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As in any utopia, Wiki started with Good Intentions to encompass as much knowledge as possible with as few rules as possible. The site has been, and continues, to undergo a metamorphosis into an elite static battleground of editors.
Although there are exhortations to be bold and break rules ... in practice no edit to a page is ever quite good enough, and few pages meet the increasingly picky standards of increasing picky elite editors. Although the claim is that anyone can edit without exhaustive familiarity with the current editorial standards, in practice that is not the case. There is now a very exacting process for submission and approval of new work. One editor even went as far as to say about all the articles folks have interest in, already appear in Wiki. That is the same as the senior Patent Official in the US about a 100 years ago saying there are no further inventions to patent anymore.
Evidence of this can be seen in the increasing bureaucratic rules governing edit wars, the time and efforts devoted to conflict resolution, "consensus", what Wiki "isn't", what is notable, what is significant, etcetera, etcetera. Wiki has gone from acquiring new information to defense of existing information and rejection of new information.
Editors are by nature and practice negative. In lieu of submitting fresh data it is always easier and more satisfying to delete and criticize and find fault. One editor stated that cleaning up an article was more difficult and important than acquisition of new data (aka an article).
I believe the tide has now turned such that no newbie is welcome anymore, and unless an existing Wiki gatekeeper can be absolutely convinced of the notability of an article and that precise editorial standards be followed, forget about it appearing in Wiki. Ever. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and the Wiki quality assurance Gestapo is in full control today.
If anyone has any suggestions how to reverse this downward death spiral, please offer them up. Google's Knol seems to be the logical successor to Wiki, where authors lock down their work, are named, and articles compete in usefulness.
I mean, if folks are going have to go through the same effort to see their work in Wiki or Knol, might as well submit to Knol and not have to worry about getting abruptly deleted at the whim of yet another elitist.
Google is so powerful simply because it doesn't screen anything out. Annoying to sort through all the rubbish, but I am also grateful to find what I need even if it means sorting through 20 search pages. And I am keenly aware that one person's rubbish is another person's goldmine.
If anyone here believes utopias are sustainable ... they are not. Wiki can either evolve or end up on the ash heap of every single utopia that has ever been tried. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs) 15:56, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
You are correct, there are a couple of points here intertwined. I'll defer to your expertise that Wiki will survive beyond Jimmy Wales. My concern would be that without revenue from ads or a broad base of donors ... it is in a risky position. A lot of my original works have been picked up by other web sites that sustain on advertising revenues, so if I went away tomorrow I'm pretty sure the works would continue on. (Greed is a much more reliable predictor of human behavior than altruism.)
My issue with notability is that there is no accepted standard. And what is notable today is often not notable in the future. And what seems unremarkable today can prove crucial in the future. In the print days, editors had to cut, that was just the nature of the technology, and no way around it. There are always limits, but computers have extended the possibilities enormously. My guess is Wiki could handle 30 million articles now and upwards 300 million in the future. The money may not be there but the technology is. Notability is such a nebulous concept that most decisions are just arbitrary anyway and guaranteed to inflame folks.
As you hint, trying to shake human nature is difficult, and in the case of WP:NOTABILITY probably impossible. Wiki's professed ideals (grandiose but inspiring nonetheless) of a comprehensive source of reasonably reliable data that anyone can add to, is simply not being followed. Period. I believe that disconnect of practice from theory is what galls people. If Wiki had said upfront you need prior approval for articles, nothing is guaranteed to appear, etc., etc. folks would understand and not do a slow burn.
So if I ran the circus, I would have every editor read and sign a statement of principles (or the equivalent) that makes it crystal clear nothing gets deleted unless there is a compelling reason. And if the data can possibly be included ... it stays. An editor should stretch the limits within legal requirements.
Second, I would have a very brief training program for editors. Have them write a sample article, another persons makes changes to their article (good, bad, off topic, on topic, vandalism, unkind comments, etc.) and check their reaction to it. Do they accept the data and stretch? Or get ticked anyone touched their work and delete it.
Wiki is going to end up with a lot of seemingly trivial data, and a lot of pages of no interest to anyone but the author for now. That isn't a lot different than reality at a major computer center now. (The acronym is "WORN" ... write once, read never.)
On the other hand Wiki stands by its egalitarian principles, and creates a big pool (we are talking millions here) of potential donors softened up, ego stroked, and easy to tap. And these donors don't have to do much heavy lifting to justify their donation, maybe just some innocuous edits would satisfy their need to contribute.
Three percent (not unreasonable for a charity drive) of 3 million is 90,000 that at $100 per donor (average) is $9 mil a year. Year after year you can hit these folks up and they are already in an automated system. Of course, if you get 30 million articles ... you are talking upwards $100 mil and real money. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 17:35, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it obligatory to include "moron", "idiot", "kook", "troll", and "lunatic" in discussions on this page? Just curious. However I commend Camelbinky for sticking by his principles. And not being afraid to say so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs) 02:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Good G! First some well-mannered wikipedian calls me a troll, then the Oracle Himself (hush ye peasants!) calls me "by nature and practice negative". Doctor, they're everywhere! duck and cover. Sysops: don't you dare archiving this, we might miss some crucial revelations here... NVO ( talk) 03:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Well you do have a way with the King's English! Editors exist in the real world to smooth out the rough edges and keep things within available technology and resources ("money"). If Wikipedia (there I spelled it out) has limits (disk space, article #, article length, etcetera) then decisions are made to content and priorities made. The decisions about notability will be arbitrary and capricious but ... tough noogies. Technology limits are technology limits. People understand.
And so now my crucial revelations are now revealed. Wikipedia is text and doesn't handle multimedia well (no indexing system does). My area of expertise (music performance) does not lend itself to writing an article within the rules of Wikipedia ... even the ones I agree with.
If I dumped on the Couperin page guy, I have to apologize. After being called a kook, lunatic, idiot, moron, etc. here I thought by avoiding insults I was well within the general quality of discourse. Obviously I was wrong.
Since Wikipedia doesn't handle multi-media well, most music composer pages have outside links to sheet music, YouTube performances, commercial sites, etc. There is just no other easy way to handle it. There is text about composers, text about pieces, but musicians just want the music and sound file. Period. With as little hassle as possible. Like just one click.
I realize the music community is quite a bit different than the Wikipedia text article writing community (especially now). But if Wikipedia wants to extend their outreach a bit, some rules have to be ... stretched. People here that write more than a plausible # of articles in their area of expertise, like essjay with 16,000, are just copying stuff from the internet, changing enough words to avoid copyright violation, and calling it their own. That isn't in the same ballpark as the world class pages at Wikipedia.
Music (and other multimedia) on the other hand, is quite a bit different ball of wax. Few people (unlike text) can use a music editor or have much training in the area. Copyrights are hotly contested and productivity seems low compared to text writing. And no composer is going to casually give up copyright. (WikiMusic appears to be copyright-violation heaven.)
So if anyone can point me to a place where this can get ironed out without having to personally negotiate and get pre-approval from over a hundred editors that range from "its okay" to "I'm going to blow a nut" ... please let me know. I think I have resolved the only bona fide technical issue that folks could object to, short of satisfying increasing narrow nit-picky rules that spring up like crabgrass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 16:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a big difference between "can not" and "don't want your stuff". I think unless a page goes over the top with more than 50 outside links, it is not an issue. When a page has NO link to ANY sheet music, your claim is really really reaching for some reason, any reason, to exclude data.
There is really no hardware capacity issue with including a lot of text and outside links in an article. But it may offend an editor that there might, just might be other sources folks are interested in, besides their sum total article.
I'm more than familiar with the music sites you gave, and many more (including ones with significant copyright issues). I didn't bother with them because of their difficulty of use and odd indexing schemes. Besides my stuff is already at 8notes.com (I have one piece on their classical top 20), and a hundred pieces at freescores.com (without my permission). It is a bit difficult going after a person in another country for copyright infringement, and since I'm in it for the fame anyway, don't mind the exposure.
If I seem a little unhappy, it is not with a particular editor's judgement to accept or reject. It is with Wikipedia's grandiose philosphy and come on that anybody can add, edit, and contribute ... and find out it is just not so. Knol says upfront here are the rules, you can get bounced at anytime, and we will likely not tell you why. And your page is locked. Truthful and upfront. Take your chances.
Now if you want to outreach to the music performance community, it is time to go back to basic Wikipedia principles (which at this point is just hype) and dispense with spending ever more effort to find reasons to reject data. Multimedia files get large quickly and Wikipedia is not prepared to handle them (few sites are). Links are the only feasible solution. If an editor is offended that folks want the music and not the article text, that is the way it is in music performance.
Now if you want to ding me about self-aggrandizement, why exactly are you and everyone else at Wikipedia? To be anonymous? To cut stuff simply because there could possibly be an outside chance they may benefit from it (aka fame) is ridiculous. If the data are good and on topic, no Wikipedia user cares, no matter how much Wikipedia bureaucracy gets entirely bent out of shape about it.
Sorry for the length here, but it seems short compared with a whole lot of guidance stuff within Wikipedia. (I haven't seen a rule about length here ... but the day isn't over yet.) And you are welcome to call it a rant ... but it doesn't score any points with professionals and whomever reads this stuff for their research on Wikipedia's strengths and weaknesses.
