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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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

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Acceptable username policy

We're having some debate about the username policy over at Wikipedia talk:Username.

Basically, about a month ago, the line which said random usernames aren't allowed was removed because it was causing problems (people were getting blocked erratically. like how User:Asdfghjkl:; was blocked on sight, where as User:Lkjhgfdsa and User:Asdfg12345 were not blocked, and have gone on to be decent contributers).

Now User:pschemp wants to add the line in. Because he things it should be kept. And he insists it should be kept on the policy page because there was never consensus to remove it (although there was never consensus to add it in the very first place.)

Can some people go take a look and give some third opinions? Both regarding whether the line saying "no random usernames" should or shouldn't be kept on the policy page when there is no consensus to keep it; and regarding whether we should keep it in the long term.

--`/aksha 04:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

There was never consensus to remove that part of the policy in the first place, thus its stays until consensus to remove it reached.pschemp | talk 06:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I support removing it. The presumption that random username = vandal/sock is utterly ungrounded. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 06:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Prove that please. While your opinion is nice, until consensus is reached, we don't remove things. That's the whole point. Your addition of an opinion does not consensus make. pschemp | talk 06:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
No offense intended, but people are given a better impression when it doesn't look like a user picked their name by randomly pounding the keyboard or dragging a finger across the center line. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Hence why I put an explanation on my user page. Anyway, judge by the contributor, not the name. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 06:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
i agree. Usernames that look well thought-out do give a better impression. But it doesn't mean usernames which don't look well thought-out should become a bannable offense. --`/aksha 06:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I still think it should be discouraged. It could be done in a nicer fashion, of course. Slap together a quick substable template saying "pick a coherent username" or something like that and stick it on the talk page when banning them. User gets a name we can understand and it's all good. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 07:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I have no problems with discouraging it. I don't think many people would. I do, however, have a problem with the "ban on sight" approach some people seem to be taking. Whether they look good or not, there are people with very random names who seem to be contributing fine. --`/aksha 07:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
There is human error to consider. It's highly unlikely that they'd catch every randomly named account in existence. Those that slip through the cracks with good edits will inevitably survive, but only by a stroke of luck. Plus, a change in username can be forced on those editors if it was really deemed necessary. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
the human error in this case is exceptionally high when compared to the other username guildlines. Throughout all the discussions, no one's even bothered to try and provide some definitions/boundaries for what is meant by "random". Simply because it's almost impossible. For policies like "usernames should personally attack other groups of people", it's (in most cases) glaringly obvious whether a username falls into the category or not. The blurry grey area in between is small. For randomness, i'm afraid the blurry grey area is huge. The most obvious example i can think of is admins who don't read leet doing "block on sights" for usernames written in leet codes. As a matter of fact, leet often looks very "random" to people not familiar with it. Maybe we should disallow usernames written entirely in leet too then? See my point? --`/aksha 13:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
"the human error in this case is exceptionally high when compared to the other username guildlines" another statement you cannot prove Yaksha. Again, where is your proof? Where are the legions of wronged users who have complained?pschemp | talk 13:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
fine, let me rephrase it into "the human errer in this case would be exceptionally high".
or actually, i don't even need to. I think the example i pointed out on the username talk page of how when one username was blocked, and another almost identical one was not proves the point. I don't suppose you could dish up any example of such inconsistency when it comes to enforcing the other accpetable username rules?
the legions of wronged users...well, i hardly except newbie who gets banned within two mins of registering to make any public complaints.
you demand proof for a lot of things pschemp, but i don't see you ever supplying any proofs for your claims. (explaining how each of the other examples of random usernames that i found (on the username talk page) were in fact 'not random' or 'leet' would be a very good place to start. Since you dismissed all the examples on the basis of them all actually being not random.) --`/aksha 14:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Who's to say what is and isn't random? What seems random to you may be a deeply meaningful screename that a person has used on all sorts of websites throughout their internet life. Lets say, for example that someone comes along with the username "SACGWDGSRG18" That seems a little random, doesn't it? I've never used that screen name, and probably never will as I always use ONUnicorn, but I could see myself having picked it at one time. To me that would be a meaningful name as it consists of the first, middle, maiden, and married initials of my mother's name, followed by the first, middle, and last initials of my father's name, followed by the first, middle, and last initials of my (maiden) name, and ending with my age when I first went on the internet (all caps because they are all proper nouns). On the other hand, if we block "random usernames" that seems to me like a very blockable name. Why bite new contributors before they've done anything wrong (or right for that matter)? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Who's to say what is and isn't offensive? Yet, we make that decision all the time and its the same thing. Nothing here is 100% as it is run by human beings and the two cases are the same. At some point, a line needs to be drawn. An example, from last night User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq blocked on sight, had already vandalised the moment he created his account. Check the contribs. This happens all the time. The other point here is that this is a long standing policy and until there is consensus to change it, we don't. That's how wikipedia works. And blocks are not biting newbies, especially when done early so as to save them the aggravations of having to change later. A perfectly polite message is left for them. pschemp | talk 16:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't think there is anyone anywhere who would argue that a username like "F_U_U_(insert group of people here)_FREAKS" is not offensive. For the most part it is patently obvious when things are offensive. On the other hand, "aslgore fjoenroe", while it seems like randomness (in this case it was), may not be to the person who contributed it. As for it being a long-standing policy changed without consensus, we are encourgaed to be bold in making changes, and that includes policy. If someone disputes it after the change, then a discussion is entered into (as now). Maybe it was rude for whoever changed it not to discuss it first, but they were just being bold. As for the length of time that it was there representing consensus, I'd be willing to bet that WP:Username is not one of our highest-traffic policy pages; I know I've only looked at it once (before today) and never referenced it in discussion. Most Wikipedians have probably never paid it any attention at all. (After edit conflict) As for User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq, they had already vandalised, thereby demonstrating their bad intentions. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I went to block before it was known they had vandalised 'cause they did it so fast after creation but decided to check because people around here are claiming innocents are getting bitten and they aren't. The other point, is that most ramdom names *are* vandals, as with this one too User:1524gf86d3sf546 which is the exact same story. (Whereas I would normally just block, I check first and lo and behold, it was vandalising). pschemp | talk 19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

How many times do i have to say this. Just because most random names *are* vandals is NOT an excuse to block on sight. Most anon edits are ALSO vandals, should we start reverting on sight too? Actually, most vandals are anons, maybe we should just block off all the anons? --`/aksha 04:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, you are taking this the the absurd, and no one has suggested doing that. You seem to be suggesting we should ignore obvious vandal usernames until they vandalise which is silly. I'm still waiting for the proof of the legions of innocent users who were harmed. pschemp | talk 04:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The best "policy" on acceptable usernames is that any username is acceptable unless somebody reasonably finds it unacceptable. Lets avoid instruction creep and very harmful blocks against new editors whose only mistake is picking an esoteric username. Let common sense prevail. Thanks/wangi 05:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Um wangi, its not instruction creep, the random rule has been in there for over a year. Also, they *are* deemed unacceptable at the time they are blocked, that's why they are blocked. pschemp | talk 05:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Although what might have been consensus at one point might no longer be so :) Anyway, I'm not really that fussed about getting into the this debate, however I do not believe that we need to mention random character names in the policy - it simply makes it easier for good faith editors to be banned before they make a contribution (for example Someguy0830 would be banned). It's a piece-of-piss for the robot script folk to generate usernames combining dictionary words which are immediately non-random. This is a harmful "rule". But getting back to my original point - I really have no problem with individual admins blocking usernames thay find offensive (be they random or not) but see no need to enforce banning of "random" usernames. Thanks/wangi 05:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The existence of a rule is not in itself a valid justification for the said existence. --`/aksha 08:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a policy against unpronounceable usernames? I think most names that would be recognised as random fall into this, so the "random" policy is redundant, and ambiguous. Remove.--SidiLemine 12:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Remove: Two reasons, both already noted by other users: 1) what looks random to one user may not be random to another (pschemp looks pretty random to me) 2)judge the user by the contribution, not the name. --Badger151 14:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Frankly I agree with Badger151, that pschemp looks random to me. Almost any username can be considered random. But I can see how some could be considered more random then others. Here are some usernames from the last few minutes of the User creation log. I have picked them as being the ones that seem the most random to me (but that's subjective): User:KMC1986 at 14:10, User:0101ccty06 at 14:10, User:Nanfengbb at 14:11, User:Tadg04 at 14:13, User:Pal9900 at 14:14, and User:Nkrajenka at 14:15. Let's give them a bit of time (say, an hour) and see what kind of contributions they make. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
"Krajenka" is a surname as well as a town in Poland. A big problem with making assumptions about users with seemingly random names is that many first and last names (as well as words, especially foreign ones) would be considered "seemingly random" by some people. It should also be noted that as wikipedia gets bigger, users are going to have an increasingly difficult time finding an unused username that "makes sense". And is there a policy against "unpronouncable usernames"? Where? --Milo H Minderbinder 14:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
That's almost exactly my point; randomness (unlike, say, offensiveness) is entierly subjective... what seems like a random collection of letters to me is a town in Poland and someone's last name. "11100010101010" might be how someone would spell their name in binary. "SACGDWGSRG18" are meaningful initials to me. "Wyq49h" is how I'd spell my first name if my fingers were on the wrong keys (one row up) "Xbzfk" would be how I'd spell it if they were one row down. "Djstpm" is how it'd be spelled if they were one letter right and "AgEIB" if they were one letter left. I could see myself using any of those options for a username if I had to choose a new one I'd never used before. Meanwhile (from Wikipedia:Recently created admins) what does Aski mean (User:Aksi great)? How about User:TKD; that could be anything? It's completely subjective. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, "Someguy830" doesn't make a "better impression" on me either, it seems equally careless and hard to remember or understand. But probably the prime offender would be someone trying to be cute by misspelling a common term for anonymity and sticking in the name of a small furry animal. That should be bannable on sight. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. As should anyone whose name makes no apparent sense, and consists of far more consonants than vowels, such that they have been mistaken for a bot before. Postdlf 14:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Username blocks, continued

*Sigh* you guys just aren't getting how this rule has been applied in actual use. The only random ones that are blocked on sight are the really obvious ones like User:1524gf86d3sf546 and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq. The borderline ones and unobvious ones and short ones aren't and never have been. And no, randomness isn't an entirely subjective quantity. All the examples OnUnicorn has given are either short (and short ones never have been blocked since human can remember short things easily) or have an identifiable pattern. Basically people are arguing that admins can't be trusted to make correct decisions and that's a load of crap. pschemp | talk 15:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Results The most random seeming username; User:0101ccty06 has made one edit(dif). It needs to be cleaned up for grammer and stuff, but seems to be fairly sound, at least it's not vandalism. User:KMC1986, User:Nanfengbb, User:Tadg04, User:Pal9900, and User:Nkrajenka (the rest of them) haven't made any contributions yet. As for them being short and easy to remember, let's say someone's from Kangerlussuaq and wants their username to be their town. Still too short for you? How about Muckanaghederdauhaulia (the longest place name in Ireland)? A wiki-deletionist, a person with severe depression, or someone who thinks that Wikipedia is not as good as traditional encyclopedias might pick the screen name Floccinaucinihilipilification. Some people pick screen names after favorite animals. What if someone's favorite fish was humuhumu-nukunuku-a-pua‘a? A fan of Aristophanes might pick Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhyp...gklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Um, OnUnicorn, those *weren't* blocked because they *aren't* random so you don't have much point. pschemp | talk 16:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Um, pschemp, you didn't follow the links, did you? Those *aren't* usernames. To my knowledge no one has acutally tried to register with any of those names. Those are all things that, if someone did register with them, would seem like a random combination of letters to someone patrolling for unacceptable usernames. The fact that they all exist in the real world makes them not random despite the fact that they might seem random to someone who didn't know better if someone were to use them. That was my point. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I take it back, someone did actually register as User:Kangerlussuaq, check the log. But they don't seem to have any edits. There's also a User:Floccinaucinihilipilification. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
The point is that they aren't random enough that they would be blocked. I wouldn't block those and neither would any admin I know, they aren't blatantly random. Agian, you seem to think admins can't make rational decisions, which isn't the case. pschemp | talk 16:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
My username is random? I'm hurt. Well, not really. If you can honestly say you have trouble remembering two combined words and a short number sequence, then I don't see how you expect to remember something like tjstrf. Random in this case would mean something that has no indentifiable pattern, like sdbaivb or other such nonsense. The usernames that get blocked in this policy are rarely here for a good purpose, and those that are probably register good usernames after learning better. Also, I recommend we get off the subject of bashing each other's usernames to make a point, since it's quite clear that our names do fall well within the tolerance for understandable usernames. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 16:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
My bad, no such policy (pronouceable). pschemp, I think the controversy comes from the fear that accounts will be deleted without warning. The way I understand hte policy, it is made so as to avoid automatically created accounts (spam, bots, etc.); A manual check (and possibly advice to change username) should be able to handle that. But for clarity's sake, the term "random" needs to be clarified with a few short definitions and examples, as are "offensive" and "wiki-related".--SidiLemine 16:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Um, a username block doesn't delete an account. In fact regular admins can't delete an account at all. When they are blocked, the {{usernameblocked}} template expands to give an explanation already. pschemp | talk 16:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia talk:Username - "That list is intended as a guide, it is not supposed to be exhaustive (wikipedia is not a bureacracy or experiment in rule making), it is the broader purpose behind the username policy which is important, if the rationale for an item on that list doesn't tally with the broader policy rationale then there is arguably something amiss. It also has to be remebered that the emotive "banning a newbie" etc. is not the case, blocks for most inappropriate usernames are without prejudice and the autoblocks should be removed without question, it is of course important that appropriate edit summaries are used {{usernameblock}} for example expands out in the block message to give the whole text regarding the status. --pgk 12:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)" That is exactly what is done in practice. pschemp | talk 16:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Given the current power of computing, I wonder if it possible to do some sort of analysis to determine what characteristics are shared by those usernames that are the most prolific vandals, but aren't shared by other users. If this can be determined, perhaps new usernames sharing those characteristics could be more closely watched until they develop a pattern. --Badger151 17:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, pschemp seems to be the most vocal supporter of this policy. Let's look at some of pschemp's blocks since so far most examples have been hypothetical. User:Qwerty123456789101112 doesn't seem random to me, it seems easy to remember, and quite clever if someone wants to maintain a high degree of anonimity. Of course, the stated reason for the block was the length of the name (Is 21 characters really that long?) rather than its randomness but still... User:Qwerty123456789101112's contribution log shows one contribution (diff) that might be considered linkspam, but has not been removed from the article despite the subsequent removal of other seeming linkspam. User:1524gf86d3sf546 is much more random then Qwerty...., and the block reason was vandalism rather then randomness or length. User:NotForVandalism was blocked before making any edits with "are you sure?" as the reason... now tell me, aren't we to assume good faith? If an editor says their account is not for vandalism, shouldn't we believe them until they prove otherwise (yes, that is slightly tounge-in-cheek)? User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq seems random, and was vandalising, and the block reason was, again, vandalism, NOT the randomness of the name. User:Mamamamamamamamama doesn't seem random, and was blocked because the name was too long (18 characters, even shorter than Qwerty, and exactly twice as long as my username). They had made one edit, diff, which was reverted (and probably rightly) using vandalproof by someone who, in my experience, has a history of misusing vandalproof. User:Random or unreadable text or characters looks like someone trying to make a point, and has no contributions. Same goes for User:I read your username policy and it's gay. Perhaps these are people who were blocked for seemingly random usernames and are now complaining by re-registering with pointy usernames? User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB was blocked as random with no contributions... but I can see it making sense to someone. Anyway... ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 18:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It might be better to discuss this in just one place... use VP only to build awareness that there is a discussion. But that said, every one of your examples is a good block based on the username alone, under current policy as it has existed for months and months. You have not shown any of them to actually be bad blocks, or that there was harm caused to anyone by them (with 0 or 1 edit, getting a new username is just Not A Big Deal). And the onus is on those that want to change policy to show reasons for it, not on those that want the status quo to show reasons for not changing, because the status quo ought to be presumed to be good, in the absense of any compelling reason to change. Again, policy is descriptive not prescriptive. Admins block scads of IDS under the current policy all the time and I am not seeing a huge volume of reports at the admin incident noticeboard suggesting that this behaviour is causing massive problems. What I am seeing here by proponents of change is a lot of hypothetical supposition. ++Lar: t/c 18:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
oh good God OnUnicorn, I already told you above that [User:1524gf86d3sf546]] and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq were ones I wast just going to block for username but that I checked first because I wanted to make *SURE* that innocent people weren't getting wronged and lo and behold, they weren't innocent. They weren't blocked because of vandalism, they were blocked because of their username!, and I just added vandalism so people would know. How many times do I have to spell this out to you? And User:Qwerty123456789101112 and User:Mamamamamamamamama aren't random, and that's not *why* they were blocked as said in the edit summary. Your assumption that they are random is illogical, I don't lie in my edit summaries. Let me repeat this again since you seem to have missed it "you just aren't getting how this rule has been applied in actual use. The only random ones that are blocked on sight are the really obvious ones like User:1524gf86d3sf546 and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq. The borderline ones and unobvious ones and short ones aren't and never have been." pschemp | talk 18:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I never said Qwerty123456789101112 was blocked for randomness, but I did question the approprietness of the block for the length of that name. It's only 21 characters. User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me for example is 31. Are you going to block him? You never addressed User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB, the only one on my list above where you did give randomness as the sole reason for the block. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB hadn't vandalized. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB hadn't done anything yet. You also didn't address User:Random or unreadable text or characters and User:I read your username policy and it's gay. On their face, doesn't it seem like those are people who were most likely previously bitten by our username policy (specifically the part under discussion here)? Lar says we're "not seeing a huge volume of reports at the admin incident noticeboard suggesting that this behaviour is causing massive problems". How many newbies even know that the admin noticeboard even exists? I started contributing here in March and I didn't know the villiage pump existed until sometime in July. That's 5 months. I found out that the admin noticeboard existed shortly afterwords. What kind of newbie whose username of User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB is blocked under this policy is going to go complain there? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Guess what? we aren't discussing length of names here, we are discussing randomness. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB is a name that I feel is not conducive to collaboration, regardless of vandalism. As for User:I read your username policy and it's gay that was from a whole string of names that quoted bits of policies. And his original name that he was blocked for was so offensive I won't repeat it (It was *not* a random name but a vulgar attack). However, since you weren't watching the username creation bots at the time, you don't know the whole story and have therefore picked out bits and pieces to use to criticize. Unless you are on the bot at the time, you don't have the whole picture and criticizing people's actions without knowing the whole story is a mighty big assumption of bad faith on your part. Last, any blocked person can complain on their talk page and request and unblock, and *that's* where I don't see complaints. That's where the proof of abuse would be should it exist. pschemp | talk 19:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
ONUnicorn asks "What kind of newbie would complain?" I'll tell you what kind... The kind that reads anything at all in their block message. That kind would ask the admin that blocked them, or would seek some help. But the kinds that are getting blocked for randomness aren't reading, because (news flash) they almost certainly are here for vandalism!!!! Is this a perfect system? Might we block someone inadvertantly who then chose not to create a new username despite the instructions on how to do so? Yes, we MIGHT. But the alternative is far worse. Please stop wikilawyering about this. You don't have a case for change. Get over it, internalise it, and move on. ++Lar: t/c 19:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was "wikilawyering" and certianly didn't intend to do so. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Since when is it instruction creep to restore an inappropriately, non-consensus delete of a portion of policy? Discuss, get consensus, then delete. Don't delete then demand consensus to put it back. Random names are blocked. Period. Get over it. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

"Random in this case would mean something that has no indentifiable pattern, like sdbaivb or other such nonsense." You see, this is the entire problem. YOUR defintion of random is that it has no "identifiable pattern". In which case, User:Asdfghjkl:; is not random (it's just the middle row of the keyboard). But clearly, pschemp by his definition of "random" believed User:Asdfghjkl:; IS random (User:Asdfghjkl:; was blocked by pschemp for randomness.)
Pschemp - if you think randomness is not a subjective quality. Then how about gracing us with your definition of randomness? How long is two long? how obvious is an "obviously identifiable pattern". Clearly, the pattern behind User:Asdfghjkl:; was not obviously identifiable enough for you.
"ONUnicorn asks "What kind of newbie would complain?" I'll tell you what kind... The kind that reads anything at all in their block message. That kind would ask the admin that blocked them, or would seek some help." - no, they won't. The sheer size of wikipedia is intimidating to many new people. You probably don't realize it, or maybe you just don't remember when you were once a newbie. But someone who has never edited wikipedia before, comes to sign up an account, and gets blocked within a matter of minutes, is not going to go chasing after people who blocked them. Maybe if the person was a regular in internet communities, maybe if they've edited for a long time as an anon and became familiar with the environment here, they might complain. But a complete newbie isn't going to. That's what WP:BITE exists for - it protects such new users.
If new users do go and seek help from admins when they are blocked, then i suppose you could provide a few examples? Considering how many usernames get blocked, surely by now, there must be quite some records of newbies who do go seek help after sudden blocks.
"Since when is it instruction creep to restore an inappropriately, non-consensus delete of a portion of policy?" when the portion of the policy was never added in consensus in the first place. It slipped in as something that is "discouraged", then slipped in further as something which is not allowed. Then it became something which was bannable on sight. And got removed when someone noticed how users like User:Asdfghjkl:; get blocked on sight but users like User:Lkjhgfdsa and User:Asdfg12345 survived. In other works, inconsistent happy-trigger blocking. --`/aksha 03:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
So, why should I not block usernames with non-Latin characters? —Centrx→talk • 03:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
uhh...did i say anything about usernames with non-Latin characters? --`/aksha 03:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe not. I didn't read your rants. The length of the comments is usually inversely proportional to the soundness of the proposal. —Centrx→talk • 04:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
You know, I found one, User:pschemp. Looks like the "user" (he may not have vandalised, but he almost surely will!), has just randomly hammered the keyboard, coming up with a giant mass of consonants which can't possibly be a word. Quickly, to the banhammer! Lankiveil 01:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC).

Further discussion of username blocks

Huh. So, the less recognizable a username is as meaningful to an English-speaking admin, the more likely it is to get blocked as a random string of characters. In some cases, it's a vandal. In some cases, it's a legitimate contributor who picks a different name and that's fine. In some cases, it's a legitimate contributor who is so intimidated or confused by the {{usernameblocked}} message that we lose them. It seems to me that, if too many username blocks are the second or third type, then the admins making those blocks would need to exercise more restraint. There's no reasonable way to define what makes a random username, and since so many of them are vandals, it wouldn't make sense to refrain from blocking every account until it proves itself to be vandalistic. We have to depend on administrative discretion, and the fact that {{usernameblocked}} is pretty helpful and polite. Since this isn't a job robots can do, we just have to trust the humans who are doing it. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

well, lengthy/insulting/wierd-non-latin-characters/POINT aside, there aren't that many. Or at least, all the examples that have been provided as "obviously random" have fallen into the category of being very lengthy, insulting or making a point, or having wierd symbols in it. As i said, there's really no evidence that blocking usernames which are only random (and doesn't break any other username guildlines) based purely on randomness has done any good.
and rules against things shouldn't exist by default. As in, we should not take a "everything is not allowed until they are proven to be okay" approach. Assume good faith means we assume things are okay until there's evidence that they're not okay.
I'm suspicious of there even being any evidence of a Correlation between randomness of usernames and vandalism, let along any Causality between the two. --`/aksha 03:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think of it in terms of "not allowed". You make a new account, the username you choose may work out, and it may not. You find out pretty quickly. No big whoop. That happens to me every time I set up an account at any website - the name I first choose may or may not stick. You're thinking way too much in terms of rules, but Wikipedia works in terms of humans. We don't need to talk about correlation and causation and evidence and "proof" and what the word "random" really means. We just need to accept that admins exercise their judgement, and if there's a problem in a particular case, we address it.
It's really not about assuming good faith, either. Blocking an account within a few minutes of creation isn't a statement about the account holder's motivations at all. It's just a judgement, by a human, that a particular username isn't going to work. If a roughly equivalent one gets through, whatever. No big whoop. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The reason is that usernames must be identifiable. Random strings of characters defeat most of the purpose of a username. —Centrx→talk • 04:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

and that justifies the appropriateness of ban-on-sights? Considering all the opposses inthis (which was for 'extreme cases'), i can't imagine how consensus for shoot-on-sight blocking would have been reached for something like randomness 7 months later when that rule was first added. --`/aksha 05:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What justifies quick username blocks is that they're no big deal, and it's very easy for someone to either try again with a more wieldy username, or defend the one they first chose. It's likely that none of our policies would have achieved consensus, had they been submitted for it to a group anything like the current population of Wikipedia. That's not really an argument against good practices. In specific cases where problems are caused by quick username blocks, you should bring up those specific problems. If there are so many of these problems, that will become apparent, and we'll do something about it. Until then, try not to worry so much about it. There really are hundreds of things at this website more worth your energy. Most people who want to contribute to Wikipedia use nicely accessible usernames, on their first try. It's really ok. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Username policy, continued

When a user's username is blocked under this policy, what type of message does that user receive? --Badger151 06:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Badger151, it's {{UsernameBlocked}}. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
After being accused of wikilawyering I was going to stop participating in this discussion; but I conducted an experiment and feel obliged to state that it's not {{UsernameBlocked}}. {{UsernameBlocked}} is part of it, but the actual message is a lot longer then that and, imo, slightly confusing for a new user. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
What else is there? -GTBacchus(talk) 17:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
In looking only at the {{UsernameBlocked}} template, I note that all username blocks seem to be given the same lengthy message, which starts with a huge red X and, "Your username has been blocked indefinitely because it may be rude or inflammatory..." For the moment leaving aside the issue of the wisdom of blocking random usernames, perhaps we should subdivide the username blocks based on the reasons for the block. Equally important, perhaps the message associated with the block can be made a little more friendly and/or use a block similar to those found on other sites: registration of an improper username fails to go to completion, but perhaps suggests similar alternate names. Does anyone know how many usernames are blocked on a typical day? --Badger151 17:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't have that number handy. I asked some admins and someone said "around 50 100-150". As for making the message more friendly and helpful, I support that. What would you change about it? -GTBacchus(talk) 18:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I took a moment to review the registration process by creating User:Test (see talk page), and I noticed a few things. 1) On the registration page there are some notes on what constitutes a valid username, but I don't know how many people notice or read them. 2) On entering a username and creating a password, the next screen said "Login Successful... Your account has been created...) with no mention that usernames to be found unsuitable would be blocked - I expect that most new users interpret this to mean that their account name was found to be acceptable, making subsequent blocks very unexpected. Perhaps adding something along the lines of "Wikipedia reviews all new usernames to see if they might match or resemble current users, or for some other reason create difficulties. This process typically take a few minutes (or hours, or days - whatever is correct). If, for some reason, your username proves to create difficulties, we will contact you and help you move this account over to another username. For the moment, click here to change your preferences, or here to go to the main page" would make subsequent blocks less shocking. For the blocks, removing the big red X might make them more friendly. The bold "blocked indefinitely" also seems a bit rough... I'll tinker some and see if I can put together a written-out proposal. --Badger151 18:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the trouble to do this Badger151, that's very helpful. :) -GTBacchus(talk) 18:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm actually enjoying it. It's also a nice work break. A proposed revision, along with the original template, is now at user:Badger151/templates. Please comment! --Badger151 20:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Oops - looks like I connected the link wrong - thanks to RHaworth for picking that up and correcting it. --Badger151 01:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be three reasons to block random usernames:

  • They reduce the sewious appeawance of Wikipedia. I disagree. For one thing, they are not part of the encyclopedia itself. And for another, we allow all kinds of other silly usernames, such as User:Can't Sleep, Clown Might Kill Me (or whatever it is), User:Cute Hobbit, or User:Fetish Grrrl. How does User:Yuyuyuy777 look worse?
  • They are often used by vandals. Sorry, this is bogus. Sure, they are often used by vandals, but don't you think they'll catch on and use acceptable names to get around those blocks?
  • They're hard to remember and keep track of. For the most part, the software takes care of this for us, but other times, such as on WP talk pages, it's nice to be able to just type someone's handle. It's also good to be able to recognize names (e.g., I see User:So-and-so is active again, better check his changes, or Oh good, User:Fetish Grrrrl is on the case, I don't need to worry about it. If we think this is important, the rule needs to be written with that in mind, and to disallow usernames which appear random or are otherwise difficult to remember or recognize, even if the user has a good explanation. And we should think about user names formed with long sentences or arbitrary misspellings in this category as well (did you notice the spelling variation on the two fetish girls).

