This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU, AV, AW, AX, AY, AZ, BA, BB, BC, BD, BE, BF, BG, BH, BI, BJ, BK, BL, BM, BN, BO · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193
What is the policy on posting images that might allready be part of a copyrighted process? in addition, can individual copyrights be posted for various processess within the website?
Okay, WP:EL says that forums are heavily discouraged as external links because the external links section should only really be used for extra information and not things like social networking. There's a few exceptions to this of course.
So, another editor and I have a disagreement on whether or not the Blasian article should link to the forum "blasian forums" (it's in the article itself right now). He believes having a link is valuable and points to other articles (which haven't had this challenged yet) Eurasian (which has a yahoogroup), Asian fetish (which has another forum), and Oriental (which has a link to a forum debating the term).
I don't strongly believe on precedent in Wikipedia (being that almost everything is on a case-by-case basis because of diverse subject material and sources, and moreover the articles themselves currently have their POV challenged), and I believe that the forums in all those places should probably be moved. But again, we disagree, so I'm taking it here to get more opinions.
I think most of the forum links should be removed in all those articles, actually. I'll ask him to comment here. ColourBurst 05:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
A rewrite of the above guideline has been written at Wikipedia:External links/workshop. Edits and discussion welcome. Steve block Talk 21:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm unsure of where to ask this, so I figured this would be a good place. I'm curious as to what level of enforcement we're supposed to take on suckpuppet warnings. For example, DreamGuy ( talk · contribs) and Victrix ( talk · contribs) have been tagged as "Likely" sockpuppets ( the Request for checkuser). DreamGuy, however, has been removing the tag repeatedly from his user page (insulting everyone who restores it [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]).
Now, personally, I think DreamGuy is a dick. Because of my (rather impassioned) interest in the matter, though, I don't want to wade in and start enforcing its existence if he's not breaking a policy by removing it. I did some poking around, but didn't find anything.
Can anyone weigh in (on the tag's enforcement, not the matter of DreamGuy himself)? EVula 21:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
There just is something annoying to me when you go to click on a link for something, and it turns out that in reality, each word is its own link.
Such as, United States Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, in which case "United States Navy", "Admiral" and "Hyman G. Rickover" are all separate links.
I think that there could be something to delineate that there are different links therein before you have the cursor over or have clicked.
-- Jickyincognito 08:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I usually hover over a multi-word link to see what gets underlined. It would be nice not to have to do that though. When I write, I try to construct my sentences to avoid just this problem. I'd rather have the freedom to write the best sentence for the job. A subtle visual cue would fix both annoyances. It'd probably be best to write some kind of adjustment into the wiki rendering software than to adopt a textual writing convention among editors. Maybe consecutive links could be given extra spaces between them, or be given slightly different colors? -- Loqi T. 09:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion regarding use of images in signatures on the WP:ANI page. Please click here. If you want to discuss about the issue the page there, and if you want to tell me how tactless I have been, you can come to my talk page. :) — Nearly Headless Nick {L} 16:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone direct me to a policy that says content in the English Wikipedia should actually be in English? I know this sounds rediculous, but the parameters for Template:French commune are in French, i.e. instead of "mayor" they have "maire" and instead of "population" they have "sans". I brought this issue up on the template talk page and was informed that this was on purpose so that it would be easier to copy content from the French Wikipedia. Unfortunately, I can't find any policy to refute this argument. Kaldari 22:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I think this is what you're looking for. Not sure how it applies to the French language, but the it might carry over a bit. -- Jabrwocky7 23:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
copied from admin noticeboard.
Hi, I've been canvassing some support recently, as some of you may have seen, for a program/project to harmonise all of the user page templates and warnings. I'm looking for an admin, not necessarily to carry out much work, but who will be able to point me in the right direction, on certain issues. I'm willing to do all the leg work, but could just do with someone sitting on my shoulder to achieve this goal. If you're interested, or would like to know more please see here .Have a glance through all the different types of warnings and if you have any ideas please list them.
This proposed guideline has been extensively used and referred to for its intended purpose, to simplify Wikipedia:Articles for deletion discussion, during the past five months, an average of more than every other day. It has simplified discussion, and made it less contentious. It has grown and reacted to discussion and the results of those AfDs; it reflects community practice, and is the sum of many points of view. It has been five months as a proposal. It is not perfect, but it is a lot better than nothing. I believe it is now time to mark it as a full fledged notability guideline, and subset of WP:BIO.
Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Notability (pornographic actors)#Ready to become a notability criteria guideline, and help us reach consensus on marking it as such. AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that some administrators are deleting individual revisions in the straightforward way (delete and then undelete the revisions not to be deleted), while others employ a cleaver trick to make these revisions not in the way if the page is to be purged of some other revisions in the future. While I never performed this operation myself, I have outlined it at Wikipedia:Selective deletion. If what I wrote makes sense, this page could be linked from or merged with other "practical deletion" guidelines. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 15:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I am monitoring a biographical article in which one editor is using "personal communication" with the subject as a citation. Has there been any discussion in WP:V or WP:RS regarding whether this is acceptable or not. Thanks! - AED 20:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure how many people are aware that there is an ongoing discussion on the status of WP:RS. I personnally think this is a very very bad idea but more than anything I want to make sure that the community at large gets involved in that debate. Pascal.Tesson 21:43, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
My understanding from WP:MOSDP is that for Title (disambiguation), names that consist only partly of Title (e.g. John Title) should not be added to dab pages, yet should not be removed, and once more than a few exist they should be moved to a separate page. Intelligent people will disagree on application, of course. Is there prior discussion to refer to, a prior RfC, or should I start an RfC? ENeville 23:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Today, I found an image of a young boy that had been uploaded and referenced on an article page. The identity of the boy was not relevant to the article, and the quality of the image was such that he would have been clearly identifiable to any family member or anyone else who knows him. Do we have an official policy on this kind of thing, because in my view, it amounts to child abuse and could land Wikipedia in hot legal water. In a way, it's similar to the issues around biographies of living people. -- Portnadler 17:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
If a clearly identifiable image of your son or daughter was uploaded and used in a Wikipedia article without your consent, would you not object? -- Portnadler 14:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Child abuse? Come on... what damage is possibly being done to the child? Pascal.Tesson 14:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Generally, a photo taken in a public place is not considered to be a concern (no expectation of privacy), as long as the context is positive or neutral (as opposed to the bedwetting example). Unless it was accompanied by personal details, such an image is unlikely to pose a hazard to the child anyway. Dragons flight 15:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The UK Information Commissioner considers a photograph of a person, unless (eg) a crowd scene, to be Personal Data, capable of uniquely identifying a living individual (assuming they are alive). This is all rather formal and under the (UK) Data Protection Act 1998. Now, this does not legally affect Wikipedia since it is not a UK organisation and has no offices in the UK, but it should be considered to be a useful guideline. Wikipedia would, if subject to this law, be a "Data Controller", and, as such, would have the duty to inform the person in the picture that they were "processing" this picture, and would have the duty to remove it (under section 10 of that act) if the individual objected.
This means that any photograph, not a child's photograph, is a debatable asset if of a living individual.
Pictures of dead people are fine, they have no rights! Fiddle Faddle 15:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's take a possible example. Wicked Uncle Ernie takes a picture of his pretty 12-year old niece wearing high-heeled shoes. Unbeknown to said niece and her parents, Ernie then uploads the picture to Wikipedia and uses it in an encyclopedic article about shoe fetishism. There is no copyright issue: Ernie took the picture himself. But how would you react if you were the girl's parents? -- Portnadler 16:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, that's like saying we have no way of verifying the provenance of any picture that the uploader claims as his/her own (unless the real photographer makes a complaint). -- Portnadler 16:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The issues need to be focused, instead of shifting every time someone asks a question (this is unfortunately typical for every time an issue with possible moral implications is discussed here). There are three separate issues, all assuming there are no copyright issues and they are taken in a location at which the photographer had a right to be present:
Keep the issues separate. "Parents may object" is a non sequitor to "It doesn't constitute child abuse." Postdlf 17:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
there's a long-running debate regarding the inclusion of notable fansite links on the
LOST article; it specifically concerns the inclusion of a link to lostpedia (a wiki concerning the television series LOST), but it broadly impacts fansites in general.
the status quo is that comparable articles (
X-Files,
Star Trek,
Firefly,
Battlestar Galactica,
Futurama,
South Park,
Angel (TV series),
Desperate Housewives,
Gilmore Girls,
Veronica Mars,
The Office (US TV series),
The Simpsons,
Saturday Night Live) all have links to external fansites, whilst the
Lost (TV series) article has a link to
the fuselage, an official, abc-endorsed forum, but no links to unofficial sites, unlike the aforementioned articles.
it is this editors belief that a clique of editors are resisting the inclusion of a link to (an)other notable fansite(s) (for what reason, i do not know) in the article - the main reason cited being the theories section present in many articles on lostpedia, which in a way constitutes
original research - the nature of the show essentially encourages theories.
the purpose of this addition to the discussion on policy is not to garner votes in a straw poll, or anything like that; it is to suggest that a greater degree of clarity is desirable in the policies that determine whether or not fansites deserve inclusion in an article. comments on this are most welcome.
a more detailed discussion of this issue is at Talk:Lost (TV series)/Fansites -- Kaini
addendum: although by no means desiring to call the Jimmy Wales card, his comments on the issue are here. -- Kaini 03:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Why do they not just take a vote, list all the fan sites and see which sites get the most votes in a poll of editors who have been editing the article for at least a month or have over X edits, leave the poll open forever and as votes change change the links. Make it a cap of two or three links to fan sites and the votes contribute, if anything it will turn the article into a better one as people who want to come from their favorite fansite to vote will need to help the article before they can have theirs counted. I am sure this idea can use tweaking like simply not allowing single purpose accoutns to vote or something. -- Nuclear Zer0 12:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Linking to fansites is essential because they are nearly always the best resources on pop culture topics. They are also a lot less commercial than official sites. Wimstead 13:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I realise the greater many of readers and contributors to the Wikipedia are American, and I do not wish to denigrate the efforts of so many fine editors but can it be made clear when making policy regarding style that not everybody knows all the States (and particulary the abbreviations), or will assume that a reference to a Governmental department is peculiar to the USA (most particulary when referred to as an acronym). Many contributors and readers are from outside of the US, and some may not have English as a first language, and may need reference points. It also helps Search Engines find the relevent article!
I have just edited an wikilink which was [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]] by removing the second conditional text. Since the article was specifically about a US policy think tank it made it less understandable, especially as the term United States was therefore omitted from the introductory paragraph. This may not have mattered too much but the United Kingdom also had a Secretary of War in the timeframe referred to by the article.
For the US student or reader familiarity often obscures this deficit, but nearly all geopolitical articles outside of the USA include mention of the nation. To maintain a standard in Wikipedia this should be policy for all geopolitical articles.
I realise that this may well have been mentioned before... LessHeard vanU 21:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'm not sure there is a specific guideline written about this but it's at least implicit in Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. Keep in mind that although editors might indeed fail to be specific enough, there are very few instances where a more precise description (such as yours) will be reverted. Even if a guideline existed, you can be certain that articles will still be written without conforming to it and it is up to you and I and everyone else to make it better one article at a time. Pascal.Tesson 22:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Youth policies and Wikipedia talk:Youth policies. 6SJ7 22:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I still don't know why you would advertise an alternate solution to a problem which has not occurred in practice, especially given that there is clearly disagreement on the talk page of WP:CHILD on whether or not we should have any policy on the subject and given that the whole issue is going to the arbitration committee. And I think the key point made during the first debate is that either we are required by law to adopt such a policy (in which case, let the office take care of it) or we are not and then why are we wasting our time trying to fix something that ain't broke. Pascal.Tesson 04:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
There are ongoing disputes about what is the criteria for including a certain book in WP, and what is allowed in these articles to conform with WP:NPOV.
My view is that Wikipedia is not Amazon.com. If a reader wants to know just what a book contains, when it was published, reviews canvassed by the publisher, etc. the user is better served going to Amazon or a similar site. If a book is prominent enough to have an article in WP, we need to then provide some context, present the controversy the book raised if any, and provide counterpoints to the author's views, if held by notable authors. Otherwise these type of articles are just advertisement.
What are the policies/guidelines available for creating articles about books in WP, if any?
≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I have nominated Template:TV3 (New Zealand) Primetime Schedule for deletion, on the grounds that it's a copyvio (the TV station explicitly forbids publishing of its listings without purchasing the right to do so), that Wikipedia is not a TV guide, and that it's a recreation of a speedy-deleted predecessor. Since the deletion on the ground of Wikipedia not being a TV guide would set a precedent affecting many other articles on television networks, I'm drawing wider attention to the deletion debate. Please comment at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 October 22, not here.- gadfium 04:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Just ran across Centrist Party (United States). Neither the article not the party's web site indicates that it is anything more than one guy, or a handful, claiming to be a political party. Besides just making a remark on its talk page, is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do to press for demonstration of notability? I see we have a template {{ notability}}, but it appears to be specific to articles in about half a dozen areas (biographies, bands, etc.) and doesn't seem to cover political parties. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I said "is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do". Yes, I'm aware that I could suggest deletion, but usually when I fire a warning shot I don't aim at the head. - Jmabel | Talk 09:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I hear diverging opinions about the question whether it is okay, fair use or copyright violation, informative or uninformative, ugly, lazy to include a table of contents of the non-fiction book in an article about book. See e.g. here The Making of a Moonie, Bounded Choice. It is a re-curring dispute. Any thoughts? Andries 12:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I have updated and expanded the guidance on non-U.S. copyright issues for Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. All comments are welcome. Physchim62 (talk) 14:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it about time that it becomes policy to use correct headers for the References sections. A lot of different forms are currently used, with most of them not really making sense. A lot of people use:
==Notes==
when they are references and not footnotes. Footnotes are rarely used on wikipedia since it would be just as easy to go to the article which the note refers to (if there is one, there often is). I have seen one, maybe two pages which actually had a footnote in the Notes section, although the majority were still references. So shouldn't something be added to the MoS to say that inline citations should be placed under the References header with a subheader below that for General references:
==References== div class="references-small"><references/></div>
==References==
====General references====
Then all the references will be under one header, and they will just be references. I suppose another way could be to call References, Notes and references.
Ideally another <ref> style thing will happen for <note> (there is already {{note}} or something but it isnt built into Wikipedia) so that a seperate header above
==References==
would have the notes and that would be just for notes. No crossing over.
I haven't found a real preference yet for Notes or References, they are about even, but Notes doesn't make sense. Can't something be done? chris_huh 16:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
FYI: There's currently a lively debate over whether stricter guidelines should be established on the use of the {{ spa}} tag at Wikipedia talk:Single purpose account. -- Netsnipe ► 04:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I am sick and tired of seeing fanatical POV-pushers taking over wikipedia articles. A detailed explanation of this is at User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric controversy and User:Infinity0/Wiki disclaimer. What I suggest is simple.
*in the article/template namespace and any others prone to dispute, but not talk pages
My first proposal for x would be 10. See, this does not harm normal people in any way, since 10 edits is quite a lot, and there is always a preview button. But, this would really slow down disputes, where two or more people keep editing against each other. -- infinity 0 23:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
And I don't mean "If they make x+1 edits they get blocked", I mean "it is technically impossible to make more than x edits to the same article in one day." -- infinity 0 23:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually Wikipedia adopted a new guideline last month to deal with disruption. Check out WP:DE. Regards, Durova 19:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Also consider large articles with many sections. It is very possible to want to make 10 or even 20 reformats, spelling corrections, additions of citations, etc., to an article, just one at a time as you have time, and as you see the need. Not all of Wikipedia is a war zone, you know, there is also real work going on. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kryder's law (second nomination). An article was created for a "law" that didn't really exist; it was just the whimsical title of a magazine article and had never been used at all otherwise. After the Wikipedia article had been around a while (violating WP:NEO) the term started to be used by a handful of people. Now it is failing a deletion attempt because people have started using it, mimicking the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article itself has a section explaining how the term did not exist prior to its own existence. — Omegatron 19:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
So I was wondering what people think about the notability of academic journals. Some of them lead their fields, and a publication in them can make a career at a stroke. Others are hugely significant. Others still are very good for their papers' authors, but not top-flight journals. My particular context is the very many journals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of these journals are definitive in their fields. In the UK, for instance, publications in many of them are (eventually) worth real money from the Government's research-funding bodies.
So my question is this. To what extent should we have seperate articles on them; to what extent should we aggregate them somwhere, and at what granularity (by discipline, by publisher, by ... )? For example, we already have (from my field) IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. These are both seminal journals, and each has published papers of massive significance to the research community (and, in due course, to the lay public and their information-carrying devices). But what of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology? You, generally speaking, would try publishing there if your paper didn't make into the others. Should it, and others like it, get an article? - Splash - tk 19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
There's not really a lot you can say about these publications - they are simply collections of other peoples' papers - what you can say about them (first publication date, publishing body) ensures that all of these articles will be cookie-cutter identical . I would prefer they be made redirects to the associated body - to IEEE for IEEE publications, ACM for ACM publications, etc. Raul654 13:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I've started a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Blanking which I hope will clearly explain to editors when blanking is vandalism, and when it may be a legitimate content dispute, possibly from an inexperienced editor. In my experience, this is one of the most frequent causes of misdirected vandalism warnings and reports on WP:AIV, and the potential problem of an editor trying to remove inappropriate material (possibly even BLP-violations) and getting warned or even blocked for his pains is sufficiently serious that we need clearer instruction for Recent Changes patrollers and the like. Currently, all I can think of to point to is the one line in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and possibly the two lines about 'Bold edits' under 'What vandalism is not'. Edits and opinions are welcome. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 19:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I am sick and tired of seeing fanatical POV-pushers taking over wikipedia articles. A detailed explanation of this is at User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric controversy and User:Infinity0/Wiki disclaimer. What I suggest is simple.
