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I hope this is the right place to ask this question...I'm a novice. I discovered today that there is a section in Wikipedia about "Medical Writers" and that individual writers are listed there. I've read that people are not supposed to post articles about themselves--which seems like a perfectly sensible rule.
In this case, however, I AM a medical writer...with 7 published books and more than 20 years of experience. My background and oeuvre are comparable to, or more extensive than, some of the other folks listed. So what is a guy or gal to do in this case? I would like, obviously, to write up a relatively brief, neutral, and factual "article" about myself as a medical writer. And I don't think that having a friend post it for me would be honest.
I'd be quite happy to vet my submission by an editor if you want--or by the community at large.
By the way, I'm also a medical editor and I would very much like to lend a hand in the ongoing effort to raise the quality standards of articles.
Thanks for any guidance anybody can offer. Hmmm...should I leave my email address here? Don't know. Guess I won't. I just became a member a few minutes ago, so I'm not at all sure how communications work. Thanks for your patience!
--Steve Braun -- Srbraun ( talk) 01:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:When to cite ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Is there any material / prior discussions available concerning potentially locking articles after they've been approved for FA? If not, I'd like to propose it.
I've found (in my limited experience) that articles tend to go downhill after reaching FA. The process to get them to that point tends to weed out NPOV, bloat, cruft and unsourced claims; after that though, further additions are not as vigorously scrutinized.
My proposal would be basically as such:
Any thoughts? Oberiko ( talk) 19:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't like protecting FAs at their point of promotion - take, for example, this, which has undergone some prose tightening, structural changes, category addition all since its promotion. Will ( talk) 21:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Alright, if the locking-idea is to inhibiting, how about a tab on the top called "promoted" that links to the promoted-version of the article in the articles history? I think that'd still accomplish the main goals without interfering at all with our regular process and make it easy for editors to quickly see what the article was like at the time of promotion. Oberiko ( talk) 22:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
About "featured article rot": I don't deny there's such a thing, but it's not as much of a problem as some people make it out to be. Out of the 2462 articles that have ever had featured status, 1953 still do. 538 pages have been de-featured, and if we subtract the 29 re-featured pages that makes 509. In other words, just 21% of historically featured articles are no longer featured. While it would be wonderful if those 509 articles were still featured, 509 fewer FAs don't pose a grave danger to the encyclopedia.
Regardless, locking featured articles wouldn't prevent "featured article rot". What we call "rot" is often caused by rising standards, not by a decline in quality. For example, many articles lose featured status because they lack inline citations, which were rare in Wikipedia's early days. Standards could change even more in the future, and locking the articles would prevent needed improvements in such cases. szyslak ( t) 05:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Since 99.9% of anonymous IP users are vandals, why not just protect all FAs from being edited by anonymous, or new users? This would keep the vandalism down, and hopefully keep the damage down by the POV pushers to a minimum.
Of course, a better idea would be to just block anonymous IPs from editing in the first place, but unfortunately, that idea is unlikely to get past the cabal,... Dr. Cash ( talk) 14:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
In light of recent events, what about indefinite move-protection the default for featured articles? Gimmetrow 06:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
At the risk of keeping this silly discussion going, how about if we add something like this to WP:PEREN? This would also cover the related proposal to protect the Main Page featured article while it's live.
szyslak ( t) 04:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Why can't images be moved? If this were allowed, it would save a lot of deltetions i think, although it might have the unfotunate side-effect of image redirects. Simply south ( talk) 02:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:No legal threats#"On wikipedia" about whether legal threats must be made physically "on Wikipedia", as part of the policy has stated, in order to be actionable. I'm brining it up here for broader participation. -- ZimZalaBim talk 02:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Offtopic continued discussion of a recent block involving NLT. John Vandenberg ( talk) 06:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC) |
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I agree that this is not a policy change, just a clarification since Ottava has pointed out how people might misunderstand the current wording. Shell babelfish 03:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Rather than maintaining two parallel conversations, I would recommend that all new comments on this topic now be made at Wikipedia talk:No legal threats#"On wikipedia" TheRedPenOfDoom ( talk) 15:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Came across this peculiar specimen on new pages patrol. Is this speedyable? "GameBrix" seems to be some kind of toolkit for creating Flash games, of perhaps borderline notability. Not quite sure what the relevant policy is, so taking it here for a second look. Lankiveil ( speak to me) 13:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC).
I have seen numerous Wikipedia articles where quotes from foreign languages are translated into an archaic form of English, as opposed to modern English — despite there being numerous modern translations available.
The instances I refer to are Bible quotes (although my question does not refer exclusively to religious material). I know that a lot of people use Bibles that were written in archaic English, and may find it convenient to quote directly from them; and that may be considered acceptable communication in certain religious contexts. But shouldn't the English version of Wikipedia be in English? And surely archaic forms of English do not constitute standard English?
I ask that a policy is introduced that all translations in English Wikipedia are translated into standard English (unless the specific translation itself is of some relevance to the article).
I should add that I am not trying to suggest here that any particular translation of the Bible is better than any other, since even old translations can be (and often are) re-written in modern Englsh. Also I should say that I have no anti-religious agenda; I am a Christian myself, which makes me even more keen to see the words of the Bible written here in plain English so that people can clearly understand them. I don't recognise certain Bible passages that are included here in archaic English, and I find them very difficult to read.
Finally, if it is decided that non-standard English IS allowed in Wikipedia: is there some LIMIT to the extent of its usage, or to the age of the English that can be used here? For example, could "English" Wikipedia articles be written entirely in latin?
Also, are other non-standard forms of English allowed in Wikipedia articles. For example, could I include an English Bible quote translated into ebonics, or cockney? And if not, what makes archaic English more acceptable than these other non-standard types of English, when far fewer people understand it?
Grand Dizzy ( talk) 16:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Public comment is requested for the ongoing consensus discussion for the proposed guideline at WP:DOY. The proposed guideline lays out what are considered suitable entries for the 366 days of the year articles. Discussion is taking place here. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 18:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities/Article guidelines ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
The implementation of Unified Login may mean that bureaucrats should agree to perform renames in circumstances where our practice is currently to decline them. I have created the above page in an attempt to get a feel for community consensus on SUL and how far bureaucrats should go to accommodate SUL-based rename requests. Input from all welcome and appreciated. WjB scribe 01:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Contributions are sought at WT:FICT#Guidelines and consensus, to try to determine whether the inclusion of spinout articles without real-world coverage has consensus support. Percy Snoodle ( talk) 10:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Please see discussion here. Jayen 466 00:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if this has ended up the wrong slot. I couldn't find one specific to the subject and thought this was close.
A recent news story mentioned that the Wikipedia community was debating the issue of raising funding through advertising. I think this could be done in an innocuous and user-helpful way.
You could have a "Related Advertising" link in the left frame that opens a page with links to ads that pertain to the subject.
I'd like to be able to see ads that relate to articles. For instance, when reading up on Romania, I may want to see tourism information and what tour packages are available. If researching solar heating systems, I'd likely want to see ads pertaining to those products.
Advertising could be a useful adjunct to Wikipedia.
-- Jm1248 ( talk) 13:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Apparently, Facebook users have been polled by someone if Wikipedia should carry advertising see Page at Meta. DuncanHill ( talk) 02:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, this is my first posting to the Village Pump so I hope I am doing this right. As requested before posting here I've been reading (lots of) WP policies and guidelines, searching WP essays and FAQs, and asking questions on various talk pages. I still need the community's help. I think the following is correct and would really appreciate constructive feedback to confirm or correct my understanding.
As I understand things...
"Verifiable facts and content not supported by multiple independent sources may be appropriate for inclusion within another article." [2]
Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as:
The way I read all of this stuff is that:
So sections which are under a valid main article have "inherent notability" because the main article has notability. When these sections become subarticles under WP:SPLIT they should be recognized as still having inherent notability and WP:SELFPUB item 7 needs to be rewritten when such subarticles are entirely self-describing to allow for use of only primary sources for WP:V. Low Sea ( talk) 17:13, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
To clarify - "inherent" versus "inherit": This is not about inheritance, subarticles never take possession of their "parent's" notability. The term I proposed was inherent meaning "belonging by nature or habit" [3]. Sections have inherent notability only as long as the main article they are under is notable. Discussion is to determine how to rewrite guidelines and policy in order to find a way to maintain inherent notability even when an article is split out. I think part of the solution might be to create a required {SUBNOTABILITY | main article name} tag that takes the main article name as a parameter. Sub-sub-articles would also need to reference the original main article as the ultimate source of their notability. This would allow bots to identify any dependent subarticles relying on a main article should that main article become deleted or in doubt. Such a tag should only be removed if the subarticle eventually evolves to establish its own credible notability. I also would like to suggest that this (yet to be written) guideline or policy be known as WP:INHERENT. Low Sea ( talk) 06:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Instead, the proper course of action here is to split off the material about his party affiliations, his voting record, and the timeline into separate articles ( Party affiliations of John Charles Spencer Smith, Timeline of John Charles Spencer Smith, etc) and leave the details about his cat in the main article, which is where people would most likely expect to find such information. So I think what we need is some advice on how to properly split articles into subarticles, rather than a guideline saying that we shouldn't delete articles on notable peoples' pets. Ben Standeven ( talk) 04:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
When is a photograph considered "published"? I'm asking because a user has raised the argument that, taking the photograph and providing copies to the subject by a photographic studio is not considered publishing, hence photograph of a person taken before 1884 may still be under copyright if the photo studio taking the photo has not printed it in sufficiently large quantities. The photo in question was taken in India where all photos published 60 years ago are in the public domain (which means all pre-1948 published photos are in PD).
The argument by the user in Talk:Brahmo Samaj is that, the image may have been taken at a photo studio, and only the subject may have received a few copies of the photo, and hence that does not constitute publishing. And therefore the image is unpublished.
