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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Sources that you have to pay to see

Are internet sources that you have to pay to see valid?

For example: An article about a university makes claims about that university's rankings in various areas. Those claims are accompanied by sources. But when you click on the sources (e.g., U.S. News and World Report college rankings), you can only get the information by subscribing and paying money.

I don't think such "pay-to-see" sources should be considered valid. Only those who pay to see the material are able to verify the claims to their own satisfaction. starkt 05:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I would agree. If at all possible, those sources should be avoided. No one should ever have to pay to validate a claim. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 05:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
We've had this discussion before (if it is not already discussed in some guideline, it should be). No, excluding sources one has to pay for would effectively exclude almost all (paper) books and journals as well. We can't produce an encyclopedia that way. Tupsharru 05:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Does that include websites? I can understand (and am not against) citing books, etc, since most can be found at a library, but websites would wholly necessitate payment. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 05:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Many subscription websites (electronic journals, reference works etc) can also be accessed through libraries, or even throughout entire university networks. Many journals and other publications are probably more widely available electronically than physically. Luckily, there are many, many people who have access to these publications and can check references even if you personally cannot. Just as with printed publications. Tupsharru 05:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I think "pay for content" websites are vastly different from books and journals. As Someguy0830 mention, you can freely view the vast majority of those items at a public library. I think "pay for content" websites should be downgraded as "sources", in the interest of keeping up with the spirit of Wikipedia as being a free source of knowledge. I doubt you could eliminate "pay for content" sources but if an "important" claim in an article is made with only a "pay for content" as source, there should be a way to tag it and request a "free source". As a side note, I think this is a worthwhile topic to discuss on the discussion page of WP:RS Agne 06:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, there are now some "sources you have to pay to see after a while". There are some newspapers who put their recent content on line for free, but after 30 days or so, the content goes to a pay archive and the original link becomes a redirect to the pay site. Something to watch for. --John Nagle 07:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
And, just after writing the above, I look at my watchlist and see that Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been edited with a link to a commercial site from which you can download Government documents already available for free from Government sites. Grrr. Changed the link to point to the U.S. Government site. --John Nagle 07:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It's simple; we use the best sources we can. Preferably those sources are free and easily available, but that's not always possible. If the only source we can find is pay-per-view, then so be it. In fact, we would be doing the world a favor by taking that tidbit of limited access information and making it free by putting it in our encyclopedia. Dragons flight 07:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the input. In light of what you have all said, pay-per-view sources are okay, but not as good as free sources. I think that's fair. Good form would dictate using a free source first, if one is available. starkt 08:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


people by ethnic or national origin

Some editors have undertaken to delete all categories involving 'people by ethnic or national origin' by imposing new requirements that were not previously used and, of course, destroying all other editors work. Up until now, the 'proof' that was needed that a bio article should go into a F00 G00n category (such as 'English American' was that the article said so: the person came from country FOO and is now in country GOO. Now, a few editors are saying, in effect, that information in the article counts for nothing and they delete every article from the categories, depopulating the categories so as to force their deletion. These editors say there is no documented proof that the person is of the ethnic or national group they are listed in and no proof that the person 'self identifies' with that ethnic group or national origin. Is this what WP collectively wants to happen? Thanks Hmains 06:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia does have a long standing policy requiring verifiability of all information placed into articles. As a result asking for a source to support an article's association with a category is not unreasonable as is removing the category if no source is produced. The real issue is how to best deal with the social interactions that arise when the desire to enforce Wikipedia policy conflicts with well meaning intentions to add truthful information to articles. If you have the answer to this issue please let us know, until then please understand that most of us are just trying to make Wikipedia the best encyclopedia possible. --Allen3 talk 15:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
There was, and is, no asking for source of information on an article-by-article basis and asking that interested editors provide that information with sufficient time allowed for them to do so. There is just mass deletion 'on sight' by an editor who assumes that the information (where a person was born; where they live now) currently in the article must be wrong. Hence: delete all articles from their ethnic categories, depopulating the categories so they will be deleted. This occurred 1 day after the 'Delete Category Discussion; process had found 'no consensus' to delete all these same 'Philippine people by ethnic or national origin categories'--as proposed by this same delete-all editor. Thanks Hmains 03:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


New RfD name

In what I believe was a misguided decision, Redirects for Deletion has recently been renamed Redirects for Discussion. The logic was that since CFD had undergone that change, RfD should too. The problem is, RfD and CfD are completely different. When a normal editor wishes to rename or merge a category they must list it on CfD, hence, categories for discussion, not just deletion. But one someone wants to change where a redirect points to, or turn a redirect into an article, or do anything besides delete it, they should do it themselves, with appropriate discussion on the redirect's talk page. This renaming of RfD obscures its purpose, and risks gumming it up by implying that it is a place for "discussion" of redirects. I really see no benefits to this name change and quite a few problems, but the administrator who renamed it no longer wishes to discuss it. To me, the correct name being "Redirects for deletion" seems straightforward and clear. Am I wrong? What does the community think? --Nscheffey(T/C) 16:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that the rename muddies the waters. I doubt it will matter too much, because I think most people just remember it as "WP:RFD" rather than trying to type the name out. I'd also agree that there should be a redirect from Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion (since that's going to be a likely typo). But I'd agree that as long as "delete" is the only sensible request, "deletion" is a more sensible name than "discussion". Kickaha Ota 17:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


Spencer Abraham article

Where is the proper place to report on, and have someone do something about, the apparant slanders found in this article on a living person? Thanks Hmains 05:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This is my first visit to the Village pump, so forgive me if my quick search missed previous discussions on this topic.

My question is, what if Wikipedia could have some advertizing on the site? I'm guessing there is philosophical opposition based on "information should be free" or something like that, but I wonder if advertizing could be included in a way that does not violate the foundation's mission or philosophy.

What I envision is, after the "external links" section on an article, there could be a "sponsored links" section. This could be populated with a bullet list of ads, from Google or Yahoo, or ads manually populated in a more controlled way. If it was done in a discrete and clear way, I don't think it would detract at all from the presentation of the article or the accomplishment of Wikipedia's mission.

And obviously, such ads would bring in a lot of revenue - probably hundreds of thousands USD per month (if Google ads were used). Instead of asking for donations, the Wikimedia Foundation would be busy just spending the money that came in. earnestcon 14:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

There is strong antipathy to advertising on Wikipedia by most editors. So far, donations (with an occasional fund-raising drive) have provided enough funds to keep Wikipedia growing. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 15:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Not to mention, if you want to use popups.js you have to disable various popup blockers to get them to work right (: you'd leave us at the mercy of advertisers--AOL account 15:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Extreme oppose with fire. No advertising on Wikipedia. - FrancisTyers · 15:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Over my dead body. (Yeah, count that as "strong antipathy to advertising on Wikipedia" :) Femto 15:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia owes nobody an allegiance, save for its members, administrators and owners. Sponsorship will only complicate matters. In a world where everything is being commercialised, let Wikipedia be as unsullied as possible. Ariedartin JECJY Talk 16:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
One reason that people disagree with unobtrusive advertising is that it might give advertisers some amount of power over content. If they colluded, they could threaten to withdraw their collective ad dollars in order to have, for example, a discussion of their business practices removed from an article. Deco 18:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we've got, so far, a pretty resounding NO on this one. A lot of us have put a lot of effort into removing advertising. Fan-1967 18:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Plus the fact that the ads would probably be less effective on this. Wikipedia visitors are (compared to the overall web-using public) proportionately more likely to use a non-IE browser, and are therefore more likely to have the ability to block adverts (Adblock in Firefox for example). Wikipedia would not necessarily make as much money from adverts as another, more 'mainstream' website with similar traffic, because a smaller proportion of those visitors would actually see the ads. Cynical 18:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely not. Not now, and not ever. Wikipedia is doing fine without making compromises on this issue. Sumahoy 21:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
As I sit here drinking a delicious PEPSI and eating a wonderful McDONALDS, I turn down my SONY stereo and wonder about the effects of advertising on Wikipedia. NO THANKS. --Charlesknight 21:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC) (this post was sponsored by the egg advisory board).
Agree with Femto. Over my dead body too. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 19:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong Oppose - against the very nature of WP. GW_Simulations|User Page | Talk | Contribs | Chess | E-mail 20:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong Oppose This goes against the basic principles of this project. Moreover, sponsership will complicate matters further and this could even lead to a bias attitude towards article creation. --Siva1979Talk to me 08:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Trivia sections in Wikipedia

  • Articles on films, television shows, and celebrities often have a section at the end called "TRIVIA", in which editors list unimportant, obscure details related (sometimes distantly) to the topic.
    • For example, in the Bill Clinton (former US president) article, there are 22 bullets of trivia, including information that he had "a male chocolate-colored Labrador Retriever named "Buddy" and a cat named "Socks"", that a television ad once depicted "Clinton and a voodoo doll", and that he makes a "thumb gesture".
  • It can be argued that the inclusion of trivia goes against the core Wikipedia principles. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, "not an indiscriminate collection of information", "not a collection of ...trivia" or "A DUMPING GROUND FOR RANDOM INFORMATION" (all quotations from Wikipedia principles or policy pages, but emphasis added by editor).
  • As well, Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy requires editors to cite "... verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible"; the policy pages state that "WIKIPEDIA IS NOT FOR UNCITABLE MATERIAL". It can be argued that trivia-type information often is not derived from authoritative sources (e.g., other encyclopedias, almanacs, respected publications, etc.). NatMor 13:48, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
    • This complaint comes up quite often, and is perfectly justified, personally I like trivia sections, because it makes it easy to delete the crap that some articles tend to collect. Martin 14:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I remove trivia on sight. I recommend other people do as well. --Improv 17:22, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Agreed, although a small percentage of things placed in "Trivia" sections are actually non-trivial, and could well be merged into the article proper. Solutions in that case include A) moving to the talk page rather than deleting outright; or B) moving it into a "Miscellaneous facts" section, from where it can be integrated into the main article body later. — Matt Crypto 17:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • In a perfect world, trivia sections would not exist in Wikipedia articles. However, anyone can edit here. The downside of that is that they frequently do. Trivia sections are at the end and so easy for readers to skip. They also attract, per their name, trivial information that random, drive-by users want to insert. Without a separate section, such trivial information may well be inserted into the body of the article, messing it up. In short, while trivia sections are inherently unencyclopedic, in a project like Wikipedia, they act as a sort of lint trap, attracting crap away from the main body of the article. Or so it seems to me... JChap2007 00:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Clinton's thumb gesture is well-documented and is citable trivia :-) If you read the literature on the thumb gesture it made a big cultural impact and it is not so trivial. "Buddy" and "Socks" are world famous -- I live on the opposite side of the planet to the USA and even I have heard of Buddy and Socks; they are household names. It's like you could not have an article on Roy Rogers without saying that his horse was called "Trigger" -- that would be sacrilege! The thing I find refreshing about the Wikipedia is it is not a "stuffy" encyclopedia. It has content that the people want (because they put it there), as opposed to 80 year old Oxford scholars who know nothing about pop culture! The Wikipedia is cutting edge when it comes to pop culture. You cannot use the argument that trivia is not "befitting" of an encylopedia, because this is a different encylopedia defined by the "people" or the "proletariat." If you are going to use that argument then I suggest you first delete all the 100's of biographies of pornstars that you would not see in a 'respectable' Oxford encyclopedia. Or what about all those 1000's of articles that go into every detail about every footballer that has ever lived? You would not see those articles in Britannica! I personally find those football star pages frightfully boring and trivial...that's my POV, but I wouldn't dream of imposing my POV on football fans to insist they delete all those pages that frightfully bore me to tears with trivial nonsense. I chose to ignore them instead. You see, it is this stuff that makes the Wikipedia special. It is written by the proletariat for the proletariat. Power to the people! bunix 12:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm a people too, but I find articles much more useful when they are weighted towards important facts regarding that topic as opposed to trivia. This is not elitism. Trivia — genuine trivia — reduces the utility of an article, and utility trumps entertainment. There's an easy solution to articles that are trivial: don't read them. It's not so easy to ignore parts of an an article that are trivial. — Matt Crypto 12:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe it is impossible to get them out (until stable versions, at least), they sprout out like weed no matter how much one is pruning them. I recommend going the same way as Gorilla article: creating leaf page for "XYZ in popular culture". Pavel Vozenilek 19:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


Someone just put this on my talk page:

"External links go at the bottom of articles, in the External links section. Please don't put them in the middle of articles. Thanks."

Is that policy, or even Wikipedia style? Is it now mandatory to use </ref> for all external references? The "ref" approach makes navigation harder (when you click on the reference, it takes you to the reference line within the article, not the actual source). What's thinking on this? --John Nagle 20:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

He's mostly right. Internal links belong within the body of articles. Refs and external links belong at the bottom. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 21:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes I'm lazy and reference external links using ordinary link syntax. But I shouldn't, it's not idiomatic style. Deco 21:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
There are multiple citation styles that are acceptable, one of which is embedded/inline links. Though if a link isn't be used to cite anything, then I think they're definitely supposed to be at the bottom. --Interiot 07:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I always try to use <ref> tags because I think it gives you a cleaner, easy-to-read, more professional-looking article. But this is not required by policy. JChap2007 20:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

External links should go only in the "External links" section, but I've seen it done otherwise where it seemed to be the best solution. I think the ref tags really only work well with actual citations and references. My opinion: what you were told is consensus but not policy, so try to follow it if at all possible, but if it doesn't make sense, don't do it. -Freekee 04:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly. WP:CITE#Citation styles:
The following are different citation styles you can use to insert references into Wikipedia articles:
All three are acceptable citation styles for Wikipedia.
Note however that Wikipedia:Embedded Citations says to *repeat* the URL, but with text explanation of what you're linking to, at the bottom in the "references" section in the case of using inline links.
Further, some contribution to verifiability or at least a valuable piece of additional information is expected from any external link... Wikipedia is not a repository of links... --Francis Schonken 16:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
The External links section has a different purpose than the References section. External links is more like a "see also" section. That's where you'd put the subject's official website, for example. References (using the ref tag and heading near the bottom of the page) are for providing citations for specific claims. I don't think they work well at all for directing a reader to an external link for the purpose of providing additional information on a subject. If that's what you want to do, you only have two choices - either the "External links" section (recommended) or an inline external link (not recommended). -Freekee 16:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


Including featured article tidbit on user page: Policy conflict

I noticed recently on another user's userpage that they had a template that causes the summary of the featured article of the day to be summarised, with graphic, in his user page. As for today, this summary is of this page, and the summary includes an image that's fair use. As we know, fair use is not kosher for use on userpages -- I believe we either need to get a commitment never to have fair use images in articles of the day (which would be awesome!), never to include said images in the summary (decent), or must not permit people to use such templates on userpages. Which would be best? --Improv 01:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I think an argument can be made for fair use here. It's in an encyclopedic context, not just copied to the user page. If it was used without the summary I might argue for its removal. Fagstein 17:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree. The current agragment is fine. If the article is copied, then it is legal as fair use. Also, tons of user pages have fair use pics on them. Tobyk777 17:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't care to make a legal or safeguarding judgement on in the context of an article summary. Outside of such circumstances though, fair uses in userpages are absolutely verboten. Whenever I spot them, I remove them. --Improv 19:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


Deleting Entries on Talk Page

Over on Talk:2006 redefinition of planet, a couple of editors have been deleting entries from the talk page, claiming that talk pages are reserved for discussions about how to improve the article, rather than general discussions of the topic. This seems to run contrary to my experience of article talk pages. What is the current consensus on this matter? Bluap 05:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages are only for discussion about the article. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a forum for discussion on anything except improving that encyclopedia.--SB | T 06:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Discussions which become personal can easily be taken to a user's discussion page, where they are more appropriate. Also, a user has more control of the information then, as a user may archive or delete as he chooses. Terryeo 07:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
For an example of how to sideline chatting on currently popular topics, see Talk:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy/Arguments and the opinions expressed on its MfDs. Melchoir 04:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
It's a statement of fact. Discussion pages are for discussing the article, rather than the subject of the article. People often tactfully ignore this, but that doesn't alleviate the fundamental point. Shimgray | talk | 12:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


On the game of "tag-the-Jew"

[Comment: this is a discussion extracted from the Karl Marx discussion page. At issue were (a) the way in which the section "Childhood" should be written - the version proposed below seems to have stood; (b) whether there should be a "German Jew" tag at the bottom.

The discussion on both issues applies to many other articles. Perhaps the time has come for a chat on various forms of "tagging"? Bellbird 13:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)]

Discussion under: Karl Marx and (binary) categories

Karl Marx made quite clear (too clear, alas! - see On the Jewish Question) that he did not see himself as a Jew. Why force somebody into a religion and a nationality that he did not desire and that do not give a clear description of his upbringing?

The religion of origin of his parents is already detailed at the beginning of the biography here, so it is not a matter of concealing information. Rather - a) Judaism is a religion, in which Marx was not raised, and against which he had strong feelings; b) if we are to believe the article Jew, Jews are a nation - a nation into whom somebody can be conscripted for reasons having nothing to do with the religion or upbringing of the person. Very well, but then - where does that leave us? Under the rules of German nationalists, the French son of two born Germans is a German, no matter what he says. Shall we put Kleber under "German generals", then?

Marx seems to have believed that Judaism defined a nation against others. He did not believe in this or any other religion, though, to judge by the opening paragraphs of On the Jewish Question, he seems to have thought of himself as on the side of Christianity, and certainly did not think of himself as belonging to the nation defined (as he thought) by the religion. c) I certainly hope that nobody here believes that there is such a thing as the Jewish race. Marx would certainly have been classified under code 08, had he lived a hundred years later, but it is difficult to see what that says about him.

By the way, the use of German Jew at the bottom of pages seems somehow rather odd to me. It does not occur in xx.wikipedia.org, for xx = pretty much any language other than English. What do people here think of it?

