MediaWiki talk:Copyrightwarning/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 1 2 Proposed shortened version 3 Non-controversial versions 4 Webby awards 5 Phraseology 6 Special characters 7 Ask people to cite sources when they edit 8 Expanded special characters list 9 Being bold 10 Proposal 11 Few essential Lithuanian characters missing 12 Hmmm 13 Vandal warning. 14 Proposed change 15 Yet Another Proposal 16 IPA symbols 17 Section symbol (§) 18 Proposed addition 19 Proposed removal 20 Insert special chars box to my own wiki 21 New version 21.1 One-liner version 21.1.1 BD2412's reply 21.1.2 Carnildo's reply 21.1.3 Geni's reply 22 Erm... 23 Multiple lines 24 GFDL link 25 Licence or License 26 Position on section-editing pages 27 If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed, do not submit it. 28 Original research? 29 Gah! 30 "Sources" 31 Minor Change

1

Suggestion to add to copyrightwarning:

You are also agreeing to abide by the (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Submission_Standards_(a)">Submission Standards</a>) and (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Terms_of_use_(a)">Terms of Use</a>).

— Alex756 [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 00:29, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with this. First, both of those texts are drafts. Second, we don't want to force more terms on first-time or anonymous contributors than are absolutely necessary (i.e. legal junk and important warnings). Third, the Copyrightwarning is long enough already, almost too long. silsor 01:15, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)

This addition is only 63 characters of screen real estate, as well the copyrightwarning could be shortened, "Please note that all" and "considered to be" and ", then" can all be removed. Replace "You are also promising us that" with "You promise" and "from a resource that nobody" with" from resources nobody" and even with the new text the warning will be shorter than it is now. — Alex756 [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 14:06, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

We need to still finalize the drafts and then have the board of trustees approve them. --mav

If we take out anything that is not clearly new material on these two pages and leave the terms and standards that already exist then those changes would not require the approval of the Board of Trustees. This would be useful as new users should be given the means to "easily" understand the rules around here, rather than having to search through many pages to learn these basics that most web sites post on their pages along with disclaimers. As the disclaimer change occurred without "Board" approval, other changes can also occur without board approval, no? — Alex756 [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 14:06, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In theory yes. But then we have to decide what is new and what is not. That will take time. --mav

Proposed shortened version

This is 394 characters long vs. 440 for the present version (a savings of 46 precious characters):

All contributions to Wikipedia are released under the GNU Free Documentation License (see $1 for details). If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it. By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain">public domain</a> resources — this does not include most web pages. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!

— Alex756 [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 03:57, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Looks good to me. --mav

Non-controversial versions

Here is my attempt at a non-controversial versions of these texts:

Wikipedia:Terms of use (a), and

Wikipedia:Submission Standards (a).

Comments? — Alex756 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 07:38, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Look much better to me. Jamesday 02:32, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Webby awards

=> Wikipedia talk:Webby Awards

At the bottom of the editing-an-article page, there's a link that says: "Vote for Wikipedia at the People's Choice Webby Awards". The Webby Awards actually call it the People's Voice (as can be verified by hitting the link, which points to [1]). Should be a fairly easy change for someone with the right powers. --Etaoin 01:12, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for pointing it out. :) Angela. 01:18, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

Phraseology

"By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public domain resources ..."

"Promise?" Pinky promise, cross your heart, hope to die? At the very least, this sentence is missing a conjunction, but I think the wording ventures beyond "casual" into "poor." Verbs like "attest" or "affirm" preserve the informal character of this message without making us out to be a bunch of schoolyard pals.

Also, if one "copie[s] it from public domain resources," it's not exactly one's "work," is it? Thoughts?

Austin Hair 23:16, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

---

I suggest:

By making a submission to Wikipedia, you guarantee [affirm] that you wrote it yourself, or that you copied it from public domain resources—these do not include a majority of web pages.

In addition, I find the phrase "bad edits" childish. What is a "bad" edit? I suggest using the phrase "poor edit" (indicating something "bad" with the quality of writing) or "vandalism" or some other such thing, but not "bad." Furthermore, we need to get rid of the blot that is anti-Commonwealth English, i.e. the use of "practice" instead of "practise." -- Emsworth 22:34, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

---

Perhaps:

"By submitting content to Wikipedia, you affirm that your submission is your own work, or content copied from public domain resources. Be advised that the majority of Web pages do not qualify as public domain resources."

Short, concise, and I believe much clearer. The repetitive phrasing is intetional, and in my opinion appropriate to the emphasis we're trying to convey.

I'm open to replacements for the word "practice," but keep in mind that simply replacing it with "practise" is as anti-American as the alternative is anti-Commonwealth.

Austin Hair 23:32, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

Also, this doesn't cover the cases of using other GFDL or CC licensed work that is permitted to be freely distributed including distribution of modified versions. -- WhiteDragon 18:48, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Special characters

I am not sure we should have them in the English Wikipedia. Most articles are not going to be using them, and they clutter up the page. Dori | Talk 18:17, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, they use too much screen space, divert too much attention and are simply too annoying to make up for the tiny amount of use they would receive. Heck, they don't even do anything in my browser. silsor 18:48, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

It's true that most articles won't include characters with diacritics; however, a significant number will (any page including substantial French, German, Spanish, etc.), and their utility in those cases might balance the small amount of screen real estate that they occupy. The Æ ligature will certainly be useful, since proper English typography can and does use it. I'm not sure how the eth, the thorn, the curly quotes, and the dashes will interact with various browsers—I know some browsers change those to gibberish upon submission. —No-One Jones ^(m) 18:54, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There is definitely a place for these characters in Wikipedia, I just don't feel that that place is on every edit page. silsor 19:10, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Special characters bar for people expressing support for the addition.

