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Wikipedia:Attribution/Header ( | 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) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Template messages/Wikipedia namespace ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I would be great if we could click on the version instead of having to have to click on the 2 radio buttons just to get to the later version. Please post this on bugzilla, because I don't have an account, thanks! 68.148.164.166 ( talk) 02:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I have just noticed a puzzling formulation in Wikipedia:Banning policy, one that (I checked) was introduced in the very first version of the policy, few years back - but one that also seems contrary to our goal of building an encyclopedia. The formulation is: Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves. In other words, this can be used (and I have seen this used in such a way) to justify reverting completly innocent edits such as Manual of Style changes (typo fixes, punctuation), addition of interlinks, or fixing of obvious errors. I think it is common sense that non controversial, innocent edits by banned editors should not be reverted just because they were carried out by a banned editor (or usually a suspected or confirmed sock of one). Of course, just be clear, if such a sock makes controversial edits, they should be reverted immediately and the block extended. But the idea that we should put enforcing our bans to the letter over the spirit of building an encyclopedia is just plain wrong. Feel free to comment at the policy talk page.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 12:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Reverting the edits of the banned user doesn't bother me, but insisting that nobody else is even allowed to re-make the same edits if that other (non-banned) user finds them worthwhile, as is sometimes loudly argued (complete with threats of blocks against that latter user) does. *Dan T.* ( talk) 04:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
A search for all Wikipedia entries containing "Enterprise episode" reveals a jumbled mess: a separate entry for nearly every episode of the TV show, inconsistently including (Enterprise episode) or a variation thereof for the sake of disambiguation -- perhaps extinction and Extinction (Star Trek: Enterprise) coexisting in the same directory space is indicative of a much larger problem. It's great that Wikipedia provides information like this in a convenient place, but when it goes against the site's own policies, and when a more specialized wiki exists just to cater to this topic, why not remove the offending sites from Wikipedia and redirect instead to the specialized wiki? -- 38.100.221.66 ( talk) 22:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Why is there a language starred in the language box? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.129.29 ( talk) 20:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I started a thread at WP:VPT#Recursive page moves (rev:33565) is a great tool for vandals which may have been appropriate here too. All are welcome. — Wknight94 ( talk) 01:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I am somewhat confused as to what articles about retailers should be called on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies) didn't really answer my question, so I'll post it here.
Some retailers (e.g. Tesco) have only their names as their article titles, whereas others have various different things in brackets after their names (e.g. Iceland (supermarket) and Argos (retailer)). Shouldn't there only be one way of doing things, and do some of these articles need renaming? It Is Me Here ( talk) 14:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi page is again beset with arguments about whether or not its name should be Mahatma Gandhi instead. Since this seems to happen from time to time, I thought I'd bring it up at the Village Pump.
"Mahatma" ("Great Souled") is a honorific, which was first applied to Gandhi around 1915, when he was 46 years old. He himself always signed his name M. K. Gandhi. My understanding of WP:NAMEPEOPLE is that it is very clear on "qualifiers" (which include honorifics). It says unambiguously (off the bat): "Do not have additional qualifiers (such as "King", "Saint", "Dr.", "(person)", "(ship)"), except when this is the simplest and most NPOV way to deal with disambiguation." Since there is no other person with the same name (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), the "Mahatma" is not needed for disambiguation. In addition, WP:NC says, "When in doubt, consult a standard mainstream reference work." There are no more standard tertiary sources than the following below and they are all agreed on the name.
My understanding, therefore, is that the name should remain "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi." Please advise. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Now that flagged revisions are available on all projects, we need to figure out what en-wiki is going to do with them. Many people have made their opinions known in smaller discussions or on the mailing lists, but for an issue this big I think we need to set up one big centralized discussion page for everyone in the project to give their two cents, possibly set up in a way that lets us tally support for each of a few different setups. -- Arctic Gnome ( talk • contribs) 16:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can fully keep up with everything that's going on regarding moves of tennis players, but the main discussion seems to be here. The question is whether foreign tennis players' names should include diacritics. In any case I think we badly need a general policy on such matters, so it isn't decided separately (and likely inconsistently) for every sport or particular line of activity.-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
The wp:mosnum policy page cannot be used for reference because it contains non-policy. Anyone that reads it could be mislead into thinking that non-policy is policy. This is acceptable to the people that are controlling wp:mosnum now. Anyone that tries to remove non-policy is just reverted.
The wp:mosnum talk page used to be active with discussions on a variety of topics. It is now dominated by the binary prefix war and its collateral damage. The binary prefix war was moved to a page called Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (binary prefixes) but that lasted just a shortwhile before the page and the warfighting was moved back. It is a place for sockpuppets, puppetmasters and anonymous editors. They keep saying that the war will soon be over and then normal service will be resumed ...
The policy page and its talk page used to be worthwhile places. It had contributions on a variety of topics from many editors. Sadly, the policy page is not reliable and the talk page is scary. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how we can have a policy page and talk page where things other than binary prefixes matter? Lightmouse ( talk) 15:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Please respond at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Can we have wp:mosnum back?
Apologies for the abbreviation, wp:mosnum is the abbreviation that you can type into the search field, it goes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). As for binary prefixes, it is a huge tedious war in the bit/byte community over 1000 versus 1024. Lightmouse ( talk) 19:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Further to the penultimate section, I have started constructing a proposal to make explicit our general policy on diacritics. Improvements and comments are welcome here.-- Kotniski ( talk) 05:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I learned in grammar school that one of the most basic rules of creating an outline is something like:
if you are going to create an indented sub-topic, you must create at least two sub-topics.
I think the idea is that in creating an indented sub-topic, you are breaking an idea into its component parts; but if a concept only has one part, then that part must be the whole concept. In that case, creating a sub-topic is misleading and not justified.
I think this is relevant in wikipedia because the tables of contents in many articles are in outline form, and so should follow the rules for outlining.
By the way, it bothers me that I have edited pages here on wikipedia at least twice in the past to make this suggestion and my edits were deleted. Please don't delete my request; instead justify your reasons for not implementing it if that is what you are going to do. What I would like to see is a generally available discusssion about this very non-trivial subject.
Please note that outlining is an important process: useful for organizing ideas before writing any complicated document, and probably useful for almost any planning. Wikipedia arguably is a very powerful standard setter, and as such may have a profound (in this case negative, I think) effect on the ability of many whom wikipedia influences to outline, write, think and plan.
Allow me to introduce an example below of what I mean:
From the "Quantum" article in wikipedia:
Contents [hide] 1 Development of quantum theory
1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula
2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation
2.1 The birthday of quantum mechanics
3 See also 4 References 5 Notes
Above, "1 Development of quantum theory" is broken down (or outlined) into one component part. It seems to me that for this to adhere to the basic rule for outlining I am requesting that it must be either broken down into more than one part, or that "1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula" should be "demoted" to a lower level, i.e. 1.1 would be demoted to replace "2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" and "2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" would be renumbered as "3 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" with remaining entries renumbered sequentially.
Another way of saying this is: Surely there is more than one part to item number 1 "the development of quantum theory"; if not, then I think "1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula" should join the line above it or replace the line above it.
Summary: though it will be expensive in terms of person-hours, I think wikipedia should adopt a standard (which, considering wikipedia's considerable and growing influence will set a nearly universal standard) of not allowing solitary sub-topics in outlines (i.e. table of contents, etc). This would not be a new standard, it would merely be following long established rules of language (and thought).
69.225.94.162 ( talk) 04:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Joe Cash email: joecash@sol.csustan.edu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.225.94.162 ( talk) 01:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above stated rule about outlines as I was taught the same thing. However, when I brought the subject up to the Wikipedia:Featured articles grammar and layout guru, User:Tony1, he stated he had never heard of such rule and that is was not in the critera for a FAC. So there you go! – Mattisse ( Talk) 17:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
An idea came to me this weekend as I was reading about users, who for whatever reason, have been placed on "probation" (either under "community" supervision or the supervision of a single "mentor"). My theory relies on the tenet that the best way to improve Wikipedia is 1) through the writing of new articles on notable subjects and 2) through the addition of clearly-written, NPOV, and referenced edits to existing articles. Users placed on community oversight or probation should therefore be required as a condition of their probation to make a certain number of reliably sourced, well-written article edits each month. Failure to do so would result in the revocation of the probation and the blocking of the user (indefinately if necessary). Those users who are incapable of constructive improvement of the articles directly, however, could be assigned to assist an editor in good standing or a group of article-contributors (like a wiki-project), where the user on probation would do research for the editor, write memoranda, and copyedit the prose of his "mentor." I think of it as "community service" requirement of probation.
This can only be a benefit to the encyclopedia, as not only will this result in literally thousands of good article edits a month, but also will teach the probationer-users the value of research, good writing skills, and how to work with others the Wikipedia way. As always, I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, JeanLatore ( talk) 00:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
This is a very great idea, JeanLatore. Speaking of edits, the article for Grandpa's Magical Toys has been merged unfairly. Angie Y. ( talk) 19:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I see. It didn't realise the variegated nature of participation on wikipedia per "Celarnor." So are you saying I could just cease article writing and simply pontificate on policy full time? What good would that do? JeanLatore ( talk) 00:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Since the end of April, I've used this account to make suggestions on talk pages of articles within the scope of WP:FILM. I have limited my participation on these articles about upcoming Disney releases because the studio is a client of my employer. To be doubly sure I did not find myself on the wrong side of WP:COI, I started using this account only after a helpful discussion on this page.
Now, another question: Oftentimes I've found that my suggestions are not picked up after a few days of waiting. In these cases I've tried to locate editors who had already contributed to the article, or failing that, posted a comment on the WikiProject discussion page. This works, albeit quite slowly. After doing this for a couple weeks, I found a comment from the lead coordinator of WP:FILM following me on the discussion page of one such film:
I'm curious to know if other editors and administrators here agree with this suggestion? I don't know what WP:COI means precisely by "exercise great caution" but this strikes me as a reasonable interpretation.
My requests to date have been entirely factual in nature -- this film is rated PG-13, here is the official website, that producer's name is wrong, and so forth. ( Click here to see my contributions.) And I have always provided reliable sources -- no IMDb, for example. If at some point one of my contributions was disputed, or I wished to join a pre-existing debate, then I think it would be prudent to cease direct edits and involve myself only with discussion pages.