--a

"a," you make some interesting points, but don't forget this is a biographical entry on Karl Marx. Marx's own opinions about ethnicity or religion as expressed in his works would probably fit better under "Marx's Thought." At any rate, Marx was born into a Jewish family, and that is a fact that needs to stay in the entry.--Dialecticas 22:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, "a," is this: ... your IP address? The only edit this person seems to make is cutting Jewish ancestry out of entries (see edit on Leopold Bloom). What's up with that? It's more than a little creepy.--Dialecticas 22:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Dialecticas: this is indeed this computer's IP address. As you could see from the user-contribution page, the only contributions I have made are (a) my changes to Marx's entry, and (b) a slight edit to Leopold Bloom's entry, in which I changed the wording of the description of Leopold Bloom's family to what seems to me to be correct (and seems to have stood as such).

What seems creepy to me is to define people in terms of ancestry, above and beyond their upbringing, education and self-perception. Neither here nor in Bloom's entry (Bloom is an imaginary character, by the way!) did I erase the ancestry of the person concerned, or occlude it in the least. It is simply a matter of how you define a person, and of respecting how he defines himself.

Even if Marx had been devoutly Jewish or devoutly Catholic, we would have to respect the division between public and private spheres. You cannot define somebody in terms of his private identity (if there is one!) first. Should Marx turn out to be (say) gay, you could not introduce him as "a great gay philosopher"; his sexuality would come up later, in the relevant section, if it affected his life. This is even more so if he had been a deeply closeted gay man, or a gay man who never had gay sex, or somebody who thought of himself as a straight person but whom you have determined to be gay by means of your all-mighty gaydar.

The edit to Leopold Bloom's entry was based on the same feeling. What must have crept you out was the fact that I was making an edit from an IP address. If I had thought that somebody would have thought me some sort of undead creature, I would have got a user name to protect my privacy first. Should I edit any further, I will get an user name, of course. It is very probable that I will not, as I am not liking the tone of all of this back-and-forth.

"From a Jewish family" is one of those current phrases that seek to state more than they do and end up saying something rather doubtful in itself. It reminds me of how, say, the men of the Amistad have been described as African-Americans; the latter is a perfectly good label that people can apply to themselves - yet the reason why the men were not killed for having freed themselves was precisely that they could prove that they were not Americans.

Marx happened to be of Jewish ancestry; Judaism was the religion of origin of both of his parents. He did not grow up in a family that observed holidays, traditions and customs, for the very good reason that his parents had converted from Judaism. (At least his father had; I do not know about his mother.) How Jewish his early environment was otherwise (whatever "Jewish" means when applied to an environment!) is an interesting question; it might throw some light on "On the Jewish Question", which is (to say the least) extremely harsh and rather hard to read nowadays. By the way, I do not agree with how "On the Jewish Question" is handled later in the article - namely, brushed over. It is not a criticism of Judaism and Christianity equally, but a statement of opposition (not merely criticism) to Judaism specifically. - a

"What seems creepy to me is to define people in terms of ancestry, above and beyond their upbringing, education and self-perception." - Yes, to me too, but not necessarily to Marx's contemporaries. There was an ethnic understanding of Jewishness as well as a religious one by this point in time and Marx would have been widely identified by others as a Jew, which would in turn have coloured attitudes towards him. That's worth bearing in mind, I think. Mattley (Chattley) 08:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely - yet (a) this is a case for not omitting a mention of Marx's "racial" origin (don't vomit yet - note the quotation marks! look ahead at the third paragraph if necessary), not for pinning the label "Jew" on him (or on anybody else who does not pin it on himself) in the very first sentence; (b) the word "ethnic" here (used also by Dialecticas) is very problematic; and it is precisely in this very problem that the issue lies.

"Ethnic" was an extremely uncommon word before the 1940s; it was sometimes used in anthropology as a synonym for "race", or for a "sub-race" or "collection of races" (see the OED). It came into currency when "race" became very unfashionable. It inherited part of the baggage of "race", in that it sometimes tends to denote a mysterious something that is transmitted by bloodlines. At the same time, one of the most common uses for "ethnic", especially at first, was as a synonym for a group of hyphenated Americans (also a problematic term!) - namely, Italian-Americans, Jewish Americans, Greek-Americans, etc. The second term is less common than the other two, at least nowadays and at least as a noun; this has to do with the early prevalence of (Classical) Reform Judaism in America, which emphasised that Jews were not a race or people, and that there were simply Americans of the Jewish religion. However, people think as if they used the second term when they think of (say) Katz's Delicatessen or bagels or Woody Allen movies as Jewish. We are talking about some cultural traits rather specific to some members of an immigrant population - cultural traits that, by now, have been selected, homogenised and packaged into something nice, safe and easy for everybody to consume. (Hence very little Yiddish theatre and very many bagels.)

There is no such thing as the Jewish race, period. (Whether "race" is a useful or healthy way to categorise human beings at all is another matter; for the record, I would tend to answer both questions in the negative.) Would Marx's contemporaries have seen him as "of the Jewish race"? Some did, to some extent; if I remember correctly (I am referring to a biography I do not have at hand), there is a letter from a friend of his to another rumouring that Demuth's son must be Marx's, as the former had the latter's "handsome purplish-black Jewish hair", or some such thing. Would Marx have seen himself as "of the Jewish race"? I do not know of anything showing that he did. At the same time, it is not impossible that he did; some people did at the time - and seeing oneself as "of the Jewish race" (or having some "Jewish racial traits") became fairly common in the late nineteenth century. ("Race" becomes very prominent in early Zionism - Max Nordau, Martin Buber - but it was not limited to it.) If somebody abandoned religious belief and practices, and lived in the general society - or, even more so, if he was brought up without Jewish religious belief and practices, and had always lived in the general society - he had to cope with being sometimes - or often - classified by both Christians and Jews under a mysterious category that described almost nothing about him and yet was supposed to be deeply meaningful. It is natural to try to tie such a phantom category to something concrete. In America, just about anybody who is "white" has the opportunity to describe himself in terms of his great-grandparents immigrant origins, under the assumption that this is all nice and tame. (A naturalised immigrant from Italy in the early 1920s was an Italian-American; now anybody with an Italian name can call himself Italian, and it is immediately understood that (a) he will not go fight for the king or Mussolini, (b) the real Italians live overseas, and will make fun of him if he goes to Italy as "a very proud Italian", (c) he has no direct connection with the actions depicted in "The Godfather", which, somehow, is in fact one of his favourite movies.) People in Europe did not have that option; hence, sometimes, an understanding in terms of race. Also: (a) one could think of one's racial traits as partial (if somebody truly looks "very Jewish", he is generally Armenian), and to be overcome if so wished, at least in so far as they were character traits; (b) the thought of oneself in terms of race neutralised the possibility that the phantom label would settle upon that of a nation, or a holy nation - that is, it protected one from thinking of oneself in terms of a history (largely a religiously articulated one) that one felt to be alien to oneself, that extended vertiginously into the past, that involved some extremely strong claims, and that was not the history of the country in which one lived, in which one had (generally) been born and educated (and in which, in many cases, one's ancestors had always been born, as far as the records went), and to which one felt inextricably tied.

Now, does this mean that we should describe Marx as "of the Jewish race"? Obviously not. We may, at some point in the article, remark that he was seen as such by some - and perhaps by himself, though I do not myself know of any evidence towards this - and that this may have had consequences X or Y.

Now, why should Marx not be described as "of the Jewish ethnicity"? (a) If ethnicity means "race", as in some technical literature, see the above; (b) If an ethnic group means what used to be called, quite imprecisely, a "tribe" ("the Igbo ethnic group"), then no; it may be a problematic term for the Igbo, too; (c) Marx did not eat at Katz's delicatessen. In fact, it is extremely unlikely that he even ate bagels, or even knew who Woody Allen was - or at the very least he failed to catch any his references when he saw him on TV.

There is another, perhaps more serious problem with *defining* Marx with the "Jewish" label, as opposed to describing the household that shaped him (including, if you wish, that his father had very likely converted in part for professional reasons), and mentioning his "racial origins" (quotation marks! quotation marks!) as they become relevant. ("Jew" or the workaround "from a Jewish family" (false in some literal ways, as discussed above!) are equivalent here. "Marx was from a Jewish family", as the first sentence of the biography, is equivalent to "Marx was a Jew" here: it is a definition. A precise *description* of his family is given immediately thereafter, so no additional information is being conveyed.) The problem is as follows.

As you will see in the page Jew, many people see Jews as a nation. Nowadays, most such people are either traditionally religious or Zionists (or outsiders who have adopted the discourse of either quite enthusiastically). Now, there were only a few proto-Zionists in Marx's time; the notion of Jews as a modern nationality hadn't quite arisen yet. (Though: see his friend Moses Hess.) However, the notion of Jews as a holy nation, as the chosen people - meaning *the* nation (or this is how Marx takes it) was extremely powerful - more so than nowadays, both among people of the Jewish and the Christian religion, given higher levels of piety all around. The holy nation will get you, even if you don't want to. See Who is a Jew?, and read it in the eyes of somebody who (like Marx) had absolutely no desire to be conscripted into a religion and a nation that he seems to have felt were quite alien to him. May this explain "On the Jewish Question"? In my view, yes, at least in part, and it may be discussed in the appropriate section, thought that might fall under the No Original Research rule. Does this mean that we must do what he may have felt was being done to him? No.

All of this may be difficult for some people in America to understand. In America, people are separated by their "roots" (meaning the countries or nations or labels in which their (favourite) ancestors happened to be born) by the Atlantic. The latter is an insulating body of water that keeps electric shocks from going through. (Occasionally, the insulation fails, as is now shown, say, by one or two young Americans who go search for their roots in Afghanistan in order to solve their identity problems - random controversial example.) In Europe, historically, the problem of nations has been a very serious business. Marx was a European. Take him seriously.

The fact that Kleber was seen as a German by some (including both suspicious French colleagues and just about any classical German nationalist, who, of course, would have seen him as a traitor) may have been a factor in his French patriotism. It does not mean that he should be defined as a "German general", or that his alleged Germanness should be his card of introduction.

A last word: "tag the Jew" seems to be a very popular sport in the English wikipedia. I have noticed it is also becoming fairly popular in the North American mainstream media; wikipedia just seems to accentuate certain trends. In the French media, say, this would be unthinkable - or is unthinkable for all except a few mavericks and monomaniacs working within current enthusiasms. (Compare to previous enthusiasms for all things Viking or Japanese; this is exoticism at work, and is probably uncomfortable for at least some people from Japan, or anybody who minds objectification, exoticism and enthusiasm.) The same is true of fr.wikipedia.org, for that matter. I cannot say that the French are not in the right here. This is a cultural difference in the writing of biographies - yet one for which there are excellent reasons, at least on the continental side. Biographies used to be written in the same way in America, but then the roots game started. That game, though, is no game. - a

This is a content dispute specific to Karl Marx. If you really think there is a broader policy issue to address, try coming to a consensus and setting a precedent in this particular case first. Deco 20:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
There is very little in the above dispute specific to Karl Marx. Before any policy suggestions are made, some general discussion might be healthy, no? Bellbird 09:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


"vanity " illustrations?

I can see reference elsewhere to Wiki polcy on articles and vanity publishing but not as far as I can tell, on illustrations . I refer to the image "Reich in Prison" on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich which I have mentioned it that article's talk page.

To me, aside from my own opinion of the quality of the illustration - it adds nothing to the article which is already provided with photographs . I really feel it smacks of vanity publishing.

Rrose Selavy 15:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we need a policy banning such illustrations. If other editors feel an image is low-quality or might advance a POV or has little encyclopedic merit, as might be argued for Image:Wilhelm Reich by Koehne.jpg, then they should remove it as a part of everyday editing. Melchoir 02:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
lemme get this straight. A free image is put on a page littered with (questionable) "fair use" images and it's removed because it "adds nothing to the article"? Helllooooo... wikipedia is all about creating free content, what's this about "vanity publishing"? Is this what WP has come to? sounds like a load of crap to me. Are you suggesting that André Koehne is the same person as Wilhelm Reich and putting the image on the page for the sole purpose of self promotion? I think you don't understand what vanity articles refer to. The free image should go on the page and (at least) one fair use image should be removed and deleted. And if you have an issue with the quality of an image, you should do the same thing as you do with low quality articles, improve it or make a better one.


Not really a policy, but

Just browsing thru Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents today when I noticed the following exchange (Warning: I have stripped off the names because I am quoting out of context for a reason):

A: User B is a troublemaker because he has been busy doing this, that, & this other thing.
B (in response): Assume good faith. (Continues on to other points.)

I find it hard not to rant about this, but I've seen the phrase "assume good faith" thrown out enough times by people accused to causing trouble to feel it is a code phrase meaning "I am a troll or a dick. Of course I should be banned from Wikipedia." Using those three words is not a get-out-of-free-card; if one Wikipedian posts a statement clearly stating that several other well-known Wikipedians are engaging in some unusual form of communal sex, & that Wikipedian is accused of being disruptive, responding with "assume good faith" will not be very convincing -- if at all.

(Note, I don't know anything about the individuals involved in the exchange I saw on WP:AN/I. If I have to judge the parties in the exchange I read, I suspect that B is more likely the party in the right than A -- an inference that makes this incident all the more aggrivating!)

After all, if someone from the non-wikipedia world, say from the political sphere, is accused to being a criminal & all of her/his misdeeds are provided in a list (e.g., corruption, neptoism, general incompetence), just how convincing would a defense beginning "assume good faith" be to you? This is no longer an example of Wikipedia jargon, it's become a lame phrase whose intent is to turn an inquiry over one party's behavior into a vague counterattack about the accuser's motives. Using these three words has become an ad hominem argument that only serves to weaken the intent of the policy of WP:AGF -- don't suspect another editor of being a troublemaker if there is another explanation for her/his behavior.

So how should the above exchange have been improved on? I'd suggest something like this:

A: User B is a troublemaker because he has been busy doing this, that, & this other thing.
B (in response): You misunderstand my intent in these instances. I'd like to explain why I acted the way I did when I did this, that & the other thing.

Notice that there is no counterattack on A which suggest that her/his motives are less than honorable. In short, B is simultaneously observing the guidelines of WP:AGF while at the same time subtly reminding A to respect them. No one is accused with this wording, which is a good thing: I've seen how a clumsy use of words can lead to a perceived insult, a flamewar between the parties, & possibly a case before the ArbCom.

So when should these words be used? Only by a third party, someone who steps into the gradually heated discussion between A & B, with the intent that the accused's acts could be interpreted in a non-sinister fashion. And the third party ought to immediately explain what this non-sinister intent is -- in a way that convinces the accuser that she/he has misunderstood the situation. -- llywrch 00:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Through usage, some terms get overused to the point of uselessness. It might not always be so, but at least sometimes it is so with the term, "good faith". I've met it too. Terryeo 01:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the main point that AGF should only be a response option of a third party, not of the accused. The accused should instead justify his actions, or if he finds the accusations blatantly unreasonable, he should ask a third opinion to intervene, rather than trump the argument with an AGF - Wane
AGF merely says that in ambiguous situations, it is preferable to assume the interpretation that gives the benefit of the doubt. It's a sort of "innocent until strongly suspected to be guilty" standard. In situations that are objectively and clearly the fault of the malefactor, AGF doesn't apply and shouldn't really be cited. Unlike the legal system, though, we don't really have any kind of official or standard way of judging whether this standard of evidence has been reached. Deco 08:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
AGF is the reason the first step in conflict resolution is to discuss the matter with the editors in conflict. You would be surprised how many disputes happen because two editors don't realize that the other has perfectly reasonable motives behind their actions. So I think it's an appropriate thing to remind people of when, in a non-obvious situation (or even some that seem obvious), an editor runs to AN/I without leaving a message on your Talk page first. Fagstein 16:50, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I've seen a few incidents where an editor is accused of misbehavior & only learned about it from reading WP:AN/I; one such example is, IMHO, one too many. However, my point is that those three words have become overused, much as "not notable, delete" had become on WP:AfD. If a Wikipedian can defend her/himself without using those words, then I say don't use them; a simple explanation defending oneself ought to be enough. And should a Wikipedian complaining about others on WP:AN/I, but does not understand -- or even has read -- WP:AGF, then there's a bigger problem here, one that mentioning the AGF guideline won't solve. -- llywrch 18:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


Straw Poll

Due to the recent turmoil on community pages, a large community straw poll is being conducted. Wikipedia:Communities strawpoll is now open for voting. Despite resolutions made on this page, many others are facing turmoil similar to what this page is, or once did face. In an effor to solve the issue, I invite all Wikipedians to vote there by September 18th on this page following the procedures and ballot instuctions explained there. Thank You. Ericsaindon2 06:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Primary sources

Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources is internally inconsistent. In the first paragraph it says: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29&action=edit&section=53 "Do not include copies of primary sources (specifically text; maps and other images can be very useful) in Wikipedia." Later it says, "Some short texts such as short poems and national anthems are usually included in their article." So we should not include any source material, but some source material is usually included. You should not do A, but in some cases A is usually done. What kind of rule is that? It's one I protested against early on, and I still do. Either we have the rule, but then we follow it. Or we do not have the rule. And yes, we can also have a rule that only holds in some cases, but then the rule should be written as such, and not as a blanket rule. - Andre Engels 11:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Like many rules, it's simply not a "hard and fast" rule. Use common sense - it makes sense to include short works or short portions of works where this aids understanding of the topic. Taken to an extreme, this rule would forbid verbatim quoting of any portion of any length, which is clearly undesirable. Deco 21:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Erased Userpages

This never happened to me, but I am just wondering why if a user is blocked, said user loses all of the contents of his/her userpage.

Please help my wandering mind,

--BrainiacOutcast 14:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been blocked several times, went off to the loo and when I came back, my user page was intact. Don't know what you're saying, buddy. Terryeo 15:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Wrestling question

just hitting the random article button and I came across this - SummerSlam 2003. Nowhere in the article does it indicate that all of this is pre-determined. Do we not have a tag or policy that covers it? Yes I know that we could say "yes it's obvious!" but shouldn't an Encyclopedia should spell it out? I also notice that's it listed in the category "2003 in sports" - this also would appear to be misleading. A number of other wrestling events are also put in the various year categories for sports.

A pre-determined event is not a sport, it's physical Theatre (or sports entertainment as I understand it's called in the states). Surely they should only appear under the sports entertainment category or something similar that outlines that those are pre-determined?).