*in the article/template namespace and any others prone to dispute, but not talk pages
My first proposal for x would be 10. See, this does not harm normal people in any way, since 10 edits is quite a lot, and there is always a preview button. But, this would really slow down disputes, where two or more people keep editing against each other. -- infinity 0 23:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
And I don't mean "If they make x+1 edits they get blocked", I mean "it is technically impossible to make more than x edits to the same article in one day." -- infinity 0 23:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually Wikipedia adopted a new guideline last month to deal with disruption. Check out WP:DE. Regards, Durova 19:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Also consider large articles with many sections. It is very possible to want to make 10 or even 20 reformats, spelling corrections, additions of citations, etc., to an article, just one at a time as you have time, and as you see the need. Not all of Wikipedia is a war zone, you know, there is also real work going on. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kryder's law (second nomination). An article was created for a "law" that didn't really exist; it was just the whimsical title of a magazine article and had never been used at all otherwise. After the Wikipedia article had been around a while (violating WP:NEO) the term started to be used by a handful of people. Now it is failing a deletion attempt because people have started using it, mimicking the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article itself has a section explaining how the term did not exist prior to its own existence. — Omegatron 19:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
So I was wondering what people think about the notability of academic journals. Some of them lead their fields, and a publication in them can make a career at a stroke. Others are hugely significant. Others still are very good for their papers' authors, but not top-flight journals. My particular context is the very many journals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of these journals are definitive in their fields. In the UK, for instance, publications in many of them are (eventually) worth real money from the Government's research-funding bodies.
So my question is this. To what extent should we have seperate articles on them; to what extent should we aggregate them somwhere, and at what granularity (by discipline, by publisher, by ... )? For example, we already have (from my field) IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. These are both seminal journals, and each has published papers of massive significance to the research community (and, in due course, to the lay public and their information-carrying devices). But what of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology? You, generally speaking, would try publishing there if your paper didn't make into the others. Should it, and others like it, get an article? - Splash - tk 19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
There's not really a lot you can say about these publications - they are simply collections of other peoples' papers - what you can say about them (first publication date, publishing body) ensures that all of these articles will be cookie-cutter identical . I would prefer they be made redirects to the associated body - to IEEE for IEEE publications, ACM for ACM publications, etc. Raul654 13:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I've started a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Blanking which I hope will clearly explain to editors when blanking is vandalism, and when it may be a legitimate content dispute, possibly from an inexperienced editor. In my experience, this is one of the most frequent causes of misdirected vandalism warnings and reports on WP:AIV, and the potential problem of an editor trying to remove inappropriate material (possibly even BLP-violations) and getting warned or even blocked for his pains is sufficiently serious that we need clearer instruction for Recent Changes patrollers and the like. Currently, all I can think of to point to is the one line in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and possibly the two lines about 'Bold edits' under 'What vandalism is not'. Edits and opinions are welcome. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 19:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I began to notice how some people upload unnecessary amount of images on their user pages and "galleries". And then they legitimize the pictures' presence in Wikipedia by offering them to be displayed in other user pages or articles. An example is [6].
I myself have one pic of myself on my user page, but I think that should be it. Wikipedia should not serve as personal home pages for people. ( Wikimachine 04:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC))
I just added Image:NYCityscene-June302005.jpg to bus lane, which only had diagrams. -- NE2 03:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Someone just added a "history" of the city of Scappoose, Oregon on its talk page. I was about to commend the editor for his or her addition and point out that we would need better citation, etc., before the material was added to the main article. Then I read the whole thing and noticed this fine piece of creative writing moved from history to POV to patent nonsense. I am tempted to blank it, but I'd like some opinions first. Thanks! Katr67 16:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Nothing peeves a person like being ignored or discounted without explanation, which is what blanking amounts to. Of course, blanking of material designed to be inflammatory (calling someone a poopie-head, spouting pro-skinhead material, etc.) deserves to be blanked. Pete 01:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne
If it's a temporary content fork just to work on it a bit, it might be more productive for everyone if it was worked on in userspace, or at least not on the talk page (though a link to it could be left on the talk page so people are aware of it). If it's a permanent content fork (eg. they don't intend to follow our core policies and don't intend to ever integrate it back in), then that's discouraged, and speedy archiving might be appropriate. -- Interiot 16:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
For those playing along at home, the material on the talk page was added by an anon. (Which isn't to say anons can't make valid contributions, just something to consider.) I chose to archive the silly thing. Thanks for the input and for being so trusting. :) Someone else put {{ Talkheader}} on the page so that should take care of that. Katr67 20:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The dividing line between original research and source-based research becomes quite blurred when it comes to modern history and in particular the availability of increasing numbers of primary documents on the internet. In particular, the work of the [7]National Security Archive is a great boon to historians and teachers in the line of their work. However, they are also open to egregious abuse by people with particular hobby horses. I cannot see how the use of primary source materials in a historical article does not count as original research - it is certainly verifiable, but if it cannot be found in a published work on the topic, then it is also original. Documents are the historical equivilant of a scientist's data, and unless dealt with carefully by a professional can be abused. Personally, I would like to see citations from primary documents banned in historical articles, on the basis that they are original research. If the point being made cannot be found in a published work by an authority on the subject, it should not be up to editors of this site to make it through the use of google. Cripipper 15:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Vehemently opposed This proposal supposes that because some Wikipedians don't understand the difference between a literal and an interpretive citation, no one should be allowed to use primary sources at all. That's unworkable. Below is one example of much damage would result:
Not only would the proposal gut this particular featured article, but Joan of Arc, also a featured article, would suffer. The page would lose more than half of its images: photographs of places she visited and a photostat of her signature. The four quote boxes, which highlight excerpts from her correspondence that I translated myself, would all be lost. Citations to her trials, which comprise a substantial percentage of the article's footnotes, would all have to be replaced with secondary source references. Since that would require more time than I have to spare right now, we might have to roll back to this version. [8] Also at Geoffrey Chaucer the line translation I created for the article would have to be removed. Same for the line translation at Beowulf, which served as a model for the Chaucer page. Durova 18:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose when the primary source is unambiguous in meaning. However, when there can be a reasonable level of contention over the meaning of a primary source, I believe we must be careful not to make interpetations based on it. For example, I do not believe you should interpet complicated legal documents (especially when the law is new) in their primary form. -- tjstrf Now on editor review! 22:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Two thoughts:
I started a proposal, Wikipedia:Use of primary sources in Wikipedia, based on the above. -- Francis Schonken 13:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I feel there should be a major rearrangement of the articles on Jewish Music. What is now called Jewish Music should be renamed as "Jewish Liturgical Music", other articles should be revised or consolidated, and a new article needs to be written called Jewish Music, with pointers to the other related articles.
Renaming an article is a major change, and I felt I should do it only after some discussion with other authors who have worked on the topic. But nobody has responded to my comments on the Jewish Music discussion page, though people have gone into the article a couple of times to make minor changes.
I feel a bit uneasy about going ahead with this on my own. Does anyone out there want to read the stuff over and voice a second opinion, before I go rejiggering everything?
Thanks, -- Ravpapa 17:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question about campaign workers editing articles about the politicians they work for (I'm not a campaign worker). We've had problems in the past, of course, with political staffers of current Congresspeople/MPs editing articles about their legislator or his/her opponent in a POV manner. I don't think I've ever seen a discussion about edits by a campaign worker for a non-office holder, however (perhaps I've just missed it). Particularly, what if an editor admits to being a campaign worker for a political campaign then proceeds to edit the article about the politician he or she works or volunteers for?
My initial thought is that this type of editing is fine. If the edits are well-referenced to reliable sources and appear neutral, I think WP:AGF compels us to accept the edits of the campaign worker and even encourage that editor's broader participation in the project. When we've had problems in the past, I think POV and the editor's attempt to hide his or her identity has been the problem. But I'd really like to see some other perspectives on this just to be sure. · j e r s y k o talk · 02:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
SlimVirgin ( talk · contribs) has been making changes to core policies of Wikipedia, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability without prior discussion and consensus.
For Wikipedia:No original research, see these extensive diffs since October 16th. SlimVirgin had zero edits to the talk page during that period, but made approximately 24 changes to the policy itself.
SlimVirgin has also been making somewhat controversial changes to Wikipedia:Verifiability. Thre's been a minor edit war over there between SlimVirgin and Jguk ( talk · contribs). There are so many SlimVirgin edits involved that it's tough to tell what's substantive and what's just text rearrangement. However, for that article there's some discussion on the talk page.
These changes need to be very carefully examined by others. Please take a look. Thanks. -- John Nagle 07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree fully with the idea of streamlining. However, I'm concerned that that is not happening and SlimVirgin's overly aggressive approach (reverting all edits she disagrees with on sight and without comment, and making lots of changes herself with little comment) does not improve the text as well as adopting a truly collaborative approach would be. It is frustrating that anyone else's suggestions (both mine and others) get throttled violently at birth, rather than discussed in an adult way.
Indeed, the most streamlined, and best presented, out of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR is WP:V. WP:V is a 52 word long policy covering the essentials on the point. SlimVirgin's proposed alternative at WP:ATTRIBUTE is already over 2,000 words long, and still does not cover everything within those 52 words (and believe me, not many will read it unless they are looking for loopholes)! Of course we should examine carefully whether WP:ATTRIBUTE should replace WP:V rather than rush into it as some seem to be doing.
It's already difficult to keep up with WP's 42 long and ever-changing policies - I'm not surprised that John Nagle wants to at least catch breath and see what is happening to V, RS, NOR and ATTRIBUTE before other major changes are made, jguk 12:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
These re-wordings and tightening of prose on various policies was long overdue, as anyone familiar with them would know. They could still be improved, which is why WP:ATT has been proposed, but at least they're now more comprehensible. Jayjg (talk) 16:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree. A brave effort to clean up the mess is most welcome. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone. My main concern is to insure that enough people are watching these edits to prevent a single user from making substantive policy changes, unnoticed amidst a collection of confusing edits. So please put these pages on your watch list. Thanks. -- John Nagle 20:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Those who have been in Wikipedia for quite some time know what Gdanzig refers to. These days a similar (in terms of its persuasiveness) problem plagues Jogaila. Although there have been numerous polls on the naming issue (they seem to happen each month), the Polish editors accompany the latest vote by spamming totally unrelated articles with misleading comments. [9], [10], [11]. I would like to know whether such underhand tactics of massive campaigning are allowed by current Wikipedia policies and how (and whether) the spamming impacts the validity of this vote. Thanks, Ghirla -трёп- 13:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Of course if Ghirla advertises the vote it's perfectly ok... -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 15:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Considering the harsh back and forth of the editing parties as well as the editing and attendant retaliatory reverts (reference the talk pages for either Tammy Duckworth or Peter Roskam), it is apparent that it is exceptionally difficult to maintain neutrality. In short, too many people with personal agendas are making edits that are prejudicial and not in keeping with the 5 Pillars policy of neutrality.
I propose that, due to the potential and likely abuse by political operatives (or otherwise biased individuals), resulting in WP being used for dirty tricks like astroturfing and viral campaigning, that we institute a stringent review policy for all entries for political candidates standing for election.
I know that some will complain that this proposal contradicts the Openness of WP, the third of the 5 Pillars. In response to that, I point out that the first two Pillars of WP are that this site is 1-an encyclopedia, and 2-neutral. As well, I would point out that entries about current political candidates for office have substantially more potential impact than say, a review of the latest comic book or tv series. The stakes in these campaigns are enormous, and the potential for abuse in the editing process are equally so, especially when weighing the potential disaster of a massive re-editing a day or two before the election, coloring one opponent or another as a child molester or whatnot. Such propaganda-influenced edits can swing the course of an election, and there are no repercussions for such against users who cynically choose to use Wikipedia for their smear campaigns. That WP could be used in this fashion should be considered terrifying.
This is not to say that there aren't well-meaning users who try to correct incorrect or inappropriate data. However, even these people can unknowingly influence their writing, displaying a preference for (or prejudice against) a political candidate.
All of these variables, and their potential impact are whar drive this call for closer scrutiny in regards to the edits on political candidates. I propose the following:
I understand that this is a policy shift, and can seen by some as drastic. Considering the potential for abuse (intentional or otherwise), and the far-reaching ramifications of said abuse, this policy applied to this specific category only protects the integrity and neutrality of Wikipedia. It also eliminates to a large extent the bickering, enmity and wasted bandwidth currrently occupying some of the political discussion pages. Pete 02:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne
Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies to get a broader segment of the population. Less than 25 people have made their opinion known in the poll so far, and this has some pretty far-reaching implications:
-- nae' blis 20:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Recently a point of discussions has come up: is there, or should there be, any policy or guideline regarding wikilinking portions of quotations? One editor views it as "common sense" that we should "leave the quote alone"; I disagree that we are not doing anything which isn't standard practice in the academic world, leaving the integrity of a text intact but annotating in order to provide extra information. Talk:Voyage Au Pays Des Nouveaux Gourous#Wikilinks in quoted text is where the discussion has gone on so far. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I hereby propose that the WP:NLT policy be rescinded. It is a relic from the early days of wikipedia and now that our site has grown, it should be able to handle it. The "No legal threats" policy is a stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas, which, lets face it, Wikipedia is all about. Perfect T 02:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The Siegenthaler debacle should be convincing evidence that people DO have rights they should have protected, and taking it to the courts is one way to protect them if nobody else will. Banning someone just for obliquely hinting at the court system does stifle discussion. Pretty much throws a wet rag on the discussion, in fact. Perfect T 02:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
"No legal threats" is a "stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas"? Last time i checked, all threats stifle discussion and hindre free exchange of ideas... -- `/aksha 02:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Careful, if you continue making careless suggestions like that I will sue you. But seriously, even in the very very extremely improbable cases where making legal threats would help the project (!) WP:IAR would just allow you to. But even as I am writing this sentence I can't think of any situation where making legal threats would be helpful. Excusable, ok I can imagine with a little bit of effort but helpful? Can you actually tell us what sort of situation you had in mind? Pascal.Tesson 02:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Pardon me but I must be missing something. I just can't see how it would hurt really. If someone is really doing something actionable they shouldn't worry. Perfect T 03:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok so saying I'm going to have my attorney contact the Wikimedia foundation is totally allright under the WP:NLT policy? Is that what you're saying? Perfect T 04:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement? Please explain Perfect T 19:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't editors on here have some sort of notice of litigation filed though? Or does the WP:NLT policy simply mean "no empty legal threats," as real legal manoevering is well-prepared for, as you put it. And where did Brad Patrick go to law school anyway? Perfect T 19:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
"I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement" allow me to explain then
If you wish to 'exercise' any of those two rights which you do have, you are more than welcome. -- `/aksha 04:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
A couple points of clarification:
-- Richard 04:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Not to beat a dead horse here, but another fundamental right is to stop debating an absurd policy proposal made by an indefinitely blocked sockpuppet troll. Pascal.Tesson 05:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Perfect T ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been confirmed to have been a sockpuppet of Courtney Akins ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and has been permablocked. User:Zoe| (talk) 01:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
The license that all Wikipedia text content is covered by is in the process of being rewritten. Apparently no one involved with Wikipedia cares, as the discussion draft has been open for discussion for over a month now and the silence has been deafening. If anyone cares about the future of Wikipedia, go here and join the discussion. Sections that significantly affect Wikipedia include 6a, 8a, and 8b. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Kaldari 19:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Not being a - and this is not a derogatory term to me - nerd, I am not really sure what the issues are here. Perhaps you could tke a moment and tell us all what they are, from your point of view. :) Arcayne 02:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
You would be incorrect that nobody cares. But since the wiki license is for GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation all material will be under both the 1.2 version, as well as any later versions, dual, or triply licensed, as versions proliferate. Here's an interesting discussion about the issues of defending infringement under the GFDL, and other issues, from an IRC transcript: James explains the law. -- Yellowdesk 23:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
A good policy should have the following features:
Additionally, policies as a whole should complement each other, and should not contain duplication. There should not be too many policies, but there should be enough to cover all key points.
Very few of our policies actually follow all of the above. Many are good on the first point. Almost all are very poor on the second, fourth and fifth point. And far too many are rule based when a principle based rule would be better (and far, far shorter).
Ideally, we'd go through the whole collection of policies, and make them up to scratch. This wouldn't involve trying to change WP's procedures in practice, instead it would be a fundamental rewrite. How long that would take would depend on willingness to succeed - and in particular a willingness to enforce brevity. I for one would be willing to help. Any other volunteers? jguk 11:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I see Jossi, with hindsight, is changing his mind:) But Terryeo and SlimVirgin are just commenting on the edges, not the heart of what I wrote.
I'm not quite sure what Terryeo means by "goals" - they are not in the standard WP lexicon. But I'm not sure the distinction is important. He writes "Policy consists of broad, general statements of intent" and "It is in our Guidelines that we begin to find rules which are based on POLICY". That's exactly what I am arguing for - having policies of broad, general statements, accompanied by guidelines that delve into the detail. The only disagreement we appear to have is to the extent our current policy is rule rather than principle based - we both seem to favour principle-based policy.
