Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Archive 6

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Commercial Suppliers

I have a problem with the appearance of "commercial suppliers" throughout the whole chemistry section. These suppliers are "Sigma-Aldrich", "Fisher", and some more. Every chemist can use specific databases to find suppliers, such as chmoogle, such as chemexper, such as chemfinder. By putting "chemical suppliers" in front of extern links and literature citations, the wikipedia chemistry section will soon show a commercial face, which is not very interesting for people searching scientific facts. Indeed, I have already mentioned some chemical directories enabling structure search and presenting a neutral selection of suppliers. Chemexper presents more than 700 suppliers.

Imagine all these companies spreading links in the chemistry section? Is this a valuable contribution?

Find more of my thoughts here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:213.188.227.119

In every case: the current selection is not neutral and may affect the neutrality of the current version of wikipedias chemistry section. A clear statement if Wikipedia wants to publish 20/30 different chemical suppliers for chemicals such as benzene might be helpful. I would go the other way: just link some search engines such as chemexper and chmoogle at a central page which is linked throughout the whole chemistry section. That's clear that's neutral.

I have to thank you for your attention.

Best regards 213.188.227.119

The post was made at the top of the page, I have moved it down (people will search for articles at the bottom, as is commonly accepted. Answers to User:213.188.227.119's thoughts are on his talk page --Dirk Beetstra 08:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I have added comments on the linked page also. I disagree with this comment/proposal for two reasons.
  1. "In every case: the current selection is not neutral" I have done my best on every page where I have listed suppliers to give all of the major chemical supply houses for the US & UK, plus any specialist suppliers that I'm aware of. This is in line with the policy we have maintained at WP:Chem, and most chemical pages seem to adhere to this. I believe that the presence of a separate manufacturers & suppliers section helps maintain neutrality, because the person writing the main article thinks "Now I need to list a range of suppliers/manufacturers". A typical example of a lab chemical can be seen here. For an industrial chemical, see Sodium_sulfate#Suppliers.2FManufacturers, where I incorporated information on producers from the leading chemistry encyclopedia (Kirk-Othmer, see ref. 4). If there is no distinct section written by the writer of the article, then the listing is done anonymously and with partiality by suppliers themselves, as with this edit that I reverted on a drug page only an hour ago - such edits happen on chemical pages too, occasionally. I think having only one or two companies listed is a problem, but having all major suppliers listed is very helpful to our readers.
  2. I can accept that chemexper and chmoogle (now emolecules) are very nice websites, but they are also both commercial sites. It seems, then, that this proposal is for us to switch away from a multiple listing of all major suppliers, to a situation where Wikipedia will apparently endorse only one or two specific companies. Do we want our chemical pages to become "Sponsored Molecules"? I don't have a problem with adding chemexper to our existing list of five or more company listings, but let's try to maintain some impartiality by keeping a range of sources. Walkerma 04:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Dear Martin,
OK, that is clear, I agree with that. Another reason for me to have the chemical companies direct link to the page of the chemical is, is that it reduces the number of clicks I need to get to the compound (whether or not Wikipedia is biased, I am..). Remains the question, should the chemical supplier section be on the bottom of the page, I do concur with 213.188.227.119 that the references are more important than the list of chemical suppliers (as he/she says, if all chemical suppliers of benzene have their link there (as I hope they all put there reference in), the references section is going to be far separated from the data). So what about the suggestion to put these at the bottom of the page (the style guide puts 'suppliers' for 'see also' and 'references', followed by 'external links', I would see suppliers as a special type of external links)? --Dirk Beetstra 08:24, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


Citing from Dirk's answers: I have done my best on every page where I have listed suppliers to give all of the major chemical supply houses for the US & UK, plus any specialist suppliers... (Citation ends)

Sorry, 213.188.227.119, you read wrong, this is a quote from Martin Walker's text. Please try to understand how talk-pages are built-up! (simple: Or the person starts talking at the end of a section, after the last signature, and ends with his own signature; or they start indented from a previous line, thereby breaking up line of conversation; In all cases, they are signing their additions on talk-pages, something you seem not to get). --Dirk Beetstra 18:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

This means: One single person, who is maybe influenced by certain habits (such as buying chemicals from Aldrich) currently decides which companies will be linked...

NO THAT IS NOT TRUE. The person starting the page indeed puts in a couple of chemical suppliers, but YOU as well can add the ones you like. And that is what Martin Walker is saying there! --Dirk Beetstra 18:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

If the definition of neutrality is "I have done my best" but also giving a clear preference for UK and US suppliers, I must state: WikiChem is absolutely commercial, influenced by single companies and does not respect that most users do not want to have commercial links in this user-contributed encyclopedia.

NO, that is also not true. See various pages and see in which countries the companies are based. Are you missing any companies from Switserland, please add them!

I have added to my personal page, that I must leave the discussion. The Wiki Community has already decided not to show up commercial information. WikiChem is part of Wikipedia? As long as "Supplier links" could be paid and influence certain person in their habit to link companies, ALL supplier links MUST be regarded as commercial links.

I feel sorry you have to leave, my dear unknown, I see that there is a lot you could add. When you feel that there are references missing, please feel free to add them, THAT ensures impartiallity, not leaving it at it's current state and only trying to show that you are right. If you want to see commercials, please have a look at the Audi page, which ONLY has a link to the Audi homepage, a complete box with only Audi-types, and links to the Audi-related companies (Volkswagen group). THAT is what I call a commercial link, people ending up at the Audi-page are NOT redirected to brands of other cars. So yes, there are commercial links in other parts of the Wiki. The links in WikiChem are NOT commercial, as long as there are more than 4 (quoting from Martin Walker). --Dirk Beetstra 18:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

We cannot proof, whether a specific link is paid or not. I see conflicts of interest. Just one fact: the discussion whether one click or two clicks are needed to get to "commercial suppliers" usually is influenced by strong commercial influences. Maybe someone has already paid to be linked from the upper section of wikipedia entries using "one-click".

And again, that would be removed, there are no links in the upper parts of the pages, only in the suppliers section, which can be expanded by all. --Dirk Beetstra 18:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I do not know, if this is the case or not... Most of my questions here are rhetoric. But everyone, every company will soon ask: where are guidelines and is this selection neutral? Are links paid? Is WikiChem reliable? Or commercially influenced? I do not know. Maybe I am the first person asking such things... I do not know. I don't know either, but I don't see how companies could make sure they are the only company having a link on each chemical they would sell, and if there are more, I would not pay (if I belonged to such a company). --Dirk Beetstra 18:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


Dirk,

I still insist on a User-Voting, because two or three persons currently decide about adding commercial links to a non-commercial encyclopedia. I do not hear the Community. 213.188.227.119 14:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I personally feel that Wikipedia is not the forum for commercial suppliers to have an airing. WP should be completely independent. This applies not just to chemistry but to pet foods and a whole lot else besides, I'm sure. How does one legislate against it (& enforce), however? - Ballista 14:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sirs, Dirk gave the argumentation, that the brand "Swatch" is featured and linked to the company. This is the reason, that Dirk also thinks, single products can be linked to single chemical suppliers. I have therefore analyzed typical products in wikipedia: For example "Computer" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer No supplier links

For example "Telescopes" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescopes No supplier links

For example "T-Shirts" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shirts No supplier links

For example "Automobile" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile No supplier links

"WikiChem" is very special featuring "Supplier Links" for single products. 213.188.227.119 23:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree, supplier lists on articles are highly inappropriate for Wikipedia. We are not the yellow pages or a buyer's guide - especially for such trivial things as common chemicals where thousands of suppliers and manufacturers exist. Moreover, individuals cannot buy from these companies and chemists already know were to order.

