This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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
I noticed this repeated removal of an anon's comment at Talk:Homeopathy [1] [2] [3] and the subsequent blocking of the anon. [4] This raised my eyebrows a bit, as it seemed against the spirit of WP:BITE and WP:AGF. Some editors justified the removal, accusing the anon of ranting or violating WP:SOAP and WP:TALK guidelines. Nevertheless, I feel there are very limited cases where a user's comments on talk pages should be removed, e.g. personal attacks or simple vandalism. I would like to know if there is an established consensus on how the policies apply to situations like this. It seems to be a dangerous trend to remove a user's comments on the basis they are ranting.
N.B. I am not presently involved in this discussion, but it was on my watchlist as I have made some minor contributions in the past. Dforest ( talk) 08:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I was referring to the article discussion. Yes, I'm aware the user was editing the article. The user was duly warned for adding controversial content without discussion. So he/she moved it to talk, and then had his/her comments repeatedly deleted, and a subsequent block was placed. This seemed rather brash to me, and the comment deletion did not appear to be justified. It seems to give the message that anons' comments are not welcome here. Dforest ( talk) 08:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RfB bar will end March 15. If you haven't already, please consider participating. Kingturtle ( talk) 13:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice this block threat at Waterboarding:
This seems draconian to me. What do others think? Lightmouse ( talk) 14:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Absent strong objections at the talk page for WP:Academics I think that it is time to merge this page into WP:BIO. The better parts of this process have been incorporated into BIO for some time and this is now just a redundant page. Perhaps further ideas in clarification of BIO could be included in an essay. -- Kevin Murray ( talk) 18:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to propose some changes to make the wording of policy/guidelines more accurate, precise, and clear. They relate to the usage of the words "encyclopedic" and "consensus."
Sometimes, the words "encyclopedic" or "unencyclopedic" appear in guideline pages. The dictionary definition of "encyclopedic" is "broad in scope or content" or "comprehensive; of or relating to the characteristics of an encyclopedia." And our own definition of " encyclopedia" is "a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge."
We typically use "encyclopedic" to denote "appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia." It is even sometimes used to describe behavior; e.g. at WP:POINT, we have "Some readers consider such techniques spiteful and unencyclopedic..." At WP:DE, he have suggestions on what to do in response to a user's "first unencyclopedic entry." I have never seen these usages outside of Wikipedia. As noted at WP:UNENCYC, it is not a particularly helpful comment in deletion debates. I would favor dumping this term pretty much entirely from our lexicon, except when used as a complaint about something not being comprehensive enough. Ironically, one place where the term might be appropriate to use is WP:FAC; but if you were to vote "Object; clearly unencyclopedic" about an uncomprehensive article on an obviously notable subject, it would probably be mistaken for disruption.
In most cases, the word "unencyclopedic" could probably be replaced with a more precise term such as "non-notable" or perhaps a phrase including the word "inappropriate" (defined as "not suitable for a particular occasion etc," "not in keeping with what is correct or proper," etc.) That is, after all, what people are usually trying to get across with the word "unencyclopedic" – that certain actions or content are not suitable or proper for this project. If no one objects, I would like to begin replacing "encyclopedic" and its variants with better terminology when I run across them. Larry E. Jordan ( talk) 22:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"Consensus" I believe is another problematic word in some cases. It is inherently confusing because it has many possible definitions, some of which imply absolute unanimity, which is never a requirement here for action to be taken. However, other definitions do not carry this implication (see Wikipedia_talk:Consensus#Definition) so that by itself does not make it an incorrect use of terminology. It is hard to find a satisfactory definition of consensus, as applied to Wikipedia, and if you read through the archives of Wikipedia_talk:Consensus, you'll find that people have been grappling with this for some time. But let's start with a few that, while not entirely satisfactory, express certain attributes often applicable to Wikipedia decisionmaking:
Many guidelines suggest that decisions on Wikipedia are made by "rough consensus." For instance, WP:DEL states:
“ | These processes are not decided through a head count, so participants are encouraged to explain their opinion and refer to policy. The discussion lasts at least five days; afterwards, pages are deleted by an administrator if there is consensus to do so. If there is no rough consensus, the page is kept and is again subject to normal editing, merging or redirecting as appropriate. | ” |
On its face, this appears to be an accurate description; and anyone who has been in deletion debates for awhile knows what it is talking about. But there are some subtle ambiguities and inaccuracies present in this statement (and many like it) that I believe we would do well to correct. It will take me awhile to pick apart and explain, but please bear with me.
It is often said that we make decisions primarily by "consensus" or through "discussion" rather than polling. (In using the word "consensus," there is some ambiguity – do we mean "consensus" in the sense of "an informal method for identifying approval of a proposal placed before a group," in which case it might mean basically the same thing as "discussion"; or do we mean that in most cases, the opinions are nearly unanimous one way or the other? Probably both of these things are implied, but the use of the word "consensus" makes it fuzzy.) On its face, this seems true. We do, after all, discuss things before a decision is announced, and the decisions is typically based on things said or brought to light in the course of the discussion. But is it accurate to say that our decisions are the result of the discussion or comments made therein? (Most deletion debates are closed with a statement such as "The result of the discussion was Keep")
In a system such as the U.S. Congress, it is correct to say that decisions are a result of the vote. Whatever the members vote to do, that is the action taken, as long as it doesn't contradict rules that they themselves have set up. Under their rules, it would be a perfectly valid decision for the body to pass a resolution, for instance, stating that "Whereas, mutated superintelligent polar bears with orange spots are bombarding the Pacific Northwest states with heavy artillery; and whereas this has had a profound negative impact on the economy of this region; now therefore be it Resolved that $10 million is appropriated for economic stimulus in this region, to be allocated by the President." Regardless of the facts being incorrect, they can vote to do what they wish, and action will be taken accordingly. Indeed, they can even violate their own rules if they raise a point of order and motion, and the members vote to interpret the rules in such a way that the violation is permitted; this is what the nuclear option is all about.
Now, on Wikipedia, what happens when the participants in a discussion ask for an article to be kept or deleted based on inaccurate facts or blatantly misapplication of policy? The closing admin has every right to take action based on the facts and policy. It does not even matter if the decisive argument was not raised in debate; facts and policy are what they are. The ten participants in a debate can unanimously argue in favor of keeping an unverifiable article, citing many eloquent reasons for why, and the closing admin can delete. So in that case, the action taken is not the result of the discussion or rough consensus.
The subject of deletion, due to its complexity, opens up a whole can of worms, so perhaps a better better example is WP:FAC. FAC rules state:
“ | For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. Consensus is built among reviewers and nominators; the FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether there is consensus. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved or consensus for promotion has not been reached, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination. | ” |
It might be more accurate to say that FACs are determined based on the merits as judged by the FA director, a determination that he makes after reviewing the article and taking into consideration the arguments made. Clearly, an article can be promoted even if there is unanimous opposition, if the director determines that the article is of sufficient quality and the objections are non-actionable. So, it is patently inaccurate to say that "For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria."
And of course, article content is not decided by consensus, but by the merits. I believe TBSDY ran into this situation once, when the consensus was to change the article on Australia to say it is a republic. The one editor who, correctly, says that it is a constitutional monarchy is entitled to have his edit stand. WP:CONSENSUS already says, "Note that in the rare case that the "eccentric" position turns out to have merit, the consensus can change," but that's somewhat of an ambiguous statement. Does that mean that the person with the eccentric position is entitled to keep reverting back to the correct version, or that he is supposed to change consensus by persuading the others? What if they won't be persuaded? We might clarify that people are allowed to correct factual inaccuracies, no matter what the consensus is.
But what about situations (whether in FAC, AFD, or elsewhere) in which it's a close call as to how to best apply facts or policy and there is room for reasonable disagreement? In those cases, headcount can begin to play into things, most certainly; and the closer in strength the arguments on each opposing sides are, the more weight headcount will tend to carry. And I think MFD is often an excellent example of this. It is inaccurate to imply that decisions will never made by headcount. To say such a thing gives people an unrealistic expectation of how things will work here; and I think fostering that expectation can come back to bite us.
Rather than saying that decisions are made by discussion or consensus, it would be more accurate to say that decisions are made based on the merits when possible (specifically, facts and policy); that discussion is used to present relevant facts and arguments to aid in determining the merits; and that head count (with adjustments made to account for possible sockpuppets, votestacking, etc.) begins to become a factor as the strength of the arguments on each side approaches equality.
Of course, the application of policy is a bit of grey area, as some rules are not supposed to bend at all, and others (especially guidelines) have more give. All in all, it's a bit tricky in certain borderline cases, because the closing admin has to consider the relative weight of the facts, policies, guidelines, and possibly headcount. For these reasons, it's difficult to draft a statement that expresses clearly and accurately how decisions are made here. But to say that decisions are made as a result of "consensus" or "discussion" is clearly an oversimplification, and easily misinterpreted.
The catchall used (often implicitly) when a departure from the description of practice laid down in rules is made is WP:IAR. Thus, we can ignore the rule that decisions are made by consensus if the opinions expressed by a preponderance of editors is wrong. But, when possible, we should avoid having poorly-worded rules that make it necessary to invoke WP:IAR on a regular basis.
So, in short, I think we might revise references to decisionmaking by consensus to place more emphasis on decisionmaking being made primarily according to the merits, in a judgment made by the closing admin that is informed by the discussion, the facts he is able to assess for himself, and binding policies; and when there is some question as to the merits, taking into consideration rough consensus, as expressed in the more flexible guidelines and in the particular debate.
I am not proposing any change in the substance of the rules, just rather changing them to make them more accurately and precisely describe actual (and best) practices. Larry E. Jordan ( talk) 19:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I haven't read the discussion up until now, but in response to the header and original statement just below it: Consensus and encyclopedic are subjective terms. Wikipedia is a subjective place. When judging policy violations etc, people are told to use common sense. It don't get more subjective than that. This is intentional. Wikipedia is different from a state with laws. That is also intentional. Wikipedia doesn't want to be a legal system. That's why we discourage lawyering, and we say we're not a democracy or a bureaucracy. If everything were objective, we would be those things we don't want to be. Will it last? Can it last? Maybe, we'll see. But for now, people who can't live with a system like that should go elsewhere, because those are the core principles here and they're unlikely to change. My personal opinion is that I'm honestly not sure if it can last. It's a little bit like tyranny -- not in a derogatory sense, but in the sense that it is basically run by "lifetime rulers" who pass power on to each other, and who tell everyone that gets pissed off "if you don't like it, leave". That's a system begging to be overthrown, and it may happen. I myself think it's a very interesting system, and one that's more fun to participate in the way it currently stands; whereas if it were just like real life, I think it would be quite boring. So for as long as it lasts, I'll enjoy it. Equazcion •✗/ C • 16:19, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
(un-indent) For WP:FAC for instance, we might try this language:
“ | For a nominated article to be promoted to FA status, it must meet the criteria. The FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether the criteria are met based upon his review of the article, taking into consideration objections presented in the discussion and edits made to address those objections. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination. | ” |
Isn't that much closer to how things actually work than to say that they are determined by consensus? There can be a unanimous vote of 50 people to promote an article, but if the article is crap, it doesn't get promoted. Likewise, if there is a 49-1 vote against promotion, but the article meets the FA criteria, it can be promoted. The proposed language would tend to discourage sockpuppetry and canvassing. (And if there's anything on Wikipedia I can't stand, it's those two things.) WP:DEL is going to be a tougher nut to crack, I'll need to think about that in more detail, but let's start with WP:FAC first. Larry E. Jordan ( talk) 19:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
← I had no idea you were only addressing FAC. I thought this was about using the word "consensus" in our policies in general. I don't know much about how FAC works, having never been very involved in it, so I'm ill-equipped to discuss that particular process or changes to its policy. You're right I'm the only one who responded -- I didn't realize that whole long thing was only your original post. But, again, that shows the lack of interest in this proposal, and the only one who responded (me) is against. Also, when people don't return to strike out their comments after they've been "addressed" doesn't mean they necessarily think the issue is resolved. I've often left objections in discussions, and despite their having been responses to them, I don't necessarily come back to continue the argument. Sometimes it's just not productive to do so, and the disagreement comes down to just that -- a disagreement -- that doesn't necessarily have hope of being resolved. If people stated what they wanted to state, not coming back doesn't mean they don't still stand by their objection. Equazcion •✗/ C • 22:30, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
← As for the silent majority, there is none. Wikipedia isn't a majority vote. If you don't show up for a discussion, you don't get your opinion heard. Period. I don't quite understand what you want to do. On one hand you seem to agree that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but you are continuously pushing for new rules and changes to wording. Mr. Z-man 23:13, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
←Since when do you need anyone's permission to do anything? It's more bureaucracy because of the way disputes will have to play out due to those changes. When you hard-code things, you encourage people to go combing through policies looking for loopholes etc. There's already some of that going on here but we aim to avoid it. General wording means people use more common sense and less legal tactic. Equazcion •✗/ C • 23:37, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, folks, but it's a bit strange that you decided to change FAC instructions without any discussion at WP:FAC; I've reverted, the change was unclear, now discuss please. [6] SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Previous version:
For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. Consensus is built among reviewers and nominators; the FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether there is consensus. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved or consensus for promotion has not been reached, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination.
