Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
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Contents

[edit] Proposed change to banning policy

I have just noticed a puzzling formulation in Wikipedia:Banning policy, one that (I checked) was introduced in the very first version of the policy, few years back - but one that also seems contrary to our goal of building an encyclopedia. The formulation is: Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves. In other words, this can be used (and I have seen this used in such a way) to justify reverting completly innocent edits such as Manual of Style changes (typo fixes, punctuation), addition of interlinks, or fixing of obvious errors. I think it is common sense that non controversial, innocent edits by banned editors should not be reverted just because they were carried out by a banned editor (or usually a suspected or confirmed sock of one). Of course, just be clear, if such a sock makes controversial edits, they should be reverted immediately and the block extended. But the idea that we should put enforcing our bans to the letter over the spirit of building an encyclopedia is just plain wrong. Feel free to comment at the policy talk page.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 12:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the above heading from blocking to banning, because this is what it is about. The two terms are not synonymous. Waltham, The Duke of 20:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
They may be reverted, it doesn't force anyone to perform those reversions, it could be a bit clearer on that --Enric Naval (talk) 18:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Piotrus. What troubles me about this section is that I've seen people who believe that all edits by a sock of a banned user should be reverted immediately, as it is too much trouble to check and see which edits are good and which are bad. This is not a constructive activity. I've even seen an instance where a perfectly acceptable article was deleted, after multiple edits by other editors were made, because the originating author was a sock. This in particular is indefensible and unjustifiable. If someone is too lazy to actually look at edits before reverting/deleting them, than find someone who isn't. Due to the wording of the policy, the people doing this are fully within their rights, and I simply do not agree that this should be universally permissible, let alone encouraged. I will admit that this is sometimes necessary, in situations where a large number of edits were made, and there is little chance, due to the nature of the sock, that there were any good edits. However, in many cases the application of blanket reversion is extreme, and it is an activity with the potential for mass disruption, not to mention unnecessary duplication of effort. In my view if an edit is good, who made it is utterly immaterial. The purpose of banning, in my interpretation, is to relieve the Wikipedia community of an editor whose editing, for whatever reason, has been determined to be a consistent net negative to the extent that there is no logical purpose for allowing their continued participation in the project. If they edit constructively while banned, reversion of those edits to "enforce" the ban is a net negative, and is thus utterly at odds for the original reason for banning them.--Dycedarg ж 21:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I realize it's being a bit dickish to the banned user to revert even their innocent, good-faith changes, but this rule was created because some banned users were continuing to edit anyway, and after a certain point, we just have to give them the cold shoulder. Allowing those changes to stick gives them the satisfaction they need to continue editing, and they really aren't supposed to continue. Users are not banned lightly, and they aren't banned in ignorance of that rule, but rather with a clear awareness of it. Mangojuicetalk 15:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Banned means banned. Not "banned when you are not nice". Everything by banned users should go. Dsmdgold (talk) 19:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
One reason – not the only one – why such reversions are permitted by the banning policy is that in some cases the banned editor will continue to make superficially constructive edits as part of a pattern of stalking or harrassment. Continuing to conspicuously edit pages that are watched by a former adversary can be a way to stir the pot even after a ban—particularly if well-meaning editors jump in with 'Why are you reverting those apparently-reasonable minor edits?'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Banning means the person is not welcome to edit here, so the rules makes a lot of sense to me. 1 != 2 19:52, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
As we're here to write an encyclopedia, an edit that advances the encyclopedia should stay, regardless of who makes it. A good quality edit by VoB should be kept in preference to a poor quality edit from me, for example. If not, then we're asserting that some other consideration should come ahead of writing the encyclopedia. --SSBohio 03:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't put it better myself. If it serves the interests of the encyclopedia, then it doesn't matter who made it. It improves the project; in my opinion, reverting a good edit is a much more serious offense than breaking a ban to make a good-faith edit that isn't controversial or otherwise in obvious bad faith. Celarnor Talk to me 03:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Reverting the edits of the banned user doesn't bother me, but insisting that nobody else is even allowed to re-make the same edits if that other (non-banned) user finds them worthwhile, as is sometimes loudly argued (complete with threats of blocks against that latter user) does. *Dan T.* (talk) 04:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The point of the policy, as I understand it, is basically an extension of WP:Deny recognition. If they think they can contribute, they may think they're pulling their weight and should be allowed to stay or they may think they can get the last word in indirectly through another editor or otherwise disrupt the project. Repeating the edit may be tossing them a bone instead of a steak dinner, but it's still feeding a troll.Somedumbyankee (talk) 04:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
So, someone on some kind of ban reverts libel on a BLP subject, someone else restores it with an "OH NOES TEH BANNED UZER" edit summary, and we leave it there? Placing our community problems above furthering project seems kind of backwards to me. Celarnor Talk to me 04:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
The policy addresses that specific issue: "When reverting edits, care should be taken not to reinstate material that may be in violation of core policies such as Neutrality, Verifiability, and Biographies of Living Persons." As for backwards, without the community, there is no project. The vicious circle adds that without the project, there is no community. There has to be some sort of balance, and shunning and denying any access to banned users conserves the community at an acceptable loss to the project.Somedumbyankee (talk) 05:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Of course there's a project without the community. If we shut down editing tommorow and made wikipedia read-only it would continue to be a useful resource for years to come. The same cannot be said the other way around.--Phoenix-wiki 19:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback for stewards

Hi, I am a steward and I am taking care about some articles on en.wp. As a steward, I am admin on every project. Besides privileges in which I am not interested at en.wp (blocking user, deleting and undeleting pages...), I've got "rollback" button. My question is: may I use it? It would help me in keeping consistent articles about I am taking care. --millosh (talk (meta:)) 08:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason why not. : - ) --MZMcBride (talk) 08:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Definitely read Wikipedia:Rollback feature if you haven't already--people here feel very strongly that rollback should only be used to revert vandalism or your own edits. Darkspots (talk) 13:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely, though I'd expect you to only be using it for vandalism cleanup. EVula // talk // ☯ // 13:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course, it is only about vandalism cleanup. For a long time my contribution to en.wp is related just to taking care about a small group of articles for which I suppose that no one else takes care. In my feed reader I usually see bot edits, nonsenses and vandalisms. At the contrast, I am taking care about Template:Case table, where I have to check every addition of the new case or "case"; and if it is not a grammatical case, I am always giving rationale on talk page. --millosh (talk (meta:)) 08:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for trust. --millosh (talk (meta:)) 08:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I have, actually, already made two rollback edits (I'm a steward as well) in response to vandalism-en emails on OTRS. I assumed there would be no problems if I used the tool only in clear vandalism cases. :) --Filip (§) 09:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Same for me. If there are no objections I would use it to revert vandalism that I come across. Thanks, --Thogo (Talk) 12:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Especially considering we're handing out the rollback right like candy to most users who have need/want of it, that sounds quite acceptable to me. If any of you stewards would prefer to avoid using it "as an admin," I suppose you could explicitly get your account flagged for rollback via Wikipedia:Rollback feature#How to apply for rollback. – Luna Santin (talk) 22:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Given the level of trust it takes to be a steward, I would have no issue handing out local rollback to them, with my nice notification message to only use it on vandalism. MBisanz talk 04:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sister sites for well-researched miscellany

A search for all Wikipedia entries containing "Enterprise episode" reveals a jumbled mess: a separate entry for nearly every episode of the TV show, inconsistently including (Enterprise episode) or a variation thereof for the sake of disambiguation -- perhaps extinction and Extinction (Star Trek: Enterprise) coexisting in the same directory space is indicative of a much larger problem. It's great that Wikipedia provides information like this in a convenient place, but when it goes against the site's own policies, and when a more specialized wiki exists just to cater to this topic, why not remove the offending sites from Wikipedia and redirect instead to the specialized wiki? --38.100.221.66 (talk) 22:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Because we can't be sure of the content or policies on those other specialized Wikis not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation. For example, Memory Alpha (pretty much the accepted Wiki for ST content) could change its policies tomorrow to not allow edits from the outside, and then start changing crap randomly. Generally, in the case of television episodes, we provide an external link. Celarnor Talk to me 23:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
With regards to the INDISCRIMINATE accusation, there's content guidelines for episodes at EPISODE. Celarnor Talk to me 23:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
They don't violate Wikipedia's own policies. Wikipedia is not paper, articles should be verifiable, contain no original research, and be written from a neutral point of view. The phrase "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" is not meant to be applied to any article you personally don't like. I'm sure Memory Alpha goes into more detail than Wikipedia, but how does Extinction (Star Trek: Enterprise) turn Wikipedia into a an "indiscriminate collection of information" but the extinction article does not? What were you looking for when you searched for "Enterprise episode"? --Pixelface (talk) 20:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistency with articles about retailers

I am somewhat confused as to what articles about retailers should be called on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies) didn't really answer my question, so I'll post it here.

