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Wikipedia is not....

I was just wondering: is it really that important to distinguish between Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikiversity and so on and so fort? I find this plethora of Wikithings just a little dispersive and to a certain extend even confusing. I think it would be enough to just put the content in the right place, under the right name.
For instance, due to its rather technical nature, a mathematical proof might be regarded as belonging more into a Wikibook, or a Wikiversity lecture than a Wikipedia article. But wouldn't it be simpler to just create a separate Wikipedia article called "Proof of blabla theorem"?
212.126.224.100 (talk) 10:51, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It actually it useful. If there is a contribution that a user makes that it more appropriate to a different sister project, it is much better to push that contribution towards that than to simply delete it away. Addressing where other possible contributions can be placed is a way to build all of the Foundation's projects together. --MASEM (t) 12:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Really, the lack of transparency between Wikipedia and wiki-whatever is one of the signs that we're losing touch with our customers--the readers. Where is the one place they can go and type in a word and get a dictdef, an article, pictures, etc. like Google? At the very best they might get softlinks to other projects. Jclemens (talk) 14:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the search results page used to display sister-project results on the right side, although it only worked for exact matches. This feature seems to have disappeared around the time the Usability Initiative was rolled out (coincidence?). I would like to assume the change was made in good faith, but driving traffic away from the sister projects is not the way to build all of the Foundation's projects together. Rather, it seems to indicate a belief that that one of the things "Wikipedia is not" is a part of a wider Wikimedia community. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Where is the appropriate place to begin a discussion on a new addition to what wikipedia is not?

I'd like to float a proposal for the additions of the following to What Wikipedia is not:

1. Wikipedia is not a pornography site

2. Wikipedia is not a sex manual

Where is the appropriate place to do that, and if there have been any eariler discussions on this could someone point me to where they are?62.254.133.139 (talk) 21:01, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Try WP:NOTCENSORED first. postdlf (talk) 21:57, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean that would be where any past discussions might be? DMSBel (talk) 22:27, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

(note that the OP is DMSBel: [1]). Smartse (talk) 23:59, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

This is an appropriate place, or for a wider discussion, you might post at WP:VPR. The comment above about WP:NOTCENSORED is suggesting that your proposal will be rejected by the community because anything goes here. Actually, that is a misinterpretation of what WP:NOTCENSORED says, but it's a common misinterpretation. The trouble with your proposal is that it is too vague, and specific examples of what "pornography" or "sex manual" mean would be required. Once you start trying to get precise, you find that it is just too hard. Johnuniq (talk) 00:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

It already says that Wikipedia is not an instruction manual, which covers 2. I'm not entirely against #1, but I think that postdlf was right in pointing you at WP:NOTCENSORED--while Commons has a few scattered examples of pornographic images for better or worse, and Wikisource considers its large collection of textual erotica as well within its scope, this does not seem to be a problem that Wikipedia faces. The image you are trying to get removed from Cum shot does not turn Wikipedia into a porn site; it's an illustration of the subject of the article, and hence encyclopedicly appropriate.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:24, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

And as you (DMSBel) already know by way of having commented on it, Wikipedia is comprehensive, including regarding sexual subjects, like cum shot. --Cybercobra (talk) 04:32, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Define "Non-disruptive" if possible.

It currently reads:

Non-disruptive statements of opinion on internal Wikipedia policies and guidelines may be made on user pages, as they are relevant to the current and future operation of the project.

What exactly qualifies as disruptive? Anyone who disagrees with you can be labeled disruptive. A user should be able to state what they feel is wrong with Wikipedia, and mention what should be done to change it, without some vague term accusation of being disruptive tossed around. Dream Focus 20:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I think in this case it would mean 'civil and reasonable'. The two things we want to avoid in policy discussions are blatant attacks on particular editors (which serve only to inflame tempers, not to improve poicy), and wild aspersions against the project as a whole (there's just no productive purpose to someone spouting a diatribe about how W is a crypto-fascist regime dedicated to spawning propaganda and misinformation).--Ludwigs2 21:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't the rule against personal attacks already cover that? Dream Focus 21:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

that would be part of it, but not all of it. Crazy rants are not personal attacks, but are still pointlessly disruptive. --Ludwigs2 22:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Not a journalistic product

You could add that Wikipedia is not a journalistic product. Some users seem to believe that reader attractiveness and viewer numbers is more important than relevance or correctness, adding fun trivia information and irrelevant photos (like in a place article, a better looking photo of a similar place). --BIL (talk) 09:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Attention, not size

About the footnote I added: WP:ORG gets someone a couple of times a year who thinks that WP:NOTADVERTISING doesn't apply to their organization because it's not (in their opinion) "very small" or "garage" org -- and that consequently, it's just fine to have an article based exclusively (or primarily) on the business's own website. In fact, WP:ORG and WP:N are size-indiscriminate. If a large business manages to avoid all forms of publicity, then it doesn't get an article -- and if a one-person consulting shop gets lots of press, then it is notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support addition. Those seem like reasonable clarifications. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• I support that; should be helpful. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• Against addition. If an organization gets mentioned and quoted from, that should be enough. Major news sources believe it notable enough to publish stats from, but there isn't enough to write an entire article about them. The current discussion started at the AFD for The Alliance for Safe Children, then spilled over to the talk page of WP:ORG [2] Dream Focus 21:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• Dont think the addition adds to the text, I think it would better just to remove so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable as it is making pre-judgements based on size and not WP:V. MilborneOne (talk) 22:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

  Milborne, I thought about proposing that, since it's technically true. However, I decided that the existing language might be practical, since these are far and away the businesses most likely to be affected by it, and someone running a one-person tiny business (=by far, the most common kind of business on the planet) is likely to recognize themselves in that description. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support addition. WP:V insists that articles be based on third-party sources, even though inclusion of other material is permitted. How can an article be based on third-party sources if none exist?—Kww(talk) 22:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose addition, as worded. While well-meant, this addition acts to make notability guideline policy... and that has never had consensus. Further, it unneccessaily confuses due to it directly contradicting the current instructions and caveats at WP:V... which instruct that information be verifiable, but not that information must absolutely be based on third-party sources... indeed, WP:V explains how other sources might sometimes be worth consideration for use in sourcing. Whether or not or how corporations, organizations, events, products, and businesses might meet inclusion criteria is already covered in the various notability guidelines. Verifiability is not the same as notability. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  But WP:V says that the article must be based on third-party sources. I agree that it allows a mix of source types, but how can an article without third-party sources be based on third-party sources?—Kww(talk) 00:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  Without any specific examples, I might posit that if Organization XYZ is listed on some municipality's tax rolls, or listed in some Federal register, that listing is a "third-party" source that verifies existance. And then based upon that verified existance, an editor might use other sources from which to then attempt building an article. A different concern is then determining notability (or lack) to allow (or not) inclusion of the article... and THAT is a whole different bowl of soup, as verifiability is not the same as notability. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 01:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  So your definition of "based on" requires only a solitary fact, after which the vast majority of content can be derived from other things? I think you are stretching things beyond reason.—Kww(talk) 01:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  [ec] You gave no examples that could be looked at and so I posited a simple hypothetical of how a verifiable fact might "inspire" the creation of an article. I am not arguing that one verified fact can source content for an entire article. I am not arguing that a verified fact is a promise or guarantee of inclusion, as naturally... content and sourcing of notability assertions requires reliable sources... and the more, the better. But my point is that THAT requirement is already well-covered in guideline. To borrow your term... it is the adding of notability criteria to a policy page is what can be considered a "stretch", specially when it may have been done in order to post-facto support arguments made at an ongoing AFD. Simply put, policy WP:V requires and instructs that facts need be verified in a reliable source... but THAT verifiability is not the same as guideline's demand for significant coverage... which is what notability criteria are set up to determine and gauge. And that's where his modifications belong... in those various notability guidelines... as again, verifiability is not the same as notability. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  I agree with Kww: An 20-paragraph article is not "based on" third-party facts if only one sentence is actually supported by a third-party source, and the other 19.6 paragraphs are all supported by the organization's own website. You can use first-party sources (e.g., what Microsoft says about Microsoft) to fill in holes, but they should not form the basis of either the article's existence or its content/outline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  I would not expect you to disagree with someone who agreed with you. :) Your trying to add specific guideline criteria to policy pages belongs in the various guideline pages, not in policy. Better to have discussion on the guideline pages. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:28, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  The guidelines have said this for years, almost word-for-word. See, e.g., the first sentence of WP:N and the first paragraph at WP:ORG. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  Yes... and that's what guidelines are for. But guideline is NOT policy, and it needs far more than 6 editors in an unofficial RFC to decide that what might exist as common sense in guideline should now become the absolute mandate in policy. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  But the addition is a natural consequence of WP:V in any plain reading, since WP:V says that articles need to be based on "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". WP:N as a guideline is actually fairly redundant: anything it would require is already covered by WP:V. That's one of the reasons I've always wondered why people get so excited about WP:N: not only is it common sense, it doesn't create any new requirements.—Kww(talk) 04:08, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  You both make my point. In recognizing that common sense instructions are already included in guideline, there is no need to have guideline then CREEP into policy without a far wider consensus than that of the 6 editors in this unofficial "RFC"... specially as guideline does allow and encourage common sense by the heading on each of their pages... and policy pages pointedly do not include the "best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply" caution which heads each guideline. And if guideline WP:N is now declared as redundent to policy WP:V, then it is time for an RFC to demote WP:N to essay or historical... but not to have creep it into policy without a far, far wider consensus. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• The problem is that WP:N's purpose is not to support WP:V, WP:NOR, or the like. It is an inclusion metric to make sure that the topics that are included in the work are encyclopedic and not just someone's pet project or vanity page or similar. The GNG part of WP:N, requiring "significant coverage in secondary sources", just happens to overlap with meeting WP:V, WP:NOR, and other policies, but it is not designed as a duplicate means to these policies. And it's a guideline for the very specific reason that there are some topics that consensus has considered to include without meeting WP:N / GNG but still meeting V, NOR, and the like (such as many many small settlement articles). There are some that would love WP:N to be policy, but as long as WP is more than just an encyclopedia, we need to keep an open mind about what should be included.
• To the topic at hand, it is definitely the case that size doesn't matter. If a one-man business attracted third sources to talk about his business, while another 500-man company hasn't been reported on at all, we're still doing our job of an encyclopedia to be summarizing sources. Anyone can write primary sources, which is why WP:V does not allow articles based on these alone. --MASEM (t) 05:23, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)WP:N is important in defining what is valid for an article. WP:V relates to all content. If WP:V is talking about article validity, then that troubles me - it is far better to have a distinct guideline (although, I'm in the 'should be policy' camp) that EXTENDS other policy to set out what is entitled to it's own article. On to my main point - WP:NOT also applies to ALL encyclopaedia content (including the existence or otherwise of an article) - I am resistant to any further complication of NOT by stuff that relates to articles specifically. "consequently, it's just fine to have an article based" leaps out to me to suggest the issue here is about articles - and that therefore WP:NOT is perhaps the wrong place to address the concern. Maybe we need a WP:NOT that is about article topics specifically (nb: we do, it's called WP:N) ‒ Jaymax✍ 05:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  Reading Masem above - I would modify my comments to say it's no so much that I think WP:N should be policy, but their should be a distinct policy that defines what topics are entitled to their own article, that encompasses the exceptions to WP:N Masem mentions. This should be distinct from WP:V, which should be precisely about making sure the information in WP can be verified. ‒ Jaymax✍ 05:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• My thoughts on this:

1. WP:N is not policy and should not be policy. Quite apart from content which is not articles, there are a variety of types of articles we have, such as some type of lists, where WP:N is not applicable because they are meant to deal with situations where the individual; parts are not individually appropriate for an article. Elevating WP:N to policy is a matter that would need very long discussion at very widespread approval--and an exceptionally large supermajority which I do not think would be forthcoming. Various equivalents of it have been repeatedly rejected (e.g. WP:ATT)
2. I rarely disagree with MASEM about topics like this , but I strongly disagree with him here. WP:V does not require secondary independent sources. It requires reliable sources. The official reports or web pages of a responsible organization are reliable sources for the activities of the organization and provide in many cases all the WP:V that is necessary for a basic description. If these pages show the lements of notability in either the technical or common sense of the word, then WP:N is met also.
3. WP:N as an inclusion guideline is obsolete. It is overly reliant upon the accidents of sourcing. With the increasing growth of the Googles, an incredible number of topics that can not be considered encyclopedia-worthy in all sorts of fields will become qualified under the GNG. One example is high school athletes. If we're going to exclude them, we will have to exclude them on the basis of other guidelines than the GNG. Similarly for non fiction books, it will increasingly be possible to find 2 RSs for about half the books published. If we exclude them we will have to do so on the basis of other considerations that the GNG--probably by quibbling about whether local sources are indiscriminate. So far the GNG and the concept of notability have been used mainly for exclusion of material, and the inclusionists have needed to try to fit the necessary content in--with increasing success. In the very near future it will be the reverse: the GNG will permit nearly anything, way beyond what almost any inclusionist here is prepared to support, and we will all join in finding a better way to decide.
4. I agree with Jaymax that what we need is inclusion guidelines. The difficulty is that there will be no consensus on it. It will need to be expressed on objective criteria, and there is no agreement on them in most areas. In some areas there is compromise--at least for the moment--we are for example agreed that all high schools are included, but not lower schools except in unusual cases. We are agreed that academic journals in major indexes are to be included, and we have rough agreement what indexes count for the purpose. We are agreed that performers with recordings that chart are to be included, & we have rough compromise what charts count for the purpose. But I don't think we have even rough consensus about what politicians or porn stars, or association football players are to be included. The only inclusion policy that actually works is the basic policy that what the community wants to include will be included.
5. MQS's "common sense" is a difficult criterion. Of course I and all of us agree with it, but there is a relative small subset where everyone;'s common sense is in agreement.
6. What we need is consistency: We are no longer experimental; we now are the overwhelmingly dominant online encyclopedia and for many people the only reference source that they use. This gives us a certain responsibility. Institutions as well as people find themselves--however unwillingly--forced into greater responsibility as they mature. One of the signs of majority is our growing insistence on good sourcing. Another should be our efforts towards consistency. People expect to find things here, on the basis of what they usually find here. We exist to serve them. We're not making an online free encyclopedia as a demonstration project or a game; we're making one for use. We need standards that we can agree to follow. There should be very little need for AfD, if we have them. DGG ( talk ) 07:46, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear on #2, I didn't say WP:V needed secondary sources - but that is something that is needed to satisfy WP:NOR/WP:NPOV if there are non-factual statements being made. I agree with what you're saying. --MASEM (t) 13:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

You two are muddling "secondary" and "independent" again. The text is reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Independence is required, but it can be an independent primary account (a census would probably meet the standard of being independent with a reputation for fact checking, for example). I don't see how a company's website would ever qualify to be the basis of an article.—Kww(talk) 16:04, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Back on track

If I can re-focus your attention: The question here is only whether we want to preserve this misleading "size discrimination" idea in WP:NOTADVERTISING. There are basically two possible solutions—either we explain in a footnote, or we remove the bit about small businesses altogether:

Footnote	Current text	Shorten
Article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable. <ref>If there are no third-party reliable sources writing about a topic, then Wikipedia should not have an article on it. This standard applies to equally to larger organizations as well as smaller ones.</ref>	Article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable.	Article topics must be third-party verifiable.