Can anyone knowledeable about copyright of photographs clarify this? Thanks. -- Ragib ( talk) 23:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
User:Dragons flight's anlysis is correct and we don't even have to worry about Indian/ Bangladesh copyright status since as per US copyright law, "Unpublished anonymous and pseudonymous works, and works made for hire (corporate authorship)" more than 120 years old (i.e., created before 1888) are public domain. See Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States. If there is no apropriate copyright template on wikipedia that covers this, we can create a new one. Abecedare ( talk) 18:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
So we need to see where they obtained this image from (The Asiatic Society after all is an old Institution - the first ever Indians admitted in 1829 to it were also Brahmos - Dwarkanath Tagore and Prassano Coomar Tagore). With so many images of Keshub Sen available to the Asiatic Society why was this particular one (which differs from all others) selected by BP for publication? Is it coincidence or something else (like Internet mechanics) whereby only this image is being circulated and Gresham's law is being proved. Thanks everyone for participating here, can we trouble you to guide us again? 122.163.151.152 ( talk) 03:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Please go to Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Criterion_8 to see a proposal to remove the second clause, which many people regard as unworkably restrictive. Tony (talk) 00:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
I have a question regarding the use of statistics or other detail data (typically is tabular or list form). To what extent is it in the scope of Wikipedia to include such data?
Let me first give an example, which may seem arbitrary. I recently found List of number-one hits (Germany) on the New Pages list. Here a user created about 30 articles (with another ~30 to come) with historical listings of number-1 hits in Germany. I understand that this information is easily added, and that it "does no harm" in a technical sense (storage space etc.). But is it really in the scope of an encyclopedia? How does that relate to WP:NOT#IINFO? Policy-wise, Top100 Singles is certainly a legit article, and WP:SUMMARY would cover the sub-articles; but 60 articles just seems a bit like over-stressing the principle.
I'm aware that a number of similar listings exists. My question is actually a bit more general. There are many articles where detail information, usually in tabular style, can easily be added in vast amounts. Given such data in electronic form, and barring any copyright issues, even a bot could add it to Wikipedia. But in terms of scope, where's the "reasonable limit" for Wikipedia, and where does WP:NOT#STATS apply? Is there a general rule?
Just to pick another example: Say for a soccer team, would we list every game they ever played? Every goal they ever scored? Every movement they ever made in a game? Sources do certainly exist, since games of professional teams are all broadcast on TV. But where does our scope end?
I'm not sure whether this question is sufficiently covered in current policy; perhaps someone can provide me with a link. -- B. Wolterding ( talk) 14:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for drama ( | 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) 18:50, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Community input is requested regarding a discussion at Wikipedia talk:No legal threats regarding modifying the opening sentence to read "Do not make legal threats against Wikipedia or members of the Wikipedia community over Wikipedia disputes." Input is requested both on the substance of the above formulation and on whether or not a consensus in favor of this formulation already exists. Thanks, Nsk92 ( talk) 01:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that on many forums and here in the Wikipedia article, talk and reference desk pages there are users and administrators alike who form what I can only describe as gangs, no different than gangs that form on the streets in neighborhoods and at schools in the real world.
Gang mentality can be one sided, ruthless and even vicious and exist only for the fulfillment and benefit of its own agenda. Who polices such gangs that form on the Wikipedia and who keeps them from taking charge and running the Wikipedia like the gangs that run the streets in the real world? Adaptron ( talk) 09:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
After dealing with several AfD's concerning children's board games and unlicensed video games, I've come to realize that there are no notability guidelines whatsoever that concern these items (beyond the broad general criteria covered in WP:N). A lot of arguments in the AfD discussions were for keeping simply on the basis of an advertising campaign, or based on sources that were simply passing mentions in articles and books, and I think something official would really help in those situations. I've brainstormed a few ideas at Wikipedia:Notability (Toys, games, and video games) and would love to get some input, ideas, or insight on what past consensus (if any) has been in situations concerning toys and games. Mister Senseless™ ( Speak - Contributions) 22:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I have opened up an RFC at Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron#Rescue tag placement, and would invite everyone to contribute -- RoninBK T C 06:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit concerned about cases where the biographical articles about people who are also Wikipedia editors have statements made in those articles about improper edits they have made. This seems to run afoul of a variety of policies and guidelines, such as WP:BITE, WP:BOLD, WP:AGF. In many of these cases, the edits were attempts by a new editor to remove information about themselves that they didn't want on the page (edits which are often reverted in due course because the removed information is factual and verifiable), but were unaware of our policies such as WP:V and WP:COI.
However, marking these articles with factual, even cited, information unfairly punishes those editors in a way entirely beyond that of the customary user talk page warning. It places capability for this sanction in the hands of a single user, rather than ArbCom, Jimbo, etc. Also, in a sense, such a citation becomes indelible, because (at the very least) the editor who put the statement there is likely to have put the page on watch to ensure that the statement is kept in place.
My concern, therefore, is that having such statements on biographical articles is contrary to both the goals and the policies of Wikipedia, by discouraging that user from editing Wikipedia at all in the future, even if the editor decides to investigate proper editing practices and subsequently go along with how Wikipedia works. They could become a prolific and helpful editor for years to come, but their editing record would always be marred by a negative mention in their biographical article.
Anyway, my suggestion is that our policy should prohibit lambasting people for their Wikipedia edits in biographical articles about them, except when the subject's notability is substantially or entirely due to their Wikipedia edits, or when they have become the subject of an ArbCom or similar ruling against them. Thanks. -- Dachannien Talk Contrib 00:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:User categories ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a new discussion at Wikipedia talk:User page#Exception to WP:BLANKING about whether we should allow certain exemptions to WP:BLANKING ( version prior to recent edits). Specifically the proposal calls for prohibiting users from removing sockpuppet notices (suspected and/or confirmed) or unblock notices (while blocked). As the blanking policy is an old and often contentious issue, additional input would be useful. Dragons flight ( talk) 19:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Confirmed sock notices are the one area where I would support a no blanking rule... otherwise... not so sure. Blueboar ( talk) 00:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I've formed a proposal that should help alleviate backlogs, reduce admin-burnout, and curb our increasing reliance on process, I would appreciate any comments on the talk page. Mr. Z-man 00:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:NOTINHERITED is often cited in AFDs, [4] and seems to have good consensus support. I've proposed that we add a section to WP:N, and would welcome contributions from other editors on the proposal. Percy Snoodle ( talk) 10:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Department of Fun ( | 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) 18:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello! New user here! I am just voicing my thoughts on how wikipedia should be run.
1. There should be a mandatory account creation to edit. 2. Also, once you have created an account, you should be submitted to an interview process similar to RFA. 3. One-strike tolerance policy on vandalism. 4. Ignore all rules-out the window. 5. Goal-delete an article every day. 6. Only Jimbo Wales should be an admin. 7. Limit of 1000 edits for an account. Please tell me when these changes will be in effect! Vengaboys Rock! ( talk) 22:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia, the free, no tolerance encyclopedia that only some can edit for a short period of time at Jimbo's sufferance
.--
Fuhghettaboutit (
talk) 01:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)A couple of editors have made sweeping changes at WP:CIVILITY in the past few days. Given that this is probably our most often-cited policy, I would argue that such changes should only be made with broad community consensus. Raymond Arritt ( talk) 07:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi, i am just a few months in wikipedia. I have a question for you all. A friend of mine, during a cancellation process, have sent a few messages to people specialized in the field concerning the article under cancellation, asking their opinion about it. Could this be considered a violation of some wikipedia norms and laws? Please let me know, Adrian Comollo ( talk) 21:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to call attention to this discussion: Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Semi-protecting_all_BLPs. The possibility of semi-protecting all BLP articles is being seriously considered, and I think more than just the usual people involved in BLP policy should probably be in on that decision. Equazcion •✗/ C • 06:22, 3 Apr 2008 (UTC)
This comes up every now and then, and probably needs to be clarified. IP's don't fall under Wikipedia:User page. While there is a person editing behind the IP and he/she deserves all the consideration and respect as any other user, however IP's are not currently given the same latitude under WP:USER as "registered users". Blanking comments or warninngs of a shared/dynamic/proxy/TOR/ect IP talk page should not be allowed. A users page is devoted to exactly one person. An IP page refers to anyone using that IP, which may well be many people. Wikipedia offers wide latitude to "registered users" to manage their user space as they see fit such as delete warnings. However, even these pages still belong to the community. Thoughts on this?-- Hu12 ( talk) 17:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Saves a whole lot of time and effort. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
If the conclusion is that anonymous IP editors are allowed to remove warnings, then that needs to get solidified somehow. The edit war that prompted this discussion is an example of how widespread the countering belief is. I reverted the anonymous IP's removal of warnings twice. When challenged to quote policy, I could not, so I took the question to ANI. While I was looking, six more editors piled in, and the anon eventually got blocked for edit warring. Not a good situation. Kww ( talk) 01:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
AFAIK, there is no policy or guideline that disallows editors (IP or registered) to remove warnings. If you're edit warring to keep a warning in place that is the wrong thing to do. People may wish that it were OK, but I've never seen a consensus for this (and it has been brought up many times). If you're an admin and you're blocking, you should be looking over the edit history. If you are leaving a warning, be sure to make it clear what it is you are doing in the edit summary. Anything else (such as edit warring over a warning) only exacerbates the original problem and antagonizes the editor. R. Baley ( talk) 08:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
This user was completely blanking the page, including whois information and a declined unblock request, which says right on it not to remove it while blocked. Maybe I should have went through and selected which information to restore, rather than reverting everything, but as stated above, the consensus on IP talk page blankings isn't solid, and I would definitely obey any consensus that is formed on the matter. Just remember I was restoring a declined unblock request template, with everything else. - Rjd0060 ( talk) 19:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
IP users are users with a funny username. They have all the privileges and duties as such. There are some slightly odd situations where some IP addresses are shared between multiple users, however, that's the exception, not the rule. Want to edit war with a user in their own userspace? You get what's coming to you. :-P -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 12:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
At this point I see no compelling consensus or reason to treat anonymous editors as "non-users" for the purposes of behavioral guidelines and policies. Any counterpoint? – Luna Santin ( talk) 23:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Has anything ever been agreed - I mean as policy - on the question of interlanguage links? There are bots going around removing links which they consider to be inappropriate - often just because there is not a precise 1-1 correspondence between articles in different-language wikipedias. Bot owners seem convinced that this is the right thing to do (see Help talk:Interlanguage links#Bots should not remove links for a discussion). However the arguments presented seem to me not very convincing. My view is that an inexact link (i.e. a link to a relevant other-language article not necessarily covering exactly the same subject matter) is better than no link at all. But bots continue to enforce their own rules as if they were policy.-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
There is a user telling me, that according to WP:Copyright problems it is PROHIBITED on Wikipedia to copy ANY exact text parts from ANY reliable source with a reference to the source. So for example if I want to write something to the article about Beatles, I am not allowed to copy any text from any website on the whole internet and not from any reliable source. He says that it is a plagiarism if I copy some text for example from a professional website such as this one and write there a reference with the source of the text. What should I tell him?-- LYKANTROP 17:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
This probably isn't the best place to discuss this, as it isn't a proposal, but I'm not really sure where else to put this. A user, earlier this week, NAC'd an AfD under the premise that it wasn't valid as the nominator was a sock. However, there were delete votes other than the sock, so I took it to deletion review with the argument that the guidelines are clear about delete votes being present make it not a candidate for speedy keep. It got overturned after a brief discussion, but he then went back into the AfD in question and stated those guidelines don't apply and went against consensus and didn't apply there. I am admittedly new at the process, having only done this for a month or so, but I think the guidelines are clear. Assuming good faith, I'd like to see if I can find where this consensus is found that said user claims exists, or any other information on the topic that isn't linked to from the speedy keep guidelines. Celarnor Talk to me 17:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I noticed at Template:HIVpharm, the mark "†Undergoing clinical trials, not FDA approved", and also that different drugs have note about FDA. Wouldn't this constitute an violation of WP:UNDUE, or even, does the work of FDA inherit their notability? → Aza Toth 00:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been editing the Mark Yudof page. It contains several phrases like this:
The [[University of Texas at Austin]]
Is that the preferred style, or would it be better to write:
[[The University of Texas at Austin]]
or
[[University of Texas at Austin|The University of Texas at Austin]]
Thanks. Espertus ( talk) 06:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I have recently come across this page which is tagged as a guideline. I can't see any point for its existence, and feel that its status as a guideline is damaging to the project, as it mistakenly gives the impression that logos should be treated differently from other non-free images. I have raised my concerns on the talk page, and feel that the page should be downgraded from a guideline. Please see the discussion on the talk page if you are interested in contributing. J Milburn ( talk) 11:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Please see WP:BI if you are interested. Tb ( talk) 18:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
If I'm on a non-wikimedia wiki, and I connect an anon. IP with a username there through edit history, etc, and then come back to en-wiki and discover the same connection between that IP and the same user, is it outing to report it if the IP was being used as a bad-hand account on en-wiki? If I can report it, where or to whom should I do so? MBisanz talk 06:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I have been developing a new section for the WP:RS guideline and I would like some feedback. To date it has been discussed in the RS talk page and seems to have generally positive support but needs work. The text has been revised and now I am asking for feedback to (A) avoid potential pitfalls and (B) refine wording for clarity of appropriate use. I could just be bold but since this new guideline could potentially have very wide impact on many articles I would appreciate all the help I can get before going live. The talk page section is here [12].
