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What is the policy on posting images that might allready be part of a copyrighted process? in addition, can individual copyrights be posted for various processess within the website?
Okay, WP:EL says that forums are heavily discouraged as external links because the external links section should only really be used for extra information and not things like social networking. There's a few exceptions to this of course.
So, another editor and I have a disagreement on whether or not the Blasian article should link to the forum "blasian forums" (it's in the article itself right now). He believes having a link is valuable and points to other articles (which haven't had this challenged yet) Eurasian (which has a yahoogroup), Asian fetish (which has another forum), and Oriental (which has a link to a forum debating the term).
I don't strongly believe on precedent in Wikipedia (being that almost everything is on a case-by-case basis because of diverse subject material and sources, and moreover the articles themselves currently have their POV challenged), and I believe that the forums in all those places should probably be moved. But again, we disagree, so I'm taking it here to get more opinions.
Even though a forum may be primarily a social place - if the article is about a social phenomonen, then a forum may well be relevant - especially if the internet plays a role in the said social phenomonen. Forums can also be useful on articles about internet culture, or fiction that is popular mostly on the internet. This is especially true if you're linking to a specific thread (as oppossed to a forum in general). In the oriental article for example, the link it to a specific thread which discusses whether the word "oriental" may be pejorative or insulting, which i think complements the article nicely.
That being said, i'm not saying forums are generally good to link to. Just that they're not all bad. In this particular case of the Blasian article, i'll say don't link. I think the question that needs to be asked is "would someone who follows the link, and browses the forum find any useful information in addition to what is on wikipedia?". If the link was to a individual thread that contained useful discussion which does provide additional information, then it would be a different story. But it seems to me the link is promotional - the forum is, for a start, tiny (40 members and 3300 posts is tiny for a forum).--`/aksha06:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Links are primarily for sources, and forums are generally not reliable sources. Also, as Yaksha says, this is a tiny forum and shouldn't promote itself on Wikipedia. >Radiant<09:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I have commented on the Blasian article talk page...(and have made changes on those articles which I have questioned--which is true, forums should not be linked to...even if it is a thread as those are just random people giving their opinions in a social setting). As I mentioned in my reply on the 'talk' page of the Blasian article, we all have the best interests in mind for the article; and, I believe getting various pov's will help this article in particular, balance out.--Joel Lindley19:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Any rewrite is certainly something someone can propose, but there is nothing like any sort of consensus that the guideline needs to be or should be discussed broadly like this, rather than discussing each section separately. 200521:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Contrary to 2005's stated opinion, mutiple people have already worked on this rewrite as a consensus effort. As should be readly apparent by the editing history, and discussion. Further involvement from the wikipedia comunity is invited and encouraged. --Barberio22:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
There is no consensus that the guideline should be rewritten in this way, period. Please refrain from making blatantly false statements. 200523:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
What's with the extra agression? If you bother to read the proposed rewrite you'll see that this is not a radical change but rather a welcome simplification of the existing guideline that does not in any way alter its core principles. Pascal.Tesson23:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Please compare the document to what it is intended to replace, and I'd suggest you also review the discussions that have been underway for months. The proposed rewrite is radically different, and aims to drastically alter core principles. The author believes the current guideline is full of cruft and creeping bureaucracy. It is always fine to propose radical changes, but that is all this is, the very beginning of a proposal for radical changes that is not the result of any consensus of need. 200509:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I see that you're pretty incensed about the rewrite but frankly I have had nothing to do with it and my assessment above was an honest one. I know the current WP:EL pretty well and I truly feel that the rewrite is not a substantial change of orientation and a welcome simplification and clarification. You might need to take a step back and make sure that your anger over the way these changes were proposed has not clouded your judgment on their value. Pascal.Tesson17:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Please refrain from making these strange comments. Pointing out an inaccuracy and that there is no consensus about something is not being "angry". Please consider your comments more carefully next time. 200501:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not understand why the animosity by User:2005. If you have concerns, you can express these in the proposal's talk page. IMO, it is a good attempt. ≈ jossi ≈t • @19:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Sockpuppet notice enforcement
I'm unsure of where to ask this, so I figured this would be a good place. I'm curious as to what level of enforcement we're supposed to take on suckpuppet warnings. For example, DreamGuy (talk·contribs) and Victrix (talk·contribs) have been tagged as "Likely" sockpuppets (the Request for checkuser). DreamGuy, however, has been removing the tag repeatedly from his user page (insulting everyone who restores it [1][2][3][4][5]).
Now, personally, I think DreamGuy is a dick. Because of my (rather impassioned) interest in the matter, though, I don't want to wade in and start enforcing its existence if he's not breaking a policy by removing it. I did some poking around, but didn't find anything.
Where are these cases coming from all of a sudden? There's a similar incident over on WP:AN/I right now, too.
No, we don't use the sockpuppet or sockpuppeteer warnings as big scarlet As on editors in good standing. ('Good standing' is broadly defined here, basically anyone who is not blocked.) I note that the Victrix account hasn't made any edits since June, so this seems to be a rather stale issue. If Victrix resumes editing – and does so in a manner which is not beneficial to Wikipedia – then it would be appropriate to ban him as a disruptive sock and apply the proper template. (A non-indef block for the puppeteer would be appropriate too, in such a case.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Alrighty, thanks. Given the fact that there's no solid policy about it, I'll just stay out of it (not going to restore the warning, but won't help DreamGuy remove it, either, as it just feels to me that it should be there). I think I'm too emotionally invested to really edit with a clear head; I can very easily see myself saying "take that, jerk!" with each reversion. :-) EVula04:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Separating Article Links
There just is something annoying to me when you go to click on a link for something, and it turns out that in reality, each word is its own link.
Such as, United States Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, in which case "United States Navy", "Admiral" and "Hyman G. Rickover" are all separate links.
I think that there could be something to delineate that there are different links therein before you have the cursor over or have clicked.
I usually hover over a multi-word link to see what gets underlined. It would be nice not to have to do that though. When I write, I try to construct my sentences to avoid just this problem. I'd rather have the freedom to write the best sentence for the job. A subtle visual cue would fix both annoyances. It'd probably be best to write some kind of adjustment into the wiki rendering software than to adopt a textual writing convention among editors. Maybe consecutive links could be given extra spaces between them, or be given slightly different colors? --Loqi T.09:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Is it not policy to link to the first usage of a word with a Wiki article? Whilst this may cause a glut of wikilinks in the article introduction it can help the reader navigate quickly to the required place.LessHeard vanU22:03, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
You can usually tell by the spacing. If you want, you can probably trick your CSS into adding a symbol after each link. >Radiant<09:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
If you have your preferences set to not underline links, you can try setting it to always underline links, that should make a visible gap like Radiant was talking about. --Interiot14:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Usage of images in signature
There is an ongoing discussion regarding use of images in signatures on the WP:ANI page. Please click here. If you want to discuss about the issue edit the page there, and if you want to tell me how tactless I have been, you can come to my talk page. :) — Nearly Headless Nick{L}16:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
English language policy
Can anyone direct me to a policy that says content in the English Wikipedia should actually be in English? I know this sounds rediculous, but the parameters for Template:French commune are in French, i.e. instead of "mayor" they have "maire" and instead of "population" they have "sans". I brought this issue up on the template talk page and was informed that this was on purpose so that it would be easier to copy content from the French Wikipedia. Unfortunately, I can't find any policy to refute this argument. Kaldari22:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Er... wow. The closest thing I can find is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), which isn't terribly applicable. I agree with you, but just can't find anything to back you up... in lieu of an actual policy on it, I'd suggest implementing the "if" method that ThePromenader mentioned. EVula22:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Given the template, it might be better to leave it or to at least continue to allow French parameters. We tend to get this info directly from French Wikipedia, and it is much easier to simply copy the table (which is translated for readers) than to translate each time. Many foreign Wikipedias have tables in English for exactly the same reasons. A bot and judicious use of parser functions could fix it if there were are serious problem. Physchim62(talk)13:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
So long as the template also accepts english parameters and always displays in English, there probably shouldn't be a major issue -- there is the concern that English-speakers who would want to edit template text may find it difficult to do so though. I wonder if use of a double template, the first substed to reparameterise the second, would work. --Improv14:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
I've been canvassing some support recently, as some of you may have seen, for a program/project to harmonise all of the user page templates and warnings. I'm looking for an admin, not necessarily to carry out much work, but who will be able to point me in the right direction, on certain issues. I'm willing to do all the leg work, but could just do with someone sitting on my shoulder to achieve this goal. If you're interested, or would like to know more please see here .Have a glance through all the different types of warnings and if you have any ideas please list them.
This doesn't necessarily apply just to admins hence the reason copied here, but anyone with suggestions or willing to contribute to create a standard for users page warnings and messages. Regards Khukri(talk . contribs)12:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
This proposed guideline has been extensively used and referred to for its intended purpose, to simplify Wikipedia:Articles for deletion discussion, during the past five months, an average of more than every other day. It has simplified discussion, and made it less contentious. It has grown and reacted to discussion and the results of those AfDs; it reflects community practice, and is the sum of many points of view. It has been five months as a proposal. It is not perfect, but it is a lot better than nothing. I believe it is now time to mark it as a full fledged notability guideline, and subset of WP:BIO.
I have noticed that some administrators are deleting individual revisions in the straightforward way (delete and then undelete the revisions not to be deleted), while others employ a cleaver trick to make these revisions not in the way if the page is to be purged of some other revisions in the future. While I never performed this operation myself, I have outlined it at Wikipedia:Selective deletion. If what I wrote makes sense, this page could be linked from or merged with other "practical deletion" guidelines. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio15:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I am monitoring a biographical article in which one editor is using "personal communication" with the subject as a citation. Has there been any discussion in WP:V or WP:RS regarding whether this is acceptable or not. Thanks! -AED20:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Unless the "personal communication" involves independent fact checking or peer review and results in publication in a form that allows for other Wikipedians to access the communication, then WP:V is sufficient to disqualify the source. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability, not truth for a further details. --Allen3talk20:37, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Proposed demotion of Wikipedia:Reliable sources to essay status
I'm not sure how many people are aware that there is an ongoing discussion on the status of WP:RS. I personnally think this is a very very bad idea but more than anything I want to make sure that the community at large gets involved in that debate. Pascal.Tesson21:43, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Names in disambiguation pages
My understanding from WP:MOSDP is that for Title (disambiguation), names that consist only partly of Title (e.g. John Title) should not be added to dab pages, yet should not be removed, and once more than a few exist they should be moved to a separate page. Intelligent people will disagree on application, of course. Is there prior discussion to refer to, a prior RfC, or should I start an RfC? ENeville23:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
WP:MOSDP says "People who happen to have the same surname or given name should not be mixed in with the other links unless they are very frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g., Elvis, Shakespeare). For short lists of such people, new sections of People with the surname Title and People with the given name Title can be added below the main disambiguation list. For longer lists, create a new Title (name), Title (surname) and/or Title (given name) page, or a List of people named Title." -- JHunterJ23:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Images of living children
Today, I found an image of a young boy that had been uploaded and referenced on an article page. The identity of the boy was not relevant to the article, and the quality of the image was such that he would have been clearly identifiable to any family member or anyone else who knows him. Do we have an official policy on this kind of thing, because in my view, it amounts to child abuse and could land Wikipedia in hot legal water. In a way, it's similar to the issues around biographies of living people. --Portnadler17:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
We don't, no. I do not see how a recognizable image amounts to abuse; is the child's address mentioned anywhere? If not, nobody not already familiar with him could locate him anyway. >Radiant<14:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
If a clearly identifiable image of your son or daughter was uploaded and used in a Wikipedia article without your consent, would you not object? --Portnadler14:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I thought you were talking about child abuse or legal prohibitions; personal objection is a completely separate matter—the difference between concrete harm that may be prosecutable, and simply being considerate of others' feelings. Could you elaborate, and lay out your points a little more clearly, maybe point out the article and image for context? Postdlf14:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Generally, a photo taken in a public place is not considered to be a concern (no expectation of privacy), as long as the context is positive or neutral (as opposed to the bedwetting example). Unless it was accompanied by personal details, such an image is unlikely to pose a hazard to the child anyway. Dragons flight15:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
What about articles like child or infant? Isn't it important to have appropriate illustrations in those? What if it's the child's parents doing the uploading (I imagine some of the images in child were uploaded by the parents of the children in question)? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
If it is the child's parents doing the uploading, I don't see what the problem is, given the fact that they have the legal clearance to do such a thing (parents sign contracts for their children, can dictate certain decisions for them, etc.). EVula15:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
If the image looks suspicious then of course we would look at it more closely, and of course parents, etc. can always give permission. Dragons flight15:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The UK Information Commissioner considers a photograph of a person, unless (eg) a crowd scene, to be Personal Data, capable of uniquely identifying a living individual (assuming they are alive). This is all rather formal and under the (UK) Data Protection Act 1998. Now, this does not legally affect Wikipedia since it is not a UK organisation and has no offices in the UK, but it should be considered to be a useful guideline. Wikipedia would, if subject to this law, be a "Data Controller", and, as such, would have the duty to inform the person in the picture that they were "processing" this picture, and would have the duty to remove it (under section 10 of that act) if the individual objected.
This means that any photograph, not a child's photograph, is a debatable asset if of a living individual.
Even by this guideline, it would still be fair if the parents uploaded the pics, since, as the legal guardians, they would be the ones to be contacted about "processing" the picture. EVula16:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Technically, yes. However, if the child is old enough to understand the implications of giving or witholding consent (there is no statutory age in the UK for this) the child may require the picture to be removed, and the child may release the picture for publication.
The challenge faced is the GFDL licence - "once uploaded the world owns it" (I know it has different implications). I think this means a formal policy for pictures of living people is essential, and stated on the upload page. Fiddle Faddle16:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
We don't need to predict every possible usage under every possible law. GFDL allows for-profit uses, yet for example, photographs of living people used on commercial products may violate rights of publicity, or give rise to a cause of action for false endorsement. What other people do with it outside of Wikipedia pursuant to the GFDL license is their own concern. Postdlf16:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's take a possible example. Wicked Uncle Ernie takes a picture of his pretty 12-year old niece wearing high-heeled shoes. Unbeknown to said niece and her parents, Ernie then uploads the picture to Wikipedia and uses it in an encyclopedic article about shoe fetishism. There is no copyright issue: Ernie took the picture himself. But how would you react if you were the girl's parents? --Portnadler16:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I can't imagine that we'd keep an image of a child in an article about a sexual topic, even though the image in itself did not qualify as child porn; it just wouldn't be a relevant or appropriate illustration. But I thought you had an actual example, not just a hypothetical. Postdlf16:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, that's like saying we have no way of verifying the provenance of any picture that the uploader claims as his/her own (unless the real photographer makes a complaint). --Portnadler16:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
That's because applicable U.S. laws require us to observe copyright, but not to get permission for taking/using someone's picture, child or not. Postdlf16:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The issues need to be focused, instead of shifting every time someone asks a question (this is unfortunately typical for every time an issue with possible moral implications is discussed here). There are three separate issues, all assuming there are no copyright issues and they are taken in a location at which the photographer had a right to be present:
What are the legal consequences, if any, under relevant U.S. and Florida law for posting photographs of minors that were taken without the permission of the parents or minor?
Is there any potential concrete harm to minors from the use of their photographs on Wikipedia without permission that we should adopt policy to prevent?
Should Wikipedia adopt policy to address the personal objections of parents to the use of photographs of their children?
Keep the issues separate. "Parents may object" is a non sequitor to "It doesn't constitute child abuse." Postdlf17:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
That's a helpful analysis. I am not qualified to answer the first question, but my responses to 2 and 3 are both "yes". We have to obey the laws of the relevant jurisdiction, but we can go beyond them when establishing Wikipedia policy. It is possible to argue a case for using something based on the UK Data Protection laws for pictures of any living person, as has been mentioned above. However, I started this discussion primarily because I think there is an issue of protection of minors from having identifiable pictures of them posted without permission and possibly in inappropriate places. --Portnadler17:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, so now that you're focusing on issue #2, could you explain what harm you believe minors need to be protected from that results from the photographs, and what should we do about it? Once again, please use your actual example you referred to when you started this topic with—identify the article and image so we have some context. Postdlf17:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
To answer your questions:
None that I know of.
No. A picture is just a picture. If there is personal information (an extreme example: an eight-year-old girl holding up a sign with her address on it), it should be speedily deleted, no questions asked.
If there is a way to verify the parental status, yes (similar to how celebrities have to submit a picture of themselves to verify with Wikipedia who they are, same thing with the parents, perhaps).
there's a long-running debate regarding the inclusion of notable fansite links on the LOST article; it specifically concerns the inclusion of a link to lostpedia (a wiki concerning the television series LOST), but it broadly impacts fansites in general.
it is this editors belief that a clique of editors are resisting the inclusion of a link to (an)other notable fansite(s) (for what reason, i do not know) in the article - the main reason cited being the theories section present in many articles on lostpedia, which in a way constitutes original research - the nature of the show essentially encourages theories.
the purpose of this addition to the discussion on policy is not to garner votes in a straw poll, or anything like that; it is to suggest that a greater degree of clarity is desirable in the policies that determine whether or not fansites deserve inclusion in an article. comments on this are most welcome.
As a general rule, fansites are inappropriate. See WP:EL. Also, WP:RS though that really just provides a bit of background, nothing directly relevant. However, WP:EL is a guideline, not an official policy, and even if it were official policy, it is sometimes appropriate to add a single particularly notable fansite. I am concerned that generally (though not necessarily in this case) people seem to use the fact that other articles violate policies or guidelines as an excuse to violate the policies or guidelines on another article. Yes, these should be applied consistently, but that's grounds for enforcing the policies or guidelines, not ignoring them in yet another place. When it comes to external links in general, we need far fewer of them on the Wikipedia. And when we allow one fansite, it is much harder to say no to the second. Or the third. Or the tenth, and plenty of articles have links to ten fansites (well, until I find them anyway). We are fast becoming a link farm. That said, I have not looked at this particular site specifically and I strongly suspect a compelling case could be made for its inclusion. If it is in fact an official site (this is not at all clear to me), the case is made right there. --Yamla04:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
lostpedia is not an official site - and i completely agree with you on the issue of one external link being equivalent to 'the boy who took his finger out of the dam'; however, the site has notability (see the more detailed discussion linked above for this), and is also widely used by many forums (which, granted, are certainly not notable sources in themselves) as reference material - as an aside, on past evidence the regular editors of the article in question are vigilant enough to remove any spam added very quickly. what troubles me the most, however, are the facts that;
"lostpedia is a wiki" seems to me to be an integral part of many of the arguments against its inclusion; surely the fact that lostpedia is a resource that anyone can edit should not be an obstruction to the addition to one line in one article on the encyclopaedia anyone can edit?
the fact many other comparable articles include similar, external links - granted, you have addressed this above, but the point still stands. --Kaini04:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
First off, let me state that I hate Lost. Secondly, let me state that I believe linking to Lostpedia would be warranted, as the site seems to meet the criteria for being a notable fansite, and that its being a wiki should promote its inclusion, not discourage it. --tjstrf05:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
If the Lost wiki is accurate enough that the only mistakes are minor at best, there is no reason not to include it. Furthermore, I don't see any problem with linking one (and I stress that) fansite so long as it's a well-designed site with some sort of resource beyond what this wiki could provide without violating any major copyright. For example, sites that distribute the episodes would readily fail. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 05:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I think fansites are fine as long as they fit the categories of "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article" and "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article.". Fansites for fictional works sometimes include detailed information that would be considered fancruft on wikipedia, so linking to a fansite which does provide accurate information on the topic which is not in the wikipedia article should be fine.
That being said, the majority of fansites don't. But in the case of a fansite which is informative, and contains information beyond what we should include in an encyclopedia article, and is relatively notable within the fandom for that fictional work, should be appropriate.
I don't think saying a fansite contains original research theories if a decent reason not to include it. If it includes only theories, then it probably shouldn't be included because it contains no additional information not already on the article. But if it does have additional information, as long as it's not passing theories off as facts, i think it's fine. --`/aksha07:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
There are several problems, for example: if you allow Lostpedia then you have to allow LostWikia.. if you allow them two then you have to allow Lost-TV and so forth the ball begins rolling until the article is entirely a link farm, there is a fair solution though, have no fan links. thanks/Fenton, MatthewLexic Dark52278 Alpha 77107:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
By that line or argument, it would be best and most easy for everyone if we didn't allow any External Links at all. After all, once we start allowing one type of external links, we'll start allowing another type, and the group of allowed external links will expand, and soon we'll have a link farm. Allowing one fansite doesn't nessasarily mean allowing both.
If there are many fansites which offer additional information on the topic which isn't already in the article, then people will have to consider how many external links should be on the article, and just how much additional information the fansite needs to have before it should be listed. And things like which of the two Lost Wikis are bigger, have more articles, have more content...etc.
No fanlinks at all is not a 'fair' solution. But it is a easy solution, a very good excuse to avoid the problem altoghther, and a lazy way out of actually making an attempt to differentiate between different fansites.