Personally I think there should be a way of customizing this for each individual user (perhaps under "Preferences"). Not everyone needs it, and people who do need to work with special characters are likely to have their own ideas on what characters they need. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 22:41, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, i for one would like alot of mathematical symbols but am not going to put it in the public bar because it would not be useful but to a small audiance, however having something might just get people used to and and push for an official sofware feature;) -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 14:38, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

Well, as I said on VP, I've added a few more that were requested (graves and circumflexes and so on). Some sort of "opt out" software thing would be an excellent idea, particularly if you could pick particular sub-sets of the characters. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:18, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What about the superscript circle ° used in °C and °F? I think that one would be immensely helpful for a lot of writers. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 21:21, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

And what about a set of fractions more than the bare-bones 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4? Apwoolrich 18:49, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It seems that this page will simply bloat to infiniteness. :D Do you think we should allow this (you know, have a five-line-long box at the bottom of every page?) Personally I'm trying to imagine it and I don't think it's that bad of an idea — if you don't need it, then just ignore it; if you do need it then it's a lifesaver. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 19:16, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

At the moment it is about one line, just under or just over depending on screen/window width. More than that would be a problem, I think, until you can switch it on or off, although having said that, the rest of the "Copyrightwarning" message is around 7 lines... Where will it stop? Cuneiform? Hieroglyphics? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:01, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The obvious problem with a very long special character bar is, it would obscure the more important part of this message: the copyright warning. We probably don't want that to happen. —No-One Jones ^(m) 20:21, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Then I guess we'll have to wait for the next software update... is there some way of bringing this up to the developers? -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 20:38, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, file it at mediazilla. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 15:22, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

I think the characterline should go for reasons stated by User:Dori and User:Silsor and KISS, to make it a software preference would be even worse though.--Dittaeva 16:21, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Don't! In its short existence it has already proven itself invaluably useful to me. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 16:35, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Hear, hear; I wholeheartedly agree with Ran! Like him, I have used the very practical char line feature for writing e.g. German names, whose special letters I don't have easy access to on my Norwegian keyboard. Along the same train of thought, I think other non-German-language-speakers and non-Scandinavians who writes on German or Nordic/Scand. people/places/history could profit from the feature, since I see far to much of names and places being misrepresented with 'ue's (for 'ü'), 'ae's (for 'æ') etc, etc.

Regarding the question of 'infinite' expansion of the line, with maths symbols, etc, I think the correct use of written human languages commands a special respect above academically developed symbol languages, so I feel that the restriction of the special char insertion feature to letters (of non-English languages) is a sound one. Thus, my conclusion is: keep! --Wernher 01:15, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As this template is protected, can a sysop please fix Í so that it only inserts that character. --Zigger 15:40, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)

Fixed, I think... ÍÍÍÍÍíí ... yep — Kate Turner | Talk 15:46, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)

Argh. There's something strange going on with the char insertion feature right now. All the chars output 'Ã<some other special char, but not necessarily the intended one>'. Might it be my browser misbehaving? (however, it has worked nicely with this feature up to now). Anyone know anything about this? --Wernher 01:39, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm having the exact same problem. This is what I get when I click on the first twelve characters: �áÉé�íÓóÚú�ý

-- ran (talk) 04:12, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

I had this problem ( running IE6.0 ) with the Classic skin; it works when I switch to CologneBlue. Joestynes 04:57, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

I'd like to express my thanks to those who added the special characters bar. Editing was a chore before. To those who think it's useless: go and learn a language. Chamaeleon 03:41, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

I propose adding <charinsert>“+”</charinsert>, and maybe the same with ‘+’. It’s quite useful on the wiki that I run. —Fleminra 03:59, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Ask people to cite sources when they edit

On December 17, Dwheeler proposed adding this to the end:

Please cite your sources so others can check your work.

Dwheeler's rationale was that most other problems (not sufficiently NPOV, etc.) can be fixed by others, but it's often difficult for others to figure out where a contributor got their information. And as noted in how to edit a page: "Please cite your sources so others can check and extend your work. Most Wikipedia articles currently lack good references. This contributes to Wikipedia's single greatest criticism that it is not a reliable source. Please help by researching, preferably online and in print resources to find the best references available for the article you are working on. Then cite them in proper form, and consider inline citation for contentious facts. There is no consensus on the best way to do that, but anything is better than nothing. You can either use inline citation in academic form such as (Example, 2004, pp 22-23) or as a superscript to a footnote that you place at the end of an article." Dwheeler also noted that "Now that Wikipedia has grown into a remarkable encyclopedia, one of the major complaints by others is its lack of references. So, let's fix that; I think this minor template change could actually help."

After 4 days, absolutely nobody complained, so Dwheeler went ahead and made the change on 2004-12-21. He said, "after a little while, we should be able to see if its benefits outweigh the negatives of yet more text at the bottom."

After trying it out for a number of days, more people liked the citation reminder than didn't like it. As of 2004-12-30:

• For the citation reminder: Dwheeler, Soren9580, Whosyourjudas, Emerman
• Against the citation reminder: Chris 73.

This list of people for and against is listed here, not in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), because the Village Pump stuff eventually disappears. Besides, documenting this in the discussion page of the text being changed should make it easier to find later, if anyone needs to.

Whosyourjudas liked the idea, but wanted the format prettied up. Others have prettied up the format since Whosyourjudas made his comments, and Whosyourjudas is now satisfied with the format.