For a nominated article to be promoted to FA status, it must meet the criteria. The FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether the criteria are met based upon his review of the article, taking into consideration objections presented in the discussion and edits made to address those objections. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination.
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:53, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
This abusive puppet master (ten accounts I think) and known creator of hoax articles should be watched very very closely - any policy suggestions he makes should be treated with extreme care - he's part of an organised campaign to try and introduce proxy (which is a useful backdoor for POV pushers and sockmasters) voting to the encyclopaedia - this is just another stage in this campaign. -- 87.113.93.118 ( talk) 23:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
We are discussing the wisdom of allowing consensual canvassing via user talk pages. Of course, I am taking the wikilibertarian viewpoint on this issue. My view is that if people specifically opt-in to receiving certain notices, e.g. using Template:Canvassing, then the community should not punish another user for giving that person the notices that they have indicated an interest in receiving. As "spam," by definition, is "unsolicited messages," this does not even count as internal spam, any more than weekly Signpost delivery to those who have signed up for it counts as spam.
Some might argue that this could change the course of Wikipedia decisionmaking. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Some Wikipedians already have gained an advantage that might be regarded as undesirable under that logic, through social networks they have established in which they coordinate action on pending discussions through emails, IRC, etc. At least talk page communication is more transparent. There are also ways in which it could be made minimally obnoxious, e.g. through "Show - Hide" messages similar to what we see in the ubiquitous RFA thankspam. Caucusing is a normal part of decisionmaking is large assemblies, and we should allow it. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 07:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I went ahead and added this text to WP:CANVASS:
This seems in keeping with the spirit of the page, and I believe is sufficiently different from my previous rejected proposal that it is acceptable to be bold and introduce it there. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 18:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not - get consensus here. --
Fredrick day (
talk) 18:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I've decided to begin implementing this via User:Obuibo Mbstpo/Discussions in progress. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 18:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
← No, it's not. Or rather, if it is, a second reverter can (and probably will) come along and revert again. If the status quo is agreed upon widely enough, no one needs to defend it. Yet again I repeat: If we had to re-establish consensus for the status quo whenever someone challenged it, no matter how ridiculous the proposed change, we wouldn't have any policies. Equazcion •✗/ C • 20:51, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines notes that there are three main avenues for changing policies. Basically, (1) You can codify existing practice which have developed from the grassroots; (2) you can propose a change in a top-down manner; or (3) Jimbo can change it. A number of essays, such as Wikipedia:Product, process, policy, discourage the last two methods, and note that it is very hard to change policy through formal proposals. Guidelines can be changed a bit more easily.
We know that, after the foundational principles were laid down, most subsequent Wikipedia guidance arose from codification of practices rather than through proposals. It seems clear that, if there is an issue not currently covered by guidance, but a practice for dealing with that issue has become pretty widespread, it is acceptable and fairly easy to enact new guidance codifying that practice.
What about if we want to actually change guidance – that is, remove an existing provision or even change it to the opposite of what it currently is? Many unsuccessful attempts are made to do this through avenue #2, proposals. Can the guidance be changed by deliberately changing current practice, e.g., pushing for actions to be taken that run counter to existing guidance, so that eventually the changed practice can be codified as a change to the policy or guideline page?
I want to make a distinction between three different kinds of situations, which I will label A, B, and C, as follows. (A) At times, it is obvious that we can/should ignore all rules and act contrary to policy for the good of the encyclopedia. (B) Sometimes the policy in question is a foundational policy that cannot be deviated from. In either of those situations (A or B), the acceptable action is clear-cut. (C) But sometimes there is room for legitimate disagreement as to what is the best course of action; typically, these cases involve guidelines or non-core policies (e.g. WP:N, WP:UP, certain provisions of WP:NOT, etc. as opposed to policies like WP:NPOV, WP:COPYVIO, etc.) In those cases, is there leeway to simply violate the guidance if the rough consensus of users decides it wants to do so as a way of changing the norm, and by extension, eventually the guidance codifying the norm?
Suppose, for instance, someone is playing a chess game in a userspace subpage, and someone else nominates it for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia:UP#Games and WP:NOT. Half the editors voting in the MfD want to keep it, because they disagree with the rule. The other half want to delete it. Should the keep votes be disregarded because they are contrary to guidance, and the page be deleted? Or should it have a result of "keep" or "no consensus" because this is a legitimate way to begin changing guidance through avenue #1? Wikipedia:MFD#Prerequisites would seem to suggest not; it notes, "This is not a forum for modifying or revoking policy." On the other hand, Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means says that most rules are descriptive, not proscriptive; so how does one really know when it is okay for the rough consensus on an individual 5-day XfD, for instance, to override policy that was presumably adopted by a broader consensus over a longer period of time? Does it basically just depend on what the closing admin thinks will survive a deletion review?
I'm thinking that what we have now is a bit like typical legal systems. Where is no statute, common law can develop through decisions in various cases. But where there is a statute, it overrides the common law, and the court can't make a decision contrary to it. On the other hand, the court can overturn the statute if it runs counter to foundational principles (which in the real world, might be the Constitution). And people (including those in positions of trust and power) sometimes disregard rules and processes if they think they can get away with it. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 20:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
...In a perfect world. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 23:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Anyway, I was thinking of making more edits such as this in which I voted, "Keep and record in central database of precedents for justifying future userpage-restriction-relaxing amendments to WP:NOT and WP:UP in accordance with Policy Change Source #1, 'Documenting actual practices and seeking consensus that the documentation truly reflects practices.'" I can write analogous remarks in my keep votes in which I am attempting to shift the boundaries of article notability at AFD. Perhaps some users will copy this technique, and by keeping track of the results, we can eventually have evidence in our favor for amending the policy. I was thinking that this is an alternative method to making a formal proposal and trying to argue it on the policy talk page, as WP:PQ would seem to recommend as a more efficient method. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 17:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
By the way... I'd be happy to ignore all rules and work for the good of the encyclopedia if the rules would ignore me for awhile! :) Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 00:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow, speaking of games, I found this cool article: http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Gaming_the_system Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 05:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found a self published internet book for sale that consists entirely of two plagiarised wikipedia articles. what should i do about this? it doesn't appear to be covered under mirrors and forks section
thanks Jameselmo ( talk) 22:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
it seems that this is ok to do as no one is interested, i'll maybe just print my own book using just wiki work, seems easy enough. Jameselmo ( talk) 22:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Mediation ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
There are a number of internet projects to scan old & out of copyright books and make them available as online resource. E.g. project guttenburg, and the internet archive.
I cannot find any policy or recommendation on how this resource might or even should be linking to. E.g. Consider the Joseph Malet Lambert wrote a book called Two thousand years of gild life, which is available from the http://www.archive.org/details/twothousandyears00lambuoft The book it's self is probably not notable enough for it's own page, and none exists. However a link from the existing Joseph Malet Lambert page to the book probably would be justified. Some books in these archives might be notable enough for pages with a link E.g The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Volume 1 which can be downloaded from http://www.archive.org/details/theworksoflordby08901gut
Some policy or guidence on how this should be handled is required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.238.27 ( talk) 13:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
On the back of a few threads above, a proposed policy now exists in project space at Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts). Comments, criticisms, etc. would be most appreciated. Fritzpoll ( talk) 16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Is there a CSD that covers New Directions in Interactive Art & Entertainment - A New Fairy Tale -. I marked it as vandalism but I believe it is otherwise. The article is a supposed project started by students at York University and is meant for people on Wikipedia to add to a new fairy tale story they are creating. It is completely ridiculous, but I am not sure which CSD to mark it as. Parent5446( Murder me for my actions) 17:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found numerous video game articles that while they might give good converage as to the company, engine, etc. that developed it, they do not list any of the lead designers. As similar forms of media, such as movies, list actors, directors, etc. I believe video game articles should be required to list the lead developers, preferably in an infobox. They do not need to list every Tom, Dick and Jane that worked on it, but I find the lack of any names even for semi-popular series such as Star Ocean distubing, yet articles for other media of similar note, such as the movie Dragonheart is able to list actors, directors, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinnai ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Could a few editors come over and take a look at Wikipedia:Threats of violence, see what you think, and if inclined, comment on the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Threats of violence. Thanks bunches, NonvocalScream ( talk) 02:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found a self published internet book for sale that consists entirely of two plagiarised wikipedia articles. what should i do about this? it doesn't appear to be covered under mirrors and forks section
thanks Jameselmo ( talk) 22:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
it seems that this is ok to do as no one is interested, i'll maybe just print my own book using just wiki work, seems easy enough. Jameselmo ( talk) 22:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Mediation ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
There are a number of internet projects to scan old & out of copyright books and make them available as online resource. E.g. project guttenburg, and the internet archive.
