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Village Pump - Archive

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[edit] NC and wikipedia only images

It's been well over a year now I think it is time to clear out Category:Images used with permission and Category:Non-commercial use only images.Geni 15:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there a "sunshine law" that deletes uploaded images that haven't appeared on any page after two years, three years, or whatever?--Wetman 16:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
If they are fair use 7 days. Otherwise not directly.Geni 20:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Debate now at Category_talk:Non-commercial_use_only_images#Time_to_clear_this_lot_out. Inless I hear some valid objections by the next weekend I'm going to remove the remaining images without a fair use claim.Geni 21:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd be careful though and make sure that they wouldn't be legit fair use first. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Specific notability criteria for current events

There is a serious lack of policy concerning the notability of current events. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed a specific notability criteria and in this case, WP:N is really not applicable. Any current event, by definition, will be the subject of multiple, non-trivial current events, and there are many, many events that occur every day that are covered by multiple media sources but are not remotely notable enough to include in an encyclopedia. For a silly example, take an incident last week in which a really fat cat ran away and got trapped in a doggy door. A google news search on the cat's owner reveals 143 results[1]. Admittedly, many of these are from the AP wire, but I found two independent sources. If someone created an article about this event, there would be no policy reason to delete it, and thats absurd.

For a more significant example, take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proposed Israeli Nuclear First Strike on Natanz Facility. This article is problematic because of OR problems, but should we have an article about a newspaper report?The report in question was widely talked about initially, it was the top story in Israel and probably Iran too. However, will it prove significant in the long run? Discussion seems to have died down very quickly and I doubt it will warrant more than a footnote in any history book. The problem is that nobody has sat down and thought about what makes a current event notable, and as a result there are no guidelines for those of us trying to decide whether to delete article's about current events. I don't have a proposal, but I do want to gather some input.

So in order to start the discussion, what makes current events notable? How can we judge their notability without violating WP:NOR when there hasn't been enough time for secondary sources to evaluate an event's importance? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GabrielF (talk • contribs) 01:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Mostly what is needed is a cluestick.The primary notability criterion states specifically that, "Several newspapers all publishing the same article from a news wire service is not a multiplicity of works."This covers the 143 instances of the same AP story, so there would be a guideline (if not a policy) reason to delete the Fat Cat story.A single speculative newspaper story comes under the same head, IMO.If it developed into a notable speculation in several publications, then Wikipedia:Wiki is not paper may govern.Of course Wikipedia is not a newspaper either, so judgment is available on whether a story is encyclopedic.Notability and encyclopedic nature are not presumed, they must be established using information gleaned from reliable sources.Robert A.West (Talk) 03:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the initial Proposed Israeli Nuclear First Strike on Natanz Facility article wasn't too hot, it was 65% OR.I've rewritten the majority of it now to (a) remove the previous OR aspects, (b) establish notability via multiple independent reports, and (c) balanced it with official reaction and context.Not a great article, but its better than many.--70.48.242.16 04:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  • We do indeed have a systemic bias towards recentism. A reasonable rule of thumb is "would anyone care a year from now?" Regarding the cat the answer is obviously "no", and I believe AFD usually makes that decision correctly. At any rate, if this is a serious problem, Wikipedia:Avoid recentism could be created to address it. >Radiant< 11:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
    Actually, there is the Wikipedia:Recentism essay. Contains lots of clarifying examples. --Francis Schonken 15:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I think recentism only occurs because the sources are convienent and people are interested enough to write.Wikipedia could have tens of millions of well-referenced articles if we covered every year in the 20th century to the depth we covered the present.I don't think recentism is a problem, because people are writing about things in the news, and hence automatically things with reliable sources available.It'll take later work to update, summarize, and merge prune or delete if necessary, but getting down plenty of detail about the real, newsmaking events in the world is an awesome thing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Night Gyr here, Wikipedia's not paper seems to be the most applicable thing: if the article is reliably sourced, then there's no ground for deletion. In regards to Wikipedia not being a newspaper, I think that is primarily there to discourage first-hand journalism; it ducks the issue of inclusion by saying "historical significance", which is subjective. Is it our job to guess what people will care about in the future? Trebor 13:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The issue isn't that people write about present-day things, the issue is that people tend to consider recent issues more important than old issues. For instance, if you make a survey of who people consider the most important person of the 20th century, a disproportionately large amount of nominees will be people from the 1990s. >Radiant< 14:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not even sure it's that: people write about subjects they know, which have easily accessible sources, and that tends to be more recent stuff. But I don't think that's necessarily a problem, Wikipedia is in no way consistent in the depth it covers subjects in; I'd much rather have detailed articles on more recent events and less-detailed articles on older ones, than start trimming the recent events articles for consistency (well actually I'd rather have detailed info on all events, but unfortunately we live in reality). Is there a problem in having articles on relatively minor recent events, provided they are sourced? Trebor 15:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I think well-researched articles on recent news stories are not a problem, they can be used to increase the quality of the articles they'll be merged into once a current hype is over. Kusma (討論) 15:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but that kind of defeats Wikipedia:Notability#Notability is generally permanent (quote: "Thus, if a topic satisfies the primary notability criterion, it continues to satisfy it over time") - which I disagree with. --Francis Schonken 15:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Why do you disagree with it? Or do you disagree with the whole definition of notability as it currently stands? Because if you use the current definition, then notability is definitely permanent - multiple independent sources don't change with time. Trebor 15:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Your original research - never heard about acidic paper? Also not everything ends up in permanent web archives (for the next 100 year?)... --Francis Schonken 16:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Well yes, okay, the record of the sources may (in what I'd estimate to be a very small minority of cases) be destroyed or decay. I thought you meant you disagreed with the idea that notability is permanent even if there are multiple independent source. Trebor 17:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I still object to the crystal ball that appears to be the basis of your reasoning. You estimate "a very small minority of cases". My estimate is considerably larger (for various reasons I need not explain). You don't know, I don't know, and we would need a crystal ball to prove either of us right today. So, this can not be the foundation of frivolous speculations like "if a topic satisfies the primary notability criterion, it continues to satisfy it over time": it might, it might not, no conclusion in that sense can be drawn, and this should not be in a Wikipedia guideline. --Francis Schonken 12:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd be interested to hear your reasons: I'd say the majority of (paper) sources used are newspapers and published books, and they don't suddenly disappear. But if you're think the wording of the guideline is misleading, then change it. It's only meant to mean that notability does not require consistent or ongoing coverage; it's not meant to mean that if the sources are no longer in existence there should still be an article. Trebor 16:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
It shouldn't matter wheter something is or is not a recent event - this is an encyclopedia - not a newspaper.If something won't be notable in a year or ten years from now then it shouldn't be notable now.However even if you stick with that rule, 'recentism' is inevitable because whilst a lot of people are interested in something like the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning in 2006 and there is a ton of information and references to write that article, it's unlikely that an article will be written about someone getting poisoned in 1906, 1806 or 1706 simply because there is less information out there and less chance of an editor being interested enough to write it.Hence we have a huge article about Litvinenko and a separate (even longer!) article about his death by poisoning - but the more strictly notable poisoning of Aratus of Sicyon (the ruler of an entire Greek city state) in 213BC rates just one sentence.That systemic bias towards recent events is nothing to do with notability criteria - it's just about what people care enough to write about and how much information is available. SteveBaker 15:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Do you meant notability in terms of significance/importance/fame or the definition given in the guideline? They aren't the same, and to say the poisoning of [[Aratus of Sicyon] is more strictly notable doesn't really mean anything. Individual editors might judge as more significant/important but that's objective. It's almost certainly been covered in fewer sources though, so using the strict Wikipedia definition it is less notable. That's the problem of using a loaded word like notable. Trebor 16:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I sometimes wonder if we ought to have a "2 day hold" on events before they can be put on Wikipedia... the concept being that if a news story is still being discussed after two days of it's initial report, it has a degree of notability... or something like that.There are a lot of news stories that initially may seem important, but turn out to be erroneous or not all that notable. Blueboar 18:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that would ruin Wikipedia's useful coverage of current events - if I want a collated story combining lots of sources, here is the place to go. But in principle, I think the idea has merit. Two days is a (necessarily) arbitrary limit, but it might be along the right lines. Trebor 22:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is a VERY early draft of a notability criteria:

In order for an event to be notable, the length, breadth, depth and prominence of the media's coverage of that event must be greater than average.

  • Prominence refers to the degree to which the news media itself feels that an event is notable. Events that were covered on the front page or the lead of a news broadcast are far more likely to be notable than events that were covered on page E22 or as the last story on the evening news.
  • Breadth refers to the number of media outlets covering a story. An event that has generated only local coverage is probably only of local interest and therefore not notable, but an event that received significant coverage in every news outlet on the planet probably is.
  • Depth of coverage refers to the type of coverage the media has given an event. Did news outlets try to answer questions about the event beyond "what happenened" and "where and when and how did it happen"? Did the media analyze the importance of an event and come to the conclusion that it would result in some kind of important change? Did they spend any time discussing what had caused the event to occur? Was there an op-ed piece or a political cartoon? If the media has reported the facts without analyzing the event and what it signifies, than the event was probably not notable enough to be worth analyzing.
  • Length of coverage is, among other things, a measure of the degree to which the media believes that an event will be interesting to its audience. If nobody is talking about an event after five days, it most likely wasn't significant enough to warrant a wikipedia article.

Thoughts? GabrielF 19:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it, because it introduces a lot of room for subjectivity and people to say "Well this wasn't a big story and we're not wikinews... DELETE."We don't only cover the big stories.Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I think there's going to be subjectiveness in any guideline put forward for this, but there is obviously a need for wording about it. At present, the article on the fat cat would be included; yet, I don't think anyone would agree that it should be. There is some measure people are subconsciously placing on an event's notability, regardless of sources. There's discussion going on here about it too. GabrielF's wording is a start, but I don't think a good solution will be reached easily with this. Trebor 22:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with most of the guidelines that GabrielF has listed, however, based on the individual nature of every event, this should never become Wikipedia policy.Policies like notability already covers this in the general sense.Also, small stories may not be suitable in articles of their own, but should definitely be included in larger articles (Ex: A school bus accident in Pennsylvania is covered in the high school's article, Pennsbury High School, but certainly would be up for deletion if written on its own).So yes, I would support a guideline, but not a policy.
Another factor we might also want to also consider is how integrated an article on a recent event can be.For instance, the articles on the Somali War that just occured have hundreds of interlinks, as well as other historical, geographic, and biographical links.The more obscure the event, the more likely is that it will have few if any wikilinks. Joshdboz 20:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
All the pages related to notability are guidelines; I don't think there'd ever be a large-enough consensus to make it policy. But I think a specific guideline, something like Notability (recent events), would be a good idea to allow for the fact that we live in a very source-heavy time. Trebor 21:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date formats

On [[2]] (a link page, to link the battles off, so you can easily find which battles occured in a particular time period). This is an ordered chronological list and originally only the years were wikified, but not the month and day, because it is much easier to follow if the format is "Year Month Day". You'll notice that people keep "wikifying" the date format, meaning that dates become "day month year" or "month day year" depending on user prefs. What's worse, the latest modifications only modified SOME of the dates, meaning that (if you can follow this) the first incidence of a year is wikified but not the rest, but ALL months and days are wikified, meaning that in some cases you get "year month day" and in some you get "day month year", as well as some where only the month is known so you get "year month" as well. In addition to THAT, someone has decided to remove more than the first incidence of some years, and list each battle in that year as a sub-indent. They've only done this with some years though, so you get "1884" on one line and then just "month day" or "day month" on the next few lines. This is very difficult to read and I've reverted it twice but they use bots to keep wikifying the dates. Can anyone stop them? I'm not an admin and they just ignore me. The format I prefer is "year month day" on every line (most years don't have more than 1 battle anyway so having the year and then sub-indents just looks silly). It's a page I've contributed a lot to, not that that means much perhaps, but it's already gone through one deletion attempt and formatting it this crazy way is not helping its usefulness. Thanks muchly!SpookyMulder 13:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I see no evidence of bots being involved - why do you say that?
  • There appears to be one person (User:GraemeLeggett) making the date format changes you don't like.You've exchange comments via edit summary (a start); I note that the user's last edit summary comment was restore wikified dates as per MoS.So what we have is a content dispute.
  • You posted a note on the user's talk page twelve minutes before you posted here.That was the only communication you've had with the user other than edit summaries.And the note here (which the user is probably unaware of) is much, much more detailed than the note on his/her page.That's a mistake.
  • You haven't posted anything on the talk page of the article.That's where such a discussion should take place, since it preserves the discussion for future editors, rather than here or on a user talk page.
  • Your user page posting included I can have it ruled on if you like.I'm not sure what you meant by that - there isn't anyone at Wikipedia who issues "rulings" regarding content disputes - just behavior, and certainly the other user hasn't violated any behavior norms to date.Also, some people might take that sentence as a threat, which isn't a good way to start a discussion.
  • If you can't work out the problem between the two of you, please see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, which includes an escalating set of procedures to deal with differences of opinions on content - for example, asking for a third opinion (and no, that isn't done on this page.)John Broughton |(♫♫) 15:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] merge Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Consensus can change

Now that both these elements have acquired the statues of policy (which really shouldn't surprise anybody), it is clear that there is no reason to state these elements on two different pages, but I'd like to gather some more opinions before I initiate discussion on the talk pages.Circeus 16:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

So long as WP:CCC redirects to the appropriate section, then I'm all for it. CCC is pretty short anyway (and repeats itself a fair bit) so could be incorporated into Consesus fairly easily. Trebor 16:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Good idea. People have recently taken to wikilawyering WP:CCC to mean "ignore any consensus that I don't agree with" (which, rather obviously, is not what it means). Merging may alleviate that. >Radiant< 10:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citing copyvio web site

Wikipedia:Copyrights says that "If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work". Does the ban against linking to a copyvio site extend to citations based on that site? In particular, can I use a fair use-violating lyrics web site as a citation in the List of backmasked messages when no other citation can be found? Λυδαcιτγ 00:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean a citation, but without a convenience link to the web site?I'd still stay away from it.If it was me writing an article that needed to reference song lyrics, I'd just cite the song itself as a reference.The song is published material just like a book is. Squidfryerchef 02:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Does that website actually talk about the backmasked lyrics?I think that it would be shaky as it probably wouldn't be the most reliable source.It also depends on what the website is - is it a fansite?A music magazine?ColourBurst 03:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
It's a commercial lyric farm. The problem with the backmasking stuff is that the messages are hidden in the songs, and "discovering" them would be original research, so I can't just cite the song. The website is useful in this case because the lyrics on the song page include the backward ones. Λυδαcιτγ 00:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biographies of Living People question (Souhaila Andrawes as a case study)

I came across the article of Souhaila Andrawes which looked like this. It was correctly tagged as a biography of living person but it did not really meet the strict requirements for such bios, there was not a single source in the article and the article was of a negative tone (the article claimed the person was a terrorist, airline hijacker, sentenced to 12 years, etc.) But then again, it is not exactly difficult to find information about her, and I remember that the case was a big news issue in Norway in 1995. The article was definitely not created as a bad faith attempt to disparage the subject with libellous, slanderous and false accusations.

Question 1: In the form I found it, was the article a WP:CSD#G10 candidate for speedy deletion per the WP:BLP policy?
Question 2: Should unsourced articles about people with the considerable amount of notoriety in media be candidates for speedy deletion, or should we always make a reasonable attempt at sourcing before pulling the trigger?

For this particular article the question is moot, because the brevity of the article made it fairly easy to source it (which I have now done). But I am wondering what our policy is on things like this. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll take the easy question - #2 - yes, in the best of worlds, an editor would always try to source an article before killing it.Some editors don't have the time, of course.It's more complicated if the editor isn't sure at all of the notability of the subject of the article - is it worth looking? - but even then, a quick Google search seems well justified if there is time.The most important thing is to do something, immediately, to fix the problem - source or kill.(And if doing a CSD becuase there isn't time to research or initial research failed to find anything, definitely delete all of the negative info on the page, even if that leaves it with (say) only one sentence.John Broughton |(♫♫) 14:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I would say you should always favor deletion with such problem articles (all negative without sources).Its rare the old content, unsourced, actually has much value.We need to find sources first, and then write based on them.Creators of articles have no incentive to provide sources, if others fix the problems for them.Also, what I've found, is that when you add sources "after the fact", its very easy to lower your standards for sources.A quick Google search may find "hits", but not always authoratitive stuff.If you find the source first, and write based on it, then you can be more confident that the source is good, and the content fully agrees with the source.If you're doing a bio on Mr X, go find everything you can, good and bad, from reliable sources on Mr X, and let the sources guide you.Don't start with a negative sourced articles, and try matching sources to content.Maybe you quickly find one "hit" agreeing with the notable claim, but don't bother finding other sources, contradicting it, or explaining it properly.Finally, we need a rapid approach, to enable a small number of people to monitor a massive growing number of articles.If patrollers are doing research, that the article creator failed to do, there is no way the patrollers can keep up with the article creators. --Rob 15:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo on blanking --Larry laptop 15:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Stubify and then notify the article's major author is sometimes useful. WAS 4.250 16:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

I have proposed changes to Wikipedia:Copyrights, in order to move it a little closer in line with the GFDL (in my view).Please contribute your thoughts at Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#GFDL_Notice. Superm401 - Talk 21:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Would this be considered a personal attack?

I was deeply offended by what an admin said concerning me. He refuses to apologize on the grounds that I mischaracterized him, when I mistakenly accused him of semi-protecting a talk page in an ongoing debate. Would saying that another user has his "facts" wrong as usual be considered a personal attack? you can find the edit in question here--Acebrock 22:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really consider it such.It's a comment on your contributions (and you did have your facts wrong in this case; I believe MONGO was referring to past incidents regarding Cplot, a pretty egregious troll, no?), it's not a personal attack on you in my mind.Perhaps slightly incivil, and I don't know your history with MONGO (who, by the way, is not in possession of mop and bucket).—bbatsell ¿? 23:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I am not an admin. Acebrock misrepresented my actions by claiming that I had semi-protected an article talkpage here in the form of an accusatory question, and here again, when the talkpage in question was never semi-protected by myself[3]. Acebrock also accuses me of blocking an editor "out of process" namely, the notorious User:Cplot, who was harassing numerous editors and continues to do so via the creation of more sockpuppets than anyone has recently encoutered on wiki. Next, Acebrock then comes to my talkpage and makes demands...and uses edit summaries such as "MONGO seems very paranoid to me" Just wanted all the facts of this matter to be obvious.--MONGO 23:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow, in one case, and that was a simple screw up on my part. That's not really any reason to make a broad generalization about my editing. If you wish to see our history, look at archives 23, 24, and 25 in the September 11, 2001 Attacks talk page. Also Cplot wasn't trolling in my or some other people's opinions, he was trying to reasonably debate but was met with resistance on all sides, also where'd his adminship go?--Acebrock 23:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
MONGO and Seabhcan lost their adminship in an arbcom case.--Bobblehead 23:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
That remark about paranoia was made because I was incredibly angry and offended, I have apologized for the false accusation and am sorry about that, but an attack on someone's character because they made asimple mistake is far worse than accusing someone of a very controversial act. MONGO, all I want is an apology, for that remark, and that you withdraw it, it's that simple. It won't change my feelings about you but it will get me to stop cluttering up your talk page and wasting everyone's time--Acebrock 23:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
You are just being paranoid and oversensitive.Give it up.Gene Nygaard 23:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Could I gently suggest that Acebrock try to develop a slightly thicker skin. He falsely accused MONGO of making an out-of-policy block. MONGO falsely or justly (I don't know) accused him of often making errors. Without having looked into Acebrock's history, I'll assume that MONGO's accusation is false. So we have (first of all) editor A implicitly accusing editor B of a lack of integrity, and editor B implicitly accusing editor A of a lack of sense. Then we have editor A being deeply offended, demanding an apology, and taking the matter further, while editor B seems to be able to move on. Acebrock, is it really worth this fuss? To me, the accusation made by you was worse, and was demostrably false — just look at the logs. It's pretty bad to go to a protection page and accuse a (former) admin of violating policy. And how can saying that you have your facts wrong "as usual" be an attack on your character? It's perfectly possible to be a good person and to get your facts wrong. Why not just drop the whole thing now and move on with dignity? If you keep going, you're going to get more upset, because nobody is going to think that what MONGO said was worth making a complaint to the community about. Musical Linguist 23:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is acceptable on talk pages for living persons?

I wish to know if this version of Joanna Lumley's talk page is acceptable: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Joanna_Lumley&oldid=101844308

I have since reverted the offending section - is this a case of vandalism? Pendragon39 22:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why are celebrity promotional photos no longer allowed for living persons?

Since I run the Christian Music wiki at Wikia.com, I would like some help understanding the reasoning.My policy had been to attempt to obtain one image (or more, if requested by the artist) per artist.I typically e-mail the promoters for each artist asking for offical photos.Several times I have gotten replies providing them -- in one case, at high res!

So, should I now turn those images down? Will (Talk - contribs) 21:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Whether you should turn them down depends on Wikia's overarching policies and that particular wiki's policy.I can't help you with the former, and I hope you know the latter.
We no longer use "fair use" images of living people because we decided that the odds of such use actually being fair is too low, and conflicts with the goal of creating content that others can use freely.If a promoter released into the public domain or under the GFDL, we'd use it. GRBerry 22:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I control the policy other than what Wikia.com declares.(They chose GFDL, but for the most part it is up to me to interpet and apply that policy.) Will (Talk - contribs) 22:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Might I ask what is your position which allows you to do this?I couldn't figure that out from your user page.Thanks,Badagnani 22:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
As previously stated, I admin Wikia:ChristianMusic:.My page there is Wikia:ChristianMusic:User:Will Pittenger. Will (Talk - contribs) 03:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Who cares? Is this Wikia, no... So, to the OP you're asking in the wrong place! Ta/wangi 22:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really.If you read carefully, you will see I am asking about Wikipedia's policy and why it is that way. Will (Talk - contribs) 03:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy has no bearing on Wikia.They are merely sister sites.User:Zoe|(talk) 03:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
As previously noted, the templates I created (and the policies those templates reflect) were based on Wikipedia's.I don't care if "Wikipedia policy has no bearing on Wikia."All I care is Wikipedia's policy changed.So I need information if the policy at Wikia:ChristianMusic: should change. Will (Talk - contribs) 02:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Why?WP:FUC criteria #1 prohibits using fair use if a free one could be reasonably located.It's just being enforced more heavily now, espeically with the introduction of {{Replaceable fair use}}.Such removal has been controversial - some users think that it's better to have an image than none at all, or that free images don't look as professional as promo images.But it's still going ahead. Hbdragon88 04:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Basically, we want to encourage the creation or release of free content, so we tell people to license promo photos freely or create one themselves.That's how we end up with a lot of celebrities illustrated with public domain images from the US military, for example. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] clarify parameters of Biography of living person

I am a new contributor to Wiki and am working on a Bio of a LP. The person has recently reached celebrity status though his main contribution is in the field of canine management.

My approach would be to treat the bio in his main field, with, of course, his celebrity status being a large part of his current international influence. On first reading the article struck me as emphasizing the celebrity and controversy more than his actual profession. Of course that may change over time, but currently his profession is primarily in handling canines.

This Bio is tagged to go into the larger Canine Portal.

Other difficulties are in establishing MPOV. Because of media attention and the nature of the [dog]industry it is very difficult to find NPOV sources. There has been controversy over certain handling methods long before Cesar Millan came along and this is the direction I have taken in handling it. I have tried to downplay the controversy so that it is not the focus of the bio.

Should ONLY sources of equal weight be included. ie one expert vs another, one shelter manager vs another etc?

The POV that criticises him and causes most of the controversy IMPLIES and states that they ARE the current standard in dog handling, but there is no real way to measure this.

The popularity of the show alone would say otherwise. Can this fact be used?

Thank you Tintina 03:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

  • It is okay to use sources that are POV. It is the Wikipedia article as a whole that has to be NPOV. --Eastmain 18:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The popularity of the show alone would say otherwise. Can this fact be used?The fact that the show is popular can be used.That it's popularity means anything (other than a lot of people watch it) is POV, just as inferring that a chef on a cooking show is using standard/best/whatever cooking methods just because the show is popular; no, I don't think it can be used, at least not if it's you that thinks that popularity equals "current standards".
    • In general, when someone or something is controversial, it's best to paraphrase a neutral source (like a paper) that says he/she/it is controversial, or to paraphrase a critic as in "Susan X, a certified judge at many shows, said A, B, and C".And, as noted, you can use a POV source (Susan wrote an opinion piece, for example, or even said that on her website - quotable because she is an expert in the area being quoted about).-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay thank you! Tintina 02:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Throwing an idea out here. Wanting to hear what people think.

Just an idea to throw out here. Since IP blocks aren't effective (with all the new Tor and open proxies appearing everyday) and problematic when it's a shared IP like Qatar, would it be a bad thing if Wikipedia required Java enabled to edit and then the Java read some hardware serial number? Not MAC address, which is easily spoofed and some people don't have, but some other thing like CPU ID or hard drive serial number. Or would this be shunned as a privacy violation (even if the hardware data is encrypted and salted--like they are in Second Life and how passwords in MediaWiki are encrypted and salted)? Anomo 04:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

No.Requiring java is setting the bar way too high.Even on machines that can run java, loading apps is often slow and painful.Plus, it's just begging to be spoofed. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this would be a little over the top. Night Gyr has a point (I don't use Java 99.99% of the time), and it is our aim to keep Wikipedia W3C-standards compliant and accessible on all sorts of devices (text-only browsers, cellphones, PDAs, etc.). Yuser31415 05:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
A bad idea in every respect. —Centrx→talk • 06:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
As an individual who's spent far too much time living under a repressive government that banned wikipedia, and can jail you for editing it, I'd fight tooth and nail to keep out any initiative that linked my PC to my Wikipedia account. If a government hacker were to find the serial numbers of dissidents hard drives (etc) on a Wikipedia server, or intercept them in IP packets going to or from Wikipedia, they could use it as a who's who to torture and imprison.
Tor might be a pain in the neck for blocking, but it can be the difference between freedom and a 10 year sentence for revealing state secrets for some people.
perfectblue 12:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Perfectblue, hopefully you use Wikipedia's HTTPS secure server to view and edit from, which should encrypt your information. Anomo 10:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Policy for images that can be replaced with plain text

Someone recently uploaded an image containing nothing but text which he had made for use as a subheader in one of the articles he'd been working on. It was subsequently replaced with plain text and the image was listed for deletion. A rather heated argument ensued, and the creator of this image is now threatening to quit Wikipedia. It seems that many of the people involved in this argument aren't aware of the benefits of plain text over text in images, so I was wondering if perhaps there should be an official Wikipedia policy on this issue. I've made a template that could be used to flag images of this type. It's based on the {{BadJPEG}} template — feel free to make whatever changes you feel are necessary). Wealso need to set up a new category for these images (Category:Images that should be replaced with plain text, perhaps?), and make suitable changes to the WP policy pages. There are probably other things that will also have to be done that I haven't thought of. Is this idea worth pursuing? Can anyone provide any pointers? -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 13:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, we definitely need a policy for this. Preferably one that reads as follows:
  • When you find an image easily replaceable by plain text, you must go through the following steps.
    • Replace it with plain text.
Really, not that hard. Why do we need a set of templates and complicated process for something as simple as replacing the image with text? (instruction creep anyone?) You'll expend more letters typing the template code than you will just replacing the thing yourself. List the image for deletion afterwards if you feel like it, but since it's going to sit in the database regardless even that wouldn't be necessary. --tjstrf talk 13:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Why? Because apparently some people are unaware of how to style text without using images. Because it would cost nothing to at least get the image policy changed to reflect this. And because it just might prevent a useful contributor from quitting Wikipedia. Incidentally, comments like this aren't going to help the situation. -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 18:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Refusal to tag + ownership issues

I've got a problem with a user who is systematically reverting every change made to a page and I need to know if there is a policy that I can hit them with or what the most appropriate admin intervention to ask for is.

This user has apparent ownership issues with a page, they revert every change that I've made and put these really loose reasonings in the summary box. They also refuse point blank to tag anything or discuss why they are reverting. For example, they might revert 10-20 changes in one go and state something along the lines of"WP:V, WP:OR, WP:POV" in the summary box but not say what which bit was reverted for which reason.

Any advice? They have already refused to talk so I'd like to get some intervention.

perfectblue 16:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The user and page would be useful so people can have a look at the situation themselves. Trebor 16:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to avoid a No Personal Attacks situation by not making any accusations against a specific user. Let's just summarize to "somebody keeps reverting my edits, does it in such a way as I can't tell which reason was made for the reversion of what, and they refuse to tag individual sections that they are unhappy with instead reverting the entire edit session good and bad"
perfectblue 17:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
The policy you want is Wikipedia:Ownership.Circeus 17:27, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Cheers, is there anything else, like maybe something that says TAG TAG TAG rather than revert revert revert.
perfectblue 17:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
You may also want to read Wikipedia:Three-revert rule and report him to admins. Blueboar 20:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to avoid a No Personal Attacks situation by not making any accusations against a specific user'.Statements that you believe a particular edit or user may have violated a Wikipedia rule is not a personal attack.If it were, many admins would be subject to repeated blocks for the dozens of "personal attacks" they make each day when discussing possible vandals, trolls, etc.(And no, admins are not exempt in any way from WP:NPA.) -- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brian G. Crawford and Wikimedia Foundation bans

As an active maintainer of Wikipedia:List of banned users, I'm looking for clarification regarding the ban of Brian G. Crawford (talk • contribs • block log). He was banned upon recommendation of Foundation counsel BradPatrick, and his userpage says he's "banned by the Wikimedia Foundation". However, he's on the banned user list under the heading "Banned by the Wikipedia community". I was thinking about moving his entry to a new "Banned by the Wikimedia Foundation" section, but I wanted to make sure everyone agrees his ban should be listed as a "Foundation ban". Of course, BradPatrick, Danny and others involved in the WP:OFFICE system are analogous to Jimbo and the Board of Trustees in their authority to issue bans. I'd argue Crawford is "banned by the Foundation", but does anyone disagree? Also, does anyone know of other instances I'm unaware of when the Foundation has banned a user, aside from Anthere's cross-project ban of JarlaxleArtemis? szyslak (t, c) 22:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Given the user's behavior, there would have been a formally called "community ban" soon enough. —Centrx→talk • 22:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Technically, I believe the reclassification of this user's ban that you suggest might be correct. However, I don't believe the Village Pump is a good place for this discussion, and for that matter I'm doubtful that including information about a person's medical condition on the banned users list is really appropriate either, especially given that the person's username is apparently his real name. Newyorkbrad 22:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Removed. szyslak (t, c) 22:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XfDs by WikiProject

I was recently thinking about the idea of WikiProjects when I came to the realization that they should be used for much more than they are already being used for. Right now, they are a loose organization that has little power in regulating the pages under their jurisdiction. I think a problem now, though, with XfDs though, is that when something is proposed for deletion, it is just commented on by people who have little or no affiliation or knowledge of the topic which it covers. I think it would be a great idea instead of having XfDs open to the public, have them referred to a WikiProject or a few WikiProjects for review and subsequent deletion, if seen fit. The only prerequisite for voting on one of these new XfDs would be that you would have to be a member of one of the reviewing WikiProjects (not necessarily, but possibly, for a certain amount of time).

I think this is a pretty fair suggestion, given the nature of Wikipedia. Many users have sectioned themselves off into certain niches of the "society" and it should only follow that pages are maintained in this manner. Comments will be gratefully accepted! → JARED (t)  22:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

No, for all the reasons that objected to this when it came up on Wikipedia talk:Articles for Deletion#Proposal_for_de-centralization_of_debates. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
If an article is covered by a Wiki Project, I see no objection to notifying the project in question via its talk page.This should serve the same purpose without balkanizing the debates.Robert A.West (Talk) 22:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I support notification, but giving them any authority would be silly. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Night Gyr that notification is a good idea, but not actually handing over the XfD (or AfD) process to wikiprojects.A number of reasons for this have already been supplied in the above mentioned discussion regarding the decentralization of XfDs.Most important are the facts that:
1. XfDs and AfDs are determined by Wikipedia policies and guidelines rather than any specialized knowledge about the topic.You don't need to be a physicist to determine whether a physics-related article meets our policy guidelines.
2. Many articles fall within the scope of multiple Wikiprojects meaning that if XfDs and AfDs were decentralized we'd have countless problems dealing with jurisdiction.For example, solar power falls under the scope of Wikiprojects on Energy, the Environment and International Development.
3. It's efficient to have all XfDs and AfDs located in one central location.Its easier for editors discussing the deletions, its easier for the admins who close them.It makes it easier to follow all AfDs and XfDs.Also, many editors (myself included) spend a lot of time working in the AfDs and XfDs rather than editing articles.I like to think of us as adminitrative workers (though not necessarily admins).Its important to those of us who regularly 'vote' in these debates to have them all available in one location.--The Way 23:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
To the above, I would add that not everyone with knowledge of a topic belongs to the relevant WikiProject.I have expertise and life experience that would be appropriate to many WikiProjects: I belong to none.Robert A.West (Talk) 00:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Despite assuming good faith for the majority of WikiProjects, an important point is bias. If only those involved in a WikiProject voted on an AfD, the borderline articles would be more likely to be kept. Sometimes those outside a particular area can be more objective. Though expertise is also good - you don't have to be a molecular biologist or surface chemistry expert to understand and have some insight into whether Transfersome is notable, but it helps. Carcharoth 00:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] need clarification on image use with celebrity-not clear on policy reading

I have permission to use a photo by the photographer. It was taken in a certain context with another internationally well known (though not celebrity ) person. This person however has expertise and is well respected in his field which is part of the article I am working on.(He is mentioned and quoted in it). I originally sought permission from him and he directed me to the photographer (who is also a member of the organization and is more remotely connected to the topic.)This person did give permission to use any material of his and his organization.

so I have permission from both the photographer and the other person at a specific event recognizing the celebrity. can this photo be used without further permission. I have read the image use policy but am still not clear.


Tintina 00:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

We can't use images that only have permission for wikipedia, we need the image to be freely licensed so anyone else can use it too. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 00:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes thank you, the photographer (owner of the photo) is aware of that. I sent him wikipedia policy. FYI The photo is displayed on the relative organizations website. What I want to clarify is if the celebrity in the photo in any way has to give permission for it's use.

Tintina 01:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confused about image use policy

According to the image use policy, as image contributors, users are supposed to "always specify on the description page where the image came from." I recently tagged Image:Punjabi gurmukhi shahmukhi.png (an image tagged as ineligible for copyright) for speedy deletion, however, because a source is not specified. I was soon, however, reverted by an anononymous user. When I restored the deletion tag and engaged in conversation with said user, an administrator removed it. Finally, when I restored the tag again and contacted said administrator, it was restored by another experienced Wikipedian.

I am confused. For the record, I am not opposed to the image. My only issue with it is that the source is not specified. Is there a discrepancy between the image use policy and {{PD-ineligible}}? Or is there a misunderstanding on my part about either or both? Please, I would really like to know so I can get all of this off of my back. I would really appreciate comments. (Note: I will immediately notify the three users of this post.) --Iamunknown 00:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no source. The uploader typed it on his computer. If you wanted to specify that, you could I guess. --tjstrf talk 02:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. A user, as an uploader of an image, is required to specify that. We don't actually know that the user did was type the text onto his/her computer. --Iamunknown 02:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually we do know it unless he's been lying about his other uploads. Further when the entire point of the copyright status is that it's an utterly trivial work it really doesn't matter. --tjstrf talk 02:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Then this should be reflected somewhere in the image use policy. As the image stands, it is at least in indirect violation of it. --Iamunknown 02:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if this is explicitly stated anywhere, but as the only reason Wikipedia requires sources for all images is so the copyright status can be verified, if an image is clearly ineligible for copyright because of its triviality, then it seems to me there is no need to note the source of the image. —Bkell (talk) 05:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
This is probably the only case when a source is not required, though. In every other case a source is necessary for the verification of the copyright status, even if that copyright status is "public domain," because unless the image is so trivial as to be uncopyrightable, it is not obvious from the image alone that it is in the public domain. —Bkell (talk) 06:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, other cases in which I don't worry about the lack of an explicit source are things like company logos, movie posters, and album and book covers. With these types of images, it's usually pretty obvious who the copyright holder is. It's possible, though, that technically Wikipedia still requires a source for these things. —Bkell (talk) 06:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
tjstrf and Bkell have expressed my understanding of this issue as I also think of it. Nothing more to see here, let's move on. feydey 10:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR

I've recently rewritten the three-revert rule. You can see discussion here and the rewrite here. Comments are invited. --bainer (talk) 07:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Username blocks need to be re-evaluated

I feel that username blocks are spiraling out of control.New users are being blocked for poorly defined "username policy violations", a move that will hurt the future of the project.From recent block logs, here are some examples:

Revertinging (talk • contribs)
Wippippippipp (talk • contribs)
Godpreist54 (talk • contribs)
Thabo Mkbeki (talk • contribs)
Kiddybandit (talk • contribs)
Cheap couilles (talk • contribs)
Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus (talk • contribs)
WikiWarrior1 (talk • contribs)
Loser12345 (talk • contribs)
Sexybot12 (talk • contribs)
Joeyjimbob (talk • contribs)
Wowwoweeewow (talk • contribs)
WikipediaFun (talk • contribs)
Blabber mouth katie (talk • contribs)
Youratowel (talk • contribs)
Wheeeee! (talk • contribs)
Wknight91 (talk • contribs)

For the record, I did not "cherry pick" from X-weeks of block logs on purpose.I chose a half day period so I could draw attention to how widespread the problem is.Each of these had "username" listed as the block rationale.

I viewed a roughly 11 hour period to gather the names above, and does not represent a thorough examination.There are probably more questionable username blocks in that time period.There are hundreds each week, each one potentially a future valuable editor who decides to just walk away from the project.Perhaps some of them are legit (Is couilles something obscene in another language, for instance?) but I argue that most of them do not appear to properly violate WP:USERNAME.I'm not certain that the problem is to blame on anyone specifically, but the policy regarding username blocks appears to be flawed.

As I mentioned in my RfA many months ago, Wikipedia faces a growing crisis.We are constantly raising new barriers against contributors when we should be looking to cultivate new editors.If the policy of username blocking is not adjusted, the long term health of the project is at additional risk.

I'm not looking to specifically criticize the above username blocks, else I'd post this on AN or AN/I.Instead, I'd like to discuss the policy that tacitly allows this to happen.Does the community agree that protecting our eyes from the wicked text "Sexybot12" or "Godpreist54" is worth the trade off in curious new users who decide to go elsewhere because it's "just not worth it"?Let's focus on the long term health implications of this policy and determine a method for fixing this problem.Thoughts?- CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This discussion would be better suited for the WP:U talk page. For the two examples you call specific attention to: "bot" is restricted to actual Wikipedia bots so "wicked text" has nothing to do with it & "Godpreist54" was blocked based upon discussion at Wikipedia:Username so it did have community consensus. "Wknight91" is also marked as a sockpuppet and is an obvious conflict with Wknight94. "Youratowel" (and other like usernames with "you" & "your") can defineitly cause troubles in heated discussions where the person being replied to may take it as personally directed. If someone wants to belittle themselves in their username, I don't have a problem with that, but anything that belittles others should not be allowed. -- JLaTondre 18:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't buy your claim that blocking "Wippippippipp" is losing a valuable member of Wikipedia. If someone is unable to handle and/or overcome the blocking of their username, are they going to be able to function productively in Wikipedia, there conflict is a given? I also don't buy that Wikipedia's long term health is in jeopardy. We have over 3 million user accounts. There are 250+ million Americans (which most speak English, I don't know the number of English speaking people in the world which would be a better number to give here). That's an untapped resource of over 247+ million people. Also figure how many accounts that are duplicates or whatnot and losing "Wippippippipp" isn't a big deal. There are 247+ million other people to take "Wippippippipp"'s place and probably give the same contributions that "Wippippippipp" would have. --MECU≈talk 18:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Mecu - if they balk at our username policy, that doesn't bode well for being able to cope with the other requirements of writing an encyclopaedia. It's stricter that most of the rest of the Internet, but this is an encyclopaedia and not a social community after all. --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Chairboy here. What on earth is wrong with "Wheeeee!", "Blabber mouth katie" or "Joeyjimbob"? Do these names "belittle" anyone in any way? And if so, shouldn't these people rather grow a thicker skin than us blocking any username that, potentially, could be in some theoretical way be insulting to someone? I think it's a very wrong attitude to say that there are enough people that could easily replace all those blocked users. It's true, yes, but it still sounds incredibly arrogant to me. We shouldn't say that no real harm is done in blocking these users, we should ask ourselves, what do we gain from this? I just don't see anything that we've gained from blocking the usernames I mentioned above, and I do see up to three newbies that we (probably) successfully scared away. --Conti|✉ 19:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Mecu and Sam.Most of those ARE bad names."Revertinging" clearly sends the wrong signal (even if inadvertantly) about what the user is here to accomplish.In a less obvious way, "WikipediaFun" does as well."Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus" is overly long and our software should be changed so that so many characters cannot even be attempted, let alone accepted."Kiddybandit" suggests illegal intentions.The list goes on... For the few that maybe should be allowed, I again agree with Mecu and Sam.If they are too thinned-skinned to think of a new username, they should find a different hobby as they are not likely to be successful contributors.We need to get past the utopian idealogy that we would have an improved project if we could somehow get every single person on the planet to contribute.Some people just aren't cut out for it. Johntex\talk 19:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Oh the hypocrisy.
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington blocked
Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus
Is that 10 character difference really blockworthy? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Another irony is that -- with all the fuss about so-called "non-Latin usernames" -- "Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus" is one of the few actual Latin usernames here (in English, "Hruodland, Prefect of the Marches of Brittany"): it refers to a historical person who died in AD 778 and is remembered today as the legendary hero Roland. (His title, rather than a family name, distinguishes him from any other Hruodlandi who might have been around; titles and professions often developed into family names later, like Smith, Miller, or Butler.)
  • Count your blessings that he didn't adopt the Latin name of Tolkien's "Farmer Giles of Ham": "In full his name was Ægidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo, for people were richly endowed with names in those days".
  • There's no rule against using the name of historical persons, as long as they're neither living nor recently deceased. WP:U does say "avoid impersonating any well-known persons or fictional characters" -- but if that doesn't get Sir Nicholas blocked for using a well-known "Harry Potter" character's name, why be more severe about the less well-known name "Hruodlandus"?
  • Having a long username doesn't necessarily take up space on talk pages. I shorten my talk-page sig to "Ben" as a space-saver; Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington does likewise ("Nearly Headless Nick"); possibly this user might sign comments as "Hruodland" or "Roland". So what does it matter if the actual username is long? Who's hurt by it?
  • I can think of longer real names of living people, if they're given in full (including baptismal names) -- and especially if transliterated from a language like Russian, where one original letter may be transcribed as two-to-four English letters (щ → shch). Should such people be username blocked for using their own full names?
  • I agree with other comments here that such a username block's reason should be explained: pointing to WP:U says nothing about what was wrong with this name, or whether there was some way to fix it, since it didn't fit any of the prohibited types. When asked, Nick explained: "the username seems inappropriately wrong and difficult to spell" -- which seems inappropriately subjective and difficult to find in WP:U's reasons for a block-on-sight -- but Nick also unblocked this user and apologized for the inconvenience. So this is resolved, though it would have been less BITING to discuss the matter first, rather than immediately blocking. -- Ben 00:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I think some of the above are harmless and others should be blocked.But what disturbs me is that the blocking admin does not specifically outline what is wrong with the name.All that is said is "Please read our username policy".If someone is being blocked for a name they; should be explicty told why it is inapproprriate.If the blocking admin has difficulty decribing exactly what the problem is they should list it at WP:RFC/NAME instead of blocking instantly.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 19:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I think it should be like CSD -- people can't just say "DELETED", they have to be able to point to one of the criteria. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Would it be useful for a summary of "WP:RFCN" to be used in place of "username" where a name has been blocked as a result of WP:RFCN? At least that way a reason can be looked up. There's only so much you can say in a summary, and, wrong as it may be, I suspect most people are prone to filling in short summaries where possible - it's just human nature. Crimsone 19:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

A summary of WP:RFCN wouldn't really be more helpful than WP:USERNAME.The idea of having blocking admins specifying which element of the username policy they felt was being violated is a good idea, I'd support that.One concept here and in the WP:U talk page related to this that I can't agree with is the assertion that to do anything with Wikipedia, users need thick skins.To be clear, the folks we're talking about are brand new users.Their _very first_ interaction on Wikipedia is dealing with a block.That's pretty harsh medicine.I'm also troubled with the idea that 'we have so many users, we can afford to scare folks off'.If the person isn't doing something wrong, we shouldn't be "throwing then away", which was the implication I read.If that's not an accurate read, please correct me.The root issue, of course, is that I feel there are lots of 'bad blocks' happening here.The answer isn't more policy, the answer needs to be better community involvement in validating the quality of the username blocks. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Amen to that.Most of these blocks are quite opaque to me, and presumably to the editor who was blocked as well.I am troubled by the idea, expressed here and on the policy talk page, that it's OK to block usernames created in good faith. -- Visviva 04:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
That was very eloquently said I must say Chairboy, even though I may not entirely agree that that there are a particularly large number of bad blocks happening. I'm not sure how many username blocks are really that illegitimate, and of course, illegitimacy is often a matter of opinion. Clearly though, not every block will have the concensus of the community, as nobody is right 100% of the time. An admin that feels that a username "obviously" should be blocked is probably going to be right 99% of the time, but it's that 1% that may not seem quite so "obvious" to everybody else. This is also true of WP:RFCN - after all, it can only guage concensus according to who happens to visit the page. If a username is blocked per RFCN concensus, that doesn't exclude it from the possibility of that 1% error rate - though it does mean that there's less reason to consider the blocking admin as having acted inappropriately.
To have admins specify the appropriate part(s) of the username policy would of course give real and (hopefully!) understandable reason. It would also make it easier to spot when a block has been questionable. It could be trialed by creating a sub-page of WP:U similar to the speedy deletion criterion, designating each element with a code (the code idea having been suggested on the policy talk page). This would also have the benefit of keeping the policy itself intact.
I would like to revise my suggestion above though regarding summary usage. I feel that because this is a subject with the potential for strong views and feelings, the potential for "witchunting" or accusations of bad faith/inappropriate behaviour creeps into the picture as an unintended result. As such, I feel that it would be useful to identify in the summary whether the action was directly the decision of the admin on the basis of poicy or concensus driven (rfcn). To use "username {code}" for an admin decision, or "RFCN {code}" for an RFCN outcome would demonstrate what process has been undertaken, and thus where the cause of any possible failure of process (or responsibility for an inappropriate block) lies. Crimsone 04:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Visviva, please remember that although we assume good faith, that does not prove good faith on the part of the person who has chosen an innapropriate username.You don't know they acted in good faith, and you certainly don't know the blocking admin acted in bad faith.Futhermore, we remove good-faith but unhelpful things all the time.From photos to edits to, yes, usernames.The question of whether a username was created in good faith or bad faith is irrelevant to the question of whehter it is an acceptable username.So, of course it is OK to block usernames created in good faith - if they are inappropriate.If it is an unacceptable username then it must be blocked, regardless of the motives of the creator. Johntex\talk 04:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
But do we really need to get all prissy about what usernames are "appropriate" anyway?How does it really harm anything if some usernames are a little silly?If we were to be a totally stodgy project and ban all usernames that weren't a complete bore, we'd have to get rid of such users as "Can't sleep, clown will eat me" (or something like that... whatever his username is).I don't really see how the ones that are getting banned are really any "worse".This seems like a repeat of the big userbox debacle, where people on both sides are fighting over something that's really rather peripheral.Everybody should just live and let live.Having weird usernames, or weird userboxes, or deleting both, has no particular importance one way or the other to the encyclopedia. *Dan T.* 05:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
See, the username policy is supposed to keep out offensive things, not silliness.There's no reason to block a user for choosing "Wheee!" or "Joeyjimbob".The policy itself specifically says not to block names that may have been chosen in good faith.Requiring admins to cite the specific policy that prohibits such a name will prohibit blocks for silly, but harmless things, the same way we make sure admins only speedy delete pages that fit CSD, not just what they feel like. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree the username policy is to keep out offensive things, not silliness. Joeyjimbob - too close to Jimbo.Wheee! - I would have allowed to stand.But let's not lose sight of the fact that several of the ones in the list were clearly innapropriate. Johntex\talk 05:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Joeyjimbob is too close to "Jimbo"?That really seems like a stretch.(I'm feeling echoes of Chinese dynastic naming taboos here). -- Visviva 08:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The username blocking has gone completely overboard. Why is it our job to make sure no one on Wikipedia is ever offended, or, God-forbid, exposed to something less than completely serious? Why would we consider "Wheeeee!" to be a threat to Wikipedia? Who considers "Godpreist54" offensive to thier religious sensibilities? 90% of the blocks listed above seem completely asinine to me. Do people really believe these blocks are benefitting Wikipedia? This seems to be an example of rules overriding common sense. Kaldari 07:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This does seem pretty overboard. I almost exclusively block usernames when it seems obvious to me they are up to no good. They're easy to spot. :-) Grandmasterka 08:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I know that "Godpreist54" was an RFCN one. Some of the others are obvious. Some of them in the list though may seem not so obvious. One of the WP:U examples of names that will be blocked are those usernames that are similar to those known to have been used by vandals - who of us can remember the name of every vandal there's ever been? Different people will remember different ones. This is the exact sort of reason that the blocking summary needs a mention of the clauses of the policy a name has been blocked under. Crimsone 08:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that there should be standards for user names, particularly when it comes to names that are malicious or offensive, it appears to me that Wikipedia is taking the same path as a lot of the networks are these days and is saying "We can't do that in case in case we offend somebody". Honestly;Loser12345, joeyjimbob, Wowwoweeewow? In a normal civil community, none of these should be considered blockable based on their names and if Wikipedia were a non-US based entity I doubt that they would be blocked. Even Blabber mouth katie should be acceptable as it is/seems pretty that Katie is the user in question.

This appears to be a case of overkill

perfectblue 11:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I reiterate, though - no unauthorized bots. And "couilles" is "testicles". DS 15:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Wowwoweeewow, Sexybot12 are two that I think that I blocked. Wowwoweeewow because that there have been a recent spat of vandals going by similar names. This was highlighted during the fund raiser when we had vandals using those style names. As for Sexybot12 there was no log of which user created this account (normally there is with bots) and even so they still need to come to WP:BRFA I doubt that would ever have happened as that name of the bot defies bot policy. and when you place a block the block message says contact the blocking admin via e-mail if you have questions. This has happened to me several times the one that is sticking out in my mind is User:BillDay.com I obvious blocked as that is spam. the user contacted me and said that they wanted the username Bill Day but out filter with usernames wouldnt let them because it was too close to bill.day so I found an unused username BillDay and created it for the user, I then e-mail the user with the username and the password telling the user to change the password. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 17:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi Betacommand, your message above seems to highlight some of the problems that I'm describing.For instance, you mention that Wowwoweeewow was blocked because you thought it might be a vandal.In that instance, it seems that blocking it as a suspected sockpuppet of the vandal would be far more appropriate than a one size fits all "username" block.Sexybot12 doesn't necessarily mean that it's a robot, there are plenty of users on Wikipedia that have robot-styled names.And if it WAS an unauthorized bot, then it should be blocked for being an unauthorized bot, not because of "username", again.When doing speedy deletes (of which I do many, check my deletion log), the deleting admin must assert what criteria is being used.I can't just say "speedy delete" anymore, I need to be specific.I think that blocks are a much bigger deal than deletions, so consequently blocking admins must be absolutely clear about why they're doing it.The whole Giano mess, btw, was related to an offshoot of this, specifically where I urged you to be very careful about specific policies that folks are being blocked for.As you saw there, a misinterpretation of a block rationale can be pretty emotional, so we owe it to everyone involved to be absolutely clear as to why we're doing what we're doing. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Per WP:U, usernames with "bot" are reserved for actual bots. Sexybot12 was not blocked for being an unauthorized bot. It was blocked for using a reserved term. If you want to propose a change to that policy, feel free, but implying it was an inappropriate block is wrong. While I tend to agree with you about indicating why a particular username is blocked (though the WP:U page needs to be revised to make that easier to do), trying to tie this to the Giano debacle is in poor taste. The vast majority of username blocks are clear cut. Also, a good percentage of accounts never make any edits & many of the blocked probably never know they were blocked. I think you are exaggerating the issues. -- JLaTondre 15:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
First, some context: The 17 username blocks that Chairboy found, looking through a half-day of blocks, represents less than one-half of one percent of new user accounts (well over 3,500) that are created in a typical 12 hour period.(See Special:Log/newusers.)Second, the main problem (in my opinion) isn't that admins are too quick to pull the trigger, but rather thatthe blocked new user isn't being told about Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names, which is an appropriate forum (I think) for an appeal.If there were a badusername template that linked to that RfC page, and this template was routinely put on the talk page of the blocked user, I think that any admin mistakes could be quickly fixed.I think adding a template is much less work than having to categorize blocks.Admins have enough work as is.John Broughton|Talk 14:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
How is having to categorize blocks any additional work?Admins should already know what criteria they're blocked under, and typing a few characters to indicate that is a trivial amount of work. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
When an admin sees a new username like User:FUCC-U, he/she doesn't think "aha, that's an A7 or a G12" or whatever; he/she says - "time to pull the trigger".So categories would mean, at minimum, more memorization and/or a cheatsheet.And there is more memorization and changes when categories change. And user arguing over whether the category really applied, when two categories applied and the admin only cited one. In short, this is instruction creep.Any problem with overzealous admins can be solved by making it clear to blocked users how to appeal the block, for which a forum already exists.John Broughton |♫ 03:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
We already have a cheatsheet: WP:USERNAME.Usernames that don't fit that page shouldn't be blocked on sight.If an admin can't articulate what's wrong with a name, they shouldn't block it.Your statement of block first and let review sort them out is absolutely contradictory with existing policy, that says when in doubt, don't block.If someone walks through the door, their very first experience should not be an assumption of bad faith by them in choosing a username.It's completely against our basic principles. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
It's quite trivial if nessecary to pull up a new browser window, point it to WP:U (or a sub-page if appropriate) and look up the code. This isn't instruction creep any more that first introduction of the CSD codes would have been - it's a very simple but effective way of explaining an action so that other people can understand what's happened, it's the creation of accountability in the unlikely case that an admin get's a little "trigger happy" (so to speak) with the effect that it should put an end to the behaviour, and finally it should put an end to bad blocks while making the whole thing that much more transparent to everybody. I fail to see why anybody would see such a trivial proposal as such a problem. Crimsone 09:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

My problem with the complaint here is that people seem to forget that when {{usernameblocked}} is put in the summary, on the next edit attempt it expands and gives all the information about our username policy, where to find it and how to go about requesting a change. No need to add instruction creep with numbers, that is the whole point of that template. The template also has been overhauled in the recent past to make it more friendly than it was. Users are not just being left out in the cold with no explanation. If you don't understand a particular block, talk to the admin who did it. They usually have a good reason. I don't see this as a rampant abuse problem or something that needs to be re-evaluated. pschemp | talk 03:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I seem to remember a discussion similar to this some months back when many editors, myself included, voiced a concern that too many new usernames were being arbitrarily blocked.Almost none of the above listed usernames should have been blocked, Sexybot being an exception (since using 'bot' is banned for valid reasons).Only usernames that are blatantly offensive should get blocked on site.The current 'policy' gives admins too much power to subjectively remove names they don't like.The fact that one admin posted above that one username was blocked because it resembled usernames used by vandals previously is especially unsettling; vandals can, and do, make all sorts of names and we can't possibly block everything that resembles a name previously used by a vandal.Overall I agree with some of the other editors that this has gotten way out of hand.Usernames should be accepted in good faith until they prove themselves to be a vandal (innocent until proven guilty) or unless its cleary offensive/obscene. --The Way 03:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

How about "username created only to evade arbcom ruling" for arbitrary banning?It doesn't match the facts; apparently based upon erroneous mind reading.(SEWilco 04:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Wikiproject or special interest group?

I'm not sure if this is the right place so if not, point me in the right direction.

I've come to the conclusion (and let talk about it in general terms for the moment), that many wiki projects actually operate as special interest groups and their goal (generally not spelt out in the project aims) is just to generate as much content about their given subject as possible - regardless of the wikipedia guidelines. Those special interest groups turn up on-mass on an AFD attempt and the articles just get longer and more full of crap (and there is no other way to put it).

Is there a way to call a failing wiki-project to task? if not, should there be? --Larry laptop 00:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

In any AfD, it is possible to defeat en masse voting with decent reasoning, as well as pointing out favorable vote-gathering. The WP:COUNCIL might be able to help you, too. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 00:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
This is definitely not true the vast majority of the time.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 04:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

See I don't really think that's true - many AFD slip pass the radar and if 3 people provide well-reasoned arguments that someone/something should be removed and ten people from the project turn up posting WP:ILIKEIT arguments - as best, you will get "no consensus". --Larry laptop 00:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this problem a lot when I was editing Islam articles. I proposed this to Moreschi: "I was thinking about setting up a WikiProject Anti-Votestacking, where blatent votestacking could be listed and members could vote to dilute it. Just 50 members regularly voting would demolish most cases of votestacking." Moreschi nixed it because he thought it would be too controversial, but mayeb it's something we need to revisit. Maybe as a working group of the Council? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 00:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
The poor participation in AfD's might have came from the same cause that made me virtually stop participating.The change from consensus decision-making to so-called "value of arguments" made me feel violated in that I believe in democracy.So I hardly ever look at AfD's any more, except when something I care about is nominated. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 00:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

An example would help illuminate this problem.Also, after being a Wikipedian for about three years, I think I would have noticed if this was a big problem.Therefore, I can only assume this is happening within a very narrow subject area. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 00:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not convinced that this is at all a significant problem. It's certainly the case that WikiProjects aim to add material regarding their topic to Wikipedia—that's pretty much the point of having them—but I doubt that the vast majority are adding things that are generally regarded as not appropriate, much less conspiring to do so systematically. Kirill Lokshin 01:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
see that's not really what I asked - what would I do if I came across a SPECIFIC project that was failing in improving articles? --Larry laptop 01:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Again, I wouldn't know how to answer unless there is an example we can look at.Further, projects fail all the time in fulfilling their purpose, but this is usually because its members have lost interest, or they never had enough members to handle all the requisite project tasks. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 01:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
For context, I believe he's speaking of the WP:CVG project. --tjstrf talk 01:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Em no - so no sherlock holmes award for you - I was actually thinking of a few projects, I now realise this is sure way to get myself on various hitlists. Let's drop this I'm clearly very mistaken, this is all my mistake and I've made an awful error. Nothing to see here.--Larry laptop 01:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Hitlists?Oh come on.Sounds unlikely to me. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 01:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Seconded.Hitlists?There's absolutely nothing wrong with this discussion. Kirill Lokshin 01:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
oh fuck it I'm done anyway - gamesguide and cruft are here to stay what's the point in fighting it. --Larry laptop 02:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Again, you totally misunderstand what a game guide is. This is a game guide:
To defeat the Great Wyrm, you must wait until it rears up to breath flames and then strike at its underbelly with your weapons. You can also use ice-aligned magic spells to bypass its defenses. The Wyrm has 450 HP, 300 defense, and 360 MP. It deals 100-120 hp worth of damage with its breath attack, and 50-80 with its claws and tail.
This is not a game guide:
The Great Wyrm is a colossal fire dragon which acts as the boss of the fifth dungeon. Its thick skin defends it from most attacks. After its defeat, the dragon will tell the players the hidden location of the 6th plot token.
The first explains how to beat the game, the latter does not. The latter cannot be considered a game guide. --tjstrf talk 03:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
In defense of Larry, I have also noticed that articles falling under Wikiprojects dedicated to fictional material, especially games, tend to have a hoard of editors come to the defense of anything that gets nominated for AfD.The link provided by Larry is a perfect example: that article is probably going to get kept because a lot of people whom I presume are from a Wikiproject have come to its defense despite it being rather clearly against our guidelines (the current draft of the guidelines about what constitutes a gameguide does say that lists of weapons, items, etc are not notable and should be deleted).--The Way 04:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Larry here - WikiProjects on fictional universes are more apt to defend articles than WikiProjects on aspects of the real one. I would not expect Wikipedia:WikiProject Science to defend a biography of a non-notable scientist just because it was on a scienctist and therefore related to "their" subject. But I've never seen a fiction WikiProject say "this is too much detail" or "this is effectively original research". They also fall seem to fall prey to ownership delusions sometimes. I don't know whether it's just perspective but there seem to be more than the usual number of 'the relevant WikiProject was not informed' DRVs lately, always on fictional universe walled gardens. I've never seen that happen in relation to a non-fictional WikiProject. --Sam Blanning(talk) 03:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
The good news is that articles about fictional subjects, whatever their excessive level of detail and lack of reliable sources, do serve a use, and original researchish stuff there is hardly of the type that can be so damaging in the bio of a living person or other nonfiction articles.My personal advice is just to walk away from heavily defended articles on fictional subjects - when the editors grow up (literally, in many cases), they may become excellent editors on subjects that matter much more (or, I suppose, can then be weaned from their NOR approach - "I saw that on TV, why aren't my observations acceptable content?")-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{click}} on portals and alternatives

Someone has created Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images, in effort to remove {{click}}.This is with good intention, but think wider discussion of this and possible alternatives available is needed. This user is now going through all the portal pages and doing mass removal of {{click}}.It's not being discussed on Portal talk pages, nor is any alternative being implemented in place of {{click}}. One alternative is the new ImageMap extension, which can be used on portal pages for "Related portals".(see Portal:Criminal justice)It doesn't yet work in templates, so can't be built into {{click}} itself at this point. Such mass removal of the template without discussion and putting in place an alternative is not okay with me.This is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images. --Aude (talk) 14:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I see no consensus for the mass removal of this template, not on the project's talk page or anywhere else. It honestly looks like the owrk of about 5 people who hate the template, but I neither agree with them nor think their reasoning is sound. This little subproject also had a disputed tag removed by it members. Until this is agreed on or not, the removals need to stop. Removals can be seen here I have reverted them since consesnsus to do this does not exist at this time. pschemp | talk 16:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I am the creator and main contributor of this subproject to fix all the problems derived from that template. First of all, I didn't know that changes like this should be discussed in the Village Pump, I'm sorry, and as the main contributor I assume the fault. I had planned to discuss here the changes needed to fix the problems that require to edit the MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki:Common.css, like {{featured article}} or {{Spoken Wikipedia boilerplate}} (template:click was substituted in those template to found the pages using it directly, but all the problems still remain in them), and I even proposed to discuss it here when a wikipedian showed his disagreement, the wikipedian who put the disputed tag. And yes, I removed the tag yesterday but I'd like to tell why: said wikipedian showed his objections about the project in several talk pages and put the disputed tag, so no more changes were made until a consensus was reached. We answered all of his questions and in all talk pages he protested he was said that the project is OK. But after that first contributions, he didn't participate anymore in the discussion nor explained more his objections, in fact he didn't reply any of our questions and seemed no further interest in the project. So after one week (and after some personal messages to please participate again on the discussion or else to remove the tag if he didn't have more objections) I removed the tag and started again to replace the template:click. But please note that I did that not only because while the project was stalled the accessibility and usability problems created by template:click were still present in Wikipedia, but because every day new pages were starting to use the template (so more and more pages were inaccessible). The ImageMap extension is good news because this means template:click has an easy and quick replacement (well, when the bugs are worked out). I promise to modify all of the pages where template:click removed to use the new extension. Best regards, --surueña 16:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
You don't get it. You need to not do *anything* until other people look at this and consensus is reached. pschemp | talk 19:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Psuedoscience importance

I think importance is really subjective. There are plenty of articles about the made up technologies if science fiction books and tv shows.But psuedoscience articles are labelled as important to only a small number of people, and therefore not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Even if they aren't true, psuedoscience is important for other reasons.Why do people invent this stuff. What similarities do they have to so-called "real" science?

NPOV requires a tag saying-this is not consensus among scientists.But I would like to argue for more leniency in the case of articles considered Psuedoscience. After all, every scientific theory was unproved, and therefore psuedoscience, at one time.

Just because only a few people believe in a theory doesn't neccessarily mean it's IMPORTANT to only a few people.A lot of people might be interested in what a few whackos think.

I'm sure a lot of people have opinions on importance.But that's my 2c.

I make is stupid -- Puddytang 05:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

... Was there anything this was a response to? And what was that last sentence? No, none of this really makes sense at all. --Golbez 05:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:FRINGE is the relevant guideline here, I think.As for Why do people invent this stuff. What similarities do they have to so-called "real" science?, that sort of information belongs in the pseudoscience article if not already there (I've not looked) - not your thoughts or opinons, though, but comments by those who have studied such matters.The question, as interesting as it may be, doesn't justify having a bunch of separate articles about impossible things that people claim to have figured out.
Also, please see WP:NOT - Wikipedia isn't designed to have articles on everything that people might find interesting.We're an encylopedia here.If a particular type of pseudoscience has gotten a lot of press (again, WP:RS), then sure, it qualifies for an article - but not Joe-my-neighbor's homebrewed perpetual motion machine or Crazy-Eddie's telling-the-future-even-better-than-before super-Ouija board. -- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Community ban

I came across this which is just one paragraph of the banning policy copied verbatim into its own page. Only one person contributed to the new page. Not sure what to do with it as it seems completely redundant; could /should it be MfD'd? Or just redirected to the banning policy? Trebor 19:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say redirect it if it's not goint to be expanded. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Was bold and did it. Anyone's free to revert if there's a reason. Trebor 22:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead problem

Please take a look at Singapore Changi Airport. I thought this Lead problem had been resolved with an RfC, but apparently not.--Filll 21:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

It may be that someone did not know of the Mediation Cabal's result.I have posted the results on the Talk page, and have removed the problem in the Lead. Blueboar 01:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mysterious entry

While perusing the List of military aircraft of the United States on English Wikipedia, I found an entry for the YF-24 that holds nothing but Arabic. What is the policy on such a page? Mikieminnow 23:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

If the article existed on another language Wikipedia, it could be speedied under A2. As it's not, then the CSD page suggests tagging with Template:Notenglish. As it's only a sentence, that may not be worth it, so perhaps try looking for a translator at WP:BABEL. Trebor 00:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
tagged for Speedy Blueboar 01:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copying articles from external wikis

What are our conventions on how to acknowledge authorship history when copying material from external, non-Wikimedia wiki sites under GFDL or similar licenses? I am thinking of a site like phantis.com, a free GFDL-licensed wiki about Greece, which some users have taken articles from. This is quite a good and trustworthy site, the copying should be legal and the articles are generally decent and should be highly welcome here. But at the same time, it's not something we should quote as a "reliable source" in terms of WP:V. Adding it as a standard "external link" also doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as it won't provide the reader with more info than they already have in the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Put it in a Source section, explicitly noting that you've used actual content (not just uncopyrightable information) and that it's licensed under the GFDL.Link to the original article, and Wikipedia:Text of the GFDL. You can create a template if this source is being used a lot. Superm401 - Talk 12:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, maybe a template might be a good idea. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure, but either way we need to do the first part. Superm401 - Talk 13:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I found Category:Attribution templates, and created Template:Phantiswiki accordingly. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Template:Phantiswiki can not be used for attribution/reference to a reliable source (as in WP:V, WP:RS, WP:ATT, etc);
  • The copyright status of http://wiki.phantis.com is very unclear: it refers to "Free", but doesn't have a copy of the GFDL available, there are no copyright indications at the bottom of the main namespace pages (nor to GFDL, nor to copyright-specific pages) etc.
  • Arguably, the Phantiswiki website is currently in copyright infringement with Wikipedia on some pages (because of no proper implementation of GFDL, and not mentioning where it got content that was obviously copied from English Wikipedia), e.g. http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Phantis:What_Phantis_Wiki_is_not is obviously *not* mentioning where the content of that page came from, not even in edit history http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php?title=Phantis:What_Phantis_Wiki_is_not&action=history (and the talk page is empty).
  • Therefore also the risk of circularity-via-external-copy, as mentioned in the last bullet of Wikipedia:Don't use internal sources for verification#Content displayed in Main namespace is more than real, only confirming the point above that Template:Phantiswiki should never be used in a (content) verifiability logic, and that it would probably be best to do away with that template altogether (it's not as if Phantiswiki seems to give much attention to sound referencing...).
  • If notwithstanding all the above, content is copied from Phantiswiki, best to follow the 1st point regarding "Record information" of the (internal) transwiki procedure, see m:Help:Transwiki#Begin transwiki: "On the [...] talk page, copy and paste the original page's history log under a new heading [...] If there are only a few authors, you can note them in your [...] edit summary instead", plus notification of the URL where you copied the material from of course in edit summary or on talk page (for which no template is needed in main namespace either). --Francis Schonken 14:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify what I said already in the first post above, I never proposed using phantiswiki as a source in the sense of WP:V. It's just that I happened to come across articles that were apparently copied from there and was wondering how best to "legalize" them in GFDL terms. They are decent little biography articles; their being unsourced in WP:V terms is an issue that must be tackled independently. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
      • See last bullet of my comments above. When the edit summary of the "import" step doesn't seem to mention anything, making a circumstantial report on the talk page of the article seems the most obvious way of handling it. The only other solution I see is handling it as a WP:COPYVIO (import of unauthorised material). --Francis Schonken 15:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I've contacted an admin at phantis and asked him to comment; I hope at least the problem about what license is intended on their side should be clarified soon. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Sock Puppet Policy Proposed

To deal with the fact that none of us are answering the reports at the failed Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets, I have proposed a new way of dealing with users approaching admins about potential abuse of sock puppets. Please see:

Robdurbar 14:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Three strike system for deleting images

While deleting fair use images of living people is valid, far too many users delete without deleting references to the images themselves. This create complete and utterly horrible looking articles, and references to non-existent material. I have noticed this inaccusable act of lazyness in three users over the last month or so, without even trying to look for such descrepencies.

Take for example this electorial district article, which from November 27 to today lasted in such a delapitated state.

I propose that we have a three strike system for sysops deleting images CSD:I7. If they delete images without removing references to that images within the next two hours of the image deletion, they can be issued a warning by any registered user. This warning will be recorded on a special page.

If any user receives three or more warnings, they must stop deleting images for a period of a week, sufficient time for other users to locate all the mess they may have made. If they try to delete images during this time, they will loose admin priviliges. This process repeats itself once the ban on deleting images is over, indefinitely.--Zanimum 15:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Just as uploaders are not the only ones who can fix missing source info or improve a fair use rationale, deleters are not the only ones who can do peripheral cleanup by removing links.Because this is a collaborative project, no one has to do everything themselves and we can all fix problems we identify, no matter who did the initial work.Yes, it would be best if a deleter removed all the links to the image they deleted, but we're all volunteering here, and not all of us can dedicate continuous, extended periods of time (my losing lottery ticket last night ensured that—damn you, astronomical odds); sometimes all we have time to do is a few minutes of editing here and there which may not allow us to complete a task before the real world intrudes and yanks us away.Postdlf 16:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. If an admin is consistently deleting images, without clearing up links, then try leaving a message on their talk page about it, and see how they respond. While ideally, they would be able to delete all the links, it's easily arguable that deleting fair-use images that are being used wrongly is more important than removing the links. There's no need for a complex bureaucratic system of warnings and desysopping. Trebor 16:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
And if they don't, as is the case with User:Betacommand, the most recent repeat offender? It just seems disgusting that they are so lazy. And this wasn't a proposal for de-sysoping only honour system.--Zanimum 17:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with red links, especially for images on articles. It's about just as good (if not better) than a reqphoto on the talk page. Someone may see it and go "I have a free image I can upload to fill this void". Lots of them would look ugly. Perhaps a script could be written to aid the deleters, where when they click the delete it then opens up each page/article that the image is used on, searches for the image filename and highlights it and then the user just has to delete the caption text manually. Should be highly doable IMHO, but slightly beyond my skills (and capabilities, since I can't delete images to test this). --MECU≈talk 17:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
(to Zanimum) The message you've left gives the wrong impression; nobody on Wikipedia must do anything (beyond following the core policies), it's a volunteer project. You can't warn someone for doing this, either. And if you leave a message in that manner describing their behaviour as "unacceptable" (again, a fairly meaningless term - is there a list of acceptable behaviour?), you're going to get their backs up. A friendly message asking them civilly to delete links is far more likely to engender a considered response and a change in ways. Trebor 17:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know it's a volunteer project, so we can't force people to do particular things. But these users are all admins who have chosen to take on the task? Why shouldn't we make sure that they do the task right? If I were to block someone without leaving a reason, that would be unacceptable on the English Wikipedia, as every administrator is expected to fully follow through on this action.--Zanimum 18:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Note, yet another image deletion that I stumbled upon. I was searching this guy's name, as he was listed as contributor to an upcoming book.--Zanimum 18:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be kind of cool to make a template to go along with the existing talk page {{reqphoto}}, that sits on the side of the article where a photo would go as a placeholder and tell people "replace me!" like an expand tag. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

While I personally agree this would be a great way of gradually phasing out fair use, these contributors are trying to remove things ASAP, as "Jimbo told me to". Note that Jimmy is not the entire Wikimedia Foundation board.--Zanimum 18:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] High school articles

One argument in favor of fairly broad guidelines for including high schools is that an existing article can be built upon when something newsworthy happens at the school. For example, today there was a fatal stabbing at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Luckily, there already was an adequate article on the school to which details on the stabbing could be added. --Eastmain 21:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I would answer with a question: "Are we running a newspaper of an encyclopedia?" Clearly many love to add the news as it happens, but is this a primary role for the encyclopedia? Is this stabbing more notable as it happened in a school? David D. (Talk) 21:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I might win the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow but that doesn't justify writing an article about me now.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 04:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Besides, I wasn't gonna stab that kid until I confirmed there was a wikipedia article first, to be sure it would be properly noted.zadignose 19:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] warning about explicit content

I'd like to ask whether people are obliged to put some warning (like "contains explicit content")when they link to some external websites with the explicit content. If not, do you plan anything like that or can you somehow take care of this for benefit of the underage? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.113.69.26 (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

I know I've seen some, but it's probably not necessary. Wikipedia is not censored for the underaged. --tjstrf talk 01:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
There is no specific policy or guideline, and editors are certainly not obliged to do so, but I myself would recommend it. Yuser31415 05:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
"Explicit content" is silly and vague.If it's non-obvious from the link (linking to a porn star's official site, for example), then it might be a good idea to say what the link contains.Nevada-tan's links contain some violent images, and it's better to say that rather than "explicit content" which could be anything. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Warning labels are a slippery slope. You put one on today for sex, then tomorrow and violence or bad language, and before you know it you've got warning notices on The Holocaust advising the it might contain quotes form senior NAZI or from revisionists, and one the Iraq war saying that it might contain surrendermongering.
I am not necessarily convinced by slippery slope arguments - a warning label for an external link to a porn site does not necessarily lead to a warning label for websites about evolution or gay marriage.The slippery-slope argument is the one I see most frequently used in discussions of whether to mitigate explicit content in some way.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 04:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
There is more than enough software out there that parents and schools can buy that blocks access to pages containing sexual or obscene text or unsuitable image tags, if parents and teachers choose not to use them, and therefore choose to allow their children to access unsuitable wikipages, you can hardly blame wikipedia.perfectblue 09:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
An example or two might really help.In particular, are there any cases where the reader would be surprised that he/she was going to an explicit site if he/she clicked on a link?
Slippery slopes are not the only argument against them, there's also mission creep. Today you're tagging a porn site with a naked woman, tomorrow it's a bikini model site, the next day it's a child beauty pageant site.
The problem is that when you open the door to warning labels you tend to attract people whose mission in life is to add warning labels, and they tend to go to extremes. If you add a label warning of porn, pretty soon the above kind of user will start adding it to anything with remotely suggestive content, or even things without suggestive content, but which somebody could possibly be offended by.
perfectblue 07:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Enterprises

I was looking up policies regarding enterprises and came across this article/policy: Articles_about_ongoing_enterprises.Can someone tell me why it is archived? It seems reasonable.Did something take its place?Alex Jackl 06:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the talk page of the proposed policy, it looks like it never got any traction.The basic argument against it seemed to be that everything was (more-or-less) already in other places (see, for example, the list of "See also" policies and guidelines on the proposal page).
For the section you linked to, I'd guess that Wikipedia:Conflict of interest is the most relevant of existing guidelines.-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks!It is too bad - I may take a stab at resurrecting it.Let me do some more research. Alex Jackl 18:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:DELPRO and extra "social" restrictions on non-admins

WP:ADMIN says that non-admins may behave exactly as admins, except for the extra capabilities that admins have. This is backed up on the same page by Jimbo's assertion that adminship is "not a big deal" and that he wants to "dispel the aura of "authority" around the position". Nevertheless, Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions creates new, purely social, restrictions on how and when non-admins may close deletion discussions "keep", which of course they are capable of doing. I propose changing DELPRO to dispel the aura of authority around adminship per Jimbo and bring it into line with WP:ADMIN, please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process#Social restrictions on non-admin behaviour. —Ashley Y 05:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why are we free?

If this is the wrong place to discuss this, forgive me, but I can't seem to find a better place.

This has bugging me for some time, and I can't really seem to understand it. Why do we strive so hard to make Wikipedia so completely free? I'm not talking about free to access, but free to take and use.

Why do we encourage derivative works such as how answers.com uses us when it will always be inferior to the actual article hosted on Wikipedia? Why can't we edit Wikipedia articles for Wikipedia? It seems stupid to not allow copyrighten images that we've obtained permission to use just because we can't let anyone else use them. It doesn't matter if someone mirrors the page, prints it in a book, or puts it on a CD. In the end, the online article will always be better, more up to date, and what people will actually use.

The goal may be to spread knowledge and information, but in reality it ends up stagnating it. How does having the same (but slightly inferior) information repeated accross a thousand other websites do anyone any good? I've actually come accross the problem of doing research on a subject, only to have difficulty finding original information because now everyone is too lazy to write their own summaries of a subject, as they can just use what Wikipedia has to say. Free information is bad, as it becomes the only information. Wikipedia is like the smart kid in class that lets everyone copy off of him, and now nobody else feels like doing their own homework anymore.

except it's not original research, wikipedia is just a compilation of info from other sources. So new work can still be done. Wikipedia just shares what is known.SpookyMulder 13:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
That's the ideal, but in my initial experience here, I've found that poorly referenced or uncited material used in some articles, often inaccurate, gets mirrored and repeated all across the web for long spans of time, so that later when the time comes to correct and improve an article, all the web hits seem to support the inaccurate original... it has "staked a claim" so to speak, and diseminated misinformation that's mirrored back in every search attempting to find more accurate data.An uncommon or improper word usage can become the most common word usage because so many people seem to turn to wikipedia as an authority on such matters.This of course, merely suggests that quality control in the early stages is more critical than some might think, and that crude research and arguments based on google hit counts are spurious.zadignose 19:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

So aside from say, a teacher printing off a Wikipedia page to help teach class, how does being so free actually benefit anyone?--SeizureDog 10:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It's part of an overarching ideal of the founders, the actual benefit is probably minimal. Read Copyleft.--tjstrf talk 10:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an open content project, pure and simple.Many of us would not be here were that not the case.Why would I spend hundreds of hours of my time just to increase someone else's store of intellectual property?Even if that "someone" is a nonprofit foundation.
Re your wider point -- that free information is harmful -- I think the real problem is in accessibility rather than freeness.There are many proprietary sites that have a similar effect in specific fields; FishBase and AlgaeBase come to mind.Nobody wants to put the work into duplicating those sites' herculean efforts, not even on an open-content project such as Wikispecies.This is not really a huge problem, IMO; it's just part of the growth of human knowledge. -- Visviva 10:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree here.Having a free (even if a bit convoluted) license guarantees that the content will never die.If the Wikimedia Foundation does, someone can easily bring the project back to life.Moreover, the internet isn't even an option in some places, like Africa; making the project free lets people distribute it in whatever format they want.Several projects have made interesting uses of Wikipedia content offline.For example, there is a project to put article on iPods, and several CD projects. Also, some online forks of Wikipedia are interesting.Wikipedia can't satisfy everyone, so it's good that others can take our content for our own agenda.If you want to help Wikipedians enforce the GFDL, please see Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.On a related note to this, also see #Copyright below. Superm401 - Talk 21:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • If the source is credited, how is answers.com quoting wikipedia different from someone quoting it in any other published work? Where do you draw the line? --Infrangible 04:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images on the main page (user experience)

The description page of images which appear on the main page should always contain a link to the English Wikipedia article the topic of the image so that when someone clicks on an image on the main page, they don't have to go back to click the link to the article about it. e.g. Image:Raccoon_(Procyon_lotor)_2.jpg does have a link, while Image:Playoffs_021_crop.jpg which currently appears on the main page has no link (currently) from the image description page to what it's about. I've been adding these links to wildlife-related images but it's quite frustrating that other sysops don't do it. It makes for a horrible user experience not having anywhere to go after blowing up an image of interest from the main page, and as the images descriptions are always locked, normal users cannot fix it. —Pengotalk · contribs 09:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Frustrating? A little I suppose. But really, how hard is it to hit backspace? --tjstrf talk 12:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good thing to remind people of, but if they miss it, you can always propose an edit on the talk page of the image with {{editprotected}}. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a frustrating and confusing user experience straight off the main page, and it makes Wikipedia suck. Wikipedia might be a popular site, but disregard for user experience isn't going make anyone stick around. Making a link be policy would make Wikipedia suck less. Doing the "editprotected" thing is a good idea, except images don't appear on the main page that long, and users are already frustrated by the time a fix happens. —Pengotalk · contribs 03:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I actually totally agree here, it is really irritating and honestly doesn't benefit anybody.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 04:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Image pages have the file links section at the bottom, no? --Infrangible 04:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Film Notability, and Notability in general

It seems we need a guideline to define notability for film articles.Currently, the guideline seems stalled out, but a few people are looking for input to get the process going again.

I have my own perspective, but limited experience in these matters.My first basic question is, "are the notability requirements on Wikipedia intentionally loose?"That is, is it preferred to have a largely open door policy that allows vast amounts of articles with little claim to notability, or is it preferred to set a high hurdle for articles to clear?

As it is, films generally get reviewed in multiple publications, which makes "multiple published works" apply to literally tens of thousands of films if we regard reviews as "non-trivial" and "reliable."The current films guideline seems to take this approach.

Other loose standards are permitted, including major studio releases of feature films, which again in itself allows tens of thousands of films, whether or not these can reasonably regarded as "notable."There is a clause allowing films released nationwide in a country (presumably this means commercial releases outside festivals), or on 200 screens worldwide (which is a hard hurdle to clear, but only denotes popularity, not notability).

I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, as many people seem to want a further loosening up of the standards before endorsing the guideline, whereas I think it needs very tough, strict standards, which I commented on here.

What's the general feeling on this?I'm I just being too much of a hard ass?Is simply having one's work flickered in front of the eyes of a few thousand people, a couple of whom hold pens in their hands, enough to ensure eternal notability?Can some kind of consensus be found?zadignose 15:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any examples of film articles that you'd like a tightened notability guideline to exclude?Postdlf 16:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure if very strict criteria can be applied in films, but I am sure that Wikipedia:Notability (films) has to become reactivated. I have posted messages in various directions about it, but no one seems to be willing or able to tackle this problem. I know it would be very very hard to try to limit contributors. If notability for a film is simply that it has been screened or released in Home Video/DVD, we have a long and unsure way to go. Not very long ago, a WP Films member started adding endless lists of films from other countries. It took us quite an effort, including AfD's, to get them out of main namespace and into WP Films space. The result can be seen in the by-country lists here: WP Films/List of films without article, which I had originally started as a sub-project to deal with existing red-linked films (in filmographies and entered in various lists), some of which may be important, but not as critically important as films found in Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/List of notable films. The user has started filtering the "red" lists for notability (not sure by what exacly criteria) and an example of the results in main namespace can be seen here: List of Argentine films:1960s. I write all this to show to Village Pump that it is very hard to work without film notability guidelines. As project, we are nowhere close to defining them soon. We could surely use some expert help. Hoverfish Talk 16:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
As for what should be excluded, I'm not sure.Is it fair to say "most of them?"Well, here are a few semi-randomly selected titles that we can discuss, regarding their notability:
And, yeah, I know I picked on troma films by including two of theirs.
I also know that one of the listed films was directed by Sean Penn, stars some famous actors, got some positive press, may even have been good, but it slipped between the cracks.There are a lot of such movies, and we have to evaluate how notable such films really are, whether or not we WANT them to be notable.So we have a spectrum of notability to discuss.zadignose 17:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Notability is a low bar to ensure that there's enough material for an article.We're here specifically to catch the things that may have slipped between the cracks.If it's gotten any significant press, positive or negative, that's secondary sources.We want those tens of thousands of articles, since WP:NOT paper, we can fit as many movie articles as you can throw at it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Night Gyr is right here.WP:N in essence is really only to make sure an article meets WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT.As long as a film has enough secondary material to write an article with, why not have an article?ColourBurst 03:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
According to WP:N#Rationale_for_requiring_a_level_of_notability, "In order to have a neutral article, a topic must be notable enough that the information about it will be from unbiased and unaffiliated sources; and that those interested in the article will not be exclusively partisan or fanatic editors."This at least suggests that notability is of value in itself, ensuring at least some degree of general interest.It is also stated that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate directory of businesses, websites, persons, etc. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia."But if notability was really just a hurdle to ensure verifiability, then so long as a person's name, address, telephone number, and date of birth could be verified, there'd be no reasonable argument for excluding this information.Wikipedia would, indeed, become an indiscriminate collection of information if being true and verifiable were the only standards for inclusion.And to paraphrase the rationale presented above, we might want those tens of thousands of articles, since we can fit as many indiscriminate pieces of information into Wikipedia as you can throw at it."Why not" have an article about my Uncle Pete?
I maintain that Wikipedia is, and should be interested in limiting it's articles to truly notable material.And I find that the standards for film are conspicuously absent.
Compare with the recently deleted article on the song 2 Much Booty (In Da Pants), which is definitely "verifiable," has been used in the soundrack of a "major motion picture," and has appeared on multiple music charts including Billboard's Top 100, but it was deleted for being insuficiently notable... because WP:NSONGS actually sets reasonably high standards of notability.Film could do this too.I suggest that it should. zadignose 06:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
There's a good reason we wouldn't have the sort of article you refer to, with name, phone number, address: WP:NOT#DIR.The kinds of sources you refer to fall into "trivial coverage," because they don't provide enough information for an encyclopedic article.We're WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, we are an encyclopedia.Our only limitation is the availability of nontrivial information.Also, WP:NSONGS failed to gather consensus, because there is not that much support for higher standards of popularity. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
But doesn't your designation of "trivial" information depend on some standard of "notability?"I know that it's been said that Wikipedia is NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, but it certainly resembles one.And the question should be raised, "why shouldn't it be an indiscriminate collection of information?"Without basic notability standards, the answer would have to be "it should be."Only if you really believe that non-notable articles should be excluded, for the sake of Wikipedia's overall quality, can you form any rational argument against the indiscriminate collection of information.And dare I say it?I think the main reason that a guideline like WP:NSONGS can't gather consensus is because most editors are too enamoured of their pet projects, favorite bands, and their role as indiscriminate collector of trivia to be willing to embrace a tough standard of notability.By and large, the editors want the bands, and films and songs they LIKE to be recorded here, without concern for the general quality of the encyclopedia.It's time to start making some tough judgments, or else stop the farce of claiming that we have standards.zadignose 06:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Please read WP:NOT#PAPER, and understand that the existence of articles on topics that you don't think matter does you no harm, nor harm to the encyclopedia. Notability for wikipedia is not the same as notability anywhere else; it's not anyone's subjective standard, it's a basic line where we agree enough information is possible for an article, not that we agree the subject particularly matters on any scale. There's no harm in having articles about minor topics, if they're up to the same quality level as everything else.Only when quality is impossible should we delete.Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I've read it multiple times now, and apparently don't interpret it the same way that you do.I think that the fact that it says there is no limit on articles "other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page," combined with the initial paragraph's stated interest in "building a high-quality encyclopedia," the concept of "trivial information" that we've discussed above, and the guidelines on notability, all suggest that some verifiable material can be excluded for being non-notable, even if the possibility of writing a thorough article on the subject exists.zadignose 07:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Except that a person's name, telephone number, etc won't be enough to write an article from (see WP:STUB and WP:SD for a definition of what constitutes "enough context"), and if a person tries to pad the information somehow, in almost all cases s/he will pad it from their own knowledge of the subject or from primary sources, which is a violation of WP:NOR.ColourBurst 14:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
So, is it correct to assume that according to Wikipedia policy every film that has been screened (or circulated in VHS/DVD) by a known distributor is eligible for an article? Hoverfish Talk 16:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
According to policy, yes, as long as it's verifiable. All notability standards are just guidelines. Kafziel Talk 16:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not fond of the designation "just" guidelines, though, as guidelines are actionable, and can have a significant influence on the shape of wikipedia.I'm not suggesting you meant it in any dismisive manner, of course, but I'd like to assert that by drafting a well thought out guideline, we can positively effect the quality of the encyclopedia's coverage of articles within the scope of films.zadignose 19:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm repeating here what I posted at the film project page, so forgive me, but I'd like to see some more opinions focused on this discussion.I've recently made significant edits to the guideline, and would like to solicit further discussion in the relevant talk page.I seem to have become the recent outspoken proponent of tougher guidelines, but I would like to seek reasonble compromise, and find some workable solutions.I think that my recent efforts at least demonstrate a sincere interest in drafting a sensible guideline that isn't "all inclusive," but might help improve the quality of our coverage of notable films.Thank you.zadignose 16:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dozens of links to a good site

Hello all. This morning I found that external links to the USGS had been posted to the articles of every state and territory of the USA in the course of a few hours by Spydrlink (Talk|contribs). I have witnessed previous cases where an editor posted dozens of links to useful, reputable sites- and they were all deleted as spam. Is there a real consensus on that though? I wanted to ask the user about this on his talk page, but I'm not even sure how to approach it since I'm not sure if he/she actually violated any policies. His last edit was to the USGS page itself, so perhaps it's a case of WP:COI? I don't know. Comments please! --Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 17:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a useful addition, and it's not as if it's a commercial site. USGS actually has a lot of interesting information. Fan-1967 17:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree. The manner in which it was done was kind of spammish, but I wouldn't say it's really spam. The template {{{{Geolinks-US-streetscale}} performs a similar function but adds multiple links to commercial sites like Google and Yahoo, and it's perfectly acceptable. It's even expected. Kafziel Talk 17:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

But should it be cluttering up the External links section if it's not referenced in the article yet? I can't say I care for it when somebody slaps a link up and doesn't add anything substantive to the article. To me it's like saying, "I'm too busy/important to actually write anything— here's a reference, go write something about it, flunky!", but maybe I'm taking too personally! Maybe a good idea would to be to have a "Potential references" section on the talk page.--Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 15:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  • It's a gray area. But if you look at the person's edit history and see that they created an account five minutes before putting the link there, or if all their edits seem to revolve around the organization or product pointed to by the link, then its probably spam. --Infrangible 04:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wiki import to wiki books can original artilce lacking sources be deleted?

I am interested in beginning a topic in wikipedia which has the same as an article that was successfully transwikiedto wikibooks where it was appropriately renamed (by me)to reflect its non NPOV.

Can the Wikipedia article be deleted? I can't seem to rename it because it was moved yet it holds a general title.

It is also not sourced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_training

Tintina 05:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Remove the irrelevant content (with a good edit summary and possibly explanation on talk) and write encyclopedic content!I don't see how moving Dog training to Positive Only Dog Training is NPOV.It's completely reasonable that this article has a general title.It should incorporate all significant training methodologies eventually. Superm401 - Talk 08:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
The POV exists throughout the text, that is why I renamed to reflect the POV it expresses. I entered talk comments with this explanation. It is written as a MPOV. The sourcing is problematic for this article. In the meantime the renaming is more accurate.

I want to reintroduce the topic from a broader perspective, including some history.

Essentially my question is: as the article has been transwikied to Wikibooks what happens to editing in Wikipedia under the original title? I'm looking for the simplest, cleanest way to treat the whole topic.

I was reluctant to continue in Wikipedia as I'm not clear about the transwiki to Wikibooks. Do the edits automatically end up in wikibooks?

Thank you.Tintina 16:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
As described at m:Help:Transwiki, it seems pretty clear that it's a one-time transfer.Further edits to the Wikipedia article stay in that article; they don't also transfer.-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to lay this out more clearly article #1 titled Dog Training transW to Wikibooks and renamed (I did not transwiki-someone else did)Pos Only Dog Training (as that is what the article reflected.) Perhaps others have not worked on this over the same issue-I don't know. the original title Dog Training exists in wikipedia so cannot be transwikied again. If the wikipedia article is deleted will the title Dog Training become free to reuse?it seems there would be no point working on the wikipedia version if it cannot be transwikied into wikibooks and into theDog Portal. It means working on two different formats of the same thing. As there is not a single source in the article I would like to delete it. editors have been absent for quite some time (months). If the existing wikipedia article is edited over it is orphaned in wikipedia unable to migrate to wikibooks UNLESS there is a way to change to the title or to reclaim it after deletion.

Tintina 03:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Query,talk page entrys demonstrating a solution/extra information about an article or subject ONLY by quoting widely known and definitively proved information in a linked context,Valid or not valid? 76.0.39.38 01:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)Iron Head76.0.39.38 01:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image protocols

I wonder about the protocols regarding uploading images. In particular, I was reading a (motor vehicle) page tonight, and several images uploaded showed the user's personal vehicle in states of aftermarket upgrade. In addition, the comments attached indicate that the sole purpose of the upload was/is to use Wikipedia as a showcase - not the intention of the project, I believe. Any protocols for replacing with stock photos of the vehicle model, or would an addition be the best course? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PKBear (talk • contribs) 07:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

If the photos are good and under a free license they are preferable to the manufacturer's photographs because they are under less (or even no) copyright regulation. Whether he's showcasing his car doesn't even come into the picture. --tjstrf talk 11:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, a heavily riced Honda Civic isn't a good subject for illustrating the article Honda Civic. --Carnildo 23:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
The chance that such an image will be able to pass as the standard for that model decreases with each subsequent view of that article. In other words, good Wikipedia editors would be careful to mention in the caption of the image that the car is "riced" or whatever, and if they forget, the next editor who sees it might change it, and if that editor doesn't notice anything fishy, the next editor to see it might change it, etc.− Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Some cars (and the Civic is a sad example) are notable for how frequently they are 'riced'.I don't think it's at all unreasonable to show one decent picture of a severely riced Civic to illustrate that fact.I'd draw the line at one though.One photo to illustrate the concept - that's plenty - and it's assuming there is accompanying text explaining that Civic's in general are popular amongst people who do these kinds of things.I wouldn't want to see a photo of a riced Rolls Royce on that car's article - those cares are very seldom riced so the presence of such a photo would be misleading...but the Civic...yeah, sure.All other photos should be as representative of a shiney new Civic as possible.But don't let the riced photo be in the 'infobox' at the top of the page - and make very sure that you indicate in the photo caption that this is not standard equipment for that make and model year. In my Mini article there is a photo of the car converted to look like a giant Orange(!) - it's not stock - but it's an appropriate photo to back up the explanation of how these care were very well suited to that kind of radical surgery!But the car in the info-box is pretty much stock - that's what we must strive for.There is a tendancy for car nuts to put 'vanity' photos of their cars into the articles - but actually, that's not such a terrible thing.One photo of a car in stock condition - nicely taken - in front of a suitable background - that's fine.What do our readers care who owns the car?Half a dozen photos of the same car...Hell no! SteveBaker 03:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Balance

I've run into a dispute with another user over a section that is essentially recording criticism of an experiment and a rebuttal to that criticism. The other user says that the section is unbalanced because the criticism goes into more depth than the rebuttal so they have deleted the entire of the section (both criticism and rebuttal). They've done this 4 times (though outside of the 3RR time period), and I've repeatedly asked them to either tag the section as being disputed, or to expand the rebuttal themselves, but they have continued to delete it and have stated that it should be me who expands the rebuttal because it was me who wrote the criticism section.

Are there any specific policies that I can quote to them which say that disputed sections should be tagged rather than deleted, that balance is best resolved by strengthening the weaker side of the argument rather than deleting the strong side, or that if you think that something is unbalanced, you can't demand that the original author balance it themselves but instead should do it yourself?