Looking forward to your suggestions. -- Low Sea ( talk) 13:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up one day ( | 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) 18:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Semi-protecting_all_BLPs. Corvus cornix talk 23:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi. This is a cross-posted courtesy notice to ask for opinions regarding User:Master of Puppets/Cabal policy. This is in response to WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Great Cabal Debate and the discussion at WP:Requests for comment/Cabals. Your input would be appreciated to come to a consensus in a reasonably efficient manner. Thank you. Keilana| Parlez ici 06:05, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
A page has been established for users to notify substantive changes to styleguides and policy pages here. Monthly update summaries will be stored on a dedicated page here in chronological sequence, as a service to the community. The summaries will not rely on the notifications alone, but will involve a survey of the whole-month diffs for each of the major pages.
Here is the first summary.
3 March – 3 April 2008
Licensing policy
Tony (talk) 06:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to raise an issue about policy and POV tags prompted by a discussion on the Bahrain page regarding a POV-check-section tag placed on the history section.
The POV tag states:
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
As I understand it according to the policy the user who places the tag is then required to give an explanation in the talk section of the article, and then the tag remains until a third party POV check. The impetus for placing the tag only needs to be the subjective judgement of user, and once they’ve placed it there seems to be no onus on them to take further action.
Therefore, its possible to make a series of frivolous or in the case of the Bahrain page what seems in my opinion unfalsifiable objections (eg statements such as "there seems to be a lot of 'half-truths' and fringe theories presented as absolute facts") and this seems sufficient for the tag to remain. There seems to be no onus on the user to involve third parties to actually carry out the POV check, and the tag’s there indefinitely, undermining the credibility of the article.
Is my understanding correct and if so, can the rules be tightened up to stop such frivolous use of the above tag? For instance, should there be some responsibility on the user who places the tag to get the article POV checked? Or could there be some kind of timer on the tag, so that if no action is taken the tag can be removed within a certain time period? Otherwise what's to stop a user adding tags to pages in a way that is tantamount to vandalism?
Dilmun ( talk) 11:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with my rational, the issue of independence in 1700's is disputed, yet presented as a fact, and large portions of pre-Islamic history have been neglected or suppressed, while minor events in post-Islamic history (ie Saudi tribal incursions) have been given undo weight. Please do not remove the tag, I am merely asking third-party users who are not associated with the topic, yet familiar with the topic, to review it for neutrality, as most of the editors who have constructed and revised the history section in its current form such as User:Arabbi, User:Slackerlawstudent and User:Dilmun , appear to be from an Arab background (either from Saudi Arabia or Bahrain) and very much associated with the topic. I am not implying that they're automatically biased by association, but the history section seems heavily skewed towards the Arab periods of Bahrain's history, and a third-party review would restore some balance, and thereby improve the article. -- 07fan ( talk) 17:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Enric, thanks v. much for your intervention and taking the time to review the POV tags on the
Bahrain and
History of Bahrain pages. I think the interpretation is the right one, given that the justification on the
Talk:Bahrain page used for placing the tags provides nothing specific that can be refuted and there's no justification at all on the
Talk:History of Bahrain page.
On the Talk:Bahrain page, User:07fan has been invited to amend the page to include the information he wants as per wikipedia's POV policies, but hasn't done so. With 07fan's reverts of the deletion of the tags we're back to the same situation, whereby User:07fan's providing nothing specific with sources that can be responded to yet insists on leaving the tag there.
If this is acceptable under wikipedia policy, then this again raises my original point at the start of this subsection: does the policy need to be tightened up on POV tagging?
Thanks,
Dilmun ( talk) 18:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
From the {{ POV}} page: "Do not use this template unless there is an ongoing dispute. For suspected POV issues which are not disputed, consider the {{ POV-check}} template instead."
Now, if we look at what constitutes a NPOV dispute by reading Wikipedia:NPOVD#What_is_an_NPOV_dispute.3F, and we notice that we have here two editors saying that the article is neutral, and one saying that it is not, so we can see that there is an actual dispute going on and that the POV tag needs to be used instead of POV-check.
Aditionally, we see that the introduction is not disputed, so {{
POV-body}} only one section is disputed, so {{
POV-section}} should be used instead of {{
POV}}. (I'll change it myself after I post this, since its need seems clear from policy).
Finally, I will not enter on wheter the article is actually neutral or not, since it is the editors of the article that need to reach a consensus about that. Tag should not be removed until consensus between the editors is reached.
I will also compel 07fan to provide more concrete details of how the article is POV. Current detail is not sufficiently concrete. The tag has already been up for 3 days, and more information has been requested, and the extra information provided by 07fan is still insufficient for a reviewer to home in the POV problems.
For this need of more information, I will quote from the introduction of WP:NPOV:
07fan is clearly not abiding by this policy on Bahrain page, since he has engaged on drive-by tagging of other tags
[14] has not made any other edits to the article except for tagging (which means that he didn't try to mend the article before or after tagging) he engaged on drive-by tagging by using the POV-check but his usage of the "fact" tag was adequate, he didn't make content changes to the section however, and he has provided no verifiable sources for his claims of POV on the date of Bahrein's independence or for the lack of coverage of pre-arabian history, which makes his claims unverifiable.
However, I have noticed that on History of Bahrain he has engaged on actual improving of the article [15] and, while he didn't provide a rational on the talk page, he hasn't either restored the POV-check tag, so I suggest giving him 3 days more to provide evidence of POV claims before deleting the tag.
If after 3 days he hasn't still provided more concrete information, the tag should be removed since no other editor has expressed concerns about POV with this article. If 07fan decides uni-laterally to restore the tag and still does not provide more information to back his restoration, I suggest reporting him to WP:ANI for misuse of POV tagging so that an admin can take further measures. If some sources are provided but not enough, another 3 days can be given for him to have an opportunity to find more information. I advice the other editors to have patience, since we are all volunteers and we may not have enough time on RL to dedicate to Wikipedia.
The editors against having the article on the tag should be aware that having the tag on the section does not make it automatically suspicious for people who read it, and does not automatically make the history of Bahrain look bad, and that usage of those tags happens everyday all accross the wikipedia without the world falling over. There have been discussions about that sort of tags being visible for casual readers of the wikipedia, but, for now, the consensus is to use them in this manner, so saying that they make the article look bad is not a reason for removal.
Finally, notice that I entered this dispute voluntarily after reading of Slacker's solicitation of help here, and not because I was asked to directly by any of the parties involved. And about complains of 07fan that I can't do the review because I am a "random user who may or may not be familiar with the topic or neutral" I have to say that I am not doing the review of the article himself, but a review of the tag, which means that I don't need to be familiar with the article's topic, and that my quoting of policies above makes clear that I am suficiently familiar with POV policies to review his addition of this tag. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 22:01, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Enric, thank you very much your extensive efforts to find a solution to this dispute. I believe that this is an excellent proposal, and the best way forward. I'd rather opt for your proposal, but as the other parties have agreed to go for RfC, I'll go along with that.