But I'd like to hear from the community first. It would no doubt make my life easier, the movie pages more complete, and it would free up time for other editors as well. But I'm unsure what WP:COI allows exactly, so I'd love to get a second (and third and fourth...) opinion on the matter. Thanks. NMS Bill ( talk) 16:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I honestly don't think this is necessary, nor any of it's associated other pages. If content complies WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT then surely it should be included? I'd like to know what other people think.-- Phoenix - wiki 13:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Phoenix, this page is for discussing policy. "Notability" has never been policy and by the grace of G-wd never will be . — CharlotteWebb 14:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Notability guidelines might as well be policy, unfortunately. Hopefully one day we'll see them gone. While it isn't an opinion held by many editors, I would rather see a low-quality article with a few sources on an obscure subject than no article at all. I think that it'll be gone eventually once Wikipedia is mature enough. Celarnor Talk to me 20:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
If you believe that we do not need notability, try doing some new page patrol. Notability provides us with a way to delete the tripe. Maybe we don't technically need notability due to our other, more important policies. However, 'notability' is easy to judge- it can be quickly judged, and the crap can be deleted. Our other policies require a little thought, and we just don't have that time, nor can we afford for the piles and piles and piles of rubbish to stay lying around while we all argue about whether it is technically verifiable. I just don't think that removing notability is, at this time, a good idea. It would create far more problems than it would solve. J Milburn ( talk) 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Can't you just go and create the articles on whatever you like without worrying about this? More than likely it will be noteworthy, and even if it has no refs, if you write well and it's beleivable and all people normally just ignore the fact that it has no references and take your word for it.-- Serviam ( talk) 22:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
You know, I was going to argue against this, on the basis that not everything that is verifiable really merits inclusion in Wikipedia, but then I realized that WP:NOT already says that anyway. In fact, having actually read that policy in its entirety, I've come to feel that Phoenix-wiki's suggestion might not really be a bad idea at all. The point being that most of the notability guideline is actually redundant with various sections of WP:NOT, whereas I'm not at all convinced that the remainder is all that useful in the end. To take an example, it would be extremely difficult for an article on a garage band or a student club to pass all of WP:V, WP:SOAP, WP:FUTURE and WP:INDISCRIMINATE; but if it did somehow clear all of those hurdles, it might well be worth having. Of course, if we did get rid of WP:N, I'm sure some of its content would just end up moving to WP:NOT, insofar as it's not already covered there. I'm not convinced that this would necessarily be a bad thing. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 22:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I think notability is such a basic policy of Wikipedia, it wasn't initially called out, but just asssumed as obvious in WP:NOT, and should be strengthened, not weakened. And I agree that the discussion should move to Wikipedia talk:Notability. -- Alvestrand ( talk) 07:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem with relying on WP:NOT is that this policy is consistently under attack from the uber-inclusionists as well, including some of those that have commented above. A quick perusal of the wikilawyering and edit warring at WP:NOT and WT:NOT over the last few months would be useful. If we really want Wikipedia not to be an encyclopedia, but a repository of everything that has ever existed, this would be a good way to do it. Black Kite 10:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Notability is important. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and every topic must be worthy of notice. Every time someone creates an article about a garage band, or their WoW guild, or their fanfiction, Wikipedia gets worse. Wikipedia grows ever more unreliable with every assertion that some gaming clan is "THE GREATEST EVAR!" People will, in good faith, claim a MySpace page is a good source for their garage band. With a project this size, a line must be drawn in the sand, and reliable secondary sources is a good place for that line. -- Phirazo 04:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I am of two views on this one. Notability is important but it is used as an indiscrimate weapon in deletion debates. I think the notability guidelines are quite suitable to invoke on content debates for any given article. In those cases, both sides of the debate must make their notability claims with vigor and well cited sources. On the other hand, deletion debates are a poor place for notability discussions because any editor can merely say Not Notable without justifying it. This happens all too often when editors with little or no content knowledge on a subject weigh in on a deletion debate. They just say its not notable as if they really knew that. If they know its not notable, then they need to cite some evidence to that effect by challenging the evidence that others claim make it notable. In content debates, notability ought to endure rigourous scrutiny. In deletion debates, notablity ought to be assumed unless there is indisputable evidence that something is not notable.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 12:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Personally I see the concept of notability as it is used currently on Wikipedia primarily as a way of enforcing our core (and not really contested) inclusion standards of no original research, verifiability and neutral point of view. Take the base notability criteria - "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable.". If there are no reliable sources on a topic it will not be possible to verify the information within the article ( WP:V), if those sources are not independent of the subject they are likely to have inherent bias ( WP:NPOV) and if the topic hasn't received a certain level of coverage then it won't be possible to write a coherent article without editors introducing their own work ( WP:OR). There are exceptions such as with fictional elements where primary sources are considered a reliable basis for an article, in those situations it really becomes an editorial decision rather one of delete/don't delete on how the information should be presented (as lists, group articles, individual articles, etc.) and how much detail is appropriate for the encyclopaedia. Guest9999 ( talk) 16:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Phirazo's comment above says what's important to this: 'Most of the time "not notable" means "no sources" or "lousy sources."' While I agree with the inherent idea that our notability guides are not useful in and of themselves, they are an important tool in the policing of the junk. It's a matter that notability is a pretty well established standard: if it has sources or sources are evident, then it is notable. Notability is a mere extension of verifiability as I understand it, and it's useful as the hundreds of random bands (et cetera) can protest wildly about their many fans only until we say "Fine; prove it." That's why it's not policy, not anything else. If there's any change to be made it should not be to delete the page, but rather to make it more clear: it is verifiability that matters, and these are guidelines which suggest, in general, what will pass the notability barrier and what should be SNOWed and upon what we're generally agreed. It should not be a matter of codifying practice, but of recording it: general rules that everyone can agree on to avoid arguing the same points for every dubious topic. {{ Nihiltres| talk| log}} 03:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I was told that use of youtube videos was discouraged on Wikipedia because of copyright problems etc. Today someone added a youtube clip to Gideon v. Wainwright under External links. My edit removing it was reverted with the comment that the youtube clip was the work of the editor introducing it into the article and that was sufficient for copyright and GNU issues. Is it correct that youtube clips can be added on the say-so of the editor, without a more formal release process? Thanks, – Mattisse ( Talk) 17:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
That makes no sense. The video, copyrighted or not, is not hosted on Wikipedia, it's hosted on YouTube. Only a link is provided here and the link per se is not copyrighted. Using that same theory, we could not provide links to The New York Times or to any other source either, as that content is copyrighted. This looks like a misunderstanding of copyright to me. What does the WMF lawyer say? — Becksguy ( talk) 20:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I have to disagree with the statement that providing a link can be considered as aiding copyright violations. Are there any legally authoritative reliable sources that support that? Ultimately this is a first amendment issue. I might point out that self censorship is even worse than imposed censorship. In either case it has a chilling effect. Yes, I read WP:EL, but that specifically doesn't forbid YouTube links. It's cautionary concern places an intolerable burden on editors that have no training to determine what might be a copyright violation on YouTube, or anywhere else. Unless a YouTube poster announces that the content is illegally ripped, or the content has a copyright notice, we have no reliable way of knowing that it is a copyright violation. In any case, if there is a copyright violation, it's committed by the person posting it, not the host, nor us, per the DMCA. IMHO. I think it's ironic the link in this case is to a YouTube video that is about another great constitutional right; due process. Note that there are currently 1750 external YouTube links in the Wikipedia domain. — Becksguy ( talk) 00:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Becksguy, that unless there is a specific WP policy approved by WP's attorneys, the rest is just POV and amateur interpretaion of the law. Until such policy is determined, I see no reason to delete links to relevant content. I'm not sure -- see question below. --
Kevin Murray (
talk) 02:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
The provided policy quote from Kevin Murray clearly says that one can link unless one knows it's a copyright violation. The assumption is clear, it's not a copyright violation, unless known to be. Just like the assumption of good faith here, or the assumption of innocence in the American judicial system. Is there a suggestion to reverse that and assume guilt initially and then have to prove innocence, which in this case, would be copyright violation innocence? — Becksguy ( talk) 18:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
If the article would be enhanced with a video then upload the video to Wikipedia. If for some reason the video isn't acceptable by WP policies, then it's not really acceptable to evade those policies by linking externally. The same approach is generally taken with respect to (still) image galleries. While Wikipedia provides a lot of value by linking externally, in an ideal world Wikipedia would also be reasonably complete in isolation from the rest of the internet (DVD versions, etc). Internal completeness also avoids issues of outside content becoming unavailable. We can't approach the completeness goal if people are constantly external-linking materials of types which could be appropriately included. -- Gmaxwell ( talk) 18:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me after seeing stuff like this that there needs to be a smarter way of auto-confirming users. I believe the current policy is that the account must have a certain number of edits and be a certain minimum age. Perhaps we should require that there be a number of edits over a particular period of time. I'm not sure how it would work exactly, but it seems like there should be a better way of weeding out accounts that are designed to evade semi-protection. -- Selket Talk 06:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Okay, after seeing a start of a debate on if Trademarks would be considered non-free, sparked by someone moving {{ trademark}} to {{ non-free trademark}}, I noticed a line in Wikipedia's holy definition of what's free and what's not, the Definition of Free Cultural Works:
*No other restrictions or limitations: The work itself must not be covered by legal restrictions (patents, contracts, etc.) or limitations (such as privacy rights) which would impede the freedoms enumerated above. A work may make use of existing legal exemptions to copyright (in order to cite copyrighted works), though only the portions of it which are unambiguously free constitute a free work. In other words, whenever the user of a work cannot legally or practically exercise his or her basic freedoms, the work cannot be considered and should not be called "free"
There it was, black and white, and is a trademark a "legal restriction" in the eyes of something Wikimedia policies actually use, so, is this enough? I'm not siding anywhere, I just wanna kinda get something going here. ViperSnake151 20:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I have noticed that there is a current hole in the negotiation step of DR that none of the current processes cover. I would like to propose that a new board be created for disputes which range over multiple articles/pages but which don’t require the intervention of administrators and in which both parties are civil. Most of these types of threads get posted at ANI are disputes even though it is specifically mentioned in the ANI header that ANI is not part of the DR process. RFC works great for a single article but when there is the same dispute on multiple articles it falls outside the scope of RFC. The only processes that are currently set up to handle such a thing that are part of the DR process is Wikiquette alerts and that only applies if a party is uncivil. To my understanding ANI is mainly to report abuse that requires administer intervention that is too complex for AIV but in which there is no real dispute. All you have to do is take a quick look at ANI to realize that even though there is a notice there that specifically says its not part of DR people ignore that and post disputes there anyways. If we are not to create a new board to deal with this type of dispute then I think we should consider adding ANI to the dispute resolution process as that is what is happening anyways. -- Nn123645 ( talk) 10:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC-4)
It appears that after a long but failed effort to adopt
Wikipedia:Attribution the proponents have devised a new unique and confusing custom tag to legitimize the instructions as a "summary" of other processes. This lacks the consensus to be anything other than Essay status and should be so tagged. While I don't specifically oppose or support ATT, I don't think that we need to confuse the issue with a new process category which is not described at
WP:Policy. --
Kevin Murray (
talk) 14:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Per an exteremely lengthy Afd discussion it was propsed by the closing admin that a centralized discussion take place to determine the notability of High School Athletic Conferences and other organizations that bind schools together. I and many others agree that we need a guidelien when it comes to the notability of schools Wikipedia:Notability (schools) and the organziations that bind them. The main category under discussion is Category:High school sports conferences and leagues in the United States. Thanks for your time. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
At the current ongoing RFC for WP:FICT, we basically currently have 3 main stances to this in the !voting: ~50% believing the middle-of-the-road solution to be fine, ~25% believing it to be too lax, and the other ~25% believing it to be too harsh. I am not trying to get input on the core policy/guideline issues which have been expanded to WP:NOTE, but trying to figure out what can be done here from the difficult time we've had trying to gain any consensus.