(The factual accuracy and verifiability are not in dispute, only the balance between criticism and rebuttal).

perfectblue 13:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPOV#Undue_weight? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
And maybe WP:POINT - deleting valid content is disruptive.In general, Wikipedia:Resolving disputes lays out the process for content disputes, as you're probably aware; you can, if informal discussions fail, escalate this to (say) a request for third opinions.-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What do you do if the persons are anon and do not discuss?Tintina 02:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

You follow Wikipedia:Resolving disputes.If he/she won't discuss and it's only the two of you, then for example, you use the third opinion approach.(What you really want is a couple more editors dealing with the specifics, not just speculating, as we're doing here.)-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 03:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minority dispute of majority

I do not like conflict. However, I have noticed a number of disagreements here on WP where a Mediation or RfC is held, and overwhelming support for one position is expressed, but one or two people disagree. These dissenters then fight a rear guard action, reverting changes agreed to, subverting community consensus, driving away other editors, etc. I have witnessed this at black people. I have witnessed this at Singapore Changi Airport. I have recently been told by a dissenting editor that the other 25 editors that disagreed with him were "deranged". Of course, this might be correct, but how does one give much credence to one person who claims everyone else is wrong, in the face of all evidence to the contrary?--Filll 16:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

You think you have it bad, you try working on a contentious article about the paranormal involving either urban myth or pseudoscience. You always get at least one really pedantic user who demands that people only use peer reviewed journals as sources, even though the odds of finding a peer review journal that deals with even the most notable urban myth etc is minimal.
perfectblue 16:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That can make it impossible. At least on the evolution and creationism articles that I work with, we have not had that problem (yet, as far as I know anyway). I am glad to cite the nonpeer-reviewed nonsense of creationists because I think it is dangerous to not know what the other side is thinking. I want the biggest pile of evidence of their position in their own words possible, because it is interesting and valuable and informative. And if one wants to argue against them, very often their own words and sources will end up hanging them. And I think the readers deserve to see the unvarnished evidence on all sides (of course the creationism situation is a bit more serious at least in the US and some Muslim countries where we might end up with making science illegal).--Filll 17:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone who disregards consensus in his/her continued editing is considered to be a disruptive editor.Per Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, a user who disregards consensus as established in RfCs and mediation can be taken to the Arbitration Committee, which has not at all been hesitant to wield its hammer.There is absolutely no need to tolerate a disruptive editor, though you do have to be a bit patient to let the process proceed.-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 03:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blanking User Talk Pages

I have recently become aware of a user who routinely blanks his own talk page. It doesn't appear that he is trying to hide something, such as warnings, but is rather just blanking everything left on the page without archiving it. Is there an official Wikipedia policy regarding this sort of action, and if so, is there a template regarding it? i haven't been able to find one, but I'd appreciate any insight. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 16:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No, as far as I am concerned, there's no official policy against a user blanking his own talk page. PeaceNT 16:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
So there's no reason that that is illigitimate or controversial? It just seems to me that it defeats one of the purposes of talk pages, but if theres no policy, I'll just let it stand. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 16:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Removing warnings immediately is frowned upon (see {{removewarn}}). Otherwise, there is no policy that says that user pages have to be archived. Many users remove comments once they have been addressed. The talk page history is a permanent record in any event. CMummert · talk 16:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't appear this user is trying to remove/hide any warnings, so I guess that answers my question. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 18:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I do the same thing on my user talk page ... leaving a few posts that contain links to tags and policy pages etc. that I find usefull.Why?1) I find it easier to see any new messages I get. 2) I find no reason to keep a long chain of outdated, now meaningless messages on my talk page once the exchange of messages is no longer relevant to anything I am doing.I know that if someone needs to retrieve a comment or an exchange (or if someone suspects that I am trying to hide something), they can always find everything I delete in the edit history anyway. So it's not "gone".No, the fact that someone blanks their user page or user talk page is not always an idication of "something to hide"... sometimes it's just the way they like to do things.Blueboar 19:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that is my pet peeve about many users' talk pages.When I want to find an older topic, it is much faster to search archives (you have a handy like to the pages and you don't have to hunt as much) than to search history (which forces you to check every change).

That is why when I wanted to clear some of the clutter from my own page, I installed George Money's Auto-Archive system.It does all the work without requiring a bot.I never ask something of other users that I would not do myself.

Besides, I had some users delete conversations that weren't complete.They responded on my talk page and deleted the post from theirs.That left me with no way to reply other than to restore the post. Will (Talk - contribs) 19:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

But the point is, there is no official policy against it, at least according to what everyone has said so far, so I have no way of compelling anyone to maintain an archive of their talk page if they don't choose to. Is there any reason this statement is incorrect? Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 19:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's a pretty odd case of this.An editor made comments about me on her talk page, ones that were demonstrably false (that I reverted something, when the diffs show I didn't).When I asked for clarification or pointed out that it was false, she just deleted my response but left her comments.After a couple tries, I tried deleting her false statement but she just reverted that.It seems to me that if someone is going to make comments about me, particularly false ones, I should have the right to respond to those comments.Any suggestions on how to deal with this?--Milo H Minderbinder 20:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Summon an admin via WP:ANI.They either aren't being civil or they are making a personal attack on you.I would also considering adding a NPA warning template like {{npa2}}.Be sure to subst it. Will (Talk - contribs) 21:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Because of this example, and I'm sure others, it seems like it would be a good policy decision to instate a rule requiring a user to archive their talk page if they wish to clear it for ease of use or any other reason. This isn't tecnilogically difficult, and you can even install programs that do it for you automatically. It seems like that would defeat any issues like that above, as well as people trying to hide warnings. I know that the counter arguement is that the history preserves everything anyway, but it simply isn't efficient to search through. Any thoughts? Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 23:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I wrote above.So you have me all for it. Will (Talk - contribs) 23:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My idea though is more general, because this issue isn't just limited to personal attacks. My only worry is whether or not that policy could be broadcasted effectively to new users, and other issues regarding its implimentation and enforcement. Are there any admins in on this discusstion that can give some insight on this issue? Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 23:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:ARCHIVE explains the best way to achive a talk page and why. One possible solution however might involve an addition to the software (if anybody agrees I'll suggest it at bug reports. Essentially, it would mean a link that appears to the user concerned once a user talk page reaches (for example) 120 KB. Clicking the link would move the page to the next appropriate archive name (eg, Archive 3, Archive 4, etc per WP:ARCHIVE), add {{Talkarchive}} to the top and bottom of the page, update an archivebox (perhaps User talk:XYZ/Archivebox), clear the redirect on the main talk page and replace it with the transcluded archivebox. Nearly all the actions required for a full and proper archive in one click. Of course, those who (like me) have a header to their talk page would have to move it over manually, and any active conversations would need to be copied back over to the talk page manually, but it would hopefully mean a lower instance of newbies (and sometimes not-so-newbies) from simply blanking the page. It may even be possible for somebody to first write a script for it to trial it.
I think the idea is good, and might be good to implement eventually, but in the mean time, I suggest that we implement a general policy discouraging the blanking of one's own user talk page. It seems that there are three general categories of users within this topic. The first is well-intentioned newbies, who may clear their own talk page because they don't know any better, and it would be nice to stop that behavior for the purpose of keeping a record. The second is experienced Wikipedia users with a real reason to want their talkpage split into seperate archives, and it seems in general that they would know how to create a user sub-page to archive it, and if they didn't know, the information is easily obtainable. The third category is vandals, who want to clear their talkpage to hide warnings, etc. You say that you can just goo look at the history, but when you look at someone's talkpage for the first time, you don't immedietly click on the history, do you? It just seems to make sense to have it all stay in the same place, or in an archive if its genuinely necessary. Any opinions?

Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 00:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggest again that 'Featured Articles' be semi-protected

Every time we get a new featured article it gets swamped by puerile little twits at school computers who thinks they're being clever, cute or funny. It's a long-known problem and I fail to understand why something hasn't been done about it. Semi-protect the article while it's on the front page and then revert it when it rolls over to something else. Anything on the front page is basically a standing target to these people. HalfShadow 19:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent idea. It conforms to the old adage, "Out of sight, out of mind." Odds are that as soon as an article passes on its featured status, no one else will bother to vandalize it. It seems that the mere fact that an article has reached featured status should be reason to protect it while its there. If dedicated Wikipedians want to edit it constructively, they can wait until after it isn't featured, because odds are, they won't forget about it like the vandals will. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 19:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Most "dedicated Wikipedians" wouldn't be directly affected by semi-protection.Only new and unregistered users would be.As has been noted on countless occasions, this would be a terrible introduction to the site.(Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.Here's today's featured article.You can't edit it.")—David Levy 20:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Semi-protection is explicitly not to be applied pre-emptively or to the day's featured article for an extended period (per the terms under which it was approved by the community).—David Levy 20:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
See WP:NOPRO for the current status (which is disputed) and discuss there. Trebor 20:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection for some of the commentary on the dispute. Frankly, I'm for at least sem-protection. Askari Mark (Talk) 21:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
[oops, my comment was under the wrong discussion. deleted it] Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 23:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I'll see what I can do to restart the process; we're probably looking at asking for at least a show of hands, if not a formal RfC.Someone might want to ping User:Robdurbar; he's also been a driving force in this.-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User pages used as articles

There is a trend for non-notable footballers to set up their user pages as articles. An example is User:Jonesy702. Is there any policy on this, please? BlueValour 21:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that user is that player. A look at the edit history (be sure to checkout the comments at the AFD!) shows he's got quite a bit of interest. The userpage is supposed to be about the user and/or Wikipedia. You could list this at WP:MFD per WP:USER. You say this is a trend? Can you point to some other examples? You could look at the edit histories to see if they really exist. It's possible for someone to create User:Blah even if user:Blah doesn't exist. This applies under WP:CSD. --MECU≈talk 22:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Another thought I had is he may be using this as a sandbox to get an article ready before "moving" it to article space. Looking at the end history it could be that way. You should ask the user first before MFD (though don't expect a nice reply). --MECU≈talk 22:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that there is any question that the user page, written in the style of a normal article, is about the user himself - is there some other reason why someone would set up a page for a nineteen-year-old football player who has played for two local clubs?Plus his brother has a similar page: User:Stew jones.
And yes, judging by the user's comments regarding an AfD of an article he authored, I would expect CAPITAL LETTERS and obscenities in response to any request that he should follow WP:USER.
This looks like a classic case to report to WP:PAIN, but of course that doesn't exist anymore.I think it's too minor for WP:AN/I, so maybe an MfD would be the most direct route to dealing with these two pages.Wikipedia is not MySpace.com-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 02:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autobiographical content

I noted yesterday that Michael Wissot was all edited by a single purpose account that was almost certainly non-biased. I added an autobiography tag, which was then removed, and two new (I would assumed sockpuppet) SPA's arrived to make changes. The subject is probably notable, so I can't really AfD it, but I don't like the fact the the content is probably biased POV. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 22:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I would attempt to warn each user with a template listed on Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace like {{NPOV2}} or {{comment2}}.If needed, you could list the users on WP:SSP.Also note there is a template, {{Socksuspect}}, for marking accounts as possible socks. Will (Talk - contribs) 22:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I've rewritten the article; I think it's pretty much NPOV now.Drop me a note if it starts moving in the POV direction, please.(It's on my watchlist, but so are a lot of other things.)-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 01:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Commercial links

I have seen a gradually increasing contamination of Desert hot springs with commercial links. I had suggested nicely a few times that they put their links only on Wikitravel; I even provided a link in the Exterior links section of the WP article, but they have just been polluting. I am torn but it really is unencyclopedic as near as I can tell. At least if they would write something interesting about themselves I could sort of justify it, but this is just abuse.--Filll 03:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The article definitely reads like an advertisement.Listing a bunch of hotels that have recently been renovated does not seem like something encyclopeadic.I think you have to keep deleting this kind of junk - when challenged as to why you are doing it - there are plenty of guidelines for you to fall back on.Remember the 'three revert rule' though...don't break it.Foremost as always is to challenge the person to come up with suitable references to back up these facts.Secondly, the guidelines for external links specifically tell us not to link to commercial sites in this way.There really isn't much you can do to stop them from doing this.If the case is egregious enough, you could probably find an admin to come in and start blocking the offenders - but unless they are really quite insanely enthusiastic about fighting you on this, you can probably keep the article clean with relatively little effort.Good luck! SteveBaker 03:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] essentially contested concept -handling of BLP or LPB

I believe this is the core of maintaining a NPOV on Cesar Millan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Millan

I have posted a link below, if you are reading and responding to this, you might the lower article first.


"essentially contested concept is one where there is widespread agreement on an abstract core notion itself (e.g., "fairness"), whilst there is endless argument about what might be the best instantiation, or realization of that notion.[4]

Some of the notability of this person revolves around this issue. (controversy) He is in a profession of diverse opinions. He has reached celebrity status.


Although I have internet articles that support that this is indeed the case, there is no published media that describes the issue itself. Controversy is not over a fundamental issue but how that issue should be treated or resolved. The scope of the discussion is a topic in itself and perhaps that is the best way to handle it..if I can think of a title..other than Dog Training (which has been transwikied to wikibooks, prematurely in my mind.)

Can I use internet articles that describe the controversy (essentially contested concept)as there is no other source material that does (that I know of)and I have been researching this for some time (years) prior to editing this article.

I'll provide a link to an overview which I feel reflects this accurately. http://www.puppywishes.com/1601-puppies/Cesar%20Millan%20Vs%20Jean%20Donaldson.html

I feel that any controversy around him should be explained and placed in its proper context. I attempted to do this but an anon user reverted and changed my edit.There is no current discussion other than my own comments.

I would like to proceed with cleaning up this article, but I'm not clear on how to handle it.

Thank you Tintina 05:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

there is no published media that describes the issue itself - then the controversy (issue) is NOT notable and anything you do to describe or summarize it is a violation of WP:NOR.
As to the larger issue of "cleaning up" the article, you should follow Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, which lays out the process, starting with informal discussions (talk page) and up through Arbitration Committee action.It's exceptionally rare, of course, for the latter to be needed.Please (a) follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines - for example, WP:RS with respect what sources are acceptable, and WP:NOR, and (b) abide by what the majority of other editors believe should be done (or not), because no single editor is infallible.-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 00:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese wikipedia

I don't know if I am at the right place to discuss this, so please redirect me if possible. This is with regards to the censorship of Wikipedia in China. With the alarming growth of Baidu Baike (seriously, Baidu ripped off and took unfair advantage of many Google and other internet trends and are profiting off of them as if it is their own), I am wondering if Wikipedia could take a similar stance to Google and agree to China's censorship demands on the Chinese version of Wikipedia. After all, with the entire Chinese population as an editors base within a year I can guarantee that the content on the Chinese Wikipedia will rival that of the English Wikipedia. I realize this is a great shift in Wikipedia's policies, and one that may require a lot of work, but in the end it is my belief that there is a lot more to gain. With the increasing influence of Wikipedia as a global knowledge base it is a shame to not have the vast majority of Chinese on board. By the end of this year China will have more internet users than any other country in the world, it will be a shame if the knowledge and shared experience of the vast majority of Chinese people are not able to enjoy the potential of Wiki because of a few of their government's policies. Personally I would say Wikipedia has more potential in the world's most populous nation by sacrificing the articles on Falun Gong and 1989 Tiananmen Protests than to uphold a rightful, but impractical moral standard. Colipon+(T) 05:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

NO, people complain enough about it being pro-PRC without it being censored. And this is the wrong place anyway, you need to go to meta. --tjstrf talk 05:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Ethics aside, I think allowing these pages to be shown is likely to result in a ban of Wikipedia in its entirety in mainland China, which I think is a far greater loss. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, cowing to the authority of foreign totalitarian governments is a great plan. Are you aware of how much information is censored is some place on earth or other? If someone else wants to make a government-censored fork, then let them. It's not like it hurts us, we aren't making any money from them anyway. --tjstrf talk 09:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I believe you lost the sense and intention of my message, as I made no prescriptions as to what should be done. This is clearly something which should be considered in the making a decision about this issue. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 20:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
At the end of the day, I see no reason that China should be allowed to censor the rest of the world. If they want censorship in their own country, then that's their national right (as distasteful as I personally find it). The answer is simply to allow the Chinese to have and censor their own wikipedia. If the Chinese government then wants to block access to all other wiki's, that's their perogative. Crimsone 09:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


I don't think any of you realize how systematically biased the Chinese Wikipedia has become when the vast majority of Chinese are not allowed their voice on very uncontroversial topics such as... say, Shanghai or Fujianese Cuisine, or historical figures like Confucius (non-controversial articles occupy over 99% of all Wikipedia articles). Moreover, it seems the Taiwanese topics on the site will soon exceed the number of mainland topics. Supporters of Taiwan independence use the Chinese Wikipedia as a method of voicing their nationalist rhetoric, something that would be shunned entirely on the English Wikipedia.
I have read Baidu Baike. In terms of quality and organization it falls short of Wikipedia by far even though it has 300,000 more articles. At this point you must see the Chinese Wikipedia as a Chinese organization, and all the mainland Chinese Wikipedians would rather see Wikipedia available for edit on issues that are not sensitive to the government, than to see it not available at all. When you take into the consideration of the situation faced by enthusiastic Chinese Wikipedians and look at the issue from their perspective, saying that "cowing to the authority of foreign totalitarian governments is a great plan" is purely ignorant, and goes under the assumption that Wikipedia is, and should remain, an predominantly American (or Western, if you prefer) organization, which goes against its founding values. We are but addressing a need to the Chinese Wikipedian community, not bowing towards the Chinese regime.

Thank you. -Colipon+(T) 18:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

To suggest that I am ill-informed on the scope of censorship in China is somewhat incorrect. I'm quite well aware of it. Further, there is an ongoing debate with regards to Taiwan and independance deserving of an article in it's own right! Regardless of what the majority of people on the chinese mainland want, the Chinese government decides what's allowed and what's not. If the chinese people don't like what their government is saying (which would be quite understandable), it's up to the chinese people to do what they can and when they can, with the support of the various international campaign groups and, yes, even other nations (as they occasionally comment on the issue). It's no reason to censor Wikipedia. We don't do it for minors, and it shouldn't happen to satisfy the whims and desires of the chinese government either. Wikipedia is a worldwide organisation, which is why non-american countries have wikis of their own. EN Wiki IS a western wiki, in so far as the fact that it's greatest userbase lies in the western world, that it's primarily intended for native speakers of English, and it's based in the US.
The Chinese wikipedia community has a need only because of their governments whims and dictats. To satisfy that need is indeed to bow to the Chinese regime. The chinese government censors anything that reflects badly on it's own regime, anything that shows them acting in a questionable light, and anything that goes against or might create discourse on what they feel the Chinese nation should be and how people should be living. All sorts of things are sensetive to them. unfortunately, all of these things exist and are worthy of mentioning in an encyclopedic article - they are real. To censor any of it to satisfy the requirements of the Chinese regime would be against the founding principles of Wikipedia. Crimsone 18:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
To do as suggested would be a complete submission to the Chinese regime.It would be an unpardonable compromise to the integrity of Wikipedia.It would also allow the arbitrary censorship of Chinese Language articles to extend beyond Chinese borders, to span the world.I'm also quite shocked at the casual use of phrases like "ethics aside...!" It's a nice idea to have a continued free exchange of information with the people of China, but if the Chinese government will not allow such a free exchange, then we can't them dictate the terms of a restricted exchange.zadignose 18:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the Chinese wikipedia should be censored. That was merely a consideration that would need to be taken into account. As you suggested, complying with this censorship would extend beyond Chinese borders and there are millions of Chinese-speaking individuals not living in China. I think it is our duty in this case to thumb our noses at this censorship by the Chinese government. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I will take this cause elsewhere. Thank you all for your responses. Colipon+(T) 05:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:CSD:A7 as PROD

A discussion has started up at the talk page at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion about the possibility of a test run of switching CSD A7 to Prod.Please check the talk page for further discussion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] anonymous users an new articles

Could someone tell me why anonymous users are not allowed to create new articles? Doesn't this strongly hinder the accessibility of the projecy? /Lokal_Profil 02:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Simple.Without that feature, anon vandals would create spam pages faster you could blink.I figure at least 99% of all new pages would be spam or otherwise unneeded pages.As is, that number is probably still 40%. Will (Talk - contribs) 02:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, for the reasoning, you will be interested in John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy, specifically John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy#Wikimedia_Foundation_reaction. It was a black eye on the foundation, and anonymous editing still can only be done on some Wikipedia's (I can do it on es:, BTW.
As for accessibility, I personally think not at all. It is incredibly easy to register a username (one doesn't even have to give an email address; it takes like 20 seconds). Anonymous users can go to WP:AFC (incidentally, there you will see that most submissions by anons aren't good ones anyway; and this page has removed a lot of the vandalous submissions - at least, that's IMO).
Hope this explains everything. Patstuarttalk|edits 02:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to keep the new user warning templates semi-protected only

I have submitted a proposal that the new user warning templates at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace should remain semi-protected and not become permanently fully protected at some point.For those interested, please discuss at Wikipedia talk:High-risk templates#Proposal to keep new user messages semi-protected only. Thank you, Satori Son 03:16, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

[edit] Policy re: using "year in literature" linking.

I was planning on working through our articles on writers. I was going to use those 'year in literature links', eg 1939 in literature, but with a pipe, so that just the year appears, eg 1939.

I felt that this would be an especially useful thing to do for the year of publication of a writer's works, since clicking then brings up other works released that year. And if you use such links for dates of birth and death, clicking brings up other writers born/deceased in those years.

However, I figured I'd better check I was doing the right thing. I started out by looking at two literature featured articles; Samuel Beckett and Robert A. Heinlein. Neither of those articles seem to favour linking the years at all, let alone specifically.

I checked out the relevant bit of the style guide: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), but that doesn't seem to help on this point.

Any advice? I'm rather keen on my approach, but I'm made uncertain by looking at the Featured Articles. --bodnotbod 20:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I would try to formulate it in such a way that the link does not look like a bare year link. For example, "published in 1939." that way, it at least reduce the number of users trying to edit for MoS. I would still try to reduce them as much as possible, since most often, they are not needed in context. Circeus 17:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear. Because I feel it would be quite unwieldly to include "published in" every time, instead of the normal form of having the year in brackets (eg, after a book title). And a guy over at the literature portal says he too is adding 'in literature' to lots of author-related dates (birth, death, years of books). Anyone else have a view? Cos at the moment it's a split vote. --bodnotbod 23:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
This sort of thing probably should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) (and, just a quick glance, may in fact be, right now).If that doesn't resolve matters, you might try third opinion and RfC (see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes).-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 19:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Celebrity endorsements

I'm in an edit war at Shilpa Shetty, with an editor who insists on restoring a para about her being hired to do advertising for a vodka company, which he names. He thinks that it's newsworthy, and a great honor for her, that she's been selected as a "brand ambassador" for this brand of vodka. I don't think it's notable at all; celebrities have been endorsing this and that, for pay, since the 19th century and perhaps earlier. I keep removing the booze ad, or cutting it down to one sentence with no mention of the brand (but with a link to a press release that does mention it), and he keeps restoring the para on vodka, with a long quote from the press release. He says that WP doesn't have any policy that prohibits mention of celebrity endorsements. I think it's covered by our "no commercial advertising" stance. If we allow celebrity endorsements to justify in-article ads for named companies, the camel has its nose under the tent.

The problem is that I know we don't accept advertising, or allow linkspam, but I can't find a policy on mentioning celebrity endorsements in an article. Do we need to make a policy? I'd suggest something like "we don't mention celebrity endorsements unless they become controversial enough to rate extensive coverage in the regular news media".For instance, if Prince Charles were to endorse a brand of tampon and a brouhaha ensued :) Zora 06:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I submit that Zora is misrepresenting the issue, and I have summed it up at the talk page. I have made no claims about its being "newsworthy" or a "great honour", please stop projecting false assumptions on my words. Zora has been engaging in wholesale content removal of the section in question, and I even rewrote it to satisfy her expectations of "what Wikipedia should be like", but to no avail as she keep removing content. For crying out loud it is not commercial advertising, it is just a section that describes Shetty's being selected as the "face" of a vodka company in a section that describes her associations with commercial and non-profit organisations. Like I say, I have discussed the matter in full at the talk page, that represents my stance on the matter. Ekantik talk 07:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
"Brand ambassador" means she's being paid to appear in ads and it's not noteworthy in the least. I've been removing these "brand ambassador" bits from Bollywood actor/actress articles for years. Zora 08:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
The fact that she's being paid to appear in ads doesn't make something non-notable; she also presumably gets paid to appear in movies.Furthermore, the fact that you've been deleting this type of information for years does not mean that this type of info is not noteworthy.--The Way 22:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Hello, everyone, I reviewed the article and the paragraph that mentions the brand in question. IMHO mentioning that she is a brand ambassador for several products is completely enough, because a) I think adding names and writing an entire paragraph about it is indirect advertisment and b) it's simply not noteworthy: Bollywood stars are brand ambassadors for many products, so why note them all? Mentioning that they are advertising products is completely enough. If we add this kind of information to all articles, Shahrukh Khan would have at least a dozen entries about beverages, soap, watches, cars etc. It's just too much. Best regards, --Plumcouch Talk2Me 21:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there ought to be any flat, inflexible rule one way or the other about including or deleting such mentions... it all depends on the context of a particular endorsement, and whether it's a notable fact given all the circumstances.Most common celebrity endorsements probably aren't sufficiently notable to mention, but there may be particular cases where they become notable due to some controversy surrounding them, or if the endorsement involves a record amount of money or involves a type of product or type of celebrity that hasn't previously been known for such endorsements; if it's big news for some reason, or an important stage in the history of a notable celebrity and/or product, then it may be suitable for mention -- like, if few had heard of the person or the product prior to the endorsement, but one or both became household names due to the commercials involved, then it might be notable. *Dan T.* 21:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd sorta agree with Dan but ... the problem is that advertisers are pushing as hard as they can to get their products mentioned in the regular news (free advertising!) and sometimes "notability" for an advertisement can be briefly manufactured. Also, media like newspapers have been known to slant the news to please big advertisers, and things become "news" that are mere press-release hype. That's why I'd want notability to be defined conservatively. I don't want us to push whatever company can buy the most news. Zora 22:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Whether we like that endorsements come only to those who pay the most, those endorsements are notable facts for the endorsers.What products that people are paid to endorse says something about what demographics they are believed to appeal to, and what those endorsers are willing to endorse.Participating in advertising campaigns also contributes to those endorsers' notability; many people might know certain celebrities only from those ads.
On the other hand, sometimes those products or services are purely local and non-notable.I regularly saw Robert Vaughn in TV ads for a local law partnership when I lived in Columbus, OH, and I recently saw him in a very similar NYC ad; nothing would be added by specifying the names of those law offices, so "local personal injury lawyers" would be sufficiently descriptive.Postdlf 22:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a reason why listing endorsements made by a given celebrity on that celebrity's article is a problem.It doesn't constitute advertising since it's only stating facts.If it said something to the effect of "Celebrity X endorsed product Y because product Y is a great product" then that would need to go, but simply stating that "Celebrity X endorsed product Y in an advertising campaign" is fine as it's a relevant peice of information about that person's career.Of course, this should only get a passing mention; there shouldn't be a whole paragraph or section on it.A simple list of products endorsed is sufficient. --The Way 22:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, advertising campaigns themselves can be notable and deserve articles.The fact that a celebrity endorses a product is noteworthy enough for a passing mention in the article.Many celebrities make a substantial portion of their income this way.It's not advertising to state the fact that celebrity X endorses product Y as long as the language remains objective.We actually have an article on celebrity endorsement.Also, note that other celebrities do have sections on their endorsements, see Tiger Woods for an example. --The Way 22:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

With a million and half articles, of course there's lots of stuff that is bad. I'm arguing that mentioning endorsements, and in particular naming the company, is letting WP be used for advertising. I'd apply this across the board, to all the celebrity articles. The only exception should be for advertising that does become controversial or extremely notable. Zora 23:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

While not supporting a blanket deletion of endorsement mentions, I do object to the term "brand ambassador", a PR-spin term.It's one thing to say that "X was paid an estimated $10 million during 2001-2005 to appear in advertisements for product/service Y"; it's quite another thing to use a term that many readers may easily misunderstand.Let's call a spade a spade.-- John Broughton |(♫♫) 03:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with John here, perhaps the term 'brand ambassador' isn't the most appropriate.However, simply listing products endorsed by a celebrity (and perhaps how much that celebrity was paid for the endorsement) is not advertising as it's not saying anything good (or bad) about the product itself, rather it is simply stating the fact that the celebrity is getting paid to be a part of some marketing campaign.Indeed, if anything it actually reflects poorly on the product.Not allowing this type of information in neutral language would amount to censorship and would serve to make it quite hard to have articles about advertising. --The Way 04:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have been away from Wikipedia because of connection problems at home. For me this is a complete non-issue because of the ridiculous arguments presented about "advertising". For the record, the term "brand ambassador" means nothing at all and is the term used in the source articles. It only means that the celebrity in question has been employed to be the "face" of Romanov Vodka, it is nothing at all about advertisement pushing or whatever the problem is about. It's like saying that Kate Moss is the face of Rimmel or Burberry (which is why they dropped her during that cocaine fiasco). If the term "brand ambassador" is quoted in the source to denote Shilpa Shetty's position, what's the problem with quoting the source on Wikipedia. If other editors (such as Zora, etc.) have a problem with this use of language then they are better advised to take their protests to the publications which used that term. In my view this is not a problem for Wikipedia. Ekantik talk 16:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I generally agree with The Way's views here; a celebrity's advertising campaigns do not have to be controversial to gain a mention in Wikipedia, but it is perfectly OK to mention their campaigns/endorsements as part of their career. For example, everyone knows that Michael Jackson's hair caught fire when he was filming for a Pepsi commercial. According to the No-Adverts Group, this should be rewritten in some vague way like: "Michael Jackson's hair caught fire when he was filming a commercial for a famous soft-drinks company." As you can see, it doesn't have quite the same effect as being succint. I can only shudder to think how many pages people have slaughtered in this way. The other issue is that, without trying to blow my own trumpet, I have been responsible for around 90% of the content of the article as it was in an extremely poor state before I started working on it. Just a couple of facts and an incomplete filmography. Thus, I was the one who ran around trying to find out reliable sources about the celebrity and rewrite the article so it is far improved now, including about this Romanov Vodka issue. I find that this whole issue of repeatedly deleting content (without even bothering to discuss it adequately on the talk page) shows disrespect to the contributions of other editors to Wikipedia, not to mention that non-existent policies have been quoted to justify such removal. Ekantik talk 17:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Ekantik, you are trying to "own" the article and it IS in an extremely poor state because you do not allow anything to be subtracted, only added. WP is not a big heap 'o stuff. It would be possible to convey that she's been paid to work for a vodka company without devoting a whole gushing para to it. I proposed a version that covered the whole thing in one sentence, with a link to the press release. You restored the para with chunks of press release quote. We wouldn't be having this problem if you were willing to let the article be edited down. Instead, you're screaming "vandalism" and refusing to allow anything to be removed or summarized. Indeed, you posted a notice on my talk page warning me that I'd be blocked if I removed anything from the article. What's that but refusing to be edited?
I would be more willing to allow mentions of celebrity endorsements if they were brief and spare. Adding press release material IS advertising. Zora 02:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
And yet it sounds just like someone else. Not to mention the crusade to remove advertising. Brand ambassador is an extremely common term in India, and it is notable when an actress is a brand ambassador.Bakaman 03:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Zora, please keep your claims of ownership to yourself. The fact that I have contributed that information for the article shows the fact that I worked hard to find and insert that information, and there is no reason why it cannot be included as per WP policies and this Village Pump discussion. Please, you were warned about content removal because you continually violate WP policy without providing an adequate rationale for your content removal, thus blanking content can be regarded as vandalism.
And please stop misrepresenting your actions. You unabashedly removed the entire content and only very recently tried to edit it "down" so that you could show something for this VP discussion. The fact is that when you're wrong, you're wrong. Accept it and move on, and please stop vandalising the page. I find it extremely amusing that you consider the article to be in a poor state considering how it looked before I started working on it. If you want to improve on it, why not add content instead of removiong content? Ekantik talk 16:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think we should remove all unsourced claims of endorsement from biographies of living people; see discussion here.Postdlf 16:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Except for the fact that it is sourced to a newspaper. I think that a newspaper report of a business event (the press conference announcing her being made the "face" of the campaign is as per WP:RS. Ekantik talk 16:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

You need an unbiased source for both the fact itself and the importance (noteability or encyclopedic-ness) of the fact. A press release is pert of the advertizing campaign and is not a NPOV source for establishing the importance although it can usually be used to help establish the fact. But with only a press release we have no neutral wording available and get stuff like "endorsement" instead of "agreed to be paid to lie about this product" (sometimes a more accurate assessment). WAS 4.250 17:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It's from a newspaper report, not a press release. I was under the impression that reports from prominent newspapers are relatively reliable? Isn't it notable when a celebrity becomes the "face" of a particular product? In my view this whole discussion is about how one editor is using WP as a crusade to remove "advertising" without any thought to what advertising actually is WP:NOT#Soap. There is nothing in WP policy about why a celebrity's endorsements cannot be mentioned, but I'm sure Zora will beg to differ. Ekantik talk 16:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My ideas on WP:NOTE, AfDs, speedy deletes

I'd like to propose a radical change, which I know will be ignored/dismissed by the majority of editors, as it would involve a fundamental restructuring of Wikipedia. However, hear me out. I think WP:NOTE should be abolished. I participate regularly in AfDs and newpage patrolling, and don't agree with the policy administered there. My plan is this:

  • Everything that verifiably exists in the world is notable enough to be covered, as long as it is adequately sourced.
  • The only articles that should be deleted are those that are incoherent, obvious hoaxes, spam, attack pages, or completely inaccurate - i.e. those already covered under WP:SPEEDY - as well as things patently made up in school one day, including books that have not been published and bands that have released no songs. (This links back to the concept of verifiable existence.)
  • Everything else, including every webcomic, every town councillor, every episode of every series, should be included. After all, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, and takes great pride in having over 1.5 million articles.
  • I'd like to see Wikipedia become an organised, referenced, searchable resource providing coverage of all human knowledge. (That is, all accurate and verifiable human knowledge.) The idea of 'notability', no matter how we try to formalise it, is inherently subjective. Walton monarchist89 21:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's WP:N you disagree with here; indeed, the first point is pretty similar to the notability definition at present. But your guidelines make no allowances for WP:NOT (except paper) - should we include dictionary definitions, for instance? Trebor 21:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, this proposal contradicts WP:NOT, which is policy, unless "adequately sourced" is interpreted to mean essentially what WP:NOTE says now. GRBerry 21:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
What about random individuals, currently considered vanity articles? I can verify my own name and existence, would I be able to keep an article about myself? —Ashley Y 21:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Whenever this concept gets brought up, in one form or another, I always come back to the second point raised at WP:N#Rationale for requiring a level of notability: "* In order to have a neutral article, a topic must be notable enough that the information about it will be from unbiased and unaffiliated sources; and that those interested in the article will not be exclusively partisan or fanatic editors." In other words, notable subjects attract multiple editors; non-notable subjects tend to have only one. It is easy to delete an article on a non-notable subject. It is very difficult to review such an article and ensure that its content is genuinely sourced, verifiable and unbiased. The number of vanity conflict-of-interest articles under such a scheme would be so high that there is no way they could be monitored or reviewed. We do not have to worry that Bill Gates' employees will make Microsoft a fluff piece on the company, or that Roger Daltrey will fill The Who with unchallenged self-serving claims, because so many people watch and contribute to those articles. However, if the article is on Fred's Webhosting Service or Nick Norman and the N00bs, let's face it, the primary (only?) contributors will be Fred and Nick, and there are not enough reviewers to keep them honest. Fan-1967 22:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Based on your suggestion, someone could write an article on me.Unfortunately, it would be both inaccurate (the local newspaper blurb on my NMSQT performance has me down as going to the local high school, when in fact I was homeschooled) and incomplete (verifiable third-party sources on my activities end with my junior year of college, when I got an article published in a minor journal). --Carnildo 22:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Don't think you'll get much support for that, Ashley. For all reasons mentioned. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I am an ardent supporter of WP:NOT, but at the same time I am fearful of the "Myspacing" of Wikipedia, where every grouping of talentless bands has a pseudo-advertisement on Wikipedia. --Thisisbossi 23:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quoting the Bible

I'm having trouble finding a policy on quoting text from the Bible.In particular, I'm trying to clean up the articles about individual Psalms in the Bible.These are in category "Psalms", eg Psalm 51.Most of these articles include the full text of the Psalm in at least one version of the Bible, mostly English, with a few Hebrew ones too.Should the text of the Psalm appear as a big lump in the article -- isn't the article about the Psalm, rather than the Psalm itself.This would be the case for poetry, wouldn't it?If there's a policy I've missed, please point me to it.Once I start editing, rather than stand on toes, I would like to be able to point to a policy that says, "this is how we do it".Thanks in advance.Bernard S. Jansen 11:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

There isn't a policy as such. There was a lot arguments here. But generally the consensus was that large chunks of Bible passages belong on Wikisource, not Wikipedia. However, if short quotations help to make the article readable then fine (with a very short psalm, quoting the whole thing may make sense - but not Psalm 119). But we need to watch that the translation chosen doesn't prejudice a point of view - so if the translation is contentious then that needs flagged up, or more than one alternative used. Any top-down policy will not really work here, we need a pragmatic approach to what gives us the best, neutral, and readable article in each case.--Docg 11:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Re. "There isn't a policy as such", true, but there is a guideline: Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources (which also applies to non-copyrighted material);
Maybe also have a glance at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KJV, which treated a related topic, and gives some indications w.r.t. how to organise articles on consecutive bible passages (follow community consensus), and which translations to use (don't always use the same source for translations), etc. --Francis Schonken 11:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, my point is pragmatism is best, and article quality is paramount. We don't want people uploading large chunks of primary texts - or running around chucking them on articles for their own sake, on the other hand if an article is discussing a short Bible passage and would be enhanced by quoting a bit, we don't want to preclude that with a top-down policy. Work out what's best on an article - if they is a debate go with the consensus. Don't batter people with rules either way.--Docg 12:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree... we do not need finite rules for this.I am not sure if every psalm needs to have the entire text quoted, but some might.For example, if there is disagreement among biblical scholars as to how to translate it, I would definitely like to see side by side charts showing the different translations.Blueboar 16:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Texts should be included in two cases. 1) Where the translation is contentious and differences significant - here we need to use sufficient translations to bring out the different views fairly. 2) Where the text being discussed is short and including in would be proportionate to the article. Some psalms are little more than 3 sentences - it would be silly not to quote them - we would do it with a non-Bible short poem or song. Other passages would be so long as to swamp the article - don't include them. Where we are including and the translation isn't contentions, it may be sufficient to just to choose one mainstream translation, and indicate any significant differences in a footnote. There's no point in including several translations which all basically say the same thing. Just be sensible. We don't want people using articles as a pretext for needlessly putting whole long chapters of the Bible onto Wikipedia - that's for Wikisource. But equally, we don't want people crusading to remove bible passages that clearly make a particular article more comprehensible. If everyone is sensible, then the silliness that took this matter to arbcom in the past can be avoided. The primary question is: what makes this particular article better?--Docg 17:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Just a slight quote must be appreciated, like "Yeah though I walk through..... The Valley of Hell I shall fear no evil for thy Nikon and tripod they comfort me" ;=--DLL .. T 20:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-standard capitalization for personal or stage names

There is an ongoing discussion, whether or not individual capitalizaion for personal names or stage names (like all-lowercase or other variations) should be carried over to Wikipedia, given that an explicit exception from Wikipedia:Proper names#Personal names does not exist, while on the other hand there is a related policy (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)) which in most cases suggest a conversion to standard English formatting.

The discussion sparked at Talk:Hide (musician), has since been carried over to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters) but also somewhat stagnated, so I decided to post here, in order to attract more input. - Cyrus XIII 21:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

See also Talk:Bell_hooks#Casing_and_her_Possessive for a lengthy discussion on author and feminist bell hooks. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
There was an old discussion on the WP:JAPAN talk page about song titles and names that pointed to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/misc9#Capitalization of roman-letter names, etc., generated in Japan which intimates that as Japanese script does not have capital letters then any use or non-use is purely stylistic. As 'hide' is an English language stage-name I would imagine that the capitalisation differs with a variety of sources, unless it has been trademarked as 'hide' -Foxhill 00:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SMOKERS discussion.

A discussion on Laura Bush's/Barack Obama's smoking/attempts to quit smoking led me to begin an essay/potential guideline on the topic of including smoking within biographical articles.The participation of the editors here would be appreciated. Italiavivi 01:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use question

I will admit that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the image policies.I write/de-stub a lot of articles about living composers.As everyone knows, it can be tough to find free images of living people who are not super famous and in every tabloid.If there is a publicity headshot of a composer on the website of s/his publisher, and that same publicity shot is reproduced across the net whenever you do an image search for him/her, is it within the fair use criteria to use that piture in and only in the article about the composer?Always yes, always no? Please advise! Thanks-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 20:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe.Fair use is about as grey a grey area as you can find in copyright law, which is one reason we try to stay away from it.--Carnildo 20:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I think fair use has gone too far. If you can produce an image of a person, then it shouldn't qualify a picture of the person as fair use. I would not doubt that emailing the publisher for a GDFL (CC or whatever) license on a image would get promptly declined. Then why should this "fair-use" be put into effect if it's essentially illegal and not wanted, especially on an encyclopedia that advocates being "free"? Now, eliminating all "fair-use" images may be ridiculous, not being able to include a needed historical picture impossible to be reproduced, but one can still make the argument that Wikipedia is still free and has no grounds to use the picture. There's a huge problem with this in actors and sports-people.
This is an area on Wikipedia I am displeased at. Not that Wikipedia would get sued, it's just that I don't think Wikipedia has correct permission to use many of these "fair use" images. And ignoring it or not reaching a consensus makes the problem even worse.++aviper2k7++ 21:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a cumulative "no" to me.Here is a small dilemma: I am working on an article which I would sure love to improve to FA status (who wouldn't).However, no matter how well-written and comprehensive the article is, it seems nearly impossible, practically speaking, to get it to FA status if it is devoid of images, particularly an image of the subject.You may say "there's no rule saying FAs have to have images", but really, how many of them don't? I'm not really sure what to do.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 04:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Try to solicit permission for one of the few pictures that do exist.You probably won't get permission for the really nice headshots, but perhaps someone has a passable snapshot posted somewhere on the web (maybe on a photo sharing site like flickr).When you find one you like send an email to author asking them to release the picture under the GFDL or CC-by-sa.Explain it will be used in wikipedia, and that without their help wikipedia won't have an illustrated article.I have done this a few times, and I've found many photographers are excited to help out wikipedia without doing any real work.In fact, I've had a few jump at the chance to get their picture on wikipedia.--best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 08:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
This is an incorrect interpretation of fair use.First of all, valid fair use is never illegal, and doesn't require permission.Second, fair use does not require that it be impossible for you to produce the content on your own.Fair use content is unfree (and invalid fair use claims are illegal), so fair use should be avoided, but not to the extent you advocate. Superm401 - Talk 21:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Fair use under United States copyright law doesn't require that it be impossible for a freely licensed alternative to be created, but the Wikipedia fair-use policy, which is intentionally stricter than U.S. copyright law, does require this. —Bkell (talk) 04:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Ideally, however it's hard to say whether it's impossible to get a free version, or just difficult. Superm401 - Talk 06:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


but the Wikipedia fair-use policy, which is intentionally stricter than U.S. copyright law, does require this.

There is a lot of discussion going on about the status of this policy on the talk page, by the way. — Omegatron 02:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed change to settlement naming convention

WikiProject Current Local City Time is proposing at their talk page that articles for prominent cities be moved to include subnational units.For example, Toronto would be moved to Toronto, Ontario.This would result in a de facto change to naming conventions for settlements, which provides (at least for Canada) that:

Places which either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name, such as Quebec City or Toronto, can have undisambiguated titles.

Your contribution to this discussion would be most welcome. -Joshuapaquin 05:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I was bold: I closed the poll. That was clearly the wrong place and wrong method to discuss major changes to naming conventions as many editors noted. Angus McLellan(Talk) 20:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notice on username transliterations

Just a note to say that I've made a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Username#Latin character transliterations to require transliterations on non-latin usernames for various reasons, spelled out in the post. Please discuss on that talk page. pschemp | talk 18:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Articles and Good Articles

Since the relation between those two categories is more or less hierarchical, wouldn't it be an applicable idea if articles defeatured for some reason would automatically acquire the status of a Good Article? That is, though they wouldn't satisfy the higher criteria of a FA, they would certainly satisfy those of a GA. This would leave more space in the GA nominations page for other articles to be considered, while at the same time the defeatured articles wouldn't suddenly find themselves outside, or too low in, the grading structure. —The Duke of Waltham 16:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I would be wary of doing this: there are still some featured articles lurking about from the "brilliant prose" days, with huge citation deficiencies (see Tank, for instance). Given the GA assessment doesn't take too long to perform, then it's probably worth not making it automatic. Trebor 20:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier for the process to give defeatured articles priority in some way, though? —The Duke of Waltham 07:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Patrol the FAR pages, and when one gets de-featured, nominate it for GA, with the comment "recently lost FA status here". Patrol the GA pages, and when you see a recent FA, review it for GA status. You can't be both the nominator and reviewer, but being one will still speed the process along mightily. This is known as {{sofixit}}:
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.. AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indefinite blocks and comunity bans.

There's currently discussion on the relationship between use of indefinite blocks and community bans at Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Indefinite_Blocks. --Barberio 21:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Public domain images

If i upload an image, if its published before 1923 or something related do i need a source present? Nareklm 03:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You should explain where the image came from, so it can be verified that it is genuinely in the public domain. See Wikipedia:Public domain for more information. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 03:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed policy on removing alleged trolling on talk pages

I would like to propose that "trolling" not be allowed as a justification for removing other people's comments from talk pages.

Different people differ about what constitutes trolling. An editor who takes action to revert "trolling" is implicitly asserting that his opinion speaks for the group. Often the original poster does not agree that his words are trolling. Often the editor who removes the "trolling" is already opposed to the original poster.

Thoughts? --Ideogram 01:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I can go along with this to some degree. Removing comments by any established wikipedian is often counterproductive. however, the bulk of trolling comments removed are comments by IPs or highly disruptive single purpose accounts, who are adding 'Fuck your mama' to userpages. That obviously should be reverted on sight. But drawing up any policy that differentiates between a wikipedian removing comments from a userpage that he doesn't agree with as 'trolling', and outright vandalism from a real troll will impossible. We all know that there's a clear difference - but the boundary will be undefinable without hideous detail. This will inevitably end up in instruction creep and ruleslawyering. Best perhaps with a simple principle "assume good faith - particularly from normally good contributors - only deem something to be trolling if no other explanation is possible"--Docg 02:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the term "trolling" itself should not be used. I believe comments which are clearly vandalism or spam can be identified as such without regard for whether they are "trolling".
The most effective response to a genuine troll is to ignore him. I propose that anyone who believes someone else is trolling should simply comment, "I believe this is trolling and recommend everyone ignore it." Then others could signal their agreement or disagreement by actually ignoring or responding to the comment in question. --Ideogram 02:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem there: Many of the real and unmistakable trolls we get here (*coughconspiracytheoristidiotscough*) do need to be removed, and there is no justification other than that they are trolling. Leaving their comments risks them actually convincing someone of their lunacy. --tjstrf talk 02:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think removing comments to "protect the naive" is productive. (1) The comments are present in the history and reverting them actually gives them more prominence. (2) I don't believe in protecting the naive; I believe everyone is free to make their own judgements. (3) Real and persistent trolls need to be identified by community action (e.g. community blocks discussed on the admininstrators' noticeboards), not vigilanteism. --Ideogram 02:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it gives a 6000 character text dump any more prominence to revert it than it did when the guy posted it with an ALL CAPS HEADING and his latest YouAreTheAntiChrist username in the first place. Leaving vitriolic rants is far more harmful than removing them. You may have more of a point on article talk pages, but even then those are often used for things like unrelated campaigning, vaguely linked attack rants on other users, etc. Case in point: Talk:William Connolley, which gets assaulted quite regularly by people who are annoyed at User:William M. Connolley, the article's subject. --tjstrf talk 09:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I am talking only of posts on talk pages. Mainspace pages exist to communicate verifiable facts; rants can always be removed on that basis. Talk pages exist for people to express their opinions and discuss them; removing someone else's post doesn't change the fact that it is their opinion. See the concrete example I post below. --Ideogram 22:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Many troll postings are extremely verbose, if we are not allowed to remove them then the talk page would soon become unreadable. Some trolling is extremely inflammatory and makes people's participation on the uncomfortable. I agree that in the most cases DFTT is the best defence. Alex Bakharev 03:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Some articles that get a lot of trolling, like Talk:Gödel's incompleteness theorem, set up an "arguments" subpage of the talk page to move these comments to. Then the comments are not deleted, just moved to the "arguments" page. CMummert · talk 04:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
(to Alex) You still have not offered a definition of "trolling" other than "I know it when I see it". This definition has been abused many times by hotheaded editors who feel their personal judgement justifies removal of comments they deem trolling. Many postings are extremely verbose, but we do not remove them. What is the "magic" trolling ingredient that justifies removal? There are many tactics that make participation uncomfortable, not least having your well-intentioned comments attacked as "trolling" and being removed.
"Trolling" has no defensible definition because it requires reading someone's mind. If you accuse someone of trolling you are de facto failing to assume good faith. By removing someone's comments you are saying those comments are worthless. These judgements need to be made by the community not a biased editor already involved in arguing with the person who is being called a troll. Frankly, "trolling" has become a one-size-fits-all club that hotheads use to beat up people they disagree with.
These editors equate "trolling" with "it makes me mad". I would think any rational observer would understand how this definition leads to abuse.
The onus of defining "trolling" should not be on me; I am advocating abandonment of the term altogether. People who defend the idea of individual editors being allowed to delete comments deemed "trolling" shouild be required to offer an objective definition of trolliing so that we can be sure these vigilantes are not just squelching opinions that they don't like. --Ideogram 04:16, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
You are identifying a real problem - people removing good-faith posts which they deem 'trolling'. However, you are hitting it with a sledge hammer. Sure, we can't define trolling in any watertight way that won't have grey areas and subjectivity. Actually, exactly the same is true of vandalism. We can't read minds. Thus, we assume good faith. However, there is always a point where it is reasonable not to do so. 'Fuck your mama' is one 'You are gay' is probably another - but at that point, and beyond it we are into grey areas, where there is potential for disagreement, and even abuse. We need common sense here. But we do need to leave the option to remove obvious trolling. And no, we can't read minds, but there comes a point where we are entitled to judge intent by action, otherwise we disappear into some post-modern sludge of non-communicatability. This is not to protect the naive (that's a silly argument), but the best way to discourage a troll is to remove his voice. Vandals and trolls need to know that their posts have almost zero impact on wikipedia - we don't want to leave a stream of abuse or some aggressive rant lying around. If the recipient really want to see it, then it is in the edit history.--Docg 09:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I just say in my edit summary something like "Removing text - violation of Wikipedia:Talk page and WP:TPG". I can't remember the last time that someone objected to such a removal (but, admittedly, I rarely do this for talk pages of really contentious articles). If the editor reverts, adding the improper text back, then a second revert (removing the text again) with "See your user talk page" and a note to them about using talk pages only for discussing changes to articles should be the next steps.
I too very much dislike the term "trolling", even if there is an essay that tries to define it. Why not just keep the discussion to whether the posting complies with policy, as opposed to giving the troll user a label that he/she can argue about? -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 19:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's talk about a concrete example. in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Candidate statements/Questions for Paul August#Questions from Cyde Weys you will see mention of an edit war over whether a question constituted trolling or not. You can check the edit history for the details. This one went so far as wheel-warring. Ultimately Jimbo himself stepped in and asked everyone to calm down. How do you think this situation could have been avoided? --Ideogram 22:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The "troll" terminology frustrates me for several reasons. Firstly, it's all-too-often used as a blanket response, designed to circumvent actual discussion in favor of what is basically a personal attack. Legitimizing a form of personal attack is really bad form. Secondly, it defeats the purpose of discussion; why even have discussion if it can be silenced so quickly by troll accusations? I believe strongly that the discussion should hinge only on whether the post conforms to policy or not, as John said above.
Trolling is an unnecessary term as well. Obvious trolling is quite clearly prohibited; insults, personal attacks, etc. But those are all covered under WP:NPA. .V. -- (TalkEmail) 06:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone interested in this issue I would ask you to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:What is a troll. I have tried to edit this essay to discourage usage of the term and am being opposed by an editor who (not surprisingly) thinks I am a troll. --Ideogram 19:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modifying when dates of birth should be listed for biographies of living people

I have opened up a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Proposal_to_alter_the_criteria_for_listing_dates_of_birth concerning altering and clarifying when dates of birth for biographies of living people should be used. New voices to the discussion would be helpful. Thanks. Cowman109Talk 16:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD: second nomination rules?

Funday PawPet Show survived Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Funday pawpet show. Now there's a second AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Funday PawPet Show, but shouldn't it have "(second nomination)" in the URL? --EarthFurst 07:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That's only a disambig concern as far as I know, for cases when an article retains its original title in between noms. The nominator notes the previous debate. In this case, the altered title allows for a unique identifier for both debates. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 08:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User Talk Page

What is policy regarding deletion of comments in a persons userpage talk space. I was under the impression that you should only ever archive old comments, and deletion was, if not disallowed, heavily frowned on. An anonymous user User talk:203.87.64.214, repeatidly deletes all the comments on his page. Including comments made by me in a current dispute. Several editors have told him that you shouldn't delete comments on a talk page (though only one was regarding his own talk page) and I believe the intention is to make it appear on first glances that he's just a newbie even though by his edit history he's been here since February. Or make it appear that he's never been involved in a conflict of interests. Jacobshaven3 11:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that deletion is frowned upon, but on a user page is not quite a blocking-level offense. You can, of course, revert his deletions.--Anthony.bradbury 12:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if it is acceptable to retrospectively, from the talk page history, construct a chronological listing of the posts made to a talk page, then post that to an archive subpage. Even if that is later blanked, the actual chronology will be more easily visible in the page history of that archive subpage, rather than someone having to wade through lots of blankings and disconnects between comments. You would still record each blanking of the talk page with a little note, like "this section blanked on 2 January 2007 at 02:45 UTC by...". Then the pattern of behaviour is far more obvious, and people can judge - oh, that blanking was of a vandal's comments, and this blanking was of an over-zealous admin, and this appear to be a bad-faith blanking of a reasonable comment that seems to have been ignored, and so on. Not a scarlet letter, but more making it easier to actually see what has been happening in cases like this. Of course, you'd have to trust the person reconstructing this 'single-view' history of the talk page. Carcharoth 12:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
If a user wishes to blank his or her talk page, that is his or her choice. There are lots of legitimate reasons to blank. For example, I regularly blank old discussions so that I don't have to scroll down the page to locate new messages. If you need to see a deleted post, you can always go to the edit history. it isn't like the messages are completely gone. That said, it is considered a no-no to blank various warning templates. Admins frown on doing that. Blueboar 15:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no clear policy on that. The policy on vandalism is poorly written and implies that you can do whatever you want with your talk page, but does not say that clearly. Because of that, some admins give warnings and blocks for removing comments from your talk page, and other admins tell you that you can do whatever you want. The policy that is applied, or misapplied, depending on your interpretation is in Wikipedia:Vandalism

Removing the comments of other users from talk pages other than your own, aside from removing internal spam, vandalism, etc. is generally considered vandalism. Removing personal attacks is often considered legitimate, and it is considered acceptable to archive an overly long talk page by creating an archive page and moving the text from the main talk page there. The above rules do not apply to a user's own talk page, where this policy does not itself prohibit the removal and archival of comments at the user's discretion. Please note, though, that removing warnings from one's own talk page is often frowned upon.

Generally people read the first sentence, stop, and interpret that as an okay to blank your talk page. Others read the whole paragraph, and read it differently. It would be nice if someone would rewrite this clearly.

How about:

Your user and talk pages are a community resource. HOwever, removing comments from your talk page is always fine. Removing warnings from your own talk page indicates that you have read the warnings, and is allowed. Removing comments from other users talk pages is generally considered vandalism. Removing personal attacks is considered legitimate. It is considered acceptable to archive an overly long talk page by creating an archive page and moving the text from the main talk page there. On a user's own talk page archival of comments is at the user's discretion.

OR

Your user and talk pages are a community resource. Removing comments or warnings from your your own talk page is considered to be vandalism, as a record of warnings can be used by administrators in making decisions, or in showing that Wikipedia has done due diligence in trying to prevent certain activities. Removing comments from other talk pages is generally considered vandalism. Removing personal attacks is considered legitimate. It is considered acceptable to archive an overly long talk page by creating an archive page and moving the text from the main talk page there.

Atom 02:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

First, I have seen users that delete messages ASAP after reading them. This is a real pet peeve for me as I need the older posts to track what I have already told so and so. I tend to repeat myself too often without the older record. Searching history is a real pain in neck. You have to check each edit one by one. I never bother except in unusual cases.
Second, if nothing else, I think it should be a crime to remove warnings from any talk page unless you are an admin and that user is permanently blocked with no hope of becoming unblocked. Otherwise, I have no way to bump the warning up without laboriously searching history. If vandals can delete warnings, it would be a dream for them and a nightmare for everyone else. Once you institute a rule, you can't selectively apply it. You either apply it to everyone -- or you drop it. Will (Talk - contribs) 06:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article size

I understand that there is a policy on WP to keep article sizes under 40kb. I request that this limit be increased in special cases like articles about countries. I say this because, articles about countries need to cover a wide gamut of issues (geography,history, politics, ethnicities, cuisine, architecture etc etc etc). Long list actually. And each of these subtopics is worth its own dedicated fork.

So following 'summary style' becomes very difficult especially when new content and information keeps getting added. It is also leading to futile edit wars with reams and reams of futile discussion on talk pages. India for example, is facing this issue at the moment with a relatively new user, reverting content at sight and then hiding behind spurious 'article size' compulsions when others demand an explanation for his reverts.

So my suggestion is that article size be wedded to say, the number of forks that an article has. I would rather an article run into hundreds of kilobytes than the discussion page.

If this is not possible, I feel we should simply lock an article forever once it reaches its size limit or gets featured status. That way, new editors to wp will be spared the pain of adding content in good faith to an article only for it to get blanked out because the article has gone 1 KB over the limit. Sarvagnya 17:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is a policy... just an ideal. Obviously, some topics will take more space to properly discuss than other. However, we do want to keep articles to a resonable size if we can. If the article is getting overly long, information should be split off into logical sub-pages and simply summarized in the main article (with a clear and obvious link to the sub-page). But the key word in that is logical... the split has to make sense. It is not an invitation to POV fork or hide information you don't like. Blueboar 19:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
There is no fixed size limit; but obscure or specialized information should go to subarticles, not just be reverted. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
As Blueboar says, this is not a policy. Country pages typically have separate articles for those topics you mentioned. For example,
India, Geography of India, History of India, Politics of India, Economy of India, Culture of India
Within the main article (in the case of my example, India), the important issues should be covered (in India's geography section, there should be mention of major features such as the Himalayas), but then less obvious details (such as the Vindhya range) should be left to the separate articles. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] problems with WP:COI

I believe there are many problems with the current COI page, the most salient one being ambiguity (the page states both that editors with a COI should and should not edit), and a second being that the description as consensus seems rather debatable (I and may other editors have allowed, even encouraged, editors affiliated with their corporations, to engage in constructive editing.) Can we begin a discussion on this at the COI page? I have attempted to begin one, but three editors have refused to engage in substantive discussion (their essential point being that the consensus is settled and the matter's final.)

I encourage editors with opinions on the matter to begin a discussion on the WP:COI talk page. Sdedeo (tips) 05:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization of pilgrimmage routes

Category:Pilgrim route was for all pilgrimmage routes, but recently someone took the Way of St. James out of this category because they claimed it only applied to pilgrimmage routes in Norway. This sounds a bit strange to me. Comments?--Filll 04:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think they meant it only applies to a specific route in Norway named the "Pilgrim's Route" although that isn't specified on the category page at Category:Pilgrim route. - Foxhill 04:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

What group is responsible for these decisions?--Filll 05:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It should be discussed on the article talk page, as well as possibly the Category talk page. --Aervanath 04:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Food and drinks guidelines proposed

Can anyone chime in at the discussion over at User:ShakespeareFan00/Food_and_Drink_Notability_Guidelines, especially on the talk page there? Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 16:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

  • How is this different from WP:CORP for products? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Attmepting to be more specfic, note the thing about 'generics' for example ShakespeareFan00 16:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Excessive specificity is instruction creep, has there been any sign that such a rule is necessary? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I started writing the guidelines because I felt they might be useful, if the existing rules cover the same ground... ShakespeareFan00 18:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
          • I think they do cover the same ground. Not to belittle your hard work, but unless you can think of a good reason that Food and Drink should have other different notability guidelines than other products, I would say you should direct your efforts elsewhere.--Aervanath 07:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame

I request everyone's input regarding this idea, to create a hall of fame to celebrate the editors who've made lasting, non-revertable contribution to the Wikipedia project and deserve some permanent form of recognition, which may serve as an inspiration to the growing community of newer editors. Rama's arrow 18:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the divisiveness of an editor popularity contest would outweigh any benefit of recognition. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I can promise my feelings would be hurt if I were not inducted, or I'd just dismiss everyone who didn't appreciate my contributions as idiots (maybe both at once). If I were inducted, I'd expect everyone to take me more seriously, by giving more weight to my opinions and editorial decisions. I'll leave it to my adoring public to decide how much I am only being facetious...
But I think the worst result of this would be inevitable abuse by the obsessive agenda pushers we see on here across a variety of subjects and issues...or that people who are interested in certain controversial subjects would be seen as such even if their contributions were good faith attempts at NPOV.
I nevertheless commend Rama's arrow for having his heart in the right place; in a perfect world (i.e., a Wikipedia sans assholes), it would be a great idea. I'd encourage him (or anyone else) to personally tell contributors that he admires them and appreciates what they've accomplished. That can do more than institutional, procedural recognition. Postdlf 18:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Not only the divisiveness, but also the disparity between this and building an encyclopaedia. Could time spent deciding who our best editors are not be better spent working on articles? I think it's great to recognise editors' work and commend them for it, but there's no need to create a formal process; a personal message is just as effective. Trebor 18:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Concur with everyone: great idea in theory but probably too problematic to set up. It's not too hard to imagine the whole thing turning into one big mess with debates like "that achievement, while very nice is nowhere near as important as that other achievement". Pascal.Tesson 22:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. We really don't want to further distract editors from the process of creating an encyclopaedia - particularly in a way that could lead to a maliciously competitive environment. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 07:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

We already have this mechanism, actually. If you think an editor is doing a good job, just give them a Barn Star. It's that simple.--Aervanath 07:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright status on photoshops

So, can a photoshop of a copyrighted picture really be released into public domain? It doesn't seem like that's right. Milto LOL pia 02:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No it can't be however we don't know if the person made it from scratch.Geni 03:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, the image page says it is. Milto LOL pia 03:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
What makes you think that image wasn't actually created from scratch? You must have some reason beyond what is written on the image page, right? CMummert · talk 03:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
You're kidding, right? The image uploader uploaded it with that description, saying he photoshopped it himself. Milto LOL pia 03:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
It is posibel to draw from scratch in photoshop and it would be a fairly good way to make than glow effect athough there are others.Geni 03:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
If the person doing the uploading actually created the image then they are free to release it to the public domain. I thought the original comment was implying the uploader did not create the image. CMummert · talk 03:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
you are assumeing the word photoshop is being used in a certian way. we have no reason to make that assumption at the present time. WP:AGF and all that. Geni 03:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - photoshop can be used as a drawing tool, and zooming in on this picture (in Opera) shows that it is too regular to have come from a photograph. As far as I can tell the claim of original creation is legit and there is not a copyright issue. CMummert · talk 03:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Not that I'm up on copyright law, but isn't a picture that is substantially similar to a copyrighted image, in violation? It doesn't matter how the image is created, only what it looks like. -Freekee 04:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Unless there is a particular copyrighted blue lightsaber image that this lightsaber image is supposed to be a copy of, we have no reason to think the image in question here violates copyright. The simplicity of the image makes this quite unlikely. CMummert · talk 13:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
The image in question is a public domain creation of a copyrighted concept. There's no intersection between the two, especially since it is impossible to claim damages from its use (as opposed to, say, me creating an image of a Coca-Cola can, where an argument could be made that the brand was being diluted by the image). EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Citations missing

I've expressed my concerns about a recent expansion to this template on the talk page. I went over to WP:RFC, but it looks like those are for articles. I'm posting here in hopes that some others can comment on the expansion. BuddingJournalist 04:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I will comment on the template's talk page to keep the discussion together. CMummert · talk 05:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, sorry. I should have been clearer in that I was hoping other editors would visit the talk page to comment, not here. BuddingJournalist 05:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sysops doing username changes?

This is something I've been wondering for a little while, which was brought to the forefront of my mind by a recent RfB, and I haven't been able to find an answer to it yet: Why are username changes a bureaucrat function, and not a sysop function? I know admins already have too much to do, but bureaucrats are sysops too, and it seems to me that if sysops are trusted with everything they are already at this point, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to do username changes as well without an additional level of access. (Admin promotions and bot flagging are different matters in my mind.) I don't believe there's any harm to doing this unless there's a good technical reason why it's bureaucrat-only. I could see it being a small help. (Admin blocks user for username, blocked user requests different name, admin handles it on the spot.) There's probably a good reason why it's a bureaucrat function, but can someone tell me what that is? Grandmasterka 08:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably to avoid people changing their own names, or changing names for any sockpuppets they might have (legal or otherwise). Also, changing usernames to usurp another username is tricky - lots needs to be thought about carefully. I'd prefer this sort of things to remain at a level above admin level. Carcharoth 08:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough, but we can already do things with a great potential for abuse (blocking and unblocking) and things that are tricky and hard to reverse (merging page histories is the best example I can come up with.) Plus we have renaming logs so if someone wanted to rename their sockpuppet it would become obvious I think... Grandmasterka 08:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requesting 3rd opinion on External Links

replacementdocs has tons of game documentation for all kinds of computers and consoles from the past 30 years. So I thought it would be worth sharing that site with Wikipedia visitors by adding an External Link under various classic computer and console articles to the associated file section at replacementdocs.

My thought was that this fit in line with many of the other External Links on the pages of these articles. For example, there is a External Link to the appropriate section of AtariAge on virtually all of the Atari articles (Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari Jaguar, etc).

As I was posting these links, User:Luna Santin blocked my IP and reverted my edits claiming it was spam. I make the argument that there is a lot of useful information on that site, and that some people wouldn't even know that an archive like that existed if it weren't linked from these general computer/console articles.

Any other opinions on the matter? Casimps1 21:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The companies still own the copyright on the manuals, so it's probably a violation of WP:EL. Sorry, but there's no way WP can link to that kind of site. ColourBurst 01:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Casimps - you neglected to mention (as you were told on your talk page) that User:Luna Santin posted several times to User talk:66.192.94.185, the IP you were using, about the problem - and that anonymous account never responded. At minimum you should have mentioned that here, and acknowledged your mistake, or you should not have mentioned Luna Santin at all. When you omit information, actions by other editors may appear to be unjustified when in fact they are not.
As for replacementdocs.com, the matter of legality may be a bit more nuanced than ColourBurst indicates, per this FAQ item; the site asserts that it does have permission from some publishers to have their manuals downloaded. Perhaps a note to the site owners saying that it would be helpful if such manuals were specifically identified? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:25, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the notes from Luna, I didn't mention them because the 3 times I was "contacted" were 3 User talk messages in the time frame of 6 minutes while I was in the process of editing documents. They weren't being ignored, I simply didn't see them. Add to that I had never so much as heard of a "User talk" page or how it worked. I admit my ignorance in Wikipedia's policy and workflow in general, but I only had good intentions when I added the single targeted link to each of a dozen or so articles, so I felt it absurd to apologize for attempting to enhance an encyclopedia based on user contributions.
Regarding the links, I feel that the copyright issue is even more of a gray area than either of you mention. First of all, replacementdocs only hosts game documentation, not the games themselves. This could fall under fair-use because the manual is a relatively insubstantial part of the total product (the game itself). Of course, this hasn't been proven in court yet, but the argument could definitely be made. Additionally, copyright law dictates that instructions cannot be copyrighted. Although the manuals encompass the instructions as well as the layout thereof and artwork, this still seems to be another argument for the site's validity.
But if everyone agrees that the copyright issue still makes replacementdocs a no-deal, then I believe that probably all links to AtariAge would have to be removed as well. There are links to AtariAge from virtually every article for an Atari console. They likewise host scans of copyrighted manuals.Casimps1 13:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like something that should be taken up over at WP:COPYVIO.--Aervanath 18:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:FAR and WP:GAR are the enemies of WP:The Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Edit

Seriously. At the time of writing two articles that are having their GA status reviewed are The Beatles and Shakespeare; two of the most searched subjects on the internet! Two subjects that may well be the avenue by which a surfer will come into contact with this site... Well done, folks!! Anyone searching for these subjects will find that Wikipedia aren't sure that the article is actually any good. For those that look a little deeper, it appears that the efforts of new editors are detrimental to the standards that Wikipedia promotes. This may have the effect that new editors are discouraged, that the perception of Wikipedia is tarnished, and that the efforts of regular contributors are hindered by those editors who feel that style is everything and that content and context is irrelevant.

I agree that standards are good, and that the vast majority of articles are (or would be) improved by the strict application of same. It is just that a few are not, or perhaps more correctly are beyond the practice of academic due process. I like to call these articles "flagships", those topics that are likely to attract readers, excite interest in interacting within Wikipedia, encourage editing (no matter how clumsy) and generally bring people into the concept.

These few (very few!) should be exempt from the the usual visible checks and measures. Do not place templates on the talk page, recording the decline from FA class to GA to B grade, make WP:Peer review a condition before putting the article to review (to enable flaws to be addressed). Make it understood that a page that attracts possibly scores of edits, some from new editors or IP addresses, in a day is unlikely to ever be devoid of mistakes in both content or style.

It is in the nature of the beast, the popular article, the majority of it will be mostly right most of the time. An energetic article will constantly be updated, reviewed, corrected, tagged, cited, vandalised, reverted, rewritten, polished, split, added to, subtracted from and generally interacted with. Sometimes on a daily basis. To take an arbitary example of an article and say, "this is not to the standard by which it was once judged, and should have its status revoked" is stupid, pointless and insulting. It is made by editors who are (despite their commendable enthusiasm and diligence) stupid, rather pointless and liable to insult those contributors to major topics with their nitpicking and arrogant, superior attitudes. Perhaps my original premise was wrong; it is the editors who inhabit the FAR and GAR that are the enemy of the ethos of Wikipedia, in attempting to raise the standard they disavow the achievements and struggles of those who have spent time and effort in creating and expanding Wikipedia articles.


I suggest that the 20 (or perhaps 50) articles that aggregate the most edits (including vandalism, which suggest topicality and/or general familiarity if nothing else) over a year should be declared Flagship Articles, and not be subject to the petty referrals and overzealous Wiki policy police edits some other articles are subject. They should have an extra layer of protection from the misguided fools who prefer to concentrate on the placement of blank spaces before or after specific type of text, who will reduce a 10,000 character article into a question of consistency in the spelling of a couple of words. As in law, sometimes the argument that there is a case to answer needs to be made before the case is allowed to proceed.

If the flagship articles are not protected from the WikiZealots, then every FA or GA article will be arcane excercises in subjects that few will be engaged by and the very concept of The Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Edit will be in trouble. LessHeard vanU 00:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If anyone complains about the language I have used; this is the point I am making! You are avoiding the debate by concentrating about the style. Prove me wrong; show me that by removing marks of approval for an article is a good way of motivating editors and encouraging newcomers to contribute. Then make the argument that those articles which attract readers and ultimately new editors should be subject to that same process. Ignore the style and concentrate on the context! LessHeard vanU 01:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree with every single point that LessHeard vanU has made, at this precise moment in time, I feel like making no further contributions. Vera, Chuck & Dave GM 03:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
LessHeard vanU's comments are to be applauded. So many editors (WikiZealots) look at a page, leave a comment about what is wrong (usually something they could have easily corrected in the time it took to write their comment) and then move on. Their grievances take up more time than vandals, whose destructive edits can be reverted. Style is to be commended, but actual content is something that these editors do not take part in. andreasegde 04:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Generally, when I personally suggest on a talk page that something is wrong instead of fixing it myself, it's because I'm seeking the opinion (or lack of it) of other editors working on a page before changing it. On a high traffic page this is a significant step in avoiding horribe edit wars and the likes where the current "residents" at an article may be defensive of the status quo. By discussing the problem, people can see why a change is needed and a consensus can be reached.

The article review and grading process is the only form of "quality control" that wikipedia has. It's also the only outward looking indication of the quality of an article, or for that matter, an inward looking indication to editors of what kind of work an article needs. The peer review process is merely a way of getting input from uninvolved and usually experienced editors as to what an articles faults are. The GAR and FAR are much the same, but also look at whether an article continues to meet the criteria for those levels of grading. Quite imply, if the criteria for FA or GA aren't met, then the article isn't FA or GA, and needs work to bring it back to that standard. The reviews offer advice on how to go about doing just that. Crimsone 09:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't take this badly, Crimsone, but you have just explained something to us that we already know. Changing something that is blatantly wrong, like spelling mistakes, hyphens, gaps in the text etc., are not for discussion. Just repair them. Editors spend a lot of time going back and forth on talk pages about the most minimal of stylistic things, when they could be putting in content. andreasegde 10:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I personally cannot see why the most-viewed articles should be devoid of quality control, and be awarded GA or FA status "for life". These are the test cf credibility through whitch most people will judge the seriousness of Wikipedia; they should all strive for excellency, even more than average. Not to have a mechanism ensuring that is not really the best way to go in my opinion.
However, there seems to be growing consensus about one thing: Prose quality. It seems to me that prose is definitely the very last of our problems. We want good, informative, reliable content, in huge quantities. The "professional standards" that are required to pass criterion 1a of FAC are just way too subjective, and, for reason's sake, we are not professionnals! I feel like many people who put a lot of energy in an article in order to get it to FAC are a bit disheartened when they meet the copyediting gang there, whose word is law. Maybe we could have another classification, like PP for Professional Prose, that would be distinct from FAC?--SidiLemine 11:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Some of the people commenting are professionals, actually. Featured articles are supposed to represent our best work, and prose is a factor in determining what is "best". Yes, prose is often the thing most overlooked, or left until everything else has been added, and that is why it is often raised at FAC. That's not to say that articles with worse prose are no good; it's just a reflection that FAs are meant to be the best of the best. Trebor 12:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

LessHeard vanU, could you please assume good faith? To call editors who are attempting to improve the encyclopaedia "stupid" and "rather pointless", and accuse them of having "nitpicking and arrogant, superior attitudes" is hardly being civil. Most articles which go through FAR and GAR are improved by the process, even if they are eventually demoted. Isn't that the most important thing, that the quality has been improved? Classifying articles into quality groups is useful and encouraging to editors who work hard on articles, but it is hardly the most important aspect of Wikipedia. And yes, when new editors come to FAs, most changes they make are not an improvement. While we shouldn't bite, we shouldn't allow them to degrade the quality either. Trebor 12:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Trebor (and others), the assumption of good faith is a possible archilles heel of Wikipedia. It limits discussion to a level of politeness where other people may not realise the passion that prompted a comment. I deliberately went against that in my comments, but only to demonstrate the strength of my feelings in the matter. I apologise to any person who feels personally targetted by my words. I do not apologise for using them to provoke a reaction.
In truth I think that those people who take the time and effort to review articles in both FAR and GAR are doing the best job that they are able, and their efforts should be applauded. I still maintain that the discipline rightfully demonstrated at those places sometimes works to the detriment of Wikipedia, in that articles may be too easily referred there; there could have been some notes on a talkpage, and that content and context are ignored for pretty minor infringements of style. I have seen articles passed with a cavaet, which is something I would encourage. Pass it (provisionally?) for content with comments about how it could be bettered in presentation.
The idea behind flagship article is that FA and GA status can be made irrelevant within days of passing. Major interest articles attract a great many edits, some malicious, some inept, some good but not to Wiki standards, and some fantastic. Those editors who adopt an article can be hard pressed just removing vandalism and poor contributions, rewriting and requesting citations, and may sometimes be overwhelmed. A flagship article is one where this is recognised, and the processes used for quality control are only applied after a good deal of consideration. It does not stop an article being reviewed, or make it easier to pass a nomination, it just perhaps does not allow a reflex fail/referall over matters that may make up a tiny fraction of the content.
In short, I believe that WP:TETACE has precedence over WP:FAR and WP:GAR and those who do (great) work over there should bear it in mind. Perhaps there is also an argument that a very small number of articles which attract a great many searches and edits should have an extra layer of protection of over zealous application of Wiki standards.LessHeard vanU 12:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Assume good faith doesn't limit conversation to politeness; WP:CIVIL does that. Good faith is acknowledging that even if you disagree with their actions, they are trying to improve the encyclopaedia. Insulting people, and generalising about their attitudes and motivation, doesn't make you point stronger; it's just more likely to get people's backs up. I'm still not sure what you want to change (or what WP:TETACE is); are you saying we should relax the quality requirements for articles that are more popular? Trebor 13:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
While WP:Civil certainly does moderate the language, assuming Good Faith possibly disallows a caustic appraisal of anothers efforts. This exchange, however, does illustrate my point that the discussion of the technicalities of the presentation can obscure the point that is being debated. Anyway, I apologised for the terms and tone used and explained that I was only shouting to elicit a greater response. FYI WP:TETACE is a conceit, just me not wishing to type out "The Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Edit" every time. ;)
I would refer you to my last two paragraphs in my previous comment; not easier to pass but an acknowledgement that those processes may not always be appropriate for a very few articles in Wikipedia, and that another level of referral/review may be necessary before going to FAR/GAR. LessHeard vanU 13:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I totally didn't get the WP:TETACE bit. I'm not sure how another level of review would help really, apart from introducing more bureaucracy. Yes, the level of editing should be considered when making the review, but I don't think a whole new process is required. It would also bring new problems, when you try to consider which articles can be considered "flagship". Trebor 13:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
*Dan T.* below makes a very good criteria for Flagship status; the entry-point page which might be determined simply by hits. Mine was edits (which may more reflect zeal amongst fewer). If hits and edits can be counted try listing the top 100 of each, take all those which are in both listings and have the top 20 (or other arbitary quantity) made into Flagships. Amending policy for those so qualified would be the difficult task.
None of the above assumes you agree, of course; it is just how I see how it may be arrived at. LessHeard vanU 14:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, if you wanted to do it on page views, here is the list of the top 100 (a both amusing and depressing read). I still don't think there's a need to amend policy, just to bear it in mind when reviewing articles. Trebor 16:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, at least the lads are in there! This would be the passive list, I suppose. It may well be that the sex related articles, and the political ones perhaps, are semi protected anyway as they are obvious targets for vandalism. I wonder how many have even tried for GA/FA? Perhaps mixing that list with the most active in respect of edits may be interesting? As WP does not censor content, there is no reason why sex related articles cannot be classed as Flagship's . As I commented, maybe only a couple dozen articles might qualify under the discussed criteria. LessHeard vanU 17:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC) (I'm now going to the Sealand article to see why it is so popular!)
There isn't any WP:TETACE page when I just checked now. Some might argue that the most popular pages that people arrive at by search are the ones where it's most important that high standards be maintained, since they're the face we present to the world. Others might argue that consistency is a virtue, so we should strive to, as best we can, maintain the same standards throughout the site, in articles both popular and unpopular. So there is plenty of room for good faith disagreement with your assertion that standards should be made and enforced in a more "relaxed" manner on popular entry-point pages. *Dan T.* 13:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I would refer you to my reply to Trebor above re TETACE, and also

not easier to pass but an acknowledgement that those processes may not always be appropriate for a very few articles in Wikipedia, and that another level of referral/review may be necessary before going to FAR/GAR.

i.e. "semi protection" from reflex referral. Also the (provisional) passing of an article with cavaets, allowing an article which is otherwise FA/GA to get/keep the accolade while determining what needs to be done to ensure it is retained. "Entry-point page" is as valid a description of "Flagship Article" as is one which relies on edit count. LessHeard vanU 14:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The GA review of William Shakespeare is a mistake--it is a very good article and with a little work could be a featured article. The person who nominated the article for GA review was mistaken in his/her concerns, as evidenced by the fact that no one else has supported the removal. The article is also extremely stable and well referenced. While there is still room for improvement, any one whose first exposure to Wikipedia is the Shakespeare article is not getting a bum rush. I also agree with the previous comment about how too many editors pop onto a page, leave comments about what is wrong with the article, then don't stick around and actually help improve it. Shakespeare was on the Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive a half year ago and even that wasn't enough to get other editors to pitch in and help. Anyway, this is a very good article which a core group of editors has worked on for a good while. Instead of bellyaching about how some high-profile articles should be better, how about actually helping to improve them?--Alabamaboy 15:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The above is an example of what could be avoided; if there had been an intermediate stage where it was discussed whether a Flagship article (which the above might qualify as) did indeed qualify for review, and what may needed to keep it from listing, then the above editors concerns may have been addressed and the article not sent to GAR. LessHeard vanU 16:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Uhm, the review is that intermediate stage where its status is questioned. Why should things have to go through another hoop just to see if it needs to be reviewed? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Alabamaboy is not of the opinion that it need have got to this stage (however, he may be a little peeved that no notice of the referral to GAR was given at the article talkpage; a matter of procedure for the folk at WP:GAR perhaps). In respect of the above article, the comments made at GAR make it clear that the matters raised in the referral are to do with vandal reversions and one contentious inclusion that was from a Wikipedia source. An intermediate review may have discovered this before listing. LessHeard vanU 19:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Wow. Setting a double standard like this will only deterioate the quality of the encyclopedia; this will encourage people to vandalize and do other crap to the article so it can hit the "top 100" most edited/viewed article and thus be "exempt" from having to mantain a certain standard of quality. The fact that all articles are subject to the same policies is what keeps the quality of the encyclopedia from going down. There are no exceptions. Many Featured articles promoted in 2003 and 2004 do not have any in-line citations and are generally of poor quality. It hurts Wikipedia more to say that Ridge Route is of the same quality that V for Vendetta (film) is when the former is clearly worse than the latter. Besides that, most readers do not visit the talk page, and the only indication of an FA is a little icon on the upper-right hand side of the screen. The GA logo was obliterated awhile back due to a lack of strong, formal procedure for GAs (anybody can promote GAs; FAs have to go through WP:FAC). My trust of the article comes if it has an accurate in-line citation or not, not whether it has been promoted to FA status or the rather arbitrary GA status. Hbdragon88 00:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Here we go again... At most I am suggesting that a very, very few articles should be reviewed in the knowledge that a great deal of the deficiencies found at any one time are the result of many recent edits, and that the core of editors who have adopted the article will remove or improve them shortly. The same logic would be applied to the same articles that should they pass that they are likely to be edited from that standard (and back again) within a few days. It happens. Popular articles attract the good, the bad and the ugly every single day. In these instances only long standing problems need be addressed. This is not, however, how FAR/GAR works presently.
My proposed solution would to be to quantify the very few (less than 100, more than 19 is my thinking) articles as Flagship Articles which can be dealt with in one and/or two ways; firstly, a 'preview' of whether the problems are of sufficient seriousness to put to full review (after speaking to editors involved in the article), semi protecting them from kneejerk referral. Flagship Articles which are still considered to qualify for review should be treated the same as any other. Secondly, I have also suggested that any article (not just Flagship) can be passed (possibly provisionally) with a caveat that requires identified weaknesses (not sufficient of themselves individually for failure) to be addressed. This would mean less articles fail review, but the standards are maintained.
I have not pursued my suggestions that templates detailing the failure to obtain/keep accolades for such articles should be hidden or not promoted. It would create unnecessary work. I adhere to my original comment that the fine work by those in FAR and GAR does seem to work against the ethos of The Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Edit. Nobody has even hinted that there is a decent counter argument. LessHeard vanU 00:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this list is pretty interesting. It shows what our readers are really looking for. --Ideogram 02:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I had already peeked at the list provided by Ideogram... It doesn't really matter which subjects fell within the criteria as I am not looking to "protect" any one individual article, but how Wikipedia is perceived by readers, anonymous and new editors.
The predominance of articles of a sexual nature in the list perhaps illustrates my case quite well. How many of them are included as core topics? Of more interest is if Breasts and Sexual Positions are in the 1182 vital articles? As Wikipedia is not censored they should appear there, as they are obviously a major Entry Level Topic for a great many readers (unless number of hits does not count toward the criteria!). I would also suggest that they are also frequently the target of vandalism; some of it juvenile but also some of it malicious/POV orientated. Perhaps these would then qualify for Flagship Status, with an expectation that they should be part of a promotion drive to get them to GA status? I suspect that currently they are subject to repeated vandalism (if not semi-protected), have a small (dedicated, I also suspect) team of editors who try to maintain a minimal degree of encyclopedic standard and really could do with not having other members of the Wikicommunity reminding them of the required presentation of citations and the use of the em-dash rather than the en-dash.
If the sex orientated subjects do not appear in the Core Topics then the criteria needs looking at. That the Beatles aren't included also indicates that the Core topics criteria is not based around relevance to the Wiki reader, and I would then question the point of them (I simply don't what they are or how they made the grade; I may well be persuaded if I knew the facts). Since we are discussing the awarding and removing of grades which directly impinges of the readers experience of Wikipedia then it may even be irrelevant. The other manner of attempting to find relevance would be the quantity of edits, again over an extended period. Some articles must have cycles of edits, as the subject matter gains and loses exposure in the media, and some may have a brief spell as a hot topic before reverting to the usual number of edits. Some subjects like The Beatles and Shakespeare have either a regular level of frequency of edits or (as the Shakespeare editor commented) a regular cycle. In these cases the level of edits may not decline simply because the article reaches a Wiki defined standard, or falls from that standing. They are going to be frequentley edited consistently because that is the nature of the subject, many people think that there is information that needs including (or removing) or could be said better.
If an aggregate of most viewed and most edited articles ultimately does not include either the Beatles and Shakespeare then so be it. It simply means that there another 20 or 99 articles that might require a further level of referral and debate before taking to FAR/GAR. I think this would be of benefit to Wikipedia. LessHeard vanU 17:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the most viewed articles should be the ones that are held to the highest standards. What would tarnish the image of Wikipedia is if these frequently-viewed articles were reviewed less stringently than others. Having more people viewing an article does mean more checks and balances, but it also means more vandalism, more well-meaning but ultimately harmful edits, and more small edits adding pieces of useful information that are nonetheless not well cited or well integrated into the article. You only have to look at articles that have had their day on the front page to see that scrutiny by the masses is a double-edged sword. There is a reason why featured articles tend to arrive at that state because of the devoted hard work of a small number of contributors. "Flagship" articles need extra vigilance, not less. MLilburne 21:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but it just seems silly to suggest that GAR or FAR are "petty referrals". Also, I fail to understand what sort of catastrophic repercussions you think GAR can have on new editors. Let's see: new editor looks up the Beatles entry. New editor is so fascinated that he reads the talk page, finds the article is under Good article review and thinks "that's odd, I thought the article was really good." And if we're to believe your concerns new editor now thinks "jeez, I'm not going to participate in this project because the standards of quality are way too high". Come on... If anything, ensuring quality articles is going to bring us more quality editors. Wikipedia had the early reputation of a great place to find unreferenced, poorly organized and poorly written piles of info. Thanks in part to the GA and FA processes, it's emerging as a real alternative to paper and other commercial encyclopedias. I don't see how anything is to be gained by hiding these. Pascal.Tesson 22:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that FAR and GAR should not be conflated. GA has mimiced, in weaker form, every FA process, but they have little to do with each other. I personally think GA is a rubberstamp process with serious problems in terms of throughput structure. FAR is a month-long content improvement process. It's greatly aided a number of articles. Marskell 14:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I am unable to determine users MLilburne and Pascal.Tesson stance in this matter. Both appear to be arguing for both sides of the debate at various points. I would also mention that I am not interested in the precedence of the review processes of FA or GA, both of whom provide a hugely useful function within Wikipedia (IMO).LessHeard vanU 22:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

My point was, and remains, that the application of both GA and FA and their (different) processes run contrary to the ethos of The Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit, in that the good faith contributions by editors are liable for removal and amendment against standards of which the new and/or careless editor is not aware. My suggestion is that Wikipedia may be better served by having a very few of the most popular and thus edited articles have a further level of debate where editors expressing a view that a review may be necessary can discuss this on the article talkpage which would include said naive editors (who may become dismayed and demoralised should they believe that their contributions were the reason for referral - at the very least they can be reassured) before beginning such processes if then deemed necessary. These articles may be termed Flagships. As an aside, I also supported the option of deeming articles a pass with a caveat regarding some easily corrected matter which would have otherwise failed.

I realise now by the opinions expressed here that my viewpoint and proposals are not going to gain sufficient backing to take any further, and that the status quo remains regarded as the best or least worst option. I would like to thank everybody who took part in this, and the civil manner in which it was conducted (as opposed to the intemperate manner in which it was introduced!) I now withdraw this policy discussion point, although I will attempt to answer any queries arising. Thank you. LessHeard vanU 22:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Eh, so does WP:OWN, WP:VAND, WP:NPOV, and a host of other policies that are designed to ensure a high quality encyclopedia (all those policies do limit the types of edits you make to the encyclopedia as well). Are you saying we abolish those too? Those seem to run counter to the phrase "The Encyclopedia that everyone can edit" as well. I mean, we should be welcoming (that's why we have guidelines like WP:BITE), but we can't be so welcoming that we sacrifice encyclopedia quality as a result. What we should do is encourage people to come to consensus, that's why we discuss changes to articles. ColourBurst 23:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
By the way, just to make it perfectly clear and since LessHeard seems to have some doubts: I think that the proposal was a bad idea and I think ColourBurst is right on the money: Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia that anyone who can make an article better can edit. Pascal.Tesson 00:01, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Frankly, this seems to me to be much ado about nothing. It is basically a proposal to exempt the most popular articles from any editing standards whatsoever for fear it might hurt the feelings of potential editors who might be challenged in their self-esteem. Perhaps vandalism shouldn’t be reverted on these “Flagship” articles, and deletion of anything from the article should be banned? In any case, as proposed, it appears that for “Flagship” articles, “most popular” is defined in terms of general internet searches instead of the articles that are actually most checked out on Wikipedia itself.
Anybody can edit Wikipedia. That doesn’t mean everyone should — or should even want to. As one of Wikipedia’s Five Pillars states, “Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit…. Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone and no individual controls any specific article; therefore, any writing you contribute can be mercilessly edited and redistributed at will by the community.”
ColourBurst and Pascal.Tesson have the right of it: Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia that anyone who wants to make an article better can edit. Wikipedia does have standards. The most fundamental of them is laid out in Wikipedia:Simplified Ruleset: “The primary objective of Wikipedia is to produce a high-quality encyclopedia, and most pages are encyclopedia articles.” Wikipedia:Introduction elaborates, “Find something that can be improved, whether content, grammar or formatting, and make it better. You can't break Wikipedia. Anything can be fixed or improved later. So go ahead, edit an article and help make Wikipedia the best information source on the Internet!”
WP:FAR and WP:GAR aren’t the enemies of this goal; they are recognitions of the accomplishments of many Wikipedia editors working together and who cared enough to make the grade with a given article. However, unlike printed encyclopedias, no article in Wikipedia is ever “finished.” Piecemeal editing will eventually degrade the quality over time ... unless editors remain willing to and interested in maintaining that standard.
If you really want to alleviate a lot of frustration for editors of all degrees of experience, there are two more practical things we can do. First, when you revert or change someone else’s work (as opposed to obvious vandalism), take the time to add a decent edit summary. It’s part of being civil and it’s also a good way to educate newcomers. As for GARs and FARs and peer reviews and so forth, if you can’t be bothered to make useful and constructive criticisms, don’t bother to critique the article in the first place. And if you’re so thin-skinned that you can’t handle constructive criticism, then you really shouldn’t be a Wikipedia editor in the first place. -- Askari Mark (Talk) 04:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I am getting bored with pointing out that I do not a) wish to abolish FAR or GAR, b)change or dilute the work that goes on there, and/or c) make any article exempt. If you want to know what I do propose then read my comments above.
re

Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia that anyone who can make an article better can edit...

That isn't what is said on the front page.
I assume, in good faith that the comments in the preceeding comment were not specifically refering to me, since my edit comments have often been a source of wisdom and amusement... LessHeard vanU 13:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Personal? No way! I only chew on my old friends, not my new ones. :P Rather, I was (facetiously) addressing your "deeper issue", to wit:

Anyone searching for these subjects will find that Wikipedia aren't sure that the article is actually any good. For those that look a little deeper, it appears that the efforts of new editors are detrimental to the standards that Wikipedia promotes. This may have the effect that new editors are discouraged, that the perception of Wikipedia is tarnished, and that the efforts of regular contributors are hindered by those editors who feel that style is everything and that content and context is irrelevant.

The fact that front page doesn't say precisely "Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia that anyone who can make an article better can edit" doesn't mean that it isn't a truer rendering of Wikipedia's "pillar" statement; maybe the main page should be corrected. Wikipedia is, by design, darwinistic. For every new editor who gets discouraged about changes to their work, there's an older editor who gets discouraged of doing cleanup and vandalism reversion. In the end it balances out. It's not about our individual editing skills or specific contributions, but rather about what comes of all this collaboration over time ... and to measure that, one needs standards, not sandboxes. IMHO. Askari Mark (Talk) 00:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, WP:TETACE is a truer rendering, since it is literally true. Although, actually, it's more like: "Wikipedia: The Encyclopedia That Anyone Who Has Not Already Been Blocked For Being A Dick Can Edit". Thank you.--Aervanath 18:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Bless WP:GAR, bless WP:FAR, bless Wikipedia, and bless WP:IAR. Goodnight! LessHeard vanU 23:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC) (bless)

[edit] When can I call an idiot an idiot?

I understand the intent behind our policies NPA and CIVIL; we need to be able to discuss matters politely in order to work together. Unfortunately some people interpret those policies to mean that we must respect each other. Now, I am not the kind of person to give respect lightly; I believe respect has to be earned. It is also easy for me to be nice to someone who clearly respects me.

The problem is when I run into a user who is both arrogant and an idiot. There is no way to work with, or even communicate with, such a person; they are too dumb to know what they are talking about and too full of themselves to learn from their mistakes. Generally I give up all hope of interacting productively with such a person and take pleasure in pointing out their stupidity.

I can't simply pretend such people don't exist. And if I wanted to grit my teeth and play politics with them I could get paid a whole lot of money in a real job. Is there any hope for me in Wikipedia? --Ideogram 07:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but not if you tell people that they're "idiots" (no matter how much pleasure you derive from belittling others). Instead, simply inform them that you've been unable to adequately communicate with them and don't care to continue trying. —David Levy 07:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Typically how I encounter such people is in the middle of a controversial argument that has already dragged on too long. I may be overestimating my abilities, but I sometimes feel that I can help focus the debate on important things by dismissing obviously stupid arguments before other participants get distracted by them.
I suppose I could simply shrug my shoulders and let those silly enough to get dragged into such arguments suffer. But for some reason I am irrationally attracted to conflict. --Ideogram 07:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Ideogram, you are falling into their most basic trap. Have you ever thought that the .......... (insert word of choice here) might enjoy making you angry? Silly people like silly arguments. Please don't let them drag you in. Have fun. andreasegde 10:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
take pleasure in pointing out their stupidity.' - ummm, not good. Reasoning with someone who is either not very smart or is very passionate about something to the point of extreme POV is generally unproductive; it's best just to say "I find that argument unpersuasive" and see if other editors agree. If it's just you and the other editor, then Wikipedia:Third opinion is useful; if it's an editor and his/her buddy(s), then an RfC is probably needed.
You might also take such situations as a challenge to try to pull something constructive from the other person's arguments. My sense is that editors feel agrieved when some argument or point of view is totally ignored in an article, and a sentence that says "claimed" or "critics have said" can appease them, without ruining the article.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, don't get caught in the trap of arguing over wording in an article like ("A and B mean that C often occurs"). That appears to be a logical statement that could be debated and resolved on a talk page; in fact, it's a statement that should be sourced like other controversial assertions and facts, and should not be defended on talk pages as "simply logical". Just keep saying "that needs to be sourced or it needs to be removed"; at some point they'll realize that you're not going to engage in a debate over the matter, and that they either have to put up or shut up. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Simple, never. Calling someone an idiot isn't civil, no matter how you spin it. Don't do it; you're still free to ignore him, though. Superm401 - Talk 20:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


With one's superior skills it is often easier to shrink a fool to the size of a cockroach and make him dance in a teaspoon. A neutral description of the other's rhetorical techniques is effective. Addressing other readers of your post rather than the fool directly may be more effective. And always coat your venom with honey. --Wetman 21:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Never, never, never call someone an idiot. It's about the most jabbing insult you can make on Wikipedia, and chances are high you'll have an extremely heated edit war on your hands. Don't do it. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 21:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your replies. You have given me much to think about. --Ideogram 22:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I find the approach recommended in Romans 12:20 quite effective (even if one is not religious); one of Napoleon's dicta also is helpful. Raymond Arritt 20:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, Ideogram, you might want to think about this: Treating someone like they are an idiot is almost as bad as just calling them an idiot. While you may not respect someone, treating other people with respect, even if you don't feel that way, is more likely to earn the respect and cooperation of your fellow Wikipedia editors, which means we are more likely to take your opinion seriously in any discussion. Treating another editor with disrespect is the fastest way I know of lose a debate.--Aervanath 18:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When an article is finished...

