Wikipedia talk:Village pump (policy)

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Contents 1 Censorship of censorship debate 2 Save the archives! 3 24 hour lockdown for main page Featured Articles? 4 Linking to websites that host copyvios 5 duplication of categories 6 vandalism by "clean up" 7 Page statistics 8 International versions 9 Bias re: Talmud 10 Archiving 11 Go and GO direct to different places 12 Persecution bot

[edit] Censorship of censorship debate

I've removed the images from the censorship debate for the following reasons:

• Nobody can argue that some people find them offensive
• The inclusion of these images may discourage people offended by them from contributing to the discussion, thus biasing the debate
• They are in a location where you would not expect to see them (they are outside of, for example, the penis article)

Yes it's a little controversial and I am not saying which is my personal point of view on the matter, but I think it is necessary. violet/riga (t) 23:09, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I support your removal of the images. The point has been made. The discussion does not need to have the images inline.-gadfium 23:35, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I find it unacceptable to remove the images. The matter is not decided yet, and it is inappropriate to remove these things, especially as they are a matter of public record as part of a policy discussion here. I am restoring the images. --Improv 00:38, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The images were still left as links, anyone wanting to see them could do so easily. There is a principle here that images should not be shown in a context in which they are not expected. Some Wikipedians may have to avoid this page if they are at work, or in a public library, where the subject matter may be acceptable (or not sufficiently obvious to draw attention from others) but the images would definately not be. Personally, I edit Wikipedia at work while waiting for a compile etc, but I stay well clear of articles with images which might breach corporate policy while at work. A policy discussion page ought to be safe. Note that my general attitude to the images themselves is that they should be on pages where they are relevant.-gadfium 00:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is also the principle here that policy discussion pages should not have parts of them removed that are relevant to the discussion. Policy discussion pages should not have relevant (that is, part of relevant discussion) content censored, and I feel this is a stronger obligation than them being work-safe. --Improv 01:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with removing the pictures from the Village Pump. Another point is that the Pump is fairly general. The photos are not certainly not relevant to all the other topics on the Pump at any given time.

Also, I disagree that removing the pictures is censorship. It's editing. Maurreen 05:22, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I was going to remove them myself but I couldn't even look at the Pump here at work to do so. Keeping them there was excluding people from the debate. Filiocht 08:23, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

I also support removing the pictures from VP. Work safe, and all that. This whole issue brings to light that Wiki needs some kind of user-selectable content filtering. Also, I question the wisdom of having a naked woman on the woman wikipedia page for similiar reasons (Does your average joe really expect to see a naked woman on that page?). Samboy 15:00, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Of course not, it's just a case of 'we can do it, so we will'. One of these days, one of these images is going to get Wikipedia closed down. Filiocht 15:20, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Ohh yes, I can see the headlines "picture of naked woman in encyclopaedia shock!". Ohh in case you didn't get it that's called sarcasm, the lowest form of wit. Jooler 15:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Improv but I've removed the images (inline) again. The images are part of the relevant discussion but are still linked. I could have my entire career destroyed by looking at those images at work and it is very easy for people to come across them without expecting them. The VP is not an appropriate place for them. This way people can still look at the images at their discretion rather than having them forced on them. violet/riga (t) 13:13, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is a motion I, for one, fully support. Even though my stand on the matter itself is that removing a picture of a penis from the penis page would be ridiculous, and that "full frontal nudity" is not a horrible disgrace to an encyclopedia, and so on - these pictures do belong on WP, in their respective articles. The VP is not one such article.--TVPR 20:07, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Said pictures belong on the Wikipedia, where appropriate, but displaying them here adds nothing to the discussion and excludes legitimate contribution. I ardently, vehemently oppose censorship for the sake of certain people's puritanical sensibilities, but Improv seems to be going out of his way to offend them. ADH (t&m) 22:46, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

I AM ON A 21" MONITOR IN MY COLLEGE LIBRARY. DO NOT PUT THE IMAGES BACK. --Alterego 01:02, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Save the archives!

