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Perhaps we should start by stating the purpose of this forum and what will not be accomplished here.
It is my understanding that it would be a good idea to have a central location for FA, GA, and article content editors to have a place for discussing their issues with writing, copy editing, sources, and the various nomination and promotion procedures.
I don't think it would be a good place to ask for copy edits if articles are poorly constructed or clearly need substantial assistance that goes beyond grammar and spelling tweaks. Nor do I think this is the place to solve content disputes in contentious topics. However, occasionally editors ask for changes in articles of high quality that go against the GA or FA criteria. This may be the place to clarify such protests.
Thoughts? -- Moni3 ( talk) 19:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
This seems like an excellent idea! iMatthew : Chat 19:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Frankly, I don't know that this board will work, Moni. I usually don't fight Occam's Razor, and so far you got Barack Obama, conspiracy, and a minor but highly factional linguistic fight. Wishing all good for you, naturally. JJB 23:40, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC)
Recently I have been faced with the question how the following line When using sources written by authors who are a reliable experts in the field in which they are writing, consider using the facts mentioned by them rather than making direct attributions of their opinions. Facts do not require in-text attribution since they are not solely the opinions of people. from Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Particular_attribution is to applied in relation to When establishing events or actions, reference should be made to a reliable source. as dictated by Wikipedia:CONTROVERSY#Attribute_facts as well as the quote of Jimbo: If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; given in Wikipedia:NPOV#Undue_weight. This has come up in a controversial article and I am not quite sure what the appropriate synthesis of the above mix of guidelines and policy would be. Unomi ( talk) 19:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
About six to nine months ago, discussions and an RfC were held to determine if the article on Gadsby: Champion of Youth should stay a lipogram. Consensus determined that it should not, so parts were rewritten so that they were actually clear (although it still has many problems with odd words because no "e"'s were allowed before). Now, an editor has brought the subject back up on the article's talk page. I'd appreciate it if anyone could comment. Cheers, — Ed (Talk • Contribs) 23:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Favor lipogram: (conflict) Actually, it was a lipogram going back to 2004, upon its initiation by a good admin with full approval. Following much discussion from both camps, only six months ago an anti-lipogram group put up a poll and said it was WP:CON. But both camps still do not concur, and hardly any improving is going on now. I thought I saw both factions compromising, in that significant portions could stay as lipograms and a handful would not; but this, though it was actual compromising and not coup, did not stand for long. Accordingly, I favor sticking with that solution. JJB 23:25, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC) Moni, thank you, but all camps stand in favor of forthright wording and straightforward layout. Many contributors (probably a majority) think this can occur lipogrammatically, but many do not, and point-by-point discussion is notably light. JJB 23:30, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC)
Moni, good thinking as to April Fool's. A lot of folks did support this lipogram, and many did so for many months prior to this nominator finding it. So his thought that it was a shift in WP:CON and not actually a coup is a bit autonomous, I think. And a short form for Gadsby's author is not stylistically or morally wrong, contradicting his implications. But I'm also busy. JJB 23:52, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC)
If someone's editing style is to avoid a letter, that's fine for that editor as long as the article delivers the necessary information. If new information is added, editors can change the style if they wish. I think the article should not require editors to follow this peculiar style. Editors who want to play this word game should view new edits as additional puzzle pieces to play with. -- SEWilco ( talk) 18:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I have a simple question:
If this board's purpose is to deal with content issues that cannot or should not be covered in the other boards, what happens if someone comes here to push their POV?
In a variety of political and fringe articles (Yes even Barack Obama's article) editors sometimes have a problem of separating their political bias when editing these articles. (Also, that in itself also becomes a rather common accusation during these types of debates.) When these editors try to add something that is against current consensus, may not have reliable sourcing, is mainly of a scandalous nature and incendiary, or is blatantly a POV, they come to logger heads with other editors who do not see their point. These same editors will try having long conversations to prove their side, bring the subject up again and again, call for an RFC, bring it to AN/I, etc, but in the end consensus has not changed. My worry would be if these types of disputes will spill over into this forum. So my question is what power does the forum have? If say, this forum decided against the editor in question, what would/can happen?
I ask this because soon or later it will happen. Brothejr ( talk) 23:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Maybe I'm posting this in the wrong place, but I'm wondering if article creators and new page patrollers working to improve content find the arbitrary deviations in WikiProject tags daunting. Some are WPBiography, others are WikiProject Food and Drink, and then there's Visual arts (no WP or WikiProject at all, plural, and a lowercase a in arts) etc. Is it worth trying to get them standardized? I know I spend quite a bit of time playing hit or miss and trying to guess how different ones are named, often giving up. Hit me with a trout if this is better on Village Pump or somewhere else, but I'm posting it here for the article builders to weigh in... Gulp. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 03:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to those of you who commented on the idea. I have put it on the back burner after the intense hostility. I would be happy to drop the idea of a membership elected from the membership, and not from the 'community', but for one thing, which is that many advocates of fringe and crackpot views are also 'established editors' in the sense of having edited here a long time. It is important to weed this group out of any group of people who are genuinely committed to the core neutrality principles of Wikipedia. So that's the problem - how do you define a group that was genuinely committed to neutrality, and who could in principle advise and help on WP:NPOV related issues, without some form of elective process? It is very hard to spot culprits without a detailed knowledge of the articles they work on, the style they use, their whole method of operation. Election is the only method I can think of. Suggestions welcome. Peter Damian ( talk) 18:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
What does any club or association do? Peter had outlined that rather clearly and there was nothing wrong with that since what was being articulated was to promote adherence to Wikipedia’s principles.
I encourage Peter to restore his Established Editors page to its full content and not wimp out; he caved to fear mongerers. A lot of editors went to bat for him in the MfD to support his right to have that page. I think he should honor that effort by restoring the page. A proper discussion can not occur and a proper consensus on the details arrived at until what is being contemplated is out in the open where the details can be sanitized by the sunshine of vigorous debate.
This reminds me of a picture in my local paper. It showed some women burning an American flag in a local park. I thought “OMG, they’re doing that out in the open?” Then I read the caption. They were Daughters of the American Revolution. They were properly disposing of a tattered and worn flag. “Of course!” I thought. All was in order: The flag was folded while it was being consumed with flame; they had their hands over their hearts; solemn expression on their faces. That’s OK. Just fiiiiine. What is looked upon with great disfavor is to burn the American flag when one has a fist thrust in the air and a furrowed brow. Republican elected officials during an election year periodically try to pass legislation outlawing “desecration” of the American flag (read: burn the flag with a “frowny face”). This is precisely what Peter’s detractors did: they assumed he was forming a club for the purpose of engaging in activities “with a frowny face.” How about they assume he was really out to do what he said he was out to do: form a club “genuinely committed to the core neutrality principles of Wikipedia”?
How about we assume he might be trying to do some good instead of forming a mob in the village square and march down to burn his hut down? Greg L ( talk) 19:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for these comments. I have modified the contents page to reflect the minimum conditions for such an assocation, namely the election process, the commitment to the core neutrality policies, and the principle that all other policies are subordinated to neutrality. Those who accept nomination (which includes Greg and Dunc, who have been nominated) can agree on what the purposes of such an association should be. Fair? Peter Damian ( talk) 20:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
America’s conservative politicians (Republicans, which I generally count myself as a member of) try to keep themselves in power by pandering to their core constituency by periodically trying to pass laws outlawing the latter. They declare that it is “flag desecration” and isn’t an issue of “speech”, which of course it is. The flag is ashes in both cases. The only difference is the message during the burning. The message in the latter brings out righteous indignation and mob rule. Ugly behavior.
More to my point, the basis of the opponents arguments in the MfD all assumed Peter was trying to engage in subversive activities, like picture #2 of “bad” flag burning. They couldn’t even assume good faith. Greg L ( talk) 20:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I will keep you bookmarked and will check in on your progress. I hope you keep me apprised of major developments in your progress towards forming a club of like-minded individuals. Something to consider: You might put a preamble at the top of your page designed to assuage the concerns of editors who might harbor suspicions over your intentions. That might avoid another MfD. ;-) Greg L ( talk) 21:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Just a note that Zithan ( talk · contribs), sockpuppet of crat/admin/OS Nichalp ( talk · contribs) (now impeached by arbcom) nominated four articles that he wrote for business clients for GAN in return for money, and two passed. His most recent article is currently up at AFD as a whitewash/spam YellowMonkey ( cricket calendar poll!) 04:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Having been a significant contributor to several FAs and even more GAs, and also having been a GA reviewer in the past, I decided awhile ago to remove myself from activity in either the FA or GA process. I've waited several months on this just to make sure I'm serious about it and not just reacting emotionally. I haven't changed my mind in all that time, and I suppose this is as good a place as any to state my reasons for my personal boycott.