--Charlesknight 15:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Further to that - if you check the professional wrestling page it states that Modern professional wrestling is a performing art, where the participants create an entertainment show simulating a combat sporting match.

So clearly those types of events should not be in the sports category?

--Charlesknight 15:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I think what you're talking about is Template:Kayfabe disclaimer, which is usually put at the top of wrestling articles. It displays as follows:
{{Kayfabe disclaimer}}
Is that what you're looking for? -- Fan-1967 15:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Ah yes - many thanks. What about my second question about the categories - oh wise one... --Charlesknight 15:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the Professional wrestling page itself is in the performing arts category and all of the wrestling articles link back to that page. --Charlesknight 16:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hah - this is like pulling a loss thread on a jumper, professional wrestling is listed as being part of the Performing_arts, but it is also a part of the WikiProject_Professional_wrestling which is in WikiProject_Sports.

This really is all over the shop isn't it? --Charlesknight 16:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Another evil poll: Removing Warnings

The issue of whether or not users should be allowed to remove warning messages from their talk page (and under what circumstances) has been a running dispute for the better part of a year now. In an attempt to bring wider community input to the issue, a poll has been created: Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll. Dragons flight 17:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Summarys in Articles

Is there a uniform standard for writing summarys in articles? I have seen articles about books and movies that just mention the beggining setup of the plot, while others provide a full sumary of the book/movie the takes up 4 or 5 paragraphs. Is there a standard and is there anyway that one could be implimented? Cnriaczoy42 21:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hong Kong is not a country

Heads up. Some people refuse to accept that Hong Kong is part of China. We have a couple of sparse discussions at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 6#Category:Hong Kong people and Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 6#Category:People of Hong Kong descent.

Hong Kong is not an ethnicity nor a nationality. Other than this, I'm unaware of any categorization of people by the city or town where ancestors were born. No other "colonies" of any civilization are treated as countries for "descent". Macau isn't treated this way. Nor was Hong Kong ever a "city-state" (like Athens) that warred and settled treaties with other nations. Hong Kong reverted to China after the end of a treaty between China and Britain (not Hong Kong and Britain).

--William Allen Simpson 02:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
What is your point? Hong Kong is an unusual entity and has its own political system. Not even the Chinese Communist Party thinks it is a standard subdivision of China. Landolitan 21:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add that both Macau and China are treated the same way and they are not considered to be part of Mainland China neither internationally, locally, or in China. Both Hong Kong and Macao have their own olympic teams separate from the Chinese team, as does Taiwan. They are both not included in any neighboring Chinese province but are their own autonomous entities known as SARs (no pun intended) Special Administrative Regions. And you're statement on that no other entries or places in the world receieve similar treatmant is simply blantantly false, all insular areas for article purposes are essentially treated as countries such as American Samoa the B.I.O.T., Somaliland, Nagorno-Karabakh, Navassa Island, Palestinian terrirories (Gaza and West Bank), New Calendonia and Transniestria to name a few. Some are unincorporated areas of certain countries, some are territories, some are disputed territories which are controlled from within but not recognized, some are de facto independant countries, some are uninhabited islands. Furthermore Hong Kong and also Macao which you claim are far differant both have their own internet domain country codes (.hk and .mo if i am not mistaken) and both have their own entries into the CIA word factbook as do the majority of the aforementioned "country-like" entities and insular areas. 71.142.78.14 03:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC) (<---- this comment was mine i was logged out, Qrc2006 03:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC))


Someone has been running around linking biographies and various things to Rotten.com. I am sure that it's entertaining to read those articles, but they are definitely ambiguous mixtures of fact and "humorous" fiction. I believe that WP should generally link to serious sources of fact, not humorous semi-fictional encyclopedias, on topics of general interest. --Zaorish 02:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you be more specific on the links, or identify the user adding them? Fan-1967 02:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Using Special:Linksearch, I count 295 links to *.rotten.com. It looks like about 1/3 of them are to article talk pages, so those should probably stay, but the rest should be examined closely. Unless Zaorish has the user name or IP of the editor who's adding them, it's going to be difficult to find the guilty party. I'll watch on the vandalism channel for him/her. Baseball,Baby! balls•strikes 06:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
That's going to be a lot of links to revert. From what I can see, they're mostly (if not entirely) inappropriate. Fan-1967 06:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The one who added it to Richard Scarry, which I corrected recently, is User:Hajor. He seems to have been a fine little gnome otherwise. I may have been exaggerating when I said "someone has been running around", it may just be that fans of the site want to spread it around.--Zaorish 00:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC) P.S. There's another one at secret society, let's see if we can find who added it.

Added by this edit, from User:Mel Etitis. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found one user who has been adding them: User:Jerkcity. BaseballBaby started deleting some of the links, and I posted a note suggesting we coordinate to avoid overlaps. He responded there, and I posted a note to his talk page which he responded to uncivilly and has now deleted, with another rather uncivil note. I'm considering continuing to delete these, but haven't really come into a strong conflict situation like this before and would like a third opinion. I could see why someone who is a partisan of the site might feel they were being singled out by a campaign to winnow out links to that site. Do I need to hold off, or should I go ahead and start deleting anything that doesn't meet WP:EL? Thanks for any advice. Mike Christie (talk) 03:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

This looks like long term problem. I had a dispute with someone adding rottem.com everywhere many months ago. IMO a technical solution is needed - ability to see what links had been added over time to the article and if they have been removed in the past they could be removed immediatelly again or the software would not allow to insert them. Pavel Vozenilek 16:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think rotten.com links can be useful and encyclopedic as a referance to criticism, parody, or like or dislike of a certain subject. Whether the material is viewed as legitimate or not is a POV issue, im sure many people take rotten.com as seriously as the Daly Show or Colbert Report and read between the lines. Plus i think its a useful link! any thoughts? Qrc2006 03:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Inane Pop Culture References

Is there a policy regarding what is allowable as a pop culture reference such as video game, comic, film, TV, or literature? I've run across a number of articles in which whole sections of references seem out of place in an encyclopedia. Commonly, there are sections with nothing but references to video games. I couldn't find any specific policies, but I did find an essey on trivia which pursuasively argues that content should be both interesting and important. I took this as an affirmation that many of these irrelevent references could be cleared away. Accordingly, I began to delete content (an example is Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency#ARPA and DARPA in fiction). Before too long, I got a vandalism warning from another user. After some discussion, it was recommended that I first post to an article's discussion page before deleting content. I don't mind doing that (well, truth be told, it would be something of a pain), but this sort of approach is unlikely to result in any sort of consistancy. It would be much easier, and, more importantly, much more likely to yield quality content, if there were a policy governing allowable pop culture references. Thanks for your attention. --BehemothCat 02:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd ask what the "pop culture reference" tells us about the subject of the article. I mean, if X is mentioned in "The Simpsons", what does that tell us about X (other of course than that the writers of "The Simpsons" have heard of it)? If the answer is "nothing in particular", as it usually is, then I see no reason not to delete. -- Hoary 02:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, it can be important in establishing its position as part of pop culture. In particular it provides evidence of notability. Then again, the Simpsons staff do occasionally reference completely obscure things. Deco 02:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
In order to be included, I'd like to see that the "pop culture" is genuinely "pop" (popular), meaning that it is in itself notable. In other words, just because a garage band includes a reference to something, doesn't make the trivia worth including. But if a videogame with 1+ million units has included a particular reference to something (especially if the reference is getting other press), then yes, I'd say it's worth including. Ditto with something that definitely introduces a subject to a new demographic. For example, when South Park did a segment about the Dog Whisperer, that was notable enough to justify a mention in both articles. --Elonka 02:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
If a videogame with ten-plus million units has included a particular reference to something, so what? And as for a claim that references in pop culture "definitely introduce a subject to a new demographic", I'd want to see evidence or reasoning for this. The mere fact that people haven't heard of name X till they play game Y in which X is mentioned seems in itself profoundly trivial and deletable. (If on the other hand X is a destination of little interest to the video game "demographic" until the game Y emerges, whereupon X becomes a tourist destination of choice for videogamers: that would mean something.) -- Hoary 03:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this is the wrong place to bring this point up, but my problem with pop culture references in the Wikipedia is they are so U.S.-centric. If we are going to have them, let's talk about popular impact in Europe, Asia etc too. And yes, references to video games do seem trivial to me, but that's my POV and I guess the younger generation would disagree. I suppose we have to prevent generational amd cultural bias. I guess its upto the editors within each page to come to a consensus and fight it out. I don't think one can define in a policy what is trivial and what is not (very difficult to define "trivial" to cover all cases). But we can make a policy to prevent cultural and generational bias. I must say, one of the things I find "refreshing" about Wikipedia, as opposed to tradition encyclopedias, is the up-to-date-ness of pop cultural entries and the lack of stuffiness. I think it is important to err a little on the side of being different. bunix 04:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

IMO, these are perfectly reasonable facts, but they generally belong in the article about the pop culture phenomenon (i.e. the Simpsons episode article or the video game articles) rather than in the article about the thing being mentioned, unless the references are unusually significant and have recieved significant coverage. e.g. the articles on Locke and Rousseau do not need to mention that characters on Lost are named after them. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Two things. First, relevance is not inherently reciprocal. Simpsons Episode X may include Stephen Hawking: a link and some context are needed for the reader to understand the reference. But Simpsons Episode X is not therefore relevant to the reader's understanding of Stephen Hawking, which is the purpose of an article about him. Second, remember, no one is concerned with deleting information here: the function "What links here" will always give the reader a full list of toys and game that link to the title of the article. The lists currently do not provide any more than this information, and when they are separated in the normal way as X in popular culture, they are quickly identified as cruft and voted for speedy deletion, which is a conclusive demonstration, is it not?. --Wetman 04:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC).

"Cruft" is not a speedy deletion criterion. Speedy deletion does not involve voting. Don't encourage misapplication of speedy deletion. Deco 13:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I like the first criterion Wetman suggests above -- it squares up with encyclopedic style/intuition well. It is worth noting though that to be consistently used, we should be willing to delete "Trivia" sections on sight. I've been doing this for awhile (occasionally taking some mild heat for it) -- hopefully I'm not alone in this. --Improv 14:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to add some moral clarity to the discussion, this reference added to Chrysler Building was possibly the most egregiously worthless trivia that I have ever seen. The biggest problem is with these topics that are essentially stock characters, because they're such a well-known landmark that it's an easy association to establish location (Empire State Building in NYC, Big Ben in London), and so it's more rare for a work of fiction that deals with that place not to show or reference it. The article in these cases should simply state that fact, that "Because the Chrysler Building is such a well-known landmark..." and only mention the most substantial references (such as King Kong for the Empire State Building). Postdlf 15:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Create separate page "XYZ in popular culture", just like Gorilla article has. This way the main article is kept clean. Pavel Vozenilek 19:54, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I strongly support pop cultural material. To find out why check out my dicussion at [1]. Also for you guys that are suggesting things like "delete on sight" see the discussion on deletion policy at [2].bunix 22:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
But we're not talking about deleting pop culture material; we're talking about what of it we want included in non-pop-culture articles. Example: In an article about sashimi, there's not much (if any) value in including a mention of the pilot episode of Friends, in which sushi plays a critical role; on the other hand, the Soup Nazi deserves mention in Soup because it was notable pop culture; if you know anything about at all about contemporary TV comedy, you probably know about the Soup Nazi. The trick is figuring out where we should draw the line. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 23:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

i think its important to mention that what is important and what is differant than what is academic, i think many people would find that unacademic pop culture referances are worthy of inclusion and are helpful and neccisary in articles and hell they can be written better to make them academc then swell!!Qrc2006 03:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


category versus list policy proposal

As far as I'm aware, when a list is found that is redundant with a category (for example, List of beat 'em ups, a list I contributed greatly to), the usual action is to AfD the list. Although I agree that this is the right course of action, I also see the point of its detractors, who point out that these lists usually contain items that don't yet have articles (and thus aren't included in the category), which are subsequently lost when the list is deleted or redirected to the category.

My policy proposal is that, when a list is found to be redundant with a category, that list's title be changed from "list of X" to "list of X in need of articles", the list be added to the appropriate category, and then all blue links be removed from the list, leaving only red links or entries that aren't links yet.

For example, applying this proposal to List of computer and video fighting games, we would end up with an article titled "List of computer and video fighting games in need of articles", which would be included in the category Category:Fighting games, and consist solely of:

  • Asura Blade - Sword of Dynasty
  • Asuka 120%
  • Fist of the North Star/Hokuto No Ken
  • Toki Denshou: Angel Eyes
  • Tuff E Nuff
  • Ultimate X-Men

As articles were created for these entries, they'd be removed from the list, and once the list was empty it would be deleted. This would satisfy both the need to remove redundancy, and the list-makers' lament of losing list items that don't have articles. If this proposal is already covered by another policy, please let me know. Luvcraft 01:04, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Lists and categories serve different purposes in different ways. They cannot make each other redundant. Beyond housing redlinks, lists uniquely enable formatting, selection, duplication, illustration, commentary, and verification.
I, and other users, have had to explain these points on AfD time and time again. In my experience, we can always save the list in question, but it's never enough, is it? If anything, we need only a guideline to point to, saying stop nominating the things already! Melchoir 01:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
"[Whatevers] in need of articles" isn't an appropriate title for an actual article as it is a meta-topic. You could already create something like that in project space, perhaps as a subpage of a relevant WikiProject, and probably should do so if such content is deleted. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
That would be fine if it turned the article into a meta-topic or subpage. The point is that the unlinked list items would still exist somewhere and not be lost. Luvcraft 20:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


support great idea, that way those interested in video games, who are the most likely to be clicking on the video game category while surfing will see the no article yet games and will create them! Qrc2006 03:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Policy on multiple images on an article...

I'm finding there are certain articles where people are more concerned at getting images up on the subject then actually posting info on the subject. It basically starts turning into a gallery first and a place for info second. I can't seem to find any rules or policies against this, but it seems like there would be some. Are there rules or policies against this? Where are they listed so I can reference them? Is there a place on Wikipedia for galleries, do they go into articles, or does Wikipedia just not want those things? Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanx! Roguegeek 18:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:MOS#Images has a little info, probably could be expanded though. Martin 18:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I could have sworn I read a guideline that was very specific to my question. I'm just having a real problem finding it again. I'm almost certain a policy does exist. Feedback? Roguegeek 19:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files what you were remembering? Thanks/wangi 20:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Some subjects lend themselves more to photography than others. We are especially blessed with photographs of places and things which are easily accessible to First World folk, whether as locals or tourists. Other places we struggle for even one photograph that we can use. If an article is image-heavy, then move some of them to a gallery at the end of the article and every now and then get rid of any photographs that are of less than excellent quality. We don't have any hard and fast rule on images - it's really a matter of what the article needs and what's available. And what keeps us happy as a community of editors, too. --Jumbo 20:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
xs images can be moved to commons.Geni 20:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course. But removing an image from an article should be done with some care. All too often a good image is removed because someone else wants to put theirs up. It's handy to have the old images around for a while so we can get more eyes on any changes. There's a vast difference between seeing two images on the same page and hunting up old pages and following links. --Jumbo 21:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Just some general comments. I agree that there are some articles where there are simply too many images, especially with articles that are brief to begin with. I've noticed, for example, that an article on an actor or an actress will often become top-heavy with images, almost to the point where it becomes a fan page. I wouldn't want to see a "maximum images" rule brought in, because there are occasions where a person's career is so varied that multiple images are necessary to properly illustrate it. But there needs to be a balance between images and text, with the emphasis on the text (unless for some reason the article demands otherwise). I certainly feel that stubs should be limited to no more than one image simply to avoid the "Wiki is not a gallery" argument. 23skidoo 18:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

There IS a specific policy stating that screenshots of TV shows or movies are limited to one per article - perhaps this was what the poster was thinking of.Michael Dorosh 17:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Contesting a deletion

I have an article I created a few weeks ago, and has been edited by a few different people. One person has now suggested it be deleted, I disagreed ( his reasons do not make sense), and he placed a prod on it. Another user removed the prod, the objector re-added the prod, I deleted it and suggested he put an AFD on it, and he re-added the prod again. The prod says "If this template is removed, it should not be replaced." so what do I do now? If I revert again and he adds it he would be viloating the 3R rule, but I don't want an edit war.--Brat32 00:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You're prerfectly correct. Since they keep adding the prod, I've added a discussion at AFD to resolve the issue. Great job on avoiding the 3RR. Kuru talk 01:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Deletion policy

I am new to contributing to Wikipedia. I contributed a short article this afternoon about a municipal politician. Within minutes it was deleted, with the reason given that only state/provincial and federal politicians qualify for inclusion in Wikipedia. I note, however, that there are many examples throughout Wikipedia of municipal politicians, from cities as well as towns, who have been profiled. It appears the rules are being applied arbitrarily. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marty55 (talk • contribs) .