Expanded special characters list

This is what I have added:

It takes up 1 to 1 1/2 extra lines in most browsers. That's not nothing, but it's less space than the "Templates used on this page" feature uses if even one template is used on the page. Added: In any case, in most routine edits it is rarely necessary to scroll past the "Save page" button; the content below it does not change from one edit to the next.

This table supports all national languages of each country in Europe (including Turkey) that use the Latin alphabet, as well as Catalan, Esperanto and Welsh (which have significant Wikipedias) and pinyin, but not necessarily all minority languages in Europe or non-European languages or Greek or Cyrillic. The latter should go into a different table to avoid making this one take up too much screen space.

Note, most of these characters are in actual use in English Wikipedia, primarily to show the correct orthography of names in the original language: see for instance Lech Walesa.

Note, the ordering of the special characters is not random, but represents a compromise among the various languages that may use the same special characters.

First, we group by diacritics (acute, then grave, then circumflex, etc) rather than by letters (A, then E, then I, etc). This is because with small fonts, it can be quite hard to distinguish between, say, o-circumflex, o-tilde and o-double-acute if they are all next to each other, but much easier if all the circumflexes are in one group and all the tildes are in another. Second we try to cluster all the characters used by the same language as close together as possible: French, Spanish, Italian, German eszet next to umlauts, Portuguese tildes next to c-cedilla, Polish letters, Czech and Croatian and other Slavic-language letters close to each other. Where splitting is necessary, we try to split into only two separate clusters, as for pinyin, Turkish, Hungarian, Swedish. Finally we group vowel-diacritics and consonant-diacritics separately for the same diacritic, both for greater clarity and because the same languages often don't use both.

-- Curps 01:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I understand the theory, but I don't think it works well. It makes it very hard to find any one character because it means scanning through the entire list. I definitely vote for putting everything in pseudo-alphabetical order, A's first, then B's, etc. With punctuation at the end. I also think it should be not be in small tags. This will avoid the hard-to-see problem. Also, Maybe we should have more characters, particularly IPA characters for entering pronunciations. Of course, we can't fit the entire Unicode Plane 1 in a little box, but honestly there are probably just as many people entering IPA as are entering Turkish, or Esperanto, for that matter. Nohat 02:51, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here's a quick mock-up in pseudo-alphabetical order including IPA symbols. Maybe we could make it hideable, like the TOC. Nohat 03:26, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You have grouped some lowercase-L diacritics among the capital-I diacritics. -- Curps 09:38, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Letters used by various languages are:

-- Curps 02:03, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[Austin Hair removed Œ œ, &ndash, &mdash; and &hellip;, and removed Œ œ from the list of special characters used by French, and Š š Ž ž from the list of special characters used by Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian].

Regarding Œ œ, &ndash, &mdash;, they have been there for a while, and Š š Ž ž are used in several other languages in any case (and my sources, including Estonian alphabet, Latvian alphabet and Lithuanian alphabet do seem to indicate that they're used in those languages.] -- Curps 04:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You're right about stripping certain characters; I regretably neglected to change my character set back to ISO-8859-1 after editing under the NeXT encoding. It was neither intentional nor a usual behavior of lynx. My apologies. A.D.H. (t&m) 05:19, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

That's seven lines at the standard 80 columns, and as someone who uses lynx for his everyday editing, I find that excessive. Perhaps it's time to make this a special behavior, governed by the same user preference as the edit bar. ADH (t&m) 03:41, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

But I think in most routine edits you would not need to scroll past the "Save page" button... anything below that is usually ignored, no? -- Curps 04:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I posted this on User talk:Austin Hair before I saw this discussion here: isn't it possible to add something like the following to the style sheet for your preferred skin (User:Austin Hair/standard.css or User:Austin Hair/monobook.css or whatever):

#siteNotice, #editpage-copywarn

{

display: none;

}

(I pinched this from User:Eequor/standard.css) This should disable the Copyrightwarning message in the relevant skin. HTH. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Being bold

I'm just going to be bold and make my version live. Lots of people see it so if it's unpopular I'm sure we'll hear soon enough. If you have a major problem with it, please feel free to change it back, I guess, or demand I do so if you can't. Nohat 08:37, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Curps, literally at the last possible moment, dissuaded me from this plan. Nohat 08:54, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My argument was roughly as follows:

There are several problems... how to tell Croatian D-stroke apart from Icelandic Eth, for instance? Or perhaps some people might confuse β for ß also. Also, the letters needed by any one given language are much more scattered all over the place in your version... in particular, it's a much more disruptive change for common Western European languages like German or French, which were left undisturbed by my own recent change.

Also, you accidentally grouped some lowercase-L diacritics among the capital-I diacritics, but this is easily fixed.