If you start excluding links to fansites, then you have to exclude links to any sites, and then you have to exclude the nearly-crufty facts, and then you have to exclude all the facts, and then there's nothing left to cull but the wiki software code. (joke) I agree that saying "no links" is easier than saying "only the best links", but I also agree that it's lazy. Editorial judgment applies to links as well as to prose. --Loqi T.09:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
No-one's asking to cite a fan site as a source. What's being asked for is mention of the existence of a particular site. --Loqi T.10:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
There is nothing inappropriate about fansites in general, and they are often by far the best links on a topic, going into far more detail than an article here could ever get into. But fan sites should not be added just because they exist. If they meet "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article" and/or "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article" then they could be linked to. There is considerable ongoing discussion about this at Wikipedia_talk:External links, with some people thinking the negative phrase "fan sites" is not useful to talk about at all, while others go the opposite way and just want to prohibit linking to any non-commercial fan site. Several attempts to amend the external links guideline regarding fansites (particularly by emphasizing that they need to be high quality to be linked to) have all failed in the past couple months, so if you do want to be a part of a broader discussion on this topic, one is already going on at Wikipedia_talk:External links. 200510:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Why do they not just take a vote, list all the fan sites and see which sites get the most votes in a poll of editors who have been editing the article for at least a month or have over X edits, leave the poll open forever and as votes change change the links. Make it a cap of two or three links to fan sites and the votes contribute, if anything it will turn the article into a better one as people who want to come from their favorite fansite to vote will need to help the article before they can have theirs counted. I am sure this idea can use tweaking like simply not allowing single purpose accoutns to vote or something. --NuclearZer012:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd say that linking to some fansites is good; but Wikipedia is not a web directory, so e.g. linking to a fan forum with 50 members is not necessary except as promotion for that forum. >Radiant<14:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Linking to fansites is essential because they are nearly always the best resources on pop culture topics. They are also a lot less commercial than official sites. Wimstead13:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
American systematic bias in Wikipedia
I realise the greater many of readers and contributors to the Wikipedia are American, and I do not wish to denigrate the efforts of so many fine editors but can it be made clear when making policy regarding style that not everybody knows all the States (and particulary the abbreviations), or will assume that a reference to a Governmental department is peculiar to the USA (most particulary when referred to as an acronym). Many contributors and readers are from outside of the US, and some may not have English as a first language, and may need reference points. It also helps Search Engines find the relevent article!
I have just edited an wikilink which was [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]] by removing the second conditional text. Since the article was specifically about a US policy think tank it made it less understandable, especially as the term United States was therefore omitted from the introductory paragraph. This may not have mattered too much but the United Kingdom also had a Secretary of War in the timeframe referred to by the article.
For the US student or reader familiarity often obscures this deficit, but nearly all geopolitical articles outside of the USA include mention of the nation. To maintain a standard in Wikipedia this should be policy for all geopolitical articles.
Actually, I'm not sure there is a specific guideline written about this but it's at least implicit in Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. Keep in mind that although editors might indeed fail to be specific enough, there are very few instances where a more precise description (such as yours) will be reverted. Even if a guideline existed, you can be certain that articles will still be written without conforming to it and it is up to you and I and everyone else to make it better one article at a time. Pascal.Tesson22:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Could it at least be made very implicit? ;) I frequently edit wiki by seeing what the random article brings up, and I usually edit every other US based article just to include the nation in the intro/piece. Articles referring to other countries need editing far less frequently. "Lummee, and there are so many articles..." Ah, well, it keeps me out of mischief! Thanks. LessHeard vanU22:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
A lot of this is just about writing better articles, that's very true. We should always try to give a reasonable ammount of context when writing articles, assuming other people will know what we're talking about is an innocent way to introduce bias... unfortunately just writing a policy that says we should be careful and add plenty of context hardly means people actually will. This just takes a lot of diligence and awareness to make happen, I think. --W.marsh23:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your responses. I am aware of WP:CSB, but believe it isn't promoted as much in wiki policy as it could be. A matter of simply making an example of poor article writing owing to bias (such as abbreviating Illinois to Il) might be useful - although not everybody reads the guide and stuff - to bring it home early on to new editors. It should also be noted that the demographic for Wiki contributors indicate a high level of education and grammatical skills, so it may be that I am arguing against a cultural viewpoint rather than one of insularity.LessHeard vanU00:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I think in a lot of cases, it is insularity. And thank you for fixing such cases. That's the only way a lot of us will learn. Also, I think one reason people tend not to state what country they're talking about, is that it makes their sentences long and awkward. The author in the first example you cited, could have made the link to read United States Secretary of War|US Secretary of War. -Freekee15:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Proposed policy regarding younger users of Wikipedia
It is written differently. It does not depend on COPPA or any other legal authority. The end result is not significantly different from WP:CHILD. But what difference does it make? If people agree with this proposed policy, why should it matter that there is another proposed policy on the same subject. Same if you disagree with it. Why not comment on this policy? As for the comment below that this is something of a fork, there is no policy against a fork of a policy page. It is not encyclopedia content. I wrote it precisely because the other one had become so bogged down. Once again, I am hoping that people will be more able to focus on the substance of this version than the other other one.
Indeed, seems to be something of a fork from WP:CHILD. On the other hand I'm happy you posted this since I was unaware of the WP:CHILD debate. And it's a pretty sad debate, with shadow straw polls, canvassing, bickering, etc. There is no evidence presented that this policy is needed and I really feel this is "think of the children" paranoia. Pascal.Tesson22:37, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
See my comment above.
I'm sorry but I still don't know why you would advertise an alternate solution to a problem which has not occurred in practice, especially given that there is clearly disagreement on the talk page of WP:CHILD on whether or not we should have any policy on the subject and given that the whole issue is going to the arbitration committee. And I think the key point made during the first debate is that either we are required by law to adopt such a policy (in which case, let the office take care of it) or we are not and then why are we wasting our time trying to fix something that ain't broke. Pascal.Tesson04:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, obviously I do not agree with what you say regarding whether the problem exists or whether anything is "broke" or whether legal requirements have anything to do with it. I have to agree that there has been disagreement on the talk page of WP:CHILD. However, having participated in that discussion, I believe there was a great deal of confusion about whether some people were disagreeing with having any policy, or just with the way the thing was presented. Obviously some people do not think there should be any policy, but I am not convinced that they are numerous enough to prevent there from being a "consensus." That's why I started the new page, to try to clarify the situation. 6SJ704:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand your concern and find your effort to be laudable, but this is a legal minefield. The legal department should handle this, in part because should an event occur, it might unlimately involve the corporation. --Badger15106:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Books in Wikipedia
There are ongoing disputes about what is the criteria for including a certain book in WP, and what is allowed in these articles to conform with WP:NPOV.
My view is that Wikipedia is not Amazon.com. If a reader wants to know just what a book contains, when it was published, reviews canvassed by the publisher, etc. the user is better served going to Amazon or a similar site. If a book is prominent enough to have an article in WP, we need to then provide some context, present the controversy the book raised if any, and provide counterpoints to the author's views, if held by notable authors. Otherwise these type of articles are just advertisement.
What are the policies/guidelines available for creating articles about books in WP, if any?
I understand what Wikipedia's stand on "original research" is. I understand why it is important, and what it does for Wikipedia. However, I strongly think Wikipedia should allow some level of interpretation of novels. I do not think a book discussion on Wikipedia proposes unpublished ideas or arguments.
I do not think that Wikipedia should have extremely long topics on book discussions. I also think that we should clearly state that it is speculation. The Brothers Karamazov, a featured article, has a whole section on Analysis/Themes. There is no source listed for these conclusions: just the text itself. I do not think this is harmful. I think it is productive and helps Wikipedia. -- ¢² Connor K. 16:59, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
There's a difference between mentioning well-known themes/analyses and conducting original research - we should be very vigilant on the later (probably requiring sources for it in the Brothers Karamazov or its removal), but permit the former. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a place to house new content. For scientific topics, there is less danger of this -- for literary and especially pop culture topics, we're in great danger of losing project focus, and should be much more strict. --Improv14:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
TV program schedules
I have nominated Template:TV3 (New Zealand) Primetime Schedule for deletion, on the grounds that it's a copyvio (the TV station explicitly forbids publishing of its listings without purchasing the right to do so), that Wikipedia is not a TV guide, and that it's a recreation of a speedy-deleted predecessor. Since the deletion on the ground of Wikipedia not being a TV guide would set a precedent affecting many other articles on television networks, I'm drawing wider attention to the deletion debate. Please comment at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 October 22, not here.-gadfium04:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Notability
Just ran across Centrist Party (United States). Neither the article not the party's web site indicates that it is anything more than one guy, or a handful, claiming to be a political party. Besides just making a remark on its talk page, is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do to press for demonstration of notability? I see we have a template {{notability}}, but it appears to be specific to articles in about half a dozen areas (biographies, bands, etc.) and doesn't seem to cover political parties. - Jmabel | Talk07:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I said "is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do". Yes, I'm aware that I could suggest deletion, but usually when I fire a warning shot I don't aim at the head. - Jmabel | Talk09:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Why not? That shows you're serious. A prod threat might get them to establish notability. If they clear it without cause or don't bother editting the page again, take it to AfD. It reads like an advertisement to me, and you could probably speedy it under G11 easily. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 09:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I've added {{notability}} and {{importance}} tags to the article. I normally leave them for a couple of weeks, re-adding them if they get removed without any work being done on the page. If after that period nothing happens - then I would prod the article. Megapixie09:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Table of contents of books in article about non-fiction books
I hear diverging opinions about the question whether it is okay, fair use or copyright violation, informative or uninformative, ugly, lazy to include a table of contents of the non-fiction book in an article about book. See e.g. here The Making of a Moonie, Bounded Choice. It is a re-curring dispute. Any thoughts? Andries12:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Speaking purely about the asthetics of an article, i think it does look sort of ugly. And wouldn't it fall under the category of "lists of indiscriminate information"? since it's just copied right out of a book's TOC, with no added commentary or information. I'd say it would look out of place in the middle of an encyclopedic article. But looking at the Bounded Choice article, it does seem okay (although i think naming the section "table of contents" is a bit confusing, especially when you have an actual Table of contents right above it), although that could just be because there's really nothing else on the Bonded Choice article. No idea what copyright/fair use laws say about this though. --`/aksha14:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
The Bounded Choice article gives a review, word for word. Aside from sounding like spam or vanity, isn't that a copyvio? -Freekee15:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it about time that it becomes policy to use correct headers for the References sections. A lot of different forms are currently used, with most of them not really making sense. A lot of people use:
==Notes==
when they are references and not footnotes. Footnotes are rarely used on wikipedia since it would be just as easy to go to the article which the note refers to (if there is one, there often is). I have seen one, maybe two pages which actually had a footnote in the Notes section, although the majority were still references. So shouldn't something be added to the MoS to say that inline citations should be placed under the References header with a subheader below that for General references:
==References==
div class="references-small"><references/></div>
Then all the references will be under one header, and they will just be references. I suppose another way could be to call References, Notes and references.
Ideally another <ref> style thing will happen for <note> (there is already {{note}} or something but it isnt built into Wikipedia) so that a seperate header above
==References==
would have the notes and that would be just for notes. No crossing over.
I haven't found a real preference yet for Notes or References, they are about even, but Notes doesn't make sense. Can't something be done? chris_huh16:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I always simply use references and the div setup. I do not think general references is useful, if you pulled information from it cite it, if not then leave it off. If they need general shark info they can goto the library. I think notes and references is the way to go, though I normally do not see notes sections and have yet to need one in an article I have started. --NuclearZer016:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
That may be fine for articles that don't need a section of notes per se; but there are certainly some that make extensive use of footnotes (like this one), where having a "Notes" section and a separate bibliography-style "References" section makes perfect sense. Kirill Lokshin21:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Any user may only make x edits to an article* per 24 hours.
*in the article/template namespace and any others prone to dispute, but not talk pages
My first proposal for x would be 10. See, this does not harm normal people in any way, since 10 edits is quite a lot, and there is always a preview button. But, this would really slow down disputes, where two or more people keep editing against each other. -- infinity023:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
And I don't mean "If they make x+1 edits they get blocked", I mean "it is technically impossible to make more than x edits to the same article in one day." -- infinity023:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Seems like a bad idea. What about fast-moving articles like Cory Lidle that had multiple edits per minute. Also, what about WP:AIV, etc. It also would severly limit vandalism reversions. Naconkantari23:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this idea does have its flaws, and thanks for pointing them out. However, the aim is to improve the idea and remove these flaws. Fanatical POV-pushers is certainly a problem on wikipedia. You may not have come across any, but for the people who have, it is hell. A few further thoughts:
For reverting vandalism, edits made directly after an IP edit don't make the counter go up. If someone happens to edit the article just before you revert (and this happens enough times in one day to make your counter run out), well, get someone else to do it.
For "Current Event" articles, an admin could have the option to mark the article as "open" so that these counters don't apply.
Yeah, yeah. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. ;) I assure you, fanatical POV-pushers are a far worse problem than vandals. Vandalism is obvious. Fanatical-POV pushing isn't. -- infinity023:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
What happens when someone just starts editing anon then? after the 10 edits. Ban them for sockpupptery? even if their edits are sensible? What about anon users? You can limit registered users to x edits per account, but an anon user who's ip keeps changing (as in they're not doing it, their internet connection is just that way) will be able to edit the article 20, 30...100 times? How can we enforce this rule? What if it's a relatively unknown article, but for some reason...on one day, a bunch of people start vandalising it. Every revert is one edit. And if the article is a relatively unknown/small article, not many regulars will have it on their watchlist. So when the 11th vandal attack happens, would we need a specific place for people to post revert-requests because they've already done their 10 edits per day? What about ip addresses that are shared (i.e. by a school)? So does that mean the whole school can only edit an article 10 times a day? Now you can say people at the school can just create their own accounts, so their 10 edits a day does not overlap with the school IP's 10 edits per day. But then how do you know when an account is a genuine new account, and when it's just someone needing more edits per day? Regardless of whether this proposal is good in philosophy, it's impossible in practice. Which makes it almost useless. --`/aksha00:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
To expand a bit on the current articles issue. Even if we allow admins to mark an article as open (which is going to add unnecessary work and delay articles) what about new articles which aren't current events? Some users write the whole article somewhere e.g. in a subpage on their usepager (or in a text editor) but others prefer to slowly work on an article on wikipedia. With this proposal we will basically force users to use their userpage. Also, even non-new articles, a editor might find a stub or some other article in bad need of work. Again while some will use the subpage, many will edit the article directly. While editors should use the preview (and a subpage might be better), many forget and in many cases an editor may keep finding their is stuff they need to correct or improve. I'm sure you can come up with numerous proposals to try and work around this like more admin tagging, excluding new articles, excluding stubs, even making special editors who are excluded from the limit but all this is just creates more work and in the end some editors are going to be discouraged by all the complexity. The key problem with the proposal is that just because an editor is majorly changing an article doesn't mean their a POV-pusher. In many cases major edits should get consensus but in other cases an editor can majorly change an article well and it's not necessary to ask first (e.g. because it's a stub or is so bad anything is better then what's there). Therefore any attempt to limit edits to try and stop POV pushers is also going to stop legitimate editors who are drastically improving an article and removing POV! Nil Einne09:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Also consider large articles with many sections. It is very possible to want to make 10 or even 20 reformats, spelling corrections, additions of citations, etc., to an article, just one at a time as you have time, and as you see the need. Not all of Wikipedia is a war zone, you know, there is also real work going on. AnonEMouse(squeak)14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Can terms invented by Wikipedia articles become notable if others start using them?
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kryder's law (second nomination). An article was created for a "law" that didn't really exist; it was just the whimsical title of a magazine article and had never been used at all otherwise. After the Wikipedia article had been around a while (violating WP:NEO) the term started to be used by a handful of people. Now it is failing a deletion attempt because people have started using it, mimicking the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article itself has a section explaining how the term did not exist prior to its own existence. — Omegatron19:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Sure, they can... while it's not proper to use Wikipedia as a place to introduce or promote something new, it's still true that once something becomes popular and notable it deserves inclusion, even if some of that popularity began via improper Wikipedia use in the past. *Dan T.*20:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Note that WP:NEO requires reliable secondary sources about the neologism before we can have an article. Remember that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so none of its mirrors are either. GRBerry02:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
In answer to the title question, of course. In this specific instance, I'm not sure the term merits an article, but there's no reason that a Wikipedia term couldn't become an actual word. As an example, I've encountered the real-life verbing of the word Wikipedia itself (by non-editors) to mean looking something up on Wikipedia, similar to the use of Google to mean an internet search. --tjstrfNow on editor review!06:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Even if it were an accidental creation or a Wikipedia-hosted hoax, it could still gain independant notability. As I said, I don't believe that applies in this case though. --tjstrfNow on editor review!18:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
So I was wondering what people think about the notability of academic journals. Some of them lead their fields, and a publication in them can make a career at a stroke. Others are hugely significant. Others still are very good for their papers' authors, but not top-flight journals. My particular context is the very many journals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of these journals are definitive in their fields. In the UK, for instance, publications in many of them are (eventually) worth real money from the Government's research-funding bodies.
So my question is this. To what extent should we have seperate articles on them; to what extent should we aggregate them somwhere, and at what granularity (by discipline, by publisher, by ... )? For example, we already have (from my field) IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. These are both seminal journals, and each has published papers of massive significance to the research community (and, in due course, to the lay public and their information-carrying devices). But what of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology? You, generally speaking, would try publishing there if your paper didn't make into the others. Should it, and others like it, get an article? -Splash - tk19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Well there are two questions here: should we keep the article IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology if it's created and should we bother creating it. I'd say yes for the first and no to the second. I see no point in deleting neutral articles about well-established journals even if they're less prestigious but I don't see their absence as a problem. In many cases, a list would be appropriate for "lesser" journals. Pascal.Tesson22:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I tend to prefer a "mergist" approach for these sorts of articles. The reality is that there are very few people on Wikipedia who actively contribute to them. Whatever will be written for them will stay static for a very long time. Generally speaking, unless the journal has had a lot of coverge outside of academia, I don't expect their Wikipedia articles to be substantially more than (let's ballpark) 3 paragraphs. Probably better to write a single article, say, IEEE Transactions or IEEE publications, and within this single article, mention all the "prominent", "notable", and "encyclopedic" journals. The rest can be relegated to a list. After that, I'm sure the Magic of the Wiki will take over. See Annual Reports Section A, Annual Reports Section B, Annual Reports Section C for a place where this might be very applicable. --HappyCamper11:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
There's not really a lot you can say about these publications - they are simply collections of other peoples' papers - what you can say about them (first publication date, publishing body) ensures that all of these articles will be cookie-cutter identical . I would prefer they be made redirects to the associated body - to IEEE for IEEE publications, ACM for ACM publications, etc. Raul65413:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Proposed guideline on blanking
I've started a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Blanking which I hope will clearly explain to editors when blanking is vandalism, and when it may be a legitimate content dispute, possibly from an inexperienced editor. In my experience, this is one of the most frequent causes of misdirected vandalism warnings and reports on WP:AIV, and the potential problem of an editor trying to remove inappropriate material (possibly even BLP-violations) and getting warned or even blocked for his pains is sufficiently serious that we need clearer instruction for Recent Changes patrollers and the like. Currently, all I can think of to point to is the one line in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and possibly the two lines about 'Bold edits' under 'What vandalism is not'. Edits and opinions are welcome. --Sam Blanning(talk)19:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Any user may only make x edits to an article* per 24 hours.
*in the article/template namespace and any others prone to dispute, but not talk pages
My first proposal for x would be 10. See, this does not harm normal people in any way, since 10 edits is quite a lot, and there is always a preview button. But, this would really slow down disputes, where two or more people keep editing against each other. -- infinity023:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
And I don't mean "If they make x+1 edits they get blocked", I mean "it is technically impossible to make more than x edits to the same article in one day." -- infinity023:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Seems like a bad idea. What about fast-moving articles like Cory Lidle that had multiple edits per minute. Also, what about WP:AIV, etc. It also would severly limit vandalism reversions. Naconkantari23:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this idea does have its flaws, and thanks for pointing them out. However, the aim is to improve the idea and remove these flaws. Fanatical POV-pushers is certainly a problem on wikipedia. You may not have come across any, but for the people who have, it is hell. A few further thoughts:
For reverting vandalism, edits made directly after an IP edit don't make the counter go up. If someone happens to edit the article just before you revert (and this happens enough times in one day to make your counter run out), well, get someone else to do it.
For "Current Event" articles, an admin could have the option to mark the article as "open" so that these counters don't apply.
Yeah, yeah. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. ;) I assure you, fanatical POV-pushers are a far worse problem than vandals. Vandalism is obvious. Fanatical-POV pushing isn't. -- infinity023:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
What happens when someone just starts editing anon then? after the 10 edits. Ban them for sockpupptery? even if their edits are sensible? What about anon users? You can limit registered users to x edits per account, but an anon user who's ip keeps changing (as in they're not doing it, their internet connection is just that way) will be able to edit the article 20, 30...100 times? How can we enforce this rule? What if it's a relatively unknown article, but for some reason...on one day, a bunch of people start vandalising it. Every revert is one edit. And if the article is a relatively unknown/small article, not many regulars will have it on their watchlist. So when the 11th vandal attack happens, would we need a specific place for people to post revert-requests because they've already done their 10 edits per day? What about ip addresses that are shared (i.e. by a school)? So does that mean the whole school can only edit an article 10 times a day? Now you can say people at the school can just create their own accounts, so their 10 edits a day does not overlap with the school IP's 10 edits per day. But then how do you know when an account is a genuine new account, and when it's just someone needing more edits per day? Regardless of whether this proposal is good in philosophy, it's impossible in practice. Which makes it almost useless. --`/aksha00:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
To expand a bit on the current articles issue. Even if we allow admins to mark an article as open (which is going to add unnecessary work and delay articles) what about new articles which aren't current events? Some users write the whole article somewhere e.g. in a subpage on their usepager (or in a text editor) but others prefer to slowly work on an article on wikipedia. With this proposal we will basically force users to use their userpage. Also, even non-new articles, a editor might find a stub or some other article in bad need of work. Again while some will use the subpage, many will edit the article directly. While editors should use the preview (and a subpage might be better), many forget and in many cases an editor may keep finding their is stuff they need to correct or improve. I'm sure you can come up with numerous proposals to try and work around this like more admin tagging, excluding new articles, excluding stubs, even making special editors who are excluded from the limit but all this is just creates more work and in the end some editors are going to be discouraged by all the complexity. The key problem with the proposal is that just because an editor is majorly changing an article doesn't mean their a POV-pusher. In many cases major edits should get consensus but in other cases an editor can majorly change an article well and it's not necessary to ask first (e.g. because it's a stub or is so bad anything is better then what's there). Therefore any attempt to limit edits to try and stop POV pushers is also going to stop legitimate editors who are drastically improving an article and removing POV! Nil Einne09:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Also consider large articles with many sections. It is very possible to want to make 10 or even 20 reformats, spelling corrections, additions of citations, etc., to an article, just one at a time as you have time, and as you see the need. Not all of Wikipedia is a war zone, you know, there is also real work going on. AnonEMouse(squeak)14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Can terms invented by Wikipedia articles become notable if others start using them?