Can an article ever be considered complete, and if so, would restriction in editing be considered to ensure that an article doesn't reach a peak and then decline due to sneaky vandalism/sabotage etc? Of course if someone has something to add to a "completed" article, a suitabley ranked Wikipedian could be trusted to implement the addition. I just think it would be nice, once an article is decidedly finished, to not have to spend resources keeping it in good shape and to concentrate on something else. --Seans Potato Business 04:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Such a thing has been proposed by Jimbo, but the discussion on it is still ongoing, and it's certainly not implemented. --Golbez 05:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I would support the idea that, at some point, an article could have a "DONE" stamp placed on it (with a permanent lock, which would be removed by request: for example, if new information becomes available on the subject and the article needed updating). However, that is not the policy at the moment. It is sad that excellent articles, once they achieve a level of perfection where we can say they are "done", need constant monitoring to prevent vandalism, but that is the way things work right now. Blueboar 15:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Golbez, do you know where the discussion is taking place? --Seans Potato Business 20:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Even excellent articles can still be improved, and there would need to be some mechanism that was not overly burdensome for an editor to propose further improvements to a "done" article. Robert A.West (Talk) 20:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Reviewed article version and Article validation feature give some overview, although there isn't a lot of ongoing discussion at the moment. It's a MediaWiki feature currently in development, and the plan last I heard was to test it out on the German Wikipedia once it was ready to go live. If you're interested in this and other "behind-the-scenes" things, a good thing to do would be to join the mailing lists, where a lot of such discussion takes place. You'll probably also find more discussion if you dredge through the archives of some of the major lists, such as foundation-l, wikipedia-l, and wikiEN-l. --Slowking Man 20:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Also, Wikiproject on Article Verification was working on this, but I don't know how active they are anymore. --Aervanath 19:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I have written a new essay

The essay I have written is called: Wikipedia:Essays are not policy. I have written in as an attempt to explain what essays are and are not, and how to respond to those who use them and you don't agree with the essay. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this one of a large number of essays that belong in a category I'd name Category:Wikipedia essays that automutilate because of circular reasoning. I'm serious about that category, we do have a large number of verbose essays, whose only reason for verbosity is hiding self-contradiction. Then I'd treat the essays in that category in the same way as trivia sections per the description at Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections#Guidance: the not self-contradictory contentions of such essays should probably be merged with existing guidance (if that isn't already the case...), the rest should be removed.
Applying that to Wikipedia:Essays are not policy: this essay shoots at its own argument: if essays are not policy, then this essay certainly isn't and its content can be neglected, a truism, a triviality that doesn't need a separate page. FYI, relations between policies, guidelines and essays are explained at Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc. - if you want to change the approach explained there, there's always Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines to explain your arguments, which would be largely preferred over authoring a self-contradictory essay. --Francis Schonken 12:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh? How is it self contradictory? This isn't a guideline, nor is it a policy. It looks like an essay, it reads like an essay (opinionated, full of reasoning, etc) and... it is an essay! It makes suggestions, and never directs the reader to actually do something. It doesn't have broad community support, but is still needed by others. The link that you direct me to says a few words on the matter, but doesn't give an opinion on what to do if someone tries to browbeat you with an essay. You say the essay can be neglected, yet I don't in particularly intend to keep it neglected. Some people might find it useful. You call it a truism, yet it's not that obvious and I've seen more than a few people try to use essays as if they were policy. You may count the essay as a triviality, however I don't see it that way. If you watch people spouting essays at the drop of a hat on AFD to win their argument, you'd see why I thought it was important. So I don't think it's self-contradictory, and as you believe it to be opinionated, then it's perfectly fine to be in an essay, as that is what they are there for. As for explaining on a talk page - they get archived and are largely off the radar. I hardly think that talking there is going to get much action, or explain what I think in quite the way I'd like to. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Francis on this one. This essay duplicates the content of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc.. By the way, that's one of the problems with the multiple essays floating all around: many of them are re-hashing things which are already part of established policies and guidelines and as such they create confusion when they're trying to eliminate it. Pascal.Tesson 16:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
While I don't agree with Francis's characterization of the essay as self-contradictory, Pascal is correct that it is redundant. I'm guessing Ta bu shi da yu feels that people aren't paying attention to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc.?--Aervanath 19:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, for what it's worth, I thought the essay was well written and useful - when someone quotes an essay at you as justification for doing or not doing something, you can just respond WP:EANP. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 04:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
In that case, why not just make WP:EANP a re-direct to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc.? --Aervanath 06:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I was going to do this, until I realised that half my points weren't reflected in the policies and guidelines page. Nor should they be. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Aervanath is correct. People aren't reading Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc., though that wasn't my sole motivation for writing it. What can I say? I'm a complex person. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] explaining copyrights and WP:CV

What is the best article to link on when trying to explain about WP:CV to new editors? Soemthing nice, simple and concise (or at least, something they'll read so I don't have to summarize it all on their talk page). RJFJR 23:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I think WP:Copyrights is your best bet.--Aervanath 19:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Partially owned images on user pages

I am a contributor to and an editor of The Technique. In developing its wiki entry, I uploaded Image:The Technique 12-01-2006.jpg, and placed that image in a "gallery" on my userpage. Given that I therefore own partial copyright of the picture, do I have rights to use it on my userpage? Does it make any difference that the "use" in question is a thumbnail? See additional discussion on my talk page: User talk:Disavian#Fair use images aren't allowed in user pages. Thank you. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 01:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you need to understand that anything you contribute to Wikipedia should be under the GFDL. Your user page is GFDL. If you won't give permission for others to use the image freely, then don't add it to your user page, as your user page may well be moved to another Wiki, or other source. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
That's a weird one. Frankly, assuming you're one of the owners, it isn't a fair use at all-- it's the copyright holder using the image as he sees fit. We're picky about fair use, because we a) care at least somewhat about what happens downstream of our creations, and b) we don't want to get sued (for a use to be fair it has to be for a "fair use" purpose, and decoration of one's web page isn't ordinarily one). You're licensing it to yourself for your use here, so that solves problem b) and problem a) is weird, because user pages aren't part of the encyclopedia. So the policy issue is one of first impression.
When I say we care at least somewhat about what happens downstream, I mean that we do allow some content that isn't free, permanently. We like to have as much free as possible, because creating an unrestricted free source of information is one of our policy goals. We do allow restricted content-- e.g. fair use-- when necessary, because we sometimes need it to make this particular wiki useful, even if downstream users who have a different purpose might have to cull out some fair use images if their usage of the image wouldn't be "fair." There's currently a vigorous and occasionally bitter debate about whether we should go ahead and delete fair use content that could be replaced, or if we should wait until the replacement has been made or found before replacing it.
Personally, I'm in the "leave fair use content on the wiki until free replacements can be found" camp, because I see creation of Wikipedia as a useful entity as our primary goal, and the other issue as an important secondary goal. (I realize that not everyone holds that opinion, but that's where I stand.)
Your use may raise policy problems above and beyond the copyright law. Your use of the image on the newspaper's entry is fine-- perfect example of fair use. You as the owner of the image would be exempt from fair use requirements, so you can decorate whatever you want with the image. However, Wikipedia is hosting the image, and it's odd that only one Wikipedia editor is authorized to use it the way you're using it.
Are you sure you're the owner, though? Isn't the Technique itself the owner of its content and representations thereof? I don't think the managing editor of the Post owns the front page. If you're not the owner of the content, I don't think it matters that you actually made the image, any more than taking a screenshot from Heroes (TV series) conveys rights over the image to the photographer. I think we need to be sure of the answer to that before we even address the hard question. DCB4W 02:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
As an aside, I'm with you in the "wait until a replacement can be found" camp. Legally, the Editor in Chief holds the full copyright to the issue (and therefore, any derivatives). Therefore, I was planning to ask her to release rights to that image the next time I saw her. I consider my copyright over the picture to be somewhat limited, given that I'm only a contributing editor. Let me ask the hard questions, now that you know who technically owns the copyright:
  • If I was the Editor in Chief, would I be able to use the image on my userpage?
  • If I authored one of the articles on that image, would I be able to use the image on my userpage?
Given that information, we might be able to conclude on the final question:
  • If I helped create that image, even though I do not hold the primary copyright, would I be able to use the image on my userpage?
Hope that helps. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 05:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

FYI: My concern is how does Disavian prove he is a copyright owner? Without, isn't the entire discussion mute? Will (Talk - contribs) 06:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I was under the impression that the permissions account only handles GFDL releases, and I don't think that they'd want to release under GFDL. One could prove that one was the EiC for a newspaper by using the editor email account from their newspaper. ColourBurst 01:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
My concerns about this are that we Wikipedia users do not own their user space, it is a community resource. Use of copyrighted images on those pages would only be within fair use, even though it is not technically part of the encylopedia. The problem is there is not really any legitimate usage that would qualify as free use on user pages. (criticism of the artwork, artist style used in the image, review, parody) You, the copyright owner, could give rights for use of the image on Wikipedia, but Wikipedia requires you give unlimited usage rights (well on encyclopedic pages, but I am not sure about user pages). Use on your own user page is no different that use on any one elses user page, as it is a community resource, and not yours.
What do you mean when you ask "If I helped create that image, even though I do not hold the primary copyright"? If you created the image, then you are copyrighted at the time of creation (without formal filing). When you say "helped" does that mean you are co-copyright owner? Or does it mean you held the lights while someone else took the picture? Probably in either case, it can't be used on your user page, as it is copyrighted. And the copyright owner (whomever that is) has not given unlimited use rights to Wikipedia. If it is your creation, you could consider licensing the images under creative commons version 2. Atom 02:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The image has been removed, by the way. I think I've seen some pretty convincing arguments that I can't do it. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Does that mean you gave up trying to relicense the image? Everyone else, I think we need to continue this until the end so we know what to do with future images in this situations. When I saw that image, I was in a bind. I don't like binds. Clear? If there are some lawyers with experience in copyrights and related law in Wikipedia, we need to get them involved in this conversation. Will (Talk - contribs) 06:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Removing the thumbnail is easier than proving I have legal rights to the image, and I doubt that it will be licensed under a more free license as it would include the masthead, which AFAIK/have been told recently, is something newspapers (even smaller ones such as The Technique) are hesitant to share. However, I would still like to know the answer to the dilemma I proposed, you are correct. Rephrasing the underlying question: "If a user owns a copyright to an image, and the image is used under a fair use license on WP, does that user have rights to use it on their userpage?" And while we're on the subject, can they use it on their talk page? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 06:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

My understanding of the rule is that fair use images can't be used outside the main namespace at all. Durin told me this we can't even allow fair use images on the talk pages of articles and any templates out there -- even ones that will never be used outside articles. So I would expect User talk pages to be a no-no. Will (Talk - contribs) 06:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Q: "If a user owns a copyright to an image, and the image is used under a fair use license on WP, does that user have rights to use it on their userpage?"
A: No. a) Wikipedia does not allow Fair use outside of main namespace. b) Fair use is for criticism, review, or parody(short version) and using on your user page is probably not any of these. Atom 20:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Disavian, if you were able to get the Editor in Chief, or whoever owns the copyright (I think it would normally be the Publisher, not the Editor in Chief, although your Editor in Chief may be both) to agree to release the image under the GFDL, then there would be no problem with using it anywhere on Wikipedia.--Aervanath 21:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image is out of copyright; work is in copyright

I have an image I'd like to scan and include in an article. The image appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1900, but the book where I found it reprinted was published in 1977. The image, being over 100 years old, should be out of copyright, but the book is clearly still in copyright. If I scan the picture from the book, which copyright status is applicable, that of the image, or that of the book? Acdixon 00:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

what country are you in?Geni 02:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Does what country Acdixon is in matter? This is the English language Wikipedia, which is physically located on American soil. Shouldn't only American copyright law be applicable? (Not to sound like an American imperialist or anything. :-) --Aervanath 05:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
generaly it is best to follow your local law as well as US law if the two differ.Geni 12:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The image's original 1900 publication date will control. Once it's been published, the clock starts irrevocably ticking, and the book's author couldn't gain any new rights over the photo or extend its copyright duration by republishing it. The book's 1977 publication date will only be relevant to what was first published in that book. Postdlf 05:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
AFAIK (etc), the clock resets if the republishing contains any "creative element" but not if it is a static reproduction. So if the book changed the picture in some way a scan of the picture from the book would still be copyrighted by the publisher. SchmuckyTheCat 10:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
A scan of the picture from the 1977 edition would be copyrighted; a scan from the 1900 edition would not. IANAL. --Golbez 11:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
This is from Wikipedia:Public_domain#Derived_works_and_restorations_of_works_in_the_public_domain: "A work that is merely a "slavish copy", or even a restoration of an original public domain work is not subject to copyright protection." In this case, Acdixon, it sounds like your image is a "slavish copy", and therefore still in the public domain, regardless of the 1977 date, since I presume they haven't altered the image in any way. Just be careful to ONLY scan the picture from Harper's, and not include anything that the 1977 book may have added, i.e. captions, surrounding text, etc. --Aervanath 12:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, in my entry, there was a silent "if the 1977 edition changed it". --Golbez 12:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, if the 1977 printing of the photograph differed in some manner from the 1900 printing, and that difference was sufficiently creative to constitute a derivative copyright, then the copyright in that difference would date to 1977. For example, let's assume that the 1977 printing colorized the 1900 photograph, and that the coloration was independently copyrighted. The original black and white 1900 photograph would be public domain, but the color 1977 version would not be. One could then of course still scan the 1977 printing and remove the change by desaturating it. Postdlf 01:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all for this great advice! It was extremely helpful. Acdixon 15:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Hi, just a little question: can we use the English Wikipedia as a source for articles in other languages? I thought I had seen a page listing all the possible sources that could be used for Wikipedia, and the English Wikipedia was listed in the category wiki. Thanks in advance, Zouavman Le Zouave (Talk to me! • O)))) 10:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Not really, but the English article should have a "sources" section that you can copy/paste to the other language. >Radiant< 11:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
    • well, you can always just translate an en-wiki article, and the result will be just as sourced or unsourced as the original, for better or worse. dab (𒁳) 17:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It really depends on the policy on the foreign-language Wikipedia. On the English Wikipedia, we don't like to use tertiary sources (see WP:SOURCE) for our articles. Since encyclopedias are tertiary sources, we do not generally use foreign-language Wikipedias as sources. Your Wikipedia may have a different policy, though. --Aervanath 08:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opinions wanted at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

There recently has been some reverting over Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, specifically changes from the previous wording "If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid editing articles related to you..." to "...you are strongly discouraged from avoid editing articles related to you..." and similar variations on that wording (most with grammar that isn't so bad). Personally I feel the proposed wordings have been more lenient and an unnecessary weakening of the guideline (particularly in light of recent events). New opinions would be welcome. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requiring usernames

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but why doesn't Wikipedia require people to register? I bet 90% of the vandalism on here comes from IP users, and if they were required to register before they edit it would stop a lot of that, and make many, many peoples' work a lot easier. Why don't they do this? It would still be an encyclopedia anybody could edit. --AW 23:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right, it's been mentioned so much before it's found its way onto our list of perennial proposals. Trebor 23:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. It's frustrating that the people there poo-poo it by saying "oh, this a perennial proposal." There's probably a good reason why it's a perennial proposal --AW 23:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but it's also a proposal that has been rejected on several occasions by the community. While consensus can change, on the proposals listed there it is pretty unlikely. Trebor 23:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
That sucks. It's extremely frustrating to always be reverting vandalism by anons and warning them. It makes me want to quit sometimes, it's sisyphean. --AW 23:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
90% of the vandalisms come from IP editors, but about 90% of IP edits are valid, so... catch 22. --Golbez 23:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Although I'm not a big fan of the idea of limiting editing to registered users, I'd like to point out that the above statistics are pretty much made up and that the debate will not really make sense until we get hard facts. What's a good estimate about the percentage of IP edits that are significantly helpful, helpful, not helpful but made in good faith and clearly unhelpful? A rough estimate would be quite easy to do using a random sample of this. What's a rough estimate of the percentage of vandalism due to IPs? I'm not sure we have an easy way of knowing and I encourage everybody to view numbers being thrown around in that regard with circumspection. What percentage of good edits from anons are actually edits by users that have an account but are simply not logged in? Again, it's pretty much impossible to compile the data. And what is the percentage of anonymous editors who would not bother create an account to make a positive edit? The fact is we don't know and until we do, the debate will just be an abstract one. Pascal.Tesson 01:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Yhere is Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies. Except that it's pretty inactive, though recently started; more editors are welcome to join and perhaps put it on a track that has more consensus. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 03:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I, too, was interested in the statistics a while back, so I did a short experiment. The results are here. Feel free to continue my work there if you wish. Obviously, placing an edit in one of the categories is subjective. However, I found that about half of IP edits were unhelpful and half were helpful. The majority of unhelpful edits were vandalism. The overwhelming majority of helpful edits by IPs were small and Wikignome-like. I find the oft-cited argument that IPs write the majority of our content hard to believe, especially now that IPs cannot create new articles. Thus, if we're to take a strictly utilitarian approach, requiring registration would seem to benefit Wikipedia, especially considering the heavy opportunity cost of devoting so much of our resources to reverting IP vandalism and spam, semi-protecting articles, blocking and unblocking IP addresses, dealing with open proxies, etc. Of course, there are those who believe registration is unwiki. ::shrug:: Gzkn 05:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Another thing that it is impossible to track are how many of those anonymous IP edits are just the first edits of a future registered user. If it weren't so easy to edit, how many of them would actually sign up to be editors? We don't actually know. Maybe it's none. Maybe it's quite a few. Meh. "Vandals, you can't live with 'em...pass the beer nuts."--Aervanath 09:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Goodbye.

Hi. This is probably going to be my last edit to wikipedia in a long while. Prior to now I've attempted to better the wiki in various ways, and I won't blow my own trumpet about all of them, just check my main-space contributions.

However, I'm now going to go on indefinite leave from the wiki, with no plans to return while it remains in the current state it is.

Over the past couple of months, I've experienced bullying from a couple of admins who appear genuinely well intentioned, but don't get that what they are doing is bad. They see things through the coloured lenses where disagreement is trolling, warning to remain civil is a personal attack, and everyone except them is edit warring and being disruptive. It's their way, or the highway. I came to their attention for disagreeing with their positions a few times, and thus earning accusations of ill intent and threat of blocks.

The problem, I think, is rooted in Editcountitis. Despite claims to the otherwise, Edit Count is still the primary decision maker in who gets to be an Admin. And what kind of editor has a large edit count? The kind of editor who edit wars over things to get their way. And of course, once appointed admin, they believe their behaviour has been vetted, so their way of doing things is 'the wikipedia way'.

Tag on the continuing belief of some admins that they are 'the best and brightest' of Wikipedia, and need special privileges such as private official IRC channels and a 'get out of jail free' card for personal attacks... And Wikipedia is going to end up turning into an isolationist and exclusionary club, and otherwise long term editors are going to drop out because of it.

I hope that this trend is reversed, that bullying is no longer accepted on wikipedia, that admin accept they are taking on responsibility not being awarded power. Till then, bye. The vast majority of you have all been fantastic and do a good job. But there's no longer a climate for me that I can edit without being bullied. --Barberio 23:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If you've been having a problem with admin misbehavior, you'd be better off going through dispute resolution than making unactionably vague statements like that. Directly addressing a problem is the only way to correct it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Despite claims to the otherwise, Edit Count is still the primary decision maker in who gets to be an Admin. Wrong. The actual, hard data shows that above an edit count of around 3,000, additional edits make absolutely no difference in whether an RfA succeeds or fails (some argue that edit counts above 5,000 actually hurt a candidate; that too is not supported by the data). At 9 edits per day, it takes about 12 months to exceed 3,000 edits, so that figure hardly requires someone to obsess about racking up edits.
And what kind of editor has a large edit count? The kind of editor who edit wars over things to get their way. Absolutely wrong. The fastest way to rack up edits to post welcome notices on new user pages - and at least one candidate who specialized in that got rejected because the community felt that this was not a demonstration of admin qualities. The second fastest way is vandal patrol using a semi-automated tool.
Edit warring is a fast way to increase one's edits. That was his point and it's true. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.240.184.133 (talk) 04:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC).
Technically, yes, but only because any amount of editing, by its very nature, increases one's edit count. That's... just kind of how that works. Shocking, I know... EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
But posting welcome messages to rack up an edit count racks up a non-mainspace article edit counts; I always thought most people really only count edits in article space. On a side note, the "worst" way to rack up edits is to do newpage patrol; it's surprising the proportion of newly minted articles that violate speedy deletion policies. Finally, the only semi-automation tool that doesn't require an editcount is the popup feature; both AWB and VP require a few thousand mainspace edits before they let you sign up. ColourBurst 05:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
And of course, once appointed admin, they believe their behaviour has been vetted . Wrong again. Editors who have been involved in edit wars in the past six months rarely even bother to run for admin, knowing that admin candidates with such experiences are virtually always rejected by the community.
Please don't let the door hit you on your way out. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 04:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Well John, after the work you put in at WP:WQA that last comment is not exactly choking on its own civility... Barberio's bitter and feels that he was treated unjustly by some admins. Let's just take that information in, no need add to the fire. Pascal.Tesson 06:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, my request for adminship was rejected precisely because I have plenty of edits in article space - but not enough of my edits were in WP: space! I couldn't believe it! SteveBaker 12:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, article space edits are an indication of what your contributions are to the encyclopedia - WP: edits are an indication of how much you know about policy (but both are only really a rough guide). ColourBurst 14:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Barberio, if you choose to leave, that's your call...but I'd recommend taking the personal attacks off your user and user talk pages. --Milo H Minderbinder 13:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inspiration is copyright infringement?

Hello, I was wondering if it is against any Wikipedia policy, or more importantly, if it is illegal to mention, in a References in popular culture section some artistic works inspired by another (copyrighted) artistic work. In particular, this Mediation Cabal case on East of Eden has been brewing for nearly a month with only sporadic discussion (and no closure) occurring. East of Eden has been assessed as "Top Importance" by WikiProject Novels, which means it is "a 'core' topic for literature, or is highly notable to people other than students of literature" (from Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Assessment#Importance scale)

Even more specifically, there are certain songs, inspired by this book, that were included in the References in popular culture section that User:Catbird222 removes. Eventually someone else adds them back—I was the one to first do these reverts, providing references to back up that these songs were inspired by the book. However, Catbird222 believes these songs to be copyright infringements, and even further, he claims to actually own the copyrights (see User talk:Catbird222). Regardless, I believe mentioning these songs is acceptable under fair use (both the WP policy and the legal doctrine).

Catbird222 even uses the name of admin User:BradPatrick, though Brad claims in this (archived) Administrators' noticeboard discussion that the invocation of his name is unwarranted in this situation.

The three bold links above are areas where this has been discussed quite a bit. I am refraining from reverting Catbird222's edits until this matter is settled.

− Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not illegal to mention any item whatsoever, in fact it's imperative. I command you to mention them! No but seriously, mentioning items is not in any way, shape or form copyright infringement. You are not copying an item, just because you name it. A name is not copyrightable unless of cource the name is the entirety of the work *and* is so extraordinarly unique that it represents a work of art (highly unlikely by the way). In other words, you're right, he's wrong, nah na nah na. Mentioning a song is not the *song*, its the song that is copyright, not its mention. Wjhonson 08:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Wjhonson has it almost exactly. Who on earth is this *** above, he clearly has no idea of copyright law or common practice. If what he implies "was" true, then the legal profession have been missing it for yearxs!. Just silly. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, if Catbird claims to own the rights to East of Eden, then by editing that article he is definitely in violation of WP:COI. If the mediation doesn't go anywhere, just move up the Dispute Resolution ladder. If he keeps up the way he's going, he's going to end up blocked by the ArbCom eventually.--Aervanath 09:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I own the rights to the word "the". I refuse to allow anyone to mention the word "the" ever again. Its' illegal! I mean it. *Puts on spider man pajamas* Wjhonson 09:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I was invited to weigh in on this. First of all, I would really like to encourage people to steer the conversation away from sarcasm and unkindness. We don't need to mock anybody, even if we disagree strongly with them, and nastiness is just going to inflame, not resolve, any real basis for the dispute. That said, we are absolutely not in the business of determining whether or not a song based on a character in a novel infringes on the copyright of that novel. Further, even if we knew that it did, for instance after a widely-discussed successful suit, it would remain a matter of editorial judgement on our part whether or not to mention the song in the article about the novel. Don't get me wrong -- I think that these "In popular culture" sections are usually trivial, badly written and that we should be sort of vaguely embarassed by our tendency to turn our "what links here" function into bullet-formatted text in the actual article. But it's an editorial decision, not one based on copyright issues. Jkelly 17:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Just my 2 cents: this reminds me of a similar situation where an editor tried to get all references and links to websites offerin "old time radio" recordings removed from Wikipedia, and in the process started removing links and information that were being used for the specific purposes of fulfilling WP:V. As I understand it, just because something based upon another work is alleged to violate a copyright, that does not disqualify it from inclusion in Wikipedia. It can be mentioned, and if notable enough an article can be created about it, nd if it is the subject of a copyright suit, etc., then that can also be mentioned in the appropriate place -- with proper attribution. Someone coming along and making the claim that such-and-such is a copyvio and must be removed -- when that item is simply being mentioned as factual information, in this case to illustrate cultural references to East of Eden -- is IMO in violation of WP:NPOV and probably other Wikipedia rules and unless, of course, the information being added can be proven as being false, WP:SNOW is also a factor. 23skidoo 21:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is this page still useful?

I'd almost forgotten that this page existed, frankly. I've been working on tidying up the project namespace, and there's practically no help, and I only recently got linked here, to find people here busily chatting away about all kinds of trivial subjects, blithely unaware that -for instance-- Wikipedia:Consensus has been broken since almost forever, or that the whole policy/guideline/essay/howto/twiddlethumbs/other division is entirely unenlightening, and also broken besides (since pages get mis-marked all the time, and sometimes multiple times, when someone gets the urge to do another Great Re-Tagging).

So my questions are these. Is this page still useful for any real work? (Note that the real work takes digging in old pages, and using your nose to sniff out consensus from the dark little corners of the wiki.). And if so, who's up for it? :-) --Kim Bruning 08:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Sshhhh you're giving away all the secrets! Beam me up the link Kim ! This is the village pump we just come here to chat, you're expecting us to... work? Ugh. Wjhonson 08:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Make a personal list of useful and not-useful Wikipedia pages somewhere (not sure if this would be suitable for Wikipedia namespace instantly), and add your comments to them, or set up a collaborative area for people to winnow out the most useful pages. I've thought of doing this for a while, so I could have a set of notes to refer to to help me decide the best place to go to for help. Sometimes the categories organising the Wikipedia namespace are helpful. See Category:Wikipedia categories, or as that doesn't exist, try Category:Wikipedia administration (CategoryTree view) and Category:Wikipedia history (CategoryTree view), plus 'what links here' for {{Wikipedia category}} (less than 100 whatlinkshere hits at the moment. Carcharoth 08:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I pretty much fail to see the difference between this part of the pump and the 'proposals' part; both are replete with suggestions on how we should do things differently (and also, WP:PEREN issues). >Radiant< 13:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
    • This place is for rules, that place is for other changes, I think. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

One way in which this page is useful is as a pointer towards the places where actual discussion is going on. As an admin with a fairly peripheral involvement in policy discussions, I find it useful to drop in here from time to time for updates on possible policy changes. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about creating a corporate page.

Is is ok to create a history/corporate page on our company? The name is Clutterbusters!! it is a registered trademark--and the name itself has become synonymous with the service itself (professional organizing)--thus, people may be searching the words "Clutter buster" or "clutterbuster" in an effort to locate a page on professional organizing. I would put a link to the main "professional organizing" page, but the main purpose is to let people know that the term Clutterbuster is a trademarked name. Is that allowable? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rfein1 (talk • contribs) 18:30, February 1, 2007 (UTC).

Creating articles about your own company is generally frowned upon. See WP:CORP, WP:AUTO and WP:COI. If you want to note the trademark, you could just redirect it to the main page on professional organizing, with a note on that page about the name being trademarked. The talk page for that article is also a good place to discuss this. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
If your company actually meets WP:N, send me some information on it and I'll see if I can put together a small article stub on it. I see nothing wrong with most significant companies having a page. --BenBurch 22:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google hits as an arguing tool?

Is there any official or quasi-offical policy pertaining to this? It.. kind of annoys me when people use the equivalent of Googlefight to argue what name an article should take, or if an article passes notability. Similarly people like to talk about "Alexa rank", which I'm not familiar with. It might not be such a bad thing, but people seem to like using this as their sole argument as to why an article should change, stay the same, be deleted, or whatever. Errick 22:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It is a very bad practice. Google hits may at best be used to gauge notability prima facie but never to make a comparison of two things and see which is more 'notable'. It probably can also be used in some cases to call a hoax or someone's bluff. But using it to establish notability is a strict no-no. Sarvagnya 22:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Recent discussion here. Essentially they're an indicator but in themselves meaningless. Alexa is an imperfect measure of the number of hits a site gets; it can indicate popularity but not notability. Trebor 22:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the statement "It is a very bad practice". Sure Google hits have to be used parsimoniously, with care and certainly never as a sole judge. But there's no reason not to use them when you take the time to explain what you think they mean and why you think that data enlightens the debate. Pascal.Tesson 23:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Alexa is more than imperfect. It's terrible. First, if a site appeals to Mac users, you don't see it there. No Alexa toolbar for the mac that I am aware of. And the Alexa toolbar is basically what is now termed "spyware" and most people who know what they are doing with online security don't install it. So sites that appeal to more savvy and experienced Internet users simply don't get counted there, either! And there are some well known strategies for pumping your Alexa numbers that some people use very effectively for their sites. --BenBurch 23:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Google hits can be useful. They can be a very rough quantitative measure, but not qualitative. Google scholars, if used correctly and only for certain things, can also be used in a similar fashion.Atom 00:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Google search: "Kevin Federline" = 1,740,000 results
Google search: "Ralph Nader" = 1,170,000 results
Interesting. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 03:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Google test. Dragons flight 04:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Google Books, Google News (archives) and Google Scholar are useful, but you have to actually analyze the contents of what it returns. JChap2007 18:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quality

Is there a guideline on quality? If not, shouldn't there be one saying that in a nutshell, edits should focus on quality, not churn out numerous edits? Simply south 22:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to write an essay on the subject and ask for opinions. --Ideogram 22:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Edits should focus on improving the encyclopaedia. An edit that does that is good; an edit that doesn't is not so good. Trebor 22:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Now, of course, all we have to agree on is the definition of improve... LessHeard vanU 00:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Definitely should be quality not quantity, but reverting vandalism should be both (for me, anyway). Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 00:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
This topic is somewhat discussed at Wikipedia:Editcountitis, but could be elaborated on significantly. As LessHeard vanU pointed out though, how do we define what is 'quality' and what isn't? Probably the biggest annoyance for me is editors who make twenty edits to a page within five minutes, because they either seem to feel that every single change deserves its own edit, or they refuse to look at the preview before saving their pages. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 00:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I sometimes make "twenty edits to a page within five minutes" but usually only when I feel that, for one reason or another, I need to explain every single change, no matter how minor, with an edit summary. Situations when I feel this is necessary include when the page is getting hot and dangerously close to an edit war and I want people to understand what I'm doing and why without cluttering up the talk page and want people to be able to revert the controversial changes I make without reverting the uncontroversial copyediting. Also, people often ask me to copyedit articles they've worked on. I like to make lots of minor edits then so that I can explain what I'm doing with each change and they can look at the edit summaries and not make the same grammatical errors again. Basically - I do that when I want people to understand what I'm doing and why. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Attribution

Comments are requested on whether this page is still viable. Steve block Talk 15:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what kind of comments you're looking for. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The best term to wrap up cities, towns, villages, etc.

I won't get into what's been happening with top-level U.S. state categories lately (as I don't want to treat this like a dispute), but I'd like to know what fellow Wikipedians think. Should we wrap up subcategories for cities, towns, villages, etc. into a top-level category for "settlements" or should we use something like "political subdivisions" or "administrative divisions". All of these connote certain things, but I just wanted to get others' opinions on this. Thanks! Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 17:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Settlements seems to be the best word to wrap up cities, towns, villages, etc. into one category, in my opinion. Political subdivisions and administrative divisions would seem to include only those locations that are politically recognized and would include things like counties, states, provinces, etc. On the other hand, Settlements limits the subcategories to concentrations of people and excludes counties, states, provinces, etc.--Bobblehead 18:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
How about "populated areas"? User:Zoe|(talk) 23:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I'll go ahead and say what I think is optimal, although I don't want to stop others' ideas from flowing. I'm thinking "community" or perhaps even "polity" (although, that's kind of a flighty word). A city and a county can both be communities. What sounds less absurd, the Louisville community, or the Louisville settlement? With counties: the Jefferson County community, or the Jefferson County settlement? I'm going by connotations here, and community has a more authentic ring to it. Even "populated area" sounds more authentic than settlement when looking at it this way. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 00:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
  • For information existing use of 'settlements' in WP, see Settlement (first meaning), Category:Settlements, Category:Settlements by region, Category:Settlements in the United States. This is not a discussion about what to call a particular city, town, village--they are still cities, towns, villages etc. This is a discussion regarding the collective name for human habitations, which include city, town, village, etc, but not state, county, province, etc which are land areas. Hmains 17:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Counties are effectively communities, like cities are communities. Not all space in any of these entities are full of residential space ("human habitations"), but also include commercial and industrial zoning, as well as farmland and even much unused land in many cases. "Community" would apply to everything beneath a region level. I think that normally in the Wikipedia we go with more inclusive categories. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 18:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, not according to Community, which specifically excludes cities, let along anything higher from the definition of community. WP reflects the commonly understood meaning and use of the term. Also see Category:Community and Category:Communities Hmains 21:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, we need to find a better word than 'settlement'. That's the bottom line. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 16:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
How about "localities"? Admittedly, that could include other local administrative units such as counties, or unpopulated areas, but it might be better than "settlements" (which does have a whiff of the frontier about it, to my ears at least). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I like "localities." It's also used by DMOZ, where categories are the be-all and end-all of the project and therefore category naming issues get a great deal more attention. -- Visviva 04:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
"[T]he term 'locality' is used by the United States Board on Geographic Names to refer to the name of a place that is neither a legally incorporated or defined entity (like a township or city), nor a specific geographical feature such as a river or mountain." So there's that to contend with. Postdlf 05:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Postdlf, can you point me to where the U.S. Board on Geographic Names uses the term "locality"? I haven't been able to find it used anywhere on their site. They do use the term "locale", although I haven't come across a definition for it either. older ≠ wiser 13:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't seem like a problem to me: I assume that the USBGN uses "locality" for that because there isn't any other, more specific name for such places. All places are localities, so if you have a place that isn't a town, city, river, mountain or whatever, you can just call it a "locality". Merriam-Webster defines "locality" as:
  1. the fact or condition of having a location in space or time
  2. a particular place, situation, or location
and the Compact OED gives:
  1. an area or neighbourhood
  2. the position or site of something
Does that satisfy our purposes? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I like 'localities' a lot. It's much more contemporary in usage than 'settlements' and it can include cities, towns, counties, neighborhoods, etc. Also, while the USBGN point is well-taken, I also accept the broader definition, and we shouldn't be US-centric anyway. As far as 'settlements' is concerned, that should apply to settlements in the vain of non-permanent locations where humans settled; in other words, it would largely have a historical bent. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 01:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Two thoughts. One, I'm not sure what the problem with "settlements" is. It does have connotations of smallness or non-modernness or colonialism, but the United Nations Human Settlements Programme [4] seems to subsume all sizes of human habitats within its scope. Second, the term "locality" does not very well cover large areas. It strikes me as decidely odd to consider places like New York City or London as a "locality". This applies to non-urban areas as well, where some levels of local government encompass large swaths of sparsely populated areas that often include widely separated and distinct communities within them. I don't think either term works well with such entities. older ≠ wiser 04:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
That's true, but I think that "locality" fits New York or London somewhat better than "settlement" does. I agree that neither word is perfect, but I think "locality" has less baggage than "settlement". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I'm slightly inclined towards "settlements" as the more inclusive term for populated places and thus less poor-fitting for large urban areas like NYC or London. I think it fits less well for those rather arbitrarily defined geographic subdivisions that do not correspond to human population centers. OTOH, "locality", to me, fits both types of areas poorly for two reasons, 1) locality has the connotation of a human-scale point in space, larger-scale places seem rather out of place described as "localities"; 2) there is nothing inherent in the term "locality" that implies a populated place -- a locality could be a rock or a crossroads. older ≠ wiser 13:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not married to the term 'locality'. I just would like to see a term that's inclusive and doesn't carry the connotative baggage that 'settlement' does. Also, we don't have to necessarily combine populated localities (cities, villages, etc.) with geographic subdivisions (counties, metro areas, etc.) -- it's not a bad thing to have these separated. I look to the moment when Wikipedia decided on the somewhat sterile, but baggage-free category naming "People of...". I think we need to do this again with "Settlements of...", renaming to something like "Populated localities of...". Sure, there will be some huge populated localities, such as New York, but I don't think we should let a few exceptions constrain the guideline we come up with. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 16:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, both terms, settlement and locality, have aspects that make them problematic as catch-all terms. Perhaps what you're going for is "populated places" (which I think is somewhat more generic and less narrow than "populated locality"). Regarding your comment about not needing to combine populated locatities from geographic subdivisions -- the problem is that the distinction is not always very clear. In many states, Towns and Townships were created as geographic subdivisions of the County. These entities often cover large geographic areas and can encompass multiple distinct communities. However, at the other extreme, these entities can become indistinguishable from cities. There is no clear line distinguishing them. If some townships are categorized as populated places (or localities or whatever), they logically would all have to be classified as such, even though some townships cover hundreds of square miles and have an extremely low population density. older ≠ wiser 17:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
"Populated place" sounds workable. I don't know if it should matter whether a populated place has a particular density, as long as it's generally regarded as a populated place. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 22:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes baggage must be discarded for forward movement to happen. A quick google search of 'human settlement' seems to show that this 'is' a collective term for 'cities, towns, and the like'. Please check and also remember English dictionaries are not 'prescriptive', they are 'descriptive' and sometimes take time to catch up to actual usage. Thanks Hmains 02:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Check the archives for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities, as I think this topic has been discussed and decided there. (SEWilco 04:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC))
I don't believe that wikiprojects have the authority to make decisions for the entirety of Wikipedia. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 22:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
My mistake. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) has been discussing names of populated locations. (SEWilco 05:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC))
I place a much higher weight on connotation, obviously, and I think others are seeing this argument too. I would hope that nobody would marry themselves to a specific term, as changing over to a new one can be simply accomplished by a bot. Just because a word is defined a certain way doesn't make it the best word for our use. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 22:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

For references, the United Nations Stastical Division uses "locality", which they define here and [5]. More details can be found in the actual Methodology documentation. --Polaron | Talk 06:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the Canadian practice has generally been to use "communities" as the general parent, and then to group specific types of communities in the appropriate subcategories ("cities", "towns", "townships", "villages", etc.) A "community" that isn't incorporated as a municipality in and of itself, but is instead nested within a larger "community", would be either left directly in "communities", or subcategorized as "communities in (appropriate census division)". Again, not that the US has to use the same categorization scheme, but I offer it as food for thought nonetheless. Bearcat 22:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

  • It seems that 'settlements' is even used in an established WP naming convention: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements). No alternative really needed Hmains 18:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
    • We already know you are interesting in cutting off the discussion. Perhaps one day you will try to see the other side of the argument. You have not been at all helpful in explaining why 'settlement' is a better choice, except to suggest it's somehow a tradition in the Wikipedia. Not good enough. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 22:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think there is enough disagreement on the subject where it would be beneficial at some point in the near future to submit the entire range of "Settlements" categories for renaming consideration. I will offer "Populated places" as a suggestion, but the CfR participants will certainly be free (as always) to come up with their own ideas. Thanks everyone for your contribution to this discussion! Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 20:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I feel the term "communities" fits best. A "locality" is a place and need not even be populated. "Settlement" has a connotation of newness, possible impermanency, and typically refers to very tiny communities (smaller than a village or hamlet). Askari Mark (Talk) 23:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-emptive semi-protection

I am aware that pre-emptive protection or semi-protection is currently against Wikipedia policy. I would like to propose that, with apprpriate safeguards, this policy be changed under certain circumstances.

The article Auschwitz concentration camp is a major article, although not a featured one, and deals with a subject having, for many people, a very highly emotional content. It also, for some reason, is a major target for vandalism. I have seen it hit, on occasion, four or five times a day, nearly always by non-account-holders, and at least one hit per day is expected. The edits are, of course, mindless and/or childish and/or obscene and/or offensive, and must cause very significant distress to editors whose families were caught up in the Holocaust.

Devolve the decision to a bureaucrat, or a steward, or Jimbo himself if you like, but I would like there to be a procedure in place whereby pages of this type, vandalised in a way which causes emotional distress to other editors, can be permanently semi-protected. --Anthony.bradbury 17:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is reasonable. Of course, "appropriate safeguards" and "certain circumstances" are the keywords here and both would have to be explicited more formally before I wholly support such a change. Articles which, by nature, are the subject of extremely offensive vandalism (Nigger is another example that comes to mind) would benefit from such a measure. Vandalism is of course quickly reverted but every now and then some user will see the Auschwitz page replaced by "Jews burn" and the damage done is probably much greater than when a user wants to read on George Bush and sees it replaced by "I hope this guy dies". Pascal.Tesson 17:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you - that is exactly my point. I did not take the liberty of stipulating which safeguards or circumstances were appropriate; it seemed to me that, if the principle were approved, then these factors may emerge in the discussion. If you look back in the article's edit history you will find edits which are much more upsetting than the example which User:Pascal.Tesson quotes.--Anthony.bradbury 17:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think that the current request for protection process is insufficient? --Aervanath 18:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Because the current policies of protection and semi-protection do not encourage semi-protection as a preemptive tool against occasional vandalism. The argument being made here is that while the semi-protection policy makes perfect sense in most cases, vandalism on certain pages tends to be so very deeply offensive that permanent semi-protection should be considered as an option. Pascal.Tesson 00:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
While I'm sympathetic to your plight, but pages on sensitive subjects aren't the only ones that seem to be vandal magnets. Aircraft gets as much vandalism as you quote for Auschwitz concentration camp. (In fact, I'm surprised you aren't getting hit worse.) I'm not sure how a general rule can be devised that will govern when to use or not use permanent semi-protection if the goal is simply to reduce vandalism. Askari Mark (Talk) 01:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
As I understand it, the problem that Anthony.bradbury and Pascal.Tesson are trying to remedy here is not that pages like Auschwitz concentration camp and Nigger are "vandal magnets", necessarily, but when they are vandalized, the vandalism that they receive is extremely offensive. Whereas a page like President of the United States is frequently vandalized, the graffiti there is more likely to be something like "BUSH IS DUM" or something that people are not emotionally sensitive to. Or, similarly, the horde of "reality is a commodity" vandals incited by the Colbert Report yesterday. While that kind of vandalism is annoying, it doesn't provoke a strong emotional reaction, beyond the "damn it, now I've got to revert it again" sort. Whereas with pages like Auschwitz concentration camp and Nigger, the vandals there are more likely to insert racially charged and highly offensive language into the article. Therefore, Anthony.bradbury and Pascal.Tesson feel that those pages should be "pre-emptively" protected or semi-protected, to prevent this sort of attack, even when the pages are not necessarily vandalized often.

Does that sound like a fair re-statement of what you guys are trying to say? (I'm sorry to be so wordy, but at first I had the same mis-understanding that Askari Mark had. I just want to make sure I'm clear on what you guys are saying before I continue in the discussion.)--Aervanath 02:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly my point. I would suggest that readers or editors who have lost family members in the Holocaust could become deeply upset on finding some of the vandalism edits (check thje page history) whch frequently appear there. I have requested, and obtained, temporary semi-protection, but the problem is ongoing and long-standing.--Anthony.bradbury 12:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Yup. I do not doubt that Aircraft can be the target of much vandalism. However let's compare the last two examples of vandalism on that article (here and here) to the last two on the Auschwitz article (here and here). I believe we can all agree that the latter are extremely offensive and potentially much more damaging to Wikipedia's reputation because they will tend to stick into people's minds. I don't think it's unreasonable to guard against deeply offensive vandalism. Pascal.Tesson 15:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

In that case, I believe that the term "pre-emptive" is possibly misleading in this case. Pre-emptive means protecting a page before it has been vandalized at all. I do not support that. I think that protection should always be after-the-fact. However, I agree that in this case it doesn't need to be frequent vandalism. What I would support is having a standard for permanent semi-protection on pages with a history of highly-offensive or racially-charged vandalism. Therefore, I propose that the following language (or something similar) be added to WP:SEMI:

When an article has a history of semi-frequent highly-offensive or racially-charged vandilism, it is considered appropriate to indefinitely semi-protect that page.

Comments?--Aervanath 16:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I would accept this absolutely.--Anthony.bradbury 23:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this is exactly what Anthony and I have been proposing. And it is pre-emptive in the sense that it's not aimed at protecting the page from on-going vandalism. "Pre-emptive" does not mean before a page has been vandalized at all as you seem to think. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find any non-stub article on Wikipedia that has never been vandalized. Pre-emptive means that the protection acts on perceived future incidents rather than current incidents. Pascal.Tesson 00:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see your point. I was thinking of "pre-emptive" in a more general sense, like the military would say "pre-emptive strike" to mean attacking first before the enemy has a chance to attack. Anyway, we'll leave that proposal up here for a few days, see if there are any more comments. If there aren't, then into policy it goes.--Aervanath 02:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I understand more clearly now. I think one of the conditions you should use is that the vandalism is more or less constant. On Aircraft, it comes in waves (and usually when the kids get their school lunch break it seems). That sets a useful boundary condition that may make it more acceptable to consensus. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
So it is time to move this discussion to the talk page of the protection policy, to work on getting consensus there, and then change the policy? -- John Broughton (☎☎) 04:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Not quite yet, John, since I don't quite understand Askari's last comment. Askari, when you say "one of the conditions you should use is that the vandalism is more or less constant", do you mean that this should be a requirement for protection under our new rule? Because that is not what we are trying to accomplish with this rule change. What we are trying to say is that some articles don't necessarily get vandalized a lot, or constantly. But the vandalism that happens at these articles is so offensive that it warrants indefinite semi-protection. If we make "constant vandalism" a requirement, then some of the articles we are trying to protect won't get protected. Do you see the difference? Or have I mis-understood your point?--Aervanath 06:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Like others, I'm sympathetic to what you're trying to do here, but I don't think pre-emptive fences around articles are the answer. Please trust the Wikipedia soft security method -- just try to make sure the most sensitive articles are on the watchlists of enough sensible people to ensure that any vandalism is reverted within minutes (as it looks like it usually is). Believe me, I know that reverting vandalism is frustrating, repetitive, and occasionally disturbing -- I have over three thousand articles on my watchlist, and make vandalism reverts daily -- but I really believe that it works better to leave most articles open and clean up afterwards. (For a somewhat-related topic, see Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection.)

I think of it as living next door to a public park: beautiful view, lovely birdsong, happy kids... and inevitable daily piles of dog feces, as my canine-loving and manners-impaired neighbors enjoy the park as well. Do I wish that they'd clean up after themselves (not vandalize)? Of course. Do we post signs asking them to do so (leave messages and warnings on talk pages)? Of course. Do I try to ban them and their dogs from the park (protect articles)? Of course not, unless they're doing something worthy of calling in the cops (need banning). Of course, in Wikipedia, you can clean up the crap with a single click, and it doesn't even stink!

I know it seems like there ought to be a way to reach the end of vandalism, to stop it once and for all, and not ever have to revert again. I found, though, that I was much happier once I accepted that it's not possible -- you can't protect every article, and you can't teach the vandals as every day you're dealing with new ones. Reverting is just the (relatively low) price of having an open system that works so well. — Catherine\talk 19:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proper procedure to follow if you cannot reach consensus due to non-participation?

Several times now I've posted a proposed change on a talk page, only to have it completely ignored. I would appreciate some input on what the proper behavior in this instance is. Normally I would just be bold and assume no objections, but on a policy or guideline page, this can cause some heat, since it's obvious that I haven't "built consensus". Unfortunately, this seems to be a Catch-22, since no one else seemed to want to participate in the discussion to help build the consensus in the first place. Thanks in advance for your comments. --Aervanath 07:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

After looking at the policies and guidelines, I guess the best thing to do in this case would just be to go ahead and edit. Then, if someone reverts, we can start a discussion and come to a consensus. So, yeah...never mind. :)--Aervanath 08:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Move up one chair. Wjhonson 08:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

We have something for that: Bold-revert-discuss. Page does need tidying. (Like many pages do) --Kim Bruning 08:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That is a great essay. I love it. I will take it home and make it my pet. Woof. (I'm not a cat person, sorry.) :-D (Actually, I really mean that. That's a very helpful essay. Thank you.)--Aervanath 08:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
You know, if the problem is lack of attention, not mentioning the name of the page is a great way to keep it from getting more attention. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I was just asking in a general sense, not talking about a specific article. If it comes up again, I know what to do now.--Aervanath 03:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable roles

The subject of the "notable roles" of actor/actress articles is cropping up in several areas of Wikipedia, and it revolves around the question of "which roles of the actor in question are actually notable enough for inclusion in their infoboxes?" Some argue that this is strictly POV while others (including myself) argue that a role's notability can be gauged with reference to reliable sources such as the number of awards won by the actor for a particular role, repeated references as "hits" in media sources, and similar methods to gain a reliable indicator of notability. If the "POV-argumentators" continue to insist (unreasonably IMO) that 'notable roles' are strictly a matter of personal opinion (POV) then this may require the removal of "notable roles" from the Actor Infobox Template. Opinions are requested, please. To gain further insight into the polemics of this issue, please take the time to quickly read through Talk:Shilpa_Shetty#Notable_roles and WT:INCINE#Notable_roles. Ekantik talk 05:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I've said it before and I"ll say it again. 'Notable' is POV. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
All respects but, this doesn't help to resolve the problem. Ekantik talk 23:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Notable roles may not win awards, the film/play may not have been good other than the subjects contribution or it was simply up against a superior/more popular choice (Paul Newman in "The Verdict"?), or it may have come too early in the career of the subject to garner industry notice at the time; in retrospect a role may be realised as being notable. Perhaps an authority like Halliwell should be referenced, their synopsis generally go for quality over an artists career. LessHeard vanU 01:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Good point, thank you, that was one of my suggestions too vis-a-vis consulting some kind of authority (or reliable source) to determine a particular actor's notable roles. Ekantik talk 05:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Another thought - figuring out which roles are significant for the career is easier in retrospect. Google testing will tend to produce the most recent roles, regardless of career significance. Look for sources that look back at a career, rather than focus on current projects, and see which they highlight as most important or spend time dwelling on. GRBerry 03:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When is religion important...

Hello...

Where can I find policy on when it is important to list religious affiliation or lack thereof in a biographical article?

For instance...if an article is about a celebrity and their religion or lack there of is not part of their public persona, do we list their religion or just not put it in? KsprayDad 18:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I seem to remember a discussion about this recently; but I don't know if there's a policy or anything. I would say that, if there are sources that discuss their religion or lack thereof then it probably is part of their public persona and worth mentioning in the article. On the other hand, if there are not reliable sources that mention it, then we should not mention it anyway. My 2 cents. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
This issue isn't significantly different from political partisanship. Knowing which party Clint Eastwood or Ronald Reagan belong/ed to is significant because they are/were very active in politics. If the celebrity's work in their field is affected by their religion, it needs to be mentioned. If the celebrity's participation in religion is itself notable, it needs to be mentioned (the test I have in mind is the primary notabiltiy criteria, but evaluating only sources primarily about their participation in religion). If it is very difficult to verify religious affiliation, it almost definitely should not be mentioned. In between, it is an editorial judgement call, with an eye on WP:BLP. GRBerry 03:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People need instructions for accessing images from Commons

I wanted to use some images from Commons on my user page. However, I couldn't figure it out. Then I added the image to the page thinking it wouldn't work. But it did. Could a note be added somewhere that tells users they can treat images on Commons as though they were local? Putting Commons in front of the "Image:" just turns the image into a link. You can't turn it around. Will (Talk - contribs) 02:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Commons explains how to insert images from Commons. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 07:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Then given my experience, perhaps those instructions need to be more visible. Perhaps if each media or image page at Commons included a brief comment telling how to access the file, that would help. Will (Talk - contribs) 08:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-admins protection power

feel free to take a look at Wikipedia:Non-admin protection_powers

...huh? EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Huh, that wouldn't work though, you can't cascade protect a non protected page. You can lock users out of their js files, I believe, so it would work if you semi-protected the page, then cascade protected. Due to a bug, that fully protects pages transcluded there. A vandal recently tried to do something like that. Prodego talk 04:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Coughs up some beans. Yes, though, this is technically impossible as if a sysop full protects a .js page, it locks the user out of it. Also, the semi-protection issue is apparently being fixed so that semi-protected pages cannot be cascading. Cowman109Talk 05:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Stewards can assign individual permissions (without using hacks), though we already have WP:RFPP, so I don't see how this is really necessary. trial adminship looks more realistic to me. -- Selmo (talk) 05:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Stewards can not assign individual permissions. Prodego talk 05:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

My mistake. I forgot that. -- Selmo (talk) 05:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
They do assign several single permissions though, such as oversight(actually 2 permissions) and checkuser, so that is what you were probably thinking of. One line of code would create a new 'protect' permission stewards could assign though, so it wouldn't be a huge deal to add something like this. Prodego talk 05:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

This makes no sense to me. The whole point of the adminship process being difficult is so that the community can judge whether the editor is trustworthy or not. It creates far too much hassle to give protection powers to pretty much everyone, and then revoke them when the tools are abused. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 05:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. There is a reason why the populace at large don't have access to page protection. Chris cheese whine 05:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I mean it wouldn't be hard on a technical level. I agree that this is not a great idea, especially since protection should be the second most rarely used admin ability, right after range blocking. Prodego talk 05:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. We should want to keep page protection to a minimum - not encourage it. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 06:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
In that case, I'm going to tag that as {{rejected}}. I would have said WP:SNOW, but on re-reading it, I think the proverbial snowball actually stands a far better chance of success than this. Chris cheese whine 07:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Note: This also works (may be part of the 'bug') if no protection is applied to the page other than move protection + cascade. — xaosflux Talk 07:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Television Characters

Is there any policy regarding the treatment of current television characters to whom things are still happening? Sort of like the guidelines for "biographies of living persons." Cranston Lamont 18:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're asking. The treatment how? --Milo H Minderbinder 20:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
For instance, information about these characters is often added piecemeal on a week-by-week basis as it happens. There's a big tendancy to put on new stuff using the present tense, which gets awkward as time goes by. Should new additions to these character's stories always be added in past tense, and should that be an official policy in some way? Remembering that there are hundreds of articles like this out there. Cranston Lamont 20:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
For that specific question; check out WP:TENSE. Suprisingly, the advice there is to use the present tense. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah . . . I see where works of fiction are unique in that they are a static world that people should feel themselves immersed in. But I think serial stories like television series are fundamentally different; they have a growing time dimension that novels, etc. lack. In my humble opinion, new material about TV shows should be added in the past tense so that the narrative will continue to make sense after months or years. Cranston Lamont 00:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Here is my take on this... as soon as an episode ends the events in that eppisode become something that happend in the past... so ANY reference to a character should be posted in Past tense. Blueboar 16:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I've yet to see a literary style guide that does not recommend use of the so-called "literary present" tense. With writing about fiction, there are two distinct timelines: one for publication history of the fiction and one for the internal chronology within the fiction; we shouldn't conflate the two, even though they often correlate. The consensus developed among Wikipedia editors — at WP:WAF and WP:FICT, among other places — is that articles about work and elements of fiction should strive to treat fiction as a cultural artifact, and not attempt to stray too much "in-universe". Part of this entails recognition that fiction tells a story, no matter what happens in subsequent works. In describing this story, it is implicitly assumed that the point of reference within the fictional chronology moves along with the story. By doing this, it's also easier to handle cases where the fictional universe is rewritten over time through prequels, retcons, and the like. We can — and should — depict how the creators decided to change things over time, but the rewriting doesn't change what original version depicts. — TKD::Talk 15:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dominator UAV

Hello, would people with experience in naming conventions for articles please chime in at the Discussion page here: Talk:Dominator UAV. I am flexible on the article name, but I want to ensure people using search engines like "Google" and "Wikipedia" will find it quickly and easily. Thank you Headphonos 16:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, I will reiterate that WP:Air is where the aircraft article naming policy is set. Ergo, you should be discussing this there. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 17:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What about the future?

What are we going to do in the future about references to websites? Currently there are many websites used as a reference to information in an article. In fifty years most of those websites will be gone (and the information will be left without a reference). Bubba73 (talk), 02:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

All information gone? Says who?++aviper2k7++ 02:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
All information won't be gone, but the reference to that information will be gone, assuming Wikipedia is still around. Then it won't be Wikipedia:Verifiability, for Wikipedia:Citing sources. Bubba73 (talk), 02:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Why would the references be gone? Most new sources archive their articles.++aviper2k7++ 02:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
the website you click on for the reference will no longer be there. The source of the information will not be there. Bubba73 (talk), 02:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, then as time progresses I'm assuming Wikipedia will evolve too and new sources will have to be found, deleted, and added. I'm not that worried about it. Darthgriz98 02:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget about The Wayback Machine. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 02:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

But the links that are in the WP articles will no longer work. For instance, just a few days ago I tried to follow a link to a NASA photograph. The link in the article used to work, but it didn't then. I found the photo somewhere else. Even if other sources are found, that is going to be a lot of work down the road. People die, organizations go out of existance, ISPs shut down, etc. I think we should be worried about so many web pages being used as references, and the references will no longer be easily available. Bubba73 (talk), 03:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Print sources go out of availability also. I live in a city whose public library has a large collection (it is the library of last resort for the state), but even for it the majority of its book holdings aren't available to check out, and a large fraction have to be requested from non-public access and/or offsite storage, which doesn't exactly make it easily available for verification. GRBerry 03:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't make it easy, but it still makes it possible. The true problem with print is that many of the necessary resources are not available except in university libraries. You are fortunate being in one of the few cities that does at least have a research-quality public library. DGG 03:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
You'll appreciate the fact that I am at least 150km away from a university library ;). Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 03:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Eventually, I think Wikipedia is going to have to start keeping archived copies on our servers of whatever pages we referrence. JoshuaZ 03:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
That is what I was going to propose. I'm thinking about the long-term good of WP. who knows if the WayBack site is going to be around in 100 years or 1,000. We are having a little of the problem already. When links go down, most editors simply delete them. Well into the future are editors going to be more diligent and find another source, for something they may be a lot less familiar than current editors? I wouldn't bank on that. Bubba73 (talk), 13:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
If an on-line source disappears, then sooner or later someone will notice this disappearance and will request an updated citation. If it turns out that the only place where the piece of information was to be found was on a no-longer-available website, then I seriously have to question whether that information is still notable or reliable. Surely someone would have repeated the information elsewhere if it was still notable. Note: I am not saying that the information is not notable NOW... but notability is fluid, and in a few years it may fade.
also... did you consider that Wikipedia itself may not be around in 100 or 1000 years? Blueboar 14:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
(what about the future filler) After spending the past few hours photographing GE vacuum tubes of dubious notability with a Tiffen macro lens i'm a little tired and wondering if the maggot dripping zombie is still chasing the clown that might eat me around the imaginary fridge. Being connected to any sort of reality and encyclopedic dependibility kind of goes out the window when all the links go dead. Was anybody there? Was I the only one there watching the maggot dripping zombie chase the clown? Who cares, I like the encyclopedia and would be quite happy to sit in a corner by myself drinking a Coca-cola beverage reading Wikipedia. Even if a clown that might eat me goes by on the page every once in awhile and brings me back to the global warming reality.--John Zdralek 14:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infoboxes

Do we have a guideline somewhere about infobox content? There seems to be a lot of confusion about what is and isn't appropriate for an infobox (e.g. fair-use images and enormous amounts of information are not appropriate). WP:INFOBOX points to Category:Infobox templates, not to a project-space guideline. —Angr 07:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Great timing, Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes is just getting started. (and I nabbed that shortcut too) -- Ned Scott 07:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification of WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:EL in regards to discussion forum posts

It is my reading of those three policies that discussion forum posts are never to be used as sources in an article, ever. No exceptions. They shouldn't even be linked in the external links section. Am I correct? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

On what article do you wish to reference a discussion forum? Forums posts should not be used, because they are almost by definition unreliable sources, where anybody can say anything. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 21:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Sometimes they're good sources of information, like a game developer or a writer posting on an official forum about details of their next project or interpretations of their past work. It's like a personal website--personal websites of reliable figures, like known writers or the subject of the article can be used for some info, but the posts of random people are not likely to be reliable. No blanket prohibition, since there are exceptions. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I figured someone would ask for a specific article. Chairman S., I'm not the one wishing to reference forum posts; I'm the one who removed the references to forum posts from an article and am now having to defend that action. You can probably figure out which article by looking at my last, oh, 400 hundred contributions or so, but I'm going to be more generic here. It's an article about a company. When I first found the article it cited no sources except two discussion forums where people were bashing the company. I cleaned up the prose, edited for NPOV, added an infobox, removed the references to the forums, added references to the Secretary of State's office, watchlisted it, and went away. A month or so later someone edited the article to re-add the discussion forums. I removed them and left a note on the talk page about them not be WP:RS and violating the WP:EL policy. The person who added them grumbled, but didn't re-add them. A few weeks later along comes someone who works for the company and starts editing the article. They provided references to WP:RS, but the person who added the links reverted them. I edited from a comparison to re-add the sources in an NPOV manner, and discussed with the company person, who realised that they had a WP:COI and promised not to edit the article any more, but pointed out some errors on the talk page. However, the person who wants to have the discussion forum links in is now in a toot, saying that unless those links are in the article then the article is "basically an ad" for the company and that the reliable sources do nothing more than "repeat sping for the company". This person edits only that article. I've repeatedly told this person that if they can find the criticism in reliable sources it can go in the article; but they keep adding it without sources and they revert me when I add [citation needed] to the criticism. They say I was wrong to remove the links to the discussion forums, and that I am misinterpreting the WP:RS and WP:EL guidelines. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
In my opinion you are correct to remove these links as per WP:RS#Bulletin boards, wikis and posts to Usenet. However these claims have been published in a newspaper [6] (specifically referencing a blog [7] and one other source) which really should have been what the original poster looked for. Sure it just restates elements of those forum posts verbatim but it's from a reliable source.
No public forums or other means of non-controlled, open and potentially inflammatory or libellous content should be used as a source for a person or company; it wouldn't take me 2 seconds to find a forum posting saying (for example) "microsoft sucks" and it also wouldn't take me more than 2 seconds to find a reliable published mass-media source for the same. I could if I wished even write the post myself and reference it into the article. The source has to be verifiable or more importantly responsible for their actions. Most areas of mass-media and publishing have Codes of Practice and oversight bodies, they are accountable for their actions if they mis-state facts or publish erroneous or otherwise inflammatory items. Books, journals, news media and even large websites are likely to have lawsuits thrown at them like confetti if they printed wildly unfounded statements that could be easily refuted or found to be baseless. Individual small web forums are not. If the comments on a forum are deemed notable enough for inclusion as a cited source, then surely they should be notable enough to have been reported in a WP:RS - Foxhill 22:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much, both for the advice, and for finding that source! You stated more clearly than I could why forums are unreliable sources, and having a reliable source for the criticism will help the article dramatically. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

See User:Uncle G/On sources and content#Evaluating sources for some tips. Uncle G 19:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Scope

Two incidents have led me to question this recently. First was the addition of a WikiProject Afghanistan banner to Talk:Layla and Majnun and many other pages by STBot. The page is only distantly related to Afghanistan and I think at least 3 other country projects have a better claim to it. Then on Talk:Sari a user removed the Bangladesh WikiProject banner saying "Please, let's not plaster the top with national templates". On that page there are also easily three countries (Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh) that could easily have their banner. Should one banner take precedence or in such situations where something is widely shared (such as, hats, maybe) should no national project have their banner? I don't particularly care but... it'd be nice to know what people think. gren グレン 17:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

My personal opinion, and only my personal opinion. If a Wikiproject is actively working on maintaining a page, having the banner there is helpful but not required. If a Wikiproject isn't actually working on something, it isn't helpful. I'm not a fan of bots adding project banners; the project team should do it when they get to an article. I'd be more of a fan of bots removing project banners when a project goes inactive. However, project banners should not be understood as national templates ... they are alerts that a group of active editors concerned about a topical area considers this one of the articles in their topical area of interest. This is why I think additions should be by hand - if they aren't interested enough to do the tagging, they aren't really interested in the article. GRBerry 18:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
The banners are useful in performing the assessments utilised for Version 1.0. They can be shrunk, if that helps, see Wikipedia:Talk page templates. See also Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment and Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ. Steve block Talk 19:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

A bit related, what's the best thing for disambiguation pages. I recently removed (and was reverted) a wikiproject tag on a disambiguation page. Talk:Speed (disambiguation). It doesn't really hurt, but it does sometimes seems pointless and clutters up a talk page. Garion96 (talk) 20:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't see why tags like that could possibly be needed on disambiguation pages. In the example you used (Talk:Speed (disambiguation)), the disambiguation page itself has nothing to do with Louisville, it simply links to an article that does - hence, there is no need for Wikiproject Louisville to ever need to work on it, making the tag just a needless source of clutter. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 23:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
WP:COMICS has America's Best Comics (disambiguation) tagged. WP:FILM have a few, Category:Disambig-Class film articles, for example A Christmas Carol (disambiguation). Hope that shows why tags can possibly be needed. Steve block Talk 23:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should WP:BK be made a guideline?

Sorry for the cross-posting... There is an ongoing discussion on whether or not the long-standing proposed guideline for the notability of books should be tagged as a guideline. Everyone's input would be really appreciated as past discussions have often involved a handful of editors, making it hard to judge consensus. Pascal.Tesson 16:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seeking greater input into Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)

A lot of work has been done on Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) (aka "WP:CORP) lately, the most major change being the merger of Wikipedia:Notability (organizations) (aka WP:ORG) into it. Prior to the merge, WP:CORP was pretty stable as a guideline; WP:ORG was only a proposed guideline. A number of editors are working to synthesize the two; however, given that this is an oft-cited guideline at AfD, it would be nice if more editors took a look at this and added their own $0.02. Hopefully, that will result in a better end-product and will be something used by many that was created by more than a few. Agent 86 22:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to communicate about being a vandal

I was warned that I would be blocked unless I stopped editing/vandalizing the biographical entry for Kirsten Powers. As a neophyte, it is quite possible I did not follow appropriate guidelines. However, I believe the entry has factual errors, i.e., Powers is a "prominent" commentator. Moreover, the entry is written as if it was edited by her publicist.

The editor/adminstrator, zubdub, who said I'd be blocked does not accept messages, so there was no way to contact him or her.

So, how do I edit an unsourced biography for accuracy and bias? 12:23, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Latichever (talk • contribs) 6 February 2007.

Well, starting a biographical article with shamelessly lied tonight violates a number of Wikipedia policies, ie it is a POV, potentially a libel, and unsourced. I would suggest you start editing on subjects you feel less strongly about. --Michael Johnson 01:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Latichever, you can read WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:BIO for some information on the guidelines when writing biographical Wikipedia articles. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 01:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biography of living persons adminship

Biography of Living Persons Administrators ("BLP Admins") carry out a specialized, narrowly tailored administrative role within Wikipedia. Please see WP:BLPADMIN to offer your thoughts on this proposal. CyberAnth 03:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Question. What would be wrong with WP:FULL? I'm sure you already consider that as an option. Are their other category specific adminships? --ⅮⅭⅭⅬⅩⅩⅤⅠⅠ 04:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I've marked it as rejected because consensus on the talk page seems unanimously against the proposal with the exception of CyberAnth. I don't think further piling-on is necessary. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed the tag for the time being. Only four or five people had commented when the tag was added. Let's give it a little more time before we say it's been rejected by the community. Some good suggestions might come of it. Frise 05:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm... No offense to CyberAnth but I'm not sure any good can come out of this. It's a bad idea that stands against so many things that the Wikipedia community has shown time and again it cares about. It's instruction creep, it's creation of a WikiPolice and it's making adminship a big deal. Pascal.Tesson 05:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and it would seem to encourage a more bureaucratic system of hierarchy, which is the last thing we want. Furthermore, I can't understand what extra powers these "biography admins" will actually have over normal editors. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 06:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I was going to go add the rejected tag again, but I can see there's been a small edit war over it already and I have no desire to become part of it. Seriously though, it's worse than 10-1 against it on the talk page I think and there's no chance in hell this will magically acquire consensus. Grandmasterka 11:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
In the end it probably doesn't matter, as the developers are never going to add this functionality to the wiki - particularly with such a lack of consensus. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 12:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userspace autobiographies

Autobiographies are often moved from the mainspace to userspace by administators, either following a speedy deletion or an AfD debate. On one hand, this helps identity the user or his work through the userspace instead of deleting a perfectly good biography page. On the other, autobiographies are about the person himself and not about his Wikipedia activity, thus go against WP:USER as being unrelated to Wikipedia. I think there should be made a clear exception of this, or otherwise such actions should be disallowed. Michaelas10 (Talk) 17:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I often move such pages to userspace. To me, when User:Professor A writes Professor A with content like;

Professor A is a Professor of Middle Eastern History at University of Someplace. He was born in 1978 in Sometown, Someplace. He graduated with honors from Someplace High School in 1996 and got his BA degree from University of Someplace in 2000. He earned his Masters in History in 2003 and is currently working on his doctoral dissertation. His hobbies include playing World of Warcraft, reading Tolstoy, and drinking fine wine. He has been married since 2004 and has one child and another on the way.

That's a perfectly acceptable userpage that tells a lot about what areas we might expect this person to edit in and what sort of activities we might expect him to engage in. It seems like this person was trying to create a userpage and just stuck it in the wrong namespace. I don't see why you would object to the practice of userfying such content. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. I can't really see why this would be a big issue, since the alternative is simply to delete the entries, which would be a bit heavyhanded if the biography was made in good faith. In the end, WP:USER is a guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule, and many prominent editors have autobiographical info about themselves on their userpages. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 22:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Quite. A little autobiographical sketch is perfectly reasonable for a user's userpage, and userfying an autobiography takes some of the BITE out of being told they're not (yet) notable enough for the encyclopedia. I might be inclined to take a somewhat dimmer view of extravagant autobiographical userpages for editors who haven't made any contribution in mainspace, but I'm not going to get worked up over it. The only case that would really bother me is if they're using their userpage to push a product or service—that is, if they're using a user page solely to market something, and they're not contributing to the encyclopedia at all. We can step in (and have done so before) where a user page is essentially just spam. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
As someone guilty of making such a bio article as among my first edits, I am going to jump on the bandwagon and say that such pages pose relatively little threat to Wikipedia once they get moved into namespace. In particular, they provide helpful information in identifying a user's interests, skills, and background. --Thisisbossi 02:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
They're pretty harmless and userfying a page is a great way to not bite newbies. If a user stays long enough he'll end up fixing his userpage. If the user doesn't stay, well we waste 3kb and there's really no need to worry. Pascal.Tesson 02:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
As someone who's looked at several hundred of these drive-by userfications, I disagree strenuously. The majority of the ones I've looked at, in my experience, have few, if any, edits to Wikipedia, and seem to look upon Wikipedia as free webspace. Enabling this view strikes me as a Bad Idea. --Calton | Talk 06:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Userfied information should stay on the userpage, IFF it's being used to support helpful contributions to the Wikipedia. Once the article's been userfied, it's subject to the same guidelines as any other information on a userpage, viz., WP:USER. Otherwise we're just a free web host. ... discospinster talk 13:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback

Can someone explain to me what the "rollback" feature does that means only admins should be allowed to have it? And, how, then, are users allowed to have "undo" or popups or whatever? --Random832(tc) 14:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Rollback reverts an edit and saves the revert with one click. With undo and popups you have to go through an extra step of saving the page separately to confirm that you want to do what you're doing. Also, rollback can be performed directly from a user's Contributions list, you don't have to even be looking at their edit to roll it back. —Angr 14:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The ability to do it from a user's contribution list without reviewing the edit is the biggest reason that only admins should have it. In that form, it is really only useful for cleaning up spambots, vandalbots and the equivalent. The last POV warrior I went through all the contribs of, about 2 in 10 edits were worth keeping, so rollback would have been a mistake even though most of their edits needed to be removed. For undo and popups, you have to actually load the pages (though we can't make you look at them, we want people to) and thus are fine tools for anyone. GRBerry 15:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
But why not allow it from article history? There's, for example, no possible way that "← Blanked the page" can be a legitimate edit, or, even one deserving a better explanation than the rollback summary. How about a compromise - allow to undo without an extra step to save (waste of bandwidth, you've already seen the diff), and to undo from the history for any automatic edit summary (other than creation, which can't be undone, the only edits to get automatically summarized are blanking and replacement, and for replacement you get to see the replaced content so that on the off chance it's legitimate you won't click undo) - I think anything that reduces the amount of time editors have to sit around waiting for a page to load before reverting vandalism can only be a good thing. --Random832(tc) 15:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, "← Blanked the page" can and sometimes is a legitimate edit. Whenever you move a page and its associated talk page it leaves a re-direct. I will sometimes move a page and its talk page to make room for disambiguation. I then replace the redirect at the page with a disambiguation page and blank the talk page. Now that we have the automatic edit summary I figure "← Blanked the page" is as good as anything I could say, so I leave that as my edit summary. It's still a legitimate edit. Another instance involves talk pages created with just vandalism. No need to delete the talk page; so just blank it. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd rather a talk page without useful comments be deleted than blanked. It's frustrating to see that the link to an article's talk page is blue and then find nothing there. (It's just as frustrating to see that the link to an article's talk page is blue and then find nothing there but a template from some WikiProject that's claimed the article. I really wish we had a separate namespace for metainformation like that.) —Angr 15:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd just as soon every page that's created have its talk page created automatically. If there's no talk page IP editors can't create one. Hence, their voices are effectively silenced until someone creates the talk page. If the talk page is nothing but a redirect left from a page move or vandalism then I'd rather blank it and have a place for discussion than have it deleted and only registered users able to comment. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I wish we had that feature. Can we set it so IPs can create talk pages for pages that already exist? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
They already can, unless it's changed in the last week. An example. —Cryptic 17:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Wow, news to me. Maybe that needs to be better publicised. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the "only registered users can create new pages" only applies for the main namespace. I'm quite sure ips can create any talk page and user pages too. --`/aksha 05:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I just tried the simple experiment of logging out and then seeing if I could start a talk page. I can. —Angr 06:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation page needed?

I came across Mediterranean Sea and it looks to me like it needs a disambiguation page. Comments?--Filll 17:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I made one at Mediterranean Sea (disambiguation). It could probably use some clean-up. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to overrule you ONUnicorn but there's already a Mediterranean (disambiguation) page which is more appropriate imo. I've merged the two dab pages. Pascal.Tesson 17:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions

This Essay has been around for 8 months and is frequently cited on AfD, especially the "I Like It" part. It's cited so much, in fact, that I feel most people feel it is a guideline already. I'd like the community to 1) determine whether we like this as a guideline and 2) build a consensus on exactly what it should say, because people are citing it frequently already. Personally, I like the page and believe it should be a guideline.--CastAStone|(talk) 19:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... WP:POINT? :)
While the ILikeIt argument is certainly being cited, it is also being contested at several venues. I think a consensus, even if it isn't adopted as policy, would be useful.LessHeard vanU 22:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
That's really all I'm asking for. A clear "this should be a guideline" or "these are just some ideas". Or pick and choose what is, if anything, worthy of separating into a guideline. My problem is just that it is being treated as one now when it isnt one, and to me that means its time to determine whether it should or should not be one, and to make that result clear on the page. --CastAStone|(talk) 04:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Leave it as an essay. There is as much good as there is bad in that essay. I would hate to see it become a guideline because there are many portions of it that are arguable, and endorsing it as anything more than an essay would pretty much lend authority and credence to only one side of an argument. Agent 86 23:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
That's right. The reason the essay is cited so often is that most of it is simply common sense - however, some points are still quite contentious, and thus, it should not be the be-all-and-end-all in AfD discussions. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 00:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting

While this may seem to be a semantic point, I think the Wikimedia Foundation should adopt the CE/BCE format for date rather than AD/BC. My main basis is to preserve NPOV (religious overtones would seem to have no place in a date format).

I also feel that there should be a markup method for metric/Imperial conversion. Any measurement could be submitted with the tag and based on the user's preference the appropriate measurement would be given priority (with the other following it in parentheses). Again, a minor quibble, but something which would be relatively simple to institute and would/should make the content more appropriate for it's audience. 167.1.143.100 18:29, 28 January 2007

I like those ideas! − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a textbook case where enforcement of a style is not only undesirable, but patetly harmful to the encyclopedia. Any attempt to enforce a specific date style would lead to the same problems attempts at enforcing a given spelling style cause.Circeus 23:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I disagree on the first point. I can live with a fairly common practice for BC/BCE, which is to use whichever date seems more appropriate for the subject matter, and omit the label entirely for AD-only articles-- for instance, the Solomon article is measured in BCE, whereas Augustus is in BC/AD and William the Conquerer and 1066 just use the years without designation (see WP:MOSNUM). (Bizarrely, Jesus uses both labels for reasons that make no sense to me whatsoever, as is the case with all good compromises.) However, I continue to believe that BC/AD has about as much religious significance in 2007 as Thursday, the day of Thor, and that BCE is a pointless affectation. I recognize that it is a fashionable and increasingly common affectation; I just think it's silly. There's no real reason to modify the current manual of style.
With regard to the unit conversion, I don't think it makes a big difference if there is one or not in most articles. (For instance, Orson Welles was 72" tall; the article doesn't suffer for not having that translated into meters.) More information can never hurt, though, and sometimes it will be handy. DCB4W 00:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
The funny thing is that Jesus was actually born before 0, so writing his year of birth as, say, 2 BC seems ridiculous—Jesus was born 2 years before Jesus? − Twas Now <small>( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 10:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
That's obtuse. First of all, there is no year 0 in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. Second, the point at which BC ended and AD began was an estimation as the system was created long after Jesus lived. Finally, that Jesus was most likely born before 1 AD has no bearing on the use of the BC/AD system. Jinxmchue 14:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
In fact, by all modern scholarly estimates, Jesus was born no later than 2BC. Anyway, I made no suggestion that it would have any bearing on the use of either system. I think you missed the point of my comment, which was humour: "Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis." − Jack Handey. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, to clarify, the guideline proposal to limit BC/AD to Christianity related articles failed. The issue of "appropriate" appears to be made on an article by article basis by the involved editors. I think that is how it should be. DCB4W 00:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't fully agree with DCB4W. I think that there does need to be some kind of standard policy on this point. However, I don't agree that AD/BC is necessarily POV. --Aervanath 20:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow, I've totally changed my mind! I looked back at the archives of Talk:Jesus, and they've had some huge dust-ups over the AD/CE issue. It's an issue about which many people feel strongly, even though, in my opinion, it's fairly trivial. Trying to force a standardization to one system or the other is probably a can of worms which has been closed for good reason.--Aervanath 22:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I concur!!! Totally!
  1. It doesn't matter as they are numerically equivalent
  2. No matter what you change, somebody is going to see it as an attack
  3. Nothing is clarified by the change - No new information is imparted.
Though for neutrality reasons I prefer CE, this is a sleeping dog best left to lie. --BenBurch 22:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Most people use BC/AD and might not know what BCE/CE means, so there is a good argument for using it on most articles. However, there are many articles where people's religious beliefs might be insulted if BC/AD were used; on such articles, it would be wrong not to use BCE/CE.--Runcorn 22:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Much good info here; Anno Domini --BenBurch 22:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite get the POV argument; the numbers are still Christian-centric, so does it matter what letters you use? Change it to CE/BCE, it's still a numbering system created by Christians based on Christ. So why does it matter which we use? Just go with the original author and leave it at that. --Golbez 14:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not like anybody was looking for a return to Annum Urbis (Dated from the founding of Rome) is it? (Also known expressed as AUC for (ab urbe condita.) --BenBurch 17:34, Dies Veneris xx Januarus MMDCCLX AUC (UTC)

BC/AD has been in use for almost 1500 years. The system pervades almost everything in the Western world. To suddenly change the system with no real reason beyond some wrong-headed ideas of "tolerance" and "neutrality" will cause unnecessary strife and confusion. I also find it odd that many of the people who are against BC/AD because of its supposed bias are often the same ones who argue that the English phrase "in the year of our Lord" in documents like the Constitution is devoid of any religious meaning. That I simply don't get. Jinxmchue 14:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, Jinxie, in the Constitution and all similar documents it *is* devoid of all religious meaning. That is simply how documents were prepared at that time. And that is all such formal documents. I have seen this on deeds and charters from the period, for example, documents that had no intentions other than functional ones. Had the Founding Fathers intended to make a religious statement, they were about the most articulate and careful people I am aware of and could easily have made it totally clear. They would not have left us guessing about it now. --BenBurch 17:28, Dies Veneris xx Januarus MMDCCLX AUC (UTC)
Surely, just as a matter of contextual continuity, changing is at best unnecessary and at worst bad? Given that the numbers are the same (and incidentally, are used without objection in non-Christian countries) to change will do no more than cause confusion in the minds of those people who fail to appreciate the congruence. User:BenBurch, in dating his post from the date of the traditional foundation of Rome, may have a good idea (joke).--Anthony.bradbury 18:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with that. Nothing but confusion and ill-will will come of changing. And I am glad you appreciated the humor! --BenBurch 18:34, Dies Veneris xx Januarus MMDCCLX AUC (UTC)
lol! Okay, so in the Constitution, that phrase "*is* devoid of all religious meaning," but BC/AD are obviously religiously biased everywhere else and must be wiped out in favor of BCE/CE. I gotta tell you, Ben, that I've no doubt that the Founding Fathers used the phrase "in the year of our Lord" with far more piety than you are trying to argue. Jinxmchue 19:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I am not arguing that there was no piety in the Founding Fathers. Many of them were religious men. But I am arguing that "in The Year of Our Lord" appeared in dates on all manner of public documents no matter who authored them or for what purpose, and so making some special inference with regard to the Constitution on that basis is at best misguided. The Drafters clearly had their say about religion within the document, and then later within the Bill of Rights. The way the date was expressed just wasn't a part of it! --BenBurch 19:43, Dies Veneris xx Januarus MMDCCLX AUC (UTC)
Then I hope you would apply that same argument to the use of BC/AD. Trying to change BC/AD to BCE/CE because of some perceived religious bias is misguided. When people use BC/AD it's quite clear that they are not making some statement about Christianity. They are simply using a dating system that has been in place for centuries in the Western world. Jinxmchue 04:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
But, I just did, Jinxie! See above. While I do think CE is more neutral because there are jewish people and muslim people and many other religions that might find it offensive, and while scholars seem to prefer CE overwhelmingly in archeological papers I have read in recent years, I don't think it needs to be changed. Nor do I think that we need to make the switch in the other direction. Whatever the editors of a particular article agree on is fine by me. --BenBurch 05:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fundamental changes in our "notability" criteria

A lot of fundamental changes regarding our "notability" criteria are being forced by some editors, and a discussion has sprung up on WP:N, WP:WEB, WP:BIO, and WP:MUSIC regarding the controversial changes. Please come by and offer your input. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It's somewhat unclear looking at the talk pages for those guidelines what, exactly, you are talking about. Is there one specific discussion or diff that you can point us to to show what changes you are looking for input on? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Supposedly based on discussion at WP:N, this change was put across the three I've listed. This diff, applied on the same day to those three, is the controverisial one. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It makes sense, the primary one is directly related to WP:V and WP:NOR (things must be based on reliable published sources), the others are just signs that things should meet that one. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really. The problem is the way they've been downgraded. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Hasn't the primary notability criteria always been:

A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject itself and each other.

It seems like the diff Jeff mentioned is just pointing this out; it doesn't seem like a policy change to me. CMummert · talk 21:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It's never been "primary," nor does it consider itself primary. It's simply shared. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur- this is a clarification of notability, not a change. It would only look like a change to someone who never understood notability to begin with. Friday (talk) 21:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, that's not quite fair. Notability has been a fairly fluid concept up until the page finally got tagged as guideline, which was a couple months ago IIRC, and was based on observation of AFD results, not on consensus on the page itself. I think there's room for people who "understand notability to begin with" to argue about precisely why pages get deleted or kept in practice, as well as precisely why the criteria on the notability subpages were included, but if the outcome is the same, the distinction is largely philosophical. TheronJ 16:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
That's a bit insulting, Friday. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes; it's just the wording that has changed for clarity. The guideline's still basically the same. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


I think something is being forgotten here: what is inclusion? Is it having its own article or inclusion in another article? I believe the former is the standard usage, since otherwise WP:N would say that we couldn't include any fact that's not in multiple independent sources, but this doesn't "jive" with the principles behind summary style - breaking off a section when it becomes too long. For example, describing the rolling stock of a large rail system is a valid topic, and is often broken into a separate article because of length concerns. But, especially for a recent company, the only source may be company "propaganda" - no doubt true, but not independent sources. Thus we are cought in a dilemma - do we give "undue weight" to the rolling stock in the system's article, or split off an article that doesn't pass our notability criteria? --NE2 16:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

There is an interesting philosophical question about whether it is possible to form a consensus that certain articles are notable even without two non-trivial independent published references. (The editors might, for example, decide to write an article about every New York Times bestselling book, Fortune 1000 company, or professional baseball player based solely, if necessary, on "trivial" and/or "non-independent" references, provided that those references met WP:V.)
In practice, there's not much distinction between saying (A) "we don't delete articles about Nobel prizewinners because it is almost certain that there are multiple independent published sources, even if they are hard to find for some historical winners," or (B) "we don't delete articles about Nobel prizewinners because Nobel prizewinners are notable, whether or not non-trivial published resources exist, so long as verifiable sources exist of any kind." One the one hand, given that the main notability guideline was adopted over vigorous objection because it reflected actual experiences on AFD, I am not convinced that there is a consensus about whether any individual exception falls into case (A) or case (B). On the other hand, as long as we're not deleting pages that fit one of the consensus sub-criteria, the philosophical question of why we're not deleting them isn't that interesting. TheronJ 16:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand what you're saying. I'm questioning whether we should have guidelines that conflict with summary style practices. New York City Subway rolling stock is an example, though probably not the best (since there may be two independent sources on the subject, and since it doesn't actually cite sources), of an article that covers a subtopic of New York City Subway. --NE2 18:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I have always thought that "inclusion" means that a topic has its own article; a notable topic may have non-notable details that don't deserve their own article but are included in the main article. For example, winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee are not notable on their own, so they don't deserve their own articles, but they can be listed among winners of the spelling bee in its article. The issue is more complex with articles that are split off of long main articles, and I think case-by-case analysis is probably necessary. Sometimes these splits are non-notable POV forks and other times they are reasonable. CMummert · talk 19:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
So we have possible conflicts between this "case-by-case analysis" and the "one-size-fits-all" WP:N guideline. With WP:MUSIC, the obvious case that comes to mind is albums, but it might also relate to members of a band, where we have enough verifiable information for a separate article, but not enough "independent sources", and we are forced to go over the article size "limits" to satisfy WP:N. --NE2 19:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree it is the article size limit, and the prohibition on subpages in the main namespace, that is causing this conflict. Until these are sorted out, there isn't much we can do except use common sense. If somebody writes in an AfD discussion "this should be merged into the main article, except that then the main article would be too long", I hope that this would be taken into account by the closing admin. CMummert · talk 19:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Could we add that to WP:N? --NE2 19:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • To resolve one of the questions above, the 2nd sentence in WP:N is: "All topics must meet a minimum threshold of notability in order for an article on that topic to be included in Wikipedia." (Bold text is my emphasis). I understand this to mean that the notability criteria are for determining whether something is notable enough to warrant its own article. So, individual sections of that article still need to be well-sourced, but they don't need to meet the WP:N guideline on their own. If an article is written in summary style, with links to full articles on each of it's sections, then yes, those articles all need to meet WP:N.
  • As for the "central criterion" line in WP:MUSIC, I would keep it, but add text at the end to clarify that: "the criteria below are not proof of notability in and of themselves, just make it more likely that the central criterion can be satisfied with a little research." We want to emphasize that the central criterion is the only one that actually counts. Thoughts?--Aervanath 08:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
    • "If an article is written in summary style, with links to full articles on each of it's sections, then yes, those articles all need to meet WP:N." Looks to me like a reason to ignore WP:N. --NE2 12:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I've commented on some of those discussions mentioned, and I really do no know what can be meant by a fundamental change. There have been quite a number of changes, some aimed at decreasing the number of different criteria, some at making them more complicated. Some that might be called inclusionist, some the opposite, but most differing according to the point under discussion. The actual rules will not be whatever may be written on the N policy page, but what is applied at AfD and Deletion Review, and part of the motivation is trying to decrease what some see as the inconsistency there. Personally, I think that fairness and perceived fairness is part of the reason to have well thought out rules, and that these rules need thorough revision on a continuing basis as new areas open and as problems develop.
It is possible to go entirely on a case-by-case basis,but--looking beyond WP--this requires a very complicated system of multilayered decision-making to avoid inconsistency, and may not achieve it even then. An example outside WP is the US pattern, where the law in different parts of the country is different when different courts of appeal have made different decisions and the supreme court has not yet harmonized them. What corresponds to different courts of appeal in WP is the differing body who might be at AfD on a particular time.
going strictly by fixed rules leads to obvious inequity -- as for required minimum sentences --but also to complicated evasions. By being really clever it is possible to find RS for almost anything, if you go far enough outside the confines of Google. Very few people here have the experience, facilities, or time for the sort of exhaustive search made by, say, professional patent searchers. All real systems of fixed rules have very numerous exceptions. DGG 22:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry to come late to this discussion, but I think there is something in the original point made. I've taken a look at this changeand it does appear to me to make a significant impact on articles about People. Under alternative criteria on WP:Notability (people), we have the professor test, and under the second part of the list that has been separated into secondary criteria by the change under discussion we have Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work and Painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, and other professionals whose work is widely recognized (for better or worse) and who are likely to become a part of the enduring historical record of that field. Now my problem is that people in these categories haven't necessarily had multiple biographies written about them. These people are notable by their work and the whole point about notability is that it is not the same as fame. Someone working in a relatively obscure field could have been completely key to that field, but the field could be one where biographies aren't common. I have written an article about Keith Muckelroy - I don't think you will ever find anyone in Maritime archaeology who disputes the key contribution he made, but there never has been a biography of him. As it happens he passes this new central criterion test, but only because he tragically died young and there were many obituaries. Even without the obituaries, his works are reviewed and are sometimes accompanied by introductions about the author, so the central facts about his life can be supported by objective sources. We can't guarantee that everyone made notable by their contribution to some field of research will die in sufficiently newsworthy and tragic circumstances to generate multiple obituaries. A person or their works may not necessarily be the primary subject of an article - an article could deal with several persons or deal with their work rather than the person - there is plenty of ground between primary subject and a passing mention. Viv Hamilton 13:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rewritten IAR page

I thought that the current policy is a little to vague, so I've put together a proposed rewrite of the policy. Thoughts? -- Selmo (talk) 04:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yuck, looks like rules for IAR to me. SOmeone tries to do this every so often, but we always go back to the understated principle.--Docg 04:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Doc. The whole point of "Ignore All Rules" is that we are here to make a good encyclopedia, and any rule that stops us from doing that should be ignored. I don't agree that it is vague at all, I think that this is a very clearly stated general principle which we can refer to when we see a situation where the rules are counter-productive. It does not need to be broken down with instructions on how to use it, since those very instructions will be ignored if necessary. I like the current version just fine.--Aervanath 09:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you should list these under the "see also" section instead. Of course, that'd only encourage people who don't like IAR to add links to the Steamroller clause, Be Timid In Updating Pages, and some Bureaucracy Is Good page. >Radiant< 13:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Sometimes I wonder whether the folk that try writing rules for IAR realize the irony in what they're doing. Chris cheese whine 01:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia is not solely for the summarising of plot?

There's a discussion on removing the plot summary clause from WP:NOT. It presently reads:

“ Plot summaries. Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic." ”

Wider input would be helpful at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#We need to remove the part about plot summaries. Steve block Talk 19:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

So if you remove that clause then you are saying that articles containing only a plot summary should be OK? I think that's a poor thing to recommend. I mean we're going to get articles that have nothing buy a plot summary - and we might decide to let them slide on the grounds that maybe someone will come along and add more 'meat' to the article later - but to actually have policy that (in effect) encourages this style of article seems pretty poor to me. Am I misunderstanding what you are saying here? SteveBaker 20:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I've changed this to say "Raw plot summaries." - it better fits the description in the rest of the entry. Anyone else have any thoughts on this? --Random832(tc) 21:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. I can't see what reason you could have for wanting to remove that very sensible clause. A plot summary is not a complete article. Can you imagine being assigned to write about Beowulf for a university, and handing in nothing but a summary of the plot? No mention of context, culture, meaning, language, just "he did this, he did this, he did this, the end?" That wouldn't be good enough for publication elsewhere, so why would it be suitable for Wikipedia? zadignose 23:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Like I say, your points would be more usefully made in terms of the wider debate at helpful at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#We need to remove the part about plot summaries. I've copied your comments over. Steve block Talk 08:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I do believe we have a long-standing precedent that articles that only contain a plot summary should be expanded to contain an actual analysis of the plot. Sometimes they are instead merged into a "list of episodes" with brief explanations, e.g. with simple series that do not really have an ongoing plot. WP:FICT and WP:WAF come to mind. >Radiant< 10:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What happens when it seems a reliable source has mistakenly taken info from WP?

Brief background: The other day I came across an interesting issue at the Sacha Baron Cohen article. It seems that an act of vandalism in April 2006 led to a claim that his mother is of Iranian descent being added to the article (the same IP overtly vandalised another article 10 mins later). There's strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that a couple of reliable sources - 'The Guardian' and Yahoo Movies Bios - picked up this factoid from WP.

Since then several editors have tried to remove the factoid from the article, but it now appears verifiable, and the editor opposed to the removal can quite correctly cite WP:RS and WP:V as supporting inclusion.

I wrote more extensively about this, including my (circumstantial) evidence for believing that WP was incorrectly used as a source, on the talk page for the article.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with this situation? As WP's visibility increases this kind of situation is likely to be an increasing danger when professionals are sloppy and use WP as an uncited source.

(I don't have any stake in whether the factoid is included or not, I just don't want to see WP's credibility undermined if it comes to light that this factoid is an incorrect rumour started by WP that has now spread quite widely).

