanted to give the user of this IP address every 'benefit of the doubt', including advice on how not to have this church IP address traced in the future. Damage control was in full flow mode. It still is in full flow mode. Any conjecture about it being an individual is just that: conjecture. There is no way of telling for sure, but ruling out the possibility of it being LDS 'endorsed' editing is premature also. Duke53 | Talk 12:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I am assuming good faith on Visorstuff's part, that he's telling the truth about what he found out about the internal assignment of that IP address. I am also assuming good faith about the anonymous editor, that those edits were not made as part of a deliberate or coordinated effort to propagandize Wikipedia. In the absence of unambiguous evidence to the contrary, I am giving every benefit of the doubt, just as WP:AGF would encourage us to do. You assume bad faith on the part of the anonymous editor and on the part of all the editors whose efforts you label as "damage control", as if they were attempting some sort of cover-up of a systematic abuse of WP policy. Certainly nobody has ruled out the possibility that the editing was authorized by LDS authorities; phrases like "highly unlikely" and "questionable" speak of doubt, not certainty. So we have two hypotheses explainable by the evidence; we follow Occam's razor (or, if you like, Hanlon's razor) and prefer the simpler hypothesis (individual action versus conspiracy) while remaining open to the chance that further evidence may come to light that makes the other hypothesis more plausible. I can't imagine how any part of this approach would be objectionable to the WP community. alanyst /talk/ 16:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
"I am assuming good faith on Visorstuff's part ...". I would much prefer that he prove it before stating it as fact (and would remind others here that a copy of an 'E-Mail' doesn't constitute fact at Wikipedia); the problem with him stating it as fact is that it could then be quoted and be generally accepted as truth. I am not asking that he prove a negative here ... he stated that it is 'internally' assigned to another group, now I would like to see the proof of that. For a group whose usual rallying cry is cite, cite, cite !, many here are very willing to accept some statements on blind faith alone. Could you show me where I said it was LDS endorsed? I did assume that it was an individual gone wrong, since they made 11 edits in a row consisting solely of deletions without comments. It was done very methodically and quickly; good faith went out the window. There was a purpose to their editing which was very apparent ... promoting an LDS POV. Duke53 | Talk 17:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course the line is leased by Intellectual Reserve, as that is the organization that owns and operates all such church communications equipment, as stated before. Also the name who registred the line, Nathan Tippets was (have not confirmed current employment status) a property reserve senior employee. This means one of two things. 1 - that the computer used to make the edits housed in a property reserve building, or that the computer sits in building that the church manages (like much of downtown Salt Lake) is owned by the church and they own/lease the line into the building. According to the link on the whois report, the address of teh facility is 125 NORTH STATE in Salt Lake - a property management office (Property Reserve) [42]. Debating this is useless, as anyone connecting to the internet from a dedicated line in the Crossroads mall, including any computer store (or any of the apartments in the area or office buildings owned by the chuch in downtown Salt Lake) would show up as logging in through a line owned by intellectual reserve, as the church owns the building and line. Lame debate. I'm moving on, and any allusion that the church sanctioned any of the edits is wholly unfounded. The church owns a good deal of propety in Salt Lake - including the block where the edits came from [43].

As far as the statement "(and would remind others here that a copy of an 'E-Mail' doesn't constitute fact at Wikipedia)." I won't even address this as we've assumed good faith from Duke53 on this (see #Temple_garment above).

In any case, arguing about this is pointless, and really doesn't matter, nor does it affect the outcome of any articles at wikipedia. Duke53, it doesn't matter how many times we prove things to you, you have a history of disagreeing with everyone that doesn't currently support your views. Let's move on. -Visorstuff 19:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

"it doesn't matter how many times we prove things to you". You have proved exactly nothing about where this IP address (216.49.181.128) resolves to; you have stated something with no proof. The arin report [44] you've shown above does not include the actual IP address in the report; an actual arin report shows the IP address ... this one happens to resolve to 50 East North Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150. Here's the place where anybody can do it for themself: http://www.arin.net; make sure you enter 216.49.181.128 in the appropriate box. Duke53 | Talk 17:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Duke53, the link you provided a few paragraphs above (with the correct IP address) [45], has a "more information" link right up at the top which goes to the link I provided here. Doing a simple search on the "more information" is easy to track down and "prove" the information to you. Like you said, anyone can do it themselves - and find what I found. Like I said before, it really doesn't matter how many times folks cite something to you, all you want to argue about it. We cite, we provide references, we provide quotes, we physically go to locations, but it really doesn't matter to you. You have to be right. You turn on admins and other editors who come to your cause when you disagree with them because someone cites something that they "allow" in an article and disagrees with your POV. Just take a look at your argumentative history [46] and your treatement of editors who compromise and seek to build consensus. We appreciate you asking for more citations too keep a good balance - especially in religious articles (and others), but when they are shared, accept them and move on. Try not to be such a disruption to the wikipedia process. Just some friendly advice. -Visorstuff 17:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