I am amazed to find that archives are deleted after 7 days! It is a great and unecesssary loss of information (I was looking for some older proposals, now it will take me much more time). Although, it is a loss of a significant part of Wikipedia history, and a useful resource to academic researchers of this topic. I strongly move to restore all old content and instead preserve it through normal archive structures, like the content elsewhere (article talk pages, FA/PR/AfD nominations, etc.). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 13:34, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Wikipedia is not paper. Archiving, while not strictly necessary because of the revision history, can be very convenient in some cases. Superm401 | Talk 23:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Why will they be permanently removed, rather than permanently archived? Derex 21:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree that it's worth archiving; we already archive WP:AN and WP:AN/I which are similarly active but contain much less discussion that's likely to be useful in the future. I'm not sure that we need to dig up all the old material, but it would be worth maintaining permanent archives from now on. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:14, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Um...there's actually nothing stopping people archiving the discussions permanently. You simply move them from the village pump archive to somewhere you wish them archived. If that's Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) archive (04-12-2005) then feel free. If it is to a relevant talk page, feel free. Now that a bot is doing the archiving, it might be worth organising something, although I am not in favour of it personally, I think it would be unwieldy and create yet another huge mass of redundant pages. But then I find everything is readily accessible within the page history. Steve block talk 22:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

As long as the content is available in the history, let's not fork redundant versions of it - some confused user might accidentally begin a new discussion on it later, leading to slightly different versions of it. I believe in preserving every byte of this content, but no need for it to be in the current-version articles all the time. The way I see it, the purpose of the archives is to make reading recent discussions which are still relevant more convenient, while the purpose of the history in this namespace is to preserve all of our discussions for research (and posterity :-). Deco 08:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that unless I'm missing something big here, the history is not easy to search at all if you don't know what timeframe you are interested in. Archive pages, on the other hand, are easily searched via google, or via the what links here from a relevant article. If it's in the history, it doesn't show up on what links here and AFAIK it doesn't appear on google, so it's a lot less functional. If the archiving is done automatically, all the more reason to make real archives -- the added workload would be minimal. They could be clearly marked as archives, like some other old pages, to prevent the confusion you mention. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Then I would suggest the first step is probably to talk to Cryptic, it's his bot. When we were talking about setting it up he indicated it was a possibility that the pumps could be archived properly. Like I say, I have no issue with someone doing it, I'm not sure if it is an issue that would require a community decision? Steve block talk 07:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

From a technical standpoint, it would involve little more than flipping a switch (figuratively speaking). The same bot already archives WP:AN to numbered subpages. —Cryptic (talk) 08:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's do it, then, unless there's any particularly compelling reason not to. I haven't seen any problems pointed out with the similar archiving on AN. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

If the history isn't easy to search, that's a software issue. If you install the latest database dump you can certainly do queries against the history. Maybe someone should set up a website or something as a trial. Deco 09:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Um, it would be nice to have a way to search past discussions without downloading 2+ GB worth of database. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

What we should be able to do is tag conversations CVS/SVN style and make those searchable. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 21:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Unless Deco still objects, I'm going to start moving forward on this. Since the archives of the split village pump only go back to 15 November 2004 (except for Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive, which goes to 15 October 2004), I'll start by pasting the history into separate archive pages. Since I won't have a whole lot of time on my hands until mid-January, this will probably take a while to finish. Until I'm done with that, the bot will still be using the old archival method. —Cryptic (talk) 11:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't object as long as the pages are protected to prevent forking. I think it's a big waste of effort though when this is something that should be solved with a proper software solution for discussions and not ad hoc shuffling of wikitext. Deco 21:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 24 hour lockdown for main page Featured Articles?

On 03/28/06, Noah's Ark was on the main page as a featured article, and during that period had something like 300 edits. I have no particular knowledge of the subject, so I can't speak with authority about the edits, but it looks like a fair amount of vandalism or at-best inadequately sourced edits occurred. Even what may be valid information can hurt the quality of the writing and the flow of the article. An issue like this can be pretty contentious, and judging by the talk page, a good deal of effort was made by editors with a variety of personal viewpoints to reach a good, balanced presentation of the subject. It seems a shame that someone checking out the article based on curiousity and the main page link ended up visiting a jumble of edits that changed every few minutes, rather than the article that was judged worthy of FA status. I'm pretty new (and haven't set up an account yet, so I'll probably be ignored) but I thought I'd suggest that there be some sort of protection of Featured Articles for the period they are cited on the main page. Anyone who really cared about the subject and had useful information could edit the next day, but this could limit the deluge of 100s of edits in a day. - Bert 171.159.64.10 04:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Since the featured article is the first thing many visitors to Wikipedia see, it has long been held that it should offer the wiki experience - i.e. anyone can edit. I fear this falls under the perennial proposals list. --Golbez 04:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Along with my perennial form reply - user:Raul654/protection Raul654 04:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I figured this had probably been discussed before. Any recommendations on how a newbie can figure out that something like this has already been beaten like a dead horse without spending a few hundred hours reading past discussions, and maybe even get to read the relevant debate? -Bert 171.159.64.10 03:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