Personally, I thought that the footnote was the smaller change, but I'm open to either approach. Which do you prefer? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

How about "Article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles based on company websites or promotional material are unacceptable"? Isn't that really the problem you are trying to solve?—Kww(talk) 20:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer removal of the bit about small businesses, which I think Kww suggested. Kww's wording just above would be good too if it had "articles solely based on" (bolding mine) and better wording of the first phrase. Otherwise I prefer column C - IMO we shouldn't be introducing notability criteria directly into this policy, as DGG points out, they are constantly evolving, whereas a policy page should ideally stay fairly static. Franamax (talk) 20:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

No strong opposition to "solely", although I would prefer "primarily". I didn't have anything to do with the "garage" text in the first place, Franamax ... I'm not sure who you are thinking of.—Kww(talk) 21:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I think Franamax meant that you had proposed the "shorten" approach, not that you had written the existing text. (The shortened text was actually MilborneOne's idea.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

^^ Wut them sez. :) Franamax (talk) 22:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I would aprove of the shorter "Article topics must be third-party verifiable", as it is simple, clean, sensible, and fully suported by current policy.. and as a simplification also removes any conflicts with existing notability guidelines. Organization size should never be made an exclusionary criteria, as even small companies might indeed have the wisespread coverage and impact that could merit inclusion. I'm reminded of TOMS Shoes... a small local company that has had global impact and coverage. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the shorter version works, but I would consider adding something to the effect that "A company or organization's own material, such as brochures or websites, are considered first-party sources, and can only be used in conjunction with third-party sources." Take out the issue on size, but stress that those that post "hey, we have a website, here's our information on WP!" aren't going to be kept. --MASEM (t) 22:11, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe there is any need to add such a caveat, as guideline already instructs when and how an SPS might be used, and stresses that an SPS does not add to notability. Again, no need to make guideline into policy. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:15, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Whatever the outcome, if the text is changed, it should move away from focussing on article TOPICS. NOTADVERTISING should apply equally to a section or other content in a related article. Also, since this is NOT, I would advocate for text that says what should not be. (ie: logically negate the point) ‒ Jaymax✍ 22:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

No one is suggesting converting a guideline into policy, Michael. Since the need for articles to be based on third-party sourcing already is policy, and experienced editors don't seem to fully grasp that, the caveat seems quite necessary.—Kww(talk) 22:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Masem, I'm not sure what the intended difference is between your long statement and my short one (modified to include "primarily" as discussed above). What is it?—Kww(talk) 22:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "not based solely" establishes that other sources are required... and that is fine. "Not based primarily" invokes a need to begin counting words and sources, as "primarily" will become a subjective as with editors quibble over how many sources were used for just what content... "Solely" is objective. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 23:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

"Solely" is easily gameable though. One one-sentence mention in a third-party source, and a 4000 line article based on the company's website would be argued to be acceptable.—Kww(talk) 23:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Same issue with NOT:PLOT and dealt with in the same way - applying UNDUE and appropriate editing to clean that up. If the mention by the third-party is enough to establish the company, then it doesn't matter if someone spams the article with copyedit from the company's webiste - that's a content issue to be cleaned up but not an inclusion issue that this policy is attempting to address. But that's why I suggest the additional line to make sure that small amounts of source directly from the company is appropriate to add. --MASEM (t) 00:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's worked so well before. The more places that drive home the fact that articles can't be derived from dependent sources, the better, because too many people are intent on using tiny bits of info to coatrack enormous articles, and then the same people that claim WP:N is only a guideline will act as if WP:N mandates the inclusion of every topic that ever got mentioned in two different sources in order to keep the article. Articles that are primarily derived from corporate websites or press releases need to be deleted or userfied until someone can improve them, not kept as advertising waiting for the day that someone will bother to improve it. This is WP:NOT, after all, a place to list what is not acceptable.—Kww(talk) 03:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Your short version gets the point across, but I worry that people will say "but this company has a website and all that and all that's published", or worse, that the material in question is prepared by or hosted by another entity hired to do that ("third-party" though far from independent). Clearly establishing that you can't just use press copy for a company to build an article is important but at the same time, once it has been established, press copy can be a useful contribution to the article. It's not absolutely necessary, but in the semi-informal tone NOT takes I think it is fair to address this issue at this point. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Well... no matter what sources might have inspired the creation of an article, and no matter what sources are used to build its content, the article would still have to answer to the more specific and detailed instructions at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). Fail that guideline and the article is deleted. Pass those guidelines and the article might be kept. There is no need to move parts of those more specific notability guidelines into policy. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

No, if the subject fail ORG and you fail GNG and editors dislike the subject (e.g., alt med products are out, but charities are in), then it might be deleted.

If, on the other hand, you list lots of essentially irrelevant references that mention the subject only once in passing, if that much (e.g., see the actual contents of the named sources in The Alliance for Safe Children, which survived AFD despite failing ORG, GNG, and NOT), then there are good odds that a bunch of editors will say, "Wow! Nineteen sources! I didn't look at any of them, but let's keep such an amply sourced article!"

If an article contains more than half a dozen inline citations to third-party sources, then it's actually quite difficult to get it deleted, no matter what the contents of the sources are. A sufficient proportion of AfD respondents simply ignore the "significant coverage" standards, and simply count up the number of sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

And we're back to the incident-specific reason you decided to modify policy. If you're frustrated by how that AFD was closed, or feel that it was closed incorrectly and that a closing admin ignored existing policy and/or guideline, then your recourse is to take the issue to DRV. This is not the forum to re-argue that AFD. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 12:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It's quite legitimate to look at an AFD and believe the reason that it went wrong is because the !voters didn't comprehend policy and the existing policy needs clarification. Most policy revisions are made for precisely that kind of reason. You act as if Whatamidoing is trying to modify the underlying policy in some way, and he is not: the changes suggested so far have done nothing but clarify what existing policy is.—Kww(talk) 16:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

A well-respected Wikipedia bureaucrat[3] not comprehending policy before offering an opinion? Err.. not the first thing I would have ever thought.

I have a concern about any editor choosing to "clarify" a policy[4] during the course of an AFD to then have that policy more "clearly" support his arguments made[5] at that AFD... specially when such instruction and clarifications are already well-covered in the pertinant notability guideline.

And now that the AFD has closed against his opinion,[6] the editor voices continued disagreement with the opinions of editors at that AFD... and these opinions include those by admins and a well-respected bureaucrat. If he thinks the close was wrong, he has recourse other than "clarifying" policy to make it fit his interpretation of what policy might "better" be in a post-facto support of his argument at an AFD that closed against his interest. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:02, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

That Rlevse doesn't always research every aspect of policy pertaining to an article before expressing an opinion wouldn't make him unique. It's certainly true that the AFD closed against Whatamidoing's opinion, but you haven't demonstrated any portion of his proposed change that would actually change policy as opposed to expressing it more clearly.—Kww(talk) 21:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that when a Crat steps away from the tasks involved with wielding the mop to speak up at an AFD, we might have a far more reasonable expectation that he has indeed done his homework... and not an unfounded presumption of the opposite. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

And getting back to track on the size issue, beyond some simply wanting guideline caveats placed into policy, it has not been demonstrated that the inclusion of guideline instruction into policy here improves it. If it already stated elsewhere, it does not need to be ipso-facto included into every other policy page. Again, I find the far simpler "Article topics must be third-party verifiable." as offered above, to be far simpler, far cleaner, and less subject to abuse of policy... acting instead to then send editors then to the appropriate notability guidelines themselves... contrary opinion notwithstanding. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think that the closer was incorrect in his interpretation of the local consensus. Editors at an AFD are permitted to WP:IGNORE notability guidelines whenever they choose to, and closers may choose consensus according to policy and guidelines, or the more limited (but perhaps more appropriate) consensus at AFD.

But this change really didn't have anything to do with that AFD, and absolutely would not have affected its outcome. It's only that quoting this section reminded me that I'd been thinking about addressing NOT's somewhat misleading claims of size discrimination for months now. (See, e.g., here.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Well.... that was the impression I received from your statement where you spoke of the AFD, as a closer has the responsibility to weigh the arguments made by various editors and NOT count votes. And if editors might opine and ignore guideline, they do so at their own risk, for if their arguments are spurious, a closer has the responsibility to ignore them and close per application of guideline and policy. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Issues of organization size belong in the appropriate guideline and not in policy... which is why I support the removal of the phrase "so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable", and acceptance of the shortened and cleaner version above. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

No, issues of organization size don't actually belong anywhere, because we don't actually care how big the organization is. We care how much attention it has received.

As a practical matter, very small orgs are less likely to have received sufficient coverage than very large orgs, but it's the coverage, not the size, that matters. Half the point of the clarification is to indicate that articles on "very small" orgs might well be perfectly acceptable (if they received lots of coverage). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Then yes, that mention of size affecting notability does not belong in policy. Its clarification would seem better addressed, if at all, over at WP:Notability (organizations and companies). And, as that guideline already begins with and stresses coverage, and does not include any unrealistic limitation on notability due to "small size", there is no need to saddle WP:NOTADVERTISING with a notability limitation that guideline does not. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS vs WP:EVENT

I know this has been discussed before but I think it needs to be looked at again,.

Over the last few weeks, I have been involved in a number of AfD's and DRV's that have boiled down in essence to WP:NOTNEWS vs WP:EVENT.

Here are a few examples

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/12 September 2008 Dujail bombing
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/19 September 2010 Baghdad attacks
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2010 Newry car bombing
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/28 September 2008 Baghdad bombings
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/June 2010 West Bank shooting (2nd nomination) and the DRV at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 October 2
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/September 2008 Peshawar bombing
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/September 2010 West Bank shooting

From my reading of the WP:NOTNEWS section of this policy, it is there to stop the Encyclopaedia being filled up with news stories that show no "enduring notability" to that end just because an event get's widespread coverage at the time, that does not mean we should have an article on it, take for example 12 September 2008 Dujail bombing all the refs are from the 24 hours after the event with nothing to show that the event has that enduring notability. Please read the essay WP:Recentism for some helpful perspective on this problem.

Note : I have waited until the end of the process on all of the above to avoid even the appearance of canvassing.

So my questions are :

Is the WP:NOTNEWS policy meant to limit articles on any event that are widely reported at the time, but with no lasting effect or enduring notability ?

and if so, should the WP:NOTNEWS policy take precedence over the WP:EVENT guideline and should both pages be updated to reflect that.

Codf1977 (talk) 11:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• It is important to keep in mind that NOTNEWS (as part of NOT) applies equally (or should be applied equally) to both article content, and article existence. To argue under NOT that an article should not exist, is to argue that the content of the article would be equally inappropriate as part of an article on a broader topic. NOT should not define what are, or are not, appropriate article topics; it operates at a more holistic level. While NOT has precedence as policy, when it comes to 'should this be an article or not' the appropriate guidance is WP:EVENT, which should (and to my mind does) fully consider and comply with WP:NOTNEWS ‒ Jaymax✍ 12:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• Ironically, the article (AFD) used as an example of an event that "is just the news" was the only one of these I punched "keep". In my defense my brain was almost melted :) after parsing this AFD. In hindsite the "keep" votes in the Dujail AFD weren't stronger then the others but all of the "delete" !votes were basically "per noms".--Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:41, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• They are supposed to work together; neither conflict with the other. What appears to be the problem is how one defines routine coverage or wide international coverage. What I'm seeing in these articles are the same news story, told in different ways from different wire sources or newspapers. Repetition of what happened at an event without additional analysis usually in the 24hr after the event is routine coverage even if the event is deadly and/or life threatening. EVENT suggests this, but it's not 100% clear on the issue, while this really isn't addressed in NOTNEWS, or at least it should be mentioned in routine coverage. I agree on the general consensus that if you can't find sources that are outside a 24-48hr window of an event, it has no long-term coverage and is not notable and thus should be moved to Wikinews. (I wonder what the chances are of getting a CSD criteria in place for events within their first 24-48hr save for ones that are clearly obviously notable like major passenger jet crashes). --MASEM (t) 13:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  There was debate around this while EVENT was being developed. There is a strong (IMHO) argument for NOT deleting an article that gets created within the first couple of days, because during that time a solid and quality basis for an article can be developed while editor input is heavy. An article can easily be deleted after (say) two weeks (or two months) with no downside to the encyclopaedia - the effort/contributions made by editors during the early period is lost if the article is deleted because as admin determines the topic is not "clearly obviously notable" (an extremely subjective criterion) ‒ Jaymax✍ 13:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  The thing is that we need discourage on the spot writing and instead direct those that want to write on the spot articles to Wikinews which easily can accept that. When the event has "matured" to the point of having clear notability, it can be moved into Wikipedia proper. I'm not a big fan of the creation of an article and deleting later if the article doesn't prove out to be notable. You get, well, exactly what all these AFDs are showing. --MASEM (t) 13:45, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  I disagree that we need to discourage them, nor that Wikinews is actually useful for this purpose. Wikinews allows OR, Wikipedia does not. Jclemens (talk) 21:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  Even if WNews allows for OR, that simply means in my scheme that when the article is ready to return to WP because the event is notable, it needs to be stripped of OR before or shortly being added. Of course, the other alternative is to encourage userpage construction of event articles until they are notable to be in mainspace. --MASEM (t) 21:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• The fundamental problem is that NOTNEWS says what it means, ("For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia.") but some editors and administrators are misapplying NOTNEWS to e.g. the incidents above that have received international coverage. NOTNEWS should be renamed NOTROUTINENEWS, but what some editors are expecting it to be is NOTEVENMAJORINTERNATIONALNEWS. Jclemens (talk) 21:23, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  The point that needs to be made is that there are some events that get worldwide coverage simply being on several different newswires and are never discussed again, which gives the appearance of wide coverage but realistically is simple reiteration of facts without analysis. That does not a good event article make. --MASEM (t) 21:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  If an event is covered in multiple reliable sources, we presume it worthy of an article, per GNG. If NOTNEWS is going to be an exception on such a basis, it needs to be a lot clearer on this point. Furthermore, if an event article is insufficient on its own, the proper question isn't "Do we keep this info or not" (given that it's already been covered in multiple RSes) but rather "How can we best present this information in an encyclopedic fashion?" In the case of several of the above articles, the obvious solution is to merge into lists... yet that option gets overshadowed in much of the partisan bickering. Jclemens (talk) 22:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  I think it is meant as an exception as it is a policy and not a guideline. I agree however in most cases a mention in a suitable other article is warranted, just not an article on it's own. Codf1977 (talk) 22:26, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) If you take the sentence prior to the one you quote which says "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion." so how does being widely reported, even if it is on every news broadcast in the world, make something "enduring" - Something can't be said to have enduring notability (as in the 12 September 2008 Dujail bombing) if the event is not discussed in at least some detail in the weeks and months after it in reliable sources. The problem I have with the interpretation of the policy you are suggesting is it seems to over look that first part of the paragraph, that of the requirement to look for "enduring notability". Codf1977 (talk) 22:23, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  The issue, then, is that the section of NOTNEWS is at odds with itself! The examples given do not match what the first sentence is being interpreted to mean. On the other hand, I agree--most newsworthy items aren't notable. But "most" can mean anything from 55% to 99.99%, with most people probably agreeing that reality falls somewhere in the 70-90% range. But those NN news examples given in the next sentences themselves comprise most of the news! So if "most" is interpreted reasonably, there's neither any conflict between the two, nor any call to exclude the "major news story of the day". Jclemens (talk) 22:37, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

  I don't see it, or more specifically, we are not including the fact that international reporting from wire services that go into no analysis of the event is just as unaccepted as the "routine" coverage of sports and celebrities. Coverage for event notability has many dimensions, which include breadth (the number of sources reporting it, and the non-locality of such sources), depth (the amount of detail and analysis they go into the topic), and longevity (how far out from the event are the sources appearing). NOTNEWS does fail to go significantly into the details here but the term "enduring coverage" captures a lot of that easily. --MASEM (t) 22:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Quoting myself from back when EVENT was being developed:

• Agree completely w/JClemens, including renaming NOTNEWS as NOTROUTINENEWS. That would be a great help.--Epeefleche (talk) 23:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• I think the two would be in harmony, if people would just read the entirety of WP:EVENT and actually apply the whole thing, rather than one selective part of one sentence. The allegedly policy-based defense for keeping most news stories to me is "it was covered widely in lots of different countries and news sources." That's great, but that's not enough, even per WP:EVENT. The line that refers to international coverage actually states, "Events are also very likely to be notable if they have widespread (national or international) impact and were very widely covered in diverse sources, especially if also re-analyzed afterwards (as described below)" (emphasis added). That line clearly states that being covered in diverse sources is not enough--the event has to rise to the level of having widespread national or international impact. WP:EVENT goes on to say, "Events having lesser coverage or more limited scope may or may not be notable; the descriptions below provide guidance to assess the event," which requires that we actually then wade into the details of the story itself rather than just saying "200 hits on Google News, in 3 different countries, Keep." Furthermore, a few people above mentioned that just having reliable sources means the article meets WP:GNG. Well, yes, it's true that having multiple reliable, independent sources with significant does mean the topic satisfies GNG, but note that GNG itself explicitly and clearly states, "significant coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, that a subject is suitable for inclusion. Editors may reach a consensus that although a topic meets this criterion, it is not appropriate for a stand-alone article. For example, such an article may violate what Wikipedia is not." That is, just meeting GNG is not enough to overcome WP:NOT. I saw someone else who described the various core policies as a set of hurdles--each of them needs to be met independently to guarantee inclusion as a stand-alone article; meeting one is not enough. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• I’m glad someone had the chutzpah to turn over this slimy rock to see what’s underneath. This issue has been in the back of my mind for a while. I got a simple solution: Don’t allow articles on events to be created on Wikipedia unless it’s been at least six months since the event first unfolded. That will cut down on this *Newspaper* articles because someone will have to remember the details: (“I think it had to do with someone who was from—like—the Middle East or North Africa or something like that blowing up something.”) It’s a lot easier to do if the issue is still in the papers. In most cases, someone who was all hot & bothered to start an article the day after something happens is going to be busy on something else six months later and won’t have the motivation. The only exception would be exceedingly notable events where there is no question at all (when using a modicum of WP:COMMONSENSE). Greg L (talk) 00:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
  • • So if we had this policy back on 9/11/2001 we should have had to wait 6 months before writing an article about the attack? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
      • No fair speed-reading and then commenting. Read the last sentence, too. Greg L (talk) 23:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Six months is far too long, but I strongly agree that event articles, even those that are immediately obvious to any causal reader that will be notable, should not be created for a period of X after the occurrence of the event. X to me is at least 48 hrs to a week, which is enough time for details to become accurate, for weekly periodicals to take detailed stab at it, and so forth. Again,I would not be hesitant to have a CSD for event articles created before X is up (with a push to Wikinews or userspace as a possible result), unless that event is truly important. More often than note, breaking events likely can be put into a larger topic in the interim before the event clearly has shown to be notable. --MASEM (t) 00:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• Disagree strongly with GregL, as I disagree w/any delay on reporting news that is not routine news. Just look at the number of hits on breaking news that a wp article on current events receives -- why deprive readers of the benefit of the nascent wikipedia article? And while we afg, we sadly cannot ASSUMECOMMONSENSE, as those who participate in AfDs can attest.--Epeefleche (talk) 00:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

  It doesn't matter whether or not we agree whether news articles should or should not be created soon after the event. Absent a fundamental shift in Wikipedia's rules for article creation, they will be created, and any proposed solution which ignores this reality is doomed to fail. Jclemens (talk) 00:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

  CSD and PROD exists to step problems of bad article creation like vanity and hoaxes. No reason we can't incorporate just-happened events as well. --MASEM (t) 00:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

  So that's the proposal? Since CSD and PROD are each only for uncontroversial deletions, neither would be effective without substantial modifications, which puts us back in the everything-recent-is-at-AfD-but-kept-eventually status quo... except they might get deleted. Jclemens (talk) 01:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

  Well, no, it's not as simple as that. It is getting consensus in the first place that we shouldn't be creating event articles immediately after they happen. Then we can talk about a CSD/PROD case. --MASEM (t) 01:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

  Well, I'm not sure whether it will help, but I'll add my name to vote for a rule to not create an article immediately after an event. Maybe something arbitrary like a 3-day or 7-day rule to say that no sourcing is reliable unless the item has been in existence for at least that time. That combined with the ability to delete articles without reliable sources might solve the problem. Dingo1729 (talk) 02:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

are you saying that NYT articles gain authority if they age a few days, or are you using "reliability" is some way that has no relationship to the ordinary meaning of the term? DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

A NYT article written a few days after an event is more significant indication of the event's enduring notability than a NYT article written on the day of the event. --MASEM (t) 04:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• Are we writing for ourselves? or to prove a theory about how encyclopedias should be written? or to enforce the distinctions we have ourselves made up? or to match the habits of conventional publications? In the paper era, only a daily or weekly publication could be current; the best an almanac or encyclopedia could do is catch up at the end of the year. But Wikipedia is not paper, and their distinctions are obsolete. TTheu true purpose of Wikipedia is to provide the information people want, and the justification for dividing it between projects is only if these projects can do better divided up, or if people prefer to see them that way. I think it's pretty obvious that we can do just as well here with most stories as they can do a wikinews, and it's also true that many more people come here. The true distinction between Wikipedia and Wikinews is that Wikinews can rely on original reporting, and Wikipedia only on secondary sources. Thus, Wikinews can engage in analysis. which Wikipedia cannot. Otherwise, I see no difference. This may be enough to keep Wikinews as an auxiliary project, but otherwise I think we should just delete the rule NOT NEWS. We should still limit ourselves to significant news of more than purely local and ephemeral interest, but we do that with all articles. For example, we'd keep the rules on BLP and on NOT TABLOID. I'm not sure we have any need of ONEEVENT except with respect to negative BLOP, either. otherwise, either. encyclopedias are for use. DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
  • We can be current, but we should be careful of editing problems and the problem with false or mistaken information that comes from today's on the spot reporting. Once news coverage of an event has settled down after the initial occurrence, where the facts can be better judged and analysis starts to appear, we can understand the event in the larger picture of its encyclopedic nature; it is exception that we know in hours or even a day of an event of its impact. Also, Wikipedia's purpose is not to provide what people want - it's to build an education free content encyclopedic resource; we can use input of readers and the like to judge how that should be built, but if we went strictly by what readers use it for, we're be a fanguide for every contemporary show, a catalog of every garage band, and, here, coverage of every local event. We need filters to keep the work relevant and usable and not succumb to the "average" desires of what they think WP should be. --MASEM (t) 04:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I guess I am saying that newspaper articles gain authority if they age a few days. I've seen plenty of newspaper articles which give a false impression and then are significantly modified by later information. I'm not going to fight over this point. If people enjoy an all-against-all riot with quotes and information thrown in while the ink is still wet on the newspaper then so be it. I just think it produces unbalanced and unreliable copy. Dingo1729 (talk) 04:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

So how about a moratorium on NOTNEWS-based AfD nominations until a week has passed? Rather than assuming something will NOT be notable in the long term, why not keep it around for a minimum of a week, during which time a clearer sense of the notability will have developed, and it can be better seen whether a standalone article, merge into another article, or deletion is most appropriate. Jclemens (talk) 05:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

An alternative that is geared towards retaining appropriate events but removing those that have little is to tag newly created event pages, that basically puts the article on a 7-day period; unless it fails another CSD criteria (eg obvious hoax), it should be left untouched for deletion tagging. Within 7-days, the article will be evaluated per EVENT in a CSD-type manner (eg an admin). If it is clear the event clearly hasn't gained any more coverage from its onset, it should be readily deleted/moved to Wikinews or something like that. Otherwise, it should be left untouched. Of course, if the event clearly has passed EVENT/NOTNEWS within that time, the tag can be removed prematurely. --MASEM (t) 05:34, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

1. Read page 7, of the 2008–2009 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report. That's what I think of, when notnews comes up.

   Well worth a look, but quoting a chunk here for the lazy... ‒ Jaymax✍ 08:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

2. We last discussed this in September, archived at /Archive 34#NOTNEWS. So please also read that, so that we don't all have to repeat ourselves :) HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• When we were working on WP:EVENT we explicitly included the "Duration of coverage" subsection because we wanted to discourage articles on topics that were covered only during one or two 24 hour news cycles. It sounds like the guideline is being misapplied in a way that makes it seem to conflict with WP:NOTNEWS. In the end it is not about the content (routine coverage refers to the nature of the coverage not the nature of the event) but about the sources. In order to write an encyclopedia article you need sources that provide analysis of and context for events. This sort of coverage is rarely found in day of or day after event newspaper articles, wire service blurbs, and TV news stories. So I don't think an article that cites only news articles that appear within 24 or 48 hours of the event can claim protection from WP:EVENT. Unfortunately, depending on who bothers to pay attention on a particular day, my experience is that guidelines are rarely applied consistently at different AfDs. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
• I quite like Masem's compromise approach above - a CSD that can be applied, but only after an article has existed for 10 days (I prefer metric to lunar-phases). The 'current event' tag could possibly incorporate this. To take the classic example, the Balloon Boy hoax article would be much poorer had it not survived the early delete attempts. That is NOT to say it was a good article at the very outset, but well within 24 hours there was sufficient analysis etc to probably justify it. What is good for the encyclopaedia must drive our approach. NB: There is also scope to refine the AfD process - too much good content gets deleted, rather than merged - and this would certainly apply to current affairs articles. I would argue that properly sourced content from ANY article to be deleted for topic non-notability should be found a 'home' where-ever possible. NB2: It is not particularly surprising (given that most editors are human) that in the 'heat' more people (and the consensus) may be that the event has enduring notability, but that in 'cold' reflection, that consensus may no longer hold. ‒ Jaymax✍ 08:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I too would be inclined to accept Masem's approach as long as the evaluation at the end of that time period was mandatory. But, then again, this is because my fundamental belief is that no less than 90% of a new, news based article is not encyclopedic (at least, not as a separate article). Additionally, this would only work if WP:EVENT is actually applied as written; at the 7/14/21 day mark, articles can be kept or deleted based on enduring notability, but they cannot be kept simply because "Good story" or "People will come to Wikipedia searching for this" or "It was covered every day in the newspaper for 3 days" or "This is certain to fundamentally change the way people live their lives". I can see some quite devilish details that need to be hashed out with this idea, but the fundamental principle may be helpful. In fact, you could argue that it helps inclusionists, deletionists, and people who ride in the middle. Inclusionists get breathing space to work on the article without having to waste time defending against an (instantaneous) AfD, deletionists don't have the problem of having to surmount an early Keep result for an article that truly doesn't deserve coverage, and everyone else can work or not work on the articles that they believe will eventually meet notability without having to worry about wasting their time on an article that already seems to be in peril. The more I type this out, the better it sounds (again, this is as someone who thinks that most of these articles should be deleted). My gut feeling is the clock should be at about 14 days, because 7 days later, especially during the silly season, the (probably) non-notable story may still be "hot" just because there's nothing else to talk about in the news. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
    • It would be mandatory in that the articles would be listed on a rotating page similar to other admin tasks, even if the tag was removed (eg we would need bot help). After the set period (I agree, 14 might be better) an admin reviews and CSD's those where it is obviously not enduring; anything else after that point can face AFD if others feel it is. --MASEM (t) 13:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
• For me Masem's compromise concedes too much. The whole concept of enduring notability is IMO harmful to the encyclopaedia and should be rejected. Its contrary to our vision statement to delete well sourced information just because we the sources were written soon after the event. Per the fact large numbers of people want to create, work on and read these articles regardless of enduring coverage, we should probably downgrade both WP:NOTNEWS and WP:EVENT to essays. Granted we ideally need sources that take a broad perspective and contextualise events, but theres no reason to destroy folks work and deprive readers of our best efforts to provide encyclopaedic coverage with the sources available. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

If that's your reference, are you also willing to allow fancruft, directory information, or, for that matter, blatant advertising? All of those things also have their ardent supporters, and I don't want to see any of them any more than fleeting news stories. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Note that deletion is not the only option per my scheme. If there's a larger topic the article can fall into, great. If there's interest in users to move to Wikinews, great. If there's someone that thinks the event will take a while to be notable and wants a userified version, great. If it fails all these options, deletion is then the only approach. So it's not removal of information. --MASEM (t) 13:13, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Please specifically address the issue with the Foundation reports of the Mumbai attacks, linked and pull-quoted above. Do you think the Foundation is incorrect? If not, explain how you would differentiate such a newsworthy event, on the day it begins under your proposed speedy criteria. Jclemens (talk) 14:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It completely fits within that, in fact the idea was partially inspired by that. As per that report, I understand the value that "within hours" we can have a starting article. In the case of the Mumbai attacks, it quickly grew well beyond a typical "news event". Thus, so if it was created and tagged with this pending EVENT review, at the end of that period (3-7-14 days), it was clearly a keeper. Tag gone, article could continue to grow. It would even be the type of case that the tag could be pulled quicker since it clearly met the bare minimum of NOTNEWS/EVENT within a day. Contrast these to the AFD articles listed above, and the type of articles this approach is designed to remove if there's no enduring coverage. So nothing is at odds with the Foundation's praise of the article on the Mumbai attacks and works harmoniously with it. --MASEM (t) 15:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

There may be a misunderstanding here - the value of Masem's proposal is that it specifically removes the whole on the day it begins issue, protecting an event article for an embryonic period of several days. ‒ Jaymax✍ 15:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You are correct--I'd overlooked that post. My apologies, and yes, I can live with a 7-day "probationary" period in mainspace of some sort. Jclemens (talk) 15:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Feyd raises some very sound points. I'll add -- I wouldn't mind our reflecting that the number of hits an article gets counts for something. The efforts to delete articles that are getting 5-10K or more hits a day, for example, are AfDs that simply waste the community's time. It would be better to free editors up for more productive matters.--Epeefleche (talk) 00:19, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Completely agree, somethings wrong if thousands of readers who obviously find an article useful or interesting dont get a say on deletion unless they descend to the scary and hard to fathom depths of AfD. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Time to try this out?

I propose, based on the above discussion, we add some verbiage to {{current}}.

Current current: "This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses."

Proposed current: "This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. After one week, this article will be assessed to verify whether it meets Wikipedia's inclusion criteria for news."

Comments, thoughts, etc? Jclemens (talk) 15:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

My thinking is a bit more complex. First I have to agree that 14 days seems to be the prudent number, as that assures that at least weekly newsmags (Sunday editions, Newsweek, Time, etc.) will have a chase to cover the story if it is significant, and ties with other processes on WP. Secondly, there would need to be a CSD-type uninvolved admin review , with only those clearly outside EVENT being deleted; if its questionable, it can stay though be tagged, and then of course now qualify for AFD review. We likely need a bot to manage this review process.

Also, I've seen people use current on articles that have existed for a while but have had recent updates (the Chilien miners, for example) I'd rather not prempt the {{current}} template to do this, but instead one specifically for events within their first 14 days since occurrence. --MASEM (t) 15:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I certainly agree to 14 days, and to use another template modeled on current, but I'm absolutely sure we don't want a speedy process--I'm perfectly fine with an auto-AfD bot, especially one that would DELSORT it to a current-events list, but speedy is for things that don't require review. Jclemens (talk) 23:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

"Will be assessed"? How are we guaranteeing that this will definitely happen on (or shortly after) the relevant date? Do we perhaps mean "somebody should" rather than "somebody will"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

How about... "After 14 days, an editor in good standing should assess the enduring notability of this article, remove this notice, and nominate this article for a deletion discussion if notability has not been established"? Jclemens (talk) 00:32, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a plausible idea. Are we saying that there would be some sort of corresponding related ban on the article being AfD'd on notability grounds within those 14 days? Like, any AfD could be speedy kept without discussion? If not, I'm not sure that just a tag will have the desired effect. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:43, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I have been reading this with some interest, I think one solution to this could be something like BLP-PROD (NEWS-PROD or something like that) where news stories were PROD'ed if they did not have sources showing coverage outside that of just reporting the event, anyone could remove the PROD, but like BLP-PROD only if there were those sources. Codf1977 (talk) 10:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, I would actually prefer that it put any AfD on "hiatus" or "suspended animation" for the duration, rather than preventing or closing one outright. The net effect would be like a double-relist for "free", if you will. I would actually prefer if a fresh AfD were started on day 14, since earlier opinions (one way or the other) are going to be essentially useless since no one can really know how it will turn out.