1) Do you understand what arin reports actually show? I do. The IP address resolves to one address; the 'license' holder may be situated thousands of miles from there. They must put someone's name on there.
2) No matter how many times someone says something contadictory to your viewpoint, you go into a song and dance which 'proves' that the LDS POV must be 'correct'. Your belief that 'if the LDS church states something it must be true' has you at a disadvantage for seeking out what is actually true. I expected this treatment ever since reading the following: http://www.pfo.org/gameplay.htm
3) I have been attacked personally by many pro-LDS editors here at Wikipedia; they have even resorted to telling lies about me. Most of these distortions are simply ignored by admins, even when it is proven to the admins.
Here's some friendly advice for you: don't think that you can dictate how and when other editors are going to edit; don't think that all of us are going to fall into lockstep as to what you 'demand'. Some of us will always be here to make sure that distortions aren't presented as fact; get used to that. The pro-LDS editors are acting as if they gained some 'victory' by the mediation of the Mountain Meadows massacre article falling through ... why? Nothing occurred that made me change my mind one whit, just as it seems that nothing happened that changed pro-LDS editors' minds. Why would it ? All that happened was some pseudo 'straw polls' where editors rehashed their views from previous edits. There may be more editors in this discussion that have a pro-LDS POV, but that doesn't make them right, it just means that there are more of them. Duke53 | Talk 17:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

At this point there was a tangential discussion between User:Alanyst and User:Duke53; it has been moved to User talk:Duke53 to un-clutter this section. alanyst /talk/ 07:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I see a great deal of difference and truth at both non-Mormon and exmormon sites. If you really feel that Trodel, Storm Rider, Cogden and myself blindly follow anything put out by the church, you haven't followed any of our edits for the past three years very closely. There is a big difference between hateful activity and those who disagree. I have close friends who consider themselves "anti-Mormon" and I think they do great research. That is part of being an academcian and historian. I've recruited exmormons and anti-mormons to help balance the LDS POV on wikipedia and have a solid history of doing so. Throwing the Mormons discriminate against me card down is silly.
And, I've not demanded anything of other editors. I too have recieved death threats via email and seen mis-truths about me on Wikipedia for my work here. However, I reallize that is part of being part of an (at times controversial) online community. Don't feel your special because you are discriminated against. It has nothing to do with your religion.
I'm confused at your point about the report. If the license holder is property reserve employee as shown, and the IP address is a physical address of property reserve property as you've shown...are you saying it must be the curriculum department or other church employee? Kinda confused at the logic here...
If you think you've been treated the way you have because of religion, I'm curious if you think all Wikipedia editors who've "attacked" and "disagreed" with you are Mormon. You've argued with nearly everyone you've worked with.
If you'd answer the proposal put forth at MMM, we could re-open the mediation. We'd actually like that. We've claimed no victory - aside from everyone but you saying they want to work together. I'd say that's a victory. In fact, I wouldn't mind arbitration on the page if that is what it takes. Instead of saying that Mormons are claiming a victory, why don't you chime in and say let's re-opne it - we've asked you for it, and asked for your imput on whether or not to re-open (I notified you in three different ways [47], [48], and [49]), and funnily enough, you haven't responded. I know I'd rather go through the mediation and get it resolved if that's what it takes. Don't complain when you won't even participate in the process (and in a timely manner). Just like this whole conversation, you seem to give half-truths only to prove your point. The end doesn't justify the means. If you want to move forward, we are more than willing and excited to do so. Just say it. -Visorstuff 22:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
PS: This thread is becoming a continuation of the mediation issue and soap box for all of us involved in the dispute. We don't need to disrupt Wikipedia with our disputes. We should move it to our personal talk pages or back to Talk:Mountain Meadows massacre. -Visorstuff 22:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Karl Nagel & Company, LLC starts up business controlled Wiki

"Centiare is an online reference directory. It supports advocate points-of-view (APOV) within protected "user-owned" commercial, non-profit, government, personal, and property Directory listings, and features advanced semantic tagging capabilities to organize, search and report information."