Some retailers (e.g. Tesco) have only their names as their article titles, whereas others have various different things in brackets after their names (e.g. Iceland (supermarket) and Argos (retailer)). Shouldn't there only be one way of doing things, and do some of these articles need renaming? It Is Me Here (talk) 14:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

As for Tesco, it's best not to use any parenthetical if there is no other topic with the same title: obviously Iceland (supermarket) and Iceland are distinct topics. But for those with parentheticals, there is some value to having them be consistent if it's possible. I don't like (supermarket) as it's a bit too specific -- that could just be (store)... (retailer) could work, but something about calling a supermarket a "retailer" strikes me as wrong somehow. Mangojuicetalk 15:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Calling Tesco or Iceland a 'store' would violate WP:ENGVAR. Algebraist 22:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, a Tesco store would be a place where Tescos store things. DuncanHill (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that would be a Tesco warehouse. A Tesco store would be a place where Tescos are stored. Algebraist 22:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Isn't English fun? DuncanHill (talk) 23:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
As Mango mentioned, it's common practice to avoid parentheticals in article titles unless they're specifically needed. I also agree there's some advantage to uniformity, though. Seems "store" is out, but what about "retailer"? – Luna Santin (talk) 23:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
'Retailer' sounds reasonable. Any idea how much work this would entail? Algebraist 23:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
According to AWB, we have 582 pages in Category:Supermarkets by country, 79 of which have some parenthetical or other. A fair number of those parentheticals are a country name, a few are cities or state/provinces, but the majority look to be some variety of (store), (supermarket), (supermarket chain), and so on. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm with Mangojuice: calling a supermarket a "retailer" seems slightly wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think that in UK English "retailer" has some connotations that it might not have in US English. Bluap (talk) 12:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm surprised no-one's linked this, but the parentheticals are not actually meant to be taken as part of the actual title, but as a means of disambiguating them from other possible uses of the name - as mentioned above, there is already Iceland (the country) and Argos (the Greek city), but the majority of people who recognise the name "Tesco" would be thinking, first and foremost, of the chain of supermarkets, hence the lack of a parenthetical. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 07:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I've got no problem with that, I'm mainly after uniformity being enforced in the articles about shops (or whatever) that do have something in brackets after them. It Is Me Here (talk) 11:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] the "table of contents" of many articles break contents down into a single "part"

I learned in grammar school that one of the most basic rules of creating an outline is something like:

if you are going to create an indented sub-topic, you must create at least two sub-topics.

I think the idea is that in creating an indented sub-topic, you are breaking an idea into its component parts; but if a concept only has one part, then that part must be the whole concept. In that case, creating a sub-topic is misleading and not justified.

I think this is relevant in wikipedia because the tables of contents in many articles are in outline form, and so should follow the rules for outlining.

By the way, it bothers me that I have edited pages here on wikipedia at least twice in the past to make this suggestion and my edits were deleted. Please don't delete my request; instead justify your reasons for not implementing it if that is what you are going to do. What I would like to see is a generally available discusssion about this very non-trivial subject.

Please note that outlining is an important process: useful for organizing ideas before writing any complicated document, and probably useful for almost any planning. Wikipedia arguably is a very powerful standard setter, and as such may have a profound (in this case negative, I think) effect on the ability of many whom wikipedia influences to outline, write, think and plan.

Allow me to introduce an example below of what I mean:

From the "Quantum" article in wikipedia:

Contents [hide] 1 Development of quantum theory

    1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula

2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation

    2.1 The birthday of quantum mechanics

3 See also 4 References 5 Notes

Above, "1 Development of quantum theory" is broken down (or outlined) into one component part. It seems to me that for this to adhere to the basic rule for outlining I am requesting that it must be either broken down into more than one part, or that "1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula" should be "demoted" to a lower level, i.e. 1.1 would be demoted to replace "2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" and "2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" would be renumbered as "3 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" with remaining entries renumbered sequentially.

Another way of saying this is: Surely there is more than one part to item number 1 "the development of quantum theory"; if not, then I think "1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula" should join the line above it or replace the line above it.

Summary: though it will be expensive in terms of person-hours, I think wikipedia should adopt a standard (which, considering wikipedia's considerable and growing influence will set a nearly universal standard) of not allowing solitary sub-topics in outlines (i.e. table of contents, etc). This would not be a new standard, it would merely be following long established rules of language (and thought).

69.225.94.162 (talk) 04:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Joe Cash email: joecash@sol.csustan.edu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.225.94.162 (talk) 01:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree in principle, and if you want to make such edits, then please do so. In addition, you could find the WP page outlining the policy about headers — wherever it might exist — and present your idea as an edit to that page; then see if it flies. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree, with one provision: sometimes a section will have a lead/introduction, and then a subsection. This mught be legitimate style, but still render a TOC as you described?  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 05:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above stated rule about outlines as I was taught the same thing. However, when I brought the subject up to the Wikipedia:Featured articles grammar and layout guru, User:Tony1, he stated he had never heard of such rule and that is was not in the critera for a FAC. So there you go! –Mattisse (Talk) 17:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Israeli News Agency

I wanted to add a link for a speech made by the Israeli prime minister, citing the Israeli News Agency, but the system said that particular source was "blacklisted." How can that be? How can a source be "blacklisted"? Questioningly, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Assuming the url is israelnewsagency[dot]com, it's listed on the spam blacklist at meta (see m:Spam blacklist). The associated log entry mentions this request. – Luna Santin (talk) 10:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's a pretty damning indictment. Is there a page that gives the actual rules and regulations for putting a source on this list, or is each item handled more or less on a case by case basis? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

A blacklisted link typically means that it's been inappropriately added to articles at an excessive rate (i.e. "spammed"), and someone's made a request to blacklist it to prevent further occurrences. You may want to request that just the link to the speech be added to MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist so you can use it in the article. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 06:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of images in educational multimedia

Hi there, I create and deliver video conferences about palaeontology here at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Canada. I would like to use some illustrations fromm Wikipedia pages, but I am unclear as to whether I need to aknowledge the creator of the image as part of the multimedia I am making and using. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.213.123.54 (talk) 15:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi; images on Wikipedia are supposed to conform to the image use policy, which -- apart from the odd "fair use" image, which is a special case people are always talking about -- should all be usable for such a purpose. If you look at the image's own page (e.g. Image:Bpi01.jpg or Image:Pohlsepia mazonensis.jpg, you can see commentary below on the copyright and licensing status of each one. Some are public-domain, some require attribution, and you might like to avoid the "fair use" ones altogether for safety's sake. :-) You might also like to browse through Wikimedia Commons for images. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 12:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Date links suck.

Hi,

I dislike date links. I think they should be excised from Wikipedia because they make articles harder to read.

I understand the main reason to keep them is to preserve autoformatting.

How would I propose that date links be invisible when reading the article? So a wikilink for 30 June 1944 would simply appear in the browser thus:

30 June 1944

Tempshill (talk) 18:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I know date links in general are a longstanding point of contention and irritation. I just don't know where to make the proposal. Over at the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) link there's just a large intimidating longstanding flame war about something I don't even know what they're arguing about. Tempshill (talk) 18:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Would you like a javascript tool to make them invisible to you? — CharlotteWebb 18:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for Tempshill, but I believe he or she is asking for a change in policy whereby the links would not be visible to the researcher (most of our visitors). Perhaps the Javascript tool should instead make them VISIBLE. I agree that highlighting the dates in blue is really silly and makes WP look like a conclave of nerds rather than serious writers and editors. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You say "sincerely" as if I might otherwise doubt the sincerity of your comment . In any case I do not understand why a casual reader would consider blue, clickable links to June 4, 2008 any nerdier than blue, clickable links to any other topic. Sincerely. — CharlotteWebb 13:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree 99% that date links suck. However there are a few cases where they are useful to readers, e.g. in Guns, Germs, and Steel "trying into explain why, for example, in 1492 Eurasia was almost entirely populated by settled societies with governments, literacy, iron technology and standing armies while the other continents were almost entirely populated by stone age tribes of hunter-gatherers" provides an opportunity to remind readers of Columbus' voyage across the Atlantic, which effectively started modern European colonialism - which is very relevant to the theme of the book. I can also think of a few day-month dates that might usefully be wikilinked: 1 January, 1 April, 25 December, etc.
I think what's needed is:
  • A flexible policy based on whether the value of a date is significant to the reader, which generally depends on the context.
  • A mechanism for formatting dates (e.g. dd-mm-yyyy vs mm-dd-yyyy) without wikilinking. But IMO it must also be one that's easy for editors to use - unlike e.g. the requirement to use ISO format (yyyy-mm-dd) for accessdate in "cite web". That's a matter for the techies to resolve. Philcha (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

One thing that bugs me is overprecision about dates--which I think is related to the aesthetics of the blue date link. I have removed day or month information from dates to get rid of the wikilink--for example, who cares when in 1988 a particular book was released? I'd be very much in favor of a software solution to make date linking invisible. Darkspots (talk) 21:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If we can verify the exact date of book publication (or any other event) the relevant articles should include the date in some form or fashion. The other obvious advantage of wiki-linking dates is that a list of referring pages makes it easier to add births, deaths, and other cataclysmic events to our day/month/year articles. I would support a "software solution" in the form of a "[x] Suppress links to day/month/year articles" (replacing them by "plain text") in Special:Preferences as long as it is unchecked (keeping status quo) by default. Failing that (I doubt the devs would consider this a high-priority issue — bigger fish to fry, you know...) I have offered to create a javascript tool to do pretty much the same thing, for users who do not wish to see (or, worse, accidentally click on) links to day/month/year articles. Blurring chronological information, i.e. changing a known and undisputed exact date to an approximate time-span (solely to avoid formatting it as a date), is disruptive and downright harmful. Please do not do this. — CharlotteWebb 13:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