Is your particular one notable? There are usually exceptions to rules, and these polticians of which you speak have more than likely garnered sufficient attention to bypass the rule that such articles aren't noteworthy. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 01:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
You might check out WP:DRV. You could list your article there for consideration from the community. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Pejorative labels, WP:BLP

An interesting disagreement is underway on the WP:BLP policy page, specifically here about this, and not using negative-sounding labels such as "conspiracy theorist" in the lead section of an article on a living person. Additional insight there would be appreciated! Thanks. rootology (T) 02:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Repeated violations of WP:RS (the guideline)

I don't know where else to post about this. Personal websites are used extensively through the Scientology series articles as secondary sources of information. That is, their opinion is quoted and cited. I am convinced that if reliable published sources were used, if Wikipedia guidelines and policies were actually followed and fulfilled, the Scientology series articles would make good reading. Editors continually give reasons such as "it is just a guideline" and even experienced editors, such as administrator User:ChrisO quote from newsgroups and provides a link to a reposited copy of a google group. I don't mean to single an individual editor out because at least half a dozen are of similar mind. I could use some direction about how to handle this kind of group thinking by a bunch of editors who agree, but who don't have enough combined weight to actually change WP:RS. Terryeo 03:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Not that I have any experience with it, but perhaps WP:RfC might be able to break down cliquey thinking? Melchoir 03:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a reasonable thought, ty. Terryeo 04:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing deletion tags

Last night I marked a few pages for deletion that I honestly believe should be deleted ( Voices (song) and Seven Silver Fish ). This morning I looked and users had taken off the deletion tags. How is this kind of situation handled? I've not marked many things for delete before but they aren't supposed to be taking off those tags are they? Stezton 08:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Removal of appropriately placed speedy tags can sometimes be considered vandalism, especially when it's done by the original author (or their sock). You could revert and warn them with {{drmspeedy}}, or you could just resolve the matter with an {{afd}} (removing that one won't get them anywhere, and the discussion would probably result in speedy, anyway). Let them know that while their contributions are appreciated, you don't feel they're encyclopedic, and/or that the administrator who comes to look at your speedy tag will make their own judgement without taking your word for it. The appropriate way to debate a speedy is by placing a {{hangon}} tag on the article, and then posting to the talk page explaining why you don't think it should be deleted; let them know, eh? Just remember to be civil and assume good faith whenever possible. :) Regards, Luna Santin 08:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
At first I was going to say that non-notable songs are not speediable - but in this case there really was insufficient context and content. While I think Voices (song) is an appropriate topic for an article due to its chart placement, this article clearly requires expansion. Seven Silver Fish is probably A7-able but has some content - AfD seems more appropriate to me. Deco 21:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


I've taken a look at the specific case. Seven Silver Fish have no albums, thus are not sufficiently important for an article...so I agree with your belief. However, I disagree with deleting Voices (song). This is because the originating band is very famous. It appears that the editors are writing an exposition on each song. Now just because this song only has one sentence (so far) does not merit deletion. We must assume good faith that the editors are intending to flesh that article out eventually.bunix 09:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd already put a deletion back on the Voices (song) article before I saw your comment, Bunzil, but I do see what you're saying. Can I remove the deletion tag myself and put the expand tag on there? - Stezton 09:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, should be no problemo. bunix 23:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

German de-adminship solution

Just thought that I've written up the Wikipedia:German de-adminship solution, comments and suggestions are welcomed to improve onto it. - Mailer Diablo 15:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikiquette Question: who has the onus for discussion?

I'm a recent newbie and have a wikiquette/policy question, that I can't see a clear answer to on the policy pages.

OK, here's a hypothetical (but one that has probably happened to all of us!) Say that you write a paragraph for an article and introduce it in there for the first time. Let's say you spent two hours carefully writing the prose, and it is clearly isn't vandalism or a copyvio, and you clearly have put a lot of thought into it....(it may be imperfect, and need a further citation...but you figure that, hey, nothing is perfect and the evolutionary wiki process will fine tune it eventually).

Now, let's say an existing editor that regularly "patrols" that article, hates your paragraph and removes it immediately. (Sounds familiar to everyone? :-)

Now here's the wikiquette question: is (1) the onus on that editor to in fact not remove it but go to the discussion page first and argue for its deletion, or (2) is the onus on the introducer of material to accept this deletion and go to the discussion page to argue for its inclusion?

In other words, I am unclear if in wiki-world one errs to the side of inclusion or deletion. I've seen plenty of discussion pages where a deletionist editor has flamed some poor hapless contributor with the words: "you should have discussed this before putting this here." Alternatively I can find just as many discussion pages where a contributing editor has said: "this should have been discussed before deletion."

So, what are the "correct" do's and don'ts of the discussion process? In the same way there are road rules that say which driver has "right of way," is there a set of wiki road rules for the discussion-deletion process?

I can see that heavy handed trigger happy deletionists are good to have around on the wikipedia as they do a great job of keeping out the crazies....and their swift deletions with no discussion seem welcome in those cases. But this does make them appear rude when, in their zealotry, good-faith contributions get deleted without discussion. Kinda collatoral damage, so to speak :-) Are there some guidelines to help them understand when and when not discussion-before-deletion is expected?bunix 11:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I would say that the onus is probably on the both of you. ;) There is a lot of give-and-take and judgement involved -- while I'd probably never ask on a talk page about fixing an obvious period mistake, I probably would ask before completely rewriting an article from scratch. In this case, there seem to be at least two editors who disagree, so it wouldn't hurt to have a discussion, however brief. Refer to dispute resolution for some more information, and especially third opinion, if this only involves two people. Hope that helps! Luna Santin 12:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we work by onuses -- instead, both editors should outline their reasons, make an effort to convince each other, and if need be draw in a number of outside eyes and have a straw poll. If one of the editors is butting up against policy or style guides in their edits, the straw poll is probably unnecessary, but otherwise discussion should be central. --Improv 15:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd comment that people need to remember that no one editor "owns" any particular article, no matter how stridently they are patrolling and overseeing its growth. It's a matter of courtesy, of course, to defer in some cases to the person who has contributed the most to a particular article, but again they need to keep in mind that it's not specifically -their- article to outright deny inclusion of any particular material. I wouldn't say there's an onus, in that case. But if someone deletes some good work you made toward the growth of an article out of hand, I'd say, put it back, and put a comment on the talk page and in the edit summary mentioning the talk page, explaining what you're trying to add. At least that's my take on it. Errick 16:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
No one should be reverting changes without an edit summary except in cases of obvious vandalism. The general rule is to provide a good edit summary. If anyone does anything that you find annoying, the general rule is to talk to the other editor about it in a polite, non-accusatory manner. If he or she reverted a change and the edit summary doesn't indicate a reason, a note on the other user's talk page like "I noticed you removed a paragraph I just added to <article link> and can't tell from the edit summary why. Can you please let me know why?" If the summary says why and you disagree, the note might be a little different, perhaps "I noticed you removed a paragraph I just added to <article link> and the edit summary says <quote>. I think <this>. Is there some compromise wording we can work out?" All of the editors here are people (well, except for some bots). The general rules are set up to encourage people to communicate. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Guys, you are all making very interesting comments and saying what to do if someone deletes stuff. That's cool. But that was not really my original question. My question is what are the "road rules"? For example on roads, automobiles on a main road have right of way and the ones on a minor road have to "give way." So I'm not asking what to do if the cars on the minor road violate that, I'm trying to find out the highway definition of what constitutes a "minor road" and a "major road" in the first place! And it makes sense to me that the Wikipedia needs a better defined "highway code." So using this analogy I'm trying to find out a consensus as to how deletions should be carried out and how much discussion should take place beforehand. Is "discussion" like the major road and "deletion" like the minor road, or is it the other way around? Is it that on Wikipedia that all roads are of considered equal in width and therefore I'm asking the wrong question?bunix 22:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Users are encouraged to be bold. Anything anyone adds can be easily deleted. Anything anyone deletes can be easily recovered. So go ahead and boldly add. Similarly, go ahead and boldly delete. Road rules are designed to prevent collisions. Collisions here are fine, so the rules here address what to do when there are collisions (how to resolve conflicts), not how to avoid them. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
What should be done? We should all be polite to each other in our quest for a more perfect encyclopedia. We shouldn't delete other people's edits without explaining why - though discussing it with the editor would be even better. Not only is finding one's edits deleted discouraging (especially to new editors), it doesn't generally help us in our quest (constant changes will improve articles in the long run). Failing that, how should one respond to such a deletion? It doesn't really matter. Revert the deletion until the deleter gets frustrated into giving an explanation? Try to draw him into a discussion about it? Decide an edit war isn't worth the hassle? Examine your edit and figure out for yourself why it was deleted? Take your pick. Is there policy concerning this? There is no policy of this nature - only guidelines concerning being nice to people, such as Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite the Newbies. -Freekee 02:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that's quite it though -- we do want to be polite and kind to each other, but there is the underlying goal of producing a good encyclopedia. In areas where the project's goals, policies, and the like strongly push us in one way (towards a neutral, well-styled article with good grammar that sticks to the point, with no legal problems or trivia), we should be polite but firm in moving articles towards that end. It may be wise to give a bit of leeway to more experienced editors who presumably have been part of the project longer and (hopefully!) better understand its goals, although taking that too far would be a mistake. As for notifying users, that isn't always a good idea -- sometimes (as is the case with anons) even contacting them isn't possible, and sometimes even well-intentioned edits end up introducing a lot of junk to an article -- it can save a lot of pain to remove it once and *then* start the discussion if they object/add it back. The only major problems arise when people keep reverting without discussing (which usually gets them blocked if it keeps up for long enough) or when people become rude. People should generally aim to be "polite but firm" when they're enforcing policy/good style/rest of the above, and "polite" otherwise. --Improv 16:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Good points. But I do think people shouldn't delete work without comment unless it's obvious crap. Deleting a well-intentioned edit witout comment is... bad. I would guess that most often, it's a seasoned editor removing a newbie's work. I don't feel that elitism is a good trait to demonstrate to the newbies. We like to think our articles are near perfect already. Shutting everybody else out of "our article" isn't really a good thing. Don't pretend you've got better things to do. Take a minute to explain your actions, if you can. -Freekee 02:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
A couple of things worth noting:
  1. Major articles, like those with feature status and those on common subjects you'd find in any encyclopedia, tend to prefer the status quo. So it's best to discuss major changes on the Talk page before implementing them.
  2. There is no burden of proof either way (a lot of edit wars happen because editors believe the burden is on the other). However, paragraphs added without sources can (and usually will) be deleted. Be sure to source everything you add.
  3. Talking, not lawyering, resolves disputes better. Talk to the other editors. Make use of the article's Talk page. Put the paragraph(s) there so people can edit, discuss, and properly source it before putting it on the page. Fagstein 17:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Good question about a frequent problem. IMNSHO, one deletes material only if its clearly vandalism, slander of a living person, unsalvageable gibberish -- or material that has no place in Wikipedia. (As an example of the last category, if you don't like a certain politician, celebrity or other person with an article in Wikipedia, write your about your dislike in an essay for your Blog -- not in a Wikipedia article.) If it's irrelevant to the article -- say you add a paragraph about a person who once lived in Perth, Australia, & that person has an article in Wikipedia -- then move the material to another article. And for any other reasons that you don't think the material fits in the article -- move the passage to the Talk page with an explanation why it shouldn't be in the article. IIRC, isn't this the purpose of Talk pages?
Of course, all of these considerations at moot if the paragraph in question is deleted because the editor is trying to force material into an article that other editors have repeated explained should not be in there. But even in that case, the edit summary should contain something like "removing edit in excess of 3RR rule". -- llywrch 20:24, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
The "onus" is on all parties involved. If there is a disagreement, hash it out, either on the article's Talk page, or on your User Talk pages. If there is no agreement, then by all means, make sure that you discuss it (pleasantly) on the article's Talk page, where other eyes can look at it and comment. If that fails, then, after a while (at least 5 days with no consensus, perhaps even more) follow WP:DR. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

In the comment (above) that Rick Block makes about the "be bold" imperative, Rick suggests that this equally means "boldly delete" as well as "boldly add." That's a very interesting statement that deserves comment and analysis from you other guys. I like the way Rick thinks, as he is getting to the heart of my original question. So in the light of Rick's statement, I think I can now rephrase my original question in a clearer way: is the wiki consensus that "boldly delete" and "boldly add" are equally weighted, or is the imperative to err more on the side of "boldly adding"? bunix 02:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

There really is no hard and fast rule. For whatever it's worth, "two hours carefully writing the prose" is really neither here nor there. It's easily recovered from the history, and can easily be copied to the talk page (or linked from the talk page by linking to a diff like this) and if the consensus of a discussion on the talk page is to restore it, nothing is really lost.
If someone removed significant non-vandalistic prose without either an edit summary or a comment on the talk page, that was not good. But it's easily addressed: raise the issue on the talk page; alert the person you are arguing with on his/her user talk page so that there is no chance that you are blindsiding the other party; and allow a day or two for an answer before proceeding. If they answer, you are in a discussion. If they don't, just put a comment on the talk page like "It's been two days, no response, I'm restoring this."
The issue here isn't to find something blameworthy in the other person's conduct. It's to get the job done without behaving like a dick oneself. There is a lot of gray zone between a really cooperative editor and a bannable wikifelon, and a lot of the editors you will interact with are going to be in that gray zone. - Jmabel | Talk 06:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
On the question of whether the wiki consensus is that "boldly delete" and "boldly add" are equally weighted, my answer is yes. In all cases boldness needs to be tempered with civility. I think you're getting the same answer over and over. Just do it! But don't be a dick. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Things people heard at live shows vs. original research and unverified claims

This thought came to mind while reading(and doing a little bit of editing) the Streetlight Manifesto article, but is important to discuss for many band articles. If you'll look under the "Musical influences and style" section, one quote reads "In fact Streetlight have performed the two songs merged together live, with "Keasbey Nights" in the middle." Now, this is obviously true to me, as I've heard it and it's posted all over the internet. Many such notes from live shows appear in other music-related articles. See Rules of the Game for another example.

Now, in general it is illegal to record an artist's concert from what I understand. Some artists sell or upload recordings of their concerts but those are hard to access. This information is important to have in articles but it violates the unverified claim or no original research policies. Is there some way to resolve this with Wikipedia policies? KevinPuj 02:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Are there any reviews or news article which discuss it? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
What, exactly is your question? Are you wondering whether not-widely-available sources are still viable sources? On that last point, yes they are. Especially if they're published by the author/performer. -Freekee 03:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
No, no, no. See WP:RS. Publications by the author/performer are primary sources, and are deprecated. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
You're going to have to be a little more specific than that. First of all, I see nothing on that page saying you can't use an organization's (band's) own website as a source (only that you need to use caution). Are you trying to say that if a musician publishes his set list after a show, we can't report that here, because... wtf? Also, when I said that about sources being published by the author, I was thinking of CDs (though that's irrelevant). -Freekee 01:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a similar argument going on at Monsters of Grace. I attended the Canadian premiere of the show, and it was booed by some audience members, which I noted (and which was also noted in media coverage however none of that media coverage from 1999 appears to have survived on the Internet). Because I cannot provide an online or print source, the claim is being made that it is OR, even though it is relating an event that happened. The article at Goldfrapp cites comments made on stage by the band as the source of a rumor that they were going to be doing the theme for Casino Royale, however in that case there was some Internet-based coverage, so that was easier to identify. 23skidoo 02:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments that aren't reported in a reliable source are not verifiable by other editors. Similarly, I just saw in an article about a radio personality (Mr. KABC) that all of the biographical info is derived from on-air comments. Yet the show isn't archved so other editors have no way of confirming the facts. -Will Beback 03:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

What do I do if people refuse to follow existing naming conventions because they see them as "cumbersome"? --NE2 21:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Have you read Wikipedia:Resolving disputes? -- Rick Block (talk) 01:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that applies; the "Avoidance" section implies that a dispute is taking place in article space. This is a discussion on a WikiProject talk page. --NE2 01:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
This is a highways issue again, isn't it... ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what namespace. Disputes are disputes. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
So what do you suggest I do about Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Virginia Highways? I've tried to discuss, but the others don't seem to understand my arguments. I'm stuck. --NE2 03:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd encourage you to participate in Wikipedia:State route naming conventions poll (I'm curious why you have not already participated) and suggest others from the Virginia project participate as well. It looks to me like there is not yet a project-wide consensus, which suggests you should not change any existing article names to your preferred naming style and, IMO, creating lots of new articles not following the current informal convention for the state borders on WP:POINT. Consensus takes time, and patience, and generally the ability to compromise. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a pretty clear lack of consensus at that poll, which seems overly complex and yet too simple to have any effect. Participation, if you can call it that, simply consists of making a vote; I'm hoping for an informed consensus. I fail to see how WP:POINT would apply; it specifically mentions "either parody or some form of breaching experiment". I have openly discussed why I feel that my names are best at satisfying the naming conventions; there was hardly a response until I suggested changing the existing articles. --NE2 04:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
WP:POINT says State your point; don't prove it experimentally. You disagree with an existing naming practice. You've brought this up in the appropriate forums (stated your point). By creating articles flagrantly violating the existing naming practice you're attempting to force the issue (prove it experimentally). Whether it's "either parody or some form of breaching experiment" doesn't matter. I strongly suggest you drop this issue, pending consensus at Wikipedia:State route naming conventions poll. If you don't want to participate there, that's your choice. Continuing to push your point in other forums (like here) could be interpreted as trolling. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me? I'm helping the encyclopedia by writing articles and naming them by our existing conventions. I have no intention to stop writing articles just because you believe I'm doing it for the purpose of disruption. I came here looking for help, not abuse. --NE2 05:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Americanism / American bias

Hi,

This is a genuine question and not an attempt to flame etc -- is WP primarily American / for the American audience? It seems that for many articles, there's a section relating to how that subject might occur in America -- e.g. "Soup" has an American History of soup. There also appear to be many (seemingly random) roads/places in America listed, and many articles which imply the reader has some cultural background to America. I'm not complaining, just wondering what the consensus was on this?

many thanks

--Kierenj 09:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a systematic bias that is considered in the policy WP:BIAS. For the most part it's an unconscious bias that is shaped by the demographic of the wikipedia editors. There is a concentrated effort to neutralize the bias and any occurrence that you see, feel free to Be Bold tidy it up. Agne 09:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

At the minimum, you could add the template {{globalize}} to articles that you consider excessively parochial. Regarding the roads, there was a debate some time ago on inclusion/deletion of B roads (minor roads) in the UK so yes, these things are debated. As Agne says, be bold. You've got me interested in soup now though - how does the history of soup differ in the USA from anywhere else...? Tonywalton  | Talk 10:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That's crying out to be made into a subsection (History of soup in the USA) with other subsections such as "History of soup in Europe" or whatever. Go for it (but make sure it's as well-researched as the section that's already there). Tonywalton  | Talk 10:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Another area where there is a distinct US bias is in various articles about US States. There are many instances where they are written from a perspective of a US Writer to a US Reader. An example would be in our geography terminology. When we use phrases such as Midwest, a non-native will naturally think of the connotation of "Middle" & "West" as laid out on a geographical map. They won't immediately realize that the phrase Midwest has taken on an archaic sense and has become more "cultural" or "historical" then in actually relating to Geography. As a whole we should be more conscientious about this and in places where a reader would be assuming to read "Geographical location" (like in the intro of a State's article) we should strive to put more geographically accurate descriptors that is understandable to all--not just US reader. Later in article we can include "historical" or "Cultural" terminology Agne 12:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


Em.. no.. as a brit I never realised that about the midwest :) --Charlesknight 12:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
However Agne's use of Midwest above is an almost-perfect example of when things work! The [[Midwest]] link takes you (via a redir) to Midwestern United States, so any reader unsure of the context just needs to follow the link. Of course, if I were a picky Brit, I could advocate using [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]] to avoid the redir and so that "Midwestern United States" appeared on the link's tooltip, avoiding the need to follow a link if only the geographical context was required. Still, it shows that with care it can be done. Tonywalton  | Talk 13:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Again though, in context Midwest is a cultural or historical designation, not a Geographical one. I think more proper form is to have the most geographically accurate term being used first in the introductory page, followed by whatever cultural or historical term that would apply. An example would be the state of Missouri which is described as the more geographically accurate central state. The cultural context of Midwest (and in this case Southern) then follows. In my opinion that is much more Encyclopedic and it takes into consideration readership apart from the US.Agne 19:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
It's both. See Midwestern United States -newkai t-c 19:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
This is a problem on (most likely all) Wikipedias. The only other language I'm fluent in is German, and a vast amount of the articles discuss the subject of the article in Germany to a huge majority. -newkai t-c 19:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree. It's a problem and we all should be more conscientious. I think the hardest part is trying to remove our own systematic bias. Our first instinct is to think of how we always thought of it, instead of how someone who has no history or connection to the subject would view it. In regards to Geographical Location, the one common denominator that everyone, of all backgrounds, has is the ability to look at a map---especially since we provide one on most articles. :) Hence, the first description should relate to that map in the most accurate way. Then follow it with the cultural or historical reference. It's poor form to assume that a reader would have a common denominator of our history and culture.Agne 20:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Western bias. in addition to "Midwest" example, when brits and americans say "Far East, where is that? is that in the east. When you are supposed to be eastern can we say that we are also in the far east when we are already here?pmc 09:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I, for one, had no idea "Midwest" meant anything other than "middle west". I don't know very much about the United States, but I like to think I have at least a basic understanding. JIP | Talk 11:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


BPOV, proposed new policy

I'd like to propose a new standard called Balanced Point of View (BPOV) which remain a separate and editable article for practical, reference, and historic reasons.