Matchups 04:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

God, it's just a bloody username. Apply innocent until proven guilty and get on with something more important. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 21:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

actually I think it was User:Can't Sleep, Clown Might Eat Me hard to tell with the wig, the clown might be acting or mime-ing something else (just practicing my wiki signature using a real name on a (mine) passport and looking for interesting wiki formatting)--John Zdralek 19:09, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


I may be the closest-to-a-newbie poster here, so perhaps by opinion should count the least (or most according to your POV). That said:

  • I noticed that the {{UsernameBlocked}} doesn't even offer the user an outlet to explain why the chosen username may be meaningful to him/her ?
  • More fundamentally, I don't see the logic of blocking user for uncommitted-vandalism based on tasseography of their user names. Punish acts not thoughts, especially when reading the latter are prone to errors.
  • I still fail to understand how an admin decides that a username is random. For instance, would Cadaeibfaei or Bgahbhahbhd be considered random ? In fact they are a formed by a simple alphabet substitution for digits of π and e; and while it has been conjectured that these digits are truly random, it is undoubted that they are meaningful and dear to any mathematician. Abecedare 08:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • According to this , then, since I can't see how pschemp's name spells out anything, he should be banned. I wish I had a FARK Asinine tag for this idea. Banning people who haven't done anything wrong yet simply because *you* think their name is random is the stupidest policy I have ever heard of, period. If pschemp thinks it should stay because of consensus, then consensus HERE seems to indicate he's wrong. If my cousin used his usual handle, it would be cp4lb, which was his ham radio callsign (or whatever you call it). Banning him for that wouldn't be right, now would it? Most of the vandals I've seen on CVG are IP-addy only, or else annoying children with NONrandom names like Wanker4949 or l33t-luser or whatever. In any case, first strike is a horrible , horrible idea when it comes to banning people. --Shrieking Harpy Talk|Count 04:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree. Many things which appear "random" to one person may be perfectly meaningful to another. I used the example on the policy discussion page-what if I spelled out my first name in ASCII hex code? That would be meaningless gibberish to anyone who doesn't know what it is, but would make perfect sense to anyone who knows how to read it. What about foreign names? Do all admins know all foreign languages? Foreign words? The list of problems this policy could cause go on and on. Username policy should be applied as narrowly as possible, and only when the username in question is itself a form of vandalism (includes slurs/obscenities/advertising/etc.), or obviously confusing or bad faith ("Sylvester Stallone (unless it can be verified that's really who it is!), an obvious attempt to impersonate another user, that type of thing), it should be allowed. If the user turns out to be a vandal, well, ban 'em for vandalism. As for "hard to type"-that's a silly argument, these newfangled computer thingies have included copy and paste functionality for years and years now, and I don't imagine that going away anytime soon. Seraphimblade 09:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
My $ 1/50th. The issue, as many have noted above, is that ALL users should be judged solely on their contributions. Preemptive strikes are NEVER justified. If a username is not blatantly offensive (bigoted terms or "fighting words" or patently offensive swear words) than it should not be banned on sight. The issue is that, even though the policy sets out "guidelines", and are not to be put into use blindly; the existance of the policy instantly opens itself up to misuse, even unintentionally. If the policy does not exist in the first place, it cannot be misapplied. If a user makes consistantly vandal-like contributions, they should be banned regardless of username. If a user has made no questionable edits, they should be alowed to stay. Foreign words, leetspeak, vowel omission, initialisms, etc. etc. may ALL lead to usernames that appear random, but are infact meaningful. A well meaning admin may see the username and ban on sight a user that could potentially become a good editor. If we don't have the policy, than this problem will never happen. My vote is to remove the policy on random usernames altogether. --Jayron32 04:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm with User:Earle Martin on this one. Its a damn user name. innocent (until proven guilty). Get on with living and quit beating the new user into his own, pre-defined room. Terryeo 13:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


Earle Martin makes the most sense. If everyone lived by "presumed innocent until proven guilty," then this wouldn't even be an issue. Unfortunately some people don't value that principle. As for pschemp's demands for "proof," it seems he or she is more interested in having a stimulating debate than resolving this issue in the most right and just way. Finally I'd like to point out that as Wikipedia gets larger, it's going to be harder for new users to come up with names that have not been taken. If vandals use real words which they immediately discard after vandalizing (due to a ban), then more and more potential usernames will be wasted. Most important though is innocent-until-proven-guilty, and it's surprising there are people on a site like this who don't believe in that. 68.244.242.171 06:07, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


I'm a brand newbie to Wikipedia, and if my username had been banned, I would probably have been too intimidated (and concerned with my real life commitments) to come back in and do copyediting for free just because I had insomnia. I came close to choosing a username that in retrospect I am positive would have been, too. I am very glad I didn't. It would have frightened me. And yes, I have written html before, and used this "intercom" to talk on the "world web". (My Dad's words for how he sends me "letters" now.) Resonanteye 17:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't read all the discussion, it was too much for me... Reasons are continuosly repeating, why do not we make a votation?
And I know that it has been a long time this is not talked (nearly one month) but I couldn't see any conclusion.

—Nethac DIU, always would speak here—
11:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

While I don't want to get too deeply involved in this debate, I thought I'd throw in my opinion in an attempt to build consensus. Here are my thoughts:
1. Randomness is in the eye of the beholder and is inherently POV. While admins deserve a fair amount of leeway, allowing any admin to decide whether a given username is 'too random' is simply too much leeway, especially since it only takes on admin to block the username. And I too, like many others here, find 'pschemp' to be rather random. Overall, it's far too arbitrary.
2. I support a policy of 'innocent until proven guilty' which I believe is well in-line with the policy of assuming good faith. The main reason for deleting 'random' usernames, it appears, is because they may be more likely to vandalize. This is highly flawed, however, and not only because there isn't any actual statistical data proving it, meaning it is only an assumption. Many non-random usernames are used in sockpuppetry and other vandalism while many seemingly random usernames are used by good editors. If you block a vandal with a random name, they'll make a non-random one and then vandalize. Overall, assuming good faith, we should only block users once they vandalize.
3. This issue of consensus doesn't favor keeping this policy for a few reasons. First of all, the general attitude being expressed here seems to be in favor of getting rid of the policy, not keeping it. Secondly, in an issue such as this it would seem to me that if no consensus is to be had, then the policy should be removed. Policies with this kind of consequence should only be kept when there is a definite consensus to keep, if there is no consensus then the policy should not stand. Finally, it appears that there was no consensus to establish this policy in the first place. If this is indeed the case then the policy should not be kept. We can't just create any policy and then demand it be kept because there is no consensus to delete it.
4. Finally, though perhaps less importantly, whats wrong with having a random name other than it being a possible eyesore? Some people like being random and would like to express that in their username. Its their username and if they are making valuable contributions then who are the rest of us to tell them that their username should go? --The Way 08:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I have several questions regarding this policy.
  1. Is there any evidence (beyond circumstantial or merely assumed) that long/random names are significantly more likely to vandalise than short/pronouncable names? It seems to me that this ought to be easy to track. How about, for the next 100 times, our admins cease blocking names at all - but instead put them on a 'suspect' list. Then - perhaps a week or two later, we compare the edit histories of those 100 'suspect' accounts to those of 100 pronouncable-and-short, 100 random-looking-but-short and 100 pronounceable-but-long names that were signed up around the same period. This would give us a solid basis for measuring the effectiveness of the policy. Everything else is pure guesswork.
  2. Is there any evidence to show that having blocked a potential vandal for having a random/long name, that person does not then immediately register a short and/or pronounceable name and carry on vandalising anyway? If that is the case (as seems very likely at first sight) - then this policy is not only useless - it's actually harmful because it makes it harder to spot vandalism in the field. If I see a long/random name editing an article in my watchlist - I'm much more likely to look at the 'diff' than for a short/pronounceable one - so perhaps it's better to let vandals have noticable names than to 'educate' them into using more plausible names instead!
  3. Is the amount of vandalism we prevent from policing the new username lists worth the admin-time effort it costs us? Would the man-hours we spend on this be better used in (for example) shortening the AdD list backlog?
  4. It is clear that there will be 'false positives' here. Some perfectly legitimate future contributors may be so put off by the process that they give up and go away. There is a cost to this - it's hard to measure. Isn't it dangerous to do something when you don't know the dangers?
SteveBaker 21:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC) <= SHORT & NOT RANDOM!
What if every member were assigned a random user name? So instead of a user having a username to log in with. Thier account will be assigned a random string of numbers. This would be the only way to have a uniform username system. Every user would then log in with thier registered e-mail address instead of the username. I did my best to read of the entire discussion, I hope that this was not already suggested and rejected.Mike.pisula 20:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

NPOV and WikiProjects

I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how or whether WP:NPOV may govern WikiProjects. Note first that this is not a question about POV in actual article content. There's a particular WikiProject (which I don't want to identify yet) that currently has an explicitly POV goal as part of its mission statement, of the form "We want articles to show how great X is," and where X is a subject of which people have widely varying and intense views. This statement does not appear in the talk page article tags for that project, but those tags of course link directly to the WikiProject, which has the POV goal stated at the top of its front page. I've also seen it in userboxes for project members.

I am not a member of this project (nor am I familiar with anyone who is), nor do I regularly work on articles under its scope, so I haven't raised this on the project's talk page or attempted to remove it myself. It's also an issue that is likely to stir emotion for the project members, so I wanted to raise the abstract issue first before singling them out.

Should WikiProjects be treated as more akin to user clubs, in which case they can identify themselves and their goals with as much freedom as they'd have on their talk pages? Or do WikiProjects have too much "color of officiality" to be allowed to expressly espouse a POV goal, due to their Wikipedia namespace use and their pervasive article tagging? Postdlf 21:17, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Good question - I have another question about wikiprojects. Can they create guidelines that conflict with overall wikipedia guidelines, overriding them? And is there an article somewhere that explains specifically what "power" wikiprojects have (if any)? --Milo H Minderbinder 21:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Postdlf: Violating NPOV is unacceptable for a project. We've deleted political wikiprojects for advocating POV editing before. Of course, if it's just something like a fiction-based project that wants to make people think Spongebob is great it's probably not worth raising a big fuss over. Just point out to them that their mission statement should have to do with improving the articles, not making people think their subject is awesome. (They can probably do whatever they want with the userboxes. Especially if they're in userspace.)
  • Minderbinder: That would depend on what the project was, what the official guidelines were, and what the project guidelines were. The official guideline might very well not make any sense when applied to a certain subclass of articles, in which case forcing compliance would be counterproductive. --tjstrf talk 21:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The specific one I'm looking at is at WP:LOST, specifically Wikipedia:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines which says that episode names for that show should always be disambiguated with a suffix to the name, whether another article shares that name or not. This contradicts WP:D and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) (where there is some debate right now about changing the issue), both of which say that articles, including TV episodes, should only have a suffix to disambiguate if it shares a name with another article. In a case like this, can a wikiproject declare their own rules that are inconsistent with the rest of wikipedia? --Milo H Minderbinder 22:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not involved there, but I have seen other sets of articles where such a rule would make sense in contrast with the recent Munich Air Disaster debacle where project rules moved the article away from the title that it had been know by for over 30 years (And apparently just been reverted back - can't keep up with the moves there) Agathoclea 22:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Broadly speaking, a WikiProject's guidelines get their "power" from the fact that the members of the project—who are generally a large portion of the editors in a particular area—are presumably supporting them, not because of some partiular official status of the project itself. While WikiProjects shouldn't be coming up with things that conflict with major policies, I see nothing wrong with developing exceptions/special cases/etc. to issues of formatting, layout, usage, and so forth for particular areas where the Wikipedia-wide guidance may not make sense; this happens quite often, and is generally entirely uncontroversial. (In this case, for example, there may be good reasons for pre-emptive disambiguation; the best thing to do would be to ask the project why the particular guideline has been adopted.) Kirill Lokshin 02:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, seeing from the above comments that I'm likely right to think this is a problem, I'm going to point out Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity, which currently states that "WP Christianity desires that the Lord Jesus Christ is represented honorably and magnificently." "Honorably and magnificently" of course being rather different than Factually and neutrally (plus the whole issue of referring to Jesus as "the Lord"). This might be a recent addition to the page that the regular project members may not have noticed, so I can't say that this represents project consensus. Postdlf 23:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

hey, they can easily change that to "WP Christianity aims at representing in detail Christian views of Jesus Christ as lordly and magnificent", since that's what how it will turn out anyway (viz., statements "Christians believe..."). There is nothing wrong with people being motivated to document in detail what they think is cool. It will be different if projects all but instructed members to edit-war or circumvent consensus. As long as they just state that Jesus is their lord and that motivates them to write brilliant article about Christan theology, I can see nothing wrong with that (same for any other Wikiproject. People on Wikiproject Pokemon likely think Pokemons are cool, and while I think they are obnoxious, I won't rant against their project, or their drive to write articles about all aspects of their infatuation in insane detail) dab (ᛏ) 08:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
But there's a big gap between a group who say that they want to create encyclopedic articles on Pokemon because they think Pokemon is cool, and a group who say that they want to ensure that all Pokemon-related articles reflect Pokemon's coolness. The first is just a matter of motivation, which is not anyone else's business anyway; the second promotes the violation of a core Wikipedia principle. I'm not familiar with WikiProject Pokemon's work, so I can't comment on which of these is actually the case for them. But in general we should not be permitting POV-pushers to organize on Wikipedia. -- Visviva 10:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
As I see it, supporting POV editing is absolutely unacceptable in a WikiProject; it's not really acceptable anywhere on Wikipedia, but especially not in projects which are supposed to be focused on improving the encyclopedia. At the very least such a group should be moved to a descriptive title like "Association of Christian Wikipedians Who Oppose NPOV." But actually, I don't think any reasonable case can be made for tolerating statements of the sort quoted above. These POV cliques only act to poison our community discourse.
Concerning the matter of WikiProject "policy," this seems kind of ridiculous too. We have Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) for a reason. If there is a case for a specific exception to that policy for Lost episodes, let the WikiProject editors make that case on the naming conventions talk page. If not, well ... anyone is free to ignore the naming conventions, of course, but it seems a little strange for a WikiProject to be *encouraging* people to do so. Such behavior only creates messes that other editors will have to clean up. -- Visviva 10:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm all for WikiProjects deciding their own standardization guidelines. There is no reason that we must drag every would-be standardization before the high wikjury when it only applies to .01% of our articles, and there's similarly no reason that our naming conventions should be forced to detail every single instance of exception. It's the easiest way to avoid process and bureacracy creep, and any action that's too egregarious can always be corrected by the community at large later. --tjstrf talk 11:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
The debate at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) seems to me to have sprung from an attempt by the community-at-large to do just that: to correct an exception that was established without sufficient reasoning. We have invited members of WikiProjects whose guidelines contradict the general guideline (and general Wikipedia practices on disambiguation) to join the conversation and express their views, and nearly all of them have accepted the arguments for avoiding preemptive disambiguation. However, Elonka's perspective seems to be that because a given WikiProject had previously established a guideline for articles in their field of interest, that guideline should be retained even though its members have not opposed it being changed. This seems nonsensical to me, and to several other admins participating in the discussion at [{WT:TV-NC]]. Elonka herself provided a very useful summary of the views of participating editors here, which Radiant and I interpreted as indicating a consensus in favor of the existing guideline. I believe that if members of a WikiProject have been invited to particpate in a wider discussion on multiple occasions, and a consensus emerges in that wider discussion that the WikiProject's guidelines should be changed, it is appropriate for that WikiProject to follow the greater consensus. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
A majority does not necessarily mean consensus, if there are multiple editors voicing good faith objections. Also, my concern about over-ruling WikiProjects, is in situations where a WikiProject may have spent months going through an agonizing discussion and debate process about a particular matter, in order to reach a painful but ultimately satisfactory compromise on an issue. Then, after everyone's attention has gone on to other articles, a few non-WikiProject members raise a fuss about it, start a discussion in a different part of Wikipedia, and effectively subvert the entire consensus/mediation process. Especially when an original consensus was obtained by a group of editors who only check Wikipedia a few times per week, and then the consensus is challenged by editors who post multiple times per day, rapidly attacking anyone who disagrees with them, and if the original editors don't respond within a few days, they're written off as "not caring anymore." For myself, I tend to listen less to any editor who uses personal attacks and incivility while trying to get their point across. I would also point out that there are multiple editors in the naming conventions discussion who are pretty obvious sockpuppets (the only reason I haven't filed an RFCU check, is because I'm not certain who they're sockpuppets of). --Elonka 03:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, they're not obvious to me. In fact, I'm not even certain who you suspect of being a sockpuppet. But that's a digression from the core issue — if there was a "painful but ultimately satisfactory compromise" reached after "agonizing discussion and debate", there should be some evidence of this discussion and how it was reached. I've asked before, but I'll ask once again: where was this discussion? What were the reasons why Lost, in particular, made the decision to put suffixes on every episode article? How did you get from the actual mediation (which was on the issue of whether there should be episode articles at all, and makes no mention of how they should be titled) to the guideline you wrote? Where was the discussion of episode titling? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
So if a couple editors vociferously objecting makes a non-consensus, then Elonka, how exactly do you define one? You obviously don't consider a supermajority (~80%) a consensus. You've admitted that unanimity isn't necessary. So what exactly would you consider a consensus? I don't see how wikipedia could ever get anything done if every time 20% or less of the people objecting to something made it "no consensus" and "disputed". You simply can't make everyone happy all the time. I'd also like to agree with Josiah's observation that the naming "guideline" on wikiproject lost was never mentioned in the mediation process by anyone but you, and was not a part of the proposal agreed apon [[1]]. Could you please stop making that incorrect and misleading claim? I'm not even convinced there was any consensus to do that, the rule was added by you to the episode guidelines[[2]], and then you cited your edit as "evidence" of consensus[[3]]. Basically, you made a rule, you insisted there was consensus for it, and people took your word for it, even there was no consensus. And now you're saying that a wikiproject isn't being allowed to make a decision, when that decision wasn't even really made by the wikiproject in the first place. --Milo H Minderbinder 14:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
If there's an 80% consensus in a clean poll, sure, I can go along with supermajority. But when a poll's wording gets changed multiple times throughout its run, to the point where multiple people are complaining that their original opinions got twisted: [4][5][6][7][8] [9][10][11][12][13] [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] [23][24][25][26] [27][28] others are complaining that they can't participate because they can't figure out what's being talked about, and others who came along after the fact are repeating the call for a new poll [29], then no, that 80% doesn't mean much. In such a case, what needs to be done is to agree ahead of time on wording for a new poll, which should be run in a clean and stable manner. But of course those who were in the "majority" on the first poll are claiming consensus, and that the minority side were just "sore losers" and "whiners"[30][31][32]. Which incivility is even further proof to me that it's essential that the poll be run again, in a fair manner, to ensure genuine consensus. --Elonka 23:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
So how specifically do you define consensus, assuming a clean poll? If there were to be another poll, what result would be needed for you to agree that it was consensus? (Also, if you want a "clean" poll, I'd recommend waiting until there is wording all parties agree on instead of trying to do it with wording that people have objected to.) --Milo H Minderbinder 23:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Consensus, 80% with a clean poll, would be sufficient for me, personally, to agree with supermajority. Possibly less depending on other factors/comments in the discussion. And yes, I agree that for best results, wording should be something that all parties agree on. The most recent version is at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Proposed poll wording, feel free to suggest changes. --Elonka 09:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
At 80%, nothing would ever get done here. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Ironically enough, Elonka, we already have 80% support over there on TV-NC. The first poll has 26 support and 7 opposse, and no one one the support side said they felt they got misrepresented. i believe 26 out of a total of 33 is 81.8% support. --`/aksha 12:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Very interesting. May I have permission to copy some of these comments to an active discussion on the matter, at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (television)? There is currently an active debate there about the naming of episode articles, such as when is it appropriate to use a suffix such as (<series name> episode), and whether or not WikiProjects should have the right to set guidelines for their particular shows. Any interested editors are invited to comment, at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (television)#Request for comment. --Elonka 08:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • In fact this debate has been going on for several weeks now, and a consensus has been reached on retaining the existing guideline at WP:D. Elonka is about the sole dissenter to this consensus. (Radiant) 09:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • As a general rule of thumb you can tell when a group of people know there goal is failing when they have to start pointing that xyz is the "only" one - FYI there is zero consensus for what you would like. MatthewFenton (talk • contribs • count • email) 10:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
    • There is an existing guideline (WP:D) which indicates prior consensus, and at the very least there is no consensus to changing that. Note that I didn't say Elonka was alone, I said she was about the sole dissenter. Meaning nearly alone. (Radiant) 10:32, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • In general, the point is that consensus among a small group (e.g. a wikiproject) cannot trump consensus among a larger group (e.g. the whole encyclopedia). As such, Wikiprojects are given a lot of leeway but should not in general break wikiwide-accepted standards. (Radiant) 09:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • What exactly are you taking issue with? Generally, guidelines are intended to be followed. And while exceptions are allowed, usually "but I don't want to" isn't considered a legitimate reason to ignore them. I'd hate to see the state of wikipedia if everyone considered "common sense exception" to mean all guidelines are optional and can be ignored for any reason. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Kirill Lokshin's statement above almost makes it sound like a Wikiproject can do anything it wants because the members of that project would be the only ones privy to its discussions and guidelines. In xyr Munich Air Disaster example, did the name of the article have anything to do with guidelines outside of the project? Or anything in the Wikipedia: space at all? I'm guessing not (but that's a wild guess so my apologies otherwise). In the case of the Lost project, the desire of 2 or 3 of its members is that they be allowed to override longstanding conventions at WP:TV-NC and WP:D - but they haven't yet given a convincing reason why and , worse, the discussions leading to that desire apparently took place entirely off-wiki. To me, it's akin to a few members of a comic book Wikiproject going off-wiki and suddenly deciding that the text of all of the articles the project "covers" will be 100% boldface - because the comic book they're covering is printed in 100% boldface. (If anything, the reasoning given for the Lost convention are actually less convincing than the ludicrous example I just gave.) Hopefully no one is entertaining the idea that such a thing would be acceptable. —Wknight94 (talk) 23:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm not quite sure how my statement could be read that way; all I was commenting on was that a WikiProject's guidelines were meaningful because they (presumably) represented a consensus of editors working on some particular topic. (Which is not to say that WikiProjects can do unreasonable things; but, if the editors who are actually writing articles on X decide that some section of the MoS doesn't make sense for those articles and come up with a reasonable alternative, I see no reason to reject it out of hand because the MoS is "more official" than the WikiProject.) Kirill Lokshin 23:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

can unregistered users vote?

It is pretty clear that they can't vote at RfAdm but how about other votes such as article's deletion or article's title disputes? It seems to me a no-brainer that only registered users can vote but there are so many policy pages, proposes policy pages, rejected policy pages etc, that I failed to navigate myself to an answer. Or should I construe that the lack of the issue's being addressed explicitely implies that unregistered users can and do vote on such matters? Thanks, --Irpen 00:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Generally, polls aren't settled on a strict tally of votes. It's more about what is said, than how many people say it. So if an IP user has a good point, his voice will be heard. -Freekee 04:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
This does not match my actual experience. What I have seen is that the opinion of anyone who has not made significant contributions to Wikipedia will not be seriously considered. Even if they have significant experience and expertise in the subject matter, and even if they offer evidence, their votes will be considered "suspicious" and their votes heavily discounted. Seasoned Wikipedians need not offered a reasoned argument. They may merely say "not notable" and their vote will carry more weight than the experts -- UNLESS the expert happens to be a seasoned Wikipedian.
Yes, you should. They can and do, and as long as there is no suspicion of sockpuppetry their "votes" are considered as valid as any others. Note, however, that title and deletion debates are better considered as discussions than votes; see Freekee's well-made point above. -- Visviva 05:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This is not about whether the anons are allowed to opine and comment. This is about voting. For moves and deletions the voting tally is an important factor in the closing decision. As for commenting, anons can even comment on RfAdm. Diversity of opinions is always a good thing. --Irpen 05:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The exact weighting of votes is, I believe, up to the closer; anon votes may be discounted, and so may votes lacking a rationale. The closer is, I believe, also free to ignore the resulting tally entirely if the situation warrants it. -- Visviva 05:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyone is able to leave a comment and it's not going to be removed, and the reasoning and evidence of comments is the greatest factor in any "vote", so that's what happens. I think you overestimate the importance of a voting tally. —Centrx→talk • 06:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

As was shown by the cosequences of Carnildo's promotion and the nightmarish "Giano" ArbCom case, underestimating voting tally is a bad precedent. Point being I never claimed that everything comes down to the vote tally. I asked a narrow question and instead of a clear answer on whether the issue is addressed by the policy this or other way, I get a lecture about admin's right. I know those. Is there still a chance to get a response on what are the current policies? Or we don't have this addressed directly? --Irpen
There is no ballot box, so there is no question as to whether an IP can use the ballot box. If IPs could not "vote", they could just create an account, or three, and "vote". IPs are free and welcome to make reasonable comments in a discussion, just like everyone else. —Centrx→talk • 10:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Not exactly. You shouldn't compare the apple RFA (which judges people) with the orange AFD (which judges articles). Since we don't really have policy about people's character and trust, RFA ultimately boils down to opinion, and hence people get upset if the tally is ignored. Since we have a lot of policy and guidelines about articles, AFD boils down to those and to precedent, and tally can safely be ignored if one side has a better argument, and neither is this controversial. RFA is the exception, not the rule. (Radiant) 09:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

When you have the ArbCom vote, where the tally is absolutely critical, not only can anon IPs not vote, even logged-in users must have been around for a certain length of time and have a certain number of edits.--Runcorn 10:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Radiant makes the best point. RfA is about opinion, XfD about policy and precedent, if not fact. Every admin nominee is a special case. Nobody ever makes a good argument at RfA, only a more persuasive one. Thus, it boils down to a straight vote -- or would if we didn't rely on b'crats to figure out who is not a sock or meatpuppet. If it's all personal opinion anyway, all we can go by is a show of hands. This is a special case. One might even argue (I don't, but one might) that Carnildo had been in and out of RfA so many times that he was beginning to lack specificity -- that general arguments based on something more than personal opinion actually carried weight.
In discussions that are not about editors, we pretty much deal with things that are not unique. Articles and their subunits fall into categories, and we have policy governing each one of those eleventy billion cats. So rational argument plays a part that a show of hands does not. John Reid ° 15:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't think anons should be able to vote. There are a few anons who are anons basically to make a point but they are widely known (some even have user pages). Outside of those, I have to wonder what we gain by such things. If XfD is to be determined by policy and not opinion, what percentage of anon editors are really going to be familiar with those when even many regular editors appearantly aren't? The very need for the SPA template tells me that any value in anon voting is somewhat suspect already. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 15:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Again, XfD is not a vote. Tagging a comment with {{spa}} does not mean that their opinion is automatically invalid or totally ignored. SPA's can and do contribute to deletion discussions, occasionally providing crucial information. --Interiot 16:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Anonymous users are welcome and encouraged to make good XfD discussion contributions based upon our policies and guidelines. A good rationale, backed up by good research and well founded on our policies and guidelines, is welcome whether or not the editor has an account. Uncle G 17:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Former studies have shown that anons contribute a significant proportion of the useful content to Wikipedia, so it would reason that they have a right to participate, collectively. On the other hand, any particular anon is usually involved in the community to only a minor degree, does not have strong familiarity with policies or precedents, and has very little interest in articles outside their own area of interest (or even articles written by themselves). For this reason I think their discussion at XfD should be given careful consideration, but they're not particularly qualified to judge the suitability of an applicant at RfA. Of course, there are anons who are as deeply involved as any registered user and ought to be treated like one - frankly, these people ought to create an account. It just makes things easier. Deco 16:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. Now, is it possible to have this somehow stated clearly on the policy pages? That anon's opinions are welcome at XFD/RM discussions but if they intend to cast a vote, not just opine, they are advised to create an account? --Irpen 17:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
But remember to make absolutely clear that no-one, anonymous or account-holder, should only cast a 'vote'. The vote should always be accompanied by some reasoning, and the reasoning should be over and beyond "me too" voting. ie. change to "if they intend to cast a vote as well as opine, rather than just opine, they are advised to create an account." Clear reasoning on any issue should always be noted, regardless of who contributes it. Carcharoth 17:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Ad hominem rationale should always be avoided in all discussions. All point must be taken on content only. Anon users, even those brought in from outside wikipedia specifically to refute claims in an AfD (and thus obvious SPAs), often do bring in relevent information that is cogent to a discussion. We must NEVER discount any revelvent information on a strictly binary qualification (if user meets X criteria their opinions are valid/if they don't it is not). Closing admins act as trusted judges, and thus are given the right to accept or discount any comments or votes as they see fit; so long as an admins criteria for inclusion are applied consistently and without prejudice. If an admin acts inappropriately, it is a problem with the ADMIN, not with the SYSTEM. Wikipedia has a membership of ~6.5 billion users (see World population). To be a registered user does grant certain privilages, but being able to contribute in a meaningful way is not a privilage restricted to the registered. Ultimately, though anon users present a special challenge for closing admins in XfD and other discussions, it is not the place of anyone else BESIDES the closing admin to decide a priori whose opinion matters and whose does not. --Jayron32 18:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree completely, however this is not the way Wikipedia currently works. Articles are deleted based on the ad hominem rationale that Wikipedians are more believable than industry experts. If an article is deleted based purely on an ad hominem rationale, is there a way to appeal?Dgray xplane 22:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I have never seen this happen. I have seen people make poor arguements at AfDs all the time, but closing admins are generally smart enough to delete articles based only on the guidelines of WP:NN, WP:V, and WP:RS among others. If we had a specific AfD to go on, perhaps we can comment on this more inteligently, but I am not aware of any closing admin deleting an article merely because people supporting it were judged to be unreliable. People supporting the article may have been unable to provide evidence as to its encyclopedic nature, but I have never seen such arguements be successful. --Jayron32 04:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Jayron: Here's a specific example and an exact quote: "Hi Dgray_xplane. The article was deleted as the multiple votes to keep were from people who had not contributed to Wikipedia before (which is always very suspicious); if you believe the deletion was incorrect, please go to Wikipedia:Deletion review. Regards, Proto::type 15:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)" You can read this for yourself on my talk page. Te AfD this refers to can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/XPLANE
On reflection, I think a big issue here may be education, by which I mean educating both newbies and the "patrollers" who see their role as scrubbing out vandalism. When articles are posted for deletion review, it's probably not uncommon for people from outside Wikipedia to come to the article's defense. In such cases they do not understand the criteria for things like, for example, notability. I suggest that it's incumbent upon any experienced Wikipedians to assume good faith and educate the newbies. Words like "non-trivial" can be subject to much interpretation. Even the word "subject" can be confusing. When we say, "sources independent of the subject" do we mean independent of the article's subject or independent of the subject, as in "the field of study?" My interpretation is the former but I believe there are some who interpret it as the latter. These kinds of interpretations are delicate; there are shades of meaning and I think experienced Wikipedians should make every attempt to clarify and explain their meaning, especially when weighing in on things like AfD's and deletion reviews.Dgray xplane 18:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting that the votes were disregarded for being "suspicious." Suspicious in what way? Suspicious of not having anything intelligent to say? And the closing admin disregarded those votes because he didn't feel he had the need to read their comments? Usually, when new account or IP votes are ignored, it's when some local-level band gets up for AfD, and they post on their MySpace so a couple dozen fans show up and say, "KEEP!". Or "OMG this band is the best!" Those are the anon comments that should be ignored. Another common type of new account is the sock puppet. This is why admins are "suspicious." But that doesn't give them license to ignore them. As I said up above, if a comment with a vote has something intelligent to say, the vote should be given weight. Some would say that it would be fine to give such a vote less weight, but if the comment makes sense, what's the difference? Personally, I think that is enough of a reason to warrant a Deletion Review. Also note the message on the article's debate, the closing admin may well disregard comments by people with few edits. I suppose the admin can disregard any comments he wishes. Unfortunately, this attitude seems widespread, so good luck with a Deletion Review. -Freekee 02:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

yes, this is another userbox-related question. yes, I do other things then mess with userboxes. :P

Quick question; recently, the color of {{User:Menasim/Userboxes/User Google}} was changed so that it was all black, rather than the colored version is was before.[33] The rationale was that it is a copyright violation. The logo is text, not an image (it isn't just an upload of the actual Google logo). Similar, yes, but I think it is sufficiently different (not the same font, not the same styling; just the same colors) that it should stay.