I cannot find any policy or recommendation on how this resource might or even should be linking to. E.g. Consider the Joseph Malet Lambert wrote a book called Two thousand years of gild life, which is available from the http://www.archive.org/details/twothousandyears00lambuoft The book it's self is probably not notable enough for it's own page, and none exists. However a link from the existing Joseph Malet Lambert page to the book probably would be justified. Some books in these archives might be notable enough for pages with a link E.g The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Volume 1 which can be downloaded from http://www.archive.org/details/theworksoflordby08901gut
Some policy or guidence on how this should be handled is required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.238.27 ( talk) 13:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
On the back of a few threads above, a proposed policy now exists in project space at Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts). Comments, criticisms, etc. would be most appreciated. Fritzpoll ( talk) 16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Is there a CSD that covers New Directions in Interactive Art & Entertainment - A New Fairy Tale -. I marked it as vandalism but I believe it is otherwise. The article is a supposed project started by students at York University and is meant for people on Wikipedia to add to a new fairy tale story they are creating. It is completely ridiculous, but I am not sure which CSD to mark it as. Parent5446( Murder me for my actions) 17:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found numerous video game articles that while they might give good converage as to the company, engine, etc. that developed it, they do not list any of the lead designers. As similar forms of media, such as movies, list actors, directors, etc. I believe video game articles should be required to list the lead developers, preferably in an infobox. They do not need to list every Tom, Dick and Jane that worked on it, but I find the lack of any names even for semi-popular series such as Star Ocean distubing, yet articles for other media of similar note, such as the movie Dragonheart is able to list actors, directors, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinnai ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
I created a Hebrew-English periodic table, but dont know where to put it. Should it be in the mainspace, or maybe in wikisource, or perhaps somewhere else? Currently, its in my userspace, here. With some tweaking of the template, which I would be willing to do, this model could be adapted for any two languages.
Thanks, - Reuvenk T C 23:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Could a few editors come over and take a look at Wikipedia:Threats of violence, see what you think, and if inclined, comment on the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Threats of violence. Thanks bunches, NonvocalScream ( talk) 02:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Noted that wikipedia has a policy of civility and explains why uncivility is wrong:
"Because it makes people unhappy, resulting in discouragement and departure from Wikipedia"
Why then does the article on Baha'u'llah below note the sensivity of Baha'is using of the Photograph of Baha'u'llah
There are two known photographs of Bahá'u'lláh. This photo was taken while he was in Adrianople (reproduced in William Miller's book on the Bahá'í Faith). Copies of both pictures are at the Bahá'í World Centre, and one is on display in the International Archives building, where the Bahá'ís view it as part of an organized pilgrimage. Outside of this experience Bahá'ís prefer not to view this photo in public, or even to display it in their private homes,[30] and Bahá'í institutions have requested the press not to publish the image in the media.[31] Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baha%27u%27llah
and then includes it anyway?
It would seem to violate the policy on civility..
- Arthur Gregory —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.116.135.184 ( talk) 02:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL has to do with editors fostering an atmosphere of civility within Wikipedia. It has nothing to do with whether anyone in the world might, for whatever reason, feel insulted, blasphemed, exposed, etc., by the fact that Wikipedia has documented something. Other policies might have an impact on that ( WP:BLP, for one), but "X doesn't want us to cover Y" is no more relevant than "X wants us to cover Y." It would certainly gut the project if it were otherwise, as there is very little information that the simple fact of its distribution will not offend someone. Postdlf ( talk) 21:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
O keyes ( talk) 01:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I am working on an article about Stephen Donaldson, who was born Robert Martin and used that name for many years before adopting his pseudonym, Stephen Donaldson. As Robert Martin, he did many newsworthy things. Most published accounts of those activities, including all contemporary ones, refer to him by his birth name, Robert Martin, and I sometimes quote these. Later articles about him use the name Stephen Donaldson. To add to the complexity, he had another pseudonym/nickname, "Donny the Punk". How should the article refer to him? (He was known as "Donny" to his friends, of whom I was one.) You can see my dilemma in the article section on his military experience. Espertus ( talk) 07:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Once again I am listing WikiProject Universities Article Guidelines here to gain consensus. It appears we have reached consensus on the guidelines talk page. Please comment here and support or oppose the proposed guidelines. Thanks much!— Noetic Sage 00:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Is it mandatory or acceptable to require that public domain text be in a quotation style? Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RFC mandatory quotation of public domain text. -- SEWilco ( talk) 03:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't get much response over at naming conventions, so I'm hoping to get a bit more here. As mentioned above, we've run into a snag at WP:Military History and I think we're content to let it be resolved here.
Basically, the question comes down to what level of translation to use for the article name of foreign military operations. Below is an example table.
Original name | Transliteration | Partial translation | Full translation |
---|---|---|---|
Fall Weiß | Fall Weiss | Case Weiss | Case White |
Операция Искра | Operatsia Iskra | Operation Iskra | Operation Spark |
捷号作戦 | Sho-gō sakusen | Operation Sho-Go | Operation Victory |
ケ号作戦 | Ke-gō sakusen | Operation Ke-Go | Operation Ke |
Unternehmen Barbarossa | Operation Barbarossa |
For note, operations named after proper nouns (such as Barbarossa being named after Frederick Barbarossa) would not be translated (though potentially transliterated). Same goes for names like "Operation Ke"; since ke is a simple letter of the Japanese "alphabet" and thus has no meaning to translate.
Any opinions? Oberiko ( talk) 23:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
If you can find a standard English-language reference to the operation, I would go for that. For non-Roman alphabets, my inclination would go for the full translation. For the Roman alphabet, it's more tricky... Bluap ( talk) 04:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
My advice would be to go for a guideline that is both straightforward and subtle... if there is an overwhelmingly consistent form used in English-language publications, use that. If there's more than one, choose between them on the basis of the following:
If there is no real English-Language usage, or a wide variety, go for fuller translations. However, in both cases of fuller translations, stop at whatever point makes most sense; always transliterate, translate non-proper-nouns (don't translate proper nouns even if you can), unless there is no clean, concise translation, or if the foreign word is attested in English. Some care should be taken where a phrase may be translated cleanly, but the phrase has special significance in the original language that may be neglected by the translation. I can't think of a specific example of that right now. So, blitzkrieg would never be translated unless there was a strong indication of it being translated in the literature (which I'm fairly sure there isn't), because it's well attested in English, for example. SamBC( talk) 12:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I've started a rough tally below. If I've placed people correctly, it looks rather like the trend is towards full translation. Still, six people is hardly enough to get a meaningful consensus. Any one else have an opinion one way or the other? Oberiko ( talk) 00:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd say "It depends". If there's a name widely used in English literature, that should be used no matter what. If there isn't, and a partial translation gives you a reasonable-sounding name ("Operation whatever", "Case whatever"), that should be used. Otherwise, a transliteration should be used. In no case should a non-Latin alphabet be used for an article title. -- Carnildo ( talk) 21:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
There's been some discussion about how we could use DYK to encourage article improvement (along with creation/expansion) here. Some more voices might help determine if there's any value to this, please take a look and make any suggestions/comments. Thanks RxS ( talk) 18:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I just deleted a personal attack (not against me) from a page I watch. As an administrator, I can delete edits; am I allowed to delete these two edits because they were attacks? Nyttend ( talk) 18:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a discussion at DYK#Changing_DYK_process on ways of slightly widening the scope of DYK. Please have a look. - Neparis ( talk) 20:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Several discussions (such as the ones at WT:Layout and WT:CITE) have dragged on a bit and seem to get stuck in some of the same places. The fact that we unfortunately let some of the style guidelines contradict each other (but we're working on that) is part of the problem, but there's a bigger issue. Every other day, I see a new question along the lines of "Encyclopedias generally look like this, why don't we?". And the fact that the printed Wikipedia Version 1.0 is approaching means we can't be certain that consensus hasn't changed or won't change on look-and-feel issues. Is there consensus to put See also first and External links last in end sections, how should quotations be handled, where should lines and pages break, should every book cite name the publisher? Except for that last bit, which just came up today, these are long-running discussions. People tend to care more about the appearance of printed material, and take it more seriously. Even Wikipedia policy takes printed material more seriously; see WP:V. (Btw, I've read everything I could find at WP:1, including the archived discussion from 2003, Thread on Wikipedia 1.0 Paper plus, including lots of input from Jimbo, and I don't see where any of these look-and-feel issues have ever come up in the context of Wikipedia Version 1.0. I've only seen them come up as off-hand remarks in current discussions. I'd be very happy to find out that I'm wrong.)
There's disagreement over the extent to which these issues should be discussed on policy pages vs. guideline pages. Stylistic choices follow guidelines, but if there really is consensus that, for instance, if the External links section exists, it should always be the last section (especially in the paper Wikipedia ... printed encyclopedias rarely allow authors discretion in look-and-feel issues), then are we talking about policy? Assuming that no one wants to go through a huge number of articles by hand looking for irregularities, how do we use bots appropriately, and aren't bots more suitable for policy issues than guidelines? You can see why we get stuck.
We have to get consensus before we do anything about any of this, but so far, everyone has been hesitant to post a narrow style question on a lot of wikiproject talk pages, for fear of looking spammy. But if we don't get wide consensus, we'll get flamed for that too. I'm wondering if the best way to proceed would be to generally get the word out (widely, but I'm agnostic on how widely) that certain look-and-feel issues need to be discussed, especially in the context of Version 1.0, so that we can figure out which things fall in the category of being so widely supported that standardization would be appropriate. So, you guys tell me, because I really don't know: which questions here are policy questions, and should those policy questions be dealt with here first, or would it be better just to create a page somewhere where people could nominate issues to be discussed, and then come back here with the results? - Dan Dank55 ( talk) 21:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Although, Wikipedia follows the neutrality policy, it is quite evident in, practically all, articles, that Wikipedia articles, tend to favour a particular point of view. Although, it is quite natural that, viewpoint of editors, would take a strong position. This can be avoided by a couple of smart policies. Firstly, all information, in Wikipedia must only be represented as facts and not opinions. Example : "Prostitution is bad" is an opinion. However, "A majority of people in the world think, prostitution is bad", is a fact with a possibly, verifiable source. Since, there is no possibly, univerally acceptable definition of "good and bad" and "right or wrong", it is very likely that opinions would differ but facts would be remain true. It provides, the reader, the choice to opine, over the issue, in any way that he/she may wish to. This will significantly help Wikipedia, maintain high standards of neutrality. It will also ensure, that consensus is not necessarily valued over credential. Wikipedia (and wikipedians) should ensure that "highly-agreeable" standpoint over an issue, is not as important as a "highly-verifiable" fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.94.216.50 ( talk) 16:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
This user was blocked because his username was too long. I'm not arguing with the block, as it was supported by multiple admins, and besides, I'm not sure it's my place to do so. But here's a practical suggestion. If Wikipedia has a limit on username length, why not put a limit on the number of characters that can be entered in the username field during new account creation? Jonneroo ( talk) 07:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that as a side issue, re-blocking someone after they've been unblocked to make a username change request is disruptive to the username change process. — Random832 20:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy will be celebrating its first birthday in two weeks. Is anyone still trying to fight against it? — Omegatron 14:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a discussion currently going on in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Em dash about whether the Manual of Style should only favour spaced en-dashes and unspaced em-dashes for disjunction (thus disallowing spaced em-dashes), each to be used consistently in any given article.
You are all welcome to comment. Waltham, The Duke of 03:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Occasionally traditional reliable sources publish innacurate or misleading information about a subject. This is especially prevalent in internet and technology related areas where old-media reporters may have no clue what they are talking about.
When editors have determined by concensus that the "reliable sources" are innacurate but other sources are good, I recommend that we relax the WP:RS guidelines to allow a wider range of sources. If editors determine by concensus that a news articles is misleading whereas a blog post covers the subject perfectly, lets use the blog post. If a fact is claimed that can't be sourced in WP:RS sources, but a video confirms that fact beyond a doubt, then lets keep the fact and cite the video (but be careful not to apply any extra interpretation).
In terms of policy, this isn't such a radical idea considering the "occasional exceptions" clause of WP:RS, and the command that we ignore rules that prevent us from improving the encyclopedia. However, in practice many (the majority of?) editors who completely agree that the sources are wrong will nevertheless tend to cling onto WP:RS and force misleading information to remain in articles.