Don't think that the upper echelon of Wikipedia hasn't closely studied Knol and is worried (anything Google does can be worrisome), and Google didn't spend a lot of time and money studying Wikipedia and its strengths and weaknesses, before launching Knol.
So here is a chance for you to champion opening up Wikipedia through your experience and insider knowledge. Oracle2universe ( talk) 19:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
You are right, and I was wrong to place my opinions on this page. And your advice is excellent! Adieu! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs) 13:56, August 28, 2009
Lately, I've noticed that in different language versions of Wikipedia people have started to become a little rebellious and keep referring to everything as "that's the way eng wikipedia handles things, our wikipedia is different". This seems to be #1 reason to change and remove basic rules of the original wikipedia, to shape it for their pleasing. Is this kind of behavior allowed and encouraged or is it not? -- 88.115.50.38 ( talk) 08:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't. Read the original question. -- 88.115.50.38 ( talk) 16:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
In the Irish Wolfhound article under the history section an editor has added several paragraphs of text from a public domain work, without attribution. What is the Wikipedia policy on this? There is a huge amount of text to format. Should the text be left in, whilst a gradual effort to format it is made, or should it be excised from the article? Matt J User| Talk 12:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your help everyone, I have decided to remove the text in question, as it was not formatted correctly, and written in the first person.Matt J User| Talk 14:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Could someone explain what an XfD close of "Keep without prejudice" means/implies/entails? OrangeDog ( talk • edits) 18:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
That is already the case now, even if no editor comes out and says so. Effectively the pages are edit locked ... only it is AFTER you edit that you find it out when stuff is deleted. Human nature being what it is, no author ever wants their work touched and finding ever more picky and silly reasons to reject edits ... is how it is done. (Amazing how people rationalize.)
Just take your information (and whatever else looks good on the page), go to Knol, rewrite enough to avoid copyright infringement, and if you work is accepted, figure no one is going to change it.
I'm surprised folks here haven't figured this out yet. I mean, you can be the essjay of Knol! (And remember with all the Wiki stuff under some commons license, it doesn't take too much rewriting to clear copyright issues.)
Jimmy Wales just HAS to be getting tired of the endless hassles his baby creates for him.
I mean, here is an innocuous mainstream media story, talking about a plan and yet another Wiki apologist blows a nut and trashes anyone outside their Wiki sewing circle. Yes, let's strive for as much accuracy in Wiki and immediately assume a professional journalist at the Telegraph is knee-jerk wrong —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs)
I notice that many articles have book titles italicized in the bibliographies. This contradicts prevailing print conventions, in which book titles are underlined. Can someone point me to a place where this protocol has been discussed? If it hasn't been, is there any good reason why Wikipedia shouldn't conform with the published academic literature? 24.22.141.252 ( talk) 10:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
At the top of the article titled prisoner, I added this:
Is there a standard form for such notices? Or is Wikipedia forbidden to mention that this word is a euphemism? Michael Hardy ( talk) 13:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
The Wiktionary templates are not limited solely to disambiguation articles, nor were ever meant to be, Propaniac. And, Michael Hardy, such links to Wiktionary should be interwiki links ([[wikt:inmate#English|its Wiktionary entry]], producing " its Wiktionary entry") not external links as you have in the above. Notice, by the way, the specification of the relevant language heading in the link. Uncle G ( talk) 13:16, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
A Wiktionary link never belongs at the top of an article. Further, Wikipedia relies on WP:V and WP:RS; wikis are not reliable sources, and their links belong in WP:EL. We don't link to non-reliable sources in Wikipedia articles, by policy. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 14:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
And on the original question, I changed the redirect on "inmate" to point to the more logical Prisoner instead. I don't think there's a need for a second wiktionary link on the prisoner page (I guess if people are given a link to "prisoner" on Wiktionary, they'll be able to navigate to the "inmate" entry fairly easily from that). And the information about it being a euphemism etc. (unless you have some extensive sourced material on that subject) certainly seems to belong in a dictionary rather than an encyclopedia.-- Kotniski ( talk) 15:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conflict ( | 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) 02:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Due to the latest conflict over this guideline, I have fully-protected the page for two weeks. Hopefully that will give everyone time to sort it all out on the talk page. — Kralizec! ( talk) 01:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Hello Wikipedians, thanks for all your great work. I'm new to Wikipedia, and interested in the rules defining movie entries and personal opinion.As encylopedia facts should be verified by previous written sources, do I have to find a review of a movie that I agree with to quote? Naturally my point of view regarding any movie is the only one that matters, and all should bow down before me....I realise that opinions of movies are wildly varied. I'm trying to understand the definitive wikipedia view of movie information. I appreciate that maths, science, academic subjects etc must have accepted sources and be written in neutral tones. (This does not exclude a warm and enthusiastic sense of the subject matter).If Wikipedia has a movie that is extremely contentious,who has the final say as to it's social meaning or intent? If the director is the arbitor of meaning, the author of the book the movie is made from might strongly disagree.I realise also that any major stuff ups I enter will be deleted by the more knowledgable. Hoping to avoid the bunfight of subjectivity ,I remain yours sincerely Ern Malleyscrub ( talk) 06:46, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Anarchism referencing guidelines ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm wondering how one deals with articles that seem to have a long history of tendentious editing, basically, articles that are lengthy and have a great deal of content, but the article is strongly unbalanced toward a particular point of view or otherwise has undue weight problems. In other words, one editor or a group of editors have basically flooded the article with a large mass of cited content, but clearly leaning (and in some cases, only giving) one point of view on a controversial topic. Three articles I have in mind are Adolescent sexuality in the United States, Feminist views on prostitution, and Prostitution (criminology). It seems in dealing with articles of this kind, one is left with two bad alternatives: 1) start adding balancing content, which in the case of a "flooded" article, may take a great deal of time and effort to get the article to a point where its balanced, or 2) start deleting or paring down content that contributes toward slanting the article, but in the process end up deleting valid, referenced content. I'm not really sure how to deal with articles of this type, but unfortunately, it seems that a kind of "He who gets their soonest with the most 'facts', wins" dynamic can create a winning strategy for POV pushing on Wikipedia. Thoughts? Iamcuriousblue ( talk) 21:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
So in the past week, in the discussion on the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, 3 separate controversies about naming victims within the context of existing articles have arisen that can not be solved simply by WP:BLP.
1) Jaycee Lee Dugard is a (alleged) rape victim, and is clearly also an underage rape victim. Her name has been reported in major media publications as such, but clearly not with the victim's consent.
2) Jaycee Lee has two children whose names have been given in major media reports. These children are presumed to also be victims of physical abuse. Reporting these children's names may violate Florida's Crime Victim's Prevention Act of 1995 and other rape shield laws, and in many editors eyes, violates all standards of decency, as evidenced on the talk page. At this point, the children's names are not given in the article.
3) Another previous victim of the accused has appeared on "Larry King Live", giving her name and being interviewed about her rape experience. There is debate about whether to include her name in the article. Her name has been removed at the current time.
All of this together has exposed a need for a policy on victims privacy vs. the need for knowledge dissemination. I propose we think about some proposals.-- CastAStone //₵₳$↑₳ ₴₮ʘ№€ 01:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
There is a review of the first section " Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use the most easily recognized name" of the Naming conventions policy, which could result in fundamental changes to the policy. -- PBS ( talk) 09:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
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I am not sure whether the issue was already discussed and settled, but the FA of Harvey Milk arose my further concerns about LGBT and particularly gay issues in Wiki. I think that further nominations of LGBT persons to FAs or GAs breaches WP:SOAP, not to mention NPOV. In Milk's case the article, but most specifically, the lead does not show that he had better merits other than being the first openly gay in public office in California. As such, I support the introduction of additional notice into WP:WIAFA and WP:WIAGA, which restricts the nominations of persons or subjects, that are notable primarily by LGBT issues in any field (as a part of FA and GA neutrality criterions). Brand t] 11:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I am the primary author of the Harvey Milk article. I was assisted in copy editing the article by another editor, Dank ( talk · contribs), but I constructed the prose and text of the article almost entirely by myself. I am confident that the article reflects a summary of the citations that are listed. They are listed so that anyone who wishes to scrutinize the content knows down to the page number where to find source material. I suppose this should be said: Wikipedia articles should summarize third-party source accurately. The article should be comprehensive, which it is. If you know of source material that is reliable, beyond question in its validity that was not added to the article, please mention it now. I will get hold of it as quickly as possible. What is in the article is the result of two months of reading the various books I either purchased myself, got through Interlibrary Loan, or read through over 200 microfilms to reflect newspaper articles written about Milk at the time. -- Moni3 ( talk) 15:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Wow! Now I really want to write an LGBT-related article and bring it to FA status.