Codf1977, PROD processes are only for when everyone (or almost everyone) agrees on the rules and how to apply them. I disagree that EVENT vs. NOTNEWS is anywhere near that settled. Jclemens (talk) 03:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, wikipedia is not a reliable source.

I think that because Wikipedia can be edited by anybody, It should be noted on the Project page that we are not a reliable source of information. at my school, if we use Wikipedia on any paper or project, we get a zero. Therefore, It should be mentioned on the main page. 99.20.100.127 (talk) 02:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:DISCLAIM. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 03:10, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

In addition, it is your school's responsibility to ensure that you are aware of your school's policies regarding Wikipedia, not ours.--greenrd (talk) 09:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Oddity of WP:NOTCENSORED lead paragraph

The lead paragraph of WP:NOTCENSORED has always struck me as exceedingly odd. Surely others have noticed this. Here is what it says:

"Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Anyone can edit an article, and most changes made are displayed immediately, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms."

There are two ideas being expressed here, and they are not really that closely related. Moving the text around without adding or deleting anything, we have:

"Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms."

"Anyone can edit an article, and most changes made are displayed immediately, so..." [we cannot guarantee that content will be acceptable]

The first passage says "As a matter of intent, you may see objectionable material". The second says "As a byproduct of how our content is created you may see objectionable material."

The concepts should be separated. The second passage does not express a complete thought, so to flesh it out, we have something like:

"Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms."

"Anyone can edit an article, and most changes made are displayed immediately, and it may be a matter of some seconds or minutes before inappropriate material is removed."

But the second passage doesn't really belong in a policy about censorship. It belongs in the content disclaimer, or something. Right? So only the first passage should remain. Correct?

I mean, as the lead paragraph stands it could certainly be interpreted as basically saying:

"Anyone can edit an article, and most changes made are displayed immediately, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that that material that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer), will not be displayed, even if briefly; or that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms, until the material is corrected."

Which I think is not what most people expect WP:NOTCENSORED to be saying. Well, I suppose the wording of this paragraph was the result of some discussion - it certainly looks like it was written by a committee. But it would be better if it was clear. As it stands, it's not of much use, although the following paragraphs rectify this to a considerable extent. Herostratus (talk) 18:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

---

Well, OK. I know this section is important and oft-quoted (to me, often enough), so I hesitate to make a change in it. However, this seems to be a fairly uncontentious change, and so far no one has commented, so let me ask again: is it OK if I change the lead paragraph from this

"Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Anyone can edit an article, and most changes made are displayed immediately, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms."

to

"Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms."

"(Wikipedia also does not have prior censorship: anyone can edit an article, and most changes made are displayed immediately, so even genuinely inappropriate material may appear to users before it is removed (usually a matter of seconds or minutes).)"

Actually I don't think the second paragraph belongs here, but it doesn't hurt too much, and I don't want to remove a whole thought.

If no objection, I'll make this change shortly, subject of course to revert/discussion or other editing. Herostratus (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't examined all your thoughts above, but the second para is not quite right. I would remove the brackets and use something like this:

Since anyone can edit an article and most changes made are displayed immediately, inappropriate material may appear before it can be removed.

Some integration of the two paras is probably needed. Johnuniq (talk) 04:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

OK. Herostratus (talk) 17:46, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Gazetteer content discussion

You are invited to join the discussion at WT:N#What is the consensus on City articles?. patsw (talk) 01:10, 29 October 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

Removal of part of Nucleophilic's addition to NOTDEMOCRACY; should the rest go, too?

On 25 October, User:Nucleophilic added the following paragraph to WP:NOTDEMOCRACY:

For example, a straw vote cannot trump or substitute for appropriate wp:reliable sources. Also see wikiality for a satirical example of this abusive use of straw voting. Straw votes should be used with caution, and are no more binding than any other consensus decision. Elections and votes are only endorsed for things that take place outside Wikipedia proper, such as when electing the Arbitration Committee.

Then, today, he changed the second sentence (this is what caught my attention) to read "Wikiality and truthiness are cogent satirical examples of the pitfalls of straw voting and "democratic" consensus."

Today, I removed that second sentence. Neither truthiness nor wikiality refer to straw polls, nor, really, to democratic usage of Wikipedia. In fact, wikiality is really a satire of the consensus process, not of the short-hand democratization of that process. But even if we were to agree that these apply, there is no reason to reference Stephen Colbert's neologisms (however commonplace they may be now) on this policy page. So I removed that sentence.

In addition, I'd like to hear other people's opinions on the paragraph as a whole. I'm not so sure that it adds any useful information that isn't contained in the prior paragraph. Furthermore, it actually seems to increase confusion to me--it fails to account for the fact that the choice of reliable sources is itself a consensus process. The mention of ArbCom is clear and accurate, but I'm not sure that it's needed here, as it's not something that the majority of editors need to concern themselves with. Do others believe that paragraph belongs in the policy? Qwyrxian (talk) 01:40, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, wikiality does not mention straw polls. In fact, this is why I changed the sentence to reflect its statement about the pitfalls of defining truth by "democratic" votes. Which is the point of the section. While at it, threw in truthiness too, as a further generalization. Perhaps this was inappropriate.

Don't mean to be obtuse-- Are you implying that long-term truth on wikipedia really is defined as whatever the majority decides ? Wikiality is a satyrical statement of this concept, which the section specifically rejects. Like much cogent humor, this makes its point by exaggeration and is not really expected to be take seriously. Perhaps the levity is inappropriate here.

Similarly, this seems to be at odds with "Wikipedia is not a democracy", the title of the section. Clearly, wp:reliable sources control wikipedia entries, not majoritarian wp:original research, however popular. Or do you seriously question this ?

Finally, just where do I question that wp:concensus is not involved in deciding what are reliable sources, etc. ? It is just that it cannot act as a substitute. Pardon me for seeming puzzled. Nucleophilic (talk) 03:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Rereading all this: The issue in the section is not "consensus", the issue is straw votes, a rather different thing. Similarly, part of the problem may be that humor is individual. Likewise, humor sometimes does not transfer well cross-culturally. So examples involving humor may be inapproprate here. Nucleophilic (talk) 03:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Removal seems to imply that wikiality is AOK in the Wikipedia.Rememberway (talk) 14:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the paragraph is flawed from the start. WP is not a democracy because we use consensus-building to come to decisions. Sometimes the involved editors decide (via consensus) to use straw polling to get an idea of where the majority is, and yes, in some cases, this will be stronger than what reliable sources may say. (this is usually at the meta level, not content). However, such options are only sought after other dispute resolution is tried and an insurmountable gulf is encountered; it needs to be understood that such polling are final actions and not first ones. --MASEM (t) 15:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

So, basically you're supporting wikiality in the Wikipedia.Rememberway (talk) 15:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

You'll notice I mentioned about the meta aspect as opposed to content. A cabal of editors cannot run a straw poll to overturn fundamental facts like the sky being blue. On the other hand, I've seen people argue that in policy and guidelines we need to base these on reliable sources or similar, but that's not the case. Just because, say, every scientific journal uses a certain type of citation (hypothetically) doesn't mean WP needs to use the same if the consensus determines that to be the case. There are also exceptional cases where sometimes the reliable sources are wrong and we have to be aware of that fact using consensus. In one recent example, a music video game with a character named "Lars" was mistaken to be an avatar of the real musician Lars Ulrich, a bit of news that spread through many sources without question. This is a case where consensus should outweigh the reliable sources. --MASEM (t) 16:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Strangely, I think it's never acceptable.Rememberway (talk) 15:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Remove it all. Speaking as someone who has written couple of "humorous" essays and who sometimes uses humor to make a point, I would say that linking to humorous material should never be done in a policy statement, absent a very compelling reasons (which would have to include a reason why a non-humorous version of the desired material doesn't exist and can't be created, in my view). Humor not as clear as straghtforward speech and bsides, policy is serious business. Also, the link to "Wikiality" describes it thus: "together we can create a reality that we all agree on—the reality we just agreed on". Well if we all agree on it, I would say that that is "consensus" and has little to do with counting votes. Either the community is functional or it is not; if it is functional (which is my view) it usually arrives at correct results, however this is done, straw polls or otherwise. If it is not functional, we are screwed, the Wikipedia is probably not salvageable, and we should not be contributing to it. As to the rest: we should be conservative in changing policy pages. I would say the whole section quoted above is not necessary. Let the person write an essay instead. Herostratus (talk) 18:10, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

To clarify to Rememberway, I'm not implying that wikiality is okay; that's like saying that the fact that the article says nothing explicitly about not employing logical fallacies, that they are therefore acceptable. Furthermore, you're talking about a concept invented by a parody comedy show, not a commonly accepted philosophical/rhetorical idea. To not include the info is simply to deny the idea that we need to reference comedic principles (as valuable as they may be) in our policies. The section still points out that we make decisions based on consensus, and that we don't work by voting. There's no need to bring Mr. Colbert into it to get that point across. And if you really want to get into the details of wikiality, the problem is that it misses the point in the first place--Wikipedia is very explicitly not about truth, anyway. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Reductio ad absurdam is a quite valid and often telling tool of logic. Independently of logical argument, humans find the absurd humorous. So ad absurdam arguments are often also ( well ) funny. Wikiality is a classic example.

You can accept the outcome of the ad absurdam argument while rejecting any comic element as (e.g.) lacking gravitas. However, rejecting the logical argument means you tacitly accept the absurdity. E.g., that wikiality rules wikipedia. Good luck with that. Nucleophilic (talk) 00:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Also: Wikimedia Concensus notes " Consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other official policy) " --emphasis-added--. Adding " However, a group of editors may be able to shut out certain facts and points of view through persistence, numbers, and organization. This group of editors should not agree to an article version that violates NPOV, but on occasion will do so anyway. This is generally agreed to be a bad thing and to be avoided." Anybody disagree with this ? Also note that it refers to "facts and points of view". Nucleophilic (talk) 03:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree with the last paragraph (as in, this happens, even though it shouldn't). Still, none of that has anything to do with "Wikipedia is not a democracy." That's all stuff about disruptive editting, edit warring, cabal-forming, tag-teaming, and other unaccepted practices. And whether or not I agree with any of this, links to Colbert's comedic ideas (which don't actually really align to what you're saying) don't really belong. As someone else said, we have to recognize that not everyone is going to understand that Colbert is an external commentator, that his comments actually have nothing to do with how Wikipedia works, given that Wikipedia doesn't actually have anything to do with the Truth/truth, anyway. And I still don't like the last paragraph. You say that "For example, a straw vote cannot trump or substitute for appropriate wp:reliable sources. " But that makes it sound like it's obvious what reliable sources belong in an article and what don't, as if consensus doesn't come into play in even that decision. A group of editors can, by consensus determine that a particular source, while meeting the guidelines as WP:RS, doesn't belong in the article because of other reasons, like WP:NPOV (more specifically, WP:DUE), WP:FRINGE, WP:SYN, or other content related issues (like, say that there's already 5 other sources that assert nearly the same thing). Now, ideally we should never make those decisions based on voting, but I think the prior paragraph already makes that clear, while this paragraph actually makes it less clear by making it sound like some things don't even need consensus. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

It is not clear to me how we differ. In the interest of not wasting time on trivialities and to facilitate consensus-making, I quickly conceded your point about wikiality not belonging on the page, although I still think it is a good short-hand. All I am trying to say is that the requirement for "reliable sources", etc. in articles ( not policy pages ) can't be overridden by a popular vote.

That is, as I clearly note above ( but you may have missed since you reiterate it ), a local consensus can certainly decide the validity of reliable sources, etc... In fact, it is this synthesis of WP:RS etc. with local concensus that powers the wikipedia machine. So where do we differ here ? However, I and my buddies in a local "concensus" can't flatly invent stuff, just like the wikimedia quote says. Which we also seem to agree about. Again, I am puzzled. Nucleophilic (talk) 13:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I finally figured out where the confusion is--it's because that paragraph definitely doesn't belong. That paragraph says, in short "local consensus can't trump site-wide policy/guidelines (including, for example, the need to include reliable sources)." But this section isn't about the dangers of consensus, it's about how consensus is our goal, not democracy.' That is, your whole paragraph, including especially the Wikimedia part you just added, all talks about the danger of consensus. But this section is supposed to be talking about democracy--i.e., voting and polling. The place to tell us (editors who want to understand Wikipedia policy) about the dangers of misusing consensus is in WP:CONSENSUS. This section should only be about the dangers/problems with voting, polling, and other forms of democracry. My confusion stemmed from my belief that you were trying to say something about democracy, which you're not, really. So, I am now fairly certain this paragraph is badly misplaced. I'm going to go ahead and remove it now. If Nucleophilic or others still believe it should stay, please explain here. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Er. The title of the section is "Not a democracy". Also, the paragraph is not mine. I just added a bit to something that was already there. You deleted this also, without discussion. Most particularly, a straw vote is only a way of getting to a "concensus". If a concensus cannot trump any of the three pillars of wikipedia, then clearly a straw vote cannot either. Nucleophilic (talk) 04:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I took out more than I should have; I misread the history. I was about to put the paragraph back the way it was before you made your first addition on 24 October, but I see you reverted to your version. I find your version 1) to not fit in this section, and 2) to actually be far more confusing than the more minimal version that was in the article prior to 24 October. Why does it help to say, as your footnote now says, things that can go wrong with the process? Isn't it far clearer just to say what we said before, that voting should not be a substitute for consensus? Your problematic story, again, isn't about democracy, it's about consensus. It's explaining what can go wrong with the consensus process, which is the process we want. It's not explaining about why we don't use democracy on Wikipedia. I guess I need others input--do others think that Nucleophilic's version really reads better than the version that was here prior? See this diff for the first change, adding in the part about reliable sources, and this diff for addition of the footnote and link to Commons. As a side note, if that footnote does stay, your link to commons is broken, and I'm not certain enough about where you want it to go to fix it myself. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:41, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

First, don't do reverts. No point in getting into a silly edit war. I changed the material significantly to better make the point that if a (local) concensus can't trump (say) NPOV, then no straw vote can. Which what I thought was the point. Also note that this is clearly labled as only an example. Also fixed the now-working link to point directly at the metawiki page without the footnote.