I'd just like some additional opinions. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (computer and video games)

I've recently created that (proposed) guideline, and I wanted to leave a message here so I could get some discussion going at its talk page. Feel free to make any changes you may want to make, and please drop a comment and discuss this at it's talk page. Thank you. // I c e d K o l a (Contribs) 21:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Policy or Guideline Concerning TV Characters

I've been looking for a policy or guideline on this but haven't found one. A Wikipedia entry was made for Marlowe Sawyer, a character from the TV show Nip/Tuck. I nominated the article for merging with the main show entry. However, this incident raised a question for me: Is there some guideline on when (or if) it is appropriate for a separate listing for TV characters? It seems rather excessive to me to have such individual entries but perhaps I'm not appreciating the ability of Wikipedia to expand, provide disambiguation pages if there are conflicts, etc. Can anyone point me in the direction of such guidelines? --Pigman (talk • contribs) 07:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  • The closest we have is probably WP:FICT. In general, it depends on article length. If we have a dozen articles on a show's characters but all of them are three lines long (excluding redundant parts such as a description of the show), merging is a good idea (and you needn't propose it, just do it if you want). If those pages tend to be a page and a half, merging is probably not useful. (Radiant) 12:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. Usually I don't mind being bold but sometimes I hesitate if I think there might be a guideline I'm not familiar with. I still have gaps in my knowledge of the policies and guidelines which I only fill in when a situation or question comes up.
Relatedly, a friend recently came across an entry for a TV show Day Break. The main page is not too large (about a screenful of text) but someone has gone through the effort to create a template with a link to each of the episodes on the main page of the show with a page apiece for each episode, including future episodes. This show has a 12 week season while Lost (TV series) is on hiatus until Feb 2007. I'm not sure what my question is but, again, this seems excessive and premature. I don't know if this is just good planning and thinking ahead or creating complexity and additional entries which may not be needed. I don't really expect any answer on my observations. I think I'm going through a phase of wanting to tighten up the sprawling edges of Wikipedia and some entries seem (to me) to be overly ambitious. I know this kind entry is part of the nature of Wikipedia but I guess I like to see articles grow more organically and break out sections as needed during the growth. Perhaps I'm just a control freak. --Pigman (talk • contribs) 19:46, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:PROD - Miscellaneous prod template for miscellaneous pages.

At the moment, the prod template is worded so that it only applies to articles. There are a number of user and miscellaneous pages which could be proposed for deletion if the user or author (or someone else) can change the page concerned so it meets Wikipedia guidelines and policies, rather than have to go through MfD. I designed a template and started discussion here: Template talk:Prod#Miscellaneous Prod. --tgheretford (talk) 08:40, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use in portals proposal

There is a proposal on Wikipedia:Fair use/Amendment/Fair use images in portals about whether to allow fair use images in portals. Although it might have been brought up before, it has not closed as consensus has not been reached for either side. Ddcc 20:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Cleaner formatting for Talk pages

I have proposed a new policy: Wikipedia:Talk page formatting. What do you think? --ADTC 21:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

South Asia versus Indian sub-continent

There's been a low-level edit war ongoing in various articles and templates relating to South Asia/the Indian sub-continent. A certain cadre of editors have been replacing the term "South Asia" with "Indian sub-continent." I and others have been reversing the edits, but the game of whack-a-mole doesn't seem to stop.

I did a google test on the two terms (in quotes, so as not to get partial matches) and there are 965,000 ghits for Indian sub-continent and 29,800,000 for South Asia. Indian sub-continent was the older term, in use during the British Raj; it seems still be in use primarily in the context of geology. However, since the sub-continent was split into five countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal) the term South Asia has replaced the older one, as not claiming the whole sub-continent for one of its parts. As we see from the ghits, South Asia is 30 times more common than the older term.

The Partition of India was a horrible, bloody disaster that is still sparking controversy, hatred, riots, massacres, and wars half a century later. I believe that the campaign to use the older term is politically motivated. It implies that the non-Indian nations on the sub-continent are somehow illegitimate.

Can we have a policy ruling that in any context OTHER than the geological or historical, that South Asia is the more common and the preferred term? If there's consensus that the use of the common term is preferable, in which policy statement should this be enshrined? Or do we write one from scratch? Zora 07:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Surely South Asia is not the same as the Subcontinent. I'm not sure most people would see Nepal and Bhutan as being in the subcontinent. Clearly Sri Lanka is in South Asia but not in the subcontinent. I'm sure there are other differences too. Use whichever term is most accurate for what you are saying, jguk 09:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I think that South Asia, geologically (and politically), is actually in the subcontinent as well - it's presumably on the same tectonic plate as the rest of India? I understand that in some parts of the world, "Indian Subcontinent" may be politically charged, but at least where I live, it's a pretty neutral term that's not uncommon (among other things, I've heard my friends from that part of the world use it in a present-day context). --Improv 11:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
When I took a graduate level course in the history of modern India and Pakistan, the preferred term for the region was "South Asia." I'm not sure it's possible to get a policy rulng on this, but you could certainly propose renaming the disputed articles. Notify me on my talk page and I'll participate in the discussion. Durova 15:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to second Durova. I don't think you can get a ruling, but I'd be very interested in the discussion. Just let me know. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

South Asia is not an obviously self-explanatory term. Why does it not include Saudi Arabia or Indochina, which are also the southern part of Asia?--Runcorn 21:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this is the problem with the term. When I read Sout Asiain the newspaper I am sure that the writer means at least India, but I am not sure what else the author means. Andries 23:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Indochina is part of South-East Asia not South Asia. I would say it's understood by most SEA including those in Indochina that they're a part of SEA not South Asia. Indeed I'm somewhat doubtful that many in Vietnam would say they're part of South Asia and also why only refer to Indochina? What about Indonesia, Myanmar etc? I agree that the term doesn't make perfect sense but I think it is the understood term. Indian subcontinent arguably isn't as clear as well. Is Sri Lanka part of the Indian subcontinent? What about Nepal and Bhutan? In any case, I would suggest until there is consensus changing existing references is a no-no. If these editors write new article then perhaps it would be acceptable but otherwise I would suggest not Nil Einne 00:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia's mission doesn't include redefining established academic terms. Durova 04:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I have always seen "South Asia" as an Americanism. I don't think it's commonly used in Britain even today. And incidentally, Nepal and Bhutan were always independent - they weren't part of the partition, since they were never part of British India. The fact is that the area has been known as India for far, far longer than Pakistan has existed. To claim its use is politically motivated is flying in the face of the facts. -- Necrothesp 21:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's used in the UK. Both Cambridge and Oxford have schools of South Asian Studies! Ghits, academic usage -- all point to South Asia as being preferred. Zora 05:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Southeast Asia vs South Asia is indeed a very confusing term, and I think that both are preferable to the Indian Subcontinent. It seems like South Asia is clearly the modern term. Cephyr 03:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, first I didn't say South Asia wasn't used in the UK. I said it wasn't commonly used in the UK. Big difference there. And second, you can never point to Google as a measure of world usage, since such a high percentage of webpages originate in the United States. -- Necrothesp 23:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

What do the people that live there call it? That would seem to be the best choice. My feeling is that since the area including Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia is called South East Asia, then South Asia is logical. raining_girl 16:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the term South Asia has gained preference due to political correctness in lieu of smaller countries in the region that are much less often the subject of discussion. Here in India, the term has also gained popularity. Substituting South Asia for Indian sub-continent is less of an issue, but there is a tendency to substitute South Asia for India with which many in India would have a grouse: e.g. South Asian Entertainment (read Bollywood), South Asian Economy (read Indian Economy).
Also the term clubs India with its neighbours that are less successful economically and/or politically. (Try substituting "American" with "North American".) Though India has its fair share of internal problems, most of its neighbours can be categorized as troubled states (Fundamentalism in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Maoists in Nepal, LTTE in Sri Lanka). Compared to contemporary India, that projects an image of modest progress, South Asia comprises of countries that would be seen around the world as unstable and/or riddled with woes. A natural reaction by some in India then would be to view the term with skepticism. 09:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
"South Asia" is a perfectly good term; it's very clear what it means (the region of Asia comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan). Nobody confuses this with Southeast Asia, so there's no problem with the use of this term. Badagnani 22:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I will have to aggree with jguk here (he says "Use whichever term is most accurate for what you are saying") South Asia is not same as India is not same as Indochina is not same as British-India. What bothers me most is when people talk of India and put then label it as South Asia. India so so much different than other countries. You can not Compare the countries here (like in Canada or USA). Japan is totally different from China and India is something totally different. So please use the terms which best indicates your point and do not generalize. If you are talking about Nepal do not say South Asia.Charles.2345 17:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Indian subcontinent is a perfectly good term. It refers to the geographical area, and there is no ambiguity which countries occupy the region bounded by the Hindu Kush in the West, The Himalaya/Karakorum in the North, the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Naga Hills in the east.Bakaman Bakatalk 05:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm a graduate student in international studies so I feel I'm in a good position to throw in my opinion. While both terms are still used today, the more common term would be South Asia because not only does it not explicitly name only one country in the region while excluding others (such as Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangledesh) but, more importantly, its in line with the standard naming conventions of other regions of asia (such as Southeast Asia and Central Asia). --The Way 08:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Indian subcontinent is fine. Don't see what the problem is.--D-Boy 08:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain why "South Asia" is the term to use:

  • Google hits show that the term "South Asia" is 40 times more common than "Indian subcontinent".
  • Almost all (except one or two) universities have named the departments about the region's culture as "South Asian studies".
  • Major news outlets, for example BBC, have news sections titled "South Asia", NOT "Indian subcontinent"
  • United Nations uses "South Asia" 40 times more commonly than "Indian subcontinent"
  • UN agencies, such as the World Bank designates the region as South Asia, NOT Indian Subcontinent. [34]
  • Also, according to the statistical division of the United Nations, "South Asia" is a designated region [35], and documents from there exclusively mention "South Asia", with NO mention of "Indian subcontinent" for the region.

So, I don't see any quantitative argument for choosing IS over SA. Usage numbers show that South Asia is prevalently used over the older term, Indian Subcontinent. Thanks. --Ragib 08:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

"South Asia" was just a "political" term invented during 60's-70's .-Bharatveer 08:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to have to agree.--D-Boy 08:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether it is a political term or not, is really irrelevant (and personal opinion). What matters is which one is more common, and I've shown above that South Asia is at least 40 times more common than the older term "Indian subcontinent", and almost all major world agencies, media, universities, publications use "South Asia". *That's* what matters in Wikipedia. QED. --Ragib 09:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The only thing that matters in wikipedia it seems is concensus and the people involved, THe group working on the matter are usually the people who care to make the changes. which was to be demonstrated!!--D-Boy 18:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Avoiding Disputes: Mandatory Editing Lag

It seems to me there's a simple solution to avoiding many content disputes: Prohibit editors from "camping" on a page in the first place. After an edit, prohibit the editor from any further changes to that article for several (30+) days.

The delay is acceptable since its unlikely the editor will "discover" new, known, verifiable content relevant to the article in a matter of days. If this does happen, they can post their citation or change to the talk page and let someone else incorporate the content into the article, should someone see fit to do so. Meanwhile, if that page gets vandalized or otherwise made incorrect, one should -- in assuming good faith -- trust the invisible hand of Wikipedia with its many eyes to solve the problem.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. However well-intended, the views of those with the most time on their hands seem to prevail. I've run into enough of these "article guardians" through experience and observation to be generally discouraged from participating in what is otherwise worthwhile project, and urge this remedy be adopted.

CleffedUp 10:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Awful idea. Many people do e.g. proofreading one paragraph at a time (to minimize edit conflicts) or as they encounter typos. Also, what is to stop people from using several (30+) accounts to cycle through on a daily basis to avoid the prohibition? And no, it is not unlikely to "discover" new, known, verifiable content relevant to the article in a matter of days. When I'm interested in a topic, I often start digging and find out more information, typically on a time scale of some hours. --Stephan Schulz 11:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing to stop someone from creating multple account for other reasons today, nor would an IP block be perfect. As for your hours timescale, if your depth of knowledge in an area is measured in hours, should you really be contributing to an article on the subject? CleffedUp 16:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Certainly. We have tried the other thing, see Nupedia. I'm scientifically literate, and an expert on some subfields of automated reasoning. But an encyclopedic article gives an overview, not an in-depth treatment of its subject. At that level, I can easily find (and have found) contributions that are useful in a few hours. You have also failed to address the issue of incremental improvements (typos, wikilinks, "see also", ...).--Stephan Schulz 17:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Incremental edits could be implemented as a planned batch, e.g. I typed my many replies to these threads in notepad, and cut and pasted into the text box. For legitimate new content, there is always the talk page where someone can aggregate and make those changes. CleffedUp 17:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
If the plan doesn't include stopping a sufficiently motivated sockpuppet/meatpuppet master, I'm afraid it's probably useless. Whoever has the largest posse wins the argument. And that's very bad for NPOV. ColourBurst 23:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I think that you'll not find much support for an idea of not letting someone edit a page for over 30 days. What about reverting vandalism or clear factual mistakes? What if one does come up with better information? Or what if you come back the next day, and saw you made a typo? I can't tell you how many times it's taken me several days to make major edits to a page. I have to say, I don't really agree with your idea. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 11:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
In all of your examples of fixing vandalism and typos, you seem to forget that you're not the only editor. As for "better information," I'd rephrase what I said to Stephan (above) -- shouldn't one only contribute information in which they're expert, or at least know to be complete and factual? CleffedUp 16:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
There are many high profile articles that are regular vandalism targets. There are not remotely enough editors to revert vandalism if each can only revert one vandalism act every 30 days. Fan-1967 16:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
But wouldn't such a restriction cause a closely equal decrease in vandalism as well, particularly if the restriction were IP/machine-based? CleffedUp 16:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
No, because the frequent vandalism targets get a lot of hits from many different IP's (a large percentage of which seem to belong to school districts, as you might guess). It isn't a small number of vandals making a lot of edits. For the mots part, it's many, many vandals who just make one or two each. Fan-1967 17:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Another thought on addressing vandals with such a limitation: Much as there are administrators, and arbitrators, etc. there is surely a subset of the general editor base who are established and motivated members of the community who can be trusted to "play nice" as it were, i.e. those who actively seek consensus in making edits with which some may disagree. I see no reason why this group couldn't be elevated above your average editor to be exempt from the lag. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Replying to CleffedUp's earlier point, if you have a verifiable fact that will improve the article, you're entitled to add it. If you find more info later, add that too. For example, if it's a list of classical composers, and you see a few omissions, add them. Next day, you've thought of a few more.--Runcorn 16:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I would say the remedy in this case is through the talk page. This approach of posting an idea and letting someone else aggregate them will also help keep the article in all the "same voice" and otherwise consistent. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's discovered typos in his work directly after posting it. And are you really expecting other editors to fix my errors? That would greatly increase the workload here. Or reduce the quality of this encyclopedia. -Freekee 17:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

This seems inconsistent with the notion of a community encyclopedia, though your point is taken. To address this, perhaps the lag begins after the next edit by someone else. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Would this apply to talk pages as well? -Freekee 17:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

No, my intent in the proposal is only to avoid conflicts in article content edits. An open talk would be a critical component as a forum for a proposed change while the lag was in effect. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, your proposal seems to put up too many barriers to legitimate editing. Seems the "cure" would be worse than the disease. Fan-1967 17:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
In this model, the remedy to any prohibited legitimate content change is an addition to the discussion page. It seems to me that this encyclopedia has reached a critical mass whereby most changes call for consensus, and this model encourages just that. The only barrier to a good change is the next person to edit the page. CleffedUp 17:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
You may be missing the whole point of Wikipedia, which is that anyone can make any edit at any time. Now you want all edits to be done by committee? If I've made an edit, then I need to wait 30 days, or propose it and hope someone else will make the edit? No, sorry. You make updates incredibly cumbersome in order to accomplish what? Content disputes aren't that common a problem that we should totally throw a monkey wrench into our whole update process. Fan-1967 17:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid this is one of the worst ideas I've heard in ages. It may go some way towards hindering disputes, but only by preventing serious editors from working on articles. Just imagine. I've written a beautiful article but I've made a mistake or forgotten to add something. Oops, can't change it for a month! And as for "its unlikely the editor will "discover" new, known, verifiable content relevant to the article in a matter of days", what absolute rubbish - I'm always discovering new tidbits of information after I've finished my main work on an article, sometimes within a matter of minutes or hours, let alone days. I'd rapidly lose interest in ever working on Wikipedia again if this was introduced (even more than I am at the moment with constant battles with the obsessive deletionists out there) and I'm sure I'd not be alone. No, kill this idea now before it spreads. -- Necrothesp 17:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Can we stop discussing this? This isn't going to go anywhere (and I agree with Necrothesp that it's one of the worst ideas I've heard). I can't believe it's already generated this much discussion. The answer is simple: No —Doug Bell talk•contrib 17:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

"Why don't we make it so that you can only edit an article once! After all, there are 1.5 million articles and 1.5 million edits should be more than you'd ever need to make! It would totally get rid of editing disputes because once a person made a change they'd never be able to repeat it ever again!" This is basically a perennial proposal, and it's among the most irrittating in my opinion. It ignores that Wikipedia develops gradually, not by one individual writing an FA-class piece in a single spurt. I propose anyone who supports this idea be indefinitely blocked for their utter lack of understanding of the wiki system. (I also propose that this paragraph be read with a sense of humour.) --tjstrf talk 04:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It made me laugh. Postdlf 05:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
This is not a good idea. Uses often do many good edits within a few days. Also, adding forced rules is usually not a good idea. It is better to use "soft" rules the the 3-revert-rule. Edit wars are not that common anyway. --Apoc2400 01:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
This is above all a collaborative media. Two or three editors will put information into an article over a period of days - some finding better ways to express information that others have provided, some adding weight to areas they had not thought to write about but which one of the other editors throught to introduce but did not have the breadth of knowledge to flesh out. Our edits weave in and out like the threads in a tapestry with each person tweaking a little what the last person entered. Some people edit mostly for nice layout, typos, spelling and grammar - others have almost zero knowledge about a subject and specialise in finding links for technical terms that they didn't understand while reading the article. When the 'technical expert' dumps in new text, those people come along and clean and polish - then more technical stuff goes in and the cycle repeats. There are myriads of ways for people to contribute beyond typing in the entire contents of their brain in one massive editing session. When I was getting the Mini article through WP:FA, I was making a dozen edits a day in response to people's feedback and suggestions - not edit wars, not controversy, just things like "Hey Steve - why don't you say something about such-and-such?". It's inconceivable that this proposed policy could be anything other than ruinous - even a 5 minute bar on re-editing would kill us. It is utterly ridiculous. SteveBaker 21:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed disambiguation guidance

I've noticed the following problems seem to crop up repeatedly with newbies and disambiguation pages. Frequent problems include them

  • Including information that belongs in the article itself (i.e. not necessary for disambig).
  • Hiding article titles (because that's what we do elsewhere; and there are a lot of them on disambig pages)
  • Linking non-subject items (when the linked article *doesn't* include a definition of the subject)
  • Including "normally" constructed sentences with the subject somewhere in the middle
  • Including every item under the sun in the list, even if it's not a likely search/disambiguation term.

Obviously, this is done in good faith; they're "helpfully" applying rules that would be fine (and indeed encouraged) elsewhere in Wikipedia.

It's a minor waste of our time to revert these changes, and a greater waste of the newbie's time. And every time we do so, it leaves no clue to the next uninformed newbie. So it happens again, and again, and...

I propose we include a brief hidden comment on each disambig page. Not the whole MoS, obviously; just something to get their attention and cover the most common problems/mistakes.

If this is a good idea, the other question is what to include. We don't want to bloat pages with more comments than necessary (even though they're hidden from non-editors).

There's a draft at Template:Disambig-guidance. Because the comment is hidden, you have to "edit" to view (also, it *must* be included using subst).

Any thoughts?

Fourohfour 12:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Just to make this conversation easier, here's the "hidden text": 

<!--***** NEW USERS, PLEASE READ THIS FIRST *****

Disambiguation pages use a slightly different style to normal pages. Please:-

(A) DON'T LINK NON-SUBJECT TERMS, except when they are NEEDED for disambig

 and/or include definition of subject. (B) KEEP SUBJECT AT START OF 

SENTENCE IF POSSIBLE.

Thank you. More info on disambig page style can be found at 

[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)]].

*************************************************-->

Too bad wikilinks couldn't be hidden in there... I wonder if a "Disambiguation" namespace might be handy, since it might be possible to change the css for the edit page (this would solve the "disambigs appearing in search/randompage" problem too). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 14:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Radiant; yes, it'd be a lot of work to tidy up all disambig pages from scratch. I'm not going to get wound up about every tiny deviation from the MoS (besides which, there are occasions where it makes sense to deviate). But the comment would (a) Avoid any further waste of time with non-standard changes/reverts/etc, and (b) Encourage future additions to follow same style, reducing maintenance. Fourohfour 16:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
pre text edited for printability ? -- DLL .. T 21:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
How about a note saying something like, "if you are unfamiliar with the format for disambiguation pages, please see the talk page for guidelines." The talk page will then begin with a slightly less brief outline of common pitfalls, then a (clickable) link to MOSDAB? Just a suggestion. The problems I run into most often are only one live link per line and don't add an item to this list unless it stands a chance of being linked here accidentally. -Freekee 04:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I think this is good. It might also be nice to add a clause to "keep topics alphabetical if at all possible" or somesuch. Note that a DAB namespace is not going to work, because the pages need to be in the main article namespace to be found most easily. (Radiant) 10:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This is useful, thanks. Nothing that would justify doing it to every disambig page yet, but I'll include it if and when I find pages with the problem occurring. One of the main snags is that as it *must* use subst, we can't easily change/update existing notices automatically. Fourohfour 11:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

No. Bad idea. I can't decide if this is Chicken Little or the camel's nose but either way, we don't need it. Anyone who edits any page is entitled to do it with a minimum of hand-holding and flummery; I might prefer new editors be run through boot camp before their first edit but that's not our policy. New editors edit, wisely or not, and then we edit. That's who we are.
Meanwhile, experienced editors don't need to stumble over yet another shrill, repetitive nag. I already see enough of those, some built right into the interface. Do not copy text from other websites without permission. It will be deleted. Um, yeah. I read that the first time, maybe the first dozen times; now, I try to ignore it but my eye still falls in, like some visual pothole. I've edited my skin to hide most of the glurge but page after page has silly tags up top, nagging, nagging, nagging without really informing me in any way. This article needs more sources. Don't they all? This article is biased. All articles are biased; we work to reduce bias but its impossible to eliminate it anywhere. Remember that this is only a preview; changes have not yet been saved! That's after an H2-size Preview. Did you need to waste all that screen real estate? Far, far better to drop a 2px red line down the left-hand side of the entire page and put the word "Preview" at the very top, in RED. If you don't know what a preview is, you learn quickly.
My personal whipping boy for this nagging issue is the image upload page. An entire screenful of nagging, none of which changes in response to the item I intend to upload or my level of skill. All these dead pixels and a very stingy selection of links I might actually find useful at upload time, such as Image copyright tags. What would be useful is an upload summary preview and an actual edit summary field (instead of cramming the entire image description into the edit sum).
Oy.
Special comments like these are vital when the situation is nonstandard. For example, we generally add new comments to the bottom of pages; when this convention is reversed, we insert a notice: New X to the top, please. Nagging everywhere, all the time, only leads people to ignore -- to not see these special cases.
Whack with an axe™ further general nagging. John Reid ° 10:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Another suggestion: if you see a problem DAB page edit, drop by the offending editor's page, and leave a message similar to the one above. -Freekee 16:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
John Reid; the situation *is* nonstandard - that was the whole point!!. We say to users "do X, Y and Z", and only *after* they've wasted time "fixing" a disambig we say "Oops, sorry, but all that stuff we told you to do, well it doesn't apply here". Well, gee, thanks for letting me know after I've wasted my time! Put simply, it's not fair on them.
Anyway, the template "as is" is a bit on the naggy side; I'm going to cut it down again. But it's not "hand holding" (no-one's stopping them doing anything). I suspect that most well-intentioned editors *want* to help and contribute useful edits. I certainly don't expect them to read the whole MoS (or even the whole disambig page) before editing for the first time, though- I didn't.
Bearing that in mind- What *might* be more useful is a much briefer and more accessible summary of selected parts of the MoS that covers all the important points (possibly using graphics; arrows and stuff). Any thoughts on this?
Your problem with Wikipedia (or rather the current version of the software) seems to be far more general. I agree absolutely with your general grievance. I'd much prefer that new users got informational messages automatically, but had the option to turn them off (at which point we can reasonably assume that they've read them and know what they were doing). However, I don't think focusing on one specific issue as a whipping boy for a more general problem is the best way to solve it. Fourohfour 11:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Header tags

The following debate has been duplicated and relocated here from Wikipedia:Help_desk#header_tags for policy discussion.

Survey

Add * Support (in favor of set of 3 tags) or * Oppose (in favor of 1 tag) followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation).
For alternate spelling see Robert Johnston
See also: Bob Johnson, Rob Johnson, Bobby Johnson, and Robert Johnston

vs.

For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation).
  • Support I spent a great deal of time yesterday editing all articles and dab pages for persons named Robert Johnson, Bob Johnson, Rob Johnson, & Bobby Johnson and made some minor changes for persons named Robert Johnston and Bob Johnston. This morning I woke up to some controversy regarding the use of some tags I put at the top of the Robert Johnson article pages and the bottom of the dab page. Someone placed the following explanation on my talk page. I am unsure whether I violated WP:MOSDAB, but I propose that the former set of tags should be returned to these pages instead of just the later single tag. Although in creating dab we assume people know the correct spelling of what they are searching for and design the page according to the premise that someone searching for the exact correct thing could end up in the wrong place because of multiple referents for this exact correct search. However, on article pages, I think it may be appropriate for particularly confusing names to add multiple tags like I propose. In fact, why was the bottom of the 3 tags created if not for a purpose like this. If I was named Robert Johnson and people kept confusing me with other people, I might want the former tags. Also, I think novice wikipedians could end up on any Robert Johsnon page while looking for Robert Johnston, or any of the other Johnsons. Feedback awaited. TonyTheTiger 17:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment What about "For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation); also Bob or Rob Johnson or Johnston". I'd just like to see it not use up more than one line. Steve 19:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I could put Robert Johnston in the see also tag:
For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation).
See also: Bob Johnson, Rob Johnson, Bobby Johnson, and Robert Johnston
.
Of course, I could manually code it without the tags in one line as well since the templates won't print on the same line. TonyTheTiger 20:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

All above debate was relocated here from Wikipedia:Help_desk#header_tags.