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kryder's law (second nomination). An article was created for a "law" that didn't really exist; it was just the whimsical title of a magazine article and had never been used at all otherwise. After the Wikipedia article had been around a while (violating WP:NEO) the term started to be used by a handful of people. Now it is failing a deletion attempt because people have started using it, mimicking the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article itself has a section explaining how the term did not exist prior to its own existence. — Omegatron19:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Sure, they can... while it's not proper to use Wikipedia as a place to introduce or promote something new, it's still true that once something becomes popular and notable it deserves inclusion, even if some of that popularity began via improper Wikipedia use in the past. *Dan T.*20:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Note that WP:NEO requires reliable secondary sources about the neologism before we can have an article. Remember that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so none of its mirrors are either. GRBerry02:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
In answer to the title question, of course. In this specific instance, I'm not sure the term merits an article, but there's no reason that a Wikipedia term couldn't become an actual word. As an example, I've encountered the real-life verbing of the word Wikipedia itself (by non-editors) to mean looking something up on Wikipedia, similar to the use of Google to mean an internet search. --tjstrfNow on editor review!06:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Even if it were an accidental creation or a Wikipedia-hosted hoax, it could still gain independant notability. As I said, I don't believe that applies in this case though. --tjstrfNow on editor review!18:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
So I was wondering what people think about the notability of academic journals. Some of them lead their fields, and a publication in them can make a career at a stroke. Others are hugely significant. Others still are very good for their papers' authors, but not top-flight journals. My particular context is the very many journals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of these journals are definitive in their fields. In the UK, for instance, publications in many of them are (eventually) worth real money from the Government's research-funding bodies.
So my question is this. To what extent should we have seperate articles on them; to what extent should we aggregate them somwhere, and at what granularity (by discipline, by publisher, by ... )? For example, we already have (from my field) IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. These are both seminal journals, and each has published papers of massive significance to the research community (and, in due course, to the lay public and their information-carrying devices). But what of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology? You, generally speaking, would try publishing there if your paper didn't make into the others. Should it, and others like it, get an article? -Splash - tk19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Well there are two questions here: should we keep the article IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology if it's created and should we bother creating it. I'd say yes for the first and no to the second. I see no point in deleting neutral articles about well-established journals even if they're less prestigious but I don't see their absence as a problem. In many cases, a list would be appropriate for "lesser" journals. Pascal.Tesson22:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I tend to prefer a "mergist" approach for these sorts of articles. The reality is that there are very few people on Wikipedia who actively contribute to them. Whatever will be written for them will stay static for a very long time. Generally speaking, unless the journal has had a lot of coverge outside of academia, I don't expect their Wikipedia articles to be substantially more than (let's ballpark) 3 paragraphs. Probably better to write a single article, say, IEEE Transactions or IEEE publications, and within this single article, mention all the "prominent", "notable", and "encyclopedic" journals. The rest can be relegated to a list. After that, I'm sure the Magic of the Wiki will take over. See Annual Reports Section A, Annual Reports Section B, Annual Reports Section C for a place where this might be very applicable. --HappyCamper11:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
There's not really a lot you can say about these publications - they are simply collections of other peoples' papers - what you can say about them (first publication date, publishing body) ensures that all of these articles will be cookie-cutter identical . I would prefer they be made redirects to the associated body - to IEEE for IEEE publications, ACM for ACM publications, etc. Raul65413:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Proposed guideline on blanking
I've started a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Blanking which I hope will clearly explain to editors when blanking is vandalism, and when it may be a legitimate content dispute, possibly from an inexperienced editor. In my experience, this is one of the most frequent causes of misdirected vandalism warnings and reports on WP:AIV, and the potential problem of an editor trying to remove inappropriate material (possibly even BLP-violations) and getting warned or even blocked for his pains is sufficiently serious that we need clearer instruction for Recent Changes patrollers and the like. Currently, all I can think of to point to is the one line in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and possibly the two lines about 'Bold edits' under 'What vandalism is not'. Edits and opinions are welcome. --Sam Blanning(talk)19:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Excessive Use of Unnecessary Images on User Pages/Galleries
I began to notice how some people upload unnecessary amount of images on their user pages and "galleries". And then they legitimize the pictures' presence in Wikipedia by offering them to be displayed in other user pages or articles. An example is [6].
I myself have one pic of myself on my user page, but I think that should be it. Wikipedia should not serve as personal home pages for people. (Wikimachine04:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC))
The example that I think you have in mind is not the link you give above but rather this. However, I'm not so concerned by it. I think I've seen larger collections of grossly inferior photographs, but I didn't make a mental (let alone other) note of them. Perhaps you could come up with more salient (more obviously objectionable) examples. -- Hoary05:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
if you dig around, there was a user gallary nominated for delete just about...a week or two ago? (it was by a member named kingstonjr and called "Work Gallary"), and ended up as a delete. You may also want to take a look at discussion being held at this proposed guildine - Wikipedia:Galleries, especially the section under "Userspace gallaries". --`/aksha08:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Someone just added a "history" of the city of Scappoose, Oregon on its talk page. I was about to commend the editor for his or her addition and point out that we would need better citation, etc., before the material was added to the main article. Then I read the whole thing and noticed this fine piece of creative writing moved from history to POV to patent nonsense. I am tempted to blank it, but I'd like some opinions first. Thanks! Katr6716:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Blanking someones comments on talk generally only leads to escalation of conflict. Merely post a response saying that the above is nonsense, etc. Why deliberately provoke someone ? Wjhonson16:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Nothing peeves a person like being ignored or discounted without explanation, which is what blanking amounts to. Of course, blanking of material designed to be inflammatory (calling someone a poopie-head, spouting pro-skinhead material, etc.) deserves to be blanked.Pete01:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne
I just read it, and while some parts in the middle have a definate anti-environmental point of view, and some parts near the end desend into the relms of questionable notability, I don't think any of it is patent nonsense. I would not blank it. I would, if I were you, leave a comment about the first part being good and needing better citation, and then point out any specific concerns you have about the rest. Let them know that if good citation is provided and all the concerns are addressed this bit of history will be in the article. Try to work with them. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
If it's a temporary content fork just to work on it a bit, it might be more productive for everyone if it was worked on in userspace, or at least not on the talk page (though a link to it could be left on the talk page so people are aware of it). If it's a permanent content fork (eg. they don't intend to follow our core policies and don't intend to ever integrate it back in), then that's discouraged, and speedy archiving might be appropriate. --Interiot16:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Believe me, the bit about albino nutria saving the town of Scappose is nonsense. :) BTW, when searching on "albino nutria" I got a google hit on this talk page, so apparently this has come up before... Katr6716:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I thought that was the part you were refering to as nonsense ;). I did a quick search for nutria and came up with this redirect Nutria, so it apparently is a real animal which, while native to South America, has been introduced into Oregon and is considered a pest there, so there is at least a tid-bit of truth to that part of it. As for it saving the town from flooding... some people get some strange ideas into their heads. The person doing the writing may actually believe this. Insisting on a proper source should keep it out of the article as I doubt one can be found. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, nutria are indeed real. Albino nutria are indeed real, but sentient albino nutria that worked to save a small town in Oregon...that's a bit of a stretch. :D I don't think the editor in question acutally believes this. I think this is in the fine tradition of an Oregon tall tale and s/he is pulling our legs. Katr6716:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
For those playing along at home, the material on the talk page was added by an anon. (Which isn't to say anons can't make valid contributions, just something to consider.) I chose to archive the silly thing. Thanks for the input and for being so trusting. :) Someone else put {{Talkheader}} on the page so that should take care of that. Katr6720:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Primary sources and history
The dividing line between original research and source-based research becomes quite blurred when it comes to modern history and in particular the availability of increasing numbers of primary documents on the internet. In particular, the work of the [7]National Security Archive is a great boon to historians and teachers in the line of their work. However, they are also open to egregious abuse by people with particular hobby horses. I cannot see how the use of primary source materials in a historical article does not count as original research - it is certainly verifiable, but if it cannot be found in a published work on the topic, then it is also original. Documents are the historical equivilant of a scientist's data, and unless dealt with carefully by a professional can be abused. Personally, I would like to see citations from primary documents banned in historical articles, on the basis that they are original research. If the point being made cannot be found in a published work by an authority on the subject, it should not be up to editors of this site to make it through the use of google. Cripipper15:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
This can be a slippery slope but I do agree in the most part. I have seen too many people present documents that were released by the government as proof of XyZ, however were unaware that those documents were later proven forgeries, or that information alone would not be considered significant, the document didn't reach person X even though it was addressed to them etc. These are issues a real historian examines that Wikipedia should not draw their own conclusions for. --NuclearZer015:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion on Talk:Sviatoslav I of Kiev, in which an editor objects to citing the Primary Chronicle in the article on the ground that the chronicle is a primary source, while WP:RS guides us to prefer secondary sources. I don't see why speculations of a modern researcher should be preferred to the first-hand account. --Ghirla-трёп-16:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Because your average Wikipedian is not a historian and just because they think an item states XYZ or is proof of ABC, doesn't mean it is. If you are using it to cite that it exists, or that person X was mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, I guess that is fine, though I would argue not to say person X but a person named X. --NuclearZer016:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Because, at least in theory, a historian has an expert grasp of the pitfalls and inadequecies of primary sources and knows how to handle them appropriately. I cannot comment on the advisability or otherwise of using the Primary Chronicle as a source, because it is now within my field, and so for the same reason I wouldn't use it. Cripipper16:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Traditionally, encyclopedic subjects are well established and have a number of secondary sources. Wikipedia editors are creating articles which are much more current than paper encyclopedias can create. The WP:RS guideline follows WP:V which is based, but not constrained to, traditional encyclopedias. Therefore, I view Ghirla's statement to present a weakness in the WP:RS guideline which might be restated, thus preventing the confusion that editor had. Terryeo16:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Vehemently opposed This proposal supposes that because some Wikipedians don't understand the difference between a literal and an interpretive citation, no one should be allowed to use primary sources at all. That's unworkable. Below is one example of much damage would result:
The photostat of Abraham Lincoln's handwriting would have to go. That shows part of an original draft, so we'd have to disallow the image if we started to classify all primary sources as original research.
The third paragraph in the introduction would have to be rewritten. It begins, Beginning with the now-iconic phrase "Four score and seven years ago," and ends with ""government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Those are quotes from a primary source.
The photograph of Lincoln would have to be removed also. That's another primary source.
Since excerpts from the text are disallowed as original research, the entire text itself has to go.
In a letter to Lincoln, Helen Nicolay stated, "Mr. Hay told me shortly after the transfer was made that your father gave my father the original ms. of the Gettysburg Address." Contemporary correspondence is also an original source, so editors would have to replace this with a paraphrase from some secondary source.
The photostat of the complete Hay Copy would have to be removed for the same reason as the other handwritten excerpt: these are original sources.
Likewise, the link to the Cornell University virtual library for the Bancroft copy would have to be removed from the article.
The photostat of The New York Times article would also have to go. File:Gettys.nyt.jpg
The citation to a 1938 audio recording by William R. Rathvon, a surviving witness to the speech, would have to go.
Not only would the proposal gut this particular featured article, but Joan of Arc, also a featured article, would suffer. The page would lose more than half of its images: photographs of places she visited and a photostat of her signature. The four quote boxes, which highlight excerpts from her correspondence that I translated myself, would all be lost. Citations to her trials, which comprise a substantial percentage of the article's footnotes, would all have to be replaced with secondary source references. Since that would require more time than I have to spare right now, we might have to roll back to this version.[8] Also at Geoffrey Chaucer the line translation I created for the article would have to be removed. Same for the line translation at Beowulf, which served as a model for the Chaucer page. Durova18:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
As mentioned below, these are primarily illustrations of the article, not sources. The letters, for example, can be used to illustrate something referred to in a secondary source. Where the problem exists, is in the numerous articles on 20th century history which have within then the phrase "As recent documents released/published/put on the web by X,Y,Z show..." A case can be made that these do not break guidelines, as they do indeed show what they purport to show. The problem exists with context and the abilty of the person using them. Sadly there are many editors out there who wouldn't know the difference between a literal and interpretive source. A tightening of the guideline to permit primary sources that are used to illustrate points verifiable from other sources, but ban them without other supporting evidence would accomodate the concerns outlined above. Cripipper18:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose when the primary source is unambiguous in meaning. However, when there can be a reasonable level of contention over the meaning of a primary source, I believe we must be careful not to make interpetations based on it. For example, I do not believe you should interpet complicated legal documents (especially when the law is new) in their primary form. --tjstrfNow on editor review!22:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Two thoughts:
I tend to see quotations of primary sources as illustrations. A bit like images. Wikipedia:What is a featured article? advises to use images where appropriate. I'd extend that to a broader concept of illustrations. Take, for instance, the article on Tacitus: we have no "image" of what this author looked like. There are some "images" in that article (among them a bust of Cicero). But an "illustration" of how Tacitus was perceived by contemporary authors is given in Tacitus#Studies and reception history in the form of a quote (= "primary source") by Pliny the younger. But that quote serves primarily as an "illustration", to the content of the body of that section which takes a broader view on Tacitean studies. Similarly, I don't think it would be possible to write an article about Laplace's demon without giving the actual quote by Laplace, that set off what later theorists would call a "demon". Again, Laplace's quote only works as an "illustration" (he never used the word demon as such), the body of the article is about how *other* theorists interpreted that quote by Laplace. The images/"text illustrations" analogy could also explained thus: when we write an article about (for instance) an architect, then the article would usually be illustrated by some images of that architect's buildings. Note that such images would generally be "primary sources". If we write an article about an author (or in general, about someone who is primarily known for his/her words), likewise that article could be illustrated by primary sources in the form of text. The same argument becomes only stronger when writing an article about a "building" vs. writing an article about a "book" (if a "cover image" of such book can serve as an illustration, why couldn't a "quote"?), etc...
Note that for "current event" topics a recent ArbCom case decided: "It is appropriate to temporarily include external links to blogs and other sites which reflect contemporary reactions to a developing event. This is especially true in the case of events which are the focus of substantial attention. As the article becomes history rather than a current event the appropriateness of such links may change." – In the same ArbCom case it is further stressed that such use of (primary!) sources is to be seen as a *temporary* exception to existing guidance: "In appropriate circumstances it is proper to markedly deviate from the usual practices set forth in Wikipedia guidelines and style guides in order to fulfill the encyclopedic purpose of Wikipedia, for example, as in the instant case, an adequate presentation of an ongoing event. Deviations from Wikipedia policies, especially fundamental policy, may also occur in rare instances but are much more difficult to justify." – what I mean by these quotes is that when we're discussing "modern history and in particular the availability of increasing numbers of primary documents on the internet" (the problem brought forward by Cripipper), it might be useful to distinguish between "current events" (really, really "recent" history) and "Modern history" in general. For the first I think we can state that some exceptions, as stated in the ArbCom case, have to be taken account of. --Francis Schonken09:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I feel there should be a major rearrangement of the articles on Jewish Music. What is now called Jewish Music should be renamed as "Jewish Liturgical Music", other articles should be revised or consolidated, and a new article needs to be written called Jewish Music, with pointers to the other related articles.
Renaming an article is a major change, and I felt I should do it only after some discussion with other authors who have worked on the topic. But nobody has responded to my comments on the Jewish Music discussion page, though people have gone into the article a couple of times to make minor changes.
I feel a bit uneasy about going ahead with this on my own. Does anyone out there want to read the stuff over and voice a second opinion, before I go rejiggering everything?
Indeed. Even if you posted your message 20 days ago, it's always better to have a good talk before going on moving articles. What I would personally advise is to first create the article you want (lithurgical), and provide a link to it on the current article. At worse, you'll endu up merging them later on; but for now, there may still be a need for an article representing contemporary jewish music, and that's the article. You won't have a "Contemporary Jewish music" article because there's so little to say. Anyway, the people you're looking for are probably at WP:JEW, and more specifically at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Jewish_culture. Cheers, and bon courage.--SidiLemine18:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Campaign workers editing politician articles
I have a question about campaign workers editing articles about the politicians they work for (I'm not a campaign worker). We've had problems in the past, of course, with political staffers of current Congresspeople/MPs editing articles about their legislator or his/her opponent in a POV manner. I don't think I've ever seen a discussion about edits by a campaign worker for a non-office holder, however (perhaps I've just missed it). Particularly, what if an editor admits to being a campaign worker for a political campaign then proceeds to edit the article about the politician he or she works or volunteers for?
My initial thought is that this type of editing is fine. If the edits are well-referenced to reliable sources and appear neutral, I think WP:AGF compels us to accept the edits of the campaign worker and even encourage that editor's broader participation in the project. When we've had problems in the past, I think POV and the editor's attempt to hide his or her identity has been the problem. But I'd really like to see some other perspectives on this just to be sure. · j e r s y k otalk · 02:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The guidelines are there, but routinely ignored. Frankly (and it's worst just before an election like now) many articles on less notable candidates and created by their staff or supporters and never reviewed or edited by anyone. Frequently the content bears a strong resemblance to their existing website, sometimes word-for-word, but, as I said, often the articles don't attract neutral editors, so we end up being free webspace for them. Fan-196703:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
For Wikipedia:No original research, see these
extensive diffs since October 16th. SlimVirgin had zero edits to the talk page during that period, but made approximately 24 changes to the policy itself.
SlimVirgin has also been making somewhat controversial changes to Wikipedia:Verifiability. Thre's been a minor edit war over there between SlimVirgin and Jguk (talk·contribs). There are so many SlimVirgin edits involved that it's tough to tell what's substantive and what's just text rearrangement. However, for that article there's some discussion on the talk page.
U betchum, red rider ! I've worked with User:SlimVirgin on a number of those pages. She hasn't changed policy and hasn't changed guideline. She has worked with a number of editors, toward clearer, cleaner statements. She discusses extensively, complies with editor concensus, ignores no one (that I've seen), is polite and makes damn good sense. The reason for rewording (not real change) is to resolve difficulties that manifest as editors work articles. If Slim wasn't doing it, someone else would have to because the policy and guideline pages often get editors attempting to modify a policy so the article they are involved with can say what they want it to. It is not so easy to make the policies and guidelines both easy to understand and hard to misunderstand, particularly as our quantity of editors and articles increases and the scope of Wikipedia expands. She is doing a FINE JOB. Terryeo09:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Slim's doing great work. I'll also note that Slim isn't altering the policy, but streamlining it. I fully support Slim, even if I might disagree over the odd word here or there. Steve blockTalk10:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree. I've never seen SlimVirgin jumping in and trying to change a policy without discussion. I have seen her reverting people who had made changes to the meaning of existing policy, and I have seen her changing the wording to make something clearer in cases where there was general agreement over what something was supposed to mean but the words were ambiguous. Like others, I'd say she's doing great work. AnnH♫10:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree fully with the idea of streamlining. However, I'm concerned that that is not happening and SlimVirgin's overly aggressive approach (reverting all edits she disagrees with on sight and without comment, and making lots of changes herself with little comment) does not improve the text as well as adopting a truly collaborative approach would be. It is frustrating that anyone else's suggestions (both mine and others) get throttled violently at birth, rather than discussed in an adult way.
Indeed, the most streamlined, and best presented, out of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR is WP:V. WP:V is a 52 word long policy covering the essentials on the point. SlimVirgin's proposed alternative at WP:ATTRIBUTE is already over 2,000 words long, and still does not cover everything within those 52 words (and believe me, not many will read it unless they are looking for loopholes)! Of course we should examine carefully whether WP:ATTRIBUTE should replace WP:V rather than rush into it as some seem to be doing.
It's already difficult to keep up with WP's 42 long and ever-changing policies - I'm not surprised that John Nagle wants to at least catch breath and see what is happening to V, RS, NOR and ATTRIBUTE before other major changes are made, jguk12:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
John Nagle is not a regular editor of the content policies, and therefore may not realize that my edits to NOR and V simply tightened them; there was no change to either of the policies, as all the regulars on the page will confirm.
It was Jguk who was seeking to remove a key phrase from WP:V, not me, and he has been opposed by six editors.