See here. -- Zanimum 14:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

WP is NOT for advertising. --Wolf530 (talk) 15:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm fully aware of that. I was bring it to people attentions so they could know what sites were trying to compete with us, through wacked and naïve ideas. -- Zanimum 18:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Advocate-point-of-view? Is that like distorting the truth to promote your or your client's agenda by striving to deceive people and then rationalizing what you've done to cover your lapses in morality? Cryptonymius 16:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
So basically, it's an online advertising service. How new... yandman 16:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Just noticing, MyWikiBiz is working there now. -- Zanimum 20:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It appears to have pasted in some pieces of text from Wikipedia, such as under city names, without giving credit as required by GFDL. *Dan T.* 18:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Come to think of it, that's true. That's quite illegal. -- Zanimum 20:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
A blatant rip off attempt. I wonder what ought to be done with it. Or just let the stupid lawyers deal with it. -Patstuarttalk|edits 20:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It appears the only thing copied was the main page - the articles themselves are empty. Patstuarttalk|edits 20:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
This one seems to have content from WP. *Dan T.* 22:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
So does anyone want to write a nasty-gram? Patstuarttalk|edits 05:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I know there are those out there like this...

This is going to sound odd.

I know some of the people who read this are like me. You have a huge thirst for knowledge. You spend your days learning new things on wiki sites etc., you spend your nights trying to remember the stuff you learned during the day. You want to be well read, well versed, scholarly. You can't stop taking in everything. So what is your method for organizing and attacking this desire? What is your method for figuring out where to take the quest next? Is there a place for people like me that I don't know about? Anybody understand what I am getting at? 192.156.58.34 21:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The library? :-) Steve Dufour 15:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're a zealot looking for a cause, at least pick one that promotes humane values, compassion toward your fellow human beings, a spirit of open-mindedness, a willingness to accept differences, a repugnance towards all forms of violence, and a desire to encourage all people to avoid doing anything that might result, now, or eventually, in the destruction of the human race and its habitat, also known as the planet Earth. Cryptonymius 07:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is future destruction of current Wikipedia content pre-programmed?!

See Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#practical_problem:_destruction_of_verifiability_by_third_parties.

In short, when sources get lost also the articles must be in part deleted accordingly. I can see one way to prevent that (but there may be more):

  • Add a verification appendix to Wikipedia for, when needed, the conservation of facts as required by policy, that happen to be essential for parts of articles.

Of course, this is just one idea as an incentive to brainstorming. It seems rather stupid to put a big effort in something that is preprogrammed to auto-delete for no good reason. Harald88 22:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This is only a problem for internet-based sources, which should be used in moderation anyway (only for the little details: the main text of any article should always be from something published). yandman 08:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Not really only for web content, and this indeed was triggered by the slowly disappearing possibility to verify the claim of the cited source, and not the source itself.
I now came across a useful suggestion for dealing with web content on the talk page of WP:CITE: in addition to http://www.archive.org, wikipedians could use http://www.webcitation.org/. Harald88 10:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Description meta tags

Anyone else noticed that meta-descriptions for Wikipedia article pages are now showing up in Google searches? I did a search on Google for "Symbian OS", and the Wikipedia link that appears in the results has the description of "Article discussing the operating system, its history and devices that use it." How did this become possible, and how could I add meta-descriptions for some of my favourite articles? --  Denelson83  06:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I suspect this is from http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Mobile_Computing/Symbian/Symbian_OS/, which in turn seems to be from http://dmoz.org/Computers/Mobile_Computing/Symbian/Symbian_OS/. So, my guess is if you want to add these descriptions you should volunteer as a DMOZ editor. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stable versions: what's the current situation?

A while ago, I came across the discussions came up regarding stable versions. Though I never participated in the discussions, I was a supporter of the idea (specifically the idea that the stable versions should be the ones displayed by default, as proposed by User:TidyCat). Someone created a nice graph showing the variation in article quality over time, shown right, and I thought that stable versions would be a great way of ensuring that featured articles remain at least at the standard they were when first featured. But I never really kept up with the discussions, although I did notice a while ago that there were processes in place for proposing which versions of an article should be the reference one, but it all seemed somewhat disorganised.

I was surprised to discover when I recently visited Wikipedia:Stable versions that the whole thing seems to be inactive. So could someone bring me up to speed on what's going on with the idea? I heard that something similar has been implemented at the German Wikipedia; could someone decribe what system they use, and how it compares to those old proposals I've linked to above? --Nick RTalk 13:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I've never posted at the Village Pump before, so apolgies if this is the wrong section. :) --Nick RTalk 13:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There was a brief mention at this week's issue of the the Signpost. You'd probably have to search through the wikien-l mailing list archive to find more details. - BanyanTree 19:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales made a post about stable versions on Dec 2 on wiki-en and he wrote that Brion (technical guy) is still working on it. It might take some time because I imagine Brion has many other things to do too. S Sepp 09:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I hope something good is implemented; I reckon it would go a long way towards responding to some of the criticisms about Wikipedia's reliability. --Nick RTalk 18:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of programs broadcast by Jetix - The most-problem article

