This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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.
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Is there a policy with regard to the existence of DAB pages where all the DABed links are red? For example: Sainte-Barbe. Thanks! -- Avocado ( talk) 02:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I am very much a newbie in the area of editing articles What would be very nice and helpful is a simple reference of what each tag does, and how to add it in Also, in trying to find information *about* editing articles it is very hard. Everything in Wikipedia about Wikipedia is a Wiki - kind of annoying, when you want to discuss an issue with someone - I don't want to be involved in policy making, and I think its great that things are wiki, but there needs to be more clarity at finding information on editing - what each tag does.
Also there is such a plethora of information, it is not well organized in the site, its taken me three months to discover that there is a general discussion forum. and 'community portal' a simple link to a reference guide that tells me what every kind of tag does, would be helpful. I agree that it is important to know how to do it, and why one should do it. Having a quick reference of every single tag, would be terribly useful. It took me hours to discover how to put up a page for review etc. It shouldn't be the case
Thank you. Dannyza1981 ( talk) 16:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Wider audience for commenting requested...
A proposal has started to allow established or trusted editors to edit via Tor, or other anon proxy. This discussion is located at
The proposed policy in its “needs to be worked on” form is located at
Mercury at 20:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Guideline proposal. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:official names. Andrewa ( talk) 22:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Where can I find policy or simple guidelines on when it's necessary to include the county when identifying a city. Some editors feel it necessary to add the country to each and every mention of a city even when it's either obvious from the context of the article, or the city name is linked to an article on the city itself.-- Rtphokie ( talk) 14:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
A question on the reference desk prompted me to look at Parallax barrier. At the time of writing, this article contains one sentence of 17 words, which are followed by a stupid logo and a 13-word "this article is a stub" notice. Fine.
However, this content is also preceded by a much more prominent box (with a gray background, colored stripe, and another stupid logo), which takes 19 words to ask for the article to be cleaned up "to meet Wikipedia's quality standards". Well, of course the article needs improvement: it's a stub. No, worse yet, the box doesn't even say that the article needs improvement; it says it may need improvement. Why are articles being cluttered with boxes like this if it isn't even known whether they're needed?
And then there's still another prominent box with a gray background, a colored stripe, a third stupid logo, and 23 more words of self-important text from the "all Wikipedia articles must bristle with footnotes" brigade.
Good grief.
Okay, done ranting. I'll go away now. -- 207.176.159.90 ( talk) 03:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that it's pretty common to use country names where they're not needed, as in the title for this comment. My understanding is that this is to make it easier for everyone to know what's going on and to avoid ethnocentrism. But often it goes too far in my opinion and becomes condescending. You'd never see "Hawaii, USA" in the Economist, even though it's not a US publication, because they assume an educated readership. My question is, is there a relevant policy of Wikipedia? Can someone direct me to a page from the manual of style so that I can find out more information? modify 11:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you're right, SmallJim, and that clears it up for me. I think putting the country name in articles about towns or provinces is a very good idea. I think we have to assume our readers are less sophisticated than the Economist does, simply because our readers could be anywhere, from any background. And I for one want to know that the small town I'm reading about is in India--and I think you'd find a number of Americans, for instance, who don't know where Queensland is, to pick a random example. Darkspots ( talk) 00:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change. -- VeblenBot ( talk) 19:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I think it might be useful to understand and clarify the purpose of policy in Wikipedia. Is it to express aspirational ideals we hope to reach eventually? Or is it to express a minimum enforcement standard below which administrators should block editors for disrupting the encyclopedia? Most likely somewhere in between, but leaning in which direction? The more I read policy discussions the clearer it is becoming to me that there is basic disagreement as to what level we want "policy" to reflect. It might be useful to clarify this if possible. If policies are aspirational, WP:IAR should be used very frequently and we should be very lenient with editors since policies may well be inappropriate for addressing actual day-to-day matters. If policies are enforcement standards, WP:IAR should be rare (although still occassionally appropriate), but policies would be based not on what we'd like to happen but what we can realistically enforce under present circumstances. Much of this is part of unspoken Wikipedia culture. But if we could speak of it, we might be able to reach agreement on policy discussions more readily. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 15:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:User page ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change. -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change. -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I've proposed a short extension of Wikipedia:No original research to clarify the requirements on descriptions of images (in brief, interpretations of images must be based on specifically relevant reliable sources, just like any other assertion of fact in an article). Please feel free to comment on this proposal at Wikipedia talk:No original research#Interpretation of images. -- ChrisO ( talk) 19:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I created an account with wikipedia in my freshmen year. Now a Junior I see someone got into my account and has been posting porn on wikipedia. I am wondering how I would delete this account so I can end him putting up these things, but also make sure my name is not associated with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.88.239 ( talk) 23:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Hoping I'm doing this right. It was Cj Will Win maybe no spaces. I found out about it by putting cjwillwin into google. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
99.165.88.239 (