  • Comment: perhaps this should be discussed before taking a survey. It seems to me that having multiple dab messages at the top of an article is distracting, and constitutes trying to disambiguate at the article rather than on the dab page. If there is only one link provided at the top then the user only has one choice (thus no mistakes, like a one-button mouse). I think the disambiguation should take place on the dab page.--Blainster 21:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I think the guidelines at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation links is pretty clear. There should be one link at the top of the page to the disambituation page. Alternate spellings should be listed in the See also section of the disambiguation page. (Which is currently the case.) The link for the "primary" article should be at the top of the disambiguation page (which is also currently the case). As explained at the guideline, the person arriving at the page from the primary article is not likely to be wanting to return to it. (The "primary" article is the search result article.) I would therefore Oppose the proposal.—Chidom talk  00:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Anon vandalism

On 11/21/06 an anonymous editor 216.49.181.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) made 11 edits in just over a half hour, mostly deletion of material without comment in the edit summary. I left an {{anon vandal}} warning on their talk page. Another editor (Trödel) has repeatedly removed my warning and replaced it with another of his choosing. A 'whois' search shows that the anonymous editor is posting from a Church of Latter-day Saints address; Trödel seems to be very pro-Mormon and I feel that he is bending over backward to treat the anonymous editor with kid gloves. Wikipedia is no place for favoritism of any kind and I am wondering what can be done in this situation. Thank You. Duke53 | Talk 20:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

When dealing with an organization, it's better to be nicer. A potentially large group will be posting from that address so it's best not to bite the newcomers, no matter how obvious their vandalism might be. Continued and consistent vandalism merits stronger warnings. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 20:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
"When dealing with an organization, it's better to be nicer". Ah, there's the rub ... I did not know that it was 'an organization' until after I ran the 'whois' test, which wasn't available to me until after a warning had been posted. I wasn't going to change it after I posted the warning initially, just as I wouldn't change it for an individual. Duke53 | Talk 20:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
In either case, the second part of my comment comes into play. Unless this editor is replacing pages with "I stab puppies with sporks" or some equally obvious vandalism, you should use the test warnings. Blanking, while annoying, isn't necessarily intentional vandalism. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 20:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace#Warnings, the template User:Duke53 used is at the intersection of the "Obvious vandalism" and "Final Warning" headings. I think its use in the cited case was therefore against the WP:BITE guideline, since the edits were not obvious vandalism (though they did arguably violate WP:NPOV) and it was only Duke53's first warning or communication with the anon user. I further think the "pro-Mormon" statement Duke53 makes above does not assume good faith of Trödel's actions. alanyst /talk/ 20:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
When any editor repeatedly (11 times) removes, without comment, items that aren't strict LDS POV then it is fairly clear that it is obvious vandalism. This was someone who knew exactly what they were doing, and did it methodically and quickly. p.s. Did you even go to that talk page and read the text that Trödel used to 'welcome' the anonymous user to Wikipedia? Duke53 | Talk 20:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I did see it and thought it was very sensible and well-written. If I were in the anon user's place, I would be concerned if, based on my IP address, edits I made were perceived as official acts of my employer when I intended the edits to reflect only my personal opinions. And I would be grateful to someone who informed me of the situation and gave me advice on how to correct it. That's the way newcomers to WP ought to be treated, regardless of which organization's IP addresses they happen to be using. Besides that, you are confusing inappropriate POV edits with vandalism. Not all of the former qualify as the latter. I could remove eleven times, without comment (though comments are better), material from articles that I honestly thought did not belong in Wikipedia, and not be guilty of vandalism; I might have been absolutely correct that the material didn't belong, and been perfectly justified in removing it. (I hasten to add that proper discussion on the articles' talk pages and commented edits would be much the better way, but we can't expect that of all newcomers.) Wholesale indiscriminate blanking of pages or sections of pages can be construed as obvious vandalism, but selective removal of text in furtherance of a point of view is an NPOV violation, but not vandalism from the outset. Continued POV editing after appropriate warnings and discussion can be construed as vandalism. Finally, even if it was obvious vandalism, which IMO it wasn't, the "Final Warning" template shouldn't have been used right away. alanyst /talk/ 20:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting interpretation of vandalism. I suppose that I will just go ahead and E-Mail the 'abuse' link on that whois report and see if the LDS has any problems with their people using their computers for this type thing. Duke53 | Talk 21:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
You could do that, but that seems like a pretty vindictive thing to do to someone who has already ceased their wrongful behavior, from all appearances. Why would you want to continue to harass this user? alanyst /talk/ 21:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting choice of words: vindictive and harass. I look at it more as a service to the IT dept. at the LDS church; they probably have policies in place concerning the use of their computer systems. If their people might be using their equipment against their policies they should be notified; they do have an address to report abuse, BTW. The person who made all these deletions knew exactly what they were doing, as far as visiting their targeted article pages, technique for deletion, etc.; no way a 'newbie' could have done all these edits in just over half an hour.Duke53 | Talk 22:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
You have a history here of strong criticism and mistrust of the LDS church, and antagonism of LDS editors. Are you honestly saying that you've had a change of heart and now you're trying to render a service to the LDS church by reporting this user? Because if you're really just trying to get this person in trouble with their employer out of spite (particularly since the consensus here is that it was not vandalism and therefore does not constitute abuse of the user's Internet privileges), I think that is vindictive harassment, completely out of line, and not to be tolerated on Wikipedia. alanyst /talk/ 23:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
One little detail you didn't know: I work in CITS ... an allegiance to my IT brethren is the motivation. I will be reporting you for the personal attack, BTW. We don't tolerate that at Wikipedia. p.s that would be consensus so far; I would expect others to chime in on this. Duke53 | Talk 23:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This case does not look like obvious vandalism. The user should be warned with {{test 1}} first and given then opportunity to reform and stop. If they do not stop, then add a {{test2}} or {{test3}} before a final warning is given. Additionally, editors who place the test messages should leave at least a few more words explaining their concerns. This is a clear case of not biting the newbies. The compelling evidence here is the high number of edits in a short time. The user may not be aware of policies and conventions and should be warned gently until it is obvious they are acting in violation of policies with full knowledge of such violations. Always assume good faith, and until this user has shown a pattern over time of disruptive edits, treat them as any other newbie. --Jayron32 21:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Duke53 is again biting newcomers. He left the following on the talk page of an editor who made an edit he didn't like to an article he monitors. I tried to replace his rudeness with {{blank2}} as well as include a standard welcome message {{LDSWelcome}}. He has reverted my attempt to encorage this potential editor to stick around. Trödel 02:20, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I quoted Wikipedia policy ("Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia".) and Trödel is trying to distort that as rudeness. The truth of the matter is that he attempts to put a pro-Mormon spin on all Mormon related articles and I am not accepting of that. Talk page comments should be left alone by everyone; if he was so concerned about 'welcoming' new editors then he should get to it before other editors leave messages. Duke53 | Talk 02:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
It is rudeness. You don't assume good faith. You just jump to the worst case scenario. Warnings increase in intensity, they don't start at the top. Read WP:BITE as you've been told to several times now, because it's a guideline which you're consistently ignoring. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
You two seem to be forgetting (conveniently) the following:
Basic rules for all talk pages
Sign your comments (see above)
Log in. (Read why here.)
Use coherent formatting.
Copy formatting from others.
Indent with colons (:), not with tabs.
Break up very large paragraphs.
Be civil at all times.
Don't make personal attacks
Don't SHOUT
Do not edit other user's comments.
So at least two editors have decided to break Wikipedia policy willingly. The bold areas are formatted in this manner on the Wikipedia policy page that I copied it from. Now one of you can go back and restore my comments. Duke53 | Talk 03:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Guess what people? You can always *add* your own comment to a talk page, but removing others comments when it isn't your talk page is not acceptable even if you don't agree with them. The only case this is allowed is when it is a clear personal attack. IF you disagree with the warning you may say so, but you may not remove other's comments. pschemp | talk 22:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

So, we have an anon user who is behaving badly by blanking content, we have Duke53 who is biting the newbie and not issuing graduated vandalism complaints and we have Trodel who is editing other peoples comments on a Talk page. All three people are in the wrong. Since none of them can really lay claim the moral high ground here my advice is for all parties to back off, calm down and take a short Wikibreak. SteveBaker 23:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry but graduated vandalism warnings are not a requirement anywhere here. Vandalism is vandalism and any warning about it is fine. pschemp | talk 01:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
But it's not vandalism, at least not if you follow policy and assume good faith of the newbie. It's not wholesale or indiscriminate blanking of a page; it's removal of a particular bit of material that the anon user presumably deemed offensive. POV? Sure. Vandalism? No; we cannot assume that it is done "in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". Perhaps the newbie doesn't fully grasp WP:NPOV yet. Calling them a vandal, or strongly implying such by quoting and emphasizing the vandalism policy at them as their only greeting, violates WP:BITE in my book. alanyst /talk/ 01:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
When they do it four times in a row from different IP's it *is* deliberate and is vandalism. Sorry, but repeat offenders are not required to have good faith assumed for them. Somehow I doubt you'd be saying the same thing were these users inserting slurs about the LDS church. pschemp | talk 02:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you that if it were the same person continuing to make the edit after being warned, whether from different IP addresses or the same one, it would be vandalism and the stern warnings would be quite justified. Where it appears we differ is in our perceptions: I think the edits are being made by different people, while you think it's one person making the changes. The basis for my perception is the fact that the content that is being removed is a photo that is offensive to many LDS people (or at least makes them highly uncomfortable to view it), and it is thus more likely to be a target of removal by many different people than the average image or bit of prose in WP might be. This is not written to justify the photo's removal; those edits do indeed violate NPOV and should be reverted. If you or anyone else could show evidence that the anon IP addresses all represent the same person, I have no objection to labeling it vandalism. But if the only evidence is the repeated removal of the photo, I think mine is the more likely explanation and hence demands that each anon user be treated as if they were editing in ignorance but in good faith, at least at first. As for whether I'd say the same if the edits were made with the opposite POV, please assume that I would treat POV warring consistently regardless of my personal biases (see [36], [37], [38], [39], [40] for evidence), as I assume you would do too. alanyst /talk/ 03:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
"Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". Please show me where I 'bit' the newcomer; I offered a definition of vandalism, without comment as to whether the newcomer had vandalized or not. Your characterization of this as 'biting a newcomer' is your opinion only.Duke53 | Talk 00:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
"Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". Unless you can prove intent here, all we have is a user who disagrees with the validity of statements that have been added to articles, and are thus removing those statements. The repeated removals of specific statements show that this is a dispute over a specific set of statements, and is thus related to the content of those statements; it is a content dispute. It may be misguided, it may be misplaced, it may be contrary to other wikipedia policies, but it is definately not vandalism. If it was clear that the users only intent was to deface the article in question, it would be vandalism. I have seen no evidence that this user is doing so for any reason other than a specific disagreement. We cannot as yet prove that this user is just being disruptive for disruptions sake. Their actions may feel disruptive since they remove what you see as valid information; but if the intent is not to disrupt but to correct, then we cannot mention vandalism here. Tell the user that his edits are unproductive, tell them that they are contrary to WP:V or WP:3RR, but they are not really vandalism. The fact that it happens from different IPs mean nothing. It just means that either the user logs in from a service that uses dynamic IP assignments, or uses different computers at public sites, like a library. It is not necessarily a deliberate attempt to avoid detection. To bring up the topic of vandalism with said user is unwarrented. To claim that you only mention vandalism, and not accuse is moot. You respond to an edit with a comment that includes the word vandalism. Sounds like an accusation to me. --Jayron32 03:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
It is your right to interpret anything as you choose ... doesn't make you right though. Duke53 | Talk 03:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Quoting people in articles

On the bipolar disorder page there's a 'personal descriptions' section, which currently just has two quotes from one medical researcher giving generalised clinical opinions as well as alluding to personal experiences. SHe is particularly well-known as professional and sufferer, and the quotes are from her bestseller, but does policy allow giving this direct POV to a person? If so how to determine who else might get quoted in a similar way? I've raised this there but no solutions as yet.

If it is OK to include people's personal experience descriptions, would it be OK to use a representative range of short quotes from personal stories published on a website? How would they need to be credited (anonymously quoted and just a link to the site, or need specific link to the story and the name/nick of author?). EverSince 07:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV requires that the article itself be neutral, but it is neither appropriate nor wise to extrapolate an expectation that every quote or source reflect the same neutrality. The article as a whole should be balanced. Per WP:V and WP:RS, random statements from non-notable nonexperts who happen to be published on someone's private website would not be encyclopedic - nor would they be even remotely on a par with quotes from a bestselling book by a well-known medical researcher who also has firsthand experience with the ailment. If two quotes from this author appear to make the article non-neutral, then add citations to comparably notable and reliable experts. DurovaCharge! 16:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Durova, appreciate your time. I will try to add other notable published personal desriptions for balance.

It seems a shame in a way that Wikipedia can't display the sorts of descriptions that 'regular people' give of their own experiences of a widespread condition. I see that WP:V and WP:RS do suggest that, when it comes to a person talking about themselves rather than as a third party expert, the usual restrictions might not apply - but that they would still have to be a notable person. Yet when it comes to chronic mental disorders or 'disabilities', personal descriptions by those who have become notable would seem to be inevitably unrepresentative of the typical case, and to have no more authority in describing a personal experience then anyone else who has had that personal experience. EverSince 17:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually I suppose some 'regular-people-quotes' could be included if a published work included a collection of them? And you would cite just the book? Or would you need to know exactly who the pople were and reference them? EverSince 18:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you found a particularly compelling quote in a source that satisfies WP:RS, try proposing it on the article talk page and see what the other editors think. DurovaCharge! 18:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The self-help section of the bookstores are replete with books that contain such material. The problem I see is that anecdotes are often selected for effect, rather than for being representative of the population. A collection gathered by Dear Abby might be questionable, but one edited by (say) Philip Zimbardo would probably be taken as authoritative. Robert A.West (Talk) 11:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Screen Resolution consideration for photo contributions

It has been brought to my attention that multiple photos can cause formatting problems with low screen resolution viewing. I believe about 5% of all wikipedians use less than 1024 resolution and that number is continually shrinking. I know that the <gallery> function still formats for 800 wide resolution. Should all page formatting still be done to facilitate 800 wide resolution viewing? TonyTheTiger 21:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Page formatting shouldn't be done at all. HTML and Wiki markup are good for logical markup, not for typesetting. We do not know with which tools users access Wikipedia, and nor should we care. --Stephan Schulz 21:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
"Wikipedians" are our few thousand contributors, not our tens - hundreds! - of millions of passing readers. We can get some vague figures on the former, and next to nothing on the latter. But we should never forget our audience is broader than those closely involved with the project. Shimgray | talk | 22:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Just keep it simple and do not assume any specific browser or computer platform. Wikipedia is accessed from PDAs, phones with web access, "old" computers with 640 x 480 resolution, etc. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
There is an underlying assumption here that the problem only exists for people with low-res displays - there is a similar problem for people at high resolution - a 200px image is a tiny postage stamp on a 3000x2000 display. Yeah - those aren't common now - but they will be one day. The human eye can easily see 4000 pixels across the 50 degree-ish field of view that you can take in with one glance. It's not at all unreasonable to expect to find 4000+ pixel displays showing up. SteveBaker 00:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I should offer a specific example. Although wikipedia encourages photo contributions that add perspective, I have been told that the multiple photos on Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) were particularly hard to view a few edits ago. I am sure they remain so at 640x480, but since I view at 1600x1200, I don't always notice such issues. When contributing photos to such a page, how much should I consider viewers configuration or platform. TonyTheTiger 23:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

You can get away without explicitly specifying a size for photos - just use "|thumb|" rather than "|thumb|200px|" or the like. Viewers will then see a (hopefully appropriate) default scaling. Indeed, this is probably best practice - avoid applying specific formatting details within the article. Shimgray | talk | 23:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I would suggest to use common sense. I think the gallery at the end of the article in question is fine, but overall the relationship between numbers of images and text is a bit off at that article. Also, what does your screen's physical resolution have to do with the way you view an article? My screen is 1280x852, but my browser window is maybe 960x800 or so. Web browsers can and do dynamically reformat pages. --Stephan Schulz 23:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Because I've posted about this elsewhere, there are also users who browse at very high resolutions for whom 'fixed' layouts appear messy. I use 1920x1200 and run into image crowding all the time on image-dense articles without enough text between the images to separate them. Not something worth making a policy over, but something worth keeping in mind, especially when doing any sort of complex table formatting or combining tables with images. Opabinia regalis 05:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There is no optimal solution, but maybe the best one would be to size thumbnails automatically relative to the size of the browsers viewport, and not in absolute pixels. I think CSS can achieve this, but I do not know enough to actually attempt it. I also don't know if this can be handled by embedding HTML/CSS in the image macros, or wether it requires a change in the actual Wikipedia engine...--Stephan Schulz 07:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Stephen, In order to understand various complainants, I have gone to my desktop properties and changed my setting from 1600x1200 to 1280x1024, 1024x768 and 800x600 to understand what other people are seeing. Is this the wrong way to determine what other wikipedians are seeing when they view pages you create? TonyTheTiger 21:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
First, I don't know many people who browse in fullscreen mode. Thus, the browser will usually be smaller than the actual screen allows (this also means you do not have to change the physical screen resolution to approximate what others see, of course). Testing with many different resolutions is not bad per se, but it is not the right thing either. How exactly a page is rendered depends on too many variables - different browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE, lynx, ...), different configurations (e.g. font sizes!), different local CSS, and so on. That's why the very idea of HTML is logical markup. "This is an image with a caption, this is a headline...", and let the browser make the best from this structure. Of course, the browsers actual layout algorithm is of limited capability, and CSS allows us to give it hints about how to render the page. --Stephan Schulz 21:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Kostas Tournas

I came across the article Kostas Tournas. It is borderline db-spam, and borderline db-bio. The only thing that kept me from nuking it was that he's Greek, which means I might not know him. Any thoughts? Feel free to place a db or prod on the article. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 05:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Pornography?

Is there such a thing? I think if not, we should start one. It seems that pornography is so central to this site (and truly any computer based site) that we should strive to have articles on every single porn movie and actress. If its porn it must inherently be worthwhile, that's what I say! Cocunuthead 01:14, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

fairly certain it already exists. Hunt around and you should find it. There are notability guidelines that cover it as well WP:PORN. Check it out there. --Jayron32 02:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Dunno if there's an actual WikiProject (doesn't appear so), but there is a porn portal. Starting a porn-specific shouldn't be too hard, so to speak... EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Just found Wikipedia:WikiProject Porn stars and Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Pornography is a bad term, since it is relative, person by person, based on POV. The only concrete terms that could be used would be "obscene" (which has a legal definition in the U.S., and in Florida) and "offensive" which, again is a relative term.

WIP-image-guidelines is a proposed guideline, and still a work in progress to help give people who choose to adhere to it guidelines on a variety of issues intended to keep images non-censored, and yet within the boundaries of Wikipedia (try not to offend) while remaining completely legal and not obscene. Atom 17:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Standardise a Date Format

What format for numbers only dates that people use is confusing, and what's worse can be misleading. I found a date in a Wiki tag that used the UK style Day/Month/Year format, all numbers. Could be read as US style Mo/Day/Year. Only I knew which was correct. Is there a standard? I would propose as the preferred standard the Japanese style Year (4 digits)/Mo (2 digits)/and Day (2 digits) for the simple and useful reason that it can instantly sort files in dated lists in a computer word processing file, i.e. 1) for year, 2) for month, 3) for day. Using an alpha form is not helpful. JohnClarknew 01:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Won't happen, proposals have been tried, they just result in stupid protracted debates with no resolution. We have some magic scripts to adapt date formats to your preferences, but those are imperfect.
Let's face it, Wikipedia's not going to have a real standard date format unless the proper format descends to us on a golden tablet from the skies, and I don't think we want "divine intervention" over what are trifling standardization issues in the scheme of things. --tjstrf talk 05:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there any real need to use numbers only dates at all? Just use full dates, wikilink them, and they'll display however the individual user wants them to display. And even if they didn't, the month would be dsiplayed in words so there'd be no confusion. -- Necrothesp 19:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

tjstrf, in time, the US will fall into line with the rest of the world, and we'll all use Day/Month/Year. However, as that's probably at least another 100 years away, we'll have to stick with the mish-mash we currently have. US punctuation style will go the same way (although almost certainly quicker). jguk 20:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that I find the US system lacks logic. Surely the units should be in either increasing (dd/mm/yyyy) or decreasing (yyyy/mm/dd) hierarchy. However I also find that the US numerical system to be inferior to the British - the UK system might be longer to say, but it does extend to several powers of ten greater than the US system. I fear the battle on this has been long since lost. Likewise, unfortunately, the usage of the English language. --JohnArmagh 21:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Enough of the British snobbish attitude. We should simply use either a three letter abbreviation for all months or write out the month. Seems simple. I have been taught this since high school (in the U.S.) BTW, I live in a country that uses year-month-day, but even now, that can cause confusion. Is 06-07-08 June 7, 2008; August 7, 2006; or July 6, 2008? Write out the month, it will save EVERYONE a whole lot of headaches. Ludahai 23:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm British too - and (of course) the US system doesn't make much sense to me. But from a point of view of logical consistency, the British system isn't the best either. In some European countries (the Netherlands is one), they use yy/mm/dd - that's even more logical than dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy because when we write numbers, we put the hundreds on the left then the tens and finally the units on the right - big to small - same should happen with dates. Hence, year then month than day. However, there is no point in railing against the system. We are stuck with all three ways of writing dates and unless we're going to have an American-English Wikipedia that's separate from British-English (and probably separate from Australia, Canada and others) - we're stuck with the undeniable fact that people will write things in their 'native' ordering and more than 50% are going to bitch and complain no matter which system we use. Just so long as we spell out the month and use 4 digits for the year rather than just two - we're OK. "2006 November 26th" is every bit as comprehensible as "26th November 2006" or "November 26th 2006". Since we can't possibly please everyone - but let us at least be unambiguous. If someone writes 10/12/06 then NOBODY knows with any certainty what is meant. Even 10/12/2006 is bad and because our readership is unaware of any wonderous Wiki standard, forcing standards down out editor's throats won't help that. SteveBaker 03:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

ISO 8601; also works with date preferences. æ² ✆ 2006‑11‑27t08:10z

I strong support your proposal. We need a new tag and write all date like "<date>2006-01-01</date>". Yao Ziyuan 09:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a silly discussion. Per WP:POINT, Wikipedia is not consistent and it should not be. The last thing this project needs is instruction creep. --Ghirla -трёп- 10:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Granted that Wikipedia can be is inconsistent, all-numeric dates don't look good in prose, and can be ambiguous. That leaves us with wikified dates that should display per user preferences. See November 27, 2006. There's not much reason to do anything else, is there? Robert A.West (Talk) 11:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • This isn't silly at all. While it's not necessary for dates to be standardized, all dates do need to be unambiguous. Any date format that can't be misinterpreted is fine. A date in a format XX/YY/ZZZZ (like the one starting this discussion) is potentially confusing and shouldn't be used. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Best practice is for people to write out dates (November 27, 2006 or 27 November, 2006). That said I don't think institutionalizing a date format is necessarily a good idea. I agree with Ghirla, instruction creep is not what is needed here. If you see a confusing date format, edit it.--Isotope23 15:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree, writing out the month is best; there's no ambiguity at all, and fully numerical dates are awful to encounter in prose, and ambiguous. Even if how the date appeared were to be fully a matter of user preference, because so many people edit (or just read!) anonymously or don't know how to change such preferences, that would just shift the issue of "how should dates appear in articles" to "what should the default setting be for how dates appear in articles?" Postdlf 15:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userspace abuse

I've drafted a new proposal to take on abuse of Wikipedia resources in the userspace. Current speedy deletion criteria only focus on such material in articles. Please take a look and comment. - Mgm|(talk) 12:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be OK to say: "My name is XXX and I work for [YYY]". Which means that right there you have one commercial link. Actually, I think this is to be encouraged because it gives other readers a better idea of who this person is and (in some cases) shows up sources who might be heavily biassed or perhaps who have useful specialised knowledge. But if someone sets up a user page here as if it were a free webhosting service - then we should have some way to fix that. SteveBaker 15:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a good idea, and definitely not to be encouraged. You never know what nutcase down the road may decide to stalk you or just to call your place of business to complain to you boss over some innocent disagreement on Wikipedia. And this is not hypothetical, it happens frequently. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed sources and controversial claims

It seems good sense that when someone wants to include spurious or controversial claims in the content of an article, even if there is a secondary source for that content, that we require the source to be peer-reviewed. How do we determine whether something is controversial? Well, good question, but the idea has been around academic circles for quite some time. Here is an example: imagine we are writing an article on WWII (I haven't looked at wiki's article, I'm just using it as an example) and an editor wants to contribute the following content:

If Hitler hadn't invaded Russia, Germany would have taken over the World.

Now, regardless of whether the source actually makes this claim, it is a controversial one. Should we just allow this content because it has a source? My suggestion, as you might have guessed, is no. Claims like the above require much scholarly research and ceteris paribus assumptions about many things. An implication of this is that peer-reviewed sources should trump other sources (e.g. editorials, think-tank publishers) since being informed by a community of experts is a good thing.SFinside 18:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think that is the purpose of the policy on undue weight. If an opinion has little relevance to the topic, little support, little significance, then it does not need to be included; conversely, if an opinion is widely-accepted (or prominently associated with the topic for some other reason), it can be included and expanded upon. This should be decided on a case-by-case basis and the discussion should involve weighing the provenance of the sources, so a peer-reviewed source will often be considered more reliable or more important. For WW2, for instance, there is an abundance of scholarly research on the topic and thus no need to include views of 'laymen' (unless there's a special reason to do so). But this won't be the case for more esoteric issues. That's how I would view it. Trebor 19:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Chat-only accounts

Just came across these accounts: Make mi fall 4 u (talk · contribs), Wfg100 (talk · contribs), Twdtriplethreat (talk · contribs), Ghsovertime22 (talk · contribs). All of them have been doing nothing on Wikipedia but chatting with each other on their talkpages. What do we do with WP:NOT-accounts like this? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Warn them with the relevant NOT section. If they contine, report it in WP:ANI and suggest they be blocked. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 19:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
That's what I'd do. ----Power level(Dragon Ball)Stacy's Mom 19:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Surname dab page policy

I am not sure if there is a prefered policy on surname dab pages when a given name has multiple articles that are parenthetically disambiguated. Two different schools exist. Johnson lists either the most prominent article for a given name or the dab page. Young seems to list all articles. Is there a preferred policy on this matter? TonyTheTiger 21:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Johnson is an article, rather than a disambiguation page. So it is written as an article with a see also for the disambiguation page. I think it is a very poor article that should be turned into a disambiguation page, but that is just my opinion. Young is a disambiguation page, so lists everything. I think the latter format is more useful, but don't have a strong policy/process page pointer for you. Sorry. GRBerry 21:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I have created a Johnson merger proposal after thinking about your clear thoughts on the topic. Feel free to comment comment. TonyTheTiger 21:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Business navigational box categories

It seems that the vast majority of Business navigational boxes only have one category: Village pump (policy)/Archive AM. I am attempting to go back and make my contributions conform to the wiki norms. I feel it is odd that categories like the additional ones I have added to Template:Wrigley are not more common in other nav boxes. What is standard policy? TonyTheTiger 21:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Protect the Main Page FA

I suggest that, as protection from vandalism, we semi-protect or protect the Main Page featured article while it is on the main page. We already protect the images there, and the Main Page fetured article is the most obvious thng to vandalise, ever. Bart133 21:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree, especially after the pornography my young daughter witnessed on the Macedonia (terminology) article last night. The featured article can be unlocked as soon as it comes down off the main page. ZincOrbie 20:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Encourage newbies to be bold.martianlostinspace 23:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

This is suggested very, very frequently... we even have a special page about it: Wikipedia:Don't protect Main Page featured articles --W.marsh 23:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Village pump (policy) archive  

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Template policy

Hi, I would like to know if there is any particular policy on the location of templates. Is it possible to put them on a user subpage, or do they have to be put in the Template namespace? I would be grateful for any feedback.

Thanks, CarrotMan 10:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If they're going to be transcluded into the main namespace (or the Template namespace), they should be in Template space. Don't know of a specific policy on that, although WP:OWN is pertinent. Other namespaces, especially the Talk namespaces, might be more flexible. Depends on the context, somewhat.-- Visviva 10:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
My intention was to create some little award for users (sort of like Phaedriel's Today's Star but not really), so really only on the User/User talk namespace. Not on the Main namespace, that's for sure.--CarrotMan 11:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Bearing that in mind, where should I put a template of this genre? If possible, I'd find it easier if it was on a subpage of my user page.--CarrotMan 14:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Wikiproject Wikify has a template here instead of in the Template namespace. Seeing as what I plan to do is even more personal than that, I think it would be safe to file it away in a subpage. I'm going to go ahead with it (rather recklessly, I know), but if anyone objects I'll be sure to listen.--CarrotMan 07:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Seems reasonable to me; it's quite normal for templates of that nature to be on user subpages (or WikiProject subpages) anyway. Cheers, -- Visviva 09:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Porn on wikipedia ("History of erotic depictions")

This recently featured article contains blatantly pornographic photos, which are completely unnecessary. Because this site is not only a public, all-ages site, but also an excellent resource for school-aged children, this should not be allowed.

It is bad enough when porn websites don't require age-verification. It is MUCH worse when the porn is right on a page that young people are likely to use on a regular basis.