Dilmun ( talk) 22:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I think there should be a policy on having to much external links, because it may be spam, and this many external links is unacceptable. Nothing 444 Go Irish! 14:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Just a heads up, I seem to have sparked very large discussions on both WT:V and WT:NOR. The former has already led to some language changes, while the latter is slightly more stalled at the moment, but in both cases my concerns are essentially the same - the pages are currently advocating research practices that do not meet basic muster in current pedagogy about research. People interested in either page should probably swing by the (now multi-section) discussions. :) Phil Sandifer ( talk) 03:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
So far we have been trying to define WP:Notability as can be measured by press releases and scholarly research. We say notability is not (among many other things) popularity. Our intent is to prevent trivia and cruft. OK, so why not define notability as follows:
Notability can be established for an article via WP:RS by demonstrating the direct impact the subject has had on people beyond mere awareness.
Each article would include one or more Notability Category ({{ NoteCat}}) tags which will include a number representing the minimum number of people impacted (up to 1,000,000). Different NoteCats would have different thresholds. Any article that failed to rise above the relevant NoteCat threshold would become eligible for AfD:Notability nomination. Articles deleted in this way would be archived offline in the event that the threshold numbers were revised or new documenatry support for more impact could be produced.
Now naturally I am not suggesting we just scrap the existing system and go off on a wild experiment. What I am suggesting is that WP create some basic broad templates for NoteCats and editors begin voluntarily adding this new notability dimension to their work.
Below are some made-up examples of how this might look:
As you can see from the last example Aunt Myrtle's food isn't noteworthy as merchandise but the 200 people who died painful deaths (seems the tuna was radioactive) from eating them would allow the article to qualify as a disaster.
We need:
Comments? Could we try a system like this in parallel while the debate on the existing WP:N system continues? -- Low Sea ( talk) 23:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I have just come across the article Terminator (character concept), which prompts be to ask the question, is The Terminator notable? In my view, The Teminator is just one of many intersting characters in the notable film The Terminator and its sequels, rather than being a notable character per se. The spinoff article Terminator (character concept) implicitly asserts that this fictional character is notable, but it does not cite real-world content from reliable secondary sources to demonstrate the notability in accordance with WP:FICT. I am not so sure the Terminator is notable on his own, as without the success of the film, it is arguable that he is just a stock character based on Gort or some other bad-ass cyborg. Do you think The Terminator is notable? One way or the other your comments would be welcome at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/RFC1 where non-notable spinouts of fictional elements are being discussed. -- Gavin Collins ( talk) 14:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
moving from Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Asking_for_advice-- Enric Naval ( talk) 20:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
In the article The Motorcycle Diaries which came across sorting a categorizing books this morning and the article was unlike any of the other book articles I had been looking at. I tagged the article with {{tense}} and {{POV}} and {{plot}} tags as this is an article on a book and almost the whole article is a description of the plot. Also it is worshipful in tone and there is no analysis of the book nor contrary point of view on controversial subject matter. The editor fixed the tense proplems but removed all tag. I added bad the {{POV}}, {{plot}} and {{OR}} tags as this seems to be an essay on the editors view of the subject matter. The editor immediately reverted them with an edit summary saying I was acting in bad faith. He feels that I am not acting in good faith. However, going by Wikipedia:Notability (books) and other guidelines, this is a hagiographic article on a controversial figure. I don't want to get into a revert war, but how should I approach this, since I feel the violations are egregious. Thanks! – Mattisse ( Talk) 19:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Please allow me to ask a legitimate question here. You say I have been editing Hawaiian articles for the last few day, implying that I have no right to edit any other. If you doubt I was sorting through autobiographies today and categorizing them, which is how I came across the article, then just look through my edit history. However, in any case, I ask everyone to assume good faith and allow me to ask this question. I normally do not have the problem of people immediately removing tags that I place on articles as would happen before wikipedia became tougher on the issue so I would like an answer, in case this crops up again. – Mattisse ( Talk) 20:04, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I looked at the "summary" tag "plot" tag (I didn't evaluate the other tags). I have skimmed the article a bit, and the summary of the plot is almost the whole article. However, it's a book about the life of
Che Guevara, so the extension is very justified because of him being a very notable person, and this book is helping us to understand how he got those ideas of freedom. The article should be edited to explicitely explain this (and mention it on the lead), and then remove the "summary" tag "plot" tag, since the lenght is justified. If the sources at the bottom explain how the experiences on the book shaped the ideas of Che Guevara, then they should be cited and attributed (p.ex.:"The New York Times thinks that xxxx experience on the book made Che think xxxxx which was later important on the revolution."), maybe a section explaining the importance of the book to understand the Che damn, move the "transformation" section to the top of the article, and put the plot below, dudes, what is the most important part of the article doing at the end, I almost skipped it because it didn't look important :P . Also the paragraph starting with "Witnessing the widespread endemic" should be in the transformation section and right at the top. On that place it looks like a part of the plot that only people that read the whole plot will see. The more important parts are hidden at the end of the plot, so the summary tag plot tag appears to be justified. Just edit it to bring the important part at the start, and then the long plot at the end for people who want to read the whole thing. As the summary tag plot tag says, "
focus on discussing the work". --
Enric Naval (
talk) 20:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) I have been puzzling over what you meant by saying you read over the "summary tag". – Mattisse ( Talk) 23:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
HI,
I love Wiki a lot but i have less time i today registered an account in Wiki and have placed a link in External link sections for the "Cayman Islands" keyword. As the Category was relevant so i placed a link in External links section.
Do tell me is it proper if not do tell me other ways.
Well my link is to the subject and matter.
Thanx Cayman —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caymang ( talk • contribs) 10:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
In light of the concerns expressed by the community regarding the current handling of bots and the membership of the Bots Approval Group, members of the BAG are proposing a revised bot policy (with the help of a number of other concerned editors). This proposed wording addresses (a) community selection of BAG members, (b) a process by which the community can arrange for revisiting previous approvals in case of problems and (c) some of the weaker points of current bot policy that have been expressed in the past weeks.
Please read the proposed policy over and feel free to comment on the talk page. — Coren (talk) 12:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
This is my first post here, and admittedly it's more to vent a bit of frustration than with any hope to change anything, lol. The source of frustration lies in the whole Original Research, Verifiability and Reliable Sources policy, and how it sometimes comes in conflict with one of the possible directions WP could(/should?) take ("to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial"). Even if this accomplishes nothing (and yes, I understand very well why these policies exist), it will at least be comforting to read people's thoughts on it.
The situation is this:
Article about a computergame. Person who did the bulk of the work on the article (guess who? :) ) was heavily involved in an international Internet community around this game (thousands of people from all over the world playing it against each other), in the mid-90's.
Issue: in case of a strict interpretation of said policies, the article is basically limited to little more than excerpts from the manual: summing up the features, maybe a couple of quotes from the games press and at best some sales figures. Basically extremely dull and largely obvious information(especially in this case). I would compare it to an "official press release" about some event by a government or company. Not exactly the best way to get to know what was REALLY going on. On the other hand, we have this phenomenon that there was a very active international community around the game (forums, competitions, newsgroups, hackers developing freeware extensions...). This phenomenon might be considered notable in itself (or at least an integral part of the notability of the game itself), and also what you get is that games are completely turned inside-out by such a community. After a couple of years the collective knowledge is orders of magnitude greater than anything provided by "Verifiable Sources". Often reality even turns out to be different from what's claimed (simple example: a feature claimed in the manual is just not there, or an 'intelligent' behaviour is scripted etc.).
As part of this community, it is downright frustrating to notice an article about this game that is limited to the "press release" approach. There is so much more to tell, and stuff that would probably really be appreciated by the people who would want to read the WP article. But: inevitably it falls under the OR, Verifiability and/or RS axes. (which is soon going to happen now. Bye bye hard work :( )
I can't help feeling sad about this, because this is clearly an example of where WP would be the only possible way to reasonably reliably keep this knowledge alive.
I have no problem understanding, and supporting, that for Real World and/or controversial topics said policies are absolutely necessary, no question! But for topics like computergames, which are unmistakably a growing part of human culture, yet nobody's life depends on the content of the article and the bulk of the knowledge is available in online communities, the policies cut on the wrong side IMO.
Now, to not close this little rant without making some sort of proposal: wouldn't there be a possibility to create an information box (similar to "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.") that states something along the lines of "NOTICE: a lot of information in the following section is based on collective knowledge acquired in online communities and can therefore not be verified as strictly as usual" (I'm sure somebody can formulate this better, but you get the gist). As mentioned, this could be used to "group" that kind of knowledge in a separate section of the article, to find a middle ground between strict verifiability and reliability on the one hand, and "completeness" of archival of available knowledge on the other hand.
Discuss?
212.153.56.10 ( talk) 12:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I think part of the issue here is that strict interpretation of NOR and V is, at the moment, a very bad idea as the policies are, well, very bad in their current phrasings. I would suggest talking to the other editors involved in the article on the talk page and trying to come to a consensus on the wording - it may well be that there is a common ground or a midpoint that can be found if the policies are taken as principles instead of as rigid laws. Phil Sandifer ( talk) 15:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at Wikia. It runs (close to) the same code base as Wikipedia, but allows you to create a "wiki" for anything you want, hosted on their service. That would let you create the community wiki just as you want, without the conflict of Wikipedia's moderately strict guidelines. -- Kesh ( talk) 02:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The debate on whether to use image placeholders has sprung up again at Image talk:Replace this image female.svg. Right now the sample of people participating is not exactly representative, and so I figured I'd spread the word. Phil Sandifer ( talk) 15:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I was reading this earlier, and just now stumbled onto the above notice board. Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard had issues in mission and in naming. RFC/U apparently does as well. Perhaps by uniting these as a single "disputes" (dispute resolution?) noticeboard some of said issues may be lessened.
I've also noted commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems, which seems at least "somewhat" duplicative of the above. The difference being, I presume, that one is an "admin noticeboard". I think that it is more like what WP:AN/I is.
Anyway, I'd like to propose the creation of Wikipedia:Disputes noticeboard. - jc37 20:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I was looking for a solution to the query that AN/I is too "long/active", and that RFC/U is not just "useless", but often worsens the problems. Often the postings at AN/I don't require admin tools. And the "Disputes noticeboard" at commons appeared more like a "community mediation"/discussion than a "quickpoll ban board". So like I said, this would give a venue, without the "tone". More than RfC, less than mediation. Gives a central venue for the disputants and others to attempt to talk it out. Just seems like a good idea to me. (And as it's something that appears to already work at a sister site...) - jc37 15:36, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
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I hope this is the right place to ask this question...I'm a novice. I discovered today that there is a section in Wikipedia about "Medical Writers" and that individual writers are listed there. I've read that people are not supposed to post articles about themselves--which seems like a perfectly sensible rule.