Right, don't do reverts. No point in getting into a silly edit war. So take your own advice here. Changing policy based on some poorly worded material added to a meta page in 2005 isn't a good idea. Our policies and guidelines here are considerably more mature, and have had significantly greater input. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOTTVGUIDE application being reverted

In compliance with WP:NOTTVGUIDE, I have removed schedules both in the past and now from TV and radio station articles (recent example). I've been reverted by User:IrishTV on a number of occasions (example), and despite explaining the issue to this editor (see User_talk:IrishTV#Programming_schedules), the editor is still adding schedules (example). Articles in question are:

• TV3 (Ireland) [7]
• 3e [8]
• RTÉ One [9]
• RTÉ Two [10]
• TG4 [11]

Some assistance please. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• Anybody? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Hello? ECHO...Echo...echo... --Hammersoft (talk) 16:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  • You'd probably have better luck at one of the noticeboards. --Cybercobra (talk) 17:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  • The problem is often that people put a lot of effort into their work on Wikipedia. I did change the scheduling structures as policies for each of the channels in question. I was very aware that the schedules should not be a TV guide and often had to undo works of other Wikipedia editors in relation to this, as they constantly updated them sometimes on a monthly basis. It is disappointing that after all my work to get around that "TV Guide" issue that no agreement could take place that what I was providing was purely a scheduling policy, that did not give information on any real TV guide schedule, if I opened up a TV Guide with the kind of information provide I would be asking for my money back. IrishTV (talk) 12:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Future CDs

I have been reverting a few introductions of future CDs in artist discographies as per WP:CRYSTAL, particularly when the name and release date are unknown. Is this correct application of the policy? If so, at what point is it safe to add the future CD? The policy specifically mentions films and games, but not musical works or books. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:34, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I also remove them, unless a verified and highly reliable source is available. Twitter feeds, and the like, don't seem reliable enough to me. If the record company released an official press release, I'd consider that reliable. If an artist says, "The albums definitely coming out next year!" that's no good either, but if they said (in a reliable source), "The album is due for release on November 21," that seems more trustworthy. However, I'm not actually sure that WP:CRYSTAL (and the associated WP:NFF) applies, because it seems to be referring only to stand-alone articles, not to content within an article. I think you need to make arguments related to WP:V and WP:RS. Furthermore, I think you can certainly exclude them from discographies, as a discography, by definition, is a list of released recordings, not planned ones. As always there are exceptions--Dr. Dre's 6 year delayed album Detox is not only discussed on his page, but has it's own page--Detox (Dr. Dre Album). In that case, the unreleased album itself has been the subject of many reliable sources (geez, that article has 89 sources....). But I think in general that information of this type should remain out without very high quality verification. What do others think? Qwyrxian (talk) 23:29, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

As for Twitter feeds, a great many artists are told that their albums "will be out next year" or similar. Often the album runs into scheduling difficulties (competition from other artists, contractual issues, etc.) and doesn't come out. Occasionally, the album or the artist decides that the album needs more work before being released and is delayed for that reason. So when the artist tweets that their album is coming out "in March" (or similar) I don't think it's reliable. If they tweet "pre-sales for the new album are starting on Tuesday", I think they have a finished product. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

If it is verified they are working on a CD, but yet unnamed and with no release date, it should not get an article (per WP:HAMMER) but should be mentioned in the artist's article and/or discography. Now the strength of that depends on the source: if it's Billboard saying artist Smith is back in the studio, that's good. If it's the drummer from some metal band under strong publishing control that thinks they were, that's different. (A counterpoint would be that we know Weird Al has stated he's in the studio; since he pretty much has control on his recordings, that's reliable). --MASEM (t) 07:29, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

t.v content: sex/langague —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.144.13.132 (talk) 20:51, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Proposal - rename "not news"

I am thinking that it might be a good idea to give a minor renaming to the the "News reports" listing on this page. Perhaps to something like "Common news reports" or "Routine news reports". Why? The NOTNEWS guideline is something overly pushed by deletionists. Many deletionists distort the meaning of NOTNEWS in AfDs and make others believe that it is a blanket guideline forbidding all articles on events that were in the news. And many others follow the leader and support such deletions. But Wikipedia guidelines DO allow for some articles on standout news events, those that are not routine, and that they have a wide scope of coverage and lasting effects. Any ideas or suggestions? Sebwite (talk) 16:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support, sortaSee below This probably needs a full-blown RfC, if not CENT posting, since this issue divides the community and editors differ in good faith over how it SHOULD be implemented. I agree the routine clause gets roundly overlooked by some. Jclemens (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
• The idea is to exclude one-time events with no long-term impact from Wikipedia. The kind of human interest story or isolated incident that matters only for the week that it happened... at which point most people stop caring. I agree the wording could be more clear. But it's possible that it needs to remain vague since people have different interpretations of it. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
• Open an RfC. Regards. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 17:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
• I concur with the above--this needs an RfC. You can't avoid just avoid us deletionists...And I also think you might want want to try assuming good faith on the part of "deletionists" (some of us sincerely believe that the bar set by NOTNEWS is and should be very high and can't be overcome as easily as you do--and are acting in good faith for what we perceive as the benefit of the encyclopedia when we do so), and on the part of "many others" (just because they go along with what a "deletionist" says doesn't mean that they haven't sincerely considered the issues before commenting in an AfD). Qwyrxian (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

• If the proposal is simply to revise the bold-type heading at the front of the paragraph, I don't think that's all that important, but if you want the word "routine" I would suggest "Routine or trivial news reports" as a better summary of the policy. I would be unhappy with any weakening of the core words of the policy: "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events." JohnCD (talk) 12:28, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• • It's not just about routine or trivial. We're talking any type of news report - just because it appears in the news - and possibly in a lot of places across the news (giving the apparent requirement of meeting WP:N) people want to create an article for it. There's a reason WP:EVENT was created was to specifically determine when a news event got enough coverage - and what type of coverage that would need to be - to make an article on it. Most of the time, a widely published, non-routine news story can usually be incorporated in an existing topic, such as for example Apple's reveal that they have the Beatles' catalog on iTunes now. Every paper and entertainment and digital media magazine ran a story about it. Is that routine? No. Do we need an article for that? No. The problem that has come up too many times (with Balloon boy hoax being the poster child for this entire argument since that is what lead people to pound out WP:EVENT), is that people think a news story will be important and thus can include all the existing primary news reports about it - ones that report on the details but with no analysis of the event or its reaching impact, and argue when people try to delete it. We have Wikinews for current events - if the event becomes notable, it can be pulled into Wikipedia. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Weakening of the policy is not acceptable. Lets be honest, NOTNEWS gets disregarded in AfD discussions far too often as it is without making it even more open to abuse. _wjemather^bigissue 21:14, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Tweaking the wording of NOTNEWS will not alter how inclusionists/deletionists vote. Words like "routine news reports" would just cause more arguments, and not assist with the fundamental issue: only topics that satisfy WP:N warrant an article. If a prominent politicial says something stupid, there may be back-and-forth news reports for a few days, and most new editors can't understand why Wikipedia doesn't prominently feature the "obviously notable" event. We need NOTNEWS to point out the reasoning. If a mine disaster occurs, we are clever enough to realise that the event will have long-term notability, and there is generally not much argument about whether NOTNEWS applies. Johnuniq (talk) 00:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

• This comment from Johnuniq is very lucid and explains how NOTNEWS is applied in practice most of the time, save for meatpuppetry and POV pushing. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support Any news story which receives multi-day coverage in multiple RSes passes (is not excluded by) NOT#NEWS. That's not weakening anything that's what it says. As long as there's nothing routine about a news event, it's not excluded by NOT#NEWS. That does not mean we have to have an article on every such event, though. What it means is that if it has multiple RS'es and isn't routine news coverage, we decide where to put it. The TSA's recent extra-invasive searches and associated outcry have been covered in Transportation Security Administration. I just answered a 3O on the recentism tag there--but all things considered, I'd rather deal with weight and balance issues than have yet another AfD on a topic that's getting multi-day news coverage. What's really not permitted by the current wording of NOT is: "So what if it's gotten multi-week coverage in many RS'ed? The GNG does not apply, because NOTNEWS is policy" That's an inappropriate attempt to curtail debate; once the GNG is met, the best way to deal with a non-routine news story is to decide not whether to include it in Wikipedia, but where and how. It's perfectly acceptable, however, to decide to delete a story that passes NOTNEWS at AfD--consensus does not require a policy be invoked. Jclemens (talk) 20:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

• I am aware that your's is a common view on it, but that's certainly not how I read it, and I doubt very much that's what is intended. Assuming we are really talking about stand-alone articles here, GNG establishes a "presumption, not a guarantee" of notability. A topic may not be suitable for a stand-alone article if it violates certain policy exclusions, specifically NOT. Also, your assertion that multi-day coverage is sufficient for a topic to pass NOTNEWS flies directly in the face of WP:EVENT, the guideline that expands on this policy. There are far too many everyday news stories making there way into full blown arrticles instead of being one or two line summaries in existing articles with wider scope, and softening NOTNEWS will only exacerbate that trend. _wjemather^bigissue 21:15, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
  • How does this fly in the face of "Events are also very likely to be notable if they have widespread (national or international) impact and were very widely covered in diverse sources, especially if also re-analyzed afterwards (as described below)."? Jclemens (talk) 07:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Your use of the word "any" rather than "most" is what makes the difference. _wjemather^bigissue 07:55, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Really? Gotta say, that one word change still seems more a semantic difference than "flying in the face" of one event. Furthermore I said "not excluded by NOT#NEWS", not "must be included". I think there's a large enough gray area to allow for discussion and common sense, and I dislike proposals that would erode that in favor of rushing to judgment based on some set criteria. Jclemens (talk) 08:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
        • It may be semantics, but it makes a huge difference. Any implies all, most does not. _wjemather^bigissue 08:31, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Question

I'd like to know if it is common to use

on the top of talk pages. So far I am aware of it being used here and here. My personal opinion is that the template shouldn't be used like this. On the Man talk page it feels like it's being used to make a point since an RFC cleared up the disagreements, so it now serves no use other than to rub it in editors faces who disagreed with the issue. I suspect the same thing occurred at the other article, the differences were resolved. So what point would it be to have this boldly displayed like it is? Thanka in advance, --CrohnieGal^Talk 21:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I have no firm information, but I have noticed a couple of occurrences of such a template. I guess it serves the function of a FAQ template to save talk page regulars from having to repeat the same arguments over and over (it's easier and more authoritative to point to a FAQ showing previous consensus, with a review of the arguments). However, I agree with the sentiment you have expressed: this NOTCENSORED template is not necessary and should be replaced with a FAQ, like at Talk:Evolution or Talk:Barack Obama. I have seen many cases where NOTCENSORED is misused so attempts to argue that a certain statement or picture should be replaced are howled down as "censorship" (whereas censorship is actually the suppression of material by an external government-like authority). NOTCENSORED makes the point that if material is needed because of its encyclopedic value, we do not remove it on the grounds that it might be offensive. However, any particular text or image has to pass the "encyclopedic value" assessment by consensus (and WP:5P). Accordingly, a NOTCENSORED template offers no value to a talk page, whereas a FAQ could explain that consensus has decided that certain material is useful, with some reasons. Johnuniq (talk) 22:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I've seen it used on pornography pages to try to quash debate on images. Attempts to remove are generally shouted down. You also get stuff like this on the article pages:

or the notices in nowiki brackets in the article noting that "attempts to remove the image will be considered vandalism". Oh well, for good or ill, none of that is likely to change. Herostratus (talk) 03:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Renaming "Wikipedia is not censored"

A point made in the above thread has also been in my mind. Do you realize that the "Wikipedia is not censored" section is misnamed? I think it needs to be renamed, but as such a venerable and popular policy that would require an extensive discussion, an RfC at least. But let me offer a few thoughts.

Semantics
Drawing from our article Censorship, I see that "censorship" is editorial control by an external entity. When people speak of censorship, they are first of all mainly talking about state censorship, whether by prior restraint (a Censor's Office) or by after-publication sanctions.

This is mentioned in passing in the "Wikipedia is not censored" section, where we acknowledge that we submit to the laws of Florida, but it is not the main thrust of the section and the policy is not generally cited for that reason. (And in fact FWIW, that passage highlights the fact that the Wikipedia is censored (by Florida), and although the censorship is pretty light (we are not allowed to conspire to commit felonies, show child porn, commit deliberate fraud, and a few other things like that) it does mean that, technically, the statement "Wikipedia is not censored" is false.)

Then there is censorship by non-state entities. The old Hayes Office, the Comics Code Authority, etc. have or had quasi-state censorship powers. And then there are other, weaker, forms of external control - an organized boycott of a publication, or an unstated agreement among theater owners, that sort of thing. These things might rise to the level of "censorship" depending on your definition.

But none of this has anything to do with the gist of "Wikipedia is not censored". The core of "Wikipedia is not censored" is summarized in its last sentence, which reads "...'being objectionable' is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content."

But that has nothing to do with external entities. That is a statement addressing our own internal editorial controls.

I mean, The Britannica exercises considerably more editorial control over "objectionable" content than we do. Would you say then that The Britannica is "censored"? But it's not. The Great Chinese Encyclopedia is censored. And doesn't the following statement seem rather imprecise and frankly silly:

"The Britannica is censored, and the Great Chinese Encyclopedia is censored, the two conditions are similar enough that we can use the same term."

But then, informal usage
But then, on the other hand, in informal usage "censorship" is used more broadly. "Wikipedia is not censored" is sporty and kind of gets the point across. I think that most people get right off that the title "Wikipedia is not censored" probably doesn't mean "Wikipedia has a special exemption from the laws of Florida" or "Wikipedia refuses to submit to the laws of Florida", it probably means something like... like... well, what does it mean?

Well, let's see. If you see a sign on a theater that proclaims "UNCENSORED REVUE LIVE GIRLS!", what comes to mind? That the distaff citizens mentioned will be discussing the works of Wilhelm Reich or Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution? (It's kind of like the term "Adult". An "Adult Newstand" must be one that carries The Economist, right? Oh, wait.)

I don't want to be pedant about not using informal terminology, but should we be using nod-and-a-wink terms terms like "not censored" or "adult content" or whatever?

Emotional subtext
Censorship is a pretty serious thing, and a lot of people have died to fight it. And it trivializes the term to use if for this policy. Not only that, it's a highly charged term.

I think the use of the term "censorship" here causes people to, on some level, conflate "editorial discretion" and "jack-booted agents of the state" in their own minds. And that's not helpful.

Regarding WP:RS we can have reasonable discussions about what is or not a reliable source. Regarding WP:MUSIC we can have reasonable discussions about whether YouTube hits are or are not eclipsing album sales as a mark of notability. And so forth with other policies. But regarding WP:NOTCENSORED, it's harder to have reasonable discussions about what should or not be covered. And that's partly because of the highly charged term and inaccurate term "censorship".

It's hard to have a reasonable discussion when the subtext of the very title of policy is "I am the living heir to Thomas Paine, and you are the blood kin of the thugs who beat up Oleg Kashin!" or whatever.

So now what?
OK, so what what would be a better name. I don't know. You could have say

• Wikipedia contains objectionable content
• Wikipedia contains content that may be objectionable

But that would break the parallel structure of the NOT page. We could put it on its own page, but for now its here. So maybe you could have

• Wikipedia is not edited to redact 'objectionable' content

But that has scare quotes, so that's no good, so maybe

• Wikipedia does not remove content considered objectionable

But that's not true, if the content has other problems, so then

• Wikipedia does not remove content solely because it may be considered objectionable

But now it's getting to long, so

• Wikipedia is not.... [what]?

I don't know. Any ideas are welcome. And none of these are as sporty as "Wikipedia is not censored". Literary merit is a good thing, but at the cost of precision, not worthwhile in this case.

So my questions are twofold:

1. What would be a better title? and
2. Is it worth having a big formal discussion about this? Herostratus (talk) 04:05, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Coincidence!

I was just visiting this talk page to propose a rename of exactly the same section, to "Wikipedia content is not censored"m] FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:17, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, is there really a difference? Only "content" can be censored, I think. You can't "censor" a person or building or organization, only what they say or write or display, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 19:57, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Wikipedia is not bowdlerised. Takes care of the "conspire to commit felonies,... commit deliberate fraud, and a few other things like that." Marcus Qwertyus 04:17, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting suggestion. Concise. Accurate, I think. Here's the def: bowdlerise. Is it common enough? Herostratus (talk) 05:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I fully support any attempt to oppose some of the sillier and unhelpful usages of NOTCENSORED, but I do not think removing the NOTCENSORED shortcut and text is achievable. Indeed, I'm sure someone could find examples where NOTCENSORED really is helpful (a statement like "I live in country X where image Y is prohibited" needs a polite reply along with NOTCENSORED). While it would not entirely solve the problem, it would be useful to add a statement to the text encapsulating the following:

If material is needed because of its encyclopedic value, it is not removed on the grounds that it might be offensive. However, any particular text or image has to pass the "encyclopedic value" assessment by consensus (and WP:5P). Explaining that material is offensive is not a reason for its removal, however, all material, particularly if controversial, needs to be carefully justified.

Johnuniq (talk) 07:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's a good point. Perhaps the policy should be split in two. I think a policy called "Wikipedia is not censored" that states something to the effect of (and this could be written much better, I am just dashing it off) "Wikipedia content is subject only to the strictures of Florida and the USA. The laws of all other governments have no influence over Wikipedia, and Wikipedia ignores these laws as a matter of policy. No editing decision should be made or advocated referencing laws other than those of Florida and the USA." And possibly you could put the part about fraternal organizations (and maybe other powerful non-state entitities, e.g. Catholic Church or whatever). That would be OK, and then you could have a separate policy "Wikipedia is not bowlderized" (or whatever) to address "objectionable" content. Herostratus (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Something like this. I didn't edit the text of the policy, I just moved it around, except that 1) I added the middle sentence in the "Wikipedia is not censored" section (it is italicized), and 2) I removed the entire paragraph beginning "Since anyone can edit an article...". That sentence is not intended as a policy at all, and if truly is a policy it means that Wikipedia:Flagged revisions is against policy. The rest of the paragraph is problematical but I don't want to get into that now, so I have put that paragraph aside for now. So that leaves us with:

---

Wikipedia is not censored Wikipedia content adheres to the laws of the United States of America and to the U.S. state of Florida, where Wikipedia's servers are hosted.