Whether you agree with my proposal or not, I think this particular form of bias should be considered carefully. Z00r ( talk) 17:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this should go to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard ?-- Hu12 ( talk) 17:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
A user has been using article rescue arguments to save what looks to me like a walled garden in his user space. No attempts to improve these articles were made after userfication. I'm concerned that this might be a way people have discovered to circumvent this policy. Please comment here: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Tlogmer subpages. In particular, I think some standard for the amount of time that a deleted page is allowed to sit idly on a user's subpage needs to be established. Please comment. ScienceApologist ( talk) 13:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
This user was blocked because his username was too long. I'm not arguing with the block, as it was supported by multiple admins, and besides, I'm not sure it's my place to do so. But here's a practical suggestion. If Wikipedia has a limit on username length, why not put a limit on the number of characters that can be entered in the username field during new account creation? Jonneroo ( talk) 07:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that as a side issue, re-blocking someone after they've been unblocked to make a username change request is disruptive to the username change process. — Random832 20:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy will be celebrating its first birthday in two weeks. Is anyone still trying to fight against it? — Omegatron 14:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a discussion currently going on in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Em dash about whether the Manual of Style should only favour spaced en-dashes and unspaced em-dashes for disjunction (thus disallowing spaced em-dashes), each to be used consistently in any given article.
You are all welcome to comment. Waltham, The Duke of 03:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Occasionally traditional reliable sources publish innacurate or misleading information about a subject. This is especially prevalent in internet and technology related areas where old-media reporters may have no clue what they are talking about.
When editors have determined by concensus that the "reliable sources" are innacurate but other sources are good, I recommend that we relax the WP:RS guidelines to allow a wider range of sources. If editors determine by concensus that a news articles is misleading whereas a blog post covers the subject perfectly, lets use the blog post. If a fact is claimed that can't be sourced in WP:RS sources, but a video confirms that fact beyond a doubt, then lets keep the fact and cite the video (but be careful not to apply any extra interpretation).
In terms of policy, this isn't such a radical idea considering the "occasional exceptions" clause of WP:RS, and the command that we ignore rules that prevent us from improving the encyclopedia. However, in practice many (the majority of?) editors who completely agree that the sources are wrong will nevertheless tend to cling onto WP:RS and force misleading information to remain in articles.
Whether you agree with my proposal or not, I think this particular form of bias should be considered carefully. Z00r ( talk) 17:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this should go to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard ?-- Hu12 ( talk) 17:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
A user has been using article rescue arguments to save what looks to me like a walled garden in his user space. No attempts to improve these articles were made after userfication. I'm concerned that this might be a way people have discovered to circumvent this policy. Please comment here: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Tlogmer subpages. In particular, I think some standard for the amount of time that a deleted page is allowed to sit idly on a user's subpage needs to be established. Please comment. ScienceApologist ( talk) 13:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:When to cite ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to start a centralised discussion about this issue. I know that people often comment to the effect of "harmless", "builds community spirit" etcpp. I personally think that it's crap and should be deleted, with the positive side effect of possibly alienating one or two idiots who are only here to play the hidden page/link game or maintain their guestbooks. And I do think this is really one big issue. And awarding barnstars for such stuff is just outrageous. Imo. Comments? Dorftrottel ( warn) 17:35, March 5, 2008
Here is my proposed solution to this issue. Establish two classes of users:
Everyone would start out in Class 1. You can upgrade to Class 2 at any time. To go back to Class 1, you need to get rid of your social networking stuff first. Actually, now that I think about it, we probably don't even need to have classes – just have a rule that any social networking-type subpages need to have the ads.
I'm sure we can find a compromise that accommodates everyone. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 21:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
oppose - this is an encyclopaedia, anyone who fails to understand this after a couple of polite warning should be asked to leave. Why on earth would we voluntary want to fill up our servers with that type of crap? -- Fredrick day ( talk) 19:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Reply I agree that WP:NOT would need to be fundamentally rewritten, and I advocate that it be. And I'll use an example to illustrate why community-building content is important. Some people might say also that playing chess is a waste of server resources. But guess what, while I'm watching my watchlist to see if my opponent has moved, I'm also checking everything else, and if someone vandalizes one of my pages, I'll spot it. Or if someone responds to a discussion, I can reply to them, and we make progress faster. And rapport is built with other users, which in many cases leads to collaboration on encyclopedic subjects. So indirectly, the chess improves the quality of the encyclopedia. If I were over at Yahoo Chess doing that, then Wikipedia would not be getting those benefits. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 22:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Oppose Absolutely not. This is an encyclopedia. Glass Cobra 20:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm not at all clear on what problem this is intended to solve. Frankly, I think there's already a consensus that active, productive editors are allowed some leeway on the NOTMYSPACE thing, so I don't see a problem there. I don't think we want unproductive editors using Wikipedia as MySpace, whether or not there are associated ad revenues. Where's the problem? Sarcasticidealist ( talk) 22:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
This is sort of already done. See: Wikia. They use adverts to cover the costs. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 22:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
In the course of being so vehemently against "the myspaceification of Wikipedia", it seems as though we're continuing to depersonalize editors and perpetuating the bitter disputes and arguments that plague the project. I don't see how it's harmful for users to publish information about themselves and their likes/dislikes, or have conversations with each other that (god forbid) don't relate directly to the project. Can someone explain this one to me?
Feel free to block me or report me to the Arbitration Committee for even suggesting it, but I think it might actually be beneficial to the project if it were set up as a social network. Someone gets pissed off at you while working on an article together, visits your talk page to chew you out, and then realizes you actually have some things in common. You're not such a bad guy after all, and they end up leaving a relatively friendly message instead of a "civil" one. I don't know. I just think it would help to defuse the constant tension that surrounds editing if Wikipedia were more... friendly.
(Also, I highly doubt this has anything to do with server load, and everything to do with comments like Dorftrottel's. As I understand, 99% of the server load is serving cached pages to unregistered users. Generating pages from scratch for logged-in users takes a lot more server resources per page, but we do it anyway because the amount of "registered user content" is much smaller than the amount of data being sent to unregistered users. Some graphs would be helpful here.) — Omegatron 04:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I have nominated the template for deletion, since the conversation here seems to have wandered somewhere else
Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:The_Guestbook_Barnstar --
Enric Naval (
talk) 12:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Please review and tweak: Wikipedia:Requests for remedies. A very simple three-step system that can make trusted, final decisions on very tricky or complex matters, based on evaluations from trusted, uninvolved users on a given case in the dispute resolution process. It does add new process, but not many layers, or particularly complex layers by any stretch of the imagination. It's built entirely around consensus and the idea of certification, and is the opposite of Votes For Banning. Please weigh in at Wikipedia talk:Requests for remedies. The community needs a way to move forward in a trusted, fair manner on high-end, complex problems that are either unworkable for normal WP:AN, WP:ANI, or WP:RFC to handle, or that the Arbitration Committee can't take on, or that the Arbitration Committee relegates back to the Community. Lawrence § t/ e 22:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) And anything, at all, that will do any kind of role AND scale as we require like this will require new process. I'm keeping it deliberately simple on the proposal as much as possible. Everyone please read the talk page there. It's really a very, very simple process: you ask for Remedies to be generated--a Request for Remedies. A consensus of uninvolved users has to certify your request as valid. The team of the elected/trusted Remedy Committee then--but only the uninvolved Committee members, recusal is compulsory!--drafts up a set of "suggested" remedies based on the certified request (all this by the way needs no "clerks" or anything like that--its not like anyone here is above hitting "copy/paste" once a week). They post the suggested remedies then go to the RfR, and the wider community, *all* users, weigh in and certify any valid suggestions. Certified/supported consensus remedies go into effect. It's basically an attempt to leash and focus mob rule into something that works, is scalable, is fair (the limitations on involved users), and will have the benefit of simple, rigorous consensus checks to go into effect so no one can complain about getting railroaded. Lawrence § t/ e 05:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
This was added to the WP:REMEDY proposal today:
The RfR process comes after venues such as mediation (formal, or informal), third opinion, administrator noticeboards (any), and requests for comment, but before the Arbitration Committee. It is a framework for generating an unbiased, neutral, and fair solution to a dispute. The committee will take a complaint certified by the community. It will provide a suggested solutions, based on policy, precedent and good practice.
Request for remedies is intended to complement the existing dispute resolution process by addressing three basic points:
Lawrence § t/ e 16:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure this kind of opinion has been expressed to the death already, but I'm going to write it anyways.
While wikipedia is one of the greatest resources in the internet, I strongly oppose its braindead policy of attempting to be a "serious encyclopedia". Wikipedia is excellent exactly because it's possible to find information which you can't find in a normal encyclopedia. In my opinion wikipedia should be a collection of facts and articles, not an "encyclopedia".
I strongly oppose most of the article deletion policies at wikipedia. Perfectly good articles which do not t offend anyone and have nothing questionable in them are being deleted. Why? Who does it hurt to have such articles at wikipedia? Nobody is going to get offended, and it bothers nobody if such articles exist. In a physical book it would be understandable because you have very limited space. However, who does it hurt at wikipedia?
For example, recently the article "Silent protagonist" was removed. Why? It's a perfectly good article which doesn't hurt anyone, so why remove it? It may be interesting for someone to read, so why not have it? In the past the article "toki pona" was removed (later restored, for whatever reason). Why it was removed? Who does it hurt to have such an article? There are certainly tons of existing articles which are not removed and which are way worse and way less interesting and contain way less facts than these.
Wopr ( talk) 12:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like an article that was killed because of arbitary time limits and google-centric thinking. If there was a morass of video game related trivia, the correct response would be to stubify it.-- Nydas (Talk) 21:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
SirFozzie has written a few proposals here that involve protecting biographies of living people upon request. I've also written a different set of criteria for article protection here. It'd be great if we could get some more input about this from a wider range of people... please take a look if you have time. Please comment there to keep things centralised. Thanks! -- Naerii 04:00, 22 March 2008 (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.
Hi, I'm in the midst of a dumb little dispute and would like some outside opinions.
This is in reference to this conversation, if you're curious.-- Father Goose ( talk) 07:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused on when it is alright to use a gallery on an article page. Some pages have them, some don't. Personally, I find no need for them now that you can easily link to a Wikimedia Commons page that basically is a gallery of images for that specific article. Also, some pages have a gallery AND a link to a Wikimedia Commons page which seems rather redundant. What is the policy here? Can I move the images from the article gallery to the Commons page in order to streamline everything? Thanks Torsodog ( talk) 08:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
from googling, I found a strange mirror site [15], which mirrors all articles in wikipedia (in all languages). It also contains lots of google's adaware ads. Does it comply with GFDL (of course it contains non-free use of many things also)? Ugha ( talk) 09:22, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
A modification to the CSD A7 criteria has been proposed at the CSD talk page. NonvocalScream ( talk) 20:48, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Category:WikiProject AfD closing participants was nominated for deletion at WP:CFD. But it got moved to WP:UCFD and then to WP:MFD, where I see no mention of it. Someone with knowledge of this matter should update all the affected pages to show the current status. Ma t c hups 18:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I listed Talk:List of road-related terminology on requests for comment five days ago, but nobody that was not already arguing came in to help. What should I do? -- NE2 20:49, 23 March 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
I noticed this repeated removal of an anon's comment at Talk:Homeopathy [1] [2] [3] and the subsequent blocking of the anon. [4] This raised my eyebrows a bit, as it seemed against the spirit of WP:BITE and WP:AGF. Some editors justified the removal, accusing the anon of ranting or violating WP:SOAP and WP:TALK guidelines. Nevertheless, I feel there are very limited cases where a user's comments on talk pages should be removed, e.g. personal attacks or simple vandalism. I would like to know if there is an established consensus on how the policies apply to situations like this. It seems to be a dangerous trend to remove a user's comments on the basis they are ranting.