Only for very special compounds where only one or two sources exist could these links be appropriate and should be put under "External links". Cacycle 22:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Moved here from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals#Wikichem_Supplier_Links:
My own opinion is that Wikipedia should provide factual verified information (mainly properties) for a compound, citing the sources wherever possible. This is the model that Beilstein came up with in the 19th century and has endured unchanged since then. Beilstein lists several hundred possible properties of a compound and I doubt that WP can or should manage more than a small fraction of these. The main suppliers of property information (CAS, Beilstein, Landolt-Bornstein) are all closed databases and IMO it is not appropriate to point to these. The only public open database is PubChem which does collect links to properties (e.g. in Medline), and I would strongly support the linkage to PubChem. Note, however, that a small proportion of entries in PubChem are in serious error (e.g. names and connection tables are completely different). It is possible that, through community action (perhaps WP-like) that these will accrete annotations which help to correct errors (perhaps by standoff annotation - PubChem itself will probably not have the resources to correct errors). PubChem includes the dara from the ZINC database of supplier info.

Our own research into supplier data has shown that serious errors can exist, even in the largest suppliers. For example for one compound we found 26 web pages, mainly suppliers, of which less than half had the full correct stereochemistry, and several had incorrect stereochemistry and even connectivity. Therefore I would not regard supplier data as necessarily correct.

It is possible for some compounds that the only place where a physical property can be found is in the supplier data (this could happen if the compound had never been formally published but was of commercial value). In this case it would be appropriate to cite the supplier, and to provide alink to the information.

The (required) MSDS could contain information on hazards and physical properties which were only available in this manner and again it could be useful to point here. In practice most MSDS are not web available and their copyright is questionable.

I would therefore argue that supplier info (whether dicretly or through an aggregator) should be excluded by default and only used when it is the sole source of information or where the data from the supplier conflict with other reports of the same quantity and where there is currently no resolution.

Petermr 17:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikichem is not alone is supplying commercial links. Of course if you look under "automobile" you will find nothing, just as you will find nothing under "chemical compound." Some counter-examples to the above:

  • Hybrid vehicle includes several external links such as one to the Mercedes hybrid sprinter"
  • Binoculars has a section, manufacturers, and 12 of these are linked from the page. Very nicely done, IMHO.
  • And interestingly, T-shirt does' have an external commercial link: "TshirtHell. Funny tshirts; ADULTS ONLY!!! ; Some offensive material." (NOW REMOVED: This was clearly inappropriate)

I really didn't have to look hard for these examples, Wikipedia is full of them.

I believe we should keep the listing because IMHO:

  1. It adds information to the article. Non-chemists may not know which are the "common suppliers."
  2. Both Kirk-Othmer and other parts of Wikipedia include equivalent information.
  3. It is perfectly in line with Wikipedia policy, as long it is seen not to be endorsing a particular company.
  4. When I wrote my pages, I frequently used the catalogues of those same suppliers as sources of information, or at least to double check data. (I have a pile of them next to my computer, and I always use all of the relevant ones). I know from discussions that many others do the same. Are people saying we should move all of these links into the "References" section? I think they are much

better where they are. Walkerma 03:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Martin: There is huge difference between listing the main manufacturers (e.g. the most important Binoculars producers, the few distributors of a rare chemical) on the one hand and systematically adding catalog companies to every article they sell on the other hand.

If there are too many sources for a common product it is NOT common Wikipedia practice to start a supplier section, quite the opposite, many wikipedians spend their time to remove commercial linkspam (e.g. for T-shirts). You wouldn't add Walmart as a supplier for any household product on Wikipedia either...


Cacycle 23:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

It might be helpful to consider when reference to a supplier or manufacturer (not necessarily the same) is valuable. (I'm new to the WP resolution process so please let me know if I get things wrong). Here are some suggested guidelines which I offer for comment and edit:

  • any referenced link (whether closed or open, commercial or non-profit) should be checked by a human for "correctness".
  • no link should be automatically generated (e.g. a robot should not generate http ://www.my.supplier.com/cgi-bin?name=acetone from "acetone")
  • by default a well-known generic chemical compound should not have links to suppliers of physical material.
  • by default a chemical compound should not have links to "closed" online sources of chemical information. "Closed" means pay-for-access or other restrictions including copyright. Many closed suppliers have:
    • altered the access conditions to the information
    • changed it without notification
    • forbidden copying of the information
  • avoid links to information which is only available through database search of a supplier's page - these can often not be preserved as a historical record.
  • avoid links where the curation process and maintenance is unclear.

The following cases may (but not must) be valid ones for including a supplier:

  • when the compound is uniquely supplied by one or a very small number of organisations and where this is the only source of information.
  • when there is a valid difference of information from different suppliers and this is a known and accepted matter of public interest
  • when the physical material supplied from different sources has different properties and where this is a matter of public interest. This is likely to happen with, say, generic drugs where polymorphism and other properties is important. It may also happen with specific formulations of reagents (e.g Raney nickel).
  • where the compound is widely referred to by a tradename such as aspirin or sephadex
  • where the supplier provides open access to materials safety data sheets (MSDS) which are a formal requirement for announcing the hazards of a compound and where this is a matter of public interest. Where possible this should be free of restrictive copyright.

There are an increasing number of public collections of chemical information which are either open or have a high degree of effective freedom. In Chemistry resources good examples are:

  • ChEBI. Open and curated. sustained.
  • NIST webbook. Curated, effectively free but not Open. sustained.
  • PubChem. Open but not (yet) curated.
  • MSDChem (EBI). Open and curated.
  • any others of the NCBI, NIH, EBI family

I am very cautious about including any of the others. It is common for commercial organisations to start with a free approach and then limit access.


Petermr 06:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


Peter you have mentioned some good points. It is very difficult to decide, which sources can be featured. Many scientific information is only available in restricted journals. But if a source is open access and allows the content to be reused in non-commercial projects, this still does not mean, that a content must be republished (as seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetalisation). Some other freely accessible sources must put advertisement within the content and also protect their content by copyright. The protection ensures, that noone uses the content commercially competing with the own income. (Such as Wikipedia articles are reused togheter with content-related ads in other web-related projects). Anyway: either an author pays, a community pays, an advertiser pays, or a reader pays (if access is restricted). But most of these sources have certain standards and should be linked. In addition, you would not find highly valuable OA contributions for any chemical reaction. PubChem and other secondary resources (some of them clearly non-scientific) may perhaps offer additional possibilities (Structure Search, more and better abstracts...). The added value is not OA, but another system, the data can be browsed. Even some of the information is not scientific, these sources should be linked, because they give maybe another educational point of view.

Chemical suppliers featuring "Open Access" information dealing with specific chemicals have in my point of view a clear interest: selling chemicals. Collecting links and distributing the unmodified information is a vital interest (they do not care about "scientific" neutrality. If these informations are valuable is the question... For very specific chemicals (such as drugs) and specific patent-protected reagents (catalyst), as clearly mentioned above: where only a few (one?) supplier is available, the link can be provided...

If you just need a source for MSDS and melting points, better link meta directories first. 213.188.227.119 10:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

(Please let me know if the style of this discourse is inappropriate).

There are a number of separate issues here; I hope this analysis is useful:

  • Most of the disputed links seem to be to the suppliers' corporate information, (perhaps the home page for the catalog) and not information for any given compound. This is logically similar to linking "tomatoes", "bread", etc. to the corporate information of supermarket companies. Quite apart from the WP ethics (see below), this is of little practical use to most readers. The reader will have to navigate a different search interface for every supplier and these are often not intuitive. There is also no check to determine whether the search has reached the compound of interest - it may have a different synonym or not even be present. I recommend the removal of any links to supplier home pages or to tops of catalogs.
  • We should distinguish between the supply of the physical compound, and the supply of information about it. I see little value in simply saying "you can buy this compound from suppliers A, B, C..." - it is similar to saying "you can buy tomatoes from ...". I recommend the removal of any links which give only information on supply of physical product (other than where this is in the public interest - see earlier discussion).
  • Where the supplier provides information about a compound this should be included only if:
    • there is a direct link to a single page on that compound.
    • the editor has verified that the page relates to the WP page
    • the editor has attempted to verify the information on the supplier's page or believes that there is enough supporting evidence that it is in the public interest.
    • there is reasonable certainty of the longevity of the intactness of the link.