As for WP:ATT, that's a separate issue: it's a proposal being edited by several people at the moment (and I've not been particularly active there in the last week or so), and it'll settle into shape as people have their say and it gets tightened. SlimVirgin(talk)14:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, I don't know what Jguk means about V being 52 words long. It's around 900 and NOR is around 2,000 (although I'd like to shorten it further). The WP:ATT proposal aims to merge them and possibly also merge WP:RS (currently around 6,000 words), so a proposal of 2,000 words instead of those two or three pages isn't bad, and it will get shorter as people firm up the writing, not longer. SlimVirgin(talk)14:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Got to agree with Slim on WP:ATT too, it's a replacement for three pages. It's a start on reducing the 42 pages of policy we have to a reasonable number. Steve blockTalk14:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
These re-wordings and tightening of prose on various policies was long overdue, as anyone familiar with them would know. They could still be improved, which is why WP:ATT has been proposed, but at least they're now more comprehensible. Jayjg (talk)16:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone. My main concern is to insure that enough people are watching these edits to prevent a single user from making substantive policy changes, unnoticed amidst a collection of confusing edits. So please put these pages on your watch list. Thanks. --John Nagle20:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
And now, John Nagle, you have the opinion of several editors who work commonly with User:SlimVirgin. All of us have stated our support of her edit mannerisms in response to your concern. Apparently this is not enough to reassure you, however becuase you additionaly request we (and unspecified others) place the pages which SlimVirgin edits on their watch list. From my point of view it would be appropriate for you to say something pleasant to SlimVirgin just to demonstrate that you are not implying a lack of good faith. Terryeo11:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
It is not the principle of reducing the size and number of policies, nor with assuming good faith that I have an issue with. But I would like to ask that no-one moves so fast as to not allow even a short time for collaboration, and that proper respect and consideration is given to everyone's constructive suggestions on how to improve things, jguk11:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Those who have been in Wikipedia for quite some time know what Gdanzig refers to. These days a similar (in terms of its persuasiveness) problem plagues Jogaila. Although there have been numerous polls on the naming issue (they seem to happen each month), the Polish editors accompany the latest vote by spamming totally unrelated articles with misleading comments.[9], [10], [11]. I would like to know whether such underhand tactics of massive campaigning are allowed by current Wikipedia policies and how (and whether) the spamming impacts the validity of this vote. Thanks, Ghirla-трёп-13:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Well they don't help, but the vote isn't really useful either. The whole situation looks like it'll take work to sort out what the best path through the muddle is, and seeing as someone on the page has already suggested mediation, I think that's the best route to push now. In binary polls issues do get divisive and that divisiveness does lead to frustration amongst editors. There's been a bit of sniping in the poll so I don't think there's anything more needed here than that people try and put differences aside and work out the best path. Both sides should remember redirects are free, and that where an article is found in Wikipedia isn't that important. Give mediation a try and a chance. Steve blockTalk15:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe we are allowed to advertise polls in general places to generate discussion, and I believe we are supposed to in a neutral manner. I'd suggest again that mediation is the best answer. Steve blockTalk15:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Policy Regarding Current Candidates for Political Office
Considering the harsh back and forth of the editing parties as well as the editing and attendant retaliatory reverts (reference the talk pages for either Tammy Duckworth or Peter Roskam), it is apparent that it is exceptionally difficult to maintain neutrality. In short, too many people with personal agendas are making edits that are prejudicial and not in keeping with the 5 Pillars policy of neutrality.
I propose that, due to the potential and likely abuse by political operatives (or otherwise biased individuals), resulting in WP being used for dirty tricks like astroturfing and viral campaigning, that we institute a stringent review policy for all entries for political candidates standing for election.
I know that some will complain that this proposal contradicts the Openness of WP, the third of the 5 Pillars. In response to that, I point out that the first two Pillars of WP are that this site is 1-an encyclopedia, and 2-neutral. As well, I would point out that entries about current political candidates for office have substantially more potential impact than say, a review of the latest comic book or tv series. The stakes in these campaigns are enormous, and the potential for abuse in the editing process are equally so, especially when weighing the potential disaster of a massive re-editing a day or two before the election, coloring one opponent or another as a child molester or whatnot. Such propaganda-influenced edits can swing the course of an election, and there are no repercussions for such against users who cynically choose to use Wikipedia for their smear campaigns. That WP could be used in this fashion should be considered terrifying.
This is not to say that there aren't well-meaning users who try to correct incorrect or inappropriate data. However, even these people can unknowingly influence their writing, displaying a preference for (or prejudice against) a political candidate.
All of these variables, and their potential impact are whar drive this call for closer scrutiny in regards to the edits on political candidates. I propose the following:
any entry for current or potential political candidates immediately becomes Protected.
any such entry content is not immediately available for public view (with a notation that the entry is being reviewed for accuracy and neutrality) until the review process is complete.
any such entry be reviewed for accuracy and neutrality by at least three editors. Ideally, these editors would be familiar with the Politics Area of WP. Potentially, a pool of these editors (of all political persuasions) would serve to preserve the non-partisan neutrality and accuracy of the entries.
any such entries, upon being made public, are not subject to immediate revision (preventing October Surprise-style editing), and are debated in the Discussion area before edits are posted.
I understand that this is a policy shift, and can seen by some as drastic. Considering the potential for abuse (intentional or otherwise), and the far-reaching ramifications of said abuse, this policy applied to this specific category only protects the integrity and neutrality of Wikipedia. It also eliminates to a large extent the bickering, enmity and wasted bandwidth currrently occupying some of the political discussion pages.Pete02:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne
Don't take this the wrong way, but this is a setup for disaster. Specifically:
What you describe is not possible technically.
nothing is impossible.
Anyone is a "potential" political candidate.
well, that's not exactly true. Bozo the Clown, isn't. Please don't play semantical games.
Who chooses these three editors? How are their qualifications asserted?
I don't know how they would be suggested. What would you suggest? It's kinda the reason I posted the policy assertion. It wasn't intended as holy writ, it's a suggestion, and one wherein I expect counter-suggestions and possible alternatives.
I see nothing about a political candidate which makes their biographies more important than other living people, and we already have strict content guidelines for that.
Political candidates biographies tend to be more relevant during election season, and political dirty tricks run rampant - a phenomena that doesn't occur when Tom Cruise releases a new movie, or Beyonce releases a new album. The stakes are ever so much higher for the average citizen, both at the local and national level. And if you think the current policy is working just fine, I would submit that your view is incomplete and inaccurate. The editwars are pretty vicious and rife.
Protecting an article to lock-in a specific version is contrary to Wikipedia's protection policy.
I propose that my suggestion supports and is in defense of the first two Pillars of WP, and is offered in WP's defense.
No election is going to be decided on a Wikipedia article.
I absolutely disagree with you her. No one thought that a bunch of political hacks hiding under the aegis of SwiftBoats for Justice would affect the last political election, and yet, the same man won the presidency - again without a majority of the vote, and with disastrous subsequent repercussions. I am sure the book publishers and tv stations taking money from the SwiftBoaters didn't think they could alter an election, either. This is the internet age, and for good or ill, a great many people use Wikipedia for research. This includes political research. It is our job as user/editors to ensure that WP is not manipulated by unscrupulous political operatives or partisan 'true believers.'
It's not Wikipedia's job to make sure U.S. elections are fair.
You are missing the point, Fagstein. That is not what I am proposing at ALL. I am not suggesting that it is WP's duty to make sure US elections are fair. I am strongly suggested that we take steps to prevent WP from being used inappropriately to unfairly influence a voter based on incorrect or biased information. While as a US citizen I am concerned with the political chicanery that always seems to go on in American politics, my concern here is first and foremost to protect the truthfulness and neutrality of Wikipedia.Arcayne02:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed in all points, and let me add that you would be adding a hitherto unknown amount of bureaucracy to Wikipedia. However, I think the rationale makes more sense than the suggested actions. Nothing stops you from setting up a pool of editors who make it their business to keep critical articles on their watchlist, or report tendentious edits on a project notice board. --Stephan Schulz07:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe you could help me suss out a way to do this, Stephen? Check my user page for my email.
I don't like the proposed solutions, but I recognise there's a valid concern. As Stephan notes, it would be fantastic if you could start a notice board to coordinate patrolling of political pages for problem edits. I suggest that you don't have membership (as those tend to lead to cultural problems, as the mess with the CVU has shown us), and keep it as informal as possible. If you'd like help getting that started, drop me a note on my talk page. --Improv14:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies to get a broader segment of the population. Less than 25 people have made their opinion known in the poll so far, and this has some pretty far-reaching implications:
Recently a point of discussions has come up: is there, or should there be, any policy or guideline regarding wikilinking portions of quotations? One editor views it as "common sense" that we should "leave the quote alone"; I disagree that we are not doing anything which isn't standard practice in the academic world, leaving the integrity of a text intact but annotating in order to provide extra information. Talk:Voyage Au Pays Des Nouveaux Gourous#Wikilinks in quoted text is where the discussion has gone on so far. -- Antaeus Feldspar04:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I hereby propose that the WP:NLT policy be rescinded. It is a relic from the early days of wikipedia and now that our site has grown, it should be able to handle it. The "No legal threats" policy is a stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas, which, lets face it, Wikipedia is all about. Perfect T02:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Individual editors are just as important to protect as they ever were. I doubt the policy really stifles any productive discussion. Melchoir02:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The Siegenthaler debacle should be convincing evidence that people DO have rights they should have protected, and taking it to the courts is one way to protect them if nobody else will. Banning someone just for obliquely hinting at the court system does stifle discussion. Pretty much throws a wet rag on the discussion, in fact. Perfect T02:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The policy is an absolute necessity and must be kept. More than once I have been in a legal dispute here over people and their own biographies on Wikipedia. It is crucial that they cannot edit while undergoing the dispute and that they can be blocked if they continue to make threats. You'll see its importance when you're in that situation :-) —Mets501 (talk)02:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose - Wikipedia is all about building a free encylopedia. I don't see how users being able to make legal threats would help us reach that goal any sooner. Megapixie02:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
"No legal threats" is a "stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas"? Last time i checked, all threats stifle discussion and hindre free exchange of ideas... --`/aksha02:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. In today's legal climate, threatening to sue people is a form of intimidation that has no place in a free encyclopedia. *Dan T.*02:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Careful, if you continue making careless suggestions like that I will sue you. But seriously, even in the very very extremely improbable cases where making legal threats would help the project (!) WP:IAR would just allow you to. But even as I am writing this sentence I can't think of any situation where making legal threats would be helpful. Excusable, ok I can imagine with a little bit of effort but helpful? Can you actually tell us what sort of situation you had in mind? Pascal.Tesson02:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Pardon me but I must be missing something. I just can't see how it would hurt really. If someone is really doing something actionable they shouldn't worry. Perfect T03:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
It does hurt, a lot. It's disruptive. Many, if not most, of us here are not educated in laws. If someone goes on and on about "i'll sue you" or "i think this is not legally allowed", what are the rest of us supposed to do? We're not lawyers. If someone really had a sensible legal threat, then they can take it up in person, in real life, with people involved in the wikipedia foundation. So i'm talking about Jimmy or the board and so on. As i said, threating of any kind, whether legal or otherwise, is counter-productive to discussion. --`/aksha03:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok so saying I'm going to have my attorney contact the Wikimedia foundation is totally allright under the WP:NLT policy? Is that what you're saying? Perfect T04:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
No, "saying I'm going to have my attorney contact the Wikimedia foundation" is usually not ok (doing that in the context of discussing a large donation would be, but doing so in any conflict situation is likely to be perceived as a veiled threat, and is not acceptable). Of course, actually having your attorney contact the foundation is fully within your rights. --Stephan Schulz18:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement? Please explain Perfect T19:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
You can talk about them all you want. Just not in a threatening manner. Talk is cheap. Everybody can summon a virtual army of killer lawyers threatening to sue an editor into bankruptcy. We want conflicts settled by the force or argument, not the fear of a lawsuit. And if you cannot settle by discussion, WP:DR is available. Now if you have a real grievance, of course you can contact an attorney, and he can contact the foundation. The foundation is prepared for such a case and has adequate resources to hande a lawsuit until it is resolved on its merrits. --Stephan Schulz19:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The online part of Wikipedia is a collaborative workspace dedicated to the creation of an encyclopedia. It's neither intended nor suited to be an arena for the discussion and development of legal theories, issues, or threats. Those issues are best handled by the office of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, Brad Patrick. In other words, you're welcome to participate in the Wikipedia project to build an encyclopedia; you're not welcome to use its servers and networks to threaten or prosecute lawsuits, be they against the Foundation or other editors. It's pretty straightforward, really. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't editors on here have some sort of notice of litigation filed though? Or does the WP:NLT policy simply mean "no empty legal threats," as real legal manoevering is well-prepared for, as you put it. And where did Brad Patrick go to law school anyway? Perfect T19:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
We enjoy writing an encyclopedia. We do not want anybody to spoil our fun by threating us. If you enjoy doing legal threats, join some lawayers club. They will be glad. --Jan Smolik20:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
"I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement" allow me to explain then
In the above posting, the "right to fork" means you have the right to copy part or all of Wikipedia content and host it on your own servers. I was confused when I first read it because I was thinking of "content forks" and "POV forks", neither of which is acceptable in Wikipedia.
Yes, as strange as it sounds, you have the right to seek legal action but not the right to participate in Wikipedia if you threaten legal action. If you believe you have a legitimate basis for a suit, we cannot stop you from exercising that right. However, since threats of legal action have a chilling effect on contributions of Wikipedia editors, we insist that you pursue your legal rights outside of Wikipedia. You may sue a Wikipedia editor or the Wikimedia Foundation but you may not use the threat of a lawsuit in any postings to Wikipedia. If you do, you may be blocked from editing. That's WP:NLT in a nutshell.
The license that all Wikipedia text content is covered by is in the process of being rewritten. Apparently no one involved with Wikipedia cares, as the discussion draft has been open for discussion for over a month now and the silence has been deafening. If anyone cares about the future of Wikipedia, go here and join the discussion. Sections that significantly affect Wikipedia include 6a, 8a, and 8b. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Kaldari19:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Not being a - and this is not a derogatory term to me - nerd, I am not really sure what the issues are here. Perhaps you could tke a moment and tell us all what they are, from your point of view. :) Arcayne02:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
You would be incorrect that nobody cares. But since the wiki license is for GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation all material will be under both the 1.2 version, as well as any later versions, dual, or triply licensed, as versions proliferate. Here's an interesting discussion about the issues of defending infringement under the GFDL, and other issues, from an IRC transcript: James explains the law. -- Yellowdesk23:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
What makes a good policy
A good policy should have the following features:
A name that makes clear what it is about (very important as most Wikipedians will never actually read the text of the policy);
Brief and to the point (so that it can be read quickly - eg the policy box in WP:V);
May be rule or principle based;
Be expressed in positive terms - ie say what behaviour, content, etc is expected/wanted, not just what behaviour/content is banned;
Be accompanied by some brief explanation of the policy itself, but no more than 1,000-1,200 (no-one will read beyond that unless looking for loopholes, and a text that size will have loopholes;
Be referenced to guideline pages that examine how certain aspects of the policy are interpreted in practice.
Additionally, policies as a whole should complement each other, and should not contain duplication. There should not be too many policies, but there should be enough to cover all key points.
Very few of our policies actually follow all of the above. Many are good on the first point. Almost all are very poor on the second, fourth and fifth point. And far too many are rule based when a principle based rule would be better (and far, far shorter).
Ideally, we'd go through the whole collection of policies, and make them up to scratch. This wouldn't involve trying to change WP's procedures in practice, instead it would be a fundamental rewrite. How long that would take would depend on willingness to succeed - and in particular a willingness to enforce brevity. I for one would be willing to help. Any other volunteers? jguk11:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
You will not find many people to disagree agree on your points above about what makes good policy. Just join other editors in the current discussions at policy pages. Efforts are always being made to clarify things, and although it takes time and after a while we go too far on verbosity there are always efforts made to clarify and simplify. See the effort at WP:ATT, for example. ≈ jossi ≈t • @12:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree that policy is "rule based", policy is definitionally principle based. Any community effort has a GOAL, ours was created by Wikipedia's founder. That goal could be more broadly disseminated, but we don't lack a goal. Below The GOAL we have POLICY. Policy consists of broad, general statements of intent. These are descriptions of how The GOAL shall be achieved and how it shall be made real. Policy is to be followed. Below The GOAL and below POLICY come specific rules defining how policy is to be followed toward achieving the GOAL. Policy is created by a broad concensus of experienced editors (usually) and this is very appropriate. It is in our Guidelines that we begin to find rules which are based on POLICY. This is the actual organization of information, rules are not part of POLICY. A GOAL can be stated in a sentence while POLICY requires more page. As we get down to rules (Our guidelines) even more page is needed because they address many specific situations. In addition to the "how do we edit" rules we have "how to get along with each other rules" and those are implied by our GOAL and by our POLICY. Terryeo12:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree that everything has to be expressed in positive terms. Jguk has used this idea to try to get rid of "verifiability, not truth." Express things in positive terms where possible, but there's no need to elevate it to the status of an ideology. Same with the need to be brief: we should try to write tightly, but we're not writing for five-year-olds with an attention span of a few minutes, and in any event, people don't read policy pages from start to finish, they use them as reference works. Also, it's not necessarily true that the longer the page, the more loopholes there are. The shorter it is, the more likely there are to be loopholes. SlimVirgin(talk)12:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I see Jossi, with hindsight, is changing his mind:) But Terryeo and SlimVirgin are just commenting on the edges, not the heart of what I wrote.
I'm not quite sure what Terryeo means by "goals" - they are not in the standard WP lexicon. But I'm not sure the distinction is important. He writes "Policy consists of broad, general statements of intent" and "It is in our Guidelines that we begin to find rules which are based on POLICY". That's exactly what I am arguing for - having policies of broad, general statements, accompanied by guidelines that delve into the detail. The only disagreement we appear to have is to the extent our current policy is rule rather than principle based - we both seem to favour principle-based policy.
Regarding SlimVirgin's comment, I would ask her to re-read what I wrote on the point, namely that a good policy should "[b]e expressed in positive terms - ie say what behaviour, content, etc is expected/wanted, not just what behaviour/content is banned". That does not equate to expressing "everything...in positive terms". A reader, having finished reading the policy, should be able to answer the question "what is required of me?", not just "what is not required of me?". jguk09:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
And users with a knowledge of how to conduct meaningful Google searches, are especially welcomed to join in! - Pete
The proposal would allow U.S. cities to be inconsistent with the vast majority of other U.S. cities and towns, which (with a few exceptions) all use the "city, state" convention. -Will Beback23:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
The content is distributed via a site which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.
There's a few instances where people have tried to use this to push through software (like self-published games and mods) that otherwise has no mentions (or passing mentions) in third-party sources, by claiming that the software is distributed through something like tucows, download.com or gamespot (these sites don't really establish notability, they have many, many pieces of software under their wing, and the quality varies wildly). I don't think this was the intention of WP:WEB's 3rd criterion (my belief is that it's used mainly for articles, like a blog/news site that's under the umbrella of a larger publisher, Slate (magazine) being the offhand example) That criterion really needs to be clarified. ColourBurst02:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Which is why it goes on
^ Content that is distributed by independent online sites will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such content will be complete regardless. For example, Ricky Gervais had a podcast distributed by The Guardian. Such distributions should be nontrivial. Although GeoCities and Newgrounds are exceedingly well known, hosting content on them is trivial.
I'm writing a feature for Radio Open Source on admin culture, I was wondering if there was someone out there who might have something to say, vis-a-vis groups and cliques in the admin world, loyalty to other admin friends, relationships in the betwen administrators. Email me at: jessica at radioopensource.org, but make it an email address. Much appreciated! 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Notability of politicians - how far down do we go?
Just came across Robert Parkyn, a City of Calgary, Alberta alderman from 1926 to 1944. Someone is putting in the entire historical list of Calgary aldermen. Is this is a good thing or a bad thing? --John Nagle05:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not see why it is inherently a bad thing to have knowledge about people being put into Wikipedia. Of course, if we only rely on web references for checking purposes people may be a little surprised about how much just isn't there. These people are likely to have a lot of written information about them.