SeanLegassick 08:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If everybody would give the exact source for all information, such circular references would be impossible. Alithien 16:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Well I guess what you have defined as a "reliable source" is no longer reliable. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 10:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Sure, I hear you. As I mention in the talk page linked above, The Guardian isn't nicknamed "The Grauniad" in the UK for nothing. But it wouldn't be the only newspaper to publish mistakes, and I really don't see it as being viable to start arguing that The Guardian shouldn't be cited as a reliable source. A cursory search reveals 1,160 mentions within WP, most of which are cites.
SeanLegassick 10:15, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The point of using reliable sources is that a reliable source does fact-checking, takes responsibility for mistakes, etc. If we can prove that a reliable source took something from a Wikipedia article without fact-checking it, then *we've just proven that that source isn't reliable to begin with*. After all, if they don't fact-check Wikipedia references, why do we expect them to have fact checked anything else? Ken Arromdee 11:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Understood, and I should point out that at this stage I cannot prove that The Guardian took this from Wikipedia without fact-checking, although the circumstantial evidence heavily points to it. One editor was going to pursue a response from the Guardian journalist in question, but none has been forthcoming. I suspect that if she did use WP without fact-checking she'd be reluctant to admit it.
On the broader point, there are several well-documented cases of apparently reliable sources failing in their duty.
So I guess I have two questions really:
  • What are the implications for Wikipedia when an otherwise reliable source fails in its fact-checking duty and thus causes Wikipedia to, whilst following WP:V, fail to correctly portray facts?
  • Do we have additional responsibility in such cases if the source of incorrect facts can be reasonably demonstrated to come from Wikipedia vandalism?
In general I agree that the onus here is on the sources themselves to be professional in verifying published information, but I thought this case was interesting in the loop of verifiability that appears to have been created.
Yeah, the problem with Wikipedia becoming more prominent is that mistakes get propagated throughout otherwise reliable sources. I think I read somewhere on the mailing list that [cricinfo.com cricinfo] was now citing information froom Wikipedia. Whereas we'd previously been citing information from them. Something about that relationship no longer works. Trebor 12:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If a reliable source states a fact, any WP article can use that fact with a reference to the source; no further proof is needed. We are not in the business of second-guessing reliable sources or trying to decide which statements in a reliable source are true and which are not. If you want to claim in an article that a reliable source is wrong, you need to find another reliable source that explicitly says so; personal suspicion is not enough. It This is a straightforward consequence of "verifiability, not truth" and WP:OR.

I am pointing this out because the interpretation I have just given is very important for the sciences. For example, there are lots of cranks who will argue that they "know" that relativity is false, and so the reliable sources on it must be wrong. Or they might "know" that the theory of evolution is false, or that they have created a perpetual-motion machine, or that a famous mathematical theorem is incorrect. The point of WP:OR is that we don't have to prove that reliable sources are correct in order to dispute the arguments of these cranks. CMummert · talk 14:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

In the sciences, maybe, but under these circumstances the applicable rule is WP:IAR. I don't think WP:V should be interpreted to require us to knowingly repeat false information... particularly in the biography of a living person. His descent is a fairly innocuous issue, but that sort of thing-- deliberately repeating information that you know or have grounds to believe is false-- is what "actual malice" means in libel law. DCB4W 14:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
As a side note, I've always taken "verifiability, not truth" to be a rule regarding the inclusion of data, not regarding its inclusion.
I assume you mean 'regarding the inclusion of data, not regarding its exclusion.' here right? I think it's a very pertinent point. Also note that media sources are not peer-reviewed, another difference from the science crank cases... SeanLegassick 19:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
You need to be able to verify information to add it to an article, but there are a host of reasons (see e.g. WP:NOT) to exclude verifiable information, and this is probably another one of them. DCB4W 14:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
CMummert, that's a strange point. We're under no obligation to include any particular bit of information even if it is published in a reliable source. Since otherwise reliable sources do sometimes get things wrong, editorial judgment is needed in individual cases such as this one anyway. According to a strict interpretation of what you posted, I can't write a science article and deliberately exclude a pertinent statement published in a peer-reviewed paper whose scholarship is clearly shoddy, or oppose its inclusion by another editor. Supporting the inclusion of information that we have a reason to believe is false, just to hold a hard line against cranks posting information we know to be false, is an awkward position. Opabinia regalis 02:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
In this case, the appropriate way to phrase the sentence would be "The Guardian newspaper has reported that his mother is of Iranian descent. [footnote]". That is an honest way to attribute a claim that, while possibly inaccurate, has been published by a reliable source. What I find uncomfortable is that the claim that the Guardian is incorrect is not based on any sort of published claim to that effect. In any other situation this second-guessing of published sources would be called original research. CMummert · talk 02:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Putting a personal analysis of a sourced claim in the article is OR. Using the same analysis to defend excluding the claim from the article is not necessarily OR, and may answer better to the description "editorial judgment". Your example is "honest", but unnecessary; if there is good reason to believe a particular claim is false, it would be silly to include it just because it was published in a source that is otherwise considered reliable. Opabinia regalis 06:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you under the assumption that there is a good reason to believe a particular claim is false. In this case, I see no such reason - what I see is just some speculation that it might be false. CMummert · talk 14:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I regard the combination of the various pieces of circumstantial evidence plus a claim to the contrary from someone (consistently and plausibly) claiming to be a family member as 'good reason to believe' that this is false. Certainly not enough evidence to include a 'He is not of Iranian descent' statement (which would obviously be silly anyway) but enough not to mention it, in my opinion. SeanLegassick 15:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Our standards seem to differ. CMummert · talk 15:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Looking at your user page, profession and areas of Wikipedia that you work in I guess it's not surprising that you see my arguments as fluffy. Sourcing pop culture articles in the media is a rather different kettle of fish to citing from peer-reviewed publications in mathematical logic. The criteria for making good editorial judgements are bound to be different. SeanLegassick 15:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Has any reliable source been presented that says his mother is not of Iranian descent, or that she is of some other descent? If there is not, but there is a reliable source that says she is, then it seems to me there is no problem with the article saying she is. What I see here is speculation that she is not of Iranian descent together with a reliable source that says she is. I'm not familiar with Cohen at all - what are the grounds for believing the Guardian article is incorrect? CMummert · talk 15:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
No, there's no reliable source to say the information is incorrect, and it's even possible that it is correct - although there's someone in the talk page claiming to be his cousin refuting the information (written by an anon Israeli IP so not sufficient for WP:V but enough to cast doubt)
I've written more about the additional circumstantial evidence in the talk page for the article but summarising:
  • The information was originally added to the article on 15 April 2006 by a demonstrable vandal (the same IP overtly vandalised another article 10 mins later)
  • The Guardian article in question appeared sometime later (September 2006) using wording very close to the WP article wording
  • No reliable source can be found for this fact before April 2006, or in fact before September 2006.
  • Several sources have asserted this fact since September 2006 again using very similar wording to both the Wikipedia vandalism and subsequent article in The Guardian.
So whilst there isn't a reliable source to refute the fact (if there was there'd be no real problem and I wouldn't have brought this up here) there is considerable reason to doubt it, and as I've argued in the article's talk page that as there's no necessity to make this claim (that Baron Cohen's mother is of Iranian descent) the doubt is sufficient to exclude it.
There is at least one editor, who on the basis of WP:RS believes the fact can now be included. We could just now punt this to The Guardian and other sources and say that, as mentioned above, our goal is verifiability not truth, but as this information seems to have originated in a piece of Wikipedia vandalism, I'm uncomfortable with that, hence seeking further input here.
SeanLegassick 19:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

WOW... as someone who deals a lot with reliabilty and verification issues, this discussion opens a whole canning factory of worms. Post-facto verification! I know this is only my paranoid imagination at work... but it does give me the shivers. Blueboar 16:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

From a Reliability perspective The Grauniad is not inherently reliable unless it's made clear in the usage that the statement is based on media reporting. Newspapers make mistakes and any contentious point should be corroborated as much as possible. In this case I'd request further independent verification. I've just had a look at Yahoo and given the lack of indication about where it derives its material from then whilst I'd expect a level of reliability you can't assure that.ALR 16:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There is always a possibility of mistake or fraud. WP is not edited by machines, so it is appropriate to use our judgement if there really seems to be a problem. There can be. Say I am an editor (in the RW sense) of a peer-reviewed journal in a field I also write here on. If I what to introduce an idiosyncratic point, I can write an article & the other editors would arrange the peer review so as to accept the article in almost all cases. I could then cite it here. (I in fact know of one person who does do something very much like this--not primarily aimed at WP, but so she can cite it in other RW peer-reviewed articles).
In any serious controversy there will be RS on both sides, and most such disputes here occur in such cases. There simply is not a division in RS and nonRS. There's a gradation. A small town newspaper talking about a townsman's inventions is not the same as the NYTimes talking about these inventions, which is in turn less than say Scientific American talking about them, which in turn is not quite the same as Nature. The world of possible sources does not fall into 2 neat stacks, any more than the world in general for purposes of N. DGG 23:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Bear in mind that the authority in the field can also make mistakes, and that commonsense sometimes justifies the removal of such information even when there is no alternative source; an example of which is documented at talk:Autogyro in the section Records and Application. This is a case where a non expert knew the published data to be wrong. LessHeard vanU 23:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Assume the presence of a belly-button, even with normally reliable sources. -- Ben 00:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
It becomes harder when reliable sources disagree. Where Pete Doherty went to university was reported by the BBC and The Independent as Oxford, the biography of the band said University College London, and The Sunday Times said Queen Mary's. In these cases, I think editors have to use their best judgement to decide whether the information in the source is correct. Trebor 23:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Or alternatively present the confusion in full, and leave the judgement to the reader. A classic case is that of dates of birth. Sometimes old records are patchy, and no precise date of birth is possible. Sometimes several possibilities are reported, and the correct thing to do is give the possibilities, along with the sources. An example, though not sourced, is found at Isaac Roberts. Two possible birth dates and probably no way of confirming either way. Carcharoth 02:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Dates of birth can be a real problem, yeah, particularly as they're rarely cited. Someone came to the David Arnold article and changed the DOB, saying that they knew David and that it was incorrect. But searching online for it, you had real problems as the DOB from Wikipedia had gone everywhere (this was eventually settled by contacting David himself on his forums). Trebor 09:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
See User talk:Timecode. I tried citing the forum post in the article, as otherwise someone will just change it back again (not all the wrong information that was sent out by Wikipedia will get corrected). Unfortunately it is a flash media site, and I can't work out how to link to the exact post. Don't think it is possible. Can you, um, upload a screenshot? Carcharoth 11:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure, my computer has real trouble going on his website at all. The main problem was the IMDB date being wrong, but I've submitted a correction. Trebor 13:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how Wikipedia is in any way responsible for this. A newspaper, or other media outlet, has a responsibility to check their facts with a reliable source, and Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Whether or not journalists do their job properly is not Wikpedia's concern. A reader who spots a mistake in a newspaper (you or anyone else) could obviously write to them to point it out, but it's nothing to do with Wikipedia. Hobson 02:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC) I misunderstood the point being made. Hobson 02:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this still rumbling on? Why not contact the journalist? Mr Stephen 00:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sacha_Baron_Cohen#Request_For_Comment to get both side of the argument. regarding the sacha baron cohen case. Klymen 02:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User blanking own talk page

Just wondering, what is the general stance on this. Is it allowed? The user in question has warnings on their talk page, nothing serious, more along the lines of untagged image notices. I still think this is an important notice and shouldn't be removed from the page...I've reverted it once to put back the relevant comments and it is just repeatedly blanked. However, I don't really know if I'm going about this the right way. Are users allowed to blank their own talk page, if the page in question includes an important notification pertinent to the user? I'm new around here and don't really know the policy on this, any help would be appreciated. --Xertz 04:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Generally, if a user has warnings on his/her talk page, then it is frowned upon to blank them, as it appears that they are trying to hide their past actions. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 04:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Warnings generally shouldn't be removed, as ChairmanS above has said. But i normally think untagged image notices don't really count. If we're talking about the same thing - then those untagged image notices are automatically placed by a bot. Warnings should be kept because...they're sort of a record of the editor's behaviour (or i suppose misbehaviour) which helps other editors. Automatically generated talk page warnings by a bot don't really reflect anything - often, it could just be because the person forgot and the bot beat them before they had a chance to fix the image. I don't really think there's any harm in removing those kind of warnings. Unless the person has been intentionally breaking image-related guidelines, in which case they'd most likely have been warned by another editor, not by an automatic bot. --`/aksha 04:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, if the warning is old, and the editor has since then corrected his behaviour, then i don't see why they *must* keep the warning on the talk page. --`/aksha 04:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to come down somewhere in the middle. Life is awkward if you are constantly clearing your page out. Supposed I start a conversation and you delete it. Now if that conversation was not over, where do I put the latest replies? Also, if the deleted text did happen to be warnings that were still relevant, we would have to search history to find them. Have you searched history looking for when vandalism was added to an article like Honda Civic? It can be a real pain. Same with what happened to all those deleted messages.

Having said all that, I do agree that old warnings should be removed. I propose that a bot look at the sig date on each one. When it sees a date that is old enough with no newer warnings, it removes the warning and adds a new message saying "Thank you for behaving." As for non-warnings, encourage users to use archiving tools. Will (Talk - contribs) 05:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In this particular case, it seems antagnostic to revert notices that are so trivial in nature. As for the general situation, I would suggest that a user can blank *any* warning that is more than 30 days old. Wjhonson 06:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
It's not quite a month old, but it's getting there. The "warning" was from a bot, saying that the user had uploaded an untagged image. The image has since been tagged by the original uploader, so I suppose there is no justification in keeping him from blanking the talk page, as this untagged image warning is the only entry on his talk page that is of any real importance. --Xertz 15:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that a user can blank any warning they damn well please. It's proof that they've read it, and if they continue to cause problems, they can't plead ignorance of the law. --Carnildo 09:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Blanking warnings is perfectly acceptable. As Carnildo points out, it means the user has read them. Re-adding the warnings and forcing the user to keep content they do not like on their talk page crosses into harassment quickly. While blanking of relevant warnings is not polite or nice, restoring them is even less polite. We do not keep permanent archives (other than page histories) of users' past misdeeds. Kusma (討論) 09:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

As above, many warnings are basically reminders for the user, like images without copyright warnings, once the issue has been solved there's no reason to keep them. I've had a couple of image copyright tags stuck up on my user page as the result of basic forgetfully (forgot to tag an image) or as a result of bot error. These things don't tell anybody anything useful about me except that I like to have at least one picture on each page that I create.
perfectblue 09:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Then how are we supposed to find those warnings? You must love searching history. Please tell me the exact edit that Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Requesting 3rd opinion on External Links was started. Then tell me how long it took to find that. Now you have picture of what it is like searching history. What a pain. Will (Talk - contribs) 09:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

  • The intent of warnings is to warn and educate the user; they do not serve as a record of past misdemeanors. Thus, it is perfectly acceptable for a user to remove warnings from their talk page. >Radiant< 10:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Then there's no point in our rising hierarchy of warnings {{test1}}, {{test2}}, {{test3}}, {{test4}}, etc. If the user is entitled to remove {{test1}} every time he gets one, he'll never get a {{test2}}. He'll be educated all right -- educated in how to avoid being blocked for vandalism. —Angr 10:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Surely you do not block simply because a user has test1 through 4 (or whatever the bloody templates have been renamed this week) on their talk page? A look at contributions is essential, and at that point things get more obvious. Plus we do not require a full suite of warnings before a user is blocked. Ta/wangi 10:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Not true at all. If the {{test1}} was recent, and assuming the suggested edit summary was left, it will be easy to spot in the history. You can't assume the messages haven't been deleted, so you need to check anyway. —Doug Bell talk 10:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I would only discover such a talk page because the user had been vandalizing. If there's no previous indication that he's been warned about it, I give him a test1 or test2 (which have been their names for years, what do you mean by "this week"?). If he's already received a "last warning" (or several -- the vandals must often laugh out loud at how many "last warnings" they get without getting blocked), I'll block for the vandalism that brought me to the user's talk page in the first place. —Angr 10:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I was referring to {{uw-test1}} et al... /wangi 11:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Back when I did RC patrol, I would use {{test}} as a warning for newbie-test vandalism, {{test3}} for serious vandalism. Repeat vandalism after getting a warning would result in a short block. I never saw the point in the rest of the series. --Carnildo 22:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandals can't hide anything by removing warnings. Any admin who decides whether to block checks the user's contribution page, which will tell you whether the user has edited his own talk page and removed warnings. Any block is based on the user's contributions more than on how many warnings he has had. Kusma (討論) 11:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Certainly a common practise, with test3 or bv being used, thanks/wangi 23:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, they can hide information. This thread has gotten long enough to demonstrate. Please identify the edit where "warning is old, and the editor has since then corrected his behaviour" was added to the above posts. Please note that you will find only one such edit. (Behavior was misspelled.) If you can't do that, you probably can't verify something else was removed. Will (Talk - contribs) 22:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
You do not need to check the page history to see whether a user has removed warnings. You see that from their contributions. As you check a user's contributions anyway when you fight vandalism or decide whether to block, you don't even need an extra click. Kusma (討論) 14:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
You probably can't verify anything if you spend so much time worrying about UK vs US spellings and labelling one as misspelled! /wangi 23:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Will: It's true that it's very hard to find back a particular edit, unless you mark it in some way. You should be able to find back my edit easily, by just grepping page history on or around the time I signed for "MARK MARK MARK". You can also grep for "TEST 1". Finally, note that user talk pages have much less traffic than the village pump :-) --Kim Bruning 00:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can get tools like VandalProof to do all the work, there is no way to ensure we all agree on the edit summary. Even with tools like VandalProof, they might not be in agreement. Sure, you set some standard here. But how long does it take the authors of those tools to get up to coding that standard? Quite some time.

Besides. Some people that patrol, like myself, are stuck with computers where they can't install anything. This computer isn't mine. (That is dead for the foreseeable future.) It is as though I access Wikipedia from a public internet connection.

That leaves my browser and any JS tools I can find. However, some of the JS tools were written a while back and never updated. In one case, it took me months to figure out what some of the tabs did. No one ever responded to the queries I left on the scripts talk page.

For those that claim you don't need the level 4 warnings, I submit users like myself do. I am not an admin. Hence, I can't block anyone myself. For that, I have to report the user on WP:AIV. But that is useless -- until a level 4 warning is present has been there for sometime. Because of the political beliefs where I grew up (USA), I consider users to be innocent until proven guilty. I won't just bump the user up to level 4 without good reason. However, I don't have time to truely evaluate each case. So unless the edit that got me to add a warning to the user's page is severe, I won't bump more than one level per incident.

In short, without a track record, I am left in the dark. Again, due to time constraints, I don't check back through history very far. Just far enough to verify the user didn't remove warnings. Maybe not even that. Will (Talk - contribs) 05:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

4 level warnings are not required. Arbcom has said that repeatedly restoring warnings is harrassment. I'm sorry you don't have time to do things properly. Maybe you shouldn't do them then. pschemp | talk 05:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Restoring the warnings would be harassment only if the warnings were no longer relevant. To often, that is the case. The hardcore vandals will do what they can to avoid detection. You would leave me without the best tools I have. I doubt you care about fighting vandalism. Will (Talk - contribs) 06:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I think it's quite feasible for RC patrollers / CVU members to agree on which edit summaries to use. It's also quite feasible for people to set up a log of warnings if they really must. It's simply that user talk pages (1) are not intended as such a log, and (2) do not actually work well as such a log, since we can't prevent users from editing or blanking them. >Radiant< 10:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Will - you have repeatedly used edits to this page, and the history of this page, as examples of how difficult it is to find and evaluate past actions on a user talk page, assuming the user can freely delete messages. Please stop using this page as an example. This is a high volume page. A user talk page is almost always a low volume page, and if it's not, it's because the user is getting a lot of warnings. Someone looking at how serious a problem a user is, in addition to looking at contributions, need not go back 50 or 100 edits, even if there were that many - the last ten or so are almost always going to indicate if the editor has been a problem, and what the level of the next warning - or block - should be.
    • The purpose of allowing users to remove warnings (and anything else they want) on their user talk pages is to help good editors clear off vandalism and mistaken warnings and cruft. Allowing this certainly makes it (at least slightly) more difficult, sometimes, to evaluate problem users. That is just the price to be paid - there is no approach to anything in the world that has all advantages and no disadvantages. The alternative, saying that users cannot remove warnings, under threat of punishment, is to say that you and other editors cannot respond to being harassed on your own talk page, in the form of bogus warnings ("uncivil", "failure to assume good faith", "personal attack", "harassment", etc.), or that you and other editors will have constantly archive junk warnings by hand to get them off your pages. Yes, it would be nice if Wikipedia had a clear policy that allowed "good" editors to remove warnings but forced "bad" ones to keep them visible or archived - but I think you'll agree that such a policy is in fact unwritable. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 14:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can I copy stuff directly from 2005 Encyclopedia Brittanica?

Well? Andrewdt85

Absolutely not. It would be an instance of copyvio. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You can, however, copy directly from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica! -newkai t-c 11:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. It has been released into the public domain, and can easily be downloaded in electronic form. Needless to say, much of the information contained is sorely outdated, but it's an excellent encyclopedia nevertheless. --Xertz 15:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Back when Wikipedia had substantially fewer entries, it was rather common for 1911 EB articles to be used almost verbatium. As far as I know, almost all 1911 EB article have been updated on Wikipedia since then, although they do still exist on s:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. There are a few biographical entries here on Wikipedia that about the only reasonable source is this edition of EB, but those are some very obscure articles. Even then, some substantial POV cleanup has occured. --Robert Horning 20:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Note, though, that copyright protects expression, not fact. (needless to say IANAL, but if copyright protected facts it would be absolutely impossible for Wikipedia to exist.) --Random832(tc) 12:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There is still a great deal of cleanup to do on those articles. Many of the edits are the addition of a few newer facts to the old article, rather than the necessary rewriting (That's historically been a common technique in EB as well). This may be one of the early decision made under the imperatives of getting started that have turned out to cause difficulties in the longer run. DGG 20:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citing references

Hello, I am seeking clarification regarding whether citing references within an article is policy (or if it is fine merely to list references at the bottom of an article).-MsHyde 23:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You can reference sources at the bottom of an article. It can be more useful to the reader and future editors to have in-line citations, but it is more difficult and the reference system is unwieldy. For controversial biographical information about living person, or any controversial information, it is more important and helpful to have statements explicitly paired with citations. —Centrx→talk • 23:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. How is it determined that something is or is not controversial? (For example, may anyone request inline citations, as fact tags are used?)-MsHyde 23:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
If you have no particular reason to believe that a fact is controversial or incorrect, and are not interested in actually reading a reference if one is provided, then there is no need to request a reference "just in case" somebody else might someday want one. The policy is that everything must be verifiable in principle, not that it must be explicitly sourced.
Adding many fact tags to many articles in a short period of time would make it hard to believe you are requesting the references in good faith rather than making a point. Along these lines, let me point out that your account was created this month but the vast majority of your edits consist of tagging articles as unreferenced, prodding articles, and voting "delete" in AFD debates. CMummert · talk 01:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I am trying to help. If I know something about the subject, or find a reference on Google when trying to decide to prod or AfD, I add it to the article. Also, I vote keep sometimes, and add references to AfD. Can you show me where in policy it says everything must be verifiable in principle, but not explicitly sourced? It seems like this is actually undefined, or a gray area. I agree that not every line should be sourced, but perhaps every paragraph, especially in a long article. But clarity about what policy actually says would be appreciated. In actual practice, it seems to me that inline sourcing is preferred over leaving sources at the bottom, with no way for anyone to tell which parts of the article match which sources or parts of sources.-MsHyde 01:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Careful with adding comments. You messed up the (UTC) in his sig. Not every paragraph has to be sourced. That's just ridiculous. Only those bits which are disputable or not common knowledge need citing. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
That is what I meant about gray area. Everything is disputable; nothing is common knowledge. In a long article, I think there probably should be a reference for every paragraph, at least. But what explicitly is policy covers inline citations vs. references at the bottom?-MsHyde 05:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe there is any policy about which type of citation to use. Personally I prefer the <ref>, since these create standard footnotes that we are familiar with in printed material. Also if someone were to page-print an article, the footnotes would appear normally, the inline cites won't. Wjhonson 09:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
MsHyde probably already has read the policies, since she is familiar with the deletion process, but I will answer her question. WP:V and WP:ATT are carefully worded so that they don't require explicit citations for every fact. If such citations were required, the policies would have been written to explicitly say as much. It is only facts that are "challenged or likely to be challenged", or biographical material, that are held to a higher standard. WP:SCG was recently written to give more specific guidance in the context of scientific articles, and it has been adopted by several WikiProjects as an accurate description of the level of citation they would like to achieve. CMummert · talk 13:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the numerical stability article again, can I kindly suggest that MsHyde read the guidelines at WP:SCG before tagging any more math or science articles? It reads in part:

The verifiability criteria require that such [uncontroversial, widely known] statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements.

Thanks, Lunch 23:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

In all articles with many refs, not just sci-tech, it is usual to group the references at the end of each sentence. For controversial articles in particular, having reference numbers after individual words in the same sentence looks somewhat aggressive. if it is necessary to make it absolutely clear which references said exactly what, it is clearer to use a quote. DGG 00:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC), one per sentence.


[edit] Proposal for Wikipedia:Notability (politicians)

I've created a proposal for a notability guideline for political figures, at Wikipedia:Notability (politicians). I'd welcome input at the talk page. There's already a little discussion because I've been slow about listing the proposal. Argyriou (talk) 01:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article Cabal

Hello Wikipedia.

I am a sysop, checkuser, bot operator, bot writer, toolserver programmer and contributor on Wiktionary, another Wikimedia Foundation Project similar to Wikipedia. I am also a bot operator and bot writer here on Wikipedia.

A matter recently came to my attention on Wiktionary, which ultimately led me here. Trying to assess a particular class of vandalism on Wiktionary, I have found a direct link to "dodgy" featured articles here on Wikipedia. After asking some questions about Wikipedia and some aspects of it I obviously am unfamiliar with, I found myself at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. To my shock and dismay, I found a tight knot of dedicated Wikipedians there who vehemently promote bad article topics and immediately deride any coherent objection that does not match their point of view.

The history of featured articles is not clear. Certainly, the process used for selection is flawed. The lack of transparency, the subjective criteria of a single individual and the disregard of certain subsequent vandalism is baffling.

As I understand it, now, Wikipedia featured articles currently are skewed towards promoting non-encyclopedic topics. I now understand that a certain element has won out (to date) at Wikipedia, holding that any article that is not deleted can (and should) be a featured article. I also understand that the current Wikipedia criteria does not pose any limitations on topics that do not appear in any other general-use encyclopedias, instead allowing "specialty" encyclopedias as well.

To me, this represents a massive flaw in reasoning. When questionable, non-encyclopedic topics are featured on the main page of a website with over two million visitors per day, each of those visitors learns that Wikipedia is about writing featured articles on games, obscure trivia, movies, pop songs and TV shows. As a direct result, contributors who have encyclopedic knowledge to add to Wikipedia (and other WMF projects) are implicitly discouraged from doing so. At the same time, it encourages further "gaming of the system" with non-encyclopedic topics. Useless trivia suddenly becomes the primary focus, instead of useful facts. Ironically, "video games" (as a topic) seem to be a primary subject for "gaming the system" in this manner.


While I do have admiration for the dedication required to organize the current featured article efforts, there obviously are some changes needed. The lack of transparency in the decision-process must be addressed. The disregard for other WikiMedia projects needs to be eliminated. And the effects of featuring non-encyclopedic topics cannot be ignored.

I do not understand what it will take, to break this knot of Wikipedians out of their current mindset, which considers all other concerns as irrelevant. Particularly, the effect on other WikiMedia projects is currently ignored. Yet the overall negative effect on other projects is undeniable.

So, in summary, I have some questions:

  1. Can the featured articles process be reformed to something more wiki-like, such as the voting process used elsewhere on Wikipedia? The current featured articles process gives the strong impression that such a thing is possible, yet is currently overrun by an element that irrationally promotes trivial topics, based only on the prose and how well referenced an entry is. Worse still, that tight knot of contributors expends enormous energy on protecting their fiefdom/cabal, especially in the face of reasonable objections.
  2. Can the featured article criteria be changed to emphasize general-encyclopedia topics? I understand the compromise of allowing such topics to be entered, but featuring, advertising and promoting them is quite a different thing. Such promotion directly results in vandalism to other WikiMedia projects.

Thanks in advance,

--Connel MacKenzie - wikt 20:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Featured Article process doesn't discriminate against any specific topic. The problem is that those with the desire to write featured articles (such as myself) don't really have an interest in those so-called "encyclopedic" articles, the essentials, or what have you. I'm not entirely sure what you're promoting here, so I'm struggling a little bit, but are you saying that our crop of FAs are discouraging people from contributing? How so? If not, are you saying that level of importance should be a criteria? If so, importance to what? Is there some systematic bias in the FA process? Sure. But the answer is more to the point of working on those "important" articles, not what you appear to be suggesting. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) 1: Voting is evil. Plus, on what criteria should it than be based besides references and prose. How worthy a topic is? Some editors find the newest Pokemon way more interesting than Einstein. You can't force editors to work on 'general-encyclopedia' topics. Garion96 (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Seriously, there is no cabal. This is the discussion that sparked this, if anyone wants to have a look. Trebor 20:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for that link. I don't know why I thought that wasn't relevant. It is a good example, but then, so is today's FA. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
That article is getting shot down for its problems with encyclopedic quality. Wikipedia doesn't care about subject importance, we care about article quality. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I believe he was referring to the user above who is proposing this policy, who opposed based on the subject of the candidate.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]).
That is a poor reason to exclude it. It should be excluded from consideration for being non-encyclopedic, and the remaining article improved (or removed.) --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Any article that is notable enough for inclsuion and includes enough information/sources can become a featured article. There is no "bias"; there are just a lot of quality articles coming out of the pop culture subjects. Nothing is stopping the other topics from becoming featured; heck, I believe it serves as a way to motivate enhanced quality for core topics, because they'll see the benchmark being set. — Deckiller 21:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a bias at Wikipedia, but it is not in the Featured Article process. It is simply easier and more fun to write articles on trivial subjects like videogames and pop stars because one person can master all the details and does not have to fight with a bunch of editors with different views to reach a consensus version. I am a generalist, and all the "important" articles I have worked on, programming language, relational database, operating system, china, were in terrible shape when I found them and exhausting to work on. --Ideogram 21:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, but I obviously disagree. The overflow vandalism to other projects whenever a dodgy article is featured is too problematic to ignore any longer. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
May you elabote on how featured articles result in vandalism to other projects? I'm confused. — Deckiller 21:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to second this request for an example. You're saying there was a rash of star wars related vandalism on wiktionary or other wikis today? --Milo H Minderbinder 21:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The flurry of additions of "fictional characters" entries that do not meet wikt:WT:CFI actually started yesterday, and hasn't yet been addressed. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't sound like "vandalism" to me; that sounds like a couple of misguided, but good faith users who don't understand the policies on that wiki. Moreover, it doesn't really show and direct relation to the FAs over here, because we've been featuring fictional topics for years. — Deckiller 22:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Could you provide an example, or point us to a page where we might see some of these? Thanks. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
True, and I don't believe users should be punished for enjoying to work and improve pop culture (a lot of it is in poor shape due to fancruft and whatnot, which is even worse than most of the core topics); if we take this subject away, people won't be interested in editing the more difficult articles. We focus on articles that have the least amount of controversy, and good things result. It will help us build to the point where everyone is experienced enough to crack the tough nuts. — Deckiller 21:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I would never suggest punishment or otherwise trying to prevent people from working on what they enjoy. But our dismal coverage of important topics makes us look bad as an encyclopedia, and I don't see any easy solution. --Ideogram 21:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
If the purpose of including "fancruft" is to help people learn how to practice editing on trivial subjects, that might be relevant. But the topic here, is not directly about inclusion, rather, the focus is on the inordinate promotion of things you can't find in a traditional general-use encyclopedia. While my personal opinion is that the trivia topics should be removed, I understand that is but a pipe-dream. But the FA abuses (advertising/promoting trivia) cannot be ignored. I clearly am not exaggerating the problem; I am obviously understating it. Over two million per day are assaulted with these trivia topics. It is by far, the most prominent aspect of Wikipedia (and WikiMedia) that shapes the world's opinion of this project, and all related projects. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
So do you propose a stop to promoting so-called "trivial" articles, even though the "Featured" status only has to do with article quality? I mean, do you really consider Star Wars: The Phantom Menace to be a trivial subject? --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Stop promoting them by fixing the illogical notion that typography alone is a reason for FA status and "democratize" the voting practice of main page featured articles. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
This is a massive misrepresentation of the featured article criteria. The requirements that an article be "well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable" amount to far more than "typography alone". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
And yes, I think today's featured article is completely inappropriate for something calling itself an encyclopedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The FA articles on fiction aren't exactly fancruft, they take an outside universe view on the subject, just like any other encyclopedia. And Badlydrawnjeff is right, FA is about article quality, not what the article is written about. But could you explain how it is promoting trivia and advertisement? George Lucas isn't exactly paying us to have that on the front page, and Wikipedia isn't promoting his work as an advertisement for Star Wars or any of the other articles that have been up. In theory, any article that is placed on the front page could be considered advertising then. But that's not what FA is about. Wiki goes for a consensus based on what's best for the project, not a yes or no vote on what looks cool or is popular. Darthgriz98 22:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
No it doesn't. It goes off the subjective criteria of one individual, instead of a yes/no vote by the contributors of this project. At what point did I say George Lucas was paying for placement? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
You didn't, and I never said that he was paying for it, which is the point, for us to be advertising, we would tell you to watch Star Wars, or something along those lines for what ever article is featured. As for the nomination process, it involves much more than one person's opinion. In the FA process, any editor can go through and criticize the heck out of the article to make sure it is what a Wikipedia article should be. This is the purpose of FA, to show that the article at that point in time is what we are looking for in a Wikipedia article. Darthgriz98 22:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The only thing I agree with in this proposal is that there should be a balance of subjects on the main page. And there already is; Raul picks featured articles very carefully, and pop culture FAs do not outbalance others in terms of main page inclusion. — Deckiller 22:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The suggestion being made that there is a cabal on WP:FAC whose goal is to promote trivial articles on the grounds that they are well-referenced is, to put it mildly, laughable. However, I believe that more care should be taken in the choice of the Featured Article of the Day. Not enough people realize that the image of Wikipedia suffers when the article of the day is (I'm sure I'm going to get ripped for saying that) Torchic, Half-Life 2, Maraba Coffee or Stephen Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Now that doesn't mean that these are not very high quality articles but I think we might want to rethink the idea of letting fairly trivial subjects (or, as in the above examples, entirely trivial subjects, no matter how fun they might be) become the day's example of the best we can do. Pascal.Tesson 22:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
In January there were eight pop/entertainment/sport articles featured on the main page. 8 out of 31, not bad at all. I think Raul makes a nice balance there. Garion96 (talk) 22:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
One per year might be a better balance. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the pokemon and colbert, but one of the most successful games of the last few years and a type of coffee. How are they not "encyclopaedic" (even in a fairly traditional sense)? But even so, this is all supposition; how do we know what happens to the image? Trebor 22:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Can you provide references to other general-use encyclopedias that have these articles? As to what happens to the image, that is measurable, by the Wikipedia-related news articles and the number of times comedians pick Wikipedia as an easy target. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that we need to focus on the most notable featured articles for inclusion on the main page. However, we cannot just exclude pop culture, because Final Fantasy VII and the current FA are certainly notable enough, as is illustrated in their respective articles. — Deckiller 22:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Those are both excellent examples of items that do not belong on the main page. Notable, but trivia oriented. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Deckiller, the notion that pop-culture trivia is relevant to a general-use encyclopedia, is false. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
It's not "trivia", it's a part of life, just like everything else. Something purchased by 6+ million people certainly is not trivia, nor is an item that has influenced countless forms of literature and films and brought its own influences into the light. By your logic, shouldn't books and whatnot also be "trivia"? Moreover, the consensus on Wikipedia certainly does not believe that pop culture is trivia. — Deckiller 22:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Trivia is not always trivial. But articles that focus only on pop-culture trivia have no place in an encyclopedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Surely everything is relevant to a general-use encyclopaedia. Trebor 22:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Then why are the topics in question only covered in "specialty" niche-segment encyclopedias? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia and definitely also many niche encyclopedia's in one. Garion96 (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Precicely. That's why it's called general :) — Deckiller 22:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
So why are the Beatles relevant to Encyclopedia Britannica? [8]. They certainly seem to feel that pop culture should be included. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
One single band of historic importance is not all garage bands ever. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Not all garage bands are included in Wikipedia. We have notability guidelines, and I, among other admins, have deleted numerous articles that don't comply to WP:BAND. — Deckiller 22:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Just typing bands off the top of my head, it has articles on the Clash, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, the Ramones, Devo, Springsteen. It seems like as long as you don't get recent, you can find most famous groups. Not to mention Pacman and Zelda (video games? how dare they??). The claim that encyclopedias don't cover pop culture is patently false. And once you admit that it's good to cover some pop culture, you turn the site into a popularity contest and end up arguing over which is more important instead of writing articles. While it is true that wikipedia covers more bands than EB, part of the reason is that WP has no space limitations and covers more of many topics - there are many "important" topics that WP gets that other encyclopedias either cover in less detail or miss completely. If pop culture is not encyclopedic, why does wiktionary have a bunch of entries that only appear in star wars (apparently in violation of the inclusion policies there)? --Milo H Minderbinder 22:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary section break 1

Wikipedia differs in important ways from a traditional encyclopedia. I have much more to say on this subject but not here and now. --Ideogram 22:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree, Wikipedia is anything but a normal encyclopedia. Darthgriz98 22:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Moreover, we have the ability to cover more topics and in a more comprehensive manner because of our larger edit base. We don't have a small group of hired editors, who have to focus on only the most important topics. — Deckiller 22:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
      • That is a fallacy. The ability to create articles has no bearing whatsoever, on what is promoted. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
        • Yes it does, because like was said earlier, we should be promoting all subjects included. Consequently, we should get more core topics featured, but that is no reason to dock pop culture FAs. — Deckiller 22:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I gather, Connel, that you are suggesting that pop-culture topics should be excluded from becoming Featured Articles. This means incorporating either a subject-matter exclusion or some form of determination of "worthiness" into the featured article criteria. Either of these is problematic. Saying "no pop-culture articles" assumes that there's a clear line between pop culture and high culture — but that line was blurry long before Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol pointed the tension out. Is Jaws pop culture, or high culture, or both? It's been widely praised by notable critics, but also condemned as the first of many disposable blockbuster summer "popcorn" movies. There are many other cases that are legitimately part of both "pop" and "high" culture. We can't use Potter Stewart's pornography test ("I know it when I see it"), because every Wikipedian will have different opinions about what should or shouldn't be excluded.

That leaves us with the attempt to determine what subjects are "worthy" and what are "trivial". But how can we possibly determine what's too "trivial" to merit inclusion as a Featured Article? Some people would say that comic books as a genre are intrinisically trivial, and that the inclusion of Superman and Batman as featured articles diminishes Wikipedia. But does that mean that a comic with more literary aspirations, such as Watchmen, should be demoted? What about the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus — should that be excluded from ever becoming a Featured Article? If not, where can we draw the line?

The impossibility of making these determinations shows the wisdom of Wikipedia's inclusionism. Right now, the only bias is towards the inclinations of contributors. If we tried to use criteria of "worth", or exclude particular subjects from consideration, we would open the door to many more troublesome biases. It's a bad idea. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Limiting the decision to a single individual is worse. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
That's not a logical follow-on. There is currently no decision on "worthiness", due to the difficulties explained by Josiah. One individual will judge if there is community consensus to promote an article or not, based on quality. Trebor 22:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
You can't grasp the meaning logical statements? There is no current decision on sysop "worthiness" due to even greater difficulties, yet WP:RfA is not run by a single individual. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
And neither is WP:FAC. Connel, you're conflating the process of promoting articles to FA status and the process of placing them on the front page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
(after conflict, in response to mackenzie) Eh? I don't think I'm following you. But to make sure I got my point across: we have featured articles. They are judged against the featured article criteria. Any article can become featured; there is no judgement as to whether an article is significant or important enough. Being featured does not make them appear on the main page, although to appear on the main page an article must be featured. People add comments in support or opposition of an article being featured. These comments should be based on the criteria, and opposition must include actionable improvements which can be made. After a consensus has formed, one person judges that consensus and features (or not) the article. If you don't feel that this system is correct and that it leads to too many supposedly trivial articles being featured, I'd advise finding a different project. Trebor 23:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Please go elsewhere yourself. As I stated at the start, I'm here only because the FA has such enormous secondary effects. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Just a suggestion. And I'll ask again how you know that us featuring certain articles has an effect on sister projects? The link seems very tenuous. Trebor 23:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I still haven't seen those "enormous secondary effects". Could you point to a diff or history page showing them? --Milo H Minderbinder 23:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I am not conflating anything. There is no separation between the two processes, and there should be. Currently, when trying to express one such comment, I was immediately attached by this cabal. If no place exists to express such comments, there should be one. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

With respect, Connel, you are conflating when you make reference to "a single individual" making decisions about what is featured. WP:FAC is open to all Wikipedians. It is true that one individual — currently Raul654 — makes the decisions about which featured articles will be included in Wikipedia:Today's featured article on the front page. (Incidentally, if you follow that link, you'll see the statement "Raul654 maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he does not intend to appear on the main page." This should slightly alleviate your concerns about unworthy topics being featured on the front page, and thus attracting unwelcome spillover to other Wikimedia projects.)

There is a distinction between which articles become featured and which featured articles are included on the front page. For the reasons I have stated, I think that subject-based or "worthiness"-based restrictions on the creation of featured articles are a bad idea; however, I can see the arguments for restricting which featured articles are placed on the front page. Wikipedians will differ on the merits of articles like Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, but the suggestion that merely because of its subject matter it should not have become a featured article is a non-starter, I'm afraid. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Please omit the cabal references. I see a lot of editors in this discussion that I've never seen before. We are users discussing why we feel that your idea would not be beneficial or work out, not a mob. — Deckiller 23:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Please stop behaving in a mob-like manner, then. I presented a thoughtful presentation of a very real problem, and have been set on, by a pack of FA contributors who wish to protect themselves and their POV. I've seen one thoughtful response so far, in opposition to my original proposal, two thoughtful responses in support, and innumerable misplaced or misguided defenses of the current practice. On one hand, I am partly responsible for "feeding the trolls" but on the other, the absurd statements defending the current practice need to be refuted immediately. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Once again, I'll remind you to assume good faith and be civil. Describing editors as mobs and trolls isn't helping your cause. I can't find any of the responses in support of your proposal; I think the majority of the community think it unworkable, and reflective of a very traditionalist view of an encyclopaedia. The current practice has been pretty successful in most people's eyes, and you've yet to substantiate any statement claiming it has caused increased vandalism to any other WM projects. Trebor 23:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
You are telling me to be WP:CIVIL after essentially telling me to go to hell? WTF? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Point me to where I said anything like that; if I did, I apologise. I'd still like an answer as to how you know that the vandalism is connected to the featuring of "less serious" articles. Trebor 23:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm dying to see this "go to hell" comment as well. --Milo H Minderbinder 23:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the "go to hell" issue is referring to the good-faith suggestion above: "If you don't feel that this system is correct and that it leads to too many supposedly trivial articles being featured, I'd advise finding a different project". — Deckiller 00:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps, but I feel that paraphrasing that to "go to hell" is a misinterpretation of my comments. I was saying that the overwhelming consensus that FAs can be on any topic is unlikely to be changed, and if he was so diametrically opposed to this idea then perhaps Wikipedia wasn't a good project for him. I consider that slightly more measured (and subtle) than a simple "go to hell". Trebor 00:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, unless it was a way for him to say that Wikipedia = Heaven :) — Deckiller 00:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
If you want to test the strength of your argument, then this is the place. I tried it very recently, and found my proposal wanting. While I still believe in my concept I realise that it needs better arguing or simply a stronger argument. If everyone who responds is against your point of view then it is better to accept the opposing view as currently valid and attempt either (and or) refine your argument or accept the status quo. You (and I, separately) may well be right. It is for us to find the proof that will convince, and not complain about the trial. LessHeard vanU 23:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary section break 2

Maybe I should be clearer about my concern with Half-Life 2 as the article of the day. I think it's great that Wikipedia has quality articles on fairly trivial topics or on pop-culture. In fact, it's a (small) part of what makes Wikipedia so nice. But I think it's just silly to let articles on video-games, no matter how popular, be the article we show off with pride to the world. I really would have no interest in Wikipedia if it wasn't also creating fantastic articles on subjects where it is in direct competition with classical encyclopedias. Featured articles are supposed to exemplify our best work and I doubt that anyone can say without giggling that Torchic should be given the nod. It's great to impose the same stringent standards on pop-culture articles that we apply to top-priority topics but at some point we have to be honest and realize that Pokemon, Half-Life 2 articles and whatnot are ephemeral little things whose place on the front page should be secondary. Pascal.Tesson 22:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

But you do agree that they should be given the ability to become featured, right? Also, I somewhat disagree with excluding all video games; Mario, Final Fantasy, game consoles, and whatnot are not bad things to include on the main page, because they were well known and not too narrow. — Deckiller 22:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
(after edit conflict and database lock)I'm still not sure where this worry about what we "show-off" is coming from. If we didn't include our pop culture and niche articles, it wouldn't be a reflection of where a lot of the quality of Wikipedia is; we certainly don't want to mispresent ourselves to the world. Wikipedia is one of the best places to go for information on pop culture. It isn't (yet) perhaps, the best place to go for consistently detailed overviews of core topics for traditional encyclopaedias, but then traditional encyclopaedias don't allow anyone to edit and aren't staffed by volunteers. I certainly don't think there's any need to be embarrassed by Wikipedia. Trebor 22:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely. — Deckiller 22:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Pascal, I completely agree. The only ones not giggling are the same contributors gaming the FA system with items that will be long-forgotten in ten year's time. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Final Fantasy VII certainly hasn't been forgotten (and it was released ten years ago); Star Wars hasn't been forgotten, and it's 25+ years old; and I'm fairly certain that people remember Donkey Kong (video game), Pac-Man, and Jaws (film), as the articles explain. Nevertheless, I rarely, if ever, put FAs I work on in the FA request; attaining featured status is enough for me, unless I feel that the topic is notable enough to be placed on the main page (like the New England Patriots, or Rush (band)).
I do feel that, for topics to be featured and/or placed on the main page, there should be at least a 2 year history so that there can be some historical context and reception information to make the article comprehensive. That include non-pop culture topics, as well. — Deckiller 23:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Please assume good faith with the contributors. Whether or not you personally find the articles interesting, a lot of work goes into every featured article so I don't think describing them as "gaming the FA system" is particularly civil. Trebor 23:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
There is no good faith left to be assumed, when I was set-upon immediately for expressing an opinion. And I never said that improvements to those FAs were bad. But the gaming of the FA system is self-evident. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
You weren't set upon; we explained why your opinion wouldn't be regarded in the closing decision because it wasn't actionable or addressing the criteria. And I don't think the gaming is self-evident, or perhaps other people would be agreeing with you. Trebor 23:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes; I found that comment (like the cabal comments) offensive. I improve the quality of articles that interest me. It's not because I want to game the system and try to churn out a lot of "easy" featured articles (I haven't worked on one from scratch in a while, although Woonsocket, Rhode Island is on queue and I made a visit to the library), it's because I want to enhance quality where I can enhance it best. — Deckiller 23:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit confilct] FA articles are about comprehensive citations and overall quality of prose. The subject matter is unimportant. As you say, nobody may care about Half-Life 2 in 10 years time, but the argument could be made that nobody cares about Regulamentul Organic or History of saffron right now. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Precicely. The point of an encyclopedia is to inform, and if people are interested and obsessed with everything in an encyclopedia, what would be its point? — Deckiller 23:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Point of (minor) dispute: "good citations and prose" are qualities of an FA, but not really what it's 'about'; comprehensiveness of coverage of the subject is what's critical, regardless of what the subject is. Opabinia regalis 03:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Bah, keep your sound logic to yourself. :P I was just trying to make a succinct summary with a comment about content, though I admit it was perhaps a bit too succinct... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, but can you determine what will be forgotten in 10 years time? Perhaps a learned article on particle physics (surely a 'proper' encyclopedic subject) may be rendered obsolete by some discovery or theory which negates/supercedes current thinking, yet the music of a once popular band is still being enjoyed (and discovered) by a few. Which subject then still has relevance? The front page of Wikipedia serves much the same function as a newspaper, it is an advertisment for the contents. As such the breadth of subject must try to reach as many potential editors as possible, the only criteria being the quality of the presentation. What may appear to be a frivolous subject to some may be the item that gets people hooked into Wikipedia. Surely we cannot determine the suitability of potential editors by what it is that enthuses them? LessHeard vanU 23:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, I think everyone will agree that we already have plenty of editors willing to contribute to the pop-culture articles. What we are often lacking are editors who take the time to contribute to core topics. In the same sort of spirit, Wikipedia is already widely recognized as a great source for pop-culture information but no so much as a quality provider of content on core encyclopedic topics so it would make most sense to put these on the front page. Of course, no one can say what will be relevant in ten years but let's not kid ourselves: nobody in their right mind would bet any money that Half-Life 2 will be viewed as having more value than particle physics in a few years time. (Of course, an overwhelming majority would agree that the latter already has way more value) Pascal.Tesson 23:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

While it might not necessarily show why we should omit those articles from the main page every now and then, it does show why more attention needs to be paid to core topics by those who are willing and have the ability to contribute to those topics. I don't believe that pop culture topics are a pitfall for good editors; I'm no scientist, therefore, I rarely contribute to science topics. As I take more business classes, I'm sure I'll focus more on our business coverage. — Deckiller 23:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
This seems to be stemming from an underlying belief that we need to prove ourselves to be "good" at covering these core topics. But I don't think that's representative of our overall coverage; we don't want to dress ourselves up as something we're not. Trebor 00:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Having read through this thread, I'm still not seeing any specific evidence on how Wikipedia's choice of featured articles relate to higher levels of vandalism and nonsense posting on other Wikimedia projects. I'm not seeing the typical bored-schoolkid vandal noticing that the main page article is about Star Wars and thinking, 'Hm, I think I'll go screw around with the dictionary project that's linked at the very bottom of the main page!' Maybe Connel can point us to a non-WP:BEANSy summary of the results of his investigations? (Or, if it's already been posted somewhere, add a link?) I'm also wondering what FAC it is you looked at, Connel; if it's just GameFAQs, that's not much of a sample size. In the last few days I've reviewed three or four excellent historical articles; there may be a disproportionate number of pop-culture nominations, but I don't think that translates to a disproportionate number of pop-culture FAs (yes, that means I do think pop-culture noms fail at a higher-than-average rate). Have you compared the number of articles listed as FAs under "Media" to the number under "History" or "War"? Opabinia regalis 03:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

<This thread was previosuly split into a new section ("Summary of F.A.C section above"), I have merged that back in. But, I have removed a large table prepared by Connel MacKenzie (it was not appropriate, I can elaborate if need be), you can view it at the bottom of this version.--Commander Keane 05:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Until the featured article cabal is dismantled, I see no point in trying to cooperate with Wikipedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 03:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

And until you realize that there isn't a cabal just because people disagree with you, I see no point in trying to cooperate with you. Equilibrium has been achieved! :-P EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Hey EV, at least he gave you a complement in the chart :) — Deckiller 05:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, beggars can't be choosers, so I'll take what little I can get... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the concisest response I can make: You say "Do you have any idea why the Wikipedia "Featured Articles" often feature items that one would never find in a traditional encyclopedia?" like it's a bad thing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we please delete this grotesque table? I did not take the time to explain what I meant earlier only to see it boiled down to "(3) Supportive arguments (smashed into this cabal before, eh?)" (whatever that means). Also I get this weird sense that Connel MacKenzie believes I support his idea that FAC is being ruled by some evil pop-culture-crazy cabal. Again, quoting myself: that accusation is to put it mildly, laughable. Pascal.Tesson 04:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
This table does not help Connel's argument; it damanges it, for obvious reasons. Because I generally oppose the proposition, I feel that the table should stay. Also, it appears that I won the title for most tallies on the chart :). — Deckiller 05:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Damn, I thought I might get that. Seriously, Connel, that's way way over the lines of civility and into the area of personal attacks. I don't think I've made any comments that weren't addressed at the argument; if you feel got-at personally, I apologise. But believe me, there is no cabal. My contact with the editors here before this has been minimal. Trebor 08:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

All of this whining because GameFAQs was nom'd at FAC? oh dear lmao. --- RockMFR 07:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary section break 3

I'm concerned that a single individual (no matter how good or well-meaning) is the sole determiner of what FA goes onto the front page. That bothers me a lot for reasons that I think should be fairly obvious. But to be honest, if you look at Wikipedia:Featured article statistics you'll see that over the past year we have created just 354 new featured articles. Now - think about this...we consume one feature article every day by putting it on the front page - never to appear there again. So we used up 11 more articles than we accepted this year. Since the supply of FA's that have never been on the front page is limited, there will come a day when we don't have a new FA to put onto the front page. Raul is not so much picking which FA's make it onto the front page as simply switching the order of them around so that they are more evenly distributed by subject. That being the case, it's largely irrelevent how it's done - so I shouldn't be too bothered.
But what this shortage means that in the not-too-distant future, we'll have to do one of several things:
  1. Stop updating the main page FA every day.
  2. Lower our standards and allow more FA's to be created.
  3. Somehow push much harder to create more FAC's of sufficient standard.
  4. Put articles that are merely GA's onto the front page.
I don't think (2) or (4) would ever be considered a good idea. (1) sounds an awful lot like defeat. So we're left with finding a way to have more articles submitted to FAC or improving the quality of those that are submitted so that an increased number pass. I think there are ways to do both of those things - but what concerns me most is that people who might be writing significant and interesting articles are wasting far too much of their time doing WikiPolitics and in consequence doing too little editing.
This leaves open the possibility for a fanatical group of (to pick an actual example) Pokemon fans to churn out fairly formulaic articles that are very likely to pass FAC. After all, once you've found the magic formula to get Bulbasaur through the FAC process, you can write another FA-quality article very easily by picking one of the other few hundred Pokemon characters and making a page which quotes the same Pokedex books - has the same sections in the same order with pictures gathered in the same manner from the same sources. It ought to be pretty easy to come up with a few hundred articles that are very similar indeed. If one passes, then if our FAC process is logical and unbiassed, they all pretty much have to pass because we won't be able to find anything bad enough about any of them to disqualify them.
Try doing that with articles about European monarchs, Italian sportscars or Diseases of sheep! Each article has to be fought for - you've gotta track down books, read them, fight with other editors...it's a lot of work. So I think we have to accept that unless a lot of the really good editors around here stop playing politics and go back to writing articles, we should expect to see every single one of those Pokemon characters showing up on the front page. There are enough of them that we might see nothing else for six solid months! SteveBaker 05:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Very insightful comments, and I agree; although it's great that we're featuring pop culture topics, we should tip the focus if possible. — Deckiller 05:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
You're right that it's easier to copy another article than start from scratch; the Tropical Storms Wikiproject is very efficient in producing hurricane articles that meet the criteria. About having only one user decide what's on the main page, I think it's for practicality more than anything else. There are rarely compelling reasons for having an article on a particular day, so it'd be hard to form consensus in most cases. And having a bunch of users !voting over which article should go on which day doesn't improve the encyclopaedia at all, so it's rather a waste of time. I agree it would be nice to have more FAs on "core" topics, but we can't force volunteers to write on a particular topic, and "core" topic articles tend to be a lot harder to create. Trebor 08:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
That 354 figure is interesting; is that simply the quantity that passed FA in the period or the aggregate between passes and the articles delisted? If it is the latter, then a fifth option would be to ensure that the WP:FAR is even more directed at galvanising editors into keeping articles to standard. LessHeard vanU 13:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
354 is the total count of FAs as of Jan 2007 minus the total count as of Jan 2006 (i.e. the latter, including both newly promoted articles and those delisted). There's a backlog of articles that are being FAR'd, which I think will dry up in the not too distant future at which point FAs will increase more like the promotion rate. 561 articles were promoted in 2006. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
A bit related, we also have 213 featured lists, 27 added in the last month. Garion96 (talk) 16:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll be interested to see what happens after the uncited FAs go through FAR; at the moment, the vast majority of removals are for that reason. The criteria for FAs seem to have stabilised and ,unless they undergo another significant change, that should mean a faster increase in FAs. It is slightly depressing when as many articles are unfeatured as featured each week. Trebor 17:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Lots of points here!

  • The number of former featured articles has been increasing rapidly recently, mainly because the change to the FA criteria to require a better standard of citation has been applied more rigorously of late. This is sad, but a necessary evil.
  • There is, of course, a self-selected group of participants at WP:FAC and WP:FAR. This group is not a cabal - it includes all those who take part; all you have to become a member is propose an article as a FAC or FAR, or comment upon a FAC or FAR. There are accepted ways of doing things, of course, but I see new people joining the discussion all the time.
  • There was some noise about WP:100K a few months ago, but it remains a pipe-dream. The fact is that we do not create featured articles at a sufficiently fast rate. It is hard to meet the FA criteria - believe me! It is especially hard to write a featured article on a core topic, such as Physics or Law - the scope is so wide, everyone has 2p to throw on the heap, edit wars often break out, editors cannot agree on what to include and what, following summary style, should be left to daughter articles, ... Much easier to focus on a smaller topic that can be done well. On the other hand, wide topics can become featured: Dinosaur, for example, or Evolution, or African American literature.
  • Contrary to the argument above, despite Bulbasaur and Torchic becoming featured articles, there has not been a slew of featured-quality articles on Pokemon. That is also sad. I look forward to Pikachu and Charizard and Squirtle and Jigglypuff and Meowth and many others joining them.
  • The line has always been that any article that can survive WP:AFD can become featured (although some, such as lists, will clearly never meet the FA criteria). But what does "trivial" mean? Is Durer's Rhinoceros trivial (just a print, after all - not even a painting)? Is England expects that every man will do his duty trivial (some signal flags?!)? How about Oroonoko (an obscure novel)? Or Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (a photograph)? Other than requiring that an article is "notable" or "encyclopedic", why should be add another criterion, that it should not be "trivial" (if that is any different)? Surely it is a strength of Wikipedia that it extends beyond the boundaries of a paper encyclopedia to deal with topics that other encyclopedias leave out?
  • Raul654's position is anomalous. Determining consensus for promoting other featured content (pictures, lists, etc.) or for the reverse process, at WP:FAR, is not delegated to a single person but rather any one of the regular participants is trusted to make the decision. Similarly, choosing entries for WP:DYK or WP:ITN is not delegated to one person, but left to anyone who takes an interest. Raul654 has done an excellent job, and I have no problem with what he does or the way he does it, but I am not sure whether we need a "director". On the other hand, if the system is not broken, why fix it?
  • The original complaint seems to be that "low brow" featured articles on the Main Page attract vandalism. Well, yes - see the articles' edit history. Vandalism is a fact of wiki life. Just see what happens when The Colbert Report mentions Wikipedia. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Responding to your point on Raul: yes, it has always struck me as slightly odd too; I'm not sure I can think of many other "one-person" positions on the Wiki. But as you say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it (although after two and a bit years, I would have thought he might want to share the load). I think the system is working well, and certainly the "new breed" of very well-referenced FAs are top notch. Trebor 00:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
It's probably done by one person because it's really a one-person job at the current level of activity. If there were 50 viable FA nominations a day, more than one person would be needed, but as it is, it's not an unreasonable load for a single person. Opabinia regalis 01:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Show us the vandalism

The inception of this thread is based on the claim that featured articles of the day on wikipedia lead to vandalism on wiktionary. Multiple users have asked multiple times for examples demonstrating this. There have been many posts, mulitple heading breaks, you even took the time to make a table, yet no examples? I'd like to assume good faith, but it's hard not to suspect that the vandalism claims may be an attempt to give credibility to a weak IDONTLIKEIT complaint. So please, if you return to continue this discussion (and I certainly wouldn't object if you didn't), give us some diffs (or preferably a history page that shows a bunch of these if there is one). --Milo H Minderbinder 13:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I leave the subject of vandalism that has resulted from choice of featured article at Wikipedia to others, but it is most definitely true that Wikipedia editors should be aware that Wikipedia does not operate in a vacuum when it comes to other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wiktionary has had to suffer the fall-out from the various Colbertisms targetted at Wikipedia, for example. "reality" and several related words have had to be, and are currently, protected. And we do regularly get people whose articles were deleted from Wikipedia coming to Wiktionary to re-create them. Uncle G 20:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that we here at Wikipedia are definitely aware that we do not operate in a vacuum. I, personally, and I'm sure my fellow editors here feel the same way, want to see all of the Wikimedia projects succeed, and we certainly don't want to feel like we are causing harm, even inadvertently, to other Wikis. However, no one has yet provided us with valid, concrete evidence that this is happening. We are certainly not at fault for the Colbert-related vandalism, and I'm not sure what we are supposed to do to stop people creating articles on Wiktionary that have been deleted here. Are we supposed to stop deleting all articles, no matter how worthy of deletion? Connell MacKenzie spent lots of time making a table to document his fanciful "Featured Article cabal", but didn't spend the 30 seconds it would take to provide even one concrete piece of evidence of extra-Wikipedia vandalism inspired by Wikipedia articles. If such evidence does exist, and someone who's seen it can direct our attention there, then we can do something about the problem. Until then, it seems like this whole discussion is pointless.--Aervanath 04:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to contribute my own hypothetical (because arrived at completely without a thorough statistical sampling) explanation of which articles tend to attract graffiti taggers vandals more often, and thus should not be featured on the main page lest their increased visibility draw increased vandalism. (1) Wiki-vandalism, like real-world "tagging", is an immature behavior, thus its practitioners tend to be of immature interests, very often due to immature age. Non-recent history, classic literature, and advanced sciences, tend to hold less interest for them than video-games and whatever else is "hot" in specifically young people's "popular culture" at the moment. (2) Vandals tend more often to read, and then "tag" for boasting purposes among their peers, articles that interest them. (3) Therefore articles on, say, 19th-century European statesmen will draw less vandalism than articles on Pokemon, World of Warcraft, and this year's most-talked-about sports figures and TV celebrities. (4) It follows that the best way to reduce main-page-inspired vandalism is to exclude such "hot" topics from the main page. In fact, don't feature any article there that could not have appeared in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, or that would have been a most-read article even in the EB. Our safety lies in boredom! If our main-page article bores vandals so much that they can't be bothered to finish reading it, likely they won't trouble to "tag" it either. In fact, the more boring Wikipedia as a whole becomes, the more likely vandals will go elsewhere, to "tag" something more interesting, like blogs. I suggest this become a new guideline, or even policy, as to what articles should aim for, or be deleted for lacking. Future old-timer Wikipedians will be recognized by their commenting to each other, "Say, remember when we used to have vandals here?" -- Helpfully yours, Ben 19:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

The nefarious Featured Article Cabal has now been added to Wikipedia:List of cabals. Users with experience of this sinister group are invited to adjust its description there. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] corporate censorship is happening

What is the policy for dealing with PR people from the corporations described in wikipedia editing their own articles? I don't know a ton about wikipedia but I think that free advertising is not the purpose. Neither is censorship of a long and dirty corporate history. Personally I see NPOV as partly to blame. It is too easy to mean Mainstream or Status Quo... or complicity in power. Wikipedia use to be a place you could go to cut through the BS that you get on a google search where the results are paid for. Now that wikipedia is THE content creator for all the fake webpage robots and has so much influence... it is becoming a lot more contested. Articles are shorter and have less open conflict written out. I liked the conflict because it gave balance and I could link to both sides of the arguement. We need a more coherent ideal than absurd objectivity. It seems like the norm is becoming stylistically concise, naive, less informative, more palatable to those not in the know. The article in question is the Unilever article and the edits are being made by a user who admits to working for them making websites. The animal rights and other political criticisms have been de-linked in the name of NPOV. Has this sort of thing happened before? I think it is going to become more of an issue. I think it is a great project nonetheless, you are all admirable for participating. I am always melodramatic. ~rusl

All that can be done is to be vigilant and revert anything that seems to violate WP:NPOV. It is difficult, because paid PR people will be able to edit full time, so obviously they have an unfair advantage.--Runcorn 12:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
NPOV *means* you get the good and the bad. Revert them. --BenBurch 16:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I have found it possible to deal with such concerns by persistence. It helps also if there is more than one person involved, so it doesn't get to a 1 on 1 personal matter. The determination of many of the WP editors is the equal of any hired PR, as is the special knowledge of how to work in WP. The editors who come to work on the article for their company have sometimes made very useful contributions; it might help to have a Wikiproject for commercial products. What I have learned to watch out for is the simultaneous starting of pages for many different individual products. For consumer products, especially product safety, Consumer Reports is a well known source of NPOV information. DGG 18:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Just a thought... PR departments for an international company usually operate from the head office on one continent/time zone. Find editors who are active outside of said company/dept. work hours who would be willing to patrol the pages for POV edits. LessHeard vanU 23:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Or you could just add the page to your watchlist and check for suspect edits. Caknuck 21:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
True, but one of the comments is that multi-nationals can afford to hire a dept. to look after their interests and overwhelm a volunteer editor. I was suggesting patrolling an article out of office hours. LessHeard vanU 22:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I hadn't thought about this until I saw this section. There are sections in Wikipedia that document corporate corruption, but there would be a strong temptation for the coporates to try to re-write history in their favor. Don't let them win. Richiar 03:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC) Business ethics - Corporate crime
This would be a conflict of interest. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 04:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
As far as the animal testing section Unilever goes, keep in mind that NPOV can be applied to controversial issues. If we have legitimate sources for citation -- and bear in mind that when dealing with huge multinationals and issues, we need SOLID sources -- then we shouldn't shy away from stating the facts of the matter. Caknuck 21:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Policy bloat

It strikes me that there is a growing, and understandable, movement to promote more and more to policy or guideline. I'm no fan of policy bloat because it leads to additional management overhead and in the pseudo-democratic wikipedia universe that slows down production. So do we need to develop a policy which says not to create policy cruft?

ALR 13:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree: we currently pile up policy, but hardly manage to slim down existing policy. I'm sure I'm not aware of half of our policies by now, WP:ENC, WP:5P, WP:BOLD and WP:DICK are quite enough most of the time. dab (𒁳) 14:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
It already exists and is called m:instruction creep. ColourBurst 15:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
It's almost like everybody with an edit wants to make a policy nowadays. What ever happened to WP:IAR? Wikipedia isn't like getting a PhD where you need to write a dissertation for your time here in policy. I think WP:KISS needs to apply itself to policy, as in keep them amount of them short and to the point, no use in 100 policies on the same thing. Darthgriz98 16:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Aren't admin candidates required to write something in the Wikipedia: namespace these days? Ut oh. --Kim Bruning 16:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's well and fine, but does each administrator need to make up a separate policy? I think not. There is nothing wrong with contributing to existing policies or making one when absolutely needed, but there is no need for every administrator to have a policy on Wikipedia. Darthgriz98 16:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
It'll be on one of thos my criteria for admin promotion or my vote will be super strong you cant bed it oppose, just after 3FA.ALR 16:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Just a side note, when I mean policy I don't mean individual administer policies that are on their user space, I mean ones like WP:SOAPBOX, WP:IAR, WP:NOT some, maybe most of which have merit, but policy bloat is never good since much of it can be compressed and combined. Darthgriz98 16:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that's a great idea to take out excess policy bloat, there really is no need for separate articles when it can all be found in one place. Darthgriz98 14:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I think in general it would be useful to streamline some of them, there is the risk that in streamlining they become too abstracted for many editors to deal with. I think Attribution is quite a good example, good effort but I think it's still going to need some supporting material in guideline form to really be useful.
Probably a common theme from me recently but one of the problems is the lack of either content or process strategy, which in itself positively encourages the apparent proliferation of special cases and the bloat of extant policy and guideline.
Now is there a place appropriate to raise the absence of effective governance?
ALR 11:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

full circle? --Kim Bruning 14:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Articles

The content of a deleted article should be retained, the submitting author notified, most likely on the user's page. If this is current policy, it is not always followed. Recently a new article that contained considerable information was deleted. There is no "history" to account for such disappearance, nor any indication of where the information may be retrieved by the contributor. Apparently it is lost forever.Phmalo 15:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "retained"? The content isn't actually deleted except in the case of clear copyright violation. Speedy deletions recommend that the author be notified, but do not force the tagger to do so. People can see that the article's deleted through the logs (and if the article is deleted, there's a clear link there that will point them to who deleted it) and they can then go ask the deleting admin why it was deleted. I'm not sure why they need the contents unless they needed it to 1) recreate the article (in which if they haven't addressed the concerns will probably be deleted again) or 2) move the article somewhere else (in which case they contact the admin who deleted it). Please show me an example. ColourBurst 15:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The "content" of a deleted article always is retained, but this deleted history is only visible to admins. The deletion is recorded in the deletion log, for which a link is provided on the "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name" screen. If someone wants to object to a particular deletion, they can talk with the admin who deleted it (I have on occasion undone my own deletions after requests/explanations), or follow the procedures at Wikipedia:Deletion review. Postdlf 16:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, the content isn't lost, it just isn't visible to our readers, or to non-admin editors. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. The preferred method of trying to get it back is to talk to the deleting admin first, and only after they've responded then go to deletion review. Less than 10% of page restorations come about through deletion review. GRBerry 18:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cracking down on Politics Edit Warriors

One of the weakest parts of Wikipedia's content is anything about politics. There are a spate of editors who edit wikipedia not to create an encyclopedia, but rather to push their political viewpoint as fact on a large website. I suggest that there is wide consensus to take strong and decisive action towards these editors - community bans from all articles about politics/current events. I further suggest that the only reason these actions are not taken is because of fears of backlash. I am very interested to hear if there are others who feel this way, or if there is a belief that we are not overly leniant with what I will call "politics edit warriors". Thank you. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


Can you explain your campaign regarding David Horowitz then please?

  • User puts David Horowitz Freedom Center up for deletion: [9]
  • Votes to delete FrontPage Magazine [10] which is edited by David Horowitz.

Removes all External Links related to Horowitz:

  • National Lawyers Guild

[11] [12] Bill Moyers [13] [14] [15] Christian Peacemaker Teams [16] [17] World Festival of Youth and Students [18] Evan Thomas [19] Mengistu Haile Mariam [20] Paul Booth (SDS activist) [21] Brandeis University [22] CounterPunch (newsletter) [23] Lynne Stewart [24] Political Research Associates [25] Mumia Abu-Jamal [26] Durban Strategy [27] Keith Ellison (politician) [28] Joel Beinin [29]

I have to agree there is much warring over politics, seems deleting a commentator you do not like is not the answer either. --NuclearZer0 18:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A big reason is the way the sentence gets reworded as the pronoun changes. "I am defending Wikipedia." "You are being contentious." "He is a POV edit warrior." (Not that this situation is unique here; script writers use the technique often.) There are quite often counterclaims. Sorting them out is never simple, and always takes time. The policies are clear, handling the situations is non-trivial. GRBerry 18:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
What value is gained by sorting it out? Ban em' all, let it sort itself out. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree that Politics warriors are a big problem here, and may I suggest you start by looking in the mirror, Hipocrite! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
A 'crackdown' would accomplish exactly nothing. So you ban all the POV pushers on politics, somehow being completely fair and impartial in the process... and miraculously none of them create new accounts to get back into the game. A month later a whole new batch of politics POV pushers will discover the site and start it up all over again. It's a non-starter. Even setting aside the vast and many problems with implementing it, even imagining that it would somehow not cause far greater problems than it aimed to solve... the end result still would be of no benefit. The only real hope for dealing with such situations is to educate people on NPOV and verifiability and slowly build up a cadre of people who feel passionately about politics, but follow Wikipedia policy on writing about and discussing them. Ban the people who show no effort in even trying to comply after repeated efforts... but we desperately need to keep the ones who make any progress towards cooperative editing. --CBD 18:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
we do already crack down on vandals, trolls and edit warriors. WP:NPOV is policy, and firmly in place. People are free to have an opinion, and to focus on documenting their selected point of view by referring to WP:RSs. But at the point where they try to spin the prose, or insist on undue representation of a fringe position, they are violating policy, and any admin may, and should, crack down on them. dab (𒁳) 19:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
It would seem to me that the fairest thing to do would be for editors to limit themselves to AfDing only articles on subjects supportive of their own strongly held viewpoint, and eschewing doing so for those in opposition to it as a simple matter of WP:COI. Askari Mark (Talk) 22:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A lot of the NPOV editing of political articles is sorting the wheat from the chaff. I would argue (but not so much as to trawl a few dozen articles for examples) that some good notable information is provided by POV pushers (both for and against) which a dispassionate contributor who may not have been so inclined to do the research would not have found. Whilst it is undoubtedly frustrating to deal with such 'warriors' simply removing them may result in a case of baby/bathwater etc. LessHeard vanU 22:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image use policy

This conversation needs more input by people well versed in our image copyright policies: [30]. SchmuckyTheCat 22:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semiprotection notice

If you would like to comment on doing away with the semiprotection notice on articles that are semiprotected by adding additional information elsewhere, please see this discussion. -- Kjkolb 04:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Essay pages being mislabled.

There seems to be a growing trend in the WP namespace of late, to try and make the {{essay}} tag obsolete. Either by creating essays and putting them up mislabel as howtos or removing the essay tag and replacing it with a witty tag because this page doesn't need to follow convention.

The {{essay}} tag serves a pretty important use, as it makes sure new users can tell that not all pages in the WP namespace are official policy. Without it, anyone would be able to create pretty much anything in the WP namespace, and declare it 'The way we do things here' by fiat. While it's a good thing that the WP namespace is open for editing, it really needs to retain the use of essay tags so this doesn't happen.

Loosing the essay tag would lead to a flood of pseudo-policy pages, conflicting with each other, and all appearing to new editors to be 'official'. --Barberio 01:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Not all non-policy/guideline WP pages need the essay tag, and I'm quite happy with the one that's currently up on WP:SNOW. -- Steel 01:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Also worth noting is that this thread is only here because Barberio's attempts at getting rid of a page he doesn't like are failing (See MfD and talk page disussion). -- Steel 01:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh no! You have seen though my disguise, and now know I am the evil Doctor Smythe, and my aim is to Take Over The World via editing the Wiki. My five year plan to get one small essay deleted is Ruined! Quick, to the Escape Pods! --Barberio 13:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree that is is becoming a bit of a mess. Essays should remain essays, and these "witty" tags removed from the Wikipedia namespace. The WP namespace should be reserved for policies, guidelines, and help and FAQ pages. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I start to wonder if we might need an equivalent of notability requirements for the WP namespace. I think the WP namespace is where we really need to be deletionist, and right now there's just too much stuff that really belongs on userpages. --Barberio 13:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I should also draw the comunities attention to this edit [31] made to the Policies and Guidelines page without any apparent discussion, and seems to be intended to support those who want to abandon use of the {{essay}} tag on their essays. --Barberio 13:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Oh no! You have seen though my disguise, and now know I am the evil Doctor Smythe, and my aim is to Take Over The World via editing ... well, anyway. No, you're missing the point entirely, which is that there are quite a lot of pages in Wikipedia namespace (over 80% if you must know) that are not policy, guideline or essay. So this is to counter the misguidedly bureaucratic effort to tag every page, including sticking essay tags on pages that aren't essays, or indeed proposal tags on pages that aren't proposals. Also, please do quit your forum shopping. >Radiant< 13:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • This isn't forum shopping,t his is consensus building. Take notes. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Um, most of the pages that are not Policy Guideline or Essay are... Process pages or Wikiprojects, or *purely informational* Help pages. If it's not a Policy or Guideline, if it's not a Process page or Wikiproject, and it's not a *purely informational* help page, then what is it?
Radiant, you haven't addressed the fundamental issue, that the Project namespace should not be cluttered with things a new editor could mistake as being 'Official Policy'. --Barberio 13:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, 'Forum Shopping'? Er... On the Pump? Er... Isn't this supposed to be where we discuss this stuff? --Barberio 13:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Yep, forum shopping, since you've brought up the same issue in at least three different places already, and got disagreed with in all of them so far. The point is that not every page is going to fit into whatever neat classification you devise. But since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, that problem lies in the classification, not in the page that doesn't fit.
  • At any rate, I fully agree to an effort of clearing the Wikispace of some of the worst cruft. That seems to be a productive task that we both agree on, wouldn't it? But how exactly do you seek to accomplish that? MFD? >Radiant< 13:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, we can have pages in the project name space which do not fit cleanly into the categories of process, wikiproject, help, policy, guideline and essay... However, the question is should we?
I think such quasi-policy pages would be a very bad thing for Wikipedia, creating extra bureaucracy and instruction creep and confusing new editors. Everything in the project space should be there for a reason, and be immediately identifiable into a category of project page.
The project namespace is not somewhere you can just put anything in, and too many people have been using it as such. It may be time for a review of what should and should not be allowed in the project namespace. --Barberio 17:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, that's what you want, but how do you seek to accomplish that? Besides, you're pretty much wrong. The project namespace is somewhere you can just put (almost) anything in. You may not like that fact (I surely don't) but nevertheless it is fact. Everything in project space is there for a reason, it's just not always a good reason (e.g. disgruntled people writing an essay may not be a good reason, but it happens all the time). "Quasi-policy" doesn't exist, and is only a problem because you assume it does. Also, nearly everything in project space is identifiable into a category of project page (in large part because I actually read through all of project space and added a lot of categories); the problem appears to be that you don't like some of the categorizations. >Radiant< 10:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • First off, I'd like to object to the term forum-shopping in this context. This implies that these different places that Barberio has used to discuss this matter are fundamentally separate in some way. I do not agree. All of Wikipedia is, and should be, one common forum. Just think about it like the original Roman forum (or was it Greek?...doesn't matter). It's all one big place, but there are various clusters of people gathered at different corners. Think about it more like running to different clusters of people to try to gain a consensus of the larger group, rather than as going to different places that will produce different decisions.
  • As for Barberio's concern about confusing the newbies, however, I think this is pretty much unfounded. Newbies are much more likely to run across actual policies and guidelines before they run across the random essays and cruft that are scattered throughout the project namespace. Personally, I really like some of the essays, including WP:SNOW, and I think there should be a systematic gathering of consensus on whether to promote them to guidelines, even if this is not the original intent of the author.
  • I also agree that there is a trend towards trying to over-categorize and over-tag these articles, and I think that this part of a general worrisome trend on Wikipedia towards trying to put everything in a "box". Not everything belongs in a box. "Think outside the box", after all, right? (Yes, I know this could be read to partly conflict with my second comment. Hush, you! I'm ranting.)
  • I will stop babbling now. :-D --Aervanath 03:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I just want to say that after reading that hilarious edit summary I had to pop in and see what was going on. --Ideogram 04:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I live to please. :) --Aervanath 02:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Cleanup

I've created Category:Wikipedia Cleanup and associated template as a way to identify and clean-up problematic pages in the project namespace. No idea why we didn't have this before. --Barberio 18:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Because that doesn't actually help. It just encourages people to stick it on pages they don't like (which incidentally is precisely what you've been doing). We have a process that does help, and it's WP:RFC. >Radiant< 09:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The category description says It may be for any of the following reasons:
  • Confusingly written, and in need of clarification.
  • Obsoleted and no longer used.
  • Incorrectly identified. ie, help page that contains actionable recommendations more suitable to an essay or guideline.
Or other unresolved issues.
  • Bad, bad idea. We have already have variety of templates that specifically identify a problem. This new category basically calls for mind-reading, which is in scarce supply here. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 04:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seaking opinion on use of Essay Tags

Since {{essay}} is getting considerable opposition in it's use, I'm going to raise this issue to try and get some general measure of the opinions on it here.

Is the essay template ...

  1. mandatory on project space articles which are not consensus supported, but read like policy or guideline.
  2. highly recommended on project space articles which are not consensus supported, but read like policy or guideline.
  3. optional, not everything that reads like policy, but isn't consensus supported, is an essay.
  4. should be avoided all together.

--Barberio 01:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Most of what you propose here is instruction creep, and "read like policy or guideline" is somebody's opinion. Actual policy or guideline is obviously identified by the presence of {{policy}} or {{guideline}}. There is probably something to be said for deleting {{essay}}. As I said before, the solution to ignorance (about p/g) is education, not forcing all of Wikipedia to change their behavior to accomodate the ignorant. >Radiant< 09:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Barberio, I would disagree that {{essay}} is getting "considerable opposition." From what I can see, it's a vocal minority who are simply objecting to having {{essay}} forced upon them. This is OK by me. I would go with your third alternative above: {{essay}} is completely optional, which I believe is already established practice. If the author wants to put it on there, fine. If not, fine. I don't think it's worth worrying about.--Aervanath 04:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Why should what the author wants matter? Anyway, I think there is a question that hasn't been answered any of the places this has been brought up - what is an {{essay}}? If it's a purely optional categorization what's the point in having it at all? --Random832(tc) 14:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Assume good faith. Perhaps -as the person on the ground- they realize that the categorisation scheme might be broken? :-P --Kim Bruning 14:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
      • User:Ta bu shi da yu has written an essay about essays: WP:EANP, which gives a great explanation of essays, and what they are for. Personally, I think that anything in the WP namespace that isn't an official policy or guideline is an essay. As for the categorization scheme being broken, is it really? --Aervanath 02:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anon editors

I know this has probably been discussed to death, but why allow anon editors to edit? In my experience on the 171 pages I monitor, they are responsible for almost all the vandalism, and rarely add anything useful to Wikipedia. --Michael Johnson 01:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes this has been discussed to death - see perennial proposals. In fact, if you scroll upwards, you'll find that it has already been discussed on this very page only a couple of days earlier. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 01:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Well it remains a contentious issue, and a source of frustration to all of us out there trying to achieve something with this project. The claims in the reference given just don't stack up in my experience. --Michael Johnson 02:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Even though I can see why we wouldn't want to have annons editing (ie: mass vandalism, which even registered users do anyways), it might take away from the whole "anybody can edit" ideal. Although, it isn't that hard to register really, unless you absolutely can't and that I can understand. Darthgriz98 02:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
As an example how helpful is this edit? The anon editor has made two edits, in which they carefully alter Orangutan to Orangutang thoughout the document. Probably not vandalism, but pretty typical of "genuine" anon edits I see. --Michael Johnson 02:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, even if they weren't annon's they would still make the same mistakes, shave the tiger can't change it's stripes. When I'm on RC patrol, I tend to search for new users and IPs. Lately I've been finding more new user vandalism than IP, but that's probably just me. For myself personally that just makes the whole point of forced registration a little tougher to decide on. Darthgriz98 02:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that IIRC most valid content actually comes from anons too. --Kim Bruning 21:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I see plenty of bad edits by logged-in users, and reverts of vandalism by IPs. (And please let's not confuse IPs and anonymous users; most logged-in users are equally anonymous.)--Runcorn 22:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I would totally disagree with this. It is entirely true that most vandalism comes from anons. It is also true, in my experience, that anons contribute very little useful information (at least, to the many articles I watch). Even if it's in good faith it's frequently illiterate, irrelevant, duplicated, not wikified, or just plain wrong. Frankly, my heart sinks when I see an anon edit on my watchlist, because most of the time the edit has to be copyedited if not just outright deleted. Most people who want to edit seriously create an account. -- Necrothesp 21:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I suspect this depends on whether a person enjoys the "social networking" aspects of Wikipedia. Many people just want to edit the encyclopedia and are reluctant to "join a community" (which is what creating an account amounts to) in order to do so. This is particularly true of editors who are not regular users, but contribute only occasionally. It is easy for a regular to underestimate just how much of a barrier a "registration wall" could be to such users - witness the popularity of BugMeNot for example. ISTM that Wikipedia benefits as much from its casual editors as from its "hard core elite" of regulars, if not more so, and anything which discourages them should be avoided. AdorableRuffian 16:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I used to be annoyed at anon editors too. That was before I got fed up with the politicking among the "clicks" and groupies. The wiki itch is a hard one to shake and I have found some refreshing freedom in my anon editing. Edits without politics. What can I say, I like to talk. I do agree though with the "cynical assessment" that IP editings allows easy targets for further review. I think in the long run the benefits outweight the annoyance. 205.157.110.11 23:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

nobody forces you to be "social", even when logged in; you can be just as anonymous by creating a new account whenever you feel your former account is burdened socially. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

well, maybe this particualar proposal is "perennial" because it is actually a good idea? I understand we gradually take power away from anon editors, they cannot create new articles, and they cannot edit semiprotected ones. disallowing anons will just be a gradual process of sprotecting more and more evolved articles. Letting anons edit stubs is a good idea. Letting anons edit GAs may not be: I would be interested in a study showing what percentage of anon edits to FAs or GAs are actually useful. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should WP:HOAX become policy?

I think that Wikipedia:Don't create hoaxes should become official policy. There are several reasons for this: first, it is relatively uncontroversial, and seems to be accepted by community consensus, from what I've seen at AfDs about suspected hoaxes. Also, the guideline tag says that it "should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." It seems to me like that implies that it is occasionally acceptable to create hoaxes, and users not familiar with WP:V and WP:POINT might construe it that way. If there ever were to come a time when a hoax was allowable, WP:IAR would solve that problem.--Grand Slam 7 | Talk 12:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  • It's too low-level for it to be policy. There are relatively few policies (blocking policy, deletion policy, stuff like that) and content issues do not generally belong there. Besides, WP:NOT and WP:V pretty much address the issue. >Radiant< 10:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
    • See also "policy bloat" discussion, two sections below this one. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 13:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Another option is to make a shortened version of WP:HOAX a section of Wikipedia:Deletion policy and create a guideline titled Wikipedia:Hoaxes or something of that sort for further clarification.--Grand Slam 7 | Talk 20:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't really think this needs to be addressed. Personally, I don't see how Wikipedia is even benefited by having this guideline at all. No potential hoaxer is going to read this guideline and say "Oh, ok. I won't do it, then." Hoaxes are just vandalism with some planning behind it, and as such, are already prohibited by almost all of our other policies. Definite policy bloat.--Aervanath 06:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Primary notability criterion questions

I am in the middle of a few discussions that have left me very confused about the notability criteria. I will just list the questions and comments that I have and hopefully some insightful discussion and perhaps changes will result. (These questions concern only notability; I understand that the article must also be in agreement with other policies and guidelines.)

  • Are there subjects that have to pass a stronger test than the primary notability criterion?
  • If no subject is required to pass a stronger test than the primary notability criterion, what is the purpose of the multiple subject specific guidelines regarding notability?
  • In the subject specific guidelines, specifically WP:BIO, there exists a list of tests one can apply to a subject. Are these to be used in lieu of the primary notability criterion?
  • In the subject specific guidelines, specifically WP:BIO, there exists a list of tests one can apply to a subject. Are these to be used in addition to the primary notability criterion? In other words, does a subject have to pass not only the primary criterion, but also some test on its subject specific page?
  • If a precedent is set that is in contradiction with the primary notability criterion, or if a precedent is set that adds stronger criteria that certain subjects must pass, how can we best inform members that meeting the primary notability criterion is not sufficient?

Sancho McCann 23:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Each and every notability guideline includes the primary notability criterion of being (paraphrasing) "the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the article's topic". What the subject specific guidelines do is define other criteria that where present, imply the primary criterion, even if not easy to verify, is likely true of the subject. For example, the WP:BIO guideline criterion: "The person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field," means that if a person meets this criterion it is "very likely that sufficient reliable information is available about...[that]... person. All of these additional criteria are disjunctive--they are additional bases for recognizing notability through the primary criterion, and not bases which must be met on top of the primary. So to answer your points in order as I see it:
  • There are no subjects that have to pass a stronger test than the primary notability criterion;
  • The purpose is to help us find other bases where the primary criterion is very likely true but is not easily substantiated, as well as provide guidance tailored to the specific subject area;
  • They are not used in lieu of the primary notability criterion; they include it and expand our understanding of it and how to recognize other criteria that make it likely to be present;
  • No they are not used in addition, meeting any one criterion is enough in all guidelines I know of;
  • Your last question is only relevent if the above was not the case.
--Fuhghettaboutit 00:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
The fundamental issues that all "guidelines" raise are made quite clear here. Guidelines offer a guide to common sense, not a replacement for it. Any guideline one can write will eventually be enforced as an iron-clad ruling by a Wikipedian coming from an enforcer-type background, buoyed by their indoctrination. There is no procedural solution if procedure is actually the problem. --Wetman 20:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Follow Up

Many AfDs have arguments that are simply: "Delete. Subjects of type x are not notable." Without addressing the primary notability criterion whatsoever. Is there a way that we could place more emphasis on avoiding this type of argument? Sancho McCann 18:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How about the Argument from Ignorance— "Well, I've never heard of X"— that appears to trump all aces at Wikipedia? --Wetman 20:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
You are encuraged to read Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (or WP:AADD) for short. A question I have no real clue about is how to shift the AFD culture towards better, more informative, discussions. The scale is too big, and I'm rarely there at all these days. GRBerry 03:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page "owning"

I have recently, reluctantly put myself "in charge" of Talk:Kevin Federline. I archived a ton of stuff, nearly all of which was irrelevant - the talk page had almost literally become a straight-up message board to discuss Federline's career. I put a notice at the top of the now-blank page saying "irrelevant comments can and will be removed." So far I have removed several (most recently an unsigned statement that simply read "Federline has no career"), and I believe that whether my "instruction" was there or not, the page would slowly revert entirely back to its previous anarchy. Is it wrong or WP:OWN of me to do this? -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 03:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-topic stuff should be deleted. The talk pages are meant to be for discussing Wikipedia, so I see nothing wrong.++aviper2k7++ 03:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Irrelevant talk page comments are a problem everywhere, and there is no reason to let them sit on the talk page for too long. You can delete them or move them straight to the archive. But you should err on the side of leaving them if they actually have comments about the article mixed in with their comments about the subject. As long as the talk page isn't too long you don't need to rush to archive the reasonable comments; try to leave a couple weeks of discussion and only archive the page when it gets too long (40 or 50k). CMummert · talk 13:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
It's not WP:OWN unless you get into a disagreement with another editor about what you're doing. Personally, I wish more editors would do what you do, to make it clear that talk pages are for discussing the article, not the subject of the article, and that old comments belong in an archive, not on the active page.
It may be useful to say "per WP:TPG" in your edit summary when removing wikichat; my experience is that I've never had any complaints when I do that. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 13:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I've added {{notaforum}} for you, hopefully that will help bring this rule to people's attention. --Random832(tc) 13:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Now, just so I have it straight, are these the same people who tell us we can't delete trash from our own Talkpages?--Wetman 20:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Nope. I've posted a couple of times recently about people misunderstanding the policy on deleting stuff from one's user talk page (the policy is that one can delete anything, whether it's trash or a real warning); in fact, I added something about that to WP:USER. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Financial appeals on article pages

I suspect there is no policy on this, and neither do I think there should be, but what's the position on links to financial appeals on article pages? The article Bryan Budd talks about a Parachute Regiment soldier who has been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross following his death in Afghanistan. The article includes a non-encyclopedic comment about a trust fund having been set up on behalf of his spouse and two children, with a link to the website.

I appreciate that removal will be a contentious issue but I'm not convinced that it is appropriate or encyclopedic however would appreciate some other views on the point.

ALR 13:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The article itself appears to be deleteable under WP:NOT#IINFO as a memorial. The only reason the article states he is notable is because he was KIA and posthumously given a military award. --Farix (Talk) 15:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree the article is not well written, but the award of a VC is pretty notable. My issue is with the link to the charity. ALR 16:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The Victoria Cross is the highest military honour in the Commonwealth. I think that is fairly notable, especially since it has only been issued thirteen times since the end of WWII. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 16:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
And all newton ever did was write some books. Being able to talk dismissively about a person doesn't mean the article doesn't belong. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
He himself is notable, but issue with the charity link is warranted. While it is a tragic circumstance involving the subject of the article, Wikipedia isn't a soapbox and probably shouldn't have that particular link. Darthgriz98 16:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Removing the trust fund charity link is the correct action to take. zadignose 17:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
All Victoria Cross winners are inherently notable and have entries on Wikipedia. Indeed, the external Victoria Cross Reference project was migrated to Wikipedia several years ago, with Jimbo Wales' blessing. -- Arwel (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of admin rollback tools

Can someone provide me links as to where it is explicitly mentioned that the use of admin rollback should not be used to revert contentious edits? Previous ArbCom rulings, all of them, if possible, please. Thanks. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This Google search lists some arbitration pages which might be of use, but I haven't managed to find anything yet which explicitly says that rollback cann't be used to revert contentious edits. Help:Reverting#Rollback tells you when not to use it in the third paragraph of that section, but that page isn't marked as policy. Tra (Talk) 15:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I've always treated the help pages as de facto policy, there's a lot in them we treat as policy, WP:ES for example. Steve block Talk 21:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:AAP gives community opinion on the restriction. A majority opposes restricting rollback to just vandalism. >Radiant< 12:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Game-cover Merge again

Some may recall 2 months ago when I posted something about a merge proposal for game-related fair use templates. After waiting a while with no objections I performed the merge. It has now been reverted by someone who thinks I did not make enough of an effort to contact interested persons to obtain concensus. So here we go again. ANYONE INTERESTED IN Template:Game-cover, Template:Boardgamecover, OR Template:RPG-artwork IS INVITED TO JOIN A DISCUSSION AT Template_talk:Game-cover#Merge ABOUT MERGING THESE THREE TEMPLATES. I'm cross-posting this to all the Village pumps. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You might also want to drop a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer and video games and Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags too if you have not done so already, there are probably some interested parties there. Individual template talk pages are not the best place to discuss changes that would affect multiple copyright tag templates... --Sherool (talk) 12:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Wikipedia logo images and other Wikimedia copyright images

I believe images which use the Wikipedia Logo or other Wikimedia copyright images should be deleted where they are not fair use, including images linked to by Copyright by Wikimedia and those on Wikipedia:Banners and buttons. Non-fair use includes use on userpages and Wikipedia project pages, or anywhere they are used incorrectly as per WP:FU.

Please see the deletion review of Image:NotSuckBanner.jpg and these posts from the Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List, which essentially say that the images should only be used where it is fair use. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Kat_Walsh's_statement is also relevant. One of the key reasons is WP:FU#Downstream use - notably Wikipedia mirrors. I've posted it here because it's not actually a new proposal - it's down to the existing policy under WP:FU.