The problem is that those that believe it too lax and those that believe it too harsh are not offering any other solutions or suggestions that make concessions that the other extreme viewpoint. The overall goal of the FICT rewrite was to plant something in the middle of these views that could be seen as, at worst, a starting point to fine-tune the opposing inclusionist/deletionist views, but neither side seems to be moving, nor do I expect them to. While there is discussion of how strict
So, my question or what I'm trying to figure out is:
While browsing I came across CLAAS - An article on a company that appears to be just a promotion for that company. How are they able to get away with that when other businesses cannot? What have they done different that put them under the radar? All I see basically is a list of products and a link to their "offical website." It appears this is against Wikipedia policy and not fair to other businesses! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cinamongurl ( talk • contribs) 16:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Global rights usage ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Has the possibility of article specific blocks been previously discussed? It seems like a simple and effective method of enforcing topic bans without fully blocking a user whose conduct hasn't already risen to the level requiring such a measure. Article blocks could be used for articles and subject areas under probation, as a result of an Arbitration case, etc.
A simple mechanism, such as a log that allows you to add usernames to a list of article-blocked editors and also view the list, would be all that is necessary as far as interface goes. These blocks could appear in the block actions log of the administrator, and may or may not need to be listed in the block log of the individual editor (probably, it would be beneficial if it were included).
Additionally, it would be handy to be able to block editors from a particular namespace or other defined area - like protected categories established for problem areas (like all articles associated with Israel-Palestine, various other nationalist conflicts, etc.).
Thoughts?
Avruch
T *
ER 21:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The issue of Wikipedia's responsibility to living people continues to be important - and I asked a question about this to the current candidates for election to the board of trustees here.
If you take a look, you'll see an emerging consensus that this is a matter for us here on en-wikipedia to at least try and address, and you'll also see a pretty clear view that there is a significant problem here, and our systems to prevent defamation and harmful material being published may not be working as well as they need to.
With that in mind, I'd like folks to take another look at WP:OPTOUT - and I'd especially like to encourage as many people as possible to register their views at Wikipedia:OPTOUT/Long_Term_Straw_Poll. Thanks for taking some time to consider this very important issue! cheers, Privatemusings ( talk) 01:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
I dislike date links. I think they should be excised from Wikipedia because they make articles harder to read.
I understand the main reason to keep them is to preserve autoformatting.
How would I propose that date links be invisible when reading the article? So a wikilink for 30 June 1944 would simply appear in the browser thus:
Tempshill ( talk) 18:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Would you like a javascript tool to make them invisible to you? — CharlotteWebb 18:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
You say "sincerely" as if I might otherwise doubt the sincerity of your comment . In any case I do not understand why a casual reader would consider blue, clickable links to June 4, 2008 any nerdier than blue, clickable links to any other topic. Sincerely. — CharlotteWebb 13:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
One thing that bugs me is overprecision about dates--which I think is related to the aesthetics of the blue date link. I have removed day or month information from dates to get rid of the wikilink--for example, who cares when in 1988 a particular book was released? I'd be very much in favor of a software solution to make date linking invisible. Darkspots ( talk) 21:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
When you have a series of events--let's say a list of novels written by an author in a biography of the author--and some of the dates have day, month, year, some have month, year, and some have only the year, that date link really stands out and looks ugly. I'm not talking about changing the date of a battle or an election from a day to a year. but in that list of books, making all the past dates have the same level of precision--like month, year--helps a lot. When reading a biography, do you really care on what date in May 1988, say, an author had a book published? Not really. You want to know the chronological order in which things happened, you want to know about what was happening in history at that moment. Now there are no doubt countless exceptions to this--Van Gogh scholars care deeply what happened on each date of the last years of his life, as a random example. In a more general way, if an author has multiple works published every month, obviously more specific dates would be in order. But unnecessary precision is no service to our readers. I wouldn't change a date just to get rid of a link, but it's definitely one of a lot of considerations. I try to edit in every situation with an eye to what's going to make the encyclopedia better. Darkspots ( talk) 16:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I completely agree that the articles for the books themselves should have the exact date, in this little example. Darkspots ( talk) 17:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Or just not use any brackets, perhaps. — CharlotteWebb 17:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting my statement and pointing out the exact wording of the guideline. Links to dates are not mandatory. Lightmouse ( talk) 09:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
The same issue applies to spelling. There is US spelling and non-US spelling. We solved that without autoformatting of 'color' into 'colour'. Lightmouse ( talk) 10:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I think user:Scott5114 has expressed several of the same thoughts as I have. The software has combined two orthogonal issues ('this is a link' and 'this is a date'). The issue is very important when there is ambiguity (i.e. slash format dates) but less so when there is no ambiguity (ISO dates, mmm dates, mmmm dates). We are fortunate that most editors write dates in an unambiguous format, I can't recall the last time I saw a slash date here. As user:CharlotteWebb says, on principle, a link that looks like '2005' should not be a hidden link to somewhere else. In practice, such links do not achieve their aim anyway because readers will treat them as solitary years and just ignore them so they are a waste. Like user:Tony1, I want an end to blue linked dates whether in full or in fragmented form. We should simply format the date appropriate for the region. If anyone wants to use automatic formatting, then it should not involve the current mechanism. Lightmouse ( talk) 15:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I get stock pictures for another forum from wikimedia, and don't host it elsewhere. I've been accused of hotlinking. Is it hotlinking? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.184.32.37 ( talk) 22:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I recently came across a case where an editor felt that to satisfy the CC-BY license, the copyright holder must be credited in the caption every time the photo is used in the article. I'm pretty sure this is not the case, as the credit on the image page satisfies the attribution requirement, but IANAL and there is no WP policy/guideline directly addressing this subject. Language at Help:Image page#Source and author implies this, but does not directly state it. If my assumption is correct, adding photo credits in articles should be expressly forbidden for consistency of style and consistency with WP:OWN (with limited excepions, of course, such as when the photographer of the image is relevant to the article). However I'm not sure the appropriate place to add it... Help:Image page? Wikipedia:Image use policy? Wikipedia:Captions? Some/all of the above? Other? – flamurai ( t) 00:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Apologies for delayed posting of this here; there's a current RFC at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Notability, the GNG, subject specific guidelines, and definition, characterisation, or evidence?
This is discussing very broad topics and reasonings, and the broadest reasonable participation would be useful. As yet, there's no intended or expected outcome, just a common feeling that something isn't quite working right. SamBC( talk) 15:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Somebody just changed the automatic archive setting of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) from 150 kbyte to 750 kbyte. There are some users for whom that will be inconvenient, expensive, or both. Some people pay for data or download time. Some people use small screen devices. I know that there is no fixed size threshold but there is a convention for article size that results in a size warning notice. Is there a size convention for talk pages? Lightmouse ( talk) 07:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Could someone come over please to Talk:Philosophy to help on explaining WP:NPOV. I'm not asking for any help on the technical details of the subject, just another helping hand to explain what the policy is. The problem is that some of the sources conflict (not very much). I explained WP:NPOV and what is required in such cases (we present alternatives and so forth - I have put a quotations from policy on the talk page). But I am rather getting at end of tether. Thanks in advance! Peter Damian ( talk) 13:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Just wanted to be sure that everybody is aware of this proposal. ( Discuss.)
69.140.152.55 ( talk) 06:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I am certain I have read a policy about articles being located at the most assumable location, but I am finding nothing right now. In other words, if someone is looking for Nike, Inc., they should not find Nike (mythology) or a disambiguation page, as the company is the most commonly searched for usage. Any ideas? JohnnyMrNinja 15:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Johnny, from your frame of reference Nike shoes are the most common use of Nike. For me I think of the Nike missle system, because my interest is in history and shoes are just something to wear, when crocs are inappropriate. Others think of the Greek goddess. Who is right? There is no universal right, that's why we have the disambiguation pages. -- Kevin Murray ( talk) 16:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Let's take page views for 2008-05, as those aren't subjective: Nike (the dab page) 55,398, Nike (mythology) 31,281, Project Nike 10,223, Nike, Inc. 172,441. As the dab page hits are higher than the goddess page and the missile page combined, it is most likely that people searching for Nike are not looking for these pages. As the company's hits are far higher than all other pages combined, it is clear that this article is what most visitors are trying to read. Further, though most of the links to Nike have been un-disambiguated, it is clear through the remaining talk and user page links that the vast majority of people who link to Nike assume it is about a company or brand, and not a goddess or missle. Personal interests should not come into play. I am not saying I have an interest in the company. I have an interest in putting things where people can find them. JohnnyMrNinja 16:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Google versus WP Johnny a constant theme in your discussion is what Google does. Why I love WP is that it does not cater to all the crap, hype, and recentism, that is inherent in any search engine. I come to WP as a first resource to quickly get unbiased information. However, if I am doing exhaustive research, then this is just the first step. Look at Britannica, how do they handle multiple topics with the same name? We can't precisely follow that model, but we can try to emulate the logic based on our electronic restrictions. -- Kevin Murray ( talk) 18:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
JohnnyMrNinja's figures show that the shoes manufacturer is clearly the most viewed article of this disambiguation page, and by a significant margin. However, I don't think that viewing rates should be our main deciding factor for how to disambiguate. The somewhat subjective ideas of "encyclopedic significance" and the general expectations with which a reader approaches a book, a dictionary or -more specifically- an encyclopedia should be just as important. I see taking these other factors into account as the common sense and occasional exceptions with which our guidelines should be treated.
What does a reader expect to find in an encyclopedic context ? A search for "Nike" at Britannica, or a quick look at whatever encyclopedia or dictionary you have at home shows how these subjects are usually presented. For me at least, searching for "Nike" in an encyclopedia and automatically finding myself looking at that swoosh would be a big surprise... something contrary to every expectation that years of reading have generated. — For me personally, such difference of priorities is the one that differentiates between the yellow pages I have by the phone and the books I have at my right.
Sure, when watching TV, talking on the street or at the mall, Nike means shoes... but when opening a book that is most certainly not the case. — The moment something that calls itself an encyclopedia chooses to give prominence to a shoes manufacturer over the millennia of Greco-Roman heritage that forms the very core of our Western civilization... well... I'm at a loss for words... - Ev ( talk) 18:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia suffers from a lot of systemic bias, especially technological and US related bias. Disambiguation pages allows us to undue some of this bias, in a way. When it is obvious that there is one topic much more notable than the other topic (the primary topic, then that page is located at "Term" and the disambiguation page is located at "Term (disambiguation)". Sometimes, like in this case, there are multiple topics that seem prominent, depending on one's field. Thus, we get the disambiguation page located at "Term". The general guidelines for determining this are that if there is enough disagreement about the primary topic, that is an indication that there is in fact, not a primary topic (as mentioned at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary_topic. In this way, when a topic is obviously the most prominent, it is made the primary topic, and when there are multiple topics all notable, there is no primary topic. Yes, we can look at Google hits and Wikipedia page stats, but internet users are also subject to their own bias. While disambiguation pages are there to help people get to the page they want to get to, and while we often want to make this as fast as possible, we sometimes have to sacrifice just a tiny bit of time convenience to keep Wikipedia unbiased. -- Natalya 21:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
There is a Request for Comments on the talk page of WP:SOCK regarding the use of alternative accounts.