In List of programs broadcast by Jetix, there's a mess section: Keys Of Number Which Means In Any Countries. Contributors of that article didn't show any efforts: They added programmes. However, they didn't confirmed "what country airs that programme on Jetix". Instead, they added this useless note: "This programme airs in OOO station in US or UK or elsewhere". I posted a "clean up" idea in Talk:List of programs broadcast by Jetix. Please Help! -- JSH-alivetalk to mesee my worksmail to me 14:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Please semi-protect that article--JSH-alivetalk to mesee my worksmail to me 05:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mass art and mass art

I was browsing wikipedia for mass art, and I was redirected to Massachussetts art. It seems there should be a disambiguation page, since mass art also refers to a new theoretical approach to global art forms (see Noël Carroll (A Philosophy of Mass Art, 1998). I wish I could do it myself, but I'm afraid I don't know how to. Help anyone ? Thanks --Anne97432 15:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I would replace the mass art redirect with the content of the article on mass art the form, and add a note about the alternative use to the top. To get to the mass art article, click the mass art link, then click the highlighted link directly below the title which reads "redirect from mass art". This will take you to a page that has a bent arrow and Massachusetts College of Art. Edit the page (use the tap at the top of the screen) and replace the #REDIRECT ... with your content about the philosophy. Add {{For|the college|Massachusetts College of Art}} to the top of the article (as first line) and save. This will add a note to the top of the page which reads for the college see Massachusetts College of Art. Feel free to write again if this doesn't make sense. --TeaDrinker 17:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ARIA

Many[50] pages link to ARIA, meaning to link to the Australian Recording Industry Association page. Is there a way to automate converting links to ARIA into links to Australian Recording Industry Association?

wj32 talk | contribs 00:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MOS

[51]

Can all the removed info in this edit, and the next two, really be found on subpages, or has it been lost?

What's wrong anyway with having some text about these subjects in the Manual of Style, so that people won't have to look through large subpages to find the basic info? So the MOS is a long page, but it does have a contents-box. Nordlending 14:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bigfoot

This article could be much better. Part of the problem is the really stilted opening sentence: "Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch is believed by some to be an ape-like cryptid and by others to be the product of imagination." Steve Dufour 15:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to those who tried to help. Steve Dufour 17:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually.."bigfoot"...is my uncle farnsworth t backlash...an itinerant swinw-herd who has "hairassitis"..a rare condition bought on by drinking cheap beer and eating squirrel meat.

You could be right. You had better let Art Bell and George Norey know. Steve Dufour 17:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How is this?

How is this picture? I recently uploaded it and I would like some feedback on it. Thank you. Ilikefood 23:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Enlarge

Look's GOOD! Who made it and what do you want to do with that good looking picture?A7X 900 23:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I made it and I already put it at Pudding. Ilikefood 23:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Can I eat it? Please? Or did you already eat it after taking the picture? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 17:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] want to report vandalism

I was searching for info about Alphabet and sadly I found unappropriate pcs...please do something about it...I am not sure how I could do it myself...thank you

frequent user..SK

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.92.166.185 (talk • contribs).

There is a section of Wikipedia:Vandalism that describes in basic terms what to do when you find vandalism; this page also has descriptions of what is considered vandalism on Wikipedia. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalisms

Relatively new around here and offering a thought.. Hope this is an appropriate area to post it.

Just reverted some vandalism and followed the users other vandalisms. It seems that double vandalisms, especially section deletions, often results in a half correct revert that only goes back one edit, leaving the first vandalism uncorrected. I had to go back to October to retrieve entire sections for articles that were deleted and never recovered. For this kind of thing, should there not be a failsafe? I understand that individuals watching for vandalism are probably kept busy and not able to check articles thoroughly, but it stands to reason that if somebody edits something twice in a matter of seconds or minutes and one edit is a vandalism, that both edits are vandalisms.. and it should not be so easy to "sneak" such things through. It is rather discouraging to find other users hard work disappear unnoticed so effortlessly.