There is a natural confusion between Open Access, copyright, Open Data, etc. This is an area I have been active in and still find it confusing:

  • Most chemistry is published in closed access journals. It is completely acceptable and appropriate to use these articles as primary sources of information. Links can be provided to the publishers site (or a DOI) but it should be noted that the article is not Open Access, and that readers without a subscription will not be able to reac it. (Of course this applies to physical books as well). OA journals, as discussed above, may it easier for others to verify the information and I support them, but they are not mandatory.
  • Most authorities (e.g. Creative Commons agree that facts are not copyrightable, so that WP may reasonably extract factual information from closed access sources. However the complete expression of a work (e.g. a MSDS or catalog entry) is copyrightable and so WP cannot simply copy these, but must extract the information as required.. Obviously where this is done, references should be given, and if part of this is a supplier catalog then this should be given as a source, not as a link.

I appreciate that WP works through consensus where possible. What is the process ofr reaching consensus in the current position? Is it similar to IETF/RFC - where after a period a draft is accepted or lapses? Or does the community act on the growing and changing discussion? For example, some readers could assume that there was enough material arguing against supplier links that they might start deleting them from pages. Would this be acceptable, or is the editing on hold until there is a resolution?

Petermr 08:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

There are many links to the main pages of the supplier, but also quite some have a link to the compound itself. When they are top-level, I would argue to change them to the compound page, I think they were put in wrong, most of the edits in the list are by people actually adding data of the compound, and also putting in the link to the supplier page, they should have linked to the compound then. Longevity is indeed a bit of a problem, just as, that for some suppliers deep linking is impossible (sessions ...). That would then argue for keeping the top-level link 'www.supplier.com', and not deeplinking to the compound page. After all, sources should be cited. I do see that can give a conflict in the bias of the suppliers, for the more common chemicals much of the data will come from the main suppliers in EU/US (that is where most editors on the English wikipedia are living, and they will not search for diethylether in an 'obscure' catalog, but in the one they have at hand (note: I use diethylether as an example, the page diethyl ether does not have supplier links)).

The current status is, that the suppliers sections still are there, and that links higher in the page are either moved down to 'external links' or to the 'suppliers' sections. I have argued in favour of moving the suppliers into the external link section or into the references section (both would be reasonable), but others (Martin Walker has argued in favour of keeping them in the suppliers section (and I do not disagree with that as well, it is more clear that you are then moving to a supplier). In all I am waiting for reactions (also on de:Diskussion:Chemie, nl:Overleg:Scheikunde, es:Discusión:Química, and it:Discussioni portale:Chimica). On all pages little reaction in general, so is difficult to see what the general point-of-view is now. Needs time, I guess.

I do agree that care has to be taken with the data from the catalogs (one of Petermr's earlier points, if I am correct), mainly that some of the data is pertaining to the sold material, NOT to the pure compound. For bp and mp that does not matter too much (it will maybe change a degree or so), but things like refractory index are very sensitive to it. --Dirk Beetstra 09:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Tnanks Dirk, this seems to be making progress. Here are some expanded suggestions:

  • the key point of linking is sources should be cited. If a single source is agreed there is no need to cite additional ones unless there is serious disagreement.
  • there is no need for sources to be online after the community has agreed that the information is acceptable for WP. For example it would be acceptable to take all data from the Merck or Rubber handbooks even though these are not Open.
  • In general a source should be curated - i.e. capable of responding in some way to error reports or new scientific findings. For example the NIST Webbook responds positively to reports of errors, while I would be surprised if many suppliers acknowledged error reports.
  • it is useful to have online sources if possible.

Given these criteria I would suggest:

  • no links to supplier home pages (we seem to have consensus on this).
  • use NIST Webbook wherever possible and cite it.
  • use other government or publicly funded sources (EPA, ChEBI, etc.) for information not in NIST.
  • then use handbooks where possible.
  • only use supplier information where it is the only source of data.
  • remove supplier info as soon as any of the other information becomes available.

Petermr 20:08, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Petermr, You've got me a bit confused, here. I can understand the first four points that you state. But I don't see a problem (except for the careful use of the data, see the example of the refraction (not refractory..) index that I stated earlier) in the use of suppliers (I would prefer to call them manufacturer in this context) for data. I am even curious how independent NIST is, they also are a manufacturer of chemicals (Boulder Scientific), and the handbook is founded by a Rubber Company... There are many other pages, also outside chemistry, where the manufacturers are named (some stated earlier in the discussion). They are a convenient source of information, and I do think that they are a useful addition for the reader, just as the links to the mentioned carbrands, watch-brands, etc. I do agree that it is not preferable to link to the homepages of suppliers, but as I said, some companies defy deep-linking (and in that case, I would link to the homepage). What is the difference in a link to the manufacturer on the Suzuki_SV1000(S) site to the link on a chemical page to the manufacturer of a chemical? The fact that there is only one manufacturer for the motorbike, while there may be many for a chemical? --Dirk Beetstra 21:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Dirk, The points at issue are therefore:

  • NIST. This is the US Government Institute of Standards and Technology and is split between Gaithersburg and Boulder. I know the people who run the Webbook at Gaithersburg - there is no connection with any commercial supplier that I know of and I would expect this to be strictly decoupled. NIST has a mandate to create responsible standard information, re-usable with confidence. Its existence depends on the quality of information it produces. It is extremely reponsive to curation.
  • reliability and independence of manufacturers. As I said before, I have evidence that many manufacturers have incorrect information on their web pages. One of the largest - I will not give names here but they are quoted in WP references - gives one version of stereochemistry on one side of the Atlantic and the opposite on the other; at least one is necessarily wrong. I am not convinced that data on suppliers' pages is as reliable as either NIST or the main handbooks.
  • There is clearly a concern with linking to manufacturers which is shared by a number of correspondents. My argument is that the data are available in most cases from alternative sources which are probably more reliable. If I published a scientific paper and require to justify a numeric property I would be justified in using (a) the original article (b) NIST, which gives references (c) handbooks such as Merck. If I used manufacturesr catalogues as evidence I would expect the manuscript to be returned, asking for more reliable references. I would expect that WP would wish to use the highest standard of citation.

My suggestion was therefore that manufacturers should only be used when unavoidable.

  • I see no value in an encyclopedia referencing multiple sources of common generic products (tomatoes, gasoline, bricks) of whatever sort, and chemicals fall into this. Only where the chemical has some unique feature is this appropriate.


Petermr 21:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Though I largely agree with your point of view, I still believe that addition of manufacturers does give additional information for the reader (I would not call chemicals as generic as tomatoes or bricks, though I know a story of a respected chemist making bromine in the bath-tub at home when s/he was a kid). I think it is wise to hear some more people in this discussion, again this is going back and forth between two people, though I have seen some viewpoints earlier which all widely differ. I think it is difficult to set borders here, what to include and what not. --Dirk Beetstra 23:02, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


> Additional information for "the reader". Yet the answer is not given, who is the reader. Maybe students and scholars interested in chemistry? Are they interested in the most important facts or in peer reviewed scientific short reviews featuring twenty links to different suppliers?

Educational content neither features commercial suppliers nor too many details... So WikiChem has lost the WikiPedia KeyCompentence: being a valuable free encyclopedia. So the definition of "value" is also missing: educational value, scientific value or commercial value. A good textbook presents the most important information. A good review presents all the scientific facts, which have recently been published. But no publication tries to implement everything in the same text and even providing links to suppliers... I do not know, if you can do this. Imagine if you would be students, would you like to have a good textbook or would you like to learn chemistry from "Chem. Rev." with added ACX? The same here... "Less is more". 213.188.227.119 19:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear 213.188.227.119,

I believe, that the pages can, and the most do, give the most important information, even when there are links in the page to suppliers. It is additional information, and they are in a seperate section (and if you find any pages which have links which are not in a 'external link' or 'supplier' section, move them there, you are perectly right then, the links do not belong in the text. The reader will himself decide what he, or she, finds interesting. Why are you focussing on the external links, in the Wikipedia I have checked, you have not really added to the scientific part of the pages, the only thing seems to be that you add an external linkt, and keep on talking about the suppliers-links. Moreover, there is no response, anywhere, that gives me a good reason, why there should not be more information than only the scientific one (if there is any response to your questions at all). The Wikipedia does not loose value due to information that, in your opinion, is in excess. I am perfectly sure that students, chemists, car-buyers and the man in the street can understand, that a link that does not contain 'wikipedia.org' in it's URL, is outside the wikipedia, especially when the section where he finds that link does already imply that it may go to the outside of the wikipedia. So I would suggest, either come with a solution that finds concensus, instead of only focussing on differences, or add to the scientific information on the wikipedia of your choice (but I see that it is against your principles to add good information to a wikipedia that contains any external links, be it in chemistry or outside of chemistry), or get out of the kitchen.