All editors are invited to enter comments at the RFC to help clarify the policy on limited legitimate use of multiple user names. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 22:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
So this edit was pointed out today in IRC
So its come to that has it now? Does that mean we will be getting popups as of Tuesday? or with the next change of skins and advertising?
This really seems to be a drastic measure, so has Wikia really not got that much revenue?? Are the servers suddenly going to stop?
On the other hand this could just be an honest, "We dont know what will happen in XXX years" and so we remove it.
But whatever it is, it worries me. Could anyone from Wikia enlighten us? 72.75.76.97 ( talk) 03:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
I have been informed that the article Edmonton municipal election, 1963 contains a quote. Now that I know it is a quote, I can see it. However, I have mistaken it more than once for ordinary text and converted a unit in the text. This has unintentionally annoyed the most frequent editor ( User:Sarcasticidealist). I think that there is something unusual about unflagged quotes. There must be some way in which that article can flag quote text to the uninitiated user. Can anyone suggest what needs to be done? Lightmouse ( talk) 09:37, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
User:Cosprings keeps linking to blatant sources of copyvio on his user page despite being warned. The last time he was advised by an administrator here, he removed a slew of bit torrent links. I just deleted two of the music piracy blogs from his user page, but even his own personal blog ("Silentsprings, the official blog of Sybylys") is nothing but links to torrents containing complete discographies of musical artists. Someone stop this guy from flaunting his user page as a one-stop illegal download hub. Also, his personal music he's linking there is admittedly in violation of copyrights via sampling. 72.66.80.133 ( talk) 22:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Recently, I discovered that Extension:ImageMap allows for placing external links under the image. This feature has been abused and it's not really something that this project (or any of the Wikimedia projects) needs as a feature. The ability to turn on/off this feature is seen here.
Again, the real question is, does the English Wikipedia need the capability to link to other websites by clicking on one of the images hosted on Wikimedia servers?— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙) 15:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Is this being "abused" in any way that would be less likely using the well-known hack which does pretty much the same thing? — CharlotteWebb 15:56, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Restricted materials ( | 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) 18:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it would be interesting to introduce new value - reference density. It has been talked already: Template talk:Refimprove#Reference density. -- Kozuch ( talk) 19:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Those interested in the ongoing development of BLP policy might be interested to read this current proposed ArbCom decision. It's been attached to a seemingly unrelated case regarding a boring, technical issue of formatting of reference quotes, where few would be likely to see it before it's a fait accompli, and it grants sweeping new powers to admins to impose their will unilaterally on anything pertaining to a BLP. *Dan T.* ( talk) 03:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Independently of the merits and demerits of the specific changes, I find it highly offensive that ArbCom imposed such a remedy in a case ostensibly about boring technical issues regarding reference syntax, without the slightest bit of relevant evidence being presented to justify the remedy. I have to suppose that this was done on purpose in order to get this remedy in effect with minimum "drama" (or community discussion). *Dan T.* ( talk) 20:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
In particular, the rules about BLP-related blocks advanced in this remedy go substantially beyond existing practice (and since they do not bear directly on the content we show to our viewers, are much harder to justify). I believe that clear community consensus should be required to enact page bans, etc., not that clear community consensus should be required to reverse them when made unilaterally. Beyond this, I am not sure that the ruling differs substantially from current practice. That said, this sort of remedy seems very far beyond the scope of "arbitration" as a dispute resolution process. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Last summer the style for message boxes in articles were standardised and the meta-template {{ ambox}} was implemented to allow easy creation of such boxes. Some weeks ago we standardised the styles for image page and category page message boxes by deploying the {{ imbox}} and {{ cmbox}}.
Now we have coded up the {{ tmbox}} for talk pages and the {{ ombox}} for all other types of pages such as "Wikipedia:" pages. This means all the namespaces are covered.
These meta-templates in effect become style guidelines since they tend to be pretty well enforced. Thus everyone is invited to take a look at the new boxes and have a say at their talk pages. We would like more comments before we can declare a consensus and deploy them.
Note that we are suggesting some colour changes for talk page message boxes. For instance, this is a {{ tmbox}} with the suggested style for "major warnings and problems". |
We are also standardising the colours for "other pages". This is an {{ ombox}} with the suggested style for "major warnings and problems". |
Please discuss at their talk pages and not here. This is just an announcement.
-- David Göthberg ( talk) 18:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Restricted materials ( | 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) 18:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Global rights usage ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi all. I am locked in an epic struggle over inclusion standards for a Portal on a topic that tends to invite controversy in individual cases (never in the general case, though). Certainly there must be some guideline against unreasonable criteria and how to determine whether criteria is reasonable or not -- but I haven't been able to find it. Of course, I'm sure there must be other categorical topics that incur similar controversy (the best I've found is a discussion regarding categorizing people as LGBT). I'm hoping such cases exist; even better would be policies/guidelines. TIA. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 19:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I started this a moment ago because I think it could be very useful. Although it's only really descriptive of other policies, and really plays a communicative role, rather than instructional, I think it would probably be best if it could be wiki-edited away until improved enough to gain the same community consensus as a policy - which is how I'm tempted to tag it.... all thoughts and feedback most welcome. Privatemusings ( talk) 02:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Many articles about episode in a fiction TV series, movie, books, video games, ect. often use the word "We" or "Us" in an unencyclopediac context. Take the following (constructed) example:
Plot Summary Bobby goes to camp. At the camp, a girl walks out of the tent. We do not see who she is. Later, Bobby fishes. He does not inform us what fish he caught. The girl comes out and attacks Bobby. Then we are left with a cliffhanger, until the next episode.
See? I propose that a rule be set in place to prevent this. If one is already in place ( don't know how to check), it needs to enforced! Down with "We"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tutthoth-Ankhre ( talk • contribs) 02:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
The first person pluralis majestatis should be replaced by "the reader" or "the viewer" or "the listener" depending on the medium, and hopefully only as a temporary fix as such sentences should probably be re-written from scratch with a less awkward structure. — CharlotteWebb 16:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
In reply to the RfC on the status of WP:ATT (see above) we have had only 15 editors opine... hardly enough for anyone to determine consensus. Furthermore the responses are essentially deadlocked, with no consensus emerging between marking the page as "failed", marking the page as "Essay" or marking the page as "Summary"... We really need a lot of outside input on this so we can reach closure on what the status of the page should be. Please help. Blueboar ( talk) 16:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we begin to discourage pagemove archiving of article talk pages for a number of reasons
This proposal is related to several complaints with respect to pagemove archiving by Koavf ( talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) - I'm not faulting the user as both methods are currently deemed acceptable, but you can see the complaints on his talk page. xenocidic ( talk) 14:46, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
By all means advertise this discussion here, but the place to discuss changes to Help:Archiving a talk page is on the talk page Help talk:Archiving a talk page. For the record here, I disagree with xenocidic and think that moving is simpler and quicker than any other method. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 16:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
My two cents As stated above, I am in favor of page-moving personally and I am basically indifferent to whichever method someone chooses to use. As WP:ARCHIVE explains, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The only really novel points I have are these:
I doubt I have anything more to add, really, so I won't be watching this discussion. Thanks for inviting me, though. — Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ 19:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Very Strong Support I fully agree will all points made by Xenocidic in the initial proposal. The following talk page is an example of the mess that gets made with the history files Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus Archives 1 & 2 were cut and paste, archive 3 was move, archive 4&5 were cut and paste, archive 6 was move. With the help of an administrator we were above to revert archive #6, but to restore the rest of the history is a much bigger undertaking. Current policy states that this type of mixed archiving should not be done, yet most/many/some users do not take the time to check how the previous pages were archived as was the case with this page. Also I challenge the point that move archiving is easier as if it is done correctly, you still have to cut and paste the portions of the talk page that should not have been moved which includes all headers and any recent discussions. I am one of the 5 invitied by Xenocidic Dbiel ( Talk) 19:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
This poll if that is what it is should take place on the talk page of the page under discussion not on another page. This is a well established principle which has been in effect for a long time. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 18:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
This is a follow-up to this recent ANI thread (and the bits before it). We currently don't do much to address possible plagiarism, as opposed to copyright violations. In fact, Wikipedia:Plagiarism is currently a redirect to Wikipedia:Copyright problems. We do have a bit at this section, but nothing covering and explaining plagiarism. We do have User:Andries/Wikipedia:plagiarism and User:MPD01605/Template:Plagiarism. I would like to challenge Wikipedia editors here to create something at Wikipedia:Plagiarism (ie. turn the redirect page into a guideline or policy) so we can address these concerns better. Some resources (remember not to plagiarise them!) are: here and here (lots more exist out there). Carcharoth ( talk) 19:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Already have a guideline: Wikipedia:Citing sources says
Oddly, Wikipedia:Verifiability does not say that right now, but the guideline still does. Failure to rewrite source material in your own words without attribution is plagiarism; perhaps the guideline should say that, but as it stands, it covers the issue fully in 6 words. In an ideal world, ignoring the style guide shouldn't get the attention of WP:AN/I. Persistently (but arguably not disruptively) ignoring Wikipedia:Verifiability will probably get someone an RFC.
So, no need for a new page, in my opinion. -- Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) ( Talk) 08:18, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
{{
cite encyclopedia}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(
help). Attribution still matters. It's a simple question of intellectual honesty. There will of course be violations, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to do right.
LeadSongDog (
talk) 14:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)Plagiarising while still being verifiable is possible.. Consider the following (all names and texts are completely made up) text which is the opening of the journal paper "Money does not Stink" by Jack Daniels : "In economics, it is common knowledge that money is important (Jones, 1970); therefore the transfer is money is often studies (see, Smith, 2000; White 2001)".
Now consider the exact copy of that line into a Wikipedia article without any reference to the Money does not Stink paper. Plagiarism: YES (the editor did not collate the sources, and the prose it not that of the editor), Verifiable: YES (we have Jones, Smith and White).