Both processes are overstepping their bounds. They have begun to make subjective judgements about whether an article should be promoted or not. Mainly when it comes to short articles, I feel that many in the GA and FA process are, knowingly or unknowingly, pushing the limits of their power over a system that rewards content editors with community prestige in order to further an agenda the relegates short articles to a second-class state. A state in which they cannot be GAs or FAs no matter how good they are. Since many of the articles I write are shorter articles, I don't want to be part of a process where I constantly have to defend my work against a non-existent "It's too short" criteria. One article I helped write was nominated for deletion during a GA review because some editors thought it was too short or not notable enough, although they admitted that it was well-written and well researched. I respect the editors of the GA and FA processes, but when they use these processes to push some idea they have about short articles in general, they are stepping outside the bounds of what GA and FA are meant to do. They are moving outside the GA and FA criteria into places where they shouldn't.
If this was the only thing wrong with the GA and FA processes, I would not boycott either process. I believe most editors mean well and we could figure out a solution to the above problem. However, I have continuously had problems with the GA process, because its review system is erratic and you never know if you're going to a star-class review or a review from a guy on his first day of editing who makes poor judgements and is difficult to deal with. With the FA process, although most reviewers are wonderful, I have been frequently hounded by editors pushing petty arguments. It gets repetitive and it takes its toll on you.
I also don't like the general idea of Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations and the attitudes it promotes. I'm tired of the hierarchy that seems to surround how many FAs or GAs an editor has. FA and GA status really doesn't mean anything. It's artificial. It too often gives people a false idea that their article is somehow "finished" or that they "own" it. It is a sneaky and pervasive feeling and I believe that it hurts wikipedia.
I will remain a content editor and will continue to improve articles the best I can, but GA and FA just aren't worth it anymore. All the time I spend fighting for a good GA review or dealing with pettiness at FA could be better spent adding content, I feel. And that's the whole problem. I'm a content editor at heart, and I feel sometimes that GA and FA hurt content growth more than they should. They motivate editors to add content, sure, but I would rather be motivated by the opportunity to learn and serve others, not by prestige and competition. FA and GA gradually sucked all the fun out of wikipedia for me, so I'm trying to get back to what made it fun. Wrad ( talk) 02:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for Museum of Bad Art, wonderful. Peter Damian ( talk) 20:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm not even clear that vast tiers of article quality assessments, and the tens of thousands of hours people spend editing and debating those instead of working on articles, really improves Wikipedia. I follow media coverage of Wikipedia somewhat closely, and I've never seen the article assessment process touted as a meaningful thing that assures readers of quality. Based on observations of people talking about Wikipedia, I'd wager the average visitor to WP believes the main page FA is chosen arbitrarily at the whim of Jimbo or some higher-up a few days or even minutes before it appears on the main page. Most people seem to think it's just an article selected to be interesting, not because it's been so excruciatingly vetted.
All of this meta-work, while giving some Wikipedians bragging rights, and others the ability to make objections and make other people do work on command, doesn't seem to clearly improve Wikipedia or its reputation with readers and critics more than just a simple peer review process could. It's vaguely against the idea of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit - the process seems to encourage edits from only the person wanting to make it a GA/FA, and other people cast themselves purely as critics, assessors, sweeps reviewers, etc. and don't typically improve the article. The way the typical FA/GA goes seems to be the opposite of a community article anyone can edit.
Since I don't see the assessment levels alone really improving Wikipedia one bit, I think the best of GA/FA is that you can usually get productive feedback on what is often a quite obscure article and improve it more than you could just plugging away unnoticed on your own. And that's a considerable asset for the community to have. But the cost is that it creates an adversarial system where both article writers and reviewers tend to see the work they do more as collecting personal trophies rather than helping write good articles for the community. I guess my question is whether the FA/GA process ocean is the only way to get meaningful outside feedback and editors for articles needing it, and if there are other ways (like purely peer review), is keeping GA/FA around worth the drama and thousands of hours people spend purely doing the meta work. -- Chiliad22 ( talk) 20:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm sure the fact that pretty much as soon as this noticeboard was created its first real action was to provide a venue for teh dramaz says something, I'm just not sure what. As the longtime number 3/4 editor on the evil we shall not name (YellowMonkey and me have been trading spots for some time), I fully understand there are valid criticisms about the list, FAs in general, and audited content quality in particular. I'm also that guy at RfA who is opposing candidates for not having substantial experience in those areas, and I'm a committed GA reviewer, so you couldn't pick a better strawman than me to analyze.
I should start off by saying I like the list, and yes, I do consider it a sort of friendly competition (of course I concede I will never be able to beat the behemoth that is HurricaneHink.) It is a motivator for me, but it's hardly the only reason I edit. I produce FA/GA because I think it's a valuable asset not only to me (improving my knowledge of the subject, making shiny, interesting and proper articles out of fancruft turds, as it were) but also to readers. FA should never stand as the pinnacle of articles on Wikipedia (but I fully admit it's often perceived that way), but it's the best we've got. I would love to hear from Wrad and Physch about what we would replace FA/GA with if we swept it away tomorrow. I feel it's necessary to give readers an indication of what has been vetted as our best material, even if best is often subjective and based on who shows up at FAC. Is that a problem? Hell yes. But it's no different from any other part of the wiki.
Finally, on the WP:OWN/collaboration issue, which I feel are often talked about separately but go together; is there any indication this is so, or just notions? I would say I am something of a lone-wolf editor (the only project I really work in is WP:VG) so I guess you could type-cast me as the star-hungry editor. But it has never been my experience that this is the norm, or such actions are par for the course. WP:WBFAN lists as many people who want to list themselves as nominators: look at the FAC for History of timekeeping devices, for example. No one gets cheated out of recognition for their work. Bronze stars and WBFAN are the exact same function as barnstars; sure, some people will be motivated to get them and become a detriment to the 'pedia overall, but that's generally not what happens.
So this is probably a tad ramblin' as I was just typing as I was thinking, but that's where I stand. FA/GA are the best we have in filling an important role on wiki. There's little evidence that the dozens to hundreds of editors tied up in reviewing and running the show would be creating more content, and that finding that content would be easy without the current mechanisms. In short: reform FAR rules, make some changes, and actually dig in and contribute—that's the only way I see you can change the "culture" editors are alleging. Otherwise, ignore it entirely; but I'm not sure that's helping Wikipedia either. -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk) 21:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC) (The TL,DR version of this: read what Gguy and Moni have said above. It is what you put into it.) -21:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs forgets that there is already a proposal to replace FAC, albeit one which has not advanced much in the last couple of months. He also forgets that Wikipedia would not end tomorrow is there were no replacement at all – to suggest otherwise is to pretend that Wikipedia exists for the benefit of FAC (or, perhaps more accurately, "FAC editors") and not the other way round. Physchim62 (talk) 23:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Forgive my naivety and rudeness, I am a newcomer here. As I understand, FA/GA is a part of WP system (break it and build new one, it will be same thing after all), it should be run and it is run, but it is desperately lacking reviewers, especially qualified ones. Thus I am surprised to see that these kind of forums immediately attract dozens of contributions, but the FA/GA nominations not. IMHO this thread would not exists if all those respected and experienced editors would just do decent job and contribute (as professionals) at the GA/FA reviews, rather than here. Most GA/FA reviews are so silly just because nobody wants to review, and somebody (who should be thanked for their courtesy) picks it up. It takes (for me, in my fields) equal time to review a paper as read and reply to this thread. Materialscientist ( talk) 03:47, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
The issue of voting is clearly contentious, but content contributors should perhaps spend more time at RfA's. And if they do, what questions should they pose? What criteria should they use for support or oppose? Should admins have a good track record of content contribution? Most assume they should, but if you think that their should be 'segregation of duties' between those who fight vandals and protect the encyclopedia from harm, and those who do the main work, then perhaps they shouldn't. It's a conflict of interest for those who have the power to ban, also to decide what should go into articles. What do you think? Peter Damian ( talk) 20:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
OK, here's a "high end content question" of the sort I had in mind when I suggested this board:
At some point in the next couple of months, I plan to do a top-to-bottom strip down and rewrite from basics of the (currently horribly messy and rather dubiously 'sourced') Hampstead Heath – as a fairly high-traffic article (about 15k–20k hits per month) the state of this one has irritated me for some time. Should the rewritten version keep the Gallery section? It's an impressive bit of wiki-coding (each caption is a clickable link to the article on the relevant building) and must have taken someone a very long time to set up – but it a) must breach just about every bit of the MOS there is, and b) doesn't actually illustrate Hampstead Heath at all, but is an index of buildings visible from Hampstead Heath (well, buildings that would be visible if there weren't trees in the way). There's also a third "coward's way out" option of booting it across to the separate Parliament Hill article. Any thoughts? – iride scent 16:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Echoed from this discussion. Yes, this was seen on Wikipedia Review, but it's a good question and discussion point, focusing on Prostitution in South Korea. I have no overall opinion (yet) on the content, and want to get a discussion going.
The 12 days' expansion was by Occidentalist ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was is apparently a sock of Lucyintheskywithdada ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). These users are blocked, but looking at the entire history of the article [1] I don't see an obvious clue about them having targeted it before. This page was dramatically expanded (4.18x) by a now "banned" user. Future Perfect at Sunrise ( talk · contribs) reverted it all here, citing "rv all edits by banned user, back to 9 November".
Here's my question, which seems to come up perennially: is this new content considered by anyone to be invalid since it was introduced by a "banned" user? Would it be against any policy violation if I, hypothetically, edited on this last Occidentalist version and hit save? I'm never sure where people stand on this sort of thing. The longer version of the article on the surface appears to be a much better article. rootology ( C)( T) 16:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
This is similar to work contributed about prostitution in the Philippines a year or two ago. Appears well-sourced, but blatant propaganda. First question: where are the good sources? Second, if they are good, is there any evidence of WP:SYNTH and all that kind of stuff? Peter Damian ( talk) 17:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Once the Olympics kept their ideals of amateur competition so stringent that athletes who had ever taken money for performing were stripped of medal (see Jim Thorpe), and even athletes who paid for professional coaching were regarded with some skepticism as if doing such a thing was one step toward cheating. Now professional athletes perform in the Olympics regularly; whether the Olympics is better off is a good argument to be had.
FA writer User:Nichalp has been editing under another user name and getting paid for it. See the Signpost missive about it. There's an RfC about paid editing here. It might be a more cut and dry situation with Nichalp that a company has hired him to see after their interests on Wikipedia.
So, you who eats cardboard and whey, what if a private grant offered you money akin to a year's salary to write anything you wanted as long as you produced a certain number of GAs and FAs? What if the parameters were narrower? What if you had to produce all your articles in the realm of chemistry, French literature, or Baroque composers? What if the Wikimedia Foundation started to offer monetary rewards for well-written articles? How would money change the culture of Wikipedia? -- Moni3 ( talk) 13:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
The core issue is conflict of interest. And getting paid to edit something certainly creates a problem in that respect. What are the chances of it being NPOV and including alternate perspectives when it's being done under contract? Just look at the puffery that passes for polical articles when they're edited by partisan supporters and compare it to the hit pieces for figures that aren't popular with the Wikipedia set. NPOV is a core policy and it should always be encouraged. Paid editing is not consistent with the values espoused in this policy. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 05:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Looking through FAs, there doesn't seem to be any common way to handle internal linking in footnotes, the most part are publishers and authors. Most articles are incoherent, with certain publishers linked, others not, and authors most often unlinked; while some at every instance. The general guideline on linking, Wikipedia:Linking, doesn't discuss this case, I suppose there aren't any guideline on this ? So how do you feel about this ? My preference would be to link any relevant link (of any type, not only publishers and authors) for the first time they appear in a footnoted reference. As it's a different part of the article, not the main body, the existence of the same link in the body shouldn't have impact, but for similar reasons to the article body, linking repeatedly the same item isn't necessary. Cenarium ( talk) 02:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I strongly support adding links to all journal titles. Where this would introduce redlinks to featured content, we could add a subpage to WP:JOURNALS where FA editors give the name of the Wikipedia article and name of the journal, and WP:JOURNALS collaborates to create the stubs and add the blue link.
I think each footnote should stand on its own while the article is being brought up to FA level, but after that point the overlinking should be trimmed. My rationale is that prior to FA, cites are moving around a lot, and it is easier if citations are self-contained. I guess bots could help manage the journal title linkage to reduce overlinking, but we could also update {{ cite}} so that links within the citation are linked but don't exhibit the visible properties of a link, such as underscore and blue. That way the link is there for editors, but not distracting for readers. John Vandenberg ( chat) 04:59, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
This article is a POV disaster and a battleground. It needs work or deletion. Who then was a gentleman? ( talk) 07:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
There's been some work in the last five weeks on American Dream where a couple of versions of a lead section have been put forward, each a synthesis of received wisdom, with slim reliance on sources. There was even a bit of original research with the addition of the phrase "ethos of prosperity" which doesn't appear anywhere in the literature.
I could use some help in whipping together two or three good lead paragraphs using the ten or so sources listed at Talk:American Dream, or other expert materials. I made a small start today, but expansion and adjustment is still needed. Thanks in advance! Binksternet ( talk) 18:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Who is in charge of swamijis? Should I prod? AfD? Leave it for someone else? Suggestions welcome. Cheers. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 21:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Most of my contributions are in the area of philosophy and medievalism. I wrote all of Medieval_philosophy from scratch. I never finished it and never bothered to submit to GA or FA because it seems an awful destructive process. I get even more depressed when I see Theology. What a mess. How could any work that pretends to be an encyclopedia have such an abomination? Tags everywhere, the footnotes are actually longer than the article. Half the paragraphs are just lists. Peter Damian ( talk) 21:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Peter Damian ( talk) 09:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I had also noted this tendency, that articles on general or broad subjects are often neglected. They have different aspects, so knowledge in various fields is needed, which requires more collaborative efforts, and it's particularly difficult to find the proper balance in the description of those aspects. A high level of summary style is needed, and what is to be included is often difficult to determine. Thus many such articles are small or little-developed, for example Politics, Sport and Country. They have been longer at some points, but were reduced because the content was too specific, for balance reasons and similar. There are also some subjects, that are very close to us, but on which we can't find anything to say, for example forehead and chin. Some other broad topics of low quality are Song and Health, as well as more specific but important subjects like Night or Shadow. We also have difficulties to make articles on very general subjects with variety of meanings. So we have some UFOs like Title, is it an article, a dab, a list ? Some would-like-to-be-an-article dabs like Mission or Growth. As a final example, there is the amazing contrast in quality between Medieval cuisine and Cuisine. Actually, I had planned to bring this matter somewhere for some time, and this place could be the one; I'll try to make some findings on this subject in the coming weeks, and bring this up again to see if we can work something out. It also come under light recently, when Wind has been nominated for FA. Cenarium ( talk) 01:43, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Major dispute at this article over appropriateness of the lead section. Unfortunately seems likely to turn into an edit war, so we could use some second opinions here. Since Iran is in the news recently, it is important that Wikipedia have a good article ready to go- but the article has been massively overhauled in the past two weeks, and at least in the lede section is now much much worse.
I previously posted a request at the Neutrality noticeboard, to which an editor thankfully responded. The lede is now better following that editor's input (no longer a series of long quotes and accusations of Nazism without mentioning the historical context), but now is incredibly small. The lede currently doesn't even mention the Shah or that the coup restored the monarchy, instead inexplicably focusing on oil companies changing their name. I've been reverted several times.
Details are at Talk:1953 Iranian coup d'état#Lede paragraph . Bear in mind that the first posts there are in reference to a much worse lede section than the current (still flawed) one, as noted above. SnowFire ( talk) 03:44, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
I am involved in a revertwar on the article about Joseph campbell with an anon user who blanks the in my opinion very notable, well sourced and well balanced section on post-humous controversy. At first I thought it was just a case of reverting a trolling vandal so I didn't pay attention to 3RR, but he is persistent and is resorting to different tactics to justify his blanking - among others he called me a "Jehovah's witness fundamentalist" apparently he has checked my edit history and seen I have been engaged in dispute resolution on that page. I need some third party to see what's going on on the page and decide whether to protect, block, or what ever. I won't revert him again. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
This question concerns content that has issues with plagiarism, copyright infringement, and NPOV. It also concerns the placement of said content in the lead section, as it does not currently summarize anything in the article. The full discussion can be found here and anyone is welcome to contribute to it. To recap, in the past few days, the following content was added to the lead section:
Throughout the Cold War and since that time, few nations placed more emphasis in their foreign policy on the promotion of human rights, including tying foreign aid to human rights progress and annually assessing the human rights records of government around the world. [2]
Having been here for just under five years, I am very familiar with spotting plagiarism and copyright infringement. Even though the content above was cited appropriately to a book by Michael Ignatieff, the authors opinion on the value of the U.S. role in human rights and foreign policy was unattributed and copied directly without quotation or paraphrasing.
I believe the above passage can be considered plagiarism and copyright infringement of the original source, of which at least 28 of the 43 words in the passage above were copied and pasted from exact phrases in Ignatieff's book. For example, the exact phrases "Throughout the Cold War", "few nations placed more emphasis in their foreign policy on the promotion of human rights" and "the human rights records of government around the world" are copied from Ignatieff's book verbatim. Here is the original material by the author with a URL to the book page:
Throughout the Cold War and afterward, few nations placed more emphasis in their foreign policy on the promotion of human rights, market freedom, and political democracy. Since the 1970s, U.S. legislation has tied foreign aid to progress in human rights; the State Department annually assesses the human rights records of governments around the world. Outside government, the United States can boast some of the most effective and influential human rights organizations in the world. [3]
Per Turabian 2007, pp.77-80, this meets at least one (or more) of the three indicators of inadvertent plagiarism:
- You cited a source but used its exact words without putting them in quotation marks or in a block quotation
- You paraphrased a source and cited it, but in words so similar to those of your source that they are almost a quotation: anyone could see that you were following the source word-by-word as you paraphrased it.
- You used ideas or methods from a source but failed to cite it
Additionally, this violates the NPOV policy, in that we need to "assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves...When we discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion." These words and ideas belong to Michael Ignatieff and according to the rules about plagiarism and NPOV, they need to be attributed appropriately. Unfortunately, the original author continues to claim that this is a statement of fact, not opinion, and is paraphrased, not plagiarized. Obviously, any person familiar with Wikipedia policies and guidelines and academic style sourcing guidelines like Turabian/Chicago Style, understands that this is not an acceptable form of paraphrasing. Since my original complaint was made, the material continues to get added back into the article. Here is its latest incarnation:
During and after the Cold War, few countries emphasized in foreign policy the furtherance of human rights as vigorously as the United States, which also ties foreign aid to human rights progress and annually assesses the human rights records of numerous governments.
This is still considered plagiarism if we observe Turabian's indicators of inadvertent plagiarism. And, according to the NPOV policy, we must attribute opinions: "It is also important to make it clear who holds these opinions. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view." The sentence itself is somewhat complex, so it is understandable that a fairly new editor might miss the subtlety of the distinction between the statement of Ignatieff's opinion in the first part ("few countries emphasized in foreign policy the furtherance of human rights as vigorously as the United States") while the second part is a clear statement of fact ("ties foreign aid to human rights progress and annually assesses the human rights records").
Is there any reason why this opinion should not be attributed to Michael Ignatieff as it both represents his opinion on the subject of the history of U.S. human rights and foreign policy as well as closely resembling his exact words and phrasing? And should it appear as a blockquote to avoid the problems of plagiarism and poor paraphrasing? Finally, should it even appear in the lead section when it does not summarize anything in the article? Viriditas ( talk) 09:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Comments invited at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Why do we have a bot creating redirects that are handled by case insensitivity in the search box? – xeno talk 21:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Talk:Rachel_Corrie#Request_for_Comments_on_the_inclusion_of_Saint_Pancake has ended, without a lot of progress. Much was written, no particular positions have been modified, but a few things have been clarified. "Saint Pancake" was an epithet posthumously applied to Rachel Corrie, which all parties are agreed is negative. In the past six months or so, three completely separate reliable sources have discussed the use of the epithet, including Salon. A majority of editors believe that the epithet should be excluded from the article, for reasons that I find unsupported in policy. Boiling it down, there are a series assertions that I don't find supported in policy, and here are the resulting questions:
In the RfC, one editor argued by analogy that the derogatory "Martin Luther Coon" applied to Martin Luther King, Jr. is a similar situation, an assertion on which I declined to take a stand. Do we--should we--would we ever cover notable nicknames applied to historically significant figures? List of U.S. Presidential nicknames has some not particularly nice names, but none of the particularly nasty ones. Is there an unstated encyclopedic content line in that or similar articles that governs what is or is not included? Jclemens ( talk) 04:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Most of my contributions are in the area of philosophy and medievalism. I wrote all of Medieval_philosophy from scratch. I never finished it and never bothered to submit to GA or FA because it seems an awful destructive process. I get even more depressed when I see Theology. What a mess. How could any work that pretends to be an encyclopedia have such an abomination? Tags everywhere, the footnotes are actually longer than the article. Half the paragraphs are just lists. Peter Damian ( talk) 21:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Peter Damian ( talk) 09:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I had also noted this tendency, that articles on general or broad subjects are often neglected. They have different aspects, so knowledge in various fields is needed, which requires more collaborative efforts, and it's particularly difficult to find the proper balance in the description of those aspects. A high level of summary style is needed, and what is to be included is often difficult to determine. Thus many such articles are small or little-developed, for example Politics, Sport and Country. They have been longer at some points, but were reduced because the content was too specific, for balance reasons and similar. There are also some subjects, that are very close to us, but on which we can't find anything to say, for example forehead and chin. Some other broad topics of low quality are Song and Health, as well as more specific but important subjects like Night or Shadow. We also have difficulties to make articles on very general subjects with variety of meanings. So we have some UFOs like Title, is it an article, a dab, a list ? Some would-like-to-be-an-article dabs like Mission or Growth. As a final example, there is the amazing contrast in quality between Medieval cuisine and Cuisine. Actually, I had planned to bring this matter somewhere for some time, and this place could be the one; I'll try to make some findings on this subject in the coming weeks, and bring this up again to see if we can work something out. It also come under light recently, when Wind has been nominated for FA. Cenarium ( talk) 01:43, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Four points:
Uncle G ( talk) 07:32, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
A problem with leaving articles to locals arises in controversial areas like religion & politics. You get either biased articles, or unsatisfactory ones haggled out between people with different biases. Sometimes both. If anyone can think of a way to get the community to join in effectively I'd be interested. Peter jackson ( talk) 09:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I have just redirected a whole bunch of identical pages to Medi, India, a title which apparently eluded the creator of these pages. I am not sure that they are all appropriate as redirects, though, even if most of them are. Could someone check that out? -- Blanchardb - Me• MyEars• MyMouth- timed 13:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
My inaugrual 'see if this noticeboard is any use' posting.
This article found in this state, has me stumped. It is neither a list of Iranian nationality comics, or an article on Iranian stand-up comedy. My first thought was to just sectionalise the entries based on actual nationality and rename it to List of xyz, but I can't determine the nationality for some of them, and I'm not even sure if that is a usefull list. So, what should be done with it? Add to/Rewrite/Move/Merge/Tag/Delete?
MickMacNee ( talk) 13:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
An article on Iranian comedy would probably link comic actors Nosratollâh Vahdat and Esmâ`il Arhâm Sadr, by the way, and would mention "lâhlezâri". An article on Persian comedy would similarly mention ruhozi (over the pool) and Bâqqal bazi (the play of the grocer).
So … You have some red links, and a largely useless page on a non-subject by a title that would be better as a redirect. Put the twain together, and what do you get? ☺ Uncle G ( talk) 05:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Joint Commission ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) needs a large amount of cleanup. Most sections are clearly edited with a positive or negative point of view, and it would greatly benefit from a neutral rewrite. As I work for a JC-accredited health center, I don't think I can bring sufficient neutrality to the table.-- SarekOfVulcan ( talk) 15:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
A
user, keeps adding what I think is an
WP:OR Google spreadsheet
[4] to the
List of countries by military expenditures article as a reference. I am not even sure it is
WP:OR because the spread sheet was made using data from Wikipedia itself, (although I am not sure how the data was collected and put into the spreadsheet).
As there is clearly a disagreement between myself and the editor I was wondering if someone else could give me their opinion. Is that a relevant reference and can this spreadsheet be used at all?
FFMG (
talk)
11:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your opinions, I had asked FFMG for a third opinion in the edit summary, I'm not very wiki savy. Concerning the comments, I think FFMG and Fuchs are attacking a fundamental principle in Wikipedia. That is assume good faith. In 2006 in a discussion in the university we were wondering about the military expenditures per capita. We could not find any source about it. So I put in my blog making a x/y=z table, using wikipedia data, and as Anomie says in his comments this is reliable data and it's not OR. Can we only put CIA "facts" book, in Wikipedia or what?. I put in my blog in my native language Spanish, just google it [5] and you will find it. Since 2006 I have received daily visits to this post. Therefore I find it is relevant also for the English speaking people. I did not put a link to my blog as an External Link (I wonder if I should have done that) to seek publicity, I put it in a google spreadsheet so anyone could see the methodology and/or improve it. You can see in the methodology tab, the pasted information from cited articles. [ [6]] I apologize if I have broken any rules that I do not know. I then I would ask to please someone open an article following this comment Anomie has said if the information is useful enough to include then just make an article. It is useful and I know people are interested about it, so I propose to open a new article about it. For now I will change it to external links. It seems 2 users say its OR (FFMG and Fuchs) and 2 users say it's not OR (Anomie and me). Let's have 2 or 3 more people to untie. If they say it's OR then I will delete it. -- Qwarto ( talk) 10:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
FFMG, I put it in the external link because it has been sugested that it was misplaced. Anyways, I propose we should do what Anomie and I are suggesting now, that is create a new article called "List of countries by military expenditure per capita", this is interesting for people and relevant, and the data is ready. I could create myself if I would know how to make tables on wiki. Again I apologize if I have irritated you, but I was behaving in good faith. -- Qwarto ( talk) 15:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
The user Anomie, suggested that creating a new article could be a feasable possibility, a possibility that I liked. That was my intended point. In the spreadsheet I already said all the info comes from wikipedia. I put in the spreadsheet it was done in late June 2009. The idea is to have an approximation. I will updated in 1 year or so, if nobody does it before. Anyways, perhaps people [[WP:DGAF|don't really care]. -- Qwarto ( talk) 14:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Two editors User:Offliner and User:PasswordUsername are refusing to add a summary of the the criticism section within the body of the content in the lede per MOS:INTRO in the article Nashi (youth movement), claiming that providing any summary violates WP:SYNTH, see Talk:Nashi (youth movement). I even suggest that they come up with their own wording, by they respond with reversion. Could we have some input please. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Summarizing is not synonymous with synthesis. In this case the lede can and should have a sentence summarizing the criticism; something like, "Critics have accused the organization of spying upon and harassing opponents and compared it to the Soviet Komsomol and Hitler Youth." or, if you prefer passive voice, "The organization has been accused of ...". Abecedare ( talk) 04:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
The text I added as suggested by Abecedare has just been partially reverted by LokiiT ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki) here. -- Martintg ( talk) 02:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
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Perhaps we should start by stating the purpose of this forum and what will not be accomplished here.
It is my understanding that it would be a good idea to have a central location for FA, GA, and article content editors to have a place for discussing their issues with writing, copy editing, sources, and the various nomination and promotion procedures.
I don't think it would be a good place to ask for copy edits if articles are poorly constructed or clearly need substantial assistance that goes beyond grammar and spelling tweaks. Nor do I think this is the place to solve content disputes in contentious topics. However, occasionally editors ask for changes in articles of high quality that go against the GA or FA criteria. This may be the place to clarify such protests.
Thoughts? -- Moni3 ( talk) 19:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
This seems like an excellent idea! iMatthew : Chat 19:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Frankly, I don't know that this board will work, Moni. I usually don't fight Occam's Razor, and so far you got Barack Obama, conspiracy, and a minor but highly factional linguistic fight. Wishing all good for you, naturally. JJB 23:40, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC)
Recently I have been faced with the question how the following line When using sources written by authors who are a reliable experts in the field in which they are writing, consider using the facts mentioned by them rather than making direct attributions of their opinions. Facts do not require in-text attribution since they are not solely the opinions of people. from Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Particular_attribution is to applied in relation to When establishing events or actions, reference should be made to a reliable source. as dictated by Wikipedia:CONTROVERSY#Attribute_facts as well as the quote of Jimbo: If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; given in Wikipedia:NPOV#Undue_weight. This has come up in a controversial article and I am not quite sure what the appropriate synthesis of the above mix of guidelines and policy would be. Unomi ( talk) 19:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
About six to nine months ago, discussions and an RfC were held to determine if the article on Gadsby: Champion of Youth should stay a lipogram. Consensus determined that it should not, so parts were rewritten so that they were actually clear (although it still has many problems with odd words because no "e"'s were allowed before). Now, an editor has brought the subject back up on the article's talk page. I'd appreciate it if anyone could comment. Cheers, — Ed (Talk • Contribs) 23:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Favor lipogram: (conflict) Actually, it was a lipogram going back to 2004, upon its initiation by a good admin with full approval. Following much discussion from both camps, only six months ago an anti-lipogram group put up a poll and said it was WP:CON. But both camps still do not concur, and hardly any improving is going on now. I thought I saw both factions compromising, in that significant portions could stay as lipograms and a handful would not; but this, though it was actual compromising and not coup, did not stand for long. Accordingly, I favor sticking with that solution. JJB 23:25, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC) Moni, thank you, but all camps stand in favor of forthright wording and straightforward layout. Many contributors (probably a majority) think this can occur lipogrammatically, but many do not, and point-by-point discussion is notably light. JJB 23:30, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC)
Moni, good thinking as to April Fool's. A lot of folks did support this lipogram, and many did so for many months prior to this nominator finding it. So his thought that it was a shift in WP:CON and not actually a coup is a bit autonomous, I think. And a short form for Gadsby's author is not stylistically or morally wrong, contradicting his implications. But I'm also busy. JJB 23:52, 13 Jun 2009 (UTC)
If someone's editing style is to avoid a letter, that's fine for that editor as long as the article delivers the necessary information. If new information is added, editors can change the style if they wish. I think the article should not require editors to follow this peculiar style. Editors who want to play this word game should view new edits as additional puzzle pieces to play with. -- SEWilco ( talk) 18:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I have a simple question:
If this board's purpose is to deal with content issues that cannot or should not be covered in the other boards, what happens if someone comes here to push their POV?
In a variety of political and fringe articles (Yes even Barack Obama's article) editors sometimes have a problem of separating their political bias when editing these articles. (Also, that in itself also becomes a rather common accusation during these types of debates.) When these editors try to add something that is against current consensus, may not have reliable sourcing, is mainly of a scandalous nature and incendiary, or is blatantly a POV, they come to logger heads with other editors who do not see their point. These same editors will try having long conversations to prove their side, bring the subject up again and again, call for an RFC, bring it to AN/I, etc, but in the end consensus has not changed. My worry would be if these types of disputes will spill over into this forum. So my question is what power does the forum have? If say, this forum decided against the editor in question, what would/can happen?
I ask this because soon or later it will happen. Brothejr ( talk) 23:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Maybe I'm posting this in the wrong place, but I'm wondering if article creators and new page patrollers working to improve content find the arbitrary deviations in WikiProject tags daunting. Some are WPBiography, others are WikiProject Food and Drink, and then there's Visual arts (no WP or WikiProject at all, plural, and a lowercase a in arts) etc. Is it worth trying to get them standardized? I know I spend quite a bit of time playing hit or miss and trying to guess how different ones are named, often giving up. Hit me with a trout if this is better on Village Pump or somewhere else, but I'm posting it here for the article builders to weigh in... Gulp. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 03:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to those of you who commented on the idea. I have put it on the back burner after the intense hostility. I would be happy to drop the idea of a membership elected from the membership, and not from the 'community', but for one thing, which is that many advocates of fringe and crackpot views are also 'established editors' in the sense of having edited here a long time. It is important to weed this group out of any group of people who are genuinely committed to the core neutrality principles of Wikipedia. So that's the problem - how do you define a group that was genuinely committed to neutrality, and who could in principle advise and help on WP:NPOV related issues, without some form of elective process? It is very hard to spot culprits without a detailed knowledge of the articles they work on, the style they use, their whole method of operation. Election is the only method I can think of. Suggestions welcome. Peter Damian ( talk) 18:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
What does any club or association do? Peter had outlined that rather clearly and there was nothing wrong with that since what was being articulated was to promote adherence to Wikipedia’s principles.
I encourage Peter to restore his Established Editors page to its full content and not wimp out; he caved to fear mongerers. A lot of editors went to bat for him in the MfD to support his right to have that page. I think he should honor that effort by restoring the page. A proper discussion can not occur and a proper consensus on the details arrived at until what is being contemplated is out in the open where the details can be sanitized by the sunshine of vigorous debate.
This reminds me of a picture in my local paper. It showed some women burning an American flag in a local park. I thought “OMG, they’re doing that out in the open?” Then I read the caption. They were Daughters of the American Revolution. They were properly disposing of a tattered and worn flag. “Of course!” I thought. All was in order: The flag was folded while it was being consumed with flame; they had their hands over their hearts; solemn expression on their faces. That’s OK. Just fiiiiine. What is looked upon with great disfavor is to burn the American flag when one has a fist thrust in the air and a furrowed brow. Republican elected officials during an election year periodically try to pass legislation outlawing “desecration” of the American flag (read: burn the flag with a “frowny face”). This is precisely what Peter’s detractors did: they assumed he was forming a club for the purpose of engaging in activities “with a frowny face.” How about they assume he was really out to do what he said he was out to do: form a club “genuinely committed to the core neutrality principles of Wikipedia”?
How about we assume he might be trying to do some good instead of forming a mob in the village square and march down to burn his hut down? Greg L ( talk) 19:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for these comments. I have modified the contents page to reflect the minimum conditions for such an assocation, namely the election process, the commitment to the core neutrality policies, and the principle that all other policies are subordinated to neutrality. Those who accept nomination (which includes Greg and Dunc, who have been nominated) can agree on what the purposes of such an association should be. Fair? Peter Damian ( talk) 20:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
America’s conservative politicians (Republicans, which I generally count myself as a member of) try to keep themselves in power by pandering to their core constituency by periodically trying to pass laws outlawing the latter. They declare that it is “flag desecration” and isn’t an issue of “speech”, which of course it is. The flag is ashes in both cases. The only difference is the message during the burning. The message in the latter brings out righteous indignation and mob rule. Ugly behavior.
More to my point, the basis of the opponents arguments in the MfD all assumed Peter was trying to engage in subversive activities, like picture #2 of “bad” flag burning. They couldn’t even assume good faith. Greg L ( talk) 20:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I will keep you bookmarked and will check in on your progress. I hope you keep me apprised of major developments in your progress towards forming a club of like-minded individuals. Something to consider: You might put a preamble at the top of your page designed to assuage the concerns of editors who might harbor suspicions over your intentions. That might avoid another MfD. ;-) Greg L ( talk) 21:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Just a note that Zithan ( talk · contribs), sockpuppet of crat/admin/OS Nichalp ( talk · contribs) (now impeached by arbcom) nominated four articles that he wrote for business clients for GAN in return for money, and two passed. His most recent article is currently up at AFD as a whitewash/spam YellowMonkey ( cricket calendar poll!) 04:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Having been a significant contributor to several FAs and even more GAs, and also having been a GA reviewer in the past, I decided awhile ago to remove myself from activity in either the FA or GA process. I've waited several months on this just to make sure I'm serious about it and not just reacting emotionally. I haven't changed my mind in all that time, and I suppose this is as good a place as any to state my reasons for my personal boycott.
Both processes are overstepping their bounds. They have begun to make subjective judgements about whether an article should be promoted or not. Mainly when it comes to short articles, I feel that many in the GA and FA process are, knowingly or unknowingly, pushing the limits of their power over a system that rewards content editors with community prestige in order to further an agenda the relegates short articles to a second-class state. A state in which they cannot be GAs or FAs no matter how good they are. Since many of the articles I write are shorter articles, I don't want to be part of a process where I constantly have to defend my work against a non-existent "It's too short" criteria. One article I helped write was nominated for deletion during a GA review because some editors thought it was too short or not notable enough, although they admitted that it was well-written and well researched. I respect the editors of the GA and FA processes, but when they use these processes to push some idea they have about short articles in general, they are stepping outside the bounds of what GA and FA are meant to do. They are moving outside the GA and FA criteria into places where they shouldn't.
If this was the only thing wrong with the GA and FA processes, I would not boycott either process. I believe most editors mean well and we could figure out a solution to the above problem. However, I have continuously had problems with the GA process, because its review system is erratic and you never know if you're going to a star-class review or a review from a guy on his first day of editing who makes poor judgements and is difficult to deal with. With the FA process, although most reviewers are wonderful, I have been frequently hounded by editors pushing petty arguments. It gets repetitive and it takes its toll on you.
I also don't like the general idea of Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations and the attitudes it promotes. I'm tired of the hierarchy that seems to surround how many FAs or GAs an editor has. FA and GA status really doesn't mean anything. It's artificial. It too often gives people a false idea that their article is somehow "finished" or that they "own" it. It is a sneaky and pervasive feeling and I believe that it hurts wikipedia.
I will remain a content editor and will continue to improve articles the best I can, but GA and FA just aren't worth it anymore. All the time I spend fighting for a good GA review or dealing with pettiness at FA could be better spent adding content, I feel. And that's the whole problem. I'm a content editor at heart, and I feel sometimes that GA and FA hurt content growth more than they should. They motivate editors to add content, sure, but I would rather be motivated by the opportunity to learn and serve others, not by prestige and competition. FA and GA gradually sucked all the fun out of wikipedia for me, so I'm trying to get back to what made it fun. Wrad ( talk) 02:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for Museum of Bad Art, wonderful. Peter Damian ( talk) 20:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm not even clear that vast tiers of article quality assessments, and the tens of thousands of hours people spend editing and debating those instead of working on articles, really improves Wikipedia. I follow media coverage of Wikipedia somewhat closely, and I've never seen the article assessment process touted as a meaningful thing that assures readers of quality. Based on observations of people talking about Wikipedia, I'd wager the average visitor to WP believes the main page FA is chosen arbitrarily at the whim of Jimbo or some higher-up a few days or even minutes before it appears on the main page. Most people seem to think it's just an article selected to be interesting, not because it's been so excruciatingly vetted.
All of this meta-work, while giving some Wikipedians bragging rights, and others the ability to make objections and make other people do work on command, doesn't seem to clearly improve Wikipedia or its reputation with readers and critics more than just a simple peer review process could. It's vaguely against the idea of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit - the process seems to encourage edits from only the person wanting to make it a GA/FA, and other people cast themselves purely as critics, assessors, sweeps reviewers, etc. and don't typically improve the article. The way the typical FA/GA goes seems to be the opposite of a community article anyone can edit.
Since I don't see the assessment levels alone really improving Wikipedia one bit, I think the best of GA/FA is that you can usually get productive feedback on what is often a quite obscure article and improve it more than you could just plugging away unnoticed on your own. And that's a considerable asset for the community to have. But the cost is that it creates an adversarial system where both article writers and reviewers tend to see the work they do more as collecting personal trophies rather than helping write good articles for the community. I guess my question is whether the FA/GA process ocean is the only way to get meaningful outside feedback and editors for articles needing it, and if there are other ways (like purely peer review), is keeping GA/FA around worth the drama and thousands of hours people spend purely doing the meta work. -- Chiliad22 ( talk) 20:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm sure the fact that pretty much as soon as this noticeboard was created its first real action was to provide a venue for teh dramaz says something, I'm just not sure what. As the longtime number 3/4 editor on the evil we shall not name (YellowMonkey and me have been trading spots for some time), I fully understand there are valid criticisms about the list, FAs in general, and audited content quality in particular. I'm also that guy at RfA who is opposing candidates for not having substantial experience in those areas, and I'm a committed GA reviewer, so you couldn't pick a better strawman than me to analyze.
I should start off by saying I like the list, and yes, I do consider it a sort of friendly competition (of course I concede I will never be able to beat the behemoth that is HurricaneHink.) It is a motivator for me, but it's hardly the only reason I edit. I produce FA/GA because I think it's a valuable asset not only to me (improving my knowledge of the subject, making shiny, interesting and proper articles out of fancruft turds, as it were) but also to readers. FA should never stand as the pinnacle of articles on Wikipedia (but I fully admit it's often perceived that way), but it's the best we've got. I would love to hear from Wrad and Physch about what we would replace FA/GA with if we swept it away tomorrow. I feel it's necessary to give readers an indication of what has been vetted as our best material, even if best is often subjective and based on who shows up at FAC. Is that a problem? Hell yes. But it's no different from any other part of the wiki.
Finally, on the WP:OWN/collaboration issue, which I feel are often talked about separately but go together; is there any indication this is so, or just notions? I would say I am something of a lone-wolf editor (the only project I really work in is WP:VG) so I guess you could type-cast me as the star-hungry editor. But it has never been my experience that this is the norm, or such actions are par for the course. WP:WBFAN lists as many people who want to list themselves as nominators: look at the FAC for History of timekeeping devices, for example. No one gets cheated out of recognition for their work. Bronze stars and WBFAN are the exact same function as barnstars; sure, some people will be motivated to get them and become a detriment to the 'pedia overall, but that's generally not what happens.
So this is probably a tad ramblin' as I was just typing as I was thinking, but that's where I stand. FA/GA are the best we have in filling an important role on wiki. There's little evidence that the dozens to hundreds of editors tied up in reviewing and running the show would be creating more content, and that finding that content would be easy without the current mechanisms. In short: reform FAR rules, make some changes, and actually dig in and contribute—that's the only way I see you can change the "culture" editors are alleging. Otherwise, ignore it entirely; but I'm not sure that's helping Wikipedia either. -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk) 21:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC) (The TL,DR version of this: read what Gguy and Moni have said above. It is what you put into it.) -21:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs forgets that there is already a proposal to replace FAC, albeit one which has not advanced much in the last couple of months. He also forgets that Wikipedia would not end tomorrow is there were no replacement at all – to suggest otherwise is to pretend that Wikipedia exists for the benefit of FAC (or, perhaps more accurately, "FAC editors") and not the other way round. Physchim62 (talk) 23:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Forgive my naivety and rudeness, I am a newcomer here. As I understand, FA/GA is a part of WP system (break it and build new one, it will be same thing after all), it should be run and it is run, but it is desperately lacking reviewers, especially qualified ones. Thus I am surprised to see that these kind of forums immediately attract dozens of contributions, but the FA/GA nominations not. IMHO this thread would not exists if all those respected and experienced editors would just do decent job and contribute (as professionals) at the GA/FA reviews, rather than here. Most GA/FA reviews are so silly just because nobody wants to review, and somebody (who should be thanked for their courtesy) picks it up. It takes (for me, in my fields) equal time to review a paper as read and reply to this thread. Materialscientist ( talk) 03:47, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
The issue of voting is clearly contentious, but content contributors should perhaps spend more time at RfA's. And if they do, what questions should they pose? What criteria should they use for support or oppose? Should admins have a good track record of content contribution? Most assume they should, but if you think that their should be 'segregation of duties' between those who fight vandals and protect the encyclopedia from harm, and those who do the main work, then perhaps they shouldn't. It's a conflict of interest for those who have the power to ban, also to decide what should go into articles. What do you think? Peter Damian ( talk) 20:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
OK, here's a "high end content question" of the sort I had in mind when I suggested this board:
At some point in the next couple of months, I plan to do a top-to-bottom strip down and rewrite from basics of the (currently horribly messy and rather dubiously 'sourced') Hampstead Heath – as a fairly high-traffic article (about 15k–20k hits per month) the state of this one has irritated me for some time. Should the rewritten version keep the Gallery section? It's an impressive bit of wiki-coding (each caption is a clickable link to the article on the relevant building) and must have taken someone a very long time to set up – but it a) must breach just about every bit of the MOS there is, and b) doesn't actually illustrate Hampstead Heath at all, but is an index of buildings visible from Hampstead Heath (well, buildings that would be visible if there weren't trees in the way). There's also a third "coward's way out" option of booting it across to the separate Parliament Hill article. Any thoughts? – iride scent 16:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Echoed from this discussion. Yes, this was seen on Wikipedia Review, but it's a good question and discussion point, focusing on Prostitution in South Korea. I have no overall opinion (yet) on the content, and want to get a discussion going.
The 12 days' expansion was by Occidentalist ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was is apparently a sock of Lucyintheskywithdada ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). These users are blocked, but looking at the entire history of the article [1] I don't see an obvious clue about them having targeted it before. This page was dramatically expanded (4.18x) by a now "banned" user. Future Perfect at Sunrise ( talk · contribs) reverted it all here, citing "rv all edits by banned user, back to 9 November".
Here's my question, which seems to come up perennially: is this new content considered by anyone to be invalid since it was introduced by a "banned" user? Would it be against any policy violation if I, hypothetically, edited on this last Occidentalist version and hit save? I'm never sure where people stand on this sort of thing. The longer version of the article on the surface appears to be a much better article. rootology ( C)( T) 16:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
This is similar to work contributed about prostitution in the Philippines a year or two ago. Appears well-sourced, but blatant propaganda. First question: where are the good sources? Second, if they are good, is there any evidence of WP:SYNTH and all that kind of stuff? Peter Damian ( talk) 17:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Once the Olympics kept their ideals of amateur competition so stringent that athletes who had ever taken money for performing were stripped of medal (see Jim Thorpe), and even athletes who paid for professional coaching were regarded with some skepticism as if doing such a thing was one step toward cheating. Now professional athletes perform in the Olympics regularly; whether the Olympics is better off is a good argument to be had.
FA writer User:Nichalp has been editing under another user name and getting paid for it. See the Signpost missive about it. There's an RfC about paid editing here. It might be a more cut and dry situation with Nichalp that a company has hired him to see after their interests on Wikipedia.
So, you who eats cardboard and whey, what if a private grant offered you money akin to a year's salary to write anything you wanted as long as you produced a certain number of GAs and FAs? What if the parameters were narrower? What if you had to produce all your articles in the realm of chemistry, French literature, or Baroque composers? What if the Wikimedia Foundation started to offer monetary rewards for well-written articles? How would money change the culture of Wikipedia? -- Moni3 ( talk) 13:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
The core issue is conflict of interest. And getting paid to edit something certainly creates a problem in that respect. What are the chances of it being NPOV and including alternate perspectives when it's being done under contract? Just look at the puffery that passes for polical articles when they're edited by partisan supporters and compare it to the hit pieces for figures that aren't popular with the Wikipedia set. NPOV is a core policy and it should always be encouraged. Paid editing is not consistent with the values espoused in this policy. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 05:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Looking through FAs, there doesn't seem to be any common way to handle internal linking in footnotes, the most part are publishers and authors. Most articles are incoherent, with certain publishers linked, others not, and authors most often unlinked; while some at every instance. The general guideline on linking, Wikipedia:Linking, doesn't discuss this case, I suppose there aren't any guideline on this ? So how do you feel about this ? My preference would be to link any relevant link (of any type, not only publishers and authors) for the first time they appear in a footnoted reference. As it's a different part of the article, not the main body, the existence of the same link in the body shouldn't have impact, but for similar reasons to the article body, linking repeatedly the same item isn't necessary. Cenarium ( talk) 02:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I strongly support adding links to all journal titles. Where this would introduce redlinks to featured content, we could add a subpage to WP:JOURNALS where FA editors give the name of the Wikipedia article and name of the journal, and WP:JOURNALS collaborates to create the stubs and add the blue link.
I think each footnote should stand on its own while the article is being brought up to FA level, but after that point the overlinking should be trimmed. My rationale is that prior to FA, cites are moving around a lot, and it is easier if citations are self-contained. I guess bots could help manage the journal title linkage to reduce overlinking, but we could also update {{ cite}} so that links within the citation are linked but don't exhibit the visible properties of a link, such as underscore and blue. That way the link is there for editors, but not distracting for readers. John Vandenberg ( chat) 04:59, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
This article is a POV disaster and a battleground. It needs work or deletion. Who then was a gentleman? ( talk) 07:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
There's been some work in the last five weeks on American Dream where a couple of versions of a lead section have been put forward, each a synthesis of received wisdom, with slim reliance on sources. There was even a bit of original research with the addition of the phrase "ethos of prosperity" which doesn't appear anywhere in the literature.
I could use some help in whipping together two or three good lead paragraphs using the ten or so sources listed at Talk:American Dream, or other expert materials. I made a small start today, but expansion and adjustment is still needed. Thanks in advance! Binksternet ( talk) 18:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Who is in charge of swamijis? Should I prod? AfD? Leave it for someone else? Suggestions welcome. Cheers. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 21:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Most of my contributions are in the area of philosophy and medievalism. I wrote all of Medieval_philosophy from scratch. I never finished it and never bothered to submit to GA or FA because it seems an awful destructive process. I get even more depressed when I see Theology. What a mess. How could any work that pretends to be an encyclopedia have such an abomination? Tags everywhere, the footnotes are actually longer than the article. Half the paragraphs are just lists. Peter Damian ( talk) 21:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Peter Damian ( talk) 09:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I had also noted this tendency, that articles on general or broad subjects are often neglected. They have different aspects, so knowledge in various fields is needed, which requires more collaborative efforts, and it's particularly difficult to find the proper balance in the description of those aspects. A high level of summary style is needed, and what is to be included is often difficult to determine. Thus many such articles are small or little-developed, for example Politics, Sport and Country. They have been longer at some points, but were reduced because the content was too specific, for balance reasons and similar. There are also some subjects, that are very close to us, but on which we can't find anything to say, for example forehead and chin. Some other broad topics of low quality are Song and Health, as well as more specific but important subjects like Night or Shadow. We also have difficulties to make articles on very general subjects with variety of meanings. So we have some UFOs like Title, is it an article, a dab, a list ? Some would-like-to-be-an-article dabs like Mission or Growth. As a final example, there is the amazing contrast in quality between Medieval cuisine and Cuisine. Actually, I had planned to bring this matter somewhere for some time, and this place could be the one; I'll try to make some findings on this subject in the coming weeks, and bring this up again to see if we can work something out. It also come under light recently, when Wind has been nominated for FA. Cenarium ( talk) 01:43, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Major dispute at this article over appropriateness of the lead section. Unfortunately seems likely to turn into an edit war, so we could use some second opinions here. Since Iran is in the news recently, it is important that Wikipedia have a good article ready to go- but the article has been massively overhauled in the past two weeks, and at least in the lede section is now much much worse.
I previously posted a request at the Neutrality noticeboard, to which an editor thankfully responded. The lede is now better following that editor's input (no longer a series of long quotes and accusations of Nazism without mentioning the historical context), but now is incredibly small. The lede currently doesn't even mention the Shah or that the coup restored the monarchy, instead inexplicably focusing on oil companies changing their name. I've been reverted several times.
Details are at Talk:1953 Iranian coup d'état#Lede paragraph . Bear in mind that the first posts there are in reference to a much worse lede section than the current (still flawed) one, as noted above. SnowFire ( talk) 03:44, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
I am involved in a revertwar on the article about Joseph campbell with an anon user who blanks the in my opinion very notable, well sourced and well balanced section on post-humous controversy. At first I thought it was just a case of reverting a trolling vandal so I didn't pay attention to 3RR, but he is persistent and is resorting to different tactics to justify his blanking - among others he called me a "Jehovah's witness fundamentalist" apparently he has checked my edit history and seen I have been engaged in dispute resolution on that page. I need some third party to see what's going on on the page and decide whether to protect, block, or what ever. I won't revert him again. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
This question concerns content that has issues with plagiarism, copyright infringement, and NPOV. It also concerns the placement of said content in the lead section, as it does not currently summarize anything in the article. The full discussion can be found here and anyone is welcome to contribute to it. To recap, in the past few days, the following content was added to the lead section:
Throughout the Cold War and since that time, few nations placed more emphasis in their foreign policy on the promotion of human rights, including tying foreign aid to human rights progress and annually assessing the human rights records of government around the world. [2]
Having been here for just under five years, I am very familiar with spotting plagiarism and copyright infringement. Even though the content above was cited appropriately to a book by Michael Ignatieff, the authors opinion on the value of the U.S. role in human rights and foreign policy was unattributed and copied directly without quotation or paraphrasing.
I believe the above passage can be considered plagiarism and copyright infringement of the original source, of which at least 28 of the 43 words in the passage above were copied and pasted from exact phrases in Ignatieff's book. For example, the exact phrases "Throughout the Cold War", "few nations placed more emphasis in their foreign policy on the promotion of human rights" and "the human rights records of government around the world" are copied from Ignatieff's book verbatim. Here is the original material by the author with a URL to the book page:
Throughout the Cold War and afterward, few nations placed more emphasis in their foreign policy on the promotion of human rights, market freedom, and political democracy. Since the 1970s, U.S. legislation has tied foreign aid to progress in human rights; the State Department annually assesses the human rights records of governments around the world. Outside government, the United States can boast some of the most effective and influential human rights organizations in the world. [3]
Per Turabian 2007, pp.77-80, this meets at least one (or more) of the three indicators of inadvertent plagiarism:
- You cited a source but used its exact words without putting them in quotation marks or in a block quotation
- You paraphrased a source and cited it, but in words so similar to those of your source that they are almost a quotation: anyone could see that you were following the source word-by-word as you paraphrased it.
- You used ideas or methods from a source but failed to cite it
Additionally, this violates the NPOV policy, in that we need to "assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves...When we discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion." These words and ideas belong to Michael Ignatieff and according to the rules about plagiarism and NPOV, they need to be attributed appropriately. Unfortunately, the original author continues to claim that this is a statement of fact, not opinion, and is paraphrased, not plagiarized. Obviously, any person familiar with Wikipedia policies and guidelines and academic style sourcing guidelines like Turabian/Chicago Style, understands that this is not an acceptable form of paraphrasing. Since my original complaint was made, the material continues to get added back into the article. Here is its latest incarnation:
During and after the Cold War, few countries emphasized in foreign policy the furtherance of human rights as vigorously as the United States, which also ties foreign aid to human rights progress and annually assesses the human rights records of numerous governments.
This is still considered plagiarism if we observe Turabian's indicators of inadvertent plagiarism. And, according to the NPOV policy, we must attribute opinions: "It is also important to make it clear who holds these opinions. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view." The sentence itself is somewhat complex, so it is understandable that a fairly new editor might miss the subtlety of the distinction between the statement of Ignatieff's opinion in the first part ("few countries emphasized in foreign policy the furtherance of human rights as vigorously as the United States") while the second part is a clear statement of fact ("ties foreign aid to human rights progress and annually assesses the human rights records").
Is there any reason why this opinion should not be attributed to Michael Ignatieff as it both represents his opinion on the subject of the history of U.S. human rights and foreign policy as well as closely resembling his exact words and phrasing? And should it appear as a blockquote to avoid the problems of plagiarism and poor paraphrasing? Finally, should it even appear in the lead section when it does not summarize anything in the article? Viriditas ( talk) 09:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Comments invited at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Why do we have a bot creating redirects that are handled by case insensitivity in the search box? – xeno talk 21:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Talk:Rachel_Corrie#Request_for_Comments_on_the_inclusion_of_Saint_Pancake has ended, without a lot of progress. Much was written, no particular positions have been modified, but a few things have been clarified. "Saint Pancake" was an epithet posthumously applied to Rachel Corrie, which all parties are agreed is negative. In the past six months or so, three completely separate reliable sources have discussed the use of the epithet, including Salon. A majority of editors believe that the epithet should be excluded from the article, for reasons that I find unsupported in policy. Boiling it down, there are a series assertions that I don't find supported in policy, and here are the resulting questions:
In the RfC, one editor argued by analogy that the derogatory "Martin Luther Coon" applied to Martin Luther King, Jr. is a similar situation, an assertion on which I declined to take a stand. Do we--should we--would we ever cover notable nicknames applied to historically significant figures? List of U.S. Presidential nicknames has some not particularly nice names, but none of the particularly nasty ones. Is there an unstated encyclopedic content line in that or similar articles that governs what is or is not included? Jclemens ( talk) 04:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Most of my contributions are in the area of philosophy and medievalism. I wrote all of Medieval_philosophy from scratch. I never finished it and never bothered to submit to GA or FA because it seems an awful destructive process. I get even more depressed when I see Theology. What a mess. How could any work that pretends to be an encyclopedia have such an abomination? Tags everywhere, the footnotes are actually longer than the article. Half the paragraphs are just lists. Peter Damian ( talk) 21:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Peter Damian ( talk) 09:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I had also noted this tendency, that articles on general or broad subjects are often neglected. They have different aspects, so knowledge in various fields is needed, which requires more collaborative efforts, and it's particularly difficult to find the proper balance in the description of those aspects. A high level of summary style is needed, and what is to be included is often difficult to determine. Thus many such articles are small or little-developed, for example Politics, Sport and Country. They have been longer at some points, but were reduced because the content was too specific, for balance reasons and similar. There are also some subjects, that are very close to us, but on which we can't find anything to say, for example forehead and chin. Some other broad topics of low quality are Song and Health, as well as more specific but important subjects like Night or Shadow. We also have difficulties to make articles on very general subjects with variety of meanings. So we have some UFOs like Title, is it an article, a dab, a list ? Some would-like-to-be-an-article dabs like Mission or Growth. As a final example, there is the amazing contrast in quality between Medieval cuisine and Cuisine. Actually, I had planned to bring this matter somewhere for some time, and this place could be the one; I'll try to make some findings on this subject in the coming weeks, and bring this up again to see if we can work something out. It also come under light recently, when Wind has been nominated for FA. Cenarium ( talk) 01:43, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Four points:
Uncle G ( talk) 07:32, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
A problem with leaving articles to locals arises in controversial areas like religion & politics. You get either biased articles, or unsatisfactory ones haggled out between people with different biases. Sometimes both. If anyone can think of a way to get the community to join in effectively I'd be interested. Peter jackson ( talk) 09:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I have just redirected a whole bunch of identical pages to Medi, India, a title which apparently eluded the creator of these pages. I am not sure that they are all appropriate as redirects, though, even if most of them are. Could someone check that out? -- Blanchardb - Me• MyEars• MyMouth- timed 13:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
My inaugrual 'see if this noticeboard is any use' posting.
This article found in this state, has me stumped. It is neither a list of Iranian nationality comics, or an article on Iranian stand-up comedy. My first thought was to just sectionalise the entries based on actual nationality and rename it to List of xyz, but I can't determine the nationality for some of them, and I'm not even sure if that is a usefull list. So, what should be done with it? Add to/Rewrite/Move/Merge/Tag/Delete?
MickMacNee ( talk) 13:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
An article on Iranian comedy would probably link comic actors Nosratollâh Vahdat and Esmâ`il Arhâm Sadr, by the way, and would mention "lâhlezâri". An article on Persian comedy would similarly mention ruhozi (over the pool) and Bâqqal bazi (the play of the grocer).
So … You have some red links, and a largely useless page on a non-subject by a title that would be better as a redirect. Put the twain together, and what do you get? ☺ Uncle G ( talk) 05:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Joint Commission ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) needs a large amount of cleanup. Most sections are clearly edited with a positive or negative point of view, and it would greatly benefit from a neutral rewrite. As I work for a JC-accredited health center, I don't think I can bring sufficient neutrality to the table.-- SarekOfVulcan ( talk) 15:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
A
user, keeps adding what I think is an
WP:OR Google spreadsheet
[4] to the
List of countries by military expenditures article as a reference. I am not even sure it is
WP:OR because the spread sheet was made using data from Wikipedia itself, (although I am not sure how the data was collected and put into the spreadsheet).
As there is clearly a disagreement between myself and the editor I was wondering if someone else could give me their opinion. Is that a relevant reference and can this spreadsheet be used at all?
FFMG (
talk)
11:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your opinions, I had asked FFMG for a third opinion in the edit summary, I'm not very wiki savy. Concerning the comments, I think FFMG and Fuchs are attacking a fundamental principle in Wikipedia. That is assume good faith. In 2006 in a discussion in the university we were wondering about the military expenditures per capita. We could not find any source about it. So I put in my blog making a x/y=z table, using wikipedia data, and as Anomie says in his comments this is reliable data and it's not OR. Can we only put CIA "facts" book, in Wikipedia or what?. I put in my blog in my native language Spanish, just google it [5] and you will find it. Since 2006 I have received daily visits to this post. Therefore I find it is relevant also for the English speaking people. I did not put a link to my blog as an External Link (I wonder if I should have done that) to seek publicity, I put it in a google spreadsheet so anyone could see the methodology and/or improve it. You can see in the methodology tab, the pasted information from cited articles. [ [6]] I apologize if I have broken any rules that I do not know. I then I would ask to please someone open an article following this comment Anomie has said if the information is useful enough to include then just make an article. It is useful and I know people are interested about it, so I propose to open a new article about it. For now I will change it to external links. It seems 2 users say its OR (FFMG and Fuchs) and 2 users say it's not OR (Anomie and me). Let's have 2 or 3 more people to untie. If they say it's OR then I will delete it. -- Qwarto ( talk) 10:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
FFMG, I put it in the external link because it has been sugested that it was misplaced. Anyways, I propose we should do what Anomie and I are suggesting now, that is create a new article called "List of countries by military expenditure per capita", this is interesting for people and relevant, and the data is ready. I could create myself if I would know how to make tables on wiki. Again I apologize if I have irritated you, but I was behaving in good faith. -- Qwarto ( talk) 15:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
The user Anomie, suggested that creating a new article could be a feasable possibility, a possibility that I liked. That was my intended point. In the spreadsheet I already said all the info comes from wikipedia. I put in the spreadsheet it was done in late June 2009. The idea is to have an approximation. I will updated in 1 year or so, if nobody does it before. Anyways, perhaps people [[WP:DGAF|don't really care]. -- Qwarto ( talk) 14:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Two editors User:Offliner and User:PasswordUsername are refusing to add a summary of the the criticism section within the body of the content in the lede per MOS:INTRO in the article Nashi (youth movement), claiming that providing any summary violates WP:SYNTH, see Talk:Nashi (youth movement). I even suggest that they come up with their own wording, by they respond with reversion. Could we have some input please. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Summarizing is not synonymous with synthesis. In this case the lede can and should have a sentence summarizing the criticism; something like, "Critics have accused the organization of spying upon and harassing opponents and compared it to the Soviet Komsomol and Hitler Youth." or, if you prefer passive voice, "The organization has been accused of ...". Abecedare ( talk) 04:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
The text I added as suggested by Abecedare has just been partially reverted by LokiiT ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki) here. -- Martintg ( talk) 02:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)