PLEASE say something if you agree.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.109.123 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia is not censored. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not censored. Doc Tropics 05:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not censored. &ndash; Article is historical. Article is about erotic depictions, not erotica, not porn. Law clearly defines what is "obscene", and no image in the article meets that standard. Atom 15:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
We just did a topic on this. --tjstrf talk 05:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
As mentioned above not only is Wikipedia not censored but it also does not discriminate against the category of featured article candidates or creating an article for that matter. Wikipedia aims for its content to be as encyclopedic, as descriptive, and as factual as possible; including but not limited to articles about controversial, sexual, or offensive topics. In order to meet the standards listed above we as a community must not use discrimination in the process or else we will hinder productive editing of the bulk of Wikipedia's articles to begin with.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 05:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
No need to act so apologetic about it, the history of eroticism is a scientific subject. --tjstrf talk 05:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, but the images are completely unnecessary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.109.123 (talk • contribs)

An encyclopedia is useless without illustrations. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Precisely.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 06:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • This may not be the place to drag out this discussion, but I am reposting a comment I left on the earlier misc. topic about this. Perhaps this is a silly "what if", but what if autofellatio ended up getting featured status? Stranger things have happened. There isn't much choice there - yes, the erotic depiction article had a tasteful image on the main page, but what if you opened wikipedia innocently one day and the word "autofellatio" was slapped right on the top in bold letters with a the first paragraph right there? And what if the erotic depiction article had not had such a tasteful picture? Blindly citing policy and saying "parents should do a better job supervising their children" seems to me a rather arrogant and dismissive response to this question.--Dmz5 06:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    If that ever happened, I for one would die laughing. Then again, I rarely visit the main page, so I probably wouldn't notice. In either event, I'm sure that if in the event that were to occur, the image could be forgone or a diagram put in its place. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    Yeah yeah I know it's silly, but I'm not just talking about the image. And where does this line get drawn? Is wikipedia censored or isn't it? Why should the image be forgone? I don't have a firm opinion here but I don't want this debate to die away in a cloud of users blithely saying it's the parents' fault for not making the child leave the room, checking the main page to ensure there's no porn, and then having the child come back in.--Dmz5 06:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    Well, my assertion was a strictly "if necessary" sort of thing. Were that to actually happen, consensus would likely fall in favor of "let's do it regardless". Wikipedia not being censored shouldn't be compromised anywhere. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    I will copy my comments from the other discussion ALSO being carried on this EXACT subject on another page. How do we decide what articles are "too objectionable" to be included as a main page featured article? The question must arise: Objectionable to who? As a parent, a person might not want to see an article on autofellatio. As a single adult, with no kids, a person might not care. Why does the parent have a greater right to set obscenity standards than does the single adult? Why does the most restrictive standard have to apply? The solution is not that wikipedia should be censored. The censoring needs to be done at the consumer level, not at the producer level. Any solution enacted institutionally at wikipedia to "protect the kids" is unsatisfactory as an unmanagable policy.
    If memory serves me right Raul654 is the one who decides what FA's get main page or not and not all FA's get main page which somewhat dismisses the entire idea that an article can't be an FA because it's explicit because it only means it can't be on the main page because it's too explicit... like autofellatio :). Cat-five - talk 09:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    One could argue that the main page is not really part of the encyclopedia, and thus the policy of no censorship would not need to be entirely maintained. An image depicting autofellatio should not be on the home page. You have to be realistic- putting extremely pornographic content on the main page would hurt our ability to bring new users, and thus new content, to the project. However, in this case, I see nothing wrong with the image that was used on the main page. And of course, once you get into the real mainspace, there should be no censorship whatsoever. --- RockMFR 07:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Tangent: I know it's not entirely productive to post comments in multiple places, but I also know how easily discussions like this evaporate, especially on these relatively arcane policy pages.--Dmz5 07:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • What might be questionnable is the wisdom to make this article the featured article of the day. There's a subtle difference between maintaining high quality articles on such topics and showcasing them. That being said, the absurdity of having an article on History of erotic depictions without having examples of erotic depictions just numbs the brain. We've been through this over and over, if you don't like seing erotic depictions, read something else. There's a million and a half articles to choose from. Pascal.Tesson 18:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Great!! Double wow!!! This was my first visit to the Dump, and look what I find - a dragged on discussion on a nonexistent case that emerged from a presettled policy issue quoted to prove a point against an unsigned appeal to censor WP by an anonymous user. Triple quadraple wow!!! I just love being here. Seriously. - Aditya Kabir 16:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability of subjects

I have a question about the policy on notability. As I understand it, an article must assert the notability of its subject. However, many editors are of the opinion that certain classes of subjects are notable in and of themselves and require no such claims. The most frequently cited subject is high schools, but other areas (many being items of local interest such as streets, fire departments, and the like) also garner this questionable claim. I know that there ARE some subjects for which policy exists: incorporated municipalities are deemed inherently notable. Here is my question: is it possible, in the current absence of actual policy on schools, police departments, etc, to create a new policy as part of the existing notability guidelines that explicitly states that in the absence of policy on that specific subject area, no article is exempt from the notability guidelines? I am being somewhat unclear, but essentially it would be nice to point to a real policy that says "there is no official policy on the inherent notability of this subject; therefore, the article must assert its subject's notability just like every other article on wikipedia." Does this make sense? Thoughts please? --Dmz5 04:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Not really sure why you need anything more than WP:V here. If a major local institution can't be verified, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. If it can be verified, then by virtue of being a major local institution it is notable. Of course WP:LOCAL may still apply... -- Visviva 04:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess I shouldn't pretend I'm not talking specifically about high schools. Many high school articles do nothing but establish that the high school exists. A lot of editors propose these articles for deletion and say "this doesn't assert the notability of this school." Many people agree. Many other people, however, say "of course it's notable. It's a school." If you were not aware, this circular argument occurs every single day on AfD. Am I wrong that there is no official policy that states all schools are inherently notable? There are essays and proposals and the like and who knows if/when real policy will be created. My suggestion involves heading the circular argument off at the pass by emphasizing that an article has to assert the notability of its subject in the absence of policy stating that the particular subject is inherently notabl. --Dmz5 04:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I am aware of that circular argument... and I can say that the only thing more annoying than someone saying "all high schools are notable" is someone else saying that's an unacceptable argument and "without a policy, you must provide some other proof that Y is notable besides its being a major public high school." :-) It would be nice if we could all simply accept that reasonable people can and do disagree about whether all X are notable by virtue of being verifiably X. In terms of AfD, the real question, based on the (disputed) guideline WP:N, is whether being verifiably X gives us good reason to believe that additional reliable sources can be found... A visit to your local public library or historical society will surely turn up any number of reliable sources about local schools, and the same can be said for many other local institutions. Hence, in my experience, being verifiably a major public institution is sufficient grounds for notability; however, in many cases merging is still the best option (again, per WP:LOCAL). Will we get a consensus on this? Probably not. Is that a problem? Not really. Happiness, -- Visviva 07:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I have a number of thoughts about your response, but I do note that you specifically refer (albeit in jest) to "major public high schools." I'm talking ALL high schools, and ALL streets, and ALL police stations. Also, you return several times to the question of verifying - getting more sources, etc. It isn't verifiability I'm concerned about. The existence of a high school is verifiable. Oh, and I do agree that there is unlikely to ever be consensus about this, but I thought my point was a unique one.--Dmz5 07:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you all are trying to put too much effort into determining what is notable and what isn't, and in the process, you are going to not only delete a lot of potentially valuable information, but you are going to discourage people from contributing in the first place. I really value Wikipedia as reference material, and there are a number of subjects I could contribute articles and images for (e.g. the reverse engineering work I've done on proprietary compression and image formats). However, I've given up on that plan, because I'm not going to waste time when it could be deleted for being "non-notable." Why do you care, as long as it's factual? There are probably ten thousand articles on Star Trek and anime, but that's okay because more of you have heard of them? Somehow I doubt that there's a resource/space issue and it's more a question of editors on a power trip. IMO, if you are actually arguing over how to distinguish what high schools are notable and which aren't, you're so far down the path of deadlocked and useless bureaucracy that it might be too late to ever turn back. --blincoln 03:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, why does Wikipedia have guidelines at all?--Dmz5 06:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The schools are best dealt with by asking a simple question: are there actually reliable sources about the school that provide substantive information, such that we're not merely mining the school's website for the names of its assistant principals or splitting off columns of district enrollment statistics. If not, then "notability" is beside the point&mdash;it's just not an independent topic. Be bold and merge and redirect to an article on its parent school district if it's a public school, or to a list of private schools in X otherwise. Just as Broadway is notable, but not every block on broadway would merit a separate article, one can accept that schools may be notable, but not accept that every school somehow merits a separate article. It's simply a matter of properly organizing information. Postdlf 06:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Other Questions I wrote earlier that hopefully will get answered

1. (was 2. earlier) What is our current stance on watermarked images? I saw this question asked previously by someone else at a talk page but the question was ignored and now suddenly I need to know the answer because I'm encountering a number of situations where a photo is available but has a watermark of a photographer's name and sometimes his email addres on it. I know that if he gives the photo to me CC by SA 2.5 I am allowed to alter it, providing I list the alteration, but sometimes removing a water mark may remove data from the image or crop it in a way that is bad.

2. (was 4. earlier) I assume album covers being used for illustrating an album continues to be ok but definitely they don't want promophotos any more, from what I've read lately. Album cover scans are fair use so long as they illustrate an album and not people, I understand, unless someone is going to say we never use any sort of fair use item. I have some work to do on something related to an album cover but in general, it is often hard to find photos from a past time period for a group that's been out since 1979, an album cover scan of a key past album can sometimes be a very helpful illustration in a historical discussion. I've seen them used in at least one article that achieved featured article status too. Are cd covers as ok as album covers? I will check the album cover tag.

3. (was 5. earlier) Is it better for the photographer to send the Permission directly to the Permissions email address and just copy the editor on it or for the editor to forward the permission to the Permissions dept themselves? I have been forwarding it but I'm wondering if it's even better when the photographer sends it directly. The only problem with that would be if the photographer doesn't write the permission correctly the first time, thus ending up with a bunch of extra emails to the permissions dept. till it's clear or specific enough. &ndash; Bebop 03:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the best thing is for the photographer to create a wikipedia account, log in themselves, and upload the images on their own so they can assign usage liscences themselves. That is the fastest and best way to do what you are asking. --Jayron32 04:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
1. That would certainly make the image less than ideal. I'm not aware of any policy that would specifically bar watermarked images, as long as they are clearly released, but many Wikipedians would object to them per WP:NOT an advertising service, etc. Unless the image is truly irreplaceable, I would err on the side of exclusion.
2. I don't think there's any relevant distinction between CD and album/LP covers. Is that what you mean?
3. What Jayron said. But if that's not an option, it is probably better to have the release sent directly to Permissions. Less risk that it might be seen as spoofed, illegitimate, etc.
Hope that's helpful, -- Visviva 04:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia subject-specific style guidelines

I just created Category:Wikipedia subject-specific style guidelines and moved first two subject specific style guidelines there. The reason is following: Original category is full of guidelines that only few people need to know which makes finding the most important guidelines very difficult. I plan to move all the WikiProject style guidelines there plus other kinds of guidelines like for India related article etc. Please comment, kill me etc., if you think it is a bad idea. BTW.: moving most of style guidelines will need creation of new template for subject specific parts of manual of style. This is second reason why I included only two guidelines. The first one obviously is that I do not want revert too many pages if my idea is bad. --Jan.Smolik 14:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Photo credit question regarding Spanish name form & nicknames

I have a name question for a photo credit. The photographer at issue has a name of this type: José-louis [long name] [final short name]. He often goes by a nickname shortened version of his "long name". Another way he has sometimes referred to himself on a credit is by José [shortened nickname derived from long name], without mentioning his final short name. I don't know if it is a Spanish form, but he speaks French. Perhaps he speaks other lanugages too but not much English. He lives in France. I am wondering if there is a rule on how I am supposed to identify him and how those downloading the photo in the future would be required to identify him. By his full legal name? Or by his preferred photography name? I could put both in the photo description page but it would be helpful to those downloading it if they knew what they are required to put. Here is another way to illustrate the situation without putting his actual name up on this page; this is not actually his name but similar: José-louis Blancorogero Ortega is what is in the FROM field on his emails. But on his photos he often embeds the short form "Blanco" and I saw one example where he has put up "Photo by José Blanco" on a page because he may still bedeciding how to do this. He seems like a very talented amatuer photographer, who does this as a hobby and hasn't started a business yet but could some day, rather than someone who has firmly decided how he's going to call himself. These are things a French speaker could make sure to clarify with him so that my questions to this person are clearly understood. Note that this is not his actual name but a very similar illustration of the situation. &ndash; Bebop 13:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if I need to start a new French wikipedia account in order to try to locate a French speaker to check in with the photographer I was speaking to. The problem with that is someone else took my username at the French one even though they almost never edit with it. Also, I don't know French, so I would embarrass myself trying to ask for help there. I could try to find a help desk at wikimedia commons, I guess. &ndash; Bebop 15:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC) [Strike out is clarifying that I got finished with the French guy hours ago.]

Category:User_fr-N contains English Wikipedians who are native French speakers. If you really want to follow it up with him, you might trying recruiting one of them as an intermediary. Generally though, I would copy the identification given by whatever source you acquired the image from. (It is appropriately licensed as per Wikipedia:Image use policy, right?) Dragons flight 19:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I have tried now to make it clear what items I have left to be answered. The French guy gave me the photo directly on request, not an outside source. He has done his name several different ways publicly so I was checking to see the right way for photo credit but already solved that issue. He speaks a little English and he had the license to read in French prior to deciding he wanted to agree to the license. At first he seemed to want a French speaker the other day but several emails later he seemed comfortable especially after I sent him the French license twice. My question I have stricken because it's already taken care of and I'm already in touch with a French speaker was about non-license issues like photo credit and just wrapping up with him. He already felt comfortable with the license and did not indicate he had any questions for a French speaker the last 5 or 6 times I asked him if he wanted one but i later eventually did get French speaker in touch with him too just in case. I am not needing any more help with that part of it and so have stricken that. Thanks for the link. The questions in the prior thread are more important to me. I wouldn't have minded reading an opinion on how long names and professional nicknames are handled in photo credits but I solved it to my satisfaction. I have no problems with the license and sorry if someone misunderstood the fact I hadn't rushed over here to update people that I was finished with the French photo license previously. &ndash; Bebop 00:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with images

I have a number of questions about images and licensing. I tried asking these at the Help Desk, but no one answered, and someone there suggested I post the questions here.

1. If a band hands the band leader's camera to a casual passerby to take a band photo, and they never hear of the passerby (who may not have ever heard of them) ever again, they do not know his name, and they develop the photo and want to give it to us under a free license are they not able to own it and give us licensing because they didn't take it themselves even though it was their camera? Therefore should I tell a band to only use the self timer if they ever want to take a photo they own themselves when including themselves in the shot because the passerby owns it technically if he takes their camera and shoots the photo for them?

Note on question #1, someone at the Help Desk did offer an answer to that one question, which I quote at the end of this message, so if you agree with his answer on 1, then 2, 3, and 4 are what I still need help on. [I am moving the other questions to the end of all the answers to question 1 in hopes it will be easier to read now. &ndash; Bebop 23:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC))

Quoting from The Help Desk on question #1:

:#1 seems unambiguous. There is nothing in copyright law that gives copyright to the owner of the camera; it rests in the photographer unless it is transferred or is a work for hire. Signed legal paperwork would be needed. Notinasnaid 10:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This would mean that any time someone who never sees you again, doesn't know you, and can't remember they even took the picture says "ok" when asked to snap a quick shot of you with your camera, which I've even had people ask me to do before when they were vacationing where I live, they entered into a copyright relationship with that stranger/passerby now owning an image the camera owner can't even put it on their own wall since they don't know who took it and can't ask permission. Even though the passerby took the photo without identifying himself or qualifying the terms of his taking the photo, the person who has all rights in the image on your camera's storage media is the stranger who doesn't know you or how to contact you, so you don't really have permission to even keep the image and should destroy it, if the above is "unambiguous". Anyway, I'd like to make sure this is the correct answer on #1 before I take other action on an image, and I still hope for help on the other questions, particularly hoping someone replies on #3. &ndash; Bebop 12:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the answer is probably technically correct. The camera owner could probably claim that they had rights to the photo(that they were the photographer), but if they are in the photo then that begs the question as to how the picture was taken by them if they are in the photo (Self timer? Some other photographer?). Like many legal questions it is more about the probability that someone would take legal measures in any given situation. The law says that the photographer has copyright rights to a photograph from the moment that they create it. But, if someone were to claim that they actually took a photo that was later used on an album cover, how would the photopgrapher prove their case? Would they do so? If the camera owner took all of the other photos on that roll of film, and could prove that, it might lean there way, maybe not. What if it is a digital camera, how would one link one photograph to others? Perhaps some kind of forensics. How would the photographer/camera owner even prove that any of the other photos in that batch (or roll) were taken by them?

IMO the risk of using a photo that a random passer by took for you is very low and the probability that someone making a claim would spend the money on a legal case and could win are low. But, that is just one random Wikipedia editors opinion in passing. The safest way (and still not risk free) would be to have a professional photographer take a photo that is intended to be used for commercial purposes (such as an album cover). They usually use film, have a unique camera format (often different from a conventional 35mm), they usually religiously number and document each roll and photo that they take, and they have a professional reputation that could possibly hold up in court better than a random passer-by.

Atom 13:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll not use the one where a passerby took a photo of the band. You mentioned timers, and, yes, when a self portrait is taken, a camera timer is often used by people taking a photo of themselves. When that occurs, I guess I had better make it clear. That is relevant in a different photo that has been submitted as a self portrait. I will get that clarified. But the photo I asked about regarding the passwerby is a band photo they told me on the front end was by a passerby; that is not the self portrait someone sent me that he took of himself, which I presumed was with a timer, but will get it made crystal clear since you mentioned that topic. Bebop
Meanwhile I really hope to get help on the other questions besides question 1, especially to find a French speaker to help me talk to a photographer (although I have now received a license consent from him). &ndash; Bebop 13:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC) (I only wanted to ask him a couple of things about how to do his name and make sure he didn't have any other questions, but I have since figured that out and also have been in touch with with a French speaker but the photographer didn't seem to me to have any questions and is not illiterate. He does understand English but the first day I wrote him he asked for a translation and I sent him a link to a French translation of the CC license and he then later approved the permission after getting the French translation. I just wanted to see if he had any other things to talk about to a French speaker but he knew I was waiting for one and he did not seem to feel he needed one any more but I've gotten one in touch with him if he needs one, not because of the license but just to make sure he has no questions about Wikipedia or anything else that he'd like to ask in French. He had the choice of waiting and indicated he understood the license and he did have a copy of it in French to read. I just like to make sure a French person has a French speaker to talk to before all communication is done with but he did approve the license clearly.) &ndash; Bebop 23:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Question #1 is a legal question. So far, the answers are unsatisfactory. They would seem to say that a camera operator in all movies in the history of the photo industry, owns the resulting images. Please! Ever hear of "Contract law"? Ever hear of "Oral contract"? Or "Implied contract"? "Condition"? "Waiver"? "Claim"? "Consent"? "Release"? These are all common words connected with legal doctrines at common law. By taking your camera and as a result of your words of instruction consenting to take a picture, without claiming ownership of the copyright there and then as the condition of taking it, there is no case. The burden will be on the operator to prove it, and they cannot without witnesses on their side to swear that they heard the necessary words. And of course, you will have witnesses on your side who heard your words of instruction. The ownership of the camera is beside the point (maybe it was borrowed). Where it gets murky is telling the necessary truth and claiming copyright for the purposes of publishing the picture, and protecting the publisher's self interest. But of course, you will have first secured the release from the stranger who took the picture if you thought you were going to claim copyright for the purposes of future publication. Didn't you do that? No? Then you have a nice picture to put in your private family album. Best not to offer the picture at all, because you will be frustrated by the publisher's reasonable demands. Caution: As always, beware of fraudsters. JohnClarknew 18:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

2 [moved to new section below because not answered yet. &ndash; Bebop 03:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)]

3. I need to locate a French-speaking editor familiar with copyright and licensing to help me communicate to a French photographer interested in letting us use a photo. But he does not yet understand CC by SA 2.5, so I cannot upload the image until he understands all the issues and he finds it confusing. I have email and can talk to the French editor in English at my email address and connect him with the photographer but I would like to upload and maintain the image since I know the details of who is in the photo. I wouldn't mind the French editor getting the permission done though. Or to find out if it's not really what the photographer would want to agree to. I don't want anyone agreeing to a license they really don't agree with if that ever comes up. There are plenty of advantages that can be mentioned to the photographer though since it's just one photo and can bring his other work attention by linking to his website and so forth in the photo description page. I'm also asking things to an admin by email but he is very busy and can't always answer. Contact me at my talk page or email me regarding item 3. (I have had licensing permission on the image for hours from the French photographer, but I still thought when I wrote this question earlier I wouldn't mind having a French speaking Wikipedia editor just check in with him to make sure he doesn't have any further questions, so I had one check with him.. He knew he had time to wait but went ahead and cleared it for the license after reading the French version of the license. I already finished with this barring anything new coming up.) &ndash; Bebop 23:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

4. [moved to new section because not answered]

5. [moved to new section because no one answered]

Thanks,

&ndash; Bebop 12:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Image Use

This is a copy of an email I sent requesting an image. Is the response enough to use the picture on Wikipedia? He agreed... sort of. Could anyone make sense of this? All personal information was replaced with +++++.


Hello +++++++++++++ - MusicNotes has forwarded your below e-mail to me, as we own/control the photo in question. I have no problem with your using the photo on Wikipedia, but cannot give any broader rights than that (especially commercial rights). Let me know if that works for you. Best regards, Greg Jansen VP Business Affairs Narada / Nara Music 150 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10011

Original Message From: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:11 PM To: Musicnotes Customer Service Subject: Help Forms - Other

Name: +++++++++++++ Email: +++++++++++++++++++ Issue: I am an editor of Wikipedia, a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate encyclopedia by open editing. We gather information from all types of sources, but the web sites of government bodies, institutes of higher learning, and other non-profit organizations are often particularly useful. The English-language version may be viewed on the Web at http://en.wikipedia.org/. As a unique and highly visible project, we freely and publicly release our work, that it may benefit mankind. To this end, we deeply respect copyright, and are careful to prevent any infringement.

We would like your permission to include resources created by your organization in our encyclopedia. Specifically, we are interested in copying your picture of David Lanz, accessible at www.musicnotes.com/features/artists/davidlanz/. In order for us to do so, it would be necessary for you to license your work under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which was designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for free works. You can find the license text at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.

If you licensed one or more of your documents under this license, you would retain full copyright. However, we would be licensed to distribute the material, as would future users of it. We would distribute your work free of charge. However, future commercial distribution could occur. This is because users of our encyclopedia are authorized by the GFDL to distribute it, or any part of it, for a fee.

The license does stipulate that any copy of the material, even if modified, must carry the same license. This guarantees that if licensed in this manner, no copy of your work could be made proprietary. That means that no one who distributes the work can ever restrict future distribution.

Please notify me if you are interested in licensing the picture of David Lanz, or all of your copyrighted material, under the GFDL. I can be contacted by e-mail at +++++++++++++++++++. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, +++++++++++++++

Thanks for your comments!!-Hairchrm 05:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid it isn't. Images to be included in Wikipedia have to be available for modification and commercial reuse. I could probably dig up a policy page to that effect, but that's the big point. You could try responding and emphasizing the point, but it already doesn't sound like your contact is willing to release the image under a suitable license. Melchoir 06:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
He's basically said no to a free license. You could write back and make sure he understands that you are not allowed to post anything just for Wikipedia to use but must have free licensed images using either Gnu Free Documentation License or Creative Commons by or CC by SA licensing and tell him thanks but if you put it up under a license restricted only to Wikipedia an editor will delete it. The only thing that seems unclear about his response is whether he understands you have no choice in this matter; he seems to think there's an option for him to just allow it in Wikipedia. Generally though he's already told you "no". &ndash; Bebop 13:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Policy question on closing XfDs

Should a discussion be automatically closed if the nominator withdraws the nomination, even if it is after several days and many contributions by many people? The case I'm specifically referring to is Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AtionSong/World's Longest Poem (second nomination), which Whedonette (talk · contribs · logs) withdrew AND closed for this stated reason. It seems to me to be somewhat disruptive to do so since many other people have taken the time to state and defend their position. I don't mind the nominator withdrawing, but it doesn't seem to me that the decision to close at that point is entirely up to the nominator. I'd like to see what other people think. —Doug&nbsp;Bell&nbsp;talk 23:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I say undo it. The common sense requirement is that you only close things where you decide that you nominated in error, as proven by other people unanimously opposing your nomination. When others are agreeing that it should be deleted it's no longer your decision. --tjstrf talk 23:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, I have undone it. It seemed the correct thing to do. The discussioni is almost five days old with many people weighing in on each side of the issue. —Doug&nbsp;Bell&nbsp;talk 23:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hijacking of Dictionary words

Somebody writes a specialized article based on a common word, and then claims to own the common word. Dr. Johnson would be horrified. Examples: I'm tired of arguing on their talk pages the merits in favor of Tenure and Option being allowed to retain their common meanings, letting the specialized versions take the hindmost in the shape of a parentheticised word describing the specialty, whatever it is. There should be a tag asking for an admin to either get the page name changed, or have it deleted. Meanwhile, I am sure many users who live outside the U.S. and U.K. are feeling deprived of information they have a right to. At the moment, any attempt to enlighten with an edit at the opening with an explanation that this is not the common usage of the word is reverted by a robocop reciting that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. JohnClarknew 07:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I think "live outside the U.S. and U.K." should actually just be "live outside the U.S." If "tenure" was mentioned in the UK, very few people would think of the academic term, since it's rarely used here. -- Necrothesp 18:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Ultimately, a discussion, either at talk:option or Wikipedia:Requested moves should take place and reach some conclusion.
I agree with older ≠ wiser though, a copy-n-paste move should not have been done, and moving the pages around as they suggest may be a good idea. --Interiot 18:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The answer, I think, is to append in the 1st position of only such articles (which keeps it over to the right) the Wiktionary tag. The ordinary meaning(s) of the word is then made instantly available to worldwide readers, and I hope that this might become officially endorsed as a policy. Many such cases are not able to provide a Disambig page which may or may not do something similar. It should offend no one, and there are still a few language purists around. As an example, check Tenure. JohnClarknew 19:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages

Go to Category:Disambiguation and you will see most of them list things that don't have articles either with red links or no links at all. Most do. However I find on some disambig pages, people with grudges against an acronym will control it (typical article WP:OWNing throughout Wikipedia) so nothing without articles appears. I dug through policy and I can't see anything that says one way or another. For instance see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GNAA&action=history One article gets deleted and some HighInBC (who does reverts within 2 minutes--what's this guy doing all day if in only two minutes 24 hours a day they revert the articles they control?) and Robotman1974 go around reverting any links they want. Robotman1974 does something like 8 reverts in the last 24 hours, so I am suspecting sockpuppets here and suspecting it because an admin reverts HighInBC and so Robotman1974 reverts the admin. There's three different disambiguations for the GNAA acronym and only this HighInBC/Robotman1974 holds a grudge against, and with them holding a grudge against one, they keep all the ones out they don't hold a grudge against. Can someone find policy where non links can stay or if they can't then it's fine for all non links in every disambig page to get deleted via bot to make it fair? Anomo 20:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC) Err I didn't look that closely at the last revert and it appears they left one of them in and only wanted the article recently deleted (I think on it's 200th AFD) not be mentioned. Anyway, I'm still curious about that disambig policy thing. Anomo 21:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I was rewriting my comment to be less negative, but I got an edit conflict, so I struck through it and here's how I rewrote it: "Go to Category:Disambiguation and you will see most of them list things that don't have articles either with red links or no links at all. Most do. However I find on some disambig pages, if an article gets deleted, it can't be mentioned on the disambig any longer. For instance see [42] and there's for instance one account does close to 8 reverts in 24 hours. Can someone find policy where non links can stay or if they can't then it's fine for all non links in every disambig page to get deleted via bot?" Anomo 21:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The short answer is, a redlink for an article that has never yet existed is fundamentally different from a redlink that has been removed, or a redlink to an article that has been deleted through a valid process. While the DRV is (was?) still ongoing, it will be trivial to re-add the link to that particular GNAA if/when the article is restored/recreated validly. -- nae'blis 21:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Should a deleted article be listed as just a text link without a link? Anomo 21:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Redlinks says:

Links to non-existent articles ("redlinks") may be included only when an editor is confident that an encyclopedia article could be written on the subject.