Finally, the biggest problem encountered was that a number of people strongly objected to the special characters being normal size instead of small-font. And if small fonts must be used, then grouping characters alphabetically by letter instead of by diacritic results in illegibility and problems distinguishing characters, as already noted in the rationale for my own changes. -- Curps 09:03, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I saw that, but grouping them the way you did doesn't really make them more legible. It just groups them differently. Nohat 09:16, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, the way I did it is more legible and gives speakers of a particular language important information they need to distinguish special characters when a small font is used. If a Portuguese-speaker sees A-tilde near O-tilde, it's easier to tell that these are tildes than if O-tilde is next to Hungarian O-double-acute; similarly O-double-acute next to U-double-acute is an important cue for Hungarian-speakers. If we're forced to use a small font, a consecutive string of the same diacritics makes it a lot easier to tell what that diacritic is. -- Curps 09:25, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the developers could give us #editpage-specialchars (and Mediawiki:Specialchars) separate from #editpage-copywarn and Mediawiki:Copyrightwarning, so that everyone could adjust their CSS preferences accordingly. -- Curps 09:03, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I also would like to add that we should probably force text-decoration: none !important, because the underlines are only going to make these harder to read, plus they're not really links, they're more like buttons. Comments on this idea? Curps also says that people will most likely only be working on one language at a time. This is probably true, but I don't think that the best logical result of that is to arange them the way he has. It makes it very hard to find a particular character if you don't already know where it is—it requires scanning the entire list. I recognize the idea of putting all the characters with the same diacritic together makes it easier to figure out what diacritic it is, but I don't think that it necessarily holds. The over-tilde and the over-macron are probably indistinguishible in the small size in most fonts. Grouping all the over-macron letters separately from the over-tilde letters doesn't really make it easier to see that two letters that appear the same actually are different. The only way to do that is to make the letters bigger.

Actually, it does make it easier. There's no "N-macron", so if you see A-tilde, N-tilde, O-tilde grouped together, it's a pretty big clue that these are tildes (after all, Portuguese speakers will be familiar with Spanish N-tilde). Similarly, there's no "E-tilde", so seeing AEIOU-macron grouped together is a pretty big clue that these are not tildes. You're right that it would be nice to make the special characters normal size, but I think if we do, that'll just get reverted. The current scheme is the only practical one as long as we're forced to stick to the small font. Which unfortunately I think we are. I have left a message at User talk:Brion VIBBER asking about the possibility of CSS-customizing the special characters section (maybe a future software release). -- Curps 09:35, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion perhaps what we need is a set of overlaying divs for each task—one for each language, one for IPA, one for math, maybe even one for cyrillic and one for greek (I don't think east asian character sets would be well-suited to this input format though (maybe Kana?). Then we could have a series of links that activate the different overlays. This would of course require a code change because we can't have javascript on this page (I think). If there is interest in this idea I could make a mock-up. Nohat 09:01, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Forcing text-decoration: none would be nice, but I think we need to ask a developer how to accomplish this... maybe User:Brion VIBBER could tell us.

If you want Greek and Cyrillic, here it is... but there's no space for them, a number of people object to the space already used for special characters.

-- Curps 09:08, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

Proposal

I've a modest proposal for amending the special characters list with the middle dot (&#183; or &middot;). It doesn't seem like such a big change, but I'm mentioning it here because millions of people see the list and most of them, I surmise, don't use it. Making it bigger might only serve to distract people from more important things, like the crucial caveat that one's writing will be edited mercilessly. Furthermore, we must recognize that, when we do trivial things like adding a couple-pixel midpoint to the special characters list, precedents sometimes get established that result in harm. Doing so could encourage others to add their own 'pet characters' to the list, leading to bloat and even less usability, which is why I'm unsure, now, how to proceed. Here's how the two versions, old and new, would look:

to

The second has &middot; added to the '&ndash; &mdash; &hellip;' subset; this subset was chosen because it seems to make sense there. The named character identity reference was chosen for consistency with the other items in the subset and for consistency with current usage in WP. I'm kind of surprised that the rest of the set is such a jumble of direct keyboard inputs and numeric and named references, but it's no big deal. :-)

So, if there are no unresolved objections, made anywhere, to my knowledge, in one month, I'll add the midpoint to the list, which is not to say that I would object to someone subsequently removing it for a good reason. BTW, I originally argued for midpoint use here; ALoan kindly pointed me to this page. Chris Roy 00:36, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On second thought, my own comment on how adding the midpoint could establish a dangerous precedent does count as an 'unresolved objection'. Unless I or someone else convinces me otherwise, I will not add the midpoint to the special characters list. Chris Roy 03:54, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Few essential Lithuanian characters missing

There are already most of lithuanian specific characters in the page:

But few are missing and those are most essential as those are not correctly replaced by most browsers (it saves Š, but in Unicode lithuanian character Š should be replaced with &#352;, otherwise in interwiki links make incorrect URLs; it applies also for š, Ž and ž). So I suggest to extend the block (example was above) to make it:

After such change it would be much easier to add lithuanian interwiki links. Thanks. Knutux 08:57, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

Hmmm

Maybe you shoud add someting like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning , they have [[Category:]] , <gallery>, and signature code. And ofcourse some Cyrilic letters like this Љ-Њ-Џ-Ш-Ђ-Ч-Ћ, we use this in Serbian wiki. Thanks --Sasa Stefanovic 17:44, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Vandal warning.

Considering how much vandalism occurs, I am surprised that there is not a clear warning against vandalism. Vandalism is a major problem, and having a better warning may make potential vandals to think twice. Instead, there is only the minor "bad edits to articles are watched for and will be quickly removed." message. I propose a message like this to make it clearer that vandalism is unwelcome.

DO NOT COMMIT VANDALISM. DOING SO COULD LEAD TO YOU BEING BLOCKED FROM EDITING.

NSR 12:45, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Proposed change

Based on discussions at WP talk:CP, feedback on wikipedia-l, and the note above, I propose the following version, which changes formatting and order, but changes content only by adding the note regarding vandalism as proposed above. The idea with the colored box is shamelessly stolen from the German WP. Rl 13:21, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yet Another Proposal

I would like to advocate for a proposal similar to user NSR's proposal above, except for dealing with copyvios:

PLEASE DO NOT COPY AND PASTE CONTENT WITHOUT RECEIVING PERMISSION.