Wikipedia is not bound to adhere to, and does not warrant that it will adhere to, the laws of any other state, nation, or other government entity.

Nor will Wikipedia remove content because the internal bylaws of some organizations forbid that information to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations.

Wikipedia is not bowdlerised Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.

Some articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content.

---

There are still problems with the "not bowlderized" part, mainly that it is vague. But one thing at a time. Herostratus (talk) 14:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd like to move forward on this with an RfC (or maybe it'd be non-controversial and I should just make the edits), but none of the titles for the second section seem perfect. Using the thesaurus, we have "expurgate", but that's not really the right word either, and no other word seems to fit. In my personal opinion, the best two choices are these:

• Wikipedia is not bowdlerised.
• Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable

Yes, I know that the second choice doesn't have a NOT in it. What can I say? There isn't any way to state as a negative that doesn't end either up in a long and ugly circumlocution or an inaccurate statement. So we have a policy on the NOT page that doesn't have a NOT in it, so what? The world won't end. Herostratus (talk) 06:58, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

we already have the correct wording. Censorship is the universal term used by and about those who wish to remove the sort of material we wish to include. Furthermore , freedom from censorship is a noble cause which is part of our intellectual heritage, and closely related in principle to open content. That last suggestion emphasizes our possibly objectionable content--and, anyway, who are we to say that part of our content is objectionable? If it's a question of warning the potentially sensitive reader, "not censored" is as clear and direct as any wording can possibly be, and much more likely to be understood than any equivocation. Anyway, "bowdlerize" refers to removing parts of others innocuous materials, not for including the entirely unsafe-for-work also, as we do. The obvious exceptions, like copyright and libel, are covered elsewhere--nobody can seriously confuse them. And finally, changing the word would appear to be pandering to those who wish to censor. Any modified wording will be misused by them, by indicating that we are willing to modify the principle also. DGG ( talk ) 02:21, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, DGG, you kind of make my point. Freedom from censorship is a noble cause, but censorship is editorial control by an external entity - that is a simple fact - and to wrap oneself in the flag of the noble cause when discussing internal editorial decisions is not helpful to reasoned discussion, but rather muddies the situation and introduces unwarranted inflammatory overtones. It is helpful as a political ploy of course. However, there's no particular reason why Wikipedians should allow any particular faction or point of view to purposely use incorrect terminology for political advantage. Herostratus (talk) 04:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It's frustrating when someone cries censorship the first moment you revert their POV push or clean up their cruft. But that has little to do with this policy. People will cry censorship no matter what. The principle of avoiding censorship is still a good one. Shooterwalker (talk) 04:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It is. And if and when the government of the State of Florida or of the United States demands that all edits be routed through their censor's office for approval before being posted, I will oppose that. Herostratus (talk) 07:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I think "not bowlderized" does more accurately reflect the editorial policy regarding content that may be considered offensive. However, this simply is not part of the vocabulary of typical readers, so it probably does not work as a clear statement of policy. One would like to think that people who read encyclopedias would know or would look it up, but I suspect it would leave even more people confused than the already large population that seems to think "is not censored" means "has no editorial policies." There is little hope for the latter, so "not censored" is fine. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Wait, I'm confused. You referred to a "large population that seems to think 'is not censored' means "has no editorial policies'", but then said to keep "Not censored" (which seems to abet this confusion). Because there is "little hope" so the hell with it, or what? Herostratus (talk) 04:07, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I mean that most people understand perfectly and that if some people do not want to accept what is clearly meant then there is really nothing we can do about it, for there will always be people who wish to misconstrue whatever may be said on the subject. The meaning of the section is abundantly clear, and the heading is not misleading. As I remarked here in a different thread a few months ago:[12]

“Section headings are not, and should not try to be, complete nutshells. Perhaps we need a whole new section like this:

Wikipedia is not for people who only read headlines

Someone who is reading an encyclopedia is digging for more information than can be gleaned by scanning headlines, and someone who volunteers to contribute to Wikipedia is expected to recognize that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are not to be interpreted by looking only at titles and section headings.

If a heading prevents you from understanding or applying a Wikipedia policy or guideline, ignore it.”

If someone misconstrues a catchphrase taken out of context then you can assume good faith and suggest they read the body of the captioned section or, if they are just trolling, you can ignore them. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I hear you. But in the real world, people do misconstrue titles - Had someone refer me to WP:COMMON the other day, which he thought was about common knowledge when actually it's about common sense, and which anyway supports the exact opposite of the point he was trying to make. And you can't ignore them. So, since they do that, and you can't ignore them, at least let's try to make the title better match the policy. What's the harm? Herostratus (talk) 16:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I've got it! Use "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable" for the second section, but then move it off the NOT page onto its own page. This allows the use of (what I think is) the best name yet solves the not-expressed-as-a-negative problem, while at the same time moving this important policy to its own page where it can be (eventually, not part of this discussion) properly discussed and expanded. It's too short and vague for such an important and oft-invoked policy, and needs examples and more explanations etc. - compare to WP:BLP, also an important policy, which has its own page where it can breathe a little. Herostratus (talk) 04:07, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Might Wikipedia:Offensive material be a good starting point? I'm a little concerned with this change on April 20, 2010 which turned a style guideline into a content guideline but if it were to be used as a basis for this, that could be addressed at the same time. --Tothwolf (talk) 00:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It might. However, "might be addressed at the same time" is not a good idea my view - rather, it's better to separate possibly contentious issues into discrete parts and address them in sequence. The first step would be to separate out the current "Wikipedia is not censored" into its two component parts, with ""Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable" (or whatever we want to call it) on its own page, as suggested above. Remember, "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable" (or whatever) is a policy, and has to remain a policy. After it's spun out onto it's own page, then a separate discussion over making any desired changes and refinements - possibly including bringing parts of the guideline [[Wikipedia:Offensive material into it - can be started.

I'm going to initiate a full WP:CENT RfC on the first issue soon, as soon as I put in place a mechanism for the discussion to be closed when its over. Herostratus (talk) 03:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

There is also Wikipedia:Wikipedia is comprehensive which also covers this issue. --Tothwolf (talk) 04:30, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Right. Good essay. I think a good case could be made for incorporating parts of this (following discussion/consensus of course) into the policy which I am calling "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable" (perhaps "Wikipedia is comprehensive" would be a better name for the policy). This would strengthen the policy - and I am in no wise against strengthening the policy. All I seek (at this juncture) is clarity of terminology. But this, also, is outside the scope of this discussion. Herostratus (talk) 07:06, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Heh. This is rather ironic because WP:Wikipedia is comprehensive was originally WP:Wikipedia is amoral, but ended up having to be moved due to people misunderstanding it based on its title (titles != perfect summaries). How droll. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I think it sums up quite a bit of what has been discussed above. I remembered the essay but had trouble locating it due to the move from userspace and later rename. I'm not sure if you've followed this discussion, but it seems to be this exact sort of issue. It reminds me of what happened here on Wikipedia in April 2009 after The Pirate Bay trial and I suppose I should make a comment there, too. --Tothwolf (talk) 08:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

What does a given title & shortcut mean, is a good question...answered by the content of the section itself. I think there's a risk of becoming unable to see the wood for the trees, here. The 'pedia is bound by Federal and (FL) State law regardless. Regarding your two questions, right now I think the existing title works effectively and that there isn't a need to have a large formal discussion. I think that the position there's material relevance in a particular body's approach (whether it's The People's Republic of China or a given group from the annals of history) toward censorship--word or deed, is misguided. I've certainly seen people object to coverage of sexual content or depictions of religious figures here, particularly with regard to images. But I haven't seen anyone say they appreciate and applaud our stance on such material yet are strongly offended by the link-shortcut/title we use or objectively consider it an affront to dignity. For these reasons it seems to be, a solution in search of a problem, so to speak. –Whitehorse1 20:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia-not dictionary??

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Resolved

 – The commenter amused himself. Thus, success. postdlf (talk) 15:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Lol you got to be kidding me. According to this claim, thousands of articles need to be removed because they resemble nothing more than a dictionary. As wikipedia not being propaganda while always promoting one side as more valuable than the other one in sensitive topics...:)) I will only laugh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.1.135.6 (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC) }}

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

NOTRELIABLE?

While this was touched on in the archives, it was never really resolved.

• Wikipedia is not independently reliable
• The strength or weakness of its articles rests entirely on the sources cited and used. Readers are only able to verify sources for themselves when those sources are both cited and available.

Variations on this idea keep cropping up, but we need a succinct statement to the effect. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, not sure we do. The disclaimer is linked from the footer at the bottom of every article, plus the Main page. Beyond that, disclaimers within articles come under a different guideline. The two halves of the policy (Content & Community) tend to be for people adding, or wanting to add, article material of some sort. That is, with the exception of referring people to WP:NOTCENSORED, it's mainly for editors rather than readers. I think it'd be preaching to the choir. Still, I haven't any strong views on it. –Whitehorse1 16:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The general disclaimer is already linked from the bottom of every page on Wikipedia, and linked from the general disclaimer page are the risk disclaimer, medical disclaimer, legal disclaimer, and the content disclaimer. I think those pages adequately covers this, or would be the spot to clarify if you feel it's not adequately addressed. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Most of the "is nots" are things that Wikipedia editors should strive to avoid yet this one is not. It probably belongs somewhere else. Just thinking out loud, not opposing... Marcus Qwertyus 16:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the responses. Oddly, it has been years since I last read the general disclaimer. Still, it is directed to the reader, whereas wp:NOT is directed to the editor. Novice editors sometimes just don't grasp the relationship between V, CITE, and RS. See for instance the recent diatribes about Softpedia here. I'd suggest we can avoid all that unpleasantness with a succinct statement. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

NOTDIR, again.

Can someone take a cluebat to User talk:G8crash3r‎ who is for some reason under the impression that NOTDIR must explicitly state that including channel numbers is not allowed, when he has been shown a number of times that the community has determined that channel numbers should not be included. Active Banana (^bananaphone 20:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

know what active banana, since you're onto it, you can just delete the article, the purpose of having those channel numbers is for informational purposes only and is being done out of good faith, if you think its improper to have it, delete the article then and i will take the article somewhere else where everyone can write anything without being judged as improper. I guess being friendly to authors has also died in Wikipedia. G8crash3r | Talk 20:43, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

already replied on one of the 3 or 4 places you have spammed this comment. Active Banana (^bananaphone 20:50, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I have already tagged the article for deletion, I guess the page is getting too much commercial for Wikipedia G8crash3r | Talk 20:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• I would support adding "Not a Television Channel Listing or Schedule" to NOTDIR. It's been the consensus at a lot of other places but we may as well centralize it to make it easy to understand. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: Regarding SkyCable channel lineup, I think it is already been resolved, the decision of the discussion was "KEEP" see "DirecTV Channels" and "XM Satellite Radio Channels" to name a few (I can link back other consensus if this are not enough) and I don't want to contest it again and again. Cheers! :) Webwires (Talk) 07:08, 24 December 2010

• Don't be confused with channel numbers to "call numbers", "call names" etc. I suggested to removed call numbers, names, location feeds but not channel numbers. Webwires (Talk) 07:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Wording in WP:CENSORED

Should the following wording be changed "...or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted...." given that we are hosting servers in multiple locations (see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en; "As of 2010, we're operating several hundred servers in two locations, and we're adding a third location for additional redundancy.") ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 06:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Would anyone object if I changed the wording to "...or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where some of Wikipedia's servers are hosted...." ? ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 15:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Where, other than Florida, are our servers located? The link you provided refers to "two locations", but it's not clear that both locations are not in Florida. But if the other location is not Florida, that raises in my mind the question: if our servers are located in multiple jurisdictions, what is the operable law? Does anyone know this? Are we now subject to laws other than those of the Florida (and the US), or what? Herostratus (talk) 04:46, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Servers are hosted by PowerMedium and Switch and Data in Tampa, Florida, as well as EvoSwitch and KennisNet in Amsterdam. The WMF itself is based in San Fransisco. Prodego ^talk 20:53, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Soon, Virginia as well. PleaseStand ^(talk) 05:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

So what does this mean? Not knowing anything about servers, I assume that copies of the entire Wikipedia are hosted on each bank of servers (rather than some articles on some servers etc.). So this means that we are subject to Dutch law, does it not? Given the Geert Wilders case, I find this prospect rather chilling; the Netherlands does not have the First Amendment, and instead seems to have a rule that everybody has to play extra nice; whether that extends to requiring the redaction of verifiably true (but embarrassing) facts about powerful entities I don't know, but it might. Well, that's off-topic. The question is, are we now subject to Dutch law? And if we are, it should be noted in the policy. I'll post a thread on Jimbo's talk page asking this question also. Herostratus (talk) 16:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, per Jimbo's reply on his talk page, changed "some of our servers" to "our main servers". Herostratus (talk) 17:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a Press Release

In science related articles, I have frequently seen contributions that take the form:

• In a ground breaking study led by scientists at <insert your alma mater here> published in the most recent issue of <insert your favorite journal here> demonstrates ...

I would like a link to a concise explanation of why the above is not appropriate for Wikipedia. This issue is already covered generically under WP:PROMOTION, as the above contains elements of advocacy, self-promotion, and advertising. However I would like to propose adding to the WP:PROMOTION section (based in part on WP:MEDMOS) something along the lines of:

• 6. Press release. It may be tempting to highlight a recent accomplishment or notable event announced in press releases or other type of publication. Wikipedia articles should concisely state facts about an accomplishment or event and not hype the institutions, credentials or qualifications of those involved in the event.

and add a redirect from WP:NOTAPRESSRELEASE to WP:PROMOTION

Is this too specialized an issue for WP:NOT? Alternatively I have been tempted to create a satirical article based on a string of recent press releases. This could be quite amusing and perhaps may be a better way of conveying why incorporating press release material into Wikipeida articles is a problem. Any thoughts? Boghog (talk) 21:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned that valid press releases and papers from major peer-reviewed publishers, etc., would be rejected under this sort of rule. I don't think there's anything wrong with including sentences along the lines of "A 2010 study suggested that..." when the source is included as a reference. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:Avoid academic boosterism seems to cover this case better. --Cybercobra (talk) 03:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

If you take out the peacock words from the example, I can easily see the rest of the text as acceptable for WP, as long as there's no COI involved. Not needed. --MASEM (t) 05:40, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:Avoid academic boosterism is close to what I had in mind. It is certainly not my intention to discourage citations to peer-reviewed publications. Quite to the contrary, these are the gold standard when it comes to reliable sources. Citations to press releases are more problematic. If they in turn highlight a peer-reviewed publication, it is better in my opinion to replace the citation to the press release with the citation to the peer-reviewed article. Thanks for all your responses. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 06:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Phrase in WP:BURO

I read the following line and had two comments. "A procedural error made in posting anything, such as a proposal or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post." The term "invalidating" leaves me scratching my head. How does one invalidate a post on Wikipedia? Also, believing that policies and guidelines should be as brief and simple as possible, could we simply remove the whole sentence? If not, maybe at least the wording can be improved? ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 06:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The text is a little perplexing, but its message is good: if someone posts a proposal, it is not satisfactory to claim that some procedure was violated, and therefore the proposal should be removed or ignored. Also (and contrary to some legal systems), if a decision is made and then the original proposal is found to have violated some regulation, the decision stands (until consensus changes) because NOTBUREAUCRACY. The text seems to have been in WP:BURO for a long time, so I do not support its removal. Sorry, but I haven't got an improvement atm. Johnuniq (talk) 06:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It might be a bit clearer (if clumsier) to say "A procedural error made in posting anything, such as a proposal or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that proposal or nomination." -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 15:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