Since the article has been deleted by an AfD, one can no longer be confident that an encyclopedia article will be written about the subject, so it's very reasonable to remove the link. Keeping the entry around with no link is no good either, since disambiguation pages are solely for choosing between encyclopedia articles. --Interiot 21:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Hmm... What about on 7/11 where one is "7:11 (AM or PM), a time of day" with no links? Anomo 21:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
There are a huge number of disambiguation pages that need to be be corrected to meet our guidelines, because it's perhaps a little unintuitive that disambiguation pages aren't for listing meanings that have no encyclopedia article. Nonetheless, it's a well-established principle that relies on NOT a dictionary, so it's unlikely to change. wikt:GNAA does take dictionary entries, though I don't know their exact criteria for inclusion. Based on the lack of sources noted in the AfD, it might be similarly difficult to list it there, but you'd have to ask some wiktionary people. --Interiot 21:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Let me know if the interpretations I've put here aren't considered generally valid ... I believe they are, but accept the possibility that they aren't. There are some circumstances under which a red-link arising from an AfD action might be converted to a proper link, typically in cases where the AfD action related to deletion of the article but not the concept. Consider an article for a specific song on an album being deleted, but the article about the album existing, then a dab-entry can exist that refers to the song on the album, either by blue-linking to the album or by seeking approval for re-creation of the song article as a redirect tagged with Template:R to list entry. A more common occurrence is where a person's name appears on a dab page and the corresponding biographical article is deleted. For instance, let's assume that Mr. X was a perpetrator in a major crime; it is possible that the major crime might appear as an article or section and that Mr. X might be mentioned by name as a properly encyclopedic datum, but that a stand alone 'Mr. X' article might be disallowed through AfD action. In this case, 'Mr. X' appearing on a dab page would be appropriate with reference to the article about the crime in which Mr. X is mentioned ... but Mr. X must be mentioned therein - I've run across (and edited) cases where a cross-reference like this has been made and the target article has no mention of the referred concept; the reference should be eliminated in that case, where the target article is blind to the referred concept. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that seems generally valid, eg. if the only bluelink on the disambig entry was troll (Internet), that might work (it would definitely work if there are mistaken backlinks to GNAA that meant to link to the troll group). Though if that were the case, one would think it's preferable to instead make Gay Nigger Association of America a redirect to troll (Internet) instead (though I guess you'd have to consult those who salted the article... maybe salting it as a redirect would be okay). --Interiot 00:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Introductions

Now that I have been on Wikipedia for a while, I have noticed one striking "problem" or feature. Many articles have almost unreadable introductory paragraphs. Some of this is because of the Wikipedia Manual of Style itself (for example, see WP:MOSBIO). In short order, following the Manual of Style and carrying the policies to extremes, the introductory paragraphs become clogged up with details such as:

  • multiple names (sometimes 3 or 4 or 5 or more), all in bold face
  • alternative spellings, all in bold face
  • very detailed date information, and sometimes alternate date information when the dates are disputed
  • names in multiple languages and scripts (sometimes just one other script like Arabic or Chinese, but other times in 2 or 3 or more other scripts)
  • translitterations of foreign words
  • parenthetic information
  • semicolons and dashes
  • sentence fragments with no verbs
  • long lists of material separated by commas
  • multiple topics and caveats all strung together into one long sentence
  • pronunciation guides, sometimes with links to audio versions

If just one or two of these is present, things are not too bad. However, in some cases, it makes the articles completely inaccessible. A reader cannot read the first 3 or 4 sentences of the article and have any idea what the article is about. Many editors try to shove as much information as possible towards the front of the article and into the introduction, and this compounds the problem. I am afraid that the Wikipedia style policies exacerbate this problem. Comments?--Filll 14:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not have any great examples to offer, but a couple that I have tried to make a little cleaner, with mixed success are the articles about the Forbidden City, Nurhaci, Hung Taiji, Merlin and Yasser Arafat. I am showing their state before I put some work into trying to simplify the introductions. Not all of my changes were accepted, however. I have seen some worse examples, but these give the general idea of what I was referring to. It is my opinion that they are starting to get to be a bit dense for someone who just wants to find out what the subject is about, before digging into a lot of details.--Filll 03:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) notes that when more than 2-3 alternative names exist, it is often best to move them to a separate section. It might be nice if various MoS pages also mentioned this guideline (and the seeming unwritten rule that name information should not be added to one article when it is already present in another linked article).
Another solution that often works well, particularly when not a lot of explanatory text is needed, is a language infobox. Of course, opinions on those tend to be somewhat mixed, but it does seem that many articles would benefit from such a box -- particularly where there are multiple official names, each calling for separate transliterations. See {{chinesename}} and {{koreanname}} for examples in widespread use. And for a lively India-centered discussion of this issue, see Wikipedia talk:Vernacular scripts. -- Visviva 09:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Forbidden City, before editing

The Forbidden City or Forbidden Palace (Chinese: 紫禁城; pinyin: Zǐjinchéng; lit. 'Purple Forbidden City'; Manchu: Dabkūri dorgi hoton, literally "Layered Inner City"), located at the exact center of the ancient city of Beijing, China was the imperial palace during the mid-Ming and the Qing Dynasties. Known now as the Palace Museum (Chinese: 故宫博物院; pinyin: Gùgōng Bówùyùan), its extensive grounds cover 720,000 square meters, 800 buildings and more than 8,000 rooms. As such, it is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1977 as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties". The Imperial Palace Grounds are located directly to the north of Tiananmen Square and are accessible from the square via Tiananmen Gate. It is surrounded by a large area called the Imperial City.

Although no longer occupied by royalty, the Forbidden City remains a symbol of Chinese aristocracy and the image of Tiananmen, the entrance to the Imperial City, appears on the seal of the People's Republic of China. The Palace Museum is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. Recently, the site has been under much renovation which has limited visitors to the main courtyards and a few gardens.

Nurhaci, before editing

Nurhaci, also known as the Taizu Emperor, Nurhachi, or Nuerhachi (Chinese: 努爾哈齊; pinyin: Nǔ'ěrhāchì]; Manchu: ) (1558-September 30, 1626; r. 1616-September 30, 1626) was the last chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens and first Khan of Later Jin. He is considered to be the founding father of the Manchu state and is also credited with ordering the creation of a written script for the Manchu language. Nurhaci's organization of the Manchu people, his attacks on the Ming Dynasty and Joseon Dynasty Korea, and his conquest of China's northeastern Liaodong province, laid the groundwork for the conquest of China by the Qing Dynasty.

Hung Taiji, before editing

Hung Taiji (Manchu: ; Chinese: 皇太極 Huáng Tàijí; also known as 洪太極 Hóng Tàijí or 黃台吉 Huáng Táijí; sometimes referred erroneously to as Abahai in Western literature), (November 28, 1592-September 21, 1643), was first Khan of the Later Jin and then Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, after he changed its name, reigning from 1626 to 1643. He was responsible for consolidating the empire that his father, Nurhaci, had founded and for laying the groundwork for its eventual success in conquering Ming dynasty China, although he died before accomplishing that great achievement himself. He was responsible for changing the name of his people from Jurchen to Manchu in 1635 as well as that of the dynasty to Qing in 1636. The Qing dynasty would last until 1912.

Hung Taiji was the eighth son of Nurhaci and succeeded him as the second ruler of the Later Jin dynasty in 1626. Although it was always thought as a gossip, he was said to be involved in the suicide of Prince Dorgon's mother, Lady Abahai in order to block the succession of his younger brother.

Merlin, before editing

Merlin Ambrosius (Welsh: Myrddin Emrys) - also known in Welsh as Myrddin Wyllt (Merlin the Wild), and besides as Merlin Caledonensis (Merlin of Scotland), Merlinus, and Merlyn - is best known as the mighty wizard featured in Arthurian legends, starting with Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.

Other accounts distinguish two different figures named Merlin. For example, the Welsh Triads state there were three baptisimal bards: Taliesin, Chief of Bards, Myrddin Wyllt, and Myrddin Emrys. It is believed that these two bards called Myrddin were originally variants of the same figure; their stories have become different in the earliest texts that they are treated as separate characters, even though similar incidents are ascribed to both.

Yasser Arafat, before editing

Yassir Arafat (Arabic: ياسر عرفات‎) August 24 or August 4, 1929 &ndash; November 11, 2004), born in Cairo[1] to Palestinian parents Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (محمد عبد الرؤوف القدوة الحسيني) and also known by the kunya Abu `Ammar (أبو عمّار), was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (1969&ndash;2004); President[2] of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) (1993&ndash;2004); and a co-recipient of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, for the successful negotiations of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Arafat, however, was a controversial and polarizing figure throughout his lengthy career. While his supporters viewed him as a heroic freedom fighter who symbolized the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, his opponents often described him as an unrepentant terrorist with a long legacy of promoting violence. Still others accused him of being a deeply corrupt politician or a weak and devious leader. Arab nationalists believe that he made too many concessions to the Israeli government during the 1993 Oslo Accords. However, Arafat has been widely recognized for leading the Fatah movement, which he founded in 1957.

Wikipedia:Template locations

What happened to the Wikipedia:Template locations project page? I see this page has been changed for the last time in July 2006. Should it be marked as historical? BTW, someone should close the debates there. --Eleassar my talk 10:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I've marked it historical. Given the lack of recent response I don't quite see the point of closing the debates; I'm sure that anyone who wanted to draw a conclusion there has already done so. (Radiant) 15:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:PEACOCK

Could any statement fail WP:PEACOCK (and/or WP:WEASEL as well) due to citing a reliable source, as per WP:V? --Brand спойт 11:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Clarification: Brand probably refers to this edit of mine. The online reference he cited calls the guy not "one of the most" but one "one of quite" (весьма) revered hierarchs. --Ghirla -трёп- 12:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
A similar issue was discussed in regard to Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (a featured article) back in October. The lead formerly claimed that the photograph is "one of the most significant and recognizable images in history", quoting an American reference as its source. Many non-American readers, who never saw the photograph, were puzzled by the statement. In my opinion, no amount of referencing (especially taken from over-enthusiastic sources) justifies the abundance of peacock terms in an article. --Ghirla -трёп- 12:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I refer to the edit above in particular. In my opinion when there are several reliable sources provided (though it isn't the case), any statement could fail both WP:PEACOCK and WP:WEASEL (also because none of them are currently the official policies). If Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima would cite some non-American reliable sources along with American asserting that it's one of the most significant and recognizable images in history, the sentence could be restored. --Brand спойт 12:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean these are not official policies? What could be more official? --Ghirla -трёп- 12:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:PEACOCK and WP:WEASEL are not marked as official policy, so several issues could be discussed. Again, sharing the opinion, Trifon is not a good example, but if he were a quite revered indeed, it's worth of writing so (also bearing in mind that the Panagia on the Ribbon of Saint George was awarded only twice in its history). --Brand спойт 12:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Simply referencing it would normally be enough, but if the statement is excessively superlative, attribute it in the prose. "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima was called by [group name goes here] 'one of the most significant and recognizeable images in history'[ref]." --tjstrf talk 23:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Acceptable Sources for fashion articles?

Does Wikipedia have a policy regarding acceptable sources for fashion articles? My guess is that fashion magazines, as well as scholarly books about fashion, would be acceptable sources for fashion articles. The Question is wheteher tv shows, movies, CDs (Cover & insert pohtos), and other informal sources are acceptable for fashion articles. Tim Kennelly 06:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Samuel Ealy Johnson

I just moved Samuel Ealy Johnson to Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr.. For now I have placed a dab in its place. I am wondering if Samuel Ealy Johnson should be a dab or a redirect to Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). Any thoughts? TonyTheTiger 21:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd make it a separate dab, since someone looking for "Samuel Ealy Johnson" isn't interested in digging through all the other entries at Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). The latter page is fine as it is, though; there's no need to start a tree structure or anything. Melchoir 00:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
In fact, now that I read Samuel Ealy Johnson, you've already done exactly what I would have done. Whoops! Never mind, nothing to see here... Melchoir 00:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Illustrated Wikipedia

WikiProject Illustrated Wikipedia apparently aims to "illustrate" our articles using cartoons, as can be seen on the project page. I have a number of problems with it:

  1. The images are just not right for encyclopedic articles, even just as links (they are cartoons after all).
  2. The template used to distribute the images is clearly a self reference.
  3. The whole idea seems very spammy/self promotion.
  4. The idea does seem to have been discussed at all.
  5. We already have too much template clutter as it is.

My solution would be to use these templates/images on talk pages, if we have to have them at all. For the time being I have removed, as have a number of other editors, the templates from articles. Martin 15:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

If someone wants to contribute their talents to Wikipedia, and especially if they have considerable talents, it would be good to work to try to find where their efforts can help the project the most. Some general comments though:
  • Because the images are completely original (eg. aren't a snapshot of a real scene, and aren't directly tracing a reliable source), the images would have to meet all our content policies... verifiability, neutrality, formal tone of voice, etc. Some illustrated work does take a more formal tone, so I don't think we should bar all illustrated content, no matter what. But I'm not sure the current illustrations would meet our standards for content.
  • "Wikipedia" should not be mentioned in the cartoon, per WP:SELF. The template can at least be fixed after the fact. But the content here is meant to be distributed by others, and it's awfully hard to remove bits of text from an artistic image. If "Wikipedia" is prominently displayed for reasons that are similar to this template, then the author should be reminded that Wikipedia content is intended to be distributed by many other people. (it's entirely acceptable to require attribution to the original author, but trying to tie it to a particular distribution point is not) --Interiot 17:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I think they're brilliant (it's just a matter of determining where they should go), but at least two of them rely on fair use and so shouldn't have been uploaded to Commons&mdash;the facial hair comic depicts the copyrighted character Spock, and the Dr. Seuss comic makes use of Geisel's distinctive illustrative style (thus making it derivative of his work), and directly copies visual elements of the Cat in the Hat and the fish from that story. Postdlf 19:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Seriously, I love this idea. As for the Spock thing, I thought parody works were allowed because they don't infringe on the actual copyright holder. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 19:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Parody is not infringement because it qualifies as fair use. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.. Postdlf 19:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I understand now. Thanks. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 19:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the carttons, but unfortunately, if they pass the parody test then by definition they fail Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.--Dgray xplane 22:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Can someone really copyright a drawing style, Someguy? Like, Warner Brothers' Anastasia looked awful early-1990s Disney-like, but Disney didn't complain to my knowledge. I correct people to this day about who created the animation. -- Zanimum 21:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

These are great! There's nothing intrinsically unencyclopedic about cartoons. However, the presentation of the images within their articles needs work, and I can see why so many of Greg's edits were reverted. Perhaps they should simply be thumbnailed as Zanimum did at Hammerspace (current version)?

The self-references should absolutely be removed, but that's easy enough with any image editor, and it's allowed by the CC license. The concern that comes to my mind is this: the images contain an unusually large amount of text which is not easily edited. Not very wiki-like. Perhaps the creator could be persuaded to provide editable source files, such as Photoshop docs with the text layers intact? This would also help with translating to other languages. Melchoir 00:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do the self-references detract? In my opinion, it lets the reader know that they should temporarily suspend reality, and enter the "WikiWorld".
As for the assertation that it's not "wiki-like" to make the images uneditable: how does this differ from any other diagram? Justification for the uneditability:
  • It's his handwriting, not a font, so any attempt to reproduce the writing would end up ugly.
  • "Hyperthymesia" does use computer generated text, but in an uncommon, copyrighten font.
  • If you change what selections of text are used, the images and pacing are weakened. One of Greg's strengths in this cartoon series is that the images aren't just random drawings, they link to the text, and often provide much deeper insight into the topic than the text alone, by providing humourous "case studies". -- Zanimum 21:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree completely. These should be viewed as something different from articles, so that the same principles and rules don't apply. In most cases, attempts to edit or change these are going to ruin their integrity. There's also no reason why someone can't copy the pictures, add different ones, rearrange them, and add their own completely different text into a separate comic as an alternate version. Nor should multiple comics on a single topic be viewed as mutually exclusive with one another. Multiple articles would be a mess, but multiple illustrated interpretations can coexist. Postdlf 22:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The self-references detract in the same way any self-reference detracts. They limit the images' usefulness to downstream publishers. They're distracting and inelegant from a design perspective. And, as other users have commented, they suggest a purpose of self-promotion. Zanimum, I don't understand your point about suspending reality at all.
I can't think of a qualitative difference between the editability of the cartoons and of other media on Wikipedia, but the cartoons just have a greater amount of information. Along with that, they have a greater possibility that they will need to be edited for neutrality and factuality. I'm not saying it's a deal-breaker, but we should always explore ways to make Wikipedia easier to interact with. Postdlf, why should any attempt to edit a cartoon ruin its integrity? You might have to tweak Image:Hyperthymesia cartoon.jpg if a second case is confirmed, and in Image:Dr seuss cartoon.JPG the text has little connection to the imagery, so you could rewrite most of it without impacting its overall quality. Melchoir 07:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to Deletion Process

I would like to see WP:DELPRO changed slightly, particularly the Non-admins closing AfD's section. I would like to see non-admins permitted to speedy close deletion debates, particularly, but not limited to AfD's. Some non-admins have already done this once or twice ([1]). Clearly, in that example, there was a community consensus, and if it wasn't for this tiny little clause in this policy, I would have done it myself. Thanks!

This preceding statement in a nutshell:
I want the following to be ammended 
Non-administrators may not "speedy-close" deletion discussions. They must either express their view that
the debate should be "speedy-closed" in the normal procedure, or wait until the discussion has run the
full AfD period to close it as a "keep" if there is a concensus to do so.

to 

Non-administrators may "speedy-close" deletion discussions. In the event of a speedy keep, the non-admin
should close the discussion just as an admin would. For speedy delete, the non-admin should place {{db}
on the top of the article, citing the page of the AfD.

Thanks! &mdash; Deon555talkdesk 08:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

It would really be better to discuss this on WP:DELPRO and simply inform others of the debate here. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 09:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, that block of text was originally added by an anon on October 6 undiscussed, and contrary to guidelines WP:SNOW and Wikipedia:Speedy keep. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 09:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
(after ec) Now normally it wouldn't be correct to just revert this out of the policy, but I draw your attention to this edit: [43] where that paticular clause was made by an anon. Should I just remove it? &mdash; Deon555talkdesk 09:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
edit: great minds... &mdash; Deon555talkdesk 09:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems the other editors liked his contribution, since they rewrote it almost completely. Through introduction it gained consensus. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 09:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Moved to WT:DELPRO by &mdash; Deon555talkdesk

Tagging a commons image as unverified

What is the recommended way to deal with commons images that you have tagged for deletion? I tagged Image:Correa.c.jpg.gif for deletion on the commons here Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Correa.c.jpg.gif. However as I wished to inform people the image was up for deletion, I tagged it {{unverifiedimage}} on the Rafael Correa page. But this means it directs people to Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images so I had to include a comment there telling people to discuss it in the commons. Is this the best way to deal with such images or should I have just subst the template and then modified it to direct to the commons and/or not used a template? Nil Einne 07:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I think the best thing would be to create a new template that links to commons, or add a parameter to the existing template to make it point to commons instead. People at WP:TR can help if you want. (Radiant) 11:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention proposal concerning controversial names

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#RfC new proposal regarding controversial names - a proposed addition to the naming conventions which discourages editors from editing for the sole purpose of changing between controversial names, and specifically allows multiple names to be used on wikipedia when there lacks consensus to support one over the other.

I am sick of seeing editors going through pages systematically changing one controversial name to another (such as BCE/CE to BC/AD, or removing or adding the word "Roman" when it is next to "Catholic Church"). A disclaimer arose from the last vote over at Talk:Roman Catholic Church on whether to change the name to CC or keep it RCC. There are editors who feel strongly that certain controversial names are better than other controversial names, and aren't scared to make wikipedia reflect their personal opinion. It seems like common sense to me, but I wanted to see something in writing that say "hey, some names are really controversial, and wikipedia has been unable to choose between them, so we allow both. So DON'T go around editing with the sole purpose of changing controversial names, ok?". So I have modified the disclaimer to be more inclusive, and posted a proposed text at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#RfC new proposal regarding controversial names. Are there more controversial names that we could list? Is this a good idea? Thanks for your imput.--Andrew c 00:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Over the last few weeks, I have noticed that there is a tendency for certain articles to be targets of links to outside commercial sites, or sites that are bordering on commercial activity. The articles I have noticed this for include "Way of St. James", "Santiago de Compostela", and "Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela". The number of outside books quoted, and outside links to guides etc seems to grow and grow and constantly need to be culled. I am not even sure that all the books and links that are currently listed are appropriate. Do people ever consider making a separate page to capture these links so as to not clog up the main articles? Or should they just be edited away aggressively?--Filll 19:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

They're almost always edited away aggressively. WP:EL is a guideline that you can rely on when trimming links away. A "place all your spam here" page might be entertaining at first, but probably wouldn't be useful to our readers. If there really are quite a few useful links that aren't notable enough to deserve their own article, it's preferable that DMOZ handle the link organization instead.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam is a group of editors who focus on dealing with external link problems. There are several templates ({{Cleanup-spam}}, {{external links}}) that can be put on pages to warn spammers away, and to make sure the article is cleaned up at some point. --Interiot 19:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Optimum size of film synopsis

I'd like to know if there is an acceptable optimum size for a film synopsis. I've noted that *most* are OK; say, a few paragraphs long, but some are almost as long as the original screenplay, with lots of basically irrelevant details! Any opinions please? --Robert Fraser 01:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Strong opinions. Long synopses are bad. They're impossible to read and frequently confusing. They're written by editors who have done no research beyond watching the movie and don't understand that articles are written to be READ. I have now spent years trying to prune Bollywood synopses and have in return reaped a rich harvest of revert wars and angry talk page messages. "Attack my boring prose and you're attacking ME!" A general policy re synopses of films, plays, novels, etc. would be useful in curbing editor garrulity.
Perhaps a guideline such as: synopses not to exceed one screen's worth of material? You should not have to scroll to read? What is that in words? Zora 01:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Limiting the synopses to a single screen is problematic because of the difference in screen size. My largest monitor lets me view most articles on a single page and most of our longest articles on 3 pages (It's like, 1800xsomething) while my old laptop can only do 800x640 and needs to scroll for anything longer than a stub. --tjstrf talk 02:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Good point. OK, I'm shot down :) What would be a reasonable number of words to set as the upper bound? Zora 03:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Three comments. 1) To Zora: Editors should be directed to WP:OWN. If they continue to revert the edits without reasonable justfication beyond "This is my article, you may not touch it", report to WP:ANI or other venues for triple revert violations. Also, if their original synposes are unreferenced, then you can delete them without prejudice as violating WP:V. 2) Extensive synopses can be seen as original research. A film synopsis here should be referenced to a source INDEPENDANT OF THE FILM. As such, we can only reference synopses done by reliable, third party sources. Long synopses which only reference the film itself can be removed with justification via WP:OR, WP:V or WP:NN. 3) Wikipedia's Manual of Style sets a practical upper limit for articles at 32 kB. Synopses can be pared down so the whole article is under 32 kB. I am under the unqualified opinion that a synopsis should be no longer than the rest of the article combined. If the synopsis is more than ~50% of the article, it should be reduced. --Jayron32 06:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Jayron's point 2 is key. Alot of "synopses" do fall into the realm of original research especially with the excessive details and fancruft. Most reliable sources (like movie reviews and write ups) are written under there own style and length guideline (because they ARE meant to be read) and if you are citing one of those reliable sources then you already have a limit to how long the synopsis will be. If we are strict about asking for referencing then you will have an internal helping hand to limit the length of those sections. Agne 20:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Referencing isn't necessary in a plot synopsis, since the original work serves as the primary source. As long as the synopsis just summarizes the work and doesn't draw any conclusions, they can be written by wp editors and don't need to be brought in from elsewhere. Style and length guidelines are the key. --Milo H Minderbinder 20:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
WP:TROUT? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 20:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

A practical observation: Articles on pop culture tend to attract a lot of fan-stuff, and hence tend to grow over time. Suggest you write a short plot synopsis and also provide a "details" section (whatever you choose to call it). Edit the plot section rigorously. Allow fans some slack in the "details" part. Occasionally someone will come along and take out the trash. Meanwhile the user (who just wants information) will have a nice short plot summary. Gaohoyt 19:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Can't find rules

I'm trying to put together an argument to get a page undeleted. Scanning other, similar arguments, I see others citing rules Wikipedia has concerning the posting of articles that are very specific, i.e. "Rule #6 on articles about musicians." Where do I find these more specific rules? Paperman299 00:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

A good place to start is probably WP:POLICY. The article itself is a start, then move on to the links in the box on the right. --Milo H Minderbinder 00:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
There's a rather large number of such pages, and it depends on the specific content. WP:MUSIC is probably what you mentioned as an example; WP:BIO, WP:BLP, and WP:CORP are also oft-cited guidelines. Doc Tropics 00:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the awards for most cited go to WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT personally. If you're arguing about notability though, the policy you want is Wikipedia:Notability and its related pages. --tjstrf talk 00:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability is not a Policy; it is just a guideline, and a disputed one at that; it may well go back to being an essay or proposal due to lack of consensus. The only notability policy is the inclusion by name in WP:DEL of a small number of topical notability guidelines as actionable deletion criteria. The vast majority of things listed in Category:Wikipedia notability criteria are not actionable deletion criteria. Many are not even guidelines yet. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 10:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Though it's important to point out that notability is used so much in AfD's that the Washington Post (a very prominent newspaper) has written about it. [44] The piece mentions "notability" 13 times. Whether or not it's policy, it's an extensively used concept right now, and worth knowing about if someone is wanting to know why a specific article might or might not be deleted. --Interiot 10:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
The numbered rules are most likely Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, which can be used to delete an article without going through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. You should make sure the article doesn't meet any of the criteria here (note though, that this is not an exhaustive list of why articles can be deleted -- see Wikipedia:Deletion policy). Fagstein 09:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

In other words, there is a complex maze of Wikipedia policies. Probably, all you need to keep in mind is that articles must be verifiable in reliable published souces. If there are highly reliable sources on a subject, there should be no problem keeping an article on it. Unless it is a copyright infringement. —Centrx→talk&nbsp;&bull; 09:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Or it's on a company and the wrong person sees it and you forgot to explicitly put "x is a NOTABLE corporation" in the first sentence. --tjstrf talk 10:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
If an article cites reliable sources, that's not likely to happen. —Centrx→talk&nbsp;&bull; 10:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

As a newbie I do agree that Wikipedia is a bit of a maze. As a matter of ettiquette, when a new user appears confused, I wish people would make a habbit of pointing them to pages like WP:POLICY instead of specific policies. When people quote specific policies -- especially when they're advocating deletion -- the natural reaction is to feel attacked.--Dgray xplane 00:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Policy clarification re: shopping malls

I am back commenting on policy/guidelines regarding articles on individual shopping centers. I posted some comments on the talk page of WP:CORP arguing for a policy to be set for such articles. Using guidelines from several different places, alone, as guidance on the part of editors and admins seems too vague for a subject that is so controversial. In my opinion a policy needs to be developed that acknowledges the inherent notability of the individual mall (in many but not all cases) on cultural, social and economic grounds, yet prevents spam and abuse of Wikipedia. I'm repeating some of these comments here.

In the interest of preventing advertising, part of the policy should state that a minimum number of outside non-trivial reliable sources (maybe 3-5) be used in a mall article, and that sources from the mall owner/developer be limited to an external links section, not a "references" section. The article should follow a suggested standardized format in which there is some discussion of the mall's cultural, social and economic impact on the local market area, as supported by these outside sources. Newspapers and magazine articles count as reliable secondary sources based on my understanding of the guidelines for notability.

Any mall article not meeting these standards should be candidates for the AfD process, but not speedy deleted unless, after careful review of the page and its history, intent can clearly be deduced to spam, advertise, vandalize or otherwise committ major violations of policy. In the case of a speedy delete, the article should be immediately placed in DRV by the deleting admin and the last editor notified on his/her talk page and given a chance to argue his/her case and/or rewrite/resubmit the article. If the article is not so argued within a set amount of days the delete is made permanent. If an unrelated editor recreates the page, a tag should be placed on the page saying the page was deleted and will be gone within 72 hours, with the new editor given a chance to argue the case on the talk page of the article itself. If speedied, repeat the automatic appeal process as just described.

I am not an admin and this proposal may not be workable, but I'm trying my best to generate a solution to this dilemma since it seems to be a recurring issue. Does this sound like a good start? Would it be better as an addendum to WP:CORP?--Msr69er 22:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The mall deletions that happened recently were mainly of sub-stub articles that weren't well-referenced. Though I think one could take issue with some of them being deleted, if the articles had had a couple of sources, and had been clearly more than a list of stores, then it would have been much less likely that they would have been deleted.
Again, I'm not saying that articles that are lacking necessarily deserve to be deleted (though it's being considered, see Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles). However, I've seen borderline articles go from everyone voting delete in an AfD to everyone voting keep once someone added a number of independent reliable sources to the article.
Along the same lines, I don't think the mall deletions meant to state that the specific malls weren't notable enough... simply that the existing text didn't provide much encyclopedic content, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if the text were rewritten at a later point with more encyclopedic content and more sources. --Interiot 00:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
There is discussion at WP:MALL as to what guidelines should be used for retaining articles about shopping malls. There is also discussion of putting them under WP:LOCAL. Edison 21:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Defense against policy violations

Some official policies appear to allow violations, eg:

  • Assume good faith - This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary.