In this case, however, I AM a medical writer...with 7 published books and more than 20 years of experience. My background and oeuvre are comparable to, or more extensive than, some of the other folks listed. So what is a guy or gal to do in this case? I would like, obviously, to write up a relatively brief, neutral, and factual "article" about myself as a medical writer. And I don't think that having a friend post it for me would be honest.
I'd be quite happy to vet my submission by an editor if you want--or by the community at large.
By the way, I'm also a medical editor and I would very much like to lend a hand in the ongoing effort to raise the quality standards of articles.
Thanks for any guidance anybody can offer. Hmmm...should I leave my email address here? Don't know. Guess I won't. I just became a member a few minutes ago, so I'm not at all sure how communications work. Thanks for your patience!
--Steve Braun -- Srbraun ( talk) 01:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:When to cite ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Is there any material / prior discussions available concerning potentially locking articles after they've been approved for FA? If not, I'd like to propose it.
I've found (in my limited experience) that articles tend to go downhill after reaching FA. The process to get them to that point tends to weed out NPOV, bloat, cruft and unsourced claims; after that though, further additions are not as vigorously scrutinized.
My proposal would be basically as such:
Any thoughts? Oberiko ( talk) 19:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't like protecting FAs at their point of promotion - take, for example, this, which has undergone some prose tightening, structural changes, category addition all since its promotion. Will ( talk) 21:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Alright, if the locking-idea is to inhibiting, how about a tab on the top called "promoted" that links to the promoted-version of the article in the articles history? I think that'd still accomplish the main goals without interfering at all with our regular process and make it easy for editors to quickly see what the article was like at the time of promotion. Oberiko ( talk) 22:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
About "featured article rot": I don't deny there's such a thing, but it's not as much of a problem as some people make it out to be. Out of the 2462 articles that have ever had featured status, 1953 still do. 538 pages have been de-featured, and if we subtract the 29 re-featured pages that makes 509. In other words, just 21% of historically featured articles are no longer featured. While it would be wonderful if those 509 articles were still featured, 509 fewer FAs don't pose a grave danger to the encyclopedia.
Regardless, locking featured articles wouldn't prevent "featured article rot". What we call "rot" is often caused by rising standards, not by a decline in quality. For example, many articles lose featured status because they lack inline citations, which were rare in Wikipedia's early days. Standards could change even more in the future, and locking the articles would prevent needed improvements in such cases. szyslak ( t) 05:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Since 99.9% of anonymous IP users are vandals, why not just protect all FAs from being edited by anonymous, or new users? This would keep the vandalism down, and hopefully keep the damage down by the POV pushers to a minimum.
Of course, a better idea would be to just block anonymous IPs from editing in the first place, but unfortunately, that idea is unlikely to get past the cabal,... Dr. Cash ( talk) 14:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
In light of recent events, what about indefinite move-protection the default for featured articles? Gimmetrow 06:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
At the risk of keeping this silly discussion going, how about if we add something like this to WP:PEREN? This would also cover the related proposal to protect the Main Page featured article while it's live.
szyslak ( t) 04:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Why can't images be moved? If this were allowed, it would save a lot of deltetions i think, although it might have the unfotunate side-effect of image redirects. Simply south ( talk) 02:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:No legal threats#"On wikipedia" about whether legal threats must be made physically "on Wikipedia", as part of the policy has stated, in order to be actionable. I'm brining it up here for broader participation. -- ZimZalaBim talk 02:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Offtopic continued discussion of a recent block involving NLT. John Vandenberg ( talk) 06:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC) |
---|
|
I agree that this is not a policy change, just a clarification since Ottava has pointed out how people might misunderstand the current wording. Shell babelfish 03:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Rather than maintaining two parallel conversations, I would recommend that all new comments on this topic now be made at Wikipedia talk:No legal threats#"On wikipedia" TheRedPenOfDoom ( talk) 15:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Came across this peculiar specimen on new pages patrol. Is this speedyable? "GameBrix" seems to be some kind of toolkit for creating Flash games, of perhaps borderline notability. Not quite sure what the relevant policy is, so taking it here for a second look. Lankiveil ( speak to me) 13:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC).
I have seen numerous Wikipedia articles where quotes from foreign languages are translated into an archaic form of English, as opposed to modern English — despite there being numerous modern translations available.
The instances I refer to are Bible quotes (although my question does not refer exclusively to religious material). I know that a lot of people use Bibles that were written in archaic English, and may find it convenient to quote directly from them; and that may be considered acceptable communication in certain religious contexts. But shouldn't the English version of Wikipedia be in English? And surely archaic forms of English do not constitute standard English?
I ask that a policy is introduced that all translations in English Wikipedia are translated into standard English (unless the specific translation itself is of some relevance to the article).
I should add that I am not trying to suggest here that any particular translation of the Bible is better than any other, since even old translations can be (and often are) re-written in modern Englsh. Also I should say that I have no anti-religious agenda; I am a Christian myself, which makes me even more keen to see the words of the Bible written here in plain English so that people can clearly understand them. I don't recognise certain Bible passages that are included here in archaic English, and I find them very difficult to read.
Finally, if it is decided that non-standard English IS allowed in Wikipedia: is there some LIMIT to the extent of its usage, or to the age of the English that can be used here? For example, could "English" Wikipedia articles be written entirely in latin?
Also, are other non-standard forms of English allowed in Wikipedia articles. For example, could I include an English Bible quote translated into ebonics, or cockney? And if not, what makes archaic English more acceptable than these other non-standard types of English, when far fewer people understand it?
Grand Dizzy ( talk) 16:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Public comment is requested for the ongoing consensus discussion for the proposed guideline at WP:DOY. The proposed guideline lays out what are considered suitable entries for the 366 days of the year articles. Discussion is taking place here. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 18:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities/Article guidelines ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
The implementation of Unified Login may mean that bureaucrats should agree to perform renames in circumstances where our practice is currently to decline them. I have created the above page in an attempt to get a feel for community consensus on SUL and how far bureaucrats should go to accommodate SUL-based rename requests. Input from all welcome and appreciated. WjB scribe 01:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Contributions are sought at WT:FICT#Guidelines and consensus, to try to determine whether the inclusion of spinout articles without real-world coverage has consensus support. Percy Snoodle ( talk) 10:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Please see discussion here. Jayen 466 00:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if this has ended up the wrong slot. I couldn't find one specific to the subject and thought this was close.
A recent news story mentioned that the Wikipedia community was debating the issue of raising funding through advertising. I think this could be done in an innocuous and user-helpful way.
You could have a "Related Advertising" link in the left frame that opens a page with links to ads that pertain to the subject.
I'd like to be able to see ads that relate to articles. For instance, when reading up on Romania, I may want to see tourism information and what tour packages are available. If researching solar heating systems, I'd likely want to see ads pertaining to those products.
Advertising could be a useful adjunct to Wikipedia.
-- Jm1248 ( talk) 13:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Apparently, Facebook users have been polled by someone if Wikipedia should carry advertising see Page at Meta. DuncanHill ( talk) 02:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, this is my first posting to the Village Pump so I hope I am doing this right. As requested before posting here I've been reading (lots of) WP policies and guidelines, searching WP essays and FAQs, and asking questions on various talk pages. I still need the community's help. I think the following is correct and would really appreciate constructive feedback to confirm or correct my understanding.
As I understand things...
"Verifiable facts and content not supported by multiple independent sources may be appropriate for inclusion within another article." [2]
Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as:
The way I read all of this stuff is that:
So sections which are under a valid main article have "inherent notability" because the main article has notability. When these sections become subarticles under WP:SPLIT they should be recognized as still having inherent notability and WP:SELFPUB item 7 needs to be rewritten when such subarticles are entirely self-describing to allow for use of only primary sources for WP:V. Low Sea ( talk) 17:13, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
To clarify - "inherent" versus "inherit": This is not about inheritance, subarticles never take possession of their "parent's" notability. The term I proposed was inherent meaning "belonging by nature or habit" [3]. Sections have inherent notability only as long as the main article they are under is notable. Discussion is to determine how to rewrite guidelines and policy in order to find a way to maintain inherent notability even when an article is split out. I think part of the solution might be to create a required {SUBNOTABILITY | main article name} tag that takes the main article name as a parameter. Sub-sub-articles would also need to reference the original main article as the ultimate source of their notability. This would allow bots to identify any dependent subarticles relying on a main article should that main article become deleted or in doubt. Such a tag should only be removed if the subarticle eventually evolves to establish its own credible notability. I also would like to suggest that this (yet to be written) guideline or policy be known as WP:INHERENT. Low Sea ( talk) 06:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Instead, the proper course of action here is to split off the material about his party affiliations, his voting record, and the timeline into separate articles ( Party affiliations of John Charles Spencer Smith, Timeline of John Charles Spencer Smith, etc) and leave the details about his cat in the main article, which is where people would most likely expect to find such information. So I think what we need is some advice on how to properly split articles into subarticles, rather than a guideline saying that we shouldn't delete articles on notable peoples' pets. Ben Standeven ( talk) 04:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
When is a photograph considered "published"? I'm asking because a user has raised the argument that, taking the photograph and providing copies to the subject by a photographic studio is not considered publishing, hence photograph of a person taken before 1884 may still be under copyright if the photo studio taking the photo has not printed it in sufficiently large quantities. The photo in question was taken in India where all photos published 60 years ago are in the public domain (which means all pre-1948 published photos are in PD).
The argument by the user in Talk:Brahmo Samaj is that, the image may have been taken at a photo studio, and only the subject may have received a few copies of the photo, and hence that does not constitute publishing. And therefore the image is unpublished.