How about: "A procedural error made in a proposal or nomination is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or nomination."? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Good. Johnuniq (talk) 00:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 05:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I might prefer the word "request" to "nomination", since it's a little more broad. But yeah... this is good. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

So you all would be ok with the following wording? "A procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or nomination." ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 18:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

If it's "proposal or request" the first time, should it also be "proposal or request" the second time? -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Opps, yes. So: "A procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or request." ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 13:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

we're better leaving it as is. whether a procedural error invalidates the action depends on the nature of the error. With a rule like thesuggested any error one wishes to ignore can be easily called merely a "procedural" error. IWe're already reasonable For example, in the area where I work, it is accepted that IAR is not a reason for speedy, but if someone types the wrong numbered rule into a box, I and all admins just fix it and delete the article. DGG ( talk ) 04:50, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for chiming in. Ok, then I would be fine leaving the wording as is. ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 04:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Chrystal balling

"Articles that present extrapolation, speculation, and "future history" are original research". Oh really? Because I always thought that "The term "original research" refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories—not already published by reliable sources." Can we agree to reword this somehow? Marcus Qwertyus 15:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, they are only OR if the speculation is that of the contributor, not if they are sourced--and with almost all such articles --or rather I should say attempts at articles--such is the case. But an article on reliably-sourced speculation on matters of major public concern is another matter, & there are several factors to consider: one is the degree to which the matter is uncertain, another is the general significance of the subject, a third is the extent of discussion & the range of sources,and the fourth, and most important, is the reliability and authoritativeness of the person doing the speculation.extrapolation.whatever. The present wording however, is, as you point out, not quite correct, and we need a replacement. I'm thinking about how to say it so it will express the widest possible consensus--WP:NOT is of very wide concern, and we need to be very careful here--careful both to not reject widely accepted statements because of special cases, but also to accommodate the necessary flexibility. After all, the very basis of our rules is that ihey are always subject to change and development when justified. DGG ( talk ) 02:02, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Futurology is not a banned subject area, but it must be presented as such and not as fact. How about rewording the paragraph's opening sentence as "Articles that extrapolate, speculate, or present "future history" as fact are original research and therefore inappropriate." I.e., articles may not extrapolate & etc. but, as explained in the body of the paragraph, they may present notable extrapolation & etc. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggested re-wording to remove inaccurate use of Wikipedia jargon and actually match the clarification that follows: "Articles that present extrapolation, speculation, and "future history" are generally inappropriate." Active Banana (^bananaphone 16:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Omitting reference to "original research" may be a good idea. The unwanted content may not always be original, but may sometimes merely be bad research that misinterprets or misrepresents opinion as fact.

Keeping a proscription on "articles that present extrapolation..." is problematic because there are contexts in which it is entirely appropriate to describe notable extrapolations. E.g., we should not neglect to present extrapolations in the Global warming article, nor should articles about Futurologists exclude any description of their theses. Such articles should not extrapolate, but they should present properly contextualized extrapolations that are notable. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to divide "Wikipedia is not censored" into its constituent parts

A proposal to by User:Herostratus to split "Wikipedia is not censored" into two separate policies. Gigs (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The section "Wikipedia is not censored" has two distinct components: one referring to external control, and one referring to internal control. This proposal it to separate these components into two distinct policies, for clarity. No substantive changes to the texts of the policies are proposed, except for cleanup and (in the legal language) some necessary expansion.

Proposition

Split "Wikipedia is not censored" into two separate policies. One, retaining the name "Wikipedia is not censored", to remain on the WP:NOT page. One, under a different name (I am suggesting "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable" but another name would be OK), on its own separate policy page.

With some added text (shown in italics) and the deletion of some extraneous text (show struck through) for purely housekeeping cleanup (the struck text is not really germane to the policy and merely muddles it), this results in:

---

Policy: Wikipedia is not censored
{{policy shortcut|WP:CENSOR|WP:CENSORED|WP:NOTCENSORED}}

Wikipedia content adheres to the laws of the United States of America and to the U.S. state of Florida, where Wikipedia's main servers are hosted.

Wikipedia is not bound to adhere to, and does not warrant that it will adhere to, the laws of any other state, nation, government, or quasi-governmental entity.

Nor will Wikipedia remove content because the internal bylaws of some organizations forbid that information to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations.

---

Policy: Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable
{{policy shortcut|WP:OBJECT|WP:OBJECTIONABLE}}

See also: Wikipedia:Profanity, Wikipedia:Sexual content, Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles, Editing policy: Preserve information, Wikipedia:Options to not see an image, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is comprehensive

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.

Since anyone can edit an article and most changes made are displayed immediately, inappropriate material may appear before it can be removed. Obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed.[N.B.: unstruckthrough text to be retained, but in the "Wikipedia is not censored" policy rather than here.]

However, [S]ome articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content.

---

Rationale

see section above for some preliminary discussion.

Semantics

Drawing from our article Censorship, we see that "censorship" is editorial control by an external entity. When people speak of censorship, they are first of all mainly talking about state censorship, whether by prior restraint (a Censor's Office) or by after-publication sanctions.

But "Wikipedia is not censored" as it now stands barely addresses this. The core of "Wikipedia is not censored" as it now stands is summarized in its last sentence, which reads "...'being objectionable' is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content."

But that has nothing to do with external entities. That is a statement addressing our own internal editorial controls.

But then, informal usage

But then, on the other hand, in informal usage the "censorship" is bandied about rather broadly. However, we want to be careful in using informal language in policies. We want to be a precise as possible.

What does "censorship" mean when used informally? I'm not even sure. Actual censorship often affects political speech, which is not really an issue on the Wikipedia as we don't advocate political positions. Informally, it often carries a sexual implication - e.g., if you see "this website is uncensored!" it usually means "naked girls here!" or something. But our policy covers violent images, religious images, things like encryption keys, and so forth, as well as sexual material.

So all in all it's not very clear. And against that, you have that it's a highly charged word. I think the use of the term "censorship" here causes people to, on some level, conflate "editorial discretion" and "jack-booted agents of the state" in their own minds. And that's not helpful to editorial discussions.

It's a political world

I make this proposal in the name of clarity. I made a significant clarification of the wording of the policy in October to no objection, and this is continuation of that effort. This is housekeeping in my view and hopefully won't be contentious.

However. There is a political aspect to this, such that one might see edits to the effect of (if not stated so plainly) this:

"I am opposed to this change because I generally favor including objectionable content, and in discussing editorial standards, it is politically useful to me to be able to frame the discussion with a term which carries the subtext 'I am Voltaire and you are Hu Jintao'"

This is entirely understandable. We are political beings. In the U.S. Congress, when you want to pass a bill giving tax breaks to billionaires, you name it the "Fair Play Full Employment Tax Relief Act" or something. "USA PATRIOT Act", that sort of thing. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this; they are politicians and they are trying to get their bill passed.

But we are not the United States Congress. We are encyclopedists and scholars, or are trying to be. And there's no reason why we should have to put up with imprecise and charged terminology in order to give any faction a political advantage. And I call on the persons deciding the outcome of this discussion to disregard political arguments, regardless of how suavely worded.

Also let me point out that putting (what I am calling) "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable" on its own page under an accurate title gives the opportunity to strengthen the policy. "Wikipedia is not censored" as it stands is quite short and vague for an important policy. Look at WP:BLP, WP:RS, and other important policies. They are buttressed with rationales, examples, cases, and so forth. Perhaps material from WP:COMPREHENSIVE or other sources can be brought into (what I am calling) "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable". This would require separate discussions and is far beyond the scope of this proposal, but this can best occur if the policy is moved to its own page.

Let's focus, people

It's a wiki and you can write whatever you want, but I very strongly suggest that this is not the venue for also suggesting substantive changes to the text of either of the policies, on the principle of not trying to deal with too many variables at once. Except for minor uncontroversial suggestions purely for grammar or clarity, I'd like to suggest that we try to limit discussion to the following topics:

• Yes-or-no, the main proposal, to split "Wikipedia is not censored" into two policies. And, less importantly:
  • Yes-or-no, the proposed additions to "Wikipedia is not censored" regarding our relationship to non-U.S. laws.
  • Yes-or-no, the proposed housekeeping removal of the ungermane paragraph from (what I am calling) "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable".
  • Title for the policy that I have proposed as "Wikipedia includes content that may be objectionable" - OK with this name, or suggest some other name. The name is not important, as long as its succinct and accurate.

In the event of discussion outside the scope of this proposal occurring, it'd be helpful if people would move it here:

Off-topic discussion

In future, I intend to propose some alterations to "Wikipedia is not censored". I think that it should be stated that material that a reasonable person would believe illegal (in the USA or Florida) may (indeed must) be removed without discussion and only restored if its legality is established, through consensus or otherwise; a statement to the effect of "This does not mean that the laws of other democratic states (but only democratic states) cannot be a consideration raised in discussion" could also be added; and perhaps other changes. But not here. Now now. There is enough to chew on here without going into stuff like this. Save it for later.

Discussion

• Support, as proposer, main proposition and suggested subsidiary changes and titling. Herostratus (talk) 16:51, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support - makes perfect sense to me. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:09, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose and challenging your basic premise. Increased precision in policies leads to WP:CREEP and detracts from the ability of our sysops to make decisions on a case by case basis. I do not believe that the current wording is unnecessarily vague, it conveys the appropriate message to the average editor. If anything, I'd characterize your over-analysis of the concept of censorship as unnecessary, you're in effect splitting one policy into two policies that do the exact same thing. -- RoninBK _{T C} 18:00, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - While I agree that some of the suggested wording changes maybe be improvements, the overall impression that is left when reading this is that Wikipedia is entirely unsympathetic to anyone who finds offensive content in articles. Splitting this off from WP:NOT into two new policies seems to be inappropriately stressing what should be a very simple and straightforward idea, i.e., Wikipedia is likely to include content that some people may not like. This simple idea tends to get distorted into a justification for including objectionable content wherever possible and thumbing our noses at anyone who objects. If anything, I would like to see the policy (or section of WP:NOT to be be more accurate, since it is not now a stand-alone policy) expanded with some explanation of why we may include objectionable content (i.e., for educational reasons) and some short, simple guidance on not being gratuitously offensive (i.e., not including offensive material just because we are "NOTCENSORED"). Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support. This is a good clarification. There are too many vaguewaves towards this policy, and the principle of not being censored by outside bodies and not removing content because individuals find it offensive, while related, are not one and the same. Besides, we do remove some material that is considered offensive or excessive, particularly for BLP reasons. Fences&Windows 18:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. I'm not sure what I think of this proposal, but I would suggest seeking input from the Foundation legal department, in case anything here has consequences that are not obvious to laypersons like me. Also, it should be on WP:CENT. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • It is on WP:CENT. As to the legal question, this thread sort of address some of that. There is nothing new in (the new) "Wikipedia is not censored" beyond what a clarification of what is implied in the existing text. I do agree that after and if this current proposal is adopted there are some interesting discussions to be had re (the new) "Wikipedia is not censored". However, if the added text is a deal-killer for any substantial number of people, let's remove it and discuss it later. Herostratus (talk) 04:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Between the general disclaimers and WP:NOT, what is being said is said: there will be content that may offend, and we do not employ any censoring save for what the state of Florida requires. --MASEM (t) 22:45, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The purpose of this proposal is purely clariying current policy. Whether you agree with the current policy or not, it should not matter in this discussion. Sole Soul (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose I think there are some problems with this proposal, starting with the why factor (despite the above, I can't see a clear reason for the change). Re external control: it is meaningless rhetoric for we editors to declare that Wikipedia is not censored by external forces, or for us to declare what legal system applies. If some external entity attempts to impose control of an aspect of Wikipedia, our opinions will count for nothing, and the battle will be fought at a level way over our heads (fortunately for us). Also, only the legal department should write legalese. It is true that many people do not understand what NOTCENSORED means, although tweaking its wording would not help that. An essay might be useful (in that we could post a link to the essay for those peopls who show a misunderstanding). The components of NOTCENSORED can't really be split: essentially the assertion is that material that is helpful for an encyclopedic purpose is used, regardless of whether it may be offensive, or whether it conflicts with someone else's rules (except for the state of Florida). I would like the NOTCENSORED text reworded to start with something like my last sentence. Johnuniq (talk) 00:35, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose in the absence of a compelling case for change. To the extent that this is just a cosmetic change, I'm not convinced it's a good one. To the extent this is leading to a later substantive change, it is change meant to weaken NOTCENSORED, whereas I would prefer it strengthened. NOTCENSORED and Objectionable Content go hand in hand-- whether you are an 'external' entity or an internal entity, trying to remove otherwise appropriate, legal content merely because you find it objectionable IS censorship. --Alecmconroy (talk) 03:28, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Policy creep, no real need to split this. But mostly, because I prefer a bit of ambiguity in something that has many applications and misapplications. This leads to good discussion on a case-by-case basis. I also am not a big fan of the proposed wording changes. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:17, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose The present policy is the consensus and any change would weaken it. (I recognize that the intention of the proposal is to try to state it more clearly, but it is already stated about as clearly and positively and comprehensively as possible. General language is stronger, as it is frequently when reflecting strongly held basic principle.) We have an established pattern of interpretation that has held up very well under all sorts of unforeseen cases. Any change would require reinterpretation, and cast the present interpretation into doubt. Some things we've got right, and this is one of them. DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: seems like a cosmetic change that just leads to more policy creep. Separating the two might also dilute the purpose of our policy against censorship... where people don't understand the encyclopedic purpose of having objectionable content. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: The difference between "internal" and "external" is academic here, when anyone applying external pressure can recruit existing users or create an account themself and apply internal pressure too. The quibble over definitions seems troublesome as well: According to wikt:censor, the definition includes simply "To remove objectionable content"; IMO this definition includes political, moral, religious, and other reasons, while the alternate suggestion bowdlerize ("To remove those parts of a text considered offensive, vulgar, or otherwise unseemly") carries a more narrow focus of removal for moral reasons with a focus on "protecting the children". I would likely also oppose the changes mentioned in the collapsed "off-topic discussion" box above, as it opens the door wide for trolling on things like the Virgin Killer album cover. I agree with Johnuniq that, if clarification of the policy is necessary beyond the existing links at the top of the WP:NOTCENSORED section, an essay can be written.
  As for the proposed additions, I wouldn't mind expanding "the U.S. state of Florida" to "the United States or the U.S. state of Florida", but the rest of the proposed additions are unnecessary because we're not writing a legal document here. Anomie⚔ 15:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: Case for two policies isn't convincing: we are only restricted by the law of the US/Florida therefore someone's request that we remove content they find objectionable shouldn't be honoured unless the request is made on suitable legal grounds. The tightness of that logical implication is all-important. By all means add more explanatory text to the existing policy. MartinPoulter (talk) 16:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: First, the proposed addition "Wikipedia content adheres to the laws of the United States of America and to the U.S. state of Florida" is obviously misleading and inaccurate. I know what you mean is that content added by contributors that is in violation of these laws will be removed - but that is not what is proposed, and the proposed addition creates the misleading impression that we think there is no content in potential violation of these laws on wikipedia (which is obviously not the case, especially in relation to copyright law). More generally this proposal is confusing and makes a distinction that is not relevant to our primary audience (readers). The level of explanation and justification needed to explain these changes betrays that they don't really clarify this policy and that they are a well intention example of [[WP:CREEP}}. Ajbpearce (talk) 23:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

---

To the extent that the legal language is a sticking point, let me offer the following version, which (while it has problems) is exactly and precisely the text of the policy as it now stands:

Content that is judged to violate the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's main servers are hosted, will be removed from Wikipedia.

Nor will Wikipedia will not remove content because the internal bylaws of some organizations forbid that information to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations.