Also, in what sense are you using the word "notability". Ansell 05:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not paper. Notability is just there to make sure we can meet verifiability and NPOV without original research. An alderman likely has enough written about him to ensure that. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is also not a junkyard. It's not just there for verifiability/NPOV - we don't want articles that are written about not-notable topics, even if they're verifiable and NPOV. Blocks of sidewalk in New York City, or for that matter, Bismarck North Dakota are not notable enough for an article. --Improv13:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I completely disagree with User:Improv; one man's junkyard is another man's treasure trove. I think that the very nature of Wikipedia is to allow for the inclusion of those articles which may not appeal to a specific class of users. I think that folks living in Bismarck night vociferously disagree with your claim that they are not notable enough for an entry. Elitism is hardly appropriate here in WP.Pete00:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne
Like, for example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, outside Mann's Chinese Theater. I am pretty much guessing that folks in Europe or China aren't the least bit interested in that particular block(s) of sidewalk. However, we kinda are. ;) Arcayne04:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
John Nagle has not told you the whole story. Robert was a City of Calgary Alderman for 17 years on and off, he was also a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for 4 years while still serving as an Alderman, he was chairman of the Calgary Public Library and helped found a Federal Canadian political party. If that is not noteable then what is. --Cloveious16:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
i should note that in my statement above, I wasn't meaning to comment in particular on Robert Parkyn -- i was talking in the abstract. --Improv17:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
In general I'm uncomfortable with the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office. There is verifiable information about many of these people but I think we should establish WP:NOT [www.lexisnexis.com Lexis Nexis]. In specific, I'd probably say delete him: he has done a number of relatively unimportant things. The Land19:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
In this case, is Lexis Nexis going to find info about a guy who was alderman and MLA in the 1920s? One problem I have with Wikipedia at times is that every little tiny infinitisimal thing that has anything to do with United States popular culture seems to get a 10K page, while important individuals from before World War II, especially those that aren't American but sometimes even Americans, aren't in the Wikipedia. I added a US Congressman just a few days ago who wasn't in Wikipedia (Michael J. Kennedy of New York (1939-1943)). Yet we have dozens of articles on Neopets. --Charlene04:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
An alderman isn't minor if you live in his city; he influenced the lives of thousands of people in significant ways. Why does it bother you if someone else writes an article about him? It's not like we're running low on disk space. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't go so far as to support "the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office", if "should" in that context means that it's a problem if some aldermen remain undocumented. (When I started editing Wikipedia, there were some U.S. Congressmembers lacking articles. Now, that was a problem that had to be addressed.) On the other hand, I don't see the problem with retaining such an article if someone is willing to research and write it. JamesMLanetc15:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
It is a shame that others do not take your attitude about articles that people will bother to research and build up. Wikipedia should not bite any editors, not just newcomers. By trashing an articles subject as unimportant in ones personal view, one may not be putting the entire picture in. It is not sensible to be making up classifications on top of the original policies just to get ones personal viewpoints accepted about having neat little categories of things instead of thing that someone has actually considered to be their contribution to the sum of human knowledge. Ansell 03:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
User deleting inoffensive comments from own talk page
I know removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed, but what should one do when a user blanks out their own talk page (including an archive link which had warnings on)? Should they still be warned about it? Should the talk page be reverted? Would be interesting to know what to do in this case... - |||antiuser (talk) (contribs) 01:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Depends on why they blanked their talk page. Is there a specific incident you are referring to? (Of course there is, or you wouldn't have posted this.) Some people archive their talk page, others don't. Some delete old comments thinking that the page history acts as an archive. I think it really comes down to intent. Why did they blank their talk page?~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 01:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm referring specifically to User_talk:Snowbound. I'm just used to hitting history any time I see a blank talk page, since usually people do that without archiving to get rid of warnings, but this user didn't seem to have anything particularly bad on there. I didn't know whether to warn them about it, revert it or just leave it alone. |||antiuser (talk) (contribs) 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
It's their talk page and it's not disruptive. I'd say leave it to him. Oh and by the way, your statement that "removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed" is incorrect (specifically, there is ongoing debate about this and consensus has not been reached to make it policy). However, removing a message means you've read it, so subsequent behavior may warrant sanctions. >Radiant<09:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
If you want Wikipedia to attract users I suggest letting people do what they want with their talk page. On the other hand if you want to chase people away, then hassling people by interfering with their talk pages is a great idea. Wimstead13:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Wimstead; as long as they aren't getting rid of something important like warnings then why care? It's their talk page. I myself have removed stuff from my talk page (just the welcoming info, I believe) just to clean it up and make it easier for me to navigate. I don't see why this shouldn't be acceptable. --The Way06:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
A user's talk page is a tool they use to communicate with. We all create differently, let us not attempt constrainment unless really necessary. Terryeo07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
This is a stupid idea, and is an example of how petty certain members of Wikipedia are getting lately - what users have or don't have on their talk page is completely irrellivent to the success of the project. Certainly I'll be damned if I'm forced to keep a warning on my talk page where everyone can see it - why should a warning be a badge of shame? What positive good will ever come of that? I second Wimstead; stop dedicating your energy to scaring people off and limiting freedom to edit our own user area. It's *his* talk page, he can do what he likes to it. Leave him alone, and stop being such a petty minded freak.--▫Bad▫harlick♠17:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to get into a debate about the topic here, but just would like to point out a good reason to prohibit removing warnings. If there is a problem with a user and an admin goes to the person's talk page, they should be able to see the history in order to help them decide what level of warning/block is appropriate. Matchups03:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question: I received a warning for cutting material from here. However, I had removed frm where I - as a newbie - had incorrectly placed it to put it at the bottom of the page, with its own header. So, I wasn't vandalizing other's text and whatnot. Is it appropriate for me to clear off the warning from my talk page?Arcayne02:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Clarification requested on acceptable sources
I would appreciate guidance on the use of citations from published books which purport to be factual accounts, but which themselves clearly fall short of the standards of WP:V, or WP:RS, or WP:NPOV.
A related issue which I would also like clarified is the acceptable use of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention.
I am sure that these are issues which arise frequently, but I will illustrate the problems by citing a specific group of exemplars.
The book Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, which represents itself as a biography of Werner Erhard was published in 1993 and went out of print shortly thereafter. It has been used as a source reference for numerous edits, especially by user:Smeelgova and user:Kat'n'Yarn.
I have raised my concerns about the acceptability of this book as a source with these two editors in discussions on the (archived) Landmark Education talk [[12]] page, and their response was that it qualified automatically by virtue of being a published book. I have also brought the issue up with various administrators, but have not obtained a clear ruling so far.
Clearly the book is partisan in nature, and seeks only to highlight and sensationalise negative material about its subject. But more importantly, it appears to me that the book fails to meet what I understand to be the criteria for being a reliable primary or secondary source. Although written in a matter-of-fact narrative style, it clearly deals with events to which the author was not party or witness. That would be fine if he were to identify specific verifiable sources for the events he describes, but he does not. There are no footnotes or references to identify the author's informants for any particular incident which is depicted. Perhaps anticipating criticism over that shortcoming the author includes the following bland statement it the 'Acknowledgements' section at the end of the book (p. 279):
A note is in order here about my use of quoted conversations throughout the book. In some cases, conversations have been recounted based on the recollections of participants or witnesses. ... Many of the sources I relied on for information are named throughout the book; many others are not. They all deserve equally my thanks for contributing to this disturbing story of Erhard and the movement he created.
My question is: "Is this good enough?" Especially bearing in mind the potentially defamatory nature of many of the assertions in the book (not only as they apply to Mr Erhard, but also to many other living individuals mentioned by name. And also considering that many of these accounts are directly contradicted in other published books (e.g. Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST by William Warren Bartley III; and 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard by Jane Self. By contrast both of these volumes are meticulous in identifying their sources and witness statements).
As I said, I also have a concern about the usage of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention. It was a frequent gambit of user:Smeelgova to write a verbatim extract from this book (or other suspect source) into an article in blockquote format with a ref tag. Although sophisticated readers would recognise this as indicating a quotation, I feel that others might be misled into seeing it as a factual assertion within the article. Should there be an explicit indication that this is a quotation? Maybe the problem would not arise if we are more rigorous about the sources that are acceptable? DaveApter13:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
To answer the easy points:
Just because something has been published does not mean that it can be used to support a statement. You still have to question with academic rigorously whether what has been written is credible enough for what you are saying.
I don't know what the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention is meant to be. If, however, it does not necessarily make it clear to readers who may be unfamiliar with the style that it is a direct quotation then it should not be used - or at least it should be modified so as to make that clear. Presentation matters, jguk13:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Apparently the author of that book got most of his "conversations" from the mouth of people who were recounting those conversations. As for its use in the article, a book which is narrowly published should be treated as a source which is narrowly published, i.e. it should not form a major portion of an article except about itself. There it could (if it qualifies as worthy of an article) be more extensively quoted. Wikipedia prefers the best sources of information possible. A person's recollection of a conversation which is passed on to another person, who then publishes the recall is not a very good source of information. In a court of law, for example, it would not hold the same weight as better sources of information. Terryeo21:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm confused. Blockquoted and referenced is a standard academic method of referencing sources. It may indicate laziness on the part of an editor who will not take the time to reformulate material into his or her own words, but it is in no way a "gambit." Should we also note on every page that material surrounded by quotation marks are quotes? If you could link to a specific example where blockquotes are used in a misleading fashion, that would be helpful. Edited to add: has the article been deleted? -sthomson21:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's one example to illustrate the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's from the article on Brian_Regnier created by user:Smeelgova (one of a dozen or two disparaging pages about individuals arguably not notable apart from a - sometimes tenuous - connection with Werner Erhard).
______________________________________
Transformational Workshops
Brian Regnier began his experience with "Transformational Workshops", through his early associations with Werner Erhard and est :
Regnier's had plenty of practice at changing people's lives and checkbook balances. In 1971, he tells us, he abandoned a career as a computer analyst and started doing transformational workshops. What he means by "transformational workshops" is est, the controversial seminar made popular by former automobile and encyclopedia salesman Werner Erhard, born Jack Rosenberg. Est's 60-hour program shares such defining features with Landmark as buzzwords and long days with few breaks. The difference seems a matter of politeness: Forum participants can go to the bathroom when they want. No one yells here. And no one is obliged, as they were in the '70s, to refer to Erhard or anyone else as "the source."[2]
____________________________
Note that there are no quotation marks and the only indication that the second paragraph is merely the opinion expressed by the writer of the quoted extract is the indentation and the numerical reference. It would be easy for a reader to misinterpret that statement as a factual assertion of the wikipedia article.
In answer to your question, this article and a number of similar ones still exist. Some others have been deleted or re-edited. DaveApter10:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I found the articles after a little searching. Thanks. In regards to block quotes, here [13] is a quick guide to the MLA style rules on block quotes. No quotation marks are needed. If you prefer Chicago Style, it is similar [14]. The place to indicate who the author is and how that applies is either in the introduction to the quote or in the paragraph following. sthomson19:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - that essentially addresses my concerns. The above example violates this convention by failing to "indicate who the author is and how that applies ". Adding some text such as "Steven Pressman makes the claim that..." to introduce such passages would make all the difference. DaveApter10:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd suggest a ban for new policies. Too much laws kill the law, as nobody understands them except those who really want to pass by them.
Let's peruse the existing ones calmly and take note of any problems that could or have come and domains that are not covered. In common law, analogy applies : why not here ?
Then let's make a validation test of our policies, rules and hints against the goals of WP. Do they help, are they accurate, clearly defined, structurate enough. Amendments are welcome, but only after a delay - let's say, some months.
A former WP editor wants to go back to an expert encyclopedia, based on best of breed articles taken from here, but excluding, I hope I understand, anything related to unnecessary fandom. Fans are many amongst our editors here ... so this means really strict rules. Do we want this ? What do you think ? -- DLL .. T18:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
My firts remark still stands. Eleven more proposals for an improved policy in three days here. That's a thousand each year. -- DLL .. T20:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Request for information about content policies
There is a discussion on the Dutch Wikipedia about the necessity of citing sources. People use the following arguments: "It would cost too much work to add sources for all articles because there are so many articles without", "I have no reason to lie about these things", "I know because I have an academic education", "I know because I was there" or "I know because I am a specialist". Implicitly, the debate is about the application of two out of the three English Wikipedia content policies, namely Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. In need for stronger arguments, I would like to know whether there are any official(ly authorized) documents about content policies that apply for all language versions of Wikipedia. Could anybody help me with this? Best regards, Ilse@21:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know. The only "core policy", WP:NPOV (as I understand it) arrives at presenting a Neutral Point of View by presenting Published Information (from a single point of view) (and then published information from a single point of view) (and then published information from another single point of view). Terryeo22:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
It's kind of odd that other Wikipedias are so different than wp-en... arguments like that were ones we had here in 2003/2004 and have long since been dismissed by nearly everyone. As far as I know the foundation is behind the principles of WP:V (only adding claims if they're backed up by a source). I think a lot of people confuse that with "you must cite a source to say anything" but it really just means that you must be able to cite a source if people doubt your claims are actually from one, and not your own opinion.
As for official documents, I dunno offhand, except in WP:V we mention a quote from Jimbo "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." --W.marsh22:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your replies.
After rereading many pages on policies, I think the best support for WP:NOR is in the Dutch policy that says "Wikipedia is not for essays with your own ideas about a topic".
I must confess that in the discussion I also confuse WP:V with "you must cite a source to say anything", occasionally. For me the following quote from WP:V makes the exact difference more clear: "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article". That leaves one question about validity. The Jimmy Wales quote you give here is from the mailing list for "discussing issues relating particularly to the English language Wikipedia". Can I interpret "Jimbo Wales as ultimate authority on any matter" in such a way that the statement in the quote is also valid for the Dutch Wikipedia? - Ilse@23:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
You can cite him as a source, but I don't know that it's considered binding. I think I read somewhere (don't ask me to find it) that he basically encouraged the non-English wikis to go off and govern themselves, or thoughts to that effect. Maybe smaller wikis are just starting to face the issues that :en already had to address and hammer out policies for. Fan-196723:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I think this goes beyond just self-governance issues though, as Jimbo's quote is largely about making sure we don't leave libel in articles. (almost) all servers are located in the US, no matter what language the Wikipedia is, so the same legal issues apply to all of them, even if the most common ones concern wp-en. Anyway, maybe some other people will be able to help you out with more specific policy quotes. If not, you might ask Jimbo or Brad for clarification, because this is an important issue. --W.marsh00:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It comes down to credibility. If you make a claim and no-one knows what foundation you have for it, why should anyone believe it? And what value to do place on an article that you are not sure you can believe or not?
Really it is a matter of best practice when writing anything technical to refer to your sources for all new information that you seek to introduce. So, forget whether Jimbo has made a binding statement about it for non-English wikis - look at the big picture. Always quote your sources, jguk13:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It was our founder's statement of goal that is still the foundation of Wikipedia. For my thinking the goal can only be fulfilled if articles are written with a Neutral Point of View. In order for many editors to achieve that, WP:V (all included information be verifiatible by a published, reliable source) is necessary and WP:NOR (no original research) is necessary. The goal which Jimbo states can not be achieved by other methods, from my point of view. Terryeo00:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Politically motivated AfD's: the elephant in the room
It seems like Politically motivated AfDs are the "elephant in the room"--which everyone sees, but no one can mention. Certain editors will go around in groups (some people call them "cabals") and actively push their own narrow POV.
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will vote to delete pages which are against their political beliefs, yet fervently support to keep similar pages which suport their political beliefs.
Partisan editors voting record is clear--if an article is against their narrow POV, no matter how well written it is, how well sourced it is, etc, it will be put up for deletion, and this little group will vote against it. I have been an editor for just over a year, and I have been troubled by the amount of articles which have been deleted by partisans of ALL political persuasions, right or left.
It is clear that certain editors are doing it because they are biased and slanted, but no wikieditor can actually bring this up. When another wikieditor brings it up, people scream WP:NPA. I support WP:NPA fully, but in some cases, policies are detrimental. WP:IAR? Policies are tools to help us wikieditors build a better encyclopedia. When a small group of users is actively deleting well referenced material because of political bias, then the policy rule needs to be reevaluated.
Why is the word (insert title here) cabal so off limits?
Why when anyone brings up the subject, they are heckled off the talk page?
One user suggest this:
If an editor or a group of editors is pushing a narrow POV then follow the dispute resolution process. I know it's a lot of work, but going through the trouble of presenting a case with evidence and diffs is what's needed to rise above (possibly subjective) accusations of POV pushing.
If cool, rational discussion between editors doesn't work (or isn't possible), then the Dispute Resolution process is the best option. Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case. It can be slow and, yes, tedious, but the process is still your best bet. Good luck. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle23:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Doc Tropics Thanks for your comments.
I am just wondering if there is any system which is faster, which has been proposed before. WP:DR is tedious, and can be disruptive to all of the editors involved. I am concerned how much well researched information is deleted on wikipedia, often by editors who have agendas and strong POVs.
I am looking for editor suggestions, other than the tedious WP:DR.
"Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case." I agree 100%, I was once booted for being uncivil on an AfD and for singling out one editor. Travb (talk) 00:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
* First, discuss the topic on its discussion page. In some instances, some discussion on an individual editor's page might be helpful, too. In some cases, not.
* Get other editors involved. Cite the article which appears to be "owned" by a "cabal" on a discussion page like this one where additional editors might view what is going on. Often enough, just getting 2 or 3 more editors with a fresh point of view irons the wrinkles which are preventing a reasonable, neutral article.
* There is the process of WP:Mediation and Request for comment and so on.
* In the other direction, WP:DE (Disrutive Editors) is a new guideline which is still being hammered out, but you might find some help there if you post your example to its discussion page. Terryeo01:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will attempt to squelch 9/11 consipracy theories by putting these articles up for deletion. (Just for the record, I do not support any 9/11 consipracy theories)
Another example is a user's page, who actively attempts to delete all conspircy theories:
I am sure there are other user pages like this. I bring this one up simply because it is the only one I am aware of. Any other editors now of others? Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
While this is a reasonnable concern, I find your example pretty unconvincing. I, for one, have voted on a couple of these 9/11 AfDs and even added a couple to GabrielF's list if I remember correctly. But I fail to see how why this should be viewed as a political question. You seem to assume some political motive behind this string of deletions but I see no evidence of this. I'm not American and I don't have a political agenda around here and to me this is just another effort to clean up some of the cruftiness. I view that particular list like I would the equivalent list that would point out the Pokemon cruft. The few 9/11 conspiracy I got involved in concerned not-so-notable 9/11 truth movement participants, were for the most part blatantly point of view and seemed to exist mainly to give credibility to far-flung theories of the nonsense. To me their deletion was less a political act than their creation was... Are cabals a real problem? maybe. Are politically motivated cabals a problem? I have yet to see convincing evidence that they exist. Pascal.Tesson01:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It is only one example, I don't want to get in a debate about this one example, I am only interested in the problem in general...Travb (talk) 03:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
The example travb offers does not support the accusation's he's making. I didn't create that userpage to eliminate articles because of their subject matter, I created it because there were a flood of non-notable 9/11 conspiracy articles nominated for deletion around the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and I thought it would be useful to create a list of them. Please understand that article's weren't nominated because someone disagreed with their subject matter - nobody nominated Alex Jones for example - they were nominated because they were essentially free publicity for non-notable people and books. As evidence of this, I suggest that readers examine the AfD discussions linked to at the page in question. You'll see that 46 of about 55 AfDs were deleted or merged and many of the nominations were not challenged. We are not "squelching" anything by nominating an article about a book that appears in fewer than 40 libraries in the world for deletion. Furthermore, I explicitly state at the top of my page that articles can only be listed if the nominator believes the article inherently violates some policy such as notability guidelines. Finally, the page is completely transparent - anyone can add to it or comment on a listing. GabrielF03:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
User:GabrielF, maybe it is a bad example, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and moved it from the main question. I hesitated to use examples, and maybe I shouldn't have. The reason why I probably should't have including examples is because I don't want to get in an argument here about which pages should be deleted and which should not. I have simply noticed that some editors will vote for a page's deletion regardless of the content. With some editors you can guess how they will vote in an AfD before even seeing the AfD. If your page, User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard does not fall into this catgory, my apologies. Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, but then I still wonder whether if the elephant is really in the room. Groups of editors have indeed, at times, acted as a single block in a sequence of AfDs, regardless of content. This has happened for instance in the case of school AfDs (to cite but one example). But I don't know of a case that one can seriously consider as politically motivated. Pascal.Tesson04:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe ideologically motivated would be a better description. Again, arguing whether or not 9/11 conspiracies should or should not be on wikipedia was not my intention in writing this talk page topic. It is clear now that it was definetly a mistake to use any examples at all. Thanks for your comments Pascal. Travb (talk) 11:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
While this appears a perfectly good example one needs to anayse things one has no access to. For example there appeared to be, but may not have been, a core of editors who wished the 9/11 Controlled demolition article to be deleted, and their rationale appeared to be able to be said to be "George Bush is right, so there". Agaknst the deletion arguments were a group of people who appeared to think that "It has to have been conspiracy, so the article must stand". In all probability each apparenty partisan grouping cancels the other out. A good closing admin will also be able to spot spurious arguments and discount them. It is not a ballot, after all.
In the middle ground are those who argue Wikipedia's corner. Put plain, a good, notable, verifiable, well sourced article shoudl stay and the rest shoudl either be improved to that standard duringthe AfD process or go. Taking the 9/11 article I mentioned, the closing admin did just that, and several editors have been battling with the article to make sure it can no longer be criticised. That is a valid outcome for a work of reference such as this. Also any ashortcomings in the article can be highlighted on its talk page and improved.
There are different results with Schools. For example it had long been held that a Primary School was not inherently notable and worthy of an article, but a secndary or high school was. There was a sudden rash of sub-stubs from a less than communicative yet prolific editor that generated many AfDs. The often used argument against deletion came from the same names and was on the basis that "Every school is worthy of an article". The deletion arguments came from others with the view that the long held view of deletion od primary schools (or better the non creatioon of the articles) was necessary unless there was inherent notability. Verifiability alone was not and should not be enough, for even the smallest school is verifiable
The Elephant in the Room is probably not politics, but is dogma. And it appears that it is on each "side" of a deletion discussion. But it is also easy to see "cabals" where none exist. People have often shared the same opinions but have not even been loosely grouped together. Fiddle Faddle12:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Facinating, excellent points. I can tell you have been an editor for sometime. Thanks User:Timtrent /Fiddle Faddle. Travb (talk) 16:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
"All" we need is what we have: sufficient Wikipedia oriented editors and Wikipedia oriented admins to be able to recognise the danger of Room Elephants of this nature, and to neutralise that danger when closing AfDs. It really does not matter if 10 people yell "Delete" or "Keep" with no rationale except "I want it to be (choose your action)", or "My brand of dogma says it must be (choose your action)" and only one presents a cogent argument for the reverse. The good admin will close it to meet the cogent argument coiupled with their understanding of the article and Wikipedia policies and guidlines. A good admin needs to see past spurious "but it passes [[WP:Invent a reason here]], so it must stay" too.
This is one reason I do not wish to be an admin. So much rests on an admin's shoulders in terms of getting it right that the role is one that very few people are likely to do well. We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display bias. We have a few who appear to display it, which also makes us unlucky. But we do have community scrutiny. After all, if you show me an editor or an admin who has never made a mistake I think I can show you one who is new to the role.
I do believe that admins and only admins should close AfDs. And I believe that the admin who closes a heated AfD has a clear duty to explain the decision. An excellent example is the closing rationale here. It does not matter whether one agrees with or disagrees with the decision; that is a completely different discussion. What matters is that one can see the process clearly. In this case the discussion remained live until the point the admin froze it before closing it, because time was needed to consider the huge number of points made by the various contributors. It was a reasonable interval later that the results were published. And the rationale is clear to see for any subsequent review by us, the community. Fiddle Faddle17:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Two responses:
AfD is not a vote. Votes made with a biased justification, or without justification, would typically be disregarded.