When you have a series of events--let's say a list of novels written by an author in a biography of the author--and some of the dates have day, month, year, some have month, year, and some have only the year, that date link really stands out and looks ugly. I'm not talking about changing the date of a battle or an election from a day to a year. but in that list of books, making all the past dates have the same level of precision--like month, year--helps a lot. When reading a biography, do you really care on what date in May 1988, say, an author had a book published? Not really. You want to know the chronological order in which things happened, you want to know about what was happening in history at that moment. Now there are no doubt countless exceptions to this--Van Gogh scholars care deeply what happened on each date of the last years of his life, as a random example. In a more general way, if an author has multiple works published every month, obviously more specific dates would be in order. But unnecessary precision is no service to our readers. I wouldn't change a date just to get rid of a link, but it's definitely one of a lot of considerations. I try to edit in every situation with an eye to what's going to make the encyclopedia better. Darkspots (talk) 16:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean but the exact date (if known) should at least be mentioned in the article about each book (if the article exists). If the article about the book doesn't exist yet (and we are unwilling to create it at the moment) but the exact date of publication is verifiable and undisputed, it should be mentioned somewhere in the list as the book title should probably redirect to the list (which may itself be a sub-section of the author's biography), and the list is a logical starting point for anyone aspiring to create articles about these particular books.
Of course this is something that applies broadly to all topics and types of verifiable information — somebody somewhere will be looking for it, so if we have it, it should be available without having to dig through old revisions.
Back on topic, I'm willing to acknowledge that there are several users who do not like to see links to day/month/year articles for whatever reason I will not speculate. But I would like to know whether they would prefer that any sort of automatic de-linking of dates is done only for themselves and others sharing this sentiment, or for everyone reading the content. I would be amenable only to the former option. — CharlotteWebb 17:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that the articles for the books themselves should have the exact date, in this little example. Darkspots (talk) 17:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you add nowiki tags to the date to make it not get autoformatted? It seems to me these are more useful by default than not; in the instances where you just have a list of chronological events, you could put tags around it so it wouldn't get linked. Celarnor Talk to me 16:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Or just not use any brackets, perhaps. — CharlotteWebb 17:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

There are quite a few users that are unhappy with:
  • mandatory date links. This is due to a bad software design that combines two entirely independent functions: (a) hyperlinks to date articles; and (b) formatting of dates. The cure is worse than the disease. Very few people have the disease but we are all forced to take the medicine. If you want a plain date, just take the square brackets out.
  • the use of the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) talk pages for a war over binary prefixes. The policy page is defunct because you cannot read it and assume that it is policy. The binary prefix warriors decided that policy pages can contain proposals.
I would recommend that you take this issue to Manual of Style (dates and numbers), but like you, I am avoiding it and regard it as unserviceable for those of us outside that would prefer to remain unaffected by that war. Lightmouse (talk) 16:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Yup, the autodud system certainly does suck. All of our attempts to get the developers at Bugzilla to decouple autoformatting from linking have met a dead end. Brion Viber there doesn't seem at all keen to push things forward, despite a petition I organised more than a year ago with nearly 90 WPian signatories (I'm quite sure I could raise many hundreds now). See HERE (Comment 35 ff.
  • But the main point I have to make here is that autodud is not mandatory. See MOSNUM , which says "A combination of a day number and a month can be autoformatted by adding square brackets". I'm unsure how that can be contrued as compulsion. I encourage people not to use autodud at all. TONY (talk) 02:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting my statement and pointing out the exact wording of the guideline. Links to dates are not mandatory. Lightmouse (talk) 09:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

But but by not linking, and in the current arrangement therefore disabling autoformatting, it gives the outward appearance of "This is the US Wikipedia. US date format rules!". Perhaps a Wikipedia International English Edition might solve it. I don't like being the doom monger, but its little things like this that I believe will eventually lead to a WP schism. There are international differences on date formats and it may have a massive amount of "I don't like it" in it but users should be able to come to Wikipedia and see something as simple as a date in the format that they want to see it in. A simple cookie and a some coding and people could have dates that are blue, black, pink or whatever colour they want and in the format that they want. The autolinking should be kept and should be mandatory but it should also have the ability for users to select the date appearance they want. It could even be made to work for IP users, with a splash screen allowing a user to set preferences (cookie) on their browser's first visit to WP and reading the preferences from the cookie on subsequent visits. I hope both sides of this debate can unite behind a common flag of getting a proper working solution implemented by the devs. - X201 (talk) 10:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The same issue applies to spelling. There is US spelling and non-US spelling. We solved that without autoformatting of 'color' into 'colour'. Lightmouse (talk) 10:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, most non-US spelling isn't confusing to a U.S. reader; when I see 'colour' I just smile about the silly 'u' in there but I still understand it means 'color'. Same for 'kerb' and 'curb', and so on. Dates, however, are more confusing; June 8, 2008 would be rendered 6/8/2008 in American short date format and 8/6/2008 in some non-U.S. date formats. Which is actively confusing, because to the U.S. reader, the second example means August 6, 2008. Apart from forcing everyone to use ISO standard 2008-06-08 (which I'd love, but nobody else would) making the server automagically display dates in their preferred format is a great idea.
That said, I never understood why the "this is a date" syntax is the same as the "this is a link" syntax. It's pretty non-orthogonal. Instead, it would be nice if some new syntax was invented to flag dates, like (( )) or something. That way, if you have your prefs set to, say, ISO date format like me, ((October 20, 2005)), ((20 Oct 2005)), ((2005-10-20)), ((20/10/2005)), ((10/20/2005 US)), etc could all render as a plain, unlinked "2005-10-20". This would have the added benefit of being able to do ((20 Oct [[2005]])) or even something like ((20 Oct [[2005 in film|2005]])) and get "2005-10-20". —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
The principle of least astonishment should preclude us from piping date-links to a non-obvious target. A reader seeing "2005" in blue should expect it to link to the main article for that year (the fact that it also breaks existing date-formatting mechanisms is secondary to this). The effect of the "new syntax" you describe could be achieved using a variety of parser functions (without linking the result) by using a #switch statement and some variable representing the viewer's preferred date format (if the devs are willing to add the latter). Alternatively the #time function could be made more robust (it is apparently limited to 1970 and later).
Back on topic how would you feel about an option in Special:Preferences to make date links appear as plain text? — CharlotteWebb 10:48, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
This seems to be a perennial discussion. See {{date}} and [1]. --B. Wolterding (talk) 10:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Charlotte, a preference to that effect would be great, and better than nothing; so then dates would appear as they do after our signatures: BLACK (except that they would be formatted according to the original: 8 September 2005 OR September 6, 2005, not the British/Australian formatting that automatically appears after all signatures). However, this wouldn't solve the larger issue, which is that 99% of readers are not registered and logged in, so don't ever benefit from the actual autoformatting—they just cop the bright-blue irritation.
  • X201: no, we'd like either no autoformatting at all (big deal, it just appears as either well-known system, like spelling variants) or as now, but not bright-blue and underlined. TONY (talk) 14:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I think user:Scott5114 has expressed several of the same thoughts as I have. The software has combined two orthogonal issues ('this is a link' and 'this is a date'). The issue is very important when there is ambiguity (i.e. slash format dates) but less so when there is no ambiguity (ISO dates, mmm dates, mmmm dates). We are fortunate that most editors write dates in an unambiguous format, I can't recall the last time I saw a slash date here. As user:CharlotteWebb says, on principle, a link that looks like '2005' should not be a hidden link to somewhere else. In practice, such links do not achieve their aim anyway because readers will treat them as solitary years and just ignore them so they are a waste. Like user:Tony1, I want an end to blue linked dates whether in full or in fragmented form. We should simply format the date appropriate for the region. If anyone wants to use automatic formatting, then it should not involve the current mechanism. Lightmouse (talk) 15:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

This had been a perennially occurring issue for at least two years. Is there any definitive answer on what the developers' plans are? Are they planning to implement it eventually? Have they decided to never implement it, and simply to ignore all discussion? Bluap (talk) 16:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
"If anyone wants to use automatic formatting, then it should not involve the current mechanism." ← What about anyone who wants to click on a year, month, or day and see what other events occurred on that year, month, day... or to see whether the (potentially major) event they are reading about (i.e. the context in which the year, month, or day appears) is properly listed in the article for that year, month, or day... or to use Special:Whatlinkshere to assist in populating year, month, or day articles with topics/events associated with a specific year, month, or day? For one, I fear that explicitly de-linking dates on a non-trivial scale would impede or even stifle the development of year, month, and day articles. This is why I would strongly favor a user preference to render bracketed years, months, and days as plain text (in the user's preferred format) rather than as links.
The counter-argument to that, of course, is that maybe "dates should be plain text by default and we can someday rely on the parser to determine whether or not certain parts of a sentence resemble a year, a month, a day, or a range of years, months, or days, or anything else with chronological significance, which could be reliably auto-formatted according each user's preferences... and... (optionally) appear as links for all the nerds who want to have links." March 2000 feet north and deliver June 3 lost Cleavers and 1 October Sky DVD (director's cut!) and you will understand the difficulty of fool-proofing this approach.
So Scott suggests above that we use a different syntax to inform the parser that a certain string of text is supposed to be a date, one which would accept a greater variety of formats (perhaps even "slash dates" — with a big red "ambiguity error" if the month and day are both 12 or less), and output it the date in whatever format the reader prefers. That would be fine as long as there is an easy way for the reader to make links appear and disappear as desired, ideally as a Special:Preferences setting. — CharlotteWebb 16:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Mahatma" (Great-Souled) or his name?

The Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi page is again beset with arguments about whether or not its name should be Mahatma Gandhi instead. Since this seems to happen from time to time, I thought I'd bring it up at the Village Pump.

"Mahatma" ("Great Souled") is a honorific, which was first applied to Gandhi around 1915, when he was 46 years old. He himself always signed his name M. K. Gandhi. My understanding of WP:NAMEPEOPLE is that it is very clear on "qualifiers" (which include honorifics). It says unambiguously (off the bat): "Do not have additional qualifiers (such as "King", "Saint", "Dr.", "(person)", "(ship)"), except when this is the simplest and most NPOV way to deal with disambiguation." Since there is no other person with the same name (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), the "Mahatma" is not needed for disambiguation. In addition, WP:NC says, "When in doubt, consult a standard mainstream reference work." There are no more standard tertiary sources than the following below and they are all agreed on the name.

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica: (Signed article by B. R. Nanda, Former Director, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.) "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born Oct. 2, 1869, Porbandar, India, died Jan. 30, 1948, Delhi, byname Mahatma (“Great-Souled”) Gandhi leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule, considered to be the father of his country."
  2. Encyclopedia Encarta: Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948), Indian nationalist leader, who established his country's freedom through a nonviolent revolution.
  3. Columbia Encyclopedia: Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 1869–1948, Indian political and spiritual leader, b. Porbandar.
  4. World Book Encyclopedia. Signed article by Iyer, Raghavan. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. The World Book Encyclopedia, Millennium 2000 Edition. World Book, Inc., Chicago, 2000.
  5. Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia: Main Entry: Gandhi, Mohandas K(aramchand) Pronunciation Guide. Variant(s): known as Mahatma Gandhi Date: (1869-1948). Preeminent leader of Indian nationalism and prophet of nonviolence in the 20th cent.
  6. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Signed article. Judith M. Brown, (Beit Professor of Commonwealth History, University of Oxford), Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma Gandhi] (1869–1948)’, first published Sept 2004, 6400 words.

My understanding, therefore, is that the name should remain "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi." Please advise. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The only credible argument I could make against you is that the person is more widely-known by the name "Mahatma Gandhi" in the English-speaking world, many of whom are unaware that "Mahatma" is an honorific and not a first name; for this reason, many artists such as Jewel (singer) and Madonna (entertainer) are listed by their stage names, and Lewis Carroll is listed under his pen name, although none of these are their legal names. Nevertheless, I support your position, partly because of precedent in other encyclopedias, and partly because "Mahatma Gandhi" does not clearly refer to a single person. Dcoetzee 19:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Fowler's description. WE have articles on many Indian subjects who are referred to by supports with honorific titles such as "Shri". If the subject has a clear birth name that he used himself and that is used by other reference works, then we should avoid using an honorary title in the article name. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] intent of editor

so if we all can edit, is it important to try to keep the orinigal intent of the previous editor esp. if he is the article creator? like tailor your eidts to capture the intent? JeanLatore (talk) 03:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia has an overarching set of editorial guidelines and policies that all articles should be tailored to conform towards, and on substantive issues this will generally take preferences over the intent of any one contributor. (Though there are some purely stylistic issues where the policy is simply to follow the original author, such as whether to use British or American spelling of words.) See Wikipedia:Key policies and guidelines and Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Since you talk about "intent", you might also look at WP:NPOV for a discussion of how topics should be presented. Dragons flight (talk) 03:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
But even a regional-variation-of English choice by the originator of the article can be overridden if the topic of the article suggests that it should be written in another regional variation. I point this out to highlight that no original intention by the article's creator overrides what is best for the article itself. Darkspots (talk) 12:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Nope. It's important to form communal consensus around the way in which an article should be presented and what facts it should include, but no author has priority over any other. Dcoetzee 03:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
"If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly by others, do not submit it". Mr.Z-man 03:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
The previous editor does not WP:OWN the article, so you can meddle with the intent as long as neutrality and the intent of the sources used are maintained. The only time you'd want to be sure to maintain original intent is if you're marking an edit as minor.Somedumbyankee (talk) 03:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
There are editors who start articles as they are very good in identifying blank spots in the encyclopedia. Often these blind spots relate to their own hobbies. This may easily lead to a biased point of view. That makes the original editor still a very valuable contributor, but his intent may need to be modified to provide high quality content. Arnoutf (talk) 06:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New global userright

I have started a centralized discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#New_global_userright on how our local policy should reflect changes to the global user rights policies at Meta. Please feel free to stop by and comment. MBisanz talk 22:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] make stub templates more useful with suggested content

Stub templates would be more useful if they suggested subject-related content. For example, if I create a page for Joe Blow that says "Joe Blow once played national football", someone else might tag it with football-bio-stub. If I click on the link, it might suggest that I add some details like date-of-birth, nationality, what countries he played for on what dates, and what, if anything, made him a notable player. Even better would be if there were an associated infobox and/or ProfessionalAthleteData, with a nice form to prompt for the data. --BobBagwill (talk) 23:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Might be workable by linking to a relevant wikiproject, perhaps? – Luna Santin (talk) 02:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree more generally that it would be great to be more specific. I think any criticism on an article via a template should be accompanied by a linked-to talk page section which details the complaints. I hate seeing tagged articles when it is totally unclear what the problem is.  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 05:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
If there were some way to find "ex-stubs" in a given stub category, then you could look at what kind of expansions people have done to them. I don't see a way to easily do that though. Wikiprojects who have an interest in a given stub category might put some sort of "expansion tips" in the category's headnote, maybe? --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Luna Santin that the relevant WikiProjects will probably have informations on infoboxes/resources/style guides etc. available. So actually, flipping over to the talk page and clicking on the WikiProject banner will be the best alternative. Of course one could somehow add this to the stub template line, but would that really be necessary? --B. Wolterding (talk) 14:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proxy votes/meatpuppetry

Would "proxy votes" be considered a form of meatpuppetry? Specifically, established User X is going to be away for a few days, and gives permission to established User Y to vote on his behalf in exactly the same way as User Y, since they know that they agree on everything. — Omegatron (talk) 03:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

That assumes that discussions are votes, which in most situations they're not. That said, if a given user's absence is particularly important to the discussion, it may be worth making a note of it. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Well yeah. I already mentioned "we don't make decisions with votes" a few million times, but it falls on deaf ears. — Omegatron (talk) 03:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Does X allow Y to sign in as X ? Or does Y mention that X has the same opinion? The first seems problematic to me, the second should be allowed but ignored...  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 05:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
No sharing of accounts; just saying "I'm going to be away for a few days, you have permission to double-vote with my username next to yours in each of the votes you propose." — Omegatron (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I can't really think of any situation where an admin or crat would take such a proxy vote seriously. Resolute 03:05, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
If I understand correctly, this is similar to Wikipedia:Delegable proxy, a failed proposal. The talk page there should give you some things to read on the subject. "Meatpuppetry" was mentioned a few times, right enough. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Interesting.  :) — Omegatron (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Banning solves false flag related NPOV disputes?

I've notived that a huge number of editors has been topic-banned in the wake of an ArbCom case, even though the ArbCom did not give a single verdict on any specific behaviour by anyone. I myself have been topic-banned, ironically, after issuing a warning myself: {{Uw-9/11|{{{2}}}}}

Now I am interested to know whether there is only a small kernel of wikipedia editors and admins who happen to be interested in September 11, and favor banning other editors, or whether this approach of solving POV conflicts by banning one side of it, is supported by the community at large?

In my perception, edit conflicts are arising between two point of views, whereas those that are doing the banning seem to think that their POV is the truth and therefore the NPOV form that articles should have, and they call the editors to be banned "POV-pushers", whereas in my opinion, most of them are only trying to restore NPOV: make sure that multiple POV's get fair treatment.

For instance: would citing the 9/11 Commission Report likely be POV-pushing? Would factual descriptions of actions of government officials be POV-pushing? Would mentioning the opinions of prominent international polititians be?

If wikipedia is locking out so many editors, it really amounts to locking oneself in.

It's not just the subject of 9/11 which is at stake for me. I can live with the English language Wikipedia being inadequate on such a sensitive subject (other languages seem to have less problems here). Everyone has the freedom to his or her own beliefs. When a vast majority of editors is unable to detect false flag operations, so be it.

What concerns me, is that the same mechanisms seem to be at work all over wikipedia. Wikipedia is valuable to me because of the NPOV policy: the reader is likely to be presented multiple viewpoints on a given subject, which the rest of the web often fails to do. If we loose our understanding of true NPOV, than Wikipedia sinks back in the background noise of the web. I'd hate that !

 — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 05:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Anyone interested in the discussion about this user's Arbcom-related ban should read Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement/Archive20#Xiutwel. I see nothing wrong with this approach, when extreme amounts of disruption, as cited in the Arbcom case, require it. Mangojuicetalk 16:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Is it really within our behavioral guidelines to issue preemptive warnings like {{uw-9/11}}? "Hi. You haven't done anything yet, but I'm going to assume you're likely to be bad" seems rather bitey and not assuming good faith to me. Anomie⚔ 00:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing Adjudication Board

This is a follow-up to the recently archived discussion WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive_47#Sourcing_Adjudication_Board regarding the Sourcing Ajudication Board that ArbCom intends to set up as a part of its ruling in the ongoing case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy/Proposed decision.

To remind those who missed the original discussion, ArbCom plans to appoint the Sourcing Ajudication Board with broad jurisdiction over all sourcing disputes on Wikipedia.

The ArbCom now expaneded the language of the proposed decision (now in the voting stage) to include the following:

"Expedited sanctions

2) Upon receipt of a finding of inappropriate conduct from the Sourcing Adjudication Board, the Committee shall, without opening a case, issue appropriate sanctions (up to and including a ban from the project) against those editors named by the Board as having substantially violated sourcing policy."

There is an ongoing discussion of the SAB proposal at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy/Proposed decision. Nsk92 (talk) 07:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Attribution has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Attribution (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Attribution/Header has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Attribution/Header (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Template messages/Wikipedia namespace no longer marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Template messages/Wikipedia namespace (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] starred Language

Why is there a language starred in the language box? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.129.29 (talk) 20:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Featured article in the "starred" language sister project Arnoutf (talk) 21:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
It means that article is a Featured Article on the corresponding-language Wikipedia version. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 15:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Is there an echo in here? --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 15:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please Post On Bugzilla, Thanks!

I would be great if we could click on the version instead of having to have to click on the 2 radio buttons just to get to the later version. Please post this on bugzilla, because I don't have an account, thanks!68.148.164.166 (talk) 02:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Clicking on the time/date stamp to the right of the radio buttons brings up that version. You don't get the comparison chart, because you need to specify 2 versions to be compared. Is this what you're looking for? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Notability

I honestly don't think this is necessary, nor any of it's associated other pages. If content complies WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT then surely it should be included? I'd like to know what other people think.--Phoenix-wiki 13:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

No, we have our standards for a reason. We're an encyclopedia not a directory of everything that has been mentioned ever. Al Tally talk 14:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Of course we're not, which is what WP:NOT is for. While wikipedia discriminates against such things as opinion columns and speculation, the policy associated with wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information does not discriminate against notability. The policy lists specific things that articles cannot be - none of these taboos mention that non-notable aren't allowed, although non-notable articles must still establish importance or the topic's "claim to fame".--Phoenix-wiki 14:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. (BTW, V, OR and NPOV (bar POVFORK) are content criterion, so they can't render N redundant anyway). Orderinchaos 14:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Unreferenced articles can be deleted, and I don't see the problem. Why should we keep out stuff like Garage bands? In practice, it would be very difficult to make the article verifiable, but if someone manages it, there's nothing wrong with letting it sit unviewed. Saying that something "does not belong" is not a reasoned argument; what are the costs and benefits?--Phoenix-wiki 14:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
None of the three are in fact deletion criteria - if they're being used as such, they're being used improperly. An article which can pass WP:N but which may have problems in *all* of the other three would always be kept providing there was no outright consensus to delete, but with a recommendation to fix urgently. If the problems are so major as to cause major concern (eg BLP) it's usual to stub the article. Orderinchaos 14:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
They aren't common deletion criteria at AFD, but take a look at the new sourcing adjudication board proposal, and new page patrol. Unreferenced material may be removed per WP:V, and I for one am prepared to do this. (See also:[2])--Phoenix-wiki 14:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Phoenix, this page is for discussing policy. "Notability" has never been policy and by the grace of G-wd never will be . — CharlotteWebb 14:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol Well It might as well be a policy, and the only other place this fits is misc, which isn't exactly where it fits, though according to that narration at the top, this is for guidelines too ;-)--Phoenix-wiki 14:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, since the deletion policy says a topic not meeting the notability guidelines is a reason for deletion, the notability guidelines are often treated like policy — somehow ABOVE WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. Mentions of "notability" have been creeping into WP:NOT, another policy. An essay, WP:ATA, is cited whenever anyone gives their personal opinion that something is notable. But that's all "nn" ever was — an opinion in AFD debates. And "nn" was flipped and turned into WP:NN in a horribly misguided move. Now, I've argued to delete because I thought something was non-notable too, but that's just my personal opinion...out of billions.
I think many of the current notability guidelines need to be deleted or re-started from scratch. The problem though with guidelines is that once created, they're rarely deleted. So I guess I would support marking them rejected or historical, and at least disputed. I suppose one could even create a competing guideline about the "presumed" notability across an entire group of subjects — although creating parallel guidelines is discouraged. Some topics are generally considered to be notable by default — mountains and cities for example. If editors want to say that a topic needs outside coverage before a topic can have an article, that's fine I guess — but coverage does not make something worthy of notice. WP:N should be deleted. I can understand why coverage would be a good idea for biographies of living people, bands, and some other topics, but "notability" has become a black hole that no topic can escape.
What started as an excuse to get rid of articles on garage bands and people/websites nobody cared about has transformed into Frankenstein's monster. Is Frankenstein's monster notable? This isn't the Notability Project anyone can edit. And I've seen no evidence that other encyclopedias use "notability" as their criteria for inclusion. The Wikimedia Foundation's vision statement is "the sum of all knowledge", not "the sum of all knowledge that's worthy of notice." — and who exactly is it supposed to be "worthy of notice" to anyway? The notability guidelines are a prime example of how inventing new rules you think everyone else should follow is actually detrimental to Wikipedia. If it's common practice for people to argue to delete an article because they think a topic is non-notable, fine, tell people that. If it's common practice for people to argue to keep an article if it cites a lot of outside coverage, fine, tell people that. But don't create a new round hoop while thousands of square articles are laying around and say "These square articles don't fit through this new hoop I invented!" Wikipedia was not paper and Wikipedia was not a bureaucracy, LONG before Wikipedia mutated into the Notability Project.
Do I think Project Chanology is worthy of notice? No. Do I think the article should be deleted? No. I'm sure someone else thinks it's worthy of notice. Do I think every topic in Encyclopedia Brittanica is worthy of notice? No, and it doesn't have to be. Is there some way to quantify the "value" of attention? The DGAF scale? Is the thinking that because certain sources have "noted" a topic, then the topic must be "note-able"? Does a source writing about a topic mean they think the topic is worthy of notice, or that they have a mortgage payment this month? The notability guidelines are, for the most part, broken. And I blame Radiant! for starting this mess, by tagging WP:N as a guideline after 16 days. I can understand that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information." But the notability guidelines are not what keeps Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate collection of information. No, what keeps Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate collection of information are editors. Editors are trusted to use their judgement to evaluate whether an article is neutral or not. Do editors have to provide outside evidence that an article is neutral? No. So why can't editors use their judgement to evaluate whether a topic is "notable" or not? Even better, remove the whole question of "notability" from the equation. What does "notability" have to do with encyclopedia articles? --Pixelface (talk) 19:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Hear hear!--Phoenix-wiki 20:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Notability guidelines might as well be policy, unfortunately. Hopefully one day we'll see them gone. While it isn't an opinion held by many editors, I would rather see a low-quality article with a few sources on an obscure subject than no article at all. I think that it'll be gone eventually once Wikipedia is mature enough. Celarnor Talk to me 20:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. The reason I created this thread was to get rid of it in the very near future (The next month or so).--Phoenix-wiki 20:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If you believe that we do not need notability, try doing some new page patrol. Notability provides us with a way to delete the tripe. Maybe we don't technically need notability due to our other, more important policies. However, 'notability' is easy to judge- it can be quickly judged, and the crap can be deleted. Our other policies require a little thought, and we just don't have that time, nor can we afford for the piles and piles and piles of rubbish to stay lying around while we all argue about whether it is technically verifiable. I just don't think that removing notability is, at this time, a good idea. It would create far more problems than it would solve. J Milburn (talk) 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There's no speedy deletion criteria for being non-notable, and the usual crap falls under WP:NOT, the rest of the non-notable stuff, why not keep it if it's verified etc?--Phoenix-wiki 21:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
"Notability provides us with a way to delete the tripe" ← If no other concerns apply, I seriously doubt the content is "tripe". — CharlotteWebb 19:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Something could easily be verifiable without being notable - a minor mention, a mention in a minor publication, or a mention in a source that is reliable for what it is cited for but not reliable to establish that it's worth reading. Almost every person, thing, and business establishment has been mentioned in the paper - who hasn't had their name in the paper? So with a verifiability standard alone, nearly everything in the world could be the subject for an article here. That would be nice but it's not going to happen, and if it did it would be a much very different project than Wikipedia. With the number of volunteer editors we have, we simply can't write a good article and keep enough interest to maintain it, about everything in the world. If we try, coverage will be spotty and uneven, we will have lots of bad articles, and visitors will have a lot of junk to wade through before they find anything useful to read. That's one of the main argument for notability, in my mind. Also, being forced to explain why something is notable helps article creation - it makes editors cut to the chase and state, concisely, why something matters. Practically, more power to you if you want to make a change but it seems very unlikely that enough people could be convinced to do away with the notability requirement. Wikidemo (talk) 21:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
You seem to be confused here. We want to let the previously non-notable things in, and not bother with notability at all. WP:NOT keeps out most of the crap. We're not saying to go out there and launch a drive to create the articles (I persoanlly think we should get our topics up to scratch first, they're a disgrace), but if some random new editor creates a verifiable, neutral article about their pet dog, why would we delete it? In practice, it would be very difficult to make the article verifiable. But if someone manages it, there's nothing wrong with letting it sit unviewed.--Phoenix-wiki 21:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't get behind articles for pet dogs and I suspect most people couldn't either. --Pixelface (talk) 21:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
They would be almost impossible to reference, but if they were good and verifiable, why not?--Phoenix-wiki 22:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia is not your personal webhost, and if the dog is dead, Wikipedia is not a memorial. --Pixelface (talk) 22:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
That's not per WP:N then, that's WP:NOT, which, while debatable and lacking an objective set of criteria, is certainly more objective than WP:N, which is just not needed.--Phoenix-wiki 22:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
An important point to note here is that WP:NOT, while it contains some inclusion (or more specifically disclusion) guidelines, is mostly content and behavior issues - things that can be fixed without removing articles. While notability is mentioned in NOT, it is not called out as a specific guideline that falls under NOT. In other words, for the bulk of articles on WP, NOT does not say anything about if they should stay or go, only about their content. We need some inclusion guideline to keep WP maintainable and not an indiscriminate collection of information. Thus, we need something like NOTE to have that inplace. --MASEM 23:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is whatever its users want it to be. If you think that the notability guidelines are no longer supported by the community, then start a discussion to abandon them. But from what I've seen, they're pretty well accepted and I don't think you'll be able to convince enough people to abandon them, but you're free to try. Considering we have WP:IAR, whether WP:N is policy or guideline is mostly irrelevant. Mr.Z-man 21:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't you just go and create the articles on whatever you like without worrying about this? More than likely it will be noteworthy, and even if it has no refs, if you write well and it's beleivable and all people normally just ignore the fact that it has no references and take your word for it.--Serviam (talk) 22:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You know, I was going to argue against this, on the basis that not everything that is verifiable really merits inclusion in Wikipedia, but then I realized that WP:NOT already says that anyway. In fact, having actually read that policy in its entirety, I've come to feel that Phoenix-wiki's suggestion might not really be a bad idea at all. The point being that most of the notability guideline is actually redundant with various sections of WP:NOT, whereas I'm not at all convinced that the remainder is all that useful in the end. To take an example, it would be extremely difficult for an article on a garage band or a student club to pass all of WP:V, WP:SOAP, WP:FUTURE and WP:INDISCRIMINATE; but if it did somehow clear all of those hurdles, it might well be worth having. Of course, if we did get rid of WP:N, I'm sure some of its content would just end up moving to WP:NOT, insofar as it's not already covered there. I'm not convinced that this would necessarily be a bad thing. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