Arnoutf (
talk) 14:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
After reading the above, I'm still having a hard time seeing why plagiarism should be a concern for Wikipedia beyond copyright concerns. I just don't see author attribution as problematic when everyone here contributes pseudonymously (effectively so even if your username happens to be your real name) and no one has ownership over an article. The moral concerns would seem to arise only if someone tried to gain some benefit from a third party (perhaps to get a job?) through representing that what they posted was their own original words, which is a contributor's own responsibility, not Wikipedia's. Perhaps if someone could draft a proposed plagiarism essay/guideline, it might lay out exactly what the concerns are and what we think we should be telling contributors to do or not do, as well as to point out some identified instances in which plagiarism has occurred and the problems that resulted. Postdlf ( talk) 15:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
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Wikipedia:Attribution/Header ( | 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) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Template messages/Wikipedia namespace ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I would be great if we could click on the version instead of having to have to click on the 2 radio buttons just to get to the later version. Please post this on bugzilla, because I don't have an account, thanks! 68.148.164.166 ( talk) 02:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I have just noticed a puzzling formulation in Wikipedia:Banning policy, one that (I checked) was introduced in the very first version of the policy, few years back - but one that also seems contrary to our goal of building an encyclopedia. The formulation is: Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves. In other words, this can be used (and I have seen this used in such a way) to justify reverting completly innocent edits such as Manual of Style changes (typo fixes, punctuation), addition of interlinks, or fixing of obvious errors. I think it is common sense that non controversial, innocent edits by banned editors should not be reverted just because they were carried out by a banned editor (or usually a suspected or confirmed sock of one). Of course, just be clear, if such a sock makes controversial edits, they should be reverted immediately and the block extended. But the idea that we should put enforcing our bans to the letter over the spirit of building an encyclopedia is just plain wrong. Feel free to comment at the policy talk page.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 12:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Reverting the edits of the banned user doesn't bother me, but insisting that nobody else is even allowed to re-make the same edits if that other (non-banned) user finds them worthwhile, as is sometimes loudly argued (complete with threats of blocks against that latter user) does. *Dan T.* ( talk) 04:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
A search for all Wikipedia entries containing "Enterprise episode" reveals a jumbled mess: a separate entry for nearly every episode of the TV show, inconsistently including (Enterprise episode) or a variation thereof for the sake of disambiguation -- perhaps extinction and Extinction (Star Trek: Enterprise) coexisting in the same directory space is indicative of a much larger problem. It's great that Wikipedia provides information like this in a convenient place, but when it goes against the site's own policies, and when a more specialized wiki exists just to cater to this topic, why not remove the offending sites from Wikipedia and redirect instead to the specialized wiki? -- 38.100.221.66 ( talk) 22:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Why is there a language starred in the language box? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.129.29 ( talk) 20:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I started a thread at WP:VPT#Recursive page moves (rev:33565) is a great tool for vandals which may have been appropriate here too. All are welcome. — Wknight94 ( talk) 01:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I am somewhat confused as to what articles about retailers should be called on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies) didn't really answer my question, so I'll post it here.
Some retailers (e.g. Tesco) have only their names as their article titles, whereas others have various different things in brackets after their names (e.g. Iceland (supermarket) and Argos (retailer)). Shouldn't there only be one way of doing things, and do some of these articles need renaming? It Is Me Here ( talk) 14:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi page is again beset with arguments about whether or not its name should be Mahatma Gandhi instead. Since this seems to happen from time to time, I thought I'd bring it up at the Village Pump.
"Mahatma" ("Great Souled") is a honorific, which was first applied to Gandhi around 1915, when he was 46 years old. He himself always signed his name M. K. Gandhi. My understanding of WP:NAMEPEOPLE is that it is very clear on "qualifiers" (which include honorifics). It says unambiguously (off the bat): "Do not have additional qualifiers (such as "King", "Saint", "Dr.", "(person)", "(ship)"), except when this is the simplest and most NPOV way to deal with disambiguation." Since there is no other person with the same name (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), the "Mahatma" is not needed for disambiguation. In addition, WP:NC says, "When in doubt, consult a standard mainstream reference work." There are no more standard tertiary sources than the following below and they are all agreed on the name.
My understanding, therefore, is that the name should remain "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi." Please advise. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Now that flagged revisions are available on all projects, we need to figure out what en-wiki is going to do with them. Many people have made their opinions known in smaller discussions or on the mailing lists, but for an issue this big I think we need to set up one big centralized discussion page for everyone in the project to give their two cents, possibly set up in a way that lets us tally support for each of a few different setups. -- Arctic Gnome ( talk • contribs) 16:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can fully keep up with everything that's going on regarding moves of tennis players, but the main discussion seems to be here. The question is whether foreign tennis players' names should include diacritics. In any case I think we badly need a general policy on such matters, so it isn't decided separately (and likely inconsistently) for every sport or particular line of activity.-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
The wp:mosnum policy page cannot be used for reference because it contains non-policy. Anyone that reads it could be mislead into thinking that non-policy is policy. This is acceptable to the people that are controlling wp:mosnum now. Anyone that tries to remove non-policy is just reverted.
The wp:mosnum talk page used to be active with discussions on a variety of topics. It is now dominated by the binary prefix war and its collateral damage. The binary prefix war was moved to a page called Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (binary prefixes) but that lasted just a shortwhile before the page and the warfighting was moved back. It is a place for sockpuppets, puppetmasters and anonymous editors. They keep saying that the war will soon be over and then normal service will be resumed ...
The policy page and its talk page used to be worthwhile places. It had contributions on a variety of topics from many editors. Sadly, the policy page is not reliable and the talk page is scary. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how we can have a policy page and talk page where things other than binary prefixes matter? Lightmouse ( talk) 15:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Please respond at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Can we have wp:mosnum back?
Apologies for the abbreviation, wp:mosnum is the abbreviation that you can type into the search field, it goes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). As for binary prefixes, it is a huge tedious war in the bit/byte community over 1000 versus 1024. Lightmouse ( talk) 19:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Further to the penultimate section, I have started constructing a proposal to make explicit our general policy on diacritics. Improvements and comments are welcome here.-- Kotniski ( talk) 05:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I learned in grammar school that one of the most basic rules of creating an outline is something like:
if you are going to create an indented sub-topic, you must create at least two sub-topics.
I think the idea is that in creating an indented sub-topic, you are breaking an idea into its component parts; but if a concept only has one part, then that part must be the whole concept. In that case, creating a sub-topic is misleading and not justified.
I think this is relevant in wikipedia because the tables of contents in many articles are in outline form, and so should follow the rules for outlining.
By the way, it bothers me that I have edited pages here on wikipedia at least twice in the past to make this suggestion and my edits were deleted. Please don't delete my request; instead justify your reasons for not implementing it if that is what you are going to do. What I would like to see is a generally available discusssion about this very non-trivial subject.
Please note that outlining is an important process: useful for organizing ideas before writing any complicated document, and probably useful for almost any planning. Wikipedia arguably is a very powerful standard setter, and as such may have a profound (in this case negative, I think) effect on the ability of many whom wikipedia influences to outline, write, think and plan.
Allow me to introduce an example below of what I mean:
From the "Quantum" article in wikipedia:
Contents [hide] 1 Development of quantum theory
1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula
2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation
2.1 The birthday of quantum mechanics
3 See also 4 References 5 Notes
Above, "1 Development of quantum theory" is broken down (or outlined) into one component part. It seems to me that for this to adhere to the basic rule for outlining I am requesting that it must be either broken down into more than one part, or that "1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula" should be "demoted" to a lower level, i.e. 1.1 would be demoted to replace "2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" and "2 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" would be renumbered as "3 Beyond electromagnetic radiation" with remaining entries renumbered sequentially.
Another way of saying this is: Surely there is more than one part to item number 1 "the development of quantum theory"; if not, then I think "1.1 The quantum black-body radiation formula" should join the line above it or replace the line above it.
Summary: though it will be expensive in terms of person-hours, I think wikipedia should adopt a standard (which, considering wikipedia's considerable and growing influence will set a nearly universal standard) of not allowing solitary sub-topics in outlines (i.e. table of contents, etc). This would not be a new standard, it would merely be following long established rules of language (and thought).
69.225.94.162 ( talk) 04:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Joe Cash email: joecash@sol.csustan.edu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.225.94.162 ( talk) 01:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above stated rule about outlines as I was taught the same thing. However, when I brought the subject up to the Wikipedia:Featured articles grammar and layout guru, User:Tony1, he stated he had never heard of such rule and that is was not in the critera for a FAC. So there you go! – Mattisse ( Talk) 17:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
An idea came to me this weekend as I was reading about users, who for whatever reason, have been placed on "probation" (either under "community" supervision or the supervision of a single "mentor"). My theory relies on the tenet that the best way to improve Wikipedia is 1) through the writing of new articles on notable subjects and 2) through the addition of clearly-written, NPOV, and referenced edits to existing articles. Users placed on community oversight or probation should therefore be required as a condition of their probation to make a certain number of reliably sourced, well-written article edits each month. Failure to do so would result in the revocation of the probation and the blocking of the user (indefinately if necessary). Those users who are incapable of constructive improvement of the articles directly, however, could be assigned to assist an editor in good standing or a group of article-contributors (like a wiki-project), where the user on probation would do research for the editor, write memoranda, and copyedit the prose of his "mentor." I think of it as "community service" requirement of probation.
This can only be a benefit to the encyclopedia, as not only will this result in literally thousands of good article edits a month, but also will teach the probationer-users the value of research, good writing skills, and how to work with others the Wikipedia way. As always, I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, JeanLatore ( talk) 00:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
This is a very great idea, JeanLatore. Speaking of edits, the article for Grandpa's Magical Toys has been merged unfairly. Angie Y. ( talk) 19:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I see. It didn't realise the variegated nature of participation on wikipedia per "Celarnor." So are you saying I could just cease article writing and simply pontificate on policy full time? What good would that do? JeanLatore ( talk) 00:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Since the end of April, I've used this account to make suggestions on talk pages of articles within the scope of WP:FILM. I have limited my participation on these articles about upcoming Disney releases because the studio is a client of my employer. To be doubly sure I did not find myself on the wrong side of WP:COI, I started using this account only after a helpful discussion on this page.
Now, another question: Oftentimes I've found that my suggestions are not picked up after a few days of waiting. In these cases I've tried to locate editors who had already contributed to the article, or failing that, posted a comment on the WikiProject discussion page. This works, albeit quite slowly. After doing this for a couple weeks, I found a comment from the lead coordinator of WP:FILM following me on the discussion page of one such film:
I'm curious to know if other editors and administrators here agree with this suggestion? I don't know what WP:COI means precisely by "exercise great caution" but this strikes me as a reasonable interpretation.
My requests to date have been entirely factual in nature -- this film is rated PG-13, here is the official website, that producer's name is wrong, and so forth. ( Click here to see my contributions.) And I have always provided reliable sources -- no IMDb, for example. If at some point one of my contributions was disputed, or I wished to join a pre-existing debate, then I think it would be prudent to cease direct edits and involve myself only with discussion pages.