Arthur Rimbaud is certainly
I propose we reject this proposal as a breach of the spirit of wikipedia and spend our time productively getting some LGBT-related articles upto FA. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 17:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
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I've closed this discussion that fell off the page as carried. The proposal as edited (requiring BAG approval, soliciting but not mandating Wikiproject input) has broad support. Objections are split between opinion that BAG may not be the ideal forum in case the creation is semi-automated, hesitation over adding a new hurdle to (some) article creation, and concerns that the proposal is redundant to existing BAG requirements — none of which appear to be compelling enough to override the general support. — Coren (talk) 17:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I seem to recall that there's a policy which says something to the effect that "people might misuse it" is not a valid argument in deletion debates and the like; can someone remind me where and what that policy is, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Category deletion policy ( | 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) 02:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
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After reading Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Lawsuit_against_Wikipedia.3F, it seems apparent to me that we need a policy similar to WP:BLP that covers our editing of articles about companies. In this particular case, I think we're ok as the problematic material referenced by the lawsuit is sourced to secondary sources. However, in general, I think we need a policy that covers this sort of work and carries similar weight to WP:BLP. Wikipedia articles about companies can affect a company's reputation, profitability, and very existence. Wikipedia is a high profile site, and people looking for information about a particular company are likely to find the Wikipedia article about that company. Employee's jobs can be affected, and their families affected as a result. We should be sensitive to that and ensure that articles about companies are written to our highest standard. Jimbo Wales made reference to this three years ago. I do not mean to invoke Jimbo to ensure we get a policy on this matter, only to show that we need to seriously consider it. I've taken the text from WP:BLP and modified it to form Wikipedia:Articles about companies. Feel free to modify of course. Let's get a discussion going about having a policy on this. If this discussion has happened before, I'm all ears. If it has happened before, I'm very curious why it did not turn into policy. It seems very obvious to me that we need such a policy. -- Hammersoft ( talk) 14:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
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Hi. I'm writing regards the Danish wikipedia . Access to the Danish equivalent to 'Village Pump' is not possible with my browser . It is not that technical problem I am concerned about . My concern is that several administrators on the site does not seem to aknowledge argumentation . Instead they state facts . I base this on personal experience, i.e. not on a comprehensive investigation, but on their attitude towards specifically two wikipedia-accounts . Also, there are all of 500 wikipedians, here on the English site, with a reasonable command of Danish, so (I hope) my entry here wil not be a total fault . I can admit that I am close to 'trolling', in writing this, as well as concerning my entries on the Danish 'wikipedia' . But I maintain my 'trolling' must be viewed in context . A single example : Yesterday I added a picture to da:Skara Brae plus a sentence about it being the most complete neolithic settlement . A user then added 'missing source' . For the sentence I then made a note/reference to Skara Brae, using the whole article as source-reference . An administrator objected to the interwiki source-reference . Followingly I objected, since arbitrary articles do get translated, in a worst case by someone not familiar with the articlesubject, and not having read any of the sources mentioned in such an article . The interwiki referencing should obviously be a focus, but a total objection does not align with current praxis, and a specific objection should be a valued judgment . This lead to bombastic 'fact-statements' from yet another administrator, and another user as well . Currently the last sentence of da:Skara Brae reads that it cannot be said if Skara Brae is the most complete neolitic village, but that it gives a rare insight into living conditions and cult in that age, with the source pointing to UNESCO's entry for 'heart of orkney' . This was quite a nice resolve by me . The tone was not nice . Multiple occurences of such nags has, for me, constituted a feeling of being harassed . By administrators . Administrators involved :
da:Bruger:Masz,
da:Bruger:Broadbeer,
da:Bruger:Amjaabc,
da:Bruger:Palnatoke,
da:Bruger:Brandsen, Feel free to add to the list . There is also quite a climax, for those that read Danish, to be found here da:Brugerdiskussion:Pusleogpixi#test2 . The tone is plain mean . 84.238.88.6 ( talk) 02:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC) |
Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary ( | 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) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not contesting this, but where was the discussion about this? Irbisgreif ( talk) 05:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
There's been a fairly long running, slow burning, battle occurring on the
Wikipedia:Naming conflict (
talk page) guideline page (which is a supplement to the
Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy, for those of you who aren't aware of it). The debate seems to have degenerated into internacine infighting by this point, with the same or very similar arguments simply being batted back and forth, so some fresh eyes and opinions on the matter would be a good idea. Note that the guideline is currently edit protected, so nothing is going to change immediately regardless. Hopefully we can settle this before the page protection comes off though, so that it doesn't have to go back on. I would have just started an RfC on this, but we can't even seem to come to a decision about what the RfC would say right now. Any larger participation would be welcome (at least, to me it would be).
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω) 15:33, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Edit war ( | 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) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
It is very often difficult for new users to understand our policies and how our processes work, that's why I think we should have an introductory page on the internal workings of Wikipedia, separate from the introductory pages on editing. It should be easy enough to understand for newcomers, but still cover all our major policies and internal workings. I don't think we have any page like this, or a t any rate widely recognized. I hope we could write one. Though I'm not sure what the title should be. Ideas ? Cenarium ( talk) 00:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
The Guide to deletion is on every AFD notice, and at the top of every per-day AFD page. The Editor's index, Department directory, and Maintenance list are all right at the top of Wikipedia:Community portal. As for policies: Wikipedia:Five Pillars leads to many of them. Uncle G ( talk) 04:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd echo the need for some short, clear, helpful introductions. In developing the Article Wizard I've been conscious that a lot of the policy links we expect newbies to look at for clarification of simple points ("what's a reliable source?") are pretty full-on, having developed over long periods of time to clarify as many internal Wikipedia debates as possible. This would be less of a problem if more policy pages had good leads - but many are pretty crappy, and being placed at the top of a big page gives a WP:TLDR effect anyway. Perhaps we need some "policy summaries" or something; but it's going to lead to extra argument and maintenance so I don't relish the idea. Rd232 talk 08:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Draft policy rewrite has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Given that there are so many pages marked as requiring improvement, and the lists for each category tend to require 'several levels of clicks to find the relevant list' would it be possible to have a 'Random article requiring improvement' link (ie 'Random article' link combined with 'find relevant <tags>')? Jackiespeel ( talk) 17:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
All comments on the possible deprecation/deletion of {{ Future}} and related templates would be much appreciated at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Deprecating "Future" templates. Thank you! – Drilnoth ( T • C • L) 01:27, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
A recent study [4] concludes that "We consider this as evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content, especially when the edits come from occasional editors." I'm concerned with the RC patrol's rate of type I errors (i.e., the error of undue skepticism, e.g., a court finding a person guilty of a crime that they did not actually commit). There should be some penalty for "revert trolls", defined as editors that repeatedly revert legitimate, well-sourced statements that eventually make it into the article after lengthy discussion. It's really a pity that such editors keep wasting the time of experienced contributors and driving away potential new contributors. This issue seems to be of concern at large; see, e.g., 1, 2, [5], [6], and the whole Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary. Thanks. 128.138.43.254 ( talk) 19:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia developing leukemia
I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack ... may I interject some logic here? Based on what I see here there is an enormous amount of time spent resolving disputes instead of focusing on new data and the talent that produces it. It seems that every issue and dispute is just beaten down by the bureaucrats no matter how far they have to reach to find some "rule" that is in their favor. De facto lock down of pages, vengeance, getting even, sadistic revert editors ... is it any wonder that any newbie looks at this and says WTF? And bye bye?
There are more and more police at Wikipedia ("wikipolice") putting every single change under a microscope and deciding it is not appropriate. Too many police, like when a patient with leukemia has too many white blood cells. (Actually "Wiki-sicherheitdienst" might be a better term for the police here.)
The funny part, is that no one comes to Wikipedia with the expectation that the information is reliable. Just an entry point into the subject. Since the pages can be changed before you access them, there is no guarantee any sentence on a page can be relied upon.
If anyone cares to respond, let me save you some time and you can just append this text to your post: This person is a [kook, lunatic, idiot, moron].
Any questions? Oracle2universe ( talk) 00:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Dear Camelbinky ... this page IS for policy, and what my comments simply boil down to is whether Wikipedia is going to be "open" or "closed". A VERY high level policy issue. If the SOP (standard operating procedure) for everything you don't like is to tell them to take a hike, petition this or that bureaucracy, go to another group, and essentially beg and grovel to be part of the clique of the day, forget it. If Wikipedia is de facto closed and page locked, well, that really is the standard everywhere else in publishing and folks would understand if that were made the overall policy.
"Don't be afraid to edit — anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold!" - Wikipedia
"If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." - Wikipedia
I mean, do you really understand those quotes from Wikipedia? Truly? To the point where we can dispense with calling everyone you personally dislike a troll?
The main thing is the data. It is not an ever increasing thicket of rules, regulations, and bureaucracy that just feeds upon itself to exclude more and more data. There is no computer hardware capacity issue to limit more articles, regardless if the Wiki-Gestapo at the moment think it is significant or not.
At this point all the creative types are being turned off and told to leave Wikipedia, and if they don't pronto, yet another arcane obscure rule is going to be recited to make sure they do.
Tagishsimon said it the best: "... leave us alone but in peace with our shabby broken promises."
That place I can't mention could care less about the articles, as long as they get a lot of page hits and have an advertisement. Quality, format, notability, verifiability, style manual, etc. don't matter in the least. If the internet community finds it useful, so be it and let them decide instead of the wildly capricious editor sewing circles at Wikipedia.