talk) 00:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. Neither is working, but I guess if he's blocked he can't do anything further. I was just upset that the first thing I find on google about my online name is something saying I've been posting porn and wrecking pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.88.239 ( talk) 00:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it =) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.88.239 ( talk) 01:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I understand that "Wikipedia is not censored" and agree with the policy. However, I don't know that we have taken any steps to allow parents / schools to easily make that choice for themselves - sort of an all or nothing. Should we not have templates or include code in the Category template (not visible on the article) that would apply an ICRA rating (built into content filtering software, such as Internet Explorer) to a page (and possibly the talk) of certain articles? So if a child browses to an article that has the presence of nudity, sexual content, depiction of violence, explicit language, or other potentially harmful content such as gambling, drugs and alcohol, we have the standard ratings applied so such content can be filtered if desired. While it is not our policy to protect anyone from potentially harmful material, should we not have the ratings in place to allow parents to make those choices? The parent would be the censor, not us. It seems to me that this would be the responsible thing for an online encyclopedia to do. Morphh (talk) 15:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Something has just occurred to me- what's the most objectionable content we have? What images do we have that could not be found in a standard school library? Some really offensive album covers or something? If we look at it from a school point of view (even a primary school) there are going to be textbooks that contains biological pictures of a human body, and that seems to be the example most people are giving. What are reasonable people actually going to object to? Do tell me if what I'm saying is ridiculous... J Milburn ( talk) 21:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
TenOfAllTrades raises some valid concerns above about user expectations and time lag. I think those problems are likely correct. Nevertheless, I think this approach, if done on a voluntary basis, could be consistent with the principle of
Eventualism. We're a volunteer organization using a tool that requires us to constantly fight vandalism. Any effort we make will be imperfect yet we still keep working on the encyclopedia. (And despite all the vandals, it gets better almost every day.)
If anyone was offended because a tag was not on a page where they thought it belonged, the right answer is to encourage them to
fix it. An incorrect or missing tag would no more damage Wikipedia's reputation than the routine vandalism that we deal with daily.
These proposed tags strike me as just a particular form of
categorization. I never add categories to a page and think that most of them are pretty pointless but I don't object when someone else adds them because I know that not everyone uses the encyclopedia the same way I do. If the category was added in
good faith, presumably it is helpful to the person adding it. If a tag is added in good faith, it's not going to get in my way and might help the person adding the tag. Go for it.
Rossami
(talk) 23:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
As a proud, card-carrying member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography ... I support the basic idea behind the proposal. No, it would not be perfect, but nothing in Wikipedia is. Yes, it would make us vulnerable to vandalism, but (shock) we are already, it would not increase that. As for implementation, the devil is in the details, of course. It would need to be per-page, and it would need to be easy to apply, and it would probably require a developer hack. So it probably won't happen. :-(. But for what it's worth, I support the idea. -- AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
" ICRA, the Internet Content Rating Association, is an international non-profit organization with offices in the United States and the United Kingdom."
I like how this proposal, as opposed to some of the other content-rating proposals that have appeared here over the years, does not seem to cast judgments, as Morphh states. However, I don't think it's that simple. Tagging pages with ICRA criteria would imply endorsement of the ICRA system. If some organization on its own initiative wants to enter Wikipedia URLs into a database based on criteria they have drawn up, that's their prerogative. If we do it, or if we adapt our code to sort their purposes, we are actually participating in the process, which raises a whole other set of issues.
The ICRA may say that it is a buffet system, where people can pick and choose what they want to ban. My understanding is, though, that the most widely known application of the ICRA ratings is in Internet Explorer, where they are converted into a series of sliding scales on language, nudity, sex and violence. For example, a user can set the Content Adviser to "nudity rating 2," which allows "partial nudity" but not "frontal nudity." This approach appears to be inconsistent with the predominant current of thought on Wikipedia, which is that nude images -- for example -- should be included or not included based on its "encyclopedic nature" rather than on whether it is frontal, rear or whatever.
I certainly understand the concern many users have about the content in Wikipedia. My big issue is the accidental display of unwanted material -- as in the case when I clicked on the word "buggery" on the Oscar Wilde article while at work and was taken to the anal sex page. (We don't use the word "buggery" in America, and I had no idea what it meant.) Last year, I proposed a guideline on "not safe for work" material. My idea was that NSFW content be placed "below the fold" (that is, not visible until you scroll down), with a warning template at the top and, when appropriate, an option to view the page without the NSFW material. The idea was dismissed because of -- you guessed it -- the "no censorship" policy. But I think that a system of warning templates, while raising its own series of issues, is less offensive from a censorship point of view than participation in a commercial ratings system. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 06:28, 20 January 2008 (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
Is there a policy with regard to the existence of DAB pages where all the DABed links are red? For example: Sainte-Barbe. Thanks! -- Avocado ( talk) 02:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I am very much a newbie in the area of editing articles What would be very nice and helpful is a simple reference of what each tag does, and how to add it in Also, in trying to find information *about* editing articles it is very hard. Everything in Wikipedia about Wikipedia is a Wiki - kind of annoying, when you want to discuss an issue with someone - I don't want to be involved in policy making, and I think its great that things are wiki, but there needs to be more clarity at finding information on editing - what each tag does.