But I'd like to hear from the community first. It would no doubt make my life easier, the movie pages more complete, and it would free up time for other editors as well. But I'm unsure what WP:COI allows exactly, so I'd love to get a second (and third and fourth...) opinion on the matter. Thanks. NMS Bill ( talk) 16:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I honestly don't think this is necessary, nor any of it's associated other pages. If content complies WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT then surely it should be included? I'd like to know what other people think.-- Phoenix - wiki 13:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Phoenix, this page is for discussing policy. "Notability" has never been policy and by the grace of G-wd never will be . — CharlotteWebb 14:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Notability guidelines might as well be policy, unfortunately. Hopefully one day we'll see them gone. While it isn't an opinion held by many editors, I would rather see a low-quality article with a few sources on an obscure subject than no article at all. I think that it'll be gone eventually once Wikipedia is mature enough. Celarnor Talk to me 20:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
If you believe that we do not need notability, try doing some new page patrol. Notability provides us with a way to delete the tripe. Maybe we don't technically need notability due to our other, more important policies. However, 'notability' is easy to judge- it can be quickly judged, and the crap can be deleted. Our other policies require a little thought, and we just don't have that time, nor can we afford for the piles and piles and piles of rubbish to stay lying around while we all argue about whether it is technically verifiable. I just don't think that removing notability is, at this time, a good idea. It would create far more problems than it would solve. J Milburn ( talk) 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Can't you just go and create the articles on whatever you like without worrying about this? More than likely it will be noteworthy, and even if it has no refs, if you write well and it's beleivable and all people normally just ignore the fact that it has no references and take your word for it.-- Serviam ( talk) 22:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
You know, I was going to argue against this, on the basis that not everything that is verifiable really merits inclusion in Wikipedia, but then I realized that WP:NOT already says that anyway. In fact, having actually read that policy in its entirety, I've come to feel that Phoenix-wiki's suggestion might not really be a bad idea at all. The point being that most of the notability guideline is actually redundant with various sections of WP:NOT, whereas I'm not at all convinced that the remainder is all that useful in the end. To take an example, it would be extremely difficult for an article on a garage band or a student club to pass all of WP:V, WP:SOAP, WP:FUTURE and WP:INDISCRIMINATE; but if it did somehow clear all of those hurdles, it might well be worth having. Of course, if we did get rid of WP:N, I'm sure some of its content would just end up moving to WP:NOT, insofar as it's not already covered there. I'm not convinced that this would necessarily be a bad thing. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 22:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I think notability is such a basic policy of Wikipedia, it wasn't initially called out, but just asssumed as obvious in WP:NOT, and should be strengthened, not weakened. And I agree that the discussion should move to Wikipedia talk:Notability. -- Alvestrand ( talk) 07:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem with relying on WP:NOT is that this policy is consistently under attack from the uber-inclusionists as well, including some of those that have commented above. A quick perusal of the wikilawyering and edit warring at WP:NOT and WT:NOT over the last few months would be useful. If we really want Wikipedia not to be an encyclopedia, but a repository of everything that has ever existed, this would be a good way to do it. Black Kite 10:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Notability is important. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and every topic must be worthy of notice. Every time someone creates an article about a garage band, or their WoW guild, or their fanfiction, Wikipedia gets worse. Wikipedia grows ever more unreliable with every assertion that some gaming clan is "THE GREATEST EVAR!" People will, in good faith, claim a MySpace page is a good source for their garage band. With a project this size, a line must be drawn in the sand, and reliable secondary sources is a good place for that line. -- Phirazo 04:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I am of two views on this one. Notability is important but it is used as an indiscrimate weapon in deletion debates. I think the notability guidelines are quite suitable to invoke on content debates for any given article. In those cases, both sides of the debate must make their notability claims with vigor and well cited sources. On the other hand, deletion debates are a poor place for notability discussions because any editor can merely say Not Notable without justifying it. This happens all too often when editors with little or no content knowledge on a subject weigh in on a deletion debate. They just say its not notable as if they really knew that. If they know its not notable, then they need to cite some evidence to that effect by challenging the evidence that others claim make it notable. In content debates, notability ought to endure rigourous scrutiny. In deletion debates, notablity ought to be assumed unless there is indisputable evidence that something is not notable.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 12:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Personally I see the concept of notability as it is used currently on Wikipedia primarily as a way of enforcing our core (and not really contested) inclusion standards of no original research, verifiability and neutral point of view. Take the base notability criteria - "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable.". If there are no reliable sources on a topic it will not be possible to verify the information within the article ( WP:V), if those sources are not independent of the subject they are likely to have inherent bias ( WP:NPOV) and if the topic hasn't received a certain level of coverage then it won't be possible to write a coherent article without editors introducing their own work ( WP:OR). There are exceptions such as with fictional elements where primary sources are considered a reliable basis for an article, in those situations it really becomes an editorial decision rather one of delete/don't delete on how the information should be presented (as lists, group articles, individual articles, etc.) and how much detail is appropriate for the encyclopaedia. Guest9999 ( talk) 16:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Phirazo's comment above says what's important to this: 'Most of the time "not notable" means "no sources" or "lousy sources."' While I agree with the inherent idea that our notability guides are not useful in and of themselves, they are an important tool in the policing of the junk. It's a matter that notability is a pretty well established standard: if it has sources or sources are evident, then it is notable. Notability is a mere extension of verifiability as I understand it, and it's useful as the hundreds of random bands (et cetera) can protest wildly about their many fans only until we say "Fine; prove it." That's why it's not policy, not anything else. If there's any change to be made it should not be to delete the page, but rather to make it more clear: it is verifiability that matters, and these are guidelines which suggest, in general, what will pass the notability barrier and what should be SNOWed and upon what we're generally agreed. It should not be a matter of codifying practice, but of recording it: general rules that everyone can agree on to avoid arguing the same points for every dubious topic. {{ Nihiltres| talk| log}} 03:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I was told that use of youtube videos was discouraged on Wikipedia because of copyright problems etc. Today someone added a youtube clip to Gideon v. Wainwright under External links. My edit removing it was reverted with the comment that the youtube clip was the work of the editor introducing it into the article and that was sufficient for copyright and GNU issues. Is it correct that youtube clips can be added on the say-so of the editor, without a more formal release process? Thanks, – Mattisse ( Talk) 17:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
That makes no sense. The video, copyrighted or not, is not hosted on Wikipedia, it's hosted on YouTube. Only a link is provided here and the link per se is not copyrighted. Using that same theory, we could not provide links to The New York Times or to any other source either, as that content is copyrighted. This looks like a misunderstanding of copyright to me. What does the WMF lawyer say? — Becksguy ( talk) 20:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I have to disagree with the statement that providing a link can be considered as aiding copyright violations. Are there any legally authoritative reliable sources that support that? Ultimately this is a first amendment issue. I might point out that self censorship is even worse than imposed censorship. In either case it has a chilling effect. Yes, I read WP:EL, but that specifically doesn't forbid YouTube links. It's cautionary concern places an intolerable burden on editors that have no training to determine what might be a copyright violation on YouTube, or anywhere else. Unless a YouTube poster announces that the content is illegally ripped, or the content has a copyright notice, we have no reliable way of knowing that it is a copyright violation. In any case, if there is a copyright violation, it's committed by the person posting it, not the host, nor us, per the DMCA. IMHO. I think it's ironic the link in this case is to a YouTube video that is about another great constitutional right; due process. Note that there are currently 1750 external YouTube links in the Wikipedia domain. — Becksguy ( talk) 00:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Becksguy, that unless there is a specific WP policy approved by WP's attorneys, the rest is just POV and amateur interpretaion of the law. Until such policy is determined, I see no reason to delete links to relevant content. I'm not sure -- see question below. --
Kevin Murray (
talk) 02:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
The provided policy quote from Kevin Murray clearly says that one can link unless one knows it's a copyright violation. The assumption is clear, it's not a copyright violation, unless known to be. Just like the assumption of good faith here, or the assumption of innocence in the American judicial system. Is there a suggestion to reverse that and assume guilt initially and then have to prove innocence, which in this case, would be copyright violation innocence? — Becksguy ( talk) 18:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
If the article would be enhanced with a video then upload the video to Wikipedia. If for some reason the video isn't acceptable by WP policies, then it's not really acceptable to evade those policies by linking externally. The same approach is generally taken with respect to (still) image galleries. While Wikipedia provides a lot of value by linking externally, in an ideal world Wikipedia would also be reasonably complete in isolation from the rest of the internet (DVD versions, etc). Internal completeness also avoids issues of outside content becoming unavailable. We can't approach the completeness goal if people are constantly external-linking materials of types which could be appropriately included. -- Gmaxwell ( talk) 18:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me after seeing stuff like this that there needs to be a smarter way of auto-confirming users. I believe the current policy is that the account must have a certain number of edits and be a certain minimum age. Perhaps we should require that there be a number of edits over a particular period of time. I'm not sure how it would work exactly, but it seems like there should be a better way of weeding out accounts that are designed to evade semi-protection. -- Selket Talk 06:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Okay, after seeing a start of a debate on if Trademarks would be considered non-free, sparked by someone moving {{ trademark}} to {{ non-free trademark}}, I noticed a line in Wikipedia's holy definition of what's free and what's not, the Definition of Free Cultural Works:
*No other restrictions or limitations: The work itself must not be covered by legal restrictions (patents, contracts, etc.) or limitations (such as privacy rights) which would impede the freedoms enumerated above. A work may make use of existing legal exemptions to copyright (in order to cite copyrighted works), though only the portions of it which are unambiguously free constitute a free work. In other words, whenever the user of a work cannot legally or practically exercise his or her basic freedoms, the work cannot be considered and should not be called "free"
There it was, black and white, and is a trademark a "legal restriction" in the eyes of something Wikimedia policies actually use, so, is this enough? I'm not siding anywhere, I just wanna kinda get something going here. ViperSnake151 20:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I have noticed that there is a current hole in the negotiation step of DR that none of the current processes cover. I would like to propose that a new board be created for disputes which range over multiple articles/pages but which don’t require the intervention of administrators and in which both parties are civil. Most of these types of threads get posted at ANI are disputes even though it is specifically mentioned in the ANI header that ANI is not part of the DR process. RFC works great for a single article but when there is the same dispute on multiple articles it falls outside the scope of RFC. The only processes that are currently set up to handle such a thing that are part of the DR process is Wikiquette alerts and that only applies if a party is uncivil. To my understanding ANI is mainly to report abuse that requires administer intervention that is too complex for AIV but in which there is no real dispute. All you have to do is take a quick look at ANI to realize that even though there is a notice there that specifically says its not part of DR people ignore that and post disputes there anyways. If we are not to create a new board to deal with this type of dispute then I think we should consider adding ANI to the dispute resolution process as that is what is happening anyways. -- Nn123645 ( talk) 10:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC-4)
It appears that after a long but failed effort to adopt
Wikipedia:Attribution the proponents have devised a new unique and confusing custom tag to legitimize the instructions as a "summary" of other processes. This lacks the consensus to be anything other than Essay status and should be so tagged. While I don't specifically oppose or support ATT, I don't think that we need to confuse the issue with a new process category which is not described at
WP:Policy. --
Kevin Murray (
talk) 14:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Per an exteremely lengthy Afd discussion it was propsed by the closing admin that a centralized discussion take place to determine the notability of High School Athletic Conferences and other organizations that bind schools together. I and many others agree that we need a guidelien when it comes to the notability of schools Wikipedia:Notability (schools) and the organziations that bind them. The main category under discussion is Category:High school sports conferences and leagues in the United States. Thanks for your time. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
At the current ongoing RFC for WP:FICT, we basically currently have 3 main stances to this in the !voting: ~50% believing the middle-of-the-road solution to be fine, ~25% believing it to be too lax, and the other ~25% believing it to be too harsh. I am not trying to get input on the core policy/guideline issues which have been expanded to WP:NOTE, but trying to figure out what can be done here from the difficult time we've had trying to gain any consensus.