Some official policies do not allow violations, eg:

What about the official policies on Civility and No personal attacks? Can anyone envisage any exceptions to the rule? --Iantresman 19:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

There's always the occasional slip, but I can't think of any consistent way to correctly violate those. As an example, maybe, but then you're reachin for WP:POINT. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 19:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


:: That's not a "violation" of AGF - that's a simple common sense approach and an aspect of the actual policy that says AGF does not apply if the evidence presented means that policy does not apply. That's like saying reverting the same vandalism (for example "Famous person likes anal sex with dogs") 5 times in a row is a violation of 3RR. --Charlesknight 19:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. It merely means what it says. Good faith is a rebuttable presumption. You only need to assume it, if it hasn't been rebutted. Gene Nygaard 09:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
But how about Civility and No personal attacks? Is there a defense? --Iantresman 10:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is also policy, which allows exceptions to any other policy. If those exceptions are not defensible, they will be overturned eventually. GRBerry 20:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Except the NPOV rule, correct? EReference 20:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

On exceedingly rare birds

I've been thinking about the issue of newly discovered, or highly inaccessible species for which the only available images are copyrighted ones taken by nongovernment scientists, explorers, journalists, etc. I don't actually know how common this is a problem, but it's a frequent hypothetical raised in fair use discussions. As only the expression contained within a photograph is copyrighted, but not the information it provides about the species' appearance, I wonder if it is possible to instead create a drawn illustration of the animal that can source its information to such a photograph, but that does not constitute a derivative of it because it does not use any copyrighted expressive elements (i.e., does not use the composition and angle, etc. of the photograph). A body outline "template" (in the visual sense, not the Wikipedia sense) may be possible to create for usage whenever the species' form is of a general type, such that all that would be necessary would be the filling in of coloration or other superficial structures to show that species' particular varations from the general type. The only problem I see with this is ensuring the accuracy of the illustration, and ensuring that it is not such an extrapolation from the photographs as to constitute OR; I guess this would depend upon how informative the available photographs are. Thoughts? Postdlf 15:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC) (note: this was cross-posted to Wikipedia talk:Fair use)

An original drawing would be fine. A fair use photo might be better. Trollderella 13:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, deleting all but the most common birds might be a better approach, in line with current thinking on the 'pedi. Trollderella 22:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Use of vernacular scripts in India bio articles - 3

Now that the voting issue has been discussed to find that there was really no voting involved, or even it was there was no point in it, I hope that the original discussion can resume again. As far as I can deduce it was on vernacular scripts being used in India bio articles without a guideline and often to reflect personal opinions about political correctness. Therefore, I only deemed it right to restart it under a new heading, the third one (the discussion above was getting too long to edit comfortably anyways). Well, now pitching my two cents in:

  1. Vernacular scripts in India bio articles may be completely pointless in the English version of WP, especially when IPA pronounciations are being provided (not always too precisely though, someone needs to check them).
  2. The only relevant use of vernacular scripts may be associated with Mandarin. Romanization of all the nuances of the Mandarin script is beyond hope, even IPA falls short on that (at least the grasp of IPA for almost all the cases). You may check the above discussion (I hope to have some Manadrin-speaking Wikipedians to comment on this).
  3. All other vernacular scripts, espacially in Indian bio articles may be removed.
  4. If those scripts are allowed to stay, there may be guidelines to keep out of trouble:
  1. Use only the scripts that reflect the subject's ethnic origin, and may be the subject's language of operation (thus a Tamil poet writing in Urdu may have both scripts).
  2. Keep theses relevant scripts only if it implies an article in the WP written in that particular script (may be it should be linked to that other version WP as well, as a policy).
  3. Religion and politics should be kept particularly out of consideration (I'd rather propose a ban on any bigot or zealot who presses those points, but that's only my personal opinion)

I hope I've useful here. Thank you all. - Aditya Kabir 16:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Post Script. Many users have used differences in pronounciation in different Indian languages (like kaajol and kaajal) to extent of saying IPA is no match for these difference. Well, I hope we all can learn to pronounce Rimbaud's name correctly in his native toungue. Come on, guys, is this an encyclopedia or a dictionary? If you have problems pronouncing Kajal's name, please, make use of the Wiktionary. - Aditya Kabir 17:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Post Post Script (I can't stop myself from commenting, it seems). Here's more of my money broken down into two cent increments:

  • If someone wants to find out what the name looks like in vernacular script, please, visit the WP version in appropriate script, there should be link on that very page. If someone really cares about "people who like to look at names of notable people in vernacular scripts even if they can't read it" he/she should come forward and create an entry, at least a stub, on the subject in the version of WP in that script.
  • Using Greek scripts may be ruled out. For God's sake, more people reads Hindi than Greek. What are we trying to prove by providing Greek spellings?
  • The Kalarippayattu infobox may be useful for a non biographical subject restricted to use in a couple of scripts. Try imagining the same case for a Miss India who represnts all of India.
  • Would someone, please, explain the রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর argument (try figuring out what that, written in Bengali script, means if you're not familiar with the script) or the काजोल (that's in Hindi script, hahaha) argument? I feel there are interesting points there, but can't figure it out.

Ain't I full of opinions? Yours - Aditya Kabir 17:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Use of vernacular scripts in India bio articles - 1

This is a request for some direction regarding the use of vernacular scripts in some India related articles. There have been numerous on-going disputes in articles such as Vidya Balan, Rabindranath Tagore, Jana Gana Mana Bollywood and dozens others. These disputes are based on which scripts to use and even on which order they should appear. The use of these script in my opinion does not add any value. This is an English language encyclopedia. If the scripts are initially intended to provide pronunciation tips, then they are not needed as the reader able to read the scripts already know how to pronounce them. Rather these scripts are used to label someone's ethnicity, leading to regional and linguistic chauvinism. I think there needs to be a policy drawn up to encourage discontinuing these scripts unless they fulfil some useful function in the article. - Parthi talk/contribs 05:39, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This question has previously been raised on the policy pages (by me). The problem continues. One user in particular is incensed by the use of Nastaliq script to write names. He believes that this indicates an origin in an Urdu-speaking (and thus probably Muslim) community and should function only as an ethnic/religious marker. Some editors add script, then he removes it.
The result of previous deliberation here was that no enforcement of tolerance was possible until we had a general policy. I think I've got a possible general policy. If we need a pronunciation guide, we use IPA. If we are quoting a written work, such as a Sanskrit or Arabic text, we can use the script, as is often done in scholarly discourse. Otherwise. non-Roman script is not to be used with names, proper nouns, etc. However, we CAN put such scripts, or foreign versions of the words or names, in teeny type in a box at the bottom of the article, IF there exists an article on the same subject in the Wiki in that language. So a name in Devanagari script would link to an article in the Hindi Wikipedia. There is no requirement to make such scripts, and such links, visible, but it can be done if editors wish. Since the criterion is existence of an article, the scripts cannot be used as covert ethnic/religious tags. If more than one script is used to write the language, then all scripts can be given (if supplied) and they are NOT to be deleted by adherents of rival scripts. (Not just Devanagari and Nastaliq here, but PROC and Taiwanese versions of Chinese script, etc.) Comments? Zora 07:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Script should be in the language of the state that person originates from. Urdu should only be used for a mulsim indian or a pak.--D-Boy 07:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Quod erat demonstrandum. Zora 07:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
which was to be demonstrated?--D-Boy 07:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there is another problem here: not all "Muslim" Indians speak Urdu. For example, those from West Bengal are very unlikely to speak Urdu as their mother tongue. Similarly, not all Pakistanis speak Urdu as their mother tongue (yes, it's their national language, but not the native language of the majority). --Ragib 07:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Urdu is no way connected to being a muslim or a pakistani.In Indian biographies, Urdu script should be added only if his/her mother tongue is urdu .-Bharatveer 07:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)Bharatveer 07:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Exactly!--D-Boy 07:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree. If we are talking about a Tamil Muslim like Abdul Kalaam (say), then an Urdu script is inappropriate because his native language is Tamil (Tamil Muslims even read the Koran in Tamil, not Arabic).It's about native Language. A Pakistani may not have Urdu as a mother tongue either, as he could be a Sindhi or Punjabi or Pashtu, in which case both Urdu and Sindhi/Punjabi/Pushtu would be appropriate. Urdu as the national language of Pakistan and Sindhi/Punjabi/Pushtu are the regional languages (dunno is Pakistan uses the term "Mother Tongue" in any legal context, probably not).An Indian would have his/her name in both Hindi and the native script, whatever that is, whether Urdu, Marathi, Gujarati, Sindhi, Bengali, Telegu, Malayalam, or whatever. The Hindi needs to be there on account of it being the national language, and the mother tongue (officially regarded as such) would also be there. Only official mother tongues must be recognized. I do not know what is the position of Pakistan government regarding non-Urdu languages, so am speculating about them. I can be certain about India, obviously.Hkelkar 07:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Where is the relevant WP policy for this? - Parthi talk/contribs 07:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
We're making it as we go along. I think we need a concensus on the WP India so everyone knows.--D-Boy 07:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I doubt if there will be country specific policies. At best, we should work on this at WP:MOS or come to an agreement at Wikipedia:WikiProject India. As this is unique to India related articles, more relevant input is likely to be found there. &mdash; Lost(talk) 07:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
It should probably go into an indic maual of style or the indic naming conventions.--D-Boy 08:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
This never got off the ground:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles)--D-Boy 08:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I diagree with the suggestion that the English language WP should have vernacular scripts indicating the subject's ethnicity and/or religion. - Parthi talk/contribs 07:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't think Kajol speaks urdu. Why is it there? She's bengali and marathi which has the correct scripts.--D-Boy 08:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
How do we know she speaks a particular language or not? Her father is of Bengali ethnic origin, and mother is Marathi, but does that mean she speaks either of these languages? I'm not saying she speaks or doesn't speak any of these languages, but how do we know which one is considered to be her "native" language here? --Ragib 08:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, we do know that she Bengali and that she's part of mukerjee clan. I think the script is appropiate for that situation. An article say like SRK or even Big B would be appropiate for Urdu. Big B's father was an urdu writer.--D-Boy 08:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
That's a problem, because you can't be sure that; just because her father is Bengali, she speaks the language (unless there is info as such). I mean, we should not deduct these things about someone's native language. Jawed Karim's father is Bangladeshi, but he doesn't list Bengali as his native tongue. --Ragib 08:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I think Bengali would be appropiate in that article since he is of bangladeshi descent. If ethinicity and religion are going to get in the way of things such as this, than we should just have it as English...especially for bollywood stars.--D-Boy 08:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, why is urdu on Punjab (India)? When I add the devangari on Punjab (Pakistan), I am accussed of vandalism. This is hypocractic.--D-Boy 08:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

We need a fixed policy on this. One for places, and the other for people's names. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles)...--D-Boy 09:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


I should add that this is not just a problem limited to India-related articles. I am spending much less time on Islam-related articles, but there's a trend there for people to add non-Roman scripts with abandon. It starts with Arabic, someone adds Persian, someone else adds Turkish, etc. There are indeed persistent problems related to Abbasid-era luminaries, with Arabs and Iranians scuffling over who gets to claim the luminary for bragging rights, but those tend to be waged over specific statements re ethnicity. Scripts aren't being used, as some editors here would have us do, as ethnic-religious markers.

The problem is that many people are unclassifiable. Insisting on classification WITHIN a nation-state strikes me as utterly bizarre. Zora 09:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not bizarre. It's completely logical. What's bizarre is having the urdu there. Especially, say when a person is blatently bengali! As for the Islam related articles, I don't get involved there. We had one user threaten another one from there on the phone! What we are discussing as to do with Indic articles, not islamic ones.--D-Boy 18:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The solution is merely keeping the scripts from their ethnicity (vidya balan - tamil/ malayalam), this policy has worked on all the Category:Bengali people (due to the hard effort of WP Bengal) articles. Wikilink to other articles. As for Big B, I usually wouldnt support nastaliq, but his dad was a famous urdu poet, and Big B was more than likely raised learning urdu.Bakaman Bakatalk 15:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree. We should include this in our manual of style. Also, the punjab(pak) was reverted again!--D-Boy 18:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Why should we label someone's ethnicity? This will only lead to unproductive disputes and edit wars on the various articles. If the vernacular scripts are not there only to provide information on the subjects ethnicity, then they are NOT needed. - Parthi talk/contribs 18:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Then the urdu should be removed because it's NOT needed.--D-Boy 21:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Would you be happy to remove all vernacular scripts and simply keep English and IPA for all India related pages? - Parthi talk/contribs 22:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I would be happy if it was just english on the bollywood articles, hindi movies, and indian entertainer bios. Everything else usually isn't a problem except for maybe the punjab situation. But how will you enforce such a policy? Will editors follow it? We have no manual of style on this. Will this apply to chinese, japanese, korean, arabic...and so on. They have scripts for all their articles.--D-Boy 02:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I second Parthi's idea that all vernacular scripts be removed. They don't serve any purpose really. I was thinking about this for a long time. If the purpose was to deliver the pronunciation to local readers, then there are 20 odd Scheduled languages in India, and thousands in the world. This is English Wikipedia. Pronunciation can be given thru IPA, if needed. If a link is needed for similar article in other languages, that is what the inter-language links on the sidebar are for. May be we can go into a straw poll regarding this. This stuff needs a cleanup and will significantly reduce the unnecessary indic name translation on English Wikipedia and the edit wars that come with it. -- Chez (Discuss / Email) 00:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

This discussion and the one at Talk:Vidya Balan are leaning towards removing these scripts. If we can draw up a policy for India related articles to disallow vernacular scripts for new articles, we can retrospectively edit the hundreds of Bollywood and India bio articles over a period of time. The main intent of this discussion is to reach an agreement on the use of the vernacular scripts. The consensus seems to point to not using these scripts. Please correct me if I'm wrong - Parthi talk/contribs 19:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Parthi, from my understanding, those participating in this discussion support removing Indic scripts from Indian Biography articles, not Bollywood film and song and other India-related articles. Correct? Thanks, AnupamTalk 19:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
My understanding is that there is no need for the non-roman scripts in any of the articles in an English language encyclopedia unless they convey some unique information not conveyable otherwise. Hence the scripts will have to go in all artiles. Before tackling the world at large, let us tackle something closer to our home. If we can draw up a policy for India related articles, WP:MOS can be influenced to impact all other articles aswell. IMO these scripts add no additional information and have been a source of endless point scoring and linguistic and regional rivalry. - Parthi talk/contribs 20:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
In that case, I am opposed to this policy. I can understand the ethnicity issue with Biography-related articles, but not with clear-cut issues. In regards to Bollywood films and songs: Several Bollywood film covers that utilize Indian scripts give the two standard registers of Hindustani: Hindi and Urdu. You can take a look at some of these film covers: Image:Awaaraposter.jpg, Image:Waqt 1965 film poster.JPG, Image:Sholayposter2.jpg, Image:Padosan film poster.jpg, etc. I have provided a few here for you all. However there are many more. Please also see these references: Bollywood for the Skeptical and What is Bollywood?. Both references metion the use of Urdu and Hindi in Bollywood songs and films. Despite my giving of these references, it is quite clear that film titles are presented in both Hindi and Urdu. In the Saare Jahan Se Achcha article, Bakasuprman and Mahawiki supported keeping the Hindi script on an Urdu song article for the same reason. That is why Wikipedia articles employ one article for many topics relating to Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani (i.e. Hindi-Urdu grammar, Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization, Hindustani orthography, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) word etymology, etc.) Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani, which has been established as one language by many. For example many sources such as infoplease, Tigerx, and several others classify them together when giving populations statistics of speakers. Not to mention, linguists count them together as one language. I do not see any point in excising Indic scripts from song and film articles when the argument to keep them has been well buttressed. In addition, there are many editors (from looking at the Bollywood talk discussion) that would support this argument, including DaGizza, Dieresis, Ragib, and Basawala. Many of these editors do not have their opinions represented here. As of now there are a plethora of editors who add both the Devanagari and Perso-Arabic scripts to film articles, including myself, Devilitself, and Basawala. To remove these scripts from relevant articles would invalidate the countless hours that we have put forth in scripting these articles. In addition, I highly doubt that the rest of Wikipedia will follow suit in removing scripts from other articles. They are an important part in defining human civilization. Thanks for your time and understanding. I am looking forward to hearing your valuable responses. Shanti, AnupamTalk 20:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

(Resetting indent) I think there are advantages in having the native script in many cases. For example, Rabindranath Tagore's name is written in Bengali language (his native one) as রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর, which is pronounced as Robindronaath Thhakur. So, the native script and its transliteration is definitely necessary here. In many cases, the "English" language versions of these names sound a lot different from the actual name.

The only problem with having several scripts is that, often there are disagreements over what the native language is (even sillier, what the order of these scripts should be!!). That's a different issue from this, and the solution is not to remove all scripts, but to set up a policy of selecting scripts. As an analogy, look into the country articles ... almost all of them have the names of the country written in the official/native language. Thanks. --Ragib 20:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you Ragib. And I strongly disagree with Parthi. Even among readers of English Wikipedia, I'm convinced there are more people able to read Indian scripts than people able to read IPA perfectly. And there are people who aren't sure how to pronounce these names but can read Devanagari script or whatever (I'm one of them). So Indian scripts are definitely useful. However I agree that IPA adds (not replaces) information and that we should avoid having all Indian scripts used for all India related articles. BernardM 21:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Ragib and BernardM, I agree with you too. For Bollywood films and songs, however, two scripts is the alotted maximum. The de facto policy there has always beeen as follows: that if someone adds Devanagari, thats okay. If someone adds Perso-Arabic, that's okay too. Neither script is required, but when they are added, they should not be deleted. However, since biographies entail numerous other issues, including mother tongue, ehtnicity, etc., a policy/agreement is needed. The way I always looked at it in the past was that the only reason actors and actresses are famous is through Bollywood. As a result, I've always supported keeping the Hindustani scripts (plus any other relevant ones). I can understand why this might be contentious though. Thanks, AnupamTalk 21:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
In response to Aupam's comments, as far as the Bollywood articles are concerned, if the movie posters contain the relevant scripts why would you need to include them in the article? The audience if they are ethnic Indian, they already know how the movie name is pronounced. If they can't read the two or three scripts then the scripts are of no use to them anyway. Ragib's example about the Tagore article is exactly the same category. Bengalis already know how to pronounce his name. Non Bengalis can read a transliteration or the IPA to find out. IMO these scripts provide no additional information to the majority of Wikipedia users. We seem to think these articles are only read by Indians, which is probably not true. In response BernardM, there are millions of Indian (probably a majority of them) who can't read Devanagri. Thanks - Parthi talk/contribs 21:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, all most biography pages of people, whose native language's script wasn't the Roman alphabet, have the names of the person written in the native script. Example: Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs), Plato (Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "wide, broad-shouldered"), Archimedes (Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης), etc. It definitely helps to add to my knowledge what the actual script looks like. The same IPA pronunciation can be written using several different ways. For example, Iajuddin Ahmed's name is actually written in Bengali as ইয়াজউদ্দিন আহম্মদ, and NOT ইয়াজুদ্দিন আহমেদ, even though both versions have the same pronunciation (and hence, IPA notation). So, the IPA notations are not complete replacements for the scripts. As I said earlier, the root cause of the contention here is not having scripts (which almost all bios have without any problems, after all it's just a few more bytes), but people edit warring over what scripts should/shouldn't be in the article. Solution to a headache is not getting rid of the head, rather to find out the cause of the ache, and solve it. So, here, a policy on the script is the solution, rather than the removal of scripts. Also, this involves thousands and thousands of bio articles here, and therefore "consensus" can't be achieved by only 4-5 people. Thanks. --Ragib 22:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely Ragib. Sometimes adding yet another script adds ethymological information. Another example is Kajol's name : काजोल is the Devanagari transliteration of কাজল, not the same spelling in an other script. In this case giving both Devanagari and Bengali makes perfect sense. I think Indian scripts should be provided when there are relevant, this relevance being defined by a debate (somewhere else than here probably). BernardM 22:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
As for the problem with IPA - I agree that IPA is useful for pronounciation, but not for spelling. This is why I propose that we use ITRANS as well as IPA when writing the name. The advantage of ITRANS is that the spelling can be backed out for any Indic script. Using the example of Kajol, the IPA and ITRANS spelling, together completely define how her name should be written or pronounced.Gamesmaster G-9 23:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
No, it doesn't always do. And Kajol is precisely a perfect example. The spellings of काजोल and কাজল are not the same, their ITRANS representation is not the same : the first one is kaajol and the second one kaajal. BernardM 00:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we can't reach a binding consensus here, but atleast we have succeeded in getting people to think about it. Personally, I think any information is good information. My only concern is the fruitless edit wars that seem to happen to a lot of these articles. If we can come up with a policy and get it voted on in Wikipedia:WikiProject India. - Parthi talk/contribs 22:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the only time when vernacular scripts should be included is when a name or phrase is explicitly written in that language, and no other - for example, Sanskri mottos for Indian Institutions, or the official name of a country. Individual names are not language specific. Gamesmaster G-9 23:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Names are quite often language specific, I mean, written differently in different languages and scripts. Rabindranath Tagore is a perfect example ... in English, his name is written as Rabindranath Tagore which is NOT how it is written and pronounced in Bengali (রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর Robindronaath Thhakur). We should keep in mind that, the names are originally in the native script, and only later written/transliterated in English (i.e. the official one is the native language one, not the English one). Another example is Michael Madhusudan Dutt, which is the English version of মাইকেল মধুসূদন দত্ত (Bengali), which actually is pronounced like Maikel Modhusudon Datto. Even more, note that the same name would be pronounced differently in a different Indian language, for example, Hindi/Sanskrit (which would have pronounced "Madhu" as "maadhu" instead of Bengali pronunciation "Modhu"). So, by dumping the original script, we lose the original information, and instead add different/often incorrect info about the name. Therefore, no need to remove original script. Thanks. --Ragib 00:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Names often happen to have an actual meaning in their original language. And of course looking for or guessing this meaning is easier when you know how the word is spelt. For example কাজল means kohl in Bengali, while the Devanagari transliteration loses this meaning because of a purely phonetic interpretation. However काजोल is how it's written in all Hindi media so both scripts should be indicated. BernardM 02:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This is the English-language Wikipedia. We should give the standard English pronunciation(s). If the name is pronounced differently in a different language, certainly that can be handled by my suggestion that we have a box at the BOTTOM of the article with links to the same subject in other wikis, with the name given in the script or scripts used in that Wiki. Anyone who can read that script can read the name.

I do not like the current habit of putting all the different scripts at the top of the article, as it puts a full stop to reading. It's gibberish to anyone who can't read those scripts, which is MOST of our readers. Would you give a speech that started with two words in English and then a 5-minute peroration in a language unknown to the audience? Zora 01:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I just realized; if people are so gung-ho to add scripts, and can't add them unless there's a matching article in another wiki, they're going to have a good reason to write that article if there isn't one. Proposed policy might be of great benefit to the non-English wikis. Zora 01:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
A solution would be to add these informations to the infobox, following the example of {{Template:Hdeity infobox}} (see Vishnu for instance). It should made be flexible enough to indicate both Hindi/Urdu and other scripts. BernardM 02:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
My only beef is putting urdu where it's not supposed to be there. This is basically a core issue. It's firestarter. You can put the urdu on the a bengali movie star but if you put devangari on Sindh article, there's hell to pay. Bengali seems fine. No problems or when person is not mutli-ethic there seem to be no problem.--D-Boy 03:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Namaste D-Boy! I don't know if I've talked to you directly before but I just wanted to say thanks for your contributions and remarks. From my comments, I hope you understand why the Urdu script is relevant to Bollywood film and song articles. It seems like there is still a debate on what scripts to include in Indian Biography articles. There realy shouldn't be a problem with the Devanagari script on the Sindh article. Like Hindustani, Sindhi is written in both the Perso-Arabic and Devanagri scripts. I once added the Devanagari to the article as well. Thanks! AnupamTalk 04:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
The last two comments above illustrate precisely the type of problems with the use of these scripts. Language such as 'fire-starter' and 'hell to pay' is what is causing the unproductive edit wars in the bio and Bollywood articles. More reason why we need to get rid of these pesky scripts! - Parthi talk/contribs 04:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Get rid of all of them, and get rid of the senseless quibbling about something that adds nothing of any real value to the articles. Gene Nygaard 09:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Unreliable sources on Talk pages

Here is the scenario:
An editor proposes some content he wishes to include on the main page and cites sources (a online self-published book) to support his opinion. The consensus opinion during the discussion is that the sources are not reliable and the content non-mainstream, and therefore the content should not be included on the main-page.

The question now is:

  1. Should this discussion be deleted from the talk page in order not to give undue credence to the minority POV ?
  2. Should only the minority unsupported POV be deleted from the talk pages?
  3. Should only the non-reliable sources cited by the original editor be deleted from the talk pages so as to not give the free-hits to the cited website ?
  4. Should the discussion, including the citations, be left as is for future records ?

Is there any Wikipedia policy covering this scenario ? Just to clarify : (1) there is no dispute on the unreliability of the cited sources, (2) the original proposal was not plain vandalism, although it could possibly be advertisement for the cited sources.

The above scenario is not completely hypothetical. It arose on the Hindusim talk page. (Complete disclosure: I was one of the parties involved) My interest though is to understand the general wikipedia approach to this issue and not in that particular instance. Abecedare 04:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Note : I edited my post to number the 4 options for easy reference Abecedare 05:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment - I would trust WP editors to make up their own minds. I believe we try not to delete any "Discussion" page content unless removing vandalism. Badagnani 05:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - If the user wishes to place it on the talk page, fine. For admission to article it must meet WP:RS for sure. The discussion should be kept, no reason not to. In conclusion, keep on talk delete from article-space.Bakaman Bakatalk 05:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Bakaman : Can you clarify if you are refering to Option 3 or 4? I ask, since I deleted the unreliable references from the Hindusim talk page as per your own request. Thanks. Abecedare 05:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Reply - Yes, if the links pop-up on the main page, and the links do not meet WP:RS, then move them to the talk page, write a sentence on why they are unreliable, and then delete from main page. I know you deleted them, I'm just saying hypothetically, of course. 3 & 4 seem to be the right thing to do.Bakaman Bakatalk 15:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • There has to be some soul-searching. What's the call of conscience? Are the intentions good? No policy can exist on hypothecation. Isn't righteousness intended while taking benefit of Wikipedia policy? Is the inclusion of links Abecedare strived meet the criteria of righteousness? Do we go by interpreting words of Wikipedia policy or objectives? I wish Abecedare that you look for the call of your conscience, is your act noble? swadhyayee 05:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I, uhm, agree... or something? Are you just telling us to Wikipedia:Assume good faith, or are you getting at something else? (I'm not sure what providing accurate information to our readers has to do with the criteria of righteousness...) --tjstrf talk 05:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
imo removal of talk page discussions that aren't blatant vandalism is not generally a good idea. Links in the talk page are nofollowed so won't effect search engines and the discussion of why we chose not to include the content will also be there for human visitors to see so i don't see a problem. Plugwash 05:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment (favor 4). It is important to keep the discussion on the talk page, so that the next time somebody comes up with the idea of citing this unreliable source, they can read the previous discussion and save everybody lots of time. I hope that someone will undo the deletion which appears to have already occured in this case. Matchups 14:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep all. Talk page discussion, unless obvious vandalism, obvious off-topic spamming, or in violation of WP:BLP or similar, should always be kept. In particular, "free hits" or potential Google pagerank influence is not a useful critera for Wikipedia to adopt.--Stephan Schulz 14:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Talk page discussion should be kept intact as much as possible. A one-sided POV is not sufficient for removing talk page discussions. Not using appropriate references that meet Wikipedia standards are not sufficient for removal from a talk page either. If a talk page were a copyright violation, slanderous to others, vandalistic giberish or violated policy regarding biographies of living persons, then there could possibly be a reason for editing or removing an entry. If it were obvious commercial spam, rather than a valid discussion and statement of a view on a topic, that might qualify too. Atom 13:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. A discussion may be removed when considered vandalism or, may be - though I'm not sure - by the user who posted it. Any other deletion of discussions should be considered vandalism in itself. These discussions builds the community, generates policies and generally keeps the banner of freedom flying for the free encyclopedia. I hope Abecedare would agree to that. - Aditya Kabir 17:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I posed a question at Talk:Lonely_Girl when a link I added was removed for link spam. Someone replied with "...editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception...Sites that violate the copyrights of others" and that sites with song lyrics violate this. The reason I added some links to lyrics is because there are many pages with links to these sites. Specifically, here are a few searched I conducted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I assume these should be removed? Scott 13:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The policy in question is Wikipedia:Copyrights, which (surprisingly to me, who is unfamiliar with Floridian law) bars us from linking to sites that break copyright themselves. It's fundamentally important that we comply with our copyright policy, regardless of whether we like it or not - otherwise WP could be shut down. I imagine that unless it is clear from a site that it reproduces lyrics with permission, we should assume that it does not have that permission. jguk 13:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
This is clearly a copyright violation. Despite the prevalence of lyrics websites (and I hate to say, but I have used them for personal use myself, when say, learning a song on the guitar) they are all clear copyvios. You cannot get around a rule by letting someone else break it. Thus, since we cannot reproduce entire song lyrics here (except for short quotes for review purposes; that is fair use), we cannot also direct others to sites that do the same. The fact that lots of wikipedia articles are breaking the rules does not make it right. They should all be fixed post haste and any found in the future should also be fixed. --Jayron32 20:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
OK fair enough. I'll start removing some; if others can do the same that would be cool.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Svivian (talk • contribs)
Links to lyrics that are copyright violations are obviously a bad idea, but lyrics on official sites (if a band posts their own lyrics) and lyrics of public domain songs would be fine. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Or links to the record company's site, if they put lyrics up, would be fine, as well. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Links to the Wikifonia website (e.g. this link to a page containing music and lyrics of Lou Reed's Perfect Day) would be OK too: copyrights are cleared. --Francis Schonken 14:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Non-latin characters in titles