I would be surprised if some Wiki-minion isn't following the comments here and reporting the interesting ones to a higher level. They will find a bona fide contributor called names (I thought that was against Wiki policy), told to take a hike, pounced on, told Wiki isn't this or that, trashed for being bold and breaking rules (exactly what Wiki says in the above quotes), and generally completely despised by the established sewing circles/mutual admiration societies within Wikiland.
A million folks have visited my creative works on the internet (really, I have the ISP logs) and I gave my rationale for handling multi-media (large file sizes).
So what's it going to be? Take a chance, be bold, attract new ideas and creative types? Or continue the death spiral towards stasis?
Any questions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 12:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Dear TheRedPenOfDoom ... the improvements should be obvious to a subject matter expert. Having each person justify this or that why the edit was made ... is just another way of entangling folks up in Wiki-bureaucracy. When in doubt, leave it in and let the users of Wikipedia decide if it is useful or not. And if a newbie (like myself) has to extensively justify what seems obvious to me, there is little point in contributing. In my case, there are musicians that play for weddings and not familiar with the music requested by the wedding party. They want something simple to sight read and improvise from. (After one acquires the basic musianship in their chosen instrument, the only thing ensembles care about is if you can sight read.) That is why "fake books" are so popular, only they don't indicate what inversion of the chord is best and some other details. Nowadays people either want something simple for weddings and Christmas carols, or listen to the definitive performance on their iPOD. All the in-between arrangements don't have much use anymore (including the elaborate ones by Franz Liszt).
So if any Wiki-revert enthusiast had shown the LEAST bit of interest and read the hundreds of comments in my guestbook, and shown ANY interest in researching exactly what is going on, it might have made some sense to them. Instead of knee-jerk deletion with some ridiculous canned policy copied that has zero bearing on the issue.
Soooooooooooooo, as entertaining as it may be to debate the finer points of Wiki-rule-making-and-capricious-enforcement, it has nothing to do with adding value and new data to the project. Especially from the user point of view. I'm now familiar with that other site I can't mention, and on a roll to add about 100 new articles.
Anymore questions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 12:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
dear HandThatFeeds - a. I don't want to be called names here (aka troll since that appears to be negative) and certainly must be against some Wiki rule or another, and b. don't think calling my concerns a "rant" is likewise within Wiki rules. It sorts of sets a negative tone from the get go. Don't you think?
The solution to all these issues is simple. Lock down the pages. That is defacto the case now, and potential contributors can submit their contributions, and take their chances. Completely disclosed.
That would eliminate about a zillion disputes, discussions, rules, policies, soul-searching, revert wars, article ownership, watch lists, your term "rants", complaints, hard feelings, vandalism, authenticity of information, assurance no one changes the page right before a user accesses it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Right now there can be no expectation that any Wiki article is reliable do to the possibility a change can be made at any time. So any push for "greater quality" is a hoot.
Now this major policy change would upset all the police rapidly proliferating on Wikipedia, the bureaucrats and sadistic revert editors, and certainly end the grandiose utopian dreams of folks not involved in the day to day administration, but is really the only feasible solution.
So there is your solution, simple, clean, and easy to implement. And I can't believe this is the first time anyone has proposed it. (More like the thousandth time is my guess.)
Any more questions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 13:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Just the expectation of the person submitting material. If they know upfront it may (or highly likely) be rejected, that is no different from any publishing house and well understood. People may be unhappy but they can't say they weren't warned. To actually see you material in Wikipedia, and then ripped from the very depths of your psyche (or some similar psychobabble) makes for some really hard feelings.
All utopias come to an end and Wikipedia has had a good run. Time to move on and metamorphose to the next stage. Oracle2universe ( talk) 20:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I ran across this, Wikipedia:User categories, which expresses several contentious ideas that have repeatedly been rejected when put up as guidelines in the past. Looking at the history, I only saw a few contributors, and nothing on the talk page discussing it on the merits. So, I deprecated it to essay, instead of guideline. This was quickly reverted, [10] with the edit summary supposedly pointing to a discussion showing concensus. The archived VPP page shows one line, from a bot, which says the page has been marked as a guideline, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_42#Wikipedia:Requests_for_drama_has_been_marked_as_a_policy. Zero discussion. It appears that those that want this to be a guideline have simply written a new page and tagged it as a guideline without outside input.
The category discussion/deletion process has been openly claimed as broken for a while, and this minor subset issue of user categories is challenged even moreso.
So, what's the criteria for marking an essay as a guideline, besides just someone saying so? SchmuckyTheCat ( talk)
The Wikimedia Foundation has begun a year long phase of strategic planning. During this time of planning, members of the community have the opportunity to propose ideas, ask questions, and help to chart the future of the Foundation. In order to create as centralized an area as possible for these discussions, the Strategy Wiki has been launched. This wiki will provide an overview of the strategic planning process and ways to get involved, including just a few questions that everyone can answer. All ideas are welcome, and everyone is invited to participate.
Please take a few moments to check out the strategy wiki. It is being translated into as many languages as possible now; feel free to leave your messages in your native language and we will have them translated (but, in case of any doubt, let us know what language it is, if not english!).
All proposals for the Wikimedia Foundation may be left in any language as well.
Please, take the time to join in this exciting process. The importance of your participation can not be overstated.
(please cross-post widely and forgive those who do)
Is there a right for a person not to have an article on Wikipedia about themself?
Jim Hawkins is against the existance of an article about himself. The article is currently at AfD for the 2nd time. He has requested deletion of the article via OTRS and an editor has posted the AfD, which is currently ongoing. My belief is that he is above the notability threshold to sustain an article. The article is now fully in compliance with WP:V (hasn't been in the past) but JH stated to me in a phone call that he doesn't want personal info such as where born, where he lives etc in the article (he doesn't want the article at all) - this is info he is apparantly quite happy for his employer to publish though.
The crux of the matter is this:- Should a person have the right to demand that an article on Wikipedia about themself is removed? Mjroots ( talk) 08:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Already implemented. Actually, in my experience, people already do have such a right, because, as in the case of Robert I. Sherman, the subject of an article can manage to get the article deleted by writing a complain about it. You most likely don't know who this guy is, but he is the person who is responsible for the rumour that the elder Bush once said that "atheists" shouldn't be considered as citizens". I suppose, every atheist in the United States has heard of that. I actually had this issue worked out (it is not proven that Bush ever said that), but I didn't find the time to write a proper article on Robert I. Sherman. The article as it was had issues, but I didn't even get a chance to fix them. So, as it stands, the alleged Bush statement is covered by the partisan right-wingers at Wikiality, but not by Wikipedia; I had worked it out completely, but they deleted it, because they wouldn't allow me the 48 hours to fix it or to merge the material into another article. All I am left to wonder about is the question, if the article was deleted because Wikipedia is suffering from a Christian bias, an atheist bias or simply a bias of over-anxious blp people.
So, in my experience, if your personal notability isn't to obvious and your Wikipedia article isn't that good, there is a good chance that you can get it deleted by simply writing an email-complaint about it. Of course, a right not to have a Wikipedia article about oneself would be against our policies, but factually this right already exists for some people. Zara1709 ( talk) 23:16, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Speaking of "already implemented", and I do hesitate to mention this due to all the drama this caused, but from my memory the Brian Peppers article was deleted in large part due to a family member requesting the page be deleted, which is pretty much the same type of situation as the one being discussed here. Granted, in the end Jimbo unilaterally came in and deleted it, but while the AfDs/DRVs were going on, many of the arguments for deletion directly related to the rempoval request. VegaDark ( talk) 04:36, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion regarding this issue at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Proposed_clarification. Erik9 ( talk) 16:13, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
What's the word on this? (couldn't find this in the pump archives) -- Anna Frodesiak ( talk) 05:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
We have large numbers of bios of Portuguese and Spanish princes and princesses that start with the titles ' Infante' and 'Infanta', such as Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain. Per WP:English, WP:Common name, and WP:Naming conventions (names and titles), shouldn't this be Princess Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain? I moved some of these articles and got a very irate response from their author. I understand that the English is not as precise as the Portuguese, but that will be made clear in the text of the article. As it is, the effect is that of half gibberish, and half calling these people 'infants', since only a very small minority of English speakers have ever heard of the Portuguese titles. kwami ( talk) 21:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I have been watching Venezuela, related political articles and Caracas, for a year or so and have been dismayed that editors are unable to get basic political facts into the article due to highly knowledgeable and alert "counter-editors" who immediately revert anything resembling the truth with polished Wikipedia statements. So Venezuela is a paradise where there are no political problems. Caracas, the worst country capital, per capita, for murders in the world (in truth before the current regime) has no entry for that because it has been reverted many times. There is no mention of weapons that came from Venezuela that have "fallen into" the hands of nearby Columbian rebels. An offhand mention of the effective removal of the elected mayor of Caracas by the regime, replacing him (in effect)with an appointed governor.
Not every proposed edit has been perfect, but some haven't been too bad and would be accepted in most any other article I watch. All can be found well-documented in an unbiased way, in the media. All efforts at unbiased editing are rejected in favor of no edit at all. So I have been made to feel foolish when criticizing well-meant editors, ultimately resulting in their efforts being purged instead of modified, as they would be in a regular article.