Please add any comments below. Thanks. -137.222.10.67 01:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, the question being raised by the anon is whether or not unfree images owned by the Wikimedia Foundation and their derivatives should be allowed on Wikipedia, even when they violate our Fair Use Policy. Historically no restrictions have been applied to the use of Wikimedia logos and their derivatives on Wikipedia. However, as such images are unfree, this is potentially bad for reusers. At present, the Foundation has no official policy on the use of logos or the creation of derivatives, though a draft policy has been on meta for 22 months. So, the question is: Should the unfree WMF logos and/or their derivatives be restricted to only those uses consistent with our fair use policy. Dragons flight 01:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Other than directly relivant articles they should not appear in the article namespace. Beyond that there is no clear pratice or policy.Geni 02:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Our goal is to make a free content encyclopedia, not a free content website. As long as the images are not in the article namespace, they should be allowed. Of course, the decision of whether or not we can use these ultimately is in the hands of the Foundation, as I can't see how the use of these images can be considered fair use. The Foundation needs to rule on when and how the logos can be used on the Wikimedia projects. If they don't care, then we should continue using them. Users who redistribute the content hosted on Wikimedia projects need to be aware of the specific legal conditions for all the hosted material. We certainly wouldn't remove the logo from the corner of the page solely for the sake of having "free" content, would we? --- RockMFR 03:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
The logo in the upper left corner is not an issue, that's just part of the website skin and is not included in content dumps. Using it "internaly" is an issue though. We have a total ban on unfree material outside of the main namespace, so it seems highly inconsistent to allow the use of these particular unfree images in those very namespaces... I have tentatively brought this up before on the talk page for the admin userbox that use a derivative of the logo, but it didn't rely go anywhere so I've just made my own version of the admin box with a free image. IMHO we should flush the "Copyrighted by Wikimedia" category, retag the logos used in main namespace articles as {{logo}}, and come up with our own set of free licensed "unofficial" project logos/mascots/whatever not derived from the official logo for "internal" use, such as Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan. Alternatively come up with a very strict set of rules such as only allowing them to be used for "self reference" and maintainance type stuff, like transwiki boxes etc.--Sherool (talk) 12:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I guess I should ask this question: if the issue of content dumps was not a problem, would you still want to remove Wikimedia images from the userspace? --- RockMFR 18:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I would say no, unless the Foundation explicitly says to, like during the WP:CVU logo issue. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 23:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
For the sake of consistency; Yes. There is not rely any benefit to be gained from using these logos on userpages. Creating seperate classes of restricted use images only for "comunity use" that are excluded from image dumps and what not have been suggested before and shot down every time. At best it would be a waste of developer resourses to implement features intended purely to allow people to decorate theyr userpages with unfree material. --Sherool (talk) 01:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
So other than the userpages, is there any other pages that would be affected by this? Also, would this include the derived images, such as the Wikipedia with a Santa hat? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 02:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Well if "my" suggestion was implemented it would affect everyting across the board. The logos would be treated like any other copyrighted logo meaning they would have to satisfy all of our fair use criterea on any given page they where to be used. The "exception" clause in criteria #9 could be used to treat special cases such as the "Wikimedia commons have more media about XXX" type templates or the commons link on the upload page if the comunity deems it to be important enough to continue using the logos in such cases. Though granted it would be more of a "problem" for projects that do not allow fair use at all. All sorts of derivatives would obviously be affected too, unless the foundation have explicitly authorised such a work to be released under a free license. --Sherool (talk) 08:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
My view is that when the Wikipedia/Wikimedia logos are used inside the article proper (not the monobook skin upper left hand logo) space they should be treated exactly like any other logo and need to meet our fair use guidelines. The logo in the skin isn't a part of our project really, so it's outside of the scope of our rulemaking, and the logo use in meta namespaces should be fairly limited and it's fine to give it a pass because .. well.. it's our logo. --Gmaxwell 15:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no reason to care about mirrors, it's their problem to fix their problems. Besides, Wikimedia logos should be copyrighted under free licenses. We need to oppose meta:copyright paranoia. It's as simple as that. PS. And the old 'not suck' banner was better, too.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 19:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Actualy there is reason to care about mirros and other downstream users, see: foundation:Wikimedia Foundation bylaws#ARTICLE II - STATEMENT OF PURPOSE. Let me quote the first paragraph:

The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

(emphasis and wiktionary link mine). To spread content as widely is possible is why this project exists. As for the logo not beeing free licensed that is a unfortunately side effect of how trademark law works. It just doesn't work to well to trademark an image everyoen is allowed to use and modify, and the logos is part of the foundations "signature", they need to restrict theyr use in order to maintain the integrety if it's visual identification. All major open source projects do the same. You are free to modify and release your own versions of theyr contnet/software, but you may not use the official project logos without official approcal while doing so. See meta:Logo#Logo guidelines. --Sherool (talk) 09:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Town articles

Also known as, well, let's just drop all pretense and call them what they are, Rambot articles. Many of these do not assert notability (the basic skeleton created by the bot certainly doesn't), and I can't find a consensus, or even an assertion, that small towns are inherently notable. This issue has been raised in WT:WEB regarding to a certain double standard on things existing in the physical world getting better treatment than web-based things. (note that another issue is how to deal with non-notable ones - presumably any that are deleted will be recreated with 2010 census data unless something is done at Rambot's end of things. --Random832(tc) 08:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

A double standard with web things vs real places.. I'm not saying I think the articles are a good idea, but come on, you can't compare websites and real places like that. Yes, things in the physical world should get better treatment than web-based things. -- Ned Scott 08:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Articles on every town are beneficial and important to have. It looks bad if we've got 20% of a state's towns redlinked. Even articles with minimal information are a good start. Badagnani 08:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with NEd and Badagnani. Every geographical place article is important in WP. The difference between a web site and a small town is very clear, a website is a virtual thing, which anyone can set up for a few bucks. But a town is *real*, and isn't set up overnight by a single guy. --Ragib 08:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Real-world settlements are inherently notable. The only criterion the articles have to satisfy is verifiability. —Angr 09:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the double standard as we are comparing two entirely different things here. Websites are a part of pop culture and must establish notability. Towns and communities, on the other hand, are geographical areas that has an inherent notability. --Farix (Talk) 14:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Personaly I don't see any problem with having a seperate article on every town, village, hamlet or other settlement on the planet. Most settlements have hundreds if not thousands of years of history behind them. Granted finding verifiable sources can sometimes be a problem as there are usualy not published all that many verifiable works (scertainly not online) focusing just on the history of every little town out there, but it's still a world apart from your average fly-by-night website or forum. --Sherool (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Towns will almost always satisfy verifiability in several reliable sources. Town/country records can show demographics, settlement characteristics, etc. Local newspapers and other newspapers can verify culture and events in the town in a lot of cases, and so can history books.
The two aren't equal at all. The internet as we know it has been around for 15 years or so. Most settlements outpace that by an order of magnitude, possibly two. ColourBurst 17:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that "geographical areas have inherent notability". That opens a can of worms - is a single city block inherently notable? Should some of these articles perhaps be merged? The problem is not the "average fly-by-night website or forum", it's sites that have been around for years, have readership/participation of hundreds if not thousands (more than the population of many small towns), have been written about in blogs, etc, yet aren't considered "notable" solely because of the lack of print coverage. If towns are inherently notable because of being incorporated and recognized by the bureau of the census, analogous claims could be made about other classes of things - are public companies inherently notable? --Random832(tc) 19:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with print and everything to do with the fact that blogs are self-published and have no semblance of a fact-checking process. They cannot meet the definition of a reliable source. Wikipedia cannot fact-check anything; it's an encyclopedia filled in by volunteers. So we have to rely on the fact-checking mechanisms of other media. Also, the bias of Wikipedia editors is towards websites and web content, so they may think something is more notable than it actually is (whereas they may think something is less notable than it actually is if it was in one of the neglected areas in WP:CSB.) ColourBurst 20:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Also note that notability is not popularity, so saying that something is more popular (the Spears vs. Brahms dilemma, if you will) doesn't necessarily mean it needs an article more. ColourBurst 21:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not talking about popularity, I'm talking about stuff that IS notable, but the sources that it get coverage in are online because the subject matter is primarily or exclusively of interest to the online community. Please continue this in WT:WEB. --Random832(tc) 23:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
However, blogs and similar sites vary; some are operated and moderated by responsible named people or groups, but the authority depends entirely on the actual known reputation of the blog. There are beginning to be some areas where these may be the most reliable source, or the only source. This probably will be an increasing problem in trying to reduce the R of RS to a fixed formulation. (Do not interpret this to mean I like the situation. I deplore it as a threat to standards, but it's there just the same.)DGG 22:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we get THIS discussion back to the matter of whether and why small towns are or are not inherently notable? I wasn't making a point with this, I really do think that East Nowhere, Kansas doesn't necessarily deserve an article, and that raw census data belongs on wikisource. If you want to talk about notability and "non-trivial source"-ness of blogs, etc, please go over to the discussion already in progress on WT:WEB. I was just disclosing what made me initially think of this.--Random832(tc) 23:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

What is "small"? I'm less worried about East Nowhere, Kansas then I'm worried about systemic bias towards Small Capital, Small Country, Oceania or even Big Town, Non-English-speaking country. ColourBurst 01:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Really, I think anything that there's not enough material to write an article about (and, raw census data is not an article), should be merged into a section of the article on some larger division - notability should be able to be established for any of your examples without saying "settlements are inherently notable". For the first, I'd think national capitals are inherently notable. And, for the second - notability doesn't depend on language, and presence or absence of articles likely has more to do with systemic bias anyway, especially since as it is, the proverbial East Nowhere KS does have an article. If we need a population cutoff, say that any town with a population less than, I don't know, 100, doesn't get an article unless it's otherwise notable. But really, I'm not sure that's necessary. If there's insufficient material to write an article, merge what there is to a larger division (i.e. a county for example, or a "town" in northeast states that use those as larger administrative divisions where the settlements themselves are called villages) --Random832(tc) 14:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
As I understand the guideline (aided by the answers that I got to my question above), a subject is notable if and only if it satisfies the primary notability criterion. This would mean that no subject is inherently notable, because then we would be using a test other than the primary criterion to test for notability. Sancho McCann 01:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
"Inherently notable subjects" are those in which the primary notability criterion is going to be met in all cases one can reasonably imagine, or where the subject as a whole and so many of its members are notable that leaving out articles on the remainder of the set for "lack of independant notability" would simply be pedantic. For instance, the group of United States congressmen can be considered inherently notable. Sure, there might be one representative somewhere who no-one on the planet would know from a WP:HOLE in the ground, who never gave a notable speech, and was only elected because his district consisted entirely of his extended family, but leaving him out would be absurd. The same thing is true with towns and mountains and rivers. --tjstrf talk 02:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Sancho, that is "inherently" wrong. The PNC does not trump the criteria set by any of the other notability guidelines. The PNC is only one test for notably that is shared by almost all notability guidelines, the only exception I know of is WP:FICT. The notability guidelines provide other criteria that are specific to their respective subjects. However, if a subject can pass the PNC, it will pass any of the criteria set by the other notability guidelines. --Farix (Talk) 03:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for this correction. So just to clarify, subjects can be deemed notable without passing the PNC? Sancho McCann 03:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, if it also passes one of the other criteria in the subject's specific notability guideline. The PNC is simply the most common, and perhaps the most strict, of criteria that is shared among most of the notability guidelines. Let me use WP:BOOK as an example. A book may have won a major award, such as the Newbery Honor, but does not have the multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself which the PNC outlines. But since winning a major award is one of the criteria points in WP:BOOK, the books is considered notable. --Farix (Talk) 04:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I think you mean WP:BK. But I think I understand now. In WP:BK, passing any one of five tests would deem a subject notable and the PMC is just one of those tests. It isn't clear in WP:LOCAL though that it defines what tests an article about a place could pass to be deemed notable. In fact, it states that its purpose isn't to provide strict criteria like that, but to outline the considerations that should be discussed before deciding on the inclusion of an article about a place. The spirit of this guideline seems to lean towards not making a blanket decision such as "towns are inherently notable", or "towns are notable if and only if...", but rather to give points for discussion in the building of consensus at an AfD. I think an approach like that would be appropriate for articles about towns as well.Sancho McCann 04:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
How likely is it that a Newbery winner will not have anything reporting on it? For Ella Enchanted (an example randomly picked), a casual search in findarticles gets an article from Newsweek, and reviews from Kliatt, ALAN and the Book Report. I just couldn't imagine that any book that wins a major award like that would not get reviews, and only the parameters of the BK criteria might limit whether those reviews are "non-trivial". ColourBurst 15:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Rambot articles have been challenged (and strongly defended) MANY times. Here's just one early example. Real places (whether towns or islands--even ghost towns and micronations-OK, micronations aren't overwhelmingly support, but generally no consensus to delete is ever reached) have consistently been overwhelmingly agreed worthy of inclusion many times. Even the smallest lake has probably out-lasted humanity, and virtually every community has out-lasted at least one generation of people. Including ALL real places is consistent with being a timeless encyclopedia of the universe, as opposed sites that try to document what's notable to people alive at this moment. US Census data being public domain is the primary reason the Wikipedians haven't been able to do the same for other countries, not systemic bias. 76.22.4.86 02:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the bot works off census data, the fact that there is census seems to establish some reasonable notability. We shouldn't start an article for a plot of land I randomly call "Nedland", but you're not going to find census data for Nedland.. -- Ned Scott 03:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"NedLand"? Not Nedva Scottia? --tjstrf talk 03:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Is "notability" required for individual articles? I view those articles as geographic stubs which were created to ensure that the geographic collection as a whole is encyclopedic. These stubs can acquire more detail individually, but their joint existence with common information contributes to all geographic needs. (SEWilco 05:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC))
So, why not merge them into county articles unless there is enough detail present for an individual town article? And raw census data still belongs on wikisource. --Random832(tc) 13:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
There is also something of an unconscious New World bias, too. A great many of the permanent year round habited sites in the Americas and Australasia are of recent origin (the last couple of centuries). In the old world there have been many periods of expansion and contraction for many sites of habitation. The best example would be Old Sarum; whilst it has notability as a Rotten Borough it also indicates that what is now (or even a few centuries ago) a few homes once once a thriving centre for the locality. Current population figures and housing density of itself is no indication of an placenames notability. The converse, once separate towns & villages swallowed up by urbanisation of a city, is also true. In the Old World the districts and areas of a large conurbation were likely to have been seperate entities, and can therefore be regarded as notable seperatley from the modern city. LessHeard vanU 14:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
This being the english language Wikipedia, I think any "New World bias" is overwhelmed by the bias toward english language source material. I have several hundred pages of U.S. government memos and ship's logs from the First Barbary Wars, and recently hunted down a little Spanish town which was mentioned under an old name in a different language. Maybe Spanish sources have a lot of information about that little town but I don't have it. (SEWilco 19:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC))
The bias I was referring to is that the perception of history is possibly different. Most New World places have a history measured in centuries, if not decades. Old World habitations sometimes have histories of some thousands of years, which of itself may be considered notable even if the place is otherwise obscure. My village, Carleen, is such; the place name indicates a neolithic origin, but it is otherwise unspectacular. Is it notable? How many places that have existed (possibly continously) since the Bronze Age do you know? LessHeard vanU 22:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a finite and 'fairly limited' number of localities possible... I think they are one of the (not too common) things whos mere existence we can accept as the basis of notoriety. It is the sort of material people expect in an encyclopedia. We have good verifiable data (thanks Rambot). Someday, perhaps the same will be true of domain names, but so long as anyone can invent new domains until they turn blue in the face I doubt it. --Gmaxwell 15:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Documentation requests: stub placement, globalized locations, don't crap on anons

I have tried to find guidelines on several subjects (if you look at my Talk page you'll see I've been able to find most of the ones I've been looking for), and hope someone here can point me in the right direction (also interested in any new tips or tricks on how to find them myself).

  1. Stub placement: I've been editing here for more than 3 years, and stub placement has recently changed, from the long standing 'immediately below last other visible part of the body of the article', which was most often immediately under the 'External links' section. Something like 6 months ago they started showing up below the Categories, which I don't fully support, but can understand the reasoning--stub cats end up at the end of the list. In the last few months they've also started showing up with two blank lines above them, causing extra blank/white space in the article display. Whether or not that is a good thing seems entirely subjective to me (and I think it is a bad thing--requires additional vertical scrolling to view the whole page). My question is, 1) does anybody know anywhere that either or both of these changes was discussed, 2) whether a consensus to overturn a long-standing status quo was reached, and 3) if there were changes in the community consensus, where they are documented?
  2. Globalized locations: In my mind, and in discussions with other editors it seems obvious that all geopolitical locations should be described out to the country level on the first reference, to ensure the article serves the global audience. For example, the intro of my place of birth starts "Centralia is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States.", so people who don't know that that Lewis county, and/or Washington are in the United States can understand where the community the article describes is in the world. Similarly, "London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom." However, I can't find where that is documented--didn't find it in anything connected to the {{globalize}} template. Surely it's documented somewhere? Anyone have a link?
  3. Discouraging anon biting: Is it documented anywhere (specifically—WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL would seem to apply, but they're very broad) that treating anons dismissively, just because they're anons, is frowned upon? Or, to put it other ways, that 'username snobbery' or 'anti-IP bias' is discouraged? I have about 30,000 edits under my largely retired usernames, but just because I've chosen to edit anonymously the last year or so, I'm often being treated like a clueless newcomer with nothing of value to contribute, by people that don't know Wikipedia:Policy or the Wikipedia:Manual of Style half as well as I do. Heck, I helped polish the first version of Wikipedia:Tutorial, and created another Wikipedia documentation page from scratch. Anybody know of anything along the lines of Wikipedia:Don't bite the anons? 76.22.4.86 01:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
For 3, we have this exact guideline at Wikipedia:Please don't bite the newcomers. For 2, we have the Wikipedia:Proper_names as a subsection of the MOS, but doesn't mention your issue. For 1, I don't think it's been discussed anywhere and WP:STUB doesn't actually say anything about where it should be placed. ColourBurst 02:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd think 1 would be a non-issue for most people, and would have so little effect that making a rule about it would violate WP:CREEP.
I'm often slightly on guard when an IP editor suddenly makes a comment that shows a lot of interior knowledge of Wikipedia because it triggers my sockpuppet warning flags. Not when it's on something non-contentious, but if it's a controversial subject or debate page. --tjstrf talk 02:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
But I'm not a 'newcomer' and there are many anons with hundreds, even thousands, of edits, to which Wikipedia:Please don't bite the newcomers doesn't really apply; and while this editor has backed off and admitted they might have misjudged the situation, so I am just using this as an example of one most recent of the many variations on the 'anons can automatically be assumed to be clueless and/or vandals' attitude I regularly get hit with, not a complaint about the user overall, the initial response to my citation of the MoS (regarding capitalization of subject headers) seemed unnecessarily condescending. 76.22.4.86 02:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
The way I see it, you shouldn't bite or be rude to anybody on Wikipedia, it's just not professional to completely trash somebody or yell at them for no good reason like a mistake. Darthgriz98 02:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

IP accounts are treated as newbies by default because the majority of them are. Now there are two ways in which I see people treat IPs differently from account-holders: For some members, they insult them/think they're vandals by default. This is a bad thing, I agree. For other members, it means they try to be patient, explain things to them, and help them as members who mean well but are uneducated in policy and whatnot. If you are meeting people of the first type, then I sympathize with you, but if you are complaining about the latter type of behaviour I cannot. If you are not a newbie then having basic policy explained to you every 5 minutes and having people going around "fixing" what they think are mistakes when you actually meant to make them might indeed seem like condescension, but you can't blame them for it if they're trying to help. The practical solution to both types of annoyance is simply to get an account. I realize this isn't the answer you want to hear, but it is the pragmatic one. In terms of WP:AGF, is it not better to assume IPs are bumbling newbies rather than that they are purposefully breaking rules? --tjstrf talk 02:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As for (1), I've seen both, and it wouldn't bother me, either way. I personally go for the very bottom (below category, below interwikis) because it's easiest for somebody to find and remove that way -- not sure if that's been set down as a guideline, anywhere. WP:STUB mentions a lack of consensus. Either way, not something worth arguing over; if somebody moved a stub tag I placed, I wouldn't even so much as bat an eye at it. *shrug* As for (2), I've seen an essay regarding this at Wikipedia:The Pope is Catholic, and in general it seems like a good idea for an encyclopedia hoping to cater to a wide variety of people. As for (3), I agree that IP editors are in many ways the future of the wiki, and should never be dismissed out of hand. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who started as an IP. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Don't listen to this fool! Can't you see (s)he is not registered?! What a bunch of poppycock suggestions! − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Dear dear... now, if that's not username snobbery I don't know what is. Even as joke this doesn't go down well. I have no clue about the process of changing people's attitudes, so all I can do here is to provide some stuff to munch on - (1) By the anon, and (2) About the anon. And, please, stop using words like fool or poppycock, it's against Wikiquette. Cheers. 202.168.246.196 14:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Although I appreciate this comment is probably meant as ironic, someone could take it the wrong way. It seems this violates the principles of WP:CIVIL. Please could you consider this in future. AndrewRT(Talk) 14:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I am really sorry that I made kind of a derogatory comment. And, I take this opportunity to praise User:Twas Now for the good work done, as well as putting forward my sympathy for the trouble the user had with anon editors. But, while many of the anons are vandals, sockpuppets and what not, you can't forget that the bulk of WP was developed by anon editors. More importantly, it would be very nice if you mentioned WP:CIVIL when words like fool or poppycock was being used. And, while my 2nd link was to a humorous article, the 1st one was a serious philosophical comment on being anon. Cheers, and thanks for correcting me. 202.168.246.196 16:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As for number 1, I wouldn't care if the extra blank lines were being added manually by regular editors on occasion, but since there are one or more VERY active BOTs doing it wholesale across all of Wikipedia, I think the change in the long-standing de facto standard of a single blank line ahead of {stub} tags should only have been done following discussion and consensus, rather than arbitrarily based on their personal preference. In other words, I think BOT operators should only follow existing standards, whether de facto or documented, rather than making it up as they go along. 76.22.4.86 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

As for number 2, thank you very much for the link to Wikipedia:The Pope is Catholic--should be good enough to refer people to if no one knows of a geographic equivalent. 76.22.4.86 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

As for number 3, I have absolutely NO problem with people trying to 'help the newbie' on my talk page (even if I usually know more about the relevant WP policy/guideline(s)). What I DO have a big problem is when the tone of what they write is condescending/derisive/dismissive/etc. or based more on my being an anon than on my actual edits. 76.22.4.86 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nutshells

Are nutshells a good thing that should be encouraged on policy and guideline pages? Personally I think they are good, and their use should be encouraged. I have found them particularly useful if you have to wade through various policies and guidelines trying to find an answer for something.

The reason I ask is that I added one to WP:N and when someone came along and removed it saying "This is already stated below". I would have thought that would always be the case with nutshells and indeed should always be the case. I would appreciate other's views. Thanks AndrewRT(Talk) 14:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to say that the lead section has the same function of the nutshell in the case of WP:N. ColourBurst 15:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Nutshells are a very good idea, I think. Especially on a wiki, and especially on this wiki, the spirit of a rule is just as important as its letter, if not more important. Besides that, it makes things more accessible to the reader, to the new user, and to anybody hoping to have a little bit of context before reading fifty pages of policy which may not always make sense or be coherent. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Depends, really. If you cannot meaningfully summarize the policy/guideline in a short sentence or two, then it doesn't need a nutshell. If the title of the p/g is already a good summary, then it doesn't need a nutshell. In other cases, it's useful. >Radiant< 12:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think nutshells often end up mis-representing our policies. The reason the policy page is longer than a sentence is because they need to be in order to accurately express our policy. Nutshells should be removed and replaced with terrific intros. Policies which are overly long should be trimmed down. --Gmaxwell 15:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

On at least that one count, I agree: the nutshell is not a substitute for the policy. I do like the idea of giving people a quick rundown, if they don't have time to read the full policy, but can see why others might not agree. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted articles

I'm surprised we don't offer them under the GFDL for other wikis running MediaWiki software. Could be good for people who want information on webcomics, other stuff considered non-notable here on Wikipedia etc. --sunstar nettalk 14:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

What if they violate WP:COPYVIO? We couldn't do that because we have to premanently remove the info. Of course anyone can copy the info across if they get in in time! AndrewRT(Talk) 14:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
As long as the content is not offensive or copyvio, I can't see any reason why. It could be temporarily undeleted per a new section in WP:DRV. --sunstar nettalk 15:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, if you just ask an administrator for the text of a deleted page, then provided it's not a copyright violation, libellous or anything else like that, they'll retrieve it for you – Qxz 15:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
A number of admins will provide access to deleted revisions, provided the request is reasonable, made in good faith, and there's no secret skeletons hiding in the closet. I think WP:DRV makes some mention of that. Some things should stay very deleted (though many of them are now subject to oversight, not quite all are), but others are harmless. So long as the admin in question is very careful. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

In the past people have suggested that we make deletion have an associated level. When someone deletes a page they select a deletion level or intensity. A minimally deleted page(or revision) could then be viewed, for example, by any logged in user. Additional levels could replace normal deletion and oversight. The ability to delete at different levels could be assigned as separate permissions. Undelete/View and delete access for a particular level could be separate permissions. It's an interesting concept.. but it would require a lot of social, procedural, and software changes. Until this happens, it should be easy enough to make a case to any admin to get a copy of an article which was delete because it was not suitable for wikipedia.--Gmaxwell 15:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: Romanization of Mongolian

After sporatic discussions over more than a year, I've tried to compose what I hope to be a decent proposal for Wikipedia:Romanization_of_Mongolian. Unfortunately, there's a very small circle of people who participated so far, and most of them don't seem to have any linguistic background. We'd welcome more input on the respective talk page, or on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Cyrillic). --Latebird 17:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First Person Accounts

I know that much discussion and probably a fair amount of brain damage has occured over the issue of first person accounts and the resolution that they are not appropriate for Wiki. I posted one regarding a train wreck I was in (my first real entry to Wiki) and it was deleted in a fairly abrupt manner. While, of course, I think my entry added a lot to the story and was actually more accurate than many news reports that were cited, I accepted the fact of the community that such postings are not appropriate. Well I was reading the 'Animal House' movie entry a few days ago and lo and behold there is an entry from one of the writers of the movie talking about different options for one of the scenes - another first person account. It really added a lot to the story and should not be deleted in my opinion.

I continue to grapple with first person accounts for Wiki. In my opinion they add a lot to the entry and arguably make it much better and probably more accurate. A sincere yet rigid devotion to using only quoted sources seems to limit the usefulness, accuracy and texture of the entries. And let's be honest, even with a well written entry like the one for "Animal House" it seems like there were a lot of 'needs citation' even for blindly obvious statements like the fact that toga parties increased after the movie.

Is there some way to compromise on this? Can we create a section in every entry for first person accounts or a mirror wiki dedicated to first person accounts? It seems to me that the many eyeballs philosphy will keep the junk at the bottom and allow the cream to rise to the top for these. Perhaps a voting type system could be used or the existing edits approach. By clearly segregating first person from the 'main' cited entries it seems like we could have the best of both worlds and have a better handle on the truth.

While I know most look upon Wiki as an encyclopedia, I would argue that it is really a social artifact containing our collective perceptions and knowledge. Expanding its reach in a thoughtful way could make it an even more powerful tool.

--Taganwiki 21:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem comes up when person A gives a first person account, but person B asks, "How can I know that you're not lying or mistaken person A?" Wikipedia doesn't have dedicated and reliable fact-checking machinery in place to settle this type of question, so we need to rely on the reliable sources that do have this ability. Certainly, this does end up eliminating some true information, but great articles can still be written given this trade-off. Sancho McCann 21:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikinews: is for first person accounts. --Kim Bruning 13:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Hm. Does wikinews mind if you write old news articles? I don't see why they would... after all new news articles will all be old someday themselves, and I hope that they won't just delete them! :)--Gmaxwell 15:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Please note that there is a difference between first person account of a writer of a movie that is reliably published, and the personal accounts of an editor of Wikipedia. If your account of the train wreck is published by a reliable source such as a newpaper, broadcast transcript, or book then some one can use it as a source in Wikipedia. If not, then it can not be used as it would be in contradiction of both WP:NOR and WP:WS. Please also note that it is frowned upon for an editor to cite their own work (of course, the author can always ask someone else to cite it for him). Blueboar 18:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikinews is our original research branch. They are supposed to accredit reporters, and ensure that such research is done as thoroughly as possible, so that it can be used as a viable source for wikipedia. Wikinews articles are edited collaboratively, just like wikipedia, so there is no single author. --Kim Bruning 20:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Entertainment.wikia.com a trusted source?

I think the question should be asked although I know the answer: Is Entertainment.wikia.com considered to have trusted source material? (SEWilco 03:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC))

No. User-editable content is never considered a reliable source (not even Wikipedia). The only exception might be Citizendium's expert model. ColourBurst 03:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Wasn't Wikinews specifically intended to be usable as a source? --Kim Bruning 17:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Any substantive edits to pages marked as {{policy}} without reaching a consensus beforehand may be reverted on sight and without limit

Proposing a new policy to do what the section title says. --Random832(tc) 04:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the need to say this. If someone makes a large scale edit that seems... wrong... then people will revert it and discuss without being told to do so. The problem with the statement is that it might limit things where the change is to reflect a consensus found on another talk page, etc. Then you get people revert warning saying "no consensus was found here" etc etc. Sometimes a big edit is ok, usually not often for policy pages, but it can still happen. -- Ned Scott 07:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Wait, is this about those recent disputes you've been in? No offense but, for crying out loud, can you at least make the proposal when it doesn't look like a blatant conflict of interest? -- Ned Scott 07:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
What recent disputes that I've been in? The only discussions that I've participated in recently in which this would be an issue are disputes to which I am not a party, but stumbled on the already-ongoing debate, and I thought this was an issue raised in those that should be considered separately. I also was not proposing that this should apply to any of those cases, but only to _future_ such changes. --Random832(tc) 19:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC) p.s. even those only involved changes to guidelines, which are not included or meant to be included in this proposal. policies are more important because they are often based on statements from Jimbo, ArbCom, or the Foundation. 19:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Vandalism is already limitless-revert-on-sight. What sort of other edits would be so heinous as to sanction breaches of 3RR? Chris cheese whine 09:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I just think that so many people rely on these pages for things like deciding deletion debates etc, that they shouldn't be "subject to change without notice", as it were. --Random832(tc) 19:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
See previous section on the disputedtag. Same principle applies here. >Radiant< 17:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That's not how Wikipedia:Consensus works. Um, period. --Kim Bruning 17:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

What Kim said. It seems like a WP:POINTY proposal. —Doug Bell talk 18:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
As an aside, Ned - if by "blatant conflict of interest" you're referring to Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, I don't believe that policy defines "conflict of interest" the same way you do. Specifically, the policy does not cover the situation where an editor wants a policy change that would support his/her position in a dispute. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I was not talking about our policy on the matter that shares the same name.. -- Ned Scott 21:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The database ate my replies from earlier today, see above. And, keep in mind the full title of WP:POINT; you just accused me of "disrupting wikipedia" when all I did was post a thread on here (and, even if it were disruptive, it wouldn't fit WP:POINT unless my point was about posting threads on here or somesuch), that doesn't seem very WP:CIVIL, and none of these reactions have been particularly WP:AGF. --Random832(tc) 19:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC) aside: multiple comments in one post seems to invite complex edit conflicts - and why doesn't it just show me the section instead of the whole page?

To clarify, WP:POINT would be, if this proposal is rejected (or, to try to score points before it's decided) nominating this page for MfD since the discussion it provides on policy changes isn't necessary if just anyone can change policy. I have no intention of doing that, but can you see the difference? --Random832(tc) 19:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) OK, that wasn't quite what I meant to say, so I take that part back. —Doug Bell talk 19:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured articles

I've just noted how much a featured article is attacked by vandels while on the main page. How about putting a protect on the main page featured article for the 24 hours it is up? It would save a lot of editor time reverting the almost constant vandalism. --Michael Johnson 00:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a very common proposal - see Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection. The general consensus (although it is often disputed - see the above article's talk page) seems to be that anonymous users who come to Wikipedia can make valuable additions to the featured article - edits they would otherwise not make. I don't agree with this entirely, but I understand the rationale. Chairman S. Talk Contribs 01:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Identifying sock puppets

For those who haven't heard, User:MsHyde was identified as a sock puppet and blocked on the 13th. That was more than a week after his/her first edit, and after more than 500 edits by that account - edits that caused a significant amount of time and effort by other editors in response, not to mention aggravation.

So my question: why are human beings the ones expected to identify possible sock puppets of blocked/banned users, rather than computers, when computers are so much better at this?

By "better at this", I don't mean identifying sock puppets by their editing characteristics (articles edited, edit summary style, misspelling, etc.). Rather, I mean "identifying" as determining that a newly registered editor has an IP address that matches that of a banned/blocked user. And no, I'm not suggesting an automatic block by the system - I'm suggested, in essence, an automated "checkuser" posting that admins can then evaluate. Wouldn't this spot possible problems a great deal sooner? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

So, hang a fishing net across the entrance door, basically? Where this is possible (i.e., on any non-shared IP), IP addresses can be blocked from registering new accounts, what would this proposal accomplish that isn't done already? I also suspect that your proposal is indeed much more far-reaching, but would result in something like a checkuser being automatically requested every time someone from comcast, verizon, AOL, etc registers an account - there would be too much chaff. --Random832(tc) 19:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) There are a lot of legitimate reasons for two accounts sharing IP addresses, e.g. two people on one computer or LAN, or, depending on how the ISP is set up, a shared proxy for several users. If details are posted for every user that shares an IP address then people could look at what they know about each of the people on that IP address and 'guess' personal details about the other people on that IP address.
What might work, however, is to make it so that only checkusers can see this 'list' and then they can investigate any potential problems themselves, and release results only when necessary. Tra (Talk) 19:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Editing style is the primary method of identifying sock puppets. Checkuser is there for a technical review when the edit style is suspicious but not proof positive, especially if there isn't yet an adequate body of edits to truly establish solely via editing style. If a banned user reforms, then we should welcome them back. True reform will mean that editing style never causes suspicion. Wikipedia is here for the long haul, we won't want to block a user that was banned a decade ago when they were a school kid doing school kid quality vandalism if they have matured to be a good contributor.
Also, there would be way too many false positives in such a system to find the real results. Only checking when there is suspicion takes less effort and better preserves privacy. GRBerry 19:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Random832: IP addresses can be blocked from registering new accounts, what would this proposal accomplish that isn't done already? Tra: There are a lot of legitimate reasons for two accounts sharing IP addresses. So which is it - do we block the IP addresses of known problem makers, or don't we?
Random832: there would be too much chaff; GRBerry: there would be way too many false positives. I can't imagine how you actually would know. There would certainly be some false postives; that's why a human being would look at "possible" matches. Of course we're talking a tradeoff here - shutting down a vandal a lot faster is a benefit, checking for false positives is a cost.
If a banned user reforms, then we should welcome them back; we won't want to block a user that was banned a decade ago. I'd be astounded to find an IP address being stable that long; in any case, restricting the IP list to indef blocks/bans done in the past six months would accomplish most of what is being suggested here, and deals with that objection.

It's trivial to have a computer check each of the 10,000 or so newly registered users (daily) against a list of (say) a couple hundred (or even couple thousand) IP addresses (or even narrow IP ranges) that were used by (major) problems, but aren't blocked (for one reason or another). And certainly I wouldn't suggest that the list of matches be posted in some publicly viewable place. But if in fact the norm is to not block an IP address when a major problem registered user is indef blocked, it would be nice for an admin to be able to able to check a page and say "Well, looks like Cindery might be back to his/her tricks - let's see what the edits look like", and then seeing that the user is back to his/her tricks, shut the account down, immediately.

And of course the current ways of identifying sock puppets should continue - human beings are good at (messy) pattern recognition - but that doesn't mean they should do it alone. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

So which is it - do we block the IP addresses of known problem makers, or don't we? I think what's normally done is that shared and dynamic IPs are blocked for shorter lengths of time than static IPs. If there's a shared IP where there's often a lot of trouble (e.g. a school), it can be blocked so that logged in users can edit but anonymous users can't edit or create accounts. If they want to edit, they could move to another location and create an account from there. Tra (Talk) 21:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
If they aren't dangerous enough to be blocked, why are they dangerous enough to hunt automatically with a program? WP:AGF needs to go back to being a policy. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Generally, when someone starts looking into possible sockpuppetry, it means that someone's already been creating a disruption. Quite realistically, if a previously banned user creates a "sock puppet" and is so constructive in contributing that no one ever cares to look into whether the account's a puppet, I couldn't care less if it is. If Willy on Wheels were to create a sock and set up three featured articles with it while causing no disruption whatsoever, and then these "random checkusers" uncovered who it is, how would a block at that point be anything but punitive? (Granted, that particular scenario is unlikely, but it's certainly not unthinkable that someone who previously was here to troll or disrupt might mature, feel sorry for what they did, and come to make amends with a new account and a "clean slate.") On the other hand, disruptive users should be dealt with appropriately, whether it's their first or fiftieth account. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 00:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We have too much policy

I've compiled a list of policies that are partially or wholly redundant with one another, or overlap in a significant amount. The list is here. It would seem that we can roughly halve our amount of policies by doing some effective merging. I think this would be a good idea, but must note that people have objected to such merging in the past. >Radiant< 10:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

We should make this a policy! Blueboar 20:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
That does sound like a great idea -- if only we could have done it much, much, much earlier. I personally don't like the merge, but that's not a reason not to do it :) Each page has taken on its own character, and its own connotation/meaning. I'd rather group policies and guidelines by their goal rather than by their subject matter, as a personal preference. GracenotesT § 21:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I raised this one a week or so ago as well :) At the risk of sounding like a broken record, and information content strategy would help for a start, then all the content policy and supporting guidance should cascade from there. Just got no idea where to start (on introducing it to WP, not information strategies)....ALR 21:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the following can be done:
  1. Clip bits from policies or guidelines that are covered in other ones
  2. Transclude all pages related to one subject matter onto one specific page, separating each one with the text "= Policy name ="
How does this sound? I would prefer to keep each on a separate page, with specifically designed functions. Also, some Wikipedia culture will be destroyed by performing the suggested mergers; it's not as though this is horrible and oh no! you're killing the community!, but it is still something to consider. GracenotesT § 22:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
We could reduce the number of policies to just one, by combining them all into one large policy, called Wikipedia:Wikipedia policy.
Okay, a super-long single policy is obviously undesirable. It's also undesirable, I think, to focus simply on reducing the count of policies. Rather, overlapping information should be reduced.
Take Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The first is roughly twice the length of the second. There is very little overlap - a dozen lines or so, perhaps five percent of the first policy. Combining the two would result in WP:NOT being roughly 50% longer, with a third of the policy covering just one of the ten "nots". That isn't, I think, a persuasive argument. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The dictionary page is pretty bloated, at least 3/4 of it could be dropped in a merge. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Too many policies makes progress on Wikipedia bureaucratically slow. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Case in point: WP:ATT

Talking about mergers... I'm sure many of you have seen WP:ATT, but it's now ready to replace WP:V and WP:NOR. It has already been tagged as policy, so please have a look at the talk page for the deployment plans. --Merzul 04:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course I absorbed a major shock when I viewed the page, but it's wearing off, and I kind of like the idea. Just make sure to note, on that page, that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and perhaps give the definition of a tertiary source. That's all; good job, people who worked on it. GracenotesT § 05:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
And perhaps if WP:V redirects to it, mention the word "verifiability" at least once in the policy? GracenotesT § 05:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

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

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

Wait, what? Are you saying you want us to send you a postcard before AfDing "your" page? No. A talk page posting and maybe an e-mail is more than sufficient. --tjstrf talk 06:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
But most of the time, users don't even get a notification on their talkpage when an article is AfD'd. Admins just use their arbitrary powers to delete anything they don't like. Walton monarchist89 10:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Please (re)read WP:AGF - the view of most of us here, I believe, is that admins try their best (and usually succeed) in being objective about deletions.
Having said that, I do think that it could be a major improvement to have an automated system post a message on user talk pages (as is done, for example, with the Signpost), for, say, the person who created the article (but does NOT, as noted by someone else, own the article), and also post the same message on the talk pages of (say) the last ten editors (or, alternatively, anyone editing the page in the last 30 or 60 or 90 days). John Broughton | Talk 14:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
There are huge numbers of editors who fix typos, refine categories and DAB wikilinks on pages they have not made major content changes on. No bot could distinguish them from actual content editors. I would think most of them would be, uh, less than thrilled to start getting their Talk pages filled with notices like this. Fan-1967 14:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Let's keep things simple. Users want their page in good condition : they respect our policy and they put the page in their watchlist. They may use RSS too - see VP:Tech. --DLL .. T 18:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
While a notification to primary contributors is nice and appreciated , no user is under any obligation to do so, because users don't own the pages they contribute to. ^demon[omg plz] 22:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • We have such an automated system, it's called a watchlist :) (Radiant) 13:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I personally always leave a message on the talk page of the user most active (if he is not the creator) if i have left an AFD on his article. Generally most articles to be AFD's are very recent in creation, so the creator will still see the tag or his talk page message. And if not, there are always other users who seem to get the word around, esp. with wikiprojects watching all of their own articles. I personally think the system works well. From articles I have seen AFD'd or AFD'd myself, if the user wants to contest it he has always found out pretty quickly and added the hang on template. SGGH 11:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I especially commend this when it is a newbie, and more stronly when it is the first article. Note {{Firstarticle|Page name}} is available so one doesn't need to come up with text, but I personally try to add a detailed discussion of the reason that we want to delete certain kinds of articles. Sometimes the newbie still accuses me of being stupid and arbitrary (and usually mistakes me for an admin), but sometimes it helps. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
As do I, usually giving a specific specific suggestion or two. Many articles are written on very worthy subjects, but in so great ignorance of our standards and practices that they will never survive deletion unless fixed. DGG 22:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contacting users for academic surveys.

Should requests made to user_talk pages, article talk pages, and/or emailing editors be prohibited? Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Spam#Academic user surveys. -- Jeandré, 2006-12-17t10:36z

[edit] NPOV = mainstream only?

Not sure if this is the right place to post this... but we have two editors on the Kriss Donald article effectively claiming that NPOV=MPOV (mainstream point of view) and that only a mainstream adherent counts as a "prominent adherent" from the viewpoint of a news article (thus for instance, critical academics and even some mainstream journalists are excluded). The first user claims anything other than MPOV is "tiny minority" while the latter claims anything other than MPOV is "original research". I don't think this is Wikipedia policy, can't find either policy or precedent for it, and frankly the situation is past a joke - I'm well aware my edits required some work on style, removal of inadvertent weasel words etc., but this is different from claiming the kind of material I inserted (in particular, the actual sources I referred to) is inappropriate as such. It was things like: official trial defence reported in mainstream press, racial politics specialist writing in political magazine, BBC investigative journalist in special report, anti-racist group commenting on broader context.

Is there any chance an admin or someone familiar with NPOV disputes could have a look at this? If NPOV=MPOV really is Wikipedia policy then I'll bow out but I'm very concerned about what's going on. Please have a look at my edits, and my comments (on NPOV=MPOV and the summary of arguments), rather than just the latest version of the article.

-82.19.5.150 08:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

They are trying to intimidate you hoping that you don't know the rules. In most cases, mainstream sources should make up the thrust of the main premise, but non-mainstream sources are fully acceptable everywhere else (eg, don't use a non-MPOV for as your primary source, but it can be used either to agree with it or to dispute it)

(user did not sign)

Yes, I figured NPOV=MPOV was a very dodgy reading of policy. I raised it here because third-party contributors have not always been very supportive of me, including one who embraced the NPOV=MPOV position and several others who ignored that dispute and picked up on other flaws in what I'd written. The talk has got bogged down in nit-picking so it's hard for someone coming fresh to it to figure out the exact stakes.

The user who claims NPOV=MPOV is also edit-warring (both vs me and others) and repeatedly reverts to blank the contested section. He's just started doing so again today. I'm not sure what to do because if I revert back he just blanks again, requesting third opinions has so far been unproductive, the user is refusing compromises etc. -Ldxar1 23:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

What to do is to follow Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. Third opinions are a first step, then there is RfC and then mediation. If all those fail to get stop those who are disruptive editors, then the Arbitration Committee will deal with the issue. -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 19:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

While I would like to think that articles would be as unbiased as possible, I also don't think there is truly such a thing as NPOV. No point of view is truly neutral, as every point of view has its own biases built into it. So I think the key is to write articles that would generally be accepted as NPOV, even if they're technically not.Librarylefty 22:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying there's no such thing as NPOV, or that there's no such thing as "objectivity"? See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ for more information on this common concern. szyslak (t, c) 22:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It's time to tag.

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Fair use#It's time to tag.

[edit] German exercise on anon IPS

Some time ago it was reported in the press that on the German WP there was a trial exercise where anon IP edits would not be added to an article until 'approved' by an established editor. Did anything come of this? BlueValour 03:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you should ask in the German WP. (SEWilco 18:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Why GFDL by default and not public domain?

Why do contributions to Wikipedia fall under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and are not public domain by default? What are the advantages of a GFDL over a public domain license? Itayb 12:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think basicaly the GFDL license was the most known free license that exsisted at the time Wikipedia was started (IMHO the cc-by-sa license would be "better", but it did not rely exist at the time (the CC licenses where published a year after Wikipedia was launched)). The key thing is the "share alike" principle. Anyting based off a GFDL work have to itself be GFDL. You can not edit a Wikipedia article and then claim exclusive copyright over your version because that would violate the terms of the license that allowed you to modify it. If we had released everyting to the public domain there would be no way to police such things though, anyone could modify "our" contnet and asert copyright over it rater than having to share it freely with others like the GFDL (and many other licenses) require. There is also the issue of attribution, fewer people might be interested in contributing if they where not entitled to some "credit" (however small) for theyr work. --Sherool (talk) 14:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. In a similar vain: if i quote from a Wikipedia article, or even verbatim copy an entire article, say, in a book i'm writing. Who am i suppose to attribute the article to? Wikipedia, or each and every one of the people listed in the history page of the article? Itayb 15:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
To comply with the license you need to list at least 5 of the "principal authors", unless there are less than 5 authors in total naturaly (how to determine who is a "principal" author is not always that easy though). There are other requirements too though, like including a copy of (or at least a link to) the full text of the GFDL license and such. This is why I mentioned that cc-by-sa might be "better", it's a bit less demanding when it comes to republishing, while still having the "share alike" and attribution aspects. As for citing there is a "Cite this article" link in the toolbox when viewing main namespace articles that will give some examples (see also Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia). --Sherool (talk) 15:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again. :) The "Cite this article" feature seems very useful. I wasn't aware of it before.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but the Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia page doesn't mention the 5-principal-authors rule. I suggest that you add it to that page and quote your source.
I'd appreciate it, if you could point out more specifically what it is in the cc-by-sa licence that you find better, particularly when it comes to republishing. Itayb 16:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Our GNU Free Documentation License article lists some of the issues with the GFDL. The major problem in this instance is that the GFDL makes republishers jump through hoops to use the content. To make a postcard using a GFDL licenced image you would technically have to include the whole licence, which is about 17 pages long. --Cherry blossom tree 23:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Citing Wikipedia for a quote or fact in a paper doesn't require the 5-principal-authors business. When you quote or paraphrase in this context, you are not invoking the GFDL; rather, you are quoting Wikipedia as you would any other copyrighted document. If you intend to take advantage of the GFDL to reproduce entire articles for publication, the relevant page is WP:REUSE, although it might not be any less confusing. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Adminship survey

I've started a survey on adminship and its procedures, to find out if a substantial majority of editors believe that certain changes should be made to our procedure or precedent. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated! :) - Mailer Diablo 15:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Attribution: Merger of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research

Wikipedia:Attribution, a proposal to subsume and replace Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, is ready to be implemented. Please review the document and discuss any problems on the talk page. —Centrx→talk • 23:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Including alleged Nobel Peace Prize nominations in bios

Info This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Including alleged Nobel Peace Prize nominations in bios. —Doug Bell talk 22:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

(I inserted the word "Peace" into the section title, since that's the only Nobel Prize where this is an issue. Other Nobel prize nominations are handled by Nobel Committee panels of experts, and aren't open to outsiders) --MiguelMunoz 08:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Several biographies include claims of Nobel Prize nominations. (Al Gore, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Alfred H. Love, Maksim Kovalevsky, SOS Children's Villages Canada, Hugh Harman, Ding Zilin, Tookie Williams, and Rush Limbaugh to name a few.)

Since the Nobel Committee does not release the names of nominees for 50 years, none of these claims are verifiable (the Nobel Committee neither confirms nor denies any nominations). The fact of whether the nomination was actually made is not verifiable, hence it's against policy to include any of them. Therefore I propose that all of these Nobel Prize nominations included in the bios need to go. —Doug Bell talk 12:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Struck out names of people nominated more than 50 years ago. —Doug Bell talk 12:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Did you check those against the Nobel Committee's official list of nominees? Just because a nomination is claimed to have happened 50 years ago doesn't verify that it did.The Monster 00:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
If the Nobel Committee are the only people who know the names of the nominees (and therefore the only way to get verifiable information regarding who the nominees are), then this is an obvious case of what's "impossible to verify", and therefore must go, per WP:V. --`/aksha 12:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, obviously I agree, but the subject is debated contentiously and separately at each bio, so I'm hoping a centralized discussion on this can establish a uniform consensus on the matter. —Doug Bell talk 12:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
On ones such as Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh, we do have published evidence that they were nominated, simply not by the Nobel committee. As long as that fact is made clear in the articles, I fail to see the problem. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
No, we have published claims that they were nominated. Not the same thing as evidence. —Doug Bell talk 12:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
This comes from a lack of understanding as to how the Nobel nomination process works, I think. Regardless of one's knowledge of it, though, as long as the facts of the case (that it's been claimed by Such-and-Such that So-and-So was nominated or something similar) are presented accurately, there's no problem. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with mentioning Nobel Prize nomination rumors if they are clearly marked as rumors and there are multiple reliable sources that claim somebody was nominated. A similar example is "Christoph Cardinal Schönborn was considered a potential successor of John Paul II": there was considerable media speculation about all the people on the List of papabili in the 2005 papal conclave, but there are no records of the votes in the conclave itself, so we can't reliably say who the real candidates were other than "all cardinals". In any case, WP:V tells us not to say "John Doe was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Pathological Nanoarcheology" (which is unverifiable and unfalsifiable for 50 years), but "The New York Times claimed that John Doe was nominated for the ..., but that was neither confirmed nor denied by the Nobel Committee", which can be verified. These rumors are of course a lot less notable than a verified nomination would be, so unless they attracted considerable media attention, they should not be included. Kusma (討論) 12:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I like others didn't have a complete understanding of how the nominations are made. So I would say that it now makes sense to remove the claim that they were nominated. However, if reliable sources such as The Globe and Mail report that Coutier and Gore were nominated then it should be mentioned in that way. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
My two cents is that if an editor can provide a reliable source verifying that someone was nominated then the information should stay. However, I can see the other side of the argument that we can't absolutely verify (with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt) that a nomination actually happened until the Nobel Committee releases the name in fifty years. However, I still go back to my original position. However, I believe should apply the "clear and convincing evidence" standard. We talk on Wikipedia all the time about various movies or actors getting Oscar talk before the Osacar nominations are actually given. We also talk about movies and actors being the leading contender after the nomination but before the actual announcement on Oscar night--as long as we have a reliable source to back up such speculation. In the Oscar situation we can't absolutely verify any of this talk until the actual nominations are announced or the winner is announced. But if we quote a reliable source, CNN, for example stating that "Clint Eastwood is the leading contender", then I don't see a problem. Basically the Nobel candidates should be treated just as we do MVPs for sports or Presidential candidates in politics. There has been much Wikipedian ink spilled on Barack Obama and Dr. Condi Rice, even though neither of them are President (yet). I always err on the side of giving a reader more info than less, as long as it is verifiable with a reliable source, and then let the reader decide.----Getaway 13:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Having thought about this I re-did the entry for Sheila Watt-Cloutier. Would something like this be OK? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that is fine. The statement as rewritten is verifiable. —Doug Bell talk 16:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Rumors aren't noteworthy, even if they are clearly marked as rumors. Rumors are often put out by PR departments. Including them amounts to giving people free publicity. They're (arguably) acceptable for news stories, but they have no place in an encyclopedia. --MiguelMunoz 08:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Yaksha writes "If the Nobel Committee are the only people who know the names of the nominees ... then this is an obvious case of what's "impossible to verify", and therefore must go" But they're not the only people who know. The people making the nomination also know, and are free to announce this. So much of this comes down to the credibility of the announcer. --MiguelMunoz 08:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

"Each year the respective Nobel Committees send individual invitations to thousands of members of academies, university professors, scientists from numerous countries, previous Nobel Laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and others, asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes for the coming year," [[32]] and therefore persons who may not be bound by statutes of the Nobel Foundation may claim to have nominated someone for a prize. And in the words of the Nobel Foundation's own web site, "Well, either it's just a rumour, or someone among the invited nominators has leaked information. Since the nominations are kept secret for 50 years, you'll have to wait until then to find out." [[33]] Cryptonymius 15:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that nominations made by eligible parties as reported by reputable sources are OK for inclusion. I believe that those nominations which are submitted by ineligible parties but reported by reputable sources should either be excluded or included only with strong mention that the nomination is invalid or made by an ineligible party. Obviously, claims with no reputable sources should be excluded entirely. I take a neutral stance on whether they should be included or not as a general guideline. Vassyana 15:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think stating the nomination as a claim of a nomination, tying the claim to reliable sources, and including a caveat that the claim cannot be verified is acceptable. This creates a statement in the article which is itself verifiable. —Doug Bell talk 16:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If a wikipedian is stating that the claim cannot be verified, that would be in direct conflict with verifiability and so not acceptable. If a reliable source however can be *quoted* as stating that "...so and so says the claim cannot be verified..." that may pass. If the claim is tied to reliable sources and by tied, I mean quoted from (which is typical in the case of controversial claims), that would probably be sufficient to assert the statement in the article. Wjhonson 17:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
An example wording might be "Nobel Prize nominations are not released for 50 years and prior to their release the Nobel Committee neither confirms nor denies any claims of nominations." That is a verifiable statement that puts the claim of a nomination in its proper context. A reliable source, preferrably from the person or organization claiming to have made the nomination, would be needed to make the claim at all, but that source is not a verification that the nomination was in fact made. That fact is not verifiable as the information is not released by the Nobel Committee and there is no other means of verifying the claim short of that. —Doug Bell talk 17:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
What cannot be verified is whether the Nobel Committee considered the nomination "legitimate". What can be verified, and therefore included in an article is the organizations that claim to have nominated the person. I believe that without such attribution, the statement "X has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize" is not verifiable, and therefore non-encyclopedic. In contrast, "X was nominated by Y for the Nobel Peace Prize" with a link to the official statement by Y to that effect, is verifiable. I don't think we need any specific disclaimer so much as the specific link I show here, which takes the reader to the page with the rules on it.The Monster 00:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I was one of the people who wanted it removed from the Al Gore article (actually for me the main problem was that it was being mentioned in the opening paragraph of the article). As others have said, the Nobel committee doesn't release who was nominated until 50 years later, and in their rules they discourage people from announcing their nominations. I ask this purely out of ignorance -- has anyone who has been previously announced as a nominee ever won? Evil Monkey - Hello 20:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Over the years I have made several sweeps through Wikipedia and removed scores of unsourced assertions of Peace Prize nominations. I have done so for several reasons. As noted above, nominations are usually unverifiable unless older than 50 years. The exceptions are instances in which the nominators have publicized their nominations which then became the subject of media coverage. (Bob Geldof, Stanley Williams, etc.) Another important reason is that being nominated is not an exceptional honor. Over a hundred people are nominated annually, the pool of potential nominators is vast, and there are no eligibility requirements (other than being alive). An exception there would be the nomination by the American Friends Society (Quakers), who make an annual nomination and do so with such care that it is something of an honor in its own right. So my general view is that nominations should not be included unless the nomination claims are sourced and exceptional. -Will Beback · † · 22:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Will are you sure that it's not a honour? A quick look at the nominators list and then at 39th Canadian Parliament, United Kingdom general election, 2005 and 110th United States Congress would indicate that in those three countries alone there are over 1000 possible nominators just from elected officials. Expand that world wide and include the other people who get nomination papers and that is indeed a vast pool. Yet this large group can't manage to come up with more than 200 nominations. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
How in the world can we even guess at how many nominations there are? Where are you getting the information on the number of nominations—since they don't tell us who was nominated, I'm surprised they would say how many...where? —Doug Bell talk 10:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
What we do know is that the Nobel committee, in their own words, send out "thousands" of invitations to nominate someone. Even with considerable overlaps of opinion, it stands to reason that hundreds of distinct people get nominated in each category each year. Thus I would argue that it is not a notable honor to be nominated, let alone to be rumored to be nominated. --mglg(talk) 19:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh I agree it's not notable. I'm just thinking that the numbers are MUCH higher than several hundred. Probably for exactly this type of "I've been nominated" self-promotion. —Doug Bell talk 19:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to search for the link, but the Nobel Committee announces the number of nominations received. In recent years it's been around 120. Among others, I've removed nomination claims from the article about a philanthropic car dealer from Ohio and a faith healing dietitian from Brazil. Since any national legislator, and any humanities professor may make a nomination, the only honor is that one person feels the nominee is worth nominating. -Will Beback · † · 20:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's the Nobel Committee's page on the nomination process.[34] They say they've been getting 140 nominations annually in recent years. -Will Beback · † · 20:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I see that Will already linked to the same place I got my info from. mglg, in this case we are talking only about the Peace prize and the links provided reflect that. Will, I would agree that if the persons only claim to notability is the nomination then not only should the claim be removed but the article on that person should be deleted as well. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 21:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the Peace Prize has an entirely different nomination procedure from the other prizes, which have nominating committees composed of experts. -Will Beback · † · 22:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Number of nominations: 2005, 199; 2006, 191; 2007 (so far), 167.[35] —Mike 23:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Nobel prize nominations aren't noteworthy for a category, template, etc and just add clutter. In the prose of a bio it's not a cut and dried issue. If outside sources have made a big deal of it - well, then, same as any fact that sources makes a big deal of. I just hope we have an an article to wikilink the claim that points out how arbitrary and non-notable it is to be nominated. (IMHO, anybody who tries to gain positive spin by proclaiming themselves a nominee deserves to be ridiculed) SchmuckyTheCat 20:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if they should be included, but I'd like to suggest one disqualifying standard. Nominations should clearly not be included if they're obviously self-serving. For example, Rush Limbaugh sits on the board of an organization that nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. It's not worth asking if they are even qualified to nominate. To include this nomination in a Wikipedia article would be acting like an arm of the Rush Limbaugh PR department. --MiguelMunoz 07:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree there. If there is a conflict of interest in the nomination then the article should include it and point that out. Similar to the way that it's done already in the article. The reader can then draw their own conclusions as to the validity of the nomination. As to it being seen as "...acting like an arm of the Rush Limbaugh PR department.", it's a statment of a claim made by the fondation and not an endorsment of it by Wikipedia. In fact the inclusion of his and others "nominations" has an educational purpose. The reader can now find out how the Nobel nominations are made and that someone announcing it does not always make it so. I saw in the paper that Watt-Cloutier was nominted but not until this came up did I understand how the nominations work. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

A few points I'd like to make: first of all, this talk about whether or not we can know who has been nominated is getting a bit silly. If Landmark Legal Grp. has issued a press release saying that they've nominated Limbaugh, then it is certainly fair to say that they made such an announcement. If it is to be removed from the artile it should be based on issues of significance (is this any more notable than if I myself sent such a letter? Does it carry any weight?) not on verifiability issues. Can we 100% prove that they actually sent the nomination to the committee? No. But do we have any reason to doubt that they did? Do we have 100% certainty of anything written in wikipedia? Perhaps they sent the letter, but it got lost in the mail; can we prove the Nobel committee received it? We can take this verifiability issue to an extreme, but let's not.

Secondly, we need to establish the facts on what is or is not a vaild nomination. The Web Site seems to say that anyone who fits any of the criteria listed can nominate any person. So, it seems, a Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Tehran can nominate Ahmadinejad. Any member of the national assembly of Guinea-Bissau can nomiate his brother Charlie. If this is the case there must be hundreds of thousands of people eligible to make nominations. 200 or so a year seems pretty small. Yet this seems to contradict what website says here : "Nomination to the Nobel Peace Prize is by invitation only. The Nobel Committee sends confidential forms to persons who are competent and qualified to nominate". This basically seems to shoot down Limbaugh's nom as invalid. What about Gore's? Relable news sources have stated that Gore's nom was made by qualified individuals (I think that much is pretty certain) but was their opinion invited? and if not, is it still valid? In any case, I see nothing wrong with keeping mentions on both pages, if phrased properly. A few of us have done quite a bit of tweaking of the Limbaugh article to keep the mention in perspective (not "Limbaugh was nominated..." but "Landmark announced its unsolicited nomination of...", mentioning Limbaugh's connection with the organization, etc.) Admittedly Gore's nom has received much more press attention than Limbaugh's, likely because Gore may be a serious contender and Limbaugh almost certainly isn't, though I'm sure the dittoheads will just point it out as another example of liberal bias in the media. In any case, the mention in Limbaugh's article, far from serving as an arm of the Rush promotional machine in my mind, works to dispel the idea that seems to be floating around the blogoshpere that Limbaugh is in the running for the Nobel Prize this year. -R. fiend 16:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Jon Stewart had a hilarious take on this notion of elevating a dubious question to the status of a debatable point. He ends by saying "Is your Mother a Whore? I'm just asking." His point is that, simply by answering the question with a firm "no" is still dignifying the question. Limbaugh's publicist can easily maneuver somebody to announce a ridiculous Nobel Peace Prize nomination, but that doesn't mean it belongs in an encyclopedia. If we include it, then soon people are debating whether or not Limbaugh's nomination is valid, and people will take sides, and soon it seems natural to use "Limbaugh" and "Nobel Prize" in the same sentence. This becomes a victory for the publicist, even though many people scoff at the nomination. If you read the Limbaugh discussion page, some people are arguing that the nomination is valid! Wikipedia should not be a rumor mill, even if it discredits the rumors. Limbaugh's "nomination" is self-serving hogwash. We do him the enormous favor of dignifying the hogwash by including it. If you still don't agree, ask yourself this: Before the Landmark Foundation nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Franken called Rush Limbaugh a Big Fat Idiot. Should we precede the section about his Nobel Prize nomination with another section calling him a big fat idiot? Do we present both sides of the question and let the readers decide if he's a big fat idiot? --MiguelMunoz 05:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The preceding comments highlight exactly why nominations are not notable. Some people think the nomination of Rush Limbaugh is absurd and politically motivated. Others think the same of Al Gore's nomination. I am not taking a position on this, but it could be argued that neither one has had any impact on world peace (or any of the criteria listed for the awarding of the prize). It could also be argued that the public announcement of Gore's nomination (in violation of the recommended practice of confidential nominations) was also for political purposes (to bring publicity upon the nominator for his own benefit). But ultimately it is irrelevant what the general public thinks of the worthiness of an individual for the prize. We only know the following: 1. It is inherently notable when someone wins a Nobel Prize. 2. The nomination process is so loose that nominations are left to the individual subjective assessment of an incredibly large pool of people. The small number of nominations received doesn't change that fact. 3. There is no way to know whether or not a nominee is ever seriously "in the running" for the prize.

We on Wikipedia should not be making subjective judgments about which nominations are worthy and which are not. We should simply be deciding whether or not they are notable and verifiable. I think they are not notable. Some in this discussion have argued that nominations are notable because of the significant publicity given to them. But this is circular: The public gives nominations attention because it mistakenly believes they are notable (as I and many others here believed before looking into it). If Wikipedia decides they are notable because the public does, it will only reinforce the public view that they are notable. If everybody in the world knew all the facts around nominations, it is likely that most would not find them notable.--JrStonehenge 16:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

While I feel that most Nobel Peace Prize nominations are not notable, I do feel that some are and should be included. For example, as user Beback pointed out above, nominations by the American Friends Service Committee are notable and deserve mention. So would nominations by any other previous Nobel Peace Prize winners. -- MiguelMunoz 05:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


please note that i have removed the nomination sections on the limbaugh and gore pages. i doubt it will stay that way for long, but i would implore all of you to please help me keep such silliness off wikipedia. gore could possibly win and then i would agree that his nomination and WIN would be notable. until then its ridiculous. limbaugh sits on the board of the group that supposedly nominated him. is it really notable that his friends nominated him for something we would all be surprised if he won? my friends think i am a good guy, too. if they didnt i doubt they would be my friends. i would also like to note that hitler, mussolini and stalin also received nominations. does anyone really think that fact should be included on their respective wikipedia pages? of course not. nominations (inherently unverified) should not be included. thanks. Brendan19 10:43, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major Ethics Violation

I recently have come upon the information that a colleaugue of mine, D. K. Holm (who has a wiki bio article that he wrote himself) has been paid and offered to write wikipedia articles for money. I recently authored an NPOV article on The Vancouver Voice which is our mutual employer, and upon telling my editor about the addition happily I was informed that Mr. Holm offered to write the article previously for the sum of $190 and that he admitted to writing quote, "hundreds" of articles for money. Something needs to be done to prevent this from happening again. I do not doubt either Mr. Holm's positive intentions or academic credebility, but this is a serious ethics violation. VanTucky 06:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

As long as the resulting articles are NPOV, not spammy, etc, I don't see the problem. What's intrinsically unethical about contributing for payment if someone's willing to pay? If you don't doubt his good intentions, what exactly is it that you do doubt? See also WP:REWARD. --Random832(tc) 18:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I Agree. As long as all of his articles are notable and NPOV, I don't think there's an inherent ethics problem in being paid to contribute. If a person or organization who wants to get their name out is notable per Wikipedia standards and is willing to pay someone to write about them, I don't think there's a problem as long as the articles are also written to Wikipedia standards and are NPOV. That said, I think a careful eye should be kept on articles admittedly written under such an agreement, becuase there is a higher chance for non-NPOV than with a user just writing about something they are involved in or care about. I don't think there's much to be done beyond that, because even if there was an official policy against it, it would be completely unenforcable, because the majority of Wikipedians see each other in person very rarely if at all, so there would be little first-person reporting of such activity, and no one but a fool would admit themselves to having done it if there was a policy against it. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 19:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC) (reattributed this comment to my new username)

Okay. Let's let Microsoft pay to have their article written. and let Augusto Pinochet do the same. and while we're at it, let's let Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rewrite the Holocaust article. VanTucky 21:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

That's fine with me. If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can rewrite the Holocaust article in a manner consistent with WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:CITE, WP:RS, and WP:V, let him go ahead. GracenotesT § 22:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

My point is, whatever their intentions, someone who has been paid to write a wikipedia article is by definition incapable of being neutral. Just as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is incapable of being objective about the Holocaust when his popularity with a country totally hostile to the concept of the fact of a systematic extermination of Jews depends on his not being so. Practically speaking, I guess there isnt any way to completely prevent Holm from doing it short of a law suit, which of course is totally absurd. So I'll just talk to him myself. Thanks VanTucky 23:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Worth reading WP:COI. --Yamla 23:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I doubt very much that anyone paying someone to write an article is going to expect one that is NPOV. Clearly it is conflict of interest. -- Dan D. Ric 23:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
It's only a problem if Holm is interested in promoting things, which is different than providing balanced information about things so that people understand them in a neutral manner. Granted, this can be difficult, but I've done it well in the past. I would wait first to see if any damage is done. GracenotesT § 23:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC

As I understand it, the majority of articles he has purportedly been paid to write are within his field of knowledge (film studies, literature etc.) but that he ahs on occaision taken assignments on subjects of which he has no academiccally credible authority on (not that its necesarry) and that pose a clear conflict of interest, such as articles on employers. VanTucky 19:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I still agree with Gracenotes' first comment. There is nothing inherently wrong with the practice. And saying there is a conflict of interest assumes the person is being paid to write about the payer or something that the payer has a non-NPOV point of view about. I think that if the community knows of such action occuring the results should and will be monitored closer than usuall, but I think a policy against it would be baseless, unenforcable, and pointless. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 19:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Companies, and especially individuals, willing to pay for articles to be written would have to have extremely deep pockets to pay off all the editors who would otherwise amend/delete said entries. Even if the commissioning payment to an editor included a proviso to revert changes they would likely be swamped and/or caught out under WP:3RR. I could also see that some articles that otherwise wouldn't be created (or at least not as quickly) arising out of a paid for scenario. If the article is ultimately notable and NPOV then Wikipedia wins. LessHeard vanU 14:05, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

And besides, if an editor, paid or not, continues writing non-NPOV articles, they're going to get noticed, and won't be around to edit much longer, unless they're very sneaky. Given the level of monitoring that goes on routinely on the Wiki, this practice gives more benefit than harm in my opinion. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 17:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed deletion specifically for unsourced articles

I've started a proposal for a process similar to WP:PROD designed specifically to deal with unsourced articles at WP:PRODUS. Any comments would be appreciated. Please comment at the proposal's talk page to keep things centralized. Thanks! Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 21:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can we cut down on avoidable confusion?

OMG, here in Wikipedia there is a Category:Cities by country, a Category:Towns by country and a Category:Municipalities by country. Can't we just get them all put together under Category:Cities and towns by Country? For universities and colleges we already have Category:Universities and colleges by country. It's simple. Cities and towns don't mean the same across the globe, and those complex differences may be good for a lawyer or a diplomat, but NOT FOR AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Say what? Aditya Kabir 08:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Half an illustration, and a suggestion, on Aditya's talk page. Robin Patterson 12:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd support merging the two categories, as having both simply makes it harder to find the place you're looking for. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 20:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
If you are looking for a specific place, you can use the search box. Combining everything would actually make it harder to use categories to find the more important cities, as they would be swamped by articles about small towns. (And you don't even seem to have considered villages). CalJW 22:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes it's an issue, but in some countries, including mine, the difference between city and town status is clear cut and important. Many countries have been adjusted to the most appropriate format based on local usage and you may nominate any that are incorrect on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. Municipalities are usually subdivisions, rather than settlements, so it would be factually incorrect to lump them in with cities and towns. CalJW 22:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
  • This issue belongs on WP:CFD. If a country has no real distinction between towns and cities (and some countries do, per Cal) then the two cats for that country can be merged. >Radiant< 12:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restrictions on new users

I have proposed a new policy extending the 4-day restriction on new users editing semi-protected pages to creating pages as well. See Wikipedia:New users Mr.Z-mantalk 01:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:N, is it central?

This has been the subject of edit warring and almost led to an ArbCom case-is WP:N the central guideline, for which WP:WEB, WP:MUSIC, and the like just provide suggestions when something probably will pass it? Or should we consider the criteria there to be exceptions to WP:N? To centralize discussion, I think this entire discussion should take place at WT:N, and I'm going to post it to all the "secondary" guidelines. One way or the other, this needs solved. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 07:05, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] disputedtag

I think that {{disputedtag}} should not be removed if there is an ongoing serious dispute about the guideline, and that removing it should be considered vandalism. --Random832(tc) 14:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. I think common sense covers that pretty well, though; no need to make a whole policy about it – Qxz 15:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
We need to avoid situations where guidelines which have previously been accepted are then disrupted by one or more people who argue against them and then get them overturned on the basis that they don't agree with them. It becomes a bit self-fullfilling.
If a guideline has been adopted then there should be a higher threshold needed for someone to reopen the debate. AndrewRT(Talk) 20:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The problem is that {{disputedtag}} is reasonably often misused, either by someone who just doesn't like a guideline (note that a small amount of dissent does not equate to a dispute), or for disagreement over the wording (dissent over content does not imply dissent over whether or not it's a guideline). >Radiant< 12:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • So you don't think this is an appropriate tag to use for when changes have been made to the guideline without getting a consensus? --Random832(tc) 14:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • My own view is that the disputed tag is widely abused on guidelines/policies, it still has valid uses in those contexts. It is generally better to revert a bad change and copy it out for discussion on the talk page than sticking a disputed tag on the page and thereby slander the entire document. As far as calling it vandalism: Thats silly.. such actions are almost always done by someone who really believes they are doing good. Bad actions shouldn't be done so we don't need to call everything vandalism in order to ask people not to do it... To me, if someone accused me of vandalism for such a change I'd counter that they were just looking for an excuse to whine at me because their actual complaint was without substance. --Gmaxwell 15:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
    • So you don't think there's a parallel between removing this and removing a cleanup tag or a speedy deletion tag from an article? --Random832(tc) 01:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The tag is ridiculously abused. And usually the editor slapping it on insists there's no consensus (even if there is) and that there's a huge dispute (even if the tagging editor is the only one disputing it). It should only really be used when both sides come to an impasse and agree to put it up until they figure something out. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind the tag if it were mostly used for something other than objecting to statements along the lines of "grass is usually green", saying that there was no consensus to support such a statement (I choose this example particularly because it is evidently acceptable given our article on grass says as much). Chris cheese whine 23:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • To answer your question, Random, changes are being made to policy/guideline pages all the time, by a lot of people, and quite often without proposing them first on the talk page. This is known as the "wiki process", and it works because our policy/guidelines are not a book of law. Nearly all policy/guideline pages are also heavily watched by experienced users, who can and will undo changes that they believe to be detrimental. Generally this results in (1) successive partial-reverts to reach a compromise, (2) debate on the talk page, and/or (3) getting outside opinion. None of the three particularly requires this kind of tag. If there are no objections to an edit, it can be assumed to be consensual for the time being; if the only objection to an edit is that it is "made out of process", that doesn't count; we're talking content, not bureaucracy. >Radiant< 17:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
    • The problem is that if there _are_ other objections, there ends up being a lengthy discussion, during which the wrong version is left up and people are going to make decisions based on it. A tag to indicate that there are current or potential changes being discussed and that the page might change soon would mitigate that. --Random832(tc) 14:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rights of those with arbcom sanctions?

I have had a Arbcom case against me in the past. I am now, I believe being harrassed based on it. Any dispute with a user, meaning disagreement involves a user threatening an Arbcom hearing against me. There is a page for enforcement that lets people complain about those who have had hearings, where do those who feel they are being harrassed because of them have to go? I tried asking on Arbcom Enforcement page, but was told it was not the best place and their didnt seem to be any place for it. I guess I am opening the floor to a discussion on creating a place for that, similar to Arbcom Enforcement, but where those with sanctions against them can go if they feel they are being harrassed, directly to the ear of Arbcom, so it is equal to those complaining at Arbcom Enforcement. --NuclearZer0 21:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

  • You can appeal sanctions to either the ArbCom or to Jimbo. I've not heard of any succesful appeal to the latter, but the ArbCom has in some cases removed their earlier sanction. I suppose the best place to bring up abuse of the sanctions would be the admin noticeboard. >Radiant< 17:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your response, what I am asking for is a place like Arbcom Enforcement for those with enforcements on them. What you reccomend is having Arbcom remove the sanctions which I do not feel is the same thing. I am not asking for removal of my sanctions, but a place equal for people with them, to complain of harrassment directly to Arbcom because of those sanctions. I guess the difference is that in some cases the sanctions may be appropriate, however the harassment that comes from having them may not be. --NuclearZer0 19:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest bringing this up on WP:ANI. Try to avoid being accusatory, and be prepared to consider that you may in fact be wrong. >Radiant< 09:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I still am not sure what you are talking about. This isnt about a specific point. Is this not a place to discuss policy? --NuclearZer0 11:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
It seems that the demand for such a place for the sole purpose being discussed here would be so low so as not to even warrant its creation. I mean, no offense, but how many other editors are in your shoes? It seems there would be relatively few. I think you should pursue your case through the channels suggested above, and if it comes to someone's attention that there are a large number of editors in a similar situation, we can have this discussion again. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 18:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC) (sorry, saw I forgot my sig)

[edit] Desysopped admins

You know, I've been thinking: arbcom handles some cases where an RFAR is filed against an administrator and that admin, either during the course of the case or before the case is even accepted. In these cases, arbcom usually have to make it clear that the person is not to be resysopped without an RFA. The idea here is that some of the admin's actions were unpopular at minimum and they might not have the full confidence of the community, right? This implies that people who request desysopping because, say, they're going to be gone for a month or two, still are pretty ok in the community. Right now, jpgordon is proposing on the workshop page a new alternative for arbitrators in accepting/rejecting a case: rejecting, but also acknowledging that a person's desyopping is formalized. This seems a little "instruction creep" to me, and I think a simpler policy would be more helpful.

Well, why not just make a policy saying "Desysopped admins, including those who voluntarily desysop for any reason, must go through an RFA to be resysopped"? Call it Wikipedia:Return of access levels if you will. It would make arbcom's job somewhat a little easier - the Konstable and Philwelch cases would probably have just gone "away" if this sort of thing was in place. If someone who desysopped under non-controversial circumstances wanted their tools back, they should have no problem passing an RFA (could you imagine Kim Bruning failing one? Me neither.).

The only difference in practice there would be in practice is that a user who self-desysopped under light circumstances might not get their tools back... but I don't see the problem with that, seeing as how an admin should have the community at there back during normal times without any particular controversy anyway - that is to say, an admin who is not in any unusual mess right now who has a lot of people who would oppose his/her adminship, maybe shouldn't be resysopped just because they passed one before? The discretion would remain with the b'crats to decide on resysoppings anyway, in case there is some extenuating circumstance.

This may seem a little bureaucratic, but I think it actual lessens the buruacracy by making a blanket statement regarding desysopped users. If the idea is that certain people don't need an RFA because they will surely pass, let's just run them through RFA anyway and make arbcom's case load a little lighter. If there are no outrageous objections here or someone pointing out any obvious, crippling flaws, I think I'll write it up and tag it with {{proposed}}. Milto LOL pia 06:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

This sounds awfully like one of our perennial proposals to me. In cases where someone is forcibly stripped of their bit, it's typically the ArbCom's fault, and they generally decide at the same time whether or not the ex-admin will have to reapply. As for folk who have voluntarily relinquished the mop, unless they really have jumped before they are pushed it is probably a sign of integrity that they have recognised the need to put it away. Take a look at things such as Wikipedia:Administrator recall and WP:RFDA before you start, just to see what has been proposed in the past. Chris cheese whine 06:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Those are policy proposals for forcibly removing adminship from an admin, I'm talking about determining what happens to a user who is already desysopped. Milto LOL pia 06:54, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
There were tons of pages of discussion about this after Sean Black's RFA and during the Giano RFAR. You may like to dig through the RFA talk page archives before making the proposal — Lost(talk) 06:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The Giano case and similar cases is what inspired this - users who surrender sysophood under controversial circumstances already get their access removal "officialized" by arbcom. This policy would make that unnecessary, and though there were many, many other issues in RFAR/Giano, this proposal would have made the Konstable (and probably Phiwelch, due to a lack of major conflict otherwise) cases unnecessary. Milto LOL pia 07:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
"If someone who desysopped under non-controversial circumstances wanted their tools back, they should have no problem passing an RFA?" I think they definitely might, especially if they took a couple months break or something like that. The fact that the community probably can't be trusted to reaffirm admins is a major reason why the general reconfirmation proposal is in the perennial listing; I see no reason that objection would not apply equally here. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought the major problem with those was that there were too many admins or something? So it would be unrealistic to reconfirm. That's what the one under the perennial listing says anyway. Milto LOL pia 07:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
That is the other main reason; it would be less of a problem here. The PP page alludes to what I am speaking of: "Good administrators aren't necessarily popular ones." Nor, one could add, do they necessarily meet the arbitrary requirements imposed at RfA. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I partially agree with this. Any active admin who blocks members and IP addresses and does article deletions and moves is going to rack up some enemies eventually. Even ordinary editors can get a few enemies despite impeccable behavior. Some of the kindest, most polite people on Wikipedia have enemies. I've seen some bizarre situations on Wikipedia and elsewhere online where people take extreme offense at innocuous things. Much of it has to do with the fact that there are no visual (facial expressions, body language) or auditory (tone, volume, speed) clues to meaning and intent with written communication. One of the most common effects is that people do not know when you are joking or being sarcastic. Most of the rest can be chalked up to the fact that some people are hot heads, some people are assholes, and some people are hot asshole headed... I mean hot headed assholes.
If a reconfirmation system is setup, I think that the standard should be made lower than an initial RFA to account for enemies acquired in the course of duty without due cause. I think that a 70 percent standard would be about right. Bureaucrats could be given some discretion, but they should be absolutely prohibited from reconfirming someone below a certain point, like 60 percent.
I think there are several ways to deal with admin problems. First, keep RFA nominations strict, but be fair and do not be too unforgiving. A willingness to compromise and to reconsider his or her opinions and actions should be given more importance. Other than that, I think that the qualities that have been considered important, such as politeness and good judgment, are appropriate. Second, when you have a problem with something that an admin has done, talk to him or her about it in as friendly a manner as possible. This applies whether the person is a problem admin, good admin or regular editor. Try to persuade and/or inform rather than to complain, warn or threaten. Third, an efficient, yet fair, way to deal with problem admins should be found. As I have not been keeping up with ArbCom cases or the Administrators Noticeboard, I do not know if ArbCom has become that "way", but in the past, I do not think that it was. This was not the fault of the arbitrators. The system just did not deal with the problem well due to its design and mandate. Finally, a way should be found to deal with problem admins who have become hated by the community but have enough powerful friends to avoid being desysopped through ArbCom, the Foundation, community ban or whatever new oversight is created to deal with problem admins (if it is also vulnerable to this situation). -- Kjkolb 09:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a fundamental flaw with this idea. Editors try to temporarily leave the project all the time, whether in frustration or because they feel it is taking too much of their time or real life stress. Some users will scramble their password, some will get themselves blocked to prevent their editing, some will post departure messages on their user pages. Those who are admins may get themselves desysopped. I don't encourage people to do these things (see User:NoSeptember/Leaving), but in the moment you never know what someone will do. When the editor comes back, most of these steps can be and are quickly reversed, at the worst you may have to start using a new account - but you can get right back to editing. That is not true about helping out with the admin functions - if you have desysopped yourself you can't help out until you are resysopped. Just because you got stressed one night is no reason to impose strict requirements on people. We don't say if you post a "I've left" message on your page we're going to block you from editing again if you decide to return. We should welcome good editors back. And we should welcome good admins back, whether they left for a while completely, or just gave up their tools for a while. Making these admins undergo a trial by fire because they have come back is very unwelcoming and does nothing to help the project. NoSeptember 08:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I disagree that "the community probably can't be trusted to reaffirm admins", per the evidence I've written down here. >Radiant< 08:54, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, you point to a good example of exactly the problem I'm talking about. In Guanaco's third nomination he was opposed largely for recent inactivity. This seems bad to me; people should be able to take several months off and come back to the full set of tools, even if they had themselves temporarily desysopped. Christopher Parham (talk) 09:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Small clarification

Sorry to smoosh this in on top of the subheading below, which was first, but this is more related to the above discussion: I just want to clarify that the policy I'm talking about would have nothing to do with "problem administrators" or "admin problems" or "abusive sysops" or any other such things, it's purely about users who have already been desysopped by other means, such as by arbcom (where, of course, they must re-apply in an RFA anyway) and by self-request at meta. This would deal largely with the second group, obviously. This policy would have zero effect on users with the sysop flag, even if they are inactive. Milto LOL pia 01:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A new admin interface option?

There is one proposal related to this that might be useful. Give admin users the option in their "my preferences" to change their interface to a non-admin interface (with none of the extra buttons or links displayed). While you can get around this interface if you know the right special pages to go to, having no admin buttons showing is a good way to help yourself focus on normal editing for a while. Actually I'd set up a third option too, show rollback but hide the other functions, since rollback is a common editing function mirrored by many scripts anyway. If admins had the option to set preferences like this whenever they wanted, many would not feel the need to desysop themselves in order to temporarily refocus on editing tasks. NoSeptember 08:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to mimic this with a custom skin? Kusma (討論) 10:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Don't have to make a custum skin. "Just" create a javascript that will hide all admin related features and put it in your User:<username>/monobook.js page (asuming you use the monobook skin). --Sherool (talk) 10:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand what the purpose of this is. What you're basically saying is that a person who is an admin and doesn't want to be an admin any more can't trust themself not to use the admin tools? Corvus cornix 22:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Notability (web): multiple or two or more

Some of the webcomic warriors have taken to modifying the guideline Wikipedia talk:Notability (web) by changing the phrase "The content itself has been the subject of multiple and non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself." to "The content itself has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself." I would like to see a discussion to form a broad consensus before such a change is made to any of the notability guidelines. --Farix (Talk) 13:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree that the change needs discussion. "Multiple" in this context means n or more, where n is some value deemed by an editor to be acceptable in a specific case. There's no need to go and define n strictly. Chris cheese whine 13:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. By setting a number like this in stone, all you are doing is creating more conflict in the future, as people will be able to say "I can find two sources, so this must be notable". I also think this edit was made in bad faith, as a way for the web-comics fans to save their treasured pages, disregarding community consensus on the issue. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 20:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Are you seriously going to stop calling people webcomic warriors? Or am I going to have to offer you out into a pub somewhere? Do people really want to label my edit in bad faith? Is this the road we want to go down. Should I revert every edit I have made to WP:WEB? Or is it just the ones you don't like that were in bad faith? At the moment, let's not forget, we already have people saying that two isn't actually multiple. Steve block Talk 22:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I've had no part in this whole webcomic debate, and frankly, I have very little interest in it either way. All I was saying is that the policy seemed to have been changed in order to help one side of this particular debate, and I don't think that's reasonable until some consensus has been formed. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 22:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely agreed. That's just creating more opportunity for lawyering in poor articles ("Well technically I found two sources so we've got to keep this thing that can never be more then a stub without OR!"). It depends on the comprehensiveness of the sources (two whole books that cover totally different aspects of the subject are obviously enough, two newspaper blurbs that say pretty much the same thing as each other are not). Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 22:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
So as long as we're clear. We want no part in the debate, but we can't let multiple = 2 if that helps one side over another in a debate, even if we want no part in that debate, and we'll lablel edits we haven't researched as bad faith even though we want no part in a debate. And to clarify again, 2 does not equal multiple. Can we just define multiple so I can get a handle on what ot means, because I always thought it meant more than one. Like, um, two or more. Where's the lawyering? Is the lawyering when we argue that in some cases multiple is two and in some cases it is three, or is it where we say any edit we don't agree with is bad faith even though we have no idea what we are talking about? Just curious. Do we know which case it was this was amended to help? Anyone? Steve block Talk 22:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Once again, "multiple sources" could have a lot of different permutations. For example, let's say an AP story was purchased and reprinted by ten different newspapers. Has this subject been covered in multiple reliable sources? The knee-jerk might be "Of course, ten of them!" But really, the issue was covered in only one source-the original AP report. Similarly, what counts as "multiple" and what editors find an acceptable level of coverage might be far different in different cases. If the article subject has been the subject of two whole books, that would likely do it. If it's the subject of five newspaper blurbs, that still might not. We can't just define one number here. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 22:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
But that's a different can of worms. Two or more would cover that as much as multiple. That's not the point at issue. Steve block Talk 22:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
That still leaves the question of depth of sourcing. Two very in-depth sources would satisfy that. Two very cursory (but just past trivial) mentions would not. That's not something we can nail a single number to, and not something we should. Basically, the amount of source material should be sufficient to one day write a GA and/or FA from. If that amount of sourcing isn't out there, it's probably not an encyclopedically appropriate subject. But how many sources it takes depends on how thorough, in-depth, and comprehensive they are. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 22:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Um, you've seen Spoo, right? And can you show me where two or more nails a number? Are you also suggesting Wikipedia should have no stubs? Steve block Talk 23:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Aribtrary de-indent. I'm not so sure that the village pump is the best place to have the debate. That being said, the idea behind using "multiple" instead of "two or more" is that, as couter-intuitive as this may sound, flexibility in guidelines (and to a lesser extent policy) is desirable. When we try to write guidelines as texts of law, bickering about precise formulation (which of course is already an issue) becomes unmanageable. More flexibility means that more importance is actually given to AfD debates which makes it easier to form consensus on a case-by-case basis. Pascal.Tesson 23:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I wrote the guideline, cut me some slack here. We're bickering regardless of what it says. What I'm currently bickering about is how to stop the bickering. Am I the only one to have heard of the phrase "moving the goalposts"? It's all well and good to say case by case basis, but that isn't working, because the bar is going up way too high. People are suggesting multiple is "a large enough number of sources to attest to notability". Now okay, if that's how it is, that's how it is, but then right over here, at WP:NOTE, we've got a section stating notability is not subjective. Now if notability is defining how many sources we use to define what constitutes notability, what exactly is notability, and how is that not subjective. Something has got to give. Steve block Talk 00:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Spoo, if it's anything, is an excellent example of systemic bias here. There's no way that should have an article, all of those sources are either primary or absolutely unreliable. As to "should have no stubs", absolutely not, we'll always have stubs. What I'm saying is that we should have no permastubs, that can't realistically ever be expanded past a stub from currently available source material, no, those should be merged or deleted. Pretty much all articles start as stubs, but no article should ever end as one. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 01:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Steve, I know you participated quite a bit in the writing and I certainly don't want you to think I'm blaming you in any way. I'm simply saying that in my humble opinion keeping the "multiple" terminology is wiser. Now it may become a problem if too many voters on AfD start systematically interpreting "multiple" as 20 or more NYTimes articles but I'm not convinced that this is currently the case and in the event that people do, one can always politely recall the meaning of multiple. The problem I see with "two or more" is that it puts an unnecessary focus on a magic number whereas the intent is clearly more subtle. Pascal.Tesson 02:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. if you say "two or more", people aren't going to see the "or more", they're just going to see the "two". Editors will assume that all they need is two references to gain notability - and that's not always the case. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 03:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
While not fully baked, User:Trialsanderrors/On notability#Definition is an attempt to reword that avoids the numeric thershold implication of multiple. The gist, relevant to this discussion is that what "multiple" really means is "enough that we can cover the topic neutrally and comprehensively". This is also the approach advocated by the essay Wikipedia:Amnesia test - if you can't create an article using only those published reliable sources that are independent of the topic (and its owners, those seeking to make money from it, or its family (for biographys)), then there isn't enough sourcing around to have an article at all. GRBerry 06:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, that was my reason for writing Independent sources. I don't disagree there are problems with any form of using numbers, or any form of specificity, but there's also an issue with not being specific enough. It's a huge grey area and I think we kid ourselves if we pretend otherwise. To me, if someone can write an article like Spoo and stay within WP:NPOV then I'm happy to see it stay. But I suppose the problem is when I started here that was all we had in the way of policy. The intent is to say: If you can't build something then don't. The amnesia test has it about right. But to me, perma stubs are fine. But then we did used to guide that a longer article may be a stub if the topic is complex enough - conversely, a short article on a topic which has a very narrow scope may not be a stub. I guess Wikipedia has moved on without me. Steve block Talk webcomic warrior 20:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Idea

Well I read that Wikipedia is in need of more money. They are having fund-raisers now and again and also encourage donations. So I thought of an idea that will help Wikipedia raise money. They could auction off admin rights a la an internet bidding process. I am sure that people are willing to pay to become admins. Especially as standards for admins are rising and people might not want to put in the time and effort to make 3500+ edits, etc. It's just a proposal at this time but I know its good and I feel that it has a good chance of being adopted. Thank you. Spintasser 03:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I will quit Wikipedia if they impose simony like that. Buying adminship??? That would be total bribery and completely destroy the purpose of Wikipedia. I am sorry for these harsh words, but the purpose of getting 3500+ edits is so you have the experience to be an admin. Please reconsider your words. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
If a person is not willing to go the extra mile to work for admin tools then they probably do not need them. Even so, an administrator should be able to show to the Wikipedia community that they are trustworthy and ready for the tools, something that buying, which would ultimately lead to bribery and a cabal, could never show. Darthgriz98 04:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

How will it destroy the purpose of Wikipedia? The purpose of this is to write a verfiable encyclopedia. This reasearch and writing has nothing to do with who are admins. And if anyone is willing to pay upwards of $1000 for the rights, why not? Snowboarder77 04:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

If anybody could buy the right to be an administrator, which includes the blocking and unblocking of users, it could cause a serious vandal and abuse problem. It would be an open door for people who come to Wikipedia with the sole purpose of messing around with people and vandalizing. Darthgriz98 04:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

LOL! That's what you get for using numerical standards, and making adminship a big deal.

Alright, once I recover from laughing, I'd better explain:

Spintasser: Your view of adminship is very acute. Some people see it as a kind of cool reward badge, and it would indeed be very valuable to third parties.

However, the original admin role was simply envisioned as a means of giving extra tools to users who could be trusted to apply them correctly.

For now, I'll leave it up to others to determine which view is closer to the truth, and which approach is wisest.

In the mean time, does anyone here regularly scan E-bay?

--Kim Bruning 04:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Why? Are admin badges being sold on eBay? (SEWilco 04:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC))
That's what I'd like to find out. --Kim Bruning 17:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be weary of such an arrangement. I foresee biased editors purchasing such administrative privileges. What is to stop a national government from purchasing an admin badge and then continuing to censor or propagandise as desired? Your averaged Joe Schmo biased editor could make the bad edits; and the appearance of approval from admins (whom could block the opposition) would, at first glance, seem to make everything seem A-OK. Smart admins would not only block, but would completely squelch the competition such that they can't even cry out on their talk pages. An extensive Terms of Use would be required, which would surely be challenged in courts within the first week. --Thisisbossi 06:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

This is exactly what I said. Buying adminship destroys the purpose of adminship. If it is purchased, it is so much easier to abuse. Captain panda In vino veritas 02:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It actually takes work to become an admin. So why not pay to get out of the work right? Wrong. The time it take to become an admin teaches users how they should act, and how admins should use their additional abilities. It is not mindless work, it allows the community to judge the candidate, and decide if they are trustworthy. Removing this step would cause huge POV problems, huge COI problems, huge CIVIL problems, an additional load for stewards, who would have to desysop all the vandals, problems with admins not understanding policy, ect, ect. Prodego talk 03:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bots

So what's to stop some malicious bot from running unchecked on here, deleting articles, user pages and images? Is there a safety system in place here? Spintasser 03:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

See WP:BOT and WP:BLOCK. Furthermore to delete things they need to be given sysop rights, which is very rarely done. -SpuriousQ (talk) 03:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes but can a sysop create his own bot with sysop rights? Spintasser 03:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, all bots have to be bureaucrat approved. semper fictilis 04:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Sysop tools or rights if you will, have to be given by a b-crat after a RfA. So no, an administrator probably can't give a bot their sysop tools. If I am mistaken somebody please correct me. Darthgriz98 04:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Bots can be run under whatever identity the bot operator chooses (and has access to), so it would be possible for a sysop to run a bot under his or her own sysop account. No sysop would do this, but anyone who did would be blocked very quickly and the deleted pages would be restored. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
It appears I am wrong about the bots, but I agree that most admins would NOT do that. Darthgriz98 04:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Anything deleted can be undeleted, unless it's deleted under WP:OFFICE auspices. Corvus cornix 23:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rejected or essay?

There is a recent tendency of some people of removing {{rejected}} from old proposals that they like, and replace it by {{essay}}. Apparently the latter sounds less negative or offensive to some. However, is this appropriate? If you make a proposal to the community, and the community doesn't like it, it's obviously rejected - so should you then step back and say, wait, it wasn't actually a proposal, it's just my opinion? On the one hand, who cares? On the other hand, it is essentially misleading. Comments please? >Radiant< 13:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I've responded to this on AN. Can we have this discussion in one place?--Docg 13:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Well a ridiculous essay is far less bad that a ridiculous proposal. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh trust me, we have quite a lot of ridiculous essays :) >Radiant< 12:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Primary Topic and Disambig Page

For background and full disclosure, the conversation that provoke this discussion is at Talk:Judgment of Paris (disambiguation). In my time at Wikipedia, I have never cease to be amazed at the contentions and emotions involved in article titles. From the Cork debates, to the City, State convention, to the highways, to TV shows, etc. Part of it is because the guidelines COMMONNAMES and Precision are written in ways that seem equal yet diametrically oppose to each other. But another part is the crowning designation of Primary Topic. It seems that a lot of editorss view the designation of Primary Topic as a trophy, or crown that only one article can have. It maybe a dink in pride or an insult for an article to be "downgraded" in favor of a disambig page being the primary topic. Primary Topic debates seem to feel like the news conference of a prize boxing fight where you have to size up the measurements of all the "contenders" and see who talks the best talk to win. Sure, there is always the "losers" solace in that there could be a link to the disambig page on topic of the article that has been crowned "King/Primary". These arguments just seem absurd. Now there are cases where there is a clear primary-like Prague the city over the other entries in Prague (disambiguation) but in a large number of cases there are times when there is fair and sizable consideration to multiple topics and no one contender stands over them all-in cases where there is no clear argument that the vast majority of readers will be searching for this one singular topic over all other alternative titles. In those cases, it seems logical that a disambig page should be the "primary topic". That way when a reader goes searching they will be directed to the exact topic they are looking for. Even more beneficial is the ease of directing links to the right article versus having them buried on the "primary article" page.I suppose the fundamental question is, who are we titling our articles for? The readers or the editors who want this or that to be crowned "Primary"? AgneCheese/Wine 20:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There was a discussion about this on WT:D, and then the discussion was shifted over here because there was apparently insufficient opposition to the suggestion to strengthen the wording. If this confuses you, it didn't make sense to me, either. I say just strengthen the wording. It already says "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic", so the debates should, in a way, be self-limiting. I have always favored setting the bar quite high for making any article the primary topic when there are any others with the same natural title. Prague is a no-brainer, and probably only no-brainers should be primary topics. Chris the speller 01:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what about sexually explicit edits?