Also there is such a plethora of information, it is not well organized in the site, its taken me three months to discover that there is a general discussion forum. and 'community portal' a simple link to a reference guide that tells me what every kind of tag does, would be helpful. I agree that it is important to know how to do it, and why one should do it. Having a quick reference of every single tag, would be terribly useful. It took me hours to discover how to put up a page for review etc. It shouldn't be the case
Thank you. Dannyza1981 ( talk) 16:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Wider audience for commenting requested...
A proposal has started to allow established or trusted editors to edit via Tor, or other anon proxy. This discussion is located at
The proposed policy in its “needs to be worked on” form is located at
Mercury at 20:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Guideline proposal. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:official names. Andrewa ( talk) 22:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Where can I find policy or simple guidelines on when it's necessary to include the county when identifying a city. Some editors feel it necessary to add the country to each and every mention of a city even when it's either obvious from the context of the article, or the city name is linked to an article on the city itself.-- Rtphokie ( talk) 14:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
A question on the reference desk prompted me to look at Parallax barrier. At the time of writing, this article contains one sentence of 17 words, which are followed by a stupid logo and a 13-word "this article is a stub" notice. Fine.
However, this content is also preceded by a much more prominent box (with a gray background, colored stripe, and another stupid logo), which takes 19 words to ask for the article to be cleaned up "to meet Wikipedia's quality standards". Well, of course the article needs improvement: it's a stub. No, worse yet, the box doesn't even say that the article needs improvement; it says it may need improvement. Why are articles being cluttered with boxes like this if it isn't even known whether they're needed?
And then there's still another prominent box with a gray background, a colored stripe, a third stupid logo, and 23 more words of self-important text from the "all Wikipedia articles must bristle with footnotes" brigade.
Good grief.
Okay, done ranting. I'll go away now. -- 207.176.159.90 ( talk) 03:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that it's pretty common to use country names where they're not needed, as in the title for this comment. My understanding is that this is to make it easier for everyone to know what's going on and to avoid ethnocentrism. But often it goes too far in my opinion and becomes condescending. You'd never see "Hawaii, USA" in the Economist, even though it's not a US publication, because they assume an educated readership. My question is, is there a relevant policy of Wikipedia? Can someone direct me to a page from the manual of style so that I can find out more information? modify 11:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you're right, SmallJim, and that clears it up for me. I think putting the country name in articles about towns or provinces is a very good idea. I think we have to assume our readers are less sophisticated than the Economist does, simply because our readers could be anywhere, from any background. And I for one want to know that the small town I'm reading about is in India--and I think you'd find a number of Americans, for instance, who don't know where Queensland is, to pick a random example. Darkspots ( talk) 00:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change. -- VeblenBot ( talk) 19:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I think it might be useful to understand and clarify the purpose of policy in Wikipedia. Is it to express aspirational ideals we hope to reach eventually? Or is it to express a minimum enforcement standard below which administrators should block editors for disrupting the encyclopedia? Most likely somewhere in between, but leaning in which direction? The more I read policy discussions the clearer it is becoming to me that there is basic disagreement as to what level we want "policy" to reflect. It might be useful to clarify this if possible. If policies are aspirational, WP:IAR should be used very frequently and we should be very lenient with editors since policies may well be inappropriate for addressing actual day-to-day matters. If policies are enforcement standards, WP:IAR should be rare (although still occassionally appropriate), but policies would be based not on what we'd like to happen but what we can realistically enforce under present circumstances. Much of this is part of unspoken Wikipedia culture. But if we could speak of it, we might be able to reach agreement on policy discussions more readily. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 15:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:User page ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change. -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change. -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I've proposed a short extension of Wikipedia:No original research to clarify the requirements on descriptions of images (in brief, interpretations of images must be based on specifically relevant reliable sources, just like any other assertion of fact in an article). Please feel free to comment on this proposal at Wikipedia talk:No original research#Interpretation of images. -- ChrisO ( talk) 19:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I created an account with wikipedia in my freshmen year. Now a Junior I see someone got into my account and has been posting porn on wikipedia. I am wondering how I would delete this account so I can end him putting up these things, but also make sure my name is not associated with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.88.239 ( talk) 23:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Hoping I'm doing this right. It was Cj Will Win maybe no spaces. I found out about it by putting cjwillwin into google. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
99.165.88.239 (