  • First, this discussion should be at Wikipedia talk:Notability. This village pump was, I thought, for notices about discussions elsewhere. Second, people sometimes forget that notability applies to articles, not to the information contained in an article. Sometimes verifiable information is presented under too specific and non-notable a title, and the solution is not to delete, but to merge the information to the correct location. Notability is, in essence, less about deletion, than about correct presentation of information: ie. arrange material so that the notability is obvious to the reader as they read the article. Put minor stuff within an article, rather than creating a new one. Get the balance right within an article (per WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV). Another way to look at it is to say that WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV concern the arrangement and presentation of verifiable information within individual articles, while WP:NOTABILITY and WP:NOT concern the arrangement of information within the encyclopedia as a whole, and to what degree the information should be distributed between different articles, or presented in its own article. All these references to information refer to, of course, verifiable information. Does this way of looking at things make sense to people? Carcharoth (talk) 23:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think notability is such a basic policy of Wikipedia, it wasn't initially called out, but just asssumed as obvious in WP:NOT, and should be strengthened, not weakened. And I agree that the discussion should move to Wikipedia talk:Notability. --Alvestrand (talk) 07:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with relying on WP:NOT is that this policy is consistently under attack from the uber-inclusionists as well, including some of those that have commented above. A quick perusal of the wikilawyering and edit warring at WP:NOT and WT:NOT over the last few months would be useful. If we really want Wikipedia not to be an encyclopedia, but a repository of everything that has ever existed, this would be a good way to do it. Black Kite 10:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Notability is important. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and every topic must be worthy of notice. Every time someone creates an article about a garage band, or their WoW guild, or their fanfiction, Wikipedia gets worse. Wikipedia grows ever more unreliable with every assertion that some gaming clan is "THE GREATEST EVAR!" People will, in good faith, claim a MySpace page is a good source for their garage band. With a project this size, a line must be drawn in the sand, and reliable secondary sources is a good place for that line. --Phirazo 04:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you; but RS already requires that reliable sources be present for articles, and myspace simply doesn't qualify. Having a guideline that says "you need at least two RS for an article" is all fine and good; its when there gets to be too much creep (ATHLETE, CORP, MUSIC), that it becomes a problem. Things are no longer eligible for inclusion because they have secondary sources discussing them; they're eligible for inclusion because of some other arbitrary criteria (played on one of a set number of teams, an album in a set number of labels, etc). I don't have a problem with something saying "you need RS for an article", thats simply obvious and part of being an encyclopedia rather than a vast repository of FRINGE and OR, but all the separate notability guidelines create a lot of problems. Celarnor Talk to me 06:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:ATHLETE (and the rest of WP:BIO), WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, and so far as I'm aware all of the other secondary notability guidelines state that the main criterion is the presence of reliable sources. They identify cases where we accept articles even when there aren't any reliable sources. I'd be perfectly happy to get rid of them all and cut our content back to what can be sourced, too, but I suspect for reasons diametrically opposed to yours. —Cryptic 07:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I am of two views on this one. Notability is important but it is used as an indiscrimate weapon in deletion debates. I think the notability guidelines are quite suitable to invoke on content debates for any given article. In those cases, both sides of the debate must make their notability claims with vigor and well cited sources. On the other hand, deletion debates are a poor place for notability discussions because any editor can merely say Not Notable without justifying it. This happens all too often when editors with little or no content knowledge on a subject weigh in on a deletion debate. They just say its not notable as if they really knew that. If they know its not notable, then they need to cite some evidence to that effect by challenging the evidence that others claim make it notable. In content debates, notability ought to endure rigourous scrutiny. In deletion debates, notablity ought to be assumed unless there is indisputable evidence that something is not notable.--Mike Cline (talk) 12:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you'll find that plain Keep votes claiming "It's notable" are far more likely to occur than Delete "It's not notable". Surely if we are going to have quality articles, the burden of proof should be on article editors to show that something is notable? Black Kite 14:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with your 2nd thought wholeheartedly. However, my experience with deletion debates tells me that when notability guidelines are cited, its not a debate about the actual evidence or lack of evidence of notability, but merely a Its Notable--No Its Not Notable exchange. I would much rather see a deletion debate made on real notability substance rather than an exchange without substance. Here's a typical entry: Delete Fails my notability checking. Had this entry said: Delete Sources A and B do not meet the criteria for notability because ...... the debate would be on substance, not opinion.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Of course. Conclusively proving that something isn't notable is basically impossible, you have to prove a negative - that there aren't any sources. Whereas to prove that something is notable, you only have to show that some sources do exist. Mr.Z-man 22:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:N was created precisely because people were saying "Delete, it's not notable" in AFD debates. That statement was then twisted around into "Every topic on Wikipedia should be notable" — instead of what it should have been, "If you create an article and editors think it's about a non-notable topic, there's a good chance the article will be deleted." Black Kite, are you also saying that the burden of proof should be on article editors to show that something *is* neutral? That significant views *are* presented "fairly"? Editors should cite some outside evidence for an article's neutrality? If editors don't have to prove an article is neutral, why must they prove the topic is notable? Notability is totally subjective and varies from person to person, group to group, culture to culture, place to place, and time to time. The quality of an article doesn't depend on whether the topic is "worthy of notice" or not. --Pixelface (talk) 08:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Personally I see the concept of notability as it is used currently on Wikipedia primarily as a way of enforcing our core (and not really contested) inclusion standards of no original research, verifiability and neutral point of view. Take the base notability criteria - "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable.". If there are no reliable sources on a topic it will not be possible to verify the information within the article (WP:V), if those sources are not independent of the subject they are likely to have inherent bias (WP:NPOV) and if the topic hasn't received a certain level of coverage then it won't be possible to write a coherent article without editors introducing their own work (WP:OR). There are exceptions such as with fictional elements where primary sources are considered a reliable basis for an article, in those situations it really becomes an editorial decision rather one of delete/don't delete on how the information should be presented (as lists, group articles, individual articles, etc.) and how much detail is appropriate for the encyclopaedia. Guest9999 (talk) 16:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL at the remark about "what started as a rationale for getting rid of articles about garage bands" because that is totally correct. Seriously, notability has become a big stick for the deletionists to whomp around, and I'd love to see it gone. Obscure crap is one of the things Wikipedia does best. :) I'd LOVE to kill that notability business. Barring that, could I please have a stick labelled "persnickety bitches" that I can use to whomp all the deletionists with. I've said it before and I'll said it again: We're all nerds by dint of being Wikipedia editors, but he who has nothing to contribute ornothing better to do than patrol, deletion and fuss his or her way through the Wiki bureaucracy is a sad, sad soul. Get a life. Or maybe just go away and leave us alone. If you only have negative energy to contribute, get the eff out of here. jengod (talk) 15:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
"primarily as a way of enforcing our core [...] standards of no no original research, verifiability and neutral point of view" ← This is also how "BLP" was advertised in the beginning. How ironic. — CharlotteWebb 16:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Deletionistists will just find another stick if notability is taken away. There's still WP:OR and WP:V, which are also good reasons to delete garage bands and fancruft. Most of the time "not notable" means "no sources" or "lousy sources." --Phirazo 03:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flagged revision talk