The full text of the article at the time of writing:

Balanced Point of View (BPOV) is a suggested alternative to the neutral point of view (NPOV) principle in order to correct some of the mistakes in the NPOV principle.

The goal of BPOV is to make Wikipedia a more informed, self-conscious, and intelligent area. The members of Wikipedia's production of knowledge are all members of specific cultures, geographic locations, historical times, genders, class, and race. All these, and more, affect the knowledge being produced in Wikipedia.

Thus, a BPOV is needed to ensure that;

  • Facts should be represented as neutral as the source they came from. It is pointless to cite a source like the CNN or the KCNA and then to present it in any neutral way.
  • Opposing views should be represented fairly so that each opposing view is represented.
  • Facts about facts should be neutral and unbiased, because only facts about facts are unbound by views. For example, undisputed dates, the fact that something is disputed, the geographical coordinates of a specific area, the boiling point of water, etc.
  • Certain facts and issues need direct reference to individual context and meaning. The slave trade during the 18th century is something that needs not a Neutral Point of View, but each relevant point of view at the time.

First and foremost, we should let BPOV become the new guideline because;

  • The word "Neutral" in NPOV suggest "no meaning" and since every individual is even so inavoidedly bound by culture, tradition, individual quirks, social control, norms handed down by society, economic bias, and so on, employing a "neutral" approach to writing an article is perhaps a bad word. NPOV combined with "consensus" creates an unimaginative athmosphere of collective passivism, where the "norm du jour" slips into a teethless, cowardly conformist view, and every edit designed to preserve the dinosaur NPOV becomes a reactionary move to perpetuate it instead of broadening and expanding an article with more poignant views.
  • The word "Balanced" in BPOV suggest each writer to take more responsibility into his own editing, and providing a balance between all elements of "do"'s and "dont"'s in wikipedia becomes more apparent by using this word. It encourages a more careful and calculated, even responsible edit, where balance exists not only between issues right or wrong, but right or left, even north and south, even the inclution of references never before thought of (because of the restriction to imagination imposed by NPOV) but most importantly it allows for each factoid to stand on its own and clearly state its intention as well as its source.
  • For every source, you have an agenda. While NPOV encourage listing as many sourced factoids, disguising them as NPOV, the people behind the sources are never NPOV. Instead, BPOV more honestly state the intention of each source, by adding the sourced fact in clear language. Most importantly, by doing so, it becomes less neccessary to repeat the same agenda several times with many different sources, and it becomes more evident when an article is over-represented in one agenda where it should be represented by other relevant ones.
  • BPOV is more honest and intelligent towards the reader.

--Bjornar 18:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Go on, remind me... What's the wiki that has Balanced POV as it's core principal and it sources articles initially from en.wikipedia? Hate it when i know it's out there but can't remember! :) Thanks/wangi 18:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me, I was thinking of Wikinfo's sympathetic point of view. Ta/wangi 19:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
From WP:NPOV:

Neutral Point of View (NPOV) is a fundamental Wikipedia principle which states that all articles must be written from a neutral point of view, that is, they must represent views fairly and without bias. This includes maps, reader-facing templates, categories and portals. According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable."

Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is one of Wikipedia's three content policies. The other two are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should therefore try to familiarize themselves with all three. These three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.

Unless you plan on starting a completely new Wikipedia or deposing Jimbo Wales, it's pointless to debate the merits of your proposed policy, because it's a complete non-starter here. Kickaha Ota 19:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll bring the pitchforks, you bring the burning effigies! Down with the God-King! Er... sorry, Jimbo is okay. :-) Deco 21:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
This sounds too much like Fox's "Fair and Balanced". What really makes Wikipedia go is verifiabilty. --John Nagle 22:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
"What really makes Wikipedia go is verifiabilty." Source? ;-) JChap2007 00:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Balanced point of view connotes that it's okay to give a biased account, as long as it is countered (balanced) by an opposing viewpoint. If that's what you intend, it sounds like a really bad idea (for one thing, it seems to allow for the introduction of opinion. For another, it seems to require that any negative views *should* be balanced by positive), If that's not what you intend by the policy, I think too many people would think that's what it meant. -Freekee 18:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
bjornar has a crucial point that cuts to the heart and soul of wiki-nation point of existance - what is knowledge and how is it to be produced and assessed? each and every article works within a set of assumptions, but very few authors critically assess these assumptions. that usualy makes for "bad knowledge" by almost everyone's criteria. and whether or not the wiki-gods wish it or not, these sorts of discussions on npov are going to happen and are essential. indeed, to deny such discussions or to silence them seems to directly contradict the entire point of wikipedia - generate knowledge.
the real questions here are how to assess and judge our standards. while maybe not the most excitingt of dialogues for many authors, it is essential in any community. with questioning and challenging and discussing the basic rules of knowing, any society simply degenerates into producing schlock and does not even realize it.
bjornar suggests bpov, which is an excellent start. i have posted quite a bit about the inherent and fatal problems of npov on my page, and i have links to what many university professors are saying about the type of knowledge that is produced by a community made up overwhelmingly by western, white, males between the ages of 18 and 35. when you have so many authors of similar culture, society, and epoch, it produces a definate POV, whether they wish to admit it or not. please visit and read some more about this when you need something for those sleepless nights. :) Hongkyongnae 02:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Selection bias is indeed a recognized problem with Wikipedia, and many of the WikiProjects are designed to bring in material that falls outside the normal range of "things interesting to Internet-oriented people". I would certainly encourage you to help out there. But the NPOV policy isn't where you should focus your efforts, because it's one of the extraordinarily rare areas of Wikipedia that have been clearly staked out as absolute and non-negotiable. Unless you fork Wikipedia and start over (as the Wikinfo folks did), you simply cannot do it, and you are likely to wind up angry and frustrated by the attempt. Kickaha Ota 02:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Angry or not is beside the point. It seems that arguments are being weighted solely by how far and hard the NPOV policy is enforced. This is like saying that Wikipedia cannot improve, because the NPOV policy and whatever way you interpret it is written in stone and cannot be touched. How can anyone be inspired to expand articles if what the Wikipedia project is really about is to simply aggregate information, without an intelligent process behind it, to assess not only if something can be sourced or not, but indeed the composition of human knowledge itself? How can one pretend to be able to educate others unless one has a clear picture t what knowledge is and how it can easily be distorted, either by social-demographics or by archaic guidelines? OK, so maybe NPOV is the Holy Grail of Wikipedia policy so holy it cannot be touched. Does that mean my argument is "simply wrong"? Why can anyone not understand that BPOV is not only a practical idea, it is neccessary to avoid stagnation ing the development of correctly balanced perspectives, especially in areas of history, culture, politics and controversial topics. So maybe BPOV as a replacement for NPOV is a dead-end because of stubbornness, however, I move to say that further debate about this issue is clearly needed, and that any fruitful results of such a debate should be merged into the current NPOV policy guideline in such a way that it does not contradict it, but complement and correct the inherent flaws that exist today. Failiure to recognize the current flaws is neglect of the whole Wikipedia projects future and credibility. --Bjornar 14:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
this is a very good discussion, thanks for starting it bjornar. now to bjornar's and kickahaOta's fine points. dont "worry" that i will become overly frustrated by the wiki-gods and their decisions on NPOV. i am fortunate to have other joys in my life besides wiki-land. next, your point that the wiki-gods are unable/unwilling to budge on NPOV. that may be, but as we both can see, it does not make them "correct" or their arguments valid. it only displays the limits of their arguments since they must resort to wiki-power to enforce their views upon others and discipline the forms of knowledge here. all that is obvious. but i would like to add one more point. i agree that the wiki-gods do not seem overly willing to erode their pre-existing and non-NPOV arguments over NPOV. (by selectively barring arguments such as ours, they are of course in violation of their own NPOV policy, but they cant see it. how ironic.) but to me, THAT is exactly why debates such as ours MUST and will surface. given their internal logic and the structure of wiki, they can not prevent such arguments from coming out and being read by folks. and, as my friend's mother once told her, "once you open your eyes, you cant shut them again." paradoxically, the wiki-gods may have given birth to little wiki-guerrillas. hee, hee. Hongkyongnae 15:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
We do have dumps of our data available -- if you disagree with the rules, we want it to be easy for you to go start an alternative community. Bring our data with you, and edit it however you like on your server. Start your own community, and do cool things. That'd be great! Every site has to have rules, and NPOV is a pillar of our community and non-negotiable, but there's no reason you can't try another way of doing things somewhere else, and very few sites offer their data for that purpose. --Improv 19:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

A question, if I may: what failing, exactly, in the current policy does this address? The only significant variances from the NPOV policy that I see are that it is more ambiguous and has worse grammar. Is it intended to be aimed at identifying, rather than eliminating, bias? --tjstrf 20:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Unfortunately, we can all talk here until we turn blue. The fact is the NPOV policy is not open to be changed here. It is a mandate of the Wikimedia Foundation; not merely a Wikipedia policy (like the writing style guide). It is one of the few policies we can freely debate but never change from within this project. Changes to core Wikimedia policies such as this must come directly from the Foundation. Perhaps the best way to do this aside from becoming a director or lobbying a director for change is via the Meta-Wiki version of this page: m:Meta:Babel. Davodd 22:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


Sockpuppet tagging policy

If a person register a sockpuppet account for the purpose of remaining anonymous and not associated with the main account, and do not break rules, including any restrictions on sockpuppets (such as rigging votes or supporting other account in discussions)... In other words, if both sockpuppers behave perfectly legally and independent of one another...

Are administrators allowed to tag the sockpuppet account as such, or put references to the sockpuppet account on my main account (or in any other way link those accounts)?

WP:SOCK details what sockpuppets may and may not do, but it doesn't say under which circumstances admins or other users may reveal or accuse of sockpuppetry.

Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets allows users to post suspicions, but also provides no rules regarding whether any policy violation is required for an accusation to take place.

Is it logical and fair to accuse someone of sockpuppetry if they did not break any rules? After all, sockpuppet accounts are registered with the very purpose of not being associated with main account (unless it's a case of admin/regular/bot separation of accounts).

In either case, if there is a clear-cut policy on this question, I'd like to know it, and if there isn't, I'd like to ask one to be established. -Wane 06:31, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

  • If a user does not use said account in any manner related to their use of their main account, or if the user does not use said account to break the rules, they will usually not be accused of sock puppetry. It is, however, sill frowned upon to make an anonymous secondary account, because that's not a very good reason to have one. The page does, however, note in several cases that policy violations are a prerequisite for sock puppet tagging, particularly near the given templates. 06:48, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Some users are known to use a "primary account" for matters of policy and perhaps editing in a single area, while using a secondary account to edit in another unrelated area. They may be marked as a suspected sock puppet, and viewed with suspicion, but as long as they do not violate use they will probably not be blocked except by an overzealous admin action that would be easily overturned. Deco 08:21, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
    • New users who are unusually familiar with editing and policy are viewed with a little suspicion even by the most good-faith-assuming editors here. On the other hand, I would like to think that Jimbo could edit under a different username sometimes, just so he doesn't get constantly harangued, and so that people don't accord undue weight to his edits. Similarly, I think that if any other well-known editor wants to occasionally get away from politics so they can focus on the *gasp* encyclopedia part of Wikipedia, then I think that's an obviously good thing too. (as long as, per above, they aren't using the sock to escape problem edits, only to continue disrupting wikipedia as a supposedly fresh face) --Interiot 12:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
    • "They may be marked as a suspected sock puppet, and viewed with suspicion, but as long as they do not violate use they will probably not be blocked except by an overzealous admin action that would be easily overturned." That's precisely what I'm asking about. If I create an anonymous sockpuppet and don't break rules, I don't just want not be blocked, I also want not to be revealed. I'm asking why should someone even mark the account as an SP, if there is no rule breaking, and if it is indeed allowed, perhaps the policy should be no marking unless rulebreaking occurs. Admins have unique powers to identify sockpuppets, but should they be allowed to use it without reason? If an admin thinks there is a potential rulebreak but don't have any proof should they discuss this on their internal boards rather than use their admin powers to mark the SP and expose it to the community, and only later hope a rulebreak justifying this is found? This is like first putting someone in jail and later hoping evidence to keep them there will be found. - Wane 17:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
It's nothing like putting you in jail at all. The equivalent of jail on Wikipedia is temporary blocks, indef blocks being a rescindable death penalty or life in prison.
Regardless, why would it be illegal on wikipedia to point out User A being the same as User B? If you aren't breaking any rules, then this disclosure --especially if you make it yourself-- will actually help alleviate suspicion by the people who figure it out on their own. If you're trying to make a fresh start after problematic edits, then the proper course of action would be to admit this, and go on with your normal law-abiding activity using your new account. If you are trying to evade a wikistalker or something similar, then shouldn't you be addressing the problem directly rather than creating multiple accounts? --tjstrf 23:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


User page limits?

I tagged an autobiographical article for db-bio, and it got userfied. I left the user a note saying his user page was his to do with as he wants, and he apparently he took it to heart. Looks like he's looking for a job, and is using us as a webhost for his résumé, which is more detailed and extensive than anything I've ever seen. Is there a policy somewhere to set limits on this? (He's also created an article under his full name, with a redirect to the user page, but I've tagged that for speedy as a CSD R2.) -- Fan-1967 18:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Since you guys are talking about it, I also came across a user page that may be questionable. It's for Fir0002. Just seems a little extreme to me and definitely shaping up to be a "personal web page" which guidelines specifically state are not allowed. Thoughts? Roguegeek 22:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Thoughts? It's a myspace page, which is better than a résumé, but not much. Fan-1967 22:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh, Fir0002's page isn't so bad-- almost all of it is actually relevant to his Wikipedia activities, and its wiki nature is attested by the other users who have edited it to add barnstars. So what if he spent some energy making it look good, and it contains a few details that you didn't absolutely need to know? Melchoir 02:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
      • I have to second that. It's a bad example to support this point, as there's nothing out of line about this particular page. Most of it has to do with this user's Wikipedia awards and activities. Nothing wrong with that (and I hope he isn't put off by his page being discussed here.) 23skidoo 02:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
        • My reaction to Fir's page is, "it is creative". For low bandwidth application it might be a bit much. 95 percent of it has to do with his talent as he applies it to Wikipedia. The other 5 % might be argueable either way. His discussion page shows he is interested in Wikipedia working. Terryeo 15:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
The only problem I have is with: Image:Fir0002 about.jpg, which is a waster of bandwidth, and could be better done with text. Davodd 01:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


Scottish monarchs naming policy

There's a debate going on as to whether the early Scottish kings should be named according to their English or Gaelic names. I support using the English names, as do a few other people, whilst the principle contributors to the article want Gaelic names used. Any comment would be appreciated: Talk:Cináed I of Scotland --Nydas 06:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Try both? I suppose it's up to the community to decide as to the article's title, but as long as both English and Gaelic names are stated clearly upon commencement of the article, I don't see why having a certain one be prevalent amongst names is problematic. Personally I would suggest English in the English version of WP, but this is with no understanding of the topics in question. Mouse Nightshirt 01:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


Proposal of Creators rights policy

I've been thinking recently that creators of articles arnt really given alot of chance to argue against deletion, or speedy deletion and i think that maybe a policy could be adopted to rectify this problem, i am proposing the following.