Only articles with severe, irreparable bias can be deleted on the basis of bias. More often, if an article has a bias, someone who opposes it can simultaneously improve the encyclopedia and promote their own POV by making it more neutral. This is the invisible hand of wiki at work. Deco21:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Timtrent wrote: We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display bias. User:Timtrent, you are either:
a) incredibly naive about wikipedia, which you obviously are not.
b) Someone aspiring to be an admin and kissing ass, which you say you are not,
c) you must be editing different articles than I do, or
d) you generally only see the glass half full and filter out the rest, whereas I see it half empty.
Russians say a pessimist is an informed optomist. Your statment, I am sorry, is absurd. Everyone has bias, cultural bias, religious bias, political bias. I guess maybe you meant to say We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display much bias. Which, I would respond, which ones? I would really like some names, because I want them to be judging me if I ever get in a content dispute.
For example, try bringing up the idea of copyright to many of these editors. They overwhelming believe in the capitalist/liberal economic mantra: that copyright is a good, and that fair use should be very narrowly constued. They are incredibly biased on this subject. Do you know how many times I was told by admins out of the blue that adding an image to wikipedia was "stealing"? Basically saying I was a theif? When someone says such strong words, you are not only dealing with bias, you are dealing with an ideology. It is pointless to argue anymore at that point.
Goodness, I am going off on tangents, human beings are hardwired and socially trained to not look at the big picture. When I go off on tangents (i.e. the bigger picture), I usually lose people...Anyway, back to the subject matter:
What matters is that one can see the process clearly.' here is bias right now. Your bias, "belief" as you call it, is that the process works, that wikipedia works. I am arguing, and my bias is that the policy sometimes doesn't work, and should be fixed. I am looking for suggestions to fix it, since you seem to clearly feel that wikipedia doesn't need to be fixed, "'All' we need is what we have" then I guess we will simply agree to disagree. I am looking for possible solutions to what I see as a problem, not more rationalizations, I have gotten a million of those before, and they are starting to lose their luster (value).
RE: AfD is not a vote If I had a nickel for everytime I heard this argument. AfD is a vote. Wikipedians decide whether or not they want to keep the article, that is a vote. An AfD is not a democracy though. A select group of wikipedians, who are admins decide whether to keep the article. It is a vote, and calling an AfD not a vote is absurd, wikipedia just calls it something else, but for all intensive purposes, it is a vote. Since the idea that an "AfD is not a democracy" is repulsive to most people who believe that democracy is the best form of government, and anything that has the word "democracy" in it must be good, and anything that is not a "democracy" is bad, wikipedians, the majority who are American and believe this "democracy" ideology, decide to make up a grammatical fiction (in law we call they call it a "legal fiction"):
"The AfD is not a vote"
....when in reality it is a vote, it just isn't a democracy. Again, I am going off on tangents.
I don't want to waste time arguing whether an "AfD is not a vote", unless you have some incredible insight which I never thought of.
Votes made with a biased justification, or without justification, would typically be disregarded. (I didn't read the rest of your comments)
Again, more the "system works" arguments, please see my statment above. I am not here to convince obidient wikipedians that the system is corrupt, nor argue whether the AfD system is or is not corrupt, I am here to garner suggestions of how to fix a corrupt system. I am also not here to argue the levels of corruption. Travb (talk) 04:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
An RfArb has been opened on the subject of the policy proposal Protecting children's privacy. I must ask at the outset that my fellow editors refrain from commenting here, within this little section, on the merits of this proposal. It may be good or bad; that's not the issue I wish to discuss. I'm concerned about it before ArbCom.
The Arbitration Committee is our court of last resort; there is no appeal from its final decisions except to the person of Jimbo. ArbCom makes its own rules and hears whatever cases it likes. It has almost invariably confined itself to issues involving user conduct, including admins and other editors; it consistently rejects cases which are purely article content disputes. This is as it should be. ArbCom is not answerable to our community. This is a necessary evil.
We have a mechanism for creating project-wide policy; it involves the discussion of all interested community members and may result in consensus. This is the mechanism by which the vast majority of proposals are made, amended, and passed into policy or rejected. This is as it should be. The mechanism is inefficient, frequently raucous, and does not always work as we might wish. This is a necessary evil.
We do not, under any circumstances, want ArbCom to rule on the status of a policy proposal. If the discussion on a proposal gets heated, as it so often does, we ask editors to cool out; if they don't, we ask admins to warn, then block them. We may employ other steps in dispute resolution. So long as discussion continues without participants exceeding the limits permitted in discussion, all is well -- regardless of the status of the proposal on the table.
If admins fail in their duties and begin to wheel war, then we resort to ArbCom. Quite simply, the only sure way to terminate a wheel war is to take away sysop privileges from the warriors. Technically, only a Steward can do this; politically, Stewards heed only ArbCom on this project. ArbCom thus holds the big stick in wheel wars and can stop them by deadminning or threatening to deadmin. This is what ArbCom is for and this is all we need.
If we permit or, worse, encourage ArbCom to rule on policy matters, then they become not only our supreme-and-only-court but also our legislators. Whenever a policy discussion starts to go against you, you just bring it to ArbCom; if enough arbitrators are sympathetic, your problem is solved without any further discussion or messy consensus. Indeed, policy discussion is now pointless, mere heckling from the peanut gallery. ArbCom makes all the rules. We do not want to buy a ticket to this destination.
Until now, ArbCom has acted with restraint and confined itself to user conduct issues. Now, with 5 arbitrators in favor of hearing this case, it looks as though they wish to decide policy for us as well.
I strongly urge all community members, new and old, to protest this power shift. This is our community. It will only remain ours so long as we keep a hand on it. John Reid19:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I share your alarm here. From what I understand, the ArbCom is not being asked "should we use proposal A or proposal B as policy?", or is it invited to impose a compromise policy. It is being asked to decide whether WP:CHILD should be
tagged as a failed proposal (which one group supports)
considered as policy given the broad support that another group is claiming
sent back for more discussion in the hope of garnering a significant consensus (I don't think anyone really wants that)
I want more discussion. I'd prefer that the discussion remain civil and that people tag the proposal with care. (There is indeed a new tag for such polarized discussions of proposed policies: {{polarized-proposal}}.) I would like to expect that everyone will conduct himself properly; that nobody will edit war, tag war, or cite the proposal as "policy" if it has not garnered consensus. If someone should forget himself, I hope that he is cautioned civilly; if that fails, I hope he is blocked judiciously. I trust admins involved in such blocking to do so with complete disregard for the substantive issue, blocking only to remove stubborn, disruptive editors from the table; I'd like to believe that all involved admins will be mindful of our no wheel warring policy and discuss such blocks among themselves, rather than block war. If the proposal itself becomes too unstable, I expect admins to protect it from further editing, while permitting discussion to continue on talk. Of course, I wish to think that involved admins will avoid protect-warring at all costs by discussing the process issue among themselves. Finally, if some of my expectations are not met and weak admins do wheel war, then I expect a case to be brought to ArbCom -- a case involving user conduct.
In short, I want our process of policy formation to play itself out. I do not want to see it aborted by ArbCom or anybody else. Am I alone? John Reid00:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I broadly agree with John Reid. My stance is simple: if the protection of children's privacy is an urgent issue, then it is urgent enough for the Wikimedia Foundation to hand down a policy. Especially if we are indeed breaching this American COPPA law if we don't have it. Otherwise, leave it to the community. The Arbcom should preserve its status as the last resort for conduct issues, not the place where everyone goes if they're bored with discussion. I've made a suggestion in the Workshop along these lines, which would amount to the Arbcom endorsing the status quo with respect to them formulating policy. --Sam Blanning(talk)03:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed that whenever Japanese names are mentioned on Wikipedia they are written in an inconsistent fashion. The convential Japanese way of writing names is to write the family name first, then the given name second, in contrast to the Western tradition of given names first and family names second.
Most of the articles which mention Japanese names do not state which format they are using, which could be a real problem for those who are not familiar with Japanese given names, and may not be able to distinguish otherwise between the two, and therefore may become confused as to which name is which, or, if they are completely unaware of the mistake, use the wrong name for the person altogether.
I think that it would be wise to implement a wikipedia policy regarding Japanese names to clarify which format they are to be written in primarily, and have this stated in the relevant articles.
Now that I'm back to enjoying my retirement, I thought I would tempt fate with a proposal for you all. I've put it on my user page (not really the right place, I know, but it seemed as good a place to start as any). For a number of reasons, it could not fit into this wiki as currently configured, but if a partitioned area were to be made available, then we could make progress. Obviously, whether such a proposal could be implemented would involved a policy decision at the highest levels of the Wikimedia Foundation, but I've decided to test the waters here first. David Marshall10:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question regarding WP:NPA's scope - I was informed recently that only attacks on editors constitute a violation. But what if a demeaning reference to women as "virgins" and senior citizens as "old-age pensioners" is posted on a user talk page[15]? There are many women and old people who contribute to Wikipedia and (will) find those "general" statements quite insulting. While an administrator informed me that such statements are not violative of WP:NPA[16], I'd like to have more opinions. Rama's arrow18:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the reference to "virgins" was referring to women per say. I think it was more referring to children and people young enough that adults want to protect them from profanity and nudity (and presumably, the adults that are doing the protecting). At any rate, looking at that specific comment I don't think it was ment to be an attack on anyone or group of people so much as it was meant to convey impatience with people who don't approve of certian language and images. I think you have to take things in context, and not cry "attack" or "Racist" or "Sexist" at every possible opportunity. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
If you look at the user's block record, you'll know there is a reason to discount WP:AGF. I have never heard of the use of the term "virgin" for "children" or "young people." Rama's arrow20:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
"Virgin" means someone who has never had sex. It does not matter if that person is male or female, young or old. Though most of the time children have never had sex (i.e., are virgins), and it is children people seem to want to protect from any reference to sex. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 13:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Exactly - the meaning is not "children," but those who "have not had sex." This "insult" could apply to the 40-year old virgin. Rama's arrow15:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
My point was that it was not specifically aimed at women. Also, taken in the context of a discussion on censorship it seemed to be referring to children and those who seek to protect them by censoring sexual content. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, an administrator has advised me that its not a violation of NPA. I was looking for more feedback, but I guess this settles the point. Thanks, Rama's arrow15:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Just a note: the relevant policy here would be WP:CIVIL. This was not intended as a personnal attack. I believe it is indeed improper but it is not targeted at anyone in particular. Pascal.Tesson15:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I thought so too. The only thing that made me feel that it was a "personal attack" was the explicit sexual insinuation - that is a subject which is generally deeply personal. Rama's arrow15:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
"Pensioners" is not demeaning in the slightest. It was the official term used in Britain until fairly recently (and the editor whose talk page it was on is apparently from London), it is accurate (since they are indeed drawing a pension), and it is still the most common term (along with OAPs) used for elderly people in everyday speech, including by most pensioners themselves. "Senior citizens" still sounds patronising to me, both to the people themselves and to those of us who are younger (since "senior" actually means "more important than", not "older than"), and is rarely used in everyday speech in Britain. "Virgins" is quite obviously being used in a lighthearted way to mean people who are naive and innocent; why on earth it should be taken as referring specifically to women is beyond me. This was in no way a personal attack or uncivil in my opinion and I'm puzzled why anyone would take it to be. -- Necrothesp00:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
If you would kindly refer to the contributions and block record of this user, you'll know why I'm anxious to determine that no policy is being broken here. The point of concern is not his use of the terms "virgins" or "pensioners," but his attitude and reason for doing so. More in the avenue of WP:CIVIL than [{WP:NPA]]. Rama's arrow00:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm confused. Are you commenting on his use of a banner on his talk page or his wider edits? You appeared to be asking for comment on the former, not the latter. You also did seem concerned by his use of those two words (refer to your first post at the top of this section). -- Necrothesp00:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay in responding - my concern is on what he is posting on this talkpage banner. Even so, I consider the matter closed as an administrator and general opinion here recommend that its ok. Rama's arrow20:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
IMHO, it's not a personal attack because it's not directed at anyone in particular. My understanding is NPA only applies when we're attacking someone in particular. For example, if someone says, "I think all XYZs should die" (XYZ could be anything ranging from race, to religion to whatever) somewhere, clearly intending it as a general statement rather then directing at anyone in particular, this is not a personal attack even if it's very inappropriate for wikipedia and extremely offensive. On the other hand, if someone says to a user "Go and die you XYZ" this is clearly a personal attack. Using the above example, if someone were to say, to a user "go away, virgins/pensioners shouldn't be reading this article anyway", this would be a personal attack. Nil Einne22:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Policy is Needed
...The true litmus test of neutrality is conducted each day through peer revision. Unfortunately, the need for a policy regarding revision/reversion when it comes to political candidates is of growing importance, as more sophisitcated methods of astroturfing and viral marketing become available to even the most pedestrian of political followers.
Clearly, the inclusion of second-hand information (in many cases, citing blogs, news analyses, and commentary from campagin staffers disguised as being fromt he candidate him/herself) is cause for pause. We should not care as to the liability of a candidate's media handlers to their candidate. It is not our business that they can be fired for advocation of some bizarre policy or political leaning. The only thing that should matter - I repeat, the ONLY thing - is to verify that what we are documenting are actual, factualstatements about the candidate whose name is on the entry,
If so inclined, editors should feel free to include an entry for the campaign manager, whose comments some editors are so keen to include. After all, they are the campaign manager's statements, and not the candidate's. Again, by allowing the inclusion of statements that clearly cast in a positive light a candidate they may have previously personally endorsed in discussion, all of us are proceeding down a slippery slope wherein far less-reputable folk can use the doorway some demand be open to cause serious damage to specific political entries immediately before an election.
Example: let's say that tomorrow (being shortly before Election Day), someone posts a citable source (an obviously biased or partisan, swiftboat-like source) that says either one candidate or the other is being investigated by the FBI's Financial Crimes Unit. It does not matter if the allegation is true (and the citation may be purged right before the polls close), but the damage will have been done. People who read WP for a heads up on the candidates (there actually are people who put this off until the last moment) will see the erroneous comment and make a decision based upon that. Before you can say 'Florida Recount,' WP has unwittingly helped unscrupulous people to alter the results of an election.
I guess I am not understanding how wikilawyering (this is not policy, etc.) is a proper justification for avoiding neutrality and lending credence to unsubstantiated statements. This is why I discuss this matter here - we are the front line of neutral documentation. Heresay is for articles about Wham! reunions and Lost episodes, where the stakes are not nearly as high. WP cannot alter whether there is a Wham! reunion, nor can it likely alter the episodic content of Lost. It is entirely conceivable that it can alter the course of an election, and WP needs to protect its own reputation and neutrality from bias. Some form of control needs to be instituted.
I have stated before my ideas for handling political candidates before understanding WP's obvious procedural complexity. Knowing a bit more, I suggest the following. Please understand that these policies are specific to political candidates currently seeking office (within a year of the election):
I think that a narrower interpretation as to citable sources should be adopted - replacing 'caution' with specific prohibitions (ie. disallowing comments by campaign managers and staffers to be used in place of actual statements by the candidates themselves). This, I believe, more accurately reflects the entrant's identity than a second-hand account of who the entrant is. It also removes the endless necessity of revission and likley resultant editwars. The entrant's own words cannot be refuted, whereas the statements of persons other than the entrant/candidate can be repudiated by the candidate themselves. This new policy suggestion would avoid the endless headaches associated with the 'he said she said' drama that usually results for a news cycle or three.
As well, I think tighter control needs to be exercised in certifying sources cited. I have personally discovered no less than 10 citation misquotes/paraphrasings or simply dead links, more than half of them in the Peter Roskam (candidate for office in Illinois). I imagine that this is not an isolated issue with political candidates' entries throughout America, but one as omnipresent as freckles on redheads. A citable source carries more weight than an uncited one, and it is quite likely that unscrupulous political operators would cite unverifiable material with the understanding that before the source can be checked and removed for neutrality or citation violation, the damage will have already been done. Sources are not often checked immediatley at all, most editors thinking 'well, if it was cited, then it must be true.' This leads me to my third point:
I think that a holding pattern be established, or some sort of drafting place be installed, perhaps as a discussion sub-page, wherein the draft of changes can be checked before they "go live" on the viewable page. this would allow editors to verify sources for solid links and credibility. Wording can be checked and changed so as to remain neutral. I am unsure as to how long the article revisions would remain in this 'holding pattern,' but certainly long enough to make sure that what goes live is a properly cited, language neutral article. I think that a policy editor or a senior editor would approve the draft version to go live.
I believe that this preserves all Five Pillars of WP, as well as making the process transparent. It also allows for editors to hash out the debatable language before it goes live. This avoids editwars and the petty reverting that occurs with contentious political issues and candidates.Arcayne19:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia's worth
I know everyone hates ads but here is something interesting to read:
Free encyclopedia: priceless. —MichaelZ. 2006-10-29 07:03 Z
Seconded; WP is priceless...it goes way beyond business and narrow interests.--User:Zaorish
That value would be considerably less if it were for-profit, as the vast majority of the current editors would leave to form their own non-profit fork. User:Zoe|(talk)18:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
That's an enteresting point. Also, If WP were to suddenly go for-profit, I could see editors suing WP for the collective millions of hours of free editing and such. Sure, it's released under the GFDL, but editors were "signing" (so to speak) under the impression that they were contributing to a non-profit. It would be sort of like the American Cancer Society taking everyone's donation money and opening up a cigarette factory, or the Red Cross buying nukes and invading countries. I have no idea how such a case would work out, but it's an interesting (if slightly chilling) thing to think about. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind19:14, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
As I understand the situation (hey, whatta I know), a very, very small handful of persons are waxing wealthy from the efforts of a very, very large group of editors who contribute to Wikipedia in an effort to be helpful to their fellow man. The small handful of people who control inflowed contributions would be most unlikely to upset the apple cart. Terryeo21:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I meant to say that Wikipedia proceeds on contributions. It wasn't started purely on contributions but the pages often ask for contributions and apparently a fund is being built just in case there is a legal defensive need. I meant to say the contributions are obviously controlled by a small group of people who are approprieately using them. I didn't mean to imply any more than that. And my comment was meant to recognize the reality, not imply anything negative. I like Wikipedia, a lot of the college students I know of use it as a first reference for a new topic. Terryeo23:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
A lot of for-profit companies mirror our content. I don't know if they are "waxing wealthy" from it, but they are definately using it for profit. The GFDL allows this though; it's the "price" of releasing our copyrights, so to speak.
I watched a Maine Senatorial Campaign Debate. Is posting about it O.R. ?
I wrote down pretty much the whole thing, so I'm confident my quotes are accurate. Can I post what, say, Senator Olympia Snowe said about the Iraq war, especially because she's changed her position from what's on her article?
--User:Zaorish
Is it possible for someone else to verify the quotes are accurate, e.g. was the debate published in a newspaper? Tra(Talk)15:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
(ec) Reporting on something you witnessed would indeed be original reporting - in this case, you should wait for media to report on the debate, as they indubitably will, and then use those as reputable sources for the quotes. In any case, in such political elections I'm sure the entire transcript will be published by a news source or organization somewhere, and you could then cite those sources to ensure verifiability. However, our sister project Wikinews has a policy encouraging first-hand reporting, and I'm sure they would appreciate your contributions to making an article on the debate, if appropriate. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict...) I've seen people cite video sources. But to be reliable, I would say that there has to be some way of us verifying it other than that we happened to be watching at the time. I.e. a transcript is available somewhere, a tape of the debate is available, etc. --W.marsh16:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Pornography as defined in the United States by the FCC and its inclusion on this Encyclopedia
Dear Wikipedia,
I would very much like to express my regrets at the inclusion of pictures of erect male genetalia. Specifically the aricle "Penis". Having found this web-site to be, in my own words to my friends and peers, "the best thing on the web", I was more than a little put out to realize that it contained images which are classified as pornography in the United States.
I attempted to rectify this, and my edits were immediately removed.
Now, should all of you wish your daughters to view erect male penises, please shout me down and I will (perhaps) leave you in peace. But I cannot help but think that this is one (perhaps the ONLY) area where I feel that the inclusion of these photos is a matter of opinion, and a bad one at that.
We should be making a resources for ourselves and our children. Should we allow pictures of erect penises? Any penises? Can I put a picture of mine up? Are pictures of naked children acceptable? Should we include links to pornography sites?
There is, apparently a line. It is my opinion that it has been crossed. Please clarify where this line is for me so I can include your policy to my congressmen.