I would like to suggest that this occur at the very top of edit pages, where new users can't help but see it. WP:CP is constantly being filled up by the contributions of well meaning anons who just don't understand about copyright and who don't bother to scroll down to the bottom of the page where the warning about the GFDL license occurs.

func(talk) 7 July 2005 21:01 (UTC)

Agreed. --Phroziac ^(talk) 15:03, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

IPA symbols

I would really like to see this "character palette," as I call it, include all of the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. My interests, erratic as they are, are right now focusing on the IPA. Denelson83 06:18, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, that would be nice. --Phroziac ^(talk) 15:03, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, some people already object to its length as it is now. And others would like Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, etc. etc. instead, and we can't fit everything. The solution would be to allow users to customize this. I think this would need an update to Mediawiki software, to allow specifying it in Special:Preferences... I don't think that CSS alone could do it (or perhaps it can? I'm discussing this idea with User:Plugwash).

If a Mediawiki change is needed, the person to talk to might be User:Brion VIBBER, who first implemented the idea. [2]

-- Curps 16:08, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

More recent news: for IPA, see User:Func/wpfunc/addipaextensions.js, which can be added to your [[User:YOU/monobook.js]] file. Similar ideas can be used for Greek, Cyrillic or any other set of symbols. -- Curps 00:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Why don't we use the Wiktionary approach, where different groups of characters can be accessed using a drop-down menu?  Denelson83  00:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Section symbol (§)

I have a small request: can the section symbol (§) be added to the character bar? It would be of immense convenience to those of us who write about statutes and other sources of law. -- BD2412 ^talk 22:07, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, it's been added. -- Curps 00:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks!!! -- BD2412 ^talk 00:35, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposed addition

Until the MediaWiki software includes the capability of displaying the last diff on the article's Editing page (in order to allow users to check if the last edit was vandalism), I suggest that we add in a comment urging editors to check that the last edit was not vandalism. If everyone did this, it would definitely cut down significantly on the number of missed vandalisms (including sneaky vandalisms, since an article's editors are likely to know more about the subject than the RC patrol). In the future, I hope MediaWiki makes it automatic (displaying the last diff below the editing box, with red changes text clearly visible), and even provides a check box to administrators to "rollback the last edit" while still allowing them to edit the page. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-7 16:26

Unfortunately, I doubt anyone reads the boilerplate text under "Your changes will be visible immediately" text, except maybe newbies. It hardly ever changes in any meaningful way, so it gets ignored, and usually it's simply invisible because it's below the scroll window. So this will be pretty ineffective.

Your Mediawiki suggestion is interesting, you should post it at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). One drawback is that a large multicolor diff popping up automatically could be very confusing to casual or inexperienced editors, and if it's large enough it can cause long delays or timeouts. Vandals could deliberately create large diffs for this purpose. -- Curps 16:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, it could be an option that is turned on in the preferences, then. Anon vandals wouldn't know about it. Large vandalisms are always encountered anyways, so I don't see how this is any different in that respect. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-7 17:14

Proposed removal

Is there really a need for the text "Your changes will be visible immediately"? I'm for keeping these messages as short as possible, thus encouraging people to actually read them. Is anyone against removing this text? — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-7 16:33

Perhaps some newbies actually read it, once. After that, no one expects it to change... it's not a place to put news or messages. Even if few people read it, it doesn't do much harm, because it's usually below the bottom of the scroll window, so it doesn't really take up screen space.

For legal purposes I think we very definitely do need to keep the copyright and GFDL stuff. -- Curps 16:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

How about replacing the generally useless "Your changes will be visible immediately" with the arguably useful "Please check that the last edit wasn't vandalism". I really believe this will help cut down on vandalism, including sneaky vandalism. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-7 17:16

Insert special chars box to my own wiki

Hi, I was wondering how to add the "insert special chars" box to my wiki. When I add it to my page all I get is a bunch of "charinsert" tags... the javascript (or whatever) isn't converting it over. See: [3] Thanks. David Bergan 05:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind. I got it. The answer was found here. David Bergan 06:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

New version

Soon (in less than 24 hours?), this template will appear above the Edit summary box. This change was decided by MediaWiki/Wikimedia so that they could be assured editors were seeing a copyright warning before clicking submit (on lower resolution screens, the warning is off-screen). The character-insert toolbox that is currently here will exist at MediaWiki:Edittools. Thus, not only should the character-insert toolbox be removed from here, but this template should also be drastically shortened. Only the key points should be here, while the rest of the content should be moved below the Submit button, which would mean putting them in the Edittools template. So, what are the key points that should remain here?

Based on our most recent endeavors, I think the key points should include: copyright warning and citing sources notice, at least.

Maybe it could be worded in a way to look like an agreement, such as "I confirm that this text was not copied directly from a copyrighted source, and that citations have been included."... or something along those lines. Didn't the image upload page used to say something like that?

— BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-30 11:48

I've moved the charinsert bits out, but this message could still use some cleanup. --Brion 03:38, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Ouch - I can't speak for anyone else, but don't care for it. Slows me down some. But, if this is the way it is to be, I'll learn to cope. BD2412 T 03:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

One-liner version

I've made this much shorter like I said earlier, but please discuss it further. This is simply a temporary change so that the whole place doesn't go bonkers over the large chunk of text. We all know it should be shorter than it was, but what should be kept/removed/changed? Note: anything that should be removed can go into MediaWiki:Edittools, like it is now. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 03:48

BD2412's reply

For me, this is much better, with a single line between the text box and the edit summary - I don't have to scroll very far down just to save the page. I think a second line would fit just as well, with no ill effect. BD2412 T 03:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• Alright. What else from the old list do you think should be in these lines? Obviously a copyright warning. I also think that citing verifiable, reliable sources should be there. Maybe a link to the sandbox? — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 03:56
  • Why not just a notice that there are additional comments further down the page? BD2412 T 04:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
    • That might be a good idea, though a bit redundant. Let's see what others suggest. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 04:13

Carnildo's reply

It's got a few problems. The big one I see is the "does not contain copyrighted work". Taken literally, that means that nobody can edit any page: all previous versions of the page are copyrighted, but licensed under the GFDL. It also means that people can't import articles from other GFDL sources, such as the Comixpedia wiki. --Carnildo 04:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• Not exactly. It says "this edit", not "this page". Maybe "my changes" instead? — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 04:12
  • Carnildo's point could be covered by saying instead "I affirm that this edit does not violate any copyright". BD2412 T 04:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Alright, that sounds good. Thanks. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 04:24

Geni's reply

I don't affirm anything. I'm trying to clean up some vadalism thats all. I have no idea if the edit is based on verifiable sources or not and at best I can say it doesn't read like a copyvio. Inserdently It looks stupid on tlak pages. What was wrong with what we had before? just kill the who thing and put it in the edit tools template.Geni 04:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• It's up above to make sure there's *something* where a visible link to the privacy and copyright policies can be put that will in fact be visible on screen before you submit an edit. On a small screen it's very easy to make edits without ever scrolling below the buttons, and if we want to pretend we really mean it with the existence of privacy policies and the license they need to be visible. --Brion 04:21, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
• It's essential for the foundation to inform people about what they are allowed or forbidden to do... and this warning has to be displayed above a long tail of twenty templates. --Elian (told to quote from IRC) 04:23, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
• Discussion (not involving myself) led to this being put above the Edit summary field though. Don't kill it just because you don't like the current form. It can be made workable, so help make it workable. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 04:17
  • Can it with the "I affirm" stuff. After the last mess caused by people useing overly legalistic terms I think it is safe to say they are best avoided.
    • But what do you suggest it be replaced with? — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 05:04
      • have a look.Geni 05:07, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I'd still put copyright first (it's a more serious concern) - and bold it: Please make sure your changes do not violate any copyright and are are based on verifiable sources. (note also period at end). BD2412 T 05:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Agreed. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 05:18

Could the GFDL link be bolded, perhaps? The other links are, which makes it look a little unbalanced. BD2412 T 03:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Done.--Sean|Black 03:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks. BD2412 T 03:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Erm...

I don't quite particularly like the changes. First, there's already a link to Wikipedia:Cite sources below; isn't that redundant? Can't one or the other be removed? Second, there's also a link to Wikipedia:Copyrights below, under a huge title that already says "DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION" It's redundant to restate the same thing with the same link again. Finally, I don't exactly like the warning right above the edit summary box. It makes it look cluttered, in my opinion; haven't all warnings been agreed to be below? (Oh, by the way, Brian, can you point me to the previous discussion you mentioned above?) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:38, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I mostly agree. Also, the "Templates used on this page" link is now too low to be very useful. But it's not a big enough deal to really bother me.--Sean|Black 22:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I thought copyright was infringed rather than violated. I wish someone had had the good mind to announce this somewhere before the change. I mean, who ever added this page to their watchlist? -Splash^talk 22:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree. When I saw the changes, it took me quite a while to track down this MediaWiki page; I posted a notice on WP:AN today to draw more people to the right spot. To be frank, I don't really like the changes because of the aforementioned reasons. Thoughts? Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Not all infringements are actionable - a fair use might technically infringe but nevertheless not violate. I prefer violate anyway, as it's got a harsher sound, which I find more likely to dissuade potential copyers. BD2412 T 22:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The advantage to having a short message before the edit box is that there's no way you can submit without reading it. What I would like is a quick mention of the GFDL. Superm401 | Talk 23:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

But all that is already mentioned below - do we need to have redundant messages? Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It is not redundant. The need for it to be above the Submit button is so that everyone can be assured that people actually saw the copyright warning before clicking submit. On most lower resolutions, the warning is off-screen. Didn't you read any of the long discussion above??? (not being harsh, just can't believe you missed it) — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 00:15

A GFDL notice might be good, although it is clearly mentioned at the top of Wikipedia:Copyrights. Let's see what others think of this idea before going forward with it. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 00:30

See Brion's comments above. This wasn't a change by an admin, but by the MediaWiki/Wikimedia people. Unless you hear otherwise from the MediaWiki/Wikimedia folks, it's safe to assume that it is to remain intact as it currently is, at least providing a copyright warning. We had sufficient warning about this (here, on Village pump, and earliest of all, in at least one of the mailing lists), so I don't understand why nobody bothered to reply before it came about (See #New version above). — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-2 23:59

(afer edit conflict) But there is already a copyright warning below the edit summary box. I'm glad that our developers added the capability for us to add a warning, but that doesn't necessarily mean we need to use it. Did the Board mandate that we needed a new warning? Unless the Board mandates us to do so, I don't think we should feel compelled to add in the changes — sure, it gives us more options and might be a good idea, but that doesn't mean we have to do it. I, for one, feel that it is a bit redundant and clutters up the page even more. Regarding the notice — I know there was some discussion about this on the mailing list a few weeks ago and a change was made and then reverted, but today (when I clicked edit) was the first I was aware of the changes. Did you announce them anywhere else? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:11, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