I'm new to wikipedia, and while trying to edit i went to the sandbox where i found an offensive article posted. where do you draw the line? how do i find that user so i can tell him he's an asshole?24.247.133.124 12:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

First, don't call other users assholes. If you disagree with someone's actions, let them know civilly. If someone makes a gratuitous sexually-explicit edit, such as to the sandbox, you're welcome to remove it-just edit the page and take it out! On the other hand, Wikipedia is not censored, and in articles such as sexual intercourse and pornography, we do provide a frank and encyclopedic overview of sexual topics. If a sexually-explicit edit is appropriate to the article it's placed in, and is not gratuitous, it is acceptable. As to your question, you can look at a page's history (the history tab at the top) to see who made an edit, and leave a message on a user's talk page. However, just to reiterate, do not be rude or use profanity in communication with other editors. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 12:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] She (ships, countries)

Is there a style guideline anywhere that addresses the use of feminine vs. neuter pronouns for ships or countries, or is this like the question of American vs. British spellings where in most cases contributors can use what they like as long as different styles don't get mixed? 207.176.159.90 02:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

'She' for a ship is colloquial rather than encyclopaedic, even in British usage.--Docg 02:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Not trying to be argumentative, but is that a policy/guideline or an opinion? 207.176.159.90 03:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I've never seen anything to contradict the use for a ship. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's a universal usage, though. If I remember correctly, Russians use the masculine pronoun. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:41, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I am more concerned with what English languages use. I'd say that other languages be left up to their respective Wikipedias. As best I am aware, all English languages refer to ships and countries as feminine. --Thisisbossi 06:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that the guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) uses "she" without explicitly addressing the matter. I'm not aware of any other place this is addressed. It looks like Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships had a discussion a while back here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive04#"She", "Her" (referring to ships as feminine). -SpuriousQ (talk) 07:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks, that's the sort of answer I was looking for. Reading the "naming conventions" article, I see that it actually uses "it" once, but it uses "she/her" about 8 times. Oh, by the way, I'm an "it"-ist on this. 207.176.159.90 00:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
As far as I know, ships have been considered female in English forever, and in all dialects I'm aware of. Using "it" marks you a landlubber ;-). I'm not aware of a similar convention for countries, but I'm hard-pressed to even construct a non-contrieved example where it matters. --Stephan Schulz 10:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I nthink this is covered in the Economist Style guide, but it's not in the online version so I'll need to track down my hard copy. Ships are feminine by tradition (and behaviour tbh).ALR 11:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe the British Government now officially uses "it" for ships to avoid offending women. However, most people with anything to do with the sea still use "she". Indeed, in Britain it's fairly common (although not universal) practice to use "she" for any vehicle. Usage re countries varies immensely. "She" has always been common in English, where we also tend to say "motherland" and "mother country". However, in other languages (e.g. German, Latin), it's the "fatherland". -- Necrothesp 14:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises should be official policy

This should be official policy. It should be self-evident. Let's talk about it. Dino 00:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks to those who commented

... in the discussion about "Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises should be official policy." The goal is to protect Wikipedia's reputation as a neutral encyclopedic resource, and protect Wikipedia from civil liability. The consensus appears to be that WP:BLP should be modified to include ongoing enterprises. What do you think? Please add your comments to the existing discussion on this page or this page. Dino 12:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiable/Verified

Yes I have read the recent debates on unsourced articles. I propose a idea that if some user is trying to argue that something is "unveribiable," he should do so only after 1) delcaring himself to have attemted to find sources for it, and 2) that he checked for book or other library sources, not just having looked at some internet sites. Most of the primary historical sources and newer academic publications are not available on-line just yet, and hearing one say something is "unverifiable" carried so much more weight when that person has actually looked for the information in the library. Spintasser 03:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

In theory, a good idea. In practice, people will just say that they checked at the library and didn't find anything; when in fact they still stuck with an internet-only approach. I agree that with highly technical issues, the internet is lacking; but by and large the Google Test works quite well. --Thisisbossi 06:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I've got another idea! How about the person who creates the article finds sources for it, instead of expecting someone else to? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 06:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
The question is: would the loss of all the bad info be worth the loss of good info? The article on Vehicle Infrastructure Integration will help reinforce this: I wrote the original incarnation of the article and subsequently added in the Unreferenced tag, quite simply because I'm too lazy to bother with the nitty gritty of finding each and every item and then figuring out the Wikipedia syntax of getting the references in. The info is out there, but laziness prevails on my part. Such a policy might cost us a lot of good info posted by people whom don't care much for those minute (albeit admittedly important) details. --Thisisbossi 06:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
WP:V, much like WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, is not a "minute but important" detail. It is one of the five pillars, a non-negotiable core policy. And for a very frank assessment, that article does cite five external links (so it's not unreferenced, and I correspondingly removed the tag), but has a lot of problems common to unsourced articles. There's a lot of use of weasel words ("common criticisms" and the like without saying who offers that criticism), and much of it appears to be based on either personal knowledge or "synthesis" of existing information. That article would benefit greatly from proper source citations and unsourced information being removed. But it's not totally unreferenced. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 06:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I understand that, but not all of us view each pillar equally. However, this is not a review of that article; rather I am using it as an example of information which would otherwise be immediately deleted if a strict reference policy were in effect. --Thisisbossi 06:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the article would be deleted. A lot of its content might be, but like I said, five sources are cited for the article. Five is more than zero, so under WP:PRODUS, sourceless wouldn't apply. (And the content can be deleted right now, per WP:V). Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 07:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Articles not giving good sources is one of the reasons my teachers won't allow me to use Wikipedia as a source. When people just make up stuff, they prove those teachers right. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
There is also the point of horses for courses; some editors write prose beautifully, but are unable to master the placing of inline citations. Others have the clunky writing style of someone steeped in the methods of clunky writing, yet are extremely proficient at placing references into someone elses beautiful/clunky text. As long as the Pillars are understood to be the foundations of an article, any editor is free to concentrate on those that they are most skilled at. A poorly written article with great citations and a enjoyably written piece with a lack of references is better than a mediocre example with some indifferent sources; the first two can be improved considerably when the poor relation is addressed, the last requires a lot of work to bring it up to standard. LessHeard vanU 21:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
You don't need to know any special syntax, or even proper citation formatting. Even if all you had was a book title or URL, you can just throw that in the references section and let other people format them, instead of forcing them to find the specific resources that you used all over again. Further, articles should be created with sources already at hand, because as lazy as you were in writing it, you could have added something wrong mistakenly, and no one, even you, would know without the sources to check. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Is it effective or not? Many of the sections created are archived without any admin response. Are frivolous reports not worth responding? Do only frivolous reports not get any response? Should admins at lease acknowledge that they have read the report and give a brief summary why no action is required? Any other suggestions to make it better? See also: Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard#Request_for_Comment Lukas19 05:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Yes. No. No. No. Your questions seem to have been answer at WT:AN. Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
No. Lukas19 02:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright of YR Chao photo

I'm looking for a photo of Chao for an article I'm working on, Gwoyeu Romatzyh (a Chinese writing system devised by Chao). Having found a suitable picture online at pinyin.info, I contacted the webmaster, who replied:

" I scanned the photo from Chao's wife's book Autobiography of a Chinese Woman (1947). And since my copy of this is signed by both Yang Buwei and Chao himself in both Hanzi and romanization, I scanned in one of his signatures and superimposed it on the photo."

So the book was published 60 years ago, & the photo's a composite! Where does that leave me from the point of view of copyright? Ie can I use it in the article? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 22:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

According to {{PD-China}}, Chinese copyright expires after 50 years, so you should be in the clear. However, does it really add that much to the article, though? Given that what the guy looked like is pretty irrelevant to the writing system he developed, you'd be using it for decorative purposes and it'd fail our fair use criteria. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately the book was published by The John Day Company, New York, 1947. So US c/r applies.
The irrelevance of this "guy's" looks applies to almost every person in WP, apart from film stars etc. Pictures of both Darwin & Mendel appear in the article on Evolution, for example.
In any case a photo is certainly needed for the article on the guy himself. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
The darwin/mendel photos are unencumbered by copyright. I'm talking about fair use rules, which are stricter than what's editorially good. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedians by year categories

I have started a discussion at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion#Wikipedians born in (YEAR), as the existing actions have been inconsistent and ad-hoc, and recently prone to wheel-warring and POINT. I think the time has come to seek an overarching consensus on this issue. Crossposted to VPR. --Random832 16:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acceptable Copyright

Can text from the book Mitcham Common Ecology Trail be added to Wikipedia if it contains the following notice:

Crown Copyright 1988, This publication may be freely reproduced in part or full, other than for the purposes of commercial reproduction. Think outside the box 16:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

No. All text must under a license compatible with the GFDL. For example, commercial reproduction must be allowed. —Centrx→talk • 16:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Notability (artists)

Some recent AfDs have illuminated a need for Wikipedia:Notability (artists). The proposal has been created yesterday and is being discussed at that page (after the discussion that started at WP:BIO. More comments are appreciated.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 21:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political Candidate Entries

I research how candidates and people use the Internet for political and social activism. I've noticed that most of the candidates have bio pages. This is fine.

I am curious.

  • Do you believe that these pages are created by the candidates' teams?
  • Are these pages checked for facts vs propaganda?
  • Are there "Wiki Wars" with different candidate teams "attacking" the opponent's wiki page?
  • Should there be a special section for campaign pages?

Sincerely, Alan acohen843@hotmail.com

  • My answers: Yes, surely, at least in part; yes, to the same extent that any other Wikipedia articles are, based on our requirements for neutrality and attribution to reliable sources; probably so, although there are hopefully also third party, neutral editors who can moderate any such conflicts; no, they fit in well enough with the rest of the encyclopedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Notability (politicians). Brief answer to your questions: 1) sometimes, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-08-21/Congress again 2) We try 3) Sure 4) Wikipedia:Candidates and elections was marked as historical, see that page for details.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 04:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Do note that most political candidate articles are not originally created by the candidates team, but what the above mean is that sometimes they change or add to them. —Centrx→talk • 05:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we need to worry about this too much. Even if an article on a candidate for office were written by his/her campaign team, you can be sure that his/her opponent also has a campaign team that will fact check and edit it. Between these two (admittedly) partisan groups - and with truly neutral editors adding their two cents, we will quickly achieve a balanced NPOV article on the candidate. At least that is the theory... reality is that we will have a series of edit wars and content disputes as each side trys to spin the article to reflect their POV. Blueboar 14:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:CITE WP:FACT , WP:Verify and similar things

Today (february 21, 2007), I've checked the sources given on Hungarian people about the numbers of them living in a coutry/continent. Previously I've added some facts, but only now had the idea, to check those, which were already given. Well, there was a nice falsification about the brazilian-hungarians. Their real number, by the source is abt 150,000. In the article, it was exactly 1 million. Not to mention the weird "Russia" part, wich I've put into comment, since I was unable to find anything about that on internet (maybe I was not persistent enough).

In the history, I found this, wich later grew up to 1,000,000 [36]. Two anonim edits, one in sept, 2006 the other in oct 2006. First is four ( 4 ) the second is five ( 5 ) month old. Noone was intrested in checking sources, since there was an external link, as reference. I've had many similar disputes on enwiki before, mainly with established users using non verifiable sources, such as books with no ISBN or online edition. Some of these sources are (unnaturally) very universal, and can almost cite evrything abt a given topic, even when the given source is about the (main) topic's sub-topic's sup topic or an even smaller circle (yes, sub-sub-sub-etc.) Well, my point is that some of the sources are simply faked, to prove a POV, (or simply for fun/vandalism). By my previous experiments, I put the rate of faked sources per article from 1% to up to 60% (!), depending on the topic. Higher numbers occuring in political articles, for example magyarization. I was every time turned down. Well, this is an easy to prove situation, this is why I chose this, instead of some longer.

Also a great problem - also relating to the article mentioned above - (especially with slavic and pro-slavic central-european political writers/historians), that even if the artice and the source are matching, the source itself can be a book or webpage, which itself does not "intrested in reality", or to say exacty: politically motivated. In wiki language: (ultra-)POV.

I've had disputes abt users here, who's sources many times failed WP:Verify, but noone was intrested in it. I was turned down always, and/or asked to "believe". Well, I'm sceptical :)

What to do with this tendency? I see more and more falsified sources (98% of them are absolutely unreachable-via-internet books), as time goes forward, and I can't prevent them to be in articles with their lies/falsifications/etc. No one will believe if I say "I've read it, and there was nothing like that in it." No, I've to prove it, that it is falsified, not the other, that it is not a fake. In my opinion, if something is accused as being fake, the thing, wich should be proved, that it is not. --Vince hey, yo! :-) 00:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

At least there's a source to check and provide the real answer. Stable versions or some sort of assurance system will help this in the future, but for now all you can do is double check the sources when you want to be sure whether something is true. Falsified sources suck and when used dishonestly should be grounds for serious suspicion on anything the user writes, if not further consequences, but at least they can be caught in a lie with a single book, instead of sending other editors on a wild goose chase to prove things either way. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. I've fallen into that mistake before. But, what to do when this comes with an extreme agressivity/hostility? --Vince hey, yo! :-) 14:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Falsification of information from sources, followed by hostility of the type that violates WP:NPA, probably justifies reporting at WP:AN/I. Do remember that your goal is to notify an editor of a problem, not to get him/her to admit that he/she deliberately lied (nor even to get him/her to apologize). The purpose of notification is to start to build a record, so that if the problem occurs again, an admin has a basis for stronger action. If you get brushed off or ignored, that's still okay; the record has been made, and your notice probably will make the editor a bit more hesitant to stray (or careful not to). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

That's right, I've started a list, but you know, these are not online things, this problem is 95% about books. If X wrotes "A" and cites it with a ref in fact saying "B" (or else) and I point it out, I still can not prove it, and in fact the ref will be used against me nevertheless, it is a fake. --Vince hey, yo! :-) 18:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

And if one is cleared, than there's another 1 million articles, wich should be checked, and than, there's no guarantee, that the "cleared" ones will remain clear. --Vince hey, yo! :-) 18:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a "marked as checked" bit, (and an ability for anyone to review the last checked revision) but who to trust with such a power? --Kim Bruning 18:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that this would end up working a bit like the unstable version / stable version system typically used for linux distributions. If you want to have the latest information and gossip (or all the newest toys in your distro) you get the unchecked/unstable version. If you want reliable information (or a system that just works) you get the checked/stable version.

Once again, how do we know which checkers to trust? Hmmm! --Kim Bruning 18:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Damnit, we need stable versions badly. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ISBN or online edition needed?

I was bit worried when I saw the complaint that there were "non verifiable sources, such as books with no ISBN or online edition" being used, becuase a lot of the older literature does not have this. When I wrote the initioal versions of Battle of Vågen my main source was the Norwegian history book of Bergen, "Bergen - Byen mellom fjellene". This book was published in 1969 and has no sources, nor an online edition, yet I would hardly call the book "unverifiable". Anyone with access to a Norwegian public library would be able to find the book (or at least order it), if you see for example its entry in Bergen's public library, [37] you will see that it's available in many places. Why should a source like that be called invalid just because it does not have an ISBN? Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot edit rate

Moved to Wikipedia_talk:Bot_policy 20:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fallacies among the policies and goal of Wikipedia

Suppose Albert Einstein were alive today, but nearing the end of his life, and decided that as a final record of his achievements, he would write the definitive encyclopedia article on General Relativity for Wikipedia (assuming an article didn't already exist on the subject). Oh, but that wouldn't have been permitted: he'd have been writing on his original research, which violates WP:OR.

So suppose instead a top scholar in the field of General Relativity, perhaps one who studied under Einstein himself, set out to write the definitive encyclopedia article on General Relativity. Since the scholar is an expert on the subject, he's able to write the entire article out of his head, without needing to look anything up anywhere, and therefore has no sources to cite. Suppose that later somebody considers some of what the scholar wrote to be untrue and deletes it. Now the scholar has to cite a reference in order to restore the material. Of course, the scholar probably learned what he knows thirty years ago from Einstein himself, or from books whose titles and authors he no longer remembers. He could find a current book that says the same thing just for the purpose of referencing it, but that seems silly: such a book could well be written by someone with fewer credentials than the scholar himself.

In short, despite efforts to entice people to write on topics in which they already have deep and broad knowledge, some of the basic principles of Wikipedia practice reveal a preference for articles written by people with a sketchy knowledge of the topic who have to rely on written references for much of the material they contribute so that they can then cite it.

Seems fallacious to me. —Largo Plazo 01:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Not so. You start from an fallacious premise.
First, any "scholar" would routinely check a publication's "instructions for contributors" before attempting to write an article for that publication. Your hypothetical "top scholar" would look for Wikipedia's instructions for contributors, find the verifiability policy, and would understand that Wikipedia has different rules from Encarta.
Second, any "scholar" is familiar with the concept of citing sources, and any review article published in an academic journal would cite sources to the hilt, even in an area where the author has broad and deep expertise. So, Wikipedia's policies would be much closer and more familiar to what a scholar does normally than Encarta's. For your "top scholar," citing sources is just doin' what comes natur'ly.
Therefore, a top scholar writing for Wikipedia would almost certainly have cited sources in the first place, just as he would for any professional scholarly publications. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Before stating my opinion on this matter, I would like to clear up something. Say, for example, you have a paper published in a credible scientific journal, or have a book published by a reputable publisher. If you yourself were to write or edit an article about one of the topics discussed in one of your hypothetical works, would it still be banned under the no original research policy to cite one of your own works? SpadePrince Talk Contributions 01:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
No. There is a conflict of interest policy WP:COI that prohibits self-promotion, but neither that nor the OR policy prevents an editor from writing an article that references a reliable source authored by the same editor. This is already described both in the OR policy and in the COI guideline. CMummert · talk 02:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
The reason wikipedia has the preferences for sources is because we have no way to verify whether anyone is albert einstein or steven hawking or joe blow off the street. We can't rely on our reputations and credibility, all we can lean on is the sources we can cite. Otherwise, any crank could claim to be an expert and add any crap they thought of to wikipedia. Further, even experts are wrong sometimes. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that one can cite one's own work—this just can't be the place of first publication. But as for the part about "we can't rely on our reputations and credibility, all we can lean on is the sources we can cite." Such sources, of course, can be just as deceptive as the editor! Combining the two thoughts: I'm remembering the time I read a newsletter by Lyndon LaRouche that was replete with footnotes—all to his own writings or those of his closest followers. Well, OK, I know there's never any way to guarantee that someone is telling the absolute truth. One does the best one can. —Largo Plazo 03:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

At least then you could look to the footnotes and see "Ah hah, he's only citing himself, this is bullcrap." References aren't a total solution in themselves, but if we don't have any references at all, it's even harder to check. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
If someone is an expert, then they will be able to easily find sources for their statements. Science Papers quote prior work all of the time. If they wish to cite on of their own papers, that is fine, provided that it has been published in a reputable, peer-reviewed manner. Bluap 15:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template cfd/cfr/cfm boilerplate

What the section title says - something analogous to {{tfd}} that says "A category or set of categories added by this template has been proposed for (deletion/merge/renaming)". --Random832 16:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{copyvio}} and {{db-copyvio}}

My understanding of these two templates is that {{copyvio}} is for instances where the copyvio needs some investigation, or a chance to resolve itself. {{db-copyvio}} is for instances where the copyvio is unambiguous and should be deleted immediately.

Lately, I've noticed people going around and changing {{copyvio}} to {{db-copyvio}}. This activity strikes me as harmful and disruptive, especially since it's not unusual for admins to then speedy the page in the middle of several editors colaberating to try to resolve the issue.

Why do people do this? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It depends on the history. If there is a clean version in the history, then it should be {{copyvio}} (just to make sure the information is retained, but not on public display). If there is no clean version in the history, and the copies are verbatim literatim, or the content cannot possibly be clean (e.g. a dump of song lyrics) - in both cases only if the copyvio is obvious - it should be speedied. Of course, admins are supposed to check the history before they speedy, but then there are some 10,000 items in the queue (lots of images). As for people changing from one to the other, if a clean version is being worked on it shouldn't be a problem (the clean version gets moved out of userspace or from /Clean to main title). Do you have a specific example in mind so we can better see what the specific problem is? Chris cheese whine 16:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I've got several. The most recent one is Anna Rae-Kelly. I found it on AFD, and was cleaning it up and following links to try to figure out if it was notable or deletion-worthy when I discovered that it was taken verbatim from Anna's personal website, which has a clear copyright notice to the effect of "we respect the intellectual property rights of others and expect you to respect ours". I tagged it with {{copyvio}} and mentioned that fact on the AFD. Besides notability, another concern with that article was that it may be autobiographical. It was. The article author said that she was Anna, and the website was hers, and she was the author of all its contents - hence it couldn't be a copyvio. Someone changed the tag to {{db-copyvio}}; but that's not correct. If she wants to release the information under the GFDL she has a right to have explained to her what that means and then make that decision. Of course, the article still has a boat-load of problems and might be deleted regardless, but changing the copyvio tag to a speedy one doesn't seem right in a situation where someone is asserting ownership of the source text.
Another situation is the one I posted about a few days ago, with Quest magazine. An IP changed all of those {{copyvio}} tags to {{db-copyvio}}. Some of the articles had clean revisions in their history - others did not. Seems to me that, between that fact and the fact that the source text had an unclear license which (debateably) could be interpreted as compatable with GFDL, it was not right for the IP to make that change. (Though concensus was leaning towards that license being too unclear to allow the material to remain - the admin should have made that call).~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
The situation of Anna Rae-Kelly was definitely wrong. That should have stayed at {{copyvio}}. If User:Raekelly is the author, they should ideally go through m:OTRS, or post an explicit notice somewhere outside of Wikipedia granting a release under GFDL. You did the right thing in changing the tag back. I suppose this means we'll need people to patrol {{db-copyvio}}'s category to make sure of this. Chris cheese whine 17:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Heh. To be fair, you did vote "speedy delete as copyvio" in the afd. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
True. That was before User:Raekelly asserted ownership. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IP user talk warnings

Isn't it a bit unfair that IP addresses don't get the same box that says, "You have new messages," when someone leaves a message on their user talk page? I tried it out with my school's IP, and no message came. However, it works every time with a registered user. It especially becomes disadvantageous when someone leaves a warning on the talk page. The IP user never receives the warning, until he/she is blocked. By then it's too late. Why can't they receive the message that says "You have new messages"? Diez2 19:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

They do get a message box. If you left the message yourself, it may be why you didn't get one on your school IP. Trebor 19:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, IPs do get the box. I've been too lazy to log in and gotten it from people who see my benifical changes and welcome me, and I got it one time at home when my IP address changed and there was a several-month-old vandalism warning. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Hrm? I tagged my college's IP with {{SharedIPEDU}}, one time, and every pageload for any computer in the school would show the orange bar until somebody "checked" their new messages. The flag is only set until someone views the talk page, IIRC. AOL and other situations where your IP address may suddenly change can complicate this, of course. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh okay, I must be mistaken. Trebor 20:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UNESCO publications

Will you please clarify if UNESCO scientific publications and their components are copyrighted? I did not see UNESCO publications with copyright notice, but neither I saw a disclaimer about public domain. By its nature UNESCO is a most public entity around, but the PD tag does not specifically list UNESCO as a public domain source. Barefact 23:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The U.S. government is somewhat unique in making all its publications public domain. Even most governments within the U.S. maintain copyrights. Anyway, the relevant UNESCO policy is found at the disclaimer page, and says
“ All rights reserved.

This information may be freely used and copied for educational and other non-commercial purposes, provided that any reproduction of data be accompanied by an acknowledgement of UNESCO as the source ( © UNESCO ).

This does not apply to the pages and images with explicitely reserved reproduction right : © followed by the right owner and the year of first circulation. Reproduction of the latter requires prior authorization from the author.

 ”
That looks like it fails Wikipedia requirements for direct quotations to me. Αργυριου (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
"Non-commercial use only" licenses are never acceptable per WP:C, but we still could use short quotations with proper attribution in a normal scholarly style. We just wouldn't be able to copy the material wholesale or large parts. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Massive Deletion of Webcomic Entries

Recently, the Powers That Be of Wikipedia have decided to purge several unnotable webcomic articles from Wikipedia's database. While I agree on this point of view in principle (after all, just because some Bob Smith makes a webcomic, doesnt mean there should be a Wikipedia page about it), it seems the editor(s) in question does not know a fair lot concerning what makes a webcomic notable.

While Penny Arcade and User Friendly were left up, for example, several other award-winning webcomics were taken down and senselessly deleted, including those that receive a fair amount of traffic, I might add. edit: User Friendly was nominated as having insufficient 3rd-party sources as well, so I redact my earlier comment

Even if one does not know which webcomics are notable, one could numerically experiment by seeing how many other pages link to a given article, the kinds of articles that appear in its 'related links' section (such as awards it has won), and how many people search for an article over a given period of time.

I, among others, might suggest that someone or some people have been overbroad in the deletion of webcomics, as similar low-audience activities have not been deleted, which seems to myself to show a definate bias.

I have "been bold" and taken the action of recreating a few of the webcomics that seem, to me, to be the most gevious examples, however, I am sure I missed some, and would like to ensure such actions are not taken in the future.Sim 19:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have difficulties believing that they were "senselessly" deleted. They would have gone through AfD, no? And unless the comic is utterly, utterly unnotable, the worst outcome of such an AfD would have been "merge into some list of webcomics" rather than "eradicate from the database"? dab (𒁳) 19:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Webcomics experts have different definitions of "notable" than wikipedia does. They're often rather surprised to discover comics they think are unremarkable get kept, and other comics which have some kind of significance or influence get deleted. --Kim Bruning 20:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
While I agree that popularity != notability, I also think that AfD bears a remarkable resemblance to a random-number generator when anything borderline goes before it. Having seen a few of the webcomic AfDs, I find it hard to draw any specific standards from the results of the AfDs, either those which the webcomic experts would like, or those which Wikipedian policy experts would find reasonable. Argyriou (talk) 20:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Sim. It is always good to give examples of the deleted articles, if possible. Also, articles should not just be recreated. Instead, the matter should be taken to Wikipedia:Deletion review. Besides being better than having people continually writing and deleting articles, it allows the original article to be undeleted if the case is decided in your favor, which saves a lot of work, if the article is any good. An exception to having to go to deletion review is if it would be possible to write a new article that does not have the same problems that were given as reasons to delete the first one. For example, if an article is truly non-notable, that cannot be fixed by a new article. However, if the article was just a copyright violation or very poorly written and was deleted for that reason, it can be rewritten without going to deletion review. -- Kjkolb 19:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, you seem to be confusing notability with popularity. There are indeed popular things that don't warrant articles, due to a total lack of secondarily sourced information that would make it pass the verifiability policy. Certain variations of drinking games, for example, don't receive coverage in reliable sources, so it would be impossible to write an article that isn't original research. However, without examples, it's hard to determine whether the deletion was correct. The best way is to ensure the articles have reliable sources (ie not blogs, not forums, not personal websites) mention them. ColourBurst 20:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The one that really got to me was Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. I moved a lot of things around and added a lot of data about awards it has won, influence, etc. to compliment the old mostly-list format, creating what should be a better article, per guidelines.
Almost a year ago it had maybe 30 other pages linking to it, When I went to source it, I found that many of THOSE articles had also been deleted, and this is what got me posting here. I can understand some fudge room on one or two individual articles, but this included a long-term deletion of a whole series of articles on an entire dicipline, and I thought that warranted a policy request.
Additionally, the original RfD had a large, unanimous keep vote except for the original nominator and the final entry. The administrator even commented how well-thought out the argumens for keeping it were, and then deleted it anyway, which I found extremely odd, to the point where it might even have been some kind of mistake. Sim 19:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
The arguments hinged on an aspect of WP:WEB - whether the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards were "significant" enough an award to grant notability (there's also the other point of whether an article that satisfies WP:N, a guideline, but violates WP:V and WP:OR, both policies, can be kept.) Unfortunately, no consensus has ever been made. ColourBurst 04:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The debate seems to revolve around the idea that web comics (in and of themselves) are not notable. The benchmark for notability seems to be weither a topic has gained recognition outside the the realm of the internet. The logic being if a subject is notable, then printed newspapers or television will have made mention of it. This is flawed logic. Some indistries rely almost exclusivly on the internet for distribution of news. Many trade papers and peer reviewed journals have significant internet presence and often significantly more content on their websites. One of the strengths of the Wikipedia is that wikis can keep up with the rapid changing pace of the internet much better than print can. Many of the best sources of news about the internet are (surprise!) on the internet. By the current measure of notability, these sources (however relyable, widly read or highly regarded) will never be notable. For example, if Gabe from Penny Arcade mentions something in his Rant, then that is immediatly read by more than four million people.

Web comics are a recent phonominon and have found a social niche. Lots of readers are realising that many sindicated comic strips are crap. Webcomics cost nothing and some of them are much better than the print alternitives. If the Wikipedia Notability policy defines this very valad and recent form of art, enjoyed by millions, as non-notable, then it is the policy that is at fault not the Webcomic indistry.

Guys, get a clue. This jihad against webcomics is splashed all over the net. Hundreds of thousands of people are taking notice of this. This axe-grinding crap is making the whole project look bad. Figure out what changes need to be made and get them done. When there are 86 _thousand_ unique hits on google about a subject, most of which are from blogs and independant reviews, then people have officialy noticed it. It is of note. Dan.Montgomery 11:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You make several reasonable point (that dead trees aren't everything, that many syndicated dead-trees comics are crap), but you overdo it. I find it hard to believe any claim that such and such a page (other perhaps than the main page of a notable newspaper) is immediately read by X million people. If it isn't "axe-grinding crap" [excrement as an abrasive, a wonderful metaphor!) at WP it'll be something else: people will always find plenty to hate at Wikipedia (notably the deletion of articles about them and their friends). Just what is it that gets 86,000 unique hits? How is the routine mention in a routine blog of any significance? (I for one don't even read blogs by my own real-world friends unless they're accompanied by particularly good photos.) What can it mean to say that people have "officially" noticed something? -- Hoary 11:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the "plenty to hate" statement. My experience is that people don't care unless you throw it in their face. I see no reason to be deliberatly antagonistic, which is how this recent behavior comes across. The reference to google hits was to a point brought up in the spirited debate over the deletion of the webcomic Ugly Hill. I may have exagerated the exact number (I quoted from memory), but the point is that the number of hits was many thousands. Individually each blog entry may be without merit, but taken together they work as a pretty good barometer of what people on the net are or are not talking about. Don't forget that the rest of the world defines "Notable" very differently. You sir, may disagree that there is any agenda behind these systamatic deletions. Frankly, I don't really care if there is or isn't. I'll read my comics every day regardless of their WP presence or lack there of. But please be aware that this could spill over to the actual print media. Webcomics have a wide enough readership and enough human-interest to make this story newsworthy. It would be very ironic if the notability that you demand were to come about from news stories reporting the bloody-minded burocratic removal of the aforementioned webcomics.
A deeper issue, I feel, is the fact that by definition any new media is Non-Notable. This is, frankly, shooting ourselves in the foot. Dan.Montgomery 12:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I think it is to Wikipedia's credit that it's trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. Webcomics are a recent phenomena and it will take some time to establish the critical review process necessary to establish that a particular webcomic as "notable".
What webcomic supports don't understand is that popularity does not confer notability. Also, they don't understand that the internet is a "low-trust environment", to use the words of Glenn Reynolds. This makes the fact that internet websites are not viewed as reliable as their print counterparts. Though this will change as online publications establish their reputations, but that will take time. --Farix (Talk) 12:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Mate, reliability of sources is not the issue. Notability and relability are not the same. Saying "Yeah, we are wrong and in the fullness of time we'll get our shit together" is pretty cold comfort. The idea that all of print media is valid and all of new media is not is deeply flawed. Exactly the same skills are used to determine the quality of information, regardless of the presence (or not) of slain vegatables. The independence of information from the method of delivery is a fundamental. These issues with webcomics are symptomatic and, I beleive, just the tip of the iceberg. Dan.Montgomery 13:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Notability must be verifiable. To be verifiable, you need reliable sources. Thus reliable sources is very much at the heart of the matter. --Farix (Talk) 21:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Sir, are you familiar with the difference between fact and opinion? I'm kind of hazy on this myself, could you explain it to me? Dan.Montgomery 11:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how your statement is relevant to the discussion about the need for reliable sources to verify the notability of a webcomic. --Farix (Talk) 12:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to discuss the difference between subjective and objective using the Socratic method. If you will ponder for a second, you will notice that weither or not a item is Notable is an Opinion and thus subjective. Verification may work well for facts, but verifing the existance of an opinion does not in any way reflect on the comparitive worth or merit of that opionion. Of the top of my head I can think of three better ways to gain usful opinions on notability than the one enshrined in your method. Want to discuss them? 150.101.101.115 13:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Bit old fashioned method eh? But, go ahead? --Kim Bruning 14:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The fact of the matter is that notability must be evaluated on objective rather then subjective criteria. That is why we have established the notability guidelines. The need for reliable sources it so that we can verify that the objective criteria have been meet. If you like to propose additional objective criteria for webcomics, then please do so. But so far, you've only complained about the general lack of reliable sources or that no one considered blogs as reliable. --Farix (Talk) 14:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I find that the Socratic method is excelent when one wishes to engage in a dialog rather than just pontificate. I can see that this discussion is uphill work though, so I will be more direct.
TheFarix if you examine my comments, you'll discover what I've actually said is that the criteria for Notability is seriously flawed. I have given specific, concrete examples of how the subject of an article might have been noticed and talked about by thousands of people yet fail the (very specific) Wikipedia criteria for Notability. The current reliance on Print Media inherits all the bias of the Print Media Industry.
You will also, after a moments thought, realize that Notability is a value judgement. The world is divided into two categories: Notable and Non-Notable. Which goes in which category is a matter of opinion. This is why we have found the issue to be so hotly contested.
All opinions are not equal. Some are more deeply considered and informed than others. Since we are seeking an informed opinion, there are a few ways to get one. The first would be from a panel of experts. One to five people who are well respected in an associated field. For example, Notability of Web comics might be decided by a person holding a recognized qualification (Ma Fine Arts, B. Design etc) a member of the publishing industry (editor or publisher of a comic) a critic and perhaps a published or acclaimed cartoonist. While this panel would be biased, it would be easy enough to make the process transparent. A short paragraph from each member on every Notable/Non-Notable decision would be sufficient. Items might be resubmitted periodically (after a minimum period), who knows, perhaps the WP item has become notable since the last review. Particularly large fields of endeavor might have more than one panel to spread the work load.
A second method might be Peer Review. Ad hock groups of a particular discipline might discuss the work of their peers and arrive at a decision. This would be an invitational position, and I (imagine) would carry something of the benefit of being recognized as an authority on a particular subject. Positions could expire periodically, and new nominations would be put forward. Larger disciplines would have access to more members.
The final method I might suggest today is by survey. The object is to discover what people have noted. The more specific and targeted the survey the more valuable the opinion generated. This has the advantage of being very scalable, but I can see that it would be considerable work to maintain. Dan.Montgomery 02:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I find that WP:N works just fine. Otherwise, we end up with nothing more then a popularity contest. Reliability has nothing to do with a source's presence online, offline, or both. If a source undergoes editorial control and fact-checking, and is unaffiliated with the subject about which it writes, it is reliable. If it is affiliated with the subject, undergoes no fact-checking, or is anonymous, it's not (at that point, we may as well just let editors put in their own opinions here, which we don't. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The last thing Wikipedia needs is to set up a "cabal" of editors or recognize an external cabal to determine which webcomics are or are not notable. And as I said before, notability of pop culture items should be based on reliable sources, not on the opinions of editors. --Farix (Talk) 12:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the complaint being brought. The idea that print media has to mention an item numerous times for it then pass WP:V and WP:RS is quite silly. For those who have been in for instance the gaming community, knew the notability of "Leon" long before any media decided to pick it up. The problem with notability is it rests on a type of media that is being left behind because of its ability to report everything, and do it fast enough. I think the idea here is not that WP:N is to be thrown away, but that WP:WEB is to be refined to understand that its "reliable sources" would usually not be print media. For instance right now the article YTMND can be deleted for failing WP:RS. However if you attempted to have it deleted you would be met with many people who say its "obviously notable" however cannot produce a WP:RS source. The arguement being made above is echoed here, how many "non-reliable sources" have to mention something for it to be obviously notable? The counter arguement of 1 blog doesnt look at the larger picture, yes 1 blog does not make an item notable, however if 80,000 blogs are mentioning it ... its obviously notable. I think anyone who has watched the news in the morning when they mention web based items and though to themselves "they are just finding that out?" would understand the problem with print media.

There are some alternatives however for many subjects, such as web based news sites that are respected by WP:RS, however web comics is a niche subject. The problem is the experts in the field who would write about them, are doing so on blogs, whereas blogs are only acceptable if the person is a journalist ... journalist to what degree? I believe the Supreme Court ruled that blogs were actually legit forms of journalism and granted the same protection over sources, or were at least hearing the case. Anyway, niche groups seem to be over ridden by people who simply follow the guideline criteria, instead of measuring notability on common sense instead of letter of WP:WEB. I think this is why WP:WEB and the other notability guidelines are just that, guidelines and specifically mention that "common sense" may over rule, its just not exercized in that matter. So how many individuals have to write about something for it to be equal to one BBC? While a blog may not be WP:RS, wouldnt 10,000 blogs meet WP:N? --NuclearZer0 03:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The only ones who are saying that coverage must be in printed media are the webcomics themselves. The criteria only specifies reliable sources and WP:RS gives some guidance on how to determine a reliable source. But there is no "paper-factor" involved. For example Slate is a reliable source, even though it has no print version. The same goes for CNET's news.com and IGN. --Farix (Talk) 12:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Well two things, you only really addressed the print media and not the rest of the items, such as the closing questions even. The other point is that there is no site that reviews "web comics", and the only noted "web comic award" is being regarding as not notable since it too does not have an article here, which would probably only be covered by again, the web comic authors. There really is no beginning point in a sense. Who reviews art? I do not know of a single online site that would review this type of media and yet still pass most of the scrutiny of WP:RS. Notability is as noted above, being based on a slow type of media. Would you state YTMND is an article that should be deleted for failing WP:RS? Again I think a major problem is WP:WEB is a guideline, many people do not cite it as such, nor seem to ever notice the "common sense clause" associated with it. So again, while (1) blog may not be notable, how many blogs do we need before someone or something does become notable? Again I want to find an answer, but weren't blogs given equal protection to hide their sources as print media? --NuclearZer0 13:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Kristopher Straub's recent experament in getting his own Web Comic Starslip_Crisis deleted [38] has highlighted the ease (and no doubt, regularity) with which the WP:N is used to manipulate article deletion. I think Kris has highlighted the Pathos inherent in the Articles for Deletion process.

Some of us seem to think that we have been building a shining monument to rational objectivity, however I question if this is even slightly true. Subjective decisions are made at every level in the creation of a Wikipedia article. How can the result then be considered objective? The views of the editors have left ther stamp writ large all over this project, Webcomics is just the most recent case.

At this point we are offered an opportunity to recognise the failings of our community and our process. We can inovate and find solutions. I must be frank, I expect the community here at Wikipedia will live up to my expectations. Dan.Montgomery 00:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree in principle with the idea of a mass purge in Wikipedia, and more than the significance of any individual article or articles, I'm more concerned with the idea that someone out there thinks this kind of thing is a good concept. Sim 23:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Secondly, requiring any subject at all to have hundreds of referrences, that must come specifically from newspapers, is quite simply buffoonery. Almost nothing in the universe generates hundreds of newspaper articles about itself. Do we require television shows to be referenced in hundreds of newspapers before gaining an article? If so, you probaly wouldn't get any but Sienfeld and Survivor. Do movies require hundreds of print sources to get an article? Plays? Video games? Famous Authors? How are you going to define notable, then? It seems, to me, to be a notable subject if there are a large number of people looking it up on wikipedia! Why delete the very answer to a commonly-asked question? Heck, random towns in Idaho get articles about them, even though they're not mentioned anywhere at all except the state database! Are not these notable? This all seems, to me, an obvious double-standard that applies only to webcomics. If we've somehow come to the idea that webcomics, as a "new medium", only lasting about a decade, is somehow less notable by definition, requiring such a higher bar so as to require it to be a print comic, then the logical course of action is to simply delete all the webcomic entries and be done with it, instead of nominating them all one by one in an obvious Catch-22, as I honestly cannot think of any that would otherwise meet this definition.Sim 23:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Thankfully, no one has ever required a subject to have hundreds of references that must come specifically from newspapers. So, who's the buffoon? zadignose 23:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Many of the deleted comics had been profesionally published or been mentioned in Time Mazazine blurbs/Comedy Central (TV Channel)/Sci-fi Magazines, etc, but they were called "trivial" in that they were not "recognised print sources" and/or there weren't "enough of them" and deleted anyway. This supposes that only print media sources are "good enough" and, of the subset of print medeia sources, there must be more than a dozen or so (merely two or three isn't "good enough" to be notable, apparently.) This is quite frankly silly. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sim (talk • contribs) 17:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Ganging up

Hi, I don't know where to post this, there are so many boards, but since I don't want to go in to diffs and specifics, I decided to post it here. In several instances I have seen valuable contributors turn into angry, frustrated and finally unproductive or former contributors, because what was originally a molehill of a disagreement turned into a mountain of anger and disgust. Here's why: The majority of the community disagree with something the user said or did and several editors let him know. If he doesn't immediately see his fault, the tone gets less friendly and more righteous. The user's arguments get more and more desperate and start including actions which, in turn, draw the attention of some administrators. Even if the user has cooled down a bit now, multiple editors, admins and not, are meanwhile following his/her contributions and piling "friendly advice" on his talk page, as soon as the user does or posts something they disagree with (whether it's related to the original disagreement or not). Subjectively - and I empathize, I'd feel the same way - the user senses that a hostile (and annoying) group is ganging up on him. As a result, the user will never be the same user and sometimes leaves in disgust. Please point me to the attempts, policies, essays for nipping this type of development in the bud.---Sluzzelin 11.15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are a lot of policies which attempt to address just that: WP:EQ, WP:BOLD, WP:EP, WP:COOL, WP:CONS, WP:EW, WP:3RR, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:AGF, and I'm sure there are many more. However, most users' natural instinct runs counter to what the policy says we should do. Sometimes it's tough, but keep in mind that Discussion pages are where the battles should take place; not by Undo / Reverts. Also, if a user is already getting frustrated, citing policies as "here's how you should behave" is likely going to do little more than upset them more. People generally tend to know how they are supposed to behave, it's just a matter of whether or not they will. If it's a battle that you can just walk away from: do so, and you'll feel a lot better by the next day. --Thisisbossi 12:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • If you see a battle going on, drop a line on WP:RFPP. Protecting the page sometimes cools things down. >Radiant< 12:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
There is another problem when similiar ganging up happens in discussions. I am involved in a discussion now, where a group of editors tried to justify their opinion and I provided a rational explanation of why those opinions weren't valid. These reasons have not been discussed further, instead the group of Editors started discussing how editing should take place and made various attempts to frustrate me, my viewpoint being that this was a deliberate attempt to flame me and discredit my argument that way. All of this because the group of Editors couldn't get their own way on the project page that the article is linked to, as suggested by various rambling statements about how the project might be wrong. It gets frustrating when editors don't wish to follow the community as a whole and as a group maintain an island of their favourite articles.--Shakujo 07:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
There's an ArbCom proceeding right now, where I'm trying to get the issue of "gang tactics" recognized as a problem area. If you're interested, have a look here. You may wish to contribute. Dino 05:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How should NPOV apply to suicide?

Suicide
History of suicide
List of suicides
Views on suicide
Medical | Cultural
Legal | Philosophical
Religious | Right to die
Suicide crisis
Intervention | Prevention
Crisis hotline | Suicide watch
Types of suicide
Suicide by method | Copycat suicide
Cult suicide | Euthanasia
Forced suicide | Internet suicide
Mass suicide | Murder-suicide
Ritual suicide | Suicide attack
Suicide pact | Teenage suicide
Related phenomena
Parasuicide | Self-harm
Suicidal ideation | Suicide note
This box: view • talk • edit

There's a debate underway concerning the order of presentation of topics on the suicide template (see its talk page). One side is arguing that to place intervention links first biases the template towards trying to prevent suicides - they want the methods and types of suicides to go first. The other side points out that descriptions of suicide are tantamount to instructions on how to commit suicide, and that placing those at the top biases the template towards assisting or encouranging suicide.

The nature of the topic makes it impossible not to influence the outcome of crisis cases one way or the other. Which way should we be influencing readers who may be contemplating the unthinkable? Is it even possible to be neutral here?

I believe that the interests of public safety and the example set by other public service organizations and publications (such as the telephone book, where emergency response information is presented at the beginning of the book) should be applied here.

The question is, if a person in a medical emergency (someone in deep depression contemplating suicide, or a friend or relative trying to help) looks up suicide on Wikipedia, what should that person see first? Should we take the information's relevancy with respect to crisis cases into account when determining the order of presentation of the information in articles and templates? Should readers in crisis be given priority in determining the relavancy of information and the order in which it is presented? I believe that they should.

Your feedback on this debate would be most appreciated.The Transhumanist 23:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I don't think there is any public resource that would describe in detail how to commit suicide before discussing intervention, and I think Wikipedia should conform to that standard. If someone is really determined to commit suicide, they probably won't look it up on Wikipedia, and if they're just contemplating it, the layout of the article might save a life or at least prolong it enough for intervention. Granted, I am not a mental health professional, so any more qualified input would be welcome in this discussion. I'm guessing that neither universal agreement nor compromise suitable to everyone will be reached on this issue, so I think the best idea is to reach a consensus in the community at large, and then inforce the decision on the page. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 01:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, it's poorly formatted period. The trouble is that there's no strong main articles to put at the top. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I've reordered it. Wikipedia is not a howto guide anyway, and suicide is no different. We shouldn't tell people how to do it or how to stop it, that's just inappropriate tone period, but we can offer links to resources. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree. What do yuo write about suicide if you say nothing about how it is usually commited and how it is prevented? I'm not saying that should be the point of the article, but its an aspect of the topic being discussed. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 18:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
No, we just have to present the information encyclopedically. "Various organizations offer support, such as..." etc. Instead of "Go here for help." Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree. We're supposed to report, not instruct. Therefore 3rd-person descriptions of what standard convention is, rather than 1st-person instructions. Rather than advise directly, report what the experts advise. The Transhumanist 21:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Under the template heading Types and Methods it nevertheless has methods first and then types. I would consider that types are more notable, i.e. the perceived pressures are different for each type, generally effecting different segments of society whereas the methods may be considered any of the groupings (although some styles may be more prevalent within certain groups). I think methods should be placed toward the end of that section. Further, the ways and means are far less noteworthy than any other aspect of the subject; all of the histories, famous suicides, cultural/moral/religious considerations, advice centres, etc. have a lot more reference sources than a note of "take in great excess of recommended minimum dose". Whilst methods do have their place, it might be that they are one of the minor considerations of an encyclopedic entry. LessHeard vanU 22:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Suicide methods was just moved there from the history section. That article has at least two types, suicide by cop and suicide attack, as direct subtopics, and all of the different types of suicides are done with a certain method, so placing it first seems pretty logical. Without methods, there would not be any suicides. Without "[some word here] suicide", there are still many other types and methods. Prolog 23:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that without the why the how becomes irrelevant. The methods are available to the entire human community but only a few individuals in a group, minorities within each society class, seek to use them. LessHeard vanU 21:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] So many brave men

I'm really annoyed by the self-declared policemen of this wiki. Every time I change something on the Metamath page and I forget to sign in I have a complete bus of sheriffs who arrive on the page to ask me my identity card and who remove my updates. I begin to find this inaccurate behaviour perfectly annoying. Apparently those moral men forget to read the page since they would notice the changements are meaningful. Could we moderate those brave guys and suggest them to try to understand the pages they try to protect so energically ? --Frédéric Liné 18:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No one's touched that page in over a week, and now you're complaining? I'm not entirely sure what your complaint is, as I see no harsh edit summaries or notices on talk pages. How about this time, instead of flowery prose, you simply say what the problem is? --Golbez 19:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't even see any reverts of the many, many IP edits on that page. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
You might try remembering to sign in, and then the "policemen" would see your user page/talk page/contributions etc. before jumping on you. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 01:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Except, based on what I can tell, no one jumped on him. I dunno if he's a drama queen who just wants attention for his pet article, or what. --Golbez 01:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I apologize for the above remark. --Golbez 14:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
My god, the way you speak! Very sorry. I will no longer disturb your democratic staff. I apologize. Really. However the problem remains. And when I change the Metamath page or the discussion page without signing it (I feel so guilty. Such criminal a behaviour!) I have a very polite and kind sheriff who arrives to check everything in a really competent and amiable way. It's so nice. I really like this. Very, very nice men indeed. Those guys sign with really brilliant name that must belong to the most ancient families in the world (toto1245, pedzouille65, tartRRemp etc. ). And I understand that they are so fiercely proud of those name that they can't accept that a shy person like me prefers to hide his identity under an ip number. --Frédéric Liné
Good to see everything's resolved. --Thisisbossi 12:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
If you could give a few more details about the specific edit(s) you're concerned about, it would be vastly easier to help understand the problem. Are you referring to this revert perhaps? --Interiot 16:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes this is the latter visit of a sheriff but others had send me their "recommandations" on user pages as well. And at the end it is perfectly annoying. I don't really understand why people I never have never heard about before - and who apparently have no concern in logic - come to interfere or ask me questions without reading the page, trying to understand the debate and so on and apparently it is not an isolated behaviour, it's a frequent one. And I repeat it's not sound. I suppose they scrutinize the modifications made by an ip instead of a registered user. But it's not their business. Most of them hide their identity under a pseudo and I don't really understand where is the problem of an ip instead of a pseudo. If wikipedia wants that the contributors register it should be made clear otherwise the sheriffs should refrain themselves and stop their fly attacks. And for the moment as soon as I understand wikipedia doesn't prevent users from not registering themselves. Therefore the choice of not registering oneself should be respected. --Frédéric Liné
Complaining about rehtoric with out actually saying what you're talking about is rather uneffective, as you've seen. If you have a legitimate complaint about a specific revert or user, then fine, feel free to tell someone about it and try to get it resolved, here or elsewhere (I'd suggest the article's talk page, as that's what it's there for). I'm not suggesting that you don't have the right to change the page under an IP, merely suggesting that there are options open to you to help avoid misunderstandings with other editors. If you have a complaint about something specific, lets discuss it. Otherwise, rehtoric about the wikipedia community in general is not only unfounded, but unnecessary. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 16:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Eh?

"...drama queen..."?!?

How does name calling help? LessHeard vanU 21:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Indeed that was unnecessary, but the editor was trying to make a valid point. The choice of words wasn't the best. It is my opinion that this discussion is completely moot and should be ignored until it gets archived unless the first contributing editor can produce some real evidence of actually being bullied and/or having his edits wrongfully deleted, instead of just throwing around rehtoric flavored all too abundantly with sarcasm. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 06:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough, although someone sensitive to perceived bullying is going to find at least a flavour of intimidation with such careless use of language. LessHeard vanU 21:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I gather the complainant's native language is not English, which likely contributes to the misunderstanding. In reading his original comment I couldn't figure out what point he was trying to make and it's still not altogether clear. Either others have been reverting his edits (quelle impudence!), or complaining when he doesn't sign in, or something; in any event, it doesn't appear to be a matter that will bring the project to its knees. Raymond Arritt 22:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict between Policies

I gather that WP:ATT is now considered Policy... a merging of WP:V and WP:NOR. I have no problem with this, but I do have a concern with how this is being done. At the moment all three Policies are up and running... and this is going to lead to confusion and argument. The three policies do not completely agree with each other (or to put it more exactly, they agree with each other in surface substance, but they differ in greatly in tone and emphysis). This is especially noticable in the area of reliability of sources (especially Self-published sources - a frequent area of controversy) and how they are dealt with. Look at them side by side: WP:V#Sources, WP:NOR#Sources, WP:ATT#Reliable_sources. As a frequent contributer at WP:RS... a guideline that is supposed to help explain this particular aspect of Policy... I am seeing this conflict of tone writ large. Many of the questions we are asked involve parsing Policy statements and intent. Those of us at WP:RS agree that we need to conform what is said there to what is stated in Policy, but right now there is confusion as to which policy we should conform to. I would therefore request that, if WP:ATT is indeed confirmed as Policy, we redirect WP:V and WP:NOR to that page. If not, please move WP:ATT back to "proposed" status until the community can reach consensus. I don't care which, but we need clarity and not confusion. I have posted this request at the The relevant policy talk-pages as well. Thank you. Blueboar 15:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Username modification suggestion

I've posted a request on WT:U regarding a modification to a subclause of WP:U pertaining to 'obscene usernames' that I hope will foster a discussion. The discussion is available at Wikipedia_talk:Username_policy#Suggested_modification. I've cross-posted it here as it pertains to modifying an official policy. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural Sensitivity vs Accuracy/Clarity

I'd like to ask for opinions on a matter that has sprung up on 2004 Palm Island death in custody.

For some indigenous Australian groups, it is considered culturally taboo to mention the name of an individual after their death. For instance, if an indigenous person named John Smith dies, he will be given an alternative name by his family which he should be addressed by instead. These traditions are in no way consistent across the Australian continent, as the following link which was provided to me by someone who disagrees with my stance has pointed out:

My question is, given the lack of a consistent standard for this, the fact that calling the person by the honourific "Mulrunji" is hardly standardised even among the Australian media (here in Brisbane, he's commonly referred to on the TV news as "Doomadgee", not "Mulrunji". The user who is reverting me is from Townsville, which is much closer to the incident in question, so perhaps they have a different perspective from the media than I do), and the fact that the guidelines provided even state that calling the person by their surname is acceptable, so long as you don't use "personal names" (as shown when they refer to Charles Perkins as Kwementyaye Perkins), is in unreasonable that the person in question be referred to as "Doomadgee" instead of "Mulrunji"? The link provided also indicates that use of images is considered distasteful, if this person's name is removed in the interests of cultural sensitivity, then do we also need to delete every image of a recently deceased indigenous person on Wikipedia?

My other problem with use of these honourifics is that as the article above states, "after time a dead person's name and image will be allowed to be used again." At what time is it acceptable to go back and switch the person's name back to the conventional form? If an indigenous person dies, do we have to switch all references to their name to the honourific, and then change it back a couple of months later? This might cause a maintenance nightmare!

I think that, given these points, it's best that we use a neutral name like "Doomadgee", rather than a culturally insensitive name like "Cameron Doomadgee" or a temporary honourific like "Mulrunji". It seems to me from precedent that cultural sensitivity is considered important here, articles like Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy show that it can take a back seat to accuracy and clarity. Still, given the sensitivity of the issue, I thought I'd ask here anyway, as I don't want this to develop into a flamewar that gets put on Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars ever!

Lankiveil 06:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

As an encyclopedia is a repository of information, and to be valid it must be both accurate and available to the widest readership, it must be considered that yielding to considerations that adulterate the facts is a form of self censorship. This is against one of the principles of Wikipedia. The example given (Muhammad cartoons controversy) does indeed show a thumbnail of the cartoons, so it appears that Wikipedia has a precedent here. LessHeard vanU 21:53, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
This is not an accuracy issue, the title is accurate, in fact it's the other way round, you seem to want us to deliberately include false information into wikipedia even when we know what's right for the sole reason of bringing it into line with the mass media. This is also not a censorship issue, I haven't said that the name "Cameron Doomadgee" should not be included, but it should only be in the overview section of both the Mulrunji article and the main article as a clarifier that Mulrunji is the name of the former Cameron Doomadgee (which is fact). The real issue is respect, should our articles be offensive to cultures when it can be easily avoided? If there is a choice between offending people and not offending people when it costs us nothing in encyclopedic terms then what is the problem?
I repeat that in accordance with the beliefs of the Doomadgee family (different groups have different beliefs) the word "Doomadgee" in this context is still a word that identifies the individual by their living name and should be avoided where possible, it is in no way a neutral choice. Additionally in response to your query, the Doomadgee family will publicly identify the time when the person's name can be used again and that is when the community feels they have closure on the death itself, although the honorific does not discontinue to be appropriate so there would be no need for reversions if that would be a 'maintenance nightmare!'... although I fail to see the nightmare considering how easy it is to edit Wikipeadia...
Of course the cultural beliefs of Indigenous people are not the same across the continent... the fact that you would even make that a point shows your lack of general knowledge on Indigenous issues. Wikipedia does not enforce a 'consistent standard' on anything outside of the five pillars all the articles and policies change, and neither should it considering it is trying to be an encyclopaedia for everything of general interest across the whole world. In some cases honorifics would apply and in some they wouldn't, it is obvious which cases it does apply to, we should not use them where they impinge upon the legitimacy of the encyclopedia but there's no reason to deliberately set out to disrespect them.
and finally this matter only 'sprung up' on Lankiveil's insistence, none of the other editors who have worked on this page have had a problem with the individual being identified in a culturally respectful way. Alec -(answering machine) 14:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm broadly in agreement with Alec. The page in question does, and has always, said in the lead that the person's name was Cameron Doomadgee and is now known as Mulrunji. I'm from Perth, the Nyungar/Noongar people here are exactly the same, they rename the person after their death. The issue here is not one of cultural sensitivity (although that does come into it) but indeed of accuracy. The ABC, our national broadcaster, refers to it as the "Mulrunji case". Mulrunji here is a single name, so "Mulrunji Doomadgee" for example would be totally incorrect - he was Cameron Doomadgee. The former is a case of mixing the dead with the living, much as you aren't supposed to put raw and cooked meat together in the same place as one will make the other go bad. An Aboriginal colleague of mine advises that it's a matter of land spirits, that those who are connected with the land spirits which have "taken" Doomadgee (i.e. broadly speaking anyone in the North Queensland Aboriginal groups) are not permitted to say his former name, but there's no prohibition on us using the name. In regard to the second person who replied, this is *only* regarding the name of the person - and their former name is still identified in the lead of the article. Orderinchaos78 16:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
After having a good look at the page in question and looking back at the history plus doing a Google search I find that the views of Alec are correct, im not going to write 30 or 40 lines here saying why he is correct, because I would be repeating everything that both Alec and Orderinchaos has said, but I felt that I needed to share my view on this matter so it could be resolved. thanks Thuringowacityrep 09:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NOTE WP:V and WP:NOR ARE NO LONGER POLICY !!!!!

PLEASE NOTE that Wikipedia:Verification and Wikipedia:No original research have been merged and replaced by Wikipedia:Attribution. This may come as a surprise to some, as this merger was not well advertized when in the proposal stage. From what I can tell, the folks who worked on this new Policy did a fairly good job (although I do wish they had announced their intentions sooner and more frequently). I do not see any substantive changes from what WP:V and WP:NOR had to say. Editors may also wish to note that several of the editors working on that page have expressed the intent to subsume the guideline: Wikipedia:Reliable sources into this new Policy and replaced with a FAQ.

While I actually approve of this merger (one Policy instead of two eliminates the potential for contraditary statements where they overlaped), I am not happy about how it was done. Policy changes should have broad community consensus, and I don't see how the editors who created WP:ATT can claim to have this when it comes as a bit of a surprise. The intent should have been shouted from the roof tops several weeks ago to give everyone LOTS of notice.

So... just so everyone understands, let me repeat this in loud voice: WP:V and WP:NOR ARE NO LONGER POLICY. They have been replaced by WP:ATT. ALSO - IT IS PROPOSED THAT WP:RS BE REPLACED with a combination of WP:ATT and a FAQ. (please don't kill the messenger.) Blueboar 17:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

None of these pages has ever had "broad" consensus. They've been written and decided upon by a small number of users who care a lot about the issues, and those who aren't interested in constant fighting and wikilawyering are outvoiced. WP:RS isn't that bad anymore, but I have yet to see it used for anything but abuse. — Omegatron 18:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
can't say I agree with that. Without WP:V or WP:NOR, Wikipedia would fall apart in a matter of weeks. It really all boils down to WP:ENC, but a lot of people do need this spelled out in greater detail. dab (𒁳) 18:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
well, it is misleading to say that WP:V and WP:NOR are "no longer policy". They still are. They were just merged into a single page. It is an extremely bad idea to keep these pages around as "inactive", since they are not. If people feel they must be merged into a single page, make them redirects along the lines of WP:UNDUE. dab (𒁳) 18:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I've tagged both of the pages back to policy status. Consensus indicates that they should be merged, but this doesn't mean they should be "rejected" as policies and no longer be in use. I concur with Dbachmann, please make them redirects instead. Michaelas10 (Talk) 20:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
FYI, I did not mean to say that the concepts behind V and NOR were being rejected... Dbachmann is correct to say that is misleading. The point of this was really to draw attention to the merge, and to let editors know that the merge was a done deal. For instance, if an editor is in the midst of a content dispute or an AfD that centered on V or NOR, they need to know that they should point to ATT now instead of V or NOR. This post was really a "shout from the roof tops" to advertize the merge rather than a complaint about it. Blueboar 03:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Main problem with wikipedia:

The problem with wikipedia is that "higher" educational institutions do not regard wikipedia as a credible source. We need to fix this, or else a lot of work is not going to reach its full potential. I propose that we come up with a system to article by article "Certify" everything being done here. Though this is a huge task, i think it is necessary for wikipedia to keep evolving. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/education/21wikipedia.html?em&ex=1172466000&en=d1211c2d017e16b6&ei=5087%0A is a great article on the wiki movement, and at the end it mentions that Oberlin college in Ohio and University of East Anglia in England have classes where students must complete a page on wikipedia. I think that we could do something similar, but on a much grander scale.

Alternately, we could create a page which counters the arguments that wikipedia is often false and unusable. On the topic of history, for instance, no one truly knows what happened. We have a large collection of secondary sources, which are reviewed by "scholars", who then compile the aspects that they think are most true, and then publish it into a history book. To me, this is no different from wikipedia. I'm not going to say that wikipedia will be the ultimate end all be all for knowledge, I'm just saying that in retrospect, it's no more inaccurate than anything else we "know" anyway. It just has a larger diversity of competing ideas and thoughts, which I think are more valuable than someone only showing the one "right" side of the argument. 3th0s 22:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

But WP is frequently false an unusable, there are a number of systemic and structural issues with respect to policy which render it thus; The quasi-democratic process with regard to content inclusion takes no account of ones expertise in a subject, the admin selection process discourages administrators with the gumption to actually make tough decisions, and whilst xFD is not a vote it frequently ends up as one, the policies and guidelines can change, indeed as noted above there is an effort to significantly change the direction on verifiability and original research without a significant level of debate or consensus, the understanding of consensus is flawed with most thinking that consensus means majority.
If I had a junior consultant (my profession) approach me with anything taken from WP and not otehrwise validated I'd bin the suggestion straght away.
It's not trustworthy and without significant change to the governance structure it never will be.
ALR 23:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Would you not even check the cited references (or at least how WP has peer reviewed the piece)? LessHeard vanU 23:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd probably take a glance, but the very fact that s/he has not gone further would leave significant alarm bells. My clients pay a lot of money for access to our experience and knowledge and they're not getting their moneys worth if juniors don't do the work properly.ALR 14:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the major problem you describe is with those "higher" educational institutions rather than Wikipedia, where verification and referencing (now WP:ATT I understand) is a requirement for articles to achieve good gradings. Wikipedia is a reference resource rather than a reporter of research, (nearly) everything is taken from a published source. It is in the nature of the beast that articles can be vandalised, but also can be more up to date that textbooks. How many Universities are now using texts on "Super String Theory" as draft excluders? I believe it is more a case of practice that Educational Institutions will rely on text rather than a wiki; as the 'net develops it may be that the electronic reference point will succeed the printed type. In short, we must teach the teachers (preferably by example). LessHeard vanU 23:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I guess I'm never going to understand this argument no matter how many times it comes up. Someone posts 'oh no, universities won't let their students cite wikipeida because articles might be vandalized!' and someone responds 'but we have such high referencing standards! those silly behind-the-times professors...' and everybody misses the point that nobody in so-called 'higher' education should be citing any encyclopedia for anything anyway. It's been said before - Wikipedia is a great place to start research and a terrible place to end it. In academia, Wikipedia has two purposes: getting a general overview of a subject, and looking up specific bits of information that are easily forgotten (when was the Treaty of Ghent signed, who was the 11th US president, how much of the standard normal distribution is within +/- one standard deviation, etc.). Increasingly, it is also a good place to get an overview of the published literature on a subject, and to find pointers to the major relevant publications. Referencing encyclopedias in academic papers is amateurish and lame and generally discouraged by professors no matter which encyclopedia it is. Opabinia regalis 02:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has its strengths and its weaknesses as far as accuracy ... it is VERY informative when it comes to pop culture. On detailed accademic subjects it is noticably less reliable... sure individual articles are excellent, but many are full of pseudo-accademic clap trap. That's what you get when you have an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit"... anyone can, whether they actually know anything about the subject or not. As long as they think they know something, they will want to add it. I see this in history articles all the time... a popular author writes a book that presents a "startelling new (psuedo-hostorical) theory", it becomes a best seller due to its sensational claims, lots of people read it and assume that the theory is true... so they want to include this theory in Wikipedia. No matter that the theory is considered absolute rubbish by every single accademic historian, (and most serious amatures as well). Our policies say that, given enough press (ie notability), even completely discounted theories have to be mentioned on an equal par with accepted theory and fact. To give just one example... look at any article written about the historical Knights Templar... you will find multiple references to the works of Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight. Their books are very popular, but are almost universally dismissed by professional medieval historians for poor research and faulty logic. But, because their books ARE best sellers, the theories that are presented must be included in the articles on the Knights Templar. This also happens with Science articles (although less often, thanks to vigilance by the Scientific community who edit here). As long as this continues, the accademic community will never allow Wikipedia to be used as a reference. Nor should they. Blueboar 03:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The main reason many teachers (some of mine among them) do not allow Wikipedia to be used as a source is the thing that it brags about. The "anyone can edit" phrase is the source of Wikipedia's content. It is also the source of its criticism. My teachers tell me that it is unreliable and should not be trusted. Unless Wikipedia is restricted so that not everyone can edit, people like them will not believe Wikipedia is trustworthy. Of course, I do not want Wikipedia to be restricted and I like the ability to edit articles. What I am saying is it will take a lot of work to make the educated see past the "anyone can edit" phrase. Captain panda In vino veritas 04:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

In response to Opabinia regalis, I will say that my teachers do not care about other encyclopedias. They only say "no Wikipedia". No comments on Brittanica. No thoughts on Encarta. Wikipedia is the only one targeted. Perhaps because I am in high school, the thoughts on encyclopedias are different. Still... Captain panda In vino veritas 04:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Masses of students aren't routinely turning in plagiarized Britannica articles, or uncritically cribbing its content to fluff up skimpy papers. But that's not the point. The point is that encyclopedias are not for citing in papers, whether it's Wikipedia or Britannica on trial. I'm not nearly old enough for a good kids-these-days rant, but any teacher who allows an encyclopedia to be cited in a research paper had better not be teaching children over 10, on pain of being whacked with the entirety of Wikipedia printed out. Same punishment for students who believe everything they read, no matter where they read it. Opabinia regalis 07:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
My University accepts any form of peer reviewed source of information, including encyclopaedias. As long as you cite it, you aren't plagiarizing anyhow. However, they do not accept wikipedia, since, as said above, anyone can edit it. We've been told it's good for an overal outlook, and for it's good sources which we should look into ourselves. But since Joe Bloggs can log in (doesn't even need to do that) and change minor dates because they're bored, something which may not be picked up straight away, et al, our university doesn't accept it. I'm not too sure about peer reviewed versions of pages, but I'll have to check up on that...Jacobshaven3 12:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I couldn't just let this one go. Few if any general encyclopedias are peer-reviewed in the traditional sense; Britannica certainly isn't. And yes, you are still plagiarizing if you copy text from a source without explicitly noting it as a quotation, even if you cite the source. That's what got Stephen Ambrose in trouble. But the way you are using Wikipedia - to get a general overview and pointers to useful sources of information - is exactly how an encyclopedia ought to be used in an academic context. Opabinia regalis 01:06, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Something to remember is that, as recently as 15 years ago, most Universities and High Schools did not allow citations to any on line source. They didn't even teach you how to cite such a source. If it wasn't in print, they didn't want to see it. Times change. Perhaps someday Wikiepdia will be more accepted - at least for certain topics (I doubt it will be any time soon, but it is possible). Blueboar 16:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I remember I heard on NPR sometime in the last couple of months a story about an accuracy review of Wikipedia compared to some major encyclopedia (like Britannica, I can't remember exactlly which one) in which a couple hundred articles about things considered important were pulled from both and submitted to experts in the respective fields that the stories dealt with. The outcome was that Wikipedia was more accurate in some areas and the encyclopedia was more accurate in some areas, but they averaged out about the same. Does anyone know about said review, and/or where we all coould find a published copy? It seems like that might be at least a step in convincing educators that for mainstream topics, Wikipedia is on average just as accurate as the published encyclopedia. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 16:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
In December 2005, the magazine Nature published an extensive and scientific study about the accuracy of Wikipedia, which found the editable encyclopedia nearly as accurate as Britannica. -newkai t-c 16:48, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Opabinia regalis is absolutely right. We should not worry whatsoever about whether or not teachers will allow wikipedia as a source for papers, because students should not be using it to any significant degree. Wikipedia combines the two laziest research tools in existence: the encyclopedia and the internet. Certainly no papers at the college level should be relyng substanitally on any encyclopedia, and one must be very careful when using any internet based source. If a teacher tells her class "write a 3 page paper on Philip of Macedonia", and a students thinks "Who the hell is Philip and where the hell is Macedonia", then wikipedia is a great place to have those questions answered, but he should be using what he learned to educate himself and create a base of understanding on the subject, not as a citation for a paper. Most articles have external links and references, which are usually quite useful, and can often make good references for citation, but wikipedia itself has the "written by anyone, no matter how misguided and ignorant" albatross it has to bear. In addition, it is in a constant state of change; an artiucle cited one day might be completely different the next. We needn't worry about this, really. -R. fiend 17:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Few notes: 1) students should learn Wikipedia:Academic use by heart. 2) Teachers should concentrate on doing activities with Wikipedia (and list them on WP:SUP) to benefit from Wiki opportunities rather than passivly try banning what they don't understand 3) "And yes, back at Wikipedia, the Jesuits are still credited as supporting the Shimabara Rebellion." - of course, it was changed minutes after NYT was published, but shame on involved teachers (and students) who didn't change what they must have known was incorrect information for days.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 05:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notablity (journalists)

During the AfD discussion for Timothy Noah, some important issues were raised about how the general notability guidelines apply to journalists. I have tried to address some of these concerns with a new proposal, Wikipedia:Notability (journalists). I would appreciate any changes or comments that could help this. Thank you. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Screenshot for cite

Ok, so I was browsing through the backlog, and I came upon an article called "fanfiction.net." After attempting to find a few of the cites needed on the page, I quickly realized that I would have to create an account, which I have done. Sadly, it didn't come to mind that other people who hadn't created the account still couldn't see it even if I did post the right link - so I was wondering - if I take a screen shot of the needed cite (there's really only one page that needs to be seen) - and post a link to it or something - is that good enough for a cite - I first assumed no - but the problem is there's really no other way we can get those citations.Daniel()Folsom |\T/|\C/|\U/ 17:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

On second thought - the above stated wasa bad idea, screen shots could get messy - but either way, how do we cite a piece of information when the source is only accessible if you have an account?Daniel()Folsom |\T/|\C/|\U/|(Can you help me with this?) 17:48, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
The main question is, do you need to pay in order to create the account? If so, you definitely should not cite it at all (such sites are definitely frowned upon as links and citations). If you do not have to pay it becomes much more of a grey area... to find out whether to cite it, and how to do so, ask on the talk pages of WP:ATT Blueboar 22:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
You can cite the real source. You may wish to add a parenthetical note to the citation of the form "(requires a free account)" or "(must pay to view)" - but a source doesn't even have to be online at all. A screenshot is not a useful citation, but they can be helpful in discussing the content with other editors. GRBerry 22:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
As a screenshot effectively reproduces text would there not be a question of copyright also? LessHeard vanU 23:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I see no big problem here. "Verifiability" means that somebody could in principle go and verify the information. It doesn't mean that verificaton needs to be effortless and free of cost. If I cite something from a rare book that's not in everybody's nearest public library, then somebody in order to verify the correctness of my quote might also have to spend money to buy the book. So what? - The copyright question: making that screenshot would be the fair use equivalent of making a photocopy from a single page of the book and showing it to your friends. Not for keeping around on Wikipedia as an image forever, but possibly helpful if as a provisional measure if the citation turns out to be contentious. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd agree with that - but one must remember that screenshots can be easily doctored. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 01:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Okey to copy wikipedia article to a commercial site?

I have written about Janne Corax here on Wikipedia but I have discovered that Herald Times, which owns AllExperts, has copied my text on wikipedia word by word, and then use it for selling ads. Is that ok to do? I don't think so. What does one do? I have mailed them and said I don't think it's ok, and they must rewrite it with their own words, but nothing has happened. I don't want a commercial site to use what I write for wikipedia, but I don't know what policy wikipedia has?

Link to the copied article: [39]

lolli Lolli 01:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, it is ok to do so, provided that they mention the source. The site you mentioned does that, and even links to the original article, and also provide links to GFDL, mentioning all text is under GFDL. Plenty of other sites are doing it, and it is perfectly ok. If you do not want to have your content released under GFDL, you shouldn't add it to the articles. --Ragib 01:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit-conflict] Yes, they can, but only if they follow certain procedures, because of the way Wikipedia is licensed. For example, notice at the very bottom of that page you link to, they have to link to the article here, as well as link to the license that it is being used under. For the full licensing information of Wikipedia articles, look at Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License. Prodego talk 01:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, they can republish it or modify it to make money. What they can't do is republish the original or even a modified copy without saying where it came from, and (here's the really important part) also publishing it under the GFDL (so anyone else can do the same thing with their copy). This is the concept of copyleft. What you write here is guaranteed, by it's copyright terms, to be permanently "free" (in the sense of "libre", see Gratis versus Libre). -- Rick Block (talk) 03:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
What they're doing is perfectly acceptable. When you submitted an edit here, you agreed to submit your contributions under the GFDL. (Look right under the edit box the next time you edit a page.) That means that, so long as others follow the terms of the GFDL, they can reuse the text for any purpose, including commercial purposes. That's true of everything you ever have contributed and will contribute in the future here, including your post on this noticeboard. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 12:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Except for images contributed under a different license, but none can be less free, including that you can't prohibit commercial use of anything you contribute. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been seeking the answer to almost this same topic. Perhaps someone here can steer me right. I am in the process of building a commercial site for selling jewelry. I would like to help educate visitors before they buy, my question is--is it okay to quote entire articles and/or paragraphs word for word from contributors to this site and other sites like about.com, as long as I mention the source. I thought I had heard somewhere it is only okay to quote a sentence or two, not a whole paragraph or entire article. Any advice is apreciated. 74.130.178.253 04:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)West

[edit] RfCs How To Get More People Involved and Build Concensus?

I put up an Rfc in the wrong place. I read the guidelines and instructions, but still managed to foul it up. The question that arises here is that when you have an article that is of special interest to one or two, but is failing to follow a broader community trend, how do you build concensus when one or two enforce a de-facto ownership over the article? How do you get more people involved in the discussion of a broader community trend when the topic of RfCs is fixed to certain categories?--Shakujo 07:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

  • What topic are you talking about that does not fit an RFC category? >Radiant< 12:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I am not talking about a specific article. The problem is that if an RfC has a bigger impact, maybe the conflicting application of two different policies, where should we post it?--Shakujo 07:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • On RFC, under the appropriate subject, and/or here. >Radiant< 12:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • If a subject doesn't exactly fit any RFC category, just file it under the one that seems to fit the most closely. The categorization is not to say that anything that falls outside those can't ever be filed there at all. As to the other issues, ownership issues can be frustrating, but my best advice there is to be patient. Discuss your point, don't start edit-warring, and eventually, if your point is valid, others will come along to help you in asserting it (or the editors who disagree may begin to see your position and be willing to work with you). If it's just one other editor that disagrees with you, you might consider using the third opinion process, this tends to be a pretty quick way to help break logjams between two users. The dispute resolution process, in my experience, does work, but it can take some time. And finally, we all get it wrong sometimes-if consensus really has swung against you, sometimes you just have to accept that and move along. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 12:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Being bold, why not merge AFD and RFC and create Articles for discussion? You get loads of people through afd, maybe getting thoe to comment on merges and redirects and content would help. Wikipedia is factionalising badly and we need to start pulling it all together. Steve block Talk 16:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I can see a lot of positive in that idea, but a lot of fragmentation too. It certainly would live up to "AfD is a discussion, not a vote" much better, and as it is, AfD is already de facto used when people are damn well aware that what they really want is a merge and redirect but a couple people are stubbornly standing in the way. On the other hand, AfD stuff tends to be pretty straightforward, and current RfC debates tend to be pretty thorny. I monitor RfC's periodically because I don't mind providing opinions in some more difficult cases, and having everything together like that may cause even more effect of people "piling on the easy ones" without taking the time to help break the really tough logjams that really need it. But...hrm, it's just so damn audacious you got to like it! Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 03:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
      • AFD works for merging, but can't deal with content issues very well. Article RFCs do work reasonably well to my knowledge. >Radiant< 10:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plot summaries

Hi, A quick question, I'm guessing that I could be re-directed somewhere that would answer it quickly. A whole series of books was just put up for deletion for violation of WP:NOT#Indiscriminate sub-point 7. People are arguing back and forth for violates WP:NOT versus meets WP:BK/WP:Notability. This point must have come up before, and I can't seem to find it. There must be many best-selling books out there that have little real-world context to apply, do they all need to be deleted? Is there a discussion or policy somewhere we could refer to? My head says the WP:NOT has a point, but my gut says there must be something else. If no-one wants to expand this on the Village Pump page, feel free to post on my talk page.

Thanks,

WLU 12:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What the heck? Excessively detailed plot summary is bad, but in itself is not reason for deletion of the whole article. Even taking it away, you can still say it's a best selling book, published on such and such a day, recieved such and such reviews, etc. Wizard's_First_Rule#Success offers an example. Not the best quality, but it's of the right type. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 13:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Just closed them as speedy keep, citing ignore all rules, as well as the merge outlined in the nomination and the fact that no other deletion comments have been made other than by the nominator. Relevant discussion on the nominator's talk page also leads me to believe speedy keep applies, [40], [41]. I do not believe the encyclopedia is best served in the deletion of these articles, but in the improving of them. Steve block Talk 10:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
My general policy with overlong plot summaries is to (1) leave a note on the talk page noting the overly detailed summary and indicating an intention to make it more succinct; then (2) come back in a few days and (with no objections) edit it down myself.
I find that many wikipedians have got into the mindset of wanting to tag articles as "bad" or just delete them, rather than taking a half hour to fix them. In the long run, I think my approach will make Wikipedia a better resource. Dr Aaron 11:10, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IRC, assorted messengers, chat rooms, conference calls, Skypecasts, etc in WP collaboration

I have wondered off and on if one or more of these might be of more use in some stages of WP collaborations. There can be a value to more realtime collaborations and discussions, and the internet offers many such options. The IRC provided here could be potentially useful, but I have not found it to be useful in the past. It is true that those in different time zones, or occupied at work might not be able to participate, but many of these other communication channels have facilities for recording the proceedings and making them available, if this is wanted and appropriate. Even currently, editors are free to collaborate by email out of community view on some issues, and then make their position more public here in the conventional WP venue. This is even partially true of collaborations on articles in WP sandboxes, where a small number of editors jointly edit an article's rough draft before inviting the rest of the community to contribute. Are there any relevant policies or discussions that I should be aware of in this regard? Do you have any comments?--Filll 20:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If the only advantage of such things is speed, I question the value. We're not in a race, and the wiki works pretty fast anyway. The disadvantage of all such means of communication is that they leave no on-wiki record to refer to. Sure, as you point out, efforts can be made to make a record, but why make that extra effort when the wiki already does this so easily? Splitting up discussion into multiple places needlessly happens enough on the wiki without complicating matters further by encouraging alternate means of communication. Friday (talk) 20:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
If you are sitting next to another person in the same room, there's all kinds of "human chemistry" that makes it possible to cooperate with them much more productively than if you were each working on your own. There are hundreds of tiny signals going between two people that smooth over differences, and give each other clues as to how to proceed. Modern communications systems are still a very poor substitute for that, but at least they help a little.
If you've ever tried editing an article while discussing details over irc, you'll know what I mean, things go so much more smoothly, just because on irc you actually take some time to send more social signals already :-) ;-) *demonstrates* <see what I mean?>.
And how about mediating a dispute over skype? One recent situation, I was in a dispute with someone; from typed information, I thought she was really angry at me, and would likely cause me a lot of trouble. But on skype I could hear by the tone of her voice that she was calm and even had a sense of humor about the issue. After that, solving the dispute was easy. :-)
All the really good mediators on en.wikipedia say that the best way to mediate a dispute is to go to the pub and have a glass of beer (or coffee) with both parties.
If coding gets tricky, Ward Cunningham recommends taking the code to a cafe and reading together with your friends. (Not to mention the whole concept of pair programming, for instance)
Why would the wiki be different?
Actually, hang on, that's not a bad idea at all! Perhaps we should organize real world editing parties? That might be great fun! (and get us more articles besides ;-) ) --Kim Bruning 21:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's any policy on that in particular. Who's going to make a rule against "conspiring with others to write a great article?" I see nothing wrong with using something a little more realtime to collaborate with someone (or someones), if that's what works best for everyone or it helps to settle a dispute. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 21:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Precicely! So who's good at real world organizing today? --Kim Bruning 21:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I may be the most oblivious person in the world to 'human chemistry', but this argument comes up online all the time and it never makes all that much sense. Time-delayed written communication is ideal for this sort of project, because it tends to be more precise, and allows each participant in the discussion enough time to think through his responses. Things like editing in a sandbox or even collaborating via email on an article are useful mainly as methods of improving the signal-to-noise ratio for work on often-trolled articles where you can't find your last post on the talk page in the midst of the latest pile of soapboxing junk. But hey, do whatever results in better articles. There was at one point an attempt to organize real-time editing collaborations on IRC, but I don't remember what it was called, and AFAIK it petered out pretty quickly. Opabinia regalis 03:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Largely it depends on the articles, although personally I'd prefer to see an audit trail. For fairly vanilla, uncontentious issues then I don't see any harm, although tbh it's not a race, but on conetntious articles then it strikes me as slightly dubious to go discussing things in back channels, unless there is a really good reason for doing so. Where content is contentious then it would seem quite inflammatory not to leave an audit trail.
ALR 16:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
All of the above ways of working are undemocratic, and off-wiki methods ought to be saved for truly sensitive matters. When I first stated here I though off-wiki was a reasonable way to work, having been used to it in other settings, but I soon found I was wrong. I've noticed in passing that there are what appear to be private agreements among groups of editors, and they do serve to keep outsiders away as well as to settle disputes. They may be agreed on-wiki too, but going off-wiki is certainly a way of encouraging cliques. I'm sure it is mainly used for good purposes, but it gives the appearance of behind-the-scences dealing. As WP has frequently been accused of such practices, it's all the more important to avoid them. ) As a practical matter, I mention that WP editors are in every possible time zone, and there is no way to arrange a representative meeting. DGG 03:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
In reality, though, you can't stop it. If I choose to communicate with someone via IRC, or email, or some other type of instant messaging, who can regulate that? Basically, it comes down to trust and common sense. If it becomes obvious that a group is owning an article, to the detriment of that article, the community should step in and tell them to knock it off, regardless of how that situation arose. On the other hand, this is a collaborative project, and part of that is, well, collaborating. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 10:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletions of external links

A wikipedian User:Requestion seems to be obsessed with external links. In software listings, he deletes them, because "wikipedia is not a link farm". He started an edit war, and when I suggested to go to ArbCom, he told that if he looses the case in ArbCom, he will try to delete the whole article. If this does not work, he will again go to ArbCom (and again and again and again...) What to do? Or maybe I make a mistake, and external links for software are prohibited in Wikipedia? What do you think about List of screen capture software and List of screen recording software? --Urod 00:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:External links is the guideline for how to use external links. GRBerry 00:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It would seem that both articles mentioned suffer from lack of sourcing, excessive self promotion, and lack of encyclopedicness. In general articles have a tendency to attract too many external links. >Radiant< 12:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed with Radiant, most articles benefit from a periodic pruning of external links. They tend to get a bit crufty over time, and quite often most of them don't support a bit of content in the article or if they do are redundant. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 12:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
The focus of this dispute revolves around Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links. I also would like to take this opportunity to clear up a misstatement that User:Urod is claiming I said which is factually not true. I never said that I was going to take this issue to ArbCom "again and again and again..." What I said when describing how this dispute was going to be resolved was if ArbCom failed then the article would go up for deletion and if that failed then someone else would repeat this same process over again. I then offered Urod a generous compromise to this dispute to which Urod defiantly responded "No deals with you." (Requestion 17:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC))
To both Urod and Requestion: we are not here to settle any disputes between feuding editors. There are other locations more appropriate for that, and note that you should BOTH provide evidence of your disagreements. The great thing about Wikipedia is that the "paper trail" is easy to trace (but emails are not). Back on-topic: Radiant and Seraphimblade are right-on about WP:EL and redundancy or irrelevance of links; and yes, Requestion has a point about WP:NOT#DIR. As far as I see it, this policy issue is resolved; the feud is to be taken elsewhere. --Thisisbossi 04:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] some random comment

I posted a page someone named Doc Glasgow blocked it? Wht the heck is this about? Some one invites you and me to participate and we enter a benign page and some is waitng in the bushes to play God?

So much for the notion of the perfect democracy the net represents, and oh by the way? There goes the donation to Wikipedia too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pitbullstew (talk • contribs) 14:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Gosh, how terrible. That will teach us! Perhaps policy ought be rewritten. What terrible...people we...ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzZZZ I am quite aware of WP:Civil, but sometimes... 22:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm tempted to go the same path as User:LessHeard vanU, and if anything by the time I'm done writing this I suspect I may have done just that. The reasoning is that your post here is not the most courteous toward Doc Glasgow nor do you provide any indication or evidence of the incident with which you have issue with. You did not even specify what type of article you wrote or what edit you performed. Before launching into attacks on other users because you feel that you have been wronged, maintain civility, assume good faith, and stay cool.
Much of the problem probably arose from the type of edit that you performed. There are numerous guidelines which attempt to curb unencyclopedic articles, which are a common trend among the more inexperienced editors. Not to point fingers at you: we've pretty much all done it (and some of us still do). My first article was an autobiography that I put into the mainspace instead of my user space (if that means anything :P) and my following couple of articles were all speedily deleted. It's disheartening, yes, but I took it upon myself to learn why; and to hope that such deletions do not happen again.
Was I creating articles that were really for my own interests rather than anyone else's? Generally, yes. I've since tried to put a stop to that. I also lost two articles to speedy deletion which I felt could have been helpful to Wikipedia, but at the time I did not have the editing knowhow of how to make a new article be at least somewhat useful in itself. In particular, you must assert its notability as well as write an initial article coherent enough so that other Wikipedians can understand it. You don't have to write perfectly -- there are plenty of gurus involved with grammar, punctuation, and spelling to take care of that (though it's preferable if you at least use spellcheck); but make sure that those proofreaders can comprehend what you are trying to say in the first place. Even just in writing this response, I've reworded it several times because I did not feel that my initial phrasings were the best -- there is always room for improvement.
If you really feel that you have been wronged and never want to come back, so be it. If you don't want to donate, that's fine -- I haven't donated, myself; but Wikipedia seems to be doing just fine from the plethora of others who do donate. On the other hand, if you want to stay here and take it upon yourself to become a worthwhile editor: welcome aboard! We're not all perfect, but edit by edit we try to do the best we can. I will provide several helpful links on your Talk page which may be of assistance, should you decide to stick around. Sláinte! --Thisisbossi 05:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alleged humor, in a sardonic vein

User:Herostratus/Guidelines for uploading photographs Herostratus 18:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge of Wikipedia:Protection policy and Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy

Radiant spearheaded an initiative to merge several policies a few weeks ago (See WP:LAP). A draft of the merged WP:FULL and WP:SEMI is over at User:Steel359/Protection policy and needs more eyes on it. Please leave any comments on it's talk page. One thing to be emphasised is that this is merge is just that - a merge. There is no actual change to the policy itself. – Steel 19:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)

There has been on and off discussion about this manual for a while, but of late the focus has turned to what sort of scope and level of detail should go into a fictional article.

I encourage people to visit the Talk page, but also to take a look at the draft revision that I have put together. It tries to keep all of the existing flavour (particularly about out-of-universe perspectives) but also refocus on the need for notablility, proper attribution, and suitable detail and scope in fictional articles. Cheers, Dr Aaron 12:30, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal - reform AFD (etc) to not be a vote.

I know what you're going to say. It's not a vote, right? Then why do people complain when anons vote? Why aren't you allowed to vote twice? Why do you have to cross out your first vote when changing your vote? Proposed: Abolish the formulaic boldface comments. Anything less is a half-measure. Forbidding people from maintaining tallies or dividing the votes into lists for and against while allowing admins to count votes is inherently self-contradictory. --Random832 21:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC) Withdrawn, speedy archiving. --Random832 16:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Re: IP/pure-SPA contributions. To measure consensus, it makes a difference whether one person is saying the same thing ten times or ten different people are saying it once. With IP/pure-SPA contributions, the closing admin often can't tell the difference. That's why that is a problem.
Re: crossing out the old bolding. This makes it crystal clear when an opinion has been changed. It is my personal opinion that changed opinions are the best indication of the consensus of a discussion and should receive stronger than standard weight, but I don't know of anyone that agrees with me on that point. GRBerry 22:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes the language is awkward when people try to say AfD isn't a vote, then they expect people to behave in a vote-like way. The bold words are crude but they are practical. Most AfDs really aren't very controversial, and are just consensus deletes or keeps, but it would take so much more time to close them without the bolded words. I guess it's a dirty little secret, but the bolding does serve a purpose. We're not ready to walk without that crutch yet. --W.marsh 22:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
    As was discussed one time on WP:VIE, it turns out that our XfD discussions actually are a type of vote in that they are a formal collection of opinion. They just aren't a numerically decided vote, and we dislike using the term vote because it is misleading to people who think "vote" means "majority rules". --tjstrf talk 00:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Anyone who's participated in an AfD knows that they're a vote at the moment, no matter how much some Wikiutopians like to insist it's not. The bolding does help though, for seeing where consensus exists or does not. Lankiveil 06:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC).
Like it or not, XfDs are definitely a vote. However, removing the bolding will not fix this. The discussions will still inevitably end up as a vote, with some arguing editors one side, and some arguing the other. All removing the bolding does is make it harder for admins to determine the consensus on an issue. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 07:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • This is a matter of semantics, it depends on your definition of the word "vote". Suffice it to say that AFDs are "not decided by vote count". If there are problems with AFD, then a change of terms is not going to help resolve them. >Radiant< 12:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    • My proposal was to actually change how things are done, not just what they're called - don't have the boldface words there at all, so that the closing admin has to actually read and understand the discussion. --Random832 15:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, but you're in effect adding length to an already-backlogged process, with little benefit. You seem to assume that closing admins don't actually read and understand the discussion; do you have any evidence to back up that allegation? >Radiant< 10:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not a vote

For the skeptics regarding the statement that "XfD is not a vote", here are a few examples of discussions I've closed in the last couple of months. (I have counter examples on keep also with a majority of 'delete' opinions, but I didn't happen to keep track of those.) You decide.

[edit] Appropriate

All of the above seem to have been handled properly. I will always applaud an admin who looks at the merit of the issue instead of just simply counting votes. Wikipedia is very vulnerable to being inappropriately swayed by small and persistant "niche groups" (fanboys) of a particular article (or its topic). SPA's and vote-mongering can be real problems when trying to fairly apply policy; cheers to the admins who do more than vote count. ;-) /Blaxthos 21:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations and Subcultures

I've written an essay at Wikipedia:Citation as Regards Newer Phenomena proposing that we ought to do something (change or clarify policy) to resolve the same dispute which has, albeit with different names, been dragging on for several years with respect to articles about subcultures with a supernatural bent. Discussion regarding it and editing of it would be awesome. Falcon 04:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Notability (academics)

The proponents of Wikipedia:Notability (academics) believe that this should be adopted as a guideline. However, there is opposition to further instruction creep as it is questionable whether academics represent a special case sufficient enough to require special guidelines. Further concerns exist as to the wording etc. Please join the discussion at the talk page. --Kevin Murray 19:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:PROFTEST (Wikipedia:Notability (academics)) has been a proposed guideline used at WP:AFD debates regularly since at least July of last year; see Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#inactive? for a selected list of AfD debates that demonstrate the guideline's acceptance in the community. With the exception of a few minor wording tweaks, the proposal has been stable for about a year. One or two comments about instruction creep have come up, but in this case, these guidelines are sorely needed, because success as an academic is not something inherently clear and obvious. Before the proposal stabilized, people had been very inconsistent in their opinions about notability for academics, but things have been much better since then. It has recently been recognized by User:Radiant, an outsider not involved in the proposal's development (and a tough critic), that this guideline is de facto accepted, and marked as a {{guideline}}. I'd like to invite other members of the community to review the discussion and my case study, and form an opinion on the matter. Mangojuicetalk 22:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Instruction creep is inevitable. Bad instructions need to be struck down and salted. WP:PROF is not one of those. It's useful. I thought it is an official guideline already, actually.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 04:20, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I should point out that, while the content of the page looks good, it may still be an improvement with respect to comprehensiveness and clarity to merge it with WP:BIO. Note that the shortcut WP:PROF used to redirect there as well, before Notability(academics) was written. >Radiant< 13:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
    • To this end, the guidelines at BIO have been enhanced to include most of the agreed criteria at PROF, under a section which would be applicable to scientists, artists, designers, and other creative professions. A merger of PROF could be accomplished by adding academics and professors to this list. Some of the discussion and example material at PROF could be featured in a supporting essay. --Kevin Murray 18:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Notability/overview Discussion of guideline permutations, aka:instruction creep.

There is a discussion beginning at Wikipedia talk:Notability/overview to consider whether we need to develop complex permutations of instructions regarding notability. New proposals are springing up with greater frequency and in some cases being "passed" by several advocates without robust scrutiny. Please join the discussion. Thanks! --Kevin Murray 20:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I have followed the arguments on the discussion pages of several of these proposed guidelines. There seemed to be common ground on the ones for shopping malls WP:MALL , religious congregations and their buildings WP:CONG , and the nonencyclopedic nature of some crimes, missing persons, cute animals, or other "water-cooler stories" which nonetheless were covered by several newspapers or tv news programs at WP:NOTNEWS . The need for these was seen in AFDs where the same arguments were repeated over and over at each AFD for the items. Kevin, a self described "inclusionist" and a couple of other editors have claimed these proposals should be merged with more general proposals, and that they are "rejected" on the basis apparently that there is not unanimity or that several persons object to them. With some diehard inclusionists who want anything anyone types into or cut and pastes into Wikipedia kept, and some diehard deletionists raising the bar such that only internationally respected sources and subjects count for notability, and others shouting "INSTRUCTIONCREEP" wanting every policy downgrades to a guideline, and every guideline tagged as "disputed" or downgraded to an essay, there should at least be an effort to take the heart of these proposals into the guideline it gets redirected to. Kevin in a comment said [42] that since in his view one of the proposals "lacked consensus" (or perhaps lacked editors as tenacious in editwarring over its status) there was no need to include anything from it in the guideline it got redirected to. I see this as a mistake which will only insure that future AFDs remain tendentious and repetitious refights of what was already talked through in the discussion pages of the various proposed guidelines presently under attack. A proposed guideline was probably not created to include all articles about a subject or to delete all articles, but to provide bright line guides and to list good reference guides to help determins notability for subjects of a given kind. Worries about "INSTRUCTIONCREEP" should not be allowed to eliminate useful instructions in favor of vague generalities. Edison 21:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recreated images on my talk page.

OK, heres the situation. I have recreated various images and uploaded them. However it has been bought to my attention (By one user letting me know on my talk page, my userpage being edited by an administrator...) that I am not allowed to display my own work. I am quite aware of Rule #9 of Wikipedia:Fair use, but I don't believe that this case is what the rule is talking about. I created the images because there were NO alternatives available (free or nonfree) and therefore I am partial copyright owner. I have been told that I can link to them inline, but frankly this is not acceptable, and according to a recent court case[43] copyright infringement. If nessary I will put a fair use assertion on the images to allow them on my userpage, because frankly I don't think this is very fair. I have spent hours working on these things and I think I should get the right to display them. I know it sounds like I am throwing a tantrum, and I probably am, but as partial copyright holder to these images, I would be tempted to list them for deletion if I cannot display my own work!