Regarding SlimVirgin's comment, I would ask her to re-read what I wrote on the point, namely that a good policy should "[b]e expressed in positive terms - ie say what behaviour, content, etc is expected/wanted, not just what behaviour/content is banned". That does not equate to expressing "everything...in positive terms". A reader, having finished reading the policy, should be able to answer the question "what is required of me?", not just "what is not required of me?". jguk 09:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Last week, Wikipedia talk:Editing with a conflict of interest was merged into Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest and the resulting page expanded considerably. As the merge effort has been undertaken mainly by one user , wider involvement of other editors would be appreciated. (Note: I recused myself from editing as I have this guideline affects me) ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 15:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
There is discussion going on about such a prohibition at Wikipedia talk:Permanent semi-protection of official policy pages or at Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy#Proposed_amendment_to_this_policy. Please contribute to the discussion if you'd like to do so. Cheers, JYolkowski // talk 18:44, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
There is a survey in progress at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) to determine if there is consensus on a proposed change to the U.S. city naming conventions to be consistent with other countries, in particular Canada. -- Serge 05:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
And users with a knowledge of how to conduct meaningful Google searches, are especially welcomed to join in! - Pete
The proposal would allow U.S. cities to be inconsistent with the vast majority of other U.S. cities and towns, which (with a few exceptions) all use the "city, state" convention. - Will Beback 23:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
No.3 of the WP:WEB notability guideline states:
The content is distributed via a site which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.
There's a few instances where people have tried to use this to push through software (like self-published games and mods) that otherwise has no mentions (or passing mentions) in third-party sources, by claiming that the software is distributed through something like tucows, download.com or gamespot (these sites don't really establish notability, they have many, many pieces of software under their wing, and the quality varies wildly). I don't think this was the intention of WP:WEB's 3rd criterion (my belief is that it's used mainly for articles, like a blog/news site that's under the umbrella of a larger publisher, Slate (magazine) being the offhand example) That criterion really needs to be clarified. ColourBurst 02:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
^ Content that is distributed by independent online sites will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such content will be complete regardless. For example, Ricky Gervais had a podcast distributed by The Guardian. Such distributions should be nontrivial. Although GeoCities and Newgrounds are exceedingly well known, hosting content on them is trivial.
And goes on to say sites like download.com do not count. -- Simonkoldyk 22:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm writing a feature for Radio Open Source on admin culture, I was wondering if there was someone out there who might have something to say, vis-a-vis groups and cliques in the admin world, loyalty to other admin friends, relationships in the betwen administrators. Email me at: jessica at radioopensource.org, but make it an email address. Much appreciated! 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military vehicles): please comment on the talk page. — Michael Z. 2006-08-15 20:50 Z 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
This post has been moved to the proposal page Wikipedia:German page approval solution 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
See initial draft at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship process 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Just came across Robert Parkyn, a City of Calgary, Alberta alderman from 1926 to 1944. Someone is putting in the entire historical list of Calgary aldermen. Is this is a good thing or a bad thing? -- John Nagle 05:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Like, for example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, outside Mann's Chinese Theater. I am pretty much guessing that folks in Europe or China aren't the least bit interested in that particular block(s) of sidewalk. However, we kinda are. ;) Arcayne 04:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't go so far as to support "the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office", if "should" in that context means that it's a problem if some aldermen remain undocumented. (When I started editing Wikipedia, there were some U.S. Congressmembers lacking articles. Now, that was a problem that had to be addressed.) On the other hand, I don't see the problem with retaining such an article if someone is willing to research and write it. JamesMLane t c 15:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I know removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed, but what should one do when a user blanks out their own talk page (including an archive link which had warnings on)? Should they still be warned about it? Should the talk page be reverted? Would be interesting to know what to do in this case... - ||| antiuser ( talk) ( contribs) 01:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question: I received a warning for cutting material from here. However, I had removed frm where I - as a newbie - had incorrectly placed it to put it at the bottom of the page, with its own header. So, I wasn't vandalizing other's text and whatnot. Is it appropriate for me to clear off the warning from my talk page? Arcayne 02:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate guidance on the use of citations from published books which purport to be factual accounts, but which themselves clearly fall short of the standards of WP:V, or WP:RS, or WP:NPOV.
A related issue which I would also like clarified is the acceptable use of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention.
I am sure that these are issues which arise frequently, but I will illustrate the problems by citing a specific group of exemplars.
The book Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, which represents itself as a biography of Werner Erhard was published in 1993 and went out of print shortly thereafter. It has been used as a source reference for numerous edits, especially by user:Smeelgova and user:Kat'n'Yarn.
I have raised my concerns about the acceptability of this book as a source with these two editors in discussions on the (archived) Landmark Education talk [ [12]] page, and their response was that it qualified automatically by virtue of being a published book. I have also brought the issue up with various administrators, but have not obtained a clear ruling so far.
Clearly the book is partisan in nature, and seeks only to highlight and sensationalise negative material about its subject. But more importantly, it appears to me that the book fails to meet what I understand to be the criteria for being a reliable primary or secondary source. Although written in a matter-of-fact narrative style, it clearly deals with events to which the author was not party or witness. That would be fine if he were to identify specific verifiable sources for the events he describes, but he does not. There are no footnotes or references to identify the author's informants for any particular incident which is depicted. Perhaps anticipating criticism over that shortcoming the author includes the following bland statement it the 'Acknowledgements' section at the end of the book (p. 279):
My question is: "Is this good enough?" Especially bearing in mind the potentially defamatory nature of many of the assertions in the book (not only as they apply to Mr Erhard, but also to many other living individuals mentioned by name. And also considering that many of these accounts are directly contradicted in other published books (e.g. Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST by William Warren Bartley III; and 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard by Jane Self. By contrast both of these volumes are meticulous in identifying their sources and witness statements).
As I said, I also have a concern about the usage of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention. It was a frequent gambit of user:Smeelgova to write a verbatim extract from this book (or other suspect source) into an article in blockquote format with a ref tag. Although sophisticated readers would recognise this as indicating a quotation, I feel that others might be misled into seeing it as a factual assertion within the article. Should there be an explicit indication that this is a quotation? Maybe the problem would not arise if we are more rigorous about the sources that are acceptable? DaveApter 13:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
______________________________________
Transformational Workshops
Brian Regnier began his experience with "Transformational Workshops", through his early associations with Werner Erhard and est :
____________________________
I'd suggest a ban for new policies. Too much laws kill the law, as nobody understands them except those who really want to pass by them.
Let's peruse the existing ones calmly and take note of any problems that could or have come and domains that are not covered. In common law, analogy applies : why not here ?
Then let's make a validation test of our policies, rules and hints against the goals of WP. Do they help, are they accurate, clearly defined, structurate enough. Amendments are welcome, but only after a delay - let's say, some months.
A former WP editor wants to go back to an expert encyclopedia, based on best of breed articles taken from here, but excluding, I hope I understand, anything related to unnecessary fandom. Fans are many amongst our editors here ... so this means really strict rules. Do we want this ? What do you think ? -- DLL .. T 18:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the Dutch Wikipedia about the necessity of citing sources. People use the following arguments: "It would cost too much work to add sources for all articles because there are so many articles without", "I have no reason to lie about these things", "I know because I have an academic education", "I know because I was there" or "I know because I am a specialist". Implicitly, the debate is about the application of two out of the three English Wikipedia content policies, namely Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. In need for stronger arguments, I would like to know whether there are any official(ly authorized) documents about content policies that apply for all language versions of Wikipedia. Could anybody help me with this? Best regards, Ilse@ 21:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
It comes down to credibility. If you make a claim and no-one knows what foundation you have for it, why should anyone believe it? And what value to do place on an article that you are not sure you can believe or not?
Really it is a matter of best practice when writing anything technical to refer to your sources for all new information that you seek to introduce. So, forget whether Jimbo has made a binding statement about it for non-English wikis - look at the big picture. Always quote your sources, jguk 13:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems like Politically motivated AfDs are the "elephant in the room"--which everyone sees, but no one can mention. Certain editors will go around in groups (some people call them "cabals") and actively push their own narrow POV.
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will vote to delete pages which are against their political beliefs, yet fervently support to keep similar pages which suport their political beliefs.
Partisan editors voting record is clear--if an article is against their narrow POV, no matter how well written it is, how well sourced it is, etc, it will be put up for deletion, and this little group will vote against it. I have been an editor for just over a year, and I have been troubled by the amount of articles which have been deleted by partisans of ALL political persuasions, right or left.
It is clear that certain editors are doing it because they are biased and slanted, but no wikieditor can actually bring this up. When another wikieditor brings it up, people scream WP:NPA. I support WP:NPA fully, but in some cases, policies are detrimental. WP:IAR? Policies are tools to help us wikieditors build a better encyclopedia. When a small group of users is actively deleting well referenced material because of political bias, then the policy rule needs to be reevaluated.
Why is the word (insert title here) cabal so off limits?
Why when anyone brings up the subject, they are heckled off the talk page?
One user suggest this:
Is this the only option?
Any other experienced editors have suggestions? Travb ( talk) 23:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Old example, removed from above:
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will attempt to squelch 9/11 consipracy theories by putting these articles up for deletion. (Just for the record, I do not support any 9/11 consipracy theories)
Another example is a user's page, who actively attempts to delete all conspircy theories:
User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard
I am sure there are other user pages like this. I bring this one up simply because it is the only one I am aware of. Any other editors now of others? Travb ( talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
An RfArb has been opened on the subject of the policy proposal Protecting children's privacy. I must ask at the outset that my fellow editors refrain from commenting here, within this little section, on the merits of this proposal. It may be good or bad; that's not the issue I wish to discuss. I'm concerned about it before ArbCom.
The Arbitration Committee is our court of last resort; there is no appeal from its final decisions except to the person of Jimbo. ArbCom makes its own rules and hears whatever cases it likes. It has almost invariably confined itself to issues involving user conduct, including admins and other editors; it consistently rejects cases which are purely article content disputes. This is as it should be. ArbCom is not answerable to our community. This is a necessary evil.
We have a mechanism for creating project-wide policy; it involves the discussion of all interested community members and may result in consensus. This is the mechanism by which the vast majority of proposals are made, amended, and passed into policy or rejected. This is as it should be. The mechanism is inefficient, frequently raucous, and does not always work as we might wish. This is a necessary evil.
We do not, under any circumstances, want ArbCom to rule on the status of a policy proposal. If the discussion on a proposal gets heated, as it so often does, we ask editors to cool out; if they don't, we ask admins to warn, then block them. We may employ other steps in dispute resolution. So long as discussion continues without participants exceeding the limits permitted in discussion, all is well -- regardless of the status of the proposal on the table.
If admins fail in their duties and begin to wheel war, then we resort to ArbCom. Quite simply, the only sure way to terminate a wheel war is to take away sysop privileges from the warriors. Technically, only a Steward can do this; politically, Stewards heed only ArbCom on this project. ArbCom thus holds the big stick in wheel wars and can stop them by deadminning or threatening to deadmin. This is what ArbCom is for and this is all we need.
If we permit or, worse, encourage ArbCom to rule on policy matters, then they become not only our supreme-and-only-court but also our legislators. Whenever a policy discussion starts to go against you, you just bring it to ArbCom; if enough arbitrators are sympathetic, your problem is solved without any further discussion or messy consensus. Indeed, policy discussion is now pointless, mere heckling from the peanut gallery. ArbCom makes all the rules. We do not want to buy a ticket to this destination.
Until now, ArbCom has acted with restraint and confined itself to user conduct issues. Now, with 5 arbitrators in favor of hearing this case, it looks as though they wish to decide policy for us as well.
I strongly urge all community members, new and old, to protest this power shift. This is our community. It will only remain ours so long as we keep a hand on it. John Reid 19:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I want more discussion. I'd prefer that the discussion remain civil and that people tag the proposal with care. (There is indeed a new tag for such polarized discussions of proposed policies: {{ polarized-proposal}}.) I would like to expect that everyone will conduct himself properly; that nobody will edit war, tag war, or cite the proposal as "policy" if it has not garnered consensus. If someone should forget himself, I hope that he is cautioned civilly; if that fails, I hope he is blocked judiciously. I trust admins involved in such blocking to do so with complete disregard for the substantive issue, blocking only to remove stubborn, disruptive editors from the table; I'd like to believe that all involved admins will be mindful of our no wheel warring policy and discuss such blocks among themselves, rather than block war. If the proposal itself becomes too unstable, I expect admins to protect it from further editing, while permitting discussion to continue on talk. Of course, I wish to think that involved admins will avoid protect-warring at all costs by discussing the process issue among themselves. Finally, if some of my expectations are not met and weak admins do wheel war, then I expect a case to be brought to ArbCom -- a case involving user conduct.
In short, I want our process of policy formation to play itself out. I do not want to see it aborted by ArbCom or anybody else. Am I alone? John Reid 00:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed that whenever Japanese names are mentioned on Wikipedia they are written in an inconsistent fashion. The convential Japanese way of writing names is to write the family name first, then the given name second, in contrast to the Western tradition of given names first and family names second.
Most of the articles which mention Japanese names do not state which format they are using, which could be a real problem for those who are not familiar with Japanese given names, and may not be able to distinguish otherwise between the two, and therefore may become confused as to which name is which, or, if they are completely unaware of the mistake, use the wrong name for the person altogether.
I think that it would be wise to implement a wikipedia policy regarding Japanese names to clarify which format they are to be written in primarily, and have this stated in the relevant articles.
Please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#External_Links_and_YouTube. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Now that I'm back to enjoying my retirement, I thought I would tempt fate with a proposal for you all. I've put it on my user page (not really the right place, I know, but it seemed as good a place to start as any). For a number of reasons, it could not fit into this wiki as currently configured, but if a partitioned area were to be made available, then we could make progress. Obviously, whether such a proposal could be implemented would involved a policy decision at the highest levels of the Wikimedia Foundation, but I've decided to test the waters here first. David Marshall 10:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question regarding WP:NPA's scope - I was informed recently that only attacks on editors constitute a violation. But what if a demeaning reference to women as "virgins" and senior citizens as "old-age pensioners" is posted on a user talk page [15]? There are many women and old people who contribute to Wikipedia and (will) find those "general" statements quite insulting. While an administrator informed me that such statements are not violative of WP:NPA [16], I'd like to have more opinions. Rama's arrow 18:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Just a note: the relevant policy here would be WP:CIVIL. This was not intended as a personnal attack. I believe it is indeed improper but it is not targeted at anyone in particular. Pascal.Tesson 15:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
"Pensioners" is not demeaning in the slightest. It was the official term used in Britain until fairly recently (and the editor whose talk page it was on is apparently from London), it is accurate (since they are indeed drawing a pension), and it is still the most common term (along with OAPs) used for elderly people in everyday speech, including by most pensioners themselves. "Senior citizens" still sounds patronising to me, both to the people themselves and to those of us who are younger (since "senior" actually means "more important than", not "older than"), and is rarely used in everyday speech in Britain. "Virgins" is quite obviously being used in a lighthearted way to mean people who are naive and innocent; why on earth it should be taken as referring specifically to women is beyond me. This was in no way a personal attack or uncivil in my opinion and I'm puzzled why anyone would take it to be. -- Necrothesp 00:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
...The true litmus test of neutrality is conducted each day through peer revision. Unfortunately, the need for a policy regarding revision/reversion when it comes to political candidates is of growing importance, as more sophisitcated methods of astroturfing and viral marketing become available to even the most pedestrian of political followers.
Clearly, the inclusion of second-hand information (in many cases, citing blogs, news analyses, and commentary from campagin staffers disguised as being fromt he candidate him/herself) is cause for pause. We should not care as to the liability of a candidate's media handlers to their candidate. It is not our business that they can be fired for advocation of some bizarre policy or political leaning. The only thing that should matter - I repeat, the ONLY thing - is to verify that what we are documenting are actual, factual statements about the candidate whose name is on the entry,
If so inclined, editors should feel free to include an entry for the campaign manager, whose comments some editors are so keen to include. After all, they are the campaign manager's statements, and not the candidate's. Again, by allowing the inclusion of statements that clearly cast in a positive light a candidate they may have previously personally endorsed in discussion, all of us are proceeding down a slippery slope wherein far less-reputable folk can use the doorway some demand be open to cause serious damage to specific political entries immediately before an election.
Example: let's say that tomorrow (being shortly before Election Day), someone posts a citable source (an obviously biased or partisan, swiftboat-like source) that says either one candidate or the other is being investigated by the FBI's Financial Crimes Unit. It does not matter if the allegation is true (and the citation may be purged right before the polls close), but the damage will have been done. People who read WP for a heads up on the candidates (there actually are people who put this off until the last moment) will see the erroneous comment and make a decision based upon that. Before you can say 'Florida Recount,' WP has unwittingly helped unscrupulous people to alter the results of an election.
I guess I am not understanding how wikilawyering (this is not policy, etc.) is a proper justification for avoiding neutrality and lending credence to unsubstantiated statements. This is why I discuss this matter here - we are the front line of neutral documentation. Heresay is for articles about Wham! reunions and Lost episodes, where the stakes are not nearly as high. WP cannot alter whether there is a Wham! reunion, nor can it likely alter the episodic content of Lost. It is entirely conceivable that it can alter the course of an election, and WP needs to protect its own reputation and neutrality from bias. Some form of control needs to be instituted.
I have stated before my ideas for handling political candidates before understanding WP's obvious procedural complexity. Knowing a bit more, I suggest the following. Please understand that these policies are specific to political candidates currently seeking office (within a year of the election):
I believe that this preserves all Five Pillars of WP, as well as making the process transparent. It also allows for editors to hash out the debatable language before it goes live. This avoids editwars and the petty reverting that occurs with contentious political issues and candidates. Arcayne 19:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I know everyone hates ads but here is something interesting to read:
What would Wikipedia.org be worth if it were a for-profit?
http://www.watchmojo.com/web/blog/?p=626
I got this off the discussion page of the Wikipedia article. Pseudoanonymous 04:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Seconded; WP is priceless...it goes way beyond business and narrow interests.-- User:Zaorish
I wrote down pretty much the whole thing, so I'm confident my quotes are accurate. Can I post what, say, Senator Olympia Snowe said about the Iraq war, especially because she's changed her position from what's on her article? -- User:Zaorish
Dear Wikipedia,
I would very much like to express my regrets at the inclusion of pictures of erect male genetalia. Specifically the aricle "Penis". Having found this web-site to be, in my own words to my friends and peers, "the best thing on the web", I was more than a little put out to realize that it contained images which are classified as pornography in the United States.