The specific gaffe in question is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lǐ (李) (surname). The argument is that the names are actually different but are pronounced the same in English. However, there are several people arguing to seperate the articles because each of the names are unique (which they are, they have no conflation except what conversion to English gives them.) This technically violates Wikipedia:Naming conventions, and although this is bad for the reader, any other alternative is worse. So I'm posing the question here: is it worth the unreadability for English readers? My gut says that it is not. ColourBurst 05:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment: The names (of which there might be two, three, four, five, or even more completely different surnames per English spelling, such as "Li") are distinguished by Chinese character as well as by tone (high, rising, low-rising, and falling) -- although some have the exact same pronunciation and tone (though different characters). Badagnani 09:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Disambiguation seems in order here. We have an ambiguity, and thus need to solve it with a disambiguation page perhaps. The source of the ambiguity is unique, in that it is in translation that the ambiguity shows up, but it is a real problem. I woudl recommend setting up a disambiguation for Li (surname) to each of the different chinese characters that COULD be translated as Li in english. --Jayron32 06:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • This seems like a reasonable exception. The idea of using Latin characters is primarily to stop people from moving such articles as Bejing to whatever the Chinese characters for that would be. (Radiant) 09:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
    • are there any latin transliterations that make a distinction? if so then theese are probablly preferable (english speakers are going to find it hard to remember chineese characters) Plugwash 15:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
      • There are (in some non-Mandarin Chinese languages/romanizations, these are spelled and pronounced differently), but they'd violate some other convention of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (namely, that Mandarin Chinese is to be used in all Chinese articles except people names, and only if they're known by English speakers by some other name). ColourBurst 17:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
      • There is a Romanization system that uses different spellings for different tones, but it is quite unwieldy and known by few people. Ludahai 23:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
We have to assume that English language readers are not going to type some chinese character or other into the search box and click "Go". So putting that into the name of the article isn't going to help people to find it directly - instead it will utterly guarantee that they'll stand NO chance of typing in the correct article title. If the reader types in just 'Li' then they must arrive at a disambiguation page no matter what - it's the only way they'll stand a chance of finding the correct article. The other time it matters is when you link to the article - then you can use the [[XXX|YYY]] to put in whatever clarification is justified in the 'YYY' part - so we don't need the chinese character in the title for that reason either.
OK - so I can find no compelling reason why we should use these characters. However, there are several compelling reason why we should not' allow this:
  • As an English speaker and keyboard user, I can't type in that chinese character (because I have no clue how to type that exact splotch or even which one it is) - which makes it hard for me to make links to that article.
  • The pronunciation reason is bogus. As an English speaker, it's really unlikely that I could either pronounce or describe that chinese character - so I can't possibly tell a friend over the phone "Hey - look at the Wikipedia article on Li (????)". However, if the title was Li (actor) or Li (guitar player) or something then there would be no problem.
So - I think it's a really bad idea to have non-English-language characters in article titles in the en- namespace. SteveBaker 00:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Do you literally mean non-English, or just non-Latin? As I have recently learned to my dismay, and discussed in another place where this same issue arose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#English_Wikipedia.27s_policy_towards_using_of_Chinese_characters_in_title), at least some "Latin" characters that are used in other languages, but not English, have found their way into titles on English Wikipedia. Moreover, there does not seem to be any policy against it. Hence we have such article titles as Stanisław Lem (note the stroke in what would otherwise be an "l", and Piñata. That tilde over the "n" in "piñata" is not simply a diacritical mark, which (I think) would be bad enough, but rather connotes a whole separate letter (Ñ) in the Spanish alphabet. Apparently now this is also a letter in the English alphabet, at least on Wikipedia. I don't think it's a good idea. As Jimbo Wales stated on his talk page (see "here" link above), this "Li" issue with the Chinese character presents a different and very unique issue. Unfortunately however, it does not represent a new phenomenon -- characters from outside the English alphabet have already been making their way into article titles. 6SJ7 00:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
The use non-English characters in the titles (and more so elsewhere where redirects are of no avail) cause enough problems with hiding of information from reasonable searches and the like. It is totally unacceptable to have characters that are not some varant of the Latin alphabet characters in the article names. Gene Nygaard 08:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Tagging of articles

I am sure this must have been discussed at sometime (many times?) before, but should blind tagging of articles be allowed. Shouldn't there be a policy enforcing explanation on the talk page if you are tagging articles with the broad maintenance templates like {{NPOV}}, {{cleanup}} etc. It is very irritating to visit articles with such tags and then try to figure out what really is wrong. If there is no explanation accompanying the tag, then I feel we should be able to as blindly revert the tag, without it being called edit warring. The onus to explain should lie on the person tagging the article. -- Lost(talk) 05:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In some cases, as with {{sources}} or even with a lot of cases with {{npov}} and {{cleanup}} it is quite obvious by looking at the article where the problem lies. Also, edit summaries should be sufficient; if people are editing the article, they should fix the problem and if no one is editing the article the edit summary will remain at the top of the history; though, it doesn't always work that way. —Centrx→talk&nbsp;&bull; 05:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
It is not always obvious especially if one puts the tag at the top of an article without an edit summary. The least the taggers could do is put the tag at the appropriate section with an appropriate edit summary. What does this edit explain? If you see the history of the article, there are a series of such edits -- Lost(talk) 05:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
The good faith assumption is that the people putting the tags really have a reason to be concerned. Contact them on their talk page and ask them politely why they keep adding such tags. However, repeated attempts to add such tags to an article, when other editors have made good faith attempts to request a reasonable explanation, and no explanation has been provided, could point to point making or could also be obvious triple revert violations. If the editor in question is being deliberately disruptive, and has been warned repeatedly as such, then report them at Administrator intervention. However, make sure that the editor has been politely ASKED for justifications, and then repeatedly WARNED. We need due process before accusations of bad-faith disruptions should be made. --Jayron32 06:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jayron. Earlier today I added a WP:WEASEL tag to the article on the Bahamian politician Perry Christie because of some very obvious weaseling and POV pushing, e.g. ...many people understand that the Christie government has acted wisely, even though sometimes being very deliberate in their decision making. I also marked the relevant areas with a {{citation needed}} tag, and edit-summarised that change. The reason I used a tag rather than actually improving the article was because I really don't know enough about Perry Christie to rewrite the relevant statements. I think I acted correctly. Walton monarchist89 10:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Anything more than an occasional 'citation needed' tag makes the article look TERRIBLE to the reader - when some random person comes along and sticks one of these on the article without saying why on the Talk page - I look to see if it's obvious why it's there and if it's not, I leave a note on the talk page asking for clarification and delete the template with a "rv: See Talk" in the edit summary. There is no purpose to having the banner there if the article's editors don't know what the problem is. If the tagger can't fix the problem themselves, they should at least have the manners to explain the problem on the talk page...and be prepared to come back and discuss it further if need be. I've seen situations where tags are essentially no better than vandalism - but it's hard to tell if no other information is present. It's all very well saying "Contact the tagger via their talk page" - but it might be another week before they reply (if they reply) - and it could be another week after that before you get back to reading their reply....in the meantime, the article has been looking terrible for weeks! SteveBaker 22:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Tags asking for sources or citations are pretty self-explanatory. After that, it gets much murkier. In any case, why not assume good faith on the part of the existing editors: If the problem seen by the tagger were obvious to everyone who has edited the article, the article probably wouldn't have that problem. Also, a lot of tags go unaddressed for months, so one doesn't know who left the tag. I have mentioned this on the project page for the {{limited geographic scope}} tag, because there is often legitimate room for disagreement. If a piece of medical equipment is little used outside of the richest countries, how does one increase geographic scope? By reducing the article to a stub until the rest of the world catches up? (Don't laugh -- I had someone actually suggest as much.) If the concerned editor can't be bothered to do more than tag and run, then frankly, I don't take the criticism very seriously. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The least one could do is watch the page after tagging. That way, the tagger can reply when someone finally gets around to asking, "What's the problem with xxx? What do we need to do to fix it?" Instead a batch of editors who don't see the problem tend to stare one another in the face. Maybe the problem was addressed months ago and the tag left? Eventually, someone is bold and untags the article. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Never put an npov or pov tag on an article without explaining on the Talk page. That's a sure-fire way of getting your tag removed without anything being changed. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I know that many of you are editors, but imagine for a moment that you are an encyclopedia user in need of information of some sort. You open up your Encyclopaedia Britannica and find the article related to your question, only to be confronted with an imposing box reading "This article may not be written from a neutral point of view" or "This article may require cleanup".

Maintenance tags may be useful in drawing the attention of editors to articles that could indeed use some improvement. But they are fundamentally disrespectful toward the reader. In particular:

They may unjustly cast aspersions on the facts contained in the article Their absence from an article may create an undeserved confidence in the article's contents They are fundamentally an opinion, often of just one person They may discourage people from improving the article (it is easier to just leave a tag) They have indefinite life spans with no obvious criteria for removal They are ugly But this is not just an appeal to be selective in your use of tags. I implore you to be aggressive in your deletion of the darn things (within Wikipedia rules, of course). From what I observe, a tag is usually left by a single individual (often robotically assisted), with no corresponding discussion on the talk page, even if the tag promises one. These should be deleted immediately. Some are in the wrong place, perhaps at the top of the article though they only apply to one section. Some are vanity tags, some are exceptionally ugly, some are just silly. Nearly all belong on the discussion page, not in the article itself.

Please don't delete "spoiler" tags, as these do serve a purpose to the reader. And I don't object to the "This is a stub" tag if it is placed discretely at the bottom. But please help me fight the proliferation of these opinion tags. They were placed there by one person. They can be deleted by one person, and perhaps you are that person.

Proposed disambiguation guidance (continued)

An archived discussion on this page proposed that some text be auto-added to be visible when people are editing disambiguation pages. The discussion was inconclusive, but with some comments that editors unfamiliar with the applicable guidelines should be notified on their talk pages. I have created a template, {{mosdab}}, intended for use in such cases. Matchups 14:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Fourohfour appears to be acting as if acceptance of the inclusion is a done consensus, having used it as justification to revert my recent removal of the hidden text while I was doing other cleanup activities at Fab
I think you're reading too much into it. The template wording had changed somewhat since I first wrote it- primarily in response to some of the comments made here. My edit summary was referring to this change. It wasn't meant to imply official endorsement and/or consensus.
I felt that in this case its inclusion was justified. You disagreed. Well, it's a matter of opinion, there's no real official weight on either side, and I didn't imply that there was. Fourohfour 15:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
(I knew some discussion was going on but did not know it had progressed to page editing activity). Is the decision for inclusion of this lengthy text (which can be longer than the full visible text of many dab pages) sufficiently supported that it can be used as the basis for edit reversion? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Looking back at the archive, I see: This is useful, thanks. Nothing that would justify doing it to every disambig page yet, but I'll include it if and when I find pages with the problem occurring. One of the main snags is that as it *must* use subst, we can't easily change/update existing notices automatically. Fourohfour 11:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

A few people weighed in, hardly a consensus for a policy change, just the beginning of a discussion about an issue. My opinion is that the inclusion, or not of the auto-added text, as user:Fourohfour says, is a case by case issue. Apparently he disagrees with you over whether it should be included in the Fab article, as there is no consensus that it MUST be included in each disambiguation page. I suggest discussing the issue on that talk page and getting others to ofer their opinion there. Atom 13:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't weigh in at the time, I assumed it would be implemented, it's such an obviously good idea. Disambig pages need a lot of cleanup, and there's not a sufficient number of people cleaning them up. MOSDAB s a bit arcane, so a short-n-sweet summary might be useful. For what it's worth, I think it might be worth mentioning that every entry needs to have (or the editor needs to be confident that there can be) a blue-link, per WP:NOT a dictionary, which is solidly policy and unlikely to change. --Interiot 16:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The real issue here is that the template did include the disclaimer text in the Fab article. It seems that Matchups removed that text for whatever editorial reason, and Fourohfour reverted it, as he says above, "I felt that in this case its inclusion was justified." He goes on to say, "there's no real official weight on either side, and I didn't imply that there was". Ceyockey asks "Is the decision for inclusion... sufficiently supported that it can be used as the basis for edit reversion?". I believe the consensus is, no. Atom 16:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I reviewed the dab page. I don't like the hidden text, it's absolutely annoying and unnecessary. We really don't need to handle *every* special case as a special case. Rules upon rules upon rules.... The link to "for other uses see Wikitonary" or whatever should be fine. Also red links shouldn't be removed simply on principle as they cause no harm to wikipedia and allow new users a convenient way to begin editing. Wikipedia isn't as obvious to use as experienced users like to think. Wjhonson 16:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

comment on red-links It is pretty established practice now that red-links shouldn't be removed on sight or on principle from dab pages. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. After some thinking on this, I understand the drivers behind it. I think my objection is more to the size and wording of the hidden header than its existence. However, I think that the header's use should not be across 100% of dab pages, which is a shared sentiment I believe. Here's a revised version and I'll explain my reasoning after the example. 

 <!-- *** EDITING GUIDELINES for DISAMBIGUATION (DAB) PAGES  *** -->
 <!-- DAB pages are not normal articles and have a special style -->
 <!-- DAB pages help users find specific articles                -->
 <!-- Please   ~  Point to (link) only one article on each line  -->
 <!-- Please   ~  Start each line with the target article        -->
 <!-- Remember ~  These are guidelines - not absolute rules      -->
 <!-- ***         More information @ [[WP:MOSDAB]]           *** -->

First, I've tried to make the concepts more the focus here than the technical specifics ... I'm hoping this wording is easier to digest for new editors or editors who are new to editing dab pages. Second, I've remove the 'new users' because it is as likely that experienced editors are coming new to editing dab pages as it is that newbies are doing the editing (in my opinion). Third, I've replaced the long wikilink with the shortcut WP:MOSDAB ... the point is giving them an easy link and not a self-explanatory one. Fourth, I've restricted the width so that it will be constant over a wide range of window sizes. Fifth, I've changed the introductory line so that it is more of a style thumbnail than a warning or admonishment. Sixth, I've dropped use of the term 'sentence' which would encourage the inclusion of full stops and full sentence syntax, which is not part of the current style guideline. I know this is a radical change from the original proposal. Perhaps further evolution will satisfy all parties. Regards, --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to admit that your new version is much better than the one I wrote. It's informative without being pushy, and it's also cleaner looking. Fourohfour 14:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yup. Cool. I like it. Atom 14:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Image verifiability

This question originated on Talk:Temple garment but is really a theoretical question with general applicability across Wikipedia; I'm not fishing for a particular outcome. The essence of the question is: what are the Wikipedia policies about the verifiability of images? Specific sub-questions include whether the information presented by an image must be attributed to a reliable source just as information presented textually must be, per WP:V, or whether in the absence of a reliable source there is still some sort of standard for verifiability (such as the consensus of a group of editors that the image is probably reliable) that an image can meet. Un-cited article text can be tagged as unverified and eventually removed; is there a similar process for images? If there is no verifiability policy for images, should there be? What practical effect might such a policy have on Wikipedia? All thoughts appreciated. alanyst /talk/ 08:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say that there are two spearate but related issues here: sourcing and accuracy. All images on Wikipedia, of course, must note their (proximate) source — whether it be "own photo", "drawn based on text", "illustration from book X", "from website X" or whatever — if only to allow verification of their copyright status. These sources need not be reliable, but the source information itself needs to be verifiable in a broad sense (by looking up the source document, contacting the claimed author, etc.).
As for accuracy, I would say that, where there is any doubt about it, the infromation presented in an image should be backed by a reliable source. For images that merely aim to present, in visual format, information already included in the text of the article, a statement to that effect should suffice; the sources of the relevant parts of the article then serve as sources for the image as well, and any embellishments or deviations from the text may be ascribed to the illustrator (and corrected if necessary). As for images that present detail beyond what is otherwise given in the article, these do need an explict source, or at least, where no better solution is possible, a disclaimer stating that some of the details may or may not be accurate.
Note that the issue here is one of accuracy, not authenticity: all images on Wikipedia are illustrative in nature, not documentative, and we most certainly do accept things like hand-drawn sketches, "artist's conceptions" and even retouched photos as long as these accurately illustrate their stated subject. Of course, such images should be described as what they are, just as we should present any other information that may be relevant to interpreting the image. It sould also be noted that the same image may be, and usually is, presented in different contexts on different pages (including its own description page), and that these need to be considered separately insofar as they may make different claims about what the image in each context illustrates. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
That all seems reasonable to me. I've seen this issue come up several times recently; perhaps something like the above should be added to Wikipedia:Images. -- Visviva 13:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE - guideline or not?

WP:FRINGE is tagged as being a guideline on the page, but I do not find it listed on the guideline list page. So is it a guideline or not? (note, it has been referred to in a few other guidelines such as the recently revised WP:RS). Blueboar 15:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

  • The short answer is that the guideline list is outdated since nobody's bothering to maintain it at the moment, and since we have CAT:G for that. The somewhat more specific answer is that yes, it's a guideline; see its talk page for relevant discussion. This was based on how we handled a few incidents with pseudoscientific theories. (Radiant) 16:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion question

Would it be wrong for me to move all the old Wikipedia:Votes for deletion pages to Articles for deletion, as according to the Special:Allpages/Wikipedia:Votes for deletion there are still a few remaining.

Should I wait for consensus before moving these pages?? --SunStar Nettalk 20:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

  • It would not be wrong (and since the moving leaves a redirect it's really not a problem if you go head), but frankly you might have something better to do :) I believe there's some even older deletion debates residing in the template namespace. (Radiant) 16:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Does WP:NOT#DIR or WP:NOT#INFO cover missing person postings

I have noticed several "Missing persons" postings, the most recent being: Jane McDonald-Crone. While one should have empathy with the family and friends, are these listings considered as "speedy delete" candidates, or must they be prodded? SkierRMH 22:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This isn't the right place for this content. Yes, speedy seems appropriate. Friday (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Looking at WP:CSD, I don't see a Speedy Deletion criterion that would cover these as a class. Rather, I would opt adding a Template:Prod tag to them and letting that process take its course. One might consider CSD:A1 if the articles are one-liners or CSD:A7, but A7 is problematic due to the notion of whether missing persons are truly just like your regular joe-on-the-street and equally non-notable. Consider that the criminal who kidnaps someone might well garner an article here; perhaps the victim of the crime would be equally notable. Too many 'ifs' - add PROD and go that route is my suggestion. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Look at whether they are verifiable from reliable sources - if so, keep them. Trollderella 05:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Generally they can be speedily deleted; articles on people are only for people with some claim to fame, and being missing isn't such a claim. The relevant template is {{nn-bio}}. (Radiant) 16:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for creation

Why are there so many unreviewed articles on WP:AFC? If this is the method that new and unregistered users are now forced to use then surely the people who produced this policy should have mandated a group of editors to issue timely reviews? 82.32.8.6 12:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Short answer: Nobody is paid or obligated to contribute to Wikipedia. therefore, no one has the power to mandate anyone to do anything. -- Visviva 13:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
In that case don't the people who introduced the policy have an implicit responsibility to oversee its implementation? At the moment it seems that extra bureaucracy is being pushed on to unregistered users, and no-one is making sure it's being dealt with in a timely manner. 82.32.8.6 14:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
A number of issues here. (1) as noted above, it's a volunteer project; you can't make anyone do anything. (2) Frankly, a huge number of the requests are, uh, less than impressive candidates for articles. The sheer amount of dreck makes the prospect of going through it rather unappetizing. (I notice right now there's a request out there from some 14-year-old kid who wants us to create a bio on him.) (3) It's easy to register, which bypasses the whole problem. Fan-1967 14:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The lack of afc participation has been a major frustration of mine, and I try to help it. But I agree, it's very rude for us to provide a way to create an article, and by and large ignore them. That being said, as I do afc, 85-90% of the article are unsatisfactory, and it's no fun telling people, "you typed up this article, but it sucks, now go away." -Patstuarttalk|edits 14:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I thought you were quite diplomatic with the 14-year-old. Fan-1967 19:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Intellectual dishonesty

What's the policy on people blatantly deliberately misrepresenting the comments of others on talk (taking WP:AGF into account, I'm talking about obvious cases of selective quotation)? Chris cheese whine 04:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Usually you can make your point by giving a diff or link to the original comment. That's the great thing about the Edit History : ) Doc Tropics 07:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
If you're sure it's deliberate (taking Hanlon's razor into account), an RFC would be appropriate. (Radiant) 11:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
We highly encourage it. See Wikipedia:Blatantly and deliberately misrepresent comments of others at every opportunity. But seriously, if you feel your comments have been misunderstood, just clarify them. Fagstein 06:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sysop Accountability Proposal

I've just made a proposal for better sysop accountability here. Comments, please. &mdash; Werdna talk criticism 07:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia User friendly?

Personally, and I'm fairly new around here, I don't think it is. Ever tried to put together a piece of furniture made in China? Or your once-a-year tax return yourself? Or filed something in court as a pro se? Or invested on Wall Street without help? Or built a house? Some are well explained and some are not. Wiki is not. Whenever a procedure is explained by a professional (an admin - hereinafter "pro"), they are the last people to explain highly complex convention to newbies. They helped write the rules, and stay fresh most every day. The newbies get to check something out once in a while, and have to re-educate themselves every time.

Wiki rules: It should not be necessary to spend hours searching for something. My examples: I needed to find out why a subject wasn't accepting a link. I couldn't find the answer, until a pro figured it out; the page heading used the wrong apostrophe. Another example: I wanted to use a tag to move an article to merge into another. I needed to quickly find the right tag. But "tags" are listed as "templates". I needed to find the right listing of sample tags. Took me an hour of re-education to find out don't "move" without permission, but "merge into" is OK. And why are "discussion" sections on the article page ALWAYS referred to as "talk", when the term talk is used in other ways? Why not just say to use the discussion page, since that is what it is called? And what is a "dab", still don't know, haven't looked? And when I have a question, why can't I click on something that will let me search for the answer the way I can search for an article? Am I just to be treated as dumb, and then be patronized by a pro who will give me an answer, pointing out by inference that I haven't checked carefully to see it wasn't answered somewhere in several help and editing pages?

Please don't get me wrong. I am second to none in my admiration of Wikipedia, what it does and what it can do. I would like to think that the culture will spread through the world and make it a better place. Especially I like the NPOV mandate, a concept foreign to all human nature, yet a sine qua non if the human race is to survive beyond the next generation. It can be taught and learned. At the moment Wikipedia is off-putting to inquirers and it needn't be. It is so much more than an Encyclopedia, although I suspect that there are pros who disagree and I think that the founder would agree.

So, I propose that a newby help page be devised for newcomers, and for vets short of time for review every day. No, it is not the current "simplified cheat sheet" in its present form, because it would be much longer, and hold a multitude of sections with every type of listed example. It would be full of cross references and would be kept all in one place. And it would be devised by non pros, evaluated by non-pros, but with the help of pros. Another possibility is that the current cheat sheet be filled with blue links to lists of examples, and the lists would be blue linked to explanations. I would bet that it will be the first place most people will go. Oh sure, I will be told that somewhere it's already being done, a project page perhaps, and I didn't notice. JohnClarknew 23:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:New contributors' help page links to various places new users can get questions answered quickly. Personally, I find IRC to be a great place to get quick answers.
"Dab" is a disambiguation page. Sometimes it's used in edit summaries to indicate that an ambiguous link is being fixed. Wikipedia:Edit summary legend lists other terms that are often seen in edit summaries.
I've pondered the "discussion"/"talk" issue before... I assume it comes down to the fact that namespaces should be as short as possible, especially "Talk", because it gets tacked onto everything (eg. "Category talk:", "Wikipedia talk:", "Template talk:", ...) On the other hand, it's not really for random forum-like chit-chat, it's for discussion of improvement of the article, so the external face gets the word "discussion". That's what I assume, anyway.
Generally, if you need help, just ask somebody. It's true that there are a ton of things to learn, so it makes it difficult to point to a single page that will answer all your questions. --Interiot 00:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that there are a lot of inconvenient "conventions" that have grown up over time. The tag that says "discussion" does indeed lead to discussions - but it's called "talk" by most users because that's what it always used to be called before it was decided that "discussion" was more friendly. Sadly - the result of trying to make something more friendly and less confusing actually made matters worse! That's a real problem in lots of areas. It took me forever to realise that an edit summary "dab" meant "disambiguate" - there is nothing in Wikipedia software that makes things be that way - it's just a common convention that saves people a lot of typing. Most of the problems you list are not due to Wikipedia policies - or the software behind MediaWiki - they are simply due to the fact that there are about 10,000 human beings here - and when humans get together like that they invent jargon - develop unspoken rules - that just how people are. Attempting to document those quirks, conventions, recommendations, policies and downright RULES is an ongoing process - but like everything else around here, that's a community effort too. Whilst it would be highly desirable to fix it somehow, that's a hard problem because we have to fix humans - and we don't know how to do that! It's also a moving target. Having said that, we're all adaptable - and a vast majority of contributors rapidly adapt and 'fit in'. Take heart in the fact that a couple of million articles have been written despite the quirks and weirdnesses. SteveBaker 03:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • A few well-placed redirects should help solve the tag issue you described and some others. The problem is that a lot of new users fail to look for information in the right place and if we don't know where they are looking instead, we can't make sure they are shown to the right spot. - Mgm|(talk) 10:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Whenever you get lost, stick a {{helpme}} tag on your User Talk page, and hopefully, an old hand will come by to help you. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
One thing that seems particularly silly to me is that there are a bunch of templates that say things like "Please see the relevant discussion on this article's [[...|talk page]]". If "discussion" is the public name of the thing, why don't they all say "discussion page"? Actually I think the only place it's called a "discussion" page is the link to it from the article. 207.176.159.90 10:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah I remember how long it took me to figure out how templates worked! I wouldn't have known to search for template, I was just seeing curly brackets and wondering what on earth I was supposed to be doing if I found a mistake. I also didn't sign contributions for a month, and then was manually typing a nick and date, because the section telling one how to do so is located well below the bottom of the edit page. Strangely, once I figured out a few things though, it all fell into place and now I talk with people regularly, know many of the WP: shortlinks and policies and the like, etc. Orderinchaos78 17:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I think an index might help, though of course it could end up being just one more possible place to look among many. As far as I know, there isn't such a thing (there are directories, but that's more limited). I have a draft at User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia, for anyone interested, and of course if something like this already exists (or has been attempted and dropped), information on that would be much appreciated. John Broughton | Talk 23:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Citation needed question

i just removed some citationless trivia [45]. i suppose i could have tagged it as citation needed, but as i was editing it struck me that the statement was just suspect enough that it warranted a quick google search. finding nothing relevant, i removed it.

policy says to boldly edit, so i did (just as did the person who added the statement originally).

this seems like a fault prone procedure to decide whether or not to add a citation needed or delete the item. can anyone point me to official or suggested policy on this. 131.107.0.73 00:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The main policy that's relevant is Wikipedia:Verifiability which allows (and comes close to encourages) removal of uncited "facts". -- Rick Block (talk) 01:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The way I usually deal with such things is via harm minimisation and likelihood. If I strongly suspect something is false, I usually just delete it and mention this in the talk page. Similarly if I'm not sure but I feel it's too controversial to leave unsourced. However when I suspect something may be true and it isn't particularly controversial, I usually just tag it as citation needed. Of course, each editor is entitled to deal with such issues however they see fit. In this particular case, I probably would have done what you did Nil Einne 07:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Nil Einne that movement of material to talk for discussion is suitable when you feel that it might be ok to include in the article in some form but doesn't seem to be good to reatain in the article at this time with Template:Fact addendum. This provides a seed for expansion and explication. Regards, --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Linking to Wiktionary

Is there a WP policy/guideline or accepted practice regarding the appropriateness of linking difficult terms or words to its Wiktionary entry? Reason I am asking: on a few occasions I have come across a needlessly difficult or seldom used word in an article and I am not sure if I should leave it, replace it with a clearer word/phrase, or, if it is preferred, link the word to its Wiktionary entry. Thanks in advance for any responses. Katalaveno 18:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You mean like this: emaciated --Bobblehead 01:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe this is done frequently, isn't it? EReference 06:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I've done it a number of times myself, but yes, it is generally acceptable to link to other wikis, just within reason, of course. --Bobblehead 16:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Same here.It,s especially useful for defining a technical verb or adjective without or not warranting a wikipedia article. Circeus 00:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
That's what I had thought as well, so I was confused by the question. EReference 07:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not semi-protect all featured content or at least Featured Articles if featured class items are indeed "perfect" and only require editing if new information becomes is available? I've noticed 95% plus percent of editing on FAs by new IPs leads to a revert. I think this would be a good policy to enact but I don't have a bunch of wiki buddies to support me on this so I need some advice on how to get my idea through digital red tape. Andman8 16:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

People ask that here every few weeks. The last time was on November 30th. You can see it if you scroll up. Otherwise, check: Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection and WP:PEREN. -Freekee 03:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

When are Museums, Libraries, etc. guilty of advertising?

I found a delete article tag for alleged "blatant advertising pending cleanup" attached to the Los Angeles Maritime Museum, and it seems to me that that is outrageous. In the discussion page, I wrote Just my opinion, but I don't think that museums or libraries or similar public not-for-profit places exhibiting information of public, scientific, historic and scholarly interest should be negatively so labeled as being guilty for "blatant advertising". They're struggling enough to remain financially viable as it is. They should be welcomed to Wikipedia, and it's OK for them to reveal a little of their treasures. (I just checked Disneyland. Not a label in sight!). I'm removing this label, and I hope there is discussion about it.

Guidance from an admin on this very important point would be welcomed. JohnClarknew 21:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the tag may or may not have been warranted but it's just a tag. If you disagree, you can simply, as you did, remove it and discuss it on the talk page. I don't think that any reasonable sysop would delete a museum article as spam. Pascal.Tesson 22:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Just because an articles subject is worthy of an article (btw i'm not convinced this one is but that is a totally seperate question) doesn't mean that the current article on the subject isn't spam.
The article that is there now reads like a promo peice and i wouldn't be surprised if it was a copyvio as well (the fact that the bulk of the content was introduced in a single post by a completely new user reinforces this suspicion) though i can't find the source if it is one. Plugwash 22:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
It has been improved some now, including revision of copy-vio text detected by one editor. There can be a fine line between composing a piece with entrepreneurial intent vs. educational intent when it comes to museums and the like because it is difficult to divorce writing about the holdings and stimulating folks to visit the location to see those holdings. Nonetheless, one of the reasons museums exist is to preserve what is notable in the world, so mentioning that a notable artifact exists in a certain place seems consistent with the Wikipedia mission. Unfortunately, a quick look around Wikipedia:WikiProject and a search doesn't reveal a WikiProject devoted to museums ... though there is one devoted to Amusement Parks (why am I not surprised by that?) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

  1. ^ Most sources indicate Cairo as Arafats place of birth, but Arafat at least sometimes listed his birthplace as Jerusalem. See here and here for more information.
  2. ^ Some sources use the term Chairman rather than President; the Arabic word for both titles is the same. See President of the Palestinian Authority for further information.
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