Kind regards,

--Dirk Beetstra T C 20:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


"get out of the kitchen." I have to thank you for your "valuable" contribution. Instead of defining "value" and "reader" you just get personal. Dirk: really, I do not believe, that you are able to discuss, because you take "WikiChem" as a personal project and not as a dynamic user-contributed project. Best regards I leave "your kitchen". I have left "your kitchen" already, when my contributions in "Huisgen Cycloaddition" were reverted without reasons (I have not followed the style guide was the reason. Although I have corrected clear mistakes, the style guide was more important). So scientific values have been less important... And that's WikiChem's future! Best regards and good luck! 213.188.227.119 01:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear 213.188.227.119,

I have taken a stand, I do see value in the external links to suppliers, and I have said that I agree with you on certain things, but I do not agree with you, that the links that are there in Wikipedia are commercial. I also do not agree with you, that the pages don't have value, they certainly have value, even with the suppliers links. About the reader, technically, I do not care who the reader is, I care about the readability of the article, it should be readable by everybody. Even if the info would be commercially put there (which I do not believe!), it does not say that the info in the document is then incorrect, and I have given an explanation when and why edits would be reverted (when one supplier would start paying, or edit in bias). But I also said that I do agree with you, I do think that there should not be commercial links in the pages, but the pages here are not commercially influenced, they (should) link to specific information, but I also gave reasons why maybe they are not linking directly to specific information. I think that I have given several examples where I contradict that there is any commercial influence. I believe that is the point in a discussion, giving sound arguments, and giving sound counterarguments. You argument that there are only 2-3 editors (in your words: Exponenten, Diktatoren) putting in links, and giving arguments, I see several, you say it is only on WikiChem, I say it is everywhere, I have not seen any good counterarguments on that yet, so yes, it may be personal. On the other hand, the things where I agree with you, are completely ignored by you (I am talking about your suggestion to create a META page). We could have come to a concensus there, even more, I have had contact with some of my fellow editors, about that solution of you (which is completely reasonable, it might be the best way to solve the problem). I still hope there is some response on that (I have no clue how to make such a page, you?).

Answering your (213.188.227.119's) edit of Huisgen cycloaddition, I cannot see where your edits have been fully reversed, I see you have an edit that disrupts the style of the document, but they have been re-edited (not fully reverted), and things have moved around; cooperation between people. It might be that, since you are an anonymous editor, your edits have been reversed if they disrupt the style of a page, because in that case you seem to be vandalising a page (I am sorry if this term offends you, I do not mean it personal, I am using an own account, people can see what I stand for, and some of my edits were also completely reverted, where I was only 'bold', apparently I burned my fingers in the kitchen). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Possible solution?

This outsider has raised an important issue we on Wikipedia need to face, and which several (though not enough!) Wikipedians are concerned about. Although I don't consider many chemicals to be as generic as tomatoes, I think Cacycle's Walmart analogy is a poignant one. I think replacing one type of commercial link (Aldrich, etc.) with another (Chemexper, etc.) is not a solution, if the problem is commercial links per se. Peter makes an excellent point about the reliability of commercial sources. Although this discussion has become rather heated I think there is a solution emerging, that of creating one single page that could be linked from each chemical page. Ideally this could work like the a bit like Special:Booksources (which deals with links to commercial publishers!), and it should address the concerns of those who dislike commercial links:

  • It could be linked via the CAS number (already on most pages) and/or InChI, which we are planning on adding to most pages.
  • Instead of suppliers getting links from several thousand pages, they would only be linked from one. This deals with the linkspam issue as well as the "references" issue I raised when catalogues are used as information sources.

Does anyone have any objections to this solution? Would anyone (Cacycle, are you there?) be able to write the necessary page? Can such a person tell us details on how it might work? Thanks, Walkerma 04:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

(from Petermr 06:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)) This looks a promising approach. (Dirk and I discussed some issues on my [| talk page] and I have added a few more facts bout non-commercial suppliers (e.g. PubChem).

My interpretation of the proposal is that

  • there is a single page "special chemical sources" which contains mechanisms for linking to non-WP chemical information.
  • all chemical pages could be linked to it with a rubric like "search the web for more information on this chemical"
  • the page might offer:
    • a statement that the rationale for this WP service is a link to more information on a given compound
    • a statement about WP's discussion on the merits and demerits of linking to commercial suppliers
    • links to an arbitrarily large number of chemical suppliers
    • instructions on how to search some or all of these for a given compound
    • perhaps preconstructed links containing the name of the compound linked from, but no automatic redirect. (This technology may not be trivial)
    • I would NOT use CAS numbers as they are copyright and permission could be denied at any time.

I regard NIST and ChEBI as having a special place in public chemistry as they are:

  • publicly funded
  • Open, or almost Open
  • dedicated to curation and quality
  • formally responsive (though not accountable) to the public
  • non-commercial
  • not suppliers of materials

I would therefore welcome links on individual compound pages to these sources. This is unlikely to create a major increase in links as there are very few public curated suppliers of open chemical information (this is a contentious issue in chemistry).

PubChem is also open, non-commercial and publicly funded, but it is not currently curated. I would also link to PubChem in cases where:

  • at least 2 WPians have identified that the compound linked to in PubChem is the same compound in WP.
  • that the PubChem page has been checked for errors.

Note that PubChem will be receptive to reverse links - i.e. an entry on the page linking back to the WP entry. I think this could be very exciting and mutually beneficial. If, say, 200 compounds can be bundled into a single list and transmitted to PubChem it will announce that it now links to WP. Petermr 06:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I have put a suggestion for the solution on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals#ChemSources, with a beginning for a list (did not look here, could have copied the above ones from Peter). Could further suggestions on the how to realise that solution be posted there?

I know, Peter, that you do not really like the use of CAS, but I would suggest that we keep it in, first, next to the InChI, and other (exact and less exact) identifiers. It is still the most broad used link into everywhere, and if CA starts to ask money for the use, the links are easily removed. For the suppliers, I agree that the open directories should be high in the list, and that others should be lower, but there can be a seperate supplier section, as long as we use an good link into their system, it is their problem if they don't have the appropriate data on their pages. We could give a descriptive 'warning' above the suppliers-list (e.g. 'supplier data describes the compound they sell, so the physical data they provide is of the compound you buy, which may not be the data of the pure compound, bladibladibla'). --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

RFC for a draft?

Is it appropriate to request an RFC or PR for a non-live draft rewrite of an article? Sort of a "pre-emptive" review. - Keith D. Tyler (AMA) 17:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Deadlock at template talk:languageicon

Hi there, after weeks of discussions I believe we have reached a deadlock at template talk:languageicon. Input from outsiders would be much appreciated. Thanks. PizzaMargherita 06:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

RfC only for talk page?

Someone started this RfC, but it's not on the talk page for the article in dispute. Everything I read says it has to be on the talk page. If a separate page could be created, it should say so somewhere. Also, the section headings for that dedicated RfC page look like they come from a template. Is there a template for RfC pages? -Barry- 01:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I found the template. Turns out someone pointed me to it in the past for an unrelated reason. Why aren't people told about the template here? -Barry- 22:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel

A dispute about removing a section or leaving it [1] could use outside eyes. 19:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Basis for RfC

I would like an admin to take a look at the RfC filed against me. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Zer0faults I feel its an act of revenge as the person who filed it had recently been given a few day ban because of AN/I posts I made. Shortly after those posts they made the RfC and then were banned once an admin reviewed the AN/I. The certifying user is also someone accusing me of being a sockpuppet, something that been proven 2x before that I am not, both in RFCU. The other user is one I have had no interaction with before, but they have appeared also calling me a sockpuppet, even stating I managed to trick the RFCU when I showed it to them as proof I am not a sockpuppet. There is now even an anon user, Kornet IP that has been blocked before for this same issue posting. There only posts are always against me, there is also mention of it on AN/I. I would like the RfC closed as the person certifying is not actually related to the original dispute and nor is the other user who is calling me a sockpuppet. I was told a RfC was a means of working things out, however all of the user posting on mine are making personal attacks against me, ones that have been proven wrong. If it cannot be removed, I would like to know if I have to participate in it, as its turned very nasty with accusations of me being a sockpuppet, something I have proven wrong, and is being used as an intimidation tactic. The certifying user is even attempting to recruit people by telling them I am a sockpuppet of someone they had previous encouters with and then telling them to post on my RfC. The proof is all highlited in my "response" section. --zero faults |sockpuppets| 00:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Private RFC pages?