  • After and an article is determined to have met the criteria for deletion and the marker is placed on the page a message should be place on the creators talk page which signals to them that their article is a candidate for deletion.
  • there should then be a period of X amount of hours in which the creator is allowed to post a statement on a certain page, the purpose of the statement being that the creator is able to say what the merit of the page is and why it should be spared from deletion.
  • Discussion is encouraged after the statement is issued and once a consenus is reached appropriate action to either delete or keep the article will be taken.
  • If the time limit after the talk page message has elapsed the deletion of the article would commence
  • It would be most effective if the standard deletion appeal process is kept after the possible enactment of this policy goes ahead.Zepher25 11:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
All this already applies. If someone has an article they "created" (I take it you mean "originated") on their watch list, they'll see if it's tagged for deletion. There are processes to object to speedy or ordinary deletions, there is ample opportunity for discussion. What do you think the problem is with the current system? WP:OWN applies, as ever - originators of articles have no special rights. --ajn (talk) 11:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

thats my point, i think creators should have the special right to defend the legitamacy of their article, i have fallen victim to this system of supposed fairness, being a non american the article was deleted during my sleep hours, which makes it completely unfair for a large amount of users who do not have the chance to defend their articles and wake to find it deleted.Zepher25 12:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Then you take it to deletion review. --ajn (talk) 12:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I think if you spend some time on RCP you might get a better idea of why this proposal is totally unworkable. In a typical hour, there are dozens of absolute garbage articles: pranks, attack pages, autobiographies by teenagers, nonsense vandalism, etc. Look at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion at any given time. If you let this stuff hang around for 24 hours, the backlog would become totally unmanageable. If a legitimate article gets speedied, then as ajn says, take it to Deletion Review, or recreate it with a note on the talk page to defend it. Speedy deletion as it stands is absolutely necessary. Fan-1967 13:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

well it appears i am defeated, but this is my opinion and i will not diverge from it.Zepher25 14:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

That's perfectly okay; no one is trying to say that you are wrong for having your opinion, just that it doesn't mesh well with the overall culture. There is a problem, in my view, with workable article stubs & substubs being nominated for deletion within their first 2-3 minutes of existence (New Pages Patrol is not Whack-a-mole). If it has any plausible existence as an encyclopedic article, it should be prodded, watchlisted, or sent to Articles for deletion. We bite way too many newbies by trying to keep our scores as low as possible. -- nae'blis 03:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


Question about linking in tables

Can anyone please point me to section of the policy where it states that you may not link to a page multiple times in the same table?

E.g.

Overview
Artist Song Album
A X D
A Y D
A Z D

Only the first line referenced to album D I added also links to album D on the next line(s).

But my changes were changes were reverted?

What is the proper policy? Thank you

--CedricVonck 14:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I am believing this: If you must "search" for a link, it makes sense to include some reundancy, have in mind (or argue) not everyone reads the complete article. Editor and reader see an article completely different. If it becomes more readable, this means to improve an article! Policies are a framework... User:Yy-bo 14:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
There's no rule/guideline/policy that breaks it down as far as "how many times can a link show up in a table?". But the general guidelines that cover linking are in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links). The "Overlinking" section is the key one here. It says, among other things, that an article (or table) is overlinked if: "a link is excessively repeated in the same article; however, duplicating an important link distant from a previous occurrence is appropriate". Whoever reverted your edits presumably decided that if "duplicating an important link distant from a previous occurrence is appropriate", then duplicating a link that's very close to its previous occurrence -- in this case, in adjacent rows of the table -- must not be appropriate. Kickaha Ota 15:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


NDA information (non-disclosure agreement)

This particiualary affects technical information, for instance excerpts from manufacturer manuals which are stamped "confidential".

My questions:

  • are wikipedia articles allowed to link to sites, which obviously break an NDA?
  • must these links be removed immediately, or just let them be?
  • how about unlicensed information into articles? Basically this means, "NDA" is some sort of license, and cannot be replaced by GDFL. If I take information out of a documentation, which is stamped confidential, i believe this is a breach of applyable law.
    • otherwise, GDFL grants me to use that information!
  • most likely this affects privileged technical information: computer technology, research, etc.

The reason why i write it: today i found a sufficient formulation: "Confidentiality: These forums are not confidential. Please do not discuss matters covered under an non-disclosure agreement (NDA)." (freescale semiconductor)

The background: SEGA programming references. There are bits and pieces on the net, i even had them on my computer. But they are clearly stamped confidential. It is not verifyable how they made their way on the net. For superstition reason, i can not use any of this information.

It is affecting probably .1 percent of wikipedia articles. Hence it is only affecting a minority of users. User:Yy-bo 14:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't link to materials that obviously violate an NDA. My concern wouldn't be legal reasons; in general, there's no legal penalty for the person who receives information in violation of an NDA -- just for the person who gives it. But the fundamental problem with such links is that they would almost always be very fragile. The owner of the information is likely to try very hard to get it off the net (especially once it's linked from a Wikipedia article). And if and when the information is removed, then the article suddenly loses its source. Kickaha Ota 15:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Legal questions step aside - one gets a hacker smell attached, if deriving projects from hacker knowledge, or information containinig vulgar comments, presented in broken environments, and in addition not respecting/bypassing security mechanism. My question was if GDFL can whitewash such knowledge - and my own answer to it is NO. I wish it being useable - but there was strong feeling not to do it. User:Yy-bo 16:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Non_Disclosure User:Yy-bo 17:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


NPOV does not overide V or NOR! (Or does it?)

There's an ongoing discussion on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view over how the NPOV, V and NOR policies relate to each other. There seem to be two camps, one proposing that NPOV is the primary policy, and the other that they must all be satisfied. --Barberio 17:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Stating that NPOV is the primary policy in no way indicates that all three need not be met. I believe that by properly satisfying NPOV, we will satisfy V and NOR inherently, but that this does not apply in the inverse. (Meaning satisfying V and NOR will not automatically satisfy NPOV.) This would indicate that Verifiability and No Original Research are sub-policies of NPOV. --tjstrf 17:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


Shortcuts to special pages

I beg pardon if these already exist; using Special:Whatlinkshere has suggested to me that they do not. Just as we have the WP: quasi-namespace for shortcuts to pages in the Wikipedia: namespace, why not add a few shortcuts for special pages? S: happens to be taken by Wikisource, so I figure SP: or SPEC: would be the next choices. As one example, SPEC:RC could link to Special:Recentchanges. If nothing else, it would make my job at the help desk just a smidge easier, from time to time. Thoughts? If this is a good idea, do we prefer SP: or SPEC:? Luna Santin 19:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Would it be possible to go WP:SPRC? Just to keep it all in the WP quasi namespace? I think we have some WP redirects that go to help pages rather than wikipedia namespace pages, so it's got potential. Steve block Talk 19:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It would appear redirects to special pages don't work, see SP:NP (and the other ones at Special:Prefixindex/SP:). -- Rick Block (talk) 00:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


New Policy Proposals:

I have made a few suggested wikipedia policy changes and have posted them at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard.Courtney Akins 01:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

How to describe this, other than horrid? The first of your policies would essentially forbid the usage of the article talk pages, even to discuss improving the articles. Those of us who look for and stop vandalism, search out and attempt to resolve content disputes, a lot of administrators, and people who prefer to hammer out new sections on the talk page first, would all be BANNED. The second of your proposals is just semantic. The third proposal would be a good idea, but goes against the Wikipedia motto, and would be unenforceable. This will probably be the fastest shooting down of a policy proposal ever. --tjstrf 03:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


AFD woes

Hey I currently have an article in an AFD and the more I look at it, the more I realize it might have a place in Wikibooks or StrategyWiki (take a look at the article). Although I'd like it to stay as it is, I just have a quick question about alternate solutions. Can I nominate or move the article for either of the earlier two ideas while it's in an AFD? or is it too late? --Clyde Miller 03:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

From what I understand, Wikibooks is not the place for game guides any longer. However since StrategyWiki is GFDL, you should be able to copy the final content (transwiki) it over there, but include the attributions from the page's history on the talk page/a subpage of the article there, to keep the record straight. -- nae'blis 03:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Transwiki it to Wikibooks. Davodd 09:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
So does the article have to be voted to be transwikied or can I just do it? Also, I am a little unclear on what nae'blis said. Are you saying I should take the transwikied information and put it on a subpage or should I just tell them that I moved it? Finally, nae'blis you are saying I can't transfer the article to wikibooks but Davodd, you say I can. Now I'm really confused. --Clyde Miller 14:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


Protecting children's privacy

Recently there have been a number of cases posted to the administrators' noticeboard about editors who self-identify as children posting personal information, such as their addresses, to their user pages. This presents a possible violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and is at the very least unwise as it could invite unwanted attention. I have created a draft policy (WP:COPPA) for discussion. It is early and rough; please whack away at it as needed. I think most of the rationale is there. Thatcher131 (talk) 16:25, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:COLBERT

(also listed at WP:RFC/POLICIES) Wikipedia:Stephen Colbert's Neologisms Lack Truthiness -- In light of many articles and vandalisms regarding Stephen Colbert's neologisms, I proposed this guideline, suggested by User:VoiceOfReason, which suggests that the user go to List of neologisms on The Colbert Report and list the item there. Might help with dealing with things like "Wikiality" and "Unicorn husbandry". Any thoughts? ~ Porphyric Hemophiliac § 00:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


Wikimedia vs Wikipedia

I asked a question on Jimbo's talk page but it seems difficult to get feedback from him (what I can understand).

Anyway, here it is, hoping that somebody will be able to bring clarity. And my apologies if the question was already raised and solved.

Here are the facts that puzzle me:

  • Jimbo's presentation says that he is "the founder and the chairman of the Wikimedia Foudation, the groups that governs Wikipedia";

Is Wikipedia governed and managed by Wikimedia?

The way I understand the situation is that the foundation owns the name "Wikipedia", the domain names and the servers that Wikipedia is using, but that it does not "govern" or "manage" Wikipedia as it is neither the owner nor the editor of the content of Wikipedia. If "govern" and "manage" mean "organises, determines the content" and if Wikipedia means the encyclopedia, I certainly do not agree with that concept.

Some clarity is thus desired. To use the words of somebody who asked the same question on Jimbo's talk page, "I don't consider I work for anybody in particular but for a project and I consider this project owes nobody but everybody. Am I wrong ?"

I could find no real help in the Foundation's By-laws that are repeated in this page:

"The goal of the Wikimedia foundation is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge."

Cool! "develop", "maintain", "provide",...it does connect nicely with the view that the Foundation "supports" the encyclopedia.

But if we read a little further:

"In addition to the multilingual general encyclopedia Wikipedia, the Foundation manages a multi-language dictionary and thesaurus (...)"

And here comes "manages" again.

Thinking about it, I was wondering to what extent the issue might originate in a confusion between:

  • Wikipedia, the name;
  • Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that is currently using that name.

Does this section of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines contain a hint, when it says that "Jimmy Wales (and) the Board (may create a policy) for copyright (or) legal issues"?

Considering what the Foundation owns and controls, I understand it does have a certain amount of control related to two orders of issue:

  • legal issues that are of direct interest to the foundation (possible threats towards the Foundation that need to be adressed),
  • the pillars of the encyclopedia are not respected (if, for instance, a majority of wikipedians would vote for a policy that is a negation of NPOV),

but I have difficulty in accepting a general statement that the Foundation governs or manages Wikipedia. Bradipus 15:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not associated in any way with the Foundation, however my understanding is the Foundation owns the domain name and funds the servers, and thus "owns" the website, its copyright terms, and all rules and policies that are in force. The Foundation chooses to allow anyone to contribute to the content and, although each contributor owns their own text (in an authorship sense), by clicking "submit" each contributor agrees to the licensing terms established by the foundation. The Foundation chooses to license the content under the GFDL which ensures the content can be freely forked and mirrored. The Foundation similarly chooses to manage this website by letting it run nearly autonomously, through its own consensus-driven rules and policies. The Foundation has made it fairly clear they expect to continue operation of this site in essentially its current form essentially permanently, but it could (extremely hypothetically) choose to "close the doors" tomorrow and not let anyone edit or view the content ever again. Note that doing this would not affect any existing forks or mirrors, and cannot affect the license of current content. So, yes, in an absolute sense the Foundation governs and manages Wikipedia. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
It's their servers, their name, and they're in charge, at least on paper. Of course, most of the smaller, day-to-day decisions are made by contributors. If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to start your own wiki encyclopedia, and Wikimedia even provides a complete database dump free of charge. Fagstein 18:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The people at the Wikimedia Foundation are in general lead or former contributors and administrators; it does not consist of external shareholders or something. Their goals are aligned with the purpose of a free encyclopedia. If this were ever to change or there were some other failure of the Wikimedia Foundation, the license of Wikipedia content is such that anyone can start up another such project with a duplicate. Policies are generated and revised every day by regular contributors, you can see this on their discussion pages, while there is in some areas a level of a rather passive benevolent dictatorship. It would be better to be more specific if you have further questions. —Centrx→talk • 18:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Let me clarify something: I do not question anything specific that the Foundation would have done or the goals of the board members.
In any case, the by-laws of the foundation state that its goal is "to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge.", so at the end of the day, the foundation does share that with most wikipedians.
But it is not because I share this with most wikipedians that I would automatically give a small group of wikipedians power to govern the encyclopedia.
So it is really the "govern" and "manage" stuff that annoys me.
Again, as I said, I also understand that the foundation can be there as some kind of watchdog chacking that WP:IAR does not go as far as ignoring the pillars of WP.
But is that the limit of Wikimedia' governance?
I mean, between "the Wikimedia Foudation governs Wikipedia" and WP:IAR, where the heck are we exactly? Bradipus 20:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Where we are is doing what is necessary to create an encyclopedia. The Wikimedia Foundation does not govern Wikipedia in the way you may be thinking, but it wouldn't make sense to think of it that way anyway, it is all individuals in the end. The persons involved with Wikimedia and Meta are, in general, highly respected people, long-time contributors, who are also part of the Wikipedia community. Their ideas command respect because of this, but they are not demanding things, people agree with them. Some things that someone might point to that are influenced by "Wikimedia" are the tightening of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons after the Siegenthaler controversy or the central position of NPOV, and there are discussions about it on the mailing lists too in addition the Wikipedia talk pages, but the fact remains that they are good ideas, people agree with it, and everyone who wants to be is involved with making the policy. —Centrx→talk • 20:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Another example could be from Jimbo's recent speech at Wikimania, saying that the English Wikipedia should focus more on quality rather than quantity, as we already have so many pages, but many are mediocre. A lot of people agree with that because it is a reasonable idea, they think Jimbo is an intelligent person, and if there is a leader of Wikipedia, he would be it. So, some people will focus more on quality than quantity, but of course anyone can still do what they want. —Centrx→talk • 20:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd put it slightly differently. The Foundation owns, runs, governs, manages, <whatever words you want> Wikipedia. They set it up with the "foundational" rules of WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR and are currently choosing (and show no indication of ever doing otherwise) to let it basically run itself by whatever other rules the users decide upon. If the users decide something stupid (like, say, to allow copyrighted images to be included), the Foundation will pretty clearly intervene. We (the users) are guests in their house, but it is ultimately their house. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the fact remains that they can legally do whatever they want, but currently they haven't done anything that is against the spirit of Wikipedia, and a significant portion of major contributors support the actions they have made. If they were to take any seriously bad action, they would find that "Wikipedia" is nothing but its content and contributors. That content, which is free, can and would be hosted elsewhere and encyclopedia contributors can and would migrate to a new host. Welcome to the future; this is what technology enables. —Centrx→talk • 23:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, Rick Block, this is exactly what I meant when I said that I would understand the foundation would intervene if the pillars of the encyclopedia are not respected, and I gave the example of wikipedians voting for a policy that is a negation of NPOV.
What I understand from your answers is that the foundation has the legal capacity to govern and manage Wikipedia, but that as long as the self-management or mild anarchy inside the project goes in the general direction that is given by the pillars, the foundation will just do nothing with that legal capacity.
That I can understand, and as Centrx noted, the limit to that power is the fact that wikipedians also have the legal capacity to decide to work for another project starting with a dump of Wikipedia, but as long as they are satisfied with the way the foundation exercises its powers, they will stay within the project.
There is by the way a limit to the powers of the foundation, which is its by-laws. It can't do anything that is contrary to its by-laws. What kind of limit this means practically, I do not know, but lots of people gave money to the foundation, and when they did so, they were supporting certain concepts. Should these concepts be "betrayed", I guess even some kind of legal action woud be possible (don't ask me what exactly, I got my law degree 20 years ago, and I am not used to the concept of foundation that is of very little use in European financial law).
Anyway, to get back to the initial question, the answer, is, as I understand it, that the foundation, as owner of the domain names, the name of Wikipedia and the servers that Wikipedia is using, is technically the current "owner" of the general framework (website) that is currently representing Wikipedia, and that although the content of Wikipedia is free, the foundation is the only person that has the legal capacity to organise and govern the current Wikipedia project (within the boundaries of its by-laws) but that the foundation has decided to let the users run the project as long as they remain within the boundaries of the pillars and do not cause any legal threat for the foundation.
In other words, if you take the usual meaning of "govern and manage", which is organising and taking decisions on a day-to-day basis, the foundation is not governing or managing Wikipedia because the foundation decided so (I do not consider as "management" the fact that a lot of people work on ensuring the material support necessary to Wikipedia and eventually take decisions to ensure that).
Do you agree with this view?
To take a step further, I think the best way to describe the foundation may be the following: the Foundation is at the same time the Constitutional Convention of the projects it supports, and the Constitutional court of the projects, but it lets the general legislative and executive powers to the electronic citizens of the projects, knowing that the other side of this mild anarchy is that the foundation can at any time intervene as constituant power or as constitutional court to put the project back on tracks.
What do you think of this conclusion? And while I am typing this, wouldn't it be a good idea to materialise this parallel with politics and write a constitution for the projects?
Thank you for the people who took the time to read me and gave me interesting information that helped me, I hope, to form a clearer view. Bradipus 11:49, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I mostly agree, although I believe members of the board are a little more in touch with the running of at least en.wikipedia (I can't speak at all for the others) than your "constitutional court" analogy would imply. In particular, Jimbo occasionally makes binding proclamations (anonymous users not being allowed to create articles, WP:CSD#I4, and category:living people are some fairly recent ones) which I think suggests his role includes (and he occasionally exercises) executive privilege. And, as Centrx points out, the philosophical goals of the Foundation are understood and shared by at least most of the "major contributors". Nearly all of this is already described at Wikipedia:Who writes Wikipedia. Is there something missing that a constitution would cover? -- Rick Block (talk) 15:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I think these two examples are well within the boundaries of the cases where I did envisage a direct action of the foundation without going through the whole normal process: when dealing with legal issues that are of direct interest to the foundation (possible threats towards the Foundation that need to be adressed), and when the pillars of the encyclopedia are not respected. In the examples you give, it all goes around stressing the importance of respecting the pillars when the foundation is at risk :who knows what would happened if somebody would sue the foundation for something defamatory in a biography? And who wants to court-test the concept that only the author is accountable for what is on an article? Noone I think.
Advantage of a constitution? Maybe a bit more clarity. If I asked the question, it is because there is a certain lack of clarity, hu? ;-) Bradipus 16:31, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
<quibble> Quoting from somewhere above: "The Foundation has made it fairly clear they expect to continue operation of this site in essentially its current form essentially permanently" - well, actually, if I could speak for the Foundation, I'd put that as the Foundation expect to continue to operate the site for as long as the Foundation exists and can do so.</quibble> All things end eventually, even Wikipedia. The information and organisational hallmarks may continue to echo down the corridors of eternity for a while, but thinking of possible "end-game scenarios" for Wikipedia is a fascinating exercise. I think there was a page abot it somewhere, but I lost it. I like the "Foundation clamps down, users migrate to a fork" one! :-) Carcharoth 23:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


Proposed style guide on ALL CAPS

A style guide called Wikipedia:Manual of Style (ALL CAPS) is proposed. Please tell us if you like the guide, what is missing, what should be changed or amended, etc.