Now that flagged revisions are available on all projects, we need to figure out what en-wiki is going to do with them. Many people have made their opinions known in smaller discussions or on the mailing lists, but for an issue this big I think we need to set up one big centralized discussion page for everyone in the project to give their two cents, possibly set up in a way that lets us tally support for each of a few different setups. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You mean like Wikipedia:Flagged revisions? Bluap (talk) 16:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
That page is an example of a collection of small conversations. I think to reach a final conclusion we'll need a more formalized process of arranging the various proposals and have a pre-determined way of deciding on which we have consensus. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 17:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
And that should take place at Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions, not here, or anyplace else. Of course you can add links to there from here for 'advertising'. - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recursive page moves (rev:33565) is a great tool for vandals

I started a thread at WP:VPT#Recursive page moves (rev:33565) is a great tool for vandals which may have been appropriate here too. All are welcome. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics in tennis

I'm not sure I can fully keep up with everything that's going on regarding moves of tennis players, but the main discussion seems to be here. The question is whether foreign tennis players' names should include diacritics. In any case I think we badly need a general policy on such matters, so it isn't decided separately (and likely inconsistently) for every sport or particular line of activity.--Kotniski (talk) 08:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#Modified letters, WP:NCP. What name do publications in English (i.e. Sports Illustrated) use? If they've played at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, how are the names spelled at those events? Somedumbyankee (talk) 16:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
It would be better for the above editors to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Tennis. If that thread doesn't come to an agreement I don't see how we'll be able to adopt a general policy here. As threads go, it is not a bad discussion, and it is somewhat cooperative. EdJohnston (talk) 16:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Seems to me that there's only 26 letters in the English alphabet, and we should stick to those for article titles. Remember that some users may not have the necessary fonts to display some of those exotic accent marks. Squidfryerchef (talk) 20:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can we have wp:mosnum back?

The wp:mosnum policy page cannot be used for reference because it contains non-policy. Anyone that reads it could be mislead into thinking that non-policy is policy. This is acceptable to the people that are controlling wp:mosnum now. Anyone that tries to remove non-policy is just reverted.

The wp:mosnum talk page used to be active with discussions on a variety of topics. It is now dominated by the binary prefix war and its collateral damage. The binary prefix war was moved to a page called Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (binary prefixes) but that lasted just a shortwhile before the page and the warfighting was moved back. It is a place for sockpuppets, puppetmasters and anonymous editors. They keep saying that the war will soon be over and then normal service will be resumed ...

The policy page and its talk page used to be worthwhile places. It had contributions on a variety of topics from many editors. Sadly, the policy page is not reliable and the talk page is scary. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how we can have a policy page and talk page where things other than binary prefixes matter? Lightmouse (talk) 15:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Please respond at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Can we have wp:mosnum back?

Can you explain to the rest of us what "mosnum" is and what in the world "binary prefixes" are? Squidfryerchef (talk) 18:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Apologies for the abbreviation, wp:mosnum is the abbreviation that you can type into the search field, it goes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). As for binary prefixes, it is a huge tedious war in the bit/byte community over 1000 versus 1024. Lightmouse (talk) 19:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this the whole "kibibytes" nonsense? I've just started seeing that and my own opinion is its a borderline neologism that nobody uses in the computer industry. It also sounds like a brand of dog food. Squidfryerchef (talk) 20:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics proposal

Further to the penultimate section, I have started constructing a proposal to make explicit our general policy on diacritics. Improvements and comments are welcome here.--Kotniski (talk) 05:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia "Probation," rehabilitation of problem users, and article improvement

An idea came to me this weekend as I was reading about users, who for whatever reason, have been placed on "probation" (either under "community" supervision or the supervision of a single "mentor"). My theory relies on the tenet that the best way to improve Wikipedia is 1) through the writing of new articles on notable subjects and 2) through the addition of clearly-written, NPOV, and referenced edits to existing articles. Users placed on community oversight or probation should therefore be required as a condition of their probation to make a certain number of reliably sourced, well-written article edits each month. Failure to do so would result in the revocation of the probation and the blocking of the user (indefinately if necessary). Those users who are incapable of constructive improvement of the articles directly, however, could be assigned to assist an editor in good standing or a group of article-contributors (like a wiki-project), where the user on probation would do research for the editor, write memoranda, and copyedit the prose of his "mentor." I think of it as "community service" requirement of probation.

This can only be a benefit to the encyclopedia, as not only will this result in literally thousands of good article edits a month, but also will teach the probationer-users the value of research, good writing skills, and how to work with others the Wikipedia way. As always, I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, JeanLatore (talk) 00:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit more skeptical that trying to force people to do some sort of "community service" will really result in much of an improvement to the encyclopedia. More likely, it will just drive the person away or result in half-assed contributions that are little better than nothing. It also IMO violates the Wikipedia principle that such actions should be preventative of future problems rather than punitive for past actions. Anomie⚔ 01:23, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
But it is preventative, not punitive. If a probationer is busy writing articles and doing research for his study-group or mentor he has less time for disruption. And if it drives the person away, tis no big loss, since the "probation" would have been imposed in lieu of a ban anyway. JeanLatore (talk) 01:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
As shocking as it seems, some Wikipedia editors are grown-ups. We can't very well require that they do any work at all, since they might have other obligations. I edit WP whenever I get the urge and I'm sure that many probationary editors do the same. Putting them on a work schedule seems unfeasible and counterproductive. Phiwum (talk) 02:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Why is it "counterproductive"? The situation will either stay the same or get better -- keep in mind the proposal calls for "reliably sourced, well-written article edits each month," not simply any edits to articles will do. Edits that are simple spamming or tagging simply won't count. And this proposal is quite feasible, given that it would be extended in lieu of a total ban. Thus it would give the user a second chance, can only be a benefit to the project, and would serve as rehabilitation. JeanLatore (talk) 02:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
It is counter-productive because there's a strong possibility that it can drive people away and make them no longer want to participate. The tenets of the projects are openness and that anyone can be redeemed. Indefinite blocks are extremely rare and are only used in the most egregious of circumstances. Anyone can be 'rehabiliated', and it is left up to the user to figure out how best to do that; it doesn't matter *how* they redeem themselves, just that they do, whether it be contributions in the mainspace, MedCab, RfA, reasoned arguments at XfDs or policy proposals. Having a hard-set "This is what you have to do or you get blocked" doesn't really make sense. People get blocked because they've done something incredibly stupid or wrong, have gotten warned multiple times (as you were before your block for incivility) and haven't gone along with policy. A block is a block. It's meant to be a block, to prevent them from doing anything further to damage the project, and hopefully knock some sense into them as a result. Celarnor Talk to me 03:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
An interesting and novel idea, but I don't like it. More likely than not, it's just going to drive people away. Like some other things that you've said elsewhere, this really brings to light the fact that you don't realize that there's a lot more to Wikipedia than sourcing and article-writing. You have to remember that not everyone here is a writer; we have people who spend most of their time in the Wikipedia space discussing policy or on the noticeboard giving their opinions on various things, other people who spend most of their time reverting vandalism and dubious unsourced statements from articles, people who spend their time copyediting, and people who spend their time at XfD discussing what does and doesn't merit inclusion in the mainspace. There are many things that have to happen here to make a quality encyclopedia, and as odd as it may sound, writing articles is only one of them. Regulating the behavior of editors so they *have* to make edits seems counterproductive to me; its important that we don't regulate off-wiki behavior, and forcing people to either stay on-wiki long enough to make so many edits a month constitutes exactly that. Celarnor Talk to me 03:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Indeed an interesting and novel idea. I think some of the editors on probation are there because they honestly don't understand how to contribute, and some 'rehabilitation' process may help them. Others I am not sure about, and I seriously doubt we can find enough capable, professional, and more than all patient editors who could be the tutor in the process. So although the idea sounds sympathetic I seriously doubt it will ever fly. (besides this is agree with some of the above issues) Arnoutf (talk) 13:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
While I don't support the idea because it seems punitive and fails to consider the personal motivations (and abilities) of individual editors, I think it's worth a try. Specifically, I think JeanLatore should try it themselves. Decide on the number of "reliably sourced, well-written article edits" that might be expected from a probationary user and try it for a month. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I already do that. If you would stop making fun of my ideas you would see that most of my editing is to law articles. JeanLatore (talk) 18:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I have to strongly object to the statement "The tenets of the projects are openness and that anyone can be redeemed." Redemption is not our business. It's irrelevant to what we do here. We don't try to make editors who want to contribute usefully; we merely welcome those who already meet that basic requirement. Wikipedia is not therapy. Friday (talk) 14:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree completely with Friday's comments, so consider my first thought to be a 'me-too'. Wikipedia isn't therapy, and it's not worth our while to coddle editors who can only be made to contribute constructively while they are held cornered at gunpoint.
Beyond that, I am concerned that probation of this type would (further) entrench the mistaken notion that the most valuable – or only valuable – edits to Wikipedia are always those that add material. It just ain't so. Wikipedia is stuffed full of tremendous amounts of information. We've got raw data just coming out of our ears. What many of our articles need most desperately is not the addition of more information (however well-referenced) but rather the judicious use of red pencil. We have fertile soil and the healthy plants; now we need to mow the lawn and pull the weeds. We're building a botanical garden, not a jungle. Imposing some semblance of order – within and across articles – is a valuable service to our readers. I'm tired of seeing editors who actually edit being treated as second-class contributors. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a very great idea, JeanLatore. Speaking of edits, the article for Grandpa's Magical Toys has been merged unfairly. Angie Y. (talk) 19:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I see. It didn't realise the variegated nature of participation on wikipedia per "Celarnor." So are you saying I could just cease article writing and simply pontificate on policy full time? What good would that do? JeanLatore (talk) 00:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