Hi, everybody

Since around May 10th, there is increase in anti-croatian meat-puppetry, so I decided to propose a WP:RFC for a few most stubborn and uncooperative users, for breaking the rules of wikipedia, most notably WP:POINT.

But, since there is so much of them (more that 30), I can't keep all that info in my head, so I came to idea to make my personal WP:RFC pages for all of them, so I could get a big picture of who is vandal and who is just an uninformed newbie.

Since some of them could take this as a personal attack, I was thinking about hiding this info somewhere deep in my personal subpages and not making any links to it from other pages.

Basically, I need any wiki software to make this little project of mine and I don't want to bother with opening the site and creating the private wiki. So, I feel that english wikipedia is not so much the right place this little project of mine, but the right tool.

Also, I was thinking of calling some of my pals here (who were frustrated with the same meat-puppets) to help me dig the information from wiki, but I'll propably had to do it by myself.

So, is it OK if I open those pages or it's ilegal for some reason?

--Ante Perkovic 14:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Fourth task

I'd like to add a fourth task to the RfC procedure, shown below in bold:

  1. . Do not put any issues on this page.
  2. . Link to the Talk page.
  3. . Sign entries with the date only. Use five tildes: 06:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC).
  4. . Create a blank section labeled RfC Commentsat the bottom of the Talk page.

Or something like that. The wording could be different, but the point is that it drives me (and presumably others) nuts when I'm coming to strange article and I don't know where to put my comments. And the coments from users coming via the RfC get all mixed up with the comments of the (often edit-warring) main article editors, which is confusing, I think the fresh voices should be separated out for clarity. Comments, objections? Herostratus 06:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a good idea. Possibly, it should be combined with No. 2, with something like: "Link to a section the Talk page that neutrally describes the dispute and the arguments for and against." See, the problem is that the whole page is disorganized. There may have been some sort uncorrected mutilation in the page history. —Centrx→talk • 05:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I also think there needs to be a stronger statement about adding only discussions where regular discussion has been rather exhausted. Looking through the lists, I find a few where there has been little to no discussion before the RfC, and then the same day or a couple days later the issue is resolved by the same editors who participated in the discussion in the first place, and an RfC could have been avoided altogether. The lists are cluttered. —Centrx→talk • 19:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Totally agree with this, but I would reorder it and add

  1. . Create a blank section labeled RfC Commentsat the Talk page bottom of the article in question.
  2. . Do not put any issues on this page.
  3. . Link to the Talk page's section that you created.
  4. . Sign entries here with the date only. Use five tildes: 06:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC).

The problem is that many Talk pages are not properly archived and are so loaded with discussions, that finding the section name is even difficult, even if it's at the bottom. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magnoliasouth (talk • contribs) 02:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

There has been a lot of re-organizing since the original comment, so it might be good to check it out. —Centrx→talk • 02:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

My own conduct

I think I'm on the wrong page, but I'd like to know where I can request a review of my own conduct. I believe I have followed the letter of the law, but I'm not sure if I could have done something better. Is this the place to explain what's going on and what I did, and ask for criticism? -- Steven Fisher 15:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Anti-ID POV-pushing

What's the best way to protest the anti-ID activities of a large clique of POV-pushers?

Users like User:FeloniousMonk, User:Joshuaschroeder (whose new username reeks of POV-pushing "apologetics") and others have ganged up to make mass reverts and win edit wars.

They refuse to allow any changes to articles they collectively "own". They claim that WP:OWN applies only to individuals, but they evade the spirit of this rule by acting collectively.

They also engage in ad hominem attacks, accusing me (and others) of being "disruptive" on the grounds that anything that undermines their campaign to make Wikipedia endorse Evolution by natural selection and condemn Intelligent Design is a "disruption".

I can't stop them by undoing their reversions, or by asking them to discuss their changes. They maintain that all changes which they deem significant must be discussed and approved before being made. As if each article under their dominion is so excellent that they can't be added to unless it can first be proved that it has a factual error. --Uncle Ed 20:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

This post is disenguous. The requestor, Ed Poor, is the subject of an ongoing user conduct RFC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ed Poor (2), prompted by his disruptive highly POV editing of Intelligent design and related articles. Ed Poor is attempting to game the system with this request to the readers of RFC, using it to circumvent the community consensus expressed at his RFC and find help to force his own POV into the article. Also, Ed's comments here are based on a personal vendetta. What Ed fails to mention is that the reason why User:Joshuaschroeder even has a new username is because Ed improperly blocked him in the midst of a content dispute, an act that cost Ed his adminship. FeloniousMonk 21:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Calling Ed's post disengenuous is like saying TV character Joe Isuzu had a "truth recognition problem". Ed's post is utter nonsense, and he is now misusing the RfC forum, one guesses, to try to provide a defence for his egregiously disruptive behaviour on a number of pages. Sadly for Ed, this defence rings hollow. His edits to the ID, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, and Flying Spaghetti Monster pages, along with his misguided steps to change policy at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Summary for policymakers reek of POV-pushing and disruption for disruption's sake.
Were Ed to make to make edits that improved an article they would be welcomed with open arms. Sadly, he makes edits that he must know (given his 4 1/2 years on the project) that are clearly POV, contentious and disruptive under the guise of "being bold". Additionally, the questions he asks on the discussion pages are trollish in nature and merely serve to waste his time and the time of other editors.
Finally, his assertion re WP:OWN is absolute rubbish. None of the editors on the ID page think they own it -- the difference is, they care about Wikipedia, rather than worrying about the whims of one misguided editor. •Jim62sch• 21:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Documentation request

I've read it several times, but the RfC page does not really seem to have any instructions as to the purpose of "endorsements." Is there documentation on this somewhere, such that a link to the documentation could be added on the RfC page somewhere? It would help clarify just what was going on, to people who are new to the process. --Elonka 18:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Falsely accusing one of terrorist acts is grounds for what?

Hi, I am the one that RFCed myself earlier. Now I request one for [[2]] Ron7 who now has escalated our dispute on Orania to him accusing me of.... well let me just cut and paste his words:

When you say that you will be cheering when an entire ethnic group vanishes is truly reprehensible. Odd how you accuse your opponents of being terrorists (this is a new low for you) yet you think that you can issue terrorist threats against an entire ethnic group & get off scot free! The whole world is watching & the whole world can see you for the hateful bigot that you are. If you do not like a given ethnic group fine: but refrain from issuing terrorist threats against them sir.

(Bold empathsis RON'S). Now here is the thing. I know darn well that racial dispute topics usually get RFCs disproportionately towards the black contributor, unless the white contributor puts a sign on his face saying "I am a white racist" of course. It's just how it is on Wikipedia. But in this topic, Ron has continually misdirected my conversation by "responding" to things I am not discussing and then "correcting" statements I have not made. Now he accuses me of issuing a terrorist threat. Obviously he is hoping you will overreact and just ban me. But I would expect you guys to administer this in the SAME MANNER you would if I made that statement about HIM (or anyone else). --Zaphnathpaaneah 15:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You know, you aren't giving people a lot of reasons to jump right on helping you when you imply that many of them are prejudiced against black people, if not racists, and that, as a result, they won't try to be fair. Assume good faith, and it's a lot easier to get people on your side. Sxeptomaniac 18:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Sxeptomaniac, lets assume I'm a reasonable guy. Now, I am really honestly telling you that I do not expect to be treated fairly. But you are right, I am not giving a lot of reasons. However, my experiences on Wikipedia have not given me good confidence in the process so far. Maybe you can change that. Surely you don'tchange the rules for these reasons do you? --Zaphnathpaaneah 09:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

RFC/UC refusal to respond?