The purpose of the style guide is to curb the use of all caps. I consider this guide to be natural, but still necessary. If anyone wants to ask any questions on the talk page, we'll gladly answer them. Shinobu 18:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Why not just incorporate anything new into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters), which appears to cover this already? Fagstein 21:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The capital letters MoS only says "Initial capitals and all capitals should not be used for emphasis", but the MoS(AC) is much broader. Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (emphasis) for the rationale(s) of having this style guide on a separate page. Of course, having MoS(AC) as a section of MoS(CL) would be possible too, but a separate MoS-page is a bit easier to find. Shinobu 23:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


Use of COLLADA format to enable 3D models for exemplification, explanation, and illustration

The .dae extension is for the COLLADA format (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COLLADA ). I would like to contribute some 3D models that I have authored using PD, CC:AT, and/or CC:SA:AT licenses. The first 3D model I'd like to submit is publicly available at http://people.redhat.com/tiemann/unitcube.dae and is licensed "Public Domain" by me. It is the unit cube. I hope this will open the floodgates for other modelers to begin adding their own creative 3D works with appropriate Wikipedia licensing.

--Michael Tiemann 14:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


Wikipedia:Civility

A discussion is being held on Wikipedia talk:Civility regarding the status of WP:CIVIL as an official policy and whether it should be merged with Wikipedia: Etiquette. — GT 21:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

More opinions are requested. HighInBC 23:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


Consistency proposals

How likely is it that a proposal for article consistency (e.g. "Every biographical article should have an infobox based on that person's occupation/belief") is established? I have this horrible feeling that despite the fact that Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, it will continue to grow away from the consistent (and thereby professional) look it should have. Arguments against the idea that consistency implies professionalism are welcome. 24.126.199.129 06:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Similar Usernames

Is a violation of Wikipedia policy for two different users to have similar usernames? I have recently noticed that a new user is editing under the username User:Tommyboy25. --TommyBoy 06:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the correct forum for such a question, as this page is for discussing the policies themselves, not possible violations of them. Nevertheless I will answer your question. "TommyBoy" and "Tommyboy25" are sufficiently different that there's no real expectation that people will confuse the two of you. If he someday began to impersonate you or if otherwise the similarity began to cause problems then maybe he would be requested to choose a new username, but until then there shouldn't be any issue with allowing him to remain at Tommyboy25. — GT 09:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:CSD use and ab...

This has been brought up on WP:AN, but really it belongs here.

CAT:CSD is, of late, spending most of its time backlogged. This morning, some 350 items are in the category. I picked three at random, and they were all misuses of the speedy deletion system:

  • Ed Comix Inc. - a corporation nominated as {{nn-club}} under CSD-A7, which is for people, clubs and bands.
  • INSZoom - a cut-and-paste job nominated as {{db-copyvio}} under CSD-A8... but no evidence that the original website was directly involved in using the content for commercial gain.
  • Whittaker World cup 2006 - nominated with the reason "no context, no verifiability. Not "nonsense" the way we use the term here, but nonsense in the sense that it makes no sense to the average reader. Possibly BJAODN if someone else feels charitable enough". If you need to make an argument for deletion, speedy delete is not for you.

As long as people keep abusing speedy delete in this way, CAT:CSD will remain overfull and the speedy method will slow down. People can't nominate 350+ articles a day, a good 100+ of them wrongly, and expect the couple of admins who look after this category to send the abused ones to AfD for them.

When the speedy delete criteria are abused, the user in effect is asking an admin to act out of process and to take the flak for it.

So, what can the community do? Well, people need to be educated in the use of the speedy criteria. Also, people who use the automatic vandalfighting programs need to be more circumspect (or the programs need altering - too many false nominations come from people who can click one button to nominate for delete but give no reason nor any thought to what they are doing).

Admins need to be harder about not deleting out of process: these articles don't belong here, are awful and won't survive AfD so we delete them out of process... and the nominator comes to believe that tagging things wrongly is fine (it works, after all!) and keeps doing it.

Finally, the point is coming where we need to widen the CSD themselves. If the vast majority of users already think that hoaxes, non-notable websites, non-notable corporations and spam are reasons for speedy deletion, then it is time for the community to act and make them reasons for speedy deletion. All of these are specifically excluded from the CSD, and yet one of them is given as a reason for speedy deletion in about a third of all deletion nominations. ➨ ЯEDVERS 09:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree that we need to widen CSD. I would add that if the rules were not constantly broken and ignored, there would be so much extra bureaucracy that the project would simply not function properly at all, after all everyone here is a volunteer, and free to leave when the bureaucracy gets too bad, certainly I can't be bothered with certain aspects of the project, they are just too slow and unproductive to be involved in. Martin 11:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, if you need to make a statement about something that an admin cannot verify on sight the discussion processes are in place. If I were an admin I would see the same trouble that Redvers refers to. I go through every now and then when I have time as it is and verify each of the claims in the category at the time and I usually come out with about 20-30% false claims. What reason is there to expand the process when people do not know what the current bounds are and why they are in place. Ansell 11:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
In reply to the original comments, there are reasons for why we do not make "non-notable" things speediable, the whole concept is still under discussion because there is widespread disagreement about its fundamental definition. The guidelines that have been decided on are each only for specific cases, and even then, they must be researched to verify that an article does indeed fall outside of each of the decided ranges. By expecting an admin to do the verification is actually a slow down in the process of clearing the category backlog. Ansell 11:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
"there are reasons for why we do not make "non-notable" things speediable" - wrong, see A7, Unremarkable people or groups are speediable, the reason? because there are so many of these that it would be impossible to deal with them all through AFD, it is essentially a measure to reduce bureaucracy. Martin 11:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Wrong again,
"Non-notable subjects with their importance asserted: Articles that have obviously non-notable subjects are still not eligible for speedy deletion unless the article "does not assert the importance or significance of its subject". If the article gives a claim that might be construed by anyone as making the subject notable, even if this claim seems ridiculous, it should be taken to a wider forum. However, articles with only a statement like "This guy was like so friggin' notable!" can be deleted per CSD A1 because it gives no context about the subject."
This is the note that comes as an explanation at the bottom of WP:CSD, and it is viewpoints like yours that make the category a backlog case. Ansell 11:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, now you are just being rude, as it is actually viewpoints and actions like mine that keep this place running. But trust me, if the rules were never broken, then nothing around here would work. Martin 12:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Also, my point still stands, we do delete non-notable stuff, if the article claims it is notable, then we are on to a new issue. Martin 12:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with both Redvers and Ansell. Notability and verifiability are not things that we can entrust to just a single pair of eyes. They are not things that we do entrust. (Note that the speedy deletion criteria involve assertions of notability.) Speedy deletion is for decisions that we trust can be reliably made by a single administrator alone. Determining notability and verifiability often involves the research of several editors in concert. And yes, we need to keep educating new users that speedy deletion is not a magic wand that one waves saying "Begone!". The speedy deletion criteria are deliberately narrow. I've been encouraging people at AFD to stop abusing the speedy deletion criteria there. (The most abused deletion criterion is Wikipedia:Patent nonsense. I'd personally prefer that the template were called something other than {{nonsense}}. It would reduce the confusion somewhat, since nonsense and patent nonsense are not the same thing.) Uncle G 12:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, there are corporations that are added with no assertion of notability... Is it much of a leap to go from speedying bands with no assertions of notability to speedying corporations with no assertion of notability? As for {{nonsense}}, how about {{gobbledygook}}? --Interiot 12:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


Policy ideas for photographs of people who may be unhappy about having private photos appear on wikipedia

There has been a lengthy debate on WP:AN/I about how much proof is required that a model in a sexual pose has given permission for the photo to be uploaded to wikipedia.There was much complaint that we dont have any policies in place to cover such situations so I've started a page here where people can come up with ideas about how we should handle such situations. Everything is in a very early stage. Please come and help us write a proposal. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 10:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


Building notability guidelines

I've noticed that in the last few months there have been more articles being written on physical locations here, and consequently more AfD's of these sorts of articles. Since there is no guideline for notability of buildings and other physical locations, I've started working on the one here. I'd appreciate any input on the guidelines (the only one I'm adament about is that this doesn't apply to schools; because that would be an instant kiss of death for this) as well as any help with the process of formally suggesting this as a guideline. Thanks.--Isotope23 13:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Extension to page move mechanism

A quick proposal for a minor extension to the page move mechanism: Give an option to disable the automatic redirect which is created at the page's old location. If the automatic redirect isn't created, then the old location becomes empty (as though the article were deleted), and can be the target of a subsequent page move. Note that the rule that the page move target must be empty or a trivial redirect still applies (for non-administrative moves).

This will allow many moves which currently must be handled by administrators to be performed by users, such as swapping two pages. Note that no information can be lost; all page histories are preserved by such moves. Consensus must be reached on controverisal page moves, like any controversial article change.

A few concerns:

  • Such a policy might give Willy On Wheels (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and imitators additional options; one could restrict non-forwarding page moves to "established" users. (Or, one could go further and limit all page moves to established users). On the other side of the coin, non-admin vandal fighters could then clean up WoW's messes more easily.
    • On particular area of potential abuse which must be watched for quickly is de-facto page deletes which are done through moving a page to an obscure location. While this can happen today, the redirect makes it easier to see what has happened. For example; suppose someone doesn't like Ann Coulter, and decides to move her article to Ann CouIter (Ann CouIter) without a redirect. The article will appear to have disapperared; but Ann CouIter (at the new doppleganger location) will still appear in people's watchlists, so those watching the page might not be aware of the move).
  • This might open up a new avenue for edit wars (page-move wheel wars have been fought recently, so page move battle's aren't unheard of). 3RR should apply to page moves, obviously. OTOH, POV page moves with little community support can be reverted with administrator intervention.

The default behavior would be to create the redirect, as is done today.

Thoughts?

--EngineerScotty 21:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought the point of having automatic redirects created was to avoid breaking links. If you are moving a long-established page, you need a redirect there. Also, you would have to ensure (somehow) that people fix all the links to the old page to point to the new page. The sort of thing you propose would only work for articles that were only a few days old, and doing this for a long-established article with thousands of links pointing at it, would be disastrous. Also, as you point out, redirects help people to see what has happened and where articles used to be. This is important for tracing the history of an article. Your proposal would make it harder for people (especially non-admins) to see "what has happened". Carcharoth 22:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Carcharoth, if you move the page using the page move function, all of the history goes with it. I do not think that the creation of redirects is a big deal. If you do not want it to be a redirect, then change it to something else (an article or disambiguation page) or nominate it for deletion (however, some people love redirects, so it might be hard to get it deleted, even though it might be useless for searching or linking. be as thorough and persuasive as reasonably possible). Vandal moves do not require redirects and neither do pages with disambiguation in the name (usually something in parentheses) that have only existed for a short time (technically not needed, policy may say something different and a deletion nomination may be unsuccessful). If they have existed for a while, there may be links to that url from other websites. Of course, if the old name is deleted, you will need to update all of the pages that link to that name (if there are a lot of links, the article probably had that name for a long time, though. -- Kjkolb 04:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


Can't think of a single occasion where one wouldn't want to keep a redirect at the old location — with the one notable exception of clearing obstructed move targets. This could cut the administrator workload of WP:RM by half, if not more. Definitely worth considering. But playing article-hide-and-seek with pagemove vandals sure won't be fun. A general option to omit the redirect is out of the question.

  • So how's this: Provide an option to move a page without leaving a redirect — but then only to a fixed, automatically generated target location. Let's call it PAGENAME/outofway. (If PAGENAME/outofway already exists, try PAGENAME/outofway2 etc. until a slot is free.)
    • To move a source PAGENAME1 over an obstructed target PAGENAME2, 'outofway' PAGENAME2 to PAGENAME2/outofway, and normally rename PAGENAME1 to the now free title of PAGENAME2. Tag PAGENAME2/outofway for speedy deletion.

      Or, if PAGENAME2 had a significant history, normally move PAGENAME2/outofway to a new PAGENAME3, then tag the redirect which this leaves at PAGENAME2/outofway for for speedy deletion. Alternatively you can rename PAGENAME2 first and outofway the redirect.

    • To swap two pages, outofway PAGENAME1 to PAGENAME1/outofway, rename PAGENAME2 to PAGENAME1, outofway the redirect left at PAGENAME2 to PAGENAME2/outofway, and move PAGENAME1/outofway to PAGENAME2. Then tag the redirects left at PAGENAME1/outofway and PAGENAME2/outofway for deletion.
    • If a vandal outofways a page, you can just move it back and tag PAGENAME/outofway for deletion.
    • If a vandal outofways a page and recreates a spoofed page at the original location, outofway PAGENAME to PAGENAME/outofway2, and rename the original page from PAGENAME/outofway back to PAGENAME. Then tag both redirects at PAGENAME/outofway and PAGENAME/outofway2 for deletion.

Bad-faith hiding of a page is impossible because tracing back "what has happened" to a suddenly disappeared page is easy, due to the fixed target locations. Add a link to PAGENAME/outofway on the "page doesn't exist" error page that you get when you click a redlink. Tell people to check it just like they should check the deletion log. This helps to prevent accidental recreation of a page during a move in progress too.

Also, conditional on the existence of PAGENAME/outofway, show a warning on the page history of PAGENAME, similar to the red "you're editing an old version" box. It will say that there is another version of the page from a move in progress that needs to be resolved first. This prevents that spoofed pages can go unnoticed. Ideally, an outofway page shouldn't need to exist longer than a few minutes anyway, depending on the speed of the speedy deletions. Those usually will be easy decisions about empty redirects with no histories, no comparison to the regular (and needlessly inefficient) movework that an admin would have to do otherwise. Perhaps create a special deletion tag for this too.

The codingwork for the developers should consist of little more than a few path checks, some number generation, and the combination of a move and delete with special parameters. Any cases overlooked how this system could seriously get abused? Comments? Femto 20:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


Speedy deletion doesn't seem to be so speedy lately

I want to say that I find it troubling that there is a backlog of (probably) over 200 images waiting to be speedily deleted. The process is supposed to be a fast way of removing content deemed unacceptable by its criteria, yet this backlog seems to have sprung up recently. Why is this? Alr 20:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There has been a discussion about this and related issues at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Admin Growth chart. The short and simple answer seems to be that Wikipedia is growing faster than the rate we are increasing the supply of admins. --Allen3 talk 20:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I would apply for adminship myself, but I don't believe I would be promoted because the criteria seem to be "you must be a memeber of the clique" rather than "you are experienced and qualified". Alr 20:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
False. There is no clique (or, after 6 month as an admin, I'm still looking for it). I have never supported someone because I have known them personally or opposed them because I don't know them. I have always judged on the basis of editing record, community involvement and demonstrated knowledge (even "voting" to support people who have the above but views I disagree with and "voting" against people I know but don't have the above). In short: if you can find a nominator, have been here for 3-6 months and have edits that demonstrate understanding of Wikipedia rules and guidelines, you can be an admin.
If you can't find an nominator but have the other requirements, drop me an email and I'll nominate you. The system works more often than it fails: it's all to do with your edits. If your edits are not up to it by your own judgment, then adminship is not for you... yet. Give it a couple of months and it will be! Memories here are short (unless you've issued threats. Then memories are long :o).
But as to the deletion of images... well, this was always the subject where admins were most likely to be dragged up a hill and crucified for making an error because image deletions used to be permanent. And in Image: about 1 in 50 tags are wrong; about 1 in 100 are malicious; about 1 in 25 have been corrected but the tag not removed. So, on average, 3 in 100 images in the categories are wrongly tagged. When deletion was permanent, good faith bad deletion (ultimately) meant desysoping. So admins shy away.
Technicalities have now changed: we can delete images and undelete them just as easily. But users must remember: as deletion is not permanent, assumption of admin infaliability is wrong too. If you want a backlog cleared, be prepared for mistakes. If you see a mistake, tell the mistaken admin nicely and gently. They are human and will thus respond.
No Wikipedia rule requires perfection from any editor. Even Jimbo is both not perfect and happy to admit to being not perfect. Backlogs can be cleared quickly, but we must allow leeway to admins clearing backlogs. In other words... WP:AGF at all times. ➨ ЯEDVERS 20:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
As for the reason for the sudden backlog see recent changes on Mediawiki:Licenses. Since a lot of people keep uploading "I have permission to use this on Wikipedia" or "free for non-commercial use" type images and tagging them as "no rights reserved" or public domain or what not, we added two new options for those kinds of images to the license selector, wich put the image straight on speedy deletion using {{db-noncom}} rather than having it sit around for a false licence tag for months on end. --Sherool (talk) 10:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


Units of length

Discussion moved to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29 bobblewik 19:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