See WP:NOT (censored), which spells the line out (everything encyclopedic that is not illegal in Florida is fine for Wikipedia). Also, the mere image of a penis, erect or not, is not pornography. I just checked the article and found nothing that was a "prurient depiction of sexual acts" or "appealed to the prurient interests". If you are not happy with this policy, you can either fork the knowledge base and create a bowlderized kid's version of Wikipedia, or refrain from using it. --Stephan Schulz01:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
This topic comes up on a near-daily basis and the bottom line is: Wikipedia is not censored for children. On the other hand, your last comment comes perilously close to violating our no legal threats policy. If you wish to remain active on WP you need to be very careful about how you phrase things like that. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle
I fully agree with the above first reply, and there is every reason to have a picture of a penis in an article about penises. I wish to extend this point to some of the picture galleries which can be found in userspace (examples found here - NOT SAFE FOR WORK) which are displayed to demonstrate the point that Wikipedia is not censored. Just as a picture of a young child with their clothes on is not normally considered to be child pornography, a whole collection is often considered unhealthy, and in many jurisdictions, prosecuted under obscenity laws. Some of these galleries may indeed "appeal to prurient interests". Can someone explain how they are to be judged under US laws? -- Jim18202:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Some of the galleries may, but I don't think your gallery is an example. Overall, under US law only obscene content is not protected by the first amendment. To be considered obscene, any work would have to pass the Miller test, which includes (among others), a test if "the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". Unless the supreme court revises this standard, Wikipedia is very safe. --Stephan Schulz02:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Please do send a copy of our policy to your congressman. I'd get a really big kick out of some politician trying to argue that a picture of a penis in the Penis article of an encyclopedia should somehow be banned. If you'll excuse the sarcasm, I also heard that the Digital Urology Jounrnal is waaaaaay pornographic. Pascal.Tesson02:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm horrified by the idea that pictures of penises (erect and flacid) wouldn't be available on the penis article. I very much do want my daughter to be able to find out what a penis looks like without having to walk up to a man and ask him to show her. An encyclopedia seems like a great place for her to satisfy her curiosity. --Siobhan Hansa02:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It's no good. I simply can't resist it. At what point of erection does the penis become "obscene"? Before answering consider that not all penises rise to the occasion. Some point downwards. Fiddle Faddle20:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
According to The Brethren, at least one U.S. Supreme Court Justice used exactly this standard in obscenity cases, although he didn't mention it in the published opinions. (Personally, I think we could live without some of the raunchier content here, but I know the community consensus is the other way.) Newyorkbrad01:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
We're not censored. Especially not for young children. If it's appropriate to the article, keep it. If you genuinely have legal concerns or wish to take legal action, the person you want to contact is wikipedia's official legal advisor User:BradPatrick. legal threats are otherwise not allowed. After looking at Special:Contributions/Xchanter, this is starting to look suspicious like trolling. --`/aksha02:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
For any users interested, the convening user above (Xchanter) appears to have been trolling. His talk page has a followup discussion where he self destructed and has been blocked for 24 hours pending further review. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 06:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I wish my daughter (and yes, I do have one) to view pictures of erect penises. I don't really think she has any interest in the matter at her age but when she does, I want her to see a real photo of a real penis and I would strongly prefer that she sees it in a neutral context. Yes, you may upload a photo of your erect penis. Note that unless it is a substantial improvement over existing male organs, it may be deleted as redundant. I would particularly like you to upload a GFDL-licensed illustration of autofellatio. No, photos of naked children are probably not acceptable; these almost always qualify as child porno, forbidden by US and especially Florida law. Please copy our censorship policy to your congressman; I'm sure it will be of public good to demonstrate a balanced application of the First Amendment to our public servants. Thank you. John Reid18:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
At any rate, FCC policy on censorship applies only to broadcasts in the public airwaves, not to other media such as cable TV or the Internet. These boundaries could always be subject to change due to legislation or litigation. There are some trying to get broadcast decency rules extended to cable, while others would like to get a test case up to the Supreme Court which might overturn government authority to censor the airwaves at all given technological and cultural changes since the last (1978) decision in that area. However, attempts to censor the Internet in this manner (the Communications Decency Act, for instance) have been overturned by court rulings, with the exception of a requirement that schools and libraries with federal Internet funding apply filtering. *Dan T.*19:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
A couple legal clarifications to elaborate on your comments: the internet filtering case was decided based upon the ability of Congress to impose conditions on the receipt of federal funds, not upon any power of the government to regulate internet content. FCC indecency regulation was upheld as constitutional because broadcast radio and television is subject to reduced First Amendment protection. As you suggested, if anything will change it's the disfavored treatment of broadcast speech (and hopefully the completely irrational fear/disparagement of nudity and sexual speech and imagery generally), not the extension of those restrictions to other contexts. Postdlf19:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe this is stereotyping on my part, but I envision this sort of complaint as coming from a parent in a small United States community (they usually use U.S. English or cite U.S. law) and I imagine the same person would - in another context - condemn censorship in China and Saudi Arabia. Sixteen years ago, when Saudi censors prohibited U.S. troops on its soil from having access to Cosmopolitan magazine and Chinese censors blacked out stories about Tienanmen Square, these issues seemed entirely separate. Now we live in a smaller world. Wikipedia isn't a community publication or even a national one. People in mainland China only recently regained access to most of the English language Wikipedia after a year of total firewalling and they still can't read Wikipedia's Chinese language edition. Nearly one human being in five is affected by that censorship, which in itself is enough reason to oppose efforts to censor Wikipedia at an organizational level: the establishment of any such precedent would become a wedge for further censorship. It's simple to solve a perceived problem in one's own home. Just filter access in the home through parental control software or lock out the site and send the kids to a family-friendly Wikipedia mirror. When the children become more mature they'll appreciate the additional lessons in civics and free expression. Durova20:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
While I don't disagree with you in any way, shape, or form, I strongly advise against getting worked up about this user; he's already been banned once, and if he continues trolling, will most likely be perma-banned. It is entirely possible the above was posted specifically to get a rise out of people. Just take a deep breath, mutter a few choice obscenities, and walk away. :-) EVula20:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
The legislation that actually applies here is COPPA. We are regulated by the FTC (not the FCC) according to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which is in force. That doesn't depend on locale, only on the fact our servers are in the United States. Also, we are protected by the claim that our material is educational. Issues arise when material is used in a way that can't be justified as educational. However, putting a penis on Penis is a pretty clear educational use so no one need fear it will be removed. How ever Europeans like to complain about prudish Americans, the fact is our server resides in the US and so must follow the laws of that country. pschemp | talk01:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Using this template is not ideal, because it means that the page will not render properly for browsers that do not support css. Therefore, this type of feature is permitted only in userspace. It is still possible to see the 'official' page title by looking in the title bar. Tra(Talk)21:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
At the very least, it's highly obnoxious -- I am inclined towards the idea that such things should removed on sight for faking the software interface. --Improv21:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. Who permitted this, even only in userspace? I say the right to edit our userspace ends at the page title. Nobody should have to go searching for some alternate means of getting information from a standardized interface just because of someone's stylistic fancies. Femto22:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry if you find it in any way disrputive. Originally, I found this in someone else's userspace, and merely copied the formatting across. However, I find it semi-ironic that I'm the only user being picked on, when in fact I've seen this type of thing used on many other user talk pages, even now still.
I will {{db-owner}} it, only if someone goes around and asks everyone who has used it to remove it (and cite this discussion). By this, I do not mean automatically remove it, but instead ask the "owner" of the user talk page to do so. Once there are no transclusions, then I will have it deleted. I also ask that you will extend this request to other users on Wikipedia who have similar things, ie. User:Glen S. Daniel.Bryant[ T · C ]07:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Two more things: a) I would have much preferred that people have mentioned it on my talk pages - no single editor has ever had a problem with it before, however I would have been more-than-happy to discuss and reach a comprimise. On that note, I am slightly disappointed about the manner in which this was brought up; also, comments like "Who permitted this, even only in userspace?" are strange, as there is no permission avenue for anything on Wikipedia, really; and b) John Reid's post, with a comment like "I suggest you return to each place you have used it and replace it with something less confrontational and obscure", is also misled - note that I have never, ever, ever added this template to anyone else's userpage - I used it on my talk page for about two days, and in that time it was duplicated 6-7 times on other user pages (maybe my user talk page is that popular :D). I am also stunned by the comment "this thing will upset a lot of your fellow editors", considering this template has been used on a number of user pages for over a month now and no-one has even mentioned it. Daniel.Bryant[ T · C ]07:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
For the record, my comment "Who permitted this, even only in userspace?" was in reply to Tra's "this type of feature is permitted only in userspace". Your page was the first instance which I encountered; not picking on anybody in particular. It's a problem of general policy, not about compromising with specific users about their private use of this code. Femto15:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I find the sarcasm in that last comment grossly unwarranted. I could stick my back up and not offer this comprimise, but I decided not to; amazing the brilliant degrees of civility I recieve in return. It is not my job to run around the Wiki at the beck-and-call of another user; if you want me to delete it, then you have to do some work also. Daniel.Bryant[ T · C ]07:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
The 60 lines wasn't all in response to you - only about 3 :D - ever since this was brought up, I have been searching for where I copied the code from (and found it at User:1ne/Title). What I'm going to do, if this OK with everyone, is transfer all the use of my template to that of 1ne's, and then delete mine. From there, this can be discussed, whether as an MfD etc. Is this sweet with everyone else? Daniel.Bryant[ T · C ]08:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
The MfD procedure should take care of removing the inclusion links to such pages, in the event the Wikipedia community decides such pages should not be used. --Francis Schonken08:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there a guideline anywhere that says that we are writing not about the present but about all recorded history? In other words, that an item should not be removed from a list just because it has been demolished? --NE223:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
There's no policy like that specifically, but since one of our goals is to record "...the sum total of human knowledge..." it's absolutely correct. Of course, an item might need to be moved to a different list or re-written if the facts change. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle00:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Try WP:NPOV. We should not give undue weight to things from the present vs. things from the past, as it is a form of systematic bias. I also seem to remember there being a page somewhere that explicitly stated Wikipedia aimed to be timeless, but that was when I first joined and I can't find it anymore. --tjstrfNow on editor review!00:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I took a quick look and I don't know enough about the subject itself to have an informed opinion about it. It seems that if the page is a List then it should certainly be as comprehensive as possible. If it's an article though, the list of examples seems excessive. Generally 3 - 4 examples should be adequate. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle00:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
There is not, but I have seen several remarks regarding the bias towards recent topics, such as the statement that about 80% of articles regard topics conceived in the last 20 years. The balance clause of NPOV primarily applies toward the content of a single article rather than the systematic bias of WP as a whole. Most editors take a tolerant attitude toward systematic bias as something best combatted by recruiting active editors in sparse areas. Deco11:57, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes you can structure the knowledge to meet both aims without confusion. I am currently working on the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, which basically gives a current view e.g. As of June 2006, only two wrecks are designated.... However this article is supported by a list - List of designations under the Protection of Wrecks Act - which lists all of the designations including ones since revoked. If I had called it the List of Protected Wrecks, whether this was currently or historically protected might have been more of an issue. Viv Hamilton12:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
What should be the limiting factors as to which cities get a "Roads of..." article?
It was brought to my attention that a number of relatively small cities - like Ashland, Kentucky (population about 25,000) and Charleston, West Virginia (population about 50,000) - have "Roads of..." articles (there is a discussion of the issue on this talk page. While I think the intention is quite nobile, I suspect that, in the global context of Wikipedia, this would either A) open up a huge can of worms as to deciding which cities, if any, would merit similar articles (there is no Roads of New York City, for example); or B) lead into a serious dispute as to which roads/avenues/byways merit inclusion into the article. An anonymous editor suggested that Roads of Ashland, Kentucky and Roads of Charleston, West Virginia be merged with the respective articles covering the cities, presumably because either there was quite a bit of duplication already at the target articles, or the information would be better used in the appropriate State Road, U.S. Route, or Interstate articles - and the suggestion drew a heated reaction from the articles' writer.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind a Roads of Troy, Michigan or Roads of Falkirk, Scotland or Roads of Chilliwack, British Columbia article, but unless some standards regarding cities' "eligibility" or determining which streets/roads/etc., would be included in the article (and such standard should be mentioned somewhere in the article or the talk page), I also see a huge slippery slope that would be best avoided. This issue needs objective input from people who haven't invested themselves in these (or similar) articles. B.Wind22:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
There's plenty of space at Wikipedia: it's not a paper encyclopedia. Thank goodness we don't have to edit these or read them. Why would one want to clutter city articles with such stuff? We certainly don't want to forbid them-- or do we?--Wetman02:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Plenty of space doesn't mean we should accept random garbage, and in fact there are costs associated with running the server. Our mission is to be an encyclopedia. I have no specific comment on the factors, but the "plenty of space" argument is broken. --Improv16:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Well there's a Roads of Louisville, Kentucky, for example. I had intended for it to cover like Main Street, Broadway and our Parkway system (designed by Olmstead), about which I can cite a great deal of reliable sources, actual meaningful info and so on. Right now it just covers highways for the most part, which I'm not tremendously interested in, but my point is that reliable sources do exist for some roads, enough to create an article on roads that's interesting, if nothing else to road geeks and people interested in local history. But if all you can say is "There's a road here, it's this long"... I dunno, that's not really for an encyclopedia. But sometimes you can say a whole lot more.
So the question really, "have reliable sources written meaningfully about multiple roads in a town/city?" and if so, all notable roads of the city can be covered in that one article, until you get to cities like New York where individual roads get articles. Improv is right in that we shouldn't include everything just because we technically can, but if something is interesting and based on reliable sources, even if it's highly obscure, we should strongly consider including it. --W.marsh16:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
But there is a second part that is yet to be discussed here, if I read the original comments correctly: should every city in the world be "eligible" for a "Roads of..." article, or should there be qualifications attached to such a consideration. While every city is notable, do we want exhaustive lists of streets and roads from every hamlet that is incorporated, or should there be a population restriction be placed on this as well? While it's easy to say Roads of Ashland, Kentucky is a "useful" article (albeit possibly at the expense of the articles covering the state and US Roads mentioned in RoAK), what's to prevent something like Roads of Islandia, Florida (on one extreme) or Roads of Jacksonville, Florida (on the other extreme)? While the intention seems to be a good one, I'm concerned about the precedent these articles are setting in Wikipedia - that this is opening a huge can of worms... and it's better to deal with it on the onset than after a mess has been created by editors with different "visions." 147.70.242.4020:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone cite reliable sources specifically about roads in Ashland, Kentucky? I was just looking the other day at an entire book about the roads of Louisville, with histories, descriptions, summaries of traffic and parking problems, and so on. If people can say more about the roads of Ashland than "well this one runs for this many miles", then I'd say an article is fair game. But the problem is that often nothing like that has really been published for very small towns, when you get down to it, and anything you could say would just be personal knowledge. --W.marsh20:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Yahoo! and MOS-TM
I'd like to call more attention to Talk:Yahoo!#Requested move and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (trademarks)#Trademarks with Question Marks (?) and Exclamation Points (!). For years (literally), we have had a trademarks guideline that discourages the use of special formating on trademarks and names, e.g. we avoid Macy*s and REALTOR® even though those are the "official" ways of writing Macy's and Realtor. By extention, it would seem to me that we should follow USA Today, Reuters, Business Week and many others in dropping the "!" from Yahoo! and simply use the more natural form "Yahoo" to describe the search mega corp. Some people at the move request are resisting this and arguing that the "!" should be used because it is part of the official name. In effect saying that there should be some sort of official punctuation exemption to MOS-TM. I would like to get more input on resolving this tension between our long standing guideline and what many people want to do in practice. Dragons flight13:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Macy's is registered as "Macy's". "REALTOR" is registered as something else completely. No unusual characters. They're different cases than "Yahoo!", which is registered as "Yahoo!", exclamation point and all. It's the company name. There's no violation of any long standing guideline or manual of style. This discussion should be confined to the move request page. I can see RfC'ing here, but let's keep it in one place. *Sparkhead14:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Technically the original discussion is the MOS page linked above, where everyone who participated to date agreed that Yahoo should drop the "!" and simply use the common name, without the branding. Hence the conflict. Dragons flight15:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Technically, there's four threads on this. In Talk:Yahoo!, Talk:Yahoo (literature), here, and the MoS talk you list above. All the move discussions should have been linked to one spot (perhaps the original MOS thread), and now you have total confusion and I'll guess there will not be a consensus for any of the moves. I'm not going to comment on it further here. *Sparkhead15:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
The vote for deletion form Template:Infobox Scientist was on a previous, bloated form of the template, which has been streamlined recently. Personally, I am against the use of flags in such infoboxes. In fact, I believe that the main value of the infoboxes lies for articles which are between stub-status and good-article status. Infoboxes add a degree on uniformity and visual interest to what would otherwise be a mediocre article. For more highly polished articles, such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, the infobox is of less obvious use. (Though, I'll admit to being a fan of the ability to navigate through the academic family tree using this particular infobox.) Bluap18:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd just like to get a sense of whether people think articles for sports teams and leagues should be updated on a daily basis with standings from the current season. Any opinions? Is there any current policy/guideline on this? – flamurai (t) 23:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Once an article exists and is of a proven notable team/league, I've got no problem with it being updated regularly. However, I have to admit to some discomfort with the sheer quantity of sport-related data that's flowing into Wikipedia. While patrolling new pages, I see articles come in about every football club in the world, but I just don't know enough about the subject to determine whether something needs to be flagged as questionable notability or not. Maybe we should get tougher about only allowing "team" articles to be created, if there are multiple sources proving notability? Or is mere participation in major competitions, enough? --Elonka01:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Such content is better suited for Wikinews than Wikipedia. Encyclopedias normally discuss the lasting signficance of something, and this weeks standings are hardly of lasting significance. One can add a cross-wiki box to Wikinews, like those used for Wikisource or Wiktionary. GRBerry03:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
My current solution at New Jersey Devils#Season by season Records is to simply put "in progress" in the row of the current records. Note this is not supported by any precedent, but I believe that as an encyclopedia, we should try to limit the amount of daily/in-progress updating. – flamurai (t) 05:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Why not? Provided the information is sourced, and that source is updated, it just makes Wikipedia that much more current. Fagstein08:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, saying as a team's record is encyclopedic, I have no problem with it being updated immediately after it happens. That's the benefit of not having a printed encyclopedia.
That said, I think that something more trivial (like the actual scores of games) we should probably shy away from, instead directing people to Wikinews (as mentioned above). EVula16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
For an example of what I was talking about, here's a list of articles that I've run across over the last few days, that I'm not sure are "encyclopedic". To me, they all appear to be unsourced and of marginable notability, but are obviously part of a much larger project that seems determined to use Wikipedia to document every sports score in every tournament, ever. Anyone else have an opinion on this kind of stuff? --Elonka20:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I feel that if people want to create accurate, potentially useful content about events that were once newsworthy (as most sports championships and the like were), then I am not inclined to say they can't. So a part of the free encyclopedia ends up being an encyclopedia of sports, oh well. Can't be worse than an Encyclopedia of Pokemon or an Encyclopedia of Buffy. However, I am not a big fan of in progress reporting on game results and the like because of the effort involved in maintaining such things. Dragons flight20:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Added to the talk pages of some articles is the template {{Notable Wikipedian}}. This adds a box to the talk page containing the text "The subject of this article, [Article name], has edited Wikipedia as [User name] (talk · contribs)", and places the talk page in Category:Notable Wikipedians. I recently removed this template from Paul Staines because there was no strong evidence that User:Paul.staines was in fact the subject of the article. Another user has reverted this, citing WP:AGF. If this is valid, the consequence is that every claim by a user to be the subject of an article has to be accepted unless there is proof to the contrary. I think this could get us into difficulties, and it appears to contravene WP:LIVING. Alan Pascoe22:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
To the best of my knowledge, AGF has almost nothing to do the notable wikipedia template. It appears to have been added by DWaterson[18], based solely on User:Paul.staines's username. Unless there's actual evidence that User:Paul.stainesis Paul Staines (after checking his website, I found none), I think we should remove the template. EVula22:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
AGF means you should ask the user to prove his identity before assuming he is an impostor. But the template should be removed from the article (frankly, this template shouldn't be in articles in the first place) until a reliable source indicates the two are the same. Fagstein06:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with users assuming that another user is the subject of an article and engaging in discussion on that basis. The problem is the template, because this states that the user claiming to the subject of the article is the subject of the article, and, by implication, all comments on the talk page by that user are from the subject. Alan Pascoe21:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Another issue involving the template, is what kind of verifiability standard it has. For example, I routinely hang out with authors and actors and other "notable" folks. If one of them tells me their Wikipedia account name, and then I learn that they've been making autobiographical edits, should I then use my personal knowledge to add the {{Notable Wikipedian}} template to the page? Or should it only be self-added? --Elonka22:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
BLP trumps AGF, in my opinion. While they are both important, only one of them has legal ramifications. :-P EVula01:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Without verifiable sources that the person editing with that name is that person, to put the tag on the article is OR, and it should be removed. User:Zoe|(talk)02:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
NOw that I've had a night to think about it, it seems like this tag is almost entirely OR, unless there are independent sources which prove that the people who use those User names are, indeed, the people they claim to be. I'm sure the newspaper articles which have made much of Jimbo having edited his own article could be used as a source to prove that User:Jimbo Wales really is Jimbo Wales, but much of their information comes from Wikipedia, thus making their sources suspect, as well. User:Zoe|(talk)19:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Consider melding the noteworthy battles section with the battle summaries. I will be willing to provide information on as many battles as possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Statistic (talk • contribs) .
I recently nominated an article for deletion (AfD) based on the criteria under "Conflict of Interest" which appeared to be an acceptable category under which an article could be nominated. However, during the discussion (discussion: [19]), several contributors pointed-out that although the "Wikipedia:Deletion policy" page gives Conflict of Interest as a reason for AfD, the page itself under Conflict of Interest specifically states that notability is the only issue for AfD, not conflict of interest. Thus, it seems that there is some ambiguity or conflicting information in the guidelines for AfD. I'm requesting discussion over whether it appears to others that the criteria need to be clarified or not in regard to this issue. Cla6802:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
It depends on the circumstances. If an employee of a big corporation writes an article on that corp, that's a conflict of interest and arguably gives a POV article - and the response is to rewrite the article (from scratch if necessary). If a Joe Average writes an article about himself, that's also a conflict of interest, and since nobody much cares about Joe we delete the article about him per WP:BIO. >Radiant<14:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Disambigs for very similar names
Is there a pre-existing policy for disambig pages where people have names that
sound identical but are spelled differently, or
are not identical in spelling, but are liable to be confused anyway?
Reason I ask is that I noticed there were two disambig pages for Charles Gray and Charles Grey. Neither of them linked to the other(!), so I added mutual links.
However, disambig pages are meant as navigation aids (not lists of identically-named things), so is it a good idea to have one for each minor spelling difference when people are unlikely to know which one they want anyway? Or should there just be one (e.g. for both spellings of "Charles Gray")?