N.B. I am not presently involved in this discussion, but it was on my watchlist as I have made some minor contributions in the past. Dforest ( talk) 08:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I was referring to the article discussion. Yes, I'm aware the user was editing the article. The user was duly warned for adding controversial content without discussion. So he/she moved it to talk, and then had his/her comments repeatedly deleted, and a subsequent block was placed. This seemed rather brash to me, and the comment deletion did not appear to be justified. It seems to give the message that anons' comments are not welcome here. Dforest ( talk) 08:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RfB bar will end March 15. If you haven't already, please consider participating. Kingturtle ( talk) 13:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice this block threat at Waterboarding:
This seems draconian to me. What do others think? Lightmouse ( talk) 14:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Absent strong objections at the talk page for WP:Academics I think that it is time to merge this page into WP:BIO. The better parts of this process have been incorporated into BIO for some time and this is now just a redundant page. Perhaps further ideas in clarification of BIO could be included in an essay. -- Kevin Murray ( talk) 18:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to propose some changes to make the wording of policy/guidelines more accurate, precise, and clear. They relate to the usage of the words "encyclopedic" and "consensus."
Sometimes, the words "encyclopedic" or "unencyclopedic" appear in guideline pages. The dictionary definition of "encyclopedic" is "broad in scope or content" or "comprehensive; of or relating to the characteristics of an encyclopedia." And our own definition of " encyclopedia" is "a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge."
We typically use "encyclopedic" to denote "appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia." It is even sometimes used to describe behavior; e.g. at WP:POINT, we have "Some readers consider such techniques spiteful and unencyclopedic..." At WP:DE, he have suggestions on what to do in response to a user's "first unencyclopedic entry." I have never seen these usages outside of Wikipedia. As noted at WP:UNENCYC, it is not a particularly helpful comment in deletion debates. I would favor dumping this term pretty much entirely from our lexicon, except when used as a complaint about something not being comprehensive enough. Ironically, one place where the term might be appropriate to use is WP:FAC; but if you were to vote "Object; clearly unencyclopedic" about an uncomprehensive article on an obviously notable subject, it would probably be mistaken for disruption.
In most cases, the word "unencyclopedic" could probably be replaced with a more precise term such as "non-notable" or perhaps a phrase including the word "inappropriate" (defined as "not suitable for a particular occasion etc," "not in keeping with what is correct or proper," etc.) That is, after all, what people are usually trying to get across with the word "unencyclopedic" – that certain actions or content are not suitable or proper for this project. If no one objects, I would like to begin replacing "encyclopedic" and its variants with better terminology when I run across them. Larry E. Jordan ( talk) 22:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"Consensus" I believe is another problematic word in some cases. It is inherently confusing because it has many possible definitions, some of which imply absolute unanimity, which is never a requirement here for action to be taken. However, other definitions do not carry this implication (see Wikipedia_talk:Consensus#Definition) so that by itself does not make it an incorrect use of terminology. It is hard to find a satisfactory definition of consensus, as applied to Wikipedia, and if you read through the archives of Wikipedia_talk:Consensus, you'll find that people have been grappling with this for some time. But let's start with a few that, while not entirely satisfactory, express certain attributes often applicable to Wikipedia decisionmaking:
Many guidelines suggest that decisions on Wikipedia are made by "rough consensus." For instance, WP:DEL states:
“ | These processes are not decided through a head count, so participants are encouraged to explain their opinion and refer to policy. The discussion lasts at least five days; afterwards, pages are deleted by an administrator if there is consensus to do so. If there is no rough consensus, the page is kept and is again subject to normal editing, merging or redirecting as appropriate. | ” |
On its face, this appears to be an accurate description; and anyone who has been in deletion debates for awhile knows what it is talking about. But there are some subtle ambiguities and inaccuracies present in this statement (and many like it) that I believe we would do well to correct. It will take me awhile to pick apart and explain, but please bear with me.
It is often said that we make decisions primarily by "consensus" or through "discussion" rather than polling. (In using the word "consensus," there is some ambiguity – do we mean "consensus" in the sense of "an informal method for identifying approval of a proposal placed before a group," in which case it might mean basically the same thing as "discussion"; or do we mean that in most cases, the opinions are nearly unanimous one way or the other? Probably both of these things are implied, but the use of the word "consensus" makes it fuzzy.) On its face, this seems true. We do, after all, discuss things before a decision is announced, and the decisions is typically based on things said or brought to light in the course of the discussion. But is it accurate to say that our decisions are the result of the discussion or comments made therein? (Most deletion debates are closed with a statement such as "The result of the discussion was Keep")
In a system such as the U.S. Congress, it is correct to say that decisions are a result of the vote. Whatever the members vote to do, that is the action taken, as long as it doesn't contradict rules that they themselves have set up. Under their rules, it would be a perfectly valid decision for the body to pass a resolution, for instance, stating that "Whereas, mutated superintelligent polar bears with orange spots are bombarding the Pacific Northwest states with heavy artillery; and whereas this has had a profound negative impact on the economy of this region; now therefore be it Resolved that $10 million is appropriated for economic stimulus in this region, to be allocated by the President." Regardless of the facts being incorrect, they can vote to do what they wish, and action will be taken accordingly. Indeed, they can even violate their own rules if they raise a point of order and motion, and the members vote to interpret the rules in such a way that the violation is permitted; this is what the nuclear option is all about.
Now, on Wikipedia, what happens when the participants in a discussion ask for an article to be kept or deleted based on inaccurate facts or blatantly misapplication of policy? The closing admin has every right to take action based on the facts and policy. It does not even matter if the decisive argument was not raised in debate; facts and policy are what they are. The ten participants in a debate can unanimously argue in favor of keeping an unverifiable article, citing many eloquent reasons for why, and the closing admin can delete. So in that case, the action taken is not the result of the discussion or rough consensus.
The subject of deletion, due to its complexity, opens up a whole can of worms, so perhaps a better better example is WP:FAC. FAC rules state:
“ | For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. Consensus is built among reviewers and nominators; the FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether there is consensus. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved or consensus for promotion has not been reached, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination. | ” |
It might be more accurate to say that FACs are determined based on the merits as judged by the FA director, a determination that he makes after reviewing the article and taking into consideration the arguments made. Clearly, an article can be promoted even if there is unanimous opposition, if the director determines that the article is of sufficient quality and the objections are non-actionable. So, it is patently inaccurate to say that "For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria."
And of course, article content is not decided by consensus, but by the merits. I believe TBSDY ran into this situation once, when the consensus was to change the article on Australia to say it is a republic. The one editor who, correctly, says that it is a constitutional monarchy is entitled to have his edit stand. WP:CONSENSUS already says, "Note that in the rare case that the "eccentric" position turns out to have merit, the consensus can change," but that's somewhat of an ambiguous statement. Does that mean that the person with the eccentric position is entitled to keep reverting back to the correct version, or that he is supposed to change consensus by persuading the others? What if they won't be persuaded? We might clarify that people are allowed to correct factual inaccuracies, no matter what the consensus is.
But what about situations (whether in FAC, AFD, or elsewhere) in which it's a close call as to how to best apply facts or policy and there is room for reasonable disagreement? In those cases, headcount can begin to play into things, most certainly; and the closer in strength the arguments on each opposing sides are, the more weight headcount will tend to carry. And I think MFD is often an excellent example of this. It is inaccurate to imply that decisions will never made by headcount. To say such a thing gives people an unrealistic expectation of how things will work here; and I think fostering that expectation can come back to bite us.
Rather than saying that decisions are made by discussion or consensus, it would be more accurate to say that decisions are made based on the merits when possible (specifically, facts and policy); that discussion is used to present relevant facts and arguments to aid in determining the merits; and that head count (with adjustments made to account for possible sockpuppets, votestacking, etc.) begins to become a factor as the strength of the arguments on each side approaches equality.
Of course, the application of policy is a bit of grey area, as some rules are not supposed to bend at all, and others (especially guidelines) have more give. All in all, it's a bit tricky in certain borderline cases, because the closing admin has to consider the relative weight of the facts, policies, guidelines, and possibly headcount. For these reasons, it's difficult to draft a statement that expresses clearly and accurately how decisions are made here. But to say that decisions are made as a result of "consensus" or "discussion" is clearly an oversimplification, and easily misinterpreted.
The catchall used (often implicitly) when a departure from the description of practice laid down in rules is made is WP:IAR. Thus, we can ignore the rule that decisions are made by consensus if the opinions expressed by a preponderance of editors is wrong. But, when possible, we should avoid having poorly-worded rules that make it necessary to invoke WP:IAR on a regular basis.
So, in short, I think we might revise references to decisionmaking by consensus to place more emphasis on decisionmaking being made primarily according to the merits, in a judgment made by the closing admin that is informed by the discussion, the facts he is able to assess for himself, and binding policies; and when there is some question as to the merits, taking into consideration rough consensus, as expressed in the more flexible guidelines and in the particular debate.
I am not proposing any change in the substance of the rules, just rather changing them to make them more accurately and precisely describe actual (and best) practices. Larry E. Jordan ( talk) 19:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I haven't read the discussion up until now, but in response to the header and original statement just below it: Consensus and encyclopedic are subjective terms. Wikipedia is a subjective place. When judging policy violations etc, people are told to use common sense. It don't get more subjective than that. This is intentional. Wikipedia is different from a state with laws. That is also intentional. Wikipedia doesn't want to be a legal system. That's why we discourage lawyering, and we say we're not a democracy or a bureaucracy. If everything were objective, we would be those things we don't want to be. Will it last? Can it last? Maybe, we'll see. But for now, people who can't live with a system like that should go elsewhere, because those are the core principles here and they're unlikely to change. My personal opinion is that I'm honestly not sure if it can last. It's a little bit like tyranny -- not in a derogatory sense, but in the sense that it is basically run by "lifetime rulers" who pass power on to each other, and who tell everyone that gets pissed off "if you don't like it, leave". That's a system begging to be overthrown, and it may happen. I myself think it's a very interesting system, and one that's more fun to participate in the way it currently stands; whereas if it were just like real life, I think it would be quite boring. So for as long as it lasts, I'll enjoy it. Equazcion •✗/ C • 16:19, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
(un-indent) For WP:FAC for instance, we might try this language:
“ | For a nominated article to be promoted to FA status, it must meet the criteria. The FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether the criteria are met based upon his review of the article, taking into consideration objections presented in the discussion and edits made to address those objections. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination. | ” |
Isn't that much closer to how things actually work than to say that they are determined by consensus? There can be a unanimous vote of 50 people to promote an article, but if the article is crap, it doesn't get promoted. Likewise, if there is a 49-1 vote against promotion, but the article meets the FA criteria, it can be promoted. The proposed language would tend to discourage sockpuppetry and canvassing. (And if there's anything on Wikipedia I can't stand, it's those two things.) WP:DEL is going to be a tougher nut to crack, I'll need to think about that in more detail, but let's start with WP:FAC first. Larry E. Jordan ( talk) 19:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
← I had no idea you were only addressing FAC. I thought this was about using the word "consensus" in our policies in general. I don't know much about how FAC works, having never been very involved in it, so I'm ill-equipped to discuss that particular process or changes to its policy. You're right I'm the only one who responded -- I didn't realize that whole long thing was only your original post. But, again, that shows the lack of interest in this proposal, and the only one who responded (me) is against. Also, when people don't return to strike out their comments after they've been "addressed" doesn't mean they necessarily think the issue is resolved. I've often left objections in discussions, and despite their having been responses to them, I don't necessarily come back to continue the argument. Sometimes it's just not productive to do so, and the disagreement comes down to just that -- a disagreement -- that doesn't necessarily have hope of being resolved. If people stated what they wanted to state, not coming back doesn't mean they don't still stand by their objection. Equazcion •✗/ C • 22:30, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
← As for the silent majority, there is none. Wikipedia isn't a majority vote. If you don't show up for a discussion, you don't get your opinion heard. Period. I don't quite understand what you want to do. On one hand you seem to agree that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but you are continuously pushing for new rules and changes to wording. Mr. Z-man 23:13, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
←Since when do you need anyone's permission to do anything? It's more bureaucracy because of the way disputes will have to play out due to those changes. When you hard-code things, you encourage people to go combing through policies looking for loopholes etc. There's already some of that going on here but we aim to avoid it. General wording means people use more common sense and less legal tactic. Equazcion •✗/ C • 23:37, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, folks, but it's a bit strange that you decided to change FAC instructions without any discussion at WP:FAC; I've reverted, the change was unclear, now discuss please. [6] SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Previous version:
For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. Consensus is built among reviewers and nominators; the FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether there is consensus. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved or consensus for promotion has not been reached, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination.