• My message above said that I announced it here and on Village Pump, and there was an announcement about it on the mailing lists and in IRC. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 00:15
• Alright, if your complaint is the duplication of the same message, the 2nd message can be change so it isn't a duplicate. This was also just suggested by brion on #mediawiki. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 00:17
• The point is not to have duplicate bits, after all. The point is to have a brief link to the copyright and privacy policies in a visible place. That's it. --brion (copied with permission from #mediawiki) 00:19, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
• Also, please note that I do not feel compelled in any way. I have been in favor of such changes for quite a while now, and support this completely. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 00:25

Ok, the duplicate copyright notice in MediaWiki:Edittools has been removed as per the complaints above. Any other suggestions for improvements? How about making the text here <small>? This would make the text less conspicuous, and allow the option to add more if people want. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 00:22

OK, that's better. Thanks! I still don't agree with having the line above the rest of the warnings, however — is there a specific reason (besides emphasizing it) why the line shouldn't be moved to the last section? It shouldn't take importance over the other tips and warnings, and is very awkward above the edit summary box. Thoughts? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:41, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I've stated the reason 3 times now, Brion has stated it twice, and another user has stated it once: Before this change, the copyright warning was off the screen for most people (below everything else), so they did not even have to see it before clicking Submit. This forces them to read the copyright warning, and to have links to the copyright policy above the Submit button. It's that simple. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 01:00

The reason is WP:CP. Anything that might reduce that is worth a try.Geni 07:19, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

• You may compare the german version perhaps. - Peter 08:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Multiple lines

Is there anyway to prevent the warning from spilling over onto a second line?--Sean|Black 05:07, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

GFDL link

Should the GFDL link point to Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License rather than to the Wikipedia article on the GFDL? --Carnildo 22:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point. I think it should - after all the Copyright link points to Wikipedia:Copyrights rather than our article on the same. BD2412 T 23:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Licence or License

Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary.com, and Google all point clearly to License. Our article on GFDL is even called the GNU Free Documentation License. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-8 00:23

My original rationale for changing it is that licence is a noun form and license is a verb form. [[Sam Korn]] 00:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Oxford says the verb is an s. And they're British :) — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-8 00:33

I say we split the difference and spell it with a 'k': "licenke" --Carnildo 01:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I prefer license, for no reason that I can reduce to specifics. I suppose we could evade the question by using "release" instead, but that's a legally different proposition. BD2412 T 01:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Really, Carnildo, if we were going to split the difference it would be licensce. Or, um, Lisencse. Or maybe licenxe. Wait... I have it! L1c3nz! BD2412 T 13:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

U.S. authorities follow Webster in prescribing license for all cases, of course. As for the U.K. authorities: Gowers doesn't cover the subject, but Fowler, Partridge, and Reader's Digest all say to use license for the verb, which is the case here. Uncle G 02:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Both licence and license are equally acceptable. Brian0918, please familiarise yourself with the Manual of Style's guidelines, which states if something "...is predominantly written in one type of English, aim to conform to that type rather than provoking conflict by changing to another". Licence is a valid spelling, and all you appear to be doing here is pushing your own spelling on top of others (and accusing others of "nonsense"[4]). I don't think you're conducting yourself as an administrator should. Talrias (t | e | c) 12:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• I agree that, were it a noun, "licence" would be acceptable. However, here it is a verb, and "license" is the far more common verbal form in the U.K., as Uncle G demonstrates above. "Licence" is valid, but very rare. Why not use the more common and equally correct version? It has the added advantage of also not annoying our American cousins. I changed it, I am British, and I changed it because that is the normal British spelling of the word. [[Sam Korn]] 12:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
• It is you who are provoking conflict by pushing an unsourced spelling for the verb form. You have yet to provide one source that says licence is the proper spelling for the verb in America OR in Britain. Meanwhile, we have provided numerous sources which show that, whether in America or Britain, the preferred spelling for the verb is license. Can you provide one source for the proper verb spelling? I acknowledge that it can be spelled with a c in noun form, but not in verb form. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 13:30

I hereby nominate this exchange for WP:LAME. android79 13:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I second the nomination.--Sean|Black 21:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh give it a break, there's nothing to talk about - whether you speak American or British English, the verb form is undeniably spelt with an 's'. Enochlau 14:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I didn't provide a source, Brian0918, because you yourself said you used dictionary.com. Searching for licence on that website says quite clearly "n. & v." - which means noun and verb. I agree that license is an acceptable alternate spelling. The point remains that Brian0918 has acted in bad faith, accusing people of "pushing nonsense" or "provoking conflict", defined edits as minor when in a dispute, selectively ignored evidence, and ignored the manual of style which makes it quite clear what should be done in the case of spelling disputes. I am very disappointed in the way Brian0918 has behaved. Talrias (t | e | c) 14:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Really, tho, license makes more sense - it's not incorrect in British English, whereas licence is certainly incorrect in American English. Of course, I am biased... but trying very hard not to be! BD2412 T 14:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• No, he had sources to back up his position. You had none. You acted in bad faith, he did not. Just let this go before you lose all respect you have. You are causing an edit war over one letter. Even if you weren't wrong, edit warring over such silly stuff is not helpful in the least. - Taxman ^Talk 14:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• As has clearly been shown, license is the only predominant spelling of the verb form. That should be the end of it. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 14:41

We've attempted to resolve this on IRC, and I am quite happy for 'license' to be used. We discussed whether 'licence' is a valid form for the verb, and Brian0918 didn't accept that licence could ever be a verb. I'm still a bit disappointed about the way this has progressed, but I feel it's been much ado about nothing. Cheers, Talrias (t | e | c) 15:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

This controversy aside, I respectfully request that editors not replace the word license with another term - a license creates a specific kind of legal relationship, and an agreement to license has different connotations than an agreement to "place" or "put" or "release". Please trust your IP lawyer on this one. BD2412 T 19:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Shucks, does that mean I'm too late? Kim Bruning 05:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Position on section-editing pages

When you're creating a new section on a page (for example, [5]), the warning is currently between the edit box and the "Save Page" buttons. This makes it easy to ignore, particularly since the edit box can be taller than the page. Could this warning be moved to the *top* of the section-edit page layout instead? I wasn't able to figure out how to do this. -- Creidieki 20:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed, do not submit it.