I looked at Iran which seemed slightly better. Just changed a comment about "western suspicion" (about nuclear program) adjective to "suspicion" since it was the Security Council, on which Russia, and China sit and which, typically, has members from all over the world. It was prima facie, wrong.
North Korea came close to the truth, if only because they probably don't care what anybody thinks and are not monitoring articles! :)
I can appreciate that all countries get an equal shot on bias. As of now, political subsections on Venezuela are nonsense and nearly useless. We need an admin without a pro-Chavez bias, and probably more than one, monitoring. I realize that we have no input from here into the Spanish-language Wikipedia, but whatever is happening here, is probably worse there. Having said that, we simply may not be able to counter, with volunteer editors, a well-paid staff. Student7 ( talk) 20:56, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Screenshots of Microsoft products may be licensed under something other than a non-free fair use rationale. See disccusion. Smallman12q ( talk) 23:07, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
As per Item 5 of the recent Arbcom case: Wikipedia Arbitration - Abd-William M. Connolley:
The community is urged to engage in a policy discussion and clarify under what circumstances, if any, an administrator may issue topic or page bans without seeking consensus for them, and how such bans may be appealed. This discussion should come to a consensus within one month of this notice.
This discussion will conclude by midnight, 12 October, 2009 (UTC). Manning ( talk) 07:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Is there any policy or guideline with respect to images like the ones on Phil Hartman of Poco, Paul Reubens, and Sinbad, where the image has nothing to do with the topic, and is simply an image of something else that's mentioned briefly in the article? -- NE2 12:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
What is the correct order of See Also, Further Reading, External Links, References, Bibliography sections? I see that MOS:APPENDIX has a specification, but it isn't strictly followed. Is it article/author preference? Or should there be a bot that corrects the order? Smallman12q ( talk) 00:50, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
When editors can not even agree on how to word an RFC, you know there is a crying need to have one... and to get outside involvement. So, to be utterly neutral, I will simply say: Please swing by, read the talk page discussions and give us your opinion. Blueboar ( talk) 16:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Help desk ( | 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) 02:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Can a website owner request that their links not be used on wikipedia? If so, how would such enforcement be carried out? (See Wikipedia:Help_desk#Website editor requesting no external links and the relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#External link naming) Smallman12q ( talk) 12:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
/etc/init.d/apache2 stop
For future reference however links shouldn't be disallowed simply because of a request the same way that info shouldn't be removed per request. If I'm a big star that gets arrested, but I don't want negative publicity on the internet we can't just remove it because I request it. black ngold29 01:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Are ribbons considered to be userboxes; and if so, would having them in template namespace be appropriate? Please see Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_September_9#Template:9-11_Ribbon for related discussion. Smallman12q ( talk) 13:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
At the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) talk page, we've recently been discussing the issue of when to allow regional or topical style conventions for digit grouping (in the context of rephrasing a WP:MOSNUM section).
On Wikipedia, should the selection of digit grouping styles depend upon regional and topical conventions used in the English language?
Discussion on WT:MOSNUM has included arguments for and against this (see that talk page for the lengthy details). Opposition was mainly based on increased confusion that might result from multiple styles being permitted. One editor suggested that (for example) English-reading Europeans were generally familiar with several styles of digit grouping, while many Americans were only familiar with American custom and would be unnecessarily confused by other digit grouping styles, and that Wikipedia should not prescribe an unfamiliar convention. Support was based on symmetry with Wikipedia style precedents for significant English-language usages (like synonyms, British "boot" vs. American "trunk", or words with variant spellings but the same meanings, British "theatre" vs. American "theater"), particularly the WP:ENGVAR MoS guideline.
As examples of region-specific digit grouping styles, European Commission English Style Guide recommends a convention where groups of digits are separated by spaces, while the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual recommends using commas on the left of the decimal place, and spaces on the right. As examples of topic-specific styles, NIST (American standards body in science and technology) recommends a convention where groups of digits are separated by spaces, while The Chicago Manual of Style (targeted at writers, editors and publishers) recommends using commas for numbers of one thousand or more. (These are examples only; this does not assert that these guides are authoritative in a particular field.)
Please express your opinion regarding the above question on this page. (If you'd like to address the detailed proposals that were made at MOSNUM, please continue the existing discussion on the MOSNUM talk page.) TheFeds 03:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
If someone wants to suggest that MOSNUM be changed to become silent on this fundamental issue, then they should come to WT:MOSNUM and propose that change. Given that the result will be a hodgepodge of different styles in our general-interest articles, I wouldn’t cross my fingers on such a suggestion being favorably received. Greg L ( talk) 19:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (broadcasting) ( | 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) 02:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Gravity ( | 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) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
What did this page said? MBelgrano ( talk) 18:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
{{Humorantipolicy}} {{nutshell|Obey gravity. It's the law!}}
^ – xeno talk 18:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Things had gotten a bit heated in the past and now the situation is clear. Everyone else has to back off and allow another editor to stretch basic guidlines and ignore official policy. It is not about the editor......it's bout the fair use images. Most of which are good enough to use but not if they are being used against policy to overwieght a subject or or take advantage of fair use.
Carmel-by-the-Sea seems to have a problem with it's arts section being basically about two theatres and nearly nothing else. Too many images of the Golden Bough Theatre, two of which are Fair Use and are basically the same subject; a fire that destroyed the original building in 1949. I have communicated this on the talk page but I think this may simply be an editor trying to push the envelope on guidelines. He has a conflict of interest that consensus seems to allow, but regardless of consensus, we have to report the founder of a theatre who insists on emphasising theatre arts in Carmel (especially those theatres he is directly involved in) and no expansion of Visual arts in a town that is world famous for painters and paintings. I will continue to try and work in good faith and with the editor, but with every subject I bring up he just pushes back and rallies others to back him up. Fine, consensus will allow many things but not overuse of inappropriate use of images.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 01:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
No....those are your accusations against me, sir. Your claim of Wikistalking was not agreed on by Admin. They felt it might be boarderline, but you gave out your personal information on the image you uploaded to the article...actualy more than one. You gave away the information that you are an artistic director/manager and founder of a few theatres in Carmel and created and edit your own wiki article.
Admin requested that I voluntarily step back for two weeks and also asked Smartpat;
Smatprt, on your side, please avoid edits in the hot-button issues that Amadscientist identified while they are staying away from the articles, and please do what you can to disengage as well for that informal cool down period. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
He too was asked to disengage, but refused, and kept going while making these same false accusations about me as well as my not being able to edit the page. He has also posted on the talk page of Carmel-by-the-Sea, an attack on me for bringing this to the village pump. That seems to be harrassive if you ask me. Fair use being used for public domain images from the turn of the centry and far too many fair use images of the Golden Bough Plyhouse. There are free images that can be used. The editor has files full of images that he can not attribute to the copyright owner and is using fair use around the issue innappropriatly.
No action has been taken against me by any admin over anything I have done in this situation. Claims of harrasment and stalking were false. I discoverd his conflict of interest though his own uploads and posts. He admited who he was and now has removed all identyfication, but he still has a conflict of interest. Maybe consensus is allowing it and maybe it is not. It's a case by case matter with an editor that refuses to lighten up or take it easy on article he has been identyfied with having COI. When something new happens...I will report each one.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 05:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I have a question regarding the consistency of two Wikipedia practices of attribution to free content.
In the case of material from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Template:1911 is placed on the main page of the article. In case of material translated from another language version of wikipedia, Template:Translated page is used and it is placed in the Discussion page. Why not on the main Article page?
If a Wikipedia article is used by another media outlet, we do require the Wikipedia attribution to be part of the copied material, why not do the same for our translation between Wikipedia projects? -- İnfoCan ( talk) 14:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
My question is on the existing policy on Wkipedia forks. We had the following story on ru.wp. User A runs an external website. He copied over there several templates from Russian Wikipedia failing to credit the source. When reminded he refused to credit Wikipedia as the source. Then sysop B blocked A for copyright violations. The copyright violation policies we have are ambiguously formulated, but have been previously applied only when smbody posted copyrighted materials from external sites (aka copyvio) to Wikipedia, not vice versa. C asked B to unblock A, and B refused. Then C filed n arbitration request, which we have to consider. Have you encountered smth similar on en.wp previously? Do you have any policies about such situations? We have to decide it anyway according to our policies, but if such policies exist in any Wikipedia, this would help us a lot. Thanks in advance.-- Yaroslav Blanter ( talk) 23:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 52#Cite youtube template 18:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Is there any clarification on when an image becomes public domain if it had corporate authorship in the UK/EU? Our current templates do not apply. Magog the Ogre ( talk) 18:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions ( | 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) 02:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm looking for advice; maybe I am missing something in WP:IUP. A IP user has added a couple of diagrams to an article; they are useful and accurate, and I've got no problem with having the info in the article since it improves it. But, they are (good quality) scans of hand-drawn notes, possibly taken in a class, or created while researching the topic. I'm not 100% about the handwriting, it's quite stylised and to me a bit unclear in a couple of cases.