For a nominated article to be promoted to FA status, it must meet the criteria. The FA director, currently Raul654, determines whether the criteria are met based upon his review of the article, taking into consideration objections presented in the discussion and edits made to address those objections. (References in these instructions to "the director" include Raul654's nominated delegates.) If, after sufficient time, objections considered actionable by the director have not been resolved, a nomination will be removed from the list and archived. The director determines the timing of the process for each nomination.
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:53, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
This abusive puppet master (ten accounts I think) and known creator of hoax articles should be watched very very closely - any policy suggestions he makes should be treated with extreme care - he's part of an organised campaign to try and introduce proxy (which is a useful backdoor for POV pushers and sockmasters) voting to the encyclopaedia - this is just another stage in this campaign. -- 87.113.93.118 ( talk) 23:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
We are discussing the wisdom of allowing consensual canvassing via user talk pages. Of course, I am taking the wikilibertarian viewpoint on this issue. My view is that if people specifically opt-in to receiving certain notices, e.g. using Template:Canvassing, then the community should not punish another user for giving that person the notices that they have indicated an interest in receiving. As "spam," by definition, is "unsolicited messages," this does not even count as internal spam, any more than weekly Signpost delivery to those who have signed up for it counts as spam.
Some might argue that this could change the course of Wikipedia decisionmaking. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Some Wikipedians already have gained an advantage that might be regarded as undesirable under that logic, through social networks they have established in which they coordinate action on pending discussions through emails, IRC, etc. At least talk page communication is more transparent. There are also ways in which it could be made minimally obnoxious, e.g. through "Show - Hide" messages similar to what we see in the ubiquitous RFA thankspam. Caucusing is a normal part of decisionmaking is large assemblies, and we should allow it. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 07:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I went ahead and added this text to WP:CANVASS:
This seems in keeping with the spirit of the page, and I believe is sufficiently different from my previous rejected proposal that it is acceptable to be bold and introduce it there. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 18:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not - get consensus here. --
Fredrick day (
talk) 18:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I've decided to begin implementing this via User:Obuibo Mbstpo/Discussions in progress. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 18:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
← No, it's not. Or rather, if it is, a second reverter can (and probably will) come along and revert again. If the status quo is agreed upon widely enough, no one needs to defend it. Yet again I repeat: If we had to re-establish consensus for the status quo whenever someone challenged it, no matter how ridiculous the proposed change, we wouldn't have any policies. Equazcion •✗/ C • 20:51, 22 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines notes that there are three main avenues for changing policies. Basically, (1) You can codify existing practice which have developed from the grassroots; (2) you can propose a change in a top-down manner; or (3) Jimbo can change it. A number of essays, such as Wikipedia:Product, process, policy, discourage the last two methods, and note that it is very hard to change policy through formal proposals. Guidelines can be changed a bit more easily.
We know that, after the foundational principles were laid down, most subsequent Wikipedia guidance arose from codification of practices rather than through proposals. It seems clear that, if there is an issue not currently covered by guidance, but a practice for dealing with that issue has become pretty widespread, it is acceptable and fairly easy to enact new guidance codifying that practice.
What about if we want to actually change guidance – that is, remove an existing provision or even change it to the opposite of what it currently is? Many unsuccessful attempts are made to do this through avenue #2, proposals. Can the guidance be changed by deliberately changing current practice, e.g., pushing for actions to be taken that run counter to existing guidance, so that eventually the changed practice can be codified as a change to the policy or guideline page?
I want to make a distinction between three different kinds of situations, which I will label A, B, and C, as follows. (A) At times, it is obvious that we can/should ignore all rules and act contrary to policy for the good of the encyclopedia. (B) Sometimes the policy in question is a foundational policy that cannot be deviated from. In either of those situations (A or B), the acceptable action is clear-cut. (C) But sometimes there is room for legitimate disagreement as to what is the best course of action; typically, these cases involve guidelines or non-core policies (e.g. WP:N, WP:UP, certain provisions of WP:NOT, etc. as opposed to policies like WP:NPOV, WP:COPYVIO, etc.) In those cases, is there leeway to simply violate the guidance if the rough consensus of users decides it wants to do so as a way of changing the norm, and by extension, eventually the guidance codifying the norm?
Suppose, for instance, someone is playing a chess game in a userspace subpage, and someone else nominates it for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia:UP#Games and WP:NOT. Half the editors voting in the MfD want to keep it, because they disagree with the rule. The other half want to delete it. Should the keep votes be disregarded because they are contrary to guidance, and the page be deleted? Or should it have a result of "keep" or "no consensus" because this is a legitimate way to begin changing guidance through avenue #1? Wikipedia:MFD#Prerequisites would seem to suggest not; it notes, "This is not a forum for modifying or revoking policy." On the other hand, Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means says that most rules are descriptive, not proscriptive; so how does one really know when it is okay for the rough consensus on an individual 5-day XfD, for instance, to override policy that was presumably adopted by a broader consensus over a longer period of time? Does it basically just depend on what the closing admin thinks will survive a deletion review?
I'm thinking that what we have now is a bit like typical legal systems. Where is no statute, common law can develop through decisions in various cases. But where there is a statute, it overrides the common law, and the court can't make a decision contrary to it. On the other hand, the court can overturn the statute if it runs counter to foundational principles (which in the real world, might be the Constitution). And people (including those in positions of trust and power) sometimes disregard rules and processes if they think they can get away with it. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 20:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
...In a perfect world. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 23:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Anyway, I was thinking of making more edits such as this in which I voted, "Keep and record in central database of precedents for justifying future userpage-restriction-relaxing amendments to WP:NOT and WP:UP in accordance with Policy Change Source #1, 'Documenting actual practices and seeking consensus that the documentation truly reflects practices.'" I can write analogous remarks in my keep votes in which I am attempting to shift the boundaries of article notability at AFD. Perhaps some users will copy this technique, and by keeping track of the results, we can eventually have evidence in our favor for amending the policy. I was thinking that this is an alternative method to making a formal proposal and trying to argue it on the policy talk page, as WP:PQ would seem to recommend as a more efficient method. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 17:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
By the way... I'd be happy to ignore all rules and work for the good of the encyclopedia if the rules would ignore me for awhile! :) Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 00:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow, speaking of games, I found this cool article: http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Gaming_the_system Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 05:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found a self published internet book for sale that consists entirely of two plagiarised wikipedia articles. what should i do about this? it doesn't appear to be covered under mirrors and forks section
thanks Jameselmo ( talk) 22:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
it seems that this is ok to do as no one is interested, i'll maybe just print my own book using just wiki work, seems easy enough. Jameselmo ( talk) 22:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Mediation ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
There are a number of internet projects to scan old & out of copyright books and make them available as online resource. E.g. project guttenburg, and the internet archive.
I cannot find any policy or recommendation on how this resource might or even should be linking to. E.g. Consider the Joseph Malet Lambert wrote a book called Two thousand years of gild life, which is available from the http://www.archive.org/details/twothousandyears00lambuoft The book it's self is probably not notable enough for it's own page, and none exists. However a link from the existing Joseph Malet Lambert page to the book probably would be justified. Some books in these archives might be notable enough for pages with a link E.g The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Volume 1 which can be downloaded from http://www.archive.org/details/theworksoflordby08901gut
Some policy or guidence on how this should be handled is required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.238.27 ( talk) 13:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
On the back of a few threads above, a proposed policy now exists in project space at Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts). Comments, criticisms, etc. would be most appreciated. Fritzpoll ( talk) 16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Is there a CSD that covers New Directions in Interactive Art & Entertainment - A New Fairy Tale -. I marked it as vandalism but I believe it is otherwise. The article is a supposed project started by students at York University and is meant for people on Wikipedia to add to a new fairy tale story they are creating. It is completely ridiculous, but I am not sure which CSD to mark it as. Parent5446( Murder me for my actions) 17:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found numerous video game articles that while they might give good converage as to the company, engine, etc. that developed it, they do not list any of the lead designers. As similar forms of media, such as movies, list actors, directors, etc. I believe video game articles should be required to list the lead developers, preferably in an infobox. They do not need to list every Tom, Dick and Jane that worked on it, but I find the lack of any names even for semi-popular series such as Star Ocean distubing, yet articles for other media of similar note, such as the movie Dragonheart is able to list actors, directors, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinnai ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Could a few editors come over and take a look at Wikipedia:Threats of violence, see what you think, and if inclined, comment on the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Threats of violence. Thanks bunches, NonvocalScream ( talk) 02:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found a self published internet book for sale that consists entirely of two plagiarised wikipedia articles. what should i do about this? it doesn't appear to be covered under mirrors and forks section
thanks Jameselmo ( talk) 22:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
it seems that this is ok to do as no one is interested, i'll maybe just print my own book using just wiki work, seems easy enough. Jameselmo ( talk) 22:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Mediation ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
There are a number of internet projects to scan old & out of copyright books and make them available as online resource. E.g. project guttenburg, and the internet archive.