I've restored the above wording because I think it's needed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Needed, maybe, but redundant to what's at the bottom of the page - and it clutters up that space between the edit window and the save/preview buttons. I think it was fine where it was. BD2412 T 14:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  • • This is exactly what I was afraid of - instruction creep. We already have all that material below the edit summary box, and repeating it above not only is redundant but clutters up the page even more. The only reason material was moved above the box was to place emphasis on the GFDL and sources. I've gone ahead and reverted until we can get a consensus about whether this should stay below the edit summary or be moved. THanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
    • P.S. I've archived this talk page, as it was getting pretty long. Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Agreed, but reverted where? I still see it! BD2412 T 15:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Original research?

A mention of no original research was added to the warning today. I'm not too sure I agree with the change, because we already have a warning about sources - original research, by definition, has no sources. Thoughts on whether we should mention WP:NOR? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• Strictly speaking, original research may have sources, but the sources are tertiary to the point of the research - I can point to sources, for example, supporting point A and point B, and contend that if these are true, that proves my point C. On the other hand, I don't think the original research warning is necessary in this section - maybe further down, below the edit buttons? BD2412 T 15:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Hmm, OK. I agree with moving it down - that seems like a good idea. Thoughts, or should I be bold and go ahead and do it? Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Boldness rocks! BD2412 T 15:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Alright, I'll be bold and move it. :-) Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I agree; leave it out. — Dan | talk 18:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Any particular reason? Dan100 (Talk) 23:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

No, no reason. I just thought, since we're both named Dan, that I'd take the opposite side as you in order to confuse anyone who happens to be reading this discussion. — Dan | talk 17:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer to keep it in the copyrightwarning. It's a fact that IPs love to add OR, and we need a prominent warning. It's true that asking for sources precludes OR, but I didn't think of that when I read it and don't expect everyone else does either.

What's the down side to having it there?

BTW I wonder how many people notice, let alone read, the text below the character selector... Dan100 (Talk) 18:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Instruction creep. The point of having the copyright warning was to add more prominence to the copyright links and GFDL, not to add every single warning we need in that area. It's best to keep the space between the edit box and edit summary as short as possible; that's why we have the warnings beneath. And sorry for taking so long to reply; it must have slipped my watchlist. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

But adding the NOR warning doesn't add extra lines! And this isn't instruction creep in its true sense. Dan100 (Talk) 13:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It is, however, true that the shorter something is, the more people read it. [[Sam Korn]] 14:03, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't deny that, but we're talking about four extra words! That's taking that logic to the extreme, no? Dan100 (Talk) 16:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The warning is already too long, at a line and a half on a 1024x768 screen. If there's any re-wording that could get it down to a single line, I'd be all for it. --Carnildo 20:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Gah!

I don't know what you lot have managed to do to this particular message (which should just be left alone, dammit), but at present I get three successive warnings about different parts of enwiki policy before I can commit an edit. And yes, I've force-refreshed and purged and closed by browser and logged out. Stop playing. -Splash^talk 05:26, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

"Sources"

It's been pointed out (by a user called Rob on the talk page of WP:V) that while it's policy that information must be verifiable, it's only a guideline that you should quote a source. To quote SlimVirgin's response from the same talk page:

Regarding whether citing sources is mandatory, the policy is that people ought to (ideally) cite sources when they make an edit, but it's not mandatory. That is, if someone makes an edit and doesn't cite a source, you can't take them to the arbcom for a policy violation.

Therefore I've removed the sources link, as how it was worded before suggested that providing a source was mandatory. Dan100 (Talk) 10:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• I re-added sources. The statement says "Content...must be based on verifiable sources." This doesn't say that the content must cite sources, just that the content must be based on verifiable sources. It may seem redundant, but it is an excuse to add a link to the page for citing sources, which was one of reasons this Copyrightwarning was created. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-17 13:36

Minor Change

The current version is:

Content must not violate any copyright and must be verifiable. Your contributions will be licensed under the GFDL.

It would be better if it said:

Content must not violate any copyright and must be verifiable. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL.

The latter is more legally valid, and only a tiny bit longer. Superm401 | Talk 00:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Please read the rest of the talk page. This has already been discussed. Uncle G 03:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I've read the entire page. Can give me the section where this specific issue was discussed? I am not referring to the dispute over the spelling of "license." Note that my proposal uses the same spelling, just a different form. Superm401 | Talk 10:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't want to nitpick but... "Your agree to license"? R.Koot 21:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Good point, but now that we have that out of the way, I would really like the actual change to be made. Superm401 | Talk 03:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Done. I wonder if it warrants a semicolon or a dash between the two sentences now? --HappyCamper 14:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
          • Thanks for making the change. As for punctuation, I'd prefer to keep it as is. Superm401 | Talk 19:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)