What process do we follow when the subject of an RfC refuses to participate? Specifically User:Go for it! has been ignoring the RfC concerning his wikiquette, since April. The rest of us would like to move on, but are unsure how to officially demand his participation (?), or how to close the case properly without it. Thanks. -Quiddity 19:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The specific user in question appears to have abandoned his account. I'm still curious as to what the procedure would have been though? -Quiddity 18:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

A few refinements?

I only discovered the RfCs a few weeks ago, and have been quite impressed with the project and have responded to many requests. However, I think a few changes could be made to "polish up" the process. Here's a few guidelines I'd like to suggest:

Comment outside your area of study
Might be a good idea for commentors to comment mostly in areas outside the fields they generally make edits in, though of course it should be something they'd like to learn something about. (Have seen and been involved with commentators becoming involved in edit wars).
Leave a trace
For comments on articles, maybe leave a link to the comments (i.e., to the talk page section) beneath the request. (I've seen at least 2 cases where users have become frustrated because there was no response to an RfC.)
Don't edit
For the same reason as staying outside articles of personal interest. (Again, commentators should stay well away from involving themselves in edit wars).
If necessary, report elsewhere
If the issue seems spam related, report to WP:WPSPAM. If it seems to be one particular user at the center of the dispute, open a user conduct RfC.

I'll post a link to this on WP:VPP SB Johnny 10:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment outside your area of study: This was an objection to dividing the RfCs into subcategories, but because there are so many RfCs, and some people simply are not interested in commenting on quasiprotective varieties of homotopical algebras or whatever, this is how they are divided up. The fact is that most editors are going to do what they want to, not following an idle suggestion on this page.
  • Leave a trace: The instructions state that the RfC should link directly to the Talk page. I also think it should instead link directly to a new section that fairly states the dispute, so that a passing editor on RfC does not leave in disgust at plucking through a lengthy discussion. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment#Fourth task.
  • Don't edit: If an issue is in dispute, then no editor, whether already there or coming through RfC should implement a controversial change without discussion. This does not mean that an RfC should not edit other parts of the article, as any editor would do. Also, it sometimes happens that a previously uninvolved editor makes an article edit that is a major step in concluding or resolving the dispute by fairly addressing the points of each party or introducing a perspective that accommodates all sides. It may be appropriate to add a comment about standard practice when editing controversial articles, but this may not be that big of a problem in connection with RfC.
  • If necessary, report elsewhere: Spam-related or vandalistic issues should be reported anyway, but I don't know if it is necessary to complicate the instructions and descriptions on this page; most editors will do this anyway if it is a clear case, and it may be likely that one of the other parties in the conflict would have already done so if it is a user conduct problem, etc. If it is not a clear case, RfC should not recommend escalating the matter to more involved processes. An article RfC is about the article, and in some cases the participants in the dispute are already eager to get rid of another party. —Centrx→talk • 03:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
It is a good recommendation for user RfCs, which I will add. —Centrx→talk • 00:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Rewriting this page

I am currently in the process of making a total reorganization and revision of this page in order to make it more useful and instructive for editors requesting comments and seeking to provide comment, with references to applicable policies and carefully dividing user content RfCs from article content RfCs, etc. While the RfCs themselves have been active, much of this procedural page has remained exactly the same for over a year, when for example all RfCs were listed on this very page. —Centrx→talk • 04:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

See User:Centrx/Sandbox/Request for comment. —Centrx→talk • 00:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Looks a bit better... not sure what blarg means though. SB Johnny 00:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this is still a work in progress. —Centrx→talk • 02:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, blarg is an advanced dispute resolution method—beyond even the Arbitration Committee—in which offending users are reduced to subhuman troglodytes capable only of grunts and gurgles. —Centrx→talk • 07:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
...but sadly, are still able to type. And vote...
Rewrite sounds good. I hope it turns out as short/simple/concise as possible. :) -Quiddity 18:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Substantially done. Expanding the introduction a little might be good. I will file an RfC on it. —Centrx→talk • 19:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have implemented the new revision. —Centrx→talk • 21:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Looks good. I removed the duplicated list of all 3 sections from the bottom, for greater clarity/simplicity (or am I missing a legitimate reason for them being there?). -Quiddity 19:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
reverted self per request. I was just compulsively tidying... :) -Quiddity 04:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Where to file this RfC?

Hello, all. I am trying to file an RfC about a problem at the article about Mami Wata (a deity). The dispute is over whether one particular source is acceptable as a secondary source per Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Therefore, I am unsure whether to list it under Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Religion and philosophy or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies (or both). This is my first RfC, so any help is appreciated. -- BrianSmithson 14:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Religion and philosophy is probably the best spot. SB Johnny 17:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, file the article in the topic area of what the article is about. The article is about about religion, or perhaps history. Policy RfCs are for current and proposed policies and guidelines. Also consider asking at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources. The people there may be able to help, or your problem may indicate a deficiency in the policy that should be fixed. —Centrx→talk • 18:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

"Advertising" RfCs

Thanks to SB Johnny and Centrx for replying above. Bringing the issue up at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources is a good idea. I also thought it might be a good idea to mention the RfC at Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board. However, I am hesitant to do this, as I am unsure if it is frowned upon to "advertise" an RfC in this way. I would say no more than "A Request for Comment has been filed at Talk:Mami Wata. Outside views are appreciated" and then sign anonymously. Is this okay per common RfC practice? — BrianSmithson 23:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It is okay to ask for comments from WikiProjects, etc. but in this case it looks like the question is whether the book is a reliable source under Wikipedia policy, in which case the people at the notice board may have no special insight. —Centrx→talk • 05:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, they might theoretically be more familiar with the subject matter. Thanks for the help. -- BrianSmithson 15:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

landofthelegend.net

I know this isn't the place to bring this up but as no-one seems to be watching WP:RFC/ART could some editors please take a look at Talk:The Legend of Zelda series/landofthelegend.net as it has been 10 days and only one comment so far (from yesterday). — Ian Moody (talk) 17:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Archiving and sections

The page really should be archived, as it is quite long, contains a lot of stale sections and there is confusion about date order. I'm going to remove everything that hasn't received discussion for more than a month.

I also think we should use sections rather than horizontal lines (which is part of the reason the page is so ugly, despite not being as long as some discussion pages). Not only does it break the page up much better, we can use the sections to indicate the result of an RfC as is done on WP:AN/3RR. I'll try it on the remaining sections and see how it looks. --Sam Blanning(talk) 10:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

When archiving, dont bother commenting about it on a Talk page, unless we should start greating meta-talk pages, Talk:Talk:RfC. Horizontal lines sometimes happen because one person does not follow format, and then everyone after him in that section does not either. It is not standard practice. —Centrx→talk • 20:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought

Moved from main page. Iolakana|T 20:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Can we not allow people to name themselves things that make them look unintelligent? If a user's name is not impersonating somone, not necessarily foul language, and is kinda creepy, why can't they keep it?Dan 14:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


BLP RfC

What category would an RfC for a biography of a living person fall under? Dreadlocke 02:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

As of now, the area they're involved, i.e. if they are an artist or a mathematician, add them to the section on arts and the section on science. They could also be added to the history section. If it is a major area with many disputes, another section could be created. —Centrx→talk • 07:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The subject of the article claims to have paranormal abilities, Natasha Demkina. The dispute is between editors who seem to be mainstream skeptics that do not believe in the paranormal at all, and editors that think the Wikipedia article should tell more of her life story, including aspects that aren’t considered as accepted mainstream science. The dispute is based on content and allowable sources. There seem to be a number of disputes of this nature on Wikipedia, (skeptics vs believers?) but I'm not sure if it would be considered major or not. I think this particular article may need more eyes than just those interested in science, considering that it's also a BLP. Dreadlocke 16:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Media, art and literature, or perhaps History, are currently the best places for that. What I mean by major is having a new subpage specifically for RfCs living persons, where articles like this could go. —Centrx→talk • 04:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh right! I think having an RfC subpage for BLP articles is a great idea! There are at least three articles on BLPs that I think could use more attention; they're currently being edited primarily by critics and seem to have undue weight in that direction. Dreadlocke 16:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I have asked for input at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#RfC subpage for BLPs. —Centrx→talk • 21:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Excellent! Thanks Centrx!! Dreadlocke 22:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
When do you think we might have an answer on creating a new subpage? Dreadlocke 16:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I have been away for several days, but there is strong agreement for the idea and I will create it when I get around to it, or someone else can. The only question is whether it should be for all biographies or only for living persons. —Centrx→talk • 11:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Welcome back! It might be worthwhile to start off with a subpage for all biographies. If it gets clogged up, then maybe it could be split out. Categories can still count since editors have the choice of putting a request under two places. But then again, with the concern over accuracy and libel in BLP's, it might be wise to keep them separate. Dreadlocke ☥ 01:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Done: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies, [3]. —Centrx→talk • 19:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Two editors?

I don't get something. The policy says "Before requesting community comment, at least two editors must have contacted the user on their talk page, or the talk pages involved in the dispute, and tried but failed to resolve the problem." What if a single editor has a particular problem with someone? Where is he supposed to find a second editor who wants to try to resolve a dispute he's not involved in? Margana 13:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Read through the dispute resolution process, it outlines several ways to engage other editors, including getting a third opinion and finding a member advocate. Dreadlocke 17:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Article fixation by a user

I'm curious. I won't name the user I'm thinking of, but I'm wondering if it could be objectively demonstrated that a user has exerted an unusually high degree of fixation on one article, would that be something to consider as unbeneficial conduct in the Wikipedia? In this case, the article is under dispute and mediation is being sought, but also in this case, one of the disputants seems to be mostly hanging onto this one article while making few other contributions, while the other disputants continue with a wide variety of contributions. Has there been any dealings in the past with fixated users and how should they be dealt with? By the way, I ask anonymously as I don't want to be traced back to the dispute in question. 4.224.120.113 19:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

As in, one user just reverting everyone else's edits, or chanting "my way or the highway" as a mantra? WP:OWN? SB_Johnny | talk 22:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Layout

The RFC page used to be really simple, but apparently I haven't been here in quite a while. I tried to make the contents more obvious, but that turned out ugly in "show preview." Can anyone help make the table of contents more prominent at least? Maurreen 06:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I moved the policylist right, which makes the TOC more prominent. The old revision before I re-organized it is at [4]. I think this new version is a vast improvement. Where before the different kinds of RFC and RFC response were confused together, now it has clear avenues in specific sections for each. While the page is nominally slightly longer, it means that someone coming here to post or respond to an RFC has one specific section to read, which makes it much shorter for using it, where before they mostly had to read the whole page to get an accurate understanding (and even then it wasn't complete, if they read the whole thing anyway). —Centrx→talk • 17:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Maurreen 17:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal re user RFCs

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Closure of RfCs. Guy 10:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Desperate help needed at the Black people article! Please get involved!!

This article is an absolute mess. It provides no coherent well sourced definition of a Black person and just rambles on and on about various people who were labled Black in different times, places, and languages, and tries to merge them all together as a coherent ethnic group. It would be like trying to merge Native Americans and people from India into a coherent article called Indian people. It makes no sense. We had requested mediation and the mediator said we should use the census as our source. Here's what the U.S. census says:

A Black is “ a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro,"or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.”

Black Africa is a synonym of sub-Saharan Africa and all of the non-African groups mentioned (i.e. African-Americans, Haitains) are descendents of the recent African diasporas. And yet we still have editors insisting that South Asians be given equal weight in the article and be considered Black. These people provide no cited definitions or census classifications to defend their assertions, instead they cherry pick from different sources in different countries for examples of South Asians being labeled Black, often in different languages. But by the same logic, I could argue that the Black Irish are Black. The point is the people editing that article need to be forced to adheare to a coherent sourced authoritative definition of a Black person, or the entire article should just be deleted as POV and unencyclopedic.

Dictionary.com[[5]], the free dictionary online[[6]]., the U.S. census[[7]], and the British census[[8]] all emphasize the idea that Blacks are of African origin-in fact it is against the law for a dark-skinned person of South Asian or Australian origin to claim to be black in the census. An article by the BBC makes a clear distinction between Blacks and the dark skinned people of South Asian ancestry[[9]]. This article about race in biomedicines says “The entities we call ‘racial groups’ essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens)."[[10]]. I really need help getting the editors of that article to stick to a coherent definition, instead of just pushing their own POV. Editingoprah 06:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

RfC rules question

User:Ryulong created an RfC against User:Masterhatch and invited me to view it. I have had the same issues with Masterhatch as Ryulong has. The RfC rules seem to say:

The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 03:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)), the page will be deleted.

I already signed myself in "users certifying the basis of the dispute" at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Masterhatch. But do I need to add evidence of trying and failing to resolve the situation myself? I have had arguments with Masterhatch about this previously, but I think Ryulong already provided enough evidence. JIP | Talk 15:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

does anyone read RfC/politics??

There are disputes listed under the RfC/politics page that are over a month old. I posted one less than a week ago so perhaps I'm being impatient, but does anyone actually bother to look at this page or visit articles that have been RfCd? Is there an easier way to get additional voices to comment on a particular article?--csloat 20:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Listings usually don't end up getting removed even if an issue is resolved, so the length of the list or the age of the entries does not mean that no one is looking at it or that problems aren't being resolved. Many people do look at these articles and visit the pages. One reason why people would be uninterested in looking at an issue is if the issue is not simply and clearly described with a link to a section that is directly linked from the RfC ([11]). Few will want to respond if they get the feeling they will have to read the whole discussion on the talk page and still might not know what the problem is. —Centrx→talk • 06:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

RFC in the middle of an AFD?

An editor unhappy with an AFD on an article he created has opened an RFC in the middle of an AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Opposition to Iran-Iraq War, arguing that the article was being targeted by "Wikipedians of Iranian ancestry". (IMO the article itself is unsalvageable, but the author's perception is clearly different.) A few of the commentators in the AFD seem to have a number of edits on middle-eastern topics, though I have no idea of their ancestry; I have no ancestry in that part of the world.

I have a concern about what will happen to the AFD process if RFC's are routinely opened in the middle of it. Is there a policy on this? Should RFC's be used to mediate an AFD, or should AFD be considered a separate process which shouldn't be interrupted by another process? I'm posting the same question at AFD talk. Fan-1967 02:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a major problem if someone wants to summon comments in a neutral way like RfC (rather than, e.g., spamming like-minded users on their talk pages), unless it were to become widespread where RfC is not used for its purpose. An RfC will not supersede the AfD. —Centrx→talk • 06:40, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

All parties

The rules state:

After all parties agree the issue has been resolved

but who are the all parties concerned? If someone -- one of the editors originally involved in the dispute -- does not participate in the RFC, can this editor claim that he did not agree and ignore the RFC consensus? Goldfritha 15:31, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

This is more a housekeeping matter, that items should not be stricken from the list of RfCs if people do not agree that the issue is resolved; they are removed after a few weeks regardless. If someone is ignoring consensus on an article, that may require administrator intervention or escalation of the dispute. —Centrx→talk • 23:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
What article is it? —Centrx→talk • 23:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if it will be a problem, but I put a Request for Comment on Wizard (fantasy) on Monday, and User:Jc37, the other editor, has made no comments in it, although making other edits on the article. Because this editor has ignored things said in the discussion page until I made edits based on them, and then reverted the edits and only then responded in discussion -- I thought I would like to know what is the Right Thing to Do before I need to know. Goldfritha 00:38, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
To be more precise, I wanted to know whether -- granting that a consensus is reached -- I could edit accordingly. Goldfritha 02:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Possibly, he didn't notice it because it was placed at the top of the page; I have moved it to the bottom. If you reach a consensus, you should make the appropriate edits; it should at least get the person to notice and respond. —Centrx→talk • 02:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. We can hope it will work. Goldfritha 04:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Categories