If they're very large pages, then don't merge them. But if they're shorter pages, and they're minor spelling variations, then sure, go ahead and merge them. --Interiot17:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking; a "common sense" approach bearing in mind the purpose of a disambig page. While I could have rushed off and done several, I wanted some sort of semi-formal consensus first. That way I could be sure I wasn't wasting my time with something the majority of editors disagreed with (and possibly for good reasons; another benefit of asking here is that it gives others the chance to spot any snags or drawbacks I'd overlooked). Fourohfour19:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I'd leave them separate and use a "See also" section (see WP:MOSDAB for the recommended style). In other words, I'd do what you originally did, but formatted a little different. You're correct that some people might not know which spelling they are looking for, but other people will know. I think the odds of confusing people are more likely by merging them then having the link to the other page which they can follow. -- JLaTondre23:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Biblical citations-- reference section or included in text
Does Wikipedia have a policy or guideline on whether or not to include bible verse citations in the reference section along with other references, or whether to just list them inside parentheses.
In most print biblical scholarship, cites are usually provided like this:
"Luke-Acts devotes a great deal of attention to women in general (Luke 1, 2) and to widows in particular (Luke 2:37; 4:25-26; 7:12; 18:3, 5; 20:47; 21:2-3)"
The alternative would be to treat them like normal references:
"Luke-Acts devotes a great deal of attention to women in general[1] and to widows in particular[2] "
The parenthetical style has the advantage of it being easier to view the citations-- you don't have to click on the link to see the cite. The hypertext style has the advantage of being much more readable-- when you have a paragraph full of cites, it can get a little difficult to follow the sentence itself.
Well first of the bat your citing analysis. You can't use the book itself, otherwise its original research because it's like saying the book analyzed itself. You need to get a source that analyzes Luke-Acts as "devoting alot of attention to women in general". On the other hand, if you quoting a text from the bible then yes you should cite the book as a footnote. Did that make sense? - Tutmosis23:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I should have picked a better example. I thought about that before I posted it, but.. I was lazy. That sentence does need a "real cite", in addition to the biblical citations. I think it's okay to have the biblical cites too, just in case someone wants to look at the specific instances, but as is, I would consider the sentence "uncited" until we get a cite that says what the sentence itself actually says.
So, is there anything I could point to in order to convince people that we should footnote the biblical cites? I find that some people are really attached to the parenthetical citations and object to them being placed in footnotes.
My understanding of the manner to present any quotation is to simply quote this is a quote,<ref>''name of book'', page number publisher</ref>. And the reason for that is the flow of the article. A reader gets his example right there and doesn't have to search around, but can explore further. However, in some instances, the second use of quotation would make a smoother reading, easier to understand article. So, it depends on style and content. It depends on an editor's understanding of the reader. It depends on what will best communicate the information to the reader. Terryeo00:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The short answer is that they stem from a proposal that has failed 4 times to be pushed into policy. The templates were deleted under CSD T1: divisive and inflammatory. John Reid °06:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
AFAIK it's always been a fairly contentious issue. It's hard to tell people that their talkspace is not necessarily their own. I usually try to check the page history before leaving a message, but it's not always possible. I'll miss wr. riana_dzasta06:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
By chance I've stumbled about using OhmyNews as reference for Wikipedia articles. As OhmyNews accept, edit and publish articles from its readers, in an open source style of news reporting I see its value as a source as rather minimal. It's like using Wikipedia as source, only worse.
A quick check revealed quite a number of articles linking to ohmynews.com, I'm tempted to delete all of them:
The articles are vetted by paid staff who work for the company - it's not completely open source (in the way that Wikinews is). I don't know if it would qualify as a reliable source though; it depends on how accurately they check the facts. Trebor16:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Ingredients in confectionery bar articles
Are there any policies (beyond the general "What Wikipedia is/is not")- or even policy discussions- that can shed light upon whether or not it is acceptable to have lists of ingredients in articles such as Snickers and Twix? Fourohfour14:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
That's interesting, thanks. However, the issues that concern me are
Are ingredients trivia? Their proponents argue that they're important or at least relevant information. I'm not really in favour of their inclusion, but I still don't know if they qualify as trivia.
The link you give above says trivia should be merged. But as ingredients lists are completist appendices/lists of organised information that don't belong in the main article (they'd just get in the way), this isn't really a solution. Fourohfour14:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
It might be a good idea to transwiki this stuff, handing it to the recipe project on Wikisource (I think, or was it Wikibooks?) and provide cross-links. --Improv15:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I concur with Francis's assessment. These are not trivia, unordered lists of unrelated facts. In fact, they're a highly targeted and comprehensive list of items. The issue is that they copy a primary source which may diverge in content at any time. Deco15:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, ingredient lists aren't copyrightable. See Publications Int'l v Meredith Corp., 88 F.3d 473 (7th Cir. 1996) (ruling that non-verbatim copying of recipe was not infringement, because underlying instructions and ingredient list were not copyrightable).
I think saying "We prefer secondary sources" is an oversimplification. In this case I don't see any reason not to use the primary source, especially if a secondary source is just going to copy over info from the primary source. The verifiability or accuracy of the ingredient info on the Snickers website isn't in question, is it? And even if it's not copyright infringement, I don't see the point in including text that's nothing more than a copy/paste from another site. If wikipedia isn't going to add anything to that text, why not just link to that info? --Milo H Minderbinder17:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
True, the issue is not whether "self-published" sources (the particular kind of primary sources we're talking about here) can be used "in articles about themselves". Well, they can. The issue is whether the text of such sources can be copy-pasted into Wikipedia. Well, generally it shouldn't, regardless of copyright issues. Leaves rephrasing and summarizing as allowable techniques to represent the primary source in the Wikipedia article. Or indeed, just make a link to the external website. --Francis Schonken08:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Another issue is reliablity. I'm not convinced there list of ingredients constitues a reliable source. Companies have been known to lie even in places like the US where there are strict laws. In some countries (like Russia) ingredient lists are highly unreliable. JoshuaZ08:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, no, that is not the issue. Even if you'd have a source that contends that the Mars company are lying w.r.t. the ingredients of Snickers, you'd still need to make a reference to what the Mars company itself contends to be the ingredients of Snickers - to contrast that info with what other sources say. That's basic WP:NPOV operations. Note that your unreferenced contentions "In some countries (like Russia) ingredient lists are highly unreliable" (etc) are WP:NOR infringements of the worst kind (you present a POV, without providing your fellow-wikipedians a clue how they could verify what you present as a "fact"): we don't base Wikipedia on this sort of innuendos. And then I'm not yet talking about the extrapolation (also a form of original research) you're making: Encyclopedia Britannica had 123 unreliable statements in 42 articles ("Internet encyclopaedias go head to head" in Nature, December 2005) – we don't extrapolate that to "Encyclopedia Britannica can't be used for references in Wikipedia" --Francis Schonken10:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
The edit option on all of the pages is pretty dumb. I recently changed information on a page and it was left like that for about a week. This "tool" could be potentially dangerouse to all Wikipedia users. I sugest that you get ride of this iption or find away to make it more... safe. By the way, I kindly went back and changed teh information back to its origanal form before I did my little "test."—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.255.109.142 (talk • contribs) .
Well, I for one am glad you changed them back, if you hadn't we might not have been able to understand them at all, condidering all the spelling mistakes you made in just your post, also,tjstrf is right, this is a wiki, you can change whatever you want, I will make an educated guess that you are new, or else you would be a member, and not complain about the edit button. Tarryhoper00:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
It is interesting to note...
Many articles in Wikipedia contain the phrase "it is interesting to note...". Perhaps I'm being nitpicky, but that doesn't seem NPOV. Who it to decide what is interesting? The "interestingness" of something is completely subjective. Encyclopedias shouldn't tell us what is interesting and what is not. I propose that all such instances be replaced with "it may be noted that...". --Munchkinguy04:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The two aren't semantically identical. I think the first is generally used to suggest that the "interesting" information being noted contradicts or undermines the previous statement, almost like a "However, ..." ("Bush urged private citizens to house Katrina refugees. It is interesting to note that Bush did not offer to host anyone at his 2,000 acre private ranch.") I don't think "It may be noted that..." has the same suggestion; by contrast it seems like an attempt to make the instant statement more tentative, as if you're hesitant to advance it. But both are probably surplus verbage, to be edited out based on the surrounding context. Postdlf05:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I delete 'em all. "It is interesting..." -- let the reader decide it's interesting. "It may be noted that..." -- excuse me, if it may be noted, then note it, and once you've done so, you don't need to announce that it may be noted. "Interestingly and ironically, it should be noted that..." --jpgordon∇∆∇∆05:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Go ahead and be bold. My guess that it is in imitation of the 1911 Britannica, or perhaps even leftover text from when articles were often just copies of the public-domain edition, and "It may be noted that..." has the same antique flavor. In many cases, such phrases are just fluff that can be dispensed with. In other cases, something more direct would be preferable. If many students find the concept difficult because it is counterintuitive, then call it counterintuitive. If the point has important consequences, say so: "This lemma has important consequences." If someone notable has called the point surprising or interesting, then quote them: "Edward Witten has called this the most unexpected result since energy quantization." Robert A.West (Talk) 05:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
As a professor once told me, if something "is interesting enought to note" then this is assumed by mentioning it and so calling it "interesting" is usually not necessary. Similarly, if something is noteworthy, then that is why you're including a mention of it. Telling the reader it's noteworthy is not necessary. --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles12:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, to be pedantic, I wouldn't call the precise average molar mass of Oxygen, for example, particularly interesting. (The way it's derived from the isotopic masses and abundances, and the way those are determined, could be more interesting, if we went into any detail on that.) But we still note it, since it may be useful to some people. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:59, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
As a Wikipedist who deals in primarily articles about upcoming films, particularly superhero films, I'm curious about others' perspectives about how to determine when to create articles for upcoming films. What criteria should an upcoming film meet if the film has not reached the production stage yet? Is it enough to have a writer and director attached, like Ant-Man? What about films that don't have anything attached, but still generate the occasional news, like The Punisher 2 or Wolverine? What about the notability of a sequel based on its predecessor's success, such as The Dark Knight? I've used the crystal ball and notability policies both ways, defending something like Interstellar or voting for the deletion of something like Battle Angel. When can an upcoming film go from its subsection on the source material's article or a director's article to become an article that would grow in time? --Erik (talk/contrib) @ 18:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any guideline regarding the issue, but personally I would assume once the release date of a feature film is announced, then you can be sure there is enough useful information to atleast start a stub. Otherwise no point making an article about rumours. - Tutmosis18:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
That's the issue, though. Projects have been announced without a release date. I've kept in store a lot of Variety articles that say how a studio acquired the rights for this particular adaptation and have attached the director (who is usually in the middle of something, as most mainstream directors are). These aren't rumors. In addition, something like Interstellar doesn't have a release date at all, yet the article exists due to the reasoning that it's an upcoming Spielberg film. --Erik (talk/contrib) @ 18:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The general guideline is Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Essentially, if there are reputable, reliable sources (i.e., not a forum or blog post, but a newspaper or magazine) about the upcoming film, the article is legitimate. AfD is woefully inconsistent when it comes to reviewing them - too many people misread the crystal ball policy - but if you can back it up with sources, you should be fine. --badlydrawnjefftalk19:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Personally, to me it would make more sense to just state it on the director's/(officially announced) actors articles rather than create a new article as soon a new film is announced to be in production. - Tutmosis19:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Or on the fictional character article, or on the film to which it is intended to be a sequel. Individual articles really aren't justified by slavish records of the dates of pre-production press conferences and interviews. Postdlf19:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Studios buy a lot of scripts, often even announce directors and cast as "attached", but often something (usually financing, that frequently comes from third parties outside the studio) throws a monkey wrench into the works. Personally, I'd be more comfortable if we waited for a reliable report that filming actually has started, not is "in pre-production" which can mean almost anything. Spielberg could announce he's going to film the Yellow Pages and people would line up to finance it. It's a little more chancy to fund the kind of projects you're talking about, and these tend to fall apart before filming a lot more frequently. Fan-196719:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
What about a film like Watchmen? It's been in and out of production, and I wrote the extensive project history for that film's article. Where should information like that go, if there was substantial coverage about the film's development? What about something like Luke Cage or The Punisher 2 where information are not rumors, but actual news about the so-called progress of these films that have yet to take off? --Erik (talk/contrib) @ 19:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The Watchmen article is rather interesting, but let's face it, it's not really about a movie. It's about failed (so far) attempts to make a movie, which is not really the same thing. It kind of raises the question: is the process of trying to make a movie in itself notable? Based on the amount of press coverage (nice citation work, BTW) it would seem so, but, as I said, it's not really a movie article, since, as yet, there doesn't seem to be an actual movie. Fan-196719:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The Watchmen article is part of a larger patchwork, as well, that of the articles on the Watchmen comic book series. Like Fan-1967 says, it's not so much an article on a film as an article on an attempt to adapt a notable work. Steve blockTalk22:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
The proposal does address this in general terms at WP:NOTFILM#Unreleased_films, but I would suggest slighly more specific rules of thumb. For a clearly notable project (with say James Cameron attached, an article may well be appropriate any time after the film is green-lit by a studio/production company as long as there are multiple, non-trivial sources for it. For an average comercial film, I would prefer to wait until actual production (i.e. filming or the equivalent) has begun. Films of questionable or limited notability should not have articles prior to their completion and release (if any). Eluchil40413:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Articles about unreleased films (and books etc) tend to attract speculative edits. One should keep an eye out for these. >Radiant<14:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Devanagari and Nastaliq script in Bollywood-related articles
One of our Indian editors, Bharatveer, feels very strongly that Hindi/Hindustani names and words should not be rendered in Nastaliq script in Bollywood-related articles. He has removed the Nastaliq script from more than a dozen actor/actress articles, claiming that since Urdu is not their native tongue, their name should not be given in Nastaliq script. He is up to three reverts on Anupam Kher.
This is a complex issue. One underlying language (Hindustani) has been written in two scripts for centuries. Muslims tended to use a Perso-Arabic alphabet (which is what they used to read Arabic and Persian literature) and Hindus used Devanagari. The Muslims also tended to speak a Hindustani that contained more Persian and Arabic loan words, a dialect generally called Urdu. The Hindu version of Hindustani is called Hindi and contains more Sanskrit loan words. Since the Partition of India, the divergence between the Pakistani version of Urdu and the Indian version of Hindi has increased. However, at the level of the man in the street, people still speak Hindustani, without fancy loan words. Bollywood films aim for the widest possible audience and they are generally written in a Hindustani-leaning Hindi that is easily understood by Pakistanis as well as North Indians. Not only that, movie titles and credits are usually given in both Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts, so that all audiences can read them.
The continued presence of Muslims and Muslim script in India is profoundly irritating to followers of Hindutva, an Indian political movement, and Bharatveer seems to be following a Hindutva line in most of his edits. Recently he tried to remove the Nastaliq script from the Bollywood article; a long edit war ensued, in the course of which it was established that most Bollywood films use both scripts in their titles and advertising, and that if there is any justification for adding Devanagari versions of words, names, and titles (the convenience of South Asian users of the English WP), it applies equally to Nastaliq.
Bharatveer gave up trying to remove Nastaliq from the Bollywood article, but has, in the last couple of days, switched to removing it from the actor/actress articles. He says that if the actor/actress isn't a "native Urdu speaker," then his/her name shouldn't be given in Nastaliq script. But of course the issue isn't native speech (many actors/actresses are NOT native Hindustani speakers -- they had to learn Hindi in order to get roles) but giving the name in forms that allow South Asian readers to figure out the proper pronunciation (which is not apparent from the Romanized form of the name).
Can we have a blankety-blank policy that says that if Devanagari is used to render a Hindi word, that Nastaliq can be used also? Without a policy, I forsee a grinding war of attrition over all the India and Indian cinema related articles, in which some editors are adding the Devanagari and Nastaliq forms of words, names, and titles, and Bharatveer is removing the Nastaliq. Over and over. He's removing information that could be useful to some users because he wants to make a political point, and it's taking time and energy away from writing the dang encyclopedia.
If a policy isn't the proper way to handle this, what is? Is this going to have to go to RfC and Arbcom? I'm not sure that stopping Bharatveer's personal anti-Nastaliq crusade would solve the general problem, since there are other Hindutva WP editors who would be happy to take up the struggle. But I'd be open to any suggestions for stopping the edit wars. Zora08:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
That's interesting, I didn't realise that was such a problem. I think your suggestion is good - try to make it a policy that all Indian actors/films will have their names in at least those two scripts, as well as whatever language is native to them (Bengali, Malayalam, etc). If not an absolute policy, at least a WP:INCINE policy. Hopefully that should curb the edit-warring, at least for some time. I hope you can come to some sort of agreement with them. If not, I guess an RfC would have to be the next step. riana_dzasta11:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
this is similar to the question, should the Turkish names of assorted Greek islands be given? (we give that of Crete at the moment, for instance; the presence of Turkish names is at least as irritating to Greek nationalists as the presence of Arabic script is to Hindu nationalists, even more so, since we are discussing actual territory, not cheesy starlets). Fwiiw, I am opposed to an overall "Indian actors/films will have their names in at least those two scripts" policy. It will depend whether the title or name in question were at all released or advertised in Urdu. If this can be established, by googling or otherwise, both scripts should be used. If there is a reasonable case that the name was hardly ever spelled in Nastaliq, Wikipedia shouldn't introduce such a spelling. Case by case, I guess. So much for the content side. Bharatveer's disruptive and belligerent behaviour is a question of user conduct and outside the scope of this page, but he could obviously do with a reminder that policies and guidelines apply to him as well as to everybody else. And by "reminder" I mean "blocks", since he has shown beyond any doubt that he is not willing to learn from debate alone. dab(ᛏ)11:30, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Zora has made some very good points here. It is also noteworthy to know that when the issue was discussed and polled on the Talk:Bollywood page, an overwhelming majority of participants wanted to keep both the Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts of the Hindi-Urdu (Hindustani) language (see first discussion, poll, and second discussion. The arguments are evinced here. I would support a WP:INCINE policy to keep both scripts. Thanks for your time and understanding. AnupamTalk20:56, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I should perhaps add that I was against adding the scripts during the first discussion, fearing just the sort of religio-political combustion we're having now. But, having scripts seemed to be the consensus of the other editors. We don't require that names/titles/words be given in both scripts -- it's up to individual editors to add them. If someone adds Devanagari (as Bharatveer is doing now), that's fine. If someone wants to add Nastaliq, that's fine too. (If there's no accepted version in Nastaliq, that suggests that one isn't necessary.) So far, we've just had a policy against deleting Nastaliq or Devanagari once someone adds it. However, Bharatveer does not recognize this policy. What must we do to make it an enforceable policy? Zora00:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Let me suggest, first, that you broaden the scope of your proposal to include all articles. I'd venture something along the lines of Multiple names/spellings/scripts are not required but once inserted, do not delete. There's a tricky bit where you define which alternate expressions are reasonable. For Indian movies, any script or language common in India seems very reasonable, while there's no real justification for Japanese or Basque. Come up with a logical test to determine what's "reasonable"; a simple, local discussion (as you've had at Bollywood) is a fine test.
Getting your proposal into policy is not a straightforward process. You need to do quite a bit of policy work to see how it goes. There's the high road, the low road, and the one that goes round and round -- for a start. Short answer: Write it up, tag it {{proposed}}, discuss it for awhile. If it looks like it has broad support, tag it {{guideline}}. Encourage those with inevitable objections to edit the proposal to address their own concerns. Compromise and negotiate. When a solid consensus exists behind the guideline, tag it {{policy}}. Sounds easy.
If you do get to the point of establishing policy, then you can bring violators to heel. Meanwhile, look into violations of existing policy. It's hard for an editor who isn't in step with the rest to push his bias consistently over time without breaking a long-established rule.
Normally I'd say, "First, make every effort to address this one editor's concerns." But it sounds as if you've done that already.
I would agree to an extent with what Dab says. If it can be established that both scripts were released in the movie, have both of them. Baically go with the existing policy of verifiability. I think policy is a very broad word and while such a proposal can be discussed on MOS etc, to name it a policy would be quite an extreme step in my opinion. I see that a total of four people participated in the poll. As John says, a policy really requires much broader support and participation -- Lost(talk)07:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, some guidelines for ALL articles would seem to be useful. In addition to dealing with Devanagari and Nastaliq, I've also run into Arabic (lots of Arabic), Persian, Turkish, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam ...
It gets to be just too much at the start of an article. The article will start like this: XXX (script A, script B, script C) blah blah blah. That's actually kind of hard to read. Suppose we had a little infobox (as small as feasible) that could sit off to one side and hold the various non-Roman scripts. In tiny print. Enlargeable. No more than four scripts? I'll have think about general guidelines for which to choose. Very good points re thinking in broader terms. Zora08:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The only thing I forsee as being potentially contentious is the chronological ordering of filmographies, but I still suspect (hope) a supermajority will quickly emerge, once put to wider discussion, favouring consistency and traditional listing standards.
Perhaps it would be better to have four special question sections, review questions, open questions, article concerns (typographic, factual and compo), and one for non-neutral points of view.
I also believe that the focus of Wikipedia should be based primarily on comprehending, with a bias towards the sympathetic, sort of like Wikinfo. Lets all get on the same page. Then try to understand other people and synthesize if we can. I think that's the best way.
Yes, let's be like Wikinfo, where you can have two totally conflictory articles about the same thing. The focus of Wikipedia is building an encyclopedia. Sympathy is not factual. There are people sympathetic to racism, sexism, gay-bashing, euthanasia, creationism, flat-earth theories, and everything else. Being sympathetic does not lead to comprehension. Facts, that can be verified and checked, and solid writing that builds those facts into an article gives you comprehension. I'm not trying to bite you, but your suggestion just comes off as...well, unworkable. And please sign your comments. --Shrieking HarpyTalk|Count05:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Talk|Count 05:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
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