Can anyone knowledeable about copyright of photographs clarify this? Thanks. -- Ragib ( talk) 23:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
User:Dragons flight's anlysis is correct and we don't even have to worry about Indian/ Bangladesh copyright status since as per US copyright law, "Unpublished anonymous and pseudonymous works, and works made for hire (corporate authorship)" more than 120 years old (i.e., created before 1888) are public domain. See Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States. If there is no apropriate copyright template on wikipedia that covers this, we can create a new one. Abecedare ( talk) 18:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
So we need to see where they obtained this image from (The Asiatic Society after all is an old Institution - the first ever Indians admitted in 1829 to it were also Brahmos - Dwarkanath Tagore and Prassano Coomar Tagore). With so many images of Keshub Sen available to the Asiatic Society why was this particular one (which differs from all others) selected by BP for publication? Is it coincidence or something else (like Internet mechanics) whereby only this image is being circulated and Gresham's law is being proved. Thanks everyone for participating here, can we trouble you to guide us again? 122.163.151.152 ( talk) 03:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Please go to Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Criterion_8 to see a proposal to remove the second clause, which many people regard as unworkably restrictive. Tony (talk) 00:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
I have a question regarding the use of statistics or other detail data (typically is tabular or list form). To what extent is it in the scope of Wikipedia to include such data?
Let me first give an example, which may seem arbitrary. I recently found List of number-one hits (Germany) on the New Pages list. Here a user created about 30 articles (with another ~30 to come) with historical listings of number-1 hits in Germany. I understand that this information is easily added, and that it "does no harm" in a technical sense (storage space etc.). But is it really in the scope of an encyclopedia? How does that relate to WP:NOT#IINFO? Policy-wise, Top100 Singles is certainly a legit article, and WP:SUMMARY would cover the sub-articles; but 60 articles just seems a bit like over-stressing the principle.
I'm aware that a number of similar listings exists. My question is actually a bit more general. There are many articles where detail information, usually in tabular style, can easily be added in vast amounts. Given such data in electronic form, and barring any copyright issues, even a bot could add it to Wikipedia. But in terms of scope, where's the "reasonable limit" for Wikipedia, and where does WP:NOT#STATS apply? Is there a general rule?
Just to pick another example: Say for a soccer team, would we list every game they ever played? Every goal they ever scored? Every movement they ever made in a game? Sources do certainly exist, since games of professional teams are all broadcast on TV. But where does our scope end?
I'm not sure whether this question is sufficiently covered in current policy; perhaps someone can provide me with a link. -- B. Wolterding ( talk) 14:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for drama ( | 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) 18:50, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Community input is requested regarding a discussion at Wikipedia talk:No legal threats regarding modifying the opening sentence to read "Do not make legal threats against Wikipedia or members of the Wikipedia community over Wikipedia disputes." Input is requested both on the substance of the above formulation and on whether or not a consensus in favor of this formulation already exists. Thanks, Nsk92 ( talk) 01:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that on many forums and here in the Wikipedia article, talk and reference desk pages there are users and administrators alike who form what I can only describe as gangs, no different than gangs that form on the streets in neighborhoods and at schools in the real world.
Gang mentality can be one sided, ruthless and even vicious and exist only for the fulfillment and benefit of its own agenda. Who polices such gangs that form on the Wikipedia and who keeps them from taking charge and running the Wikipedia like the gangs that run the streets in the real world? Adaptron ( talk) 09:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
After dealing with several AfD's concerning children's board games and unlicensed video games, I've come to realize that there are no notability guidelines whatsoever that concern these items (beyond the broad general criteria covered in WP:N). A lot of arguments in the AfD discussions were for keeping simply on the basis of an advertising campaign, or based on sources that were simply passing mentions in articles and books, and I think something official would really help in those situations. I've brainstormed a few ideas at Wikipedia:Notability (Toys, games, and video games) and would love to get some input, ideas, or insight on what past consensus (if any) has been in situations concerning toys and games. Mister Senseless™ ( Speak - Contributions) 22:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I have opened up an RFC at Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron#Rescue tag placement, and would invite everyone to contribute -- RoninBK T C 06:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit concerned about cases where the biographical articles about people who are also Wikipedia editors have statements made in those articles about improper edits they have made. This seems to run afoul of a variety of policies and guidelines, such as WP:BITE, WP:BOLD, WP:AGF. In many of these cases, the edits were attempts by a new editor to remove information about themselves that they didn't want on the page (edits which are often reverted in due course because the removed information is factual and verifiable), but were unaware of our policies such as WP:V and WP:COI.
However, marking these articles with factual, even cited, information unfairly punishes those editors in a way entirely beyond that of the customary user talk page warning. It places capability for this sanction in the hands of a single user, rather than ArbCom, Jimbo, etc. Also, in a sense, such a citation becomes indelible, because (at the very least) the editor who put the statement there is likely to have put the page on watch to ensure that the statement is kept in place.
My concern, therefore, is that having such statements on biographical articles is contrary to both the goals and the policies of Wikipedia, by discouraging that user from editing Wikipedia at all in the future, even if the editor decides to investigate proper editing practices and subsequently go along with how Wikipedia works. They could become a prolific and helpful editor for years to come, but their editing record would always be marred by a negative mention in their biographical article.
Anyway, my suggestion is that our policy should prohibit lambasting people for their Wikipedia edits in biographical articles about them, except when the subject's notability is substantially or entirely due to their Wikipedia edits, or when they have become the subject of an ArbCom or similar ruling against them. Thanks. -- Dachannien Talk Contrib 00:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:User categories ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a new discussion at Wikipedia talk:User page#Exception to WP:BLANKING about whether we should allow certain exemptions to WP:BLANKING ( version prior to recent edits). Specifically the proposal calls for prohibiting users from removing sockpuppet notices (suspected and/or confirmed) or unblock notices (while blocked). As the blanking policy is an old and often contentious issue, additional input would be useful. Dragons flight ( talk) 19:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Confirmed sock notices are the one area where I would support a no blanking rule... otherwise... not so sure. Blueboar ( talk) 00:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I've formed a proposal that should help alleviate backlogs, reduce admin-burnout, and curb our increasing reliance on process, I would appreciate any comments on the talk page. Mr. Z-man 00:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:NOTINHERITED is often cited in AFDs, [4] and seems to have good consensus support. I've proposed that we add a section to WP:N, and would welcome contributions from other editors on the proposal. Percy Snoodle ( talk) 10:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Department of Fun ( | 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) 18:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello! New user here! I am just voicing my thoughts on how wikipedia should be run.
1. There should be a mandatory account creation to edit. 2. Also, once you have created an account, you should be submitted to an interview process similar to RFA. 3. One-strike tolerance policy on vandalism. 4. Ignore all rules-out the window. 5. Goal-delete an article every day. 6. Only Jimbo Wales should be an admin. 7. Limit of 1000 edits for an account. Please tell me when these changes will be in effect! Vengaboys Rock! ( talk) 22:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia, the free, no tolerance encyclopedia that only some can edit for a short period of time at Jimbo's sufferance
.--
Fuhghettaboutit (
talk) 01:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)A couple of editors have made sweeping changes at WP:CIVILITY in the past few days. Given that this is probably our most often-cited policy, I would argue that such changes should only be made with broad community consensus. Raymond Arritt ( talk) 07:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi, i am just a few months in wikipedia. I have a question for you all. A friend of mine, during a cancellation process, have sent a few messages to people specialized in the field concerning the article under cancellation, asking their opinion about it. Could this be considered a violation of some wikipedia norms and laws? Please let me know, Adrian Comollo ( talk) 21:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to call attention to this discussion: Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Semi-protecting_all_BLPs. The possibility of semi-protecting all BLP articles is being seriously considered, and I think more than just the usual people involved in BLP policy should probably be in on that decision. Equazcion •✗/ C • 06:22, 3 Apr 2008 (UTC)
This comes up every now and then, and probably needs to be clarified. IP's don't fall under Wikipedia:User page. While there is a person editing behind the IP and he/she deserves all the consideration and respect as any other user, however IP's are not currently given the same latitude under WP:USER as "registered users". Blanking comments or warninngs of a shared/dynamic/proxy/TOR/ect IP talk page should not be allowed. A users page is devoted to exactly one person. An IP page refers to anyone using that IP, which may well be many people. Wikipedia offers wide latitude to "registered users" to manage their user space as they see fit such as delete warnings. However, even these pages still belong to the community. Thoughts on this?-- Hu12 ( talk) 17:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Saves a whole lot of time and effort. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
If the conclusion is that anonymous IP editors are allowed to remove warnings, then that needs to get solidified somehow. The edit war that prompted this discussion is an example of how widespread the countering belief is. I reverted the anonymous IP's removal of warnings twice. When challenged to quote policy, I could not, so I took the question to ANI. While I was looking, six more editors piled in, and the anon eventually got blocked for edit warring. Not a good situation. Kww ( talk) 01:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
AFAIK, there is no policy or guideline that disallows editors (IP or registered) to remove warnings. If you're edit warring to keep a warning in place that is the wrong thing to do. People may wish that it were OK, but I've never seen a consensus for this (and it has been brought up many times). If you're an admin and you're blocking, you should be looking over the edit history. If you are leaving a warning, be sure to make it clear what it is you are doing in the edit summary. Anything else (such as edit warring over a warning) only exacerbates the original problem and antagonizes the editor. R. Baley ( talk) 08:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
This user was completely blanking the page, including whois information and a declined unblock request, which says right on it not to remove it while blocked. Maybe I should have went through and selected which information to restore, rather than reverting everything, but as stated above, the consensus on IP talk page blankings isn't solid, and I would definitely obey any consensus that is formed on the matter. Just remember I was restoring a declined unblock request template, with everything else. - Rjd0060 ( talk) 19:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
IP users are users with a funny username. They have all the privileges and duties as such. There are some slightly odd situations where some IP addresses are shared between multiple users, however, that's the exception, not the rule. Want to edit war with a user in their own userspace? You get what's coming to you. :-P -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 12:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
At this point I see no compelling consensus or reason to treat anonymous editors as "non-users" for the purposes of behavioral guidelines and policies. Any counterpoint? – Luna Santin ( talk) 23:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Has anything ever been agreed - I mean as policy - on the question of interlanguage links? There are bots going around removing links which they consider to be inappropriate - often just because there is not a precise 1-1 correspondence between articles in different-language wikipedias. Bot owners seem convinced that this is the right thing to do (see Help talk:Interlanguage links#Bots should not remove links for a discussion). However the arguments presented seem to me not very convincing. My view is that an inexact link (i.e. a link to a relevant other-language article not necessarily covering exactly the same subject matter) is better than no link at all. But bots continue to enforce their own rules as if they were policy.-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
There is a user telling me, that according to WP:Copyright problems it is PROHIBITED on Wikipedia to copy ANY exact text parts from ANY reliable source with a reference to the source. So for example if I want to write something to the article about Beatles, I am not allowed to copy any text from any website on the whole internet and not from any reliable source. He says that it is a plagiarism if I copy some text for example from a professional website such as this one and write there a reference with the source of the text. What should I tell him?-- LYKANTROP 17:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
This probably isn't the best place to discuss this, as it isn't a proposal, but I'm not really sure where else to put this. A user, earlier this week, NAC'd an AfD under the premise that it wasn't valid as the nominator was a sock. However, there were delete votes other than the sock, so I took it to deletion review with the argument that the guidelines are clear about delete votes being present make it not a candidate for speedy keep. It got overturned after a brief discussion, but he then went back into the AfD in question and stated those guidelines don't apply and went against consensus and didn't apply there. I am admittedly new at the process, having only done this for a month or so, but I think the guidelines are clear. Assuming good faith, I'd like to see if I can find where this consensus is found that said user claims exists, or any other information on the topic that isn't linked to from the speedy keep guidelines. Celarnor Talk to me 17:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I noticed at Template:HIVpharm, the mark "†Undergoing clinical trials, not FDA approved", and also that different drugs have note about FDA. Wouldn't this constitute an violation of WP:UNDUE, or even, does the work of FDA inherit their notability? → Aza Toth 00:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been editing the Mark Yudof page. It contains several phrases like this:
The [[University of Texas at Austin]]
Is that the preferred style, or would it be better to write:
[[The University of Texas at Austin]]
or
[[University of Texas at Austin|The University of Texas at Austin]]
Thanks. Espertus ( talk) 06:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I have recently come across this page which is tagged as a guideline. I can't see any point for its existence, and feel that its status as a guideline is damaging to the project, as it mistakenly gives the impression that logos should be treated differently from other non-free images. I have raised my concerns on the talk page, and feel that the page should be downgraded from a guideline. Please see the discussion on the talk page if you are interested in contributing. J Milburn ( talk) 11:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Please see WP:BI if you are interested. Tb ( talk) 18:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
If I'm on a non-wikimedia wiki, and I connect an anon. IP with a username there through edit history, etc, and then come back to en-wiki and discover the same connection between that IP and the same user, is it outing to report it if the IP was being used as a bad-hand account on en-wiki? If I can report it, where or to whom should I do so? MBisanz talk 06:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I have been developing a new section for the WP:RS guideline and I would like some feedback. To date it has been discussed in the RS talk page and seems to have generally positive support but needs work. The text has been revised and now I am asking for feedback to (A) avoid potential pitfalls and (B) refine wording for clarity of appropriate use. I could just be bold but since this new guideline could potentially have very wide impact on many articles I would appreciate all the help I can get before going live. The talk page section is here [12].