Is it proper for another editor to add a RFC to a different list? I had made a RFC in Nun and listed it on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Religion and philosophy, and the other editor listed it, again, on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Society, law, and sex. Goldfritha 04:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's fine for another user to list it in another section; in general such cross-posting should be kept to a minimum though. —Centrx→talk • 22:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Reworking some of the categories

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Language and linguistics is perpetually empty or nearly empty, and articles about Carnatic music or Ernest Hemingway do not belong alongside articles about CNN and Eminem, so I think Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Media, art and literature should be split into something like "Popular culture" and "Literature, art, and language", or instead the 'serious' subjects can simply be merged into History? —Centrx→talk • 22:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that they should be separated. Though I think just creating an Electronic media: Television, Film, and Computer and video games page should be enough. I also think we should leave Language and Linguistics separate, even if it's a typically small section. - jc37 17:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
It's a typically empty section; few people will go to it and RfCs there will not receive a response. The categories should be divided so that people interested or knowledgeable in a certain area of topics find them together. —Centrx→talk • 17:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That is, people posting RfCs brings a lot of traffic to the page which then responds to the RfC. If no one posts, no one is there to respond to the stray RfC either. —Centrx→talk • 21:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, in looking them over:
  • I still think that Electronic media: Television, Film, and Computer and video games should be created as its own sub-section.
  • split history and geography into:
  • Physical geography and political boundaries (such as countries) - Open to suggestions for a better name. Essentially it's what would be found in an atlas, plus geographical/geological themes.
  • History.
  • Merge history with art and literature, and language and linguistics (three now smaller but related groupings).
Thoughts and suggestions welcome. : ) - jc37 20:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • For electronic media, why not just calling "popular culture" or "Media and popular culture", that's a simpler title and is basically equivalent to what's meant by electronic media, without making it sound like the technical specifications of the Internet Protocol should be in this category.
  • For geography, are there really enough articles for this category?
  • Merging history with art and literature, etc. makes sense. After all, it's all history if it's not contemporary culture. —Centrx→talk • 03:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Devilmaycares RfC

I've moved the Devilmaycares RfC into the candidate pages, because it would appear that only 1 user has certified the dispute. As it happens, the RfC is also over the 48 hours. Addhoc 00:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Requests for comment/User conduct#Use of administrator privileges

I have been directed to the subpage Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct#Use of administrator privileges by several administrators who question that I am following the correct procedure to appeal a 6-hours block in ANI (as per WP:BLOCK). I am very confused because the main page of RfC does not make any mention that a RfC could/should be made on administrators' behaviour and because other policy pages clearly suggest otherwise.

If the correct way to conduct an appeal is via RfC, what I doubt, why this is not explicit anywhere in the main relevant policy pages, significatively in this one?

If it is not, why some administrators try to defer the right procedure towards RfC? --Sugaar 17:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

You're obviously unblocked -- there's no further action anyone can take. If you are in a dispute with an administrator over whether or not they should have blocked in the first place, then RfC is the right place. Jkelly 17:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

How does an editor go about closing a RfC?

As per:

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 21:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 11:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

How does a wikieditor go about closing a RfC, or request that a RfC be closed?

Are there any cases which have recently been closed, which I can see or talk to the wikieditors involved? Travb (talk) 16:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

If it's a user conduct RFC, there's a section on the User conduct page that details how to go about closing the RFC. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 20:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

How do you respond to an RFC?

This article seems to be unclear as to whether you are to respond to requests for comment on an article's talk page, or somewhere else? 02:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC) Hejsan alla<0)

Amended, [12]. —Centrx→talk • 23:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Article Content RFC topic area organization

When listing an article content RFC, you're supposed to put it in an appropriate topic area. Now most articles do fit in one of those topic areas, but what does one do with an article that doesn't quite fit in any of them? In other words, why not have a miscellaneous section? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 20:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What is the topic? —Centrx→talk • 23:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment on requests for comment

Please pardon me if I'm treading familiar ground here, but it seems to me that many/most RfCs attract few participants, and generally just waste time. And yet, people are always saying, "When having a content dispute, try RfC first." I don't feel like the system is working very well, though, mainly due to lack of participation. Do people know of examples where an RfC really helped? Other thoughts? Thanks. IronDuke 23:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it varies. I've followed 2 user conduct RFCs, and one had lots of participation, and the other didn't have any. As for article RFCs, I think it depends, at least in part, on the subject area and the complexity of the dispute. Simple disputes get more participation, complicated ones get less. Popular subjects get more, ones with little interest get less. Also, if people follow the instructions and put the RFC in a new section and provide a simple, rational summary of the the dispute so people don't have to wade through 5 pages of repetative, emotional, attack-filled argument to even figure out what the dispute is about, there tends to be more participation. I filed a simple little article RFC towards the end of the day yesterday and so far I've gotten 2 responses on it. IMO, the 2 responses have been quite helpful. Hopefully we'll get more responses and the article will end up improving more as a result then it would if we'd settled it between ourselves. On the other hand, I've seen other article RFCs sit for a month with no response at all until, finally, in the end, the parties resolved it between themselves. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 15:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I looked at several recent ones in the History and Biography sections and all had received some comment, and will probably receive more given that they have only been open for two days. There were a few which I did not bother to closely check because the link sent me to the top of a long undifferentiated talk page—which is exactly the reason why someone would not want to comment. An RfC that asks responders to search through a page to try to even find the dispute section, or which asks responders to read pages upon pages of stale comments when a brief summary with the different viewpoints would be a sufficient starting point, would be less likely to receive a response. Is there a specific subject area that you think is not being covered properly or a specific aspect that you think is flawed? —Centrx→talk • 23:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
On this subject could someone please come and comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/BooyakaDell, the user involved are chilled down a bit at the moment - but that could quickly deteriorate and we would be back to some very uncivil behaviour and edit warring. Thanks in advance Lethaniol 00:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Question regarding process

Is it proper to post an outside view before a RfC has been certified? -Amarkov blahedits 15:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if it is or not, but if I had something to say I'd go ahead and say it. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 15:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

where to put an an rfc about an article about a company?

The sections listed don't seem to include an appropriate one. 67.117.130.181 17:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Economy and trade maybe? This is why I think there should be a miscellaneous section. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 17:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment for several editors in relation particular articles

Can I submit a request for comment on several editors who share the same POV on particular articles for violation of certain policies? I have prepeared my draft here [13]. Can I open a case here that covers it all together? Thanks --Aminz 01:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I added the RfC but it was removed. [14].
It seems that there was no objection on having an RfC that includes several editors on one topic before the RfC was filed.
Reasons provided: Not a valid RFC. Explicit rules: one dispute, single user, all signers must have tried to resolve.
1. It is one dispute. Violation of WP:RS and WP:NPOV; mainly timewasting attempts to trash sound academic research. And this way of behavior can not be addressed through article RfC.
2. Since these editors support each other on all discussions, the issue was addressed in one RfC. Separate RfC's can be posted but they will have much in common. I believe it is the best to present everything in one RfC.
3. All signers have tried to deal with this issue on the talk pages. There is a huge discussion on the Antisemitism talk pages which deals with reliability of Encyclopedia of Islam, that of Johnson. etc, etc. The dispute is in no way a recent one.
--Aminz 20:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If I'd seen this earlier, I'd have answered the first question "no", and that would have ended it there. The instructions for a user RFC are very specific: the second sentence says, This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 06:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for eventually replying to the comment. Since the best to present this particular dispute is in one RfC , would you please let me know where can I discuss that. Village Pump? --Aminz 06:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
An article RFC is the right thing for content disputes such as this. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What do you do if there has already been an RfC for a user?

Hi, I would like to start an RfC for Cplot vs MONGO. But I noticed there is already a closed RfC on MONGO. Does anyone know what we do in this case. Can we Archive the old one and put a link like what many user do on their talk page and then continue with the new one? If so, can you explain how we do this, I've never really ever archived my user's talk page. --CyclePat 06:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Just follow the directions on the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct page and title it MONGO 3, since there already was a 1 and number 2 was deleted.--MONGO 13:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
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