I attempted to rectify this, and my edits were immediately removed.
Now, should all of you wish your daughters to view erect male penises, please shout me down and I will (perhaps) leave you in peace. But I cannot help but think that this is one (perhaps the ONLY) area where I feel that the inclusion of these photos is a matter of opinion, and a bad one at that.
We should be making a resources for ourselves and our children. Should we allow pictures of erect penises? Any penises? Can I put a picture of mine up? Are pictures of naked children acceptable? Should we include links to pornography sites?
There is, apparently a line. It is my opinion that it has been crossed. Please clarify where this line is for me so I can include your policy to my congressmen.
Xchanter 01:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Xchanter
We're not censored. Especially not for young children. If it's appropriate to the article, keep it. If you genuinely have legal concerns or wish to take legal action, the person you want to contact is wikipedia's official legal advisor User:BradPatrick. legal threats are otherwise not allowed. After looking at Special:Contributions/Xchanter, this is starting to look suspicious like trolling. -- `/aksha 02:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
For any users interested, the convening user above (Xchanter) appears to have been trolling. His talk page has a followup discussion where he self destructed and has been blocked for 24 hours pending further review. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 06:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe this is stereotyping on my part, but I envision this sort of complaint as coming from a parent in a small United States community (they usually use U.S. English or cite U.S. law) and I imagine the same person would - in another context - condemn censorship in China and Saudi Arabia. Sixteen years ago, when Saudi censors prohibited U.S. troops on its soil from having access to Cosmopolitan magazine and Chinese censors blacked out stories about Tienanmen Square, these issues seemed entirely separate. Now we live in a smaller world. Wikipedia isn't a community publication or even a national one. People in mainland China only recently regained access to most of the English language Wikipedia after a year of total firewalling and they still can't read Wikipedia's Chinese language edition. Nearly one human being in five is affected by that censorship, which in itself is enough reason to oppose efforts to censor Wikipedia at an organizational level: the establishment of any such precedent would become a wedge for further censorship. It's simple to solve a perceived problem in one's own home. Just filter access in the home through parental control software or lock out the site and send the kids to a family-friendly Wikipedia mirror. When the children become more mature they'll appreciate the additional lessons in civics and free expression. Durova 20:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
The legislation that actually applies here is COPPA. We are regulated by the FTC (not the FCC) according to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which is in force. That doesn't depend on locale, only on the fact our servers are in the United States. Also, we are protected by the claim that our material is educational. Issues arise when material is used in a way that can't be justified as educational. However, putting a penis on Penis is a pretty clear educational use so no one need fear it will be removed. How ever Europeans like to complain about prudish Americans, the fact is our server resides in the US and so must follow the laws of that country. pschemp | talk 01:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
The user in question has been indefinately blocked for repeated legal threats even after my block. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 21:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I found this User:Daniel.Bryant/Title which is transcluded from various user pages Special:Whatlinkshere/User:Daniel.Bryant/Title. It superimposes some text over the 'official' page title that is generated by the Wiki software. Surely this must be against some policy, could someone take care of this matter? Femto 21:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Sure, no problem. Can I polish your boots for you too? Wash your car? Pick up your dry-cleaning? -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 07:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I started an
WP:MfD on
User:Glen_S/Title,
User:Daniel.Bryant/Title and
User:1ne/Title. Feel free to add any more if there are.
The MfD procedure should take care of removing the inclusion links to such pages, in the event the Wikipedia community decides such pages should not be used. -- Francis Schonken 08:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there a guideline anywhere that says that we are writing not about the present but about all recorded history? In other words, that an item should not be removed from a list just because it has been demolished? -- NE2 23:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I took a quick look and I don't know enough about the subject itself to have an informed opinion about it. It seems that if the page is a List then it should certainly be as comprehensive as possible. If it's an article though, the list of examples seems excessive. Generally 3 - 4 examples should be adequate. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 00:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes you can structure the knowledge to meet both aims without confusion. I am currently working on the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, which basically gives a current view e.g. As of June 2006, only two wrecks are designated.... However this article is supported by a list - List of designations under the Protection of Wrecks Act - which lists all of the designations including ones since revoked. If I had called it the List of Protected Wrecks, whether this was currently or historically protected might have been more of an issue. Viv Hamilton 12:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, the current wording of WP:NCP#Nick names, pen names, stage names, cognomens is not clear enough to cover the case of nicknames "conjoined" with real names (e.g. Joe "King" Oliver, Benjamin "Pap" Singleton). I proposed an ammendment to clarify it; please share your thoughts at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Proposed ammendment for "conjoined" nicknames. Duja ► 10:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
It was brought to my attention that a number of relatively small cities - like Ashland, Kentucky (population about 25,000) and Charleston, West Virginia (population about 50,000) - have "Roads of..." articles (there is a discussion of the issue on this talk page. While I think the intention is quite nobile, I suspect that, in the global context of Wikipedia, this would either A) open up a huge can of worms as to deciding which cities, if any, would merit similar articles (there is no Roads of New York City, for example); or B) lead into a serious dispute as to which roads/avenues/byways merit inclusion into the article. An anonymous editor suggested that Roads of Ashland, Kentucky and Roads of Charleston, West Virginia be merged with the respective articles covering the cities, presumably because either there was quite a bit of duplication already at the target articles, or the information would be better used in the appropriate State Road, U.S. Route, or Interstate articles - and the suggestion drew a heated reaction from the articles' writer.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind a Roads of Troy, Michigan or Roads of Falkirk, Scotland or Roads of Chilliwack, British Columbia article, but unless some standards regarding cities' "eligibility" or determining which streets/roads/etc., would be included in the article (and such standard should be mentioned somewhere in the article or the talk page), I also see a huge slippery slope that would be best avoided. This issue needs objective input from people who haven't invested themselves in these (or similar) articles. B.Wind 22:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Well there's a Roads of Louisville, Kentucky, for example. I had intended for it to cover like Main Street, Broadway and our Parkway system (designed by Olmstead), about which I can cite a great deal of reliable sources, actual meaningful info and so on. Right now it just covers highways for the most part, which I'm not tremendously interested in, but my point is that reliable sources do exist for some roads, enough to create an article on roads that's interesting, if nothing else to road geeks and people interested in local history. But if all you can say is "There's a road here, it's this long"... I dunno, that's not really for an encyclopedia. But sometimes you can say a whole lot more.
So the question really, "have reliable sources written meaningfully about multiple roads in a town/city?" and if so, all notable roads of the city can be covered in that one article, until you get to cities like New York where individual roads get articles. Improv is right in that we shouldn't include everything just because we technically can, but if something is interesting and based on reliable sources, even if it's highly obscure, we should strongly consider including it. -- W.marsh 16:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to call more attention to Talk:Yahoo!#Requested move and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (trademarks)#Trademarks with Question Marks (?) and Exclamation Points (!). For years (literally), we have had a trademarks guideline that discourages the use of special formating on trademarks and names, e.g. we avoid Macy*s and REALTOR® even though those are the "official" ways of writing Macy's and Realtor. By extention, it would seem to me that we should follow USA Today, Reuters, Business Week and many others in dropping the "!" from Yahoo! and simply use the more natural form "Yahoo" to describe the search mega corp. Some people at the move request are resisting this and arguing that the "!" should be used because it is part of the official name. In effect saying that there should be some sort of official punctuation exemption to MOS-TM. I would like to get more input on resolving this tension between our long standing guideline and what many people want to do in practice. Dragons flight 13:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Just putting a general comment here, as I want to see how many people are interested in the issue of flags in infoboxes and the more general issue of infoboxes. There was a recent vote for deletion for Template:Infobox Scientist that failed to reach consensus, and disputes ongoing at Talk:Isaac Newton and Talk:Albert Einstein. Carcharoth 14:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd just like to get a sense of whether people think articles for sports teams and leagues should be updated on a daily basis with standings from the current season. Any opinions? Is there any current policy/guideline on this? – flamurai ( t) 23:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
For an example of what I was talking about, here's a list of articles that I've run across over the last few days, that I'm not sure are "encyclopedic". To me, they all appear to be unsourced and of marginable notability, but are obviously part of a much larger project that seems determined to use Wikipedia to document every sports score in every tournament, ever. Anyone else have an opinion on this kind of stuff? -- Elonka 20:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
What to do if an adjective yields far more google hits than the noun? This is the case for anti-Hindu when compared to anti-Hinduism. See talk:anti-Hindu. Andries 20:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
[17] Please comment there not here. Andries 14:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Added to the talk pages of some articles is the template {{ Notable Wikipedian}}. This adds a box to the talk page containing the text "The subject of this article, [Article name], has edited Wikipedia as [User name] (talk · contribs)", and places the talk page in Category:Notable Wikipedians. I recently removed this template from Paul Staines because there was no strong evidence that User:Paul.staines was in fact the subject of the article. Another user has reverted this, citing WP:AGF. If this is valid, the consequence is that every claim by a user to be the subject of an article has to be accepted unless there is proof to the contrary. I think this could get us into difficulties, and it appears to contravene WP:LIVING. Alan Pascoe 22:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
NOw that I've had a night to think about it, it seems like this tag is almost entirely OR, unless there are independent sources which prove that the people who use those User names are, indeed, the people they claim to be. I'm sure the newspaper articles which have made much of Jimbo having edited his own article could be used as a source to prove that User:Jimbo Wales really is Jimbo Wales, but much of their information comes from Wikipedia, thus making their sources suspect, as well. User:Zoe| (talk) 19:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Consider melding the noteworthy battles section with the battle summaries. I will be willing to provide information on as many battles as possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Statistic ( talk • contribs) .
I recently nominated an article for deletion (AfD) based on the criteria under "Conflict of Interest" which appeared to be an acceptable category under which an article could be nominated. However, during the discussion (discussion: [19]), several contributors pointed-out that although the "Wikipedia:Deletion policy" page gives Conflict of Interest as a reason for AfD, the page itself under Conflict of Interest specifically states that notability is the only issue for AfD, not conflict of interest. Thus, it seems that there is some ambiguity or conflicting information in the guidelines for AfD. I'm requesting discussion over whether it appears to others that the criteria need to be clarified or not in regard to this issue. Cla68 02:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there a pre-existing policy for disambig pages where people have names that
Reason I ask is that I noticed there were two disambig pages for Charles Gray and Charles Grey. Neither of them linked to the other(!), so I added mutual links.
However, disambig pages are meant as navigation aids (not lists of identically-named things), so is it a good idea to have one for each minor spelling difference when people are unlikely to know which one they want anyway? Or should there just be one (e.g. for both spellings of "Charles Gray")?
Fourohfour 16:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have a policy or guideline on whether or not to include bible verse citations in the reference section along with other references, or whether to just list them inside parentheses.
In most print biblical scholarship, cites are usually provided like this:
The alternative would be to treat them like normal references:
The parenthetical style has the advantage of it being easier to view the citations-- you don't have to click on the link to see the cite. The hypertext style has the advantage of being much more readable-- when you have a paragraph full of cites, it can get a little difficult to follow the sentence itself.
Which way should we do things? Is there any kind of style guide specifying? -- Alecmconroy 23:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
See WP:SCHOOLS3. JoshuaZ 01:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
This series of templates was just removed, but I cannot find the discussion where it was decided to remove them. -- ArmadilloFromHell 15:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
By chance I've stumbled about using OhmyNews as reference for Wikipedia articles. As OhmyNews accept, edit and publish articles from its readers, in an open source style of news reporting I see its value as a source as rather minimal. It's like using Wikipedia as source, only worse.
A quick check revealed quite a number of articles linking to ohmynews.com, I'm tempted to delete all of them:
Pjacobi 09:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Are there any policies (beyond the general "What Wikipedia is/is not")- or even policy discussions- that can shed light upon whether or not it is acceptable to have lists of ingredients in articles such as Snickers and Twix? Fourohfour 14:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Any and all help appreciated on this proposal. Havok (T/ C/ c) 18:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The edit option on all of the pages is pretty dumb. I recently changed information on a page and it was left like that for about a week. This "tool" could be potentially dangerouse to all Wikipedia users. I sugest that you get ride of this iption or find away to make it more... safe. By the way, I kindly went back and changed teh information back to its origanal form before I did my little "test."—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.255.109.142 ( talk • contribs) .
Well, I for one am glad you changed them back, if you hadn't we might not have been able to understand them at all, condidering all the spelling mistakes you made in just your post, also, tjstrf is right, this is a wiki, you can change whatever you want, I will make an educated guess that you are new, or else you would be a member, and not complain about the edit button. Tarryhoper 00:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Many articles in Wikipedia contain the phrase "it is interesting to note...". Perhaps I'm being nitpicky, but that doesn't seem NPOV. Who it to decide what is interesting? The "interestingness" of something is completely subjective. Encyclopedias shouldn't tell us what is interesting and what is not. I propose that all such instances be replaced with "it may be noted that...". -- Munchkinguy 04:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
As a Wikipedist who deals in primarily articles about upcoming films, particularly superhero films, I'm curious about others' perspectives about how to determine when to create articles for upcoming films. What criteria should an upcoming film meet if the film has not reached the production stage yet? Is it enough to have a writer and director attached, like Ant-Man? What about films that don't have anything attached, but still generate the occasional news, like The Punisher 2 or Wolverine? What about the notability of a sequel based on its predecessor's success, such as The Dark Knight? I've used the crystal ball and notability policies both ways, defending something like Interstellar or voting for the deletion of something like Battle Angel. When can an upcoming film go from its subsection on the source material's article or a director's article to become an article that would grow in time? -- Erik ( talk/ contrib) @ 18:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
One of our Indian editors, Bharatveer, feels very strongly that Hindi/Hindustani names and words should not be rendered in Nastaliq script in Bollywood-related articles. He has removed the Nastaliq script from more than a dozen actor/actress articles, claiming that since Urdu is not their native tongue, their name should not be given in Nastaliq script. He is up to three reverts on Anupam Kher.
This is a complex issue. One underlying language ( Hindustani) has been written in two scripts for centuries. Muslims tended to use a Perso-Arabic alphabet (which is what they used to read Arabic and Persian literature) and Hindus used Devanagari. The Muslims also tended to speak a Hindustani that contained more Persian and Arabic loan words, a dialect generally called Urdu. The Hindu version of Hindustani is called Hindi and contains more Sanskrit loan words. Since the Partition of India, the divergence between the Pakistani version of Urdu and the Indian version of Hindi has increased. However, at the level of the man in the street, people still speak Hindustani, without fancy loan words. Bollywood films aim for the widest possible audience and they are generally written in a Hindustani-leaning Hindi that is easily understood by Pakistanis as well as North Indians. Not only that, movie titles and credits are usually given in both Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts, so that all audiences can read them.
The continued presence of Muslims and Muslim script in India is profoundly irritating to followers of Hindutva, an Indian political movement, and Bharatveer seems to be following a Hindutva line in most of his edits. Recently he tried to remove the Nastaliq script from the Bollywood article; a long edit war ensued, in the course of which it was established that most Bollywood films use both scripts in their titles and advertising, and that if there is any justification for adding Devanagari versions of words, names, and titles (the convenience of South Asian users of the English WP), it applies equally to Nastaliq.
Bharatveer gave up trying to remove Nastaliq from the Bollywood article, but has, in the last couple of days, switched to removing it from the actor/actress articles. He says that if the actor/actress isn't a "native Urdu speaker," then his/her name shouldn't be given in Nastaliq script. But of course the issue isn't native speech (many actors/actresses are NOT native Hindustani speakers -- they had to learn Hindi in order to get roles) but giving the name in forms that allow South Asian readers to figure out the proper pronunciation (which is not apparent from the Romanized form of the name).
Can we have a blankety-blank policy that says that if Devanagari is used to render a Hindi word, that Nastaliq can be used also? Without a policy, I forsee a grinding war of attrition over all the India and Indian cinema related articles, in which some editors are adding the Devanagari and Nastaliq forms of words, names, and titles, and Bharatveer is removing the Nastaliq. Over and over. He's removing information that could be useful to some users because he wants to make a political point, and it's taking time and energy away from writing the dang encyclopedia.
If a policy isn't the proper way to handle this, what is? Is this going to have to go to RfC and Arbcom? I'm not sure that stopping Bharatveer's personal anti-Nastaliq crusade would solve the general problem, since there are other Hindutva WP editors who would be happy to take up the struggle. But I'd be open to any suggestions for stopping the edit wars. Zora 08:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, some guidelines for ALL articles would seem to be useful. In addition to dealing with Devanagari and Nastaliq, I've also run into Arabic (lots of Arabic), Persian, Turkish, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam ... It gets to be just too much at the start of an article. The article will start like this: XXX (script A, script B, script C) blah blah blah. That's actually kind of hard to read. Suppose we had a little infobox (as small as feasible) that could sit off to one side and hold the various non-Roman scripts. In tiny print. Enlargeable. No more than four scripts? I'll have think about general guidelines for which to choose. Very good points re thinking in broader terms. Zora 08:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready now?
The only thing I forsee as being potentially contentious is the chronological ordering of filmographies, but I still suspect (hope) a supermajority will quickly emerge, once put to wider discussion, favouring consistency and traditional listing standards.
Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :-) -- Quiddity 20:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be better to have four special question sections, review questions, open questions, article concerns (typographic, factual and compo), and one for non-neutral points of view.
I also believe that the focus of Wikipedia should be based primarily on comprehending, with a bias towards the sympathetic, sort of like Wikinfo. Lets all get on the same page. Then try to understand other people and synthesize if we can. I think that's the best way.
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU, AV, AW, AX, AY, AZ, BA, BB, BC, BD, BE, BF, BG, BH, BI, BJ, BK, BL, BM, BN, BO · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193
What is the policy on posting images that might allready be part of a copyrighted process? in addition, can individual copyrights be posted for various processess within the website?
Okay, WP:EL says that forums are heavily discouraged as external links because the external links section should only really be used for extra information and not things like social networking. There's a few exceptions to this of course.
So, another editor and I have a disagreement on whether or not the Blasian article should link to the forum "blasian forums" (it's in the article itself right now). He believes having a link is valuable and points to other articles (which haven't had this challenged yet) Eurasian (which has a yahoogroup), Asian fetish (which has another forum), and Oriental (which has a link to a forum debating the term).
I don't strongly believe on precedent in Wikipedia (being that almost everything is on a case-by-case basis because of diverse subject material and sources, and moreover the articles themselves currently have their POV challenged), and I believe that the forums in all those places should probably be moved. But again, we disagree, so I'm taking it here to get more opinions.
I think most of the forum links should be removed in all those articles, actually. I'll ask him to comment here. ColourBurst 05:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
A rewrite of the above guideline has been written at Wikipedia:External links/workshop. Edits and discussion welcome. Steve block Talk 21:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm unsure of where to ask this, so I figured this would be a good place. I'm curious as to what level of enforcement we're supposed to take on suckpuppet warnings. For example, DreamGuy ( talk · contribs) and Victrix ( talk · contribs) have been tagged as "Likely" sockpuppets ( the Request for checkuser). DreamGuy, however, has been removing the tag repeatedly from his user page (insulting everyone who restores it [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]).
Now, personally, I think DreamGuy is a dick. Because of my (rather impassioned) interest in the matter, though, I don't want to wade in and start enforcing its existence if he's not breaking a policy by removing it. I did some poking around, but didn't find anything.
Can anyone weigh in (on the tag's enforcement, not the matter of DreamGuy himself)? EVula 21:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
There just is something annoying to me when you go to click on a link for something, and it turns out that in reality, each word is its own link.
Such as, United States Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, in which case "United States Navy", "Admiral" and "Hyman G. Rickover" are all separate links.
I think that there could be something to delineate that there are different links therein before you have the cursor over or have clicked.
-- Jickyincognito 08:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I usually hover over a multi-word link to see what gets underlined. It would be nice not to have to do that though. When I write, I try to construct my sentences to avoid just this problem. I'd rather have the freedom to write the best sentence for the job. A subtle visual cue would fix both annoyances. It'd probably be best to write some kind of adjustment into the wiki rendering software than to adopt a textual writing convention among editors. Maybe consecutive links could be given extra spaces between them, or be given slightly different colors? -- Loqi T. 09:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion regarding use of images in signatures on the WP:ANI page. Please click here. If you want to discuss about the issue the page there, and if you want to tell me how tactless I have been, you can come to my talk page. :) — Nearly Headless Nick {L} 16:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone direct me to a policy that says content in the English Wikipedia should actually be in English? I know this sounds rediculous, but the parameters for Template:French commune are in French, i.e. instead of "mayor" they have "maire" and instead of "population" they have "sans". I brought this issue up on the template talk page and was informed that this was on purpose so that it would be easier to copy content from the French Wikipedia. Unfortunately, I can't find any policy to refute this argument. Kaldari 22:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I think this is what you're looking for. Not sure how it applies to the French language, but the it might carry over a bit. -- Jabrwocky7 23:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
copied from admin noticeboard.
Hi, I've been canvassing some support recently, as some of you may have seen, for a program/project to harmonise all of the user page templates and warnings. I'm looking for an admin, not necessarily to carry out much work, but who will be able to point me in the right direction, on certain issues. I'm willing to do all the leg work, but could just do with someone sitting on my shoulder to achieve this goal. If you're interested, or would like to know more please see here .Have a glance through all the different types of warnings and if you have any ideas please list them.
This proposed guideline has been extensively used and referred to for its intended purpose, to simplify Wikipedia:Articles for deletion discussion, during the past five months, an average of more than every other day. It has simplified discussion, and made it less contentious. It has grown and reacted to discussion and the results of those AfDs; it reflects community practice, and is the sum of many points of view. It has been five months as a proposal. It is not perfect, but it is a lot better than nothing. I believe it is now time to mark it as a full fledged notability guideline, and subset of WP:BIO.
Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Notability (pornographic actors)#Ready to become a notability criteria guideline, and help us reach consensus on marking it as such. AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that some administrators are deleting individual revisions in the straightforward way (delete and then undelete the revisions not to be deleted), while others employ a cleaver trick to make these revisions not in the way if the page is to be purged of some other revisions in the future. While I never performed this operation myself, I have outlined it at Wikipedia:Selective deletion. If what I wrote makes sense, this page could be linked from or merged with other "practical deletion" guidelines. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 15:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I am monitoring a biographical article in which one editor is using "personal communication" with the subject as a citation. Has there been any discussion in WP:V or WP:RS regarding whether this is acceptable or not. Thanks! - AED 20:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure how many people are aware that there is an ongoing discussion on the status of WP:RS. I personnally think this is a very very bad idea but more than anything I want to make sure that the community at large gets involved in that debate. Pascal.Tesson 21:43, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
My understanding from WP:MOSDP is that for Title (disambiguation), names that consist only partly of Title (e.g. John Title) should not be added to dab pages, yet should not be removed, and once more than a few exist they should be moved to a separate page. Intelligent people will disagree on application, of course. Is there prior discussion to refer to, a prior RfC, or should I start an RfC? ENeville 23:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Today, I found an image of a young boy that had been uploaded and referenced on an article page. The identity of the boy was not relevant to the article, and the quality of the image was such that he would have been clearly identifiable to any family member or anyone else who knows him. Do we have an official policy on this kind of thing, because in my view, it amounts to child abuse and could land Wikipedia in hot legal water. In a way, it's similar to the issues around biographies of living people. -- Portnadler 17:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
If a clearly identifiable image of your son or daughter was uploaded and used in a Wikipedia article without your consent, would you not object? -- Portnadler 14:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Child abuse? Come on... what damage is possibly being done to the child? Pascal.Tesson 14:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Generally, a photo taken in a public place is not considered to be a concern (no expectation of privacy), as long as the context is positive or neutral (as opposed to the bedwetting example). Unless it was accompanied by personal details, such an image is unlikely to pose a hazard to the child anyway. Dragons flight 15:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The UK Information Commissioner considers a photograph of a person, unless (eg) a crowd scene, to be Personal Data, capable of uniquely identifying a living individual (assuming they are alive). This is all rather formal and under the (UK) Data Protection Act 1998. Now, this does not legally affect Wikipedia since it is not a UK organisation and has no offices in the UK, but it should be considered to be a useful guideline. Wikipedia would, if subject to this law, be a "Data Controller", and, as such, would have the duty to inform the person in the picture that they were "processing" this picture, and would have the duty to remove it (under section 10 of that act) if the individual objected.
This means that any photograph, not a child's photograph, is a debatable asset if of a living individual.
Pictures of dead people are fine, they have no rights! Fiddle Faddle 15:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's take a possible example. Wicked Uncle Ernie takes a picture of his pretty 12-year old niece wearing high-heeled shoes. Unbeknown to said niece and her parents, Ernie then uploads the picture to Wikipedia and uses it in an encyclopedic article about shoe fetishism. There is no copyright issue: Ernie took the picture himself. But how would you react if you were the girl's parents? -- Portnadler 16:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, that's like saying we have no way of verifying the provenance of any picture that the uploader claims as his/her own (unless the real photographer makes a complaint). -- Portnadler 16:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The issues need to be focused, instead of shifting every time someone asks a question (this is unfortunately typical for every time an issue with possible moral implications is discussed here). There are three separate issues, all assuming there are no copyright issues and they are taken in a location at which the photographer had a right to be present:
Keep the issues separate. "Parents may object" is a non sequitor to "It doesn't constitute child abuse." Postdlf 17:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
there's a long-running debate regarding the inclusion of notable fansite links on the
LOST article; it specifically concerns the inclusion of a link to lostpedia (a wiki concerning the television series LOST), but it broadly impacts fansites in general.
the status quo is that comparable articles (
X-Files,
Star Trek,
Firefly,
Battlestar Galactica,
Futurama,
South Park,
Angel (TV series),
Desperate Housewives,
Gilmore Girls,
Veronica Mars,
The Office (US TV series),
The Simpsons,
Saturday Night Live) all have links to external fansites, whilst the
Lost (TV series) article has a link to
the fuselage, an official, abc-endorsed forum, but no links to unofficial sites, unlike the aforementioned articles.
it is this editors belief that a clique of editors are resisting the inclusion of a link to (an)other notable fansite(s) (for what reason, i do not know) in the article - the main reason cited being the theories section present in many articles on lostpedia, which in a way constitutes
original research - the nature of the show essentially encourages theories.
the purpose of this addition to the discussion on policy is not to garner votes in a straw poll, or anything like that; it is to suggest that a greater degree of clarity is desirable in the policies that determine whether or not fansites deserve inclusion in an article. comments on this are most welcome.
a more detailed discussion of this issue is at Talk:Lost (TV series)/Fansites -- Kaini
addendum: although by no means desiring to call the Jimmy Wales card, his comments on the issue are here. -- Kaini 03:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Why do they not just take a vote, list all the fan sites and see which sites get the most votes in a poll of editors who have been editing the article for at least a month or have over X edits, leave the poll open forever and as votes change change the links. Make it a cap of two or three links to fan sites and the votes contribute, if anything it will turn the article into a better one as people who want to come from their favorite fansite to vote will need to help the article before they can have theirs counted. I am sure this idea can use tweaking like simply not allowing single purpose accoutns to vote or something. -- Nuclear Zer0 12:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Linking to fansites is essential because they are nearly always the best resources on pop culture topics. They are also a lot less commercial than official sites. Wimstead 13:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I realise the greater many of readers and contributors to the Wikipedia are American, and I do not wish to denigrate the efforts of so many fine editors but can it be made clear when making policy regarding style that not everybody knows all the States (and particulary the abbreviations), or will assume that a reference to a Governmental department is peculiar to the USA (most particulary when referred to as an acronym). Many contributors and readers are from outside of the US, and some may not have English as a first language, and may need reference points. It also helps Search Engines find the relevent article!
I have just edited an wikilink which was [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]] by removing the second conditional text. Since the article was specifically about a US policy think tank it made it less understandable, especially as the term United States was therefore omitted from the introductory paragraph. This may not have mattered too much but the United Kingdom also had a Secretary of War in the timeframe referred to by the article.
For the US student or reader familiarity often obscures this deficit, but nearly all geopolitical articles outside of the USA include mention of the nation. To maintain a standard in Wikipedia this should be policy for all geopolitical articles.
I realise that this may well have been mentioned before... LessHeard vanU 21:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'm not sure there is a specific guideline written about this but it's at least implicit in Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. Keep in mind that although editors might indeed fail to be specific enough, there are very few instances where a more precise description (such as yours) will be reverted. Even if a guideline existed, you can be certain that articles will still be written without conforming to it and it is up to you and I and everyone else to make it better one article at a time. Pascal.Tesson 22:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Youth policies and Wikipedia talk:Youth policies. 6SJ7 22:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I still don't know why you would advertise an alternate solution to a problem which has not occurred in practice, especially given that there is clearly disagreement on the talk page of WP:CHILD on whether or not we should have any policy on the subject and given that the whole issue is going to the arbitration committee. And I think the key point made during the first debate is that either we are required by law to adopt such a policy (in which case, let the office take care of it) or we are not and then why are we wasting our time trying to fix something that ain't broke. Pascal.Tesson 04:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
There are ongoing disputes about what is the criteria for including a certain book in WP, and what is allowed in these articles to conform with WP:NPOV.
My view is that Wikipedia is not Amazon.com. If a reader wants to know just what a book contains, when it was published, reviews canvassed by the publisher, etc. the user is better served going to Amazon or a similar site. If a book is prominent enough to have an article in WP, we need to then provide some context, present the controversy the book raised if any, and provide counterpoints to the author's views, if held by notable authors. Otherwise these type of articles are just advertisement.
What are the policies/guidelines available for creating articles about books in WP, if any?
≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I have nominated Template:TV3 (New Zealand) Primetime Schedule for deletion, on the grounds that it's a copyvio (the TV station explicitly forbids publishing of its listings without purchasing the right to do so), that Wikipedia is not a TV guide, and that it's a recreation of a speedy-deleted predecessor. Since the deletion on the ground of Wikipedia not being a TV guide would set a precedent affecting many other articles on television networks, I'm drawing wider attention to the deletion debate. Please comment at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 October 22, not here.- gadfium 04:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Just ran across Centrist Party (United States). Neither the article not the party's web site indicates that it is anything more than one guy, or a handful, claiming to be a political party. Besides just making a remark on its talk page, is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do to press for demonstration of notability? I see we have a template {{ notability}}, but it appears to be specific to articles in about half a dozen areas (biographies, bands, etc.) and doesn't seem to cover political parties. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I said "is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do". Yes, I'm aware that I could suggest deletion, but usually when I fire a warning shot I don't aim at the head. - Jmabel | Talk 09:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I hear diverging opinions about the question whether it is okay, fair use or copyright violation, informative or uninformative, ugly, lazy to include a table of contents of the non-fiction book in an article about book. See e.g. here The Making of a Moonie, Bounded Choice. It is a re-curring dispute. Any thoughts? Andries 12:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I have updated and expanded the guidance on non-U.S. copyright issues for Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. All comments are welcome. Physchim62 (talk) 14:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it about time that it becomes policy to use correct headers for the References sections. A lot of different forms are currently used, with most of them not really making sense. A lot of people use:
==Notes==
when they are references and not footnotes. Footnotes are rarely used on wikipedia since it would be just as easy to go to the article which the note refers to (if there is one, there often is). I have seen one, maybe two pages which actually had a footnote in the Notes section, although the majority were still references. So shouldn't something be added to the MoS to say that inline citations should be placed under the References header with a subheader below that for General references:
==References== div class="references-small"><references/></div>
==References==
====General references====
Then all the references will be under one header, and they will just be references. I suppose another way could be to call References, Notes and references.
Ideally another <ref> style thing will happen for <note> (there is already {{note}} or something but it isnt built into Wikipedia) so that a seperate header above
==References==
would have the notes and that would be just for notes. No crossing over.
I haven't found a real preference yet for Notes or References, they are about even, but Notes doesn't make sense. Can't something be done? chris_huh 16:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
FYI: There's currently a lively debate over whether stricter guidelines should be established on the use of the {{ spa}} tag at Wikipedia talk:Single purpose account. -- Netsnipe ► 04:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I am sick and tired of seeing fanatical POV-pushers taking over wikipedia articles. A detailed explanation of this is at User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric controversy and User:Infinity0/Wiki disclaimer. What I suggest is simple.
*in the article/template namespace and any others prone to dispute, but not talk pages
My first proposal for x would be 10. See, this does not harm normal people in any way, since 10 edits is quite a lot, and there is always a preview button. But, this would really slow down disputes, where two or more people keep editing against each other. -- infinity 0 23:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
And I don't mean "If they make x+1 edits they get blocked", I mean "it is technically impossible to make more than x edits to the same article in one day." -- infinity 0 23:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually Wikipedia adopted a new guideline last month to deal with disruption. Check out WP:DE. Regards, Durova 19:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Also consider large articles with many sections. It is very possible to want to make 10 or even 20 reformats, spelling corrections, additions of citations, etc., to an article, just one at a time as you have time, and as you see the need. Not all of Wikipedia is a war zone, you know, there is also real work going on. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kryder's law (second nomination). An article was created for a "law" that didn't really exist; it was just the whimsical title of a magazine article and had never been used at all otherwise. After the Wikipedia article had been around a while (violating WP:NEO) the term started to be used by a handful of people. Now it is failing a deletion attempt because people have started using it, mimicking the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article itself has a section explaining how the term did not exist prior to its own existence. — Omegatron 19:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
So I was wondering what people think about the notability of academic journals. Some of them lead their fields, and a publication in them can make a career at a stroke. Others are hugely significant. Others still are very good for their papers' authors, but not top-flight journals. My particular context is the very many journals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of these journals are definitive in their fields. In the UK, for instance, publications in many of them are (eventually) worth real money from the Government's research-funding bodies.
So my question is this. To what extent should we have seperate articles on them; to what extent should we aggregate them somwhere, and at what granularity (by discipline, by publisher, by ... )? For example, we already have (from my field) IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. These are both seminal journals, and each has published papers of massive significance to the research community (and, in due course, to the lay public and their information-carrying devices). But what of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology? You, generally speaking, would try publishing there if your paper didn't make into the others. Should it, and others like it, get an article? - Splash - tk 19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
There's not really a lot you can say about these publications - they are simply collections of other peoples' papers - what you can say about them (first publication date, publishing body) ensures that all of these articles will be cookie-cutter identical . I would prefer they be made redirects to the associated body - to IEEE for IEEE publications, ACM for ACM publications, etc. Raul654 13:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I've started a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Blanking which I hope will clearly explain to editors when blanking is vandalism, and when it may be a legitimate content dispute, possibly from an inexperienced editor. In my experience, this is one of the most frequent causes of misdirected vandalism warnings and reports on WP:AIV, and the potential problem of an editor trying to remove inappropriate material (possibly even BLP-violations) and getting warned or even blocked for his pains is sufficiently serious that we need clearer instruction for Recent Changes patrollers and the like. Currently, all I can think of to point to is the one line in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and possibly the two lines about 'Bold edits' under 'What vandalism is not'. Edits and opinions are welcome. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 19:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I am sick and tired of seeing fanatical POV-pushers taking over wikipedia articles. A detailed explanation of this is at User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric controversy and User:Infinity0/Wiki disclaimer. What I suggest is simple.