talk) 00:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. Neither is working, but I guess if he's blocked he can't do anything further. I was just upset that the first thing I find on google about my online name is something saying I've been posting porn and wrecking pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.88.239 ( talk) 00:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it =) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.88.239 ( talk) 01:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I understand that "Wikipedia is not censored" and agree with the policy. However, I don't know that we have taken any steps to allow parents / schools to easily make that choice for themselves - sort of an all or nothing. Should we not have templates or include code in the Category template (not visible on the article) that would apply an ICRA rating (built into content filtering software, such as Internet Explorer) to a page (and possibly the talk) of certain articles? So if a child browses to an article that has the presence of nudity, sexual content, depiction of violence, explicit language, or other potentially harmful content such as gambling, drugs and alcohol, we have the standard ratings applied so such content can be filtered if desired. While it is not our policy to protect anyone from potentially harmful material, should we not have the ratings in place to allow parents to make those choices? The parent would be the censor, not us. It seems to me that this would be the responsible thing for an online encyclopedia to do. Morphh (talk) 15:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Something has just occurred to me- what's the most objectionable content we have? What images do we have that could not be found in a standard school library? Some really offensive album covers or something? If we look at it from a school point of view (even a primary school) there are going to be textbooks that contains biological pictures of a human body, and that seems to be the example most people are giving. What are reasonable people actually going to object to? Do tell me if what I'm saying is ridiculous... J Milburn ( talk) 21:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
TenOfAllTrades raises some valid concerns above about user expectations and time lag. I think those problems are likely correct. Nevertheless, I think this approach, if done on a voluntary basis, could be consistent with the principle of
Eventualism. We're a volunteer organization using a tool that requires us to constantly fight vandalism. Any effort we make will be imperfect yet we still keep working on the encyclopedia. (And despite all the vandals, it gets better almost every day.)
If anyone was offended because a tag was not on a page where they thought it belonged, the right answer is to encourage them to
fix it. An incorrect or missing tag would no more damage Wikipedia's reputation than the routine vandalism that we deal with daily.
These proposed tags strike me as just a particular form of
categorization. I never add categories to a page and think that most of them are pretty pointless but I don't object when someone else adds them because I know that not everyone uses the encyclopedia the same way I do. If the category was added in
good faith, presumably it is helpful to the person adding it. If a tag is added in good faith, it's not going to get in my way and might help the person adding the tag. Go for it.
Rossami
(talk) 23:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
As a proud, card-carrying member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography ... I support the basic idea behind the proposal. No, it would not be perfect, but nothing in Wikipedia is. Yes, it would make us vulnerable to vandalism, but (shock) we are already, it would not increase that. As for implementation, the devil is in the details, of course. It would need to be per-page, and it would need to be easy to apply, and it would probably require a developer hack. So it probably won't happen. :-(. But for what it's worth, I support the idea. -- AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
" ICRA, the Internet Content Rating Association, is an international non-profit organization with offices in the United States and the United Kingdom."
I like how this proposal, as opposed to some of the other content-rating proposals that have appeared here over the years, does not seem to cast judgments, as Morphh states. However, I don't think it's that simple. Tagging pages with ICRA criteria would imply endorsement of the ICRA system. If some organization on its own initiative wants to enter Wikipedia URLs into a database based on criteria they have drawn up, that's their prerogative. If we do it, or if we adapt our code to sort their purposes, we are actually participating in the process, which raises a whole other set of issues.
The ICRA may say that it is a buffet system, where people can pick and choose what they want to ban. My understanding is, though, that the most widely known application of the ICRA ratings is in Internet Explorer, where they are converted into a series of sliding scales on language, nudity, sex and violence. For example, a user can set the Content Adviser to "nudity rating 2," which allows "partial nudity" but not "frontal nudity." This approach appears to be inconsistent with the predominant current of thought on Wikipedia, which is that nude images -- for example -- should be included or not included based on its "encyclopedic nature" rather than on whether it is frontal, rear or whatever.
I certainly understand the concern many users have about the content in Wikipedia. My big issue is the accidental display of unwanted material -- as in the case when I clicked on the word "buggery" on the Oscar Wilde article while at work and was taken to the anal sex page. (We don't use the word "buggery" in America, and I had no idea what it meant.) Last year, I proposed a guideline on "not safe for work" material. My idea was that NSFW content be placed "below the fold" (that is, not visible until you scroll down), with a warning template at the top and, when appropriate, an option to view the page without the NSFW material. The idea was dismissed because of -- you guessed it -- the "no censorship" policy. But I think that a system of warning templates, while raising its own series of issues, is less offensive from a censorship point of view than participation in a commercial ratings system. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 06:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)