I guess there is no question to be answered, but something to be aware of.. WarBaCoN 08:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Many anti-vandalism robots (bots) are not perfect in their reversion activity. Manual vandalism reversion will often (usually) take into account complex vandalism patterns, but manual anti-vandalism activities are intrinsically much slower than robotic ones and things do 'sneak' through regardless. There are ongoing discussions around instituting a 'stable page' feature (see the section here on 'Stable versions: what's the current situation?' and Wikipedia:Why stable versions) that would provide, among other things, a common stable version that could be returned to to help avoid exactly what you are observing. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your attention and details.. it's good to know that some efforts are underway.. a stable version would be helpful.. My further input would be, is that it's unfortunate that there is no quick, standard way to identify if an edit (or group of edits) has been negated.. it would be nice while reviewing a large history to really identify what to focus attention on.. It could be a breeze to review histories for missed vandalism if, for instance, reverted edits (or blocks of reverted edits) were colour-coded in red, for instance, which seems plausible.. add in a bit of information about the size (+/-) of any content that was altered, along with the regular edit information (especially in the case of large deletions), and looking for old, and most importantly, missed injuries to articles would be painless. It would satisfy all the "bits in between" the stable versions, particularly older histories.. anything to make the tedious job of repairs easier.. as I look deeper, this seems to be fairly common on less watched, but perfectly valid, articles.. and is rather a pain to identify and repair! Thanks for reading. WarBaCoN 04:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editor down

In case you hadn't heard, editor User:Mike Halterman (MikeH on IRC) was involved in a pretty serious car accident last night. However he's going to be alright. I won't repost the whole thing here but from his facebook " I had a mild concussion and kept lapsing out of consciousness. I also injured my knee and had to get a soft cast for it." He's currently on bed rest, so it might be nice to drop by his user talk page and wish him well. ⇒ SWATJester On Belay! 11:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus Seminar

I write on CARM.ORG - CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION FORUMS and I am one of the members at the forum, during one of the discussion I mentioned of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar and their article on: The empty tomb is a fiction -- Jesus did not raise bodily from the dead, and some other topics. Some of the members commented that "Wikipedia is a most unreliable source", and that any body could edit their entries. Jesus Seminar is not a scholarly Christian group. One member is ready to have focused discussion on the above article "The empty tomb is a fiction” and that if I wish I could quote excerpts from their article and they are ready to refute such articles. I require your permission to quote excerpts from the articles of Jesus Seminar. If possible and someone from Jesus Seminar could help uphold their stance on their behalf, I would be thankful to you. It is intended only as a religious discussion, and no commercial benefit is intended. Thanks

You can quote from any wikipedia article that you wish without request. In fact, you can even directly copy the entire text, as long as you attribute it to wikipedia. As for the seminar, they are most certainly a scholarly group, as I'm famililar with them. However, they are an extraordinarily liberal scholarly group, and are considered poster boys for bad liberal scholarship by modern Evangelicals (a characterization I happen to agree with in this situation). But, as for Wikipedia's reliability, studies have found it to be just as reliable, in many instances, as any print encyclopedias (like Brittanica); and for a subject like Jesus Seminar, I would be willing to bet it's pretty accurate. If you have doubts, however, you can check the given sources. -Patstuarttalk|edits 11:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
First, as User:Patstuart said, feel free to quote the Wikipedia article. Just give credit. Second, at the top of every page is a link to Wikipedia:General_disclaimer. Although much information in Wikipedia is accurate, it has no formal peer review. I personally only use Wikipedia as a first, very rough guide to a topic -- and if I'm interested, I look elsewhere for more information. Chip Unicorn 23:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia ripoffs?

So I found my userpage on some online prescription website, and now I know why I've seen the "This is a Wikipedia userpage. If you're seeing this on some other website..." template on some userpages. What's the name of that template? Xaxafrad 05:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh look, I found it, {{Userpage}}. Xaxafrad 05:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Where? Patstuarttalk|edits 17:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No co-founder?

What do the editors here make of this? Is Sanger a co-founder or not? —75.75.151.180 15:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

He says he is, Jimbo says he isn't, so we follow WP:NPOV and say we don't know until the box is opened. yandman 15:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
We're discussing this on Talk:Citizendium, if you're interested. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 15:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brazilian states

Hi, My name is Raphael and I'm the co-founder of the project "Subdivisões do Brasil" (Brazilian subdivisions) in the Portuguese Wikipedia and the author of more than 5.000 Brazilian location maps (states, municipalities, mesoregions and also microregions). I would like to know why the Brazilian states aticles don't have a higher priority than their respective capitals. Sorry but my capacity to write in English is very limited. What I'm trying to say is: Rio de Janeiro concerns the City of Rio de Janeiro and Rio de Janeiro (state) the state. The same occours with São Paulo (city) and São Paulo (state). I really don't understand why this is the convention and why the states of the USA are different. e.g. New York for the state and New York City for the city / Washington for the state and Washington, D.C. for the city.

Can I move the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo related articles to names like the states of the USA?