There used to be a policy page for diagrams WP:DIAGRAM, but it indicates it is no longer active. Is there any current MOS policy on diagrams that illustrate articles? Is this sort of diagram generally acceptable? I like what the IP user did and want to encourage them, but am also concerned with style etc.. EasyTarget ( talk) 09:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
In the past I had more than one account because I thought it wasn't against the Wikipedia rules. I had two other accounts: one has about 5 edits and the other one has about 20. They were last used in 2008. I am afraid someone will find out and get me banned or blocked. Now I wrote on those other accounts that they were mine (with a link to my main account) and wouldn't be used again. Will this be enough? What must I do? If an admin finds out he/she will ban me for sure. They weren't used for vandalism, nor have I had warnings or bannings.
Justanaccount4 ( talk) 13:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style ( | 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) 02:00, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
How about if on BLPs we get rid of all category listings that aren't concrete, factual information? American President, University Provost, Persons Born in 1942, Licensed Mole Drainer, ok; Bad Person, Stupid Conservative, Fascist Liberal, not ok. That sort of thing. (OK, a little exaggeration for effect but you get the point.) Listing people in these categories is an endless source of drama, can negatively affect the individuals in question, and often cannot be conclusively verified one way or the other. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 01:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
At WP:CFD, we've routinely deleted categories for people that aren't concrete, even where they may not be explicitly pejorative, such as vague political labels the original poster suggests. One may be able to find reliable sources calling this or that politician a liberal, but because of the nature of such labels it's still that source just making a characterization rather than stating what is or isn't an objective fact (and in our reliance on reliable sources, we as Wikipedia contributors are not slavish copyists just parroting whatever we find).
Other people categories that are problematic are ones based on accusations, such as the "accused spies" category scheme that was deleted recently. Accusations are far too easy to make for it to be the threshold for category inclusion, and the circumstances under which one may be accused of something heinous would vary too much from individual to individual to merit lumping them together in a category. Narrowing it to "people indicted of spying" or whatever may go some length towards solving such a problem, but still may be unworkable.
Any such problematic classifications or characterizations of people may still be properly handled in article text, because it can be directly sourced and explained for that individual; categories can't do that and so should be limited to concrete and non-controversial classifications. Postdlf ( talk) 17:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games) ( | 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) 02:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines/Naming ( | 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) 02:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Recently getting into an edit war with interwiki bots on pages Lichfield and Worcester, it strikes me that there is something fundamentally unsound in letting these beasts roam free, propagating errors as they go. I appreciate that there appears to be a consensus that these bots are a "good thing", so I would like to propose a way of mitigating the problems. I propose a set of Laws of botics, as follows.
Jan1nad ( talk) 19:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
<!-- NOBOT -->
, no interwiki bot shall change it.Just to note here, one way of stopping interwiki bots from reapplying unwanted changes was indeed implemented some time ago, but it's unfortunately not well documented: if you have a problem with a bot adding an inappropriate link, don't just delete the link but place it in html comment tags (<!-- [[foo:bar]] -->), then the bots will leave it alone. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:08, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
When an article is mentioned on bing such as in this reference do we use the {{ press}} or {{ high traffic}} template? Is Bing using a cached version of wikipedia's page, or is it simply serving it up in a frame?(If its cached, then perhaps press is best). 65.51.38.194 ( talk) 23:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
The Wikipedia request for bot approval board has gone unanswered by BAG members for a couple of weeks now. When I pointed this out, a BAG member came by, and, in 28 seconds approved most outstanding requests without reading any of the discussions.
BAG is self-selected, self-directed, self-elected entity foisted onto en.wikipedia. If they select themselves and direct themselves to oversee the approval of bots, but are not up to spending the time necessary to oversee approval, and ignore (by simply not reading, it appears) all community input into discussing bots according to the rules for bots, why are they the group doing this?
-- 69.225.3.119 ( talk) 01:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I apologize for that. Still, it appears you did not read or acknowledge any of the outstanding comments. Since the most discussion was about one bot and you ignored ALL comments about it. -- 69.225.3.119 ( talk) 01:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Please express your opinion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion discussions#Renaming of multiple categories, including one or more stub categories. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
[13] was a recent addition. I don't know that it adds anything to what was there. The other source may have had sufficient information. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Being a blog is not some special category of disreputability. For every source, the basic questions are the same; is this self-published? ( not all blogs are) has this been subject to peer review or editorial oversight?( in some cases, yes) do the authors/publishers have a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy? ( many blogs do). In short, see Wikipedia:Blogs as sources. Skomorokh 04:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I have opened a request for comment at Wikipedia:Naming conventions. This is the second RFC at WP:NC in a little over a week. My concerns is that since September 6 the page has undergone on-going and substantial revision while discussion for such change take place on the talk page.
I'm worried that such a manner of editing a policy page brings instability to policy pages - and reduce their worthiness as reference points for other editors. I am also concerned as to the degree of community involvement in the changes taking place. Several of the editors involved say they "know" what a "new consensus" for the policy is. I am concerned that while they may be well-intentioned, if that was the case they would not still be wrangling over the page nearly three weeks later. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid ( coṁrá) 21:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Several months ago, I drafted a policy for the use of the revision deletion function for administrators on the English Wikipedia. After consultation with a small group of users, I made modifications and changes (with the help of FT2) to better address the suggestions of these people. I have waited a while for the policy to become more stable before consulting the wider community, because it is in my belief that there is nothing worse than discussing a policy draft that still does not have the consensus of its drafters. The policy in its current state is quite similar to the Criteria for Speedy Deletion policy, in that it defines very specific circumstances in which the revision deletion functionality can be used. The policy is defined so strictly to help allay some of the fears of potential misuse of the functionality, with deviation from the set criteria resulting in whatever sanctions are decided upon by the community. I would invite all users to read the statement and FAQs that I have written at Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion#Community consultation regarding the functionality and then discuss on the talk page the merits of ratifying this policy, and subsequently enabling the feature for administrators on this project. Thanks for listening and happy editing! ~ fl 05:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/editorial guidelines ( | 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) 02:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
There is a proposal that the WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary policy be moved down to being only a guideline, or 'merged into WP:ISNOT' (i.e. removed completely as an independent policy).
It is currently being discussed at: Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary#Change_to_guideline.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 01:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Input needed at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(web)#Quotations proposal.-- Otterathome ( talk) 15:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Non-free content ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
A year ago, deletion of disambiguation pages seemed to be a rare event, to the point of some admins not even knowing whether or not a dab page is subject to a prod. Some claimed that disambiguation pages are not articles (although, like redirects, they are usually in articlespace) and thus PROD would not be appropriate for them; others contend that they are articles and should be prodded (because of the controversy in the status, and WP:PROD explicitly states that it applies only to noncontroversial deletions, this needs to be addressed in a wider arena than the WT:PROD discussion page). Because a disambiguation page (and not a list article, which is an article with encyclopedic information) is essentially an extended redirect, a navigation tool and not intended to be a significangt source of encyclopedic information, I propose the following: since disambiguation pages are not encyclopedia articles, they are not subject to WP:Proposed deletion; furthermore, requests for deletion of disambiguation pages are to be posted and considered at WP:RfD (which can be renamed "Wikipedia:Redirects and disambiguation pages for discussion").
The reasons for treating dab pages and redirects in the same fashion should be rather obvious. In addition to both being purely navigational tools with very strict methods of style restricting the information and presentation of each of them, neither permit the inclusion of citations and other information required for WP:V and WP:RS. Redirects and dab pages cannot assert notability if properly formatted (one AfD of a disambiguation page was couched on an editor's objection that it did not have any cited evidence of notability of a particular name/phrase). The deletion of a dab page should be a deliberate process (Quite often the disambiguation page was proposed or nominated for deletion simply because it had two valid bluelinks. On more than one occasion, an AfD nomination was withdrawn after someone found a third, or even a fourth, bluelink. Had the prod process gone through, the otherwise-valid dab page would have been lost). Moving a deletion discussion of a disambiguation page from WP:AfD (which processes anywhere between 120 and 220 entries a day) to WP:RfD (which usually processes less than ten nominations a day) would give the community a better opportunity to improve its navigational tools.
One of the questions that was mentioned at WT:PROD concerned those "half disambiguation pages, half articles" and where to delete them. If the page is tagged as a disambiguation page, the software recognizes it when someone edits it - these, for the purposes of this proposal, would be dab pages ineligible for prod and should be taken to RfD; those that are not (and thus would be list articles) would be considered articles for the purposes of WP:PROD and this proposal. I think that now is a good time to resolve the controversies regarding disambiguation pages and establish a policy of deletion consistent with that of other navigational aids. I thank the Wikipedia community for its consideration and feedback on my proposal. B.Wind ( talk) 04:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Many high-profile politicians and celebrities have images of their signatures in their infoboxes. Examples: John Adams, Stephen Hawking. These are generally images that have been traced by Wikipedia users into the SVG format.