I cannot find any policy or recommendation on how this resource might or even should be linking to. E.g. Consider the Joseph Malet Lambert wrote a book called Two thousand years of gild life, which is available from the http://www.archive.org/details/twothousandyears00lambuoft The book it's self is probably not notable enough for it's own page, and none exists. However a link from the existing Joseph Malet Lambert page to the book probably would be justified. Some books in these archives might be notable enough for pages with a link E.g The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Volume 1 which can be downloaded from http://www.archive.org/details/theworksoflordby08901gut
Some policy or guidence on how this should be handled is required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.238.27 ( talk) 13:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
On the back of a few threads above, a proposed policy now exists in project space at Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts). Comments, criticisms, etc. would be most appreciated. Fritzpoll ( talk) 16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Is there a CSD that covers New Directions in Interactive Art & Entertainment - A New Fairy Tale -. I marked it as vandalism but I believe it is otherwise. The article is a supposed project started by students at York University and is meant for people on Wikipedia to add to a new fairy tale story they are creating. It is completely ridiculous, but I am not sure which CSD to mark it as. Parent5446( Murder me for my actions) 17:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I have found numerous video game articles that while they might give good converage as to the company, engine, etc. that developed it, they do not list any of the lead designers. As similar forms of media, such as movies, list actors, directors, etc. I believe video game articles should be required to list the lead developers, preferably in an infobox. They do not need to list every Tom, Dick and Jane that worked on it, but I find the lack of any names even for semi-popular series such as Star Ocean distubing, yet articles for other media of similar note, such as the movie Dragonheart is able to list actors, directors, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinnai ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
I created a Hebrew-English periodic table, but dont know where to put it. Should it be in the mainspace, or maybe in wikisource, or perhaps somewhere else? Currently, its in my userspace, here. With some tweaking of the template, which I would be willing to do, this model could be adapted for any two languages.
Thanks, - Reuvenk T C 23:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Could a few editors come over and take a look at Wikipedia:Threats of violence, see what you think, and if inclined, comment on the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Threats of violence. Thanks bunches, NonvocalScream ( talk) 02:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Noted that wikipedia has a policy of civility and explains why uncivility is wrong:
"Because it makes people unhappy, resulting in discouragement and departure from Wikipedia"
Why then does the article on Baha'u'llah below note the sensivity of Baha'is using of the Photograph of Baha'u'llah
There are two known photographs of Bahá'u'lláh. This photo was taken while he was in Adrianople (reproduced in William Miller's book on the Bahá'í Faith). Copies of both pictures are at the Bahá'í World Centre, and one is on display in the International Archives building, where the Bahá'ís view it as part of an organized pilgrimage. Outside of this experience Bahá'ís prefer not to view this photo in public, or even to display it in their private homes,[30] and Bahá'í institutions have requested the press not to publish the image in the media.[31] Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baha%27u%27llah
and then includes it anyway?
It would seem to violate the policy on civility..
- Arthur Gregory —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.116.135.184 ( talk) 02:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL has to do with editors fostering an atmosphere of civility within Wikipedia. It has nothing to do with whether anyone in the world might, for whatever reason, feel insulted, blasphemed, exposed, etc., by the fact that Wikipedia has documented something. Other policies might have an impact on that ( WP:BLP, for one), but "X doesn't want us to cover Y" is no more relevant than "X wants us to cover Y." It would certainly gut the project if it were otherwise, as there is very little information that the simple fact of its distribution will not offend someone. Postdlf ( talk) 21:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
O keyes ( talk) 01:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I am working on an article about Stephen Donaldson, who was born Robert Martin and used that name for many years before adopting his pseudonym, Stephen Donaldson. As Robert Martin, he did many newsworthy things. Most published accounts of those activities, including all contemporary ones, refer to him by his birth name, Robert Martin, and I sometimes quote these. Later articles about him use the name Stephen Donaldson. To add to the complexity, he had another pseudonym/nickname, "Donny the Punk". How should the article refer to him? (He was known as "Donny" to his friends, of whom I was one.) You can see my dilemma in the article section on his military experience. Espertus ( talk) 07:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Once again I am listing WikiProject Universities Article Guidelines here to gain consensus. It appears we have reached consensus on the guidelines talk page. Please comment here and support or oppose the proposed guidelines. Thanks much!— Noetic Sage 00:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Is it mandatory or acceptable to require that public domain text be in a quotation style? Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RFC mandatory quotation of public domain text. -- SEWilco ( talk) 03:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't get much response over at naming conventions, so I'm hoping to get a bit more here. As mentioned above, we've run into a snag at WP:Military History and I think we're content to let it be resolved here.
Basically, the question comes down to what level of translation to use for the article name of foreign military operations. Below is an example table.
Original name | Transliteration | Partial translation | Full translation |
---|---|---|---|
Fall Weiß | Fall Weiss | Case Weiss | Case White |
Операция Искра | Operatsia Iskra | Operation Iskra | Operation Spark |
捷号作戦 | Sho-gō sakusen | Operation Sho-Go | Operation Victory |
ケ号作戦 | Ke-gō sakusen | Operation Ke-Go | Operation Ke |
Unternehmen Barbarossa | Operation Barbarossa |
For note, operations named after proper nouns (such as Barbarossa being named after Frederick Barbarossa) would not be translated (though potentially transliterated). Same goes for names like "Operation Ke"; since ke is a simple letter of the Japanese "alphabet" and thus has no meaning to translate.
Any opinions? Oberiko ( talk) 23:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
If you can find a standard English-language reference to the operation, I would go for that. For non-Roman alphabets, my inclination would go for the full translation. For the Roman alphabet, it's more tricky... Bluap ( talk) 04:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
My advice would be to go for a guideline that is both straightforward and subtle... if there is an overwhelmingly consistent form used in English-language publications, use that. If there's more than one, choose between them on the basis of the following:
If there is no real English-Language usage, or a wide variety, go for fuller translations. However, in both cases of fuller translations, stop at whatever point makes most sense; always transliterate, translate non-proper-nouns (don't translate proper nouns even if you can), unless there is no clean, concise translation, or if the foreign word is attested in English. Some care should be taken where a phrase may be translated cleanly, but the phrase has special significance in the original language that may be neglected by the translation. I can't think of a specific example of that right now. So, blitzkrieg would never be translated unless there was a strong indication of it being translated in the literature (which I'm fairly sure there isn't), because it's well attested in English, for example. SamBC( talk) 12:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I've started a rough tally below. If I've placed people correctly, it looks rather like the trend is towards full translation. Still, six people is hardly enough to get a meaningful consensus. Any one else have an opinion one way or the other? Oberiko ( talk) 00:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd say "It depends". If there's a name widely used in English literature, that should be used no matter what. If there isn't, and a partial translation gives you a reasonable-sounding name ("Operation whatever", "Case whatever"), that should be used. Otherwise, a transliteration should be used. In no case should a non-Latin alphabet be used for an article title. -- Carnildo ( talk) 21:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
There's been some discussion about how we could use DYK to encourage article improvement (along with creation/expansion) here. Some more voices might help determine if there's any value to this, please take a look and make any suggestions/comments. Thanks RxS ( talk) 18:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I just deleted a personal attack (not against me) from a page I watch. As an administrator, I can delete edits; am I allowed to delete these two edits because they were attacks? Nyttend ( talk) 18:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a discussion at DYK#Changing_DYK_process on ways of slightly widening the scope of DYK. Please have a look. - Neparis ( talk) 20:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Several discussions (such as the ones at WT:Layout and WT:CITE) have dragged on a bit and seem to get stuck in some of the same places. The fact that we unfortunately let some of the style guidelines contradict each other (but we're working on that) is part of the problem, but there's a bigger issue. Every other day, I see a new question along the lines of "Encyclopedias generally look like this, why don't we?". And the fact that the printed Wikipedia Version 1.0 is approaching means we can't be certain that consensus hasn't changed or won't change on look-and-feel issues. Is there consensus to put See also first and External links last in end sections, how should quotations be handled, where should lines and pages break, should every book cite name the publisher? Except for that last bit, which just came up today, these are long-running discussions. People tend to care more about the appearance of printed material, and take it more seriously. Even Wikipedia policy takes printed material more seriously; see WP:V. (Btw, I've read everything I could find at WP:1, including the archived discussion from 2003, Thread on Wikipedia 1.0 Paper plus, including lots of input from Jimbo, and I don't see where any of these look-and-feel issues have ever come up in the context of Wikipedia Version 1.0. I've only seen them come up as off-hand remarks in current discussions. I'd be very happy to find out that I'm wrong.)
There's disagreement over the extent to which these issues should be discussed on policy pages vs. guideline pages. Stylistic choices follow guidelines, but if there really is consensus that, for instance, if the External links section exists, it should always be the last section (especially in the paper Wikipedia ... printed encyclopedias rarely allow authors discretion in look-and-feel issues), then are we talking about policy? Assuming that no one wants to go through a huge number of articles by hand looking for irregularities, how do we use bots appropriately, and aren't bots more suitable for policy issues than guidelines? You can see why we get stuck.
We have to get consensus before we do anything about any of this, but so far, everyone has been hesitant to post a narrow style question on a lot of wikiproject talk pages, for fear of looking spammy. But if we don't get wide consensus, we'll get flamed for that too. I'm wondering if the best way to proceed would be to generally get the word out (widely, but I'm agnostic on how widely) that certain look-and-feel issues need to be discussed, especially in the context of Version 1.0, so that we can figure out which things fall in the category of being so widely supported that standardization would be appropriate. So, you guys tell me, because I really don't know: which questions here are policy questions, and should those policy questions be dealt with here first, or would it be better just to create a page somewhere where people could nominate issues to be discussed, and then come back here with the results? - Dan Dank55 ( talk) 21:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Although, Wikipedia follows the neutrality policy, it is quite evident in, practically all, articles, that Wikipedia articles, tend to favour a particular point of view. Although, it is quite natural that, viewpoint of editors, would take a strong position. This can be avoided by a couple of smart policies. Firstly, all information, in Wikipedia must only be represented as facts and not opinions. Example : "Prostitution is bad" is an opinion. However, "A majority of people in the world think, prostitution is bad", is a fact with a possibly, verifiable source. Since, there is no possibly, univerally acceptable definition of "good and bad" and "right or wrong", it is very likely that opinions would differ but facts would be remain true. It provides, the reader, the choice to opine, over the issue, in any way that he/she may wish to. This will significantly help Wikipedia, maintain high standards of neutrality. It will also ensure, that consensus is not necessarily valued over credential. Wikipedia (and wikipedians) should ensure that "highly-agreeable" standpoint over an issue, is not as important as a "highly-verifiable" fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.94.216.50 ( talk) 16:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
This user was blocked because his username was too long. I'm not arguing with the block, as it was supported by multiple admins, and besides, I'm not sure it's my place to do so. But here's a practical suggestion. If Wikipedia has a limit on username length, why not put a limit on the number of characters that can be entered in the username field during new account creation? Jonneroo ( talk) 07:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that as a side issue, re-blocking someone after they've been unblocked to make a username change request is disruptive to the username change process. — Random832 20:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy will be celebrating its first birthday in two weeks. Is anyone still trying to fight against it? — Omegatron 14:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a discussion currently going on in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Em dash about whether the Manual of Style should only favour spaced en-dashes and unspaced em-dashes for disjunction (thus disallowing spaced em-dashes), each to be used consistently in any given article.
You are all welcome to comment. Waltham, The Duke of 03:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Occasionally traditional reliable sources publish innacurate or misleading information about a subject. This is especially prevalent in internet and technology related areas where old-media reporters may have no clue what they are talking about.
When editors have determined by concensus that the "reliable sources" are innacurate but other sources are good, I recommend that we relax the WP:RS guidelines to allow a wider range of sources. If editors determine by concensus that a news articles is misleading whereas a blog post covers the subject perfectly, lets use the blog post. If a fact is claimed that can't be sourced in WP:RS sources, but a video confirms that fact beyond a doubt, then lets keep the fact and cite the video (but be careful not to apply any extra interpretation).