Thank you all,

Raphael.lorenzeto 09:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

New York City technically has a different name than New York. As for why we have the article titles that way, I don't know. My guess is that the cities are the better known subjects in the English speaking world. (For Rio De Janeiro that's certainly true.) --tjstrf talk 17:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Those articles were probably created when wikipedia was young and very USA-centric - up here we know of the city of Rio much more than the state. Similar issues have cropped up before, the best example being Georgia, which was created for the US state rather than the central Asia country of the same name. I think the moves you propose make sense, but they should be mentioned on the Talk pages of the stories first, to get reaction. (Also, do you know how to do a proper move, rather than a cut-and-past? From all your experience, I'm sure you do.) - DavidWBrooks
I'm going to post this topic in articles to get "reaction" as you said and yes, I know how to do a proper move. Thank you all again. Raphael.lorenzeto 01:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I have listed my opposition. The state is not what you would expect to get if you type in Rio, it would violate the least surprise principle. Also a admin would be required to make the move, if it were supported. Rmhermen 15:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

This principle of least surprise doesn't apply to Washington and New York? When someone types "Washington" or "New York", they aren't expecting to get the U.S. capital and the big apple? I noticed that exists only two exceptions for naming conventions of brazilian settlements (check talk): "Rio de Janeiro" and "São Paulo". The principle of least surprise applies only to these two cities? ... and, I'm not familiar with the methods of this wiki. Is difficult to ask an admin to make the move?. Raphael.lorenzeto 15:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outsider's insight

The article Tippmann Forum was recently created and nominated for speedy deletion under CSD G11 (blatant advertising). On the article's talk page, the creator of the article cited that the article is being discussed and edited collectively by members of this forum. The forum discussion provides insight into outsiders' views of the article creation and deletion process. —Dylan Lake 23:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not advertising, it's just not notable. Which is an improvement, albeit a minor one.
Now who wants to have the fun of crushing their wikidreams by telling them this? Because I really don't. --tjstrf talk 06:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The forum thread is indeed interesting, showing how people think, and what they think of what this place is and how it's supposed to work. Certianly educational, I think all NP patrollers should go read that thread. I put an {{unreferenced}} tag at the top of the article. I'm not going to nom it for deletion though. They seem so excited and enthusiastic about it. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 16:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Un-editable" vandalism

I have noted in a couple of articles recently that there is occasionally some obvious bit of vandalism - an added expletive usually - that does not show up when I try to remove it by editing the page. The most recent example is the word "BITCH" added to the end of the Early Life section of the entry for Oskar Schindler. Is there a trick to getting rid of such vandalism? 71.91.125.91 05:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Usually it just means someone beat you to it. In some cases, though, it can mean someone vandalized a template that's included on the page, and that can be tricky. --tjstrf talk 05:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] de.Wikipedia: Article-free Sunday

71.139.47.192 asked for a report on the "article-free Sunday" project in the German wikipedia. Well, I'll try to report what I know - I am not one of the authors of the project, but I watched its progress with much interest.

What you should know before you read:
 The German wikipedia lacks a strong inclusionist movement. Also, we like "collection" articles, i.e. the characters from Star Wars have to be put together in one article, they are not allowed individual articles.

History:
 The "article-free Sunday" project (let's call it AFSP) evolved out of the "nothing new" project. This project wanted to remedy the problem that every day, many new articles are created but too many old stubs and also longer articles are left in a quite bad and unencyclopaedic condition. The idea initially came from Jimmy Wales' keynote at the 2006 Wikimania where he stated that the next big goal for Wikipedia would be to improve quality rather than quantity. "Nothing new" wanted to prohibit the creation of new articles to promote the improvement of existing articles. However, there was a lot of criticism to this since this might be against the wiki principle. That's why the AFSP was started. It simply asked users to not create articles for a day and to improve existing articles instead.

The big discussion:
 Users were informed more than a week in advance. A sign was put on the main page (see it here. The AFSP page was immediately crowded with "great idea" messages, but it was also immediately booed out by others as well. To cut a long story short: We had a huge discussion. As a result, the sign was erased from the main page and even a counterproject was started. The IT portal heise.de reported on the AFSP, which is quite a big deal.

AFSP-Day:
 On Sunday, a total of 195 users had joined the AFSP, 69 users had expressed their dissent and 37 users had joined the counterproject. Everybody was kept up-to-date in a blog. Among the ASFP contributors, teams had been formed in order to work together.

The results:
 54 articles were deleted from the "Articles for improvement" page. 91 changes were reported in the blog. It was held that probably a total of 150 articles had been improved. 524 new articles were created, this is the usual number for Sundays. The counterproject reported the creation of 37 new articles. 1352 articles were deleted, which also is the usual number.

Interpretation:
 To be honest: We don't know. We haven't really analyzed the outcome yet. However, it was held that the AFSP at least had a high educational effect and it was a good experience to contribute to a common goal.