Putting aside the argument of whether the signatures should be there to begin with, can we talk about this tracing thing? Tracing a signature into a vector format is inherently inaccurate, especially when you start with a tiny image and blow it up. As the entire value of a signature is that it is difficult to forge, it seems rather misleading to use an image that has been scanned at an unknown resolution and traced to an unknown fidelity by an anonymous person and present it without qualifications as an authentic signature. I think we should consider a policy to use only actual photographs of signatures, not versions that have been traced or altered. — Noisalt ( talk) 16:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
The vectorisation issue is not really policy, it's technical. As far as accuracy of images goes there is policy already which covers it. Rich Farmbrough, 21:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
I would say that John Hancock's signature is important to the understanding of his standing in popular culture, and if a person's signature is widely distributed on notes of monetary exchange (paper money), then that is also important. As well, the signatures artists use to sign their works. And counterfeit signatures produced by counterfeiters and fraudsters... (and probably the non-fraudulent version to compare it to) 76.66.197.30 ( talk) 04:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Quick (hopefully) question as things seem to have changed or become unclear: Should the |accessdate= parameter in {{ cite}} templates be given as in ISO (2009-09-16) format, or to match the format in the prose (16 September 2009)? OrangeDog ( talk • edits) 00:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Straight answer to the original question: write the month out in full. There is no need to use all-numeric dates in footnotes, we aren't that short of space. A majority at MOSNUM currently think that the YYYY-MM-DD format is user-hostile; some don't even regard it as completely unambiguous. -- Alarics ( talk) 10:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
{{#dateformat:date|format}}
where format is mdy, dmy, ymd or ISO 8601. But how compare {{#dateformat:2009-09-24|dmy}}
to September 9, 2009
? Then you would have to have a switch to disable formatting for dates outside the Gregorian calendar. ---—
Gadget850 (Ed)
talk 00:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC){{#dateformat:...|{{{dateformat}}}}}
around the dates output by the templates, adding a "dateformat" parameter to all the cite templates, and editing every use of the cite templates in the article to specify the appropriate value for the dateformat parameter. And then watching forever for anyone to add new references to the article without a dateformat or with the wrong dateformat.{{#dateformat:...}}
around the dates output by the templates, and adding {{DEFAULTDATEFORMAT:...}}
to the article.The community has determined, in more than several RfCs and long discussions, that date formats are best left alone. We do not want to return to the situation where WPian editors see something different from what our readers see. The shambolic state of date formats under the old "dynamic dates" system (they were anything but dynamic) demonstrated the need for us as WPians not privilege ourselves over our readers, especially when (1) what was at issue was so trivial, and (2) dmy and mdy are readily understood by all English-speakers. The same principle has recently come up WRT to the selection by a small proprortion of WPians of a default thumbnail size bigger than the 180px our readers see. This is not conducive to the exercise of reader-oriented judgements and maintenance. End of story.
Furthermore, the notion that edit-mode should be cluttered (a lot, since there are a lot of dates) with in-house syntax goes against the principle that WP is the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". There are growing complaints that WP is less welcoming and a little daunting for outsiders to edit. See the Time magazine article linked from The Signpost this week for more on that. We need to minimise syntax bloat. Tony (talk) 03:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
It’s not complex. Do what is common practice in any well-written, English-language publication that is intended to be read by people for whom English is their first language, as well as by those for whom English is their second language: write out the name of the month. Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book are found in libraries throughout the world. Notwithstanding this international readership, these quality publications wisely don’t write out event times like “2008-11-09T17:42.” Even though English-language newspapers are found all over the world, something like 99% of those that subscribe to the Associated Press feed also adhere to the AP’s manual of style, which also calls for writing out the names of months and also provides a short-form list (May, June, Sept. Oct.). If a date is in a citation, use the A.P. short-form (Science Week, Issue 136, Sept. 15, 2006). If it’s a table, consider using fixed three-letter abbreviations. In full-blown body text, write the name of the month completley; everyone understands what “9 November 2008” and “November 9, 2008” means. Moreover, the practice reads very naturally and smoothly without having to count on one’s fingers to find out what month “5” is. Just write ‘em out. That simple. That Wikipedia is *international* does not make it unique. That it is *electronic* doesn’t change a thing. Greg L ( talk) 06:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
To answer the original question, either is acceptable, it's your choice. wjemather bigissue 08:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Accessdates are meta-data. As such they really don't belong on the rendered page at all. We only allow them there because of the vagaries of the web - can you imagine if we cited "J. Bio Phys V 115 pp. 112-8 read 13 September at Stamford Public Library, seat N.13"? I am not sure hiding them completely or making them (part of) alt text is a good idea, but I certainly wouldn't be against it. Who would miss having them on display? Not I! Rich Farmbrough, 12:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC).
The references section should use whatever is used in the rest of the article. That is: normal English dates, in whatever country's format is appropriate. No ISO dates, and no magic words, unless we agree to do those for all dates throughout the article. — Noisalt ( talk) 16:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
There is now a page inviting comments on the proposal to deprecate YYYY-MM-DD in footnotes. It is at Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal_on_YYYY-MM-DD_numerical_dates. -- Alarics ( talk) 19:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Is the following quote from the Chemtrail conspiracy theory considered neutral? It seems to be an application of the ad hominem argument
Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is quoted in USA Today as saying that logic is not exactly a real selling point for most chemtrail proponents: "If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it's, 'Well, you're just part of the conspiracy'," he said.
Further discussion at Talk:Chemtrail conspiracy theory#Maintaining NPOV. Smallman12q ( talk) 12:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
A little while back now English Wikipedia approved a trial of some configuration changes to allow users to control the default display of recent revisions to anonymous readers using new classes of page protection which delay the display of new edits by anons rather than prohibiting editing like normal forms of protection do. This is described over at Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions. The Wikimedia technical staff setup a staging wiki to try out the configuration before hitting the switch on English Wikipedia. But the configuration has not been activated there and I have seen further publicly visible progress in spite of multiple inquiries.
I've begun a thread on foundation-l about this. I thought it may be of a more general interest because of the considerable impact to the English Wikipedia. Cheers. -- Gmaxwell ( talk) 04:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
It has become increasingly obvious that we have some serious confusion when it comes to the various policies and guidelines that tell us how to name articles. There are so many sub-conventions, "carve outs" and exceptions to general WP:Naming conventions policy that it is almost meaningless. In addition, we have several guidelines, originally created to further explain things stated in the policy, that have been edited to the point where they actually contradict the policy and/or each other. I think the only way to resolve this confusion is to conduct a systematic review of the entire policy area... determine where consensus has and has not changed, what should and should not be an exception to the policy... and get rid of contradictions. This is not a task that should be undertaken by a few... broad community involvement is needed. Blueboar ( talk) 14:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
It was recently agreed in a discussion here that any large-scale automated or semi-automated article creation task should go through WP:BRFA. Not much seems to have been done to implement this though, and such large-scale article creations as Sasata's recent fungi articles, or Fergananim's very short articles on medieval Irish abbots (currently at articles for deletion) have apparently received no such approval. I was very much in favour of this decision, but I remember some contributors objecting that it would just be another layer of rules that would have no practical effect. Are there any suggestions on how to advertise and implement this decision? Lampman ( talk) 16:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
The Irish abbots are not really large-scale. Rich Farmbrough, 22:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
One idea would be an edit filter to trigger (throttle) a warning message after creating a several new pages in a short period of time. -- ThaddeusB ( talk) 02:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Note: this "policy" that was decided upon, by the way, isn't in accordance with wikipedia bot policy. Wikipedia bot policy requires a community discussion of the issue, not BAG approval, for a bot. -- 69.225.5.4 ( talk) 18:19, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
In Naomi Klein somebody is changing the code style of citation templates, because he thinks it gets more readable. Although it's obvious that the formatting he uses is bad, he is right that it's hard to read and edit big citation macros. But I'm not sure what is best. Is there some guideline for this? I can't find anything.
As an example, the "inline" formatting that is most commonly used is hard to read:
Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://departmentofculture.ca/video-naomi-klein-at-last-nights-town-hall/| title= Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall|accessdate=2009-02-17 |author= |date= September 4, 2008 |work= | publisher= DepartmentOfCulture.ca}}</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
But the vertical layout makes the two parts of text look like they don't aren't in the same paragraph any more:
Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref> {{cite web |url= http://departmentofculture.ca/video-naomi-klein-at-last-nights-town-hall/ |title= Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall |accessdate= 2009-02-17 |author= |date= September 4, 2008 |work= |publisher= DepartmentOfCulture.ca }}</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
The using in question in his edits( [14] as one example) uses the vertical layout, but for some reason with one empty line in between each row, which is completely weird. So I'll change that, but to what? Is there a style guide for this, and if not, what do people here prefer in general? Is there a better option? -- OpenFuture ( talk) 20:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
{{cite xxx}}
templates down the bottom and out of the text, which would then have the two ends of <ref></ref>
much closer together:Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref>[[#refDofCvideo|Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall]]</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
Article 35 of Argentina's Ley de Propiedad Intelectual (Ley 11.723 (235) del Poder Ejecutivo Nacional) sets the copyright for photographs at twenty years from the date of first publication. The WP pd-license tag Template:PD-AR-Photo says essentially the same thing; however, the corresponding Commons tag, Commons:Template:PD-AR-Photo also requires that the photograph have been created at least twenty-five years ago in order for it to be considered PD, a condition set out in the Berne Convention, Article 7(4). Two questions:
-- Rrburke( talk) 22:29, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
i installed a "gallery" in the article Love and Rockets (comics) which has been "deleted"... i just read the policy on Wikipedia:Galleries (#6 fair use) but i think it does not apply to a "gallery" of different books, which is still "fair use" for me...
it means, for an article like Whitney Houston discography, we will never see the cover near the title for every cd?!
thanks in advance for your comment + help kernitou talk 23:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thanks kernitou talk 05:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
WP has about 10,000,000 user accounts but only 150,000 active within a one month period. Of the 10 million accounts I suspect that the vast majority have only been used to create one page or used for vandalism. Also, many users are blocked for various reasons. Having an easy process to create an account adds an unnecessary workload to editors (and to the servers to a lesser degree). Since anonymous editors can edit WP there is no reason for the easy creation of an account unless the editor is prepared to help rather than hinder the building of WP. Any edits that an anon editor would want to see happen but cannot do can be outlined on the talk page.