You can try using the Wikipedia search. If that doesn't work, I suggest using Google to search Wikipedia. Legitimate questions are not ignored, no matter who they come from. It just depends on whether the people who have time and answers see your post or not. You're pretty likely to get a response on the Village Pump pages, but you might just be talking to yourself on some talk pages. -- Kjkolb 04:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, see Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). It doesn't actually deal with the suggestion to protect or semiprotect the featured article. Perhaps it should include a link to user:Raul654/protection. -gadfium 06:10, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

What should be done is an analysis of 10 or more FAs - see how much they changed from the time they were main pages till the time they were replaced. But even if we find out that there has been little postive change (as my analysis of 3 FAs a few weeks ago has shown), than there is the argument - mentioned above - that protecting them may discourage/confuse potential future editors.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

No, No, and No. This has been proposed before, and thoroughly refuted and opposed. Pre-emptive protection of pages does not happen at Wikipedia. Werdna648^T/_C\^@ 22:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Can't we have a separate copy of a featured page that can be edited, and preserve the pre-feature copy elsewhere? Then after the editing frenzy has died down, an experienced editor can move the good edits into the preserved copy. I realise this is extra work for someone. Runcorn 09:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I like editing the featured article. There are often improvements possible. Most of the vandalism is from anonymous IPs and new users. I would like a more general anti-vandal measure: you can ban anyone once for a day with less than 5% of your number of edits. They would soon lose interest. (First edit on my phone. Can't seen do tildes and this edit may have unpredictable results) Stephen B Streater

[edit] Linking to websites that host copyvios

What is the policy for linking to sites that host copyvio materials for the purpose of providing references? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:53, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The policy is not to do it. Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] duplication of categories

What does the community think about what one editor has done to the Category:American people by ethnic or national origin. This category had been organized (a lot by me) into a relatively small number of major sub-categories, such as Category:European Americans. Now this editor has added all the sub-categories of the major categories directly into the American people... category. This is based on a personal theory of this one user; I have not seen this elsewhere in Wikipedia. Thanks Hmains 04:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

There are pros and cons; on the one hand, it's good not to have to wade through hierarchies of categories, on the other hand, over 70 sub-categories is unwieldy. On balancve, I'm against it, but not very strongly. Runcorn 17:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vandalism by "clean up"

Vandalism by "clean up" is wrong. I had a good edit. This was my edit: [1]. I worked hard on that edit. It seems EurekaLott ( 07:08, June 5, 2006) didn't even read it. The left-hand tab says project. EurekaLott's so-called "clean up" of 07:08, June 5, 2006 was therefore wrong. It seems to have been automated, without any thought.--Chuck Marean 15:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• This comment is in the wrong place. Please nobody discuss here, and I'll copy it to Talk:Web directory. AndyJones 16:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page statistics

Can't we have same way of displaying a page view counter, I have no idea whether certain pages are being seen by one person a week, or a thousand day. A simple page counter would do the trick, though being able to link to a more sophisticated statistics package would let us see from which pages people come from, and go to, and provide averages, referrals etc. --Iantresman 19:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not difficult in principle, but with the traffic Wikipedia gets, it might impose a significant extra burden on the servers. --Runcorn 21:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It all depends on topics of interest...and several of us repetitiously going to the page to check the counter might provide false results. Michael 07:25, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that the possibility for false results exist but I do think there is a lot of value in a page counter--especially in AfD debates. Agne 15:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Technical FAQ#Can I add a page hit counter to a Wikipedia page?. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks... Michael 05:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] International versions

I have noticed that the international versions of Wikipedia articles are not just translations, but often completely different articles with different information. Is NPOV defendable when local Wikipedia version are significantly different? Obviously the FDL allows different versions, but I think it would be good if everything under the Wikipedia flag represented a single collection of facts, and not local interpretations. (I'm not sure if this belong to policy, so please redirect me to the appropriate discussion page if not) Robert John Kaper 16:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• This should be on the main page. It'll be moved. Discuss it there. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 20:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I have sent you this link http://www.daatemet.org/daathalacha/en_gentiles.html (written by the Jews in Jerusalem) about the fact how the Gentils (non-Jews) are seen in Halacha (Jewish religious Law). Those writings may resolve some questions that were open at the discussion page of "The Protocols of Zion Sage" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocols_of_Zion_Sages I was very surprised to discover that my messages were refused (twice) and that the discussion couldn't take place. After that, I have discovered that all References and Futher Readings were written by the peole who have uninamously the same opinion. I wanted to write to Mediation Help, but, I have discovered that this kind of "Help" is based on cabala (Jewish way of thinking). Is it possible that Wikipedia can not allow any discussion that bring new opinions and new facts? Who cares about the impartiality by Wikipedia?