The problem is that those that believe it too lax and those that believe it too harsh are not offering any other solutions or suggestions that make concessions that the other extreme viewpoint. The overall goal of the FICT rewrite was to plant something in the middle of these views that could be seen as, at worst, a starting point to fine-tune the opposing inclusionist/deletionist views, but neither side seems to be moving, nor do I expect them to. While there is discussion of how strict
So, my question or what I'm trying to figure out is:
While browsing I came across CLAAS - An article on a company that appears to be just a promotion for that company. How are they able to get away with that when other businesses cannot? What have they done different that put them under the radar? All I see basically is a list of products and a link to their "offical website." It appears this is against Wikipedia policy and not fair to other businesses! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cinamongurl ( talk • contribs) 16:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Global rights usage ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Has the possibility of article specific blocks been previously discussed? It seems like a simple and effective method of enforcing topic bans without fully blocking a user whose conduct hasn't already risen to the level requiring such a measure. Article blocks could be used for articles and subject areas under probation, as a result of an Arbitration case, etc.
A simple mechanism, such as a log that allows you to add usernames to a list of article-blocked editors and also view the list, would be all that is necessary as far as interface goes. These blocks could appear in the block actions log of the administrator, and may or may not need to be listed in the block log of the individual editor (probably, it would be beneficial if it were included).
Additionally, it would be handy to be able to block editors from a particular namespace or other defined area - like protected categories established for problem areas (like all articles associated with Israel-Palestine, various other nationalist conflicts, etc.).
Thoughts?
Avruch
T *
ER 21:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The issue of Wikipedia's responsibility to living people continues to be important - and I asked a question about this to the current candidates for election to the board of trustees here.
If you take a look, you'll see an emerging consensus that this is a matter for us here on en-wikipedia to at least try and address, and you'll also see a pretty clear view that there is a significant problem here, and our systems to prevent defamation and harmful material being published may not be working as well as they need to.
With that in mind, I'd like folks to take another look at WP:OPTOUT - and I'd especially like to encourage as many people as possible to register their views at Wikipedia:OPTOUT/Long_Term_Straw_Poll. Thanks for taking some time to consider this very important issue! cheers, Privatemusings ( talk) 01:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
I dislike date links. I think they should be excised from Wikipedia because they make articles harder to read.
I understand the main reason to keep them is to preserve autoformatting.
How would I propose that date links be invisible when reading the article? So a wikilink for 30 June 1944 would simply appear in the browser thus:
Tempshill ( talk) 18:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Would you like a javascript tool to make them invisible to you? — CharlotteWebb 18:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
You say "sincerely" as if I might otherwise doubt the sincerity of your comment . In any case I do not understand why a casual reader would consider blue, clickable links to June 4, 2008 any nerdier than blue, clickable links to any other topic. Sincerely. — CharlotteWebb 13:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
One thing that bugs me is overprecision about dates--which I think is related to the aesthetics of the blue date link. I have removed day or month information from dates to get rid of the wikilink--for example, who cares when in 1988 a particular book was released? I'd be very much in favor of a software solution to make date linking invisible. Darkspots ( talk) 21:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
When you have a series of events--let's say a list of novels written by an author in a biography of the author--and some of the dates have day, month, year, some have month, year, and some have only the year, that date link really stands out and looks ugly. I'm not talking about changing the date of a battle or an election from a day to a year. but in that list of books, making all the past dates have the same level of precision--like month, year--helps a lot. When reading a biography, do you really care on what date in May 1988, say, an author had a book published? Not really. You want to know the chronological order in which things happened, you want to know about what was happening in history at that moment. Now there are no doubt countless exceptions to this--Van Gogh scholars care deeply what happened on each date of the last years of his life, as a random example. In a more general way, if an author has multiple works published every month, obviously more specific dates would be in order. But unnecessary precision is no service to our readers. I wouldn't change a date just to get rid of a link, but it's definitely one of a lot of considerations. I try to edit in every situation with an eye to what's going to make the encyclopedia better. Darkspots ( talk) 16:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I completely agree that the articles for the books themselves should have the exact date, in this little example. Darkspots ( talk) 17:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Or just not use any brackets, perhaps. — CharlotteWebb 17:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting my statement and pointing out the exact wording of the guideline. Links to dates are not mandatory. Lightmouse ( talk) 09:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
The same issue applies to spelling. There is US spelling and non-US spelling. We solved that without autoformatting of 'color' into 'colour'. Lightmouse ( talk) 10:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I think user:Scott5114 has expressed several of the same thoughts as I have. The software has combined two orthogonal issues ('this is a link' and 'this is a date'). The issue is very important when there is ambiguity (i.e. slash format dates) but less so when there is no ambiguity (ISO dates, mmm dates, mmmm dates). We are fortunate that most editors write dates in an unambiguous format, I can't recall the last time I saw a slash date here. As user:CharlotteWebb says, on principle, a link that looks like '2005' should not be a hidden link to somewhere else. In practice, such links do not achieve their aim anyway because readers will treat them as solitary years and just ignore them so they are a waste. Like user:Tony1, I want an end to blue linked dates whether in full or in fragmented form. We should simply format the date appropriate for the region. If anyone wants to use automatic formatting, then it should not involve the current mechanism. Lightmouse ( talk) 15:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I get stock pictures for another forum from wikimedia, and don't host it elsewhere. I've been accused of hotlinking. Is it hotlinking? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.184.32.37 ( talk) 22:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I recently came across a case where an editor felt that to satisfy the CC-BY license, the copyright holder must be credited in the caption every time the photo is used in the article. I'm pretty sure this is not the case, as the credit on the image page satisfies the attribution requirement, but IANAL and there is no WP policy/guideline directly addressing this subject. Language at Help:Image page#Source and author implies this, but does not directly state it. If my assumption is correct, adding photo credits in articles should be expressly forbidden for consistency of style and consistency with WP:OWN (with limited excepions, of course, such as when the photographer of the image is relevant to the article). However I'm not sure the appropriate place to add it... Help:Image page? Wikipedia:Image use policy? Wikipedia:Captions? Some/all of the above? Other? – flamurai ( t) 00:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Apologies for delayed posting of this here; there's a current RFC at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Notability, the GNG, subject specific guidelines, and definition, characterisation, or evidence?
This is discussing very broad topics and reasonings, and the broadest reasonable participation would be useful. As yet, there's no intended or expected outcome, just a common feeling that something isn't quite working right. SamBC( talk) 15:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Somebody just changed the automatic archive setting of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) from 150 kbyte to 750 kbyte. There are some users for whom that will be inconvenient, expensive, or both. Some people pay for data or download time. Some people use small screen devices. I know that there is no fixed size threshold but there is a convention for article size that results in a size warning notice. Is there a size convention for talk pages? Lightmouse ( talk) 07:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Could someone come over please to Talk:Philosophy to help on explaining WP:NPOV. I'm not asking for any help on the technical details of the subject, just another helping hand to explain what the policy is. The problem is that some of the sources conflict (not very much). I explained WP:NPOV and what is required in such cases (we present alternatives and so forth - I have put a quotations from policy on the talk page). But I am rather getting at end of tether. Thanks in advance! Peter Damian ( talk) 13:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Just wanted to be sure that everybody is aware of this proposal. ( Discuss.)
69.140.152.55 ( talk) 06:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I am certain I have read a policy about articles being located at the most assumable location, but I am finding nothing right now. In other words, if someone is looking for Nike, Inc., they should not find Nike (mythology) or a disambiguation page, as the company is the most commonly searched for usage. Any ideas? JohnnyMrNinja 15:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Johnny, from your frame of reference Nike shoes are the most common use of Nike. For me I think of the Nike missle system, because my interest is in history and shoes are just something to wear, when crocs are inappropriate. Others think of the Greek goddess. Who is right? There is no universal right, that's why we have the disambiguation pages. -- Kevin Murray ( talk) 16:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Let's take page views for 2008-05, as those aren't subjective: Nike (the dab page) 55,398, Nike (mythology) 31,281, Project Nike 10,223, Nike, Inc. 172,441. As the dab page hits are higher than the goddess page and the missile page combined, it is most likely that people searching for Nike are not looking for these pages. As the company's hits are far higher than all other pages combined, it is clear that this article is what most visitors are trying to read. Further, though most of the links to Nike have been un-disambiguated, it is clear through the remaining talk and user page links that the vast majority of people who link to Nike assume it is about a company or brand, and not a goddess or missle. Personal interests should not come into play. I am not saying I have an interest in the company. I have an interest in putting things where people can find them. JohnnyMrNinja 16:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Google versus WP Johnny a constant theme in your discussion is what Google does. Why I love WP is that it does not cater to all the crap, hype, and recentism, that is inherent in any search engine. I come to WP as a first resource to quickly get unbiased information. However, if I am doing exhaustive research, then this is just the first step. Look at Britannica, how do they handle multiple topics with the same name? We can't precisely follow that model, but we can try to emulate the logic based on our electronic restrictions. -- Kevin Murray ( talk) 18:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
JohnnyMrNinja's figures show that the shoes manufacturer is clearly the most viewed article of this disambiguation page, and by a significant margin. However, I don't think that viewing rates should be our main deciding factor for how to disambiguate. The somewhat subjective ideas of "encyclopedic significance" and the general expectations with which a reader approaches a book, a dictionary or -more specifically- an encyclopedia should be just as important. I see taking these other factors into account as the common sense and occasional exceptions with which our guidelines should be treated.
What does a reader expect to find in an encyclopedic context ? A search for "Nike" at Britannica, or a quick look at whatever encyclopedia or dictionary you have at home shows how these subjects are usually presented. For me at least, searching for "Nike" in an encyclopedia and automatically finding myself looking at that swoosh would be a big surprise... something contrary to every expectation that years of reading have generated. — For me personally, such difference of priorities is the one that differentiates between the yellow pages I have by the phone and the books I have at my right.
Sure, when watching TV, talking on the street or at the mall, Nike means shoes... but when opening a book that is most certainly not the case. — The moment something that calls itself an encyclopedia chooses to give prominence to a shoes manufacturer over the millennia of Greco-Roman heritage that forms the very core of our Western civilization... well... I'm at a loss for words... - Ev ( talk) 18:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia suffers from a lot of systemic bias, especially technological and US related bias. Disambiguation pages allows us to undue some of this bias, in a way. When it is obvious that there is one topic much more notable than the other topic (the primary topic, then that page is located at "Term" and the disambiguation page is located at "Term (disambiguation)". Sometimes, like in this case, there are multiple topics that seem prominent, depending on one's field. Thus, we get the disambiguation page located at "Term". The general guidelines for determining this are that if there is enough disagreement about the primary topic, that is an indication that there is in fact, not a primary topic (as mentioned at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary_topic. In this way, when a topic is obviously the most prominent, it is made the primary topic, and when there are multiple topics all notable, there is no primary topic. Yes, we can look at Google hits and Wikipedia page stats, but internet users are also subject to their own bias. While disambiguation pages are there to help people get to the page they want to get to, and while we often want to make this as fast as possible, we sometimes have to sacrifice just a tiny bit of time convenience to keep Wikipedia unbiased. -- Natalya 21:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
There is a Request for Comments on the talk page of WP:SOCK regarding the use of alternative accounts.