Looking forward to your suggestions. -- Low Sea ( talk) 13:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up one day ( | 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) 18:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Semi-protecting_all_BLPs. Corvus cornix talk 23:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi. This is a cross-posted courtesy notice to ask for opinions regarding User:Master of Puppets/Cabal policy. This is in response to WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Great Cabal Debate and the discussion at WP:Requests for comment/Cabals. Your input would be appreciated to come to a consensus in a reasonably efficient manner. Thank you. Keilana| Parlez ici 06:05, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
A page has been established for users to notify substantive changes to styleguides and policy pages here. Monthly update summaries will be stored on a dedicated page here in chronological sequence, as a service to the community. The summaries will not rely on the notifications alone, but will involve a survey of the whole-month diffs for each of the major pages.
Here is the first summary.
3 March – 3 April 2008
Licensing policy
Tony (talk) 06:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to raise an issue about policy and POV tags prompted by a discussion on the Bahrain page regarding a POV-check-section tag placed on the history section.
The POV tag states:
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
As I understand it according to the policy the user who places the tag is then required to give an explanation in the talk section of the article, and then the tag remains until a third party POV check. The impetus for placing the tag only needs to be the subjective judgement of user, and once they’ve placed it there seems to be no onus on them to take further action.
Therefore, its possible to make a series of frivolous or in the case of the Bahrain page what seems in my opinion unfalsifiable objections (eg statements such as "there seems to be a lot of 'half-truths' and fringe theories presented as absolute facts") and this seems sufficient for the tag to remain. There seems to be no onus on the user to involve third parties to actually carry out the POV check, and the tag’s there indefinitely, undermining the credibility of the article.
Is my understanding correct and if so, can the rules be tightened up to stop such frivolous use of the above tag? For instance, should there be some responsibility on the user who places the tag to get the article POV checked? Or could there be some kind of timer on the tag, so that if no action is taken the tag can be removed within a certain time period? Otherwise what's to stop a user adding tags to pages in a way that is tantamount to vandalism?
Dilmun ( talk) 11:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with my rational, the issue of independence in 1700's is disputed, yet presented as a fact, and large portions of pre-Islamic history have been neglected or suppressed, while minor events in post-Islamic history (ie Saudi tribal incursions) have been given undo weight. Please do not remove the tag, I am merely asking third-party users who are not associated with the topic, yet familiar with the topic, to review it for neutrality, as most of the editors who have constructed and revised the history section in its current form such as User:Arabbi, User:Slackerlawstudent and User:Dilmun , appear to be from an Arab background (either from Saudi Arabia or Bahrain) and very much associated with the topic. I am not implying that they're automatically biased by association, but the history section seems heavily skewed towards the Arab periods of Bahrain's history, and a third-party review would restore some balance, and thereby improve the article. -- 07fan ( talk) 17:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Enric, thanks v. much for your intervention and taking the time to review the POV tags on the
Bahrain and
History of Bahrain pages. I think the interpretation is the right one, given that the justification on the
Talk:Bahrain page used for placing the tags provides nothing specific that can be refuted and there's no justification at all on the
Talk:History of Bahrain page.
On the Talk:Bahrain page, User:07fan has been invited to amend the page to include the information he wants as per wikipedia's POV policies, but hasn't done so. With 07fan's reverts of the deletion of the tags we're back to the same situation, whereby User:07fan's providing nothing specific with sources that can be responded to yet insists on leaving the tag there.
If this is acceptable under wikipedia policy, then this again raises my original point at the start of this subsection: does the policy need to be tightened up on POV tagging?
Thanks,
Dilmun ( talk) 18:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
From the {{ POV}} page: "Do not use this template unless there is an ongoing dispute. For suspected POV issues which are not disputed, consider the {{ POV-check}} template instead."
Now, if we look at what constitutes a NPOV dispute by reading Wikipedia:NPOVD#What_is_an_NPOV_dispute.3F, and we notice that we have here two editors saying that the article is neutral, and one saying that it is not, so we can see that there is an actual dispute going on and that the POV tag needs to be used instead of POV-check.
Aditionally, we see that the introduction is not disputed, so {{
POV-body}} only one section is disputed, so {{
POV-section}} should be used instead of {{
POV}}. (I'll change it myself after I post this, since its need seems clear from policy).
Finally, I will not enter on wheter the article is actually neutral or not, since it is the editors of the article that need to reach a consensus about that. Tag should not be removed until consensus between the editors is reached.
I will also compel 07fan to provide more concrete details of how the article is POV. Current detail is not sufficiently concrete. The tag has already been up for 3 days, and more information has been requested, and the extra information provided by 07fan is still insufficient for a reviewer to home in the POV problems.
For this need of more information, I will quote from the introduction of WP:NPOV:
07fan is clearly not abiding by this policy on Bahrain page, since he has engaged on drive-by tagging of other tags
[14] has not made any other edits to the article except for tagging (which means that he didn't try to mend the article before or after tagging) he engaged on drive-by tagging by using the POV-check but his usage of the "fact" tag was adequate, he didn't make content changes to the section however, and he has provided no verifiable sources for his claims of POV on the date of Bahrein's independence or for the lack of coverage of pre-arabian history, which makes his claims unverifiable.
However, I have noticed that on History of Bahrain he has engaged on actual improving of the article [15] and, while he didn't provide a rational on the talk page, he hasn't either restored the POV-check tag, so I suggest giving him 3 days more to provide evidence of POV claims before deleting the tag.
If after 3 days he hasn't still provided more concrete information, the tag should be removed since no other editor has expressed concerns about POV with this article. If 07fan decides uni-laterally to restore the tag and still does not provide more information to back his restoration, I suggest reporting him to WP:ANI for misuse of POV tagging so that an admin can take further measures. If some sources are provided but not enough, another 3 days can be given for him to have an opportunity to find more information. I advice the other editors to have patience, since we are all volunteers and we may not have enough time on RL to dedicate to Wikipedia.
The editors against having the article on the tag should be aware that having the tag on the section does not make it automatically suspicious for people who read it, and does not automatically make the history of Bahrain look bad, and that usage of those tags happens everyday all accross the wikipedia without the world falling over. There have been discussions about that sort of tags being visible for casual readers of the wikipedia, but, for now, the consensus is to use them in this manner, so saying that they make the article look bad is not a reason for removal.
Finally, notice that I entered this dispute voluntarily after reading of Slacker's solicitation of help here, and not because I was asked to directly by any of the parties involved. And about complains of 07fan that I can't do the review because I am a "random user who may or may not be familiar with the topic or neutral" I have to say that I am not doing the review of the article himself, but a review of the tag, which means that I don't need to be familiar with the article's topic, and that my quoting of policies above makes clear that I am suficiently familiar with POV policies to review his addition of this tag. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 22:01, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Enric, thank you very much your extensive efforts to find a solution to this dispute. I believe that this is an excellent proposal, and the best way forward. I'd rather opt for your proposal, but as the other parties have agreed to go for RfC, I'll go along with that.