If this is preferable, we can use this for now. For the purposes of further discussion, assume that this is what is proposed. Obviously this needs some work, but any changes to this to be dome separately later. Herostratus (talk) 05:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

• • I seriously think the wording of any eventual change would have to be vetted by the Foundation's lawyers, especially since we're debating a policy that would have the effect of defining Wikipedia's legal stance. Let's save the semantics for the paid professionals and debate the spirit of the issue here. -- RoninBK _{T C} 22:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose reduction of content of WP:NOTCENSORED. It explains the situation quite well, and I'm not clear what the problem actually is with explaining how Wikipedia operates, and why we sometimes have inappropriate content which we don't support, and why we sometimes have objectionable content that we do support, and how we will discuss and decide what is objectionable but appropriate and so keep. The section seems to me to cover all aspects quite well. SilkTork *^YES! 15:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
• oppose splitting into new policies Some of the suggested wording above could be incorporated into this page to make the NOTCENSORED section more clear, but I see no justification for CREEPING new policies/rules/guidelines. Active Banana (^bananaphone 16:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
• Question. I see several references to WP:CREEPING. How is it CREEPing anything when no material is added? I am at a loss to understand this. Can someone explain this to me? Herostratus (talk) 07:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

1) There is an actual problem to solve, and not just a hypothetical problem. - answer: perhaps

2)The proposal truly solves this problem (as opposed to treating symptoms or making symbolic gestures). answer: nope

3) The instructions have few or no undesirable effects (such as false positives, overcomplexity, or unnecessary prohibitions). answer: unlikely — Preceding unsigned comment added by Active Banana (talk • contribs) 07:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose nothing in WP:NOTCENSORED prevents people from exercising WP:Editorial discretion, as long as it's for the right reasons. Gigs (talk) 18:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per DGG, SilkTork. It is already clear, concise and precise. Splitting it into two seems only to mud waters. --Cyclopia^talk 01:23, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose All of the info is there. There are certain aspects that are ambiguous (since the commons discussion came to no consensus this might be a good thing) and there are certain things editors (pro or con such images) won't like. That is the way it is.Cptnono (talk) 07:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose All Versions Proposal changes the tone, and I like the "Don't tell us what we can and cannot host, you're not our boss" tone a lot. As for making the text more legal sounding, it's all irrelevant, as the arguments made by WMF legal staff would be the same, and the WMF policies, I'd have to assume, have been prepared independently of this line here. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to rearrange NOTDIR

Items 6 ("non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations) and 7 ("A complete exposition of all possible details") should be moved down under the header "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" (WP:IINFO), as those points are most relevant to that concept and are of a different kind than the other NOTDIR examples. Thoughts? postdlf (talk) 13:20, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I am happy with the current arrangement: WP:IINFO is qualifying WP:N by saying that certain kinds of articles are not appropriate (talking about the whole article). Items 6 and 7 of NOTDIR are applicable to that section because editors sometimes want to add excessive detail to an existing article (all possible categories or all details). Johnuniq (talk) 03:27, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I think it's IINFO that needs the most work. We might want to get rid of this heading entirely because it's vague. The first three really refer to the fact that Wikipedia is not an archive of primary data. The last one (FAQs) really relates more to the fact that Wikipedia is not a guidebook. It's ironic that "Wikipedia is not indiscriminate" seems to have just lumped together a bunch of rules indiscriminately. Shooterwalker (talk) 06:04, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Fancruft at 2010–11 Premier League

I have an issue with what appears to be increasing amounts of fancruft at the Premier League series of articles. IMHO, of course, the latest season (specifically #Season_statistics, appears to have quite the worst collection and volume of statistics which rival the sort of crap we are more accustomed to see in reality TV-series articles. Is all/any of this appropriate and encyclopaedic? If not, what to remove? Could I get some views on this, please? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I have no view on where this discussion should take place, I think this is more central, but someone has also suggested Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/League season. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:04, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Have you not got anything else better to do? This page is not necessarily encyclopaedic material in the sense it provides knowledge, but information. It is viewed in its thousands every day and is a very popular resource with backed sources, so what is the problem? Wikipedia should be proud of that, after all its main mission is to enlighten people. Pointless discussion - end of - it seems common sense is indeed not common. Stevo1000 (talk) 19:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• I try and start a serious and sensible discussion, and I get this torrent of abuse and personal attacks. In response to the substantive issue you raised, please refer to WP:USEFUL and WP:NOHARM. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that the discussion is pointless, to the contrary. If you do not take several dozens of proseline trival facts as "Indiscriminate collection of information", what else? The WP:IINFO claims is what should be discussed here; a pathetic and unconstructive general statement, combined with an impolite undertone of "STFU" (at least that is my impression) does not help.

Aside from that, the so-called "backed sources" disappear on a closer look. Most of them are matchday reports; as such, they cite the time of the events which happened in the match. However, they contain nothing explicit which would even remotely state that "this and that is the fastest/highest something of the season". So, in order to assess what is a record and what is not, somebody needs to overlook all match reports before adding the respective fact to the article – which is the exact definition of WP:SYN, which is not allowed. Where is the enlightenment when there is no guarantee that the facts have explicitly been proven by a trustable secondary source as correct? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:11, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Another possible location for this discussion would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Season article task force. However, I also think that here is the best place to lead a neutral discussion as it provides the best chance of getting input from outside of Wikipedia:WikiProject Football. The issue is not new, and not limited to the Premier League article series alone, by the way. Just take a look at 2010–11 La Liga, 2010–11 Belgian Pro League and their respective predecessors. In any case, it would be nice if something compliant to the current policies and guidelines, which could also handily be included into the current MoS for league seasons, would evolve from this discussion--Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 00:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

While season statistics are considered appropriate (they would fall under almanac-like material), it's difficult to justify things like records and the like. If it is a result that can be determined by reviewing one or more tables (eg like most home runs hit in a season), its unnecessary, unlike these facts gain coverage in secondary sources that describe their importance. Otherwise, you get users that will create their own so-called records and firsts. --MASEM (t) 19:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

New nutshell

Nutshells are a good idea, but I don't think the new one here is written from an appropriate perspective. The purpose of this policy is to clarify what Wikipedia is, by way of counterexample. It serves no purpose to begin by saying many people don't understand and to conclude by saying they are mistaken. The purpose of any expository writing is to inform the uninformed: saying so does not summarize the exposition. Rather, this frames the policy as some sort of behavioral issue entailing ignorance. There are indeed behavioral issues arising from not understanding or respecting policies, but this is a core policy on content and community, not a behavioral policy. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:33, 17 January 2011 (UTC) (amended 17:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC), Ningauble (talk))

I don't have time to ponder the matter atm, but these four edits which introduced the nutshell, also changed the lead (original/new lines follow):

Wikipedia is not any of a very long list of other terrible ideas.

Wikipedia is not a very long list of terrible ideas.

This needs tweaking because the wording encourages the incorrect reading that there is such a thing as a very long list of terrible ideas, but Wikipedia is not such a list. I also agree that it would be better if the nutshell "informed the uninformed" (to borrow from the previous comment). Suitable wording escapes me. Johnuniq (talk) 03:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding a nutshell was a good idea. But we have the tough job of summing up a million examples, and trying to make a bunch of negatives into a positive. I hope I was able to help. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Collectables

As anyone familiar with philatelic literature is aware, there is reliable published information regarding every postage stamp ever issued as well as all known varieties and possible usages, thus the formal criteria for Wikipedia:Notability is met, but obviously including all this information in a general purpose reference work such as Wikipedia is not appropriate. Accordingly I have added the following to Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information:

1. Catalogue. Wikipedia is not a stamp catalogue nor a database of collectables. More than the existence of reliable published information regarding specific items is required for inclusion.

User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:21, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The overall idea is good, but it should be broadened out. I'm worried that singling out collectibles can have some chilling effects in that field. Certainly some individual collectibles are notable and I think more of an effort should be made to expand our articles in the general field of collectibles, since our coverage on this subject is pretty weak. Perhaps this should be reworked to focus on specific subjects that are parts of a more notable general group, no matter what the field. ThemFromSpace 23:49, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The Honus Wagner card is notorious, but most cards listed in The American Card Catalog are not notable despite existence of a reliable source. A rare card or a common card, such as the Jackie Robinson care that might sell for a high price, that is notable. User:Fred Bauder Talk 00:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

There is such a stamp, the Golden Monkey. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The items listed in the policy are examples, not complete lists that define bright lines of what appropriate for a general reference work.

Some of the most frequently conceived bad ideas are listed below so that Wikipedia does not become deluged with articles that aren't within the project's scope. This list is not intended to include every ill conceived idea. Its purpose is to summarize some of the most common mistakes a new contributor could make.

The actual issue is: What is appropriate content for a general encyclopedic reference work? User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I know what you're trying to get at, but at the same time there's a balance here. A type of collectable list I would not include on Wikipedia would be baseball cards, as this pretty much is a roster of all players from all teams year after year + some bonus cards. (There are notable baseball cards themselves, and there are notable articles about companies that make such, so it's not the topic itself, just the full listing).

At the same time, stamps are different - they are published by the government and are similar to currency. At least in the US many stamps are published for commemorating some person or event. I could argue that a list of stamps released by a gov't post office (on a year by year basis) could be appropriate, but this, in effect, would be the same list that a stamp collector may start with. Note that there are also individual stamps that are notable, and we often have articles that are "<topic> in <country> postage stamps" (eg US space exploration history on US stamps), but that doesn't capture all stamps. I think stamps are the tricky point here in terms of collections, but I can't yet figure out a better way to distinguish it from baseball cards or other collectables. --MASEM (t) 17:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

the problem here is the "more thant he existence of reliable published information". What counts as more than? Every article is supposed to contain reliable published information, and if it is more than that, we usually consider it Original Research or synthesis. If you cannot specify a little better, the rule should be deleted. (I'm not saying there isn't a problem in some cases, but we need to be more precise about how to deal with it). DGG ( talk ) 03:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Could we at least...

OK, proposal to split WP:NOTCENSORED into two and rename the larger part didn't gain any traction. Oh well, fair enough.

But could we at least add a couple of shortcuts that use less inflammatory terms? I was thinking WP:OBJECTIONABLE and WP:INAPPROPRIATE - at least those are terms that (unlike censor, censored, or censorship) are actually used in the body of the policy. Can't make people use these less inflammatory shortcuts, but I would request people use them. I would much prefer "Do not remove the material, see WP:OBJECTIONABLE" than "Do not remove the material, see WP:NOTCENSORED". Right? The former is less likely to get someone's back up, I would think. I think that editors should at least have the option to use the more neutral term. Right?

As I said (in the RfC above), the physical constraints of the policy - confined to a second-level subsection of a page - makes for a crowded layout. But since nothing is to be done about that, I'd also propose to remove two of the existing shortcuts, to make room.

The shortcut WP:CENSORED doesn't seem to make sense, since the policy is that the Wikipedia is not censored. We don't have similar reverse wording for shortcuts to other major policies, I don't think. WP:CENSOR is even more puzzling. I'm thinking that the only use for this shortcut would be in a construction such as "We don't WP:CENSOR", which is an unnecessarily didactic and annoying way of putting things. Annoying other editors may be an old Wikipedia tradition, but do we have to have shortcuts which automate this? I think editors should have to come up with their own unique and personal ways of doing this.

Oh wait, WP:INAPPROPRIATE already exists, but as a shortcut to an essay. A lot of words are taken up by various essays in this way. Well, since this is a policy, I'd suggest either leaving the essay with WP:INAPPROP or something. Or we could use WP:INAPPROP here, but the policy should have precedence over the essay in getting to use the full word, maybe. On the other hand, maybe the essay has the right of precedence. Not an important point.

Not making this change now, but will absent any objection. Herostratus (talk) 16:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect you're being way too sensitive. - Denimadept (talk) 17:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Non-solution to a non-problem. WP:NOTCENSORED carries perfectly the meaning of the policy, and there is nothing "inflammatory" in using it. Agree however that WP:CENSORED is not meaningful. --Cyclopia^talk 18:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

But it's not up to the person who is dealing out the objected-to terminology to decide that its not a problem and that the target is being too sensitive. Right? This seems a basic rule of civil discourse. I can't call a person (say) a wog and then parry objection by saying that, well, that's just the term I use, its perfectly accurate, and stop being so sensitive. Right?

I mean, the shortcut to Wikipedia:Reliable Sources is not labeled WP:DONT_BE_LIKE_CLIFFORD_IRVING. And if we did have that shortcut, it wouldn't be only shortcut (I hope). There ought to at least an option to point someone to Wikipedia:Reliable Sources without implying that they are Clifford Irving or having to pipe the reference. Right? Same deal here. Herostratus (talk) 15:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand. Is NOTCENSORED a racist insult in your country? How is it insulting or inflammatory? And yes, if something is generally considered inflamatory or insulting, then what you say about deciding that it's not a problem is right, but if you just happen to be weirdly sensitive to words or expressions that do not bother anyone else, then it's your problem, not ours. --Cyclopia^talk 16:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Also I don't get why INAPPROPRIATE is a correct shortcut. The point is that WP is not censored, so NOTCENSORED seems a perfect shortcut that goes to the point. Perhaps you may propose something closer to the meaning of the policy? --Cyclopia^talk 16:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Racist, no. Insulting an inflammatory, certainly. Why this is, I've explained elsewhere, but at the end of day: you should take my word for it.

I remember - long time ago, this would have been in the 1960's I guess - seeing an Southern (USA) fellow on TV, and he was saying something like "But we've always called them _______. And now they're saying we can't do that anymore."

And you know, he was saying this in a sad, bewildered tone. People were taking something away from him - a part of his vocabulary, which is what (like all of us) he uses to describe and make sense of his world. And, you know, I can empathize with that, and you hate to see an old man sad. But, you know, he really did have to stop calling them ________. And I guess he would never understand why. But he didn't have to understand. He just had to stop doing it.

And do you know why he had to stop doing? Because they didn't want him to do it anymore. And that is sufficient. If it was just me, that'd be one thing, but its not just me, e.g. see some of the comments at here and I've seen this complaint elsewhere.

It's annoying, OK? Is that not enough for you? I'm asking you to stop doing it, and you're not going to, and there's nothing I can do about that. Fine, that is life. But you are arguing that other editors should not be provided the option to use a less insulting shortcut. Will you please withdraw your objection to that. Herostratus (talk) 04:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

INAPPROPRIATE, OK, reasonable point there, I'll withdraw the suggestion for adding that one. Herostratus (talk) 04:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is related. But it's annoying when you edit a page and remove or change something and it gets compared to censorship. Not all removals or changes are censorship. It's also annoying when people say "not censored" is a justification for adding everything and anything. "It's not censored so I should be able to add X and Y". I'm also not sure if renaming this part of the policy helps. Maybe... but probably not. It's possible this section of policy is due to be cleaned up and clarified... so it's more clear that it's not some unconditional right to free speech... it's really just saying "the possibility that something might offend someone is not relevant to determining whether it should be included." More to the point. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, Shooterwalker, you make a good point, which others have also made. But you're a little late - there was just an RfC addressing this, and it didn't gain much traction.

But, you know, Shooterwalker, I was thinking. Maybe it's not fair to characterize this as merely seeking political advantage. Let's think of it from the other guy's perspective. We all want to feel good about ourselves. Right? It's important. Well, imagine how the other guy might think of it:

It's late at night at the editorial offices of a large and popular online encyclopedia. The senior editors are gathered around a table. There's a matter at hand: publish a particular image, or not? They can't decide! What to do?

Well, we stride into the room. All eyes are on us: here is someone who can cut this gordian knot! A hush falls on the room, a hush of respectful anticipation. We forcefully slam our hand down on the table and say:

• "Gentlemen. Let me clarify this matter. We must publish these images. We must. Because do to otherwise would be... censorship!"

or, we say:

• "Gentlemen. Let me clarify this matter. We must publish these images. We must. Because do to otherwise would be... exercising editorial judgment!"

Well, which would you make you feel better?

However. While it's important to feel good about oneself, the best way to achieve this is to do good things. Giving good names to the things that we do do is a poor second (although we all do this in our lives, of course).

So, while I do want my fellow editors to feel good about themselves, I don't think this needs to be achieved by making other editors feel bad. So, again, if the objecting editor would withdraw his objection, this would be a kindness. Herostratus (talk) 17:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC)