This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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
Hello again. I've seen several articles with the "too technical" banner produced by {{technical|date=}} at the top. Is there a wp policy about how to deal with this, other than what is stated in the banner "Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details"? What I want to suggest is to have TWO articles about a topic. For example, there could be an article Endoplasmic reticulum (which currently has a too technical banner) that was written so that a freshman high school student could understand it, and a second article (red link for now) Endoplasmic reticulum College level written with all the details expected by senior university students. If somebody searched wp for endoplasmic reticu... both articles would appear as suggestions. The reader could decide which to access. Readers of the basic article would be alerted to the more detailed article by hatnote at the top and "see also" entries. Is there a precedent for this? Is there a policy against it? Thanks, JeanOhm ( talk) 16:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
See also the featured article Introduction to viruses. An other such article is Introduction to M-theory. The others can be found here from [[ Introduction to cooperative learning to Introduction to systolic geometry. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Making wikipedia policies as neutral as it's encyclopedic content. Do not forbid people with particulate believes or medical conditions to participate in the community for example. 178.187.10.7 ( talk) 17:51, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
— xaosflux Talk 23:39, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
You may be interested in this discussion, which relates to an interpretation of the verifabilty policy and the citation guidelines. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Citation underkill. Scribolt ( talk) 19:01, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
The ongoing RM discussion at Template talk:2016 US Election AE is relisted, so feel free to comment there until closure. -- George Ho ( talk) 01:12, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
One of the larger problems that I've been seeing develop over the past 4 or 5 years but is growing to a head is the issue of neutrality with respect to morality in discussing subjective opinions about persons, groups, and other organizations.
Where we don't have problems is when someone or some group is seen as a subjective term but that is near-universally morally acceptable. For articles on people/groups that are regarded as geniuses, as the best creative person, as a strong businessman, etc., we are acutely aware of the appropriate language to use in these articles to stress that these are widely-held opinions and not so much fact. We rarely use these subjective, if not universally-applied labels, in the lede sentences, but introduce this later in the lede with statements that clearly make it attributable opinion rather than fact. This all is properly in line with WP:NPOV and other policies.
Where we do run into problems is when the subjective term is something that is seen to a larger group as immoral. It is human nature to call someone out when their morals vastly differ from ours, so it is natural to rush to push this immoral stance front and center. This is part of the problem.
Now, it is important we're not trying to play down someone or some group that has been convicted in court or a similar body of a immoral crime that directly harms persons or personal property. These types of actions are near universally accepted as immoral, and we should treat those as such. We shouldn't coddle subjective language around convicted murderers and terrorist groups, for example, though one must stress that if there's only an accusation pending trial, we presume innocent until proven guilty, which is where this morality question plays out.
When we turn to a subjective label that are particularly about someone's viewpoint absent of any actual harmful actions, such as "white nationalist", for example, this is clearly a view that to most would consider immoral, but it doesn't have the universal agreement; there are parts of this world where that is considered morally acceptable. This sets up the problem that I've seen: since by the nature of what we have deemed to be reliable sources for such commentary, they are generally going to share a specific moral center, which would agree with the larger moral center shared by Western, English-speaking regions. There is no question that this larger view should be included, but far too frequently, these views are presented front and center in the lede sentence of the appropriate article and without clarifying them as attributed opinion. Editors when challenged with this often argue that since the majority, sometimes near unanimity of the press, says this, it must be fact and must be presented as soon as possible per WP:UNDUE.
However, I would argue that WP needs to have more an amoral center, one that aligns with how we treated "positive moral" terms. Unless we're talking about convicted crimes, WP should not adopt the same moral center that the bulk of the RSes does as to reflect a more proper world view and to stay much more neutral on these types of topics. This means that we should not be so focused on introducing the subjective labels as early as the lede sentence and sacrifice factual content, nor presume the "factual" nature of these subjective labels. Again, we don't do this at all for "positive moral" terms, we shouldn't at all be doing the same for "negative moral" terms.
This also avoids a potential slippery slope, even if the press fall along that. Having views that are generally seen as "negative moral" like bleeding-heart liberal, fascist, anarchists, racist, misogynistic, white nationalist, alt right, far left, or far right is just having that view. Unless their actions actually lead to universally immoral crimes, they haven't done a single thing wrong from a legal standpoint, they just share a vastly differ viewpoint from what the moral average does. While the press may want to condemn them for this type of thinking, that seems extremely out of line with our job to be objective and neutral. Again, this is not saying that the majority stance shouldn't be included, but it should be tempered as to be attributed opinion and not as early as some wish to write. It also avoids the slope where less problematic labels or "thought crimes" deemed by the press are treated the same by us, such as "climate change denier", "conspiracy theorist", and so forth.
Most of the time, this is easy to edit to fix problematic articles, adapted a more amoral tone that does not seek to condemn the person or group. Take Jared Taylor which has come up before (specifically this version for discussion [1]) where the lede calls out his white nationalist and supremacist labels before actually introducing him properly. When it has been discussed before on BLP/N [2] many editors think that because the majority of sources treat him as such that these should be the facts and presented first. If WP was more amoral, we'd start by describing him as an author, and founder and editor of the magazine, followed by a sentence that says that he is generally considered a white nationalist and supremacist. Tidying up that lede to be more amoral and not treating "white nationalist" or the like as a crime to mark such persons with would go a long way towards meeting NPOV for the article overall. Here's another case happening just now [3] where just because the majority of sources call Breitbart "far right", it should not be forced as a factual statement in the lede sentence, though still clearly must be emphasized in the lede. But because other media sources label has such, editors insist it must be front and center. I stress: the goal here is not to eliminate such information from articles, but to temper it appropriately with attribution and outside of WP's voice while maintaining the proper balance.
The other problem is that without treating things with a more amoral approach, we then allow the moral center of WP to be determined by the press. As noted, this reflects only a portion of the world view, but more importantly, this view shifts over time, which affects our articles over time. For example, with Trump's election, the moral center has significantly shifted to the left, which if we held to that moral center, we'd have to update a lot of articles to reflect how people and groups are now treated this way. Since WP aimed for long-term stability, it would be much better that we work from a more amoral center, so that we're not forced to make changes like this even as the media's moral center changes.
Technically, NPOV has the language towards all this under "Morally-offensive views", WP:IMPARTIAL and at WP:OUTRAGE, and WP:LABEL also has some, but these are routinely ignored putting WP:UNDUE first and foremost.
The TL;DR of all this is that I propose we develop a guideline to support NPOV that has a stronger establishment that WP should take a more amoral stance towards morally-offensive views (just as we do for morally-accepted ones), and guidance for how to write such articles where the morally-offensive view is something you can't avoid writing about. This guideline would make it clear that there are places we accept are morally wrong (convicted crimes against others), but in most other cases, we should be much more neutral in tone and writing to not treat it as a condemnation even if every major press source wants to treat it that way. There needs to be a better balance of UNDUE and IMPARTIAL in these areas and how to be more amoral, otherwise we are going to continue to reflect what the press deems is the moral center.
Moreso, there needs to be advice to editors to put aside their own opinions when writing such articles; just as we have acute awareness when an article seems to factually present a morally-acceptable label to rework it as attributed option, we need that same acute awareness for offensive ones, which is often clouded by one's personal opinions.
(Cavaet: I in no way personally endorse, approve, or support any of the example views/labels, I'm just pointing out where there are problems.) -- MASEM ( t) 15:25, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Please join the discussion on what information should be included in a lead sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Altercari ( talk • contribs) 06:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
{{ Infobox school}} has a field for religious affiliation of private schools. Should "none" (or equivalent) be an allowable value for that field? In other words:
religion = Catholic
-- this is currently allowedreligion = Methodist
-- this is currently allowed, and so forth. The question isreligion = none
-- should this be allowed?(This is assuming that religious affiliation is an appropriate field for a school infobox at all -- it currently is a valid field, but editors may weigh on that more general question if they wish.) Herostratus ( talk) 14:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious_affiliation=
.
Gaia Octavia Agrippa
Talk 19:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religion=
; the infobox in question has a parameter called |religious affiliation=
. These are not the same.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits 12:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious affiliation=
or |religion=
can be used in the school infobox for the same value.
Jack N. Stock (
talk) 22:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)recently decided by RfC ... It is out of order to keep reopening a question that was settled less than six months ago(emphasis mine). He is right on the substance, but he was either lying in his comment or was being extremely clumsy with his wording. (I would say his memory was as bad as mine, but he went back and dug up the link in the same comment, so he definitely knew it was well over a year ago, and also probably knew Herostratus hadn't commented in that RFC and may not have been aware of it. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 09:05, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious affiliation=
, not |religion=
.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits 12:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious affiliation=
or |religion=
will work.
Jack N. Stock (
talk) 22:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religious affiliation=
, not |religion=
.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits 12:57, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|affiliation=
parameter. I think that preferable to having a parameter with the word religion.
Objective3000 (
talk) 15:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religion=
(see article)
may be used.
Paine Ellsworth
put'r there 13:02, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religion=
parameter. This should be speedily closed as "I didn't get the answer I wanted" rehash. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)Sorry to bring a detail of one template to the pump, but I feel it's necessary in order to have a proper discussion, for reasons there's no need to get into here. It's not an earth-shattering question, but the principle of rules being established via discussion and consensus is important, so let's see if we can have a reasoned discussion on the merits of the question.
So what you are probably going to see is an argument that's the matter has already been settled and further discussion is illegitimate. It's tedious and unimportant, so I'll hat it. You can read it if you want to.
What you're probably going to see (at least I've seen it in the past, twice now) is a claim that there are four RfC discussions settle the question once and for all, and therefore re-examination of details and special cases is not only illegitimate but actually disruptive. So let's see:
to be provided for them.
But none of that matters. Even if you accept the (extremely dubious IMO) proposition that most, or even any, participants in this 2015 discussion were intending to not allow the religious affiliation of schools to be described in a common-sense manner such as any other reference work would do, it is legitimate and reasonable to bring the question up for re-examination now in this venue, especially considering that we are looking at how to deal with an unintended side-effect.
What I would like to see is an argument on the merits rather than argument from authority. I mean, obviously, for individuals and nations religion can be a fraught and contentious question. For private schools, not so much. If St. Mark's Academy is a Catholic school, it's fairly straightforward. Usually it's pretty clear: it is or it isn't. And it's important. It's one of the first things you want to know about a school. It's part of the core identity and raison d'être for the school. And if a school is secular, that's important to know too. I can't see the sense of a policy "if it's Catholic, tell the reader right away. If it's Baptist or Jewish or Muslim, tell the reader that right away. But if it's nonaffiliated, well we mustn't tell the reader that; let's make her dig through the article to figure out whether or not it's a Catholic school" or whatever.
I'd like to see something along the lines of "Well, we should indeed denote the affiliation of religious private schools in the infobox, but not the affiliation status of non-affiliated private schools; avoiding giving the reader this information is a service to the reader and improves her experience because ___________". I'm generally curious as to what would go in the blank and am willing to be persuaded, but so far the only argument I've heard is "clear is not a color, and none is not an affiliation" which is IMO semantic pettifoggery rather than thinking about how to serve the reader, and I'd like to think that my fellow editors are capable of better than that. Herostratus ( talk) 16:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Within the topic area of private schools, "non-denominational Christian" and "unaffiliated"/"independent"/"secular" schools are well established characteristics of schools. If sources and the schools themselves include this information, it should be a characteristic within Wikipedia. I would further suggest that religious affiliation of institutions is not the same as religion of individuals and that much of the reasoning attached to the original RfC doesn't apply here.-- Carwil ( talk) 19:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
On a peripheral note, it may be worth saying that there are private schools that are nominally affiliated with a particular religious group but are nonetheless entirely independent in their curiculum and their governance. It's unclear to me how such an instance could be accurately represented in a concise infobox field. This is one of the problems with trying to shoehorn complex information into infoboxes: sometimes the nuances get lost. Rivertorch FIRE WATER 00:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
It seems extremely clear to me that above there are two extremely persuasive arguments.
These principles collide, because the affiliation (or philosophy if you like) of the school is being shown under "religion", and I think this is the source of the problem. Of course sometimes a religious label is convenient, but very often not. For example, a school might be run by a religious organisation as a secular school (there is much confusion above about "secular" above: it does not mean "not having a religion", it means "whether or not you have a religion you wish education to be carried out independently of religious teaching"). More generally, of course, sticking a "Religion" label on almost anything is I think a bad idea, because it perpetuates the falsehood that "everyone" must (or really ought to) have one.
So I suggest the "Religion" label should be replaced with a "Philosophy" or "Affiliation" or similar one, which can accommodate the stated policy of the school. Note also a huge source of confusion above: obviously the infobox should not have any entries equivalent to "Did not answer" or "We do not know"; only a stated and demonstrated policy of the school should appear. Imaginatorium ( talk) 11:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
The following comments are particular to the United States, but I suspect that other countries or regions may follow this pattern. In the United States, religious affiliation and religious non-affiliation are among the basic characteristics of private schools. Many non-religious (as well as non-denominational schools) self-identify as such in their definition of themselves. Moreover, private school associations, public compilations of data on education, and private data sources on education all routinely use typologies including "non-religious" or "nonsectarian" or "not affiliated" to characterize individual schools. These include:
In short, "nonsectarian" and "independent" (the latter includes some nondenominational but religious schools) are well-defined and readily identifiable aspects of private schools in the United States. Referencing this material is generally regarded as relevant and as a key characteristic of US private schools. Local evidence strongly indicates that this is a relevant characteristic of private schools in the United States, which is simply not comparable to the claim that religion is a relevant characteristic of all people.-- Carwil ( talk) 04:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
At 8 Yes, 48 No, the requirements of WP:SNOW have been met, and the Wikipedia community has decided, once again, that without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the 'Religion=' parameter of the infobox on any article anywhere on Wikipedia. - Guy Macon ( talk) 06:42, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
I've been off doing other things but how has this been snow closed? Guy Macon has extreme bias in this case (and anything to with religion=none). Counting the no vs yes is not how consensus is reached. Many of the no's above are actually yes in some cases (eg Od Mishehu, Dicklyon, Gnangarra, etc). Your conclusion above is wrong, with people being again "none" rather than all non-religions. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 16:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Last year there was a discussion that removed "religion", and "ethnicity" from infoboxes all being centered on the U.S. American politician Bernie Sanders, and the people "reached consensus" (the "strongest possible oppose" "votes"were all literally just different people repeating the same arguments that either ethnicity was always irrelevant, or that "it's hard to define"), despite there being several counter-arguments that explained that in many people's infoboxes it was needed because simply placing one's citizenship wouldn't be enough (it's like saying that all notable Jews that died 💀 during the shoah were just "Germans"), but the same repeated arguments keptpersisting. Over that year I've seen numerousarticles about E.G. Austro-Hungarians or Yugoslavians where the individual's ethnicity mattered that look now like a complete mess.
The rules should've been amended that it should be only mentioned if relevant to the individual's circumstances (like many have pointed out, for example an Iraqi Kurd being "a Kurdish national" makes no sense, as It's now replaced by "nationality"), my other annoyance comes from replacing it with "Nationality", in general English the word "nationality" means citizenship, and "a nation" is often a geographical and political entity, I've seen several ethnic Italians or various other people that have lived centuries before Italy was even a thing as "Nationality = Italian", that makes no sense, for many historical people their ethnicity could play a lot into who they were, and oversimplifying it by saying "it's hard to define, therefore don't use it", or "it's never relevant" only take into account modern perspectives, and yes, modern taboos. This violates the WP:NPOV, if we write about historical figures we shouldn't treat them like "living people".
42.112.158.179 ( talk) 05:34, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
It seems clear to me that by consensus it is preferable to avoid contentious infobox fields for this, which are invitations to fill them for article writers. Where religious affiliation or ethnicity is a particularily important topic in relation to a BLP, there is usually enough important material to have an article subsection about it, or at least a mention in the prose. In other cases, it's something that is often contentious and is better left out. I don't understand why this thread is still open... — Paleo Neonate - 08:26, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Re: Wnt's question (way up there, above an out-dent), "how about lumping them all into one term, 'Demographics:'?" — No, "demographics" is something that pertains to a region or jurisdiction. I do not have any demographics, since no one lives inside me and I'm not a place. Some would assign me to various demographic groups, and I may or may not agree with their viewpoint, which will differ from categorizer to categorizer and their subjective lenses for sorting people. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Please see Template talk:Infobox officeholder#Religion in officeholder infoboxes. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I know next to nothing about Wikipedia policies and how they work, and, from what I understand, the closed-shop attitude of many users therefore means that my proposal may well be dismissed out of hand, which is fine. This problem is likely to be exacerbated by the fact that I do not have any awareness of what policies currently support the current tendency to which I am objecting. Nevertheless, I believe it should at least be stated: it is detrimental to the encyclopedia, to cinema, and to culture in general that film articles on Wikipedia almost universally refer to the "Rotten Tomatoes" score for a film. This score, composed of a sum of thumbs up and thumbs down, represents the absolute nadir of critique. It indicates nothing of significance or importance about a movie, and only contributes to the general lowering of critical capacities, and probably to film producers being even further encouraged to worry about nothing except the lowest common denominator opinion. Use of this score represents, to me, nothing but the laziest approach to composing encyclopedic articles on cinema. In my view, whatever policies or guidelines support the constant reference to this website should be changed to prevent this use, and articles that currently refer to this "score" should be edited to no longer do so. Perhaps this question has already been debated and decided upon (I would have no idea where that debate may have taken place), but if so, it is time to revisit it: Rotten Tomatoes really is something rotten in the heart of Wikipedia's film pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.194.22.210 ( talk) 04:37, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that you are bringing your own biases to Wikipedia. Whether you think it's impacting film criticism or box office performance should not be a reason to avoid using the site. Wikipedia is, ideally at least, about undeniable facts. The fact of the matter is that the site, and Metacritic, are viewed as viable metrics by the vast majority of the general public at large. That is why we use them, not necessarily because we agree or disagree with it on a personal level. -- Deathawk ( talk) 04:15, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
There's no "closed-shop attitude" here at all; in fact, the opposite. Any and all ideas, suggested by anybody, may have consideration. Prefacing your topic with a slight on the editors is not such a kind thing to do, especially when they've created a resource you obviously use and value. Anyway, as for your comment, you are right that a film's article is better when its critique section explores the film merits (or lack) in prose. You are more than welcome to help improve the current state of affairs by adding such material, supported by reliable sources, to those film articles you feel could be improved. As for Rotten Tomatoes, I think you are confused over what it is. It is not a "critique" as you call it. It is an aggregate scoring based on actual reviews/critiques. It is just one metric to judge how a film was received by critics. No more, no less. A review and a meta review (aka aggregate review) serve different purposes. If you believe in statistics, the Rotten Tomato score actually means more than an individual review as the unexpected deviation of an average from the "true mean" is smaller than the expected deviation of an individual review from the true mean. I've read quite a few comments by Hollywood directors and actors upset by Rotten Tomatoes, saying that the low Rotten Tomato score hurt their box office take. Our policy is to be neutral. Wikipedia's articles are not to protect investors return on investment, or to ensure a sequel gets made, or that a new franchise hits the ground running. Its goal is to have encyclopedic coverage that is neutral. This includes valid critical and audience reviews and summaries about them without giving undue weight. In most cases, those filmmakers and industry insiders getting upset at Rotten Tomatoes have really misplaced their ire. They should be upset that they've made a bad movie rather than at Rotten Tomates for gathering critical opinion. Jason Quinn ( talk) 07:50, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I have noticed that on AfD discussions, you frequently have editors whose defintion of the term neologism could more aptly be described as a protologism. Such incorrect semantics could be solved by clarifying the difference at wp:neo or MOS:NEO. Could someone more experienced than myself do this please? 80.249.56.85 ( talk) 16:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I think we should be better at defining the policy about when a civilian attack is notable and when not. When should they be mentioned on a list and when are they big enough to get a standalone article? We are seeing a lot of terrorism, should every attack get an article? At least I got a feeling that it is a very controversial subject on Wikipedia with no real policy. And some articles are proposed for deletion, others aren't. It would be nice to have a policy on that here on Wikipedia.-- Rævhuld ( talk) 21:57, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi @
Kudpung,
Oshwah, and
Primefac: and Mz7.
Recently, there are way too many articles being created for mobile phones.
User talk:Usernamekiran/Archives/2017/June#Notability. A perfect example for
WP:NEE
WP:ENN. I can come up with a draft for an essay for "Notability guidelines for electronic devices". But I dont know what happens to that draft later lol. I mean, I know there would be a discussion, many contributions from other editors, and a consensus before making it an actual essay/guideline. I request suggestion/guidance from you guys. —usernamekiran
(talk) 23:16, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi @
Kudpung,
Oshwah, and
Primefac: and Mz7.
I created a very preliminary draft for the essay at User:Usernamekiran/sandbox2. Kindly let me know what you think of it. I haven't added a declaration stating its just an essay and not a guideline. Also, there are some inline notes/comments. Your feedback is much appreciated. Thanks. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:04, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Should a reaction article get a standalone article? On some terrorist incident articles, the reactions by other countries and other world leaders got a standalone article. I think that is a little bit too much. Especially because they didn't stated anything really new or interesting. It was just about which country brought its condolences with which words.-- Rævhuld ( talk) 22:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received substantial support; so did concrete proposal #1. Recapping the results already done at WP:administrators' noticeboard:
"
The balancing COI and privacy/outing means that the only option is that people investigating COI must submit information in private to the relevant people. Currently this is the arbitration committee and/or the WMF, but other bodies could be considered if there is consensus for this."Closing rationale: "
There is consensus for the proposal with the obvious caveat, that this approach needs a lot more details and clarification.Many have clarified that other bodies shall only refer to editors who have been vetted by the community to handle sensitive and personally identifying information.There has been concerns about the use of the word only as it seems to nullify on-wiki processes based on CU and behaviorial evidence.""
We need to balance privacy provided to those editing in good faith against the requirements of addressing undisclosed paid promotional editing. To do so can be achieved with a private investigation with some release of results publicly to help with the detection of further related accounts. These details may include the name of the Wikipedia editing company with which the account is associated (such as for example the connections drawn here)"Closing rationale:
There is consensus for the above proposal, with a condition that the proposal must be clarified to remove vaugeness, and that any information released must be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation".
More specifically, the information that is to be clarified is:
- Who is doing the investigating? (this looks like it's covered by Milieu 3)
- What information is to be released? The proposer has stated in the discussion below (and other editors agreed) that the information that is released is to be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation". This renders the argument of wp:outing invalid, which really was the only argument brought up on the oppose side.
-- George Ho ( talk) 23:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC); expanded, 00:02, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The welcome template links to Wikipedia:Citation underkill? What do others think? QuackGuru ( talk) 01:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
An editor has done this. Is there a policy or guideline about linking to internal wikipedia documents from mainspace? I found WP:NOTPART but it doesn't address wikilinking. Thanks. -- Green C 18:51, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Nations and Wikipedia is a new meta page to accumulate and help organize ways nations/governments and Wikipedia interact and for the Wikipedia community to establish relevant policies and guidelines. I thought you might be interested in this page and that I should probably link it here. Please share your thoughts on it on its talk page.
-- Fixuture ( talk) 20:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
As the association for the promotion of free knowledge in Switzerland, we would like to comment on what was recently discussed in particular in the French-speaking community.
First of all, we deeply regret the continued assumption that Wikimedia CH is involved in conflicts despite the numerous measures that we adopted since more than one year, so as to develop the association in the most sustainable, efficient and transparent way as possible.
To that end, this is a short overview of steps taken on the following important topics:
The question of "Paid editing" and the range of associated questions, are taken very seriously. We have accepted and dealt with these questions with an external expert as part of a "Governance Workshop", details of which can be found in our "Impact Report" under "Managing Conflicts of Interest in a multilingual context" (see [17]).
The last general assembly meeting in Lucerne unfortunately saw a short verbal altercation between various members present. Since we did not have an external moderator and the President of the Board (who took care of the facilitation himself on that day) ran again as candidate for the Board for the coming term, we failed to act quickly and adequately in this unfortunate situation. To prevent anything similar from happening in the future, we have now officially introduced a "Respectful Space policy" (see [18]). In future we will ensure all events and discussions that are organized/held by Wikimedia CH or financed via the association, comply with these rules (and implemented if necessary); (see protocol of the first meeting of the Board of Directors dated 6 June 2017). In addition to this, the future general assembly will be led by an external moderator.
Furthermore, the Board decided unanimously (see resolution dated 20 June 2017), to offer the possibility of an external independent mediation expert for the conflict between association members from the French-speaking community and to bear related costs up to CHF 1,000, provided that the mediation is availed of by 30 September 2017. The parties involved are therefore provided with a neutral and professional framework in which problems can be defined and tackled in a constructive manner.
As regards the above measures, we as Wikimedia CH assume that we have done everything within our power to ensure our values such as inclusiveness, diversity and respect as well as prohibiting harassment in any form.
Wikimedia CH Board and Staff
Please note that in case of conflict, the German version of this statement prevails — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilario ( talk • contribs) 12:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Have some essays been unintentionally elevated to rule status?
Since December 2016 there have been many diligent and good faith changes to WP:Project namespace. The part that troubles me is with regard to essays bearing the “supplement” template. Here’s why.
The changes at WP:Project namespace include separate sections for
In various places there is text that says the policy supplement essays have no more clout than 'mere' essays, yet the simple fact that they are treated separately and are called "pages" runs great risk of inculcating the idea that they are rules, not essays. Also supplement essays such as WP:BRD seem to fall under both of these categories. Yes, it is an info pages and describe a common approach to the policies, but yes it is an essay.
I’d like to commend Moxy ( talk · contribs) for hard work trying to refresh the organization of the namespaces, and in no way imply anything improper here. Nonetheless, by splitting essays into “mere” essays at WP:ESSAYPAGES and “something more” essays at WP:INFOPAGES, the well-intended changes at Project namespace seem to imply rule status for BRD and other essays tagged as a “supplement”.
Is it time to redesignate “supplement” essays as quasi-rule pages with a new name?
If not, does Project namespace require more work so that all essays of every stripe are under the same subcategory? NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 16:31, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Request for comment on parenthetical information in first sentence. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 05:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
FYI, I started a thread at the talk page for the DR policy. The proposal is to add some text to "Discuss with other editors". The new text seeks to prevent blow ups before they occur. Please add any comments to the thread at that the DR policy's talk page. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 14:36, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
MOS:DUPLINK says, "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes..." I have seen many editors remove linking on this basis, on the grounds that the first instance should be linked, but not the subsequent ones. For example, in an article on "Widgets", "John Smith" is linked to the article on "John Smith" the first time "John Smith" is mentioned. However, later in the article, John Smith is not linked to. I can understand the logic in this, but it seems to imply that people read Wikipedia articles from start to finish. I don't think this is true. People read what they are interested in. For example, someone might read the section entitled "Widgets in Spain" and see a mention of "John Smith". Who is this "John Smith"? they ask. There is no link. There is a link to "John Smith", but it is buried halfway through the article under "Widgets: Technical Aspects". Is there any research which says that people read Wikipedia articles from top to bottom?-- Jack Upland ( talk) 02:17, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Just thought I'd mention that links should actually appear twice in an article, once in the lead and once in the body. I'm personally more concerned with everyday terms being overlinked than with a legitimate link appearing an extra time. Primergrey ( talk) 13:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
MoS could probably be clarified in this regard. The place to propose such a clarification is
WT:MOS.
—
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 03:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
The MoS is a guideline - this particular element says "Generally, a link should..." and goes on to list some ten or so explicit situations where the guideline might not apply. Where there is a good reason to re-link, go ahead and do it.
As far as research, I am pretty certain there is research that shows people generally read the lead and sometimes a little more. The injunction against over-linking is to avoid a "sea of blue".
Perhaps we should consider functionality to highlight a section of text and provide a search option - there are plugins that do that.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 11:22, 17 June 2017 (UTC).
On a related note, I believe it would do us all much good if the Foundation were to fund research into how people read a Wikipedia article. Right now, it's all based on existing practice which is based on the idea of (1) a lead section & (2) organized sub-sections on various aspects of the subject, (3) a lot, but not too many, links, & (4) maybe, just maybe, infoboxes. But there are no existing guidelines on how to write an encyclopedia article (I've looked), so maybe we're doing it wrong...or maybe we're doing it right & don't know it. If nothing else, it would tell us whether overlinking actually helps reader comprehension. Lastly, having some concrete facts would help us write a better encyclopedia, seeing as we're almost the only ones doing it any more. (The others have either gone out of business, or are desperately hanging on.) -- llywrch ( talk) 20:03, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I would love to have a button beside "See also" that says "Show all links on page" Dougmcdonell ( talk) 20:18, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
If I write that George Bush was born in 1904, that can easily be checked, likely from the references on the page. If I say the NYT reported that JFK was assassinated, that can be checked as well. There are citations, and information without citations is flagged or taken out. However, it is different when it comes to fiction, or tv shows, or things of that sort.
Take an example of these articles: Fictional universe of Harry Potter. Or Produce 101 Season 2. How can the facts in these articles be verified? Well, you need to have read all the books, or have seen every episode. Lots of vandalism occurred to Produce 101 today, but frankly it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. How do I know who was taken off the show and who wasn't?
And Harry Potter: "Some wizards are the products of unions between humans and magical creatures of more-or-less human intelligence, such as Fleur Delacour and her sister Gabrielle (both quarter veela), Professor Flitwick (a quarter goblin), Madame Maxime and Hagrid (both half giant). Prejudiced wizards (such as Umbridge) often use the insulting term half-breed to refer to mixed-species wizards and werewolves, or other beings such as house elves, merpeople and centaurs (who are separate species). The centaurs within the series prefer to exist amongst themselves, with little interaction with humans." Is that entirely made up? I have no idea. Maybe you do. But even if you read the books, you'd have to look back to check. And there are thousands of pages of Harry Potter.
You probably get the picture. A lot of my time is spent in articles re current events, especially terrorist attacks. The things that are argued over are pretty minute, and they involve dozens of editors. Was the Manchester attacker a Muslim? There was quite a bit of argument over that. But is Harry Potter a union between a quarter veela and a Umbridge? I don't know. Someone could put that in and frankly unless someone just read the books or knows them by heart, how can any of these things be confirmed? It's clear that there is just a discrepancy between the two categories.
So, what's the solution? I don't know. You could add disclaimers: This plot summary may not be correct. Or you could make it so that extensive plot summaries need to go to Wikia or some other outlet. I don't know. This is just something I have been thinking about. WP is not a paper encyclopedia, but I don't know if it has any business re-stating the plot of anything. It seems to go against what it's good at-- cited factual information. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador ᐁT₳LKᐃ 06:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
If I write that George Bush was born in 1904, that can easily be checked, likely from the references on the page. If I say the NYT reported that JFK was assassinated, that can be checked as well. There are citations, and information without citations is flagged or taken out. However, it is different when it comes to fiction, or tv shows, or things of that sort.Firstly, I don't actually agree that the ease of verifying something is that strongly related to whether or not it is fictional. It would be much easier to verify that "in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels, Harry was the son of James and Lily Potter" (which I would bet good money can be cited to a dozen places other than the Harry Potter books) than it would be to verify "the British artist Henry Moore had a pet dog called Fawkes, named after Guy Fawkes" (really true, but unless you happen to know where that fact comes from, not easy to verify). The difference is not whether or not a fact is relevant to the real world or to a piece of fiction, the difference lies in how significant a fact is to the subject. In-Universe, Harry's parentage has plot significance, while Fleur Delacour's doesn't.
if the interpretation of those primary sources becomes difficult— there should be no interpretation at all. State the plot in the simplest terms possible, and leave any interpretation to reliable sources. Bright☀ 12:33, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for all the opinions guys, really. I continue to stand by what I said, that the content in those sort of articles are of a lower quality level and with lower reliability. But it probably is just that it will stay how it is, I just had to share my opinions, and thanks for considering them. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador ᐁT₳LKᐃ 15:53, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
There is a broader issue with "fiction" on Wikipedia, and that occurs in a great many articles involving technology. Invariably "science fiction" shows up, such as the hydrogen powered passenger jet. I'm dismayed by the amount of "maybe possible sometime" stuff that's in the encyclopedia when it's not being researched now and may be impossible ever. I'm pretty confident it's not what people expect in an encyclopedia. Dougmcdonell ( talk) 20:57, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Naturally must our contributions be built on (secondary) sources. However we have some issues , matters that never appear to have been questioned that has become somewhat traditional. For instance our plot-parts of film/motion pictures. As a reader am I personally glad that we do have these, despite they very seldom contain any sources. And with that in mind, please have a look below the headline "Name" in the Estadio Azteca article. The part is partly referencing to sources - but here has complaints been made. Again as a reader do I find the Name part of this article to be interesting to read. I cannot help thinking, if the "un-sourced" parts was pure nonsense , that if so, someone else in Mexico City ought to have fixed that. (It's a huge city) And that sources for this may be hard to find, but the story might well be well-known locally. I have no real thought trough suggestion, but why the difference towards our plot parts in film related articles ? I was thinking about "locally well-known" issues like this (in a fairly harmless article)- perhaps if a number of different contributors with knowledge perhaps could somehow "vouch" for a statement's safety. Independenly from each other, and several. And only in harmless articles. But like I said, it's not fully thought through. But if something could be done in a case like this, perhaps a different background colour/color for not fully soured parts ? It's also possible to just having texts as it is in this case (including citation needed etc) - but then remains the question of, for instance, plots (they never includes "citation needed" and similar, as far as I have seen. And it's probably OR to use a film itself as source, and certainly not secondary). Please note - I'm not questioning our guidelines in general. Only if something can be done about minor lacks of sources in articles that are obviously harmless (as well as largely sourced) as in this example, and just as plots seems to be. Any thoughts or suggestions ? Or was this just foolish to bring up ? I don't mind negative criticism here at all. It's thoughts only. Boeing720 ( talk) 01:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary.Anomie ⚔ 16:24, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Hello. Is there a wikipedia policy about citing bioRxiv articles? Also, there are images in bioRxiv articles that I would like to upload. On bioRxiv they have cc by 4.0 license. I suspect, but do not know for certain, that the eventual published version will be copyrighted. Is it OK to use those sorts of images even after they appear in a copyrighted publication? For example, figure 2 A and B panels of http://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/17/139097.full.pdf would be excellent addtions to an article I'm interested in. Thank you. Viroguy ( talk) 19:51, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Currently, IPs can nominate articles for deletion, but they can not create the deletion discussion because they do not have an actual account. Should we have someplace they can ask for assistance in completing the nomination? The relevant information is discussed here (that page is not a policy or a guideline page). Should we add a link to WP:ANI or some other location for them to request help? As it is, they nominate them,. and then someone wanders upon it sometime later and reverts the nomination because there is no discussion and it's been a while since the nomination was made. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:33, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
If you have placed this without registering for an account, please go to WT:AFD to complete the nomination and...I think it might work. TonyBallioni ( talk) 05:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
If you need help completing the AfD nomination, please do the following.... ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Limits of when we use non-free image. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:14, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Okay, so I'm not going to put this up as an official RFC because I might get thrown bodily out of the room, but I wanted to gauge people's opinions on user talk page archiving. While I know it is entirely up to individual editors when and if to archive their pages, but I have seen multiple times on multiple talk pages recently where there are hundreds of sections and some old discussions going back to 2010. Maybe it's just me, but when you get user talk pages reaching 400k (or even more ridiculous at over 900k) it gets hard, not only for the processor to load, but to read through. I'm on a fairly new computer, and it still throws a hissy fit any time I visit these pages.
Now obviously, there are some people whose talk pages are huge because they're heavily involved in areas where they simply get a lot of commentary on their talk pages, and that's not really what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about the people who are apparently unconcerned with ridiculously long pages.
So here's my general question: should we force users to archive their talk pages if and when they reach a certain length? For the sake of this argument, let's say 200k, since that seems to be about as long as I can find of people who do have archiving. Primefac ( talk) 17:18, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The User Sandbox exits for the sole purpose of experimenting. As such it is not covered by many of the editing policies. The only restrictions on sandbox editing should be those which make sure that edits in the sandbox are not damaging wikipedia as a project. However, editing the sandbox to include content that comes under a T-Ban does not damage the wikipedia. Therefore users should be given the freedom to edit thier sandboxes, no matter what kind of bans they are subject to. The same goes for a persons own talk page. He/She should be allowed to edit the personal talk page without fear of violating a T-Ban. In effect T-bans should exclude these two areas, as they constitute personal space of users whose content is not included in mainspace articles. FreeatlastChitchat ( talk) 06:08, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Based on recent new article that was dubbed not in compliance with G11 or A7 by administrators who upon review of their page are reflect no knowledge themselves of said subject being written, yet have the ability to "tag" an item as ambiguous or not credit worthy. How is this possible? If citations of individuals provide support of the person being written about in the article is not only validated yet repeated as a subject matter expert as well - what else would be needed to pass criteria? I know...knowledgeable administrators of said industry! I applaud volunteerism, expanding knowledge, keeping freedom of speech and thought free; however, when a platform that is left unchecked by over zealous free service defenders of such ideas start to know use their time of service as foundation of being an "experts" in all areas - this is when I start to raise a flag and say "flag / foul" let's collectively revisit the role and intentions of the platform that is open to all that solicits the public to VOLUNTARILY edit/write/contribute to articles to fine tune the information therein - can that endeavor not be "speedily marked for deletion" by what is seemingly to the writer as ignorance of the administrator who again based on their profile is simply not knowledgeable of the industry in which they are reviewing.
My policy change request is:at a minimum allow new articles to be available to public to VOLUNTARILY edit/write/contribute for minimum 72 hours, have administrators who are in those industries actually review and concur with at least 1 other - ideally 2 other administrators for concurrence of wiki violations and then clearly indicate to the writer - where their error in compliance warranted the deletion.
My intent is not to snub/point finger/maliciously retaliate or be rude, just to bring awareness to an area in the article writing process that can be better managed.
I will again re post my recently written article that was deleted in the hopes that an administrator who knows this area of which I am writing can review and approve. If the content of the article is not "strong enough" again - clearly identify what area of the article give wiki admins concern - but truly not enough to delete when citations clearly are there.
LaTonja Estelle
Latonjae (
talk) 20:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)LaTonja Estelle
Latonjae (
talk) 20:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Rico’s musical genuis can be heard on movie soundtracks such asis promotionally toned, or that a single reference is enough to support the entire article. Please don't just recreate the article again, as it'll be deleted again - instead, use our article wizard to create a draft, which will then be reviewed by an experienced Wikipedia editor (who may even know a thing or two about music!). If it's up to scratch, it'll get approved, and if not you'll get detailed instructions on how to improve it. How does that sound? -- There'sNoTime ( to explain) 20:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Hey, I'm not sure of the appropriateness of this. [22] [23] I know that everything is properly attributed and the like so that there is no "licensing" problem or anything, but as "saved" there is no apparent indication that the conversation originally took place somewhere else, and it does seem to go against the spirit of our being allowed to blank our own talk pages. Has this kind of thing come up before? Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 23:06, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi
Since almost a month now, I have been having
discussions about a notability guideline for electronic devices, which resulted in an essay.
Recently, the situation that I was describing came in effect, when an editor created 16 articles for cameras, all of which are being considered for deletion 3 PRoD, and 13 AfD.
The essay is almost finished, but I would like more opinions/suggestions on it. Maybe it will not become an official guideline/policy, but I think it should be treated at the least as an essay. The essay is currently in userspace, if consensus is achieved theb it can be moved in mainspace.
Here is the essay: User:Usernamekiran/Notability (electronic devices).
Thanks a lot in advance. —usernamekiran (talk) 05:54, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This page is currently 636,434 bytes long. I suggest we remedy this by having RfC on sub-pages, with a short, neutral, notice posted here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
A short-lived move request at Talk:Boeing Insitu ScanEagle#Requested move 6 July 2017, now withdrawn as wrong venue, established that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft), a titling guideline established by WP:WikiProject Aviation, has a de facto community consensus based on its longstanding presence in the listbox at the top of Wikipedia:Article titles (the link text there is "Aircraft"). The project's guideline is contrary to titling policy including, in many cases, WP:PRECISE. If there has ever been a community-level discussion, nobody has found it yet or claimed that one exists.
Is this an adequate substitute for the formal community approval required by WP:CONLEVEL? Or, should the project seek that approval now? ― Mandruss ☎ 17:57, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Today, somebody using an IP (whose edit summary indicates they might be a family member of Bud Dunn) added info to the article that considerably changed what was there about Dunn's children. The article is FA and has been for about 10 months now. If the info was obviously false I'd revert, but they provided bare urls for sources which do back up what they are saying and seem to be reliable. Unfortunately, they also go against what all the book and newspapers I had used as sources in writing the article said. I really don't know what to do; just revert, or fill in the urls, or ask the IP to fill them in since they added them, or just assume their sources are wrong and the 20+ others are right. I don't know. What makes it even weirder is the IP said the article was a great job except for the part about the children. White Arabian Filly Neigh 20:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi all. As a COI editor who sometimes makes requests on behalf of clients, I've been struggling with the length of the COI edit request backlog. It pretty consistently hovers around 170 requests, with many that are four months old or more.
I understand that the community is busy, and these requests can't take special precedence. However, an uncertain response time that spans months or more is a tough sell when I'm advocating to potential clients to work with me through Wikipedia's proper COI disclosure process.
As a partial solution, I propose creating a new response parameter to the {{request edit}} template, along the lines of "Revision needed." Editors could use this response to ask the original requester to update their request with additional detail or sources as needed before resubmitting. This would reduce the number of poorly formatted or ill-thought-out requests in the queue, so that editors can focus on reviewing the requests that are ready for thoughtful consideration and inexperienced COI editors can receive useful guidance on how to collaborate with the community. I also propose that COI editors be permitted to provide this response to certain COI edit requests, where it's applicable. To be clear: I am not suggesting that COI editors be empowered to accept or reject others' COI edit requests wholesale. This would simply be a way for COI editors to "give back" to the community by providing guidance to their peers and helping make the backlog less overwhelming for the NPOV volunteers who assist us.
Looking forward to everyone's thoughts and feedback. Thanks for your time! Mary Gaulke ( talk) 21:21, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
In general, there is such a big fixation on the COI aspects that there is not enough awareness of how they serve it up to the reviewing editor.....whether their method makes it a big or small job for the editor that might put it in. My experience is that even very intelligent editors lack this empathy/understanding, and propose it in a way that would make it a very big job to put it in, thus impairing response to such requests. The best remedy/ forcing statement that I can give briefly is to say to give simple, explicit instructions for the requested edit. North8000 ( talk) 01:11, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
I have been thinking about WP:OWN and how it relates to WP:Essays. Essays often contain the opinions of a specific group of Wikipedia editors. But let's say that another group of editors comes along and significantly edits the essay... to the point where the essay no longer reflects the opinions of the original group of editors (perhaps to the point where it now states the complete opposite). If the original editors try to object (perhaps saying "Look, you can go write your own essay... please leave our essay alone"), the new group can just point to WP:OWN (and say "Nope... you don't own the page"). This bothers me. If one of the reasons for essays is to give editors a place to state opinions, shouldn't we provide some mechanism to protect those opinions? I am thinking that we should allow some degree of ownership when it comes to essay pages. Please discuss. Blueboar ( talk) 19:56, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
A question related to the one above. WP:POLICIES states that "Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace." My question is... how "widespread" does a "widespread consensus" have to be? Can an essay be considered to have "widespread consensus" if it is supported by a reasonably large and diverse group, or must the essay be supported by the majority of the community? In other words... how large/small a consensus should an essay have before it is moved from main policy space to userspace (or conversely from userspace to main policy space)? Blueboar ( talk) 15:02, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
I had a problem with citation overkill. I created a Citation underkill. It represents the consensus of at least one editor. Me! One editor can make a difference. QuackGuru ( talk) 23:59, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
A theoretical way to address this issue is to compile essays with competing views of Topic X into a single essay which reports the existence of the competing views, and tries to present each policy-compliant perspective in a fair manner. (Remember that non-polioy-compliant essays are subject to deletion through MFD etc.) But to do that would take a heap of cooperation. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 20:39, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
FYI comments welcome Template_talk:Wikipedia_how-to#Requested move 11 July 2017 NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 09:15, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Is there a discussion page anywhere about the latest batch of fundraiser banners? I've looked extensively, and can't find one. Perhaps the Foundation has decided in advance that it knows the feedback it'll receive (massive-sized, joltingly intrustive, hectoring in tone, JW insisting on his (utterly revisionist) "proper title" of "Founder", and so on), and just doesn't want to hear it? 89.101.50.203 ( talk) 15:45, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
I know that "blanking" on Wikipedia is essentially the same as archiving (but without the search 🔍 results being shown). But it just seems useless to have a bot blank IP talk pages when archives can be created, it would seem better if IP addresses got archives than were being blanked. Sure "newbies" who use new IP's will be amazed by it, but by creating archives we will keep relevant discussions searchable, blanking helps no-one. -- 1.55.183.244 ( talk) 08:14, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring/B4 clarification is closed as failed/opposed. The rationale is too detailed, but one of rationales is worth quoting: "Abiding by rules is an integral part for the development of any community. But rules exist primarily and solely for the development and the greater good of the encycloepadia in general. Rules are not meant to be created just for the sake of it.
" Read further more. --
George Ho (
talk) 01:12, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
An RfC has been opened on the labelling of closures of requested moves by pager movers at Wikipedia talk:Page mover#RfC: Labeling page mover closures. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni ( talk) 00:38, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
The discussion on this topic has been occurring in a low trafficked page regarding the implementation of ACTRIAL. The WMF, apparently, has agreed to go along with it for a short trial to gain statistical insight. Their reasoning is a six year old consensus on the matter. When it was brought up whether or not a new RfC should be done to reconfirm that consensus it was shot down as unnecessary. Due to the immense change in Wikipedia policy that would result in this trial I felt it was necessary to post this notice to a much more seen board. The fact that this is being done in relative secret, away from the knowledge of most people, is astonishing and should bother any Wikipedian who values community input on such wide reaching actions. Therefore, the notice. Please see a retooled Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial for further details. -- Majora ( talk) 19:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
All I wanted to do was ensure that people know what was going on.and the usual accompanying garble---arrogant, negative light.... Winged Blades Godric 11:15, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion underway about establishing a new criteria for speedy deletion for undeclared paid editing. Please consider participating. TonyBallioni ( talk) 01:04, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Recently, there has been some confusion on whether or not the 7 July 2017 UNESCO decision to list the Old Town of Hebron, specifically the Cave of the Patriarchs, as a World Heritage Site, can or cannot be listed in the main list of World Heritage Sites in Israel. I have proposed that it be listed there, while other co-editors have disagreed with me. Wikipedia policies outlined in WP:Naming conventions (West Bank) do not specifically deal with the historical/geographical aspects of sites in the West Bank and which places were, in antiquity, called by different names. For example, the geographical place known as the "Land of Israel" is also a country historically defined as such in the Midrash and Mishnah (compiled in 189 CE). Saying that a place ( Hebron) is in the Land of Canaan, Judea, Palestine, the Land of Israel, the Holy Land, or whatever, is NOT necessarily a political statement, as it is a historical statement. It just so happens that the Government of Israel calls the country by its historical name. Had the Wikipedia article, " World Heritage Sites in Israel," been titled "World Heritage Sites in the State of Israel," the resentment in having Hebron or the Cave of the Patriarchs listed there may have held up, insofar as that is disputed. But, historically, there is no dispute whatsoever about its historical connections to these geographical names. If UNESCO wanted to politicize something, as in the recent case involving Hebron (see: UNESCO puts Hebron on endangered heritage list, outraging Israel), does that mean that we, on Wikipedia, must also politicize the same thing? Of course not! Please clarify Wikipedia's policy in WP:Naming conventions (West Bank) with respect to the use of geographical names used in antiquity, and which are NOT meant to offend any ethnic group, per se, but only mention its historical context. Davidbena ( talk) 22:16, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
The tag Category:World Heritage Sites in Israel was recently added to Cave of the Patriarchs. I removed it, and there is now a discussion fork on this topic underway at Talk:Cave of the Patriarchs/Archive 1#Categorisation with respect to status as World Heritage Site. Snuge purveyor ( talk) 00:55, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
SIMPLIFIED REVISED PROPOSAL: As per Wikipedia's recognition of the unresolved border dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, or its leaning towards any one side in the Arab-Israeli conflict, let it be resolved that we, as neutral observers, steer clear from taking any political stand, but maintain a neutral point of view, in accordance with WP:NPOV and WP:IMPARTIAL. In consideration of which, it is here proposed that the following disclaimer be appended to the Wikipedia pages broadly construed with the Arab-Israeli conflict, namely, that an asterisk (*) be placed after the word "Israel" in the category known as "World Heritage Sites in Israel," with a reference to the effect that the proper name "Israel" is used here apolitically, that is, as a geographical/historical toponym, often used in the same sense that "Palestine" is used, and whose recognized borders may actually be disputed; or vice-versa, the proper name "Palestine" is used here apolitically, etc. This may bring some succor to this complex and troubling issue. Davidbena ( talk) 19:46, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Friends, @ Newimpartial: and @ Seraphim System:, editors have been "politicizing" the situation since who-knows-when. But why do you insist on politicizing the situation when it negates Wikipedia's stated policy? As you can see here, the Israeli objection to calling regions of the country by two names - the one "Palestine" and the other "Israel" - based on political motives, or more precisely, on the now defunct 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan, is what we are dealing with here. (For the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan, see discussion here [Green Line]). Israelis view the entire country as one, but to give two separate names for two regions of the country is inherently wrong and is based on perpetuating an errant political stand taken by the British in 1937 who sought to divide the country. Moreover, the 1949 Armistice Agreement is no longer binding. While some might refuse to recognize Israel's de facto claims and hold of this territory, hoping to return to the pre-1967 border, the reality is such that the entire country is called "Israel" by the Israelis who live here. What's more, in a broader sense, the country's historical and geographical names have never changed, whether Palestine or the Land of Israel. So, I object to your claim that this discussion isn't about the "World Heritage Sites in Israel," as it still is. As for Wikipedia's naming conventions, the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed. My proposal is to leave the "West Bank" just as it is (since it only describes a geographical region that once divided positions held by Israel and Jordan), but to add a disclaimer there, stating to the effect that Wikipedia's use of the words "Palestine" and/or "Israel" are meant to be understood apolitically, and as purely geographical-historical terms used in antiquity. In this manner, we steer clear from politicizing the situation. Whenever editors mention "Israel" and their intent is to describe a political case involving the State of Israel, or the Government of Israel, the words "State of Israel" or "Government of Israel" should preface their editorial entry. Be well. Davidbena ( talk) 06:26, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
As I have suggested before: if you would like to propose a change to the nomenclature for locations in the West Bank and Gaza, you should formulate a Request for Consensus (RfC). Newimpartial ( talk) 17:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
I have posted a response to this conversation here. Snuge purveyor ( talk) 21:09, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
RECOMMENDATION: I earnestly urge those who are in a position to mend the current Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank) that they define and present a more clear guideline as to the categorization scheme used in "by country" categories on Wikipedia. This modification is important, as it will help solve the issue now underway in the Talk-Page of Cave of the Patriarchs, see Categorisation. Can the word "Palestine" be used for territories now referred specifically to as the "West Bank"? Davidbena ( talk) 12:08, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Google Search often takes the first two lines of the lede for a Wikipedia article and puts them in search results. As a result, promoters of some articles try hard to get what they want in those two lines. Or they try to keep out negative information. If they can just push the bad stuff down a bit by adding some verbiage, it disappears from Google. I've hit this issue twice in COI editing situations.Is there policy on this? Should there be? Discuss. John Nagle ( talk) 20:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Following an extensive and well-attended discussion, the article on the state of New York, formerly at "New York", has been moved to New York (state); the title, "New York", is now a disambiguation page for the state, the city, and the many other meanings of the name. Since links to either the city or the state can come up in a wide array of editing contexts, please note this in making links going forward. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:10, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
There are several hundred film articles at Wikipedia and Interwiki which use unaltered poster art to introduce film articles which are being promoted by this poster art. There is never an issue of this being fair use, though every use of such promotional poster art created for the purpose of promoting films still requires fair use discussion which seems repetitive and redundant. For hundreds of films, the poster art ends up being used without any impediment or copyvio. Should there be a standard template created or policy established which would identify unaltered poster art as not being a copyvio and avoid the vast amount of redundant time being spent by hundreds of editors justifying the use of promotional poster art for films on a film-by-film basis? JohnWickTwo ( talk) 17:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm having a crack at getting WP:MICROCON moved from proposed (where it's languished for a while, to say the least), and it's apparently good practice to post an announcement here. The link to the Talkpage section is here. Thanks, Bromley86 ( talk) 21:23, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Red links in infoboxes. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 09:43, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Category declaration, [[Category:Some-topic templates]]
, can placed in template or in its doc. They are both widely used, and the guideline or help page have no opinion about which way is preferred, until this week
User:Redrose64 says
declaration in doc is preferred.
Pros for declaring in template:
Pros for declaring in doc:
Golopotw ( talk) 05:35, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Hello. You are invited to comment on this RfC, which seeks to reform certain aspects of Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. Biblio ( talk) 15:47, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Hello everyone 🙋🏻, I’d like to request some amendments to WP:SEEALSO. I’ve created a plethora of articles and while creating them I tend to follow this policy to the letter, however I do notice that other editors simply ignore this and immediately start adding links already in the article.
Sent from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱.
The articles I’ve created and / or greatly expanded always link appropriately upon publishing/expansion, I tend to use templates like “Main” and inline “Seealso” to make sure that interested readers know where to find related articles. This however doesn’t stop other editors from still (re-)adding them into the “See also” section, I’ve seen this not only on “my” articles (as in the ones I’ve created, don’t worry I'm not asserting ownership, it’s just a manner of speaking), but on countless of other articles that I either read or just make minor edits to, for example I’m reading an article about let's say German history and Herr Bismarck is mentioned several times and even appears in a “Main” template above some users will still add him into the “See also” section, now I’m an inclusionist and I really hate to revert edits that aren’t maleficent in nature, but I know of several “dedicated” (read: Over-active) editors who go out of their way to find every break of WP:SEEALSO, and remove the links. Now my proposals below will not only save those people countless of hours in what can basically be summed up as “useless edits for the sake of following WikiPolicy”, but I believe will greatly benefit the readers (you know? The people we all do this for).
I'll get straight to the point, abolish the guideline that states that a repetition of links is bad 🙅🏻, especially on larger articles though I personally don't plan on ever adding these links if this proposal would go through we have to think of how some readers read Wikipedia, I personally when I have the time prefer to read full articles 🤓, heck I even click on links or add some references through Bing News if I find “Citation Needed” 🔎📔, reckon that most of y’all do something similar, but I would guess that since the majority of the readers never edit that they would probably only look for the things and sections they’re interested in (at that moment), maybe someone only needs to read the end of the article and never bothers to go through the rest but they’re still interested in related subjects, what then? Well under WP:SEEALSO nothing, the assumption is that everyone reads full articles.
In my current editing style I tend to (re-)add links from earlier in the article if it’s for the first time in a large section again, imagine that an article on sulfuric acids has a link 🔗 to let's say base, but the article itself is 90 kb’s long, abs it gets mentioned again as an important comparison very late in the article, not linking would be a major disservice to readers, and from most people I know that only read and never edit Wikipedia, many don’t even know that there are navigation templates 🗒 at the bottom, let alone categories. In fact from the people I’ve asked (NOT A SCIENTIFIC SAMPLE, THIS IS WP:OR BUT I’LL CITE FOR REFERENCE AS NO ACTUAL STATISTICS CAN BE GATHERED AT PRESENCE) they tend to not read further than the “See also” section, sure we should still be able to differentiate when a navigation template suffices, and wen the “See also” section is needed (in fact I started my first “over-active” account purely to make a navigational template).
I propose therefore that links MAY be repeated (especially in larger articles, which for me as a mobile editor are hard to navigate through as is) if relevancy is either direct to the subject, or is extremely comparable / antonomic to the subject. I mostly read and edit Wikipedia on a mobile device (my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL) and in order to even be able to see a template at the bottom (LET ALONE EDIT ONE) I am forced to click on “Desktop”, I don’t think (read: Speculation) that most readers would do this to look for related subjects. So far WP:SEEALSO is a bane on the mobile reading experience, and as none of Wikipedia’s developers seem to have any interest in improving either the mobile reading or editing experience changing this one policy would probably be easier and best for the readers.
-- Nayman30 ( talk) 11:35, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Watchers of this page may be interested in WT:CSD#Expand G13 to cover ALL old drafts. -- Izno ( talk) 12:10, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Resolving conflicts between (and within) PERFNAV, FILMNAV, and PERFCAT, which proposes mutually conforming clarification to these guidelines, in a centralized discussion. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
It's an issue. Some editors out there are putting actors' pages up for deletion NOT because they have incorrect or unreliable sources but because of what their idea of what 'famous' means. That is a matter of opinion and NOT fact.
One editor in particular recently asked for an actors' page to be put up for deletion because of a few reasons, such as:
1)The actor in question has only been to "one convention" and it happened to be where the actor lives. Where the actor started their career. Now tell me. Where does it say that an actor MUST attend a convention AT ALL to be notable? 2) The shows the actor has starred in have not been broadcast widely on television, netflix, or amazon. But I suppose that funimation is not a streaming service where you can watch their shows online, or on a TV or mobile device like those subscription based streaming services mentioned. 3) The actors' career coverage is limited to the subscription based dubbing company, funimation. Needs to be put up for draft until proven notable. So, the the dubbing company themselves are releasing cast list themselves and that is not reliable sourcing? Because it's from the same company?
As you can see, when putting a page up for deletion I believe several people need to be involved and take a second look at the editors' reasoning for doing so. In most cases, you'll find it's due to the editors' personal beliefs and not due to incorrect information/improper sourcing.
Wikipedia could really stand to improve upon itself and for the users to not abuse the system. This is supposed to be an informative site. Hoping others will see this and be aware. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swiedenx3 ( talk • contribs) 14:22, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
I propose that, in the case of abandoned drafts and AFC submissions that would otherwise be subject to criterion G11 of the speedy deletion criteria and show promise of possibly becoming a full-fledged article, be instead moved to draftspace. I am aware of the refund policy, but it's better to not delete the page in the first place, because other people would more easily see the content and contribute if the page was not deleted.
Jjjjjjdddddd (
talk) 07:38, 15 July 2017 (UTC) *facepalm* I confused G11 and G13, and I also retract my proposal. This was poorly thought-out
Jjjjjjdddddd (
talk) 08:16, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
There is an open-ended RfC on the purpose of the draftspace, including the possibility of dumping the draftspace altogether: Wikipedia talk:Drafts#RfC: on the proper use of the draftspace. Participation is very welcome. -- Taku ( talk) 03:53, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
So this means we need an RfC on whether to have an RfC seriously? Why shut down the discussion at all? Trying to win an argument by shutting down any attempt to discussion is disingenuous at best. Also please see Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Expand_G13_to_cover_ALL_old_drafts for the context for this RfC. -- Taku ( talk) 23:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
The WMF has posted research questions for the upcoming autoconfirmed article creation trial at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. Comments there or at WT:ACTRIAL are appreciated. TonyBallioni ( talk) 13:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
Relisted I have relisted the discussion, i.e. gave the discussion additional 30 days. Therefore, more participants would be welcome to comment there during the extended time. -- George Ho ( talk) 01:41, 30 June 2017 (UTC); added icon, 01:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
For an update, the discussion was closed and then summarized. -- George Ho ( talk) 21:36, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
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
Hello again. I've seen several articles with the "too technical" banner produced by {{technical|date=}} at the top. Is there a wp policy about how to deal with this, other than what is stated in the banner "Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details"? What I want to suggest is to have TWO articles about a topic. For example, there could be an article Endoplasmic reticulum (which currently has a too technical banner) that was written so that a freshman high school student could understand it, and a second article (red link for now) Endoplasmic reticulum College level written with all the details expected by senior university students. If somebody searched wp for endoplasmic reticu... both articles would appear as suggestions. The reader could decide which to access. Readers of the basic article would be alerted to the more detailed article by hatnote at the top and "see also" entries. Is there a precedent for this? Is there a policy against it? Thanks, JeanOhm ( talk) 16:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
See also the featured article Introduction to viruses. An other such article is Introduction to M-theory. The others can be found here from [[ Introduction to cooperative learning to Introduction to systolic geometry. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Making wikipedia policies as neutral as it's encyclopedic content. Do not forbid people with particulate believes or medical conditions to participate in the community for example. 178.187.10.7 ( talk) 17:51, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
— xaosflux Talk 23:39, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
You may be interested in this discussion, which relates to an interpretation of the verifabilty policy and the citation guidelines. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Citation underkill. Scribolt ( talk) 19:01, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
The ongoing RM discussion at Template talk:2016 US Election AE is relisted, so feel free to comment there until closure. -- George Ho ( talk) 01:12, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
One of the larger problems that I've been seeing develop over the past 4 or 5 years but is growing to a head is the issue of neutrality with respect to morality in discussing subjective opinions about persons, groups, and other organizations.
Where we don't have problems is when someone or some group is seen as a subjective term but that is near-universally morally acceptable. For articles on people/groups that are regarded as geniuses, as the best creative person, as a strong businessman, etc., we are acutely aware of the appropriate language to use in these articles to stress that these are widely-held opinions and not so much fact. We rarely use these subjective, if not universally-applied labels, in the lede sentences, but introduce this later in the lede with statements that clearly make it attributable opinion rather than fact. This all is properly in line with WP:NPOV and other policies.
Where we do run into problems is when the subjective term is something that is seen to a larger group as immoral. It is human nature to call someone out when their morals vastly differ from ours, so it is natural to rush to push this immoral stance front and center. This is part of the problem.
Now, it is important we're not trying to play down someone or some group that has been convicted in court or a similar body of a immoral crime that directly harms persons or personal property. These types of actions are near universally accepted as immoral, and we should treat those as such. We shouldn't coddle subjective language around convicted murderers and terrorist groups, for example, though one must stress that if there's only an accusation pending trial, we presume innocent until proven guilty, which is where this morality question plays out.
When we turn to a subjective label that are particularly about someone's viewpoint absent of any actual harmful actions, such as "white nationalist", for example, this is clearly a view that to most would consider immoral, but it doesn't have the universal agreement; there are parts of this world where that is considered morally acceptable. This sets up the problem that I've seen: since by the nature of what we have deemed to be reliable sources for such commentary, they are generally going to share a specific moral center, which would agree with the larger moral center shared by Western, English-speaking regions. There is no question that this larger view should be included, but far too frequently, these views are presented front and center in the lede sentence of the appropriate article and without clarifying them as attributed opinion. Editors when challenged with this often argue that since the majority, sometimes near unanimity of the press, says this, it must be fact and must be presented as soon as possible per WP:UNDUE.
However, I would argue that WP needs to have more an amoral center, one that aligns with how we treated "positive moral" terms. Unless we're talking about convicted crimes, WP should not adopt the same moral center that the bulk of the RSes does as to reflect a more proper world view and to stay much more neutral on these types of topics. This means that we should not be so focused on introducing the subjective labels as early as the lede sentence and sacrifice factual content, nor presume the "factual" nature of these subjective labels. Again, we don't do this at all for "positive moral" terms, we shouldn't at all be doing the same for "negative moral" terms.
This also avoids a potential slippery slope, even if the press fall along that. Having views that are generally seen as "negative moral" like bleeding-heart liberal, fascist, anarchists, racist, misogynistic, white nationalist, alt right, far left, or far right is just having that view. Unless their actions actually lead to universally immoral crimes, they haven't done a single thing wrong from a legal standpoint, they just share a vastly differ viewpoint from what the moral average does. While the press may want to condemn them for this type of thinking, that seems extremely out of line with our job to be objective and neutral. Again, this is not saying that the majority stance shouldn't be included, but it should be tempered as to be attributed opinion and not as early as some wish to write. It also avoids the slope where less problematic labels or "thought crimes" deemed by the press are treated the same by us, such as "climate change denier", "conspiracy theorist", and so forth.
Most of the time, this is easy to edit to fix problematic articles, adapted a more amoral tone that does not seek to condemn the person or group. Take Jared Taylor which has come up before (specifically this version for discussion [1]) where the lede calls out his white nationalist and supremacist labels before actually introducing him properly. When it has been discussed before on BLP/N [2] many editors think that because the majority of sources treat him as such that these should be the facts and presented first. If WP was more amoral, we'd start by describing him as an author, and founder and editor of the magazine, followed by a sentence that says that he is generally considered a white nationalist and supremacist. Tidying up that lede to be more amoral and not treating "white nationalist" or the like as a crime to mark such persons with would go a long way towards meeting NPOV for the article overall. Here's another case happening just now [3] where just because the majority of sources call Breitbart "far right", it should not be forced as a factual statement in the lede sentence, though still clearly must be emphasized in the lede. But because other media sources label has such, editors insist it must be front and center. I stress: the goal here is not to eliminate such information from articles, but to temper it appropriately with attribution and outside of WP's voice while maintaining the proper balance.
The other problem is that without treating things with a more amoral approach, we then allow the moral center of WP to be determined by the press. As noted, this reflects only a portion of the world view, but more importantly, this view shifts over time, which affects our articles over time. For example, with Trump's election, the moral center has significantly shifted to the left, which if we held to that moral center, we'd have to update a lot of articles to reflect how people and groups are now treated this way. Since WP aimed for long-term stability, it would be much better that we work from a more amoral center, so that we're not forced to make changes like this even as the media's moral center changes.
Technically, NPOV has the language towards all this under "Morally-offensive views", WP:IMPARTIAL and at WP:OUTRAGE, and WP:LABEL also has some, but these are routinely ignored putting WP:UNDUE first and foremost.
The TL;DR of all this is that I propose we develop a guideline to support NPOV that has a stronger establishment that WP should take a more amoral stance towards morally-offensive views (just as we do for morally-accepted ones), and guidance for how to write such articles where the morally-offensive view is something you can't avoid writing about. This guideline would make it clear that there are places we accept are morally wrong (convicted crimes against others), but in most other cases, we should be much more neutral in tone and writing to not treat it as a condemnation even if every major press source wants to treat it that way. There needs to be a better balance of UNDUE and IMPARTIAL in these areas and how to be more amoral, otherwise we are going to continue to reflect what the press deems is the moral center.
Moreso, there needs to be advice to editors to put aside their own opinions when writing such articles; just as we have acute awareness when an article seems to factually present a morally-acceptable label to rework it as attributed option, we need that same acute awareness for offensive ones, which is often clouded by one's personal opinions.
(Cavaet: I in no way personally endorse, approve, or support any of the example views/labels, I'm just pointing out where there are problems.) -- MASEM ( t) 15:25, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Please join the discussion on what information should be included in a lead sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Altercari ( talk • contribs) 06:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
{{ Infobox school}} has a field for religious affiliation of private schools. Should "none" (or equivalent) be an allowable value for that field? In other words:
religion = Catholic
-- this is currently allowedreligion = Methodist
-- this is currently allowed, and so forth. The question isreligion = none
-- should this be allowed?(This is assuming that religious affiliation is an appropriate field for a school infobox at all -- it currently is a valid field, but editors may weigh on that more general question if they wish.) Herostratus ( talk) 14:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious_affiliation=
.
Gaia Octavia Agrippa
Talk 19:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religion=
; the infobox in question has a parameter called |religious affiliation=
. These are not the same.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits 12:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious affiliation=
or |religion=
can be used in the school infobox for the same value.
Jack N. Stock (
talk) 22:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)recently decided by RfC ... It is out of order to keep reopening a question that was settled less than six months ago(emphasis mine). He is right on the substance, but he was either lying in his comment or was being extremely clumsy with his wording. (I would say his memory was as bad as mine, but he went back and dug up the link in the same comment, so he definitely knew it was well over a year ago, and also probably knew Herostratus hadn't commented in that RFC and may not have been aware of it. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 09:05, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious affiliation=
, not |religion=
.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits 12:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|religious affiliation=
or |religion=
will work.
Jack N. Stock (
talk) 22:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religious affiliation=
, not |religion=
.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits 12:57, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
|affiliation=
parameter. I think that preferable to having a parameter with the word religion.
Objective3000 (
talk) 15:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religion=
(see article)
may be used.
Paine Ellsworth
put'r there 13:02, 26 June 2017 (UTC)|religion=
parameter. This should be speedily closed as "I didn't get the answer I wanted" rehash. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)Sorry to bring a detail of one template to the pump, but I feel it's necessary in order to have a proper discussion, for reasons there's no need to get into here. It's not an earth-shattering question, but the principle of rules being established via discussion and consensus is important, so let's see if we can have a reasoned discussion on the merits of the question.
So what you are probably going to see is an argument that's the matter has already been settled and further discussion is illegitimate. It's tedious and unimportant, so I'll hat it. You can read it if you want to.
What you're probably going to see (at least I've seen it in the past, twice now) is a claim that there are four RfC discussions settle the question once and for all, and therefore re-examination of details and special cases is not only illegitimate but actually disruptive. So let's see:
to be provided for them.
But none of that matters. Even if you accept the (extremely dubious IMO) proposition that most, or even any, participants in this 2015 discussion were intending to not allow the religious affiliation of schools to be described in a common-sense manner such as any other reference work would do, it is legitimate and reasonable to bring the question up for re-examination now in this venue, especially considering that we are looking at how to deal with an unintended side-effect.
What I would like to see is an argument on the merits rather than argument from authority. I mean, obviously, for individuals and nations religion can be a fraught and contentious question. For private schools, not so much. If St. Mark's Academy is a Catholic school, it's fairly straightforward. Usually it's pretty clear: it is or it isn't. And it's important. It's one of the first things you want to know about a school. It's part of the core identity and raison d'être for the school. And if a school is secular, that's important to know too. I can't see the sense of a policy "if it's Catholic, tell the reader right away. If it's Baptist or Jewish or Muslim, tell the reader that right away. But if it's nonaffiliated, well we mustn't tell the reader that; let's make her dig through the article to figure out whether or not it's a Catholic school" or whatever.
I'd like to see something along the lines of "Well, we should indeed denote the affiliation of religious private schools in the infobox, but not the affiliation status of non-affiliated private schools; avoiding giving the reader this information is a service to the reader and improves her experience because ___________". I'm generally curious as to what would go in the blank and am willing to be persuaded, but so far the only argument I've heard is "clear is not a color, and none is not an affiliation" which is IMO semantic pettifoggery rather than thinking about how to serve the reader, and I'd like to think that my fellow editors are capable of better than that. Herostratus ( talk) 16:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Within the topic area of private schools, "non-denominational Christian" and "unaffiliated"/"independent"/"secular" schools are well established characteristics of schools. If sources and the schools themselves include this information, it should be a characteristic within Wikipedia. I would further suggest that religious affiliation of institutions is not the same as religion of individuals and that much of the reasoning attached to the original RfC doesn't apply here.-- Carwil ( talk) 19:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
On a peripheral note, it may be worth saying that there are private schools that are nominally affiliated with a particular religious group but are nonetheless entirely independent in their curiculum and their governance. It's unclear to me how such an instance could be accurately represented in a concise infobox field. This is one of the problems with trying to shoehorn complex information into infoboxes: sometimes the nuances get lost. Rivertorch FIRE WATER 00:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
It seems extremely clear to me that above there are two extremely persuasive arguments.
These principles collide, because the affiliation (or philosophy if you like) of the school is being shown under "religion", and I think this is the source of the problem. Of course sometimes a religious label is convenient, but very often not. For example, a school might be run by a religious organisation as a secular school (there is much confusion above about "secular" above: it does not mean "not having a religion", it means "whether or not you have a religion you wish education to be carried out independently of religious teaching"). More generally, of course, sticking a "Religion" label on almost anything is I think a bad idea, because it perpetuates the falsehood that "everyone" must (or really ought to) have one.
So I suggest the "Religion" label should be replaced with a "Philosophy" or "Affiliation" or similar one, which can accommodate the stated policy of the school. Note also a huge source of confusion above: obviously the infobox should not have any entries equivalent to "Did not answer" or "We do not know"; only a stated and demonstrated policy of the school should appear. Imaginatorium ( talk) 11:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
The following comments are particular to the United States, but I suspect that other countries or regions may follow this pattern. In the United States, religious affiliation and religious non-affiliation are among the basic characteristics of private schools. Many non-religious (as well as non-denominational schools) self-identify as such in their definition of themselves. Moreover, private school associations, public compilations of data on education, and private data sources on education all routinely use typologies including "non-religious" or "nonsectarian" or "not affiliated" to characterize individual schools. These include:
In short, "nonsectarian" and "independent" (the latter includes some nondenominational but religious schools) are well-defined and readily identifiable aspects of private schools in the United States. Referencing this material is generally regarded as relevant and as a key characteristic of US private schools. Local evidence strongly indicates that this is a relevant characteristic of private schools in the United States, which is simply not comparable to the claim that religion is a relevant characteristic of all people.-- Carwil ( talk) 04:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
At 8 Yes, 48 No, the requirements of WP:SNOW have been met, and the Wikipedia community has decided, once again, that without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the 'Religion=' parameter of the infobox on any article anywhere on Wikipedia. - Guy Macon ( talk) 06:42, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
I've been off doing other things but how has this been snow closed? Guy Macon has extreme bias in this case (and anything to with religion=none). Counting the no vs yes is not how consensus is reached. Many of the no's above are actually yes in some cases (eg Od Mishehu, Dicklyon, Gnangarra, etc). Your conclusion above is wrong, with people being again "none" rather than all non-religions. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 16:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Last year there was a discussion that removed "religion", and "ethnicity" from infoboxes all being centered on the U.S. American politician Bernie Sanders, and the people "reached consensus" (the "strongest possible oppose" "votes"were all literally just different people repeating the same arguments that either ethnicity was always irrelevant, or that "it's hard to define"), despite there being several counter-arguments that explained that in many people's infoboxes it was needed because simply placing one's citizenship wouldn't be enough (it's like saying that all notable Jews that died 💀 during the shoah were just "Germans"), but the same repeated arguments keptpersisting. Over that year I've seen numerousarticles about E.G. Austro-Hungarians or Yugoslavians where the individual's ethnicity mattered that look now like a complete mess.
The rules should've been amended that it should be only mentioned if relevant to the individual's circumstances (like many have pointed out, for example an Iraqi Kurd being "a Kurdish national" makes no sense, as It's now replaced by "nationality"), my other annoyance comes from replacing it with "Nationality", in general English the word "nationality" means citizenship, and "a nation" is often a geographical and political entity, I've seen several ethnic Italians or various other people that have lived centuries before Italy was even a thing as "Nationality = Italian", that makes no sense, for many historical people their ethnicity could play a lot into who they were, and oversimplifying it by saying "it's hard to define, therefore don't use it", or "it's never relevant" only take into account modern perspectives, and yes, modern taboos. This violates the WP:NPOV, if we write about historical figures we shouldn't treat them like "living people".
42.112.158.179 ( talk) 05:34, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
It seems clear to me that by consensus it is preferable to avoid contentious infobox fields for this, which are invitations to fill them for article writers. Where religious affiliation or ethnicity is a particularily important topic in relation to a BLP, there is usually enough important material to have an article subsection about it, or at least a mention in the prose. In other cases, it's something that is often contentious and is better left out. I don't understand why this thread is still open... — Paleo Neonate - 08:26, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Re: Wnt's question (way up there, above an out-dent), "how about lumping them all into one term, 'Demographics:'?" — No, "demographics" is something that pertains to a region or jurisdiction. I do not have any demographics, since no one lives inside me and I'm not a place. Some would assign me to various demographic groups, and I may or may not agree with their viewpoint, which will differ from categorizer to categorizer and their subjective lenses for sorting people. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Please see Template talk:Infobox officeholder#Religion in officeholder infoboxes. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I know next to nothing about Wikipedia policies and how they work, and, from what I understand, the closed-shop attitude of many users therefore means that my proposal may well be dismissed out of hand, which is fine. This problem is likely to be exacerbated by the fact that I do not have any awareness of what policies currently support the current tendency to which I am objecting. Nevertheless, I believe it should at least be stated: it is detrimental to the encyclopedia, to cinema, and to culture in general that film articles on Wikipedia almost universally refer to the "Rotten Tomatoes" score for a film. This score, composed of a sum of thumbs up and thumbs down, represents the absolute nadir of critique. It indicates nothing of significance or importance about a movie, and only contributes to the general lowering of critical capacities, and probably to film producers being even further encouraged to worry about nothing except the lowest common denominator opinion. Use of this score represents, to me, nothing but the laziest approach to composing encyclopedic articles on cinema. In my view, whatever policies or guidelines support the constant reference to this website should be changed to prevent this use, and articles that currently refer to this "score" should be edited to no longer do so. Perhaps this question has already been debated and decided upon (I would have no idea where that debate may have taken place), but if so, it is time to revisit it: Rotten Tomatoes really is something rotten in the heart of Wikipedia's film pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.194.22.210 ( talk) 04:37, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that you are bringing your own biases to Wikipedia. Whether you think it's impacting film criticism or box office performance should not be a reason to avoid using the site. Wikipedia is, ideally at least, about undeniable facts. The fact of the matter is that the site, and Metacritic, are viewed as viable metrics by the vast majority of the general public at large. That is why we use them, not necessarily because we agree or disagree with it on a personal level. -- Deathawk ( talk) 04:15, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
There's no "closed-shop attitude" here at all; in fact, the opposite. Any and all ideas, suggested by anybody, may have consideration. Prefacing your topic with a slight on the editors is not such a kind thing to do, especially when they've created a resource you obviously use and value. Anyway, as for your comment, you are right that a film's article is better when its critique section explores the film merits (or lack) in prose. You are more than welcome to help improve the current state of affairs by adding such material, supported by reliable sources, to those film articles you feel could be improved. As for Rotten Tomatoes, I think you are confused over what it is. It is not a "critique" as you call it. It is an aggregate scoring based on actual reviews/critiques. It is just one metric to judge how a film was received by critics. No more, no less. A review and a meta review (aka aggregate review) serve different purposes. If you believe in statistics, the Rotten Tomato score actually means more than an individual review as the unexpected deviation of an average from the "true mean" is smaller than the expected deviation of an individual review from the true mean. I've read quite a few comments by Hollywood directors and actors upset by Rotten Tomatoes, saying that the low Rotten Tomato score hurt their box office take. Our policy is to be neutral. Wikipedia's articles are not to protect investors return on investment, or to ensure a sequel gets made, or that a new franchise hits the ground running. Its goal is to have encyclopedic coverage that is neutral. This includes valid critical and audience reviews and summaries about them without giving undue weight. In most cases, those filmmakers and industry insiders getting upset at Rotten Tomatoes have really misplaced their ire. They should be upset that they've made a bad movie rather than at Rotten Tomates for gathering critical opinion. Jason Quinn ( talk) 07:50, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I have noticed that on AfD discussions, you frequently have editors whose defintion of the term neologism could more aptly be described as a protologism. Such incorrect semantics could be solved by clarifying the difference at wp:neo or MOS:NEO. Could someone more experienced than myself do this please? 80.249.56.85 ( talk) 16:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I think we should be better at defining the policy about when a civilian attack is notable and when not. When should they be mentioned on a list and when are they big enough to get a standalone article? We are seeing a lot of terrorism, should every attack get an article? At least I got a feeling that it is a very controversial subject on Wikipedia with no real policy. And some articles are proposed for deletion, others aren't. It would be nice to have a policy on that here on Wikipedia.-- Rævhuld ( talk) 21:57, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi @
Kudpung,
Oshwah, and
Primefac: and Mz7.
Recently, there are way too many articles being created for mobile phones.
User talk:Usernamekiran/Archives/2017/June#Notability. A perfect example for
WP:NEE
WP:ENN. I can come up with a draft for an essay for "Notability guidelines for electronic devices". But I dont know what happens to that draft later lol. I mean, I know there would be a discussion, many contributions from other editors, and a consensus before making it an actual essay/guideline. I request suggestion/guidance from you guys. —usernamekiran
(talk) 23:16, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi @
Kudpung,
Oshwah, and
Primefac: and Mz7.
I created a very preliminary draft for the essay at User:Usernamekiran/sandbox2. Kindly let me know what you think of it. I haven't added a declaration stating its just an essay and not a guideline. Also, there are some inline notes/comments. Your feedback is much appreciated. Thanks. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:04, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Should a reaction article get a standalone article? On some terrorist incident articles, the reactions by other countries and other world leaders got a standalone article. I think that is a little bit too much. Especially because they didn't stated anything really new or interesting. It was just about which country brought its condolences with which words.-- Rævhuld ( talk) 22:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received substantial support; so did concrete proposal #1. Recapping the results already done at WP:administrators' noticeboard:
"
The balancing COI and privacy/outing means that the only option is that people investigating COI must submit information in private to the relevant people. Currently this is the arbitration committee and/or the WMF, but other bodies could be considered if there is consensus for this."Closing rationale: "
There is consensus for the proposal with the obvious caveat, that this approach needs a lot more details and clarification.Many have clarified that other bodies shall only refer to editors who have been vetted by the community to handle sensitive and personally identifying information.There has been concerns about the use of the word only as it seems to nullify on-wiki processes based on CU and behaviorial evidence.""
We need to balance privacy provided to those editing in good faith against the requirements of addressing undisclosed paid promotional editing. To do so can be achieved with a private investigation with some release of results publicly to help with the detection of further related accounts. These details may include the name of the Wikipedia editing company with which the account is associated (such as for example the connections drawn here)"Closing rationale:
There is consensus for the above proposal, with a condition that the proposal must be clarified to remove vaugeness, and that any information released must be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation".
More specifically, the information that is to be clarified is:
- Who is doing the investigating? (this looks like it's covered by Milieu 3)
- What information is to be released? The proposer has stated in the discussion below (and other editors agreed) that the information that is released is to be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation". This renders the argument of wp:outing invalid, which really was the only argument brought up on the oppose side.
-- George Ho ( talk) 23:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC); expanded, 00:02, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The welcome template links to Wikipedia:Citation underkill? What do others think? QuackGuru ( talk) 01:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
An editor has done this. Is there a policy or guideline about linking to internal wikipedia documents from mainspace? I found WP:NOTPART but it doesn't address wikilinking. Thanks. -- Green C 18:51, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Nations and Wikipedia is a new meta page to accumulate and help organize ways nations/governments and Wikipedia interact and for the Wikipedia community to establish relevant policies and guidelines. I thought you might be interested in this page and that I should probably link it here. Please share your thoughts on it on its talk page.
-- Fixuture ( talk) 20:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
As the association for the promotion of free knowledge in Switzerland, we would like to comment on what was recently discussed in particular in the French-speaking community.
First of all, we deeply regret the continued assumption that Wikimedia CH is involved in conflicts despite the numerous measures that we adopted since more than one year, so as to develop the association in the most sustainable, efficient and transparent way as possible.
To that end, this is a short overview of steps taken on the following important topics:
The question of "Paid editing" and the range of associated questions, are taken very seriously. We have accepted and dealt with these questions with an external expert as part of a "Governance Workshop", details of which can be found in our "Impact Report" under "Managing Conflicts of Interest in a multilingual context" (see [17]).
The last general assembly meeting in Lucerne unfortunately saw a short verbal altercation between various members present. Since we did not have an external moderator and the President of the Board (who took care of the facilitation himself on that day) ran again as candidate for the Board for the coming term, we failed to act quickly and adequately in this unfortunate situation. To prevent anything similar from happening in the future, we have now officially introduced a "Respectful Space policy" (see [18]). In future we will ensure all events and discussions that are organized/held by Wikimedia CH or financed via the association, comply with these rules (and implemented if necessary); (see protocol of the first meeting of the Board of Directors dated 6 June 2017). In addition to this, the future general assembly will be led by an external moderator.
Furthermore, the Board decided unanimously (see resolution dated 20 June 2017), to offer the possibility of an external independent mediation expert for the conflict between association members from the French-speaking community and to bear related costs up to CHF 1,000, provided that the mediation is availed of by 30 September 2017. The parties involved are therefore provided with a neutral and professional framework in which problems can be defined and tackled in a constructive manner.
As regards the above measures, we as Wikimedia CH assume that we have done everything within our power to ensure our values such as inclusiveness, diversity and respect as well as prohibiting harassment in any form.
Wikimedia CH Board and Staff
Please note that in case of conflict, the German version of this statement prevails — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilario ( talk • contribs) 12:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Have some essays been unintentionally elevated to rule status?
Since December 2016 there have been many diligent and good faith changes to WP:Project namespace. The part that troubles me is with regard to essays bearing the “supplement” template. Here’s why.
The changes at WP:Project namespace include separate sections for
In various places there is text that says the policy supplement essays have no more clout than 'mere' essays, yet the simple fact that they are treated separately and are called "pages" runs great risk of inculcating the idea that they are rules, not essays. Also supplement essays such as WP:BRD seem to fall under both of these categories. Yes, it is an info pages and describe a common approach to the policies, but yes it is an essay.
I’d like to commend Moxy ( talk · contribs) for hard work trying to refresh the organization of the namespaces, and in no way imply anything improper here. Nonetheless, by splitting essays into “mere” essays at WP:ESSAYPAGES and “something more” essays at WP:INFOPAGES, the well-intended changes at Project namespace seem to imply rule status for BRD and other essays tagged as a “supplement”.
Is it time to redesignate “supplement” essays as quasi-rule pages with a new name?
If not, does Project namespace require more work so that all essays of every stripe are under the same subcategory? NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 16:31, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Request for comment on parenthetical information in first sentence. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 05:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
FYI, I started a thread at the talk page for the DR policy. The proposal is to add some text to "Discuss with other editors". The new text seeks to prevent blow ups before they occur. Please add any comments to the thread at that the DR policy's talk page. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 14:36, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
MOS:DUPLINK says, "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes..." I have seen many editors remove linking on this basis, on the grounds that the first instance should be linked, but not the subsequent ones. For example, in an article on "Widgets", "John Smith" is linked to the article on "John Smith" the first time "John Smith" is mentioned. However, later in the article, John Smith is not linked to. I can understand the logic in this, but it seems to imply that people read Wikipedia articles from start to finish. I don't think this is true. People read what they are interested in. For example, someone might read the section entitled "Widgets in Spain" and see a mention of "John Smith". Who is this "John Smith"? they ask. There is no link. There is a link to "John Smith", but it is buried halfway through the article under "Widgets: Technical Aspects". Is there any research which says that people read Wikipedia articles from top to bottom?-- Jack Upland ( talk) 02:17, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Just thought I'd mention that links should actually appear twice in an article, once in the lead and once in the body. I'm personally more concerned with everyday terms being overlinked than with a legitimate link appearing an extra time. Primergrey ( talk) 13:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
MoS could probably be clarified in this regard. The place to propose such a clarification is
WT:MOS.
—
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 03:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
The MoS is a guideline - this particular element says "Generally, a link should..." and goes on to list some ten or so explicit situations where the guideline might not apply. Where there is a good reason to re-link, go ahead and do it.
As far as research, I am pretty certain there is research that shows people generally read the lead and sometimes a little more. The injunction against over-linking is to avoid a "sea of blue".
Perhaps we should consider functionality to highlight a section of text and provide a search option - there are plugins that do that.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 11:22, 17 June 2017 (UTC).
On a related note, I believe it would do us all much good if the Foundation were to fund research into how people read a Wikipedia article. Right now, it's all based on existing practice which is based on the idea of (1) a lead section & (2) organized sub-sections on various aspects of the subject, (3) a lot, but not too many, links, & (4) maybe, just maybe, infoboxes. But there are no existing guidelines on how to write an encyclopedia article (I've looked), so maybe we're doing it wrong...or maybe we're doing it right & don't know it. If nothing else, it would tell us whether overlinking actually helps reader comprehension. Lastly, having some concrete facts would help us write a better encyclopedia, seeing as we're almost the only ones doing it any more. (The others have either gone out of business, or are desperately hanging on.) -- llywrch ( talk) 20:03, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I would love to have a button beside "See also" that says "Show all links on page" Dougmcdonell ( talk) 20:18, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
If I write that George Bush was born in 1904, that can easily be checked, likely from the references on the page. If I say the NYT reported that JFK was assassinated, that can be checked as well. There are citations, and information without citations is flagged or taken out. However, it is different when it comes to fiction, or tv shows, or things of that sort.
Take an example of these articles: Fictional universe of Harry Potter. Or Produce 101 Season 2. How can the facts in these articles be verified? Well, you need to have read all the books, or have seen every episode. Lots of vandalism occurred to Produce 101 today, but frankly it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. How do I know who was taken off the show and who wasn't?
And Harry Potter: "Some wizards are the products of unions between humans and magical creatures of more-or-less human intelligence, such as Fleur Delacour and her sister Gabrielle (both quarter veela), Professor Flitwick (a quarter goblin), Madame Maxime and Hagrid (both half giant). Prejudiced wizards (such as Umbridge) often use the insulting term half-breed to refer to mixed-species wizards and werewolves, or other beings such as house elves, merpeople and centaurs (who are separate species). The centaurs within the series prefer to exist amongst themselves, with little interaction with humans." Is that entirely made up? I have no idea. Maybe you do. But even if you read the books, you'd have to look back to check. And there are thousands of pages of Harry Potter.
You probably get the picture. A lot of my time is spent in articles re current events, especially terrorist attacks. The things that are argued over are pretty minute, and they involve dozens of editors. Was the Manchester attacker a Muslim? There was quite a bit of argument over that. But is Harry Potter a union between a quarter veela and a Umbridge? I don't know. Someone could put that in and frankly unless someone just read the books or knows them by heart, how can any of these things be confirmed? It's clear that there is just a discrepancy between the two categories.
So, what's the solution? I don't know. You could add disclaimers: This plot summary may not be correct. Or you could make it so that extensive plot summaries need to go to Wikia or some other outlet. I don't know. This is just something I have been thinking about. WP is not a paper encyclopedia, but I don't know if it has any business re-stating the plot of anything. It seems to go against what it's good at-- cited factual information. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador ᐁT₳LKᐃ 06:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
If I write that George Bush was born in 1904, that can easily be checked, likely from the references on the page. If I say the NYT reported that JFK was assassinated, that can be checked as well. There are citations, and information without citations is flagged or taken out. However, it is different when it comes to fiction, or tv shows, or things of that sort.Firstly, I don't actually agree that the ease of verifying something is that strongly related to whether or not it is fictional. It would be much easier to verify that "in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels, Harry was the son of James and Lily Potter" (which I would bet good money can be cited to a dozen places other than the Harry Potter books) than it would be to verify "the British artist Henry Moore had a pet dog called Fawkes, named after Guy Fawkes" (really true, but unless you happen to know where that fact comes from, not easy to verify). The difference is not whether or not a fact is relevant to the real world or to a piece of fiction, the difference lies in how significant a fact is to the subject. In-Universe, Harry's parentage has plot significance, while Fleur Delacour's doesn't.
if the interpretation of those primary sources becomes difficult— there should be no interpretation at all. State the plot in the simplest terms possible, and leave any interpretation to reliable sources. Bright☀ 12:33, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for all the opinions guys, really. I continue to stand by what I said, that the content in those sort of articles are of a lower quality level and with lower reliability. But it probably is just that it will stay how it is, I just had to share my opinions, and thanks for considering them. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador ᐁT₳LKᐃ 15:53, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
There is a broader issue with "fiction" on Wikipedia, and that occurs in a great many articles involving technology. Invariably "science fiction" shows up, such as the hydrogen powered passenger jet. I'm dismayed by the amount of "maybe possible sometime" stuff that's in the encyclopedia when it's not being researched now and may be impossible ever. I'm pretty confident it's not what people expect in an encyclopedia. Dougmcdonell ( talk) 20:57, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Naturally must our contributions be built on (secondary) sources. However we have some issues , matters that never appear to have been questioned that has become somewhat traditional. For instance our plot-parts of film/motion pictures. As a reader am I personally glad that we do have these, despite they very seldom contain any sources. And with that in mind, please have a look below the headline "Name" in the Estadio Azteca article. The part is partly referencing to sources - but here has complaints been made. Again as a reader do I find the Name part of this article to be interesting to read. I cannot help thinking, if the "un-sourced" parts was pure nonsense , that if so, someone else in Mexico City ought to have fixed that. (It's a huge city) And that sources for this may be hard to find, but the story might well be well-known locally. I have no real thought trough suggestion, but why the difference towards our plot parts in film related articles ? I was thinking about "locally well-known" issues like this (in a fairly harmless article)- perhaps if a number of different contributors with knowledge perhaps could somehow "vouch" for a statement's safety. Independenly from each other, and several. And only in harmless articles. But like I said, it's not fully thought through. But if something could be done in a case like this, perhaps a different background colour/color for not fully soured parts ? It's also possible to just having texts as it is in this case (including citation needed etc) - but then remains the question of, for instance, plots (they never includes "citation needed" and similar, as far as I have seen. And it's probably OR to use a film itself as source, and certainly not secondary). Please note - I'm not questioning our guidelines in general. Only if something can be done about minor lacks of sources in articles that are obviously harmless (as well as largely sourced) as in this example, and just as plots seems to be. Any thoughts or suggestions ? Or was this just foolish to bring up ? I don't mind negative criticism here at all. It's thoughts only. Boeing720 ( talk) 01:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary.Anomie ⚔ 16:24, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Hello. Is there a wikipedia policy about citing bioRxiv articles? Also, there are images in bioRxiv articles that I would like to upload. On bioRxiv they have cc by 4.0 license. I suspect, but do not know for certain, that the eventual published version will be copyrighted. Is it OK to use those sorts of images even after they appear in a copyrighted publication? For example, figure 2 A and B panels of http://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/17/139097.full.pdf would be excellent addtions to an article I'm interested in. Thank you. Viroguy ( talk) 19:51, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Currently, IPs can nominate articles for deletion, but they can not create the deletion discussion because they do not have an actual account. Should we have someplace they can ask for assistance in completing the nomination? The relevant information is discussed here (that page is not a policy or a guideline page). Should we add a link to WP:ANI or some other location for them to request help? As it is, they nominate them,. and then someone wanders upon it sometime later and reverts the nomination because there is no discussion and it's been a while since the nomination was made. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:33, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
If you have placed this without registering for an account, please go to WT:AFD to complete the nomination and...I think it might work. TonyBallioni ( talk) 05:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
If you need help completing the AfD nomination, please do the following.... ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Limits of when we use non-free image. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:14, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Okay, so I'm not going to put this up as an official RFC because I might get thrown bodily out of the room, but I wanted to gauge people's opinions on user talk page archiving. While I know it is entirely up to individual editors when and if to archive their pages, but I have seen multiple times on multiple talk pages recently where there are hundreds of sections and some old discussions going back to 2010. Maybe it's just me, but when you get user talk pages reaching 400k (or even more ridiculous at over 900k) it gets hard, not only for the processor to load, but to read through. I'm on a fairly new computer, and it still throws a hissy fit any time I visit these pages.
Now obviously, there are some people whose talk pages are huge because they're heavily involved in areas where they simply get a lot of commentary on their talk pages, and that's not really what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about the people who are apparently unconcerned with ridiculously long pages.
So here's my general question: should we force users to archive their talk pages if and when they reach a certain length? For the sake of this argument, let's say 200k, since that seems to be about as long as I can find of people who do have archiving. Primefac ( talk) 17:18, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The User Sandbox exits for the sole purpose of experimenting. As such it is not covered by many of the editing policies. The only restrictions on sandbox editing should be those which make sure that edits in the sandbox are not damaging wikipedia as a project. However, editing the sandbox to include content that comes under a T-Ban does not damage the wikipedia. Therefore users should be given the freedom to edit thier sandboxes, no matter what kind of bans they are subject to. The same goes for a persons own talk page. He/She should be allowed to edit the personal talk page without fear of violating a T-Ban. In effect T-bans should exclude these two areas, as they constitute personal space of users whose content is not included in mainspace articles. FreeatlastChitchat ( talk) 06:08, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Based on recent new article that was dubbed not in compliance with G11 or A7 by administrators who upon review of their page are reflect no knowledge themselves of said subject being written, yet have the ability to "tag" an item as ambiguous or not credit worthy. How is this possible? If citations of individuals provide support of the person being written about in the article is not only validated yet repeated as a subject matter expert as well - what else would be needed to pass criteria? I know...knowledgeable administrators of said industry! I applaud volunteerism, expanding knowledge, keeping freedom of speech and thought free; however, when a platform that is left unchecked by over zealous free service defenders of such ideas start to know use their time of service as foundation of being an "experts" in all areas - this is when I start to raise a flag and say "flag / foul" let's collectively revisit the role and intentions of the platform that is open to all that solicits the public to VOLUNTARILY edit/write/contribute to articles to fine tune the information therein - can that endeavor not be "speedily marked for deletion" by what is seemingly to the writer as ignorance of the administrator who again based on their profile is simply not knowledgeable of the industry in which they are reviewing.
My policy change request is:at a minimum allow new articles to be available to public to VOLUNTARILY edit/write/contribute for minimum 72 hours, have administrators who are in those industries actually review and concur with at least 1 other - ideally 2 other administrators for concurrence of wiki violations and then clearly indicate to the writer - where their error in compliance warranted the deletion.
My intent is not to snub/point finger/maliciously retaliate or be rude, just to bring awareness to an area in the article writing process that can be better managed.
I will again re post my recently written article that was deleted in the hopes that an administrator who knows this area of which I am writing can review and approve. If the content of the article is not "strong enough" again - clearly identify what area of the article give wiki admins concern - but truly not enough to delete when citations clearly are there.
LaTonja Estelle
Latonjae (
talk) 20:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)LaTonja Estelle
Latonjae (
talk) 20:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Rico’s musical genuis can be heard on movie soundtracks such asis promotionally toned, or that a single reference is enough to support the entire article. Please don't just recreate the article again, as it'll be deleted again - instead, use our article wizard to create a draft, which will then be reviewed by an experienced Wikipedia editor (who may even know a thing or two about music!). If it's up to scratch, it'll get approved, and if not you'll get detailed instructions on how to improve it. How does that sound? -- There'sNoTime ( to explain) 20:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Hey, I'm not sure of the appropriateness of this. [22] [23] I know that everything is properly attributed and the like so that there is no "licensing" problem or anything, but as "saved" there is no apparent indication that the conversation originally took place somewhere else, and it does seem to go against the spirit of our being allowed to blank our own talk pages. Has this kind of thing come up before? Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 23:06, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi
Since almost a month now, I have been having
discussions about a notability guideline for electronic devices, which resulted in an essay.
Recently, the situation that I was describing came in effect, when an editor created 16 articles for cameras, all of which are being considered for deletion 3 PRoD, and 13 AfD.
The essay is almost finished, but I would like more opinions/suggestions on it. Maybe it will not become an official guideline/policy, but I think it should be treated at the least as an essay. The essay is currently in userspace, if consensus is achieved theb it can be moved in mainspace.
Here is the essay: User:Usernamekiran/Notability (electronic devices).
Thanks a lot in advance. —usernamekiran (talk) 05:54, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This page is currently 636,434 bytes long. I suggest we remedy this by having RfC on sub-pages, with a short, neutral, notice posted here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
A short-lived move request at Talk:Boeing Insitu ScanEagle#Requested move 6 July 2017, now withdrawn as wrong venue, established that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft), a titling guideline established by WP:WikiProject Aviation, has a de facto community consensus based on its longstanding presence in the listbox at the top of Wikipedia:Article titles (the link text there is "Aircraft"). The project's guideline is contrary to titling policy including, in many cases, WP:PRECISE. If there has ever been a community-level discussion, nobody has found it yet or claimed that one exists.
Is this an adequate substitute for the formal community approval required by WP:CONLEVEL? Or, should the project seek that approval now? ― Mandruss ☎ 17:57, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Today, somebody using an IP (whose edit summary indicates they might be a family member of Bud Dunn) added info to the article that considerably changed what was there about Dunn's children. The article is FA and has been for about 10 months now. If the info was obviously false I'd revert, but they provided bare urls for sources which do back up what they are saying and seem to be reliable. Unfortunately, they also go against what all the book and newspapers I had used as sources in writing the article said. I really don't know what to do; just revert, or fill in the urls, or ask the IP to fill them in since they added them, or just assume their sources are wrong and the 20+ others are right. I don't know. What makes it even weirder is the IP said the article was a great job except for the part about the children. White Arabian Filly Neigh 20:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi all. As a COI editor who sometimes makes requests on behalf of clients, I've been struggling with the length of the COI edit request backlog. It pretty consistently hovers around 170 requests, with many that are four months old or more.
I understand that the community is busy, and these requests can't take special precedence. However, an uncertain response time that spans months or more is a tough sell when I'm advocating to potential clients to work with me through Wikipedia's proper COI disclosure process.
As a partial solution, I propose creating a new response parameter to the {{request edit}} template, along the lines of "Revision needed." Editors could use this response to ask the original requester to update their request with additional detail or sources as needed before resubmitting. This would reduce the number of poorly formatted or ill-thought-out requests in the queue, so that editors can focus on reviewing the requests that are ready for thoughtful consideration and inexperienced COI editors can receive useful guidance on how to collaborate with the community. I also propose that COI editors be permitted to provide this response to certain COI edit requests, where it's applicable. To be clear: I am not suggesting that COI editors be empowered to accept or reject others' COI edit requests wholesale. This would simply be a way for COI editors to "give back" to the community by providing guidance to their peers and helping make the backlog less overwhelming for the NPOV volunteers who assist us.
Looking forward to everyone's thoughts and feedback. Thanks for your time! Mary Gaulke ( talk) 21:21, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
In general, there is such a big fixation on the COI aspects that there is not enough awareness of how they serve it up to the reviewing editor.....whether their method makes it a big or small job for the editor that might put it in. My experience is that even very intelligent editors lack this empathy/understanding, and propose it in a way that would make it a very big job to put it in, thus impairing response to such requests. The best remedy/ forcing statement that I can give briefly is to say to give simple, explicit instructions for the requested edit. North8000 ( talk) 01:11, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
I have been thinking about WP:OWN and how it relates to WP:Essays. Essays often contain the opinions of a specific group of Wikipedia editors. But let's say that another group of editors comes along and significantly edits the essay... to the point where the essay no longer reflects the opinions of the original group of editors (perhaps to the point where it now states the complete opposite). If the original editors try to object (perhaps saying "Look, you can go write your own essay... please leave our essay alone"), the new group can just point to WP:OWN (and say "Nope... you don't own the page"). This bothers me. If one of the reasons for essays is to give editors a place to state opinions, shouldn't we provide some mechanism to protect those opinions? I am thinking that we should allow some degree of ownership when it comes to essay pages. Please discuss. Blueboar ( talk) 19:56, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
A question related to the one above. WP:POLICIES states that "Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace." My question is... how "widespread" does a "widespread consensus" have to be? Can an essay be considered to have "widespread consensus" if it is supported by a reasonably large and diverse group, or must the essay be supported by the majority of the community? In other words... how large/small a consensus should an essay have before it is moved from main policy space to userspace (or conversely from userspace to main policy space)? Blueboar ( talk) 15:02, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
I had a problem with citation overkill. I created a Citation underkill. It represents the consensus of at least one editor. Me! One editor can make a difference. QuackGuru ( talk) 23:59, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
A theoretical way to address this issue is to compile essays with competing views of Topic X into a single essay which reports the existence of the competing views, and tries to present each policy-compliant perspective in a fair manner. (Remember that non-polioy-compliant essays are subject to deletion through MFD etc.) But to do that would take a heap of cooperation. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 20:39, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
FYI comments welcome Template_talk:Wikipedia_how-to#Requested move 11 July 2017 NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 09:15, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Is there a discussion page anywhere about the latest batch of fundraiser banners? I've looked extensively, and can't find one. Perhaps the Foundation has decided in advance that it knows the feedback it'll receive (massive-sized, joltingly intrustive, hectoring in tone, JW insisting on his (utterly revisionist) "proper title" of "Founder", and so on), and just doesn't want to hear it? 89.101.50.203 ( talk) 15:45, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
I know that "blanking" on Wikipedia is essentially the same as archiving (but without the search 🔍 results being shown). But it just seems useless to have a bot blank IP talk pages when archives can be created, it would seem better if IP addresses got archives than were being blanked. Sure "newbies" who use new IP's will be amazed by it, but by creating archives we will keep relevant discussions searchable, blanking helps no-one. -- 1.55.183.244 ( talk) 08:14, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring/B4 clarification is closed as failed/opposed. The rationale is too detailed, but one of rationales is worth quoting: "Abiding by rules is an integral part for the development of any community. But rules exist primarily and solely for the development and the greater good of the encycloepadia in general. Rules are not meant to be created just for the sake of it.
" Read further more. --
George Ho (
talk) 01:12, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
An RfC has been opened on the labelling of closures of requested moves by pager movers at Wikipedia talk:Page mover#RfC: Labeling page mover closures. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni ( talk) 00:38, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
The discussion on this topic has been occurring in a low trafficked page regarding the implementation of ACTRIAL. The WMF, apparently, has agreed to go along with it for a short trial to gain statistical insight. Their reasoning is a six year old consensus on the matter. When it was brought up whether or not a new RfC should be done to reconfirm that consensus it was shot down as unnecessary. Due to the immense change in Wikipedia policy that would result in this trial I felt it was necessary to post this notice to a much more seen board. The fact that this is being done in relative secret, away from the knowledge of most people, is astonishing and should bother any Wikipedian who values community input on such wide reaching actions. Therefore, the notice. Please see a retooled Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial for further details. -- Majora ( talk) 19:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
All I wanted to do was ensure that people know what was going on.and the usual accompanying garble---arrogant, negative light.... Winged Blades Godric 11:15, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion underway about establishing a new criteria for speedy deletion for undeclared paid editing. Please consider participating. TonyBallioni ( talk) 01:04, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Recently, there has been some confusion on whether or not the 7 July 2017 UNESCO decision to list the Old Town of Hebron, specifically the Cave of the Patriarchs, as a World Heritage Site, can or cannot be listed in the main list of World Heritage Sites in Israel. I have proposed that it be listed there, while other co-editors have disagreed with me. Wikipedia policies outlined in WP:Naming conventions (West Bank) do not specifically deal with the historical/geographical aspects of sites in the West Bank and which places were, in antiquity, called by different names. For example, the geographical place known as the "Land of Israel" is also a country historically defined as such in the Midrash and Mishnah (compiled in 189 CE). Saying that a place ( Hebron) is in the Land of Canaan, Judea, Palestine, the Land of Israel, the Holy Land, or whatever, is NOT necessarily a political statement, as it is a historical statement. It just so happens that the Government of Israel calls the country by its historical name. Had the Wikipedia article, " World Heritage Sites in Israel," been titled "World Heritage Sites in the State of Israel," the resentment in having Hebron or the Cave of the Patriarchs listed there may have held up, insofar as that is disputed. But, historically, there is no dispute whatsoever about its historical connections to these geographical names. If UNESCO wanted to politicize something, as in the recent case involving Hebron (see: UNESCO puts Hebron on endangered heritage list, outraging Israel), does that mean that we, on Wikipedia, must also politicize the same thing? Of course not! Please clarify Wikipedia's policy in WP:Naming conventions (West Bank) with respect to the use of geographical names used in antiquity, and which are NOT meant to offend any ethnic group, per se, but only mention its historical context. Davidbena ( talk) 22:16, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
The tag Category:World Heritage Sites in Israel was recently added to Cave of the Patriarchs. I removed it, and there is now a discussion fork on this topic underway at Talk:Cave of the Patriarchs/Archive 1#Categorisation with respect to status as World Heritage Site. Snuge purveyor ( talk) 00:55, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
SIMPLIFIED REVISED PROPOSAL: As per Wikipedia's recognition of the unresolved border dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, or its leaning towards any one side in the Arab-Israeli conflict, let it be resolved that we, as neutral observers, steer clear from taking any political stand, but maintain a neutral point of view, in accordance with WP:NPOV and WP:IMPARTIAL. In consideration of which, it is here proposed that the following disclaimer be appended to the Wikipedia pages broadly construed with the Arab-Israeli conflict, namely, that an asterisk (*) be placed after the word "Israel" in the category known as "World Heritage Sites in Israel," with a reference to the effect that the proper name "Israel" is used here apolitically, that is, as a geographical/historical toponym, often used in the same sense that "Palestine" is used, and whose recognized borders may actually be disputed; or vice-versa, the proper name "Palestine" is used here apolitically, etc. This may bring some succor to this complex and troubling issue. Davidbena ( talk) 19:46, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Friends, @ Newimpartial: and @ Seraphim System:, editors have been "politicizing" the situation since who-knows-when. But why do you insist on politicizing the situation when it negates Wikipedia's stated policy? As you can see here, the Israeli objection to calling regions of the country by two names - the one "Palestine" and the other "Israel" - based on political motives, or more precisely, on the now defunct 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan, is what we are dealing with here. (For the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan, see discussion here [Green Line]). Israelis view the entire country as one, but to give two separate names for two regions of the country is inherently wrong and is based on perpetuating an errant political stand taken by the British in 1937 who sought to divide the country. Moreover, the 1949 Armistice Agreement is no longer binding. While some might refuse to recognize Israel's de facto claims and hold of this territory, hoping to return to the pre-1967 border, the reality is such that the entire country is called "Israel" by the Israelis who live here. What's more, in a broader sense, the country's historical and geographical names have never changed, whether Palestine or the Land of Israel. So, I object to your claim that this discussion isn't about the "World Heritage Sites in Israel," as it still is. As for Wikipedia's naming conventions, the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed. My proposal is to leave the "West Bank" just as it is (since it only describes a geographical region that once divided positions held by Israel and Jordan), but to add a disclaimer there, stating to the effect that Wikipedia's use of the words "Palestine" and/or "Israel" are meant to be understood apolitically, and as purely geographical-historical terms used in antiquity. In this manner, we steer clear from politicizing the situation. Whenever editors mention "Israel" and their intent is to describe a political case involving the State of Israel, or the Government of Israel, the words "State of Israel" or "Government of Israel" should preface their editorial entry. Be well. Davidbena ( talk) 06:26, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
As I have suggested before: if you would like to propose a change to the nomenclature for locations in the West Bank and Gaza, you should formulate a Request for Consensus (RfC). Newimpartial ( talk) 17:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
I have posted a response to this conversation here. Snuge purveyor ( talk) 21:09, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
RECOMMENDATION: I earnestly urge those who are in a position to mend the current Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank) that they define and present a more clear guideline as to the categorization scheme used in "by country" categories on Wikipedia. This modification is important, as it will help solve the issue now underway in the Talk-Page of Cave of the Patriarchs, see Categorisation. Can the word "Palestine" be used for territories now referred specifically to as the "West Bank"? Davidbena ( talk) 12:08, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Google Search often takes the first two lines of the lede for a Wikipedia article and puts them in search results. As a result, promoters of some articles try hard to get what they want in those two lines. Or they try to keep out negative information. If they can just push the bad stuff down a bit by adding some verbiage, it disappears from Google. I've hit this issue twice in COI editing situations.Is there policy on this? Should there be? Discuss. John Nagle ( talk) 20:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Following an extensive and well-attended discussion, the article on the state of New York, formerly at "New York", has been moved to New York (state); the title, "New York", is now a disambiguation page for the state, the city, and the many other meanings of the name. Since links to either the city or the state can come up in a wide array of editing contexts, please note this in making links going forward. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:10, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
There are several hundred film articles at Wikipedia and Interwiki which use unaltered poster art to introduce film articles which are being promoted by this poster art. There is never an issue of this being fair use, though every use of such promotional poster art created for the purpose of promoting films still requires fair use discussion which seems repetitive and redundant. For hundreds of films, the poster art ends up being used without any impediment or copyvio. Should there be a standard template created or policy established which would identify unaltered poster art as not being a copyvio and avoid the vast amount of redundant time being spent by hundreds of editors justifying the use of promotional poster art for films on a film-by-film basis? JohnWickTwo ( talk) 17:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm having a crack at getting WP:MICROCON moved from proposed (where it's languished for a while, to say the least), and it's apparently good practice to post an announcement here. The link to the Talkpage section is here. Thanks, Bromley86 ( talk) 21:23, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Red links in infoboxes. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 09:43, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Category declaration, [[Category:Some-topic templates]]
, can placed in template or in its doc. They are both widely used, and the guideline or help page have no opinion about which way is preferred, until this week
User:Redrose64 says
declaration in doc is preferred.
Pros for declaring in template:
Pros for declaring in doc:
Golopotw ( talk) 05:35, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Hello. You are invited to comment on this RfC, which seeks to reform certain aspects of Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. Biblio ( talk) 15:47, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Hello everyone 🙋🏻, I’d like to request some amendments to WP:SEEALSO. I’ve created a plethora of articles and while creating them I tend to follow this policy to the letter, however I do notice that other editors simply ignore this and immediately start adding links already in the article.
Sent from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱.
The articles I’ve created and / or greatly expanded always link appropriately upon publishing/expansion, I tend to use templates like “Main” and inline “Seealso” to make sure that interested readers know where to find related articles. This however doesn’t stop other editors from still (re-)adding them into the “See also” section, I’ve seen this not only on “my” articles (as in the ones I’ve created, don’t worry I'm not asserting ownership, it’s just a manner of speaking), but on countless of other articles that I either read or just make minor edits to, for example I’m reading an article about let's say German history and Herr Bismarck is mentioned several times and even appears in a “Main” template above some users will still add him into the “See also” section, now I’m an inclusionist and I really hate to revert edits that aren’t maleficent in nature, but I know of several “dedicated” (read: Over-active) editors who go out of their way to find every break of WP:SEEALSO, and remove the links. Now my proposals below will not only save those people countless of hours in what can basically be summed up as “useless edits for the sake of following WikiPolicy”, but I believe will greatly benefit the readers (you know? The people we all do this for).
I'll get straight to the point, abolish the guideline that states that a repetition of links is bad 🙅🏻, especially on larger articles though I personally don't plan on ever adding these links if this proposal would go through we have to think of how some readers read Wikipedia, I personally when I have the time prefer to read full articles 🤓, heck I even click on links or add some references through Bing News if I find “Citation Needed” 🔎📔, reckon that most of y’all do something similar, but I would guess that since the majority of the readers never edit that they would probably only look for the things and sections they’re interested in (at that moment), maybe someone only needs to read the end of the article and never bothers to go through the rest but they’re still interested in related subjects, what then? Well under WP:SEEALSO nothing, the assumption is that everyone reads full articles.
In my current editing style I tend to (re-)add links from earlier in the article if it’s for the first time in a large section again, imagine that an article on sulfuric acids has a link 🔗 to let's say base, but the article itself is 90 kb’s long, abs it gets mentioned again as an important comparison very late in the article, not linking would be a major disservice to readers, and from most people I know that only read and never edit Wikipedia, many don’t even know that there are navigation templates 🗒 at the bottom, let alone categories. In fact from the people I’ve asked (NOT A SCIENTIFIC SAMPLE, THIS IS WP:OR BUT I’LL CITE FOR REFERENCE AS NO ACTUAL STATISTICS CAN BE GATHERED AT PRESENCE) they tend to not read further than the “See also” section, sure we should still be able to differentiate when a navigation template suffices, and wen the “See also” section is needed (in fact I started my first “over-active” account purely to make a navigational template).
I propose therefore that links MAY be repeated (especially in larger articles, which for me as a mobile editor are hard to navigate through as is) if relevancy is either direct to the subject, or is extremely comparable / antonomic to the subject. I mostly read and edit Wikipedia on a mobile device (my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL) and in order to even be able to see a template at the bottom (LET ALONE EDIT ONE) I am forced to click on “Desktop”, I don’t think (read: Speculation) that most readers would do this to look for related subjects. So far WP:SEEALSO is a bane on the mobile reading experience, and as none of Wikipedia’s developers seem to have any interest in improving either the mobile reading or editing experience changing this one policy would probably be easier and best for the readers.
-- Nayman30 ( talk) 11:35, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Watchers of this page may be interested in WT:CSD#Expand G13 to cover ALL old drafts. -- Izno ( talk) 12:10, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Resolving conflicts between (and within) PERFNAV, FILMNAV, and PERFCAT, which proposes mutually conforming clarification to these guidelines, in a centralized discussion. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
It's an issue. Some editors out there are putting actors' pages up for deletion NOT because they have incorrect or unreliable sources but because of what their idea of what 'famous' means. That is a matter of opinion and NOT fact.
One editor in particular recently asked for an actors' page to be put up for deletion because of a few reasons, such as:
1)The actor in question has only been to "one convention" and it happened to be where the actor lives. Where the actor started their career. Now tell me. Where does it say that an actor MUST attend a convention AT ALL to be notable? 2) The shows the actor has starred in have not been broadcast widely on television, netflix, or amazon. But I suppose that funimation is not a streaming service where you can watch their shows online, or on a TV or mobile device like those subscription based streaming services mentioned. 3) The actors' career coverage is limited to the subscription based dubbing company, funimation. Needs to be put up for draft until proven notable. So, the the dubbing company themselves are releasing cast list themselves and that is not reliable sourcing? Because it's from the same company?
As you can see, when putting a page up for deletion I believe several people need to be involved and take a second look at the editors' reasoning for doing so. In most cases, you'll find it's due to the editors' personal beliefs and not due to incorrect information/improper sourcing.
Wikipedia could really stand to improve upon itself and for the users to not abuse the system. This is supposed to be an informative site. Hoping others will see this and be aware. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swiedenx3 ( talk • contribs) 14:22, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
I propose that, in the case of abandoned drafts and AFC submissions that would otherwise be subject to criterion G11 of the speedy deletion criteria and show promise of possibly becoming a full-fledged article, be instead moved to draftspace. I am aware of the refund policy, but it's better to not delete the page in the first place, because other people would more easily see the content and contribute if the page was not deleted.
Jjjjjjdddddd (
talk) 07:38, 15 July 2017 (UTC) *facepalm* I confused G11 and G13, and I also retract my proposal. This was poorly thought-out
Jjjjjjdddddd (
talk) 08:16, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
There is an open-ended RfC on the purpose of the draftspace, including the possibility of dumping the draftspace altogether: Wikipedia talk:Drafts#RfC: on the proper use of the draftspace. Participation is very welcome. -- Taku ( talk) 03:53, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
So this means we need an RfC on whether to have an RfC seriously? Why shut down the discussion at all? Trying to win an argument by shutting down any attempt to discussion is disingenuous at best. Also please see Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Expand_G13_to_cover_ALL_old_drafts for the context for this RfC. -- Taku ( talk) 23:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
The WMF has posted research questions for the upcoming autoconfirmed article creation trial at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. Comments there or at WT:ACTRIAL are appreciated. TonyBallioni ( talk) 13:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
Relisted I have relisted the discussion, i.e. gave the discussion additional 30 days. Therefore, more participants would be welcome to comment there during the extended time. -- George Ho ( talk) 01:41, 30 June 2017 (UTC); added icon, 01:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
For an update, the discussion was closed and then summarized. -- George Ho ( talk) 21:36, 4 August 2017 (UTC)