In terms of policy, this isn't such a radical idea considering the "occasional exceptions" clause of WP:RS, and the command that we ignore rules that prevent us from improving the encyclopedia. However, in practice many (the majority of?) editors who completely agree that the sources are wrong will nevertheless tend to cling onto WP:RS and force misleading information to remain in articles.
Whether you agree with my proposal or not, I think this particular form of bias should be considered carefully. Z00r ( talk) 17:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this should go to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard ?-- Hu12 ( talk) 17:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
A user has been using article rescue arguments to save what looks to me like a walled garden in his user space. No attempts to improve these articles were made after userfication. I'm concerned that this might be a way people have discovered to circumvent this policy. Please comment here: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Tlogmer subpages. In particular, I think some standard for the amount of time that a deleted page is allowed to sit idly on a user's subpage needs to be established. Please comment. ScienceApologist ( talk) 13:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
This user was blocked because his username was too long. I'm not arguing with the block, as it was supported by multiple admins, and besides, I'm not sure it's my place to do so. But here's a practical suggestion. If Wikipedia has a limit on username length, why not put a limit on the number of characters that can be entered in the username field during new account creation? Jonneroo ( talk) 07:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that as a side issue, re-blocking someone after they've been unblocked to make a username change request is disruptive to the username change process. — Random832 20:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy will be celebrating its first birthday in two weeks. Is anyone still trying to fight against it? — Omegatron 14:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a discussion currently going on in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Em dash about whether the Manual of Style should only favour spaced en-dashes and unspaced em-dashes for disjunction (thus disallowing spaced em-dashes), each to be used consistently in any given article.
You are all welcome to comment. Waltham, The Duke of 03:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Occasionally traditional reliable sources publish innacurate or misleading information about a subject. This is especially prevalent in internet and technology related areas where old-media reporters may have no clue what they are talking about.
When editors have determined by concensus that the "reliable sources" are innacurate but other sources are good, I recommend that we relax the WP:RS guidelines to allow a wider range of sources. If editors determine by concensus that a news articles is misleading whereas a blog post covers the subject perfectly, lets use the blog post. If a fact is claimed that can't be sourced in WP:RS sources, but a video confirms that fact beyond a doubt, then lets keep the fact and cite the video (but be careful not to apply any extra interpretation).
In terms of policy, this isn't such a radical idea considering the "occasional exceptions" clause of WP:RS, and the command that we ignore rules that prevent us from improving the encyclopedia. However, in practice many (the majority of?) editors who completely agree that the sources are wrong will nevertheless tend to cling onto WP:RS and force misleading information to remain in articles.
Whether you agree with my proposal or not, I think this particular form of bias should be considered carefully. Z00r ( talk) 17:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this should go to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard ?-- Hu12 ( talk) 17:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
A user has been using article rescue arguments to save what looks to me like a walled garden in his user space. No attempts to improve these articles were made after userfication. I'm concerned that this might be a way people have discovered to circumvent this policy. Please comment here: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Tlogmer subpages. In particular, I think some standard for the amount of time that a deleted page is allowed to sit idly on a user's subpage needs to be established. Please comment. ScienceApologist ( talk) 13:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:When to cite ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to start a centralised discussion about this issue. I know that people often comment to the effect of "harmless", "builds community spirit" etcpp. I personally think that it's crap and should be deleted, with the positive side effect of possibly alienating one or two idiots who are only here to play the hidden page/link game or maintain their guestbooks. And I do think this is really one big issue. And awarding barnstars for such stuff is just outrageous. Imo. Comments? Dorftrottel ( warn) 17:35, March 5, 2008
Here is my proposed solution to this issue. Establish two classes of users:
Everyone would start out in Class 1. You can upgrade to Class 2 at any time. To go back to Class 1, you need to get rid of your social networking stuff first. Actually, now that I think about it, we probably don't even need to have classes – just have a rule that any social networking-type subpages need to have the ads.
I'm sure we can find a compromise that accommodates everyone. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 21:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
oppose - this is an encyclopaedia, anyone who fails to understand this after a couple of polite warning should be asked to leave. Why on earth would we voluntary want to fill up our servers with that type of crap? -- Fredrick day ( talk) 19:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Reply I agree that WP:NOT would need to be fundamentally rewritten, and I advocate that it be. And I'll use an example to illustrate why community-building content is important. Some people might say also that playing chess is a waste of server resources. But guess what, while I'm watching my watchlist to see if my opponent has moved, I'm also checking everything else, and if someone vandalizes one of my pages, I'll spot it. Or if someone responds to a discussion, I can reply to them, and we make progress faster. And rapport is built with other users, which in many cases leads to collaboration on encyclopedic subjects. So indirectly, the chess improves the quality of the encyclopedia. If I were over at Yahoo Chess doing that, then Wikipedia would not be getting those benefits. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 22:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Oppose Absolutely not. This is an encyclopedia. Glass Cobra 20:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm not at all clear on what problem this is intended to solve. Frankly, I think there's already a consensus that active, productive editors are allowed some leeway on the NOTMYSPACE thing, so I don't see a problem there. I don't think we want unproductive editors using Wikipedia as MySpace, whether or not there are associated ad revenues. Where's the problem? Sarcasticidealist ( talk) 22:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
This is sort of already done. See: Wikia. They use adverts to cover the costs. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 22:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
In the course of being so vehemently against "the myspaceification of Wikipedia", it seems as though we're continuing to depersonalize editors and perpetuating the bitter disputes and arguments that plague the project. I don't see how it's harmful for users to publish information about themselves and their likes/dislikes, or have conversations with each other that (god forbid) don't relate directly to the project. Can someone explain this one to me?
Feel free to block me or report me to the Arbitration Committee for even suggesting it, but I think it might actually be beneficial to the project if it were set up as a social network. Someone gets pissed off at you while working on an article together, visits your talk page to chew you out, and then realizes you actually have some things in common. You're not such a bad guy after all, and they end up leaving a relatively friendly message instead of a "civil" one. I don't know. I just think it would help to defuse the constant tension that surrounds editing if Wikipedia were more... friendly.
(Also, I highly doubt this has anything to do with server load, and everything to do with comments like Dorftrottel's. As I understand, 99% of the server load is serving cached pages to unregistered users. Generating pages from scratch for logged-in users takes a lot more server resources per page, but we do it anyway because the amount of "registered user content" is much smaller than the amount of data being sent to unregistered users. Some graphs would be helpful here.) — Omegatron 04:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I have nominated the template for deletion, since the conversation here seems to have wandered somewhere else
Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:The_Guestbook_Barnstar --
Enric Naval (
talk) 12:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Please review and tweak: Wikipedia:Requests for remedies. A very simple three-step system that can make trusted, final decisions on very tricky or complex matters, based on evaluations from trusted, uninvolved users on a given case in the dispute resolution process. It does add new process, but not many layers, or particularly complex layers by any stretch of the imagination. It's built entirely around consensus and the idea of certification, and is the opposite of Votes For Banning. Please weigh in at Wikipedia talk:Requests for remedies. The community needs a way to move forward in a trusted, fair manner on high-end, complex problems that are either unworkable for normal WP:AN, WP:ANI, or WP:RFC to handle, or that the Arbitration Committee can't take on, or that the Arbitration Committee relegates back to the Community. Lawrence § t/ e 22:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) And anything, at all, that will do any kind of role AND scale as we require like this will require new process. I'm keeping it deliberately simple on the proposal as much as possible. Everyone please read the talk page there. It's really a very, very simple process: you ask for Remedies to be generated--a Request for Remedies. A consensus of uninvolved users has to certify your request as valid. The team of the elected/trusted Remedy Committee then--but only the uninvolved Committee members, recusal is compulsory!--drafts up a set of "suggested" remedies based on the certified request (all this by the way needs no "clerks" or anything like that--its not like anyone here is above hitting "copy/paste" once a week). They post the suggested remedies then go to the RfR, and the wider community, *all* users, weigh in and certify any valid suggestions. Certified/supported consensus remedies go into effect. It's basically an attempt to leash and focus mob rule into something that works, is scalable, is fair (the limitations on involved users), and will have the benefit of simple, rigorous consensus checks to go into effect so no one can complain about getting railroaded. Lawrence § t/ e 05:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
This was added to the WP:REMEDY proposal today:
The RfR process comes after venues such as mediation (formal, or informal), third opinion, administrator noticeboards (any), and requests for comment, but before the Arbitration Committee. It is a framework for generating an unbiased, neutral, and fair solution to a dispute. The committee will take a complaint certified by the community. It will provide a suggested solutions, based on policy, precedent and good practice.
Request for remedies is intended to complement the existing dispute resolution process by addressing three basic points:
Lawrence § t/ e 16:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure this kind of opinion has been expressed to the death already, but I'm going to write it anyways.
While wikipedia is one of the greatest resources in the internet, I strongly oppose its braindead policy of attempting to be a "serious encyclopedia". Wikipedia is excellent exactly because it's possible to find information which you can't find in a normal encyclopedia. In my opinion wikipedia should be a collection of facts and articles, not an "encyclopedia".
I strongly oppose most of the article deletion policies at wikipedia. Perfectly good articles which do not t offend anyone and have nothing questionable in them are being deleted. Why? Who does it hurt to have such articles at wikipedia? Nobody is going to get offended, and it bothers nobody if such articles exist. In a physical book it would be understandable because you have very limited space. However, who does it hurt at wikipedia?
For example, recently the article "Silent protagonist" was removed. Why? It's a perfectly good article which doesn't hurt anyone, so why remove it? It may be interesting for someone to read, so why not have it? In the past the article "toki pona" was removed (later restored, for whatever reason). Why it was removed? Who does it hurt to have such an article? There are certainly tons of existing articles which are not removed and which are way worse and way less interesting and contain way less facts than these.
Wopr ( talk) 12:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like an article that was killed because of arbitary time limits and google-centric thinking. If there was a morass of video game related trivia, the correct response would be to stubify it.-- Nydas (Talk) 21:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
SirFozzie has written a few proposals here that involve protecting biographies of living people upon request. I've also written a different set of criteria for article protection here. It'd be great if we could get some more input about this from a wider range of people... please take a look if you have time. Please comment there to keep things centralised. Thanks! -- Naerii 04:00, 22 March 2008 (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.
Hi, I'm in the midst of a dumb little dispute and would like some outside opinions.
This is in reference to this conversation, if you're curious.-- Father Goose ( talk) 07:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused on when it is alright to use a gallery on an article page. Some pages have them, some don't. Personally, I find no need for them now that you can easily link to a Wikimedia Commons page that basically is a gallery of images for that specific article. Also, some pages have a gallery AND a link to a Wikimedia Commons page which seems rather redundant. What is the policy here? Can I move the images from the article gallery to the Commons page in order to streamline everything? Thanks Torsodog ( talk) 08:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
from googling, I found a strange mirror site [15], which mirrors all articles in wikipedia (in all languages). It also contains lots of google's adaware ads. Does it comply with GFDL (of course it contains non-free use of many things also)? Ugha ( talk) 09:22, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
A modification to the CSD A7 criteria has been proposed at the CSD talk page. NonvocalScream ( talk) 20:48, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Category:WikiProject AfD closing participants was nominated for deletion at WP:CFD. But it got moved to WP:UCFD and then to WP:MFD, where I see no mention of it. Someone with knowledge of this matter should update all the affected pages to show the current status. Ma t c hups 18:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I listed Talk:List of road-related terminology on requests for comment five days ago, but nobody that was not already arguing came in to help. What should I do? -- NE2 20:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)