Unaccreditted institutions

Some Wikipedia biographies deal with individuals who have graduated from unaccreditted institutions (see for instance Kent Hovind). These statements are often deleted, usually on the grounds that specifying the unaccreditted nature of the institution is spiteful, or a pointless criticism. I was wondering what your thoughts were on this and whether there are any policies on academic qualifications, to hopefully short-circuit a lot of circular debate and get on with more useful things. --Davril2020 10:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there is an established community standard on this but to me it seems very relevant to point out if a degree is from an institution not accredited by any of the major accrediting agencies. We usually don't point out that a degree is from an accredited institution just because it's usually implicit; if we weren't to mention it, any sensible reader would assume that the degree is indeed from an accredited institution. The difference between a real Ph.D and one from most unaccredited schools is significant enough that we should not mislead anybody. — GT 01:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
That's pretty much how it gets dealt with, but it's on an ad hoc basis and suffers constant arguments from people who, more or less, accuse this system of being elitist. It's very time consuming so I was wondering if there was an actual established policy on the subject. If not, would it make sense to incorporate it into existing policies on biographies? --Davril2020 12:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


Sketch from copyrighted article

Can I create my own sketch from a copyrighted material? For example, a scientific publication has a table and a graph, and I want to cite a part of a table or a section of a graph. The citation is not a mechanical reproduction, but a new tabulation or graph image that reflect the contents of the copyrighted article pertinent to the issue. Barefact 14:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it (IANAL) there should be no problem with creating an entirely new table or graph representing information from a copyrighted document, as information itself is not subject to copyright (cf. Wikipedia:Copyrights). However, the creative expression of information is subject to copyright, so you would need to be careful not to infringe this; for example, the choice and order of columns and rows in a table, the range and axes of a graph, any line of best fit, etc., could all be subject to copyright if they were judged not to simply be choices which would be obvious to anyone working in the field. TSP 15:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Ordinarily, no. Copying copyrighted material, even if done by hand rather than mechanically, will usually infringe on the owner's copyright. However, in most cases, scientific data resides in the class of "factual material that has been discovered" rather than creative works or matters of opinion. Generally in the US, factual content cannot be copyrighted, though the selection, arrangement, or style of presentation might be (e.g. Feist v. Rural). Since your intention is to take part of the data (presumably copyright exempt) and create a new image from it, you probably have nothing to worry about. Dragons flight 15:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Appreciate help and quick response. Barefact 23:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Stars

I would like to propose a new naming convention (see Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Stars) and would welcome any comments. Thanks AndrewRT - Talk 19:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Linkless signatures

I've been seeing these a bit more often, recently, and I'm thinking that they're a bit problematic -- some users check "raw signature" without putting any wikilinks into their signature; when that happens, there's no easy way to get to their userpage, contribs, user talk page, or any of that fun stuff without digging through the page history. In the event their signature doesn't match their username, finding their diffs in history can be additionally problematic. With that in mind, I'd venture a proposal that all signatures be required or strongly encouraged to include a link to either of the user's main page or talk page. Thoughts? Luna Santin 02:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree, while I haven't seen too many instances of this, perhaps a link to the signature guidelines in the preferences screen would be good, that way they could be made aware of the policy?--digital_me(Talk•Contribs) 02:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Additionally, "don't click this unless you KNOW what you're doing" could be added. —this is messedrocker (talk) 02:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
In the rare case where I see a linkless signature, I add {{unsigned}} after it. --Carnildo 08:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I suggested a while ago at WT:SIG that there be a requirement, or at least a guideline to the effect of, "link to either your user page or your user talk page". I'd also go further and suggest "contains the text of your user name in some recognisable form" and "doesn't contain to personal advocacy or other spammage in link form or otherwise." Alai 21:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


Strange species capitalization convention

The Wikipedia project for birds has established the convention that bird species names be capitalized, despite it not being an accepted general convention. According to one of the promulgators of the new policy, it's a convention that's used by a significant number of bird journals and texts for clarity reasons (but not even all of them!). The major English encyclopedias, novels, periodicals, etc., do not use this convention. I don't think it's appropriate for Wikipedia. Worse, this capitalization convention has spread to cover all mammals, hence the strange capitalization in articles such as lion, blue whale, and previously, before being edited by other Wikipedians, horse and so on.

I propose that the mammal and birds wikiprojects stop this harmful policy. Exeunt 00:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not a new convention, it's old. I was fighting it back before I left Wikipedia the first time, and lost then, too. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't ike it either. I didn't mind it on bird articles. But it looks strange on mammal articles. Where is the most extensive recent discussion of this? Carcharoth 02:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I discussed it a bit on the WikiProject Birds page. Exeunt 02:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't like the capitalization either, and for the lowercase articles I've created for plants, insects, and fish, no one has shown up to complain. Perhaps there's a cultural disconnect among groups of editors? Melchoir 04:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it comes from birds like Steller's jay, that bear the name of an individual, giving rise to the mistaken "Steller's Jay". Thus Grevy's zebra morphs to "Grevy's Zebra". --Wetman 09:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I thought it was more to do with "this is a Black Rat" versus "this is a rat that is black" (incidentially indicating how rewriting can ameliorate this kind of thing). Carcharoth 22:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it has to do with the worshipful attitude of people who are emotionally close to the subject, the capitaliztion being, for the time, good enough while in the future, as human population increases and animal species decline, it might become "Black Rat", then "BLACK RAT" and finally, "Oh Holy BLACK RAT". Terryeo 15:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


Trivia sections a huge problem

In "Trivia" sections of articles discussing works of fiction, there is a rampant problem of an apparent belief that "Triva" means "The Rules of Wikipedia don't apply here." I see all sorts of speculation, original research, and unsourced/unverifiable statements in trivia sections, and it needs to stop. Is there any policy statement that addresses this specific problem, or some way to make one? Sorry if this has been said already, and thanks in advance. -- Digital Watches!

Erm.... If core policies aren't being enforced, then do so. Is it more complicated than that? --Interiot 09:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe it's appropriate to remove trivia sections on sight. If you have trouble keeping them removed, drop me a note and I'll have a chat with those restoring them. --Improv 12:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a newly minted guideline on this at Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles. Steve block Talk 13:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
There's also a relevant essay here.--Fuhghettaboutit 13:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
My previous tactic was to move a trivia section to the talk page to allow other editors to participate with integrating the information worthy of inclusion in the article. If I read this new guideline correctly, that should not be done in the future. Doc ♬ talk 13:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Fair play. I've had a bash at editing the guideline, feel free to amend it yourself. It's new so I don't see why it shouldn't be editable. Steve block Talk 13:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Alright. Thanks. I'll take a look at that and start doing what's necessary to get rid of this problem. Digital Watches (ヂジ) 19:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
The guidelines say that trivia sections shouldn't be deleted but rather should be left as a store of information pending intigration. If it gets to large and unorganised it should be moved to the talks page. --Matt D 21:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I've been renaming Trivia sections in movie articles as "Additional production information". It seems more encylopedic that way...Michael DoroshTalk 21:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


Are User pages protected?

I just saw Ryulong's user page was vandalized. Shouldn't user pages be protected so that only that user and administrators can edit them? My impression was that User pages are intended to serve as the user's homepage on Wikipedia. Am I mistaken? If not, I see no reason for anyone else to edit that page. Will 05:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure the coding would allow that, though it probably does. However, even if it is possible, you do not own your user pages, you just possess a wide amount of control over it, so that would be a counter-productive idea. You can request semi-protection (or even full protection) of your user page if it is vandalized on a continual basis --tjstrf 05:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Correct: there is no reason for anyone else to edit that page. --Wetman 05:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
As far as I know, it is possible and some users have done it in the past. I don't know what the situation is currently. Alr 06:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
If a vandal is vandalising your user page:
  1. they aren't vandalising an article
  2. someone is likely to spot it pretty quick
  3. the general reader is not as likely to see it as they would be to see God or the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich

User:Pedant 06:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There are good reasons to allow other editors than the userpage's owner to edit it. For example, if userpages contain copyright violations or personal attacks, non-administrators should be able to remove the offending content or to nominate the page for deletion. Kusma (討論) 13:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've recently had my user page and talk page vandalized repeatedly by one particular troll, and I've found the trashing gets picked up very quickly indeed, often before I see it. Further, allowing my pages to remain open to editting and trashing does create a record of a person's bad behavior - although I am skeptical of the ability of wikipedia admins to be very effective against a determined and persistent vandal. --Dan 20:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I protected my User page from non-admin edits awhile back and I didn't seem to have any trouble (this was due to a persistent vandal targeting it). I don't think there's any rule against protecting the page, though it's probably considered bad form to protect your talk page, for obvious reasons. IIRC only admins can protect pages though, so in theory only admins are able to protect their own userpages, though I imagine if a non-admin wanted the page protected, it could be ... but it wouldn't make much sense to do so since the "owner" of the page would be unable to edit it him/herself. 23skidoo 05:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


Images pool

I was surprised to find that I can't use images from another language Wikipedia (at least, it didn't work for me). Wikipedia should have a common pool for all images, or at least an easy way to acquire them from foreign language wikis. 24.126.199.129 19:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a common pool. Images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons can be used from all languages. Femto 20:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Well yeah, I know that. I just never knew that you couldn't use images from foreign language Wikipedias. That just seems stupid. The only plausible reason not to allow them would be different copyright standards, but I'm sure setting up something that checked the citation templates before allowing trans-wiki image transfers would be enough to overcome that possible problem. 24.126.199.129 11:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Well yeah, it would probably be a Bad Thing to allow users from for example deWiki to insert fair use images from enWiki since such images are not allowed there. You would most likely get name conflicts galore too. Better to just have one central repository and try encouraging people to use it more instead. --Sherool (talk) 13:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Makes sense. 24.126.199.129 04:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

accent marks in English articles

seems to me like Wikipedia does not want accent marks over letters in English articles. I am not really talking about words like cafe or decor, but more like proper names/biographies in the English language. A no accent mark policy makes good sense especially when we're talking about biographies of persons with lots of accent marks over their names. With the English keyboard, one cannot find the articles if the accent marks are incorporated into the article name b/c a searcher has no convenient way to make the mark or is unaway that the name has a mark. What is the policy though?

Create a redirect from the non-accented title. Problem solved. --tjstrf 23:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion about this issue at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics); Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) offers a bit of the underlying history. {{R from title without diacritics}} is the template one should append to a redirect created consistent with Tjstrf's suggestion. Joe 20:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Didn't know we had a template for that. Thanks for the info, I can think of a few dozen places to use it. --tjstrf 20:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Either way redirects solve the problem. There are cases where the "real" title having diacritics is or is not appropriate; for example, Celine Dion's real name is Céline Dion, but she is widely known and marketed under the unaccented name in the English-speaking world. Deco 08:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Male Domination?

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Male_Domination.3F.

Proposed naming convention: military vehicles

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military vehicles): please comment on the talk page. —Michael Z. 2006-08-15 20:50 Z

Suggestion for German lanugage page approval implementation

This post has been moved to the proposal page Wikipedia:German page approval solution

Do you list mergers on deletion review or elsewhere?

If there is a merger that you feel did not qualify, do you list it on deletion review or another location? Hello32020 17:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to list it anywhere, just as one can BOLDLY merge a page, one can boldly un-merge it, especially if adding content. Use the talk page if dispute arises. Kappa 18:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Are you sure you know what are you talking about? There are specific guidelines that say that merging and demerging, especially if it involves moving large chunks of text, is not something to be done lightly. It took me a while to pick up on this myself, but cutting and pasting large chunks of text around Wikipedia destroys the attribution. What I mean by this is that if you move text from one article to another (either merging or splitting articles), then the edit history (and the list of who wrote which bits of the article) is lost. What is usually required is a merge of the edit histories, which needs some admin magic, I believe. (Compare this to a page move, where the edit history of the article is moved from the old location to the new one). At the very least, when merging or splitting, a link to the old pages is needed to allow the edit histories to be traced back, though this solution is less than ideal. This is why encouraging boldness in these cases can backfire. You really need to know what you are doing before doing a merge or split. Carcharoth 21:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Articles that are merged should almost never have their histories merged. The only -- only -- time this should happen is when a fork of an article is made. If a page is merged and someone disagrees with said merge they are absolutely free to unmerge. Sam Korn (smoddy) 21:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
How is the act of cutting and pasting text from one location to another to do a merge, different from cutting and pasting from one location to another when moving a page? We are told not to do the latter, but it seems we are told it is OK to do the former. This has always really confused me. Wikipedia:Merge says this about page moves:
"Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content, because doing so destroys the edit history. (The GFDL requires acknowledgement of all contributors, and editors continue to hold copyright on their contributions unless they specifically give up this right. Hence it is required that edit histories be preserved for all major contributions until the normal copyright expires.) If you come across a cut-and-paste move that should be fixed by merging the page histories, please follow the instructions here to have an administrator repair it."
But the same page says that you can cut and paste to do a page merge, as long as you leave a link in the edit summary saying 'from where' and 'to where' you did the cut and paste. This leaves the edit history for that cut and paste text at a different location to where the text ends up. I realise that this is how things are done, but the system seems to be saying: "move pages this way because we want to preserve the edit history in one location, but move chunks of text this way and spread the edit history around over several different pages." Do you see what is causing the confusion?
I keep raising this point, and no-one really seems that bothered about it. I think that merging and splitting of pages will eventually mean that in some cases it will become really difficult to trace back who wrote what in an article. That makes a mockery of both GFDL and editor attributions. Carcharoth 22:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Since history merges are hard to undo, I prefer redirecting said edit history to the new article to retain attribution. When you feel a merge shouldn't have happened, you should mention it on the article talk page. Deletion review is, as the word says, for review of deletion, not merges. - Mgm|(talk) 17:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
One wonders if a merge tab is needed. It would copy the text to the end of the target article and add a correctly linked comment. Then all the editor needs to do is move the text around in the new article. Vegaswikian 21:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Good idea. I've going to start a new thread on this, as this has veered off the original topic of the post. Carcharoth 23:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


'Clinical Depression' v. 'Depression as a mood'

I am constantly finding biographies in Wikipedia which contain statements such as "the person was depressed" or "they entered into a period of depression". And, more often than not, the word 'depression' is linked to 'clinical depression'.

The condition of 'clinical depression' requires a medical diagnosis. If a person states that they feel 'depressed', without such a diagnosis, this should be entered into the biography linked to 'depression (mood)’.

If a written policy covering this does not presently exist – one should.

Michael David 13:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


If a policy should be applied, it's the idea that words should not be systematically linked, your exemple is typical of the abusive use of links. Christopher Lims 21:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


Financial policy of Wikimedia Foundation

Where is the best place to ask about the financial policy of the Wikimedia Foundation? I only ask because I recently followed the "Donations" link on the sidebar to reach WikiMedia:Fundraising, and noticed that the page says "See Budget/2005 for our latest budget, which details where the money will go [...]" - this is a bit worrying, as surely the 2006 budget should be available somewhere? I looked around a bit more and found Meta:Talk:Finance_department, with three plaintive appeals for some updates on the financial situation. Who is the best person to contact about this? And even if the financial details are available somewhere, who can I ask to update the links on those pages? Carcharoth 21:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest contacting the foundation directly, please see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Contact_us. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. I'd like to use something like the "E-mail this user" function that exists in Wikipedia, or post something somewhere, rather than e-mail them from my real e-mail address. Actually, that reminds me, I need to set up an external e-mail account for my Wikipedia alias, so I should probably just do that anyway. Carcharoth 23:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Note that if you use "e-mail this user" the email address you've provided in your account preferences is the "from" address of the mail that is sent (so the recipient can reply to you). -- Rick Block (talk) 23:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. That's why I'm holding off until I've changed it to somehing else. :-) Carcharoth 00:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


Common Names vs. Manual of Style

We are having a debate on the naming rules for Cities of Japan. The specific MoS for Japanese related topics is at WP:MOS-JA. There is currently a debate at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) regarding the fact that the city naming rule in the MoS violates the Common names policy. Does a Manual of Style have priority over Common Names? The main contention is that the resulting article titles from applying the MoS are almost never used as names for the cities. Some comments would be highly appreciated. --Polaron | Talk 08:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what policy says this, but the obvious underlying datum is: "How can the page communicate to the reader". That is the good sense foundation. Terryeo 14:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


Attempt to pass a policy with only 59% in favor

[3] --SPUI (T - C) 10:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


Changing article names when they are not grammatical

I am trying to change the article Great standing on the Ugra river to Great Stand on the Ugra River, purely for reasons of English language conventions. This means that I have to redirect people from the original one. There is no way that I can see to migrate a change through many pages. Perhaps this is something that others have wanted to deal with. Is there a way to propose such changes? It seems like a major policy issue to have a name that actually is grammatically and semantically correct in English. The capitalization of such names is also a problem since redirects for every possible capitalization pattern do not make sense.

Thanks,

Nathan

See WP:RM. --Golbez 16:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I would check to see first if it's correct to make this change. The article refers to the event as "The Great standing..." so perhaps historically "Standing" is the correct term. Similarly I would doublecheck to make sure "Stand"/"Standing" is supposed to be capitalized in this instance. 23skidoo 17:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


I have a situation

Editors defy WP:V's intent. When confronted with the particular and specific portion of WP:RS which spells out how the edit is counter to the intent of WP:V, the editors simply revert their shit back in and state, "oh, WP:RS is just a guideline". In earlier instances editors have stated, I'm just going to revert it every time" (and no more discussion about whether the edit follows policy or not). Mostly it is personal opinion appearing on personal websites, cited as secondary sources that I'm talking about. While you would think a concensus of editors would agree toward more stable, reliable articles, the situation is just the opposite. A consensus of editors agree to cite newsgroup information, personal opinion, original research and personal websites. What to do, what to do? <a disguntled Scientology Series editor> Terryeo 20:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I sympathize with you. Yours is not a fun situation to be in. For moral support, consider joining WP:ESPERANZA. To address the specific dispute, follow the dispute resolution process.
Most importantly, step away from the computer, take a deep breath, maybe even a walk or a couple days away from Wikipedia. Then come back and hopefully you'll have a different perspective on how important all of this is.
Good luck.
--Richard 20:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Lol, good of you to state some understanding. Happy Ho Ho's. Terryeo 20:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
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