With your understanding of policy, very little. However, there are others which a much greater understanding of policy than you, and their focus is beneficial to Wikipedia through maintaining and/or improving those policies. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 01:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
But aren't those admins? I would assume they got to be admins through first editing articles no? Or does Wikipedia have a divide between the "workers" who write and "wonks" for administrate and opine on policy? JeanLatore (talk) 01:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
One does not need to be an admin to understand or edit policy, one only needs to be able to do so. People become admins through an understanding of most aspects of Wikipedia (usually). Your idea of how Wikipedia works is incorrect. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 01:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Friday as well. I don't see a good reason why editors who could be contributing content themselves should instead be holding the hand and reviewing all the edits of a troublesome user through some sort of probationary period. If someone actually cares enough to want to reform to help the project, we can certainly help them, but if they just want to avoid getting banned, don't waste people's time. Mr.Z-man 02:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question about WP:COI and what it means to "exercise great caution"

Since the end of April, I've used this account to make suggestions on talk pages of articles within the scope of WP:FILM. I have limited my participation on these articles about upcoming Disney releases because the studio is a client of my employer. To be doubly sure I did not find myself on the wrong side of WP:COI, I started using this account only after a helpful discussion on this page.

Now, another question: Oftentimes I've found that my suggestions are not picked up after a few days of waiting. In these cases I've tried to locate editors who had already contributed to the article, or failing that, posted a comment on the WikiProject discussion page. This works, albeit quite slowly. After doing this for a couple weeks, I found a comment from the lead coordinator of WP:FILM following me on the discussion page of one such film:

There's absolutely nothing in COI that prevents you from editing the article, so long as you are performing neutral, uncontroversial edits. I appreciate your candor in disclosing possible bias, but if your edits involve facts which are unlikely to be contested and are reliably sourced, then - IMHO - by all means go for it.

I'm curious to know if other editors and administrators here agree with this suggestion? I don't know what WP:COI means precisely by "exercise great caution" but this strikes me as a reasonable interpretation.

My requests to date have been entirely factual in nature -- this film is rated PG-13, here is the official website, that producer's name is wrong, and so forth. (Click here to see my contributions.) And I have always provided reliable sources -- no IMDb, for example. If at some point one of my contributions was disputed, or I wished to join a pre-existing debate, then I think it would be prudent to cease direct edits and involve myself only with discussion pages.

But I'd like to hear from the community first. It would no doubt make my life easier, the movie pages more complete, and it would free up time for other editors as well. But I'm unsure what WP:COI allows exactly, so I'd love to get a second (and third and fourth...) opinion on the matter. Thanks. NMS Bill (talk) 16:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

My view is that for the sort of changes that you describe, ie. simple facts with no interpretation provided, then you should go ahead with the changes. As long as you are open about the possibility that a coi exists. For changes that could be controversial, or if you are reverted, it's better to use the procedure you describe and try to get an editor without a coi to make the changes. And even in these cases, if no one responds on the talk page within a couple of days you should feel free to make the changes yourself. Taemyr (talk) 17:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
In the Starwood Arbitration which was on the issue of COI of an editor (he was editing many, many article on the subject of which he had a financial interest in and entering his company name and link), the finding of ArbcomWikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Starwood/Proposed decision was the following:
Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, a guideline, discourages editing of articles concerning matters you have a substantial personal interest in, such as articles about an organization you are deeply involved with. However, such editing is not prohibited, if editing is responsible. –Mattisse (Talk) 18:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I was not familiar with that ArbCom ruling, but I think that addresses my situation. I have no interest in spamming up Wikipedia, I just want to make sure that these articles are brought up to Wikipedia standards. And Taemyr's points about a waiting period for more controversial edits and resorting to discussion if reverted are well-taken also. NMS Bill (talk) 18:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] use of youtube

I was told that use of youtube videos was discouraged on Wikipedia because of copyright problems etc. Today someone added a youtube clip to Gideon v. Wainwright under External links. My edit removing it was reverted with the comment that the youtube clip was the work of the editor introducing it into the article and that was sufficient for copyright and GNU issues. Is it correct that youtube clips can be added on the say-so of the editor, without a more formal release process? Thanks, –Mattisse (Talk) 17:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not, especially when they're actual TV clips. The program itself would have to run under a similar license. Removed again. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 19:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! –Mattisse (Talk) 20:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

That makes no sense. The video, copyrighted or not, is not hosted on Wikipedia, it's hosted on YouTube. Only a link is provided here and the link per se is not copyrighted. Using that same theory, we could not provide links to The New York Times or to any other source either, as that content is copyrighted. This looks like a misunderstanding of copyright to me. What does the WMF lawyer say? — Becksguy (talk) 20:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

You can be considered as aiding copyvios by willfully providing links to copyright infringing material. It's one thing to provide a link to the NYT which has published that information for reading on the web, it's different to link to a video that was only shown once on broadcast television. This is not to say that you can't link to a youtube video that the copyright holder has put up on youtube specifically (as some bands and network stations do). --MASEM 20:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree with the statement that providing a link can be considered as aiding copyright violations. Are there any legally authoritative reliable sources that support that? Ultimately this is a first amendment issue. I might point out that self censorship is even worse than imposed censorship. In either case it has a chilling effect. Yes, I read WP:EL, but that specifically doesn't forbid YouTube links. It's cautionary concern places an intolerable burden on editors that have no training to determine what might be a copyright violation on YouTube, or anywhere else. Unless a YouTube poster announces that the content is illegally ripped, or the content has a copyright notice, we have no reliable way of knowing that it is a copyright violation. In any case, if there is a copyright violation, it's committed by the person posting it, not the host, nor us, per the DMCA. IMHO. I think it's ironic the link in this case is to a YouTube video that is about another great constitutional right; due process. Note that there are currently 1750 external YouTube links in the Wikipedia domain. — Becksguy (talk) 00:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Becksguy, that unless there is a specific WP policy approved by WP's attorneys, the rest is just POV and amateur interpretaion of the law. Until such policy is determined, I see no reason to delete links to relevant content. I'm not sure -- see question below. --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

WP policy states the following: "However, 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." How do we know? --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
There has become a "strict" almost unwritten policy that linking to Youtube as a reference isn't allowed - but this is not accurate. You can link to YouTube as far as I know so long as you're sure that that reproduction of material as posted on YouTube isn't in violation of copyright, i.e. whoever posts it on YouTube has permission from the copyright holder to put it there. Does that mean you have to now verify if the YouTube content isn't violating copyright? Probably - if you don't want some naysayers to remove it then go for it. I suppose it can be considered a bit beaurocratic, but on the other hand it's reasonably common on Wikipedia - for example to use copyrighted material (such as images) on Wikipedia you have to get permission or else it gets removed. Here you could say the same thing applies, except instead of using the copyrighted material we are simply linking to it. So it's not a case of directly violating copyright, but rather a case of contributing to copyright infringement. My extra 2cents is that Wikipedia should by now have an official policy on the whole YouTube thing - the issue has been brought up above on 9th June 2008, I brought it up a few months back and they then referred me to a post several months back about the same thing. This means people have brought this same issue at least 3 times now. Surely we can put up a policy somewhere? Run it by the wikilawyers if necessary. Rfwoolf (talk) 02:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
From WP:YouTube "Linking to YouTube, Google Video, and similar sites: There is no blanket ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by the guidelines on this page (which would happen infrequently). See also Wikipedia:Copyrights for the prohibition on linking to pages that violate copyrights. Therefore, each instance of allowance is on a case-by-case basis." Rfwoolf (talk) 02:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I just cited the WP policy above your comments. It does not say "as long as you're sure that" ... it is not ... you can link to it. It says that you can't link to it if you "know" that it is a violation. I interpret that as, if you or others don't know one way or the other, then linking is alright. I beleive that WP policy remains purposely ambiguous and reading more than that into policy is POV. --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)