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Proposal: Extend "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" for product information

This should be extended to include articles about products that only contain a description of the product's functions and/or specifications of the product. Also, why is there not a not a notable guideline for products? BoxOfChickens (talk · contribs · CSD/ProD log) 19:33, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

We have it, WP:PROMOTION on this page. If the page only is promotional in tone (which can include just a list of features and specifications but no additional commentary) then that can be deleted via WP:CSD#G11. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
What about pages like Casio F-105W that are not promotionally worded but about a product with no information other than what can be found in the manual or the manufacturer's website? BoxOfChickens (talk · contribs · CSD/ProD log) 19:41, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
Fails both promotional (since it's just a list of features and how to work it) and would likely fail WP:N assuming there are no third party sources about it. (A spot google check confirms very little usable sourcing here). --MASEM (t) 20:02, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
WP:NOTCATALOG also applies to product information. The problem I encounter is editors overlook the need for independent, secondary sources. Currently, only WP:FORUM mentions secondary sources. FORUM, PROMOTION, and INDISCRIMINATE all mention independent sources. NOTCATALOG says, "Encyclopedic significance may be indicated if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on these details instead of just passing mention." The mention of the type and quality of sources needs to be more consistent and clearer for NOT (and NPOV as well given NOT's frequent mention of using NPOV to decide if something is encyclopedic). --Ronz (talk) 22:34, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I can see no justification for this. The only purpose it could serve is to advance an anti-product POV. We already have notability guidelines to remove unsuitable topics, and we don't need more additional restrictions. At a time when excessive deletion has brought the project to its knees by causing the editor retention emergency, the last thing we should be doing is coming up with more completely artificial reasons to delete perfectly good articles. James500 (talk) 22:25, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't think we need an explicit provision to this effect. "Not a directory" and "Not for promotion" already clearly prohibit product articles on products that are just directory entries or not clearly notable in their own right. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:47, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Moot- WP:NOTCATALOG already covers this. Reyk YO! 09:40, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
  • There are numerous Wikipedia articles suffering from the malady called indiscriminate collection of information. Wikipedia does not have a concept of knowledge rather an un-articulated and confusing concept of information.--65.220.39.187 (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I agree that NOTCATALOG and PROMOTION already covers this. However ... there is an underlying issue here that the community needs to address. There's an particular penchant in certain topical editing circles for positively wallowing in product details, especially for electronic widgets, software, video games, and other, well, geeky things, that would not be tolerated if it were about anything else, e.g. lines of sporting goods, or ladies' apparel or, to pick another area with a huge fandom quotient, discographies of pop artists. We really do need some balance here. This particular proposal doesn't get at it, but we need one that does, to both increase the tolerance for coverage of notable commercial goods/services that don't make bleep-bloop noises, and to reduce the tolerance for the level of nerd-wankery we're presently permitting about gadgetry that does have blinkenlights. I say that self-deprecatingly; I'm a mega-dork when it comes to Unix, Mac OS X, and a lot of other technical stuff. It's just that much of this level of detailia really belongs in Wikia spinoffs on Linux, cell phones, PS3 games, etc., etc., the way we've caused that save level of trivia fixation for F&SF topics to move to Wookiepedia, etc. The level of nit-picking at some of these articles is akin to including the shoe size, palmistry details, favorite desserts, and every known public appearance of our biographical subjects. Meanwhile, any time anyone tries to differentiate one brand of anything from much of anything else, and it's not a techno-doodad, they get accused of spamming, with a result that we have really crap articles on a large number of genuinely notable products and services. I totally gave up on trying to write, e.g., pool/billiards equipment manufacturer and product line articles as a result of this attitude of "if it's not electronics-related, it must be spam".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

NOTCENSORED needs clarification

I think that the policy Wikipedia is not censored needs clarification. It is often misunderstood, both by good-faith editors and by disruptive editors, to mean that the removal of material that one editor wants to include in an article and another editor or editors want to exclude is censorship. There may be many reasons for removing material, such as undue weight or the biographies of living persons policy. It is very common for a POV-pusher to yell "Censorship" to "win" a content dispute. (It is also too common to yell "Vandalism" to "win" a content dispute.) Perhaps a qualification is needed to emphasize that that policy only says that we will not remove material simply because it is unpleasant or profane or ugly or unfit for children, but that the removal of material for undue weight, BLP, and other valid reasons is not censorship. Most claims of censorship are, in my experience, by disruptive editors, but this is prompted by a good-faith question. An editor wanted to include the birth name of a trans person, and there was disagreement. They asked, in good faith, whether the removal of the birth name of the person was censorship (wanting a yes answer in order keep the name in the article). In this case the issue was not censorship, but BLP and related guidelines. I suggest that the policy be clarified to say what is not censorship. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I do see that the policy states that information will be removed if it violates policies including BLP and NPOV, or the laws of the United states. (I interpret the reference to violating the laws of the United States primarily to refer to copyright violation. Libel may also violate the laws of the United States, but that is usually covered by BLP.) Robert McClenon (talk) 19:36, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I understand what you mean about people invoking "not censored" for things the WP:Not censored policy is not concerned with, but I somewhat disagree with stating "we will not remove material simply because it is unpleasant or profane or ugly or unfit for children"; this is because, per WP:Offensive material, we are allowed to remove offensive stuff when it does not enhance the article and when an equally suitable alternative can suffice in place of the more offensive material. This is why the "Some articles may include images, text, or links which are relevant to the topic but that some people find objectionable." paragraph of the WP:Not censored policy uses the word "usually" and "generally" with regard to not removing material because it is offensive and notes the WP:Offensive material guideline for guidance on the matter. I've seen countless instances of people adding sexual imagery, nude imagery, religious imagery, etc. in ways that are absolutely not needed for an article and are likely to offend our readers, and yet the WP:Not censored policy being invoked as though removing the unnecessary offense is a policy violation. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:23, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for these comments. I have been looking at WP:NOTCENSORED when I really should have been looking at WP:Offensive material. There sure are a lot of policies here. Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:39, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Right Hand Drive, you're welcome. But keep in mind that WP:Offensive material is a guideline, not a policy; WP:Policies and guidelines addresses the difference. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

The NONCENSOREED clearly says "Discussion of potentially objectionable content should usually focus not on its potential offensiveness but on whether it is an appropriate image, text, or link. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for the removal or inclusion of content.". If someone presents a good reason for removal of something, a troll will not prevail. If a smartass tries to wikilawyer their way out, we can also deal with this. Content dispute is won by trolls only because of lack of community participation. And NOTCENSORED is not an exception. And no arcane rules prevent trolls from trolling. Therefore bite the bullet, prepare for several days of delay, follow dispute resolution process and may Jimbo Be With Us.

As for somebody asking "id good faith", our policies are already so diverse and so many things are asked 'in good faith' simply because it is easier to ask an expert. And adding more rules and "exegeses" is not guaranteed to decrease the number of "askers in good faith".

That said, if you have a good suggestion, please spell the wording you want; if yours is a good catch, then why not? For example, you you have good stats about most frequent "false censorship claims", bring it here. Clearly, we cannot have an infinite list of "What WP is Not is Not". Staszek Lem (talk) 00:08, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

All of this discussion is only marginal to my original point, which is that some good-faith editors think that any removal of material, e.g., for BLP, NPOV, or UNDUE, is censorship, and that some bad-faith editors yell "Censorship" in order to insert undue or POV material. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:02, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
They should be pointed to the clause "Content will be removed if it is judged to violate Wikipedia policies". However I am starting to understand your point: AFAIU, you wanted to say that we need a definition of the term "censorship", so that we don't argue about its meaning, since everybody has their own ideas about words. To this purpose I suggest to rephrase the beginning as follows:
In the context of wikipedia, censorship is removal of encyclopedic content solely because some readers could find it offensive, sensitive, or otherwise objectionable. Attempting to ensure that articles and images will be acceptable to all readers, or will adhere to general social or religious norms, is incompatible with the purposes of an encyclopedia.
@Robert McClenon: Did I understand you correctly? Staszek Lem (talk) 03:39, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes. That would address good-faith questions about whether the removal of text because it is non-neutral, undue weight, or a BLP violation is censorship. I agree. (There will still be bad-faith claims of censorship, just as there are bad-faith claims of vandalism.) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:03, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
The proposed sentence itself looks fine, but I have to ask is the problem here that the current text is unclear? Or is the problem that people inevitably talk about censorship without reading the policy at all? There's no change to the text that can improve the latter problem. I'm not even going to bother counting how many times the text already repeats the words "objectionable" and "offensive". Will two more improve anything? Do we have any case here where the new sentence would be a significant improvement over quoting text that is already there? Alsee (talk) 18:47, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

It will only be made clearer by being made shorter, not by being made longer. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:11, 14 February 2016 (UTC).

Follow-Up

User:Rich Farmbrough states that it will only be made clearer by being made shorter, not longer. Does he have a specific suggestion on what to delete to shorten it and clarify it? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

There continue to be a lot of claims in dispute resolution that something may not be deleted because its deletion would be "censorship". Arguments about "censorship" are a common problem at Third Opinion and the dispute resolution noticeboard. Is there agreement that the sentence proposed by User:Staszek Lem is in order, or is a Request for Comments in order? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

As it currently is, this policy is occasionally used correctly, but is more often either misunderstood in good faith or misused in bad faith. In this respect, and in this respect alone, it is in the same class as Do not bite the newbies, which is sometimes legitimately used, but is far more often used by new but clever and combative editors as a cudgel to claim that advice to them was biting the newcomer. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

My own thought, at this point, is that maybe this particular policy section is unlike other parts of WP:NOT, in that it is not about what should not be in Wikipedia, but what is permitted in Wikipedia. Maybe it should be moved to somewhere else. Comments?

It might also be worth mentioning that aesthetic arguments are sometimes valid -- eg. if there's no particularly compelling reason to include an image, then "it's ugly and distracting" is a valid argument; MOS:IMAGES even states the "principle of least astonishment" specifically. (Actually, reading MOS:IMAGES, it's a bit more detailed than WP:NOTCENSORED; it might be worth mentioning the "principle of least astonishment" there.) In particular, the line that "However, images that can be considered offensive should not be included unless they are treated in an encyclopedic manner" seems like worth generalizing to mention in WP:NOTCENSORED -- it needs to be more clear that if there are offensive and inoffensive ways to express the same information, it is valid to argue that we should go with the less shocking version, and that including offensive text or images or the like requires at least some argument as to how they improve the article (which is equally true for any other content, of course, but tends to come up more for offensive stuff.) In terms of what could be trimmed... the quote seems extremely unnecessary; the purpose of WP:NOTCENSORED, like everything else in WP:NOT, is to make a statement about how to write a good and informative encyclopedia, not to make a more strident statement about censorship. The third paragraph also seems mostly redundant with the first and second.--Aquillion (talk) 05:59, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

It is not uncommon for Wikipedia editors to add material that predicts the outcome of future legal cases. See, for example, this recent edit that made predictions about several cases that are pending before the Supreme Court of the United States. Although WP:CRYSTAL appears to allow predictions about the outcome of cases when "[p]redictions, speculation, forecasts and theories [are] stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities" in the legal field, I think we may want to include language in WP:CRYSTAL that specifically forbids predictions about future legal cases.

There are several reasons why predictions about undecided cases are especially dangerous:

  1. Casual readers may rely upon these predictions to plan actions that are not currently permitted under existing law. For example, if an article predicts that a court will soon rule that citizens may own radioactive material, a reader may make plans to purchase radioactive material in anticipation of the predicted outcome of the case.
  2. If predictions are wrong, and the Wikipedia article is not updated after a court issues its decision, uninformed readers may assume that the incorrect predictions actually report the true status of the law.
  3. If a large number of experts predict a court will find a person guilty (or that an appellate court will uphold a finding of guilt or liability), then readers may assume that the person really is guilty, even if a court ultimately finds that person innocent.

I realize that the situations listed above are worst-case scenarios, but I think we should seriously consider adding language to our policy that specifically forbids predictions about the outcomes of legal cases. However, I am interested to hear from other editors on this matter, and I look forward to seeing what people have to say about this. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 08:54, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

  • Agree that we should strengthen the NOTCRYSTAL policy, because every legal professional can express his/her opinion and have that published in a reliable source (i.e. even reputable newspapers will quote mere opinions). No harm in waiting for the final verdict before updating an article. On the other hand, it may be helpful to report on when a verdict is expected. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 14:25, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • There's definition something wrong with that addition as while sourced to reliable ones, it's projecting a result from one point of view. That there are cases that have been impacted by Scalia's death is certainly true, but there's opinions on how Scalia's absence will affect their result so as to focus on one opinion is more a POV aspect than CRYSTAL. I don't know how to word it or to make sure that wording is sufficiently broad to cover similar aspects (such as the results of a pending criminal case). --MASEM (t) 15:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
@Masem: My fear is that POV and WEIGHT would still allow editors to say "court X is likely to that Y is now legal" when every expert opinion agrees on the likely outcome. Why not just say some thing like, "Wikipedia articles should not include predictions about the outcome of undecided legal cases." -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:08, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I think that's completely fair, I really can't think of anything else that required us to absolutely avoid speculation even if backed by RSes save for both civil and criminal cases. --MASEM (t) 20:23, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Hi. I have seen first hand what the burden of unfounded accusation does to an accused. It is not pretty. I myself have felt it too. Since Wikipedia's policy is WP:NPOV, for Wikipedia, a person is neither guilty nor innocent unless proven either way. Even once proved, that persons is "found by X to be {guilty|innocent}" and never "proven guilty" or "proven innocent". What Masem says is worth consideration but the matter of a person's reputation is worth more consideration. BLP is always extra-delicate. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 19:34, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Since there seems to be agreement to this, I would recommend the following language as a bullet point under CRYSTAL: Speculation on the results of legal trials. Speculation about how a legal trial, either civil or criminal, will conclude should be avoided, even if this speculation is backed by numerous reliable sources. Such speculation is inappropriate as described above, may be damaging to the parties involved in the legal case by bringing preliminary judgement on them, and in the case of living persons, may further be a violation of Biographies of living persons policy. Speculation on potential legal actions, such as if a company will pursue a lawsuit or not, may be appropriate if described by reliable expert sources.. --MASEM (t) 16:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@Masem: The text you have written sounds excellent! I was struggling to find the right words, but you have done a fantastic job with this proposal. The only thing I would change is that I would say "Speculation about legal cases" and replace the word "trial" (it appears twice) with the word "case." I want to make sure that this policy also covers appeals and other administrative tribunals that may function like trials, even if they aren't called "trials" in common parlance. In any event, thank you very much for writing this, and I look forward to adding this to WP:CRYSTAL. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 17:09, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I think that's fair. I do think it's reasonable to speculate (if it's well sourced) that a company may be pursuing legal action, or considering an appeal, or the like, the stuff that happens before/between/after trials (or even if a trial is still ongoing, a company says that if they lose they will seek appeals, for example), so just trying to distinguish the actual courtroom factors from what happens elsewhere. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree that it is appropriate (provided that reliable sources exist) to speculate about whether an organization will pursue legal action or file an appeal, but that it is not appropriate to speculate about the likely outcome of that action or appeal. At least in the United States, it is not uncommon for analysts to predict the outcome of cases that are pending before the Supreme Court of the United States; I just want to make sure that those predictions aren't represented in Wikipedia articles. Thanks again for your help with this. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 17:28, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Good job, Masem. I think I like it. But I'd rather remove "either civil or criminal" or at least move it after "conclude". Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 23:19, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Now that we've had time to review and comment upon the proposed text, are we ready to add this to WP:CRYSTAL? Here is an updated version of the text, with the proposed edits included -- let me know if there are any additional comments or suggestions: Speculation on the results of legal trials cases. Speculation about how a legal trial case, either civil or criminal, will conclude should be avoided, even if this speculation is backed by numerous reliable sources. Such speculation is inappropriate as described above, may be damaging to the parties involved in the legal case by bringing preliminary judgement on them, and in the case of living persons, may further be a violation of Biographies of living persons policy. Speculation on potential legal actions, such as if a company will pursue a lawsuit or not, may be appropriate if described by reliable expert sources. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:06, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd give it a couple of days, just to be clear and make sure there's no opposition and then I'll add it. I would probably just add WP:BLPCRIME as a additional link in that since it builds from that point. --MASEM (t) 18:28, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I like your suggestion of adding a link to WP:BLPCRIME. Thanks for your help with this! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:38, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree. Our job as an encyclopedia is to cover things with the perspective and weight appropriate to the sources; if there's an overwhelming agreement in the sources regarding the future legal impact of some decision or event, we must cover it -- failure to do so would be a clear violation of WP:NPOV (and WP:DUE in particular.) None of your objections to this situation are encyclopedic; Wikipedia's purpose is not to provide legal advice or to protect its readers if they make the mistake of misreading the predictions it covers as facts. While we have to keep our articles up to date, this applies in all situations, not just these; it is absolutely inappropriate to leave out information that is valid, sourced, relevant, and WP:DUE simply because we are concerned that readers might misinterpret it. I do not see this suggestion as ever being one we could implement. Furthermore, as a core content policy, WP:NPOV and WP:RS trump WP:NOT; that is to say that you cannot forbid people from accurately summarizing the sources with appropriate weight by adding things to this page. If you want to make an exception to WP:DUE to allow (let alone require) the omission of information that is otherwise both reliably sourced and appropriate for the article, then you need to suggest that on WP:NPOV, not here. We could mention that such speculation should not be covered if it is WP:FRINGE, or if covering it would be giving it WP:UNDUE weight (as is often the case if it's eg. just the speculation of one editorial); but WP:NOT must make it clear that including it is not only appropriate but, in some cases, required when it meets the standard WP:DUE imposes. If we have eg. a large number of high-profile legal scholars concurring on the future impact of some legal event, WP:DUE does not permit us to omit it. --Aquillion (talk) 02:05, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
    • That's not how NPOV or UNDUE work. WP summarizes sources but we do not mirror them. Many of our policies are set to adjust our coverage to an encyclopedic manner; we remove material that may be sourced if it violates BLP, we don't simply regurgitate news per NOT#NEWS and WP:RECENTISM, we don't cover routine news stories, and we work against systematic bias. So if even if there's speculation that John Smith will be declared guilty by many RSes, we are at liberty not to include per BLP, NOT#CRYSTALBALL, and RECENTISM, as once the trial is complete, we'll have that factual data. NOT is one of the five key policies and equal in weight to V, NPOV, and NOR. --MASEM (t) 17:54, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to echo much of what Masem said above. However, I would like to emphasize the interrelationship between WP:CRYSTAL and WP:V. One fundamental attribute of all Wikipedia articles is that they "should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject" (quoting WP:NOTEVERYTHING). When reading this maxim, it is important to distinguish between "accepted knowledge" and predictions about future events. Moreover, some kinds of future events can be predicted with relative certainty (e.g. the fact that there will be a presidential election in the United States this November can be predicted to a fair degree of certainty), while other future events cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. Legal cases can never be predicted with any degree of certainty because it is impossible to know the criteria that a court will use to adjudicate a case. To that extent, predictions about legal cases are not verifiable because those predictions will be based upon "unsubstantiated gossip, rumor or personal opinion" (quoting WP:V at WP:NOTRELIABLE). Although legal and political commentators often make inferences based on the ways in which courts and judges have ruled in the past, those inferences are hardly "accepted knowledge" and are really nothing more than unsubstantiated speculation (per WP:CRYSTAL and WP:V). Furthermore, the publication of such guesswork in this encyclopedia will inevitable cause the reader to believe that a party is civilly or criminally liable even though a court has not ruled upon the case. For those reasons, we should clarify that Wikipedia articles should avoid speculation about the outcome of future legal cases. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 23:33, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Agree that such predictions about the outcome of legal cases should not be made in Wikipedia's voice. Of course, there are cases where it is appropriate to include predictions made by external reliable sources, in particular when such predictions have caused reactions that have been analyzed by other reliable sources; as an example, Catalan declaration of sovereignty is being widely discussed in Spanish political media, as it is expected that it will be overruled by the Constitutional Court of Spain. Another example may be everything that went around California Proposition 8; it wouldn't make sense to exclude predictions over the outcome of such high profile cases.
This clarification of the guideline should not be used as a reason to exclude such encyclopedic coverage of people who make predictions about the future of legal cases. In short, don't introduce anything that collides with WP:CRYSTAL's "It is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced." Diego (talk) 11:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
I think that idea does give a line to be drawn between criminal cased and civil lawsuits (in which there is a potential penalty if the verdict falls one way or another), in contrast to policy and governing regulations (generally affirming or nullifying existing laws). I agree that speculation on the Catalan case would be appropriate to include (attributed to secondary expert sources, of course), or for example, most US SCOTUS cases which are generally about conflicts in laws; here, though, I would expect that a multitude of sources have common agreement on how such cases will resolve before we can include them; a random expert commenting without any other collaborative comments would be UNDUE. On the other hand, if a person or company is on a criminal trial, we absolutely want to avoid any speculation which way the case might fall, though we would accept sourced documentation and analysis of the court proceedings. --MASEM (t) 17:54, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that may be an useful criterion. Criminal cases are more likely to bring BLP issues with them, so they should be handled with care. Diego (talk) 22:59, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to respond to Diego's original comment by making two points. First, with respect to the assertion that WP:CRYSTAL permits speculation when such speculation is "properly referenced," predictions about the outcome of legal cases are never verifiable because they inherently involve the unsubstantiated guesswork of pundits who have no way of knowing how a court will rule in the future (see my comments above in response to Aquillion). Predictions about legal cases are fundamentally different from other kinds of future predictions; you can predict that a skyscraper will be built if a developer purchases land on which to build the structure and hires contractors to build it, but it is impossible to step into the mind of a judge to determine the criteria the judge will use to adjudicate a matter. Second, we should not distinguish between criminal and civil cases when writing this policy. When a party is found to be civilly liable (even if the party is a corporation or government entity), such a finding may attract just as much enmity in the eye of the public as a finding of criminal guilt. Nor should we distinguish between those cases and cases that involve the validity of statutes and regulations, because speculation that laws are invalid will inevitable lead to premature judgment about whether lawmakers and other officials are acting appropriately in their official capacity. Nor should we distinguish between cases that have received significant attention in the press and cases that have received little attention. All cases matter a great deal to the parties involved, and we should make sure to strengthen WP:CRYSTAL so that we do not suggest to our readers that a party is guilty or liable before a court of law has officially ruled on the matter. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Predictions may not be directly verifiable as descriptions of future events, but it is verifiable that a reliable source has made them - therefore they can be included following the criteria in WP:RSOPINION (i.e. you can't say "this case will be ruled in favor of the defendant with high probability", but you can say "specialised journalist Mr J. predicted that this case will be ruled in favor of the defendant based on criteria X and Y"). That's the essence of my comment, and I don't think that WP:CRYSTAL should forbid the latter, although it could warn that it should be made with care (mostly because of BLP concerns, which already includes such caveats). Diego (talk) 11:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Needs more work I think this needs more discussion before implementing. I say this despite liking the wording proposed by Masem.
Currently, we have a Policy (wp:crystal) prohibiting predictions about the future. That policy has an exception, for prospects of success, if supported by experts. So far, OK. But now we are talking about creating an exception to the exception – namely that prospects of success, even when accompanied by references to experts, are not allowed if they involve legal cases. And we are debating an exception to the exception to the exception, to say, for example, that discussions of the prospects of the Catalan case are allowed. Sorry, my head is spinning. This is how laws are written, and that is not a compliment.
I’ll propose a general meta-rule. When we craft a broad statement, it is likely that rule will have exceptions. If we find ourselves needing to add an exception to the exception, we shouldn’t just do it, we should pull back and rethink the whole thing.
I agree with Masem’s point that some predictions, even if supported by reliable sources, may ended up being BLP, but that doesn’t mean we have to specifically warn that speculation about a legal trial may violate BLP – we already have the metarule that BLP trumps crystal. We don’t need to say it again.
I am also not convinced that legal cases are so special. Do we think readers actually conclude “Hey I may buy some radioactive material, because Wikipedia says it might be legal”? For those cynics who respond “yes”, where’s the harm? The individual calls the supplier, tries to place an order and is turned down, because it is not yet legal. I think predictions of the impact of global warming have real-world implications an order of magnitude more important than the possibility a reader might mistakenly assume someone is guilty of something. My goal is not to trivialize the latter, just to point out that there are much bigger issues. If we are going to carve out exceptions to exceptions, we either need a more exhaustive review of the set of things belonging in the list, or we ought to revisit CRYSTAL itself.--S Philbrick(Talk) 00:35, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
In general agreement here to avoid exceptions to the exception, but I think something needs to be added. As currently in place, this sentence in the lede of the NOT#CRYSTAL "Predictions, speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included, though editors should be aware of creating undue bias to any specific point-of-view." technically enables the prediction of how a legal case will close if a reasonable expert comes along to make the point. The harm that's at play is the immediate financial or personal damage that a specifically named person or entity will incur on the close of the case, which we should not be predicting on, hence why civil/criminal cases are here. In contrast, a SCOTUS case challenging the constitutionality of a law is not going to have an immediate impact on any person/entity.
Now, BLP does help that if the case is about a person, that speculation is right out regardless if sourced; even if 100 sources claim X is guilty of murder before the case is over, we shouldn't at all say that. But that leaves cases of entities (businesses and other groups) that still may suffer direct damages from a civil case. But that begs the question given how BLP policy works, if we need to protect such entities. If not , then this whole thing can be easily fixed by a few words somewhere in the existing preamble of NOT#CRYSTAL stressing the importance of making predictions on an issue involving BLP/BLPCRIME. If we need to assure entities are also similarly covered, then we need something more. --MASEM (t) 01:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Question about WP:NOTGUIDE interpretation

Does WP:NOTGUIDE mean that Wikipedia cannot contain information that could be used as a guide, or that it can't be written as one? In other words does it regard the content or tone?--Prisencolin (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

This would apply to tone, not content. We should not set out to write in the style of a guide, but if to discuss a topic it is necessary to present information that would be in a guide otherwise, that's acceptable. --MASEM (t) 23:35, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi. Masem is right. The spirit of WP:NOTGUIDE is not write to paragraphs or numbered lists about how to accomplish a task, like how to make kebab. But consider this: If you look at the present state of the article kebab, you get a good idea how to make some. I myself don't avoid sentences that both declare a fact and at the same time are how-to, especially when they are one or two, or short.
Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 23:16, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Aye. It's much to do with instructional or "advicey" tone, too. I very frequently encounter material in cat, dog, and other pet-related articles that meant well, but amounts to "how often you should groom your Persian" advice. It's one thing to say "according to the GCCF, TICA, and FIFe, long-haired breeds like the Persian require at least weekly grooming to avoid matting of the fur.[12][13][14]" It's quite another to write something like "Weekly brushing, at least, is needed for your Persian, or matted hair will result", with the same citations. We shouldn't ever use "Wiki-voice" to give advice or say anything that can be taken as WP giving advice (red-flag words: should, must, need, can, etc.). But the fur-related point is an encyclopedic fact if three major fancier-and-breeder organizations agree on this point as a limitation of the breed and a dependency it has on humans; we can report it that way. Since it constitutes advice in the sources, that actually makes them primary sources for that opinion (even if high-value ones in the context), so they should be directly attributed and not given undue weight (Maybe other authorities disagree? If it was only the Azerbaijan Cat Club and the Cat Breeder's Association of Kansas who said this, we probably would not include it at all, due to low established publisher reputability and lack of breadth of expertise available to them. Anyway, I encounter issues like this at a wide range of articles, including sports and games, operating systems and software, law and regulations, medicine/health/lifestyle, tools and machinery, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:20, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2016

Mousham gupta (talk) 11:39, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

ÀÈņBold text — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mousham gupta (talk • contribs) 11:41, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

 Not done as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not .
If you want to suggest a change, please request this on the talk page of the relevant article in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 11:50, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

RfC: amendment to WP:NOTREPOSITORY

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus is against adding films to this section. Reasoning varies, including the opinion that this is an attempt to change global policy to settle the inclusion of one specific film in one specific article, the technical objection that this is the wrong section, and the opinion that, unlike text, a snippet of a film or an entire film take up the same amount of article space. --GRuban (talk) 14:04, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

This proposal is to add films to Subsection 3 of the section "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files" (which has shorcuts WP:NOTREPOSITORY, WP:NOTLINKFARM, WP:NOTGALLERY, and others) as shown below. (The bolding is just to highlight the change, it's not intended to be in the actual policy text).

Current text:

Public domain or other source material such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, unmodified wording.

Proposed new text:

Public domain or other source material such as entire books or films, or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, unmodified wording.

— Preceding comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs)

Survey

  • Support in general. This does not mean we should avoid links to full PD movies or other media, whether at Commons, Internet Archive, or hosted elsewhere (as long as it's PD), just that when you are putting these within the prose of the article, they do not help to condense the summary approach we are supposed to be giving the reader. Short clips or screencaps of relevant sections embedded in the prose are infinitely more helpful from an encyclopedic standpoint to showcase something that is of discussion in the neighboring prose rather than the full work and telling the reader to go find it themselves. We don't need to include full classic novels to understand those novels from an encyclopedic viewpoint, so the same logic applies with video and audio. --MASEM (t) 15:24, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose – media files are treated in subsection 4 (recommending to host them at Commons); subsection 3 is about the kind of files we'd rather have at Wikisource, which is definitely not films. There really didn't go much thinking into how this RfC should be formulated did it? Propose to snow close this RfC for such obvious flaws in its initial proposal. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose as written. If the film is for example a short film like the classic Gertie the Dinosaur, it makes sense to include it in its entirety, as the whole thing has encyclopaedic value; and there may be other reasons which may justify including a whole video work (video art, scientific experiments, documentaries...), but the proposed amendment doesn't allow for any. I agree with Herostratus below that books are different than films, as the first would be placed as text in the article but the second are in the separate media player, and thus occupy just a small amount of real state in the page; but I don't agree with your conclusion: NOTREPOSITORY is about avoiding hosting whole works in Article space, not against embedding a player where a work hosted elsewhere can be explored in full. This would be equivalent to removing all images and substituting them with links to Commons, merely because of the current possibility to click the image and zoom it in place. It's absurd.
At the end of the day, the only benefit this proposal would bring is one of style - the whole film would be linked from the harder-to-find "External links" section, instead of placing the external link in the easy-to-use media player, in a section where it would me more relevant and salient to the reader.
As for those stating that we should include snippets of the relevant parts in the film, there is nothing stopping us from including those in addition to the whole film. Diego (talk) 15:52, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I admit I haven't followed the other threads. As the file is hosted on Commons, which is perfectly reasonable (and if not, it would need to be brought up there), it seems this comes down to whether displaying a full-length film in an article is the same as displaying a full-length text/document in an article such that it should be linked rather than displayed. No, I don't think it is at all. Putting aside that media files are already addressed under a separate bulletpoint, the key bit of text is "are only useful when presented with their original, unmodified wording." Displaying a full-text document conflicts with the display and composition of an encyclopedia article. A video takes up the same amount of space regardless of whether it's a brief clip or the whole thing. There's a lot of work to do to figure out video's place on Wikipedia, and it may be the case that this specific sort of example (a whole film) is deemed not suitable from an e.g. MOS perspective, but if the whole of a video work is available, I don't see why it would be contrary to "what Wikipedia is" such that it would require inclusion here. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:58, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Technical oppose. Hi. Subsection 4 already covers "media files", which means digital images, digital video, digital audio and other interactive contents. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Favor. A two-hour (or whatever) movie? It's here's-something-extra enrichment, which we always put in the External Links section. We don't put the text of an entire book in the body of an article and say (by implication of the placement) "You need to read this entire book to get an understanding of the subject appropriate to an encyclopedia article". Why should we do that (by implication of placement) for a full length movie? IMO it's a service to reader to separate out enrichment material from the body of the article. Herostratus (talk) 18:46, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - NOTREPOSITORY is about posting entire written works in the article, not about a video player box that takes up less room than many titles. ContentEditman (talk) 20:22, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. Per ContentEditman, the movie in the described case is not literally on Wikipedia - it is on Wikimedia Commons, on an entirely different page. Embedding the movie involves adding one line of text to the page source. This differs fundamentally from having an article "War and Peace" with the entire text of War and Peace on Wikipedia. We defer that function to a different WMF project in that case also, but there's no easy way to embed a text page in the article, so we use a link. Furthermore, this change has the obvious flaw that it seems to discard many other files that are kept locally in Wikipedia File: namespace because they don't meet Commons rules on non-US copyright status, or are Fair Use. Wikipedia is an image repository in those cases, and needs to remain so. Wnt (talk) 03:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Lets just be blunt here. This is an overbroad proposal designed to end a debate over the inline linking of the Debbie Does Dallas film. Scope creep for the purpose of masking unsavoury topics is a bad idea. At a more basic level, a file is a file is a file, be it one image, one animated gif or one movie file of any length. Resolute 19:39, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose This RFC is a ridiculous attempt to posthoc codify one incident of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The editors involved need to realize that there are levels of consensus, and that Wikipedia is not censored. As for this RFC, embedding a video is completely different from inserting the full text of a book. The video is being hosted on Commons, not Wikipedia and the action is more akin to the embedding of an image. The videos do not take up any space and are the subject of the article itself—you can't get any more educational than that. That's even one of the criteria used for fair use. Opencooper (talk) 06:18, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose as a terrible, terrible idea that violates Wikipedia's core mission In an article on a painting, we will generally show the painting. On an article on a song, where we have an out of copyright recording, we will generally include the song. Our readers won't be helped by burying, say, Night of the Living Dead or Gertie the Dinosaur or any of the many other out-of-copyright films - which Wikipedia's code is set up to handle extremely well if put in as a thumbnail - as a link. We are meant to be an educational resource. Saying we shiould be a much more terrible one should get no traction. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose We should not make policy over a single issue. I have not seen any evidence that this is enough of a thing to require coverage by policy. This can be worked out on the article talk page. HighInBC 15:01, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose a pointless misreading of policy. It's already adequately clear that WP:NOTREPOSITORY apples to any content regardless of format. (edit) #4 in the policy obviously addresses images and media, while #3 obviously addresses text material. This entire discussion is a misguided wikilawyering attempt to circumvent WP:NOTCENSORED policy at a particular article. The issue here is that some people are missing the fact that NOTREPOSITORY ONLY applies to content that isn't contained in an appropriately related article. The final line of the policy makes it clear that images and video files CAN and SHOULD be included in articles once an article is created for it to be in. WP:NOTREPOSITORY is not a valid basis to exclude valuable content from a relevant article. Alsee (talk) 15:12, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
P.S. given the SNOW here, the outcome of this RFC should be to clarify #3 by replacing the two instances "source material" with "source text". Alsee (talk) 09:34, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
Oppose policy does not need to be made worse. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:16, 14 February 2016 (UTC).

Discussion

This is simply a clarification. There has been considerable discussion over a particular article, Debbie Does Dallas (see wP:Village pump (policy)#Should we move full-length movies from article space to Commons?, also Talk:Debbie Does Dallas#Link to full film on Commons and Talk:Debbie Does Dallas#Link to full film on Commons#What was the previous consensus? and User talk:Jimbo Wales#Debbie Does Dallas and its lengthy and somewhat heated, but IMO it comes to two positions:

  • WP:NOTREPOSITORY does not mention films, so they're not prohibited. And for good reason: unlike putting an entire book or whatever smack in the middle of an article, a film is embedded with just single window which you click on to play it (or not if you don't want to).
  • WP:NOTREPOSITORY may not mention films, but this is probably just an oversight; the spirit of NOTREPOSITORY prohibits including entire works right smack in the body of the article. Put them on Commons and then put a link to them in the External Links section, and what's so bad about that?

I hope I've stated that fairly. There are many details and there's been a lot of discussion raising various points, and you can look at the links above to see all that if you want. The basic problem is that people are trying to interpret WP:NOTREPOSITORY and arguing over whether or not it already, by implication, prohibits putting films in articles. So let's clarify this. Herostratus (talk) 14:58, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah probably. Are people really including OGG files of entire albums or even songs in the body of articles? Normally I'd be amenable to adding "or entire songs or albums". However, this issue is contentious and difficult enough. All we need is people being like "Oppose, I do agree that films shouldn't be in but songs are OK". Cover the audio question separately in a separate RfC, I guess. (NB: I just made an early quick change to the proposal to make the sentence grammatically correct) Herostratus (talk) 15:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes they are , per from the original VPP discussion, Goldberg Variations came up. --MASEM (t) 15:21, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Oh, OK. Well, I don't know about that. It's different enough to be a separate discussion, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 18:49, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Question: What exactly is this RFC talking about? are we talking about citations? are we talking about "external links" sections? Are we talking about an image gallery? Determining what is appropriate to link (and what is not appropriate to link) often depends on the context in which the link appears. Blueboar (talk) 15:24, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
    • The lead text in WP:NOT that starts the example text to be changed is : "Wikipedia articles are not merely collections of:". The issue came up in that people were embedding the full video within the text of the article, which, atop other issues specific to DDD, begs if full videos should be embedded within prose, or just linked to in as an EL or the like, as one would do to link to commons galleries as opposed to having that gallery on WP. --MASEM (t) 15:29, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
      • Including a single is not like including a gallery, it's like including an image; only a thumbnail is seen in the page, which is clearly not forbidden by NOTREPOSITORY. In order to see the film, the user still has to click the thumbnail and open a media separate media player which is thus no longer part of the article. "Embedding the film in the article", as in "hosting the film in Wikipedia", would be placing the film in auto-play at the top of the page in a maximized window; i.e. using the article as a placeholder for watching the movie, like those streaming websites do. I agree that would be forbidden by NOTREPOSITORY and we shouldn't do it, but embedding a thumbnail with a link to the video has nothing to do with that. Diego (talk) 16:03, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Francis Schonken: Section 4 does not cover the case that this RFC resulted from, the embedding of a full movie in the text of the article about that movie, which is not a situation section 4 prevents. This actually is towards Section 3, and would require adding "Wikisource or Commons" and maybe some additional advice in the following sentences, but that's definitely where it is appropriate. --MASEM (t) 15:41, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
    • How clueless can one get? Nothing about the current or proposed modified wording is about embedding. Only about where the file is stored (Wikisource for source files in #3, Commons for media files in #4). As I said: not much thought has gone into how to formulate this RfC, and it should be closed on the spot for general cluelessness. Please present an actual question instead of this confusing non-issue: the current proposed wording of the RfC effectivley invites people to store full length films in Wikisource, which should be avoided. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Erm. Well, look. Subsection 4 says "Photographs or media files with no accompanying text." This means that I can't create an article "Whatever (film)" which consists entirely of just an OGG file of the file presented on the page (similarly, I could create an article "Whatever (painting)" consisting entirely of just a PNG file of the painting).

It certainly doesn't prevent me from creating "Whatever (film)", writing a short stub article (perhaps even just one sentence) describing the film, and then sticking in the OGG file (just as I am surely not prevented from creating a file "Whatever (painting)" and writing a short stub article (perhaps even just one sentence) describing the painting, and then sticking in the PNG file.)

I thought that meaning of "with no accompanying text" was fairly obvious (which is why IMO Subsection 4 does not come into play here, as that is not a problem -- no one is creating, or is likely to create, articles consisting entirely of an embedded film with no text). Guess I was wrong, though. Herostratus (talk) 16:47, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

If you agree that the current wording already does what it's intended to do, i.e. prevent hosting whole works without context, what is this whole RfC about? The proposed change would greatly expand the extent of policy by also forbidding works in context, within an article, which is not what WP:NOTREPOSITORY is intended to avoid. Diego (talk) 17:11, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll make another stab at explaining what we're talking about here:

Example One

This is CLEARLY NOT ALLOWED by WP:NOTREPOSITORY, Subsection 3:

The Sorrows of Young Werther

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" is a book by yadda yadda yadda...
[entire (public domain) contents of the book The Sorrows of Young Werther]
And so thus we see yadda yadda... [rest of article]

Example Two

This is CLEARLY NOT FORBIDDEN by WP:NOTREPOSITORY, Subsection 3:

The Sorrows of Young Werther

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" is a book by yadda yadda yadda...and so on... [rest of article]
External Links Section
*Link to website (maybe Wikisource, maybe not) containing the entire (public domain) contents of the book

OK? With me so far? So let's look at two more examples. As it now stands, it appears that WP:NOTREPOSITORY doesn't forbid either Example Three or Example Four:

Example Three
The Big Important Film

"The Big Important Film" is a film by yadda yadda yadda...and so on... [rest of article]
External Links Section
*Link to website (maybe Commons, maybe not) containing the entire (public domain) contents of the film

Example Four
The Big Important Film

"The Big Important Film" is a film by yadda yadda yadda...
[entire (public domain) film, click to play]
And so thus we see yadda yadda... [rest of article]

The problem is that people are interpreting and arguing over this, since it doesn't either expressly allow or forbid either one, but you can take it either way. What I'd suggest is that, if this RfC fails (and that seems certain) this uncertain state will continue, which is not good, so probably instead and by clear implication Subsection 3 should be amended to read something along the lines of:

3. Public domain or other source material such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, unmodified wording '(this does not apply to films, which may be included in Wikipedia articles)

And if the person closing the RfC finds that it hasn't been accepted, probably she ought to do this, to prevent further uncertainty and argument over the meaning of the passage. Herostratus (talk) 17:19, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I now see how current policy may be ambiguous. I would agree to a clarification like this one, which explicitly allows example four. Diego (talk) 17:34, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
OK. That's reasonable. Either way, there's reasonable arguments. I don't agree with you, though, and I'll explain my reasons directly below. Herostratus (talk) 18:38, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm in favor of the proposition because:

  1. Sticking anything smack in the middle of the article, directly in the path of the reader, pretty much implies "this is part of the article, and you really need to read/watch/listen to it to get the full value of the article". That's asking a bit much for motion picture, which they commonly run close to 2 hours or more. We certainly don't take this position on books. Putting something in the External Links sections implies "OK, you've read the article and gotten an overview of the subject appropriate to the level of an encyclopedia article, now here's some 'extra credit' material for further enrichment if you want". To my mind that's where a 2-hour movie belongs. It's not a huge difference, more a matter of emphasis in guiding the reader.
  2. There's little question in my mind that this is going to hang some people's computers. Hella people still have dial-up (and if you don't believe me, go hang out with some poor people), IMO you're more likely to get clicks by people not quite understanding what they're getting into if the link is in the middle of the article, and it's gonna hang their computer. That's unkind. (How this plays out with mobile devices I dunno.)
  3. Some of the movies are going to be porno movies (probably some of those being pretty nasty), and all-in-all it'd be prudent to have them separated a bit from the actual article (and FWIW hosted on the Commons or Wikisource servers rather than ours, if it matters) rather than smack-dab in the middle of the article. (For those of you making articles that have non-pornographic movies, sorry... porn is part of the Wikipedia, and it's not really possible to have separate rules for it, so you have to have overall rules that take it into consideration. Even if you're Greg Louganis you have to wear a lifejacket on the ferry and no use complaining about it, for much the same reason...) Herostratus (talk) 18:38, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Ok, some thoughts about those points:
  1. The proposed change doesn't say anything about length - it would forbid any full video, even if it's a few seconds long. This proposal is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
  2. That's a technical problem that should be with technical means, not by forbidding the content for those users who can view it. A simple css media query which added a warning message before playing the video could fix that.
  3. A video of a porn film would be located at an article about porn, so readers would get ample notice before accessing the video anyway. Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED and we don't remove content merely because it's objectionable when it's relevant to the topic. Removing content because it's porn would already be bad, but removing content that is not porn merely because it shares the same file format that porn films is beyond ridiculous. Diego (talk) 19:52, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
OK, well, some thoughts about those thoughts:
  1. Well, people can be reasonable. It's not really possible to micromanage to the point of saying "Films of more than five minutes" (or whatever), one reason being people will be like "OPPOSE, limit should be six [or:four] minutes" and so forth. Already the rule prohibits "entire books", and yet if there was a public domain work published in book format consisting of a few lines of text, we could either be reasonable about including that, or else accept that the law is blunt instrument and not include. No rule is gonna be perfect.
  2. Well OK fine. No problem then. Go ahead and add the required code, then, and thanks.
  3. Yeah sure whatever you say. I don't agree with you about what is appropriate for a general purpose encyclopedia, what is or is not likely to cause us trouble down the line, and what is or is not catnip for trolls, so we'll just agree to disagree there, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 20:12, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Herostratus, the files are not hosted here - they are hosted on Commons. I don't know why this is hard for people to grasp. Can you explain what you mean by "cause trouble down the line"? Right Hand Drive (talk) 23:36, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Oh, right, OK... I wasn't clear on that in my own mind, sorry... it seems that we could host whole films on our servers, but they would be auto-moved up to commons... this would happen more or less automatically, right? OK, that would make "cause trouble down the line" a (little) bit less of an issue, maybe... doesn't change anything else though. Does it? If I created an article that consisted solely of images (with no text), would it matter a lot (for the purposes of WP:NOTREPOSITORY if the material existed on Commons's servers or ours? Herostratus (talk) 02:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
One reason for the confusion here is that this policy has been stupidly organized from the beginning. There is no coherent overall idea, and it tries to make policy by the backwards statement of things that "Wikipedia isn't". If we put the meaning of that section into a straightforward, positive sense, then we would say:
Wikipedia articles are meant to summarize and explain a topic rather than simply to store a trove of documents. Photographs and other media are useful for illustrating articles, but an article is not an article without a prose explanation. While it is technically possible to present CC-licensed or public domain text such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, and proclamations, such source material should not overwhelm the article as a whole, so it generally belongs on sister projects like Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. For similar reasons, collections of loose external links are discouraged; instead of posting a list of URLs for readers to follow, you should make an encyclopedic description of what these sources say and present them as inline references instead.
I know that this formulation lacks the whole bold Wikipedia is not chic, and would crimp someone or other's artistic style, but who cares? Enough people have lost enough content, and been sent around in endless silly argument, because of the back-asswardness of how this policy is written. It's time for this darling to be murdered, in fairness to all those others. Wnt (talk) 04:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Herostratus, I think you and I have very different ideas about what this part of the policy is supposed to prevent. I believe that this section of the policy boils down to a very common-sense definition of what an article is. See point 4? It says a picture without any accompanying text is not an article. That would also apply to a movie. A movie is not an article. It doesn't say (or even imply) that movies should not be added to articles. Look at the word "repository" in the policy section - it is linked to Digital library. Don't use Wikipedia as a digital library of primary sources or images. Commons is a digital library. So what we're talking about here is not using Wikipedia as a digital library, but adding content to an article. This is the wrong guideline to govern content, even if that content is a digital file. See WP:IUP. Now, can you please explain what you mean by "cause trouble down the line"? Cause trouble for whom? Who will cause the trouble? Legal trouble? Reputational trouble? What are you talking about? Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Of course it doesn't say that entire movies shouldn't be in the middle of articles -- that's why I have suggested adding text so that it does say that. One reason I did that is, contra what you're saying, some people are interpreting it it militate against having movies within articles. I don't think that's madness or luncy -- rules can't always cover every example, so if you have a rule that says "Look, don't put the text of a novel, or 350 images, or the entire source code for a product, or the entire text of a law and so forth into an article, OK?" (which is pretty much what the current rule says) it's not crazy to interpret "and so forth" to mean "an entire feature film". You may not agree with that, but can you see how a person could make that leap? And in fact some people have been in the recent discussions. It's this lack of clarity and arguing over interpretation that's non-optimal.
It's essentially a matter of opinion I guess. It's not terribly important either way. Just, it ought to be clear. I ought to have included two options, the second being to specifically add the text "does not apply to movies". I've called on the person closing the RfC to do just that (but they probably won't).
If you don't understand what I meant by "cause trouble down the line" then no, I probably can't explain it to you, sorry. Maybe somebody else can. Herostratus (talk) 02:19, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't think anyone here can read your mind, Herostratus. If you don't even try to explain what you mean, why do you think anyone will understand it? Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:47, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I expect that everyone else understands it, Right Hand Drive. Herostratus (talk) 14:31, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Herostratus, if you want to prevent "trouble down the line" and eliminate "catnip for trolls", I suggest you move your debate to the WP:NOTCENSORED page. I also suggest you start with images of Muhammad, that is far more trouble and catnip than any other content on Wikipedia. Good luck with that. Until you do get that policy changed I request that you don't try to hijack WP:NOTREPOSITORY as wikilayer avenue to circumvent a WP:NOTCENSORED policy you don't like. Alsee (talk) 15:34, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Other idea, let's promote Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source to guideline

When we're tired of hearing what Wikipedia "is not", here's a stable formulation of what Wikipedia "is". I'd not tamper with the WP:NOT policy to insert things in it that are in fact covered better by the WP:NOR policy ("Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them") — but what might be beneficial is a guideline explaining the connection between WP:NOTREPOSITORY and WP:NOR's WP:PRIMARY. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Very good idea. It would help support NOT and how to address disputes over the application of NOT. Currently this policy defers to POV to settle disputes, which can miss the point entirely when editors disagree on what is and is not encyclopedic. --Ronz (talk) 20:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
There are some things I would change/add to that to be more positive, but this is a good concept to consider to parallel WP:NOT. Of note, things I'd change include omitting the PSTS re-definitions and pointing to WP:PSTS (so we don't have conflicting concepts), making sure that in speaking of illustrations outweighing secondary sources that UNDUE is an appropriate guideline, backing a bit off the notability factor (as notability itself is a guideline and there are numerous exceptions), and perhaps making sure to add some of the more net positives, like "WP is an encyclopedia anyone can edit" to stress the need for civility, "WP is an unfinished work" in that there is no deadline to finish articles, "WP is an educational resource" so focus of articles should be on general information dissimination over details, and probably a few others. --MASEM (t) 20:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd rather not have yet another policy or guideline; we already have too many, with more than enough of them being ignored or discovered after being pointed to them. Anyway, as noted at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is a tertiary source#Current discussion, this proposal is in more than one place; where are editors supposed to vote on it at? At Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Other idea, let's promote Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source to guideline? Discussion for this proposal needs to be centralized, per WP:TALKCENT. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC about embedded pornographic movie in A Free Ride

A hardcore pornographic movie has been embedded in A Free Ride since 2012. Rather than just remove the movie as was done at Debbie Does Dallas, I have started a request for comment. I assume that the results of that RfC will be useful in guiding actions at Debbie Does Dallas. Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:18, 11 February 2016 (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.

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools#RfC:_Address. There is a discussion about whether WP:NOTDIR/WP:NOTYELLOW prohibits the inclusion of non-notable school addresses in {{Infobox school}}. Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:32, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

No Non-Encyclopedic Material in Userspace

Should this recent edit [1] which directs material that is non-encyclopedic cannot exist in userspace be overturned? All userboxes describing the hobbies and habitations of our non-notable editors are non-encyclopedic in nature. This new policy seems to be a major policy shift outlawing userboxes. (Which might be a good thing, but probably warrants some discussion.)LavaBaron (talk) 18:55, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The discussion that it was based on was from editors using userspace for web hosting of pages completely unrelated to editing the encyclopedia. Other policies clearly establish that user pages to identify one's hobbies and other interests as related to what they edit helps in the areas of communication needed for WP, so these aren't a problem. As long as we understand that material that supports the construction of an encyclopedia is fair, then this addition isn't a problem. --MASEM (t) 19:16, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Without the background and caveat of this explanation none of this is readily apparent. WP policies should be worded and composed in such a way that they stand on their own and can be easily understood without a guide or interpreter to explain the story behind how they came to be. Three years from now no one will know that this new policy is "based on was from editors using userspace for web hosting of pages completely unrelated to editing the encyclopedia". LavaBaron (talk) 19:21, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I made the clarification of "building" the encyclopedia, and added the link to UPNOT. --MASEM (t) 19:39, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I reverted the change. Adding a new point to WP:NOT requires discussion. The discussion originally cited for the change was about WP:U5's wording and deletion summary, not WP:NOT at all. And it was at WT:CSD, which is very much the wrong venue even if WP:NOT were being discussed. And, in any case, there was no consensus from the discussion. A2soup (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, A2soup. LavaBaron (talk) 19:55, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
No problem! You should feel free to revert substantive, undiscussed changes to important policy pages yourself. A2soup (talk) 19:56, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
(Personal attack removed) LavaBaron (talk) 19:58, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Something along these lines should be retained, of course, under WP:NOT#WEBHOST, just with better wording. It's not that the userspace content is "unencyclopedic", but unrelated to working on the encyclopedia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:17, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: I reworded it a bit more, and now my policy-related objections to it are resolved, but I still don't think it should be here. The reason is that it is nothing but a quick summary of part of WP:UPNOT. Creating redundant policy guidance like this is potentially problematic because the two policies can diverge over time, even though they address the same subject. This creates contradictory policy, with no clear indication of which is correct. For this reason, I think that mirroring WP:UPNOT here is a bad idea, and the addition should be removed. A2soup (talk) 22:48, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't like either of these versions. The current version says Don't store material unambiguously unrelated to Wikipedia's goals, including in userspace. See WP:UPNOT for examples of what may not be included. There is nothing that lists Wikipedia's goals and the word "goal" is not a term of art. This creates an open vortex that will undoubtedly prompt future fights and disagreements as editors try to determine if something is or is not in violation of Wikipedia's undefined goals. The caveat to see UPNOT for examples only notes these are examples but not an all-encompassing list of proscribed information so doesn't resolve the potential for word-parsing disagreement. We should eviscerate this entire addition and initiate a new, dedicated discussion from scratch if there's a desire to add something to this effect. LavaBaron (talk) 23:04, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
That's surely resolvable with some additional word-smithing? I agree we don't want to open a new lawyering/gaming can of worms in the process of trying to close an old one. PS: I have no big objection to removing it and re-drafting in talk, but I think a lot of progress has been made just tinkering with it in situ. That said, this is not my normal policy haunt, so I'll defer to people who spend more time on this page and are more attuned to where unexpected loopholes can open up (I know I see many that others miss when it comes to WP:MOS matters, since I spend most of my policypage time there).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:04, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
The way it's being done here is not a policy-fork risk at all; it's a very, very compressed summary of the gist, with a direct cross-reference to where the detailed material is. We do this in about 1000 places in our policies and guidelines; this is standard-operating-procedure cross-referencing. I'm not wedded to the particular language. The important part is that it's really bizarre for us to have had a section in this policy about not using WP as a webhost, without actually addressing not using it as a webhost, except for a couple of oddly specific things like obituaries (???). An edit along these lines, whatever the exact wording resolves the cognitive dissonance of us having a policy that isn't fully about what it says it's about.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:23, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Precisely - I found that the webhost policy was not aligned with the old or new wording of WP:U5 which needs to be corrected because U5 (and XfD) is how we implement the policy. We need to say you can't store random junk that is not related to the project and because the random junk is limited only by the imagination of random drive-by editors, the wording needs to be pretty broad. Legacypac (talk) 23:35, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree with the point that this page should line up better with WP:UPNOT. Adding the word "unsuitable" does not accomplish that, since that word is not present in WP:UPNOT (or WP:U5 for that matter). If our purpose here is to align the policies, it only makes sense to do that with the language from WP:UPNOT - anything else will add to the confusion. As such, I've removed "unsuitable" in favor of WP:UPNOT's "not related to Wikipedia's goals". They mean different things, so the difference is substantive. A2soup (talk) 01:41, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I've tried to distinguish this point better from the first point in the section. If this still isn't satisfactory, I'll leave it to youse all (all-y'all?) to sort it out, including removing it if it comes to that. I would just like to see the loophole closed. The "personal" in point #1 is WP:LAWYERable / WP:GAMEable, and we'd now explicitly exclude using WP userspace as a sandbox for people's work-related MediaWiki installations, non-WMF Wikia projects, etc. Maybe we should say something like "non-Wikipedia and non-WMF" or something; it's not like we want to shake our fists at someone for housing some Wiktionary or WikiData material here, after all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:31, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The reference to WP:UPNOT is a great addition. The section lines up closely with WP:U5. Legacypac (talk) 00:18, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

@A2soup "not related to Wikipedia's goals" only mirrors the first section at WP:UPNOT and we should cover off the other sections too - all of which we regularly find examples of. "Unsuitable" or " unrelated to Wikipedia" (to quote a phrase at the top) is a better catchall. Legacypac (talk) 02:23, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree with "unrelated to Wikipedia" as a faithful summary of WP:UPNOT. "Unsuitable" is new language not in UPNOT and so should not be introduced here under the guise of mirroring UPNOT. I see that you have chosen to use "unrelated to Wikipedia" in your latest edit, and I thank you for that. A2soup (talk) 02:58, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, we can use more license in summarizing sources in articles than we can in summarizing policies and guidelines, because people will argue half to death over interpretation. ;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Since the "unsuitable" wording wasn't agreeable – it was just what I thought of off the top of my head – I've thought on it, looking at the version partially reverted to, reading:

Content for encyclopedia-unrelated projects. Don't store material unrelated to Wikipedia, including in userspace. Please see WP:UPNOT for examples of what may not be included.

It's mostly adequate. The first item in the section is a don't-store-personal-junk here rule, while the point of this one was don't-store-stuff-for-non-WP-projects-here-either (including organizational). I think this could be clearer with something like "Don't store material for projects unrelated to Wikipedia ...". That would definitely make the anti-gaming ("It's not personal! It's for a GNU project! Gotcha!") distinction that was intended, without including any "suitability" language that someone objected to.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:45, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

NOTREPOSITORY

Ping Alanscottwalker please explain this edit. Wikisource does not accept anything except source texts, so it is an obviously valid clarification to say that only source texts be uploaded there. Not to mention the fact that the just closed RFC overwhelmingly rejected idea that things like video files are supposed to be covered in that section, again justifying clarification. I'm not sure if you're familiar with how policy is edited, but it is improper to baselessly revert an accurate clarification of policy. Are you suggesting that the policy SHOULD direct people to (impossibly) upload something other than source-texts to Wikisource? Alsee (talk) 19:17, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Since you're wondering, yes I've written policy, and second, if you want to change policy, you should start an RfC and get a positive consensus for your proposal, not just edit in what you think maybe should go there based on being INVOLVED in the RFC, especially when you have been prominently involved in issues ongoing related to films. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:23, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I think Alan is right here. You took an RFC that overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to add one type of media and extrapolated it into a decision to remove other types of media. There was some sentiment that non-text works should be covered by point 4 of the policy, but I do not believe that RFC achieved consensus support for the change you made. I think if you want to formally split text and media into distinct points (basically, rewriting #3 and #4 of the existing), that is fine - and depending on how it is worded, would likely support (if it avoided the issue I called out in that particular RFC) - but that will require a discussion focused on that aspect. Resolute 19:27, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Resolute, Wikisource only accepts text. Do you agree that Complete copies of primary sources may go into Wikisource should be clarified to say Complete copies of primary texts may go into Wikisource? In conjunction with that, it says Public domain or other source material such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, unmodified wording. Only texts can be uploaded to Wikisource, and only texts can have wording. There is no possible meaning for "source materials" there except text. Alsee (talk) 19:40, 22 March 2016 (UTC) In addition to the fact that it lists SIX fairly exhaustive examples specifically of textual materials. Alsee (talk) 19:42, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Resolute, #4 already explicitly covers media. The only thing at issue here is clarifying #3. Alsee (talk) 19:44, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I regret replying so hastily. I shouldn't have rushed off the initial knee-jerk explanation about #3 when your actual concern was not to remove other media completely. We're in agreement. #1 covers external links, #2 covers internal links, #3 covers texts, #4 covers images and media. I was not making change to the meaning of policy. Images and media are indisputably covered. I was just avoiding the (strange) misreading of policy where people try to shoehorn media under #3. Alsee (talk) 20:34, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I have removed the change again. If you want to change the meaning of the policy, you have to seek a consensus to do so. This applies particularly given that you are an involved editor in discussions elsewhere that rely on the original wording of NOTREPOSITORY. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:54, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Amakuru I am not changing the meaning of policy, and I request you either revert your disruptive edit, or offer a substantive basis for believing your edit was an improvement. Alsee (talk) 13:57, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Alsee two other editors in this same section already objected to your change, but you insisted on making it again. If you believe it's the correct change, then talk to the closer of the RfC above to see if that was their intention, or open a new RfC here. You were entitled to make the change through WP:BOLD, but since it has been challenged, please seek consensus. The RfC above rejected establishing any new wording in that section. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:01, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Amakuru no, you reverted a much narrower edit. Again I ask you if you have any good faith belief that your edit was an improvement, and if so, to provide some rational justification how you think was an improvement. Alsee (talk) 16:27, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • The issue I see is that Wikisource just doesn't take "texts", but any material presenting solely in a textual format. This includes things with primitive formating like data tables, lists, etc. which would not normally be called "texts", but do fall under "materials". While one can argue that images and video may also fall under "materials", there's no way to upload those to Wikisource. --MASEM (t) 14:15, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
MASEM how about using your word "textural" instead?
Amakuru I remind you that all edits, including edits to policy, must be made with a good-faith belief that they are an improvement. I am questioning whether you had any good faith reason that policy should mislead editors into wasting time going to Wikisource trying to upload content that isn't accepted there. Will you accept Masem's suggestion of "textural"? Alsee (talk) 14:23, 23 March 2016 (UTC) (Sorry, it's not actually Masem's suggestion, but hopefully that was what Masem had in mind.) Alsee (talk) 14:27, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, you are arguing without checking the premises. "In addition to texts, Wikisource hosts material such as comics, films, recordings and spoken-word works." therefore the suggested change rejected Case closed. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh, that's weird. The lead repeatedly says "texts", I didn't see that last line. Ok, it was a good faith mistake thinking only texts can be uploaded there. We've still got a consensus rejecting films from #3, a fairly exhaustive listing of textual works and others with "wording", and images/media clearly covered by #4. I guess we'll need an RFC to either clarify #3 as "textual", or add some language excluding films from #3. Alsee (talk) 04:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Clarification regarding WP:NOTDIRECTORY

In city or place articles, are bulleted lists of:

  • schools
  • colleges
  • universities
  • banks
  • medical institutions
  • government offices
  • TV stations
  • radio stations
  • news programs
  • newspapers

considered "directories", and should be deleted? I agree that they clutter the page, and might not always have enough information (since they are in bulleted list and not in prose form), but should they be always removed from place articles? I am a bit concerned about this revision (especially the schools list—are they not that relevant?) Sanglahi86 (talk) 19:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

No, that diff is a problem. We simply just don't list all of these that might be in a city, but use discretion. It would be appropriate to list public schools that the city manages, as well as any major college or university that may be in the city. It is also reasonable to highlight any of the forms of media that serve that city, but not simply every station or newspaper that city might happen to get. --MASEM (t) 19:46, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a memorial but it is an obituary?

Hey! I tried to create #Redirect WP:NOTOBITUARY but apparently this page title is blacklisted. Any idea why? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:55, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOT doesn't explicitly mention obituaries so I'm not sure that such a redirect would be appropriate. DexDor (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Well, the "article" Robert Provan is an obituary, which is clearly inappropriate for Wikipedia, and in my AfD post I wanted to link this page under the link "NOTOBITUARY" (which is substantially the same as "NOTMEMORIAL"), but I couldn't because for whatever reason this link doesn't exist yet. I guess this wasn't the place to come to to ask why it is blacklisted? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:13, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Hijiri 88, I'm not seeing any entry in the logs for that page, and I was able to create the redirect with no problems. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:54, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, that's super-weird. I've been hear for 11 years and have over 11,000 edits, and you're not an admin. When I searched for the title, the normal line offering to let me create the page and including a red link was missing, and when I created User:Hijiri88/WP:NOTOBITUARY and tried to move it into the Wikipedia namespace, I was specifically told that it was in the title blacklist. That's super-weird. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:18, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIR and phone numbers

Can someone please remind me why we always link to organizations' websites, but rarely to their telephone numbers, when the latter are often much more difficult to find? I know it's tradition, but I am interested in the reasons, if any, behind the tradition. EllenCT (talk) 04:22, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

For one, website addresses work directly from anywhere in the world, while phone numbers require the user to figure out appropriate dialing codes. Second, if a company has gone out of their way to limit its phone number (even if a bit of googling can find it), we should respect that, while a website address is meant to be a public front. Thirdly, many companies that even have public phone numbers have multiple numbers depending on whom you want to call (tech support, general HQ, etc.), so deciding which to include can be a problem. --MASEM (t) 14:44, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
Also, there's the matter that a website will provide you information about an organization more or less immediately without requiring making contact with them, where a phone number is simply one method to contact them & tells one little more than that. (The website may provide less information than one expects, but even that omission is information. Sometimes important information.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:02, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Request for template to mark WP:NOTTRAVEL articles.

I propose that someone come up with a template that would explicitly tell that an article/section promotes a locality in subjective/promotional manner like a travel guide, locality tourism page. An example of this page is the Vigan article. This is especially a problem for localities with tourism as a major industry not so much for more obscure towns (but it still happens). I would want it to word in a way that the contents may be transferred to Wikivoyage, somewhere in the template where the Wikivoyage page is linked with the Wikivoyage logo prominent in the template. Also its a way to improve Wikipedia's sister project, especially if many of the problematic pages/sections are marked with this template.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 11:24, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I believe one exists: {{Travel guide}}. If you think you need a section-specific version (such as {{Confusing section}} is the section-counterpart to {{Confusing}}, that could be made too. --MASEM (t) 22:30, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes {{Travel guide}}. This is what I'm looking for. Apparently changing parameter (1=) into (1=section) will change "article" into section. Thanks.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 08:55, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

"Not a dating service"

Section "Wikipedia is not a blog, web hosting service, social networking service, or memorial site" has a "not-bullet" "Dating services". Why is it necessary? This is clearly a non-encyclopedic activity and quite covered by WP:NOTSTUPID. I would suggest to remove it, unless there an evidence of significant abuse of this type, so that we have to add this "do not piss on walls"-type guideline. There are plenty other stupid ideas of using WP for various online services: "WP is not Ticketmaster", "WP is not Craiglist", "WP is not Vanpool", "WP is not Meetup", etc. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:43, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

  • I can't find any discussion of this in the past archives here but nor can easily see when it was added. I do think calling out "dating service" is not helpful, but should rather call out "social networking" of which dating service would be a part of and can be explicitly mentioned. --MASEM (t) 00:03, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Actually, I was thinking about rewriting of this entire section under the new title "Wikipedia is not a host for various online services", and the bullets are written along the following format (roughly):
      All wikipedia pages, in all namespaces are to serve the purpose of wikipedia: building encyclopedia < etc..>
      • WP is not your personal blog. It is OK to document your wikipedia activities, your editing preferences, even your hobbies, if this help other wikipedians to understand which topics you would rather improve in wikipedia. It is not OK do describe your recent date or how bad IYO this presidential candidate is <etc.>
      • WP is not a memorial <you know what>. At the same time we may pay our respects to wikipedians who left us.
    • I other words, for every WP:NOT, there surely is en exception (in non-article space) for activities which serve wikipedia's goals. What do you think? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:14, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
      • That might be better, but I would make sure to lead it off that for nearly all cases there is some lax allows for what is accepted per WP:UP (all geared towards maintaining a collaborative atmosphere for editing), and then going into the specifics. I would suggest rewriting it here first before actively putting it in place. --MASEM (t) 00:26, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
  • The text was there in April 2010 before the WP:NOTDATINGSERVICE shortcut was created. The origin probably does not matter. On the face of it, the advice is not needed because if an editor propositioned someone, the facts of life would be quickly explained to them. However, the text may have been aimed more at what is in user space. It's ok to say "I'm a biologist with an interest in evolution..."—that's generic info that might be on any resume and which is relevant for a user page. However, anything like "I'm a horny guy with all the right attributes..." is near the top of NOT. I'm thinking if it ain't broke may apply and it's not worth removing, although the shortcut WP:NOTDATINGSERVICE could be removed to shorten the list. The ideas above look good and would be worth considering, if the effort were considered worthwhile. Johnuniq (talk) 04:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
But if an editor posted "I'm a biologist with an interest in reproduction", would that run afoul of WP:NOTDATINGSERVICE? EEng 23:43, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Recent changes

This diff shows some changes from 15:24, 31 March 2016 to 01:16, 3 April 2016. The changes:

  1. Add {{Important concept}} box at top.
  2. Link to WP:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia in the lead.
  3. Change the first of the following lines to the second:
    Information should not be included in this encyclopedia solely because it is true or useful.
    Information should be included in this encyclopedia if it is verifiable and useful.
  4. Change:
    summary of accepted knowledge
    summary of human knowledge

I have removed these changes because:

  1. Excess boxes lead to banner blindness and saying this policy is important is essentially meaningless because we don't want passers by to ignore pages which do not carry that message.
  2. The linked essay is great but policies do not depend on essays and there is no need to make editors wonder whether they need to study the linked page to understand this policy.
  3. That reversed the meaning and is false.
  4. There is no need to mention that we are human, but there is a need to mention accepted—stuff we heard last night is knowledge but it is not necessarily accepted knowledge.

Johnuniq (talk) 02:09, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I disagree in particular with the idea that "Information should not be included in this encyclopedia solely because it is true or useful". This violates WP:ENC. -- Kendrick7talk 04:46, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
Please think about the before-and-after text in #3 above and consider the meaning of the words. It is clear that they contradict each other, so one of them must be wrong. What are the chances that the original text is incorrect given then it has been in plain view in the policy for a long time?
The original #3 is saying that, for example, "my teacher is 30 years old" may be true (and verifiable), but being true (and verifiable) is not a sufficient reason to include the text.
By the way, it is not possible to "violate WP:ENC" in any meaningful way because WP:ENC is an essay—it's a great essay and I agree with all it says, but it is correct only because it mirrors policies. If an action was contrary to what WP:ENC advises, the action would violate the corresponding policy, and that is the reason the action would be bad.
It's great to be bold, but it is really undesirable to edit war on a policy. If someone changes long-standing text and is reverted, the best response would be to engage in discussion (not at my talk!) and wait for other opinions. Johnuniq (talk)
Correction: there was no edit war, just the addition of a {{dubious}} pointing here. Johnuniq (talk) 06:12, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
The important factor here is the word solely - certainly information we include should be true/verifiable, but that is not the only factor we use in determining whether something should be included. Certain true facts may be out of our scope, not notable, etc. I agree with the revert and suggest the removal of the dubious tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:25, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
WP:ENC is not a guideline or policy, just a poster form of this page. Nor does the wording contradict it at all. This point, differently worded, has been in the page text since 2005 at least. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
I support Johnbod's revision. The first is more appropriate for this policy (eg what we are not) and sets up that this policy is outlining types of information, though might be "true or useful", is information we routine avoid including. --MASEM (t) 14:16, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
I think the wording from circa 2014[2] was at least more diplomatic in getting the point across. "In any encyclopedia, information cannot be included solely because it is true or useful." I would support a reversion to the old wording. -- Kendrick7talk 15:48, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
As there doesn't seem to be any immediate disagreement, I've restored the older language. Saying that this is simply a common sense directive by which information can't apply to any encyclopedia is very different in spirit from presenting this as a directive by which information shouldn't apply to this specific encyclopedia. Forgive me this silly quibble, but WP:5P is my theology. -- Kendrick7talk 03:33, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
  • FWIW, I support all four of Johnuniq's reverts, for the rationales he gave, though open to re-adopting "human", per the discussion below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:53, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

More recent "recent changes"

I reverted the following change of Kendrick7 (talk · contribs) "In any encyclopedia, information cannot be included solely because it is true or useful. ". We have no rights to speak about "any" encyclopedia. We are writing a guideline for *this* encyclopedia. I am sure we have no idea about rules of inclusion of thousands of cyclopedias of all times and tongues. Some of them welcome dicdefs, others are full of "howto"s, etc. I am sure for every our WP:NOT there is a compendium where it is IS:TOO (well, maybe with the exception of modern webspam... or maybe even not :-). Staszek Lem (talk) 23:59, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. Yes, that is a very good point, and perhaps that sort of reasoning explains why the language was changed in the first place. I do think we're all basically on the same page here; however, I remain worried about the latest version potentially being taken out of context, given that Wikipedia's main goal is to actually provide useful information. I'll try to come up with a more consensus version. -- Kendrick7talk 03:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking about "accepted knowledge" versus "human knowledge". NOTEVERYTHING uses the formulation "accepted knowledge", but that makes us ask: accepted by whom? By scientists? (The proposal to adopt a scientific point of view failed.) By any reliable source? (Maybe.) By editors? (Unfortunately, this is all too frequently the practical answer.) The "human knowledge" phrase, or even the "sum of all knowledge" line from the movement's vision, might be more appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

I like the idea I saw in an edit summary about this, that we should use "human" because it was the formulation used by one of the founders. While Johnuniq is correct that we don't need to remind anyone that we're human, that's not really the point of the wording choice. I can't read Wales's mind, but I'm pretty sure he chose it for reasons we now address at WP:SYSTEMICBIAS; it stresses that WP is not an American project, or a Western one, or an English-language one, but a project for the whole world. I also agree that "accepted" is question-begging. The fact that we don't mean conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, or things made up in the back yard one day, is already inherent in the meaning of the word knowledge, versus, say, data, both of which can be called information in various contexts. It's like the distinction between wisdom and memorization, both of which can be called learning or competence, but with very different implications.

At any rate, a great deal of WP:NOT, and various other polices, adequately explain that not every fact, supposition, or claim can or should be included here, so having WP:NOT repeat Jimbo's vision statement of WP as the repository for the sum total of all human knowledge is not actually problematic here, and is good for institutional memory and continuity.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:53, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Forking WP:PRICES into its own page

Until about 2015 the central place for discussing policy on prices was Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory, and redirects including WP:PRICE, WP:PRICES, and WP:NOPRICES went there. The precedent of discussions around that section of this policy should guide whatever is discussed presently.

At this point prices have been discussed enough to merit their own discussion page. Prices have only been a small part of what this policy covers, and conversation is developing enough to justify having a central place to track discussion on its own.

I redirected all the price shortcuts to go to Wikipedia:Prices. This does not change policy, but only changes the place where people go when they want to find any archival discussions about pricing policy. It would be excessive to expand the 1-2 sentences covering price here to include all the content listed on that page. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:27, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

@Kashmiri: At Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Price_of_medications you link to WP:PRICE, intending to redirect to a section of this policy page. I just changed the shortcut because of your usage and because I think the shortcut should direct to the place with the most discussion on the topic. If it is helpful, I would change your links to WP:NOTCATALOG so that your links went to the place you intended. Or otherwise, I would discuss where the WP:PRICE link should redirect. It was not my intent to disrupt what you are saying. What would be useful? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:32, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Crystal election date references

Crystal specifically references the 2020 presidential election as reasonable and the 2032 election as not. In the past, this section has referenced only the next upcoming election as appropriate: In 2011, the 2012 election was appropriate, while 2020 was not. Consistent with that was the older decision at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States presidential election, 2012 (2nd nomination) to redirect and protect the title prior to the 2008 election. Consensus was found there and at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/U.S. presidential election, 2012, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States presidential election, 2012 (also covering 2016 and 2020), and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States presidential election, 2016 (2nd nomination) that it was not appropriate to have articles for elections far in advance.

Sometime after the 2012 election, the section was updated to have dates further in the future, with an election two cycles away as acceptable rather than one, and one five cycles away as unacceptable rather than three away. This was done without discussion or consensus, though likely unintentionally when templates were inserted to automatically update with time.

Due to this change, it is ambiguous whether an election three elections in the future is too far away to be speculative. Prior practice and precedent were that only the next upcoming election should have an article. Unlike the Olympics also mentioned here, substantive plans are not discussed beyond the next election, as the incumbent is unknown. In the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States presidential election, 2024, this section was referenced many times by both sides, and despite a majority of votes to delete or merge the article, it was closed as no consensus/keep. Some argued that there were sources about the election sufficient to keep the article, while others argued the material was speculative and addressed demographics in that year rather than the election itself. In light of the recommendations made by the closing admin, how should this section be clarified regarding events in the intermediate future, in hopes of reaching a better consensus? Reywas92Talk 07:14, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

the basis for considering it suitable for an article, is whether it will be affected by anything that might happen at the next election. The 2016 election will result in the election of a president, who may or may not run in 2020, and therefore is a reasonable subject of political discussion at present. If they do run, and if they should be re-elected, the nest election is 2024. It is reasonable for people to discuss what is likely to happen after Trump, or after Clinton. So 2024 is a suitable topic. Beyond that, there are too many factors for reasonable discussion, and I do not see that they are good sources actually discussing it, so perhaps we should not yet include 2028 Obviously the times specified in the guideline will need to be changed from year to year, as time passes. (this analysis is only for the US, with fixed 4 year cycles and a 2 term limit; other countries will need analysis in their own terms). DGG ( talk ) 06:51, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
"If they do run and if they should be re-elected." This seems like the kind of speculation we should be avoiding. The next election is not 2024, it is 2016, with the next one after that in 2020. There are not good sources discussing the election that will be held in 2024 either. Reywas92Talk 21:02, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

recruitment

In this dif from 2007, the underlined was added to this document: "Propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. It was just pointed out elsewhere that recruitment points to our article about companies attracting people to hire. That dif arose from this Talk discussion also from 2007 that was about religious people using WP to Proselytize, arising from disputes at evolution and creationism. I had never clicked the link at "recruitment", and had always taken this as some kind of umbrella term bringing together yes, attracting great employees, proselytizing, and Community organizing - any effort to pull people into your "cause".

Shall we just delete the wikilink and leave the term broad, or should we replace it with something else? Jytdog (talk) 05:17, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I'll just remove the wikilink for now. Jytdog (talk) 21:16, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Agreed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:46, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Issue with "Wikipedia is not censored"

I am a new user who was reading through this page, and when I came to the end of the "Wikipedia is not censored section" I saw that "Wikipedia will not remove information or images concerning an organization merely because that organization's rules or traditions forbid display of such information online." To me it seems that this is potentially inviting users to post private information about individuals or organizations when those organizations or individuals would prefer for it not to be posted, such as when the organization could face legal action due to the disclosure. Thanks for considering this, Gluons12 (talk) 18:02, 7 May 2016 (UTC).

That sort of thing falls under WP:OUTING, part of Wikipedia's harassment policy. The wording on this page is more about, say, Freemasons or Scientologists wanting to keep their rituals and traditions secret. clpo13(talk) 18:06, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
This is usually countered by two other policies: WP:BLP and WP:V. Any private personal information must be of the type that meets BLP policy, so if the organization doesn't provide it readily, and it's not documented anywhere else, we don't include it. And even when the information is not related to persons, verifyability requires us to be able to source this information, so if the organization doesn't publish it, we can't use insider knowledge for retaining the information. (And as Clpo13 gives, OUTING is further on this point) --MASEM (t) 18:08, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
However, the policy Wikipedia is not censored, while clear, is far more often referred to blatantly incorrectly than it is correctly, in that POV-pushers often yell "Censorship!" to "win" a content dispute about posting something that consensus thinks is undue weight. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:34, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

We are social

People sometimes quote wp:not as to pretend there is not a single social aspect to Wikipedia. We are not a social network, but I'd sure hope that we are not anti social. I tend to talk to people, and I like to tell people what I work on, which is based on my motivation to collaborate with other people. Out of those experiences I've even found a group of real life friends that I meet with regularly (you could call it a 'social network').

I was thinking of the following change:

The focus of user pages should not be social networking, or amusement, but rather providing a foundation for effective and social collaboration.

To me this is natural (implied by collaboration) and the 4th pillar supports this social aspect of the Wikipedia in my opinion.

However the amount of times people try to use this part of the policy to imply that we should all be some sort of robots makes me think we should make this balance more explicit. It is about the difference between a social network site and a collaboration site, not social vs anti-social. Both websites types have plenty of both social and anti-social interactions. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:01, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

That would insert "and social" in the second-last sentence of the first point at not...social networking service? While I agree with what you say, that change seems a bit subtle, and I doubt its meaning would be understood by those who can't already grasp the difference between sociable collaboration and automated editing. The end of that section points to WP:User pages—that might be the page to spell out anything needed? Johnuniq (talk) 23:23, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi. It'd be more helpful if you actually gave us an example of those people. But we actually have a policy that says Wikipedians are very social creatures: Wikipedia:Civility. It demands observing rules of social conduct and resolving the disputes in a social fashion: through consensus. People should not come here to socialize. But people who come here to edit article are required to be sociable.
Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 19:19, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
I have actually noticed that some editors tend to form groups that always agree with each other in discussions. This is fine if they are correct, but often times it tilts the balance when trying to find a real consensus. I came to WP:NOT to find if there was something like Wikipedia is not a club, but found nothing. The closest I found was WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK but it doesn't really address this problem. I came to the talk page and this post actually seemed like the opposite of what I was expecting. I absolutely don't believe that this editor is purposefully trying to promote this kind of behavior, but I just want to point it out as a potential consequence of making Wikipedia closer to a social network. I'm just worried about this. Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
not a club? I'm not sure that's a very good motto for the behavior you're pointing at. I remember there are some policies which talk about getting input from independent, uninvolved Wikipedians when attempting to build consensus; maybe some clarification is needed in those policies or elsewhere, that the independent, uninvolved person shouldn't be someone with a history of working with one side or the other. 64.186.47.170 (talk) 10:47, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
Admittedly I am/have only made use of Wikipedia as a reference tool, never "social" or for "social media", but it sure would be nice if folks on here were a whole lot nicer than they are. For instance I made some minor edits to the Mahalia Jackson and to the [Broken Trust ] wiki pages, additionally to the [Presley ]page. Well. You'd a thought I was committing cyber space heresy or something. 'Cite your source.' 'Cite your source.' Dude! I've cited my source. "Removed for failure to cite your source." What the heck? Anyway social or social networking Wikipedia sure ain't, BUT it would be a site nicer if people were nicer. You know what I'm saying? User:Forthe1789usconstitution —Preceding undated comment added 05:19, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Could someone start adding lists of x-rays? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.32.131.177 (talk) 03:27, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
IP 97.32.131.77, I think this is on the wrong page, and it is unclear what you are referring to. Thanks, Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 11:07, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Not a place to own your own quote farms

An editor finds an article with a large quote farm and posts intent on the talk page to clean it up. The farmer accuses the other editor of having "ownership issues" because of the post about intending to clean up the quote farm. The farmer has many other quote farms in the wiki-dell which apparently keep growing because of this attitude. If the farmer continues to put off those willing to do this work, how does the issue of the quote farms get solved? We hope (talk) 20:20, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

this version does not strike me as a quote farm. Please explain what is "quote farm" in your view. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:35, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Although the section "Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim" there does read as a poetry rather than encyclopedic discourse and may be replaced with 2-3 phrases. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:35, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm seeing 13 quotes in the Thalberg article along with ownership issues elsewhere as to "drive-by" editors removing them.We hope (talk) 20:46, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Having encountered Light Show's quote farms before, the situation is that there is an excessive use of quotes for things that do not need to be quoted, statements of fact that still need attribution but can be paraphrased because of the lack of subjective content. Taking the Irving Thalberg link, there's an unneeded quote in the lede (the Roosevelt quote), and in the Early Life section there's no need to quote "pragmatism" and "abstraction", nor need to spell out the exact text of the want ad. Several parts of the next section have what look like extended dialogs between two or more people, where that could easily be summarized by paraphrasing. That's just the first third of the article. Quotes should be used to support subjective statements but not used as a biographer might to liven up the text. One can achieve engaging prose without leaning so much on quotes, which can actually weaken text for need to introduce them, and of course too many start creeping into copyvio territory. --MASEM (t) 20:48, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
User:Masem, there are a lot more just like these. For lack of a better description think of King Midas and everything turning to gold, but in this case, turning to quote. :) People like Moxy want to clear up the quote farms, but are getting a lot of resistance. How can it be done with the least amount of trouble, other than just leaving them in place? We hope (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Coming to an article saying "This reads like a quote farm, I plan to clean it up" is not itself a sign of ownership; that's being BOLD (heck, one could do the cleanup without announcement). Ownership would only happen if there was significant editor backlash, either in response to the comments or in reverting the BOLD edits, and the editor doing the cleanup ignored these and continued on. That doesn't appear to be the case here - Moxy's actions linked above show no sign of ownership as they immediately backed off that plan when Light Show disagreed. That said, that means there should be discussion on those various talk pages if there is quote farm problems and a plan developed to clean those up if that's the case; editors refusing to access consensus that there is a problem and refuse to allow clean up to proceed themselves become the ownership problem. --MASEM (t) 21:14, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
WP:BOOMERANG, you mean. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:27, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
I agree that to quote subjective statements is OK, and at my cursory eye most of them in Thalberg seem to be something subjective, although excessive. From my experience here, paraphrasing of subjective statements is a danger of unwitting POV spin, I fixed this many a time, by comparing with sources. Therefore "quite farm" cleanup requires "love and care". Staszek Lem (talk) 21:09, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what compelled We Hope to start a section unrelated to this Not page. It strikes me as a red herring digression from the "rumors" topic discussed above. In any case, as can be seen in my replies on Douglas's talk, my main complaint to the tagging was about a non-editor to this article simply driving by and announcing that they plan on "removing most quotes," which would be "extreme." When excessive quotations are based on a reasonable discussion, as for Irving Berlin, I went through the article and dealt with it.
The criteria I try to use when including a quote comes from a document Moxy relies on: "To present a particularly well-stated passage whose meaning would be lost or changed if paraphrased or summarized." I used that criteria, for instance, when adding this quote to Paul McCartney's article. Moxy deleted it although another editor restored it as being relevant. I realize that deciding when, where, or if a quote is useful is subjective, therefore disagreements are reasonable. That's where I assumed talk pages are of use. --Light show (talk) 21:38, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
An issue with a quote like the McCartney one is that it is just there for flavor. There is no aspect of that bio page that understanding McCartney's appreciation for Liverpool in his own glowing words is required. That's excessive quoting that isn't needed for an encyclopedic article. In a larger biography, it's great, but not here. --MASEM (t) 00:02, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Should bio sections be dedicated to Rumors?

I come across bios which have large sections of commentary supported entirely by rumors or gossip. See Cary_Grant#Rumors_about_sexual_orientation for instance, or Randolph_Scott#Personal_life, "Rumors" subsection. Should WP be a platform for such tabloidist commentary? There's been some debate about the question at Talk:Cary_Grant#A_massive_Sexion, and other issues related to adding photos to support the gossip. It seems to undermine the validity of many bios of famous people.--Light show (talk) 22:46, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely not, unless such rumors are serious discussion of notable academic studies that generally give point/counterpoint if these rumors were true or not. While BLP does not apply to those long since dead, we still should absolutely respect their legacy and avoid such gossip/rumors. --MASEM (t) 23:17, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean by "academic" here. We would be generally talking about biographies published by publishing houses, wouldn't we? Now, on occasion, an academic publisher might publish a biography of usually an academic but for others it would be a non-academic publisher (and most any modern biography, whether published by an academic house or not will likely dealve into the private life of a subject). Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:52, 14 June 2016 (UTC) See also, [3] and [4], and [5] there are undoubtedly other examples. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:58, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
Yes, by "academic" I don't necessarily mean published journals, but that the work is done from more a scholarship, historian standpoint, being a secondary source, critical overview of the person's life, like a biography, rather than a journalistic source which typically just reports what has been said without transformation (aka primary sources). Rumors nearly always are primary sources. --MASEM (t) 00:30, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Just a note that I linked to this issue at Cary_Grant#Rumors_about_sexual_orientation section. --Light show (talk) 19:42, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

  • There should absolutely no section titled "Rumors". There should absolutely no assertive statements based solely on rumors. Rumors themselves may be discussed in encyclopedic manner if they had a significant impact, e.g., ruined person's life (or something less drastic). "There are rumors that rapper Badass Bro humps Kitty Sue" is out regardless how many refs we can find. On the other hand "Goodass Sys dumped Badass Bro because of rumors he was humping Kitty Sue" is most probably OK. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:24, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

I didn't name the section "rumors". But the Grant and Scott relationship is heavily discussed by most of the major biographers on Grant and reputable publications. It's more than just the odd rumor, there's chapters in books devoted to it. We report here what reputable sources choose to place weight on, and I've done that with a decent paragraph.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:43, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, the title is "Rumors about sexual orientation"; it is not the same as "Rumors", the latter being rumor magnet. And I agree your text is to the point. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
What you did do however is again threaten a GF editor with being banned from WP or at least another article if they legitimately try to improve it. I had wrongly assumed ownership referred only to articles.--Light show (talk) 20:57, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

This talk has an ambiguous title: "Should bio sections be dedicated to Rumors?", hence the confused answers. The phrase "commentary supported entirely by rumors or gossip" is inapplicable to Dr. Blofeld's: it is not supported by a single rumor or gossip. It writes about rumor and supported by solid evidence. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. And I've only discussed what has been extensively documented in reputable books and sources, not just reiterating one rumor written by Higham. Any decent article would document what multiple authors decide to write about. That's what we're here for, to compile the world's information and report what is widely reported elsewhere. I've condensed the article, but given the level of coverage the Grant-Scott relationship has had a sub section on it I don't think would be that unreasonable, it was balanced anyway.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:38, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I found Higham's obit a tad pertinent to the case at hand

"That his motives were probably financial is suggested by his admission in an interview that there was “certainly a difference of an enormous number of sales” between his poetry books and his biographies. His Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life (1988) might have been more aptly titled “Fascist, Lesbian Harlots at the Court of St James”, suggested one reviewer, who went on to observe that for the Duchess to have been guilty of even half the peccadilloes attributed to her, “early on she would have succumbed to exhaustion”. and
"In his unashamedly self-promoting memoir, In and Out of Hollywood (2009), Higham presented himself as a sort of Chandleresque figure, dedicated to sniffing out other people’s darkest secrets. Yet as he admitted, he hated interviewing people for his books, and critics remarked on how much of his work was based on the testimony of anonymous witnesses "[6], The Daily Telegraph. Collect (talk) 12:06, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you that given the reputation of the Higham source it should probably not be used. The problem is that there's a lot of details in it which I strongly doubt were made up, and I've proved that a few dozen sources from it actually check out and were accurate, so it's difficult to discredit entirely, unless you can prove at least a dozen inaccuracies in it beyond "Grant da gay". The article I think would be worse off without any of the Higham material, but then you could argue that it's probably best to avoid a controversial source so not be worse off. Accuracy and reliability is very important as well as the integrity of sources so perhaps it would be best to remove it. If the article was to proceed to FAC I'm sure somebody else would bring it up anyway. Believe me, if I'd known more about his biographies when I'd started I'd not have used the Higham source to start! I still think it's one of the best biographies on him overall when you actually read it though.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:41, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM seems to link to top of page instead of proper FORUM anchor

Solved: I thought I had javascript enabled but I had it disabled. Mindbuilder (talk) 07:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Is it just my system or does WP:NOTFORUM redirect to the top of the "What Wikipedia is not" page instead of paragraph "4. Discussion Forums" of the "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought" section? The first time I followed WP:NOTFORUM I missed "4. Discussion Forums" because it was so far down and not in the table of contents and I didn't have time to carefully read the entire large page right then. The source shows that paragraph 4. has an anchor named FORUM, and the source of the redirect page for WP:NOTFORUM seems to point correctly to the FORUM anchor. When you click WP:NOTFORUM does it take you to the top of the page or to the proper paragraph "4. Discussion Forums"? Is it supposed to take you to the top of the page? Mindbuilder (talk) 05:19, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Takes me to "4. Discussion Forums" (Chrome on Windows 10). EEng 05:47, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought I had javascript enabled, but I realized that I didn't, and when I enabled it, it properly redirected to "4. Discussion Forums". Mindbuilder (talk) 07:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm surprised. I thought Wikipedia was supposed to work even for the disabled. EEng 19:33, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Should "excessive examples" be added to WP:INDISCRIMINATE

This RfC was closed because the proposer wishes to amend the RfC. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 11:57, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

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

There is consensus on WT:V that "self-sourcing" examples are excessive and should be removed. Uncited examples, examples cited to primary sources, or examples cited to sources that verify the example exists but do not discuss its significance should be challenged or removed. Should the following fifth category be added to WP:INDISCRIMINATE?

5. Excessive listings of examples. Articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put examples within the article in their proper context for a general reader. An example in an article should have secondary or tertiary sources that not only establish its verifiability, but also its significance in the context of the article.

BrightRoundCircle (talk) 11:21, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose, not by near a correct summary of the RfC outcome (the RfC was about "pop culture references", not about "examples" in general – which would make it possible to add the RfC outcome to "trivia" related guidance, most of that guidance being essay or guideline level – there's no agreement to extrapolate that to "examples" in general, and certainly not at policy level) --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:48, 11 July 2016 (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.
Early close because of immediately apparent consensus against the chagne. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 10:40, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

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

There is consensus on WT:V that "self-sourcing" examples in popular culture are excessive and should be challenged or removed. Should this "self-sourcing" condition be applied outside of in popular culture material, to any type of example? BrightRoundCircle (talk) 12:04, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

As an aside, my misinterpretation of the previous consensus (see RfC above) puts a whole lot of edits I made into question. Please be merciful. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 12:04, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Comment: "self-sourcing" also refers to secondary sources that don't discuss the example's importance in the context of the Wikipedia article. It's like WP:ONUS, (paraphrased) "this is verifiable, but merely pointing out it's verifiable/notable doesn't make it a good/significant example to be included." BrightRoundCircle (talk) 15:50, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

  • No It's not clear to me which windmill you're tilting at but I see no need to change the current guidance. Over-reliance on primary sources is often addressed on the respective talkpages, which is sufficient. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:06, 11 July 2016 (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.

Comment: Windmills like § In popular culture. The current consensus is adequate for removing those trivial examples, but the title of the section can be anything, hence the RfC. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 08:30, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

In that case you should argue against "sections which consist solely of examples", not against "any type of example", which is what you created this RfC for. And you'd then have to explain how that proposal is compatible with WP:LISTN and WP:Source list, which happen to allow such sections when the topic of the list is itself subject of independent commentary. In those cases, self-verifiable individual entries in the list are allowed, so you're arguing for a change in our list inclusion criteria. Good luck with that. Diego (talk) 08:46, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
By the way, the section you've used to justify this proposal is a terrible example for that. Most or all items in that list are high-profile commercial products distributed world-wide, and their backward compatibility has been largely discussed in specialized media (in particular for software, consoles and hardware peripherals). That section should be fixed by adding references, not with deletion. Diego (talk) 09:28, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Further discussion on Talk:Backward compatibility#Examples. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 11:39, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Inclusion of commercial weblinks in text of an article

The article Phone sex includes "Big platforms as of 2016 are Niteflirt (http://www.niteflirt.com), TalktoMe (http://talktome.com), and My Phone Site (http://www.myphonesite.com);" with active click links to take the reader to the sites. This seems contrary to WP:NOT. But it seems appropriate to list the major sites by name if reliable sources say they are the main sites. If they were listed by name in the article text, would it then be appropriate to include them anywhere in the article? Edison (talk) 15:05, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

On the other hand, the guideline says " External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify notable organizations which are the topic of the article." So the site would have to be "notable" by Wikipedia standards. If so should the link be embedded or should it be an "External link?" Edison (talk) 15:29, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

(EC)There are 2 problems here:
  • inclusion of the name in the text. This would be against WP:NOADS unless there is an over-riding reason to put it into the article. Presumably "Apple" should be put into an article about computers, but a phone sex provider? I doubt it.
  • Any links to external sites like this should probably be in the external link section and subject to our external links policy.
    • So in general there are usually 2 reasons not to include these links.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:35, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

A few things to consider: active URLs should not be visible in the text; mention should not occur if it's not sourced; content does not have to be notable, since notability is a criterion for article creation. Whether one wishes to then provide a url in the ref for convenience sake is a matter of editorial discretion. If each item mentioned is notable enough for their own article here, then a wikilink is sufficient, because the url should be available at the article. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:08, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Please note that the guide I quoted says " External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify notable organizations which are the topic of the article." (emphasis added). "Content does not have to be notable" as you said, but it has to be verifiable and its inclusion must not give it undue weight. But to have an external link, it has to be notable. I assume this means "notable" per WP:N and not just "Notable as in common English usage." Edison (talk) 17:31, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
In the context, notable here means sufficient sourcing to provide a stand-alone article (per WP:N). If you can't support a standalone article for the company, then there should not be the link to it. --MASEM (t) 18:10, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
On the NOADS aspect, if an independent RS (say the NYTimes) was doing an article on phone sex and stated those names as the largest of such providers, there's no reason not to include the names since that helps identify the major players. That said, the URL links are likely not needed as that is where NOADS starts tipping; if these services are notable, those companies will be blue-linked and their URL listed there, otherwise, we shouldn't include them. --MASEM (t) 16:24, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Agree with all the above, and removed the links per WP:EL. The lack of a good independent source is probably the most pressing issue for now. If these platforms are Wiki-notable themselves, they should have their own article where an "official" link can be added. GermanJoe (talk) 16:31, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
I too agree with all of the above. The problem is solved. Good work everyone. -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:13, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Proposed

Wikipedia is not a page for promoting gender violence, abusive relationships and abuse; neither is it a how-to guide on how to torture abuse and exert violence on other people. In consequence with this articles who do fit this criteria will be erased and eliminated — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.47.59.120 (talk) 11:38, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I think this is based on the editors opinion of BDSM themed articles, given their edits here and here, and here, amongst others. I'll also point out (to the IP editor) that ironically WP is not a soapbox either. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:43, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
We are not going to delete articles in Notable topics just because you dislike them. Wikipedia is Not Censored. It includes articles on any topic shown to be Notable based on significant coverage in Reliable Sources. Our Neutrality policy is to accurately summarize what most Reliable Sources say about a subject. Please do not mangle image file names. Please do not tag articles with "mental illness" when the topic is generally not recognized as a mental illness by the medical profession. Please do not tag articles on consensual sexual topics as "rape". Please do not tag consensual BDSM as "violence against women", particularly when it is well established that the gender roles are interchangeable. You are welcome to contribute to Wikipedia constructively, but it would probably be a good idea to get some experience editing other topics first. Alsee (talk) 18:26, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Contradiction

The line following line in WP:NOTGUIDE appears to contradict WP:NNC: "avoid lists of gameplay weapons, items, or concepts, unless these are notable in their own right " Also, it appears that, along with "internet content", the only type of content that is specifically prohibited is video game content. Sound like WP:IDONTLIKE applied on a systematic level to me.--Prisencolin (talk) 23:28, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Prisencolin, for all articles we give an "encyclopedic overview" of a topic, summarizing what Reliable Sources have published about it. For videogames, it's very easy and very tempting for enthusiastic people to add vast quantities of detailed information. We don't include that level of detail in other articles. Wikipedia is not a Game Guide for players. There are other, much better places dedicated a players looking for that sort of information. Including excessive detail makes it hard for a non-player to wade through trying to get a non-player overview of the subject.
I see you added a {clarification needed} tag to the text. I think the sentences after that tag, and the link to WP:VGSCOPE, do a reasonable job answering what sort of content should or should not be included. Do you have any objection to removing it? Alsee (talk) 06:02, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Would it be okay if the text just got changed to include games in general?--Prisencolin (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Funny pictures removed

This wikipedia policy, a serious business and not a place for frolicking. You are very welcome to write up an essay Wikipedia Policies Illustrated and don't forget to put in under the category:Wikipedia humor where it would belong. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:13, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a ghastly enjoyment-free intellectual wasteland where everything is reduced to the sensibilities of the most hidebound participant. There's a long tradition of policies and guidelines carrying images and quotations to lighten the mood, break the monotony, and make the content more memorable. Many of the images you removed have been here for up to a year, so the community clearly doesn't agree with your blanket condemnation. If you think that a particular addition is misleading or inappropriate, explain why. EEng 21:30, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
OK I am leaving two old. But two new I remove per WP:CHALLENGE: it is your job to prove it correctly reflects the text. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:10, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
CHALLENGE applies to article content, not project-space pages, which this is‍—‌things here don't have to be verifiable or "proven". You seem to be grasping at straws to justify your initial impulsive removal.
Even now you've removed an image that's been there for a month, during which time 24000 editors have visited it (including 227 of its 1200 watchers) and five have changed it. That these images are prima facie apropos is so obvious that it would be absurd to try to explicate it. Whether they improve the page‍—‌help it get its message across, if even merely by enticing the reader to get all the way through it‍—‌will be up to our esteemed fellow editors seeing them in situ. Please let them see for themselves. As mentioned, if you think a particular image is inappropriate somehow, please explain why. EEng 05:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I've removed three of the images, as they appeared to be neither helpful nor amusing. -- The Anome (talk) 08:06, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I concur with keeping the two old images, but not the new ones. First, putting images on the left is much more distracting than on the right. Second, unless I'm missing something, the new images lack the strong memorable purpose of the old pictures. The NotCrystalBall image hits you over the head mocking the absurdity of Wikipedia predicting the future. The impact of that mockery carries over to mild cases - it's a bad idea for Wikipedia to start an article on United States presidential election, 2024 (deleted or userfied 4 times already), no matter how sure we are of some aspects and no matter how many Reliable Sources we could cite on it. At first impression, the NotCookbook image seems quite frivolous. However if one does look more closely, there's a hidden WP:EASTEREGG. That easteregg is utterly brilliant. It does an incredibly impressive and incredibly memorable job of making the point: readers would be rather surprised to discover that Wikipedia is a cookbook. Wow, kudos to whoever added that one. The new images.... they seem to have no purpose other than putting a vaguely relevant image there just because we could. Alsee (talk) 09:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC) P.S. I just checked the history, EEng gets credit for the Cookbook. Alsee (talk) 09:08, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
I can hardly imagine the ecstasy of admiration you will be in when you find out I did the crystal ball too. I agree the last two (guy getting skewered, girl on couch) were weak, but I'd like to suggest reconsideration of the free speech image. For those who know that image's history (Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell)) I think it + caption make the point effectively -- does a memorable job, in Alsee's phrase (and I hope things haven't gotten to the point where we think no one will recognize that image!). EEng 12:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
EEng, the Four Freedoms picture can't be used to illustrate this policy no matter how relevant, since it is non-free content. Diego (talk) 12:39, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
No, the particular version I used is PD (File:"Freedom_of_Speech"_-_NARA_-_513536.jpg). As I recall it was released to PD to allow it to be freely used (by employers, schools, etc.) to promote war bonds. EEng 13:23, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
I thought the girl on couch was great (which is a statement I never thought I'd hear myself say...) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 13:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
If images are to be used, they should be highly memoriable and extremely on topic with one of the associated NOTs that it will stick in your mind, and it should not be something that needs to be explained in depth in a caption. The current one for CRYSTAL does this effectively. I would argue the cookbook one is less so because its difficult to tell that that is an image of a cookbook. The three that were added by EEng do not meet these (it takes time to see how they are less obvious of what NOT they are a part of, and the captions themselves don't help. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Ahem. I added the CRSYTAL image, as already pointed out. I don't want to go down in history as he-who-only-adds-images-of-questionable-value. The important thing we've established here, though, is that the OP's blanket prohibition is wrongheaded. EEng 14:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I should have clarified of the most recent additions that were added. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. You rely think that "Take it outside, buster!" isn't immediately grasped? EEng 14:32, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
At the size of the image given, it gives no impression of what it is about - its a guy standing in the middle of a seated crowd, and its connection to NOT#ANARACHY is unless. Contrast that to the crystal ball image which is immediately clear what it is about. --MASEM (t) 14:41, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
"Wikipedia is not a ghastly enjoyment-free intellectual wasteland"[citation needed]. Keep the old ones, get rid of the new ones, they are too weak. (Also dislike "Freedom of Speech" -- it is misplaced (should be next to Not a Democracy, not Not an Anarchy), is badly labeled, and is not a good illustration of "democracy" since it shows someone speaking at a meeting, exactly the kind of thing we do here.... a better image would be someone voting or something. But that's a separate issue, so let's keep it simple: keep the old, out with the new. Herostratus (talk) 18:46, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Take it outside, buster!

The "Freedom of Speech -- Take it outside, buster!" image was in the "Wikipedia is not an anarchy" section (see [7]) because that section contains the text, "Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech." That brings up an interesting point I've thought on and off for a while: honestly we get less trouble from people who think WP is an anarchy than from those who think it's an experiment in free speech -- the latter is the real problem. So I wonder if that section head should be changed to "Wikipedia is not an anarchy or free-speech forum".

Thoughts? EEng 21:29, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that aspect is more towards "anarachy" or towards censoring. WP is not censored, but it's also not unchecked free speech. We will remove contributions (read: revdel) if they are blatant nonsense, violate copyright, make blatant accusations against BLPs, or include gross personal attacks towards editors. I have seen some take those actions as censorship, but it's not exactly what NOT#CENSORED really talks towards. How to resolve that, I don't know immediately. --MASEM (t) 23:36, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
It's a little complicated, because articles aren't a forum for free speech, but the discussions about articles, and about how to run the project, kind of are (subject to BLP and topicality limits). The text I quoted above, re not-free-speech-forum, is in a somewhat awkward place (i.e. under not-anarchy), but I don't see where else it would be any more comfortable, as you say. Part of my reason for putting "Take it outside, buster!" where I put it, is that's where the WP:NOTFREESPEECH shortcut is, and I remember now what I'd forgotten until just this moment, which is that part of the reason I added the image was to draw attention to not-free-speech, which is important but buried where it is.
Thinking about it more, I think not-free-speech and not-anarchy do naturally go together‍—‌the problem might just be that the section head only mentions anarchy. I've made a tentative edit [8] for the consideration of my esteemed fellow editors. EEng 00:41, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
In any case, I don't think the image is a good example of what we are not or what should not be. It shows a person speaking his mind, in a portrayal that kind of visually implies that he's taking his turn and is speaking honestly and with due consideration. This we do do here. I think there are better images to show either anarchy or democracy, or even unrestrained and ill-considered free speech if that's the point. (FWIW my experience is that while we occasionally get "your quashing of my nonsense/trolling/personal attacks is censorship of my free speech rights", that sort of thing is given short shrift and is not a real problem here; but whether to address that in the text is a separate discussion.) Herostratus (talk) 13:29, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

My deputy can beat up your deputy

OK, how about one of those photos of a fistfight in the Japanese Parliament? EEng 14:24, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

A picture of some type of elected officials engaging in violence in what is clearly meant to be a government chamber/forum without having any other context would seem to be good for that point. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Yep, WP:BATTLEGROUND will benefit from parliamentary fistfight imagery. BTW Jap parliament is not the first and not the most famous for fistfighting. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:34, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Here you go: Legislative violence; pick the best pic.
Staszek Lem (talk) 18:39, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Et tu, fellow editors?
    Et tu, fellow editors?
Seriously, I think US Senate and Ukrainian parliament don't give enough context, French Chambre isn't enough of a free-for-all. Japanese Diet is best, I think. EEng 19:45, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Fight with cudgels
Second of May
May I suggest a classic from my country? Fight with Cudgels is often used as an allegory of fraternal warfare. Diego (talk) 21:46, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Or, if you prefer a good brawl, there's The Second of May 1808 from the same author. Diego (talk) 22:10, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
We are not looking for any brawl; we are looking for a brawl in the place where people are not supposed to brawl. Parliamentary brawl is an easily recognizable one of this type. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:26, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think your nominee (like US Senate above) is more apropos DROPTHESTICK, because at heart they show just garden-variety violence. I really think NOTANARCHY is best communicated by a free-for-all in a context where we otherwise expect order and decorum e.g. a legislative body – and that context needs to be apparent without explanation. EEng 22:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
French
WP is En­cy­clo­pe­dists' Corner, not Speakers' Corner.
Japanese
The French Chamber one to me suits what I would expect: Its clearly an organized forum-type setting, its clearly disruptive actions (even if its not fisticuffs), and at a standard thumb size, I don't have to squint to make out those basic details. --MASEM (t) 22:14, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Here are the two at default size. Masem's right that France is more obviously the right context, but I really think for ANARCHY you need a general brawl, not one person attacking another. EEng 22:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
My suggestion was not for anarchy, but for WP:BATTLEGROUND. Also, a brawl is not representative of anarchy. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:37, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Oh, dear, you're right, you mentioned BATTLEGROUND but this thread has been about ANARCHY/FREESPEECH/CHAOS. Can stay with those, please? Would you mind if we remove the "battleground" captions you just added? (Anyway, for BATTLEGROUND I think something like File:Eureka_stockade_battle.jpg would be much more direct.)EEng 22:51, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
"Anarchy" is not really an issue in the today's perception of Wikipedia anymore; just the opposite. I'd rather poke some fun at free speech (somehow it is in the same subsection).Staszek Lem (talk) 22:59, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
I had the same idea you did i.e. Speaker's Corner. I've modified your caption a bit, and switched to the default size -- hope you don't mind. I like this. EEng 23:45, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
A small number of particularly good images is OK to liven up a policy page, but the default is that sections aren't illustrated. When you're posting a dozen images, and saying "maybe this" or "maybe that" across the dozen, I think that's a strong clue that the right answer is none of them. Alsee (talk) 20:52, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
I don't follow the logic. Anyway, do you think the Speaker's Corner image would be appropriate for NOTFREESPEECH? EEng 21:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Bold edit

I've boldly gone ahead and added the speaker's corner image. Let's see what people think. EEng 01:11, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS

I think personally that the NOTNEWS section is becoming more and more irrelevant. As today Wikipedia is indeed seen as a source for news, as in the case of the recent terrorist attacks in Europe etc. It becomes weird to have a "not news" section when Wikipedia is based on news.BabbaQ (talk) 12:38, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The problem you perceive is not what that section is about. Perhaps read it very carefully... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:26, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:NOTDIRECTORY application at the Beltway sniper attacks article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Beltway sniper attacks#WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:NOTDIRECTORY. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:48, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Can we add "Wikipedia is not the US Almanac"?

These days I spend a lot of time wiki gnoming, by choosing "Random article" and looking for obvious clean up tasks. One of the most recurrent is the adding of "United States (of America)" to the lede of articles relating to subjects originating in that nation. While I very occasionally have to add the nation(ality) to articles regarding other countries subjects, very much the majority is US. Can we not make clear to the new or blindly stupid and arrogant US editorship, that not all of English speaking readers will recognise a nameplace within one of the less fashionable States as being American? I recently had to move Geneva Film Festival to Geneva Film Festival (USA) because for most of the English language population of the world Geneva is a major City in Switzerland, which had they held a film festival was likely to be one of the five most important French language festivals in the world.... and not a regional or state festival in Illinois, USA - which is what it is. This paracholisation detracts from the image of Wikipedia as a world wide reference and makes it more of a backwater US Almananac. There is nothing wrong with a preponderance of US related articles, providing that they are presented in a style similar to subjects that are not US specific. Finally, it helps the Google search engines when somebody seaches for a subject which includes US/United States. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:39, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

You need to stop, take a breath, and brush up on WP:USPLACE. Edits such as these are inappropriate:
  • [9] – US cities and towns are normally given as "City, State", and states as simply "State"‍—‌not "City, State, United States" or "State, United States". Similarly, UK counties are not qualified as being e.g. "Herefordshire, England" but rather simply "Herefordshire".
  • [lost the diff] – You've also been changing "London" to "London, England"‍—‌very well known cities e.g. London, New York, San Francisco, etc. are not further qualified.
  • [10] – I suspect that your move of Geneva Film Festival to Geneva Film Festival (United States) is also inappropriate, at least as to the new name.
In addition, your many edit summaries in which you refer to other editors as "hicks" for following Wikipedia guidelines, while you violate them, are (to say the least) inappropriate. Please revert all these changes. EEng 01:15, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Although I appreciate that WP:USPLACE says dont add United States to article titles it really needs to be in the article lead as this is not Americanpedia and we should not presume that the default is the United States if nothing is mentioned. MilborneOne (talk) 17:37, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
I don't know about place names (that's probably something to bring up at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names) and possibly Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography). But it is true that I frequently add "American" to a biography lede ("Joe Smith (dates) was an American famous person...".) which you don't usually have to do for Englishmen (let alone Germans etc). So there's a kind of parochial American blindess, I wouldn't call it out too harshly, just the fish not realizing they are wet. But I don't think we should say anything about it here. Somewhere else, although not sure where -- Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) for the place name issue, though. Herostratus (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Adding American (or English, where appropriate, or German, or ...) to a biographical lead is completely appropriate to give "context" -- see MOS:OPENPARA. As to the general style for place names (whether in leads or elsewhere): this has nothing to do with the US being any kind of default. It's just that we assume that most English speakers are familiar with the highest-level political subdivisions of the major English nations: states in the US, provinces in Canada, counties in the UK. Thus we say e.g. "Carbondale, Illinois", not "Carbondale, Illinois, United States"; the few readers who don't recognize that Illinois is a state of the US can click on the link to find that out immediately. If someone wants to change that, they should open a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names), but in the meantime they can't go around changing things to their personally preferred style in defiance of the accepted convention. EEng 19:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
To reinforce EEng's point, I recommend MilborneOne and LessHeard vanU review the long-established policy on Wikipedia:Article titles, specifically the part about "precision and disambiguation." Wikipedia policy is to not disambiguate article titles that are sufficiently precise, unless there is something else with an identical name they could be confused with. In this case, there is no other "Geneva Film Festival" in the world that goes by that exact name besides the one held in Geneva, Illinois. The film festival held in Switzerland is called the Geneva International Film Festival Tous Ecrans. --Coolcaesar (talk) 22:47, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
In addition, this isn't a paper encyclopedia: any reader can simply click on the state/province/county/etc. and see what country it belongs to. Even though WP:USPLACE is about article titles, the naming convention should apply equally to the article text. clpo13(talk) 23:45, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
It does. Somewhere else in MOS it says that, in article text, you generally refer to geographic entities according to the article-naming rules. I just can't find that bit right now. EEng 23:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
I suggest you do find it. Add the link. We can then discuss it. I will look into finding the guide or template that says articles should be [subject], [notability], [area], [nation] in the lede. As I noted above, when search engines are presented with a query about "someplace I saw on the telly in America" then having US in the first couple of sentences of the article allows for more accurate results. This encyclopedia is a resource, not a vanity project. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Your wish is my command. MOS:PN#Place_names:
In general, other articles should refer to places by the names which are used in the articles on those places, according to the rules described at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names).
If you don't like the guideline, review the archives at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Proper_names, and if you have something new to add open a thread there. EEng 03:19, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Furthermore, as Walt Disney said to P.L. Travers at the premiere of Mary Poppins, "th[at] ship has sailed." Back in the early days of the Wikipedia project, as a historian, I personally supported placing more geographical information in article titles, but as a computer programmer, I eventually did later come around to and accept the developing consensus that it is much more efficient from an ontological and user interface design perspective to not include unnecessary information in article titles. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:23, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
As to "any reader can simply click on the state/province/county/etc. and see what country it belongs to" as an editor said above: no, this is the wrong approach to information design IMO. The point is to minimize the places outside the current article the person need to go so be able to understand the article. However, there's also a gain when we're succinct. "East Jesus, Alberta" and "East Jesus, Canada" and "East Jesus, Alberta, Canada" all have positives and negatives. The ship has sailed to "East Jesus, Alberta" and it's not going to turn around very quickly, even if it should (debatable).
But we do lose some people when we say "East Jesus, Alberta" (think of the readers who are 13-year-olds in Delhi or high-school dropouts in Capetown or ESL students in Cairo and so forth -- exactly the type of reader who is maybe most harmed by having to fish around for basic info). Titles are not going to change but we should take reasonable steps to put things in context right up front in the lede: "...is an American violinist...", "is an American film festival...", "...is a American town..." and so forth.
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section does encourage this by example, giving Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. (July 12, 1934 – February 27, 2013) was an American pianist... and Azaria Chantel Loren Chamberlain (11 June 1980 – 17 August 1980) was an Australian baby girl... as examplary, then later points to MOS:OPENPARA of which bullet #3 gives "context" specifically including citizenship and/or nationality and/or residence (for persons). So for people, we should follow that and editors are emboldened by that rule to add it when missing, I would say.
For corporations, teams, localities, schools, etc. there seems to be no such hard prescription. The place to propose that would be at WP:OPENPARA with a pointer at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. It might be a good idea, or it might not since 1) rules are really supposed to codify existing practice and 2) it's arguably reasonable to allow editors leeway on these matters. But this is maybe something that has just been overlooked. Herostratus (talk) 19:20, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Similarly, we shouldn't remove scientifically accepted theories..

@EEng:I added "Similarly, we shouldn't remove scientifically accepted theories and facts on the possibility that new discoveries may disprove them." because at any article debunking pseudoscience, we have a steady stream of editors claiming the debunking shouldn't be on Wikipedia on the argument that future science might disagree. this discussion is a recent example. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is adequately covered by the current wording: "Although currently accepted scientific paradigms may later be rejected, and hypotheses previously held to be controversial or incorrect sometimes become accepted by the scientific community, it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture such projections." Deor (talk) 18:12, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Can somebody explain in 5-cent words what "to venture such projections" is supposed to mean? (At least for the purpose of wikipedia?) Not to say that WP:BALL say that if reliable sources endeavor "to venture such projections", we do write about this in wikipedia. IMO this item kinda out of the kind of this section. The section is about what "would merit an article". E.g., I fail to see how the subject that a "scientific paradigm may later be rejected" would merit a separate article. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Village Pump Discussion

There is currently a discussion at the Village Pump (Proposals) that may be relevant to the topic of this page. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

lol. I had hoped that there would be some talk there about rewriting "Not:forum" so that people would stop being so averse to actual (friendly) debate without all sorts of acronyms getting thrown around and threats of AE being launched for dubious reasons, but I see this is just a call for WMF to throw in its (official) support for the clear Clinton bias on the candidate-related pages of Wikipedia during the 2016 elections. smh SashiRolls (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia so pro-Clinton biased that the anti-Trump proposal was shouted down 16-to-1. Oh wait.... what? Alsee (talk) 03:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
um, you do realize it was a ridiculous proposal that even (hypothetical) paid Clinton editors would run to strongly oppose for the sake of appearances, right? SashiRolls (talk) 05:23, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposed change: postcodes

Ground Zero has withdrawn the proposal.

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

WP:NOTWHITE says in part, that Wikipedia is not "The White or Yellow Pages. Contact information such as phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses is not encyclopedic."

I propose to add "postcodes/zip codes" to this list, which I think is consisent with the intent. This issue has arisen because of an unregistered editor adding postcodes to the infoboxes a series of articles about buildings and institutions (hospitals, and the like).

We could also consider removing "fax numbers" because it's 2016. Comments? Ground Zero | t 04:26, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I support this for articles about buildings, institutions, businesses and similar entities, so long as there is an exemption from the proposed to continue to use postal/zip codes in Template:Infobox settlement. Hwy43 (talk) 06:11, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
The fact that there is a specific line in that template for a postcodes should make it clear that it is an exception to the general rule, so I don't see this as being a problem. A note could be embedded in the template to indicate that it needs is an exception to WP:NOTWHITE. Ground Zero | t 15:04, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
If WP:NOT specifically mentions postcodes, it'll just be a matter of time before someone will use that to have postcodes removed from {{Infobox settlement}}. There should be made a distinction between postcodes that are used as contact info (such as for buildings) and postcodes that are used for geographic/index purposes (such as for towns). -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 15:25, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I think if we tweak the White Pages wording to spell out that these details should not be included for individual persons, businesses, and institutions. I will note that many places on the National Register of Historic Places are called out by address and geo-coords, which does seem reasonable, as in such cases the building itself is the notable facet, not whom resides in there. Same with settlements - it's the physical grouping of buildings that is key. --MASEM (t) 15:42, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

How about this: Wikipedia is not "The White or Yellow Pages. Contact information such as phone numbers, postcodes/zip codes (other than in {{Infobox settlement}}), and e-mail addresses is not encyclopedic." Ground Zero | t 15:40, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I am opposed to this change. Postal codes do not single out a certain building and apply to a whole side of a street on a certain block; unless the building takes up the whole block, the same postal code applies to all the buildings and neighbours in that area. Doing this would be similar in some aspects to explicitly excluding GPS coordinates in Wikipedia articles. I am not saying that we should have them in these articles in question here, just that it should be up to the discretion of the editors, perhaps with a Canadian article wide decision made at the Canadian WIkipedians' notice board. Air.light (talk) 15:59, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I brought the issue here because there is nothing unique about Canadian postal codes that would warrant a different treatment than for other countries. Like US zip codes and UK postcodes, they cover groups of buildings, so either they should be in or out for all countries with similar systems. Postcodes do not provide information about the building or institution. They just tell you how to mail something there. Ground Zero | t 16:16, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I can see that I'm unlikely to get a consensus in favour of this change, so I'll withdraw the proposal and close the discussion so that we don't spend more time on it. Thanks for your input. Ground Zero | t 23:32, 17 November 2016 (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.

Why does WP:WI redirect to this page?

Regarding this edit, why does WP:WI redirect to this page? Is this just an artifact? Herostratus (talk) 18:37, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

No answer or objection having been received, and the shortcut not being used anywhere, I changed it to point to WikiProject Wisconsin. Herostratus (talk) 15:42, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Potential addition: "Wikipedia is not a safe-space"

This would be something under the "Community" heading, as it applies to interactions with editors, but it should reflect the fact that, just as we don't censor content in articles, we don't censor content at talk pages or equivalent. Editors should not take offense by language or ideas and the like presented on talk pages. Nor should editors be able to expect to have a talk page where they can omit inclusion of any editor's input (outside of set administrative actions), since WP is a collaborative effort open to all. Of course, we still need to stress that civility is utmost importance, and we do not tolerate personal attacks or editor harassment and intimidation, and that further, some talk page content may be removed if it violates other principle policies (NPAs, BLP, copyvio, etc.).

While much of this is covered in NOT#CENSORED, that section is aimed towards mainspace content, and not the behind-the-scenes aspect and doesn't touch on editor behavior. I believe NOT#CENSORED would implicitly cover talk pages but I think some more specific aspects should be considered. There is also some overlap here with NOT#BATTLEGROUND, but it's coming at it from a different angle, instead of being directed at editors that wants to engage in argumentative discussion, this is directed towards editors that feel harmed by discussion they don't want to hear when that content is otherwise within policy (whether it is about what to include in article content or about editing WP in general). Were this to be added, I would stick it right after BATTLEGROUND since they share common aspects of what we don't tolerate on talk pages.

Note that I don't have any specific proposed wording, I'd rather see if there's any support for this idea first as well as if there's a better way to name this, noting that "safe space" is a contentious term. --MASEM (t) 17:37, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you, but I think that trying to put "safe spaces" in policy, whether supporting or opposing them, is just unnecessarily kicking a hornet's nest and a bad idea. I think what you are trying to do here can be considered already covered by NOT#CENSORED (as you noted). It would be a better idea to try to add a sentence to NOT#CENSORED noting that it applies on talk pages as well, so long as it is not used as a cover for NPA violations. A2soup (talk) 22:02, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
That was my first idea of how to incorporate it into NOTCENSORED (that quote from Clark Kerr captures the meaning precisely), but that suddenly makes NOTCENSORED rather bulky. One thing this page benefits from are reasonably short descriptions for each point. But an extra paragraph devoted to non-main space actions could work. I am definitely not happy with having to use the wording "safe spaces" (due to negative connotations) but there's very little other language that isn't more contentious to describe the issues that can occur. --MASEM (t) 23:10, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
I agree the Clark Kerr quote is a beautiful one. (Full disclosure: I added it to the page.) Can you give an example of the sort of situation this effort is meant to prevent or improve? EEng 00:04, 8 September 2016 (UTC) P.S. Other Kerr bons mot:
  • "I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty."
  • (After being forced out by California Governor Ronald Reagan) "I left the presidency just as I had entered it -- fired with enthusiasm."
A late reply to EEng, but based on trends I see in off-wiki forums that have become heavily moderated to eliminate discussion of counter-viewpoints (most of the time because these are in troll-territory, but often where valid discussion is outright rejected), and that I see various editors at least speaking towards the same points but obviously not doing that yet on WP, it could go that way. I also see a lot of discussions get stymed because of non-BLP violating, non-flagrantly non-factual material being rejected from any type of discussion just because it doesn't originate from reliable sources (talk pages can and should be used to discuss alternative viewpoints that can be sources). Basically its more towards being that all editors should expect to encounter other editors on talk page with different viewpoints, and we are not going to takes steps to isolate that viewpoint as long as it is not disruptive. --MASEM (t) 05:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Policies should not be changed unless there is an example of a problem that shows why the change would be desirable. Trolls should not be given a reason to be offensive on talk pages with the excuse that NOTSAFESPACE means it is useful to exercise the tolerance of other editors. Johnuniq (talk) 06:15, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Trying to explain Wikipedia "isn't a safe space" is a complete mess for anyone who isn't already embroiled in the "safe space" stuff. Perhaps just make an essay page. We don't want to create new Policies unless there's a clear case that it will prevent or resolve significant disruption. Alsee (talk) 07:04, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
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