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Grammar issue regarding POV on titles for objects in preservation.

I am deciding to officially issue this thread as I have investigated through Wikipedia and determined that there is a grammar issue for machinery in preservation. Most people are using the grammar "surviving" for machines instead of "preserved". I have moved some of them due to the following grammar issue (which I will highlight in bold to convince you guys in order to fix this issue), but for one example, it has been reverted many times.

  1. The word "surviving" is only used for a term to describe organic beings (e.g: Pets, humans).
  2. The word "surviving" (although could be used for machinery) sounds more like the Wikipedia article was titled from a fan's point of view instead of a neutral point of view as per this thread and per WP:POV.

Grammar issue being referred to machines in preservation.

@Chaotic Enby recommended me to move it to here after I attempted to report this to WP:ANI Airbus A320-100 (talk) 01:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

This isn't really a POV issue as such; it's much more of a style issue. While some may not find "survived" to be the best word, I don't really see why it matters as much as you say. Both communicate the meaning perfectly well, and the sense of animate versus inanimate "POV" seems to be more of a personal hang-up of yours barring any further explanation, if I can be frank. This doesn't seem like something worth having a rule about, and it is not very persuasive to showcase an example of your getting reverted repeatedly. Remsense ‥ 论 01:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I've closed the ANI thread after I have moved this thread to here. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 01:54, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
The word "surviving" is only used for a term to describe organic beings (e.g: Pets, humans) doesn't match my experience as a native English speaker familiar with railway preservation and archaeology, and it doesn't seem to be an opinion shared by reliable sources, for example:
Given that all those sources are/appear to be written in British English it's not impossible this is an ENGVAR matter (or that could just be an artefact of google's personalising my search results), but either way it's not a POV issue. Even if it were a POV issue, it would not justify the edit warring over it you seem to have been involved with. Thryduulf (talk) 02:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Thryduulf graciously posits that this may be an WP:ENGVAR issue. It isn't. I am a 72 year old American and "surviving" is normal usage in American English in the context of historic preservation and archaeology. This is neither a grammar issue nor a POV issue, and the concern lacks merit. Cullen328 (talk) 06:32, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
It just doesn't make sense for aircraft when you think about it. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Why? Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
If you keep reading my thread again and again, you will see what I mean. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
And then you will realise it is more than what you think. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I've read this thread multiple times and all I can see is you declaring your own opinion to be objective fact and refusing to consider the possibility it is not. Thryduulf (talk) 02:23, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm not saying it will happen instantly, it will take some time to understand it just for clarification. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
No, we understand it. Your point is just not persuasive. No amount of re-reading is going to change that. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:15, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
This reminds me of a passage in the introduction to Dianetics: (paraphrasing) "If the text makes no sense to you, at some point you have misunderstood a word; go back and find what word that was." —Tamfang (talk) 02:19, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
Also you sourced a reference from Wordpress, which is an unreliable source. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Wordpress is not a source, but a publication medium. The source is the Warwickshire Industrial Archaeological Society, who are a reliable source in this context. Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Whoops. I misread that. I got confused. Because across Wikipedia through hundreds of debates, I've since learned that Wordpress as a source is an unreliable source. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
If you'd prefer some more, unambiguously reliable sources...
Comment: This WP:FORUMSHOP follows directly on from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#Names of Surviving Aircraft Articles (Airbus A320-100, see WP:DR for how/when to use dispute resolution processes properly; that said Thryduulf's refs show that your belief does not accord with common practice -- also look at all the other books using "surviving aircraft"). ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 03:54, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
This does look like forum shopping and another editor had to apparently undo dozens of article page moves that Airbus A320-100 did and then refused to undo when challenged on the WikiProject talk page. One of the major rules in collaborative editing is don't force other editors to clean up your mistakes. That's a great way to try other editors' patience and is unlikely to sway anyone to your point of view. If you are challenged, revert and find consensus. Liz Read! Talk! 05:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
"Surviving" has 17,500 hits on Historic England's NHLE. Some may be "surviving members of the family", but the first two are one surviving windbrace (no idea what that is!) and surviving panelled dado. Good inanimate surviving entities. PamD 08:00, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, "surviving" applied to inanimate objects is good British English (see Thryduulf's comment, above). I found the following examples which indicate that it is also good American English; searching isn't easy even if you know the sort of thing you're looking for, there's a lot of clutter:

Narky Blert (talk) 06:45, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

"Preserved" and "Surviving" have very distinct meanings; they're not simply interchangeable. "Preserve" implies that someone, at some stage, has attempted to maintain the thing in a way that keeps some aspect of its original state, or at least that's what they want. Some ancient railway tracks may be preserved in their original location, because someone at least chose to leave them there, chose not to get rid of them, and possibly cleared away the weeds and documented them. "Survive" puts the stress on the fact that time and decay have not obliterated the object. The railway tracks may survive, in that despite no one looking after them (even despite a land-owner possibly wanting rid of them), the historically-interested observer can go there and find that they still exist. Both are good English; please remember the subtlety of the written word, and don't substitute rules for understanding. Elemimele (talk) 10:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
No two words are simply interchangeable: in the narrow context of its use as a descriptor here, they essentially are. Remsense ‥ 论 10:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

So, first of all, it's not a question of grammar at all, it is about idiomaticity. And it's not all that difficult to find out how "surviving" is used if you use a text corpus (my go-to collection of corpora for this kind of question is the one at https://www.english-corpora.org ). When I search for "surviving NOUN" in the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English at english-corpora, animate nouns (spouse, children, victims, etc) are of course much more common than inanimate ones in both corpora, but both corpora have quite a few different instances of "surviving" with an inanimate noun such as "records", "letters", "accounts". And the usage is in fact much more frequent in the British English corpus, both in terms of actual frequency (the BNC yielded 0.2 instances per 1 million words, versus 0.03 instances per 1 million words in the COCA), and in terms of variety, where the BNC has surviving portraits, villages, and buildings – in fact, looking at the 100 most common nouns that follow surviving, the BNC had about 44 different inanimate nouns, with about 27 different inanimate nouns in the COCA.

This was a very quick investigation, and I did not search for any alternative construction such as "surviving ADJECTIVE NOUN", for instance. But it does show without any doubt that "surviving" is indeed used with things other than people and animals, in British English as well as in American English. --bonadea contributions talk 10:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

All sorts of things have survived, from ancient literature to archaeological remains to brutalist buildings. The henges that remain in the UK survived for thousands of years before anyone started trying to preserve them. The last surviving example of some aircraft might be a decaying wreck deep in a rainforest. Any that still exist have survived, whether or not they've been preserved. NebY (talk) 11:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I think "preserved" can also be used without any human intervention, when something has been preserved by natural factors such as soil chemistry: see Bog body. PamD 11:45, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Sure - cold water's preserved the Titanic, though the bacteria are getting to it now. Preservation helps things survive. NebY (talk) 11:59, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
  • In my head, "preserved" is a hyponym of "surviving" that merely implies the presence of external factors favorable to the entity's survival. I don't have a problem with describing old aircraft as either "surviving" or "preserved" but I would strongly prefer to use the latter if said aircraft "survived" exclusively in a museum setting, which seems to be the case with the Avro Lancasters the OP mentioned meaning I'd vote in support of moving the page back to the OP's preferred title even though, like many others, I completely reject their curious theory about living beings vs. objects. 78.28.44.127 (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I might say that, akin to how I would say ants are preserved in amber. Remsense ‥ 论 18:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Agree with everyone - in general, "surviving" is the best word in most cases, especially in archaeology and art history. "Preserved" may be useful for planes etc where a lot of upkeep is needed. Johnbod (talk) 01:22, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
  • This is notionally a MOS issue at best, but I don't think we would benefit from a top-down directive. In situations where it's controversial for some reason we would probably want to reflect the best sources. All that said, it seems to me that "surviving" is a more general and neutral term overall. "Surviving" merely states that it continues to exist (a neutral fact, provided its survival to the present is uncontested), whereas "preserved" carries additional connotations of someone or something actively preserving it, which may not always be the case. --Aquillion (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Extant. Folly Mox (talk) 01:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
    That's a synonym that will likely be appropriate and useful in some circumstances and not in others. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
    I agree with Thryduulf that it's a very useful word in some cases, but it isn't a synonym. The only extant monotremes are the echidna and the duck-billed platypus; but calling them "surviving" raises the question of what it was they survived. It's generally accepted that the Gospel of Mark is the earliest gospel extant, but that's a different question from that of the earliest gospel or of the oldest surviving manuscript of Mark. Narky Blert (talk) 15:44, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
Preservation doesn't work since the concepts are separate see the use of the phrase ""surviving into preservation" you also have the issue of tanks that were used as hard targets on gunnery ranges that survived by were certainly not preserved.©Geni (talk) 19:22, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Can I change my name?

Is it possible to change my name? Electrou (formerly Susbush)(talk) 20:50, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you can submit request at Wikipedia:changing username. ‹hamster717🐉› (discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠) 19:15, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Article mergers where the content is never actually merged

I've observed a pattern where article mergers never actually result in any relevant content being merged, so the content, while often (usually?) not entirely lost, remains hidden away in edit histories and difficult to access. It's extremely annoying when you click on a link, are redirected to some random article, typically a sub-section, and find nothing about the subject in question, or at most a throwaway line. That's not what a merger is! At least the useful and decently referenced content found on the merged page should be actually merged, and not just a tiny summary, let alone nothing at all. Mergers often seem to amount to (sugarcoated) deletions. This has become a pet hate of mine recently. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

That problem can occur when the content is regarded as WP:UNDUE on the target page, so in theory the merge resolution was wrong, but in practice it becomes, as you say, a de facto deletion. Sometimes it is done with that very purpose in mind. The other form is where the merge is never performed at all, because it would require actual work. In some cases, this results in a de facto deletion; in others, despite the merge resolution, the subject page is never merged and hangs around for years. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:58, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
The other problem I see many times..... is there maybe a consensus to merge.... but the content is horribly sourced or not sourced at all.... Thus not suitable for any page let alone the target merge page for those who actually work on the content. Must remember rfc's attract random people that many times have no clue about the topic at hand thus can't help out with any merger..... We literally have editors that just go around from RFC to RFC. This is also the case for deletion talks..... dominated by very few editors who simply can't have expertise in everything they discuss.Moxy🍁 01:05, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree that many "mergers" are in fact little more than redirects, making them like deletions to the vast majority of our readers who don't look in article histories. But very little is likely to happen unless someone champions the issue, and identifies which articles this has affected. I don't have the time to do this (or maybe am too lazy) so we have to look at the OP or elsewhere for a volunteer. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
There's a bigger point at work here. Very roughly speaking, a merger should occur when two topics shouldn't have been separate articles in the first place because they are too closely related to warrant being separate. Effectively it's to prevent duplicated effort from being made. While merged articles ought to be properly content-merged, once merged, the new combined article should grow organically as articles do. So even if content were not properly merged and lost during the merger, if the content is apropos enough, you'd expect it to eventually be re-added anyway. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:08, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

How is everyone today?

You guys good or bad or whatever? Personally I’m decent. Jasonbunny1 (talk) 20:18, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm as good as can be expected thanks, but that's by-the-by. We usually allow a bit of latitude for general chit-chat here, but I think this question strays too far from discussion of Wikipedia editing even for this page. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:53, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Oh, my bad then. Sorry! Jasonbunny1 (talk) 21:30, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Hey, @Jasonbunny1, thanks for your edit to Liliaspis. Would you mind taking a look at these 18 articles or these 9 articles, which are tagged as wanting some work on refs? If the tag's out of date, or if you're able to add some refs, then please just remove the tag when you're done. It would really help a lot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Yeah I'm doing well, thanks for asking! —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - uselesscontributions} 15:13, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
No problem! Jasonbunny (talk) 21:52, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
im sad, because of 7 october massacres in israel, my condolonces to these civilian victims of terrorism. ----modern_primat ඞඞඞ TALK 21:51, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Me too Saankhyareddipalli (talk) 10:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

User page design

Hi everyone, I recently redesigned my user page and would massively appreciate another editor (or editors) taking a quick look at it to let me know of any improvements I could make or issues which need to be addressed. Thanks! harrz talk 21:54, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Everything looks okay in Firefox on my Mac, and everything except the center-top 'ad' looks good in Safari. (I think the space for the ad might be too narrow.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Ok, thank you. I'll work on formatting the ad soon. harrz talk 15:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign

(non-admin closure) Nothing proposed. Regular ol' baloney. Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias. Babysharkboss2!! (Trout me, pull the trigger.) 15:34, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This page was obviously written by opponents of Donald Trump. Do you really want to take a political side with Wikipedia, the results would be disastrous. Especially to the funding of Wikipedia and if he is elected, to your platform and user group. Over half of America supports Trump. I would suggest this article be eliminated and especially with it's woke jargon and criticisms. It is also protected so that whoever wrote it (DNC) has the writes to edit it and not allow peer review by Republicans.. so sad especially because Wikipedia has previously been a fairly reliable source for many. 162.192.94.207 (talk) 14:33, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Indigenous_peoples_in_Canada#Peoples

Where I can get this kind of statistics for Alaska for 2020? Kaiyr (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Kaiyr. It looks like Canada conducts censuses every 5 years, so 2021 is the closest you'll get to 2020. For future reference, questions like this would be better suited to one of our reference desks. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:12, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
I mean for USa. Alaska. Kaiyr (talk) 17:22, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
@Kaiyr, Alaska Natives#Ethnicity by region uses the 2010 census. This article on Census.gov gives figures for Alaska Native tribes in 2020 (table 2). Schazjmd (talk) 17:46, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Too much "Personal life" type detail and trivia in bio "Early life" sections?

The notability of individuals having a dedicated Wikipedia article usually stems from their professional or societal achievements as opposed to their personal lives. Accordingly, "Personal life" sections typically appear later in an article, once professional aspects have been covered. A significant exception to this appears to be "Early life", which often includes extensive amounts of subject matter which by its nature seems better suited for "Personal life".

Is this based on general consensus or simply a tendency of more literary-inclined editors to attempt to establish some sort of a narrative about their subject? Wouldn't it in most cases be more appropriate to keep the "Early life" section as "dry" as possible (born when, where, to whom, educated at school A, university B, etc.)? I'm trying to keep this question as general as possible, so I don't want to link specific articles, but I don't think lengthy coverage of the subject's family situation and especially their parents' pasts should be in "Early life". Except for those whose entire claim to fame intrinsically stems from their lineage, like royals and nobles.

MOS:CHRONOLOGICAL directs editors to In general, present a biography in chronological order, from birth to death, except where there is good reason to do otherwise. However, since "Personal life" is separated anyway, is there a good reason to give special treatment to "Early life"? 186.86.52.215 (talk) 03:05, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

These sections tend to be popular with readers. You might be interested in reading "Obsessed with Wikipedia ‘personal life’ entries? You’re not alone" from The Washington Post.
Sometimes the ==Early life== sections don't connect well with the rest of the article, but often they do. It frequently makes sense to have a paragraph about the subject's family of origin, followed by a paragraph about education. If the coverage of non-subjects (e.g., a parent's past) really takes over articles to the point of cloaking the nominal subjects, then we call those Wikipedia:Coatrack articles. That said, one or two paragraphs wouldn't be a problem, because reading (for example) about the parents' background can help people understand the subject (e.g., Joe Film went into acting because both of his parents were actors). In principle, the amount of time spent on the subject's early life, education, and personal life should be proportionate to the amount of interest in those subjects shown in reliable sources. A CEO's biography might gloss right over those and start with the meteoric rise through the management ranks. A child actor (or the child of an actor) would probably have more about their early life.
(The early goal for Wikipedia's writing style was called Wikipedia:BrilliantProse; to the extent that "dry" means "boring", then that's not really the goal. You'd probably have better success if you argued for "encyclopedic concision".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm not against including this material per se, I just don't think a subject's "Early life" section should detail other relationships of their parents, all their half-siblings, other stuff like that. This usually has very little to do with why the subject is notable. If someone went into acting because their parents were actors then of course that has relevance and makes sense to include. But you seem to be saying that if someone is a gossip magnet to the extent that even "reliable sources" feel compelled to cover that more than their professional work, then this proportion should be replicated here? I don't think I can agree with that. Reliability is not the issue here, all of the material may be true and verifiable as well, but it shouldn't be front and center here, I think. "Personal life" can accommodate all those looking for "sizzle". If the only way to make "Early life" not boring is to include extraneous relationship drama and such, then I'm sorry, but I don't find that an acceptable practice for Wikipedia. 186.86.52.215 (talk) 04:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
In-depth biographies are holistic: they cover a person's life, and examine interconnections between different parts of it. Most people with Wikipedia articles do not have in-depth biographies written about them, and so this type of info isn't available. But for those who do, meeting Wikipedia's requirements for appropriate independent, reliable sources, their Wikipedia articles can be more inclusive of details in their lives that relate to their significant actions and characteristics. isaacl (talk) 04:25, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Like I said, I'm not against including at least some "in-depth" personal detail about people, but if who the subject dated and married is normally kept separate from the great discovery they were working on at the time, then so should the subject's mother's affair be kept separate from telling the reader what school the subject was attending at the time. For some reason this separation all too often isn't being followed in "Early life" sections, even though it is elsewhere. That's what I have a problem with. 186.86.52.215 (talk) 05:07, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
In short, use appropriate biographies as as guide. If they exist and aren't making interconnections between personal info (beyond some basic family info) and other aspects of the subject's life, then the Wikipedia article shouldn't, and the personal info may then be irrelevant to the article. isaacl (talk) 05:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it's necessarily irrelevant as it may still be good for background, but if it's not really a part of the subject's notability, it should be demarcated, and in "Early life" sections it often isn't. 186.86.52.215 (talk) 05:34, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps there's a bit of a Demarcation problem with "the subject's notability". In some cases, "the subject's mother's affair" could be something that gets a lot of attention and thus is part of the subject's notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I’ll say that I have noticed on a few biographies of people that the Personal life tends to be merged in the early life (like religious beliefs for example) when they are less notable than, say, George Washington. It’s a poor comparison I’d admit, but still one nonetheless. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:43, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Preliminary results of the 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections

Hello all,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election. Close to 6000 community members from more than 180 wiki projects have voted.

The following four candidates were the most voted:

  1. Christel Steigenberger
  2. Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz
  3. Victoria Doronina
  4. Lorenzo Losa

While these candidates have been ranked through the vote, they still need to be appointed to the Board of Trustees. They need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. New trustees will be appointed at the next Board meeting in December 2024.

Learn more about the results on Meta-Wiki.

Best regards,

The Elections Committee and Board Selection Working Group


MPossoupe_(WMF) 08:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Internet Archive hacked

For those who haven't seen this yet: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/internet-archive-hacked-data-breach-impacts-31-million-users/ RoySmith (talk) 23:46, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like a registered user email address leak. The passwords are hashed and salted so those shouldn't be useful to a hacker unless the user had a weak password or is reusing passwords. internetarchive.org and the Wayback Machine are up and working as of right now when I tested it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:16, 10 October 2024 (UTC) Added some caveats. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:28, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
With that said, it wouldn't hurt for people to change their passwords, especially if they use the same password for their email address (which you shouldn't!). I imagine most Wikipedians are going to have Internet Archive accounts given how difficult it is to write articles without its library. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:21, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm quite upset about this. Not only because this interfered with my work, but because I can't fathom why someone would want to DDOS one of the most useful services on the internet. Speaking of, I hope Wikimedia's own DDOS mitigation systems are solid... --Grnrchst (talk) 14:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
"Internet Archive hacking drama: why did they do it?". -- GreenC 16:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I read about that GreenC and honestly I find it pathetic. I’m going to refuse to bring politics into this discussion (which while they contribute slightly to this, I infer it is rather unnecessary), but this must be the lowest way I have ever seen someone try to protest; it’d be like burning Buckingham Palace to protest the Monarchy. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:39, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
To alliterate, it’s result will only be in the group you’re demonstrating a “protest” disliking you even more. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:51, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I doubt it. As the editorial says, this kind of attack is done for advertising purposes. They probably hope someone will think "Wow, they must be expert hackers" and hire them. They are probably hoping that potential employers will not think "Seriously? That's the biggest, hardest target you can handle?"
As for results, being unfairly attacked is usually good for a non-profit's income stream in the short term. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Still down as of 8 43am est oct 11 •Cyberwolf•talk? 12:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I’m surprised hardly any Wikipedians are replying to this serious topic. Actually I’ve seen hardly ANYBODY in general (social, news etc) that have gotten noteworthy attention. CNN, FOX, CBC and other mainstream medias aren’t even mentioning the issue. Driving me nots honestly. I wish the masses and higher ups would understand how important this library is, not only because of the Wayback but also the thousands of documents stored on it. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:32, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I’m saying this as someone who has a interest in Lost Media. The Archive being lost in the future could be devastating for that community. Several books that have been out of print and lost to time are stored there. Not every library in the states or elsewhere probably contains that vast of information. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I think this gets at a pretty gaping vulnerability with centralised infrastructure as a way to preserve information. This is only a problem because we have nowhere else to go for these books and archived web pages; we have the Internet Archive, rather than many Internet Archives (from mirrors to alternatives). If we want to ensure that such things won't be so devastating to our work in future, we need to build redundancy. To some extent, this applies to Wikipedia too. It only becomes the Library of Alexandria if we let it remain so. --Grnrchst (talk) 21:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
@Grnrchst I certainly agree with that. The problem is that I don’t think many are willing to make alternatives since it takes a lot of time and effort to run one of these things. Then again this situation may open those opportunities… who knows. Wolfquack2 (talk) 17:41, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
As far as mainstream media, I see reports in Newsweek, Forbes, ABC, Times of India, and The Hill. Plus of course the techie places like Wired, The Verge, etc. But, yeah, less coverage than I would have thought. RoySmith (talk) 16:46, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
What I was confused about to @RoySmith. You’d think that 31 million users would develop some type of significant coverage right? Apparently not. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
To clarify; I’m not saying that the “tech-neck” news (as I like to call them) aren’t real media/news, I’m merely saying that the more, say, “infamous” medias (for a lack of better terms) appear to be not covering such. If you ask me, the Internet Archive is more important than the 2024 Election. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Speculation here, but I can think of a few motives, or 'anti motives' as it were, for why the MSM not covering it - first, the claimed source of the hack being 'pro palestinian', and the MSM's tendency towards deference to that side of the political issue. Also, an awful lot of MSM folks have been not just embarrassed, but in some cases 'canceled', due to the existence of the archive as the internet's memory - people who have made egregious statements in the past, and having them dredged up later - long after they were deleted - and weaponized against them. Third - the fact that the MSM is largely a dying concern, and the fact that the archive can in some cases cause a loss in revenue. For example, lots of older news articles are paywalled by the publishers, the largest and most well-known being the NYT and WaPo. Via the archive, a great many of those articles can be accessed without restriction.
As I said, this is all speculation. I wish there was more information available about how the archive manages their data. Considering all of the 'ransomware' incidents that have happened in recent years, that sort of exploit could indeed be ruinous - many petabytes of data encrypted by malefactors who refuse to share the key unless millions of dollars are paid. Unlike the Wikimedia foundation, the archive doesn't have an Everest-sized stack of cash lying around to pay such a ransom. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 17:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
It's serious, because all of the Wayback Machine links on Wikipedia are down at the moment, with no clue as to when they might be back again. This is believed to be the result of a separate DDoS attack, but the Wayback Machine will not be back until all of this is fixed. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Do we know just how many of our articles have wayback machine links? It would be quite illuminating to understand just how deeply this has affected us. --Grnrchst (talk) 21:51, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
@Cyberpower678 and Harej: operate WP:IABOT, so one of them may have some stats on this. RoySmith (talk) 22:03, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Although, I see that User:InternetArchiveBot has 5,338,042 edits, so that may be a reasonable guess at the answer. RoySmith (talk) 22:05, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Some crude searching gives ~44,000 articles[1], ~960 templates[2] and ~5,559,000 files[3]. I may be doing something wrong. NebY (talk) 22:18, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Globally, IABot has added Archive URLs to over 22 million dead links. —CYBERPOWER (Message) 03:03, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Enwiki itself has 12.5M wayback links in 2.5M articles (as of July), out of nearly 7M articles, or about one third of articles contain a wayback link(s), each containing 5 on average. -- GreenC 20:15, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
@Anastrophe I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case you mentioned in the latter. And considering that the signatures to possibly overrule the Hacchett vs IA is only 40,000 signs away, I wouldn’t be shocked if this is something that scummy publishers are involved. Wolfquack2 (talk) Wolfquack2 (talk) 19:07, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it's a good idea to speculate about motives or try to uncover grand plots. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:15, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Fair point. Wolfquack2 (talk) 17:39, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
“But someday I'll prove (I'll prove, I'll prove, I'll prove)
There's a big conspiracy” -Weird Al Yankovic Wolfquack2 (talk) 17:43, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Only way i think to fix it is shut it all down for a few days implement major security fixes and features. Wikipedia foundation wink wink could y’all help them. •Cyberwolf•talk? 18:42, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Yep, that's exactly what the plan is per their most recent post https://x.com/brewster_kahle/status/1844790609573277792. They have it offline intentionally right now and estimate it will be back up in a few days. I'd love if the WMF were to help—besides the Wayback Machine, losing the IA library significantly affects my ability to expand several articles I'm working on. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Me too race result archives and news papers •Cyberwolf•talk? 18:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Not to mention how lost media can now become lost-lost media if this happens to a greater extent. Wolfquack2 (talk) 19:00, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I suggest checking out Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. I spent a couple of hours earlier this year really digging through the offerings, and it's amazing. It doesn't cover everything, but it covers a lot. The central search bar at the top is nice, but it doesn't search everything, so it's useful to do publisher-specific searches occasionally.
It's probably also worth looking into your local library's offerings. The online resources from my local library, which tend to be more pop culture in nature, complement TWL's offerings, which tend to be more scholarly in nature. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Oh, for sure. I can't give enough praise to Oxford University Press and Springer, among others. But unfortunately it doesn't have everything (yet)! Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:49, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
My comments about this in Wikimedia Commons village pump, if anyone is interested.
Here at Wikipedia village pump, as well as in the Commons one, I've talked previously about the dangers that Archive faces, and I also suggested WMF collaboration to adress that. I hope recent Archive's partnership with Google provides them with the needed money, but its current infrastructure (according to their publicly available information) needs to be improved without doubt. For a collection so critical to humanity, 2 production copies in San Francisco Bay Area, with no proper backups, all or part of it is only one earthquake or one cyberattack from disaster. I would like this to change. MGeog2022 (talk) 16:16, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Looks like the web archive is provisionally back up at least. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:24, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes, things seem to be getting back to normal. Let's hope that this kind of event don't happen again in the future, but above all, if it happens, let's hope that it will be like this time, without any loss of data. MGeog2022 (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
IA should hopefully get a little bit more robust each time it happens. Speaking generally, security and disaster recovery go from being low priority to top priority every time an incident happens. Over time organizations will iterate and harden their defenses. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:53, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
The group claiming to be behind the hack seems to have copy-pasted text from the Wikipedia article on the Internet Archive (specifically regarding lawsuits by publishers and record companies) in a twitter post justifying the attack;[4] it appears they're siding with the copyright claims of large corporations against the IA. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
NebY (talk) 11:50, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
So, are my e-mail and password safe, or not? I am confused. Thanks, Cremastra (talk) 23:56, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
Your email and your password hash were both stolen. A password hash is your plaintext password one-way encrypted, and usually looks something like this: $2y$10$rTgZnDT6ZB93l5gY6eO.r.g2C1L3taBEL.mM1M5PFdtj3tca.UlOe. Password hashes are usually not possible to crack, with some rare exceptions such as it being a really weak password. Your plaintext password is probably safe, although it wouldn't hurt to change it anyway. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:01, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, so given that my password was not re-used, other accounts should be fine? I assume I may get some spam in the coming days if my e-mail is stolen. Cremastra (talk) 00:02, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Yeap, that about sums it up I think. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
All right, thanks very much. Cremastra (talk) 00:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Adding Hindustan Times sources

I do not know if this is the right place to discuss this or seek remedy, but HT sources can no longer be added automatically via ref gadgets like ProveIt and VisualEditor, only manually. Can't this be fixed, the way other websites like The Times of India were? Kailash29792 (talk) 17:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Are you saying that Visual Editor -> Cite -> Automatic -> pasting a hindustantimes.com URL and clicking "Generate" isn't generating good citations for that website? There's a procedure for fixing that but I forget the details. I think it might have to do with submitting a pull request upstream to Zotero? Anyway, you might have better luck posting this at WP:VPT. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Yup, you are absolutely right. Previously it could, but I don't know what happened. Kailash29792 (talk) 00:54, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
There are several possibilities, some of which we can fix and some of which we can't. This periodically happens to nytimes.com too, which is inconvenient. Mvolz (WMF) can usually figure out which kind of problem it is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:16, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
I can confirm that it works locally from my IP, but in production they give us a 403 forbidden error. That might mean we're IP blocked. Mvolz (WMF) (talk) 10:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Feedback on chatbots as valid sources, or identifiers of them

We have a {{find sources}} template destined for Talk page use, which invokes a module to display a set of links to help editors find sources for articles. Here's one for Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico:

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

A discussion is taking place at Module talk:Find sources#Chatbots as valid sources or identifiers of them about whether the links given should be expanded or modified to include some AI chatbot links. Your feedback would be appreciated. Mathglot (talk) 16:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

For reference, I as an experiment added Gemini and Copilot (as well as an earlier experiment to add Bing) to the sandbox version of find sources:
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · Gemini AI · WP refs) · FENS · Bing (Copilot AI) · JSTOR · NYT · WP Library
The goal is to help find valid sources, not that the chatbots themselves are valid sources.
A different question would be why we list Google and not some privacy focused alternative like DuckDuckGo in {{find sources}} but that would be a different thread. Awesome Aasim 17:23, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Heads up for accidental logouts

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T372702

There's a bug that's been going around for a few weeks where users get logged out, apparently at random. I'm aware of a few incidents where people have been logged out (presumably due to this bug), didn't notice, and leaked their IP address. So this is just a heads up to be mindful of your login status. If you're running a non-default skin and/or custom CSS, it might be obvious when you get logged out. If you're running all the defaults, not so much. So just try to be alert to this. RoySmith (talk) 01:41, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

A little more information is at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Keep getting logged out. Johnuniq (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Ouch :(
thx for the heads up! Jasonbunny (talk) 19:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Seeking volunteers to join several of the movement’s committees

Each year, typically from October through December, several of the movement’s committees seek new volunteers.

Read more about the committees on their Meta-wiki pages:

Applications for the committees open on 16 October 2024. Applications for the Affiliations Committee close on 18 November 2024, and applications for the Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee close on 2 December 2024. Learn how to apply by visiting the appointment page on Meta-wiki. Post to the talk page or email cst@wikimedia.org with any questions you may have.

For the Committee Support team,


-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

For anyone who doesn't know what these groups do:
AffCom deals with organizations: Is this new group suitable for being officially declared an affiliate? Did that old group accidentally forget to file their report, or has it actually quit existing? If you are interested in the organizational side of the movement – editing events, conferences, national chapters, and so on – then this is for you.
Ombuds deals with individuals who have privacy concerns (e.g., misuse of CheckUser tools). I don't know how things stand at the moment, but they are usually desperate for people who can read and write in languages other than English, and for women. Technical skills are a plus, but you can learn those. The most important thing is that you care about editors' privacy.
CRC works with WMF Legal about office actions. I believe that criminal activity gets filtered out, so this is more like "they were wrong to ban me just because I was toxic to everyone" appeals instead of the "my lawyer says I might not actually go to prison" ones. I believe there are only a handful of requests each year at this point. Recommended for policy wonks and future lawyers, as well as folks with dispute resolution experience.
If you are even vaguely interested in one of these, please look into it. The best-case scenario is that they get more applicants than they need. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
Let me provide another viewpoint. Here on enwiki, we tend to think of ourselves as the be-all and end-all of wikidom. Being on one of these committees exposes you to what's going on outside our walled garden and gives you a broader view of the wiki world, which is a good thing. RoySmith (talk) 20:19, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Very future projects going full Crystal Ball

Basically, there's two works currently listed under Category:2110s works: the film 100 Years, and the Future Library project (plus a page for one of its constituent pieces of writing). Nothing wrong with talking about them as they have valid coverage, except that categorizing them flies in the face of Wikipedia:CRYSTAL. If we cannot assure something as usually predictable as elections or Olympics less than a decade in advance, then it's frankly silly to play along what two private entities claim will happen almost a century into the future. Sure, every announced release date is uncertain (see: Silksong), but within a few years it is sensible to believe the companies. Within several decades? Not so much. 2803:4600:1116:4C4:C163:2583:D895:96D (talk) 09:00, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

translations

I edit in wikipedia in different languages and I want please 3 things that I do not manage to do from translators:

1. Translate for me to Hungarian the sentence "In October 12 2024 Matip announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 33" to put in Joël Matip's page

2. Translte my english user page that you can see in the link bolow to Hungarian, and put it here

3. Translate Joel Matip's page to Icelandic Latin clash (talk) 14:59, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Latin clash, I think you are looking for m:Meta:Babylon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
thank you @WhatamIdoing, that helped me.Latin clash (talk) 14:32, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I previously wrote on the 27th September to advise that the Wikidata item sitelink will change places in the sidebar menu, moving from the General section into the In Other Projects section. The scheduled rollout date of 04.10.2024 was delayed due to a necessary request for Mobile/MinervaNeue skin. I am happy to inform that the global rollout can now proceed and will occur later today, 22.10.2024 at 15:00 UTC-2. Please let us know if you notice any problems or bugs after this change. There should be no need for null-edits or purging cache for the changes to occur. Kind regards, -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) 11:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration committee 2024 election: nominations to start on November 3

The nomination period for the 2024 arbitration committee election will start on November 3. If there is someone you'd like to see run, or if you want to know someone else's plans before making your own decision, I encourage you to talk to them now, well in advance of the election. For more information about the work involved with serving on the committee, see the arbitrator experiences page. isaacl (talk) 01:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Relaunch of the Community Safety Survey

Hello there!

This month, the Wikimedia Foundation will be relaunching the Community Safety survey on your wiki. This survey occurred in 2021 and 2022 to monitor safety sentiments on large Wikipedias. The survey used the QuickSurveys extension. Users were asked one question: “In the past 30 days, have you felt unsafe or uncomfortable contributing to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)?”

This year, we will be adding a second question to the survey. For those who answer “Yes” to having felt unsafe or uncomfortable, they will be asked to select or write in some reasons they have felt unsafe. Users may permanently dismiss the survey, otherwise, the survey will show up once each quarter to a random sample of logged in editors.

The goal is to use this anonymous survey to monitor users’ perception of safety as they contribute to Wikimedia projects. Data will be published on the Community Safety reports page for administrators and interested community members to review and support their own work. This project is led by the Wikimedia Foundation Trust and Safety team, with research support from the Research and Trust and Safety Product teams.

For questions and comments, feel welcome to reach out to us on the Community Safety Talk Page.

Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

great, long overdue! Nayyn (talk) 19:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Global Ban Request Notification

In accordance to the global bans policy, this message is to notify the English Wikipedia community that a global ban request has been instigated against User:Won1017, a user indefinitely blocked in your project. Takipoint123 (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Style sheets & printing

In Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia, I know the following statement is outdated, but I don't know what should replace it. If someone does, please edit accordingly and indicate here that you have taken care of it. "Browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, that recognize the media print will automatically apply the printable version when printing with the default Monobook stylesheet." Jmabel | Talk 17:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel, maybe move this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Feel free to move it where you will; I don't particularly see rewriting documentation as a technical issue, but if you do please feel free to pursue this as you wish. - Jmabel | Talk 02:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I've gone and removed that section. I don't think it's needed anymore. All modern browsers now show the printable version when you print the page, without having to us the "printable version" link --Chris 07:10, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Please see the details at the upper part of Talk:Yandex Search #Classification box

So it looks like the wiki software does consider and would treat this name as a non-existent and thus legitimate possible name of/for an account.

I do see two problems:

  • If now some one else/new would create a (second) account with this name, provided the wiki software would allow it, there would exist, via certain links, an old version with the same name.
  • In the history of all pages which were created or edited by this original account the original name of this account is existent, therefore this name must not be allowed a second time as an account name.

So, as I see this, something should be changed, probaly only on the technical ( not the rule ) side.

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 10:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Isn't that just a misspelling? The username that created the page ends in "ffee" while the talk page comments are missing that last 'e'. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:47, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
I've wondered about this before. We have a bot that can change existing links, though not those in older revisions. You might get more reliable information at Wikipedia talk:Changing username. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
On second thought: Xaosflux, do you know the answer to Steue's question about people changing usernames, and then a future editor innocently creating an account under the same name? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing in general, antispoof should prevent someone from creating another account with the same name as one that was renamed. — xaosflux Talk 17:44, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
I remember, on advice from another admin, creating a doppelganger account on my old user name to prevent usurpation. My account was renamed in July 2008 (at least, that is when my user page was moved), but the current account with my old name was created in November 2009. That was a while ago. Donald Albury 18:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
That used to be common advice, before antispoof. It is still useful to at least have a redirect from pages in old signatures/lists to current pages. — xaosflux Talk 13:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested, you are right: mis-spelling; getting old.
I corrected it on Talk:Yandex Search #Classification box.
Steue (talk) 11:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Check the notablity of this article and after approval then delete the speedy delete template

Hello dear Wikipedians. This article (Najmeddin Shariati) was created once before in an unprincipled manner and without citing reliable references. For this reason, it was deleted under the title of not notablity and fame with the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. But this time I created it with basic editing and citing more than 20 reliable references from official Iranian news agencies (Because this person is Iranian) that independently covered the news of this person. Please review this article and its references and after approval, delete the speedy deletion template. This person's article is available in Persian Wikipedia, and its notablity and  fame was confirmed by the administrators and editors of Persian Wikipedia according to the reliable sources mentioned in it. If you think this is a stub article. Add the stub template to it and let it stay. The final decision is yours. very thanks 4ipid (talk) 22:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

This appears to be about Draft:Najmeddin Shariati.
SafariScribe, you declined this for lack of reliable sources. There are 21 refs in the article. Every paragraph has at least one Wikipedia:Inline citation. WP:AFCSTANDARDS #6 says "Avoid declining an article because the reliable sources are not free, online or in English", so I hope that the use of WP:NONENG sources was not a factor in your decision (I have seen less experienced AFC folks make that mistake). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing, I have changed the declining rationale as I perceived it's more reasonable. Although the sources may appear reliable, but it's not everything published by them is considered reliable e.g WP:INTERVIEWS, which are mostly flowing through the cited sources. I am also seeing meaning with the recent deletion discussion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Najmeddin Shariati. Cheers! Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 04:10, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
@SafariScribe, Have you considered the value of a custom reason in these cases? The draft now has two identical messages at the top, neither of which says anything about interviews. (Interviews are usually reliable; the point of WP:Interviews is that when the subject is being interviewed about himself, his answers – but not the introduction, questions, or other content that came out of someone else's mouth – isn't independent. If you are interested in this subject, then feel free to join the conversation at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Can we please settle on some guidance for interviews?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Question regarding copyright, spoiler, summary

In Japan, police in Miyagi prefecture recently arrested members of a company which post spoiler of copyrighted shows onto the company's website, and try to earn ad revenue.

Copyright holders and interest groups claim they permissionlessly transcribed character names, dialogue, actions, scenes, and plot which reveal the whole view of the story to an extent beyond quotation and is obvious copyright violation, damaging rhe right of copyright holders as it will lower the desore of people paying proper price for the content and lead to people not actually watching the movie itself.

Given that while Wikipedia is a nonprofit site, and sunmaries of fictional works on Wikipedia usually wouldn't include direct quotation of dialogue of characters inside performance, many such articles still include very extensive summary on full plots of the fictional works they are describing, and all content published on Wikipedia unless otherwise specific should be reusable for profit, is there any risks that summary section of articles currently included in Wikipedia could be deemed copyright violation? C933103 (talk) 12:37, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The law is quite clear in making a distinction between plot summaries (even including spoilers) and the like, and actual copyright violations such as extensive transcriptions of dialogue. We are at no risk. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
@C933103, I would prefer that articles included "full plots of the fictional works" but not "very extensive summaries". When I run across them, I try to take a minute or two to remove overly detailed content.
That said, what I really dislike, and what might actually be a copyvio problem, is a "plot summary" that is just a word-for-word copy of the publisher's marketing blurb. They're unlikely to complain (free advertising!), but it's IMO a disservice to the reader, and would be IMO undesirable even if the publisher had formally dedicated that text to the public domain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
To expand on the first point, often a more concise plot summary that succintly outlines the work's story is a lot more useful than something that is painful to read since it's weighed down with details only superfans are interested in.
Also note that WP:VGPLOT, WP:FILMPLOT, and WP:NOVELPLOT all state that plot sections should be no greater than 700 words unless there is reason otherwise.  novov talk edits 09:05, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
That is what I would like to believe that the law is clear enough, but screenshot provided by relevant party (which is censored so text cannot be read) seems to indicate the website they arrest the operator this time do not actually publish dialogues of the original work line by line, instead look like a prose style description of the original work. So I am not sure about the degree of violation on that website that lead to the conclusion of that website is considered a transcription of original work and thus copyvio. C933103 (talk) 01:51, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
In most countries, ordinary copyright violations are a matter of civil law (i.e., not criminal), so the police aren't involved and nobody gets arrested. However, it is sometimes more complicated than that; for example, if someone breaks into a computer system to copy the author's original files (=a crime) and then posts them on the internet in violation of copyright law (=a civil tort), then the police could arrest the person for breaking into the computer system, but not for the copyright violation. Also, a creative lawyer could suggest others: perhaps the circumstances suggest fraud, or perhaps it's computer piracy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Japan made copyright violation a criminal offense since year 2018 after the signing of TTP (Now known as CP-TTP) trade pact, according to my understanding. C933103 (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry

Moved to Talk:John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry § Oscar Wilde card

— Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 22:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

WMF disclosure of editors' personal information

Activity at the WMF Village Pump has gone up considerably since this developed, but for those who don't usually check the page: there are ongoing discussions about the WMF's decision to hand over editors' personal information to an Indian court. These can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#The Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation situation and Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#Contacted by one of the editors. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:15, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I want all my edits reverted.

I know this will be completely ignored especially considering corporations who don’t care at all about user’s privacy like Google but I will say this anyway. I want all the edits I have made reverted. I want everything I have added onto Wikipedia removed.

I believe it is my right to privacy and just as people are allowed to add content to Wikipedia they should also be allowed to remove content they have added. 92.9.187.249 (talk) 22:11, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Whenever you edited Wikipedia in the past, you were informed in writing with each individual edit that you agree to our Terms of Use and agree to irrevocably release your text under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and GFDL. That was a legally binding agreement that you accepted with each edit. Accordingly, you have no such right and no basis for making this request. Cullen328 (talk) 22:18, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Ah yes. The good old terms and services trick. Well, I am not surprised. Well then, you continue editing Wikipedia if it makes you feel good but as for me well I am getting out of what I consider a digital rubbish can set on fire. With that being said safe travels fellow internet surfers. This is me finally signing off from this site once and for all! 92.9.187.249 (talk) 22:36, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
It is not a "trick". It is a legal agreement that you voluntarily entered into every time you made an edit, and it is essential to the success of the #7 website on earth, with page views exceeding ten billion per month. I hope that you find a hobby that will be more satisfying to you. Cullen328 (talk) 23:28, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Not to minimize the licensing issue, but there's also a practical side to this. Let's say you created an article some time ago and over the ensuing years, multiple people continued to edit it. A good example from my own editing might be The Lincoln Project. I created it four years ago but at this point only 7% of the text is mine. Even assuming we wanted to revert everything I wrote, how could we possibly unravel that and leave anything coherent? RoySmith (talk) 23:35, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
This being an IP address, we have no way of knowing who was editing from it when past edits were made. For all we know, the person making this request only just gained access to this IP address today, and is actually asking us to remove someone else's work. BD2412 T 01:09, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
I wonder if the IP regrets not the edits, but the fact of not logging in (and thus exposing the IP address). I clicked through a handful of edits, and they seem to be quite ordinary, with no obvious privacy implications (e.g., punctuation fix). If hiding the IP address is what's actually wanted here, then it is conceivably possible that this could be accomplished somehow (e.g., Wikipedia:Revision deletion) without actually removing the content itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
It seems to me that the IP was upset because of this filter action; OhNoitsJamie almost immediately implemented the IP's changes, but perhaps the IP did not notice this? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 04:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, revdelling 360 edits on someone's sayso is absurd. We shouldn't allow people to hide from the consequences of their actions like that. * Pppery * it has begun... 05:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
It is an interesting problem in that the inability to apply the 'right to disappear' might be a problem for EU editors. Reverting 360 edits is trivial compared to some 'right to disappear' actions needed; for instance, a person participating in a Clinical Trial asking that all information about them be removed from all databases - completely non-trivial, and completely doable via approved procedures at pharma companies. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Projects have always embraced the right to remember, for both technical and social reasons. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I also believe that you agreed to this. If you want everything reverted, why did you add it in the first place? I am agreeing to the following terms by sending this message:
By clicking "Reply", you agree to our Terms of Use and agree to irrevocably release your text under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Which means that once it is put, you can't take it back, the word irrevocably in the legal terms is what is stopping you. Also, you have an IP address instead of an account, which means that again, you may be removing hundreds of people's work, and they might actually want that. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Even when people agree to something, they sometimes come to regret it later. That's okay. They're stuck with (most of) it in this case, but it's okay for them to be sorry about their past decisions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree. If "irrevocably" wasn't in the legally binding contract, I would be on their side. However, it is, and so once you have added it it is too late to remove. Hellow Hellow i am here 17:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
And while if a company has your personal information they must delete it at your request, you gave the Wikimedia Foundation no personal information, and instead research, or fixed typos. To follow up, it is ridiculously hard to undo your edits if someone already edited over your edits. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:54, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Finally, this IP address has created several articles, which would be deleted (the creation of an article is an edit) which means that every created article by this IP address would be deleted, which is something us Wikipedians won't accept. Hellow Hellow i am here 17:00, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
The OP's request as originally worded violates Wikipedia's Terms of Use and would be pragmatically impossible to implement in general for reasons others have pointed out. But it is interesting to explore how far their request could accomplished, especially in light of the GDPR. There's a page at Mediawiki:GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and MediaWiki software that discusses some of the issues related to deleting a user's contributions and their IP addresses. A hyper-liberal interpretation of the GDPR and what private data means would make using Wikipedia impossible. For example, the OP's interpretation where all content they've added somehow involves their privacy is absurd: a typo fix in an article, for example, does not have anything to do with privacy and is not private data. WhatamIdoing's suggestion that their IP address be hidden in histories, etc., is reasonable and doable. But this redaction cannot reasonably for practical purposes extend to mere mentions of your IP address everywhere, for example, in comments by others. And the comments that we don't know if the same person made all the IP edits is a good one. Imagine if a handful of our most active editors decided to do what the OP wants, it would eviscerate Wikipedia. I am not versed in EU law but would surely hope the nature of collaborative websites are factored in to how the GDPR is interpreted by the courts and some technical common sense would prevail. Plus, I don't see how a GDPR right to disappear would overrule the legal agreement you made every time you made an edit. Without further clarification, we don't know what the OP wanted or why but it is an interesting topic to see how a "right to disappear" could actually be implemented and to what extent. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:11, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
Fortunately, most of the ambiguity around privacy of and ownership of IP addresses will go away when temporary accounts are rolled out on enwiki. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:51, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Surprising that no one has suggested starting by removing this one. —Tamfang (talk) 20:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Small mistake -- room for improvement

I suspect that this new ("Talk:" page) section: Talk:Leslie_Winkle#"Oops"_#REDIRECT:_its_destination_[anchor]_has_apparently_been_re-named
might get "little or no" attention unless someone sees it mentioned in a place like this.

((uh-oh ... IF the above "attempted" wikilink does not work, then ... maybe try this instead.))

By the way, perhaps that above-mentioned "Talk:" page section -- which is brand new, right now -- might be difficult to find, in the future ... if/when it has been archived.

(Perhaps even when using the link displayed as "this", where, besides those [ill-advised?] square brackets in the section name, having been "escaped" [in some way] by using "percent-5B" and "percent-5D", it also uses a full URL starting with "https" instead of a syntax involving "double" square brackets.)

If so, then this link to the DIFF listing might help:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ALeslie_Winkle&diff=1255765446&oldid=1203561430

Thank you, and please forgive me if I chose the wrong place to add this "mention".

-- Mike Schwartz (talk) 16:20, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@Mike Schwartz, when a redirect isn't working correctly, just fix the target that it's pointing to. I've repaired Leslie Winkle. Schazjmd (talk) 16:47, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
@Schazjmd : Thank you. -- Mike Schwartz (talk) 17:04, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
@Schazjmd: It's not always that simple. "Just fixing the target" can be a real problem if someone reorganizes the target article and changes sections' titles. Been there, experienced that. CiaPan (talk) 18:37, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Let me clarify what I meant: fix the target on the redirect page. If the redirect page is pointing to a section that has been renamed, change the wikilink on the redirect page to the new section name. Schazjmd (talk) 18:44, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Open letters

I have trawled through some dark places on Wikipedia and collated Wikipedia:Open letters, I have added summaries and outcomes to the older open letters, do correct me directly there if the summaries aren't right. if there's any other open letters from the community or the enwiki community had participated to be added, go ahead (except for the burger king related ones as those explicitly said they were not from the community). – robertsky (talk) 04:08, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

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