*in the article/template namespace and any others prone to dispute, but not talk pages
My first proposal for x would be 10. See, this does not harm normal people in any way, since 10 edits is quite a lot, and there is always a preview button. But, this would really slow down disputes, where two or more people keep editing against each other. -- infinity 0 23:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
And I don't mean "If they make x+1 edits they get blocked", I mean "it is technically impossible to make more than x edits to the same article in one day." -- infinity 0 23:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually Wikipedia adopted a new guideline last month to deal with disruption. Check out WP:DE. Regards, Durova 19:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Also consider large articles with many sections. It is very possible to want to make 10 or even 20 reformats, spelling corrections, additions of citations, etc., to an article, just one at a time as you have time, and as you see the need. Not all of Wikipedia is a war zone, you know, there is also real work going on. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kryder's law (second nomination). An article was created for a "law" that didn't really exist; it was just the whimsical title of a magazine article and had never been used at all otherwise. After the Wikipedia article had been around a while (violating WP:NEO) the term started to be used by a handful of people. Now it is failing a deletion attempt because people have started using it, mimicking the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article itself has a section explaining how the term did not exist prior to its own existence. — Omegatron 19:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
So I was wondering what people think about the notability of academic journals. Some of them lead their fields, and a publication in them can make a career at a stroke. Others are hugely significant. Others still are very good for their papers' authors, but not top-flight journals. My particular context is the very many journals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of these journals are definitive in their fields. In the UK, for instance, publications in many of them are (eventually) worth real money from the Government's research-funding bodies.
So my question is this. To what extent should we have seperate articles on them; to what extent should we aggregate them somwhere, and at what granularity (by discipline, by publisher, by ... )? For example, we already have (from my field) IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. These are both seminal journals, and each has published papers of massive significance to the research community (and, in due course, to the lay public and their information-carrying devices). But what of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology? You, generally speaking, would try publishing there if your paper didn't make into the others. Should it, and others like it, get an article? - Splash - tk 19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
There's not really a lot you can say about these publications - they are simply collections of other peoples' papers - what you can say about them (first publication date, publishing body) ensures that all of these articles will be cookie-cutter identical . I would prefer they be made redirects to the associated body - to IEEE for IEEE publications, ACM for ACM publications, etc. Raul654 13:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I've started a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Blanking which I hope will clearly explain to editors when blanking is vandalism, and when it may be a legitimate content dispute, possibly from an inexperienced editor. In my experience, this is one of the most frequent causes of misdirected vandalism warnings and reports on WP:AIV, and the potential problem of an editor trying to remove inappropriate material (possibly even BLP-violations) and getting warned or even blocked for his pains is sufficiently serious that we need clearer instruction for Recent Changes patrollers and the like. Currently, all I can think of to point to is the one line in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and possibly the two lines about 'Bold edits' under 'What vandalism is not'. Edits and opinions are welcome. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 19:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I began to notice how some people upload unnecessary amount of images on their user pages and "galleries". And then they legitimize the pictures' presence in Wikipedia by offering them to be displayed in other user pages or articles. An example is [6].
I myself have one pic of myself on my user page, but I think that should be it. Wikipedia should not serve as personal home pages for people. ( Wikimachine 04:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC))
I just added Image:NYCityscene-June302005.jpg to bus lane, which only had diagrams. -- NE2 03:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Someone just added a "history" of the city of Scappoose, Oregon on its talk page. I was about to commend the editor for his or her addition and point out that we would need better citation, etc., before the material was added to the main article. Then I read the whole thing and noticed this fine piece of creative writing moved from history to POV to patent nonsense. I am tempted to blank it, but I'd like some opinions first. Thanks! Katr67 16:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Nothing peeves a person like being ignored or discounted without explanation, which is what blanking amounts to. Of course, blanking of material designed to be inflammatory (calling someone a poopie-head, spouting pro-skinhead material, etc.) deserves to be blanked. Pete 01:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne
If it's a temporary content fork just to work on it a bit, it might be more productive for everyone if it was worked on in userspace, or at least not on the talk page (though a link to it could be left on the talk page so people are aware of it). If it's a permanent content fork (eg. they don't intend to follow our core policies and don't intend to ever integrate it back in), then that's discouraged, and speedy archiving might be appropriate. -- Interiot 16:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
For those playing along at home, the material on the talk page was added by an anon. (Which isn't to say anons can't make valid contributions, just something to consider.) I chose to archive the silly thing. Thanks for the input and for being so trusting. :) Someone else put {{ Talkheader}} on the page so that should take care of that. Katr67 20:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The dividing line between original research and source-based research becomes quite blurred when it comes to modern history and in particular the availability of increasing numbers of primary documents on the internet. In particular, the work of the [7]National Security Archive is a great boon to historians and teachers in the line of their work. However, they are also open to egregious abuse by people with particular hobby horses. I cannot see how the use of primary source materials in a historical article does not count as original research - it is certainly verifiable, but if it cannot be found in a published work on the topic, then it is also original. Documents are the historical equivilant of a scientist's data, and unless dealt with carefully by a professional can be abused. Personally, I would like to see citations from primary documents banned in historical articles, on the basis that they are original research. If the point being made cannot be found in a published work by an authority on the subject, it should not be up to editors of this site to make it through the use of google. Cripipper 15:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Vehemently opposed This proposal supposes that because some Wikipedians don't understand the difference between a literal and an interpretive citation, no one should be allowed to use primary sources at all. That's unworkable. Below is one example of much damage would result:
Not only would the proposal gut this particular featured article, but Joan of Arc, also a featured article, would suffer. The page would lose more than half of its images: photographs of places she visited and a photostat of her signature. The four quote boxes, which highlight excerpts from her correspondence that I translated myself, would all be lost. Citations to her trials, which comprise a substantial percentage of the article's footnotes, would all have to be replaced with secondary source references. Since that would require more time than I have to spare right now, we might have to roll back to this version. [8] Also at Geoffrey Chaucer the line translation I created for the article would have to be removed. Same for the line translation at Beowulf, which served as a model for the Chaucer page. Durova 18:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose when the primary source is unambiguous in meaning. However, when there can be a reasonable level of contention over the meaning of a primary source, I believe we must be careful not to make interpetations based on it. For example, I do not believe you should interpet complicated legal documents (especially when the law is new) in their primary form. -- tjstrf Now on editor review! 22:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Two thoughts:
I started a proposal, Wikipedia:Use of primary sources in Wikipedia, based on the above. -- Francis Schonken 13:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I feel there should be a major rearrangement of the articles on Jewish Music. What is now called Jewish Music should be renamed as "Jewish Liturgical Music", other articles should be revised or consolidated, and a new article needs to be written called Jewish Music, with pointers to the other related articles.
Renaming an article is a major change, and I felt I should do it only after some discussion with other authors who have worked on the topic. But nobody has responded to my comments on the Jewish Music discussion page, though people have gone into the article a couple of times to make minor changes.
I feel a bit uneasy about going ahead with this on my own. Does anyone out there want to read the stuff over and voice a second opinion, before I go rejiggering everything?
Thanks, -- Ravpapa 17:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question about campaign workers editing articles about the politicians they work for (I'm not a campaign worker). We've had problems in the past, of course, with political staffers of current Congresspeople/MPs editing articles about their legislator or his/her opponent in a POV manner. I don't think I've ever seen a discussion about edits by a campaign worker for a non-office holder, however (perhaps I've just missed it). Particularly, what if an editor admits to being a campaign worker for a political campaign then proceeds to edit the article about the politician he or she works or volunteers for?
My initial thought is that this type of editing is fine. If the edits are well-referenced to reliable sources and appear neutral, I think WP:AGF compels us to accept the edits of the campaign worker and even encourage that editor's broader participation in the project. When we've had problems in the past, I think POV and the editor's attempt to hide his or her identity has been the problem. But I'd really like to see some other perspectives on this just to be sure. · j e r s y k o talk · 02:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
SlimVirgin ( talk · contribs) has been making changes to core policies of Wikipedia, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability without prior discussion and consensus.
For Wikipedia:No original research, see these extensive diffs since October 16th. SlimVirgin had zero edits to the talk page during that period, but made approximately 24 changes to the policy itself.
SlimVirgin has also been making somewhat controversial changes to Wikipedia:Verifiability. Thre's been a minor edit war over there between SlimVirgin and Jguk ( talk · contribs). There are so many SlimVirgin edits involved that it's tough to tell what's substantive and what's just text rearrangement. However, for that article there's some discussion on the talk page.
These changes need to be very carefully examined by others. Please take a look. Thanks. -- John Nagle 07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree fully with the idea of streamlining. However, I'm concerned that that is not happening and SlimVirgin's overly aggressive approach (reverting all edits she disagrees with on sight and without comment, and making lots of changes herself with little comment) does not improve the text as well as adopting a truly collaborative approach would be. It is frustrating that anyone else's suggestions (both mine and others) get throttled violently at birth, rather than discussed in an adult way.
Indeed, the most streamlined, and best presented, out of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR is WP:V. WP:V is a 52 word long policy covering the essentials on the point. SlimVirgin's proposed alternative at WP:ATTRIBUTE is already over 2,000 words long, and still does not cover everything within those 52 words (and believe me, not many will read it unless they are looking for loopholes)! Of course we should examine carefully whether WP:ATTRIBUTE should replace WP:V rather than rush into it as some seem to be doing.
It's already difficult to keep up with WP's 42 long and ever-changing policies - I'm not surprised that John Nagle wants to at least catch breath and see what is happening to V, RS, NOR and ATTRIBUTE before other major changes are made, jguk 12:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
These re-wordings and tightening of prose on various policies was long overdue, as anyone familiar with them would know. They could still be improved, which is why WP:ATT has been proposed, but at least they're now more comprehensible. Jayjg (talk) 16:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree. A brave effort to clean up the mess is most welcome. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone. My main concern is to insure that enough people are watching these edits to prevent a single user from making substantive policy changes, unnoticed amidst a collection of confusing edits. So please put these pages on your watch list. Thanks. -- John Nagle 20:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Those who have been in Wikipedia for quite some time know what Gdanzig refers to. These days a similar (in terms of its persuasiveness) problem plagues Jogaila. Although there have been numerous polls on the naming issue (they seem to happen each month), the Polish editors accompany the latest vote by spamming totally unrelated articles with misleading comments. [9], [10], [11]. I would like to know whether such underhand tactics of massive campaigning are allowed by current Wikipedia policies and how (and whether) the spamming impacts the validity of this vote. Thanks, Ghirla -трёп- 13:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Of course if Ghirla advertises the vote it's perfectly ok... -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 15:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Considering the harsh back and forth of the editing parties as well as the editing and attendant retaliatory reverts (reference the talk pages for either Tammy Duckworth or Peter Roskam), it is apparent that it is exceptionally difficult to maintain neutrality. In short, too many people with personal agendas are making edits that are prejudicial and not in keeping with the 5 Pillars policy of neutrality.
I propose that, due to the potential and likely abuse by political operatives (or otherwise biased individuals), resulting in WP being used for dirty tricks like astroturfing and viral campaigning, that we institute a stringent review policy for all entries for political candidates standing for election.
I know that some will complain that this proposal contradicts the Openness of WP, the third of the 5 Pillars. In response to that, I point out that the first two Pillars of WP are that this site is 1-an encyclopedia, and 2-neutral. As well, I would point out that entries about current political candidates for office have substantially more potential impact than say, a review of the latest comic book or tv series. The stakes in these campaigns are enormous, and the potential for abuse in the editing process are equally so, especially when weighing the potential disaster of a massive re-editing a day or two before the election, coloring one opponent or another as a child molester or whatnot. Such propaganda-influenced edits can swing the course of an election, and there are no repercussions for such against users who cynically choose to use Wikipedia for their smear campaigns. That WP could be used in this fashion should be considered terrifying.
This is not to say that there aren't well-meaning users who try to correct incorrect or inappropriate data. However, even these people can unknowingly influence their writing, displaying a preference for (or prejudice against) a political candidate.
All of these variables, and their potential impact are whar drive this call for closer scrutiny in regards to the edits on political candidates. I propose the following:
I understand that this is a policy shift, and can seen by some as drastic. Considering the potential for abuse (intentional or otherwise), and the far-reaching ramifications of said abuse, this policy applied to this specific category only protects the integrity and neutrality of Wikipedia. It also eliminates to a large extent the bickering, enmity and wasted bandwidth currrently occupying some of the political discussion pages. Pete 02:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne
Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies to get a broader segment of the population. Less than 25 people have made their opinion known in the poll so far, and this has some pretty far-reaching implications:
-- nae' blis 20:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Recently a point of discussions has come up: is there, or should there be, any policy or guideline regarding wikilinking portions of quotations? One editor views it as "common sense" that we should "leave the quote alone"; I disagree that we are not doing anything which isn't standard practice in the academic world, leaving the integrity of a text intact but annotating in order to provide extra information. Talk:Voyage Au Pays Des Nouveaux Gourous#Wikilinks in quoted text is where the discussion has gone on so far. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I hereby propose that the WP:NLT policy be rescinded. It is a relic from the early days of wikipedia and now that our site has grown, it should be able to handle it. The "No legal threats" policy is a stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas, which, lets face it, Wikipedia is all about. Perfect T 02:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The Siegenthaler debacle should be convincing evidence that people DO have rights they should have protected, and taking it to the courts is one way to protect them if nobody else will. Banning someone just for obliquely hinting at the court system does stifle discussion. Pretty much throws a wet rag on the discussion, in fact. Perfect T 02:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
"No legal threats" is a "stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas"? Last time i checked, all threats stifle discussion and hindre free exchange of ideas... -- `/aksha 02:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Careful, if you continue making careless suggestions like that I will sue you. But seriously, even in the very very extremely improbable cases where making legal threats would help the project (!) WP:IAR would just allow you to. But even as I am writing this sentence I can't think of any situation where making legal threats would be helpful. Excusable, ok I can imagine with a little bit of effort but helpful? Can you actually tell us what sort of situation you had in mind? Pascal.Tesson 02:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Pardon me but I must be missing something. I just can't see how it would hurt really. If someone is really doing something actionable they shouldn't worry. Perfect T 03:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok so saying I'm going to have my attorney contact the Wikimedia foundation is totally allright under the WP:NLT policy? Is that what you're saying? Perfect T 04:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement? Please explain Perfect T 19:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't editors on here have some sort of notice of litigation filed though? Or does the WP:NLT policy simply mean "no empty legal threats," as real legal manoevering is well-prepared for, as you put it. And where did Brad Patrick go to law school anyway? Perfect T 19:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
"I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement" allow me to explain then
If you wish to 'exercise' any of those two rights which you do have, you are more than welcome. -- `/aksha 04:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
A couple points of clarification:
-- Richard 04:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Not to beat a dead horse here, but another fundamental right is to stop debating an absurd policy proposal made by an indefinitely blocked sockpuppet troll. Pascal.Tesson 05:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Perfect T ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been confirmed to have been a sockpuppet of Courtney Akins ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and has been permablocked. User:Zoe| (talk) 01:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
The license that all Wikipedia text content is covered by is in the process of being rewritten. Apparently no one involved with Wikipedia cares, as the discussion draft has been open for discussion for over a month now and the silence has been deafening. If anyone cares about the future of Wikipedia, go here and join the discussion. Sections that significantly affect Wikipedia include 6a, 8a, and 8b. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Kaldari 19:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Not being a - and this is not a derogatory term to me - nerd, I am not really sure what the issues are here. Perhaps you could tke a moment and tell us all what they are, from your point of view. :) Arcayne 02:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
You would be incorrect that nobody cares. But since the wiki license is for GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation all material will be under both the 1.2 version, as well as any later versions, dual, or triply licensed, as versions proliferate. Here's an interesting discussion about the issues of defending infringement under the GFDL, and other issues, from an IRC transcript: James explains the law. -- Yellowdesk 23:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
A good policy should have the following features:
Additionally, policies as a whole should complement each other, and should not contain duplication. There should not be too many policies, but there should be enough to cover all key points.
Very few of our policies actually follow all of the above. Many are good on the first point. Almost all are very poor on the second, fourth and fifth point. And far too many are rule based when a principle based rule would be better (and far, far shorter).
Ideally, we'd go through the whole collection of policies, and make them up to scratch. This wouldn't involve trying to change WP's procedures in practice, instead it would be a fundamental rewrite. How long that would take would depend on willingness to succeed - and in particular a willingness to enforce brevity. I for one would be willing to help. Any other volunteers? jguk 11:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I see Jossi, with hindsight, is changing his mind:) But Terryeo and SlimVirgin are just commenting on the edges, not the heart of what I wrote.
I'm not quite sure what Terryeo means by "goals" - they are not in the standard WP lexicon. But I'm not sure the distinction is important. He writes "Policy consists of broad, general statements of intent" and "It is in our Guidelines that we begin to find rules which are based on POLICY". That's exactly what I am arguing for - having policies of broad, general statements, accompanied by guidelines that delve into the detail. The only disagreement we appear to have is to the extent our current policy is rule rather than principle based - we both seem to favour principle-based policy.