[edit] Bias re: Talmud

"Those who attack the Talmud frequently cite ancient rabbinic sources without noting subsequent developments in Jewish thought, and without making a good-faith effort to consult with contemporary Jewish authorities who can explain the role of these sources in normative Jewish thought and practice." - this is citation of your http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud . So, you can use this site: http://www.daatemet.org/daathalacha/en_gentiles.html It was written by the Jews in Jerusalem who have learned over years the Talmud and who denounce clearly the monstrosity of contemporary rabbinical teachings (teachings that remained the same over last 1800 years = since Ha Nasi). Strange that Wikipedia can not avoid the lies?! Who are those people who write your articels without any desire to represent the truth? Why do you allow it! Is there any control of the facts? Shoud you not avoid those who are implicated emotionaly? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.226.130.88 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Archiving

Isn't it about time to archive some of the Pump when it's 377+KB!? I'm on a decently fast connection, but it's still a pain when an edit conflict pops up and my browser has to upload the entire page. -newkai | talk | contribs 10:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This is done automatically by a bot after 7 days. —Centrx→talk • 20:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

It is now. There was a period when we were between bots and the only person archiving was me, and I then took a wikibreak. The query was during this period. People shouldn't always assume the bot will just get it. For a long timne the pump was archived manually, bots to archive are relatively new, and if a bot fails, people should be aware that it's okay to archive if you follow the instructions on the pump pages. Steve block Talk 20:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Go and GO direct to different places

There seems to be an unresolved dispute centering on where the search GO and Go should refer straight to the board game go or a disambugation page with various alternatives. The dispute has resulted in multiple pages ie GO and Go of disabugation. This came to my attention because last time I searched for Go it went straight to the board game with a link to disambugaiton at the top. Presently it goes to the disabugation page. It seems the discussion has been held seperatly on the disambugation page and the board game without discussion here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.58.21.78 (talk • contribs) . 03:08, September 23, 2006

Go points to a disambiguation page, and the discussion page seems months old. Am I missing something? Fagstein 06:42, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Observe the capitalization: Go and GO. I'm not sure what to make of it. older ≠ wiser 18:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Merge them both into Go, per some guideline or other that i know exists somewhere! Thanks/wangi 18:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's OK as is. Both pages link to each other at the bottom. —Mets501 (talk) 20:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It's okay as long as editors realize there are two related pages and the distinction between them is clear... Often what ends up happening though is that people start adding a lot of the lowercase entries to the uppercase one, and visa versa, and it starts to become pointless to keep them separate. --Interiot 23:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Could someone explain to me what, if anything, this has to do with the Village pump (policy) page? - Jmabel | Talk 03:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I was going to suggest moving it, but then I noticed that none of the other sections here from this year were on topic either, so I figured it wouldn't hurt... --Interiot 03:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Persecution bot

Can someone restrain a free-running copyright witchhunt bot?

User:OrphanBot has been adding brainless copyright violation allegations to many of my non-infringing images. Can someone stop it?

An "image" like this can never be copyrighted:

1. "LEARN CHINESE" - Not copyrightable.
2. "Pot Sticker" - "Potsticker" - Not copyrightable.
3. "Guo-tie" - Chinese "鍋貼" or "Potsticker" - Not copyrightable.
4. "罐屠夫" - "Canned Butcher"; possibly a computer glitch - Not copyrightable.
5. A Blue rectangle - Not copyrightable.
6. "You maintain ..." - Possibly copyrightable but practically not copyrightable.
7. "Lucky Numbers ..." - Computer generated numbers; not copyrightable.

It's a waste of time to argue with a brainless bot. Can someone restrain it? -- Toytoy 21:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, what OrphanBot adds is a poliet remainder for images which don't specify a source/creator. If the image is not copyrighted, then you need to specify as being so (so for example, marking an image as being your own creation.) Otherwise, other people don't know where it's from. In this day and age, anything is possible for copyright =). If you think an image you've uploaded is not copyrightable, then you need to select the correct license when you are uploading. (and i also believe the talk page for village pump policy isn't the best place to be asking this. You could have tried OrphanBot's talk page, or the talk page of whoever runs Orphanbot.) --`/aksha 01:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

And indeed, even if the individual components of the sticker are not under copyright, the overall arrangement and layout may well be. Consider some of the pieces of Andy Warhol. To make sure that an image is ok, we need the uploader to specify the copyright status. --Stephan Schulz 02:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)