Please go ahead and correct grammar, wording and spelling!
If you have any further questions, ask here, I will check on this site during the day. -- Benutzer:Gnom, 11:03 CET

  • I remember someone proposing something similar here a while back. Thought it was a bad idea then, and still do. We gain a grand total of nothing by limiting ourselves in one aspect simply out of hopes that another unrelated aspect might prosper as a result. Most new articles are written by new editors anyway, who wouldn't even know about the page creation "forbiddal".
    If people want to get serious about the article improvement drives for a day or whatever, that's fine. But they can do so without discouraging the creation of new content. I am especially opposed to any software level enforcement or formal recognition of such a movement. --tjstrf talk 10:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I would like to add that the arguments about whether the Artikelfreier Sonntag thingy should take place or not led to several administrators pushing their buttons and hence made one very active author with more than 20,000 edits, Thomas S., resign from wikipedia. So I see much Ado about nothing, but the Ado creates enough damage already to brand this a counterproductive measurement. 217.230.135.115 10:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll come out of the closet then and say that I thought it was a very bad idea from the moment I saw it. Please let the hammer fall where it will. Thanks. Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think its a bad idea at all. No one should stop others from making articles, but there is nothing wrong with joining in on the Article-free Sunday fun; you just say i'm only going to improve articles today - volunteer like. 128.218.112.155 19:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure why no one's said, that this is a typical German idea. Some users noticed that article improvement is suffering a little and that lots of trashy articles walk into the wikipedia. Now a project could have been: article improvement sunday! This sunday, we will improve old articles until hands bleed! Minor improvements count. Apply on this page! - but instead they rather want to forbid - on a volunteer basis. Sick. And not only the idea is mindtwisting, they cannot even express their sorry minds. If you think that article free sunday sounds strange because of the translation - no, it IS a strange word and if you think about it, article-free wikipedia would be a really boring place. Now, it didn't get them anywhere, no significant change has been observed, but they succesfully lost one of their oldest writers. Of course, they're not sure yet, if it was a good idea. 217.230.132.147 15:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Hem, hem. "Artikelfreier Sonntag" is an allusion to the idea of the "Autofreier Sonntag", which is just a Car Free Sunday. So your interpretation is quite off the mark. It's just a symbolic name and the idea was to make people aware of a problem. I didn't like the project for different reasons. -- Harro 01:53, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I can imagine a sunday without cars far more easily than wikipedia without articles. 217.85.81.62 10:43, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Rathbun and Barbara Schwarz

Mark is a former Scientology leader, but now a "non-person". Barbara is also a former Scientology leader. The odd thing is that about half of Mark's article is taken up with Barbara's conspiracy theories about him; theories which, as far as I know, no one else believes in. Steve Dufour 18:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

If nobody cares maybe the articles should be removed. Steve Dufour 15:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Making it easier to IM Wikipedians to ask questions

Hi all, I was bold and I added an "Instant messaging" section to Wikipedia:Contact us/Contact a user. This is a presumably high-traffic page: users can get to it just by clicking "Contact Wikipedia" on the left side of any Wikipedia page and then "Contact a Wikipedia user".

Do you think the change was OK? Cheers, --unforgettableid | how's my driving? 00:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HELP!

If anyone out there wants to help a person with a new Userpage, please do. When your done, on WTRiker's talk page let me know: Who you are, what you did, and when you did it, so I can give proper thanks. Thanks much. --WTRiker 02:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Politics userboxes

Could someone create a politics userboxes set, such as "This person is a {insert party here}" and like "This person supports/doesn't support our troops", etc? --WTRiker 02:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

No, please don't. Many of those already exist in userspace, but they are discouraged and we're trying to get rid of them gradually. Especially the anti-x ones. --tjstrf talk 02:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Historic debates#Wikipedia:Userboxes for a bit of background on why this is red flag. - BanyanTree 15:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

One downside to that type of userbox is how they tend to get exploited if an edit dispute occurs. I don't have any userboxes, but now and then some editor interpolates my username into some sort of pro-Russian bias. Considering that I speak no Russian, don't have a Russian family heritage, rarely edit Russian topics, and am a United States veteran who grew up during the Cold War my upbringing probably attempted to impress the opposite bias...but that doesn't stop intrepid editors from attempting the accusation. DurovaCharge! 04:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem

Until recently, when I type text when editing Wikipedia, they came in a readable font called Courier New. Today, however, I just discovered something weird happened to text when I edit Wikipedia. They come in a very skinny, barely readable font. What happened?? Georgia guy 00:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

This has happened to me. I fixed it by force-reloading the cache on my monobook.js file. You can do this by going to User:Georgia_guy/monobook.js and hitting either ctrl-shift-R if you use mozilla/Firefox/safari or ctrl-f5 on IE. hope this helps. JoeSmack Talk 01:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] View source (editing restricted)

The "view source" button has been changed into "view source (editing restricted)". I don't know who proposed or okayed such a change, but don't you think that it's a little awkward to "rub in" the fact that one cannot edit all parts of Wikipedia? I think that it looks ugly and doesn't really need to be there anyway. I suggest that this is rolled back. —Michiel Sikma (Kijken maar niet aanraken) 07:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. "View source" serves as sufficient notice that a page can't be edited. Part of assuming good faith is assuming that they have a basic capacity to deduce. Alistair 03:47, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree as well. "Editing restricted" does seem to be an unnecessary addition to me. "View source" is sufficient. I don't think it is a good thing to be highlighting the fact that some pages can't be edited here on Wikipedia. I would like to know who proposed and approved this change, though. --Randy Johnston (‽) 18:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree, too. That change wasn't neccesary. --Nanuc 22:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)--Nanuc 22:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Seems that it was changed back. —Michiel Sikma (Kijken maar niet aanraken) 07:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Great. But whoever was responsible for the change in the first place still hasn't revealed him/herself. Alistair 08:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Why worry about who it was? Are we planning to burn them at the stake or something? *giggle* that'd be silly and/or amusing. --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 07:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
There was a good bit of discussion at Template talk:Sprotected, inter al., whence one might ascertain the provenance of the view source formulation. I'm not a great fan of it myself, and I'm not certain there was a consensus for the change, but neither am I sure that the community might ever agree on any other locution. Joe 16:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this rollback? If so, why?

User:Xyrael reverted the archiving of my talk page. That was bizarre enough but when I looked at his/her contributions listI see lots of similar bizarre reverts. It looks to me like use of the powerful admin rollback tool.

At first I thought it was vandalism but I can't quite work it out. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what it might be? bobblewik 17:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Werdna has posted an explanation of this unusual revert on Xyrael's talk page at [52]. Apparently was an attempt to fix some mistakes in a backup task. EdJohnston 20:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
OK thanks for the reference. bobblewik 17:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] easy

Manav 95 21:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)can you make wikipedia easier

Wikipedia. Now with 30% more difficulty. ~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 05:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy of using family or first-hand knowledge in Wikipedia articles

Hello,

My father has an article [on himself] on Wikipedia which is well beyond that of a "stub", but is still lacking crucial information, in my opinion. What is Wikipedia's policy of using one's own first-hand knowledge in such a situation to correct or add pertinent, objective information about the life and career of celebrities? Jeremy Bright 22:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Other editors would have to be able to be able to confirm what you wrote. Why don't you add your new information to the article's Talk page and ask for comments by other editors? There may be ways of tracking down the supporting data for things that you know personally. As a last resort, you could write your own reminiscence, get it published elsewhere, then cite it from the WP article. If stuff in the present article is just plain wrong, then the article should be fixed, and the Talk page would certainly be the place to put that forward. EdJohnston 22:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible violation of wikipedia's copyright

Hi guys, not sure this is the best place for this. This website contains text which is identical to this wikipedia page. Text on wikipedia is dated October 2004, external website has a note saying (c) 2005. Can you check? Thanks Cruccone 22:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

True. I think you should contact them and send them a GDFL violation letter. --wj32 talk | contribs 09:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scott Mitchell (businessman)

Some editor of Scott Mitchell has been spamming other articles in an attempt to remove the linkless tag on his article. They have been doing this by going to pages of Scott Mitchell the football player and Entrepreneur and adding to the page. While he may be successfull it is questionable whether or not he belongs on a list with Thomas Edison. Also the page itself Scott Mitchell seems like copyvio or something to me. It seems to be possibly edited by staffers and such. Any changes made to it that show him in anything but a positive light get changed. Since i'm new I don't know where to go to ask for help with this or how to make an argument that the article needs to be looked over. Any help would be great.

[edit] How often are wikipedia article's read?

I read higher up on this page about Uncle Tom's Cabin that it hadn't been read in over 48 hours. Is that normal? More of an obscure article? What would be an average time wikipedia articles are viewed? Thanks-Gettingby 00:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lyrics?

Is it okay to add lyrics to a certain song's article? If not, please tell me why. -Slimezter

No. Lyrics are copyrighted. Sorry. --Bsm15 14:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Massive vandalism

Just now, I saw a lot of pages, including featured article Macedonia (terminology) being vandalised with several large floating Javascript images of [53] (NSFW). It wasn't a problem with an individual page, it couldn't be removed by editing it. By the time I finished writing this, the problem was fixed, but while I'm here, what just happened? --FlyingPenguins 00:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

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