Regarding SlimVirgin's comment, I would ask her to re-read what I wrote on the point, namely that a good policy should "[b]e expressed in positive terms - ie say what behaviour, content, etc is expected/wanted, not just what behaviour/content is banned". That does not equate to expressing "everything...in positive terms". A reader, having finished reading the policy, should be able to answer the question "what is required of me?", not just "what is not required of me?". jguk 09:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Last week, Wikipedia talk:Editing with a conflict of interest was merged into Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest and the resulting page expanded considerably. As the merge effort has been undertaken mainly by one user , wider involvement of other editors would be appreciated. (Note: I recused myself from editing as I have this guideline affects me) ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 15:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
There is discussion going on about such a prohibition at Wikipedia talk:Permanent semi-protection of official policy pages or at Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy#Proposed_amendment_to_this_policy. Please contribute to the discussion if you'd like to do so. Cheers, JYolkowski // talk 18:44, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
There is a survey in progress at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) to determine if there is consensus on a proposed change to the U.S. city naming conventions to be consistent with other countries, in particular Canada. -- Serge 05:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
And users with a knowledge of how to conduct meaningful Google searches, are especially welcomed to join in! - Pete
The proposal would allow U.S. cities to be inconsistent with the vast majority of other U.S. cities and towns, which (with a few exceptions) all use the "city, state" convention. - Will Beback 23:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
No.3 of the WP:WEB notability guideline states:
The content is distributed via a site which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.
There's a few instances where people have tried to use this to push through software (like self-published games and mods) that otherwise has no mentions (or passing mentions) in third-party sources, by claiming that the software is distributed through something like tucows, download.com or gamespot (these sites don't really establish notability, they have many, many pieces of software under their wing, and the quality varies wildly). I don't think this was the intention of WP:WEB's 3rd criterion (my belief is that it's used mainly for articles, like a blog/news site that's under the umbrella of a larger publisher, Slate (magazine) being the offhand example) That criterion really needs to be clarified. ColourBurst 02:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
^ Content that is distributed by independent online sites will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such content will be complete regardless. For example, Ricky Gervais had a podcast distributed by The Guardian. Such distributions should be nontrivial. Although GeoCities and Newgrounds are exceedingly well known, hosting content on them is trivial.
And goes on to say sites like download.com do not count. -- Simonkoldyk 22:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm writing a feature for Radio Open Source on admin culture, I was wondering if there was someone out there who might have something to say, vis-a-vis groups and cliques in the admin world, loyalty to other admin friends, relationships in the betwen administrators. Email me at: jessica at radioopensource.org, but make it an email address. Much appreciated! 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military vehicles): please comment on the talk page. — Michael Z. 2006-08-15 20:50 Z 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
This post has been moved to the proposal page Wikipedia:German page approval solution 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
See initial draft at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship process 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Just came across Robert Parkyn, a City of Calgary, Alberta alderman from 1926 to 1944. Someone is putting in the entire historical list of Calgary aldermen. Is this is a good thing or a bad thing? -- John Nagle 05:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Like, for example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, outside Mann's Chinese Theater. I am pretty much guessing that folks in Europe or China aren't the least bit interested in that particular block(s) of sidewalk. However, we kinda are. ;) Arcayne 04:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't go so far as to support "the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office", if "should" in that context means that it's a problem if some aldermen remain undocumented. (When I started editing Wikipedia, there were some U.S. Congressmembers lacking articles. Now, that was a problem that had to be addressed.) On the other hand, I don't see the problem with retaining such an article if someone is willing to research and write it. JamesMLane t c 15:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I know removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed, but what should one do when a user blanks out their own talk page (including an archive link which had warnings on)? Should they still be warned about it? Should the talk page be reverted? Would be interesting to know what to do in this case... - ||| antiuser ( talk) ( contribs) 01:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question: I received a warning for cutting material from here. However, I had removed frm where I - as a newbie - had incorrectly placed it to put it at the bottom of the page, with its own header. So, I wasn't vandalizing other's text and whatnot. Is it appropriate for me to clear off the warning from my talk page? Arcayne 02:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate guidance on the use of citations from published books which purport to be factual accounts, but which themselves clearly fall short of the standards of WP:V, or WP:RS, or WP:NPOV.
A related issue which I would also like clarified is the acceptable use of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention.
I am sure that these are issues which arise frequently, but I will illustrate the problems by citing a specific group of exemplars.
The book Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, which represents itself as a biography of Werner Erhard was published in 1993 and went out of print shortly thereafter. It has been used as a source reference for numerous edits, especially by user:Smeelgova and user:Kat'n'Yarn.
I have raised my concerns about the acceptability of this book as a source with these two editors in discussions on the (archived) Landmark Education talk [ [12]] page, and their response was that it qualified automatically by virtue of being a published book. I have also brought the issue up with various administrators, but have not obtained a clear ruling so far.
Clearly the book is partisan in nature, and seeks only to highlight and sensationalise negative material about its subject. But more importantly, it appears to me that the book fails to meet what I understand to be the criteria for being a reliable primary or secondary source. Although written in a matter-of-fact narrative style, it clearly deals with events to which the author was not party or witness. That would be fine if he were to identify specific verifiable sources for the events he describes, but he does not. There are no footnotes or references to identify the author's informants for any particular incident which is depicted. Perhaps anticipating criticism over that shortcoming the author includes the following bland statement it the 'Acknowledgements' section at the end of the book (p. 279):
My question is: "Is this good enough?" Especially bearing in mind the potentially defamatory nature of many of the assertions in the book (not only as they apply to Mr Erhard, but also to many other living individuals mentioned by name. And also considering that many of these accounts are directly contradicted in other published books (e.g. Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST by William Warren Bartley III; and 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard by Jane Self. By contrast both of these volumes are meticulous in identifying their sources and witness statements).
As I said, I also have a concern about the usage of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention. It was a frequent gambit of user:Smeelgova to write a verbatim extract from this book (or other suspect source) into an article in blockquote format with a ref tag. Although sophisticated readers would recognise this as indicating a quotation, I feel that others might be misled into seeing it as a factual assertion within the article. Should there be an explicit indication that this is a quotation? Maybe the problem would not arise if we are more rigorous about the sources that are acceptable? DaveApter 13:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
______________________________________
Transformational Workshops
Brian Regnier began his experience with "Transformational Workshops", through his early associations with Werner Erhard and est :
____________________________
I'd suggest a ban for new policies. Too much laws kill the law, as nobody understands them except those who really want to pass by them.
Let's peruse the existing ones calmly and take note of any problems that could or have come and domains that are not covered. In common law, analogy applies : why not here ?
Then let's make a validation test of our policies, rules and hints against the goals of WP. Do they help, are they accurate, clearly defined, structurate enough. Amendments are welcome, but only after a delay - let's say, some months.
A former WP editor wants to go back to an expert encyclopedia, based on best of breed articles taken from here, but excluding, I hope I understand, anything related to unnecessary fandom. Fans are many amongst our editors here ... so this means really strict rules. Do we want this ? What do you think ? -- DLL .. T 18:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the Dutch Wikipedia about the necessity of citing sources. People use the following arguments: "It would cost too much work to add sources for all articles because there are so many articles without", "I have no reason to lie about these things", "I know because I have an academic education", "I know because I was there" or "I know because I am a specialist". Implicitly, the debate is about the application of two out of the three English Wikipedia content policies, namely Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. In need for stronger arguments, I would like to know whether there are any official(ly authorized) documents about content policies that apply for all language versions of Wikipedia. Could anybody help me with this? Best regards, Ilse@ 21:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
It comes down to credibility. If you make a claim and no-one knows what foundation you have for it, why should anyone believe it? And what value to do place on an article that you are not sure you can believe or not?
Really it is a matter of best practice when writing anything technical to refer to your sources for all new information that you seek to introduce. So, forget whether Jimbo has made a binding statement about it for non-English wikis - look at the big picture. Always quote your sources, jguk 13:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems like Politically motivated AfDs are the "elephant in the room"--which everyone sees, but no one can mention. Certain editors will go around in groups (some people call them "cabals") and actively push their own narrow POV.
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will vote to delete pages which are against their political beliefs, yet fervently support to keep similar pages which suport their political beliefs.
Partisan editors voting record is clear--if an article is against their narrow POV, no matter how well written it is, how well sourced it is, etc, it will be put up for deletion, and this little group will vote against it. I have been an editor for just over a year, and I have been troubled by the amount of articles which have been deleted by partisans of ALL political persuasions, right or left.
It is clear that certain editors are doing it because they are biased and slanted, but no wikieditor can actually bring this up. When another wikieditor brings it up, people scream WP:NPA. I support WP:NPA fully, but in some cases, policies are detrimental. WP:IAR? Policies are tools to help us wikieditors build a better encyclopedia. When a small group of users is actively deleting well referenced material because of political bias, then the policy rule needs to be reevaluated.
Why is the word (insert title here) cabal so off limits?
Why when anyone brings up the subject, they are heckled off the talk page?
One user suggest this:
Is this the only option?
Any other experienced editors have suggestions? Travb ( talk) 23:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Old example, removed from above:
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will attempt to squelch 9/11 consipracy theories by putting these articles up for deletion. (Just for the record, I do not support any 9/11 consipracy theories)
Another example is a user's page, who actively attempts to delete all conspircy theories:
User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard
I am sure there are other user pages like this. I bring this one up simply because it is the only one I am aware of. Any other editors now of others? Travb ( talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
An RfArb has been opened on the subject of the policy proposal Protecting children's privacy. I must ask at the outset that my fellow editors refrain from commenting here, within this little section, on the merits of this proposal. It may be good or bad; that's not the issue I wish to discuss. I'm concerned about it before ArbCom.
The Arbitration Committee is our court of last resort; there is no appeal from its final decisions except to the person of Jimbo. ArbCom makes its own rules and hears whatever cases it likes. It has almost invariably confined itself to issues involving user conduct, including admins and other editors; it consistently rejects cases which are purely article content disputes. This is as it should be. ArbCom is not answerable to our community. This is a necessary evil.
We have a mechanism for creating project-wide policy; it involves the discussion of all interested community members and may result in consensus. This is the mechanism by which the vast majority of proposals are made, amended, and passed into policy or rejected. This is as it should be. The mechanism is inefficient, frequently raucous, and does not always work as we might wish. This is a necessary evil.
We do not, under any circumstances, want ArbCom to rule on the status of a policy proposal. If the discussion on a proposal gets heated, as it so often does, we ask editors to cool out; if they don't, we ask admins to warn, then block them. We may employ other steps in dispute resolution. So long as discussion continues without participants exceeding the limits permitted in discussion, all is well -- regardless of the status of the proposal on the table.
If admins fail in their duties and begin to wheel war, then we resort to ArbCom. Quite simply, the only sure way to terminate a wheel war is to take away sysop privileges from the warriors. Technically, only a Steward can do this; politically, Stewards heed only ArbCom on this project. ArbCom thus holds the big stick in wheel wars and can stop them by deadminning or threatening to deadmin. This is what ArbCom is for and this is all we need.
If we permit or, worse, encourage ArbCom to rule on policy matters, then they become not only our supreme-and-only-court but also our legislators. Whenever a policy discussion starts to go against you, you just bring it to ArbCom; if enough arbitrators are sympathetic, your problem is solved without any further discussion or messy consensus. Indeed, policy discussion is now pointless, mere heckling from the peanut gallery. ArbCom makes all the rules. We do not want to buy a ticket to this destination.
Until now, ArbCom has acted with restraint and confined itself to user conduct issues. Now, with 5 arbitrators in favor of hearing this case, it looks as though they wish to decide policy for us as well.
I strongly urge all community members, new and old, to protest this power shift. This is our community. It will only remain ours so long as we keep a hand on it. John Reid 19:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I want more discussion. I'd prefer that the discussion remain civil and that people tag the proposal with care. (There is indeed a new tag for such polarized discussions of proposed policies: {{ polarized-proposal}}.) I would like to expect that everyone will conduct himself properly; that nobody will edit war, tag war, or cite the proposal as "policy" if it has not garnered consensus. If someone should forget himself, I hope that he is cautioned civilly; if that fails, I hope he is blocked judiciously. I trust admins involved in such blocking to do so with complete disregard for the substantive issue, blocking only to remove stubborn, disruptive editors from the table; I'd like to believe that all involved admins will be mindful of our no wheel warring policy and discuss such blocks among themselves, rather than block war. If the proposal itself becomes too unstable, I expect admins to protect it from further editing, while permitting discussion to continue on talk. Of course, I wish to think that involved admins will avoid protect-warring at all costs by discussing the process issue among themselves. Finally, if some of my expectations are not met and weak admins do wheel war, then I expect a case to be brought to ArbCom -- a case involving user conduct.
In short, I want our process of policy formation to play itself out. I do not want to see it aborted by ArbCom or anybody else. Am I alone? John Reid 00:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed that whenever Japanese names are mentioned on Wikipedia they are written in an inconsistent fashion. The convential Japanese way of writing names is to write the family name first, then the given name second, in contrast to the Western tradition of given names first and family names second.
Most of the articles which mention Japanese names do not state which format they are using, which could be a real problem for those who are not familiar with Japanese given names, and may not be able to distinguish otherwise between the two, and therefore may become confused as to which name is which, or, if they are completely unaware of the mistake, use the wrong name for the person altogether.
I think that it would be wise to implement a wikipedia policy regarding Japanese names to clarify which format they are to be written in primarily, and have this stated in the relevant articles.
Please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#External_Links_and_YouTube. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Now that I'm back to enjoying my retirement, I thought I would tempt fate with a proposal for you all. I've put it on my user page (not really the right place, I know, but it seemed as good a place to start as any). For a number of reasons, it could not fit into this wiki as currently configured, but if a partitioned area were to be made available, then we could make progress. Obviously, whether such a proposal could be implemented would involved a policy decision at the highest levels of the Wikimedia Foundation, but I've decided to test the waters here first. David Marshall 10:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a question regarding WP:NPA's scope - I was informed recently that only attacks on editors constitute a violation. But what if a demeaning reference to women as "virgins" and senior citizens as "old-age pensioners" is posted on a user talk page [15]? There are many women and old people who contribute to Wikipedia and (will) find those "general" statements quite insulting. While an administrator informed me that such statements are not violative of WP:NPA [16], I'd like to have more opinions. Rama's arrow 18:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Just a note: the relevant policy here would be WP:CIVIL. This was not intended as a personnal attack. I believe it is indeed improper but it is not targeted at anyone in particular. Pascal.Tesson 15:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
"Pensioners" is not demeaning in the slightest. It was the official term used in Britain until fairly recently (and the editor whose talk page it was on is apparently from London), it is accurate (since they are indeed drawing a pension), and it is still the most common term (along with OAPs) used for elderly people in everyday speech, including by most pensioners themselves. "Senior citizens" still sounds patronising to me, both to the people themselves and to those of us who are younger (since "senior" actually means "more important than", not "older than"), and is rarely used in everyday speech in Britain. "Virgins" is quite obviously being used in a lighthearted way to mean people who are naive and innocent; why on earth it should be taken as referring specifically to women is beyond me. This was in no way a personal attack or uncivil in my opinion and I'm puzzled why anyone would take it to be. -- Necrothesp 00:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
...The true litmus test of neutrality is conducted each day through peer revision. Unfortunately, the need for a policy regarding revision/reversion when it comes to political candidates is of growing importance, as more sophisitcated methods of astroturfing and viral marketing become available to even the most pedestrian of political followers.
Clearly, the inclusion of second-hand information (in many cases, citing blogs, news analyses, and commentary from campagin staffers disguised as being fromt he candidate him/herself) is cause for pause. We should not care as to the liability of a candidate's media handlers to their candidate. It is not our business that they can be fired for advocation of some bizarre policy or political leaning. The only thing that should matter - I repeat, the ONLY thing - is to verify that what we are documenting are actual, factual statements about the candidate whose name is on the entry,
If so inclined, editors should feel free to include an entry for the campaign manager, whose comments some editors are so keen to include. After all, they are the campaign manager's statements, and not the candidate's. Again, by allowing the inclusion of statements that clearly cast in a positive light a candidate they may have previously personally endorsed in discussion, all of us are proceeding down a slippery slope wherein far less-reputable folk can use the doorway some demand be open to cause serious damage to specific political entries immediately before an election.
Example: let's say that tomorrow (being shortly before Election Day), someone posts a citable source (an obviously biased or partisan, swiftboat-like source) that says either one candidate or the other is being investigated by the FBI's Financial Crimes Unit. It does not matter if the allegation is true (and the citation may be purged right before the polls close), but the damage will have been done. People who read WP for a heads up on the candidates (there actually are people who put this off until the last moment) will see the erroneous comment and make a decision based upon that. Before you can say 'Florida Recount,' WP has unwittingly helped unscrupulous people to alter the results of an election.
I guess I am not understanding how wikilawyering (this is not policy, etc.) is a proper justification for avoiding neutrality and lending credence to unsubstantiated statements. This is why I discuss this matter here - we are the front line of neutral documentation. Heresay is for articles about Wham! reunions and Lost episodes, where the stakes are not nearly as high. WP cannot alter whether there is a Wham! reunion, nor can it likely alter the episodic content of Lost. It is entirely conceivable that it can alter the course of an election, and WP needs to protect its own reputation and neutrality from bias. Some form of control needs to be instituted.
I have stated before my ideas for handling political candidates before understanding WP's obvious procedural complexity. Knowing a bit more, I suggest the following. Please understand that these policies are specific to political candidates currently seeking office (within a year of the election):
I believe that this preserves all Five Pillars of WP, as well as making the process transparent. It also allows for editors to hash out the debatable language before it goes live. This avoids editwars and the petty reverting that occurs with contentious political issues and candidates. Arcayne 19:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I know everyone hates ads but here is something interesting to read:
What would Wikipedia.org be worth if it were a for-profit?
http://www.watchmojo.com/web/blog/?p=626
I got this off the discussion page of the Wikipedia article. Pseudoanonymous 04:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Seconded; WP is priceless...it goes way beyond business and narrow interests.-- User:Zaorish
I wrote down pretty much the whole thing, so I'm confident my quotes are accurate. Can I post what, say, Senator Olympia Snowe said about the Iraq war, especially because she's changed her position from what's on her article? -- User:Zaorish
Dear Wikipedia,
I would very much like to express my regrets at the inclusion of pictures of erect male genetalia. Specifically the aricle "Penis". Having found this web-site to be, in my own words to my friends and peers, "the best thing on the web", I was more than a little put out to realize that it contained images which are classified as pornography in the United States.