Here are the images:

Fosnez 07:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

If I'm understanding your complaint correctly, I think what you're actually dealing with here is trademark infringement. Your images were created by you, but if they substantially duplicate the copyrighted/trademarked logos of the agencies and companies that you based them on, it's still not your image. I can't create a traced copy of McDonalds' Golden Arches and claim them as my own work, because there's no original content there. Does that help explain why they're being removed? -- nae'blis 15:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • If I understand your post, you added the fair use images to the appropriate articles, but you also want to display these same fair use images on your user page. Your Cairns City Council image might be a work made for hire, in which case your employer owns the copyright, not you. The other items may be derivative works, which only the copyright holder has a right to create. You cannot be a "partial" copyright holder of a derivative work where you create that work without permission from the original copyright holder. As for what images you can display on your user page, you might want to review images on user pages. It is a mistake to think of your user page as a homepage: Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, or social networking site. Remember, your user page is not "your" user page, it's Wikipedias. -- Jreferee 02:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reliable Sources

It has been pointed out that nearly everything on the WP:RS page is also covered in the policy for Attribution and/or its faq page. It has also been pointed out that we have so many policy/guideline pages that it gets confusing to new users. Hence, the intent is to double-check that the page has basically become redundant, and merge/redirect it into WP:ATT. Comments on this are welcome. >Radiant< 08:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:RS is only a guideline. Do we want to elevate everything in it into a policy?--Runcorn 10:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It's not a matter of elevation, considering the important issues of RS are already part of ATT. >Radiant< 16:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd agree that sourcing and reliability should be elevated to policy, but I'm concerned about the number of holes in ATT and the associated FAQ.
There is a fundamental approach issue which I think is unhelpful; reliability cannot be dictated based on a number of individual rules, but sources need to be assessed based on a number of characteristics. The dogmatic approach being taken in ATT isn't specially helpful.
ALR 10:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Please bring that up on the ATT talk page. >Radiant< 16:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I have, a number of times. Each time garners the sum total of nil responses. Doesn't fill me with confidence.ALR 16:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I totally agree that the WP:RS page is now redundant. Like the WP:VER and WP:NOR pages, I think it should be left as an archive and be tagged with:
  • "This page has been incorporated into Wikipedia:Attribution"
  • "This Wikipedia page is currently inactive and is kept primarily for historical interest."
As a side note, I have less of an object to WP:ATT than ALR above - I don't interpret ATT as being overly dogmatic, and I also accept that it has been reached by general consensus as an practical policy.
Dr Aaron 12:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with archiving WP:RS and marking it as historical. It's another example of instruction creep. The Transhumanist 00:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Not only that, but confusing. I've been happily editing for several months now, using these "old" policies as reference, and one day the change. Heck, I just learned about the change! --Otheus 21:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Why not list the changes necessary to WP:ATT on the talk page and see if you ger consensus on their inclusion?--Runcorn 18:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A dispute over the Disputedtag

There has been a small edit war over the placement of the {{Disputedtag}} on WP:N with regards some recent "disputes" about both the text of the guideline and whether it should remain as guideline at all. --Farix (Talk) 03:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The edit war escalated until an admin stepped in and protected the WP:N page. To facilitate productive editing after the block expires, I have put a straw poll on the discussion page at WT:N#Straw Poll. Please carefully consider the options and weigh in. Note that this poll relates only to next steps for editing the page once it is unprotected; it is not the place to comment on Notability in general. Dhaluza 15:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mission creep: Has any official policy or guideline ever been abolished?

Has any official policy or guideline ever been abolished?

From my two bad experiences with policy, it appears that a small group of vocal and influential editors make a page an official policy or guideline, and once it attains that title, no matter how dubious the path taken, it is difficult, if not impossible to roll back this policy.

Has any official policy or guideline ever been abolished? Travb (talk) 04:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure WP:AGF used to be a policy. That's one example. Grandmasterka 04:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Wait, AGF is no longer policy? Considering how often it's cited as a factor in complaints about user behaviour it's certainly not being treated as if it were just a guideline. Checking the talk page it looks like the reason was that it's not something you can strictly enforce, which makes sense, so I guess it's not a problem. It just seems odd. --tjstrf talk 07:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Not sure about this. Civility is still a policy, and assume good faith seems to be a guideline that clarifies civility in practice. I agree with Radiant, what makes a guidelines less actionable than policy, other than a mistaken perception? ColourBurst 15:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
As long as you're thinking of 'promoting' and 'demoting' pages you're not really understanding what policies are and how they work. The difference between pol and g is somewhat nebulous anyway. >Radiant< 08:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments radiant, I changed the question. Although unfortunatly your response does not answer the question that I was actually asking. I apologize for the confusion in my question.
If I ever need to know about how wikipolicy works, I will come ask you first, since you probably are much more involved with wikipolicy then most wikiusers.
Back to the (changed) original question: Radiant, has any official policy or guideline ever been abolished? I guess now that I think of it, WP:PAIN is one example. Others? Travb (talk) 01:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, WP:V and WP:NOR, but those weren't "demoted" per se, just deprecated upon being merged to WP:ATT. Some have also been significantly altered (the old VfD to the AfD system, etc.). I'm not sure if one's ever been abolished outright, usually things like that are changed rather then totally done away with. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 01:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Okay, sorry for the confusion. As Seraphim says, generally things are changed rather than stopped. Two examples of things we stopped, off the top of my head, are the notion that usernames must be in the Latin alphabet (which used to be part of the username policy) and the notion that removing warnings from your talk page is considered vandalism (which used to be part of the vandalism oplicy). I don't think it's generally possible to abolish a policy or guideline, because removing the "rule" won't stop people from doing it anyway; effectively, you can't legislate Wikipedia. >Radiant< 10:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL -- What a brilliant point -- Ignore all rules is the only rule! Beg to differ. Guidelines and Policies are VERY VERY different. One is foundation laws, the other has room to ignore and exercise editorial latitude, as the banner messages say. Otherwise all the bloodletting and elimination of 'good faith photos' (mainly local politicians publicity photos), wouldn't have taken place. Looks like we need a guideline on how something can become a guideline, and how something can be discarded. Sometimes it's best to simply start over... ask any signer of the US Constitution! Hopefully, WP:NOTE is headed that way too. Cheers // FrankB 19:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a policy or guideline that says "ignore all rules" or words to that effect? (And if I could find it again I'd make a note of it here.) Cryptonymius 19:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes there is, and it's easily found at Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, or WP:IAR for shorts. ;-) Circeus 20:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to deal with a User's talk page which is solely used for personal attacks?

I'm reluctant to delete comments from a user's talk page, and understand this is a no-no. But if a user himself/herself adds nonsense or defamatory material to his/her own page, what's the best way of having it removed. Example: User:Skylinegtrr34 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tt 225 (talk • contribs) 12:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

If it qualifies as vandalism, simply remove it as vandalism. Also, even if it is not vandalism, you can give the attacker a warning to stop their personal attacks. Captain panda In vino veritas 14:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it is not that simple... It is indeed frowned on to edit another user's page... and the same goes for removing material from his/her talk page. The first step is to politely ask the user to remove the material you find offensive. If that does not work, bring the subject up with the admins at WP:ANI and let them deal with it. Blueboar 15:01, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Will bring it up with the user in question, without a great deal of success expeccted! Tt 225 16:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm missing something here. Which part is the personal attack in that example? (I'm sure I'm missing something reeeally obvious; I just can't figure out what it is) Bladestorm 16:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

If there is consensus that they are personal attacks, I believe our policy has been to delete them, per Wikipedia:User page guideline and WP:NPA. Community policies, including Wikipedia:No personal attacks, apply to your user space just as they do elsewhere. and material that does not somehow further the goals of the project may be removed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 16:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I personally don't see anything that could be construed as a personal attack, although personal information is revealed that someone may want removed. -sthomson06 (Talk) 20:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I do not find any of the information to be particularly offensive. I agree that there may be information that the named individuals may or may not wish to be shared, though. Tt 225, make sure to sign your posts by adding --~~~~ to the end of your posts to discussion pages. --Thisisbossi 22:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
You are correct - "personal attacks" was strongly overstating the case, now that I re-read the userpage. What I thought objectionable was the posting of personal information on named individuals. I still think it's inappropriate to use the userpages to say that a named individual spends her day lounging around in someone's bed. Nevertheless thanks for the discussion. Tt 225 12:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the unsourced, contentious material since was in violation of WP:BLP. The rest may fall under What can I not have on my user page? -- Jreferee 00:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Historiography.2C_nationalism_and_reliability

An important issue is raised at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Historiography.2C_nationalism_and_reliability. Should the RS guideline discuss histographical/ideological bias commonly found in some sources? Obvious example: Nazi sources will be anti-semitic, and Soviet pro-Marxist. Less obvious: Western historiography, particulary from the first half of the 20th century and earlier, will have a 'Western bias'. Should we note that such sources are likely to be less reliable when discussing certain issues then modern academic work done in countries respecting free speach and academic ethics? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 15:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

First, RS is in flux... in all likelihood it will be merged with WP:ATT. So any discussion on this should essentially be redirected there. My thoughts on the subject is that bias is not really the realm of RS (more NPOV). A source can be reliable under our rules and still be biased. The key is how you use it... a history written with a distinct Nazi or Soviet bias is certainly reliable for what it says (as a statement of the opinion of the author if nothing else)... however, it should probably be placed in context and discribed as potentially biased in the article. Blueboar 17:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: tenure system for administrators

Could en.wikipedia build up a tenure system for administrators?

In meta.wikimedia administrators are not granted for one year.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Administrators

Poll after a year Sysop-hood is not a lifetime status. Get it if you need it. Keep it if people trust you. Quit it if you do not need it. Lose it if people feel they cannot trust you. Sysop status on meta will be granted for one year. After that time, people will be able to vote to oppose a sysop. If there is no opposition for the sysop to stay sysop, then they stay sysop. If opposition is voiced, then the sysop may lose sysopship if support falls below 75%. No quorum is required. It is not a vote to gain support status, but a poll to express disagreement with the current situation. The point is not to bug everyone to vote to support the sysop again (if there is no opposition, there is no point in voting your support again), the point is to not allow sysop-hood status to stay a lifetime status. If a sysop is not really strongly infringing rules, but is creating work for the community because of a lack of trust, then it is best that people have the possibility to express their opposition.

Could we have a more democratic wikipedia?

Thanks.

--Typepage 11:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

This should probably be on WP:VPR, since that's the proposals board. The reason admins are not required to stand for reconfirmation is that their work by necessity annoys people. This is why Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship has never been instated and probably won't be in the forseeable future. If we followed the meta system, there pretty much wouldn't be any admins left 12 months from now. --tjstrf talk 11:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Most admins don't last 12 months anyways, they stop volunteering. There is always a steady flow of new ones. SchmuckyTheCat 11:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
  • That's not actually true; over 80% of our 1000 admins are still active. At any rate, this is a WP:PEREN issue; the main problem is that reconfirming 20 admins per week would overload RFA. >Radiant< 14:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I guess it's a tough choice. Recall would lead to unpopular admins being singled out, universal reconfirmation would be too much work. I really think we ought to have recall anyway; in a consensus-based system, broad-based unpopularity is a sign that something's wrong. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RS to be merged and redirected to WP:ATT

Please NOTE: After due discussion on both talk pages, the guideline WP:RS is about to be superceeded by, and redirected to the new policy WP:ATT. The core aspects of RS are contained in ATT, so this should not cause any change in how we actually edit... basically the change is simply where the rules are to be found, not to the rules themselves. Blueboar 18:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposals: What defines consensus?

I am involved in a proposal to merge two articles about a controversial topic. Both sides of the merge debate are very resolute in their positions, and the debate has become more and more acrimonious with time, with one RfC being filed against a user's behavior. I would like to close the merge proposal but am "afraid" that the other side will cry foul. I have contacted a few neutral admins to close this for me, but none have responded, most likely as a result of the huge talk page, and abrasive behavior of some users. So.... before attempting to close the merge proposal, and do it, I would like to know if the debate has achieved consensus. I realize that wikipedia is not a democracy, but clearly, if there is a vote that is 100 to 1, this would seem to indicate community consensus.

So, here is a summary of the merge debate. Could you let me know if you think this is a "consensus" or not? This appears to be a super-majority, but "consensus"? And if this is not consensus, what is the best way to resolve this issue?

Support merge: 9
Weak support for merge: 1
Oppose merge: 4

If you really want to know more about the specifics, go here. Thanks. Lunokhod 19:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it too late for me to add my vote for scrapping this article all together? It is poorly written, and comes very close to being Fringe. (I can't beleive someone actually thinks we need this article... but I guess it takes all types.) Blueboar 20:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Please help build consensus by expressing your opinion on the talk page. However, you should not take the quality of writing/article into consideration: the article is new, and as the result of an edit war, it has been blocked. Lunokhod 21:01, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, in Wikipedia consensus is a fallacy. The adversarial decision system, particularly when treated as a voting model, leads to confrontation rather than effort to achieve a consensus. Facilitation of a debate towards consensus is achieved by only a few, and tbh Blueboar is one of those who can help that process.
As soon as you get into a voting situation you're heading towards a majority opinion. you could take the admin vote route and consider an overwhelming majority as consensus, I think they're on about 70 percent and rising.
Appreciate this doesn't help but you have a clear majority there.
ALR 21:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unicode characters in article titles

Please take a look at Talk:We Love Katamari and Talk:I ♥ Huckabees. Two debates were held deciding whether to use the Unicode heart symbol. The decisions were different. One now uses the special character in the article title, one does not. Shouldn't the policy be universal, either allowing the Unicode character or not? (Also, if you think this subject would fit better under another Village Pump section, please say so.) Thanks! Joie de Vivre 20:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

No, this is not an example where we should be consistent. The Huckabees article was ruled to be a special exception to the general rule because the heart character is apparently highly significant to the history of the movie or some such, while the heart in We love Katamari, like the star in Lucky Star (manga), is merely decorative. --tjstrf talk 08:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Both of the discussions in the I ♥ Huckabees article ended up with no consensus and there's nothing in the article itself that indicates the symbol being "apparently highly significant to the history of the movie", so I don't think that by itself is a reason to justify calling it an exception, unless you have sourced evidence that I missed. Note that there is consensus in We Love Katamari, and I don't really see anything different in the other article (except that more people like the movie.) The issue could still be reopened at some point. ColourBurst 23:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Language characters in article titles.

Please see Natto. I noticed that word in the URL reads "Natto", while the word displayed as the title of the page (on the page itself) reads Nattō. How was this accomplished? What is the actual title of the article?

I thought this had been accomplished with the following markup...

<div id="title-override" class="topicon" style="font-size: 188%; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.1em; float: left; position: absolute; left: 0.5em; top: 1px; width: 90%; background: {{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|{{FULLPAGENAME}}|white|#F8FCFF}}; display:none">Title displayed on page</div>

...but it seems I was wrong. Can someone explain how it was done with the Natto article, why it was done, and under what circumstances it should be done? (Also, if you think this subject would fit better under another Village Pump section, please say so.) Thanks! Joie de Vivre 20:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Natto redirects to Nattō, so the article you are reading is the Nattō article. You can find more on redirects at Wikipedia:Redirect. The redirect will have been placed because many people cannot type an ō on their keyboard, so the redirect makes the article easier to reach. The URL in the browser says the article you have been directed from (not sure why), and under 'From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia' under the title it also says where you have been redirected from. Hope that answers your question, mattbr30 22:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The browser URL is the article redirected from because the redirect is done on the Wikipedia side of the web fetch (not by sending the browser the HTTP response that says "go fetch this article from a different URL"). -- Rick Block (talk) 03:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Election Coverage

Please see Wikipedia:Election Coverage for a new take on an old proposal for election articles, and a very long rant by yours truly regarding its content. --Moralis 22:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:BLP courtesy deletion

I've created the first draft of a proposed policy to allow some BLPs to be deleted if the subject of the article requests it. Help in getting the draft up to scratch would be appreciated. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Why would we need a new policy on this? We already have a process for article deletion. Squidfryerchef 15:23, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
No this makes sense... a lot like {{Prod}} and {{db-author}}. Wikipedia shouldn't be in the business of making someone into a public figure who is not. The guideline would not apply if the party had become a figure in a matter much covered in the press--or so I would think. // FrankB 19:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Polemic and WP:NPOV

Recently, I saw an interesting research on bible and violence, and as such I placed it in the article. Howeve,r it was quite frequently reverted by User:Lostceasar User:Lostcaesar twice, who accused me of being NPOV and polemic. My question is: whether it actually is a NPOV on either my part or on his part, and what exactly consitute as "polemic" to the point of violating WP:NPOV? Thanks. George Leung 08:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Which article? Was it salient to the article? Did it have a reliable source? Metamagician3000 12:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
It's in bible, and from a research by a guy in University of Michigan. Of cours,e I probably violated OR on that. However, I truly do not believe that it is a soapbox, which is what User:Lostcaesar accused me of, aside of being a polemic. I believe that it is a valid textual criticism, though perhaps in the wrong section. George Leung 21:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
It is ... er ... a bit tangential to that article and was properly deleted IMO (I can say this confidently, having checked what you wrote). If there is an article somewhere that deals with the psychological effects of religion, or something, it might be more appropriate there. In that sort of context, I don't see why it would necessarily be original research, but anyone using such material would have to cite and attribute its conclusions ("reading the Bible makes you more violent" according to Foo's research, or "reading all the violence in the Bible is cathartic and makes you less violent" according to Snark's article in Psychological Boojums), rather than drawing inferences of their own from it. Metamagician3000 05:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Fromowner documentation

While not technicaly policy this is somethign people interested in free images and the like might want to look at.Geni 12:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This is horribly confusing and I'm sure it'd confuse anyone else who was referred to it. What's the point? Who's it aimed at? How is this any different from the existing upload text? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I get the idea. The current documentation and wording is pretty bad, I had to go see it in practice. You'd be much better off having an example use on the documentation page. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The upper section of the documentation page is aimed at admins who need to know what pages to edit if stuff needs to be changed. It uses some rather obscure software features which most admins probably wont know.Geni 15:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The upper section should be aimed at people who want to know what the heck it's all for. It's not that I don't know the software features, it's that it gives no sense of its purpose. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
It's called documentation for a reason. If you want to add an what it is about please do so.Geni 21:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, wtf: "When you use this upload page you must release your work under GFDL and the Creative Commons share-alike licenses which allow everyone to use, alter, and redistribute your work for any purpose. This release is not revocable."

We DO NOT mandate the use of GFDL or CC-SA. People can release their images under ANY free license. This must be changed to allow the use of any acceptable free license. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

If people want the other upload stuff under other lisences they can use the main upload form. The current setup is meant to keep things simple rather than 30 different options all meaning something slightly differnt.Geni 15:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
You shouldn't lie to people and potentially discourage them from uploading on a page that's going to be plastered all over and linked from thousands of articles. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't lie. Look most people don't care about lisences (For example I suspect most people on this page don't know about the argument over CC 3.0 lisences) thus there is little point in giving them a massive list of options which is likely to confuse them.Geni 21:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The page is incredibly confusing: having read over it, I still don't know what it's talking about. anthonycfc [talk] 21:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
It is talking about the kind of thing you see in Philip Humber.Geni 22:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok I've reworked it somewhat.Geni 02:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proxying

Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying."

From Wikipedia:Banning policy.

I've been asked by a temporarily banned (one month) user to post his opinions to discussions, but not article content. I've tentatively said yes if I can follow WP policies in doing so. Most likely I'd disagree with the proxied opinions and I'm the one who requested the ban in the first place, my interest is in fairness to a unique voice. My reasoning is that discussions need varied opinions in order to create a consensus that will stand.

I've seen this done at RfC and RfAr where e-mailed comments to Admins, Clerks, or ArbCom members are re-posted because of a ban or to preserve anonymity in presenting a controversial opinion. This is entirely different from that though.

Guidance?

SchmuckyTheCat 18:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

A better option is for the person to email you with concerns, if you find any of those concerns valid then bring them up and paraphrase them. Parroting the opinions of a banned user is not acceptable however. JoshuaZ 19:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
It would be parroting, as I vehemently disagree with them. Even though I disagree and regularly arguediscuss with him, I do not want this user being shut out completely. SchmuckyTheCat 03:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, consider the reason for the block. If they were just blocked for simple vandalism or 3RR, I see less trouble, but if they were blocked for disruptive behavior on the talk page this would make you an accomplice. —dgiestc 19:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The user has a long history of being blocked. They are blocked for edit-warring pursuant to ArbCom sanction. While I applaud (and requested) the blocks to articles, I think his input on certain discussions/etc provide valid input. SchmuckyTheCat 03:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
While this ounds like a good idea, how would this really be enforced. Unless the messenger says "So-and-so who is blocked asked me to say this", there isn't much proof. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
SchmuckyTheCat is aware of this dispute and presumably can exercise good judgment about what does or does not constitute subverting the block. And if he posts something obviously inflammatory by another user, that can be caught. —dgiestc 20:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I'd use my judgment. There wouldn't be anything inflammatory about it. Just very specific discussions on guideline pages etc that deal with his expertise. SchmuckyTheCat 03:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you to those who responded. It doesn't look like a good idea, per JoshuaZ. SchmuckyTheCat 03:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename AfD

I think that Articles for Deletion should be renamed "Articles for Discussion." Many of the articloes taken there don't need deletion. Many are merged and redirected to other articles. CFD, UCFD, and RFD already use "discussion." Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I thought "article discussion" was what the talkpages are for. Articles listed on AfD are there expressly because they're under review for removal, not so people can chat about them. Of course many articles there don't need deletion, that's why we have AfD instead of just giving everybody deletion privileges, but that doesn't preclude the fact that they're there because somebody thought they should be deleted. SnurksTC 20:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The others are "for Discussion" because they're also used for things like moves, merges and category renaming. We have specialized pages for that when it comes to articles so articles should only be on AfD if up for deletion, hence the name. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
You know, it would be interesting to see what we would be left with if everyone did have instant deletion privileges. Just a hypothetical. Blueboar 01:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Lots of banned people for wheel warring, that's what. --tjstrf talk 01:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Since the policy is that people listing for deletion should try to improve the article first, and a reasonable number actually do try, the "discussion" seems more applicable. Further, it frequently happens that during the course of the AfD, the various editors making comments, especially those who want to keep the article, do make contributions during the 5 day period. . Other people do likewise. It seems that the thought of impending deletion sharpens the impulse for working on the article. People sometimes add material for articles at AfD when they can do so easily on articles they would not otherwise see or on subjects they would otherwise not edit. Discussion is the way. An ideal AfD leads to upgradable articles being upgrading, and those impossible to upgrade sufficiently being deleted. Often it does indeed do just that. DGG 16:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scheufele article question

Like Senator Kerry, I tend to see in hundreds of shades of gray. Perhaps someone with more experience will illuminate this for me. I just ran across this article, which it turns out is an autobiographical entry. So first off, it's blatant WP:AUTO. However, (second), the article is basically NPOV (except for the self-important claim of his research being cited "hundreds" of times). Third, the links given on the page are (1) his vanity home page under his own domain name, (2) the university of Wisconsin home page, (3) an "under construction" page to a departmental home page. Fourth, "what links here" shows that one article does reference him (Spiral of silence). Fifth, he edited that article, but actually removed a reference to one of his papers. So, what to do? I mean, conservatively, I could put this under AfD, but I don't consider myself a deletionist. So as I said, I'm looking for comments. (Should I have posted under RfC?) --Otheus 20:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd just move it into userspace. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 20:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, my only real issue is with WP:NPOV. Er, also the article's name -- it should at least be Dietram Scheufele or Dietram A. Scheufele. In issues where someone is skirting the line of notability, I tend to learn toward WP:NOT#PAPER. Therefore, my personal opinion is that the article can stand; but it needs more editors. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 21:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I have Proded it as being a vanity page that does not cite sources. But I have no problem if someone wants to add them. Blueboar 01:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chemicals and mathematical formulae

Two separate groups but:

"A number" of entries for both categories consist of largely technical information.

What might be useful (for "persons coming across the term in other contexts" as well as casual "random article link clickers" would be an opening sentence/paragraph to the following effect:

"This is an organic/inorganic/other category chemical.

It was discovered/developed in (date) by (person/corporation).

It is used in xyz context."

"This mathematical formula was developed by (names) in (date).

It is used in xyz context/area of science etc."

Jackiespeel 15:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The most famous and notable of formulae get articles - see Euler's formula, ethanol, polypropylene, etc., and they all state their uses, as they should. Is there a specific article that you wish to have context added to? x42bn6 Talk 14:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two polls re policy

Please participate in these polls: Wikipedia talk:Attribution#Poll re "verifiability, not truth" versus "attributable ... not whether it is true". and Wikipedia talk:Attribution#Poll re handling of apparently false, but attributable, statements. Thank you. --Coppertwig 14:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People Specific Pages (and Right to Deny the Info by that person)

Should poeple be allowed to delete info about themselves on pages...? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.73.249.178 (talk) 18:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

Editing an encyclopedia page about yourself can be considered a Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest. -GhostPirate 19:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Adding information or selectively omitting information to steer the reader toward another viewpoint could definitely be a violation of WP:NPOV. However, I also believe that individuals have a right to privacy as guaranteed by their national origins and/or the State of Florida (where Wikipedia's servers are located). As to how privacy requests are handled, I'm not sure... but I'm not particularly sure that they are at all, as the very nature of Wikipedia does not provide much mechanism for pursuing those requests. Additionally, editors are bound to cry "censor!" should there be attempts to heed privacy requests. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 20:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia's verifiability policy takes care of the right-to-privacy issue: basically, Wikipedia cannot be the first publisher of a fact about an individual. If something is widely-known enough to belong in Wikipedia, including it in Wikipedia will have no additional impact on the person's privacy. If it can't be verified, the fact should certainly be removed. --Carnildo 22:19, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
The relevant policy is Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. It may be questionable whether someone is who they say they are, we should assume that they are in the absence of evidence otherwise. "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately, and without discussion from" (every page, whether an article or not). See more specifically Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Dealing with edits by the subject of the article. We discourage people from adding content about themselves (that is better done by suggesting it and a source on the talk page) "subjects of articles remain welcome to edit articles to correct inaccuracies, to remove inaccurate or unsourced material, or to remove libel." GRBerry 22:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Jimmy Wales (back in 2005) was caught trying to delete some less-than-impressive parts of his own page on Wikipedia. However, he was indeed caught, and he agreed to return the stuff back to his page. I think that if a part of someone's life is properly sourced, then no one, not even the person himself/herself should remove it. Diez2 23:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons applies, and it gives a lot more scope, these days, to delete damaging and poorly-referenced material. The basis of the policy is that we are not here to do harm. Metamagician3000 08:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A change in notability proposal

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Notability's talk page and the new proposal at Wikipedia:Article inclusion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Policy on partial articles?

This must have come up before, but what is the consensus on how to handle an article like State Volunteer Emergency Personnel Light Laws? The article was intended as a repository on what kinds of lights and sirens are permitted for volunteer firefighters in different states, but right now only has Connecticut, and it isn't getting a lot of attention. Should I propose this for deletion? Is there a guideline about when creating an article that a certain portion of it should be complete before it goes on the Wikipedia? Because I would be OK with it if it had 37 states but not with just one. Squidfryerchef 03:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I have two comments; 1) If it is notable and encyclopedic then place a wikify template on it, hopefully it will get the attention it needs. Many good articles have grown from a stub, even limited ones. 2) I am glad that you mentioned Connecticut, because nowhere in the title does it mention that the article is intended to refer to US States only, rather than the State apparatus of various Nations. Perhaps defining the area the article covers will prompt more help, so a renaming will help. LessHeard vanU 13:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the very topic of the page is encyclopedic. It's the sort of thing that should either be covered in articles about state emergency personnel or left to Wikisource or Wikibooks. This sort of information is not useful sifted out of context and runs the risk of becoming a WP:NOT violation as a guide. —Cuiviénen 02:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
The article is pretty much a leaf of Light bar, which describes emergency vehicle lighting and what the different colors mean in various countries. It already has a section on volunteer's personal vehicles, which already has info for Connecticut. I'd prefer that people interested in the topic use Light bar as an incubator, and wait to split off a new article when it is able to stand on its own. At this point I'm ready to PROD or AFD State Volunteer Emergency Personnel Light Laws but feel WP:NOT doesn't exactly fit. I feel the subject is encyclopedic enough, (otherwise I wouldn't be editing Light bar), but I'm at a loss of how to phrase why I want to delete the article. Squidfryerchef 02:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
The phrasing would then be that it's redundant with Light bar and doesn't merit a separate article. —Cuiviénen 03:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I've PROD'ed it. Squidfryerchef 03:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usurpation

Hi, I just Usurped User:Capuchin from User:Capubadger

My talk link when signed in as capuchin redirected me to User_talk:Capuchin (usurped). That looked horrible so i changed it to redirect to plain User_talk:Capuchin. Is this against usurpation policy? Is there a reason it redirected to Capuchin (usurped)?

Thanks, Capuchin 08:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do OED and Random House dictionaries have precedence over Google hits in a naming dispute?

We have a newly introduced foreign word—for an apparel worn in South and Central Asia—for which Google hits (by a 666,000 to 207,000) favor one spelling, "salwar," while two dictionaries, OED and Random House Unabridged prefer another, "shalwar." Websters Unabridged and American Heritage Dictionary don't include the word in any spelling. (For a discussion, see Shalwar vs. Salwar Redux). Can OED over-rule Google hits? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that WP:Attribution prefers established published sources over webpages. Is there any indication of the references used of the 666/207k split? LessHeard vanU 22:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You'd be hard put to find a more reliable source, at least for British usage, than the OED. If anyone wanted to assert the validity of the Google search, they'd have to demonstrate that the majority of sites included many reliable ones, and more of them than the minority. It is likely that most of these sites are just copies of each other with no independent authority.--Runcorn 22:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The only thing is, of course, that the OED is not particularly up to date, it reflects English usage only up to the 70s or 80s (supposing that the real OED is in fact where you looked, and not some of the other dictionary made by Oxford UP). If you want commonness in present-day English, then some other dictionary would be a better choice. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
OED online gives spellings up to 1973 ("shalvar") and 1977 ("salwar-kameez") under main head shalwar, and notes as variants "Also salvar, salwar, shalvar, shulwar, shulwaur". Whilst the online OED is updated, it's unlikely to add a new citation simply to show contemporary currency, so the last date of '77 doesn't say anything either way. In smaller dictionaries it's bemused; Concise Oxford English Dictionary (2004) gives salwar; New Oxford American Dictionary (2001) salwar; Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2004) shalwar; Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English (2002) shalwar... it's all a muddle. Pick one and stick with it - Anita Desai is the OED's '77 citation, and she uses salwar, so that's good enough for me... Shimgray | talk | 23:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You can simply present the competing spellings and attribute them to the sources found. That would be the best way to approach it. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:USER violation?

There is currently an omnibus deletion debate regarding several user pages containing notes from other editors, please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Autograph books for the debate. — xaosflux Talk 02:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Watermarks on images

I'd just like some extra input on this situation. According to Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#User-created_images, watermarked images may not be used. However, shouldn't a free image that is watermarked be preferred over a fair use image? As much as I hate the idea of a watermarked image, this seems like it would be common sense, especially considering actions shots of athletes are few and far between. The reason why I am asking is that User:Cavic owns the copyrights for a number of fantastic actions shots of NBA players. He wants to let Wikipedia use them, but unfortunately he is adamant that the watermark remains. Now obviously the images can be Photoshoped so the watermark is removed, as was done with Image:Jordan by Lipofsky 16577.jpg, but that seems in poor taste as it is against the uploader's wishes (even if we have the legal right to do so). The uploader wants to contribute more images, but he is obviously frustrated by the situation and I doubt he will if someone will just later removing his watermarks. He has also apparently been given conflicting information as he stated that another administrator said that watermarks were perfectly acceptable. I'd really like to reach a compromise that makes Cavic happy and meets Wikipedia policies. Any suggestions? Does someone else want to try and talk with Cavic? Thanks. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 04:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

If its a free, its free. I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to use a free image that is watermarked. Of course, being free ANYONE can make a derivitive work from it without the watermark. — xaosflux Talk 04:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it is time to change the wording on WP:IUP from "user-created images may not be watermarked" to "user-created images generally should not be watermarked" or maybe something to the effect of "contributors are encouraged not to upload watermarked images and should be aware that they may be edited out" or "free watermarked images may only be used when there are only fair use alternatives"? --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 04:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Watermarks are not acceptable because they limit the reuse capability. It's like saying "Yah, you can use this car freely, but you have to have my ad on the side of it." It's not really that free. Delete the image, wait for another free one. Using a fair use image as a replacement for the watermarked one is not acceptable either. Allowing watermarks is a bad precedent. Crop them out or ask the user to re-upload non-watermarked images. The world is big, we'll get more free images eventually. There's no immediate hurry. --MECU≈talk 14:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the discussion needs to be more specific. I can see why there should be no visible watermarks. But most digital watermarks are invisible. Why should we not allow invisible watermarks? It could e.g. help track down license violation of GFDL or CC-ASA images. --Stephan Schulz 14:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually most watermarking is very visible, and highly detracts from the image in question because it is plastered across the field. As far as "invisible" watermarks like Digimarc, they exist solely to protect copyrights and intellectual property. How would using these files with the caveat that the watermark cannot be tampered with actually benefit the project in the long run? Normal derivative works like changing resolution or cropping can break Digimarc, so this isn't even really possible. What are the author's specific concerns? - WeniWidiWiki 15:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, from my (computer scientist, but not media specialist) perspective, digital watermarking is all about invisible (steganographic) marks. It took me a while to notice that this discussion (also) involves visible watermarks. I did not suggest that the watermark should be explicitely protected against tampering. But in practice, most image manipulation is just cropping and color correction, and there are many known algorithms that are robust with respect to these operations. And protecting copyrights is a valid concern. My (few) Wikipedia images are under the GFDL, not PD. It is very possible to violate the GFDL, and I might want to enforce the license eventually. Having proof that the image is mine might come in handy. --Stephan Schulz 00:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiousity, do the people opposed to watermarks also think we should avoid using NASA / NOAA / USGS images if they have the creating organization's logo embedded in them? Generally it is better to use an unwatermarked image. In most cases however, I would not turn away a useful free image simply because it had a creator's mark on it. In the case of an embedded copyright notice, such as in the Cavic example, it is not even clear to me whether stripping such a note out is legally consistent with the GFDL requirement to "Preserve all the copyright notices". Dragons flight 15:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

But then that would be the exact problem. The GFDL states that people must be able to modify the image however they wish. If a copyright notice causes conflict with that, then a visible copyright notice would seem to prevent GFDL licensing, unless the author explicitly states that it may be removed during modification. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 15:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
No, the GFDL says you may modify the material subject to 15 provisions/limitations. Number 4 of which is that you must preserve any copyright notices. I don't think having a copyright notice conflicts with GFDL licensing since it is the GFDL itself that makes special provision for such notices. Feel free to read the Text of the GNU Free Documentation License, section 4 in particular. Dragons flight 16:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
You appear to be correct. (I get the GPL and GFDL crossed occasionally.) Still, it seems to be something we shouldn't in general allow-if you're correct on that interpretation, embedding (even very faint or too small to see except at high zoom) copyright notices throughout a picture could be a troubling end-run around the intent of the GFDL-that modification should be permissible. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 16:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree it should be discouraged. The key question though is what to do when presented with an image that has such a mark. Personally, I'd still favor using it until an alternative became available, but not everyone may agree with that. Dragons flight 16:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I've started a discussion specific to the copyright issue at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Overprinted copyright notices on GFDL and CC-BY images. Dragons flight 10:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Having access to a watermarked image certainly doesnt require us to use it. Would this be better if we only accept public domain released images with watermarks, thus avoiding the question of if the watermark is a copyright notice? — xaosflux Talk 02:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jimbo's credential proposal

Can be found here. The community should probably comment on it. (there, not here) pschemp | talk 05:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd really like to see more comment there, especially because Jimbo has already announced to the press that we are doing this. pschemp | talk 20:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MikeURL's credential proposal

Can be found at User:MikeURL/Credentials. It is basically the opposite of what Jimbo is proposing.MikeURL 20:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The page has been cleaned up and modified quite a bit. Worth a look I think.MikeURL 19:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current primetime television schedules

I've started a discussion on whether we should include primetime television schedules in articles about televsion networks and stations. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Television#Current_primetime_television_schedules. Please contribute there, not here.-gadfium 20:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help with ontology and naming conventions?

If you have a page about two closely related things, is it better to name the page after the most common of the two things or should we make up a categorical name for the common page and create redirects to it?

I've been editing Light bar which is about all the various blinkenlights you see on emergency vehicles. And this ranges from optical considerations to rules about which color is used for what in different countries. Well anyway, every so often it's pointed out that the article covers single revolving lights as well, and people suggest moving the page to a neutral name. On the other hand, light bars are more common than the other forms, and the term "lightbar" is unambiguous in a way that other terms like "beacon" are not.

So, is it better to leave the page as it is, or is it better to rename the page to something like "Emergency vehicle lighting"? I can come up with some pros and cons, but perhaps there is some policy about these situations. The closest I can find on WP:NAME is a guideline about using the most common name for the same thing, but in this situation we're dealing with a class of things. Squidfryerchef 00:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Emergency vehicle lighting sounds good to me. I don't think most people would know what a light bar is, unless they worked in that field. Steve Dufour 05:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SEMI and Userpages

There is currently some discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Indefinate Sprotection on Userpages concerning the line Indefinite semi-protection may be used for...User pages (but not user talk pages), when requested by the user. Discussion is of corse on that it might be contridictory with other policies/guidelines, WP:OWN/WP:USERPAGE ideas, and whether a user can just tell everyone else to stay away from their userpage, and whether there is any reason for an annon to edit others userpages. Comments by people would be appreciated. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 02:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] redirecting talk page to project talk page

Wondering, has anyone run across this before - a talk page being a redirect. In this case, the redirect is from a template page to a project. Is this kosher? I can see the advantage (centralize discussion) but also the disadvantage (physically impossible to discuss the entity outside the context of the project). FWIW in this case I'm not yet 100% sure that the project isn't at least slightly dysfunctional. Anyway, I might take this to an RfC, but for all I know this is common. Any thoughts? Herostratus 03:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen this before, but I can't say that I have a serious problem with centralising discussion like this. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 06:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
It's fairly common in WikiProjects which have various project pages to have all the discussion at one central page. You could argue that if the template does not fall entirely within the scope of the project then it's a bad idea, but I'm not sure if that's true or not in this case. --Cherry blossom tree 10:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need a fresh opinion at WT:3RR

3RR, non-identical revisions, and other joyous things. It would be appreciated if someone else could weigh in on this. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acalamari's Warning Removal Proposal.

Here is a link to my warning removal proposal: Warning Removals. Discussion of this should take place on the policy's talk page and not here. Acalamari 21:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia's Sticky Wicket

In the news--- A wikipedia administrator was exposed as a fraud.

[44] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.210.12 (talk • contribs).

Old news. x42bn6 Talk 22:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Using WP Account on a Warned IP Address...

I use wikipedia on my school campus quite oftenly. Recently, Wikipedia contacted my school district because of the amount of profanity and SPAMing edits emitting from our campus' IP Address. They alerted my campus' IT department that our IP address would be blocked from using/editing WP if this spamming continued.

I use wikipedia oftenly. At my school today, I went on wikipedia and noticed that a message had appeared on the computer's IP Address' talk page. I noticed many notices of egregious editing and vandalism. This made me wonder: If I log in from that computer, will my account be atributed with part of the blame for spamming and vandalizing?

Thanks for your help,
Jtg920 21:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You have nothing to fear if you do not vandalise. If you are accused of vandalism by your school, your administrators should be able to check which computer did the vandalism if they have the tools. x42bn6 Talk 22:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot; I appriciate your help! :) Jtg920 22:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Manual of Style (trademarks) guideline change proposal

Proposal: Manual of Style (trademarks) guideline change: Lowercased trademarks with internal capitals --Aaru Bui DII 00:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The current proposal is useful, but there really needs to be attention brought to cases of mixed capitalization (e.g. xxxHOLiC, TNA Impact, etc.). There appear to be two sides to discussion: 1) those that see the trademark holder as the correct way regardless of characters or capitalization, and 2) those that see a more proper application of English capitalization and normalized typography as the correct way. ju66l3r 04:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization of templates

Over the last month or so, I have been trying to sort out the categorization of templates (with User:David Kernow); see Category talk:Wikipedia templates. My main aim behind this was to categorize _all_ templates, so that templates relating to a specific subject could be found easily. I started by sorting out the top-level categories, and have been working my way into the sub-categories since.

I realised that I needed to find all templates that weren't currently categorized, and categorize them appropriately. Category:Uncategorized templates doesn't cover most of them, so I made a request for a bot that could find all templates and add them to the category for subsequent categorization into the appropriate places. User:Balloonguy responded with a bot. However, in the bot approval request, User:Alai said "Is there actually established consensus for categorising every single template, which seems implicit in the premise of this 'bot? Last time I checked there was an explicit disclaimer not to do this (though it seemed to becoming "more honoured in the breach", even then)."

Hence why I am here. I still hold that all templates should be categorized so that they can be found easily, but what does the community at large think of this? Mike Peel 15:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

As long as the categorization is noinclude'd, I'd say this is a fine idea. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Ditto; categorization of articles is encouraged and I reckon the same should be true for templates. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 02:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acalamari's New Noticeboard Proposal.

Here is a link to my second proposed policy here. It should also be discussed on its talk page and not here. Acalamari 02:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unintended Consequences of the Anti-Fair Use Crusade?

Has the anti-fair use crusade gotten out of hand? Perhaps... We've apparently now replaced the International Symbol of Access -- the universal sign for disabled access -- with a non-universal and crudely drawn copy. The reason -- The International Symbol of Access, which, I'm sure you'll see in your day to day comings and goings about 700 times, is "not free enough." (I am of the position that this is, empirically, ridiculous.)

This is just the latest in an increasingly large number of examples where common sense is being trampled by libre absolutists, unwilling to make any accomodations for things such as, say, reality. I like my Wikipedia as libre as possible, and I know that makes me a minority... Apparently, the entire website (I forgot, it's not just a website) encyclopedia (whoops! have just been informed it's not an encyclopedia, either)... um.... social movement (?) is run by and for libre absolutists only; I thought the user community, at least, was a bit more diversified... and certainly not as well versed in the libre doctrine that is now guiding copyright-related decisions.

Either let's go "German," and get rid of fair use altogether, thus stopping things such as this, or let's actually allow regular, good, old-fashioned LEGAL fair use, and not some crazy, ten million conditions attached Wiki-fair use.

And maybe, just maybe, you know, we could bring back in the International Symbol of Access? As a step toward rationality in copyright enforcement? Because, you know, it's international? And, uh, was widely accepted meaning? Or someone at the foundation could have the lawyer figure out what Wikipedia's legal position on using the ISA should be. Or is replacing long-established international sybmols with "libre" versions part of the whole "we're going to change the world!" philosophy that's, in this case, making Wikipedia less relevant and useful, not more? Just some thoughts... Jenolen speak it! 20:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this seems pretty absurd. For starters, if attribution for this image is required or if it is copyrighted/trademarked/registered, then every handicapped parking space on the entire planet should theoretically have the (c), (tm), or (r) symbols on them; a full reference to the ICTA; and/or would have to have obtained the written consent of ICTA to use their image. None of that happens. If anyone is sincerely concerned, contact ICTA -- I am quite sure that they will have a hearty laugh on their end, as well, and say it's OK. --Thisisbossi 22:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair use should be pursued aggressively, if we are not to lose it. Some publishers and other copyright holders frequently claim rights they do not possess: I have seen many undoubted PD US documents reprinted unaltered with a private copyright notice. Many will instruct you to ask permission to use material you have a right to use anyway. It is not safe to err on the side of asking permission: if you have the right, but nonetheless ask for permission and do not get it, it is hard to argue that subsequent use is in good faith. More broadly, liberty in general is unsafe when we lose rights through timidity. en WP en properly operates under US law, and should make full use of what protections it prrovides. DGG 22:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, this is getting into absurdity. Use the universal symbol. In most cases, it's better to use free images, but this is a clear exception where there is a universally accepted symbol that has minimal restrictions on use. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


<stallman>

<Sigh>. This is not a problem with the "Anti-Fair Use Crusade", it is as always the old saw that individuals in society are not being very careful with our intellectual heritage, and lawmakers aren't helping much either. We are losing entire Libraries-of-Alexandria every month.

Demonising a group of people on wikipedia as "Crusaders" (or Jihadists) is:

  • Not helpful.
  • Shooting the Messenger.

All we're doing is preserving knowlege that is long-term preservable, and we're discarding knowlege which is not long-term preservable. That's all we can do. Though to be sure, that's still a lot. It's more than enough work to keep us busy, for now.

Yes the situation is absurd, I agree. We didn't make it so, other people did, by chosing a not-so-useful license for their symbol. We can ask them for a more appropriate license. If they don't want to do that, then in the long run that's their problem, not ours.

Part of our objective is to prevent such problems from recurring in future, by compiling a store of knowlege that is not so encumbered. And that's what libre information is really about.

</stallman>

--Kim Bruning 03:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC) If I could earn penny for every situation where seemingly innocent usage turns out to have legal complications... but wait! I can! I could go study law!

I went and looked it up, and according to the NZ government,

“ The ISA design is registered as ISO Standard 7000 1984. As an international standard, the copyright design for style, shape and proportion is protected worldwide ’to identify, mark or show the way to buildings and facilities that are accessible to and usable by all those persons whose mobility is restricted’. ”

Given that we're using it for exactly those purposes, I feel this should be used in wikipedia. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Not free. There is a deeper point here about our goal - to create a free, as in speech, encyclopedia. Yes, we can obviously use the symbol and remain free, as in beer. We cannot, however, use the symbol and remain free as in speech. As such, it should not be here. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
We use logos for identification purposes all the time because they cannot be equaled by a free image. This image is an international standard set by ISO and whose use is mandated by legislation in numerous countries. If we choose a wikipedian's drawing of a wheelchair, what freedom are we adding? The wikipedian's image is not a free equivalent; it's not the standard and does not carry the same meaning. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Which brings to mind an interesting thought - most encyclopedias attempt simply to catalog and describe the world around them; Wikipedia, as a social movement more than an encyclopedia, is in this case seeking to change the world around it. Comments on the always enjoyable WP:FU talk page include people decrying the ICTA for setting an international standard that is under... shudder... copyright! How dare they! THEY made a mistake! Because, of course, nothing can ever be wrong with Wikipedia's goal of, uh, complete libre-ation. However, when people ask me, "What's the dumbest thing you've seen done in the name of making Wikipedia more free?", I'm happy to report I have a new favorite... Jenolen speak it! 17:32, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that a lot of "fair use" images were being deleted because their actual use did not correspond to the legal definition of "fair use", and they were therefore being used without copyright permission. Even though the wheelchair image is copyright the ISO, it appears as if they have granted an effective license for the image's use for various accessibility issues. I would suggest that the issue here is that the image has been incorrectly tagged as "fair use", when some other tag might be more appropriate. In reply to Hipocrite's comment, I am starting to get concerned about free-use (as in speech) crusaders hijacking the de-facto purpose of Wikipedia, which is to assemble the collective knowledge of the masses into the best encyclopedia on the planet. Bluap 17:55, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Has the anti-fair use crusade gotten out of hand?

Absolutely.

Wikipedia, as a social movement more than an encyclopedia

Wrong. — Omegatron 18:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not only wrong, but stupidly Idealistic

Not wrong... but worse. STUPID. Idealistic. It IS being administered as a social movement, not an NPO with pragmatic goals. Impractical and vexing, (Look closely at that case--that's a journalist fully aware of fair use criteria, and he's totally furious and frustrated! Why do we tolerate being shot in the foot that way?) inefficient, and MOST OF ALL: Totally Disrespectful of our time contributions as editors on behalf of some ideal unobtainable utopian stretched concept of 'Free' enshrined in the first of the five pillars. 'Legally free for all intents and purposes' is apparently insufficient, so we have to diminish quality in favor of some quixotic ideal as well. And on top of those two links, with all the time waste, Jimbo confirmed the interpretation directly by email when queried. Shrug.
So my heart says YES to good content and nice presentation, and NO to "Free" as in beer (whatever that meant) or whatever interpretation is attached to Free here, because I feel the foundation should not COST volunteers ADDITIONAL time nit-picking trivialities. It's counter-productive. If a politician's Publicity photos can't be used on an article about them (certainly qualifies as Fair Use!), something is totally wacked... and THAT is the stance Jimbo himself affirmed about that policy. So we continue to waste time because of "Free". Why? Because that's what Jimbo and the board want, and policy is not guideline.
Generally, I'd prefer more policy, but in this case... some phrasing is very inconsistent with the needs of a quality encyclopedia, which is consistent with the whole attitude the board has always demonstrated—a volunteers time is not valuable, because it's given freely. Hmmmm, wonder how many people just get disgusted and WALK!? (Ha! Loads!) At the same time we discuss means to up retention in the Welcome Committee and various other internal forums. Is retention of good editors and recruitment and retention of experts an secret? Hardly! This section is a case in point. We have discussion and dissent, without any active gain to content or quality. A TIME SINK. A good policy is a Godsend--eliminating the need for further discussion, as the Fair Use criteria is not. (Just Great-- now it's tagged as a guideline again, and not as a policy! It's got an ironically appropriate shortcut... "FU"! Why the new change? Arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!
Can the board PLEASE stabilize a few things that can be counted on...
even a bad policy is better than a guideline in contention! (And I'm taking a balmy Sunday afternoon for commenting on more anarchy!
If you don't want to buy into that ??? policy or any other of the five pillars, then you need to make noise to them, as that's the only way policies will be adjusted. (Has this been LOUD ENOUGH! <g>) Or take the path of thousands of predecessor editors and vote with your feet. I know my family would rather I spent less time in these hallowed pages. IMHO, this one should go all one way or the other. Fair Use in the US per law, or none at all, including magazine, book covers and the whole of that media involved gaggle of things. // FrankB 21:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree completely with the sentiments of the original post. Unfortunately, as always, the Stallmanite brigade will shout very loudly about policy, the five pillars, Jimbo this and that, etc, without actually providing a good reason why perfectly good images and content should be replaced with, what is, frankly, sub-par content.

Like most others, I've no problem with fair use stuff being phased out in favour of free content where the free content is of equal quality, but some people have been taking it way too far. Lankiveil 11:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC).
How do we stop them? — Omegatron 05:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Lasers? Or, barring that, nominating the image on Commons for deletion or replacement? I don't know my way around Commons well enough to do that. Jenolen speak it! 07:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Credential ban

After reading some comments in discussions, I think there is some suppot for a counter-proposal to credential verification. Wikipedia:Credential ban Please discuss it on the talk page. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 23:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] naming the author in captions

For various reasons we appear to need a slightly firmer policy on this so any ideas?Geni 03:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

What various reasons did you have in mind? >Radiant< 12:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I have always thought it was a good idea to allow for the crediting of image creators in image captions -- aside from aesthetic issues (for which I trust we can find solutions) there's no downside, and many upsides. It gives well-deserved credit to photographers/artists/creators. It encourages creators who want that credit to contribute to Wikipedia, when they might not otherwise. It might also encourage publicity departments for companies/bands/what have you who tentatively approve of free licensing for certain photos, but want clear attribution -- the image description page is just not visible enough for some people.
While I don't expect it to discourage the copyright-clueless from uploading copyrighted material, or from saving our pictures for their own (possibly illicit) re-use, it at least raises the awareness that these images were not created by Wikipedia out of thin air, and that there may be some licensing issues the well-meaning might want to investigate. (Again, that image description page is invisible to the average right-clicker.)
I've seen a few captions with the photographer's name in small text, although I expect most of them get removed over time based on current guidelines. I don't personally find it any more distracting than I do the credits in a newspaper or magazine. Perhaps there's a way to standardize the presentation of credits through MediaWiki image syntax and CSS, to use very small text above or below the descriptive caption, or even run it vertically up the side the way newspapers do. Naturally this would need to be optional, and not used in infoboxes or other frameless image applications. Still, I would be delighted to have that option. What do you think? — Catherine\talk 12:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm strongly opposed to giving any form of credit to a photographer next to the image. Image attribution is on the image description page. Why are images so special? We ask people to write for us freely and they don't get credit for their work on the article page (could you imagine a list of authors on an article page?) -- and folks seem to be fine with that. Credit is maintained in the history, and no one seems to have a problem with that. We don't seem to be suffering problems getting people to write articles for us. Just because we currently have a chance to get quality/professional images, doesn't mean we need to go down a bad path to obtain them. Wikipedia has decided (ala the fair use replaceable policy) that we are fine with waiting for a good free image, waiting for a good free image that the author doesn't require attribution on/next to the image should be no different. The "with restrictions" requirement of images are not allowed on Wikipedia. Explaining the attribution system to a user and letting them decide if that is acceptable to them should be their decision, but allowing captions for images is the first step to allowing "written by" on article pages, for which I doubt few would agree with, especially in the face of the credential problem currently ongoing and any sense of endorsement. --MECU≈talk 13:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Policy wording proposal regarding fair use historical images (such as logos)

I have submitted a proposal to change policy wording, at Wikipedia:Fair use/Amendment/Historical images. The goal, essentially, is to allow historical images where their use would be transformative (and thus legally fair use) and provide visual historical information, even without so-called "critical commentary" (but where a caption identifying the significance of the image is still important); specifically in the case of galleries of historical logos. Please contribute to this discussion. DHowell 05:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usernames and religious terminology

I believe I've uncovered an inconsistency in our username policy, whereby we currently cover a name like User:Jesushater but not User:Crucifixhater. I believe that this could easily be dealt with in the same measured manner as our "Jesus policy" (!) whereby the policy allows discretion, so we might permit a User:JesusGomez and similarly would be able to permit clearly inoffensive use of religious terminology.

I've posted at Wikipedia_talk:Username_policy#.22Usernames_of_religious_figures.22 and would welcome the contribution of experienced policy developers. --Dweller 10:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Steganography

Copied from Wikipedia:Image use policy Also, user-created images may not be watermarked, distorted, have any credits in the image itself or anything else that would hamper their free use.

Is is applicable to steganography? For example user embeds his name and copyright (cc-by-sa-2.5) so that the license is properly enforced. Now if the image is used without attribution, the author can prove that the image belongs to him. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think those interfere with free use. --Random832 18:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand... If the image contains such hidden information... and you know that it has this information... then don't you basically know that the owner of the image doesn't want it to be used freely? If you're anticipating that they may invoke their rights on the image in the future if they find out that you're using it, then doesn't that mean that you shouldn't be using it in the first place?
(Or am I entirely missing some significant point here?) Bladestorm 20:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point, Bladestorm; or else I am :) The concern is that the tag would be for tracking in cases where the image may be used freely, but attribution is required. This way if the image is used but not attributed, then the artist may follow-up with it and provide evidence. Did that clear it up at all? To respond to the concern, however, I agree with Random832: I do not see that this would conflict with its free use. cc-by-sa-2.5 is an acceptable license and the information that you indicate, as per my understanding, only reinforces that license. --Thisisbossi 22:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
If a steganographic watermark doesn't interfere with the appearance of the image, I see nothing wrong with it. The reason we don't permit watermarks or credits is that those intefere with the appearance of the image. --Carnildo 22:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It probably doesn't conflict with "free use" but that doesn't mean Wikipedia should accept watermarked images if an alternative is available. >Radiant< 14:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Iff the licence is compatible with our goals, and meets our criteria, there's no reason why we shouldn't allow such digital watermarking. If the licence is not compatible, then we already have an indicator to show it. Chris cheese whine 00:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedic

The term Encyclopedic is used in policies and discussions, but I haven't seen a serious discussion of what that word means in specific relation to Wikipedia. Does anyone have a link to a good summary?

If there hasn't been such a discussion (recently), I think it's time we had one. Encyclopedic seems crucially pertinent to WP:N and WP:NOT, and editors often end up talking right past one another because they disagree on the meaning of this core concept. Worse, they often don't even seem to realise they disagree. -- Richard Daly 03:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a meaningless term. Encyclopedic is what wikipedia is trying to be, and all our content policies and guidelines are oriented towards defining it. Saying something is or isn't encyclopedic is a subjective and very weak argument. You're better off just giving specific reasons. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
It means, "Like Britannica, only better."—Perceval 05:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I generally take it to mean "fails WP:NOT". E.g. a phone book is not encyclopedic. >Radiant< 14:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Got it! Encyclopedic is equivalent to the double negatation, Not! Not!
Good 'un! Think much of the conflict is those first two sections are in tension with other motivators. Some want this digital encyclopedia limited as if it is paper. Some want to merge small concise articles into obfuscated larger articles. Some articles are needed to cover technical terminology and that means they aren't much more than a dic-def. (e.g. GSAR and the below two links)
I prefer "helpful to someone", "informative in general", "useful", "educational" and "in good taste" with a serious businesslike tone and treatment. Anything which meets those tests, or is in tension with a sister project's policies like GSAR (Wikitionary would give that a bare line, insufficient coverage) should be included. (Contrast our with their treatment! So some dic-def seeming stuff have a place too, and that is always a judgment call.)
I may not care to be educated when selecting a random page lands me on some cruft article (pick any Harry Potter or other types of fictional character article, for examples in plenty), but my personal preferences don't mask that such are useful to some, and I can see they are usually educational... whether I want more education or not.
There's always the 'random page' when I'm not interested... so Click, move on, and let others have their space. Exercising a little common sense and tolerance seems to be the hardest thing for the young tigers among us. They feel a need to formalize rules when just being laid back and easy going --more tolerant--would be far more productive and better add to overall quality. THAT will only happen if we are editing articles, not talk pages. // FrankB 21:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that editors often claim a sourced article or proposition is not notable when they really mean it isn't encyclopedic, and that encyclopedicness refers to the various other grounds people have for noninclusion based on concpets of what's good for an encyclopedia such as whether a topic contributes to knowledge. I also think it would be worthwhile having a discussion on these criteria because there currently seems to be a log of discagreement, and uncertainty, about what they should be. User:Jimbo Wales has intervened in a number of incidents to maintain encyclopedicness. The concept appears with us to stay, so perhaps we ought to understand it better, discuss it, and have a more informed consensus. --Shirahadasha 02:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should we allow MIDI files for audio content?

I think that we should allow MIDI files on Wikipedia, in addition to Ogg Vorbis. This file format would be perfect for times when a piece of music should be included in an article, but trying to get a freely licensed recording is impractical (e.g. this piece of opera music requires a large band to perform and I am not rich enough to hire such a band, my garage borders a high-traffic road, making it impractical to record some music that does not contain disruptive noises from the nearby automobiles, or I do not have the required instruments). Should we change the audio policy to allow the uploading of MIDI files, or is there a patent that I am not aware of that disallows this file format? Jesse Viviano 03:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Midi files often have licensing problems too same as any other music, so they are no magic bullet. Furthermore if you do have a truly free midi file you can simply record it into an audio file and post that. We used to have lots of midi files but inconsistent performance has caused us to generally discourage their use, although you can still upload them. --Gmaxwell 03:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
For licensing issues, I feel that if the sheet music's copyright expired, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. can cover any MIDI file faithfully generated from the sheet music, because it is like converting a BMP of the Mona Lisa to a JPEG. Both are still in the public domain. For music whose sheet music is still copyrighted, the resulting MIDI must be licensed as fair use. As for the inconsistencies, you bring a valid point. However, a MIDI is like a vector file, and will be much smaller than any sampled music format. Please do not forget about modem users. A reasonable compromise would be that uploaders are pointed to a free MIDI to Ogg converter be pointed to in the documentation at Wikipedia:Media, and that the MIDI file's image page contain a link to the Ogg file for Linux users without a good quality MIDI synthesizer (Windows 98 and beyond include the very good Roland GS software synthesizer). I myself prefer MIDI files because I do not have to install more codecs and that it is easy on modem users who have no access to broadband Internet (e.g. farmers whose farms are too far from any DSLAMs for DSL service, and are not close enough to an existing cable plant that the cable company feels that the expense of setting up a new cable plant is too expensive for too few potential customers). Jesse Viviano 04:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Not only bandwidth and storage but converting midis to audio defeats the purpose of having a midi in the first place. With a midi, you can edit it, change instruments, use different synths, and do a lot of stuff that obviously can't be done with audio. It's frankly, a bit silly IMHO to 'convert' a MIDI to audio. Of course, if people who know what they're doing and with good tools want to make a high quality audio file from a MIDI, then good. But encouraging people to 'convert' MIDIs to audio is going to means people who don't really know what they're doing will be doing it unnecessarily. Nil Einne 19:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Strongly agree. We should encourage an audio format that is equivalent to sheet music, and it would be especially relevant to articles about classical music where the sheet music has been public domain for hundreds of years but the recorded performances are copyrighted. I wouldn't recommend converting MIDI files to audio files in most cases; users should upload files in the smallest format possible. Squidfryerchef 15:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Could we do something like svg here? Convert to an ogg format for those who want it, but also make the original MIDI available for those who want to render or edit it on their own? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Different levels of encyclopedic-ness in one wikipedia?

I'm certain this has been dealt with before, but I don't know where to look. Please consider this a description of a debate I'd like to read more about, rather than an attempt to start it.

I've seen a great deal of argument about what's "important" or "encyclopedic" enough to belong in wikipedia, with articles that fail the test being deleted. I understand both arguments -- one that wikipedia is becoming one of the world's foremost reference sources, and it should have info on everything anyone might care to look for; the other than wikipedia will become clogged with junk articles and lose all reputability unless it sticks to reasonably meaningful topics.

What about accepting the differences but noting them in the article? Tag articles that are encyclopedia-quality as encyclopedia-quality, articles that are reasonably well-edited but on silly subjects as such, fandom articles as fandom, etc? Alternately, what about saying that everything under the sun can have a page on wikipedia, but some of them will just be links? I seems like that would make wikipedia useful for all sorts of random questions, while maintaining an easily-identified core of high-quality material.

So, anywhere this has been hashed out before? Inhumandecency 04:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

If you tag pages that aren't encyclopaedic as such, aren't you just admitting that they don't belong in Wikipedia? Anyway, I'm sure a lot of editors would protest having their pet pages tagged as "silly". -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 05:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
we don't care about importance, that's the whole point of not being paper. We care about if the subject can be covered in encyclopedic fashion. Video games, characters from star wars, etc. all have enough information about them out there. We've got featured articles on obscure real-world things that no one cares about, as well as fictional ones that only the fanboys care about. Just remember, quality of the article is only dependent on the importance of the subject to the degree that we need reliable secondary sources for our information. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
See WT:N and a thousand other places for the "hashing out". The core policy WP:ATT provides a good guide-encyclopedia articles should never be written from our own interpretation of the subject itself or other primary sources, all articles should be based primarily on secondary sources. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information is also a core policy, and a very important one. There exist countless "specialized" wikis for fictional works, howto manuals, dictionary definitions, and so on, in-depth articles on minor Star Wars characters or the minutiae of a computer software program belong there. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 19:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
There are secondary sources on every person, such as wedding or birth announcements and lists of graduate, not to mention internet directories. I assume you mean non-trivial secondary sources, and then the discussion shifts to the meaning of non-trivial. I've seen it asserted that two books primarily about the person must be written about someone's accomplishments to justify inclusion. I & probably you think this absurd, but now we have all the ground in the middle to argue about.
If you consider the key word to be "indiscriminate" suppose I suggest that an article about every named character in a video series who appears in more than one episode is justified. There will be sources, such as program listings. DGG 21:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Why give people something else to dispute? Dominictimms 02:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Availability

I'm proposing this as replacement for Notability, to avoid the many misunderstandings that surround the term. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This seems more like an essay on why WP:N does not work, than a replacement for it. It does not really give any guidance or advice and omits huge sections that are key to the idea behind WP:N. Too much for my taste. Blueboar 15:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
It's supposed to be a stripped-to-the-bones version. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Well you certainly achieved that :>) ... I think you may have removed a lot of the bones as well. Blueboar 18:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it's one of the two halves that have gotten conflated into our notability guideline. One is the pure "are sources available?" and the other is the "Is it important/part of the historical record/etc." I've always been a supporter of the first, seeing the second as an inclusionary guide for when we don't have the sources yet, with only the first part being exclusionary. 18:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[Un-indent]: You'll get some disagreements there. The issue in my mind is always, first, "Is this important enough to belong in an encyclopedia." I'm sure that would be a common view. Metamagician3000 10:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I see that a lot, problem is, importance is subjective, and often distorted. Even if you have a scale, then where do you set the bar? Setting a bar is just going to increase bias. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what the issue is with Notability. This appears to be an open door to all kinds of cruft. Notability is about informational significance, not just lots of sources. If anything it exacerbates the google focus of much of WP at the expense of paper based sources.ALR 11:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Really? There's nothing in there about using online sources only. Read a book, find something interesting, write an article with the book as a source. God forbid people have to look away from the internet to create articles with offline sources. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for this proposal Night Gyr. I too have found the term "Notability" unworkable for it's Wikipedia purpose. WP:N essentially has become the dividing line between a topic remaining on Wikipedia or being removed from Wikipedia at AfD. Wikipedia consensus usage of the term "Notable" means sufficient source material to include an attributed, encyclopedic article about the topic. Common and ordinary usage of the term "Notable" means fame or importance. Fame or importance is often used in AfDs to keep an article that lacks sufficient source material and often used to delete an article that has sufficient source material, but little fame (e.g., I think this topic is or is/not important enough for Wikipedia). We need to move away from the personal, subjective opinions of Wikipedians about a topic to a more objective view. In my view, the focus is not what a Wikipedian personally thinks about a topic. Rather, the focus should be an inquiry as to how the collective source material has used information about the topic in its publications. Wikipedia editor's involvement should be to determine whether the collective source material has used enough information about the topic in its publications such that Wikipedia can develop an attributed, encyclopedic article about that topic from that source material. I do not think Wikipedia is going to win the battle to give the term "notable" its own, Wikipedia different and particular meaning. The term heading the notable policy should be changed from Notability to a word or phrase that means something related to collective source material usage or something neutral and to the point, like Wikipedia:Article inclusion. Same policy (without any mention of the term "notability"), but different name. -- Jreferee 01:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree. I proposed "encyclopedic suitability", but I'd go for anything that gets us away from ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT, ITSPOPULAR/ITSOBSCURE, IVEHEARDOFIT/IVENEVERHEARDOFIT, and any such other arguments that result in keeping cruft and getting rid of real articles. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 01:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Badlydrawnjeff has just posted a suggested new name for Notability at A change in notability proposal. -- Jreferee 01:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I would tend to agree with distinguishing between notability in the sense of being adequately described in/the subject of sources, and encyclopedicness in the sense of proper material for an encyclopedia on other grounds. Best, --Shirahadasha 03:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making Wikipedia:Good Articles official policy

As I was reviewing why a certain template had been deleted, I noticed that Wikipedia:Good Articles has not become official Wikipedia policy as of yet. Many users use this area of Wikipedia as a way to rate an article between Featured Article status and nothing. I would like to write a proposal making this page, project, and criteria official Wikipedia policy, but I would like to see the general feeling on this issue. Diez2 03:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

GA in its current form seems deeply flawed. The ratio of process overhead to depth of review is very high -- a large amount of centralized bureaucracy for reviews that are little deeper than the project assessments. In light of that I don't think we ought to formalize the process, as that would inhibit the major reforms that it could really use. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Can you suggest some of these needed reforms? 68.217.196.34 05:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I have to disagree with you when you say that the Good Article Rating is merely a project assessment. There is criteria found here that describes what a good article should be. This rating is not decided by the projects themselves. Heck, if GA is just a project assessment, then I suppose FA would also be an assessment, especially since they're both on the same template. Diez2 14:42, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Project assessments have criteria as well, so I'm not sure what you are getting at. The difference is that an FA is reviewed by many people, and then the decision is made by another person. This (perhaps) necessitates more centralization of the process. A GA review, on the other hand, is like a project assessment in terms of its depth -- one person reviews the article. For project assessments, since one person is doing the review, he just switches a tag on the talk page when he is done, and notes his comments. Everything takes place on the article talk page. The good article process has substantially more bureaucracy attached. First, you need to take it to the candidates page, then it gets reviewed. There is also a centralized page for review, etc. Why do all these pages exist?
See also this recent village pump discussion on what needs to happen with the GA process. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
About the project assessments: the projects decide their own criteria for the Stub, Start, B, and A ratings, not the GA rating (or FA rating, for that matter). I know that the FA involves more consensus than a GA does, but then again, there is a Good Articles Review page where these articles are reviewed and failed GAs are contested. If the GA were to be like the FA in requiring consensus before promoting, then there would be considerably fewer GA articles. I just feel that the page needs to become official policy; I am not suggesting that a bureaucratic agency be set up to properly review the article. The policy would state that the article would need the endorsement of one other user who has not worked on the article significantly. Besides, many people, when working on an article, consider the GA to be a milestone in improving his/her article. After passing a GA, people generally seek a peer review, and then post it to the FAC page. I think that making the page official policy would help. Diez2 16:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Why should it be a policy? Should people be blocked or banned for writing non-good articles? Note that WP:FA is not a policy either. Eugène van der Pijll 17:42, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I am not suggesting that people should be blocked/banned for writing non-good articles. I am suggesting that it should be made policy the process of making a Good Article (and probably, for that matter, Featured Articles). The Good Article WikiProject is obsolete (many users that participate aren't members), and I feel that it should take the next step by becoming Wikipedia official policy. Now, if it is as you say, and that WP:FA isn't policy either, and if it is as Christopher Parham says, and that WP:FA uses an immense amount of consensus and review to promote an article to the Featured Articles list, then I really don't see the obstacle in making WP:FA official policy. Even though WP:GA doesn't use as much consensus, I feel that the rating (which is currently maintained by the most lenient reviewer) can be maintained better if there is policy to protect it. Diez2 23:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I think there is a misunderstanding of what a policy or a guideline is in the context of wikipedia. It isn't like a page named a policy is "stuff we REALLY support" and a guideline is "stuff we KINDA support" Policies are policies and guidelines are guidelines and the Good Article process is neither. I see no reason to call it a policy just to imply that it is somehow then "holy" in the eyes of the Great Wikipedia Gods. The rationale behind this proposal confuses me. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Immature usurpation policy

Wikipedia is a large, mature web site, catering to a large number of users of different backgrounds. However, its new policies regarding usurpation of accounts are poorly considered. Namely, the current usurpation policy does not consider users who have made no edits, but still use an account to read Wikipedia. Such users, who may have built considerable watchlists, or have set preferences to their liking (for example so the interface is in another language) may find themselves being asked if their account name may be taken over even if they are logging in regularly.

It's not a common scenario, it's perhaps not likely to happen often, and it's very possible that the user will login in time to ask that their account not be deleted. However, it's a very poorly considered policy that allows an active user to be considered possibly inactive in the first place.

Admins or bureaucrats need the ability to check if an account truly is inactive for the purpose of usurpation, and only then should the account owner be attempted to be contacted. Going only by lack of edits is incredibly unprofessional and juvenile, and I'm embarrassed to be part of a community that would use such crude methods.

I propose that an account be marked inactive if: no edits have been made, the watchlist is empty, the preferences are still default, AND the user has not logged in for 3 months. To avoid privacy concerns, none of these (except edits) should be checkable by anyone (admin, bureaucrat or otherwise). Rather, the system can report a user as simply "active" or "inactive" (= "fair game for usurpation"). Also, an admin will need to actively request the the status of a user, and that request may be logged.

It's a small, trivial thing, but if we don't want to cause a poor user experience then it's something that needs to be fixed. Yes, it would take a little coding, but the system as it stands is just too crude to be taken seriously. —Pengo 02:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

What's the point of having a watchlist if you don't edit? If you read the encyclopedia, then you aren't checking to see if 50 pages have been updated recently and you aren't reading the interface. Maybe the best thing is to put a new warning in the new user login to set an working email address to prevent this from happening. None of them seem to have a working email, and it's a step that's taken before the Unsupation. It's always checked if a working email is there, and if there is I assume an email is sent. -Royalguard11([[User talk:Ro

yalguard11|Talk]]·Review Me!) 02:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)::::

To clarify, usurped accounts are not deleted, they are renamed (I think currently to USERNAME (usurped)), so any preferences or watchlists are just moved with the account to the new name and are not deleted. If the user does return to find their account usurped, all the actions are recorded in the logs and the process can be reversed back to how it was, or the account can be renamed to something of the users choosing. mattbr30 11:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, a user has a seven-day warning period to do an edit to prevent usurpation, per Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
So if Saturday afternoon is your weekly Wikipedia time, better not miss a day. (SEWilco 19:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC))
Some of my friends have accounts which they use just so that they can install javascript tools, without ever making an edit. Why would we want to take these accounts away? Zocky | picture popups 06:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Unless I'm misunderstanding, they would have to edit their userspace to add javascript. If the account has made any edits, it cannot be usurped. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 06:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
What if someone else edited the javascript for them? Zocky | picture popups 07:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Only an admin can edit someone else's javascript. --Carnildo 07:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Ummmm..... so, what if an admin edited the javascript for them? Zocky | picture popups 11:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems pretty unlikely that an admin would edit the javascript for an account that had never edited. Plugwash 11:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think I've done it. The point is, accounts have preferences, watchlists, etc. There are plenty of reasons for somebody who's purely a reader to register an account. It seems a bit unkind that we would take those accounts away because the reader is away or simply not using Wikipedia that particular week. Zocky | picture popups 13:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Well as others have pointed out, the account doesn't get deleted, we aren't denying them their accounts. Also, while non-editors are welcome to accounts, personally, I think we should give preference to editors anyway when it comes to names since the name is their public profile (they can change their signature but they usually shouldn't change it to someone else's name and the name is still part of their profile) so to be honest, I'm not that worried if a non-editor loses his/her name to an editor. Personally, I think perhaps an extension of the term to 2 or 3 weeks is enough. (Having said that, I don't see anything negative about this proposal so if it isn't too difficult to implement, why not) In terms of javascript, presemuably the editors are likely to ask if they want custom javascript so they would probably have edits, unless they e-mail. Note in terms of watchlist, some users may use it like a bookmark. So it's perfectly possible a non-editor might have a watchlist. I do even though I edit somewhat regularly, I don't use it as a watchlist as such. Nil Einne 19:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comment: Psychic

There has recently been debate over how to define and describe topics that aren't proven to exist, generally things like paranormal topics. My opinion is that the definition itself should include mention of the purported nature of the topic. Many articles seem to do this: "Bigfoot, is an alleged apelike animal..." Dowsing:"a generic term for practices which proponents claim empower them to find water..." Uri Geller:"...with his claims to have psychic powers..."

Another editor has argued that the definition should define the term without mention of existence or controversy, that they are two different concepts and should be described separately. In other words, the term defined as if it really exists, with mention of dispute/controversy/unproved existence in a following sentence, paragraph, or elsewhere later in the article. I think this is misleading and POV (specifically undue weight). Including terms like "purported" has been accused of being POV, although it seems neutral to me since it doesn't claim existence or non-existence.

A specific example is Psychic, current wording is: "As an adjective, the term psychic means any event which involves psi; as a noun, the word means a person who can produce psi phenomena." I'd propose something along the lines of: "As an adjective, the term psychic means any event which purportedly involves psi; as a noun, the word means a person who can purportedly produce psi phenomena."

Opinions would be appreciated, there's discussion at Talk:Psychic#"Purported". I'd like to get some outside on this specific article as well as the general notion of whether topics like this should have "qualifiers" or not. This debate has been spreading to more and more articles (Remote viewing for example), it would be nice to figure out the community view on this. Thanks. --Milo H Minderbinder 13:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you added an entry at Wikipedia:Requests for comment? -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 21:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, thanks. --Milo H Minderbinder 21:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
The use of qualifying words is decidedly non-neutral. In the lead of the article, where no header announces any impending bias, it seems inappropriate to include such adverbs as "purportedly" and any other synonyms. To understand how this violates neutrality, consider replacing the word with its opposite: "Psychic... a person who definately can produce psi phenomena". Sounds non-neutral, right? Simply leave off all adjectives and adverbs and neutrality problems usually disappear. In the article, it can easily be dealt with in a section titled "Proof of psychic phenomena" or "Objections to existance of psychic phenomena" or some other appropriate, and better worded, section title that captures that idea. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Paid editing

After some discussion on wikien-l, I have added the skeleton of a proposal at Wikipedia:Paid editing. Comments, questions, and suggestions are very welcome. Thanks, William Pietri 20:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I would draw your attention to discussion 162 in the Archive. The view seems to be that WP:NPOV and WP:ATT would prevent unseemly articles appearing, not the banning of third parties paying for article creation. LessHeard vanU 21:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems, at least per the above refrenced discussion 162, that the general consensus is against such a policy. I believe that firstly it is a solution in search of a problem, and that secondly, the wiki is monitored actively enough that paid contributions will either be properly created and cited, and therefore valuable contributions, or not, and therefore deleted just like everything else that doesn't belong here. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 16:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reward board? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Call me a Stallmanite, but paid editing is ok by me, provided the wiki is respected. (In fact, if I were to pay someone, I would expect them to behave better than others). GFDL is free as in speech, not as in beer.

(See also:m:Foundation issues #4)

--Kim Bruning 03:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Guidelines don't apply to "publisher-of-delusional-theory posts"?

  • I've been discussing Conflict of interest and the "Importance of civility" with an Adminisrator, and noted the specific example on the use of the word "Vanity" in Articles for Deletion cases.
  • He told me that the "guidelines describe editor-to-editor comments, not editor-to-publisher-of-delusional-theory posts"[45]
  • Is this good policy advice?--Iantresman 12:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Without knowing the specifics of this case (since you didn't provide them), I can already tell you that Wikipedia's rules, policies and guidelines are sometimes broken, in particular with respect to people who hold strictly to their letter while violating their spirit. If someone with a conflict of interest says that we must do something weird or stupid because Da Rulez say so, we prove him wrong. It's not really incivil for JzG to call a "publisher of delusional theory" a WP:SPADE. >Radiant< 12:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leniency against persistent vandals

I have started a new discussion on Wikipedia talk:Administrator intervention against vandalism, proposing to redefine the present convention of not blocking persistent vandals who space out their disruptive edits in order to evade blocks by taking advantage of the requirement that "the vandal [must be] active now". I would recommend placing your posts on the above talk page in order to keep the discussion centralised. Thanks. CounterFX 19:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR "totting up"

Edit warring is harmful, and many edit warriors stay within its limit intentionally. Without wanting to get into a deep legalistic discussion, under what circumstances would a 3RR violation be considered on the basis of "totting up"? Situations that come to mind:

  1. Editors acting in concert: e.g. two editors reverting five times between them
  2. Reverting similar edits across a whole series of article: e.g. an editor reverting a series of five articles twice each, where the change is substantially the same
  3. "Logpuppetry": e.g. an editor performs three reverts, logs out and performs a fourth.

Any thoughts? Chris cheese whine 23:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't call your first scenario 3RR unless the editors were sock/meatpuppets. The second wouldn't be either; it's well established that the reverts have to be on the same article. The last scenario doesn't seem relevant -- the WP:3RR restriction is reverts per 24 hours, not per session. Raymond Arritt 04:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I should have made it clearer that in the last scenario, the editor logs out and makes the fourth revert anonymously. Chris cheese whine 04:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia admins have a substancial amount of common sense, and are not as slavishly adherant to written policy as questions like this assume they are. WP:DICKish behavior is still dickish behavior, and obtuse efforts to circumvent policy still result in disciplinary action if editors are willing to call attention to it. Pages can be semi-protected or protected, editors can be directed to take it up to the talk page, RfC and ANI can be used. There are many ways to deal with edit warring. If the behavior is disruptive, it can be quickly dealt with in the same manner as any other disruptive behavior. Chriscf, have you even tried to bring this issue up at WP:3RR or WP:ANI or WP:RFC or WP:RFPP or any other forum or are you just assuming that admins will not act in a satisfactory way? If the facts, as you spell out above, are the full story, and if you present the same case in THOSE fora as you have here, I see no reason why action would not be taken. Admins really can help, but it is important that they have all of the facts so they know what is really going on. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not raising specific cases, nor seeking to change the rule, just interested in what others think. Not a crime to be interested, is it? Chris cheese whine 06:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • In all cases, it may help to drop a line on WP:RFPP to get the page protected. In the second and third case, it may well be grounds for a block under gaming the system. >Radiant< 12:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated CV and false license?

What policy, if any, applies to a user who is repeatedly uploading CV images and adding false license tags asserting ownership? I'm used to the editor vs. editor form of DR; mediation seems like the wrong way to go here. - Keith D. Tyler (AMA) 00:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Push them for some evidence that they took the photo (they should be able to provide a larger one), failing that you will probably want to raise it at WP:ANI - the upload page specifically says "Do not upload content with false license declarations. You will be blocked.". Chris cheese whine 01:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yep, and it also helps if you gave specifics. >Radiant< 11:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Definitely name the user on a noticeboard. Repeated adding of CV material is clear grounds for blocking, and deletion of the images will take an admin anyway. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cow tipping: Discussion on role of humor in articles

Thought some might be interested in the ongoing discussion at Talk:Cow tipping#Request for Comment: Inclusion of image of cow & related caption regarding the general role of humor in articles (good vs. bad), especially as it relates to this image and caption in this article. Input is welcome. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 02:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How many disputants makes a POV tag?

We have a situation where one user is arguing at great length about the name of an article being POV. No one else agrees with him and it is unlikely that he will win consensus. However, during his arguing he insists that the POV tag be placed on the article. Is just one person allowed to determine whether this tag belongs there? For how long, as long as he feels like arguing? --Ideogram 09:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

  • In general, no, one person shouting does not mean there's an actual dispute, POV or otherwise, and thus not grounds for putting up a big flashing tag. In specific, perhaps a WP:RFC might help. >Radiant< 11:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Whether or not one person makes a dispute very much depends on how big the other side is. If it's one-on-one, WP:3O is probably a good idea. If it's one vs. world + wife, then the dispute lasts about as long as it takes for the one to be shot down in flames consensus - which, IME, is not very long. Chris cheese whine 12:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
It's not about the number of disputants - it's about the size of the problem that they represent. In an article about some aspect religion, there will be vast numbers of judeo-christians here - and very few buddists. Does that mean that the lone buddist can be ignored because this is just one person? No! It categorically does not! On the other hand, if you are writing an article about a topic relating to the chemistry of Zinc - then some nut job who insists that Zinc was brought to us in 1987 by aliens from the planet Zork - can probably be safely ignored. SteveBaker 14:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV for undisputed facts

We're having a discussion at the Roller Derby Talk page about NPOV and its application to the "Roller Derby Rules" section of the article. I thought I might open it up here to get more opinions on the topic. The general gist:

They: Because of NPOV, it's important to give equal weight to every roller derby ruleset that existed, past and present. If you don't, you are showing bias towards a select group of roller derby leagues.

Me: NPOV applies to opinions or contentious facts. As long as you situate the information (i.e., explain how popular any given league is) you don't have work so hard to put all leagues on equal footing. --Rsl12 13:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

To clarify: any help on the article is appreciated, but indepdendent of that, I'm wondering this: Is this situation a NPOV problem or not? It's not like each roller league is a person saying, "my set of rules are the best." Does each roller derby league using a different ruleset constitute conflicting points of views?

I understand that undue weight considerations should be made for verifiable facts as well. Does anything else within WP:NPOV apply?--Rsl12 14:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This sounds more like a dispute about notability than about neutrality. I agree with you that it is possible to be neutral and still not represent the views of very minor groups...so long as your decision as to which data to include or to exclude is on grounds of notability then I think you are still behaving neutrally. It's always worth considering the needs of our readership - this is a test which is not sufficiently applied in Wikipedia IMHO. Which rule sets do they actually need to read about? Very minor leagues might still be relevent - but old and outdated rules that aren't used any more are probably much less interesting. Remember that if this excess of information is making your article look bloated, it's always possible to spin off some other articles. If too much notable stuff is accumulating in the main article - make more articles - make a category to collect them in - consider an nice-looking navigational template to get you from one to another quickly. Disk space is cheap! SteveBaker 14:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Rsl12 is misrepresenting and exaggerating my position somewhat. I'm insisting that appropriate, not "equal", weight to be given to gameplay rules, past and present, with the goal being to just provide for the reader an overview of what roller derby (the game) has consisted of throughout the bulk of its 70+ year history. I'm not asking for obsolete rules to be described in the article, but rather just for the objectives and requirements of the game to be described in general enough terms that the majority of the precise rules by which it is currently and has long been played are accounted for.
What I object to is getting into excessive detail about and giving undue weight (i.e, 100% emphasis) to one single, modern, barely-a-year-old ruleset just because it's more easily cited or is allegedly the one being used by most leagues today (a plausible, but unverifiable claim, and I've pointed out that many leagues elect to not follow those rules to the letter).
There are actually at least five rulesets from prior incarnations of roller derby available at one site online — it was temporarily down when Rsl12 came along, but is back up now. There are also gameplay summaries in a couple of books written by players. Although these were paraphrased en masse in Onlyemarie's original gameplay summary in the article, they hadn't been explicitly cited before now because A. at the time (a couple years ago), we didn't have quite this epidemic level of beating each other over the head with policy violation accusations and Jimmy Wales quotes, and B. the summary was never contentious; Rsl12 is just using its lack of citations as an excuse to replace it with his own version, a lengthy and overly-detailed distillation of the easily-cited/Googled rules, which he feels is easier to understand, even though the previous, less detailed version, was relatively stable and unchallenged for over a year.
Also, as one of the article's primary stewards, I've been in the position of very recently having to quash anonymous editors' efforts, by repeated mentions and linking, to use Wikipedia to promote & boost the Google rankings of particular leagues (pro & am alike) and the league association that publishes the easily-cited ruleset Rsl12 used. I don't think that he's one of the perpetrators, but the outcome is the same. I would rather the article be conservative in the amount of unintentional promotion it gives to particular organizations and their products, and in an article on a sport with a 70+ year history, the developments of the last couple years, interesting as they are, shouldn't squeeze out acknowledgment that the rules have changed with each incarnation of the sport, even though many facets of the game remain the same. Rsl12's position, as I understand it, is that such an acknowledgment doesn't appear to have been published in so many words (I disagree; it's in books that predate the current revival), so it can't be mentioned, whereas the WFTDA rules, being "undisputed facts", should be featured, at length, instead. —mjb 18:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Draft

Based on complaints that the deletion policies were too lengthy, complex and convoluted, several people have revised the deletion policy page, to clarify it, remove redundancy, and incorporate material from a few related policies, in particular WP:PROD, WP:UNDEL and WP:CBLANK. This is not a change in policy, just a reworking of the relevant pages. The draft can be found at the link above; unless there are big objections, the intent is to move this over the present deletion policy as a new version; the second step would be to verify that it contains all relevant material from the related policies mentioned above, and complete the merge with a redirect. Please comment on the draft's talk page rather than here. >Radiant< 12:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Oustanding idea. Anything that helps clarify policy is worthwhile. Thanks for your efforts. --Dweller 12:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I like the concept of merging multiple overlapping policies. Dr Aaron 06:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures of anonymous living people

Is there any policy about pictures of anonymous living people being used as examples in articles such as blond? In particular these two pictures:

In the second image the persons name is identifiable on a name tag.

The problem is these images violate Wikipedia:Conflict of interest .." self-promotion, including advertising links, personal website links in articles, personal or semi-personal photos, or any other material that appears to promote the private or commercial interests of the editor adding the material, or of his associates."

In addition the images may be problematic because of personality rights.[46]

I am of the opinion that because we have a Gallery of blond which has lots of pictures of blond people, and since the pictures are used only as examples, why should we have pictures that could be used for self promotion purposes -- "Look, Ma, I'm on Wikipedia!" -- pictures of anonymous living people shouldn't be allowed because of Conflict of interest and personality rights.

Are there any rules or policies on this? The problem is not unique to blond but also brunette and I imagine many other articles where people can go about placing their mug-shots under the guise of an "example".

I'm running it a real problem with one editor who is strongly pushing the above two pictures. How to deal with something like this? -- Stbalbach 20:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Surely "look Ma, I'm on Wikipedia!" happens when you say, "This is my userpage, here are my Contributions...". If a good photo, that can be otherwise used to illustrate anything else suitable, is available then why not? I have even played with the idea of putting a picture of myself in Commons under the title of "An Example of the Effect of Aging Upon a Representative of the Wikipedia Editing Demographic" which would allow me to use it on my userpage (with appropriate identification) and for any other person to use in any category mentioned or any other appropiate use. As long as it isn't altered, again why not? Vanity, sure, but if it serves a purpose, has a free use licence and the subject consents then it is a source. LessHeard vanU 23:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
It's a problem for a number of reasons: 1) It opens the article up to "plastering" and "jostling" where individuals jockey over getting their mug shot (or someone they know or like) on the page. People tend to get very emotional over this. 2) The editor in question above is obsessed with finding out who some of these people are and has expressed some sort of sexual attraction. It's weird, he has found all sorts of clues in the picture. 3) There is no way to know if it is a case of vanity. You say "Vanity, sure", but we have a rule called Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. If someone else wants to use your picture, someone you don't know, that's fine - but how do we know that is the case? It is very difficult to tell if it is a vanity case or not. With all those things in mind, why even bother with it when we have plenty of non-controversial images to choose from? We really need some more specific guidelines on using personal photos of anonymous people in articles. -- Stbalbach 05:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I think I am getting your point; there is (or should be) enough free use examples of anonymous individuals downloadable from the internet to satisfy WP's requirements, so an individual image that does give some clue as to the subjects identity should then be removed and replaced with one where the identity remains unknown?
I feel it may be a lot easier defining a policy than finding truly free use, contemporary, images of anonymous people on the internet (or any other public resource). Somebody must have uploaded the images once, and even if they permited free use it is questionable whether the subject consented, understood or was even aware. It is possibly likely that the image would be downloaded from a site that does not have permission to use the image anyway. It may be quite a shock for someone to browse the 'net and find your photo on one of the most visited sites. Whatever problems it may bring, having editors contribute original images of themselves or consenting individuals (anonymously may be best, although vanity publishing on ones userpage would likely still happen) to Commons in a manner which gives no or little info regarding identity may be an alternative. LessHeard vanU 21:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's a point in worrying about vanity/conflict of interest regarding images, which would require us to evaluate an uploader's subjective intent or unknown relationship to the subject of the photograph. We can always objectively evaluate whether an image is providing relevant information, and what about that image is informative, without making any such inquiry. Whether someone happens to benefit from their portrayal in an image we find useful to illustrate an article is really irrelevant to whether we should keep an image of them. Kudos to them if they physically embody blondness.

If the portrayed individual is irrelevant to why the photo is informative, it's probably just sound editorial judgment to crop or blur them out if possible. It's distracting, if nothing else, to have some random idiot staring directly at the camera while standing in front of or next to the actual subject of the photograph and the article in which it's included. Once again, that's a matter of objective editorial judgment for which it doesn't matter whether it's the uploader's girlfriend or a random stranger waving in a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

As for protecting the privacy of anonymous individuals, people are fair game for photos when they're in a public place, and otherwise we generally trust that uploaders had a right to take and upload the photos they were taking unless circumstances suggest otherwise. If a photo looks like it was shot from under the door of a bathroom stall, we should be suspicious. Clearly identifying marks such as the name tag in the above linked image can (and should) always be edited out. Regarding publicity rights, that's an irrelevant issue because we don't exploit the commercial value of anyone's likeness, whether they're anonymous or famous. Postdlf 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I uploaded a new version of Image:Two blond males.jpg with the name tag blurred; can someone who is an admin on Commons, or who is familiar with their deletion procedures, please request to have the original version deleted? Postdlf 22:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] overall improvements to Admin work as seen by a non-admin

since you asked...

  1. One simple change would be to encourage applicants from among apparently knowledgable editors, and recognize that they might want to work on only a particular task
  2. Another would be better organization of the patrolling, so that people could concentrate on particular types of articles and problems with confidence that others were also being attended to. The simplest sort I can think of would be to separate edits from ip addresses from those by registered users--they present different problems. More complicated ones are possible--separating out picture edits from text edits, or edits of different sizes. Again, they present different problems.

Some special classes might help: New pages by first time eds. containing less than 20 words would certainly provide a stream that could be dealt with very fast. Even 3RR violations should be able to be detected by formula.

  1. a related one would be sorting by time--at present if an problem is not caught immediately it will not get caught at all until somebody notices it. It should be possible to work on defined time segments of say 5 minutes, and sign off that the segment was examined, even if not in the first hour or the first day.
  2. not limited to admins, notification of previously involved editors should be necessary for all proposed actions and built into the processes. I know this is being discussed a various places.
  3. and finally, maintaining a log of editor decisions that had been criticised by anyone, and also a log of decisions that were reversed by other admins. It is not possible to maintain quality in a large group of workers with some sort of regular quality control.

(I am not complaining about anything personal, or even the general quality--I have not yet encountered an admin acting on anything of personal interest to me that I thought erroneous, though I have certainly seen errors discussed.) Just my 2 cents. DGG 06:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Having a second layer of newpage patrol could help. The first layer is for brand new pages, to eliminate test pages, vandalism, attack pages, and the like. They would bypass pages that are debatable, leaving them for the second layer. The second layer would come through a few hours to a few days later and evaluate the debatable cases, after they've had some time for growth.
I don't do newpage patrol much any more, but I often intentionally patrolled pages from hours before I was patrolling. To do this, I edited the URL to get a massive offset, as in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Newpages&limit=50&offset=5000&namespace=0, which (right now) would be a "Two day old pages patrol." (Not that two days is necessarily the right depth; eight hours might be better, or five days.) But the amount of offset for a given time changes all the time (by overall growth, time of week, time of day, whether schools are in session or not), so it would be even better if we could offset newpage by a time interval. If we had two layers of patrol, the immediate layer could handle the most flagrant cases, knowing that the second layer can evaluate the doubtful ones after the worst stuff is filtered out. (And it would increase the odds of finding junk that comes in when the new page patrollers are sleeping or otherwise mostly offline.)
Because deleting a new page drops it off the new page list, but reverting a change does not drop it off the recent changes list, I don't think the same system would be as valuable for recent changes patrolling. GRBerry 13:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] fair use and song lyrics

would replicating the entire lyrics to a song be considered beyond fair usage? i refer specifically to My Wall - if the lyrics were removed from this article, it would push it into one of those articles destined to eternally be a stub, and would then probably fail an AfD Kaini 09:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Yes. Song lyrics are (1) copyright violations, thus inappropriate to Wikipedia, and (2) source text, thus not encyclopedic. In general, this is why we have articles on CDs rather than on each individual song. I'd suggest WP:MERGEing the relevant information there. >Radiant< 09:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making "Show preview" mandatory before saves

This certainly must have been discussed before, but why don't we make it mandatory to click "Show preview" before saving changes? This is how they do it on other Wikipedias, such as the French. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Just no. —Doug Bell talk 07:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
As a preferences option, maybe, as a mandatory thing for all users, absolutely not. This would be tremendously harmful to vandalfighting (I don't need a preview to revert vandalism, and it would slow it down, this also would likely break certain anti-vandal tools), gnoming (I don't need a preview to change "teh" to "the"), and many other tasks, as well as likely breaking various bots. It's a good idea in principle, but would be better implemented as a "preferences" option. That many more previews being generated would also likely place significant additional load on the servers. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 19:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Show preview is useful, but I am not sure if it is a good idea to make it mandatory to use. Captain panda In vino veritas 14:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I have a suggestion for a middle road here. There is an option in user preferences under the editing tab for "show preview on first edit." I believe (but am not sure) that when new user accounts are created all boxes there are unchecked by default. I imagine it would not be difficult to change the software so that the such new accounts would have that option checked as the default, upon account creation. Certainly if this is not already the default this would cut down on some error filled edits. Such users might even get used to that default and never change it after they discover their preference page exists. Thoughts?--Fuhghettaboutit 17:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Fuhghettaboutit -- I kind of like that idea. --Thisisbossi 22:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

If this could easily be made as a user preference then this idea has potential, you could make it the defult option for all new users. Thus it would not make life too much harder at all for people like us, such as for vandal fighting. However it would at the same time also make the learning curve nicer for the newbies, and put good habits into them from the begining. Mathmo Talk 03:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Default the option but not mandatory. Since there are times when a preview is unnecessary. 01:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Make "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" an account creation default

↑:-) On this same issue, we could also make "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" the default in preferences upon account creation. This might also straddle a middle road for the perennial proposal that users always be automatically prompted for missing edit summaries.--Fuhghettaboutit 22:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me. Shall we take futher steps to implement it? Captain panda In vino veritas 04:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Fuhghettaboutit's first idea, but not the second. When creating redirects or new pages, I never bother with the edit summary. The default edit summary that forms when I leave it blank provides enough information: the default edit summary for redirects says that a redirect was created; and the default for a new article can easily indicate whether it's a real article or some useless drivel. If you can work around those, then I could support a blank edit summary prompt. --Thisisbossi 04:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Um... You do know that it doesn't prompt for an edit summary when you create a redirect, Thisisbossi. I have that option checked. Grandmasterka 04:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops... I didn't realise that was already an option -- I haven't played with options for the longest time. My mistake, then! :P --Thisisbossi 05:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I figure if this is to have any traction we would need a report on the technical feasibility of implementing even before trying to reach consensus, so I posted about this (in much expanded form) at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Defaulting show preview and edit summary prompt upon account creation].--[[User:Fuhghettaboutit|Fuhghettaboutit] 06:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The other structural change to the wiki that is needed is to separate the show preview button from the save page button (as well as the what's this wikilink). Some cursor mice, especially on laptops, are not that precise, and mis-clicks are problematic. Dhaluza 15:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
For got that "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" was an option and just checked mine. Yes, make "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" an account creation default. -- Jreferee 23:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I support this, for new registrations. — xaosflux Talk 02:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
In principle, I support this. I think, however, the prompt should be disabled when making a minor edit. Caknuck 19:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Publication of magic methods (aka. Exposure)

Publication of methods behind magic tricks, aka exposure, is a source of recurring controversy. There seem to have been various attempts to propose a policy but all have apparently fizzled out inconclusively (as far as I can tell from following trails from one page to another). I've recently started making contributions to the Magic WikiProject but it has become apparent to me that there's a serious risk these efforts might get wrecked by an edit war. In an effort to avert that I'm trying to re-start debate in the hope that we can end up with some official guidelines. I've set out my thoughts on the Magic WikiProject discussion page - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Magic#Methods/Exposure - New proposals

Circusandmagicfan 14:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

I don't think it is possible for WP to have a policy against this. I don't plan on reading the articles myself. Steve Dufour 17:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
As already stated in the discussion you linked to, I agree that WP:SOURCE is key for reducing WP:NOR. Once it the information is already out there, it is fair game. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 18:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
So long as a source is cited (and it's not just "I know this"), then, 1: The information is obviously already available to the public, and 2: It's attributable. WP:NOT censored, including for spoilers. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 18:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
In reply to Steve Dufour and Bossi, I agree that there shouldn't be a policy against publishing information that Wikipedia is free to publish. To an extent I agree that if the information is out there then it's "fair game" - but the exact definition of fair game depends upon various bits of law - and applying policy seems the best way to cover against falling foul of that. I think Seraphimblade summed up a crucial point well in saying that we need to avoid the situations where it becomes just a case of "I know this". Maybe all that is needed is a clear emphasis of relevant policies on the project page for the Magic WikiProject. And I agree that should include WP:NOT, which I'd possibly overlooked. Same with WP:SOURCE, although hasn't that been incorporated into and superceded by WP:Attribution?
Circusandmagicfan 09:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

[edit] User page issue

Should we be concerned with icons blocking Wikipedia's menu?

For an example, see [47].

You can scroll to get around it, but where should we draw the line?

Just curious.

The Transhumanist 20:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

That's incredibly annoying - but is the fact that it obscures the menu really a problem? -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 21:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't care for it, have seen this used abusively on real pages, and see absolutely no reason why it should be permitted. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 21:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] extend WP:BLP to cover particularly revered dead people?

I'm curious if there would be any objections to extending WP:BLP to cover figures that are particularly revered by national, ethnic or religious groups.

A great many people take criticism of their leaders seriously. Recently, YouTube was blocked in Turkey because of a video making fun of Attaturk and a British national was imprisoned in Thailand for "insulting the King". We all remember last year's furor over Danish political cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

Given the growing coverage of Wikipedia in the mainstream media, it might be a good idea to explicitly apply the unequivocal language of WP:BLP to figures that are particularly revered, if for no other reason than to help prevent a situation where some idiot's vandalism of wikipedia leads to serious consequences in the real world. Its bad enough that Jimbo had to defend Wikipedia in the American press during his recent trip to rural India, I don't think anyone wants a situation where he has to deal with the secret police in some country because some idiot vandalized the article on that country's national hero.

I don't really see a downside here, we should be holding these articles to a very high standard anyway, if for no other reason than because they are likely to be highly visible. My experience with BLP is that it doesn't necessarily restrict criticism, but it does force people who want to add criticism to write better, more accurate and better sourced claims. GabrielF 22:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It's easier, on the whole, to judge who's alive and who's dead. Would the category "Particularly Revered People' be vetted by a specially designated sub-committe of Wikipedia administrators? Would all saints be included as "Particularly Revered"? Would that include saints who never existed historically? How about just semi-protecting highly vandalized pages? --Wetman 22:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Honestly, I don't think the subjectivity issue is a big deal. Lets say the category is overused - what's the worst that will happen? High standards are applied to too many articles? We can always develop a better inclusion criteria, say, any case where wikipedians would have reason to believe that vandalism of an article might cause undue harm to the project, based on multiple sources that say that people who have been accused of insulting the person have been prosecuted or otherwise persecuted.
Of course we can do this in addition to semi-protection, but there are a couple of advantages to having a formal policy. First, if we get attacked in the media it will be helpful to say that we have already developed a strict policy to deal with this stuff. Second, it may make all editors a bit more careful about citations and POV issues. Third, it will be easier to remove problematic material.GabrielF 23:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I object to extending WP:BLP to any particular subclass of dead people, except possibly some sort of "dead for fewer than N years", where N is a one-digit integer. In particular, all three cases you mention are places where Wikipedia should not apply WP:BLP standards. We have WP:RS, that's enough. Αργυριου (talk) 22:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I would object to this as well. It's not hard, and not subjective, to determine if a person is alive. It's far harder and much more subjective to determine if a person is or was "revered", and I don't think we should get into the business of deciding that. How do we decide? Revered by whom? The rationale for this policy is that it prevents harm to living people. Dead people can't be harmed, they're, well, dead. Of course, an editor repeatedly attempting to insert unsourced POV edits into an article about a dead person can be reported and dealt with for disruptive behavior, but that's true of all articles. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Seraphimblade. This just seems to be unnecessarily opening a can of worms. We really don't want to encourage arguments over which dead people are "revered", and which aren't. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 22:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Done and Image:Green tick.png

See also: #Proposal for a new logo for policy pages and Wikipedia talk:Attribution#Individual sections need tagging

Done

I came across the above template (Template:Done) today and noticed how it uses the same check that Template:Policy uses. I created a black tick mark and edited it into this template to reduce confusion as we're now starting to tag sections of policy pages (on the right side) using this same green check. Does doing this make sense? (→Netscott) 21:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I can't see how using a green tick in more than one context will cause much confusion. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 22:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I support keeping it green unless there can be specific cases pointed to where there has been confusion. The fact that there might be confusion is not a good reason to change it, as I think that's very unlikely in my opinion. Quadzilla99 22:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
No, it just "waters down" the significance of the green check in terms of policy... like, "oh I see that everywhere, interesting"... big deal. (→Netscott) 22:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
But how many people instantly associate a big green tick with Wikipolicy? -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 22:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Only editors that have been around long enough.... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, which forms the question, why is a plain check mark denoting Wikipolicy? Something more distinctive should be it appears. (→Netscott) 22:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Because we aren't trying to convey the intricacies of Wikipedia policy via an icon. Rather than being distracted and focusing their attention on an image file, readers are supposed to actually read the tag in question. After they've done that, the simple green or blue graphic serves as a visual cue. —David Levy 23:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, David, but I do not buy it. The reluctance to improve upon our graphics is something that I cannot accept. Long-standing magazines change and evolve their layour and graphics to become more appealing to their readership. Why we should not do the same? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
The above argument is based upon the fallacious assumption your proposed icons are unequivocal improvements over the status quo. Has it occurred to you that people simply prefer Gmaxwell's checkmark? —David Levy 23:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
If the consensus is to stay with the tick-mark, then I will work in creating a more modern version of that tick mark. Will have some samples later tonight. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
How is Gmaxwell's version outdated? —David Levy 23:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
David Levy, I think it has been illusrated to you here that for new editors the green check likely has little significance in terms of its appearance on a page needing to denote that the page should be taken more seriously. No? (→Netscott) 23:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone ever been confused or commented that they were confused by it? I mean that is the real issue. Quadzilla99 23:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Quadzilla, if you've got a moment read this thread and you'll likely better understand why this discussion has come about. (→Netscott) 23:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe that the use of similarly sized green checkmarks on one project page (or even the widespread adoption of this convention) is going to confuse people, and your apparent belief that the policy icon is intended to be perceived as sacred is incorrect. On the contrary, it's important for readers to understand that policies should be followed because they make sense, not because someone has applied an arbitrary symbol.
Nonetheless, we could change the {{done}} and {{not done}} tags to use this green "plus" icon and this red "minus" icon. —David Levy 23:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Again, the icon's purpose is not to convey the intricacies of Wikipedia policy. That's what the words are for. If users don't bother to read the template, no image file is going to help (and anything fancy will only distract them). The color-coded checkmarks exist primarily to help identify the tags in the future.
I don't, however, agree that the checkmark has little inherent significance. I just don't believe that it's possible for a graphic file to accomplish the feat that you evidently believe it should. —David Levy 23:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I've read the recommended thread and still see no sign that anyone is reading the done checks down at FAC and thinking they are official policy. I believe this mistake is not being made so I don't see the need to change the check symbol on the done template. If there is some other reason to change the done symbol maybe I'm missing it. Quadzilla99 00:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly - the two contexts are so different, when is anyone going to confuse them. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 09:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Not a big deal really, but tick icons halfway past a page don't serve any particular purpose either. The term "policy shortcut" is misleading; shortcuts aren't policy, an entire page is policy (or is not policy, as the case may be). >Radiant< 12:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The idea behind the "policy shortcut" label is to inform people who follow said shortcuts (and enter the page without seeing the "policy" tag at the top) that they're viewing a policy. I'm not sure why anyone would interpret the phrase "policy shortcut" as a claim that the shortcuts themselves are policy; it merely means "shortcut to policy." —David Levy 14:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion continues to help vandalism

I now have two articles on my watchlist renamed and deleted. Such vandalism is from an outgrowth of some ridiculous racist edit war between South Korea and Japan. Someone moved both articles to a nonsense name and had it marked for deletion. Before editors of that article or I can even revert or discuss the deletion, all the content is deleted and the article history is now gone. The first time it happened I wrote about it on this page, but nothing has been done to improve the situation. I don't even know what the original article is about (or its title) because all of the information is gone! Please have more qualified admins to handle speedy deletion, change the policy, or add some sort of history to a deleted article. The speedy deletion process is currently quite ridiculous and puts too much power into a single admin edit. falsedef 01:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm finding this a bit opaque without some background and details to track what went on, and without that it's hard to discuss the merits of your complaint. You can't remember either article's name? The original names before the moves? Any discussions on your or someone else's talk page where the articles might have been linked? With the names we could look at the deletion log, see in the edit summary some information on why the articles were deleted, who deleted it, etc. Administrators also have the ability to look at deleted articles to get a better understanding. Note also that you can ask for deletions to be reviewed at Wikipedia:Deletion review (but this cannot be done without pinpointing the actual article that was deleted).--Fuhghettaboutit 02:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
This nicely indicates the roadblocks the system has inadvertently thrown in the way of editors who think they have a legitimate concern. It should not be possible for a single possibly biased admin to remove articles, it should be possible to easily find out for oneself exactly what has happened to a deleted article, there should be an essentially automatic process for looking at it without making it a personal favor, and there ought to be a much easier policy for reviewing speedys. DelRev is suitable perhaps for AfDs where they re is process to be discussed, and reasons on record, but not for most simple deletion of inappropriately deleted speedies. And there should be a regular procedure for reviewing the records of admins who make speedies that do not hold up. without making it into a major RfA matter. Most dissatisfied eds. will not know how to appeal, or will think --whether or not correctly -- that the "regulars" may not pay attention to them. Many will not even complain. All the zealots complain--the ordinary guy just goes away disappointed--
You can try checking Japan on undeniable wheels! if you're an admin. Since I'm not an admin, I can't be sure what the original article was, or if it even exists anymore. I know for sure an established article was moved to a nonsensical name and then deleted. Hopefully the admins who failed to cle:an up the vandalism fully at least restored the original article, since I have no way of knowing unless I backup names by hand. I'm sure most of us have dozens of various articles in our watchlists which can't be recited by memory (the only articles I keep track of personally are the ones I create). I'm not arguing against speedy deletion in general, but this special case needs to be cleared up, as I don't appreciate garbage or offensive trash articles in my watchlist replacing legitimate ones.falsedef 05:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I am not commenting on the merits of this particular case, about which I know nothing. DGG 04:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
That's odd, because other than the passing reference to this case, that paragraph is mostly a lot of words saying not very much at all. Chris cheese whine 04:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
It's not the individual case that I wish to discuss, it's a loophole which is being exploited. A vandal moves an established article to a nonsensical name and edits it to look like nonsense. It is then flagged for speedy deletion. An admin will then proceed to see the nonsense and delete the article without properly looking at where the article actually came from. Anyone who has this in their Watched articles will only see the nonsense article name, not the original. I cannot keep track of all my watched articles by memory alone, and rely on the watched article feature to track vandalism and contentious issues. This bypasses the eyes of editors of that article, and relies on 3rd party admins to clear up, who are not (As I have two examples of this on my watchlist). Even if the article is reverted, editor's watchlists will not be reverted appropriately unless a moveback and restore is done. As of now it's not a popular method of vandalism, but I'm asking for a system to be implemented to prevent this from happening. A full history isn't even needed, but at least a move history should be seen on the article history, or the admin should always leave a report on the talk page. falsedef 05:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Hit to "display and edit the complete list" on your watchlist. That will show you every page you've ever watched, even those that have been deleted will be there as a redlink. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The redlinked name is NOT the original article name!falsedef 05:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Japan on undeniable wheels! only has one deleted edit, it looks like Japan was moved there as vandalism. However, it was moved back. That was months ago, so it doesn't relate to this situation. However, if you can give me the names of the articles that were deleted, that's just as helpful, I can view the history there. But give us something! Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. So the issue has little to do with speedy deletion as I originally though, and more to do with reverting a move. Is there anyway for a non-admin to check the previous article name of a deleted article in a watchlist?
Unless the article name gives hints, no. This would require seeing the history, which is restricted to admins. Chris cheese whine 05:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
As to what I think might be confusing you-if a page is moved by a vandal, and moved back, it leaves a redirect at the location the vandal moved it to. Since this redirect is generally inappropriate, it's speedily deleted. However, only one actual edit (the move vandalism cleanup) is actually deleted, the rest of the edits are moved back to the old location, and remain in history, just the same as if it'd never been moved. It's basically just a little more complex form of reverting vandalism, but it doesn't harm the page or its history. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Even so, there needs to be a way for nonadmins to get this information without having to beg a admin for such trivial info. I understand the need to block illegal and policy breaking content from Wikipedia, but there needs to be accountability with deleted articles. Nonadmins make up the bulk of editors and there needs to be more transparency to see when mistakes are made. Even a simple "Bob the admin deleted this article due to policy violation" template would go a long way, and would also help prevent the recreation of articles that have no corrected policy violations due to unavoidable ignorance of a nonadmin. Seeing a completely blank deleted article (with no signs that it was even deleted) impedes legitimate work of nonadmins. As for the bugged revert, which was my problem, perhaps another function should be given to admins to revert any dynamic links along with the cleanup, since doing it by hand is failing to prevent it. Japan is a well known article, but I also have lesser known articles which might take years before I run into again by random surfing. Also such articles need the few watchful eyes it has. falsedef 06:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The information is available, see Special:Log. For example, this is the on-wheels move vandalism example you gave, showing it was moved from and back to Japan. Generally, when you come across a non-existent page, you can click on the "check the deletion log" link that appears on that page (in this case though, it's helpful to change it so you see not just the deletion log, but the move log as well). --Interiot 06:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] abbreviations

I assume that Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Prefer_spelled-out_phrases_to_abbreviations means that if the spelled out phrase is also used "commonly," one has to prefer this over the abbreviation? At least that is what I get from "is almost exclusively known only by its abbreviation." Exclusively here sounds like I would need to have a hard time finding the spelled out phrase in scholarly articles for example, for me to not use it. Intangible3.0 15:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly... Look at IBM... while most people know that the company is actually "International Business Machines" it is more common to simply call it IBM. Thus we use the abreviation. Blueboar 15:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
In this case, they call themselves IBM, as a singular brand (it is a registered trademark), so it has moved beyond the abbreviation stage. This still doesn't explain the above policy though. Common name is only a guideline, not a policy. HP is still at Hewlett-Packard, so giving examples doesn't help. Intangible3.0 16:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Most maintenance templates should be placed on the talk page

(The following message, but not the replies posted below it, was copied from Wikipedia talk:Maintenance by The Transhumanist 00:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC))...

I have a couple of friends who work in the visual electronic entertainment industry. I now avoid watching anything with them because instead of enjoying the film or television program, they sit there commenting on technical features in the film, lighting, cuts etc. I think that with people who regularly edit Wikipedia articles instead of viewing articles for the information they contain (as most readers do) they view the article for how well put together it is and if it can be improved.

One manifestation of this I have noticed, which in my opinion is the growing tendency, is to add what are editorial comments to the article page instead of on to the talk page. If a person edits an article page and write in plain text. "This page is not good enough it needs more information" the comment will either be moved to the talk page or it will be deleted as vandalism. However if a person puts a template at the top of a page then they feel that is justified (eg {{cleanup-bio}}, but in essence it is contributing nothing more to the article than the plain text does.

There are exceptions to this, for example I think that the {{unreferenced}} placed in a "Reference" section at the bottom of an article, serves a dual purpose. It is a maintenance template but it also adds information that a passing reader of the page (who is not familiar with Wikipeda) needs to know. But a passing reader does not need to know {{wikify}} "This article (or section) may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards." Comments like this should in my opinion be placed on talk page. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. Tag clutter is a growing problem, and it detracts from the quality of the encyclopedia. So if an article has unwiki formatting, someone comes along and adds a tag or two that make the article even worse and more unencyclopedic. Clean up projects are misnamed, as they are virtually spreading litter everywhere. Pretty soon we're going to need clean up projects just to clean up the mess created by the current clean up projects. The Transhumanist 00:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I do quite a bit of WikiGnoming, which means I spend a lot of time nosing around in categories like Articles needing to be Wikified, etc. From an organizational standpoint, I think that these could easily be just categories added to the page, rather than huge banners at the top of the page. However, if a new user comes across a page that has no wiki markup, that user might think that this is the style he or she should strive for while editing. Really, the article's content serves two almost opposing purposes for editors and for readers. And, I admit, I've added necessary wiki tags to articles for purely political purposes, meaning that I disagreed with the content of the article but rather than risk any sort of edit war or conflict, I just added cleanup tags so that someone else would take care of it! -sthomson06 (Talk) 20:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Replace all tags with a single icon?

Perhaps what is needed is a little icon that can be placed in the top right corner of articles needing work. The presence of the icon would indicate that there are tags which need to be addressed on the article's talk page. The advantages would be that at 3/8" x 3/8" it would be fairly unobtrusive, and would also take the place of multiple tags. One icon fits all. The Transhumanist 00:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting thought. There is a division between those tags that are of benefit to the readers and those of benefit to the editors. Indications of a lack of references or a POV problem are of benefit to the readers. Orphan article, merge suggestions, expansion requests, and wikification are really only of benefit to the editors. (Though any of them may encourage a reader to become an editor, and the benefit of that is significant.)
Accordingly, I'd start by classifying the two types of templates into those two broad categories. The editor only ones could be moved to such an icon (with an invitation for the reader to become an editor/help fix them), but the reader caution ones should not go to the same type of single icon. A different common icon might work for those, but I'm not certain. GRBerry 00:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the little icons can be color coded: red for those tags that are of benefit to the readers and other colors that benefit to the editors. The shape of the icon might also be used (e.g. stop sign shape for more serious tags.) It might be nice if the icons linked to actual tags on the talk page. A division between those tags that are a must to appear on the article page and those that need only be icons might help as well. -- Jreferee 01:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it could be expandable? If a registered editor clicks on the little icon, it would pop out a box with the standard template, like a cross between the popups tool and those template boxes with the [Show] link at the top to expand them. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 12:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. The templates serve to both inform & remind the casual reader that the article/site is in continuous development, and also act as a lure for curious-readers to become new-editors. Some of the templates could use an aesthetic update (See Wikipedia:Template standardisation/article. I really like flamurai's fairly recent 'blanca' additions), but moving them all to the talkpage would be dishonest and disadvantageous. --Quiddity 02:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Not if the icon used is documented well throughout Wikipedia's help and support pages. We'd have to make it ubiquitous so everybody knew what it was. The only problem I can see is with the mirrors. We could link the icon itself to an explanation page on what the icon means. If it's done right, that page would automatically be included in the mirrors. The icon might be especially effective if it included the word "Alert!". The Transhumanist 04:15, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
"More icons" is not a popular solution to anything, especially in the top-right corner. See Template talk:Spoken Wikipedia for how contentious even that one is; only the featured stars have fairly unanimous approval. And the mirrors can take care of themselves. --Quiddity 09:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Tags are visible for a reason. They invite people to edit. >Radiant< 09:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree with Radiant, having the tags on the page does encourage people to fix it. I know I don't look at the talk page of ery article I go to, most editors won't either. However, I think it would be a good idea to create smaller versions of some templates, for articles that need a lot. Some articles have so many tags the tags take up the whole window. I think if they are going to be stacked (cleanup, wikify, sources, notability) then they should use smaller templates, to avoid obscuring the content. Something that only takes 1 or 2 lines with no images. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • This all goes to a pet peeve of mine about proper tagging and documentation of when these IN-YOUR-FACE trash tags go on the page. Most do not note on the talk with a section describing their gripe. So it's a lazy way out. Perhaps they do invite others to edit, and so have they admittedly goaded me, but there is a corollary responsibility... some clues left behind for the others who have to Guess what the editor applying such is thinking. At the very least the current crop of cleanup tags should shout an error message if they are not given a valid talk page section title to merge into a link input. The current crop defaults to the talk page where ninety-nine times out of a hundred there is no section discussing what the tagging editor believes as a problem—letting umptine dozens of editors who happen by later to guess at what the problem may be. I've found articles tagged clean-up for over 15 months and somewhere over 130 edits... so the system clearly needs some adjustments.

As a related aside I was going to post below, See {{DATE}}, which should help make that problem solution more effective, if people use it. Virtually all the cleanup tags I'm familiar with will be satisfied by that template which needs substituted, but that will come out loud and clear the first time one doesn't! <g> It produces date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} as a reminder, and "date=February 2007" when applied like this: {{clean|{{subst:DATE}}}}, for example. That date= after the pipe is precisely the input parameter most of the the IN-YOUR-FACE tags are designed to take. The tagging overloading a page can and should be handled by using a version of '|small=1' switching which is common to an increasing number of tags should they be kept on main pages. Another alternative there would be the hide/show tagging modes many navigation templates are sporting these days.

The date tagging of such templates has been a good impulse in the right direction, but created need for patrolling parties and BOTs to check on that. But I agree strongly with Phillip, most Banner templates are deleterious to our reputations with the occasional reader and even the regular users. They aid the press perception that we are unreliable. So I like Transhumanist's idea of a iconic tag, but would not make it a right margin tag, but a left margin simple message: Editor attention needed which would be a link to the article talk page Section where the cleanup and such tag resides... See for example: {{Commons-gallery}} and the smaller but Brassier {{Gallery-link}} (style meant for category page tagging--not shown, see Cat:Saxony for that).
 See our image gallery on this topic at:'United States Navy ships'

So I'm thinking of the laid back style of these two Commons-gallery tags (which are showing combinations of three different operations modes between the two examples here), with the size and plain link of that one in the category. As can plainly be seen, the text wraps right about them.

 See our image gallery on this topic at:'flowers'
That Iconic notice could be even more sophisticated in assuming service page similar to the /doc pages now being used for template documentation. That is a local sub-page, an {{/cleanup}} page, which acts as a storage register to some hypothetical {{clean-status}} 'display template' in a page's head section-- if the register's got includable content, then the 'display macro' on the article places the edit message automatically and once put in place, never need be removed, as it depends on the content in {{{{PAGENAME}}/cleanup}} for activation and a link to display. So it would hold a simple #if: test like are frequently used in testing for named parameters, if there is nothing to include... the article is clean without a tag display, which stays silent.
The Talk page would hold the actual tag in the section, but the 'in your face templates' could then all be put on the talks, and some notice still be given to browsing editors with a few minutes to spare. Whether the categories show the page or the talk page is immaterial--both are article related, so anyone patroling those can do so easily enough.
The little extra trouble the editor's who are making, what is after all,'a serious judgment call', will create an impetus to justify their actions since they have to slow down a bit to initiate the talk page section, regardless, and if necessary, install the indicator template per The Transhumanist's suggestion. For my part, I figure anyone adding any such tag in a hurry without judicious consideration, is not someone I want hanging them at all, ever. I would suggest the 'cleanup page' be "dirtied" by a link to the talk section our (now, hopefully, more) dutiful editor tagging the article has to define first.
Since in the new version tagging templates for talk pages, there should be a edit link to the {{/cleanup}} page, his/her tagging would include adding or editing the talk page section title into the cleanup page to become the end of an autogenerated link in the {{/cleanup}} page. Such an extra page edit is minor and handled by a click, paste (page section title), and save... followed by saving/closing their rationale in the talk. Thus the articles would become less of an eyesore to the readers, and so forth... still satisfying: Tags are visible for a reason. They invite people to edit. At least for most of the people who count in such cases... the people who already do. We can recruit editors some other way, such considerations should not drive our policies, but what makes the project better overall, and these IN-YOUR-FACE-DUMMY templates crap all over it looking from the outside in.
Handling multiple taggings in the {{/cleanup}} page is easy enough too. The oldest tag is kept on the active part of the page. Additional talk page section titles would simply be added on the noinclude part of the page, oldest listed on top. When a cleanup/expert/copyedit/disputed tag is cleared, before it is deleted, it's self-link to the {{/cleanup}} page can be used to delete the matching section title. The obvious exception is the merge tags, which in the latest generation are far more unobtrusive and less detrimental than most banner tagging.
So to me, The Transhumanist's proposal is technically feasible and sufficiently easy to implement that it could at least be tried for a few weeks or months. The other side of this coin is simple -- what proof exists that any of these banner tags have caused an newcomer to begin an editing career? What proof is there that given the link as I propose and that simple message Editing help needed, the reader-customer won't follow the link out of curiosity. If it leads to a few lines describing whatever deficiencies exist, then they may be emboldend to go ahead and make some changes as the tag hanger indicated are needed. Cheers! // FrankB 09:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Template standardisation/article. This sort of input would probably be welcome over there. Also, what does everyone think of this? --Random832 00:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As this section is getting close to its sell by date, I will cut and past to there, so that there is a record of this exchange. Please post any additional comments on that page --Philip Baird Shearer 13:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IP article creation

Hiho, are there any documentations about the impact of not allowing IPs to create new articles? --141.51.166.91 13:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, you're welcome to do it through articles for creation. If the topic is appropriate and you cite a source, an established editor will create the article for you. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 15:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, it would just be really easy if the IP users were to register and get their own account. Registering isn't hard, and no e-mail address is required. Diez2 16:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
To actually answer your question, 141.51.166.91 (*wink*), there is no data, although I believe that article growth has followed a logistic pattern as of late. This growth may be natural, but the extent to which it is affected by the lack IP article creation seems to conplicated to calculate to me. You could look at another language Wikipedia that has anon page creation (like the German Wikipedia) and compare the results, but there seems to be too many variables to do an efficacious comparison (except w/ alternate universe). I know many editors that are in favor of lifting that restriction, but I'm sure that there are those that aren't. GracenotesT § 18:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for at least trying to answer my question :-) So, there is not even a single text on the impact of not allowing IPs to create articles on en-WP? Because, well, from statistics, there doesn't seem to be an effect except that the number of accounts has exploded. --84.58.140.3 22:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, users that edit while logged in are more anonymous to wikipedia readers than those users who edit without logging in, and so display their IP addresses for any other user to see. I have decided to use an account to edit wikipedia, for vanity and laziness reasons, to keep track of my edits and which articles I'm editing. However, I think users with complain about "anonymous" IP editors are doing so ingenuously: I have no idea if the above users that show account names are not the same person, or where they are editing from. An IP editor? I can tell where they are posting from and if that source is unique or pretending to give itself consenusus through "attaboy" posts talking to itself. Only amdins and above can "police" this sort of abuse for logged in editors. For IP editors, anyone can "police" their editing so to speak. Just my input as food for thought but no particular agenda or recommendation. Piperdown 05:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no. Users who are online using a service that employs dynamic IP "change their identity" any time they disconnect and reconnect to their ISP. Being logged in makes one accountable (assuming the account was created in good faith). Plus, an admin can use checkuser to check for sockpuppets or patterns of malicious editing. Caknuck 01:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unfair treatment of Scientology

This seems to be going on here. For example, in the opening section of the article Scientology you can read:

However, outside observers—including journalists, lawmakers, and national governing bodies of several countries—have alleged that the Church is an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and brutally exploits its members.[3][4]

I don't think that you would find a sentence like that in the opening section of the articles on Hinduism, the Roman Catholic Church, or Islam even though those religions are just as "controversial." I'm not sure if this was the right place to post these comments. Thanks for your attention. Steve Dufour 02:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

While not in the lead section, the Roman Catholic Church article mentions criticism of the Church's stance on contraception and its role in the recent spate of child abuse allegations. I think this is more a product of the comparitive depths of history of the more established religions as opposed to Scientology. Caknuck 02:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you think that Hinduism, Catholocism, and Islam are controversial - or "controversial" - in the same sense that Scientology is, I'm not sure if anyone can help you, regardless of where you post. But best of luck. Herostratus 03:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

What makes Scientology controversial and the others not? Steve Dufour 04:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Scientology is labeled controversial because reputable published sources call it controversial. Wikipedia aims to represent all sides of the debate about any given article subject, as long as those positions are from reputable verifiable sources. If Islam and Christianity and Hinduism and Buddhism have a significant number of reputable published sources saying that they're controversial, then Wikipedians will endeavor to represent that in those articles as well. If you've got citations to that effect, please let the editors know on the appropriate article talk pages.—Perceval 05:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry. I didn't mean for the conversation to get hung up on one word. The point I was trying to make is that the articles about these other religions don't bring up the negative opinions in the opening section. This is only one example of the special treatment given to Scientology here on WP. Steve Dufour 05:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, we do have scientologists editing on wikipedia. (We also have Hindus, Christians, Jews and Muslims editing). So things should be fair enough. Try moving the criticism down the page a little if you think the sources aren't prominent enough to warrent the current location. You might get reverted of course. If so, take your time to argue your position on the associated talk page. You might be able to reach a compromise.
I can't promise that you won't need to give ground however. It's quite possible scientologists themselves chose the current wording and placement, based on wikipedia guidelines that apply to all articles (notably: the Neutral point of view).
I hope this helps! --Kim Bruning 06:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I will give it a try and see what happens. Thanks. Steve Dufour 13:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I did make the change by moving the criticism down the page. And I was shocked!!! It lasted almost 3 hours and the person who reverted it was even polite in his comments on the talk page. Maybe there is hope after all. Steve Dufour 18:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup, the Wikipedia "process" mostly works. Sometimes not as smoothly or quickly as we'd like, but on the main it does work. Raymond Arritt 20:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

One must remember that unlike the other religions mentioned, Scientology is run (and closely managed) by a single organisation. This means that controversies about the business-policies of the Church of Scientology can reflect upon the religion itself. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 06:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that Scientology's negative points should all be reported here. I was just pointing out some of the problems with the way it is handled compared to other groups. Steve Dufour 13:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
hmmm....What might work is for all Scientology articles to be locked as they are. This would free up a lot of editors to do more useful things here. Steve Dufour 17:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Speedy Deletions, regular Deletions, and editors who only do those two things.

Is there a method in place already to censure people for using deletion tags incorrectly, repeatedly? I find it is an incredibly common problem - if I see something on TV that is notable and yet does not have its own article, I usually try to add it. Every single time I add an article, someone tries to have it speedy-deleted instantly. We are not talking about random, meaningless articles here; instead we are talking about content that is universally approved and accepted as notable, except it does not have sources yet. When I go back, and do more work that the other person could have helped with, and add sources from Google, there is no dispute.

There are dozens and dozens of editors who go through new pages and just wantonly apply speedy deletion and prod tags to new articles that are short, temporarily unsourced, or otherwise don't meet their approval. Despite the fact that they are not candidates for regular deletion (let alone speedy), these same editors constantly mark things for speedy-deletions regardless, assuming that someone else will come back behind them and clean it up if it was a mistake.

This is hugely detrimental to the project, and it is a form of newbie-biting. Do we have a force in place to correct this behaviour specifically? People who have no idea what the speedy-deletion criteria even ARE should not be using speedy-deletion tags, and yet they are doing it, because it is an easy way to get their edit count up without contributing, doing research, or doing any real work.

So please tell me I'm overlooking a place where I can report these habitual abusers? I wish there was a specific unit or group of people specifically watching for this sort of thing, because it literally happens with /every single/ article I have created, both as an anon (previously) and as a registered user (now).John the Apostate 22:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Re the spur of the moment unsourced new articles. Have you considered starting the article in your sandbox, finding and adding sources, before creating the thing in Wikipedia? This might prevent speedy delete tags for lack of references.
As for the New Article Patrols; I don't know enough to comment but there is a lot of cruft created each day, somebody has to get busy with the broom. LessHeard vanU 22:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
My point, really, is that this is against policy and they shouldn't be doing it. While I could write the whole thing in notepad and add sources before I pressed 'save,' why should I have to? I am not the one violating policy, they are. John the Apostate 22:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
The onus for sourcing is, always has been, and always will be, with the person creating the new article, and not the person nominating it for deletion. Chris cheese whine 22:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
So if I wrote an article about Hitler with no immediate sourcing, and someone else came by and wanted to speedy delete it as 'patent nonsense - db1,' you would find this acceptable? Because to me, that's completely misunderstanding the policies on deletion, and especially on speedy-deletion.John the Apostate 22:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Probably, but then we've got a perfectly good one already. PS - you lose. :-) Chris cheese whine 22:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Probably? Meaning you would find that acceptable, to speedy-delete it as 'patent nonsense' simply because it didn't have sources that a simple click on Google would turn up? I suggest you read the article for deletion page again, because it specifically warns against doing that, in several ways and places. I will note that I am new here, and I thought this was a place where I could get actual constructive responses. I am a bit baffled by the flippancy, as I thought this would be a forum to communicate seriously. Is this a gag page, or is it just you? John the Apostate 22:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I've done several articles in a userspace sandbox before posting them. Sometimes you do come across something you think it might be interesting to make an article on. But we require that article content be attributed to sources. Not sometime, not before they get ready for their FA nomination, but from the very first edit. If you want to start a draft, but aren't ready to source it yet, just start it off in userspace, and source it at your convenience, without any worry of deletion. As to speedies, if you think one was requested inappropriately, add {{hangon}} to the article and make your case. If you would like any of the deleted articles userfied so that you can find some sources, let me know, I'll be happy to do so for you. Generally, so will the admin who performed the deletion, unless the article was an attack or copyvio. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If I saw a new article on Hitler saying random gibberish or biased political rantings, then I would immediately nominate it for speedy deletion. When I am on the prowl, I look for articles with absolutely no context whatsoever (often created by vandals), articles that appear to be autobios (often created by newbies and which I simply move to their userspace), or I look for articles which do not assert their notability (among the biggest mistakes, in my opinion). I believe that users should take their time creating a new article and try to work out its kinks before making that first edit, so-as to prevent misunderstandings such as what you have experienced. If an article has not existed for the several years that Wikipedia has been around, I'd be pretty confident that no one is going to create it while you're typing it up.
I do not know what the original incarnation of your article looked like, but the vast majority of the existing text on Nina Clifford does not seem to assert any notability -- with the exception of the last line: "Ms. Clifford was memorialized in the 1980s with a play, and then a musical, about her antics. It was entitled 'Nina! Madam to a Saintly City.'" For that reason, I believe it attains notability. It provides links, which (I assume) provide references (though they should be wikified, but alas: I, too, am guilty of rarely formatting references properly). --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 23:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Try the administrators noticeboard first, but make sure the taggings are, in fact, false. Have your argument ready or you'll be dismissed outright. WP:RFC would be the next step after that, although it's typically a waste of time. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Also try {{inuse}}, on your very first edit. Αργυριου (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the tips! I will keep them in mind. John the Apostate 23:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
It's actually rare that a speedy delete would occur in five minutes and it would certainly mean that at least one editor and one administrator found the article worthy of deletion. One problem I saw with your article was that there was no notice of notability (notoriety, yes; notability, no). Lots of uncited stubs survive, but non-notables tend to get waxed. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
The point is not whether the article qualified for a suggested deletion. The problem is that it clearly (and the other ones too) did not qualify for speedy-deletion, and yet people are very very quick to slap a tag on there, usually within thirty seconds (!) of creation. That is wholly inappropriate, and even if the nonsourced article would have been deleted following deletion policy, so be it. But tagging it as a speedy-deletion and then doing it over and over to other articles just to get your edit-count up is the problem. I know how to proceed now though. Thanks! John the Apostate 23:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, to be clear, no admin deleted my content. I was miffed by constantly being faced with erroneous speedy-deletion tags on content that was NOT patent nonsense, and yet was tagged that way by new page patrollers of the regular-editing variety. John the Apostate 23:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

(undent) You're sort of missing the point of WP:ATT if you write the article and add sources later. Ideally, you should be writing from sources, not writing and then finding sources to back up what you say. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 23:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

However, if an article has real content, CSD nonsense only applies to true nonsense (sjdgfoseuaygfs sfdhp234io), not coherent content, so you could definitely argue agaist deletion based on misuse of the criteria. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 23:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
(responding to comment further up) Articles get looked at as soon as they're posted. If you'd like to work an article that's not ready to be read, it's best to create it and work on it as a user subpage. Maybe it's a little surprising to see articles tackled right away, but this is a wiki, we all work together, and if you want an article for yourself for a bit, don't put it in article space. --Interiot 00:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Wait... what's this? "create in userspace"!? Doesn't that amount to "Please don't actually use the wiki to make an encyclopedia?"

OUW!

We're here to work together to make great articles. Not to race each other to see who can delete articles fastest. Focus here folks! :-)

Articles are started in the main namespace, and when you see one, your first question should be how do I improve this?", not "which CSD tag shall I apply today?".

My first article on wikipedia got wikified and tidied practically before I released the submit button. That fast! Was I hooked? Boy was I ever. I'm still here editing years later :-P

--Kim Bruning 02:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

This suggestion to only create article in the user space until they are of feature article status is utter BS'ing. In this regard, I completely agree with you Kim. We are here to create great articles, and they have to start somewhere. The whole point of Wikipedia was to avoid having to go through the incredibly painful process of Nupedia where you had to write the article completely, submit it for "peer" review, have it rot away for a while, go back and re-edit the article, add more sources and improve the content, and then finally get the thing for approval. Again, how many Nupedia articles actually got written in this process over the course of more than a year and a half? And yes, I was there back when Nupedia was first started. I was so intimidated by the whole process that I decided to bag it and not even bother trying. It sounds like some people here would like Nupedia to start back up again, as if Wikipedia never happened, or even understand why Wikipedia was started in the first place. --Robert Horning 05:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
This editor specifically said

"if I see something on TV that is notable and yet does not have its own article, I usually try to add it..."

and then goes on to say that they then look to see if there are references they can use. If folk are going to be allowed to add "interesting facts not previously noted" without context and to be referenced as and when sources are found (and just left hanging if there is nothing? Are these people going to go to a major library or just do a Google search for their citations?) then both WP:Not is going to need rewriting and the article stubs people will be needing counseling.
The sandbox is the ideal place to consolidate and polish up a new article, and many people (me hopefully included) are better editors for having early contributions removed/ripped to shreds; as per the comment in the edit box. I also think the people patrolling new articles are performing a useful service in keeping the standard of surviving articles to a reasonable standard, it gives a useful mark at which to aim, by removing non-par contributions. They would likely be delighted to come across more new articles that have already been worked on and do not need any attention from them. LessHeard vanU 22:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Every deletion is a person displeased, and some of those people will make no further contributions, and frankly when I see things like this and this and they're hanging around for months and years I have to wonder if all the policies and guidelines on content aren't just pretense. Cryptonymius 05:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

(EC) Whoa! I think we can have a middle ground here. No one's saying "Create in userspace until it'll be ready for FA on the first edit." The issue here is sourcing. We should be writing from sources, not memory. What userspace creation does help with, is preventing needless deletion (and whether anyone likes it or not, there is a lot of garbage coming in. See for yourself.) When one is doing newpage patrol, and seeing tons of one- or two-line articles coming in, most of which are in the vein of "John is really cool lololol", yes, sometimes the trigger finger gets an itch, but that's not without reason. It also helps future editors (there's a source right there, write some more from it!) and helps to weed out hoaxes (the more articles that come in sourced, the closer of scrutiny can be placed on those that don't.) The arguments often seem to exhibit the false dichotomy and straw man fallacies. There is a middle ground between "Create a sourceless one-line article that barely even explains what it's about" and "Create an FA on the first edit." Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, I know all about the itchy trigger finger phenomenon. I've done most kinds of admin-type patrol too. I might have occaisionally gotten one or two complaints. Shootout on Deletion Review at high noon? Who me? <innocent look>. No Requst for comments or Arbcom cases though <knock on wood>.. You do need to make snap decisions though, because it's like mopping the floor while the tap's still running. If you mess up, just undelete quickly, no problem. Or only go by proposed deletion in the first place, that's what it's here for, sanest system around!
If those don't really work out anymore, then we've got a problem. We're supposed to be helping editors, not hindering them, of course. Moving away from the wiki-pedia model is probably not the best idea though. :-/
I still might know some tools (& who to bribe to work on 'em) to help with making admin tasks easier, and maybe we can make improvements to RFA itself. Do you have any specific ideas on what might help (tools, processes, attitudes, or pure blue sky thinking) , yourself? --Kim Bruning 06:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
By far, the best thing that could be done is a similar attitude toward sourcing as there is toward NPOV (though this may be blue sky thinking). If someone sees a glaring NPOV problem, they know it's a problem, and it needs fixing sooner rather than later. This is good. As a reference work, we should be placing a tremendous amount of importance in maintaining a neutral stance. Yet many of these same editors, upon coming across a sourceless article, won't even do so much as place an {{unreferenced}} tag on it to call attention to the problem, and become very agitated about the removal of unsourced information (or sometimes even just on fact-tagging it!) Sourcing is not only as critical as NPOV, it is critical to NPOV. If what is in an article is sourced, there is no need to question editorial bias-we're reporting what reliable sources said, not what we think. It also helps future editors immensely, as quite often there's more information in a source for what that editor wishes to add, and it's right there. It's also extremely beneficial to readers, if they read an article and want more in-depth information, a reference list tells them right where to find it. I don't think this could be done through policy (hell, it already is policy), but I'd like to find some way to get people to understand the importance of sourcing. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, come to think of it-someone proposed, a while back, that we could have a "Draft:" namespace, that articles-in-progress could reside in until they've met the minimum sourcing guidelines. I think that just might help-that way, the decision isn't just between "Delete it entirely" or "Keep a sourceless article around", if no one can readily find sources. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
There are very legitimate reasons to delete "articles", especially if they aren't encyclopedic or even somebody just writing random garbage. But writing a draft version of a legitimate article just doesn't seem to me to be one of these. There are many, many articles that are legitimate stubs (and mostly even labeled as such). While having sources is a very good thing and should be strongly encouraged, deleting good faith contributions is not the best way to help encourage new people to try and contribute here. This includes POV edits, as in many cases all you need to do is simply educate the new contributor and try and let them know some good examples of NPOV articles and what the general philosophy actually is. Article deletion is the easy way out of this process, which is why it is done perhaps far more often than it should be. --Robert Horning 22:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
That's why I like the idea of the "Draft:" namespace (though, it would be easy enough to userfy unsourced articles, even without any code changes). That should address the concerns on both sides. For those concerned about unsourced articles, it gives an easy way to get them out of the encyclopedia, without deleting them entirely. For those contributors who contribute unsourced information, it lets them keep what they've written, but sends a firm message "Source it, then put it in an article, not the other way around." Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
So how would you deal with red links? By keeping them in the main namespace, you would at least have the blue-links for those articles which are stubby, even if they don't have all of the sources you are insisting on here. I'm not objecting to disclaimers and templates warning that the article is stubby in nature or incomplete. For me, a "Draft" namespace would be better used to help calm down edit wars where people are going back and forth with very unstable articles and moved to the main namespace once there is something close to concensus that has been achieved. I know that the red/blue link is something that could be fixed in software, but it does indicate that more thinking needs to go into this idea, and needs to be more than just creation of a new namespace.
On the other hand, I would support a "Published:" namespace or something similar that would only get content that has achieved some level of review and acceptance of several users. And to have articles in this published namespace to only link to each other unless the article hasn't reached a "published" level of acceptance. A user preference could then be used to stick with just the published articles or go to the "raw" articles under development, with default settings to only search for the published articles. Articles would have to be "republished" again if they have changed and the users find a new version acceptable. Of course, the devil is in the details about how this would happen. --Robert Horning 00:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The devil always seems to take up residence there, of course. Basically, what would happen is that articles with no reliable sourcing whatsoever would reside in the "Draft:" namespace (or alternatively be userfied and added to a category). There, the editors could take as long with sourcing as they desire, without having to worry about the article being deleted for lack of sourcing. If they need a few weeks to wait for an interlibrary loan to come in, that's fine! They're not restricted to a 5-day AFD process that way. On the other hand, that also ensures that we're not presenting totally unreferenced content as encyclopedia articles. To solve the redlink problem, perhaps it could be set up so that if there is not yet a mainspace article, but there is a draft, the reader is directed to a page stating something like "The article on this subject is a draft. Its information is not verified or sourced and is likely to contain inaccuracies. If you would like to view the article or help with writing and sourcing it, please click here." Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ineffective Wikiseek

I have recently noticed that a Wikiseek is now the default action for text entered in the search box that appears to the left of each article.

Is this helpful to our users while Wikiseek typically produces inferior results to the Go button?

[Wikiseek is a search engine that has indexed only Wikipedia pages, plus a very few pages that are linked to from Wikipedia. It was created by startup Searchme, Inc.

Despite press reports to the contrary, it has no affiliation with the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation or private corporation Wikia, and is unrelated to the never-released web search application Wikiasari.

Wikipedia users are cautioned that using the Wikiseek button often produces an inferior result to using the Go button on Wikipedia.

An ironic example of this is if one enters "Wikiseek" into the search button of Wikipedia; choose the Wikiseek button and no useable results will currently be displayed, choose the conventional "Go" button and you are taken directly to this article!

Further examples of futile searches with Wikiseek (even though there are eponymous articles) would be "Amber House" and "Cabragh House" (even though these particular problems were reported in 2006...] W. Frank 17:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand - for me, the default action is still the Go button. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 22:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I think you've got some malware installed on your computer which is altering the way Wikipedia displays for you. There is certainly no "Wikiseek" button in Wikipedia. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What qualifies for a WikiProject?

Are there any limits on what qualifies for a WikiProject? Wikipedia:WikiProject Centrist Party appears to have one participant, a person apparrently actively involved in the party; on the talk page of the article about the party I had, some time ago, raised questions about notability that I don't believe have been addressed. I'm not going to fight to get the article deleted, but what (if anything) does it mean for this to be a WikiProject? - Jmabel | Talk 19:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

3 articles and one user doesn't really make much of a WikiProject. Raise this on WP:RFC. The project is new, but there is a well-defined procedure for starting them. Chris cheese whine 19:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't "Require Edit Summaries" be the default?

It just occurred to me that since meaningful edit summaries are not optional policy, perhaps the default for new users ought to be to require them? --BenBurch 17:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

We had been discussing this higher up on this page and a forked post at village pump technical, now archived. See (above discussion) here, and the VP/T fork, here (you have to scroll to the relevant section). Not much has yet come of it, but where multiple people come up with a suggestion separately, that says something about it in and of itself.--Fuhghettaboutit 17:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Ooops! Should have looked harder. Thanks! --BenBurch 00:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The spam list

My attention was drawn to an edit on my Talk page, & as I researched the facts around it, I became more troubled at what happened. Maybe I'm behind the times, coming from left field, etc., but I don't like what I have found.

First, I am against spam -- in Wikipedia, in my email, anywhere. No reputable business knowingly uses spam to advertise, pure & simple.

However, it appears that it is far easier for a website to be listed as a spammer than it is to remove it. In the case I encountered, someone on an IRC channel claimed that the website "touregypt.net" was identified as a target of a spammer. Another Wikipedian (who, I want to point out, was acting in good faith) acted on this claim & began to "delink" every link to that website, without regard to who added it; the editor obviously was working as fast as she could. (By "delink" I mean that a nowiki tag was inserted so that one could not click-thru; one could still follow the link by copying the text of the URL into the browser.)

As a result, in several articles, talk pages, & many other places where it was clearly part of the context we lost references (I believe several of these edits have since been reverted).

Note: I have no problem with IRC being used to quickly respond to emergencies. in this case, ifa spammer had been obviously adding links to this website in Wikipedia, alerting Admins to this fact would be very much appropriate, but then the site should be nominated for inclusion in the spam list, & discussion follow before it is added.

This editor was contacted by several established & knowledgable Wikipedias, who demanded an explanation. She explained about the IRC channel, & referred them to this site on meta, where the website had been listed without any sign of a discussion that I have been able to find. This forum for discussion is not well-publicized (unlike, for example, WP:AfD), & a Wikipedian can contribute for a long period of time without even knowing meta.wikipedia.org even exists. However, there is currently a petition by a number of Wikipedians (some of whom have demonstrated extensive knowledge of Egyptology) to remove this website from the spam list. In short, four things happened that I think are wrong:

  1. This website was blacklisted on the basis of something said in off-Wikipedia locale. Not every Wikipdian has access to IRC, or chooses too use it. Further, in a recent ArbCom ruling, it was found that Wikipedia IRC channels are not part of Wikipedia. If you want to set policy for Wikipedia, do it on Wikipedia where the rest of us can be expected to participate.
  2. Unless it is clearly the work of a spammer, don't "delink" the links. This is not necessarily a subjective judgement call: there are some very simple rules one can follow:
    1. All of the edits are made by the same person;
    2. if it's in the "External links" section; or
    3. the link is added without regard to context.
  3. Concerned editors were forced to find out why these edits were made, then forced to find the location (which was unexpected) where they could participate in the decision process.
  4. Lastly, despite obvious clues to the contrary, they bear the burden of proof that the links are not spam.

As I said above, I admit that I may be out of the loop here. However, I feel that this is a violation of the spirit of Wikipedia -- where we discuss & create concensus upon matters. Some Wikipedians claim that they are smart enough to know when they can safely ignore all rules in order to improve Wikipedia; in this case, I think it is clear that rules were ignored & stupid edits were made which harmed Wikipedia. -- llywrch 17:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I, being another editor with interest in this particular deletion, am also upset by the way things were dealt with here. Hundreds of links, installed over years by numerous editors for the sake of citing content, should never be mass deleted, especially not because of some IRC discussion. This is yet another example of a systemic problem on wikipedia- very few or even one editor can do somthing, and the burden of proof somehow rests on those who object!
In this particular case, dozens of pages have been affected, and one featured article has been de-sourced in such a way that one could technically move to de-list it because of the removal of this "Spam". For pity sake, how hard it is to realize that specific citations by definition cannot be spam....? Thanatosimii 22:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
These mass deletions are quite destructive and senseless. It is unclear why touregypt.net was targetted, yet good work by many gets corrupted,- really an internal form of vandalism. I suggest that the criteria for the spam list need to be sharpened. Ekem 02:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
May I say that Llywrch has very accurately delineated the issue. The blacklisting process, currently at the unvetted pleasure of individual administrators, appears to be flawed: see Talk:British Museum. Though www.touregypt.com does have a villas-for-rent spammy-sounding name, what is to be made of blacklisting the consortium of European national libraries - libraries.theeuropeanlibrary.org - the EU's official National Libraries site, brought to my attention by User:Johnbod, one of Wikipedia's most dependable editors? IRC continues to veer out of control, damaging Wikipedia at every thoughtless lurch. --Wetman 02:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Like has been stated on meta 50> of touregypt is advertising, and the site was designed to sell product. using spam as a ref doesnt mean that its not spam. quit your complaining about anti-spam we have identified and reverted numerous spammers, the theeuropeanlibrary.org has been massively added by employees of that group. The fact that more than one user adds links doesnt meant that its not being spammed if you have a issue with the meta blacklist take it to meta. en.wikipedia has no control over meta, or meta admins. so if you want to argue for your spam site please take it to meta as that is where it was blacklisted and all the huffing and puffing that is done on en.wiki means nothing TAKE IT TO META. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 03:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
May I assume that you were the person who decided on IRC that links to this website were spam? -- llywrch 04:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Its clearly a meta issue. Please take it there. And IRC continues to veer out of control, damaging Wikipedia at every thoughtless lurch is jumping to so many FUD conclusions, I can't even begin to approach how wrong it is. JoeSmack Talk 04:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Discussion is currently ongoing on Meta. I raised this issue here out of concern that a decision affecting a Wikipedia project was made off-Wiki, & that the need to fix a problem on en.wikipedia must be taken to another Wiki -- if one knows the place, that is. That is why I omitted the name of the Admin who unknowingly started this problem, to focus on the utter indifference to transparency here. This is not an issue of a disgruntled user who lost a debate; it's an alarm set off by a long-term editor who sees the potential for mischief & harm here. -- llywrch 05:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Warning, WP:BEANS discussion to follow. So lets say I wanted to disrupt wikipedia. I mean really screw it up, not just the kind of page-at-a-time vandalism that gets a quick block and doesn't really do any damage. I mean the kind of systemic damage that could bring the site to its knees, doing across-the-board damage to hundreds of articles, included the best featured articles the site had to offer. Its quite simple. Simply find a domain that is being used by hundreds of pages, one that has a wealth of good information, a real honest-to-god, vetted, reliable source, and start spamming it. Everywhere. Behave like a spammer, drop links like "come visit my site for great poker action" or something like that, and leave links on hundreds of articles. But make the actual links to great reliable sources. Some well meaning editor or admin, already overwhelmed with the good work they do at wikipedia, sees what I am doing, and thinks that my link is genuine spam. Heck, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, right? So my behavior gets the entire domain blacklisted... and suddenly hundreds of featured articles are left without reliable sources, pages cannot be edited until the "spam" links are removed, etc. etc. Sound unlikely, probably, but with thousands of well meaning, highly respected admins, I only have to sucker one of them and then sit back and watch the damage I started. It would appear that this kind of vulnerability exists, and all because of the way that the spam blacklist is handled. The very fact that the European Union official libraries site was blacklisted, the functional equivalent of the Library of Congress being blacklisted, shows that such vulnerability exists for someone to explout. Something has to be fixed, and fixed soon...--Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Jayron, you have just described a joe job. All the more reason to be concerned. -- llywrch 05:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

This discussion considers two seperate cases, which indeed show resemblance. Since I am involved in one of the cases, I will offer my view on this case.

When spam is being identified, first of all all links that that spammer added are being removed. There is no question whether that link is a good one or a bad one, these will go, per the english wikipedia spam guidelines:

Main articles: Links normally to be avoided and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest
Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed.

That is what happened with the links added by the COI spammers that added theeuropeanlibrary.org. AFAIK no links added by other persons were removed (if that happened, it happened in an external links section where these links are questionable anyway, per the english wikipedia guidelines on external links, "If the site or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source first." and I am sorry if that happened). Now theeuropeanlibrary.org is a good site, and a careful examination of the situation was made. At that time only 10 links to the europeanlibrary.org were available, and the only ones added at that moment were by the addresses which have a COI, clearly suggesting promotion of a site that was not yet linked on wikipedia. The edits by the COI-editor have been discussed with the editor, and s/he was pointed to the appropriate policies and guidelines. Since the spamming by these addresses continued nevertheless, the site was blacklisted on shadowbot.

As a further note, shadowbot reverts once, and adds a message to the users talkpage. If the user readds, shadowbot does not remove (except when in angry mode under a heavy attack, but then its operation is even more carefully monitored; that is an exceptional situation). Normally, repeated addition gets reviewed by shadowbots operators, and when appropriate, will not be reverted. The europeanlibrary did not get blacklisted on meta, the spam is not (yet) crosswiki (and even then, it might be really inappropriate to do that). But I could stuff some more beans in it, when you want your own site not to be used as a source, consider spamming your very own link across several wikis, that really helps the community forward (maybe wikipedia has to consider not using such a site as a source and keeping a lacune in its contents). I have suggested my contact at the european library to reconsider his/her stance, and I promised him/her that we would make sure the site gets removed from the blacklist when the COI-spamming stops (it will also be removed when shadowbot reverts too many (which may be 1) good edits to articles).

For touregypt.com: I have not seen the spam-records for this addition, but I am sure there are records for that. But when the spamming is cross-wiki (i.e. also on other-language wikis) addition to meta is considered. I will for now assume good faith and think that the person who added it to the meta-blacklist considered the site carefully.

Blacklisting on meta means, that the link can not be used in a document at all; pages with that link can not be saved, even when the editor does not add that link at that very moment. When touregypt.net was meta-blacklisted a user provided the service to clean en.wikipedia from that link; otherwise other editors would run into the problem of not being able to save the page on wiki; that is completely besides the question whether blacklisting was appropriate (and the same user is already helping finding alternatives).

Blacklisting happens speedy, I am sorry, but first discussing for 7 days results in a lot of spam being added before something can be done about it (WP:SNOW?). That results indeed in some mistakes being made, we know that, and we are more than willing to correct the mistakes. Seen the layout and contents of the sites in question (and the style of writing and the purpose of the site in the case of touregypt.net) I expect that many facts stated there can also be verified with other sources. By the way, we don't have to provide a deeplink to an external document in a reference, if I state that Jennifer Couzin wrote an article about opening doors and native knowledge and add the reference "Jennifer Couzin, Science, 2007, volume 315, issue 5818, p. 1518-1519", anyone can find the source, and verify my statement, a deeplink is only a service and a nice extra for a non-paper encyclopedia.

So the only problem that stays, is that the system can be tricked/wikipedia can be disrupted (per the beans-case above), but that can be done with every policy and guideline we are working under here. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Beetstra, you say that you haven't seen the "spam-records for this addition, but I am sure there are records for that." I respectfully ask that those records for this be produced, & either added to the discussion on meta, or a link added there to them, so that all parties may review the evidence. -- llywrch 21:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I have provided some data I could find on meta (here). Hope this explains a bit. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I also object to the removal and blacklisting of the Egypt links. Please restore them. Badagnani 18:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What will it take to ban unregistered editors?

I know Wikipedia was started as a resource anyone can edit, but the fact is I feel it's time Wikipedia abandon this. Full stop. There has been simply too much bad-faith editing and outright vandalism by anonymous IPs and everytime this sort of thing hits the media, it makes all Wikipedianss look bad. Case in point: a vandal posted that the actor Sinbad had died. Although it was caught and corrected and the article is currently locked down, it was too late to stop the AP from reporting on the situation: [48] and in turn this story is appearing on forums (I saw it at TrekBBS of all places) where it's being used as ammunition by people who would like to see Wikipedia either disappear or become basically a clone of traditional published encyclopedias where only people with PhDs are allowed to contribute and articles take months or even years to be approved. As someone who regularly has to revert anonymous edits and who now treats every non-registered edit as "Vandalism unless proven otherwise" I feel a good 90% of the bad press regarding Wikipedia and it's alleged inaccuracies would be eliminated if we simply required people to get a username. There are vandals who do register, of course, and Special:Newpages regularly shows nonsense articles created by registered users ... but they still comfortably fit within the 10% minority. 23skidoo 17:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

How would requiring users to login first have prevented the Sinbad problem? --Interiot 18:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering that too. A casual glance at Special:Newpages indicates that having an account does little to prevent editors from making random nonsense articles. Friday (talk) 18:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The extra step it requires to log in discourages the spur-of-the moment "drive-by" vandalism, accomplished before thought sets in. Logging-in would not have prevented the Sinbad problem: it is quite simple to "create" a news story in such a fashion. I see no reason to assert that logging-in violates any core principles of "an encyclopedia that anyone can edit." I also feel that, under present circumstances, any article vandalized more than twenty times a month should be semi-protected for a limited period of months.--Wetman 18:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:PERENNIAL --Minderbinder 18:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
What will it take? Oh, for the wheels to come to terms with the fact that there might be something justified behind all these "perennial" complaints. Askari Mark (Talk) 18:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
A point of comparion: On June 4, 2005, a registered user revised the Walter Mondale article (and a few others) to state that he was dead (see user's edit history); after the hoax report was added to candidates for In the News, the item actually appeared on the main page for six minutes before an apparently honest editor realized their error and removed it. That was a much more serious slip than the Sinbad hoax, which (as I've noted elsewhere) was reverted within two hours; I'm not sure whether vandalism can be consistently reverted any faster unless each article were to be on the watchlist of numerous contributors scattered over the globe. MisfitToys 22:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
What will it take? An act of God, most likely, although an act of Jimbo may be sufficient. --Carnildo 19:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it will take an injection of common sense. — Deckiller 19:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Of course there's something justified behind your complaint. That does not mean that your proposed solution to the complaint is in any way the correct one. Now, take for instance Wetman's suggestion earlier, that the category of "vandalisms which only occur because they are done on the spur of the moment before thought sets in" is a significantly populated one. If there was any way to show that yes, that category does account for a significant amount of vandalism, then the proposal to require logging-in to edit would be very seriously considered. However, I am aware of no such evidence, and I for one very much doubt that a significant amount of the vandalism we see from IP editors would have been prevented by the tiny amount of time it takes to register. I think if we reduced anything with your suggested change, it'd be the number of helpful edits made by casual browsers. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I have just been doing some recent change monitoring. Most of the anon IP edits were good ones, and by far the worst vandalism was from a logged-in user.--Runcorn 19:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I am a frequent recent changes patroller and a long-time vandal hunter, and it is my experience that something on the order of 90% of edits by IP addresses are good edits, and of the remaining 10%, 9% are good-meaning but poorly executed edits. Of the remaining 1%, about .9% are test edits of the "can I really do this" variety, leaving about 1 in 1000 IP edits as actual malicious acts of vandalism. To prevent what amounts to 90% of good edits to stop 0.1% bad edits seems like a very bad idea indeed. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, I wanted to make this marginally more meaningful, so I did one decidedly unscientific poll. I looked at the 50 IP edits found on the Recent Changes page made around 04:48-4:49 17 March 2007 (UTC) and I found:
  • 30 Honest-to-God good edits.
  • 8 poorly executed, but well intentioned edits.
  • 6 "Test" edits that were problematic, but showed no definite malice
  • 6 "Vandal" edits that showed (IMHO) a direct attempt to disrupt wikipedia in a malicious way
Even lumping the test and vandal edits together, that still leaves 38 edits by people whose interest was in directly improving wikipedia, or 76%. Not as good as I thought, but still a sizable majority. Still, would you rather throw out 38 potentially useful edits (or 30 really good edits) for the sake of 12 easy to fix bad edits? I am not willing to do that. As an aside, two of the "good" edits were actually IPs fixing vandalism: A doubly good job, in this context. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
For a much less rosy picture with slightly more data, see this survey. I'm still hoping someone will redo this at a more sane time of day (a lot of vandalism seems to happen while US schools are in session). Opabinia regalis 05:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, your stats show a MORE rosy picture than mine. I found 76% edits(of 50) whose intent was to improve wikipedia by anon editors. You found 82%(of 250) that showed intent to improve. We can work with intent to improve. An new editor who is trying to improve wikipedia will learn the rules and eventually make better edits. Even if it is original research or unreferenced, that person is interested, and can learn how to do better research. Am I willing to scare of 82% (or 76%) of all potential new editors that can learn to improve wikipedia for the sake of keeping out the 18% (or 24%) who are here to damage? Not at all. Most vandals get bored, or find something better to do, and stop after a few weeks or months. Good editors, if nurtured and allowed to grow, can continue to contribute for years. I am not willing to give that up so I can hit the undo link a few less times a day. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:41, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I wish I'd kept better track of the contribution quality when I did that, but looking at 250 diffs is tedious ;) The disclaimer may well be the most important part of that data. A substantial majority of those 'content additions' - registered and unregistered alike - would have been reverted on sight if they had been made to any article I wrote, because they were full of original research and nonsense. I do agree with you in general, though, that the plurality, if not the majority, of anon edits are minor but productive contributions. Opabinia regalis 18:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

At the moment, what will it take to ban unregistered editors? Cold day in Hell, to be honest. I see plenty of well-intentioned edits from anons. The biggest problem I see from anons is inserting junk such as their pet's birthday, or adding their favourite entries to list articles. Not exactly "vandalism" per se, just a misunderstanding of what WP is. Vandals (of the kind that blank pages and replace them with "fuck you all, you suck cock", or add "and your mom" to serial prose) are still in the minority, and while that is still the case I don't see a reason to block them out - blocking article creation is enough. Chris cheese whine 05:48, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree with Antaeus Feldspar: valid complaint, but I don't think requiring registration is the solution. In a way, unregistered users have less anonymity than registered users because their IP address is public. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-17 08:27Z
I figure, 90% of vandalisms are from IP editors - but 90% of IP edits are valid. --Golbez 08:50, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
It also depends a lot on if we count Special:Newpages (which is, of course, 100% registered editors). If you think registering somehow prevents people from writing crap, have a look there. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I figure IP edits should not be banned. After all, isn't Wikipedia "The free encyclopedia anyone can edit"? What Seraphimblade says above is absolutely true. There is a lot of controversy surrounding IP editors, but many contributions made by IP editors are valid and important. I also agree with Seraphimblade when he says, "If you think registering somehow prevents people from writing crap, have a look there.Special:Newpages" Nol888(Talk)(Review me please) 18:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd suggest lowering the bar for indefinite semiprotection. There is a problem with some types of articles, especially pop culture articles, that are stable and therefore not widely watchlisted. And while there might not be a high volume of vandalism in absolute terms, the edit history might be 80% reverts. Semiprotecting this kind of page would be very useful. Squidfryerchef 18:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Whilst I disagree with the idea of banning IP addresses, I don't understand why Wikipedia can't still be "The free encyclopedia anyone can edit" if it did. If you can get on the internet, you can create a wikipedia account, and therefore edit wikipedia. ANYONE (who has an internet connection) can. You don't even need an email address. However, I've noted that the IP edits tend to be honest. They're usually the ones that correct little details and the like. Registered users often register to stop their IP address from showing. IP users know that their IP address is going to show when they edit. Also, a lot of users only become users to create vandalism pages for wikipedia. Cream147 Shout at me for doing wrong 21:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Anyone who wants to join the "IP editors are vandals" crusade need only look at WP:LTA. Chris cheese whine 23:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
If anyone can still register and then vandalize, then removing ability to edit without registration wouldn't reduce vandalism, and would in fact make it harder to fight vandalism since whether an edit was made by a registered user is currently one of the easiest Features (pattern recognition) (fast and accurate recognition). —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-21 07:17Z

[edit] Changes to blocking policy

There is currently a push to change WP:BLOCK to allow short blocks without warning upon any incident of vandalism from IP addresses, and indefinite blocks without warning for any registered account that has only made unconstructive edits. Input would be appreciated at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy. TomTheHand 20:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

  • That's not a change, we already do that. >Radiant< 13:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fix up the article before you add anything new

Shouldn't we have a rule that one ought to clean up an article before adding anything new to it? I've seen too many pages fall into disrepair because people keep dropping in their own contributions when there are still obvious spelling errors, citiation requests, pastel boxes, and just plain unwikified text. Squidfryerchef 18:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It's good practice, but what would it mean to make it a "rule"? - Jmabel | Talk 19:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - even if this was a policy (which it never would be), people would still add things. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 21:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
What if there was some guideline we could trot out when reverting new edits. We could say, even if the new edit was good material, reverted per WP:"FIXIT" or something and the new material won't be let in until the existing page is sound. Squidfryerchef 23:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that would work. People have different gifts: some are copyeditors, some provide new material, some dig up references, and so on. Let each contribute in their own way. Raymond Arritt 23:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I edit conflicted with Raymond, but was saying the same thing. This is not practical. --Kevin Murray 23:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Fixing up articles is important, but it is not important enough to stop people from doing good-faith edits to improve the content of the article just because the article needs to be fixed. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm favor of the intent, but not the enforcement. Having done a spate of adding information to a number of related articles, I can provide some feedback here. Sometimes I found it was simple to add information to an article: it was well-organized & needed little if any drive-by copy editting. Sometimes the article is such a mess that I refused to even touch it. And sometimes, it isn't until I clicked on the "save" button that I noticed a sentence or a paragraph that badly needed help; if I had the time, I'd go back, but then Real Life often intervenes (or tries to), & the article inadvertently suffers.
Maybe we could mail cookies/biscuits to people who do what Squidfryerchef would like to see, as an incentive. -- llywrch 19:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
How about fried seafood? Squidfryerchef 21:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Continuation of discussion of Essjay/Straw Poll 1

The following is quoted from the discussion of 1 Essjay should step down from Arbcom at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Essjay/Straw Poll#Discussion:

Can we get an exact timeline here? He was appointed what, a week ago? This was a delayed scandal, really, I am pretty sure we knew he was "Ryan Jordan" before he was appointed to ArbCom. It just took a while before someone wrote the Wikipedia article and I guess everyone found out and this became a trainwreck. So I am currently thinking Essjay was appointed to ArbCom with Jimbo knowing about the identity thing. --W.marsh 14:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The situation was known on February 1, well before the ArbCom appointment, see here. In fact, it was slashdotted on Feb 7 as well. It just didn't gain traction because Brandt has not yet mananged to browbeat the New Yorker into issuing a correction. It has been discussen on Essjay's talk page many times between then and now. Dmcdevit resigned on the 14th. Thatcher131 14:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Can you lead me to the slashdot article? I missed that article. SYSS Mouse 14:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. Let me look for it. Thatcher131 14:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
It appears as a comment in this thread started on Feb 7. Commenter appears to be Daniel Brandt from all appearances. Thatcher131 14:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The exact comment by Everyman (197621) appears to have been at An example of Wikipedia's problem. — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 11:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It was noticed by January 11th, and I posted about it on essjay's talk page around february 5th. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons move

It's been proposed we move Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons → Wikipedia:Biographical information on living people —(Discuss) to better emphasise that the policy applies to all information not just in biographies. There appears to be existing consensus for move but decided since it's a critical policy it's better to list it just in case since. Discuss in the BLP talk page, not here Nil Einne 16:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion process

This is currently a discussion regarding non administrator closure at WP:Deletion process here. Regards, Navou banter / contribs 21:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geographical locations and notability

I was recently editing some articles and came across a number of geographical locations (primarily unincorporated towns) that were tagged {{importance}}. I seem to recall in the past several people arguing to keep such articles when they came up in AfD debates by saying that geographical locations are inherently notable and do not require additional "proof of importance" beyond the fact that they exist. I have been looking around in the policies and guidelines and I am having a hard time finding where it is stated that this is the case. Is it an actual policy somewhere, or is it merely consensus? If it exists in policy I would like to know where so that I can reference it. It would also be very helpful to know what the policy is regarding geographical locations and notability. Thanks! Arkyan 23:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

So Mrs. O'Leary's Barn is not notable enough for you? I say that tounge in cheek, as I don't think nearly every outhouse and barn is necessarily notable in every instance, but there can be some significant exceptions. On the other hand, unicorporated towns are something that is a real problem to determine notability. Some of these can be quite big, such as those found on Oahu, because the entire island is considered one very large city, but it is divided into several geographic regions and neighborhoods that would normally be considered seperate cities anywhere else. In going through U.S. Census records, I've seen unincorporated areas having populations of close to 100,000 people. Of course, I've also seen incorporated towns with a population of just three families (I knew a 16 year old fire chief once from one of these towns).
I don't think you can come to a good consensus on where to draw the line here, although if you had to mark some of these within the USA, I would suggest that statistical data must be available by the U.S. Census bureau for that geographical location, and a similar kind of standard could be used in other countries. I could imagine a tougher standard, but that is at least something to start with. --Robert Horning 00:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Although it was marked "inactive" today, you might find Wikipedia:Places of local interest and its talk page a good starting point.--Fuhghettaboutit 02:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It may be worth reinvigorating discussion on WP:LOCAL. Despite heavy objections from (mostly) a single user that objects to every notability guideline, LOCAL seems reasonably well supported as well as used in practice. >Radiant< 12:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
There could be other shades to this as well. See Boca Raton, Florida, a resort city for which roughly two-thirds of the residents who share the Boca Raton postal address actually live outside the city limits in unincorporated Palm Beach County land and have no right of access to city services such as police, firefighting, sanitation, or libraries. DurovaCharge! 15:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Regarding Radiant's post above, I can confirm that it is used in practice, as I cited it in this afd debate just the other day. I haven't been following the debate at WP:LOCAL, but one user's objection does not a lack of consensus make.--Fuhghettaboutit 17:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help thus far. I went and looked at WP:LOCAL as well as the discussion there, and it feels like there is still some need for clarification and consensus. I'm hoping to spark some discussion on the issue again, so I've commented on the talk page there. Would really appreciate any constructive thoughts and ideas anyone would have! Thanks! Arkyan 17:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The bot which created an article about every place in the US 2000 census was supported by consensus, and all articles which have come up for deletion have also met consensus keeps. It may not be posted in a policy anywhere, but there has long been consensus to keep those articles. A real place is important due to its existence, unlike most other things which fall under question about notability. You would need a strong consensus to delete them. Corvus cornix 22:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you will find what you are looking for here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes: "Cities and villages are notable, regardless of size." The general rule is that towns are notable, but things in the town like minor streets, buildings, etc. generally are not, with "notable" exceptions, of course. Dhaluza 02:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

See User:Uncle G/On notability#Notability is not a blanket. Uncle G 14:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article promotion

I have a serious issue with the promotion of articles to Good status, which no one has been able to address to my satisfaction. I am concerned with the fact that a GA candidate can be passed or failed by a single editor. Even speedy deletes have the grace of two editors, and AFD discussions rarely close with less than three contributions. I would like to know in which forum I could pursue this discussion with the end to change in GA policy. Thanks. Dennitalk 06:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have a problem with a specific Good Article, bring it up at Good Article Review. I disagree that the process needs any changing. The promotion of an article as a "Good Article" makes no changes at all to the mainspace appearence of an article. Good Articles are not listed on the main page, and the status as a Good Article only appears on an article's talk page. The analogy to the deletion processes is faulty, since the WP:SPEEDY and WP:AFD processes make rather drastic changes to an article. The process is decidedly unbeaurocratic, and this is deliberate and intentional. The criteria for Good Articles is clear and unambiguous, and if you trust the judgement of your fellow editors, then one should trust that they know what it takes to review and promote or fail a Good Article. It is my experience that other Good Article reviewers take their jobs quite seriously, and are very throrough and judicious about reviewing articles and applying the Good Article Criteria (I am a frequent reviewer, and I feel I am both throrough and judicious as well). Again, if it is a specific article you have a problem with, then please go to WP:GAR to see what to do about this. If it is a problem with a specific editor who is promoting or failing articles in an inappropriate or disruptive manner, talk to them at their talkpages first, and if the behavior does not cease, then report them at WP:ANI or WP:RFC. If you feel that in general your fellow editors should not be trusted to make these decisions, see WP:AGF. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 08:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Seconded. The GA process isn't an attempt to showcase the best of Wikipedia, but rather an attempt to promote "good" article before they advance towards FA or A class status. It is built primarily on trust. If you feel a certain decision or editor is being unfair, either may be a subject to a review. There has been a lot of discussion on the process here, which resulted in a consensus not to overhaul the process nor add any defined criteria on the reviewers themselves. Michaelas10 (Talk) 11:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • This pretty much demonstrates the pointlessness of "good articles". They're just "articles that somebody happens to like", and this has never really been different since the inception of GA. >Radiant< 12:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I quite disagree. If that were the case, there wouldn;t be any criteria that one is supposed to apply. Good articles should meet WP:CITE and WP:ATT requirements for referencing, and should be free of images of questionable free or fair-use status. They should follow the Manual of Style and be reasonably representative of the current state of scholarship on the subject, not omiting any major points. Again, none of this has any basis on how much an article is "liked". To say so assumes that that the editors involved in said project cannot be trusted to make decisions on the application of said criteria, and are largely acting in disregard of the criteria for their own personal gain or betterment. That is a ludicrous example of assuming bad faith, if you ask me. If the criteria is being misapplied in specific cases, there are means of redress. But that does not mean the entire project should be ignored, scrapped, or insulted. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Also, there is a minimum of 2 users that think it should be GA, like CSD: the nominator and the promoter/reviewer. --MECU≈talk 02:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mailing lists: are they an encyclopedic topic?

Are mailing lists encyclopedic? I was drawn to this questions regarding this afd, and the corresponding article. A question being raised in the afd is the existence of several other articles on mailing lists. Wikipedia:Notability (web) doesn't mention anything specifically about this. So, my question to others is: what is the community's opinion on the notability/encyclopedic nature of articles on mailing lists? Can they considered worthy of a wikipedia article? What criteria should apply to them? Thanks. --Ragib 08:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Mailing lists aren't all notable or all not notable; it depends. Slashdot is notable but most webforums aren't. I think it's the same issue as any other online forum/community and should be covered by Wikipedia:Notability (web). —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-17 08:21Z
  • Stop looking for blankets. Notability is not a blanket. Uncle G 15:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XYZ in popular culture.

I think Wikipedia needs to make a statement and a policy on "___ in popular culture" or "_____ in fiction" sections. As it seems policy on them is currently entirely piecemeal and random.

Many articles (particularly mythological concepts) quickly acquire long lists of appearances in popular culture or fiction, the list eventually spins off to it's own page, then eventually gets nominated for deletion and is either removed or merged back into the original page and it all starts again.

I think it's clear that some policy decision needs to be made on this.

On one hand I think it's clear people are interested in the section, that they can be relevant and understanding sometimes means understanding how it is used in culture or fiction. But they are also very long lists, and have no promise to us that they stay manageable. If something was genuinely important in 700 different stories, it seems wrong to remove that information, although it makes an eyesore, I mean, no object promises to just be in 10 or less stories just to give us a nice looking "see also" list.

On the other hand, EVERYTHING ON EARTH has been referenced by family guy. And it is hard to see serious topics dwarfed by lists of every time apu on simpsons mentioned it. And making another page makes sense, but often the page eventually gets nominated for deletion as listcruft, maybe justifiably. Still, they are often lists many people helped write, that many people find interesting, and if they contain more than just a title they can even be encyclopedic to some degree (it could, for example be worth mentioning that Pan is referenced in a Shakespeare play, but if that is important, where is the line?).

Is there any sort of policy that could be written about this? so many pages have these lists, and they disappear and reappear pretty much at the passing taste of editors, growing until they grow ugly then either being deleted or splitting and growing again until they get unwieldy and end up deleted until eventually someone sees the page and says "ahh, this was an important concept in such and such anime" and throws a section in mentioning that, starting the whole cycle again.

Honestly, I don't know what I'd recommend, as people DO seem to want the information on the lists, and I think it may be some people's first wiki-edits adding something to them but at the same time they are horrible eyesores that are inappropriate in serious articles and separate pages of them are unencyclopedic listcuft. Owlofcreamcheese 19:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

What do people think?

As much as possible, any notable reference should be spun as prose into the main article. For other pop culture items the stuff in the trivia section is often just some facts about the subject that don't "fit" in the main article. We need to keep those facts, it's part of the "work in progress" nature of article writing.
Other times, a separate article is appropriate. I've made several, specifically to remove them from serious subject matter (like I care about a comic book reference when reading about the United Nations). It would be unfortunate if they were deleted as liftcruft, because they create an interesting and useful cross-reference point of cultural intersection. SchmuckyTheCat 19:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I think a big problem is that things don't promise to be a pleasing length. If there are two important stories that feature such and such that makes it look nice, if there are 25, it makes a sprawling list that is unsightly and dwarfs the article itself, but it's not like it should be punished for having the audacity to appear in more things and be more culturally significant! Owlofcreamcheese 19:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

  • If it's that long, you're better off pointing out that it's widespread (like the AK-47, ubiquitous in movies) and citing a few choice examples that fit the rule. You need a source to attribute the rule to though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
If wonder if Owlofcreamcheese's concern be addressed by a rule that cultural references in certain shows (e.g., "Family Guy", "The Simpsons", etc.) be placed in their own articles, & references to that subject in those shows be discouraged. That way, first-time editors could be sent to these media-centric lists to make contributions, while significant pop allusions to a given subject or event could be kept. Now I wonder how many television shows have allusions to Hamlet. ;-) -- llywrch 20:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
we're not a directory, though, and there's no value in just listing every reference. We're here to synthesize knowledge into a useful resource, not catalog every minutiae. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Night Gyr. A page was recently deleted entitled List of boots in media and popular culture. This painfully documented every occasion on which the author(s) had spotted a pair of boots on tv or seen mention in a publication. Such lists are so all-encompassing as to be worthless. What's next ... trousers in popular culture? Tt 225 01:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, at least when done poorly. I've had to remove the sentence "Yul Brynner is mentioned in the song One Night in Bangkok" from the Brynner article numerous times because such a mention is so completely insignificant. It can't even explain why he's mentioned because there really is no reason, as far as I can tell. Anyway, I wrote about this topic on a subpage of mine, with examples of when references are significant, see User:R. fiend/Mentions in fiction for my feelings on this (User:R. fiend/Listcruft: List of people associated with water is a tongue-in-cheek look at a similar phenomenon). If nothing else we must put an end to this "so-and-so was once mentioned on some TV show" crap that finds its way into every article. I'm just imagining a list at the bottom of the Coca-Cola article that mentions every time coke has appeared been mentioned on TV, film, and in print (to the tune of 7 GBs of info). -R. fiend 01:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
The fact that, when spun off as a separate X in popular culture, such lists are immediately detected as listcruft speaks for itself. These lists of references to the word "nymph" don't just become cruft when looked at in isolation: they are cruft already, for no editing change has been made. The fact that a Simpsons episode alludes to the Odyssey is relevant to that particular Simpsons episode and should be linked there. It is not relevant at Odyssey. Very hard concept to explain to the simple. --Wetman 06:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This problem (and IMO it is a problem) is even when when dealing with articles on sports cars. There seems no way to win the battle against "Appearances in video games" sections, even though these days (almost) every video game features (almost) every modern sports car, to the point that these sections become useless trivia. Zunaid©® 09:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Perhaps guideline WP:AVTRIV is relevant. In general such lists tend towards the pointless, I mean come on every fantasy-style RPG has a griffon these days. >Radiant< 13:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I would really like to see some kind of general consensus on these kinds of things, as there has been a veritable rash of them appearing on AfD as of late. Sometimes I feel like a broken record trying to make the point again again again! It feels like a lot of users are interpreting WP:AVTRIV as a prohibition on trivia sections but not trivia articles and are using the X in pop culture articles to circumvent the guideline. It is my understanding that the whole point was to reduce the amount of trivia fluff on Wikipedia, not to fork them off to their own articles. Am I in the wrong here? Admittedly I may have something of a bias against these sorts of articles but they simply do not feel like they have much of a place in an encyclopedia - at least as they stand.
There are some exceptions to the rule, and those are the ones that treat X in pop culture as real content rather than a repository for a list of appearences. Satan in popular culture, for example, attempts to deal with the subject in an encyclopedic manner rather than spewing out an indiscriminate lists of every time the guy has shown up on the screen. Granted the article is in need of help, but I feel that it is immensely more valuable and encyclopedic than the run-of-the-mill pop culture articles that I believe are the source of this discussion here.
Perhaps some kind of clarification that distinguishes between real content and laundry lists is called for? Arkyan 22:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
There is a guideline -- don't datadump, referenced at Wikipedia:Public domain resources, but I think it applies to more than just mining PD resources to create articles. If someone creates a laundry list, & it stalls at that point, never becoming either a proper list or an article -- deletion should be considered. The AfD process is a cruel alarm clock for sleeping editors who are invested in the article, but if no one cares about a poorly-written list of pop cultural allusions, then we might as well get rid of it. (Did I just suggest a new deletion category?) -- llywrch 21:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Be careful in wholesale condemnation of an entire class of articles simply for the inadequacies of some in that class. At least one article that began life as a "XXXXXX in popular culture" has been eleveated to Featured status: See Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc This proposal also reeks of instruction creep. Guidelines exist for acceptable lists WP:LIST for example, and others. Lists also need to meet all of the same requirements of any other article, such as WP:ATT and WP:NPOV and WP:NOT. There are good lists and bad lists. There are good articles on pop culture references, and there are bad one. It is wrong to throw out the baby with the bathwater, even if the amount of bathwater far exceeds the amount of baby. If you find a bad article, send it to AFD or PROD it, or best yet, fix it yourself... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
On the contrary, I'd say we should provide some guidance with the awareness that there will be exceptions. The rare pop culture trivia article that is found to have merit, and is preserved for its encyclopedic quality, should not serve as a precedent to encourage the proliferation of countless pop trivia articles to list every instance where one work referenced another. The fact that many articles get shot down in AfD demonstrates an existing consensus against indiscriminate trivia collections. Our standards and expectations should be made as clear as possible, to provide guidance, and to try to address the problem in a consistent way.zadignose 13:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cargo cult encyclopaedia article writing

One of the problems, as it appears to me, is that there is a widespread belief that simply listing a whole load of examples of, or occurrences of in film and on television, of a particular concept or thing, magically, after some mystical critical mass has been reached, creates an actual encyclopaedia article about that concept or thing. This belief comes about, I think, from people seeing existing articles that are no more than lists of occurrences of a thing in film and on television, that editors have ammassed over the years, and thinking as a consequence that (a) that is how encyclopaedia articles should look, and (b) that is how encyclopaedia articles are constructed. In other words: Bad articles are used as guidelines for new articles.

Some offending articles in the past have been Aviation joke (AfD discussion), Portrayals of Mormons in popular media (AfD discussion), Elephant joke (AfD discussion), Shaggy dog story (AfD discussion), and What is black and white and red all over? (AfD discussion), for examples. All of those were, when they came to AFD, simple collections of variations upon, or occurrences of, the thing that the article was supposed to be about. As can be seen from both the discussions and the articles as they stand now, what makes an encyclopaedia article is something markedly different.

The difference in article construction is one of effort. It is easy to watch a television series, see a character that is supposed to be (say) a Mormon who blows xyr nose, and to think "I know. I'll add a bullet point to Wikipedia's article on Mormons saying that there's a Mormon character in this episode of this television series, who blows xyr nose.". It is comparatively harder (albeit not very difficult on an absolute scale) to actually go and find secondary sources that have analysed a wide range of Mormon characters in film and television as a serious academic exercise, and then condense and summarize those sources into an encyclopaedia article. It is, however, the path of greater effort that needs to be trod in order to create a proper encyclopaedia article upon a subject. Simply amassing raw data, and hoping that an encyclopaedia article will magically arise from it, doesn't work.

I think that there are at least three important maxims to bear in mind:

Fiction is not fact.
The representation of a concept, person, place, event, or thing in works of fiction, especially in works of comedy fiction, does not necessarily bear any resemblance at all to its existence in fact. Adding occurrences in fiction to an article about a factual thing does not necessarily improve that article. Indeed, the fictional representations may make it misleading. (This is not to say that we don't want to discuss plot devices. See Government Warehouse (AfD discussion), for example. But such discussion should not be misrepresented as discussion of anything other than a plot device or trope as it occurs in works of fiction. Contrast government warehouse, for example.)
Collecting raw data does not produce an analysis.
The raw data can be examples, that demonstrate the analysis. (There are some elephant jokes in elephant joke, for example.) But simply amassing huge piles of them doesn't make an analysis. What makes an analysis is finding the works of experts in the field who have done analyses of the raw data, and then condensing and summarizing their published analyses into the article. (Collecting raw data and then producing our own novel analyses of those data is, of course, original research that is forbidden here.)
Moving bad content into a separate standalone article does not get rid of the bad content.
It is in several ways a lazy way of addressing the problem. It is the encyclopaedist's equivalent to sweeping dirt under the rug. And as we have seen, the next stage of the cycle is a consensus to trim the standalone article and merge it back in. Lather, rinse, repeat. Getting rid of bad content involves having the boldness to actually tackle the bad content in the original article in the first place.

Turning bad articles into good (or at least fair) articles often discourages or even stops this cargo cult article writing, as editors see what articles should actually look like, and how they should actually be written. The rate of addition of protologisms to LOL (Internet slang) decreased once the article itself became more than a list of word variations, and started to contain actual analysis. Similarly, chav now suffers far less from original research (excluding outright "My friend is a chav!" vandalism) now that the article shows by copious example that what we want is content based upon sources.

Uncle G 03:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

For a current example of this problem, and ongoing ways to deal with it— or perhaps not to deal with it— see Icarus (mythology), an egregious example of an instantaneously-recognizable trope worn tissue-thin by overuse. --Wetman 04:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Copyright status of screenshots

I am sure the answer is somewhere already, but I am having trouble locating it. What is the copyright status of screenshots, such as this? Thanks! --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 18:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

If the program itself is copyrighted, then the screenshot is too. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 19:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Then my next question would be, what tags are available for images where the license provided is questionable? In that example, the author claims it as his/her own, but it appears to be an image of a copyrighted product. I suspect the user believes that a screenshot taken by his/herself is therefore his/her own copyright. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 00:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
The correct licencing tag would be {{Windows-software-screenshot}}. See Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags/Fair_use#Screenshots for more information. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 00:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, the fair use should be as little as possible. A full sized screenshot would not qualify as fair use.++aviper2k7++ 22:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Note that it would not qualify under fair use per Wikipedia policy. For more details, see Wikipedia:Fair use. --Iamunknown 02:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] regarding image censorship

Can some people please give some outside opinions on the use of this and this picture on the Human feces article? (at the article talk page)

People have been removing the pictures because it's gross and because they claim it's irrelevant. However, being gross shouldn't matter, as per "Wikipedia is not censored". As for the relevance, what could be more relevant on an article called "Human feces" than a photo of real human feces? Of course, there's the option of having drawings instead (as we do on the articles about sex), but it would be sort of difficult to draw human feces and have it look obviously like human feces...as oppossed to just a lump.

I have a feeling that when we take away the "the pictures are gross" factor, it is really within Wikipedia policies and completely relevant to have those two pictures on the article. Two earlier request for comments from last year are on Talk:Human feces and seem to show there was consensus to keep an image of human feces on the article.

But then again, we do have Wikipedia:Profanity, which says "Including information about offensive material is part of Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission; being offensive is not." This is clearly a case of including offensive material, but i'm not sure whether it's also a case of "being offensive" or not. So some more opinions would be nice. --`/aksha 05:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


The picture is offensive indeed, but, beyond that, it is also needless. It serves no informative purpose, as everybody (every human being on this earth) knows what feces look like. As I've said several places, there is no other serious reason to keep those shit images in the articles than to provide amusement and adverse reactions under the pretext of needing article images. They are also a potential source for vandalism.--Kamikaze 09:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've got to agree. These images are just for shock value, they really don't add anything particularly informative to the article. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 09:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This image is not necesary at all. As someone said, we all know what human feces are and what they look like. Wikipedia isn't censored of course but it has an encyclopedic mission. Being offensive when is not required just for the sake of shocking and entertainment isn't part of that mission. I propose the images (there are two of them) to be deleted.--Raja Lon Flattery 19:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

What's the point of having a photo of a person's hand on the hand article then (for the record, we do actually have a photo of someone's hands on that article)? I would have thought it was considered a 'good' thing to have every article illustrated by a picture/photo of the article subject. I know people find the pictures offensive. But the question i'm trying to ask is whether this is just a case of the pictures being offensive, or us being offensive by including them? --`/aksha 10:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the main illustrations in the hand article all serve some more specific purpose of showing details of anatomy. The less informative photograph of "just somebody's hands" is somewhere down in the gallery. It serves no real purpose there but at least it doesn't do any harm either. This is the point: having "every article illustrated by a picture/photo of the article subject" is not a "'good' thing" in itself. Having illustrations that serve no real purpose other than having an image for the sake of having an image, is something that can be tolerated where it does no harm. But where such images are offensive, that makes all the difference. "WP:NOT censored" refers to images that are offensive but necessary; it doesn't mean we should ignore the fact of an image being offensive and litter the project with it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
That's exactly my point. The images have absolutely no informative value ergo no use. Furthermore, they are offensive but needless.--Kamikaze 12:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:IHATEIT is not an acceptable argument for removal of images. Or articles either, for that matter. Wikipedia is not censored covers this pretty well. Corvus cornix 17:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
WP what? Obviously, the image is both offensive and useless.--Kamikaze 17:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
When it is proved that there are non-human Wikipedians who have never had the opportuinity to observe human feces, then such an illustration might have encyclopedic value to inform them of what a pile of shit looks like. For now, it constitutes original research, when labelled "The above-average volume of this stool was probably due to a diet high in dietary fiber and/or cellulose." on the image page for image number one.The second image is out of focus and illustrative of nothing meaningful. They can be deleted as original research, especially since they add no information to the article. Edison 17:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Problem is, it's in commons. How the frak do we get it deleted from there?--Kamikaze 18:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
You head over to Commons and list it for deletion. Full instructions are available at commons:Commons:Deletion requests. Keep in mind that Commons tends to be very slow-moving, so it may take a month or more for the deletion discussion to be closed. --Carnildo 22:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Open proxies, vandalism, and the Great Firewall

I need some clarification on our policy regarding open proxies. m:Meta:No open proxies should be clear: "Open proxies are banned from editing Wikimedia projects. Anonymizers and other companies or organizations that offer open proxies may be blocked indefinitely by an administrator." But the policy is vague regarding whether soft or hard blocks should be imposed. The discussion at Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall is germane. The problem is we have a lose-lose situation. Perhaps the majority of cases brought to WP:RFCU involve open proxies, much of the time Tor proxies. We get a ton of vandalism and other nasty behavior (see, for example, Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Verdict), with miscreants creating sometimes dozens, perhaps hundreds of sockpuppet accounts, and then proceeding to use them at will on easily accessible open proxies. The obvious solutions is simply to hard-block the open proxies. But what about our users behind the Great Firewall? With the vagueness in the policy, some of us have been hard-blocking, while others of us have been soft-blocking Tor proxies in particular. I've found myself reversing other admin's decisions, or being reversed myself; so far, no unpleasantry has ensued, but I'd really appreciate some sense of the community on this, or at least a pointer to established policy. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Persoanly I block OP's as AO AC disabled Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 19:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
The problem with this approach is that it does nothing to stop banned vandals such as Verdict (talk • contribs) and all his very many abusive sockpuppets. That said, I have generally blocked OPs as AO, AC-disabled as well. I no longer believe this is appropriate, I believe open anonymising proxies should be blocked with hard blocks. I'm not discounting the problem Chinese users and other such people face, however. --Yamla 19:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I also block OPs as AO, AC-disabled. Obviously, they cannot then be used to create accounts.--Runcorn 22:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I block everything: (AC off, anon only off). Prodego talk 01:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copy policy?

I know that an editor is not allowed to copy information from the web "word for word." But, i found that someone did this a while ago and since then the article has changed and evolved.
This Diff [49]
Was copied from this website[50].
But that was August 4, 2006.
Since then it has changed. Do i remove that info since it was copied? Or do i leave it because it has been changed since then? YaanchSpeak! 01:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

If the current copy has no copyright violation, then the issue is a phantom. --Wetman 03:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
It might have a copyright violation. I dont know. So what should i do? YaanchSpeak! 21:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
If there is a copyright violation, follow the guidelines on Wikipedia:Copyright violations. You can also mark them with {{copyvio}} and clearly state where you think the original source of the copyright violation is at. This is one of the purposes for having administrators on this project, to review these situations after they have been marked up and delete them from the project... including deleting individual edits from the page history if necessary. --Robert Horning 23:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Banning spoiler warnings on the Final Fantasy Wikiproject

Please comment on the discussion currently taking place on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Final Fantasy#Banning spoiler warnings completely. Kariteh 21:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, spoiler warnings are handled on a case by case basis. WikiProjects have developed their own consensus on this matter, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera. Please do not bring the whole of Wikipedia into a decision that needs to be (or already has been) made by a WikiProject. It is a debate that has been done countless times before. A few projects decided not to use them. This is just going to waste valuable time that could be used editing articles. — Deckiller 22:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
The reason why I am very disturbed over holding another wikipedia-wide debate (just on a different battleground) is because the same issues will be re-addressed, and the same groups will be for it, and the same groups will be against it. I understand that the occasional IP address will come in and reintroduce the warnings; they probably see them across Wikipedia, and expect it's done everywhere (otherwise, they would probably not know the templates exist). Most of the time, we explain the stance to these IPs or newcomers, and most of the time, it's a one time issue. If people disagree and bring it up on the talkpage of a WikiProject Final Fantasy article or reintroduce the tags, then those people are locked into the discussion and should rightfully be pointed to the talkpage. However, we have not had a lot of incidents recently; the reason the discussion of something that already had consensus among the WikiProject was resurfaced was simple: we wanted to see if anyone had objection to not including them at all, and not just excluding them in sections labeled "plot". Again, a relatively minor change, especially since most of the WP:FF articles and editors removed them all to begin with anyway. — Deckiller 22:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed modification/expansion to banning policy

I posted such a thing here, about dealing with already banned users who continue to post and try to interact on Wikipedia as ban evasion. Please take a look, thanks! - Denny 15:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

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