All editors are invited to enter comments at the RFC to help clarify the policy on limited legitimate use of multiple user names. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 22:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
So this edit was pointed out today in IRC
So its come to that has it now? Does that mean we will be getting popups as of Tuesday? or with the next change of skins and advertising?
This really seems to be a drastic measure, so has Wikia really not got that much revenue?? Are the servers suddenly going to stop?
On the other hand this could just be an honest, "We dont know what will happen in XXX years" and so we remove it.
But whatever it is, it worries me. Could anyone from Wikia enlighten us? 72.75.76.97 ( talk) 03:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
I have been informed that the article Edmonton municipal election, 1963 contains a quote. Now that I know it is a quote, I can see it. However, I have mistaken it more than once for ordinary text and converted a unit in the text. This has unintentionally annoyed the most frequent editor ( User:Sarcasticidealist). I think that there is something unusual about unflagged quotes. There must be some way in which that article can flag quote text to the uninitiated user. Can anyone suggest what needs to be done? Lightmouse ( talk) 09:37, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
User:Cosprings keeps linking to blatant sources of copyvio on his user page despite being warned. The last time he was advised by an administrator here, he removed a slew of bit torrent links. I just deleted two of the music piracy blogs from his user page, but even his own personal blog ("Silentsprings, the official blog of Sybylys") is nothing but links to torrents containing complete discographies of musical artists. Someone stop this guy from flaunting his user page as a one-stop illegal download hub. Also, his personal music he's linking there is admittedly in violation of copyrights via sampling. 72.66.80.133 ( talk) 22:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Recently, I discovered that Extension:ImageMap allows for placing external links under the image. This feature has been abused and it's not really something that this project (or any of the Wikimedia projects) needs as a feature. The ability to turn on/off this feature is seen here.
Again, the real question is, does the English Wikipedia need the capability to link to other websites by clicking on one of the images hosted on Wikimedia servers?— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙) 15:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Is this being "abused" in any way that would be less likely using the well-known hack which does pretty much the same thing? — CharlotteWebb 15:56, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Restricted materials ( | 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) 18:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it would be interesting to introduce new value - reference density. It has been talked already: Template talk:Refimprove#Reference density. -- Kozuch ( talk) 19:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Those interested in the ongoing development of BLP policy might be interested to read this current proposed ArbCom decision. It's been attached to a seemingly unrelated case regarding a boring, technical issue of formatting of reference quotes, where few would be likely to see it before it's a fait accompli, and it grants sweeping new powers to admins to impose their will unilaterally on anything pertaining to a BLP. *Dan T.* ( talk) 03:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Independently of the merits and demerits of the specific changes, I find it highly offensive that ArbCom imposed such a remedy in a case ostensibly about boring technical issues regarding reference syntax, without the slightest bit of relevant evidence being presented to justify the remedy. I have to suppose that this was done on purpose in order to get this remedy in effect with minimum "drama" (or community discussion). *Dan T.* ( talk) 20:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
In particular, the rules about BLP-related blocks advanced in this remedy go substantially beyond existing practice (and since they do not bear directly on the content we show to our viewers, are much harder to justify). I believe that clear community consensus should be required to enact page bans, etc., not that clear community consensus should be required to reverse them when made unilaterally. Beyond this, I am not sure that the ruling differs substantially from current practice. That said, this sort of remedy seems very far beyond the scope of "arbitration" as a dispute resolution process. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Last summer the style for message boxes in articles were standardised and the meta-template {{ ambox}} was implemented to allow easy creation of such boxes. Some weeks ago we standardised the styles for image page and category page message boxes by deploying the {{ imbox}} and {{ cmbox}}.
Now we have coded up the {{ tmbox}} for talk pages and the {{ ombox}} for all other types of pages such as "Wikipedia:" pages. This means all the namespaces are covered.
These meta-templates in effect become style guidelines since they tend to be pretty well enforced. Thus everyone is invited to take a look at the new boxes and have a say at their talk pages. We would like more comments before we can declare a consensus and deploy them.
Note that we are suggesting some colour changes for talk page message boxes. For instance, this is a {{ tmbox}} with the suggested style for "major warnings and problems". |
We are also standardising the colours for "other pages". This is an {{ ombox}} with the suggested style for "major warnings and problems". |
Please discuss at their talk pages and not here. This is just an announcement.
-- David Göthberg ( talk) 18:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Restricted materials ( | 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) 18:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Global rights usage ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 18:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi all. I am locked in an epic struggle over inclusion standards for a Portal on a topic that tends to invite controversy in individual cases (never in the general case, though). Certainly there must be some guideline against unreasonable criteria and how to determine whether criteria is reasonable or not -- but I haven't been able to find it. Of course, I'm sure there must be other categorical topics that incur similar controversy (the best I've found is a discussion regarding categorizing people as LGBT). I'm hoping such cases exist; even better would be policies/guidelines. TIA. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 19:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I started this a moment ago because I think it could be very useful. Although it's only really descriptive of other policies, and really plays a communicative role, rather than instructional, I think it would probably be best if it could be wiki-edited away until improved enough to gain the same community consensus as a policy - which is how I'm tempted to tag it.... all thoughts and feedback most welcome. Privatemusings ( talk) 02:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Many articles about episode in a fiction TV series, movie, books, video games, ect. often use the word "We" or "Us" in an unencyclopediac context. Take the following (constructed) example:
Plot Summary Bobby goes to camp. At the camp, a girl walks out of the tent. We do not see who she is. Later, Bobby fishes. He does not inform us what fish he caught. The girl comes out and attacks Bobby. Then we are left with a cliffhanger, until the next episode.
See? I propose that a rule be set in place to prevent this. If one is already in place ( don't know how to check), it needs to enforced! Down with "We"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tutthoth-Ankhre ( talk • contribs) 02:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
The first person pluralis majestatis should be replaced by "the reader" or "the viewer" or "the listener" depending on the medium, and hopefully only as a temporary fix as such sentences should probably be re-written from scratch with a less awkward structure. — CharlotteWebb 16:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
In reply to the RfC on the status of WP:ATT (see above) we have had only 15 editors opine... hardly enough for anyone to determine consensus. Furthermore the responses are essentially deadlocked, with no consensus emerging between marking the page as "failed", marking the page as "Essay" or marking the page as "Summary"... We really need a lot of outside input on this so we can reach closure on what the status of the page should be. Please help. Blueboar ( talk) 16:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we begin to discourage pagemove archiving of article talk pages for a number of reasons
This proposal is related to several complaints with respect to pagemove archiving by Koavf ( talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) - I'm not faulting the user as both methods are currently deemed acceptable, but you can see the complaints on his talk page. xenocidic ( talk) 14:46, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
By all means advertise this discussion here, but the place to discuss changes to Help:Archiving a talk page is on the talk page Help talk:Archiving a talk page. For the record here, I disagree with xenocidic and think that moving is simpler and quicker than any other method. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 16:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
My two cents As stated above, I am in favor of page-moving personally and I am basically indifferent to whichever method someone chooses to use. As WP:ARCHIVE explains, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The only really novel points I have are these:
I doubt I have anything more to add, really, so I won't be watching this discussion. Thanks for inviting me, though. — Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ 19:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Very Strong Support I fully agree will all points made by Xenocidic in the initial proposal. The following talk page is an example of the mess that gets made with the history files Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus Archives 1 & 2 were cut and paste, archive 3 was move, archive 4&5 were cut and paste, archive 6 was move. With the help of an administrator we were above to revert archive #6, but to restore the rest of the history is a much bigger undertaking. Current policy states that this type of mixed archiving should not be done, yet most/many/some users do not take the time to check how the previous pages were archived as was the case with this page. Also I challenge the point that move archiving is easier as if it is done correctly, you still have to cut and paste the portions of the talk page that should not have been moved which includes all headers and any recent discussions. I am one of the 5 invitied by Xenocidic Dbiel ( Talk) 19:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
This poll if that is what it is should take place on the talk page of the page under discussion not on another page. This is a well established principle which has been in effect for a long time. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 18:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
This is a follow-up to this recent ANI thread (and the bits before it). We currently don't do much to address possible plagiarism, as opposed to copyright violations. In fact, Wikipedia:Plagiarism is currently a redirect to Wikipedia:Copyright problems. We do have a bit at this section, but nothing covering and explaining plagiarism. We do have User:Andries/Wikipedia:plagiarism and User:MPD01605/Template:Plagiarism. I would like to challenge Wikipedia editors here to create something at Wikipedia:Plagiarism (ie. turn the redirect page into a guideline or policy) so we can address these concerns better. Some resources (remember not to plagiarise them!) are: here and here (lots more exist out there). Carcharoth ( talk) 19:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Already have a guideline: Wikipedia:Citing sources says
Oddly, Wikipedia:Verifiability does not say that right now, but the guideline still does. Failure to rewrite source material in your own words without attribution is plagiarism; perhaps the guideline should say that, but as it stands, it covers the issue fully in 6 words. In an ideal world, ignoring the style guide shouldn't get the attention of WP:AN/I. Persistently (but arguably not disruptively) ignoring Wikipedia:Verifiability will probably get someone an RFC.
So, no need for a new page, in my opinion. -- Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) ( Talk) 08:18, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
{{
cite encyclopedia}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(
help). Attribution still matters. It's a simple question of intellectual honesty. There will of course be violations, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to do right.
LeadSongDog (
talk) 14:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)Plagiarising while still being verifiable is possible.. Consider the following (all names and texts are completely made up) text which is the opening of the journal paper "Money does not Stink" by Jack Daniels : "In economics, it is common knowledge that money is important (Jones, 1970); therefore the transfer is money is often studies (see, Smith, 2000; White 2001)".
Now consider the exact copy of that line into a Wikipedia article without any reference to the Money does not Stink paper. Plagiarism: YES (the editor did not collate the sources, and the prose it not that of the editor), Verifiable: YES (we have Jones, Smith and White).
Arnoutf (
talk) 14:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
After reading the above, I'm still having a hard time seeing why plagiarism should be a concern for Wikipedia beyond copyright concerns. I just don't see author attribution as problematic when everyone here contributes pseudonymously (effectively so even if your username happens to be your real name) and no one has ownership over an article. The moral concerns would seem to arise only if someone tried to gain some benefit from a third party (perhaps to get a job?) through representing that what they posted was their own original words, which is a contributor's own responsibility, not Wikipedia's. Perhaps if someone could draft a proposed plagiarism essay/guideline, it might lay out exactly what the concerns are and what we think we should be telling contributors to do or not do, as well as to point out some identified instances in which plagiarism has occurred and the problems that resulted. Postdlf ( talk) 15:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)