Dilmun ( talk) 22:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I think there should be a policy on having to much external links, because it may be spam, and this many external links is unacceptable. Nothing 444 Go Irish! 14:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Just a heads up, I seem to have sparked very large discussions on both WT:V and WT:NOR. The former has already led to some language changes, while the latter is slightly more stalled at the moment, but in both cases my concerns are essentially the same - the pages are currently advocating research practices that do not meet basic muster in current pedagogy about research. People interested in either page should probably swing by the (now multi-section) discussions. :) Phil Sandifer ( talk) 03:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
So far we have been trying to define WP:Notability as can be measured by press releases and scholarly research. We say notability is not (among many other things) popularity. Our intent is to prevent trivia and cruft. OK, so why not define notability as follows:
Notability can be established for an article via WP:RS by demonstrating the direct impact the subject has had on people beyond mere awareness.
Each article would include one or more Notability Category ({{ NoteCat}}) tags which will include a number representing the minimum number of people impacted (up to 1,000,000). Different NoteCats would have different thresholds. Any article that failed to rise above the relevant NoteCat threshold would become eligible for AfD:Notability nomination. Articles deleted in this way would be archived offline in the event that the threshold numbers were revised or new documenatry support for more impact could be produced.
Now naturally I am not suggesting we just scrap the existing system and go off on a wild experiment. What I am suggesting is that WP create some basic broad templates for NoteCats and editors begin voluntarily adding this new notability dimension to their work.
Below are some made-up examples of how this might look:
As you can see from the last example Aunt Myrtle's food isn't noteworthy as merchandise but the 200 people who died painful deaths (seems the tuna was radioactive) from eating them would allow the article to qualify as a disaster.
We need:
Comments? Could we try a system like this in parallel while the debate on the existing WP:N system continues? -- Low Sea ( talk) 23:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I have just come across the article Terminator (character concept), which prompts be to ask the question, is The Terminator notable? In my view, The Teminator is just one of many intersting characters in the notable film The Terminator and its sequels, rather than being a notable character per se. The spinoff article Terminator (character concept) implicitly asserts that this fictional character is notable, but it does not cite real-world content from reliable secondary sources to demonstrate the notability in accordance with WP:FICT. I am not so sure the Terminator is notable on his own, as without the success of the film, it is arguable that he is just a stock character based on Gort or some other bad-ass cyborg. Do you think The Terminator is notable? One way or the other your comments would be welcome at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/RFC1 where non-notable spinouts of fictional elements are being discussed. -- Gavin Collins ( talk) 14:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
moving from Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Asking_for_advice-- Enric Naval ( talk) 20:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
In the article The Motorcycle Diaries which came across sorting a categorizing books this morning and the article was unlike any of the other book articles I had been looking at. I tagged the article with {{tense}} and {{POV}} and {{plot}} tags as this is an article on a book and almost the whole article is a description of the plot. Also it is worshipful in tone and there is no analysis of the book nor contrary point of view on controversial subject matter. The editor fixed the tense proplems but removed all tag. I added bad the {{POV}}, {{plot}} and {{OR}} tags as this seems to be an essay on the editors view of the subject matter. The editor immediately reverted them with an edit summary saying I was acting in bad faith. He feels that I am not acting in good faith. However, going by Wikipedia:Notability (books) and other guidelines, this is a hagiographic article on a controversial figure. I don't want to get into a revert war, but how should I approach this, since I feel the violations are egregious. Thanks! – Mattisse ( Talk) 19:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Please allow me to ask a legitimate question here. You say I have been editing Hawaiian articles for the last few day, implying that I have no right to edit any other. If you doubt I was sorting through autobiographies today and categorizing them, which is how I came across the article, then just look through my edit history. However, in any case, I ask everyone to assume good faith and allow me to ask this question. I normally do not have the problem of people immediately removing tags that I place on articles as would happen before wikipedia became tougher on the issue so I would like an answer, in case this crops up again. – Mattisse ( Talk) 20:04, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I looked at the "summary" tag "plot" tag (I didn't evaluate the other tags). I have skimmed the article a bit, and the summary of the plot is almost the whole article. However, it's a book about the life of
Che Guevara, so the extension is very justified because of him being a very notable person, and this book is helping us to understand how he got those ideas of freedom. The article should be edited to explicitely explain this (and mention it on the lead), and then remove the "summary" tag "plot" tag, since the lenght is justified. If the sources at the bottom explain how the experiences on the book shaped the ideas of Che Guevara, then they should be cited and attributed (p.ex.:"The New York Times thinks that xxxx experience on the book made Che think xxxxx which was later important on the revolution."), maybe a section explaining the importance of the book to understand the Che damn, move the "transformation" section to the top of the article, and put the plot below, dudes, what is the most important part of the article doing at the end, I almost skipped it because it didn't look important :P . Also the paragraph starting with "Witnessing the widespread endemic" should be in the transformation section and right at the top. On that place it looks like a part of the plot that only people that read the whole plot will see. The more important parts are hidden at the end of the plot, so the summary tag plot tag appears to be justified. Just edit it to bring the important part at the start, and then the long plot at the end for people who want to read the whole thing. As the summary tag plot tag says, "
focus on discussing the work". --
Enric Naval (
talk) 20:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) I have been puzzling over what you meant by saying you read over the "summary tag". – Mattisse ( Talk) 23:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
HI,
I love Wiki a lot but i have less time i today registered an account in Wiki and have placed a link in External link sections for the "Cayman Islands" keyword. As the Category was relevant so i placed a link in External links section.
Do tell me is it proper if not do tell me other ways.
Well my link is to the subject and matter.
Thanx Cayman —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caymang ( talk • contribs) 10:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
In light of the concerns expressed by the community regarding the current handling of bots and the membership of the Bots Approval Group, members of the BAG are proposing a revised bot policy (with the help of a number of other concerned editors). This proposed wording addresses (a) community selection of BAG members, (b) a process by which the community can arrange for revisiting previous approvals in case of problems and (c) some of the weaker points of current bot policy that have been expressed in the past weeks.
Please read the proposed policy over and feel free to comment on the talk page. — Coren (talk) 12:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
This is my first post here, and admittedly it's more to vent a bit of frustration than with any hope to change anything, lol. The source of frustration lies in the whole Original Research, Verifiability and Reliable Sources policy, and how it sometimes comes in conflict with one of the possible directions WP could(/should?) take ("to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial"). Even if this accomplishes nothing (and yes, I understand very well why these policies exist), it will at least be comforting to read people's thoughts on it.
The situation is this:
Article about a computergame. Person who did the bulk of the work on the article (guess who? :) ) was heavily involved in an international Internet community around this game (thousands of people from all over the world playing it against each other), in the mid-90's.
Issue: in case of a strict interpretation of said policies, the article is basically limited to little more than excerpts from the manual: summing up the features, maybe a couple of quotes from the games press and at best some sales figures. Basically extremely dull and largely obvious information(especially in this case). I would compare it to an "official press release" about some event by a government or company. Not exactly the best way to get to know what was REALLY going on. On the other hand, we have this phenomenon that there was a very active international community around the game (forums, competitions, newsgroups, hackers developing freeware extensions...). This phenomenon might be considered notable in itself (or at least an integral part of the notability of the game itself), and also what you get is that games are completely turned inside-out by such a community. After a couple of years the collective knowledge is orders of magnitude greater than anything provided by "Verifiable Sources". Often reality even turns out to be different from what's claimed (simple example: a feature claimed in the manual is just not there, or an 'intelligent' behaviour is scripted etc.).
As part of this community, it is downright frustrating to notice an article about this game that is limited to the "press release" approach. There is so much more to tell, and stuff that would probably really be appreciated by the people who would want to read the WP article. But: inevitably it falls under the OR, Verifiability and/or RS axes. (which is soon going to happen now. Bye bye hard work :( )
I can't help feeling sad about this, because this is clearly an example of where WP would be the only possible way to reasonably reliably keep this knowledge alive.
I have no problem understanding, and supporting, that for Real World and/or controversial topics said policies are absolutely necessary, no question! But for topics like computergames, which are unmistakably a growing part of human culture, yet nobody's life depends on the content of the article and the bulk of the knowledge is available in online communities, the policies cut on the wrong side IMO.
Now, to not close this little rant without making some sort of proposal: wouldn't there be a possibility to create an information box (similar to "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.") that states something along the lines of "NOTICE: a lot of information in the following section is based on collective knowledge acquired in online communities and can therefore not be verified as strictly as usual" (I'm sure somebody can formulate this better, but you get the gist). As mentioned, this could be used to "group" that kind of knowledge in a separate section of the article, to find a middle ground between strict verifiability and reliability on the one hand, and "completeness" of archival of available knowledge on the other hand.
Discuss?
212.153.56.10 ( talk) 12:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I think part of the issue here is that strict interpretation of NOR and V is, at the moment, a very bad idea as the policies are, well, very bad in their current phrasings. I would suggest talking to the other editors involved in the article on the talk page and trying to come to a consensus on the wording - it may well be that there is a common ground or a midpoint that can be found if the policies are taken as principles instead of as rigid laws. Phil Sandifer ( talk) 15:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at Wikia. It runs (close to) the same code base as Wikipedia, but allows you to create a "wiki" for anything you want, hosted on their service. That would let you create the community wiki just as you want, without the conflict of Wikipedia's moderately strict guidelines. -- Kesh ( talk) 02:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The debate on whether to use image placeholders has sprung up again at Image talk:Replace this image female.svg. Right now the sample of people participating is not exactly representative, and so I figured I'd spread the word. Phil Sandifer ( talk) 15:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I was reading this earlier, and just now stumbled onto the above notice board. Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard had issues in mission and in naming. RFC/U apparently does as well. Perhaps by uniting these as a single "disputes" (dispute resolution?) noticeboard some of said issues may be lessened.
I've also noted commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems, which seems at least "somewhat" duplicative of the above. The difference being, I presume, that one is an "admin noticeboard". I think that it is more like what WP:AN/I is.
Anyway, I'd like to propose the creation of Wikipedia:Disputes noticeboard. - jc37 20:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I was looking for a solution to the query that AN/I is too "long/active", and that RFC/U is not just "useless", but often worsens the problems. Often the postings at AN/I don't require admin tools. And the "Disputes noticeboard" at commons appeared more like a "community mediation"/discussion than a "quickpoll ban board". So like I said, this would give a venue, without the "tone". More than RfC, less than mediation. Gives a central venue for the disputants and others to attempt to talk it out. Just seems like a good idea to me. (And as it's something that appears to already work at a sister site...) - jc37 15:36, 10 April 2008 (UTC)