I attempted to rectify this, and my edits were immediately removed.
Now, should all of you wish your daughters to view erect male penises, please shout me down and I will (perhaps) leave you in peace. But I cannot help but think that this is one (perhaps the ONLY) area where I feel that the inclusion of these photos is a matter of opinion, and a bad one at that.
We should be making a resources for ourselves and our children. Should we allow pictures of erect penises? Any penises? Can I put a picture of mine up? Are pictures of naked children acceptable? Should we include links to pornography sites?
There is, apparently a line. It is my opinion that it has been crossed. Please clarify where this line is for me so I can include your policy to my congressmen.
Xchanter 01:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Xchanter
We're not censored. Especially not for young children. If it's appropriate to the article, keep it. If you genuinely have legal concerns or wish to take legal action, the person you want to contact is wikipedia's official legal advisor User:BradPatrick. legal threats are otherwise not allowed. After looking at Special:Contributions/Xchanter, this is starting to look suspicious like trolling. -- `/aksha 02:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
For any users interested, the convening user above (Xchanter) appears to have been trolling. His talk page has a followup discussion where he self destructed and has been blocked for 24 hours pending further review. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 06:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe this is stereotyping on my part, but I envision this sort of complaint as coming from a parent in a small United States community (they usually use U.S. English or cite U.S. law) and I imagine the same person would - in another context - condemn censorship in China and Saudi Arabia. Sixteen years ago, when Saudi censors prohibited U.S. troops on its soil from having access to Cosmopolitan magazine and Chinese censors blacked out stories about Tienanmen Square, these issues seemed entirely separate. Now we live in a smaller world. Wikipedia isn't a community publication or even a national one. People in mainland China only recently regained access to most of the English language Wikipedia after a year of total firewalling and they still can't read Wikipedia's Chinese language edition. Nearly one human being in five is affected by that censorship, which in itself is enough reason to oppose efforts to censor Wikipedia at an organizational level: the establishment of any such precedent would become a wedge for further censorship. It's simple to solve a perceived problem in one's own home. Just filter access in the home through parental control software or lock out the site and send the kids to a family-friendly Wikipedia mirror. When the children become more mature they'll appreciate the additional lessons in civics and free expression. Durova 20:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
The legislation that actually applies here is COPPA. We are regulated by the FTC (not the FCC) according to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which is in force. That doesn't depend on locale, only on the fact our servers are in the United States. Also, we are protected by the claim that our material is educational. Issues arise when material is used in a way that can't be justified as educational. However, putting a penis on Penis is a pretty clear educational use so no one need fear it will be removed. How ever Europeans like to complain about prudish Americans, the fact is our server resides in the US and so must follow the laws of that country. pschemp | talk 01:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
The user in question has been indefinately blocked for repeated legal threats even after my block. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 21:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I found this User:Daniel.Bryant/Title which is transcluded from various user pages Special:Whatlinkshere/User:Daniel.Bryant/Title. It superimposes some text over the 'official' page title that is generated by the Wiki software. Surely this must be against some policy, could someone take care of this matter? Femto 21:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Sure, no problem. Can I polish your boots for you too? Wash your car? Pick up your dry-cleaning? -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 07:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I started an
WP:MfD on
User:Glen_S/Title,
User:Daniel.Bryant/Title and
User:1ne/Title. Feel free to add any more if there are.
The MfD procedure should take care of removing the inclusion links to such pages, in the event the Wikipedia community decides such pages should not be used. -- Francis Schonken 08:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there a guideline anywhere that says that we are writing not about the present but about all recorded history? In other words, that an item should not be removed from a list just because it has been demolished? -- NE2 23:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I took a quick look and I don't know enough about the subject itself to have an informed opinion about it. It seems that if the page is a List then it should certainly be as comprehensive as possible. If it's an article though, the list of examples seems excessive. Generally 3 - 4 examples should be adequate. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 00:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes you can structure the knowledge to meet both aims without confusion. I am currently working on the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, which basically gives a current view e.g. As of June 2006, only two wrecks are designated.... However this article is supported by a list - List of designations under the Protection of Wrecks Act - which lists all of the designations including ones since revoked. If I had called it the List of Protected Wrecks, whether this was currently or historically protected might have been more of an issue. Viv Hamilton 12:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, the current wording of WP:NCP#Nick names, pen names, stage names, cognomens is not clear enough to cover the case of nicknames "conjoined" with real names (e.g. Joe "King" Oliver, Benjamin "Pap" Singleton). I proposed an ammendment to clarify it; please share your thoughts at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Proposed ammendment for "conjoined" nicknames. Duja ► 10:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
It was brought to my attention that a number of relatively small cities - like Ashland, Kentucky (population about 25,000) and Charleston, West Virginia (population about 50,000) - have "Roads of..." articles (there is a discussion of the issue on this talk page. While I think the intention is quite nobile, I suspect that, in the global context of Wikipedia, this would either A) open up a huge can of worms as to deciding which cities, if any, would merit similar articles (there is no Roads of New York City, for example); or B) lead into a serious dispute as to which roads/avenues/byways merit inclusion into the article. An anonymous editor suggested that Roads of Ashland, Kentucky and Roads of Charleston, West Virginia be merged with the respective articles covering the cities, presumably because either there was quite a bit of duplication already at the target articles, or the information would be better used in the appropriate State Road, U.S. Route, or Interstate articles - and the suggestion drew a heated reaction from the articles' writer.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind a Roads of Troy, Michigan or Roads of Falkirk, Scotland or Roads of Chilliwack, British Columbia article, but unless some standards regarding cities' "eligibility" or determining which streets/roads/etc., would be included in the article (and such standard should be mentioned somewhere in the article or the talk page), I also see a huge slippery slope that would be best avoided. This issue needs objective input from people who haven't invested themselves in these (or similar) articles. B.Wind 22:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Well there's a Roads of Louisville, Kentucky, for example. I had intended for it to cover like Main Street, Broadway and our Parkway system (designed by Olmstead), about which I can cite a great deal of reliable sources, actual meaningful info and so on. Right now it just covers highways for the most part, which I'm not tremendously interested in, but my point is that reliable sources do exist for some roads, enough to create an article on roads that's interesting, if nothing else to road geeks and people interested in local history. But if all you can say is "There's a road here, it's this long"... I dunno, that's not really for an encyclopedia. But sometimes you can say a whole lot more.
So the question really, "have reliable sources written meaningfully about multiple roads in a town/city?" and if so, all notable roads of the city can be covered in that one article, until you get to cities like New York where individual roads get articles. Improv is right in that we shouldn't include everything just because we technically can, but if something is interesting and based on reliable sources, even if it's highly obscure, we should strongly consider including it. -- W.marsh 16:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to call more attention to Talk:Yahoo!#Requested move and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (trademarks)#Trademarks with Question Marks (?) and Exclamation Points (!). For years (literally), we have had a trademarks guideline that discourages the use of special formating on trademarks and names, e.g. we avoid Macy*s and REALTOR® even though those are the "official" ways of writing Macy's and Realtor. By extention, it would seem to me that we should follow USA Today, Reuters, Business Week and many others in dropping the "!" from Yahoo! and simply use the more natural form "Yahoo" to describe the search mega corp. Some people at the move request are resisting this and arguing that the "!" should be used because it is part of the official name. In effect saying that there should be some sort of official punctuation exemption to MOS-TM. I would like to get more input on resolving this tension between our long standing guideline and what many people want to do in practice. Dragons flight 13:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Just putting a general comment here, as I want to see how many people are interested in the issue of flags in infoboxes and the more general issue of infoboxes. There was a recent vote for deletion for Template:Infobox Scientist that failed to reach consensus, and disputes ongoing at Talk:Isaac Newton and Talk:Albert Einstein. Carcharoth 14:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd just like to get a sense of whether people think articles for sports teams and leagues should be updated on a daily basis with standings from the current season. Any opinions? Is there any current policy/guideline on this? – flamurai ( t) 23:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
For an example of what I was talking about, here's a list of articles that I've run across over the last few days, that I'm not sure are "encyclopedic". To me, they all appear to be unsourced and of marginable notability, but are obviously part of a much larger project that seems determined to use Wikipedia to document every sports score in every tournament, ever. Anyone else have an opinion on this kind of stuff? -- Elonka 20:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
What to do if an adjective yields far more google hits than the noun? This is the case for anti-Hindu when compared to anti-Hinduism. See talk:anti-Hindu. Andries 20:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
[17] Please comment there not here. Andries 14:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Added to the talk pages of some articles is the template {{ Notable Wikipedian}}. This adds a box to the talk page containing the text "The subject of this article, [Article name], has edited Wikipedia as [User name] (talk · contribs)", and places the talk page in Category:Notable Wikipedians. I recently removed this template from Paul Staines because there was no strong evidence that User:Paul.staines was in fact the subject of the article. Another user has reverted this, citing WP:AGF. If this is valid, the consequence is that every claim by a user to be the subject of an article has to be accepted unless there is proof to the contrary. I think this could get us into difficulties, and it appears to contravene WP:LIVING. Alan Pascoe 22:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
NOw that I've had a night to think about it, it seems like this tag is almost entirely OR, unless there are independent sources which prove that the people who use those User names are, indeed, the people they claim to be. I'm sure the newspaper articles which have made much of Jimbo having edited his own article could be used as a source to prove that User:Jimbo Wales really is Jimbo Wales, but much of their information comes from Wikipedia, thus making their sources suspect, as well. User:Zoe| (talk) 19:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Consider melding the noteworthy battles section with the battle summaries. I will be willing to provide information on as many battles as possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Statistic ( talk • contribs) .
I recently nominated an article for deletion (AfD) based on the criteria under "Conflict of Interest" which appeared to be an acceptable category under which an article could be nominated. However, during the discussion (discussion: [19]), several contributors pointed-out that although the "Wikipedia:Deletion policy" page gives Conflict of Interest as a reason for AfD, the page itself under Conflict of Interest specifically states that notability is the only issue for AfD, not conflict of interest. Thus, it seems that there is some ambiguity or conflicting information in the guidelines for AfD. I'm requesting discussion over whether it appears to others that the criteria need to be clarified or not in regard to this issue. Cla68 02:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there a pre-existing policy for disambig pages where people have names that
Reason I ask is that I noticed there were two disambig pages for Charles Gray and Charles Grey. Neither of them linked to the other(!), so I added mutual links.
However, disambig pages are meant as navigation aids (not lists of identically-named things), so is it a good idea to have one for each minor spelling difference when people are unlikely to know which one they want anyway? Or should there just be one (e.g. for both spellings of "Charles Gray")?
Fourohfour 16:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have a policy or guideline on whether or not to include bible verse citations in the reference section along with other references, or whether to just list them inside parentheses.
In most print biblical scholarship, cites are usually provided like this:
The alternative would be to treat them like normal references:
The parenthetical style has the advantage of it being easier to view the citations-- you don't have to click on the link to see the cite. The hypertext style has the advantage of being much more readable-- when you have a paragraph full of cites, it can get a little difficult to follow the sentence itself.
Which way should we do things? Is there any kind of style guide specifying? -- Alecmconroy 23:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
See WP:SCHOOLS3. JoshuaZ 01:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
This series of templates was just removed, but I cannot find the discussion where it was decided to remove them. -- ArmadilloFromHell 15:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
By chance I've stumbled about using OhmyNews as reference for Wikipedia articles. As OhmyNews accept, edit and publish articles from its readers, in an open source style of news reporting I see its value as a source as rather minimal. It's like using Wikipedia as source, only worse.
A quick check revealed quite a number of articles linking to ohmynews.com, I'm tempted to delete all of them:
Pjacobi 09:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Are there any policies (beyond the general "What Wikipedia is/is not")- or even policy discussions- that can shed light upon whether or not it is acceptable to have lists of ingredients in articles such as Snickers and Twix? Fourohfour 14:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Any and all help appreciated on this proposal. Havok (T/ C/ c) 18:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The edit option on all of the pages is pretty dumb. I recently changed information on a page and it was left like that for about a week. This "tool" could be potentially dangerouse to all Wikipedia users. I sugest that you get ride of this iption or find away to make it more... safe. By the way, I kindly went back and changed teh information back to its origanal form before I did my little "test."—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.255.109.142 ( talk • contribs) .
Well, I for one am glad you changed them back, if you hadn't we might not have been able to understand them at all, condidering all the spelling mistakes you made in just your post, also, tjstrf is right, this is a wiki, you can change whatever you want, I will make an educated guess that you are new, or else you would be a member, and not complain about the edit button. Tarryhoper 00:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Many articles in Wikipedia contain the phrase "it is interesting to note...". Perhaps I'm being nitpicky, but that doesn't seem NPOV. Who it to decide what is interesting? The "interestingness" of something is completely subjective. Encyclopedias shouldn't tell us what is interesting and what is not. I propose that all such instances be replaced with "it may be noted that...". -- Munchkinguy 04:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
As a Wikipedist who deals in primarily articles about upcoming films, particularly superhero films, I'm curious about others' perspectives about how to determine when to create articles for upcoming films. What criteria should an upcoming film meet if the film has not reached the production stage yet? Is it enough to have a writer and director attached, like Ant-Man? What about films that don't have anything attached, but still generate the occasional news, like The Punisher 2 or Wolverine? What about the notability of a sequel based on its predecessor's success, such as The Dark Knight? I've used the crystal ball and notability policies both ways, defending something like Interstellar or voting for the deletion of something like Battle Angel. When can an upcoming film go from its subsection on the source material's article or a director's article to become an article that would grow in time? -- Erik ( talk/ contrib) @ 18:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
One of our Indian editors, Bharatveer, feels very strongly that Hindi/Hindustani names and words should not be rendered in Nastaliq script in Bollywood-related articles. He has removed the Nastaliq script from more than a dozen actor/actress articles, claiming that since Urdu is not their native tongue, their name should not be given in Nastaliq script. He is up to three reverts on Anupam Kher.
This is a complex issue. One underlying language ( Hindustani) has been written in two scripts for centuries. Muslims tended to use a Perso-Arabic alphabet (which is what they used to read Arabic and Persian literature) and Hindus used Devanagari. The Muslims also tended to speak a Hindustani that contained more Persian and Arabic loan words, a dialect generally called Urdu. The Hindu version of Hindustani is called Hindi and contains more Sanskrit loan words. Since the Partition of India, the divergence between the Pakistani version of Urdu and the Indian version of Hindi has increased. However, at the level of the man in the street, people still speak Hindustani, without fancy loan words. Bollywood films aim for the widest possible audience and they are generally written in a Hindustani-leaning Hindi that is easily understood by Pakistanis as well as North Indians. Not only that, movie titles and credits are usually given in both Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts, so that all audiences can read them.
The continued presence of Muslims and Muslim script in India is profoundly irritating to followers of Hindutva, an Indian political movement, and Bharatveer seems to be following a Hindutva line in most of his edits. Recently he tried to remove the Nastaliq script from the Bollywood article; a long edit war ensued, in the course of which it was established that most Bollywood films use both scripts in their titles and advertising, and that if there is any justification for adding Devanagari versions of words, names, and titles (the convenience of South Asian users of the English WP), it applies equally to Nastaliq.
Bharatveer gave up trying to remove Nastaliq from the Bollywood article, but has, in the last couple of days, switched to removing it from the actor/actress articles. He says that if the actor/actress isn't a "native Urdu speaker," then his/her name shouldn't be given in Nastaliq script. But of course the issue isn't native speech (many actors/actresses are NOT native Hindustani speakers -- they had to learn Hindi in order to get roles) but giving the name in forms that allow South Asian readers to figure out the proper pronunciation (which is not apparent from the Romanized form of the name).
Can we have a blankety-blank policy that says that if Devanagari is used to render a Hindi word, that Nastaliq can be used also? Without a policy, I forsee a grinding war of attrition over all the India and Indian cinema related articles, in which some editors are adding the Devanagari and Nastaliq forms of words, names, and titles, and Bharatveer is removing the Nastaliq. Over and over. He's removing information that could be useful to some users because he wants to make a political point, and it's taking time and energy away from writing the dang encyclopedia.
If a policy isn't the proper way to handle this, what is? Is this going to have to go to RfC and Arbcom? I'm not sure that stopping Bharatveer's personal anti-Nastaliq crusade would solve the general problem, since there are other Hindutva WP editors who would be happy to take up the struggle. But I'd be open to any suggestions for stopping the edit wars. Zora 08:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, some guidelines for ALL articles would seem to be useful. In addition to dealing with Devanagari and Nastaliq, I've also run into Arabic (lots of Arabic), Persian, Turkish, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam ... It gets to be just too much at the start of an article. The article will start like this: XXX (script A, script B, script C) blah blah blah. That's actually kind of hard to read. Suppose we had a little infobox (as small as feasible) that could sit off to one side and hold the various non-Roman scripts. In tiny print. Enlargeable. No more than four scripts? I'll have think about general guidelines for which to choose. Very good points re thinking in broader terms. Zora 08:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready now?
The only thing I forsee as being potentially contentious is the chronological ordering of filmographies, but I still suspect (hope) a supermajority will quickly emerge, once put to wider discussion, favouring consistency and traditional listing standards.
Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :-) -- Quiddity 20:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be better to have four special question sections, review questions, open questions, article concerns (typographic, factual and compo), and one for non-neutral points of view.
I also believe that the focus of Wikipedia should be based primarily on comprehending, with a bias towards the sympathetic, sort of like Wikinfo. Lets all get on the same page. Then try to understand other people and synthesize if we can. I think that's the best way.