In order to restrict new accounts I propose that:
Note that my proposal still allows for editing WP by anyone (as an anon) but it restricts the creation of an account. WP should be "the free encyclopedia that anyone who wants to help can edit" and not for the hordes of vandals and others intent on wrecking WP. This proposal will hopefully keep the vandals at bay but not scare off those who help WP (as anons or users). Spending time at Special:NewPages will see that there is merit in this proposal since a large percentage of pages from new accounts are deleted.
An alternative method of reducing editor workload would be to have full implementation of Flagged revisions. -- Alan Liefting ( talk) - 07:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
(outdent)
Replies:
Accounts used to create one page if that is a good page are great accounts. We block accounts fairly easily and more people are probably creating accounts since we stopped anons doing it. It takes about 2-3 users on Huggle to keep up with newbie vandalism I reckon, and allowing newbie accounts to vandalise then get banned means they spend more time creating accounts and getting past edit filters than they so vandalising. The average quality of the writing on WP articles is so low we desperately need more people who will fix the copy-edit requirements. Rich Farmbrough, 21:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
I think this proposal goes in exactly the wrong direction. Its main effects would be (1) to discourage people from bothering to become seriously involved, because of the extra trouble, and (2) to encourage people to continue indefinitely to edit from IP addresses, which makes it less easy to keep track off who is doing what. I really do not see that it would have any significant advantage at all. The requirement to provide an email address is totally pointless, as people would simply create pointless throwaway email addresses: that is what I do when registering on sites that require an email address and I see no reason why they should do so, and that is what I would have done when I registered on Wikipedia had it been a requirement. The idea that this wold be a way to "to restrict new accounts" makes very little sense. JamesBWatson ( talk) 09:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I posted a link to a Facebook page and it was removed by an editor citing WP:NOTFACEBOOK. To me that policy seems to mean that WP is not to be used for social networking. It doesn't say that it's forbidden to post a link to a Facebook page (under "external links") that is related to the article's topic and may be of interest to readers. It might well be a good idea to have a policy forbidding Facebook links, but that is not what WP:NOTFACEBOOK says. The discussion is at Talk:Moonie (term). Steve Dufour ( talk) 23:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
For the convenience of anyone reading this and wanting to read where this is spelt out, WP:ELNO number 10 is it. JamesBWatson ( talk) 09:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I'm generally a believer that myspace and facebook links should be blacklisted. They are not reliable, and they are not professional. These are two criterion that links to any other website would be scrutinized against. However, as JC mentioned, there are always exceptions. Facebook and myspace are not reliable for a BLP. However, if an article-worthy news event surfaces that is centred upon something on myspace or facebook, it may warrant linking to. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
refDofCvideo
(ie [[#refDofCvideo|Vid ...]]
and |ref=refDofCvideo
) you don't need to "manually have to figure out what reference is meant". The click on the [1] takes you to the short notes, the relevant one being (in Firefox anyway, with Monobook) highlighted in pale blue. Part of the short note will be a bluelink. Click that, it takes you to the relevant citation which is also highlighted in pale blue. For a working example in a short article, try
Abingdon Road Halt railway station --
Redrose64 (
talk) 22:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref>"[http://departmentofculture.ca/video-naomi-klein-at-last-nights-town-hall/ Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall]." DepartmentOfCulture.ca. September 4, 2008. Retrieved 2009-02-17.</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
To return to the original question. Templates can be in horizontal or vertical format— there is no consensus for one or the other, but use should be consistent within an article. I see no reason for the blank lines in the vertical format. Some believe it is a good practice to remove unused parameters. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:21, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
We've agreed on a format for Naomi Klein now anyway, and I like it. :-) -- OpenFuture ( talk) 11:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
File:Hematoma Feb 07.jpg was moved to Commons last November and the local image deleted, two months after someone had posted a message on its talk page. I just discovered the existence of the talk page and deleted it under G8, since the local image had been deleted. Is this justified? Moreover, if this talk page had been created after the image was moved to Commons, rather than before, would it be speedyable? It seems so to me, since the local image doesn't exist, but I thought that it might be different because the file exists and is usable here. Nyttend ( talk) 19:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
What about using soft redirects to the relevant commons talk pages? -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 13:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Proposal at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee code of conduct. Input would be appreciated. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 09:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikiproject Baseball has been having a long long discussion (that has gotten nasty at times, but has become civil once more) over just exactly how minor league baseball players fit into WP:ATHLETE, and when exactly some other form of notability or coverage overrides WP:ATH and justifies an otherwise non-notable player from having an independant article. The discussion can be seen here. Here are a few examples of questions I put in a table in the discussion. We'd love any input you folks have. Staxringold talk contribs 16:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Person | Background |
---|---|
Stephen Strasburg | #1 overall pick in 2009 Major League Baseball Draft, and Olympics competition. No ML appearances. |
Tim Beckham | #1 overall pick in 2008 Major League Baseball Draft. No ML appearances. |
Drew Carpenter | Short ML appearance, otherwise non-notable. |
Moonlight Graham | Similar to above, one appearance (though outside fictional notability) |
Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel | No ML appearances but "first" notability as first Indians signed by ML team, also won Indian contest/game show (though that show doesn't yet have an article). In other words, would Jackie Robinson be notable after his signing but before he appeared in an ML game? (perhaps a bad example, since Robinson was a notable Negro Leaguer before that) |
Dustin Ackley | #2 overall pick in 2009 Major League Baseball Draft. Currently 4/5, 7/10, and 12/20 in the 09 draft have their own article. Notability as a #1 overall pick is one thing, but how deep into the draft are you notable simply for being a high draft pick? |
Pat Venditte | 1345th overall pick of the 07 draft, 620th pick in 08 draft. Switch pitcher who had specific MiL rule created to deal with him. |
The guy with Olympic experience would be automatically notable, as would the the guys with "short ML experience." Otherwise, two significant sources is what it will take to be notable (which is not much)... Checking the specifics, all appear to be notable - failing ATH is never sufficient reason to exclude anyone. -- ThaddeusB ( talk) 00:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
There is an open RFC dealing with the mechanics of policy creation. It needs some input. Wikipedia_talk:User_categories#Guideline status. SchmuckyTheCat ( talk) 20:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
The issue of the default thumbnail size of 180px has come to a head after many years. All input is welcome. Thanks. Dabomb87 ( talk) 01:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Same article as discussed above but a different policy. Differences of opinion about WP:Not a dictionary came up in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moonies. (I voted to keep, BTW.) But does "not a dictionary" mean there should be no articles on the meanings and use of words, or are some words so important that they are exceptions? Steve Dufour ( talk) 03:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it really time that this project grew up beyond letting people add every passing mention of an article subject in a Cartoon network show to an article's "In Popular Culture" section. Shouldn't every "in popular culture" listing require a mention in a secondary source to establish the notability of the reference to the subject. Do we really need to know that Downtown Los Angeles was mentioned in a Family Guy episode? Is that inherently notable without a reliable source commenting on it. And don't get me started on people adding that their favorite pop star has played a concert into every article about a concert venue, despite that these venues host concerts by notable people every day of the week. We should have some specific guidelines to cover these things, I'll help write them if people agree. Rant over. Mfield ( Oi!) 04:51, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Most of the pop culture refs in articles are just mere trivia by people with no clue about how encyclopedias work. It's an unfortunate side effect of being open to editing by everyone and there being so many people who want to edit but who have nothing of any value to add. I am one of many editors who go around removing most of this on sight, but it takes determination to stop the flow. Wikipedia should really have some official response for these situations... like a talk page template encouraging them to head over to wikia.com and go crazy with all that crap they want. It might cut down on repeat drive-by triviacruft. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:37, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
The question should always be whether the reference actually tells you something about the subject beyond "this was mentioned here." At its worst, it's almost like reverse annotations—explaining every one-off reference in a song, TV episode, etc. by listing those references in articles on what is referenced rather than in the article on the TV episode. Empire State Building would be seriously lacking without a description of its iconic use in King Kong. But listing every television show or video game where it can be seen in the background is completely useless. That's the issue with such widely-known landmarks—they're shown in so many creative works because they provide a quick and easy way to establish location. Listing all of those in the article on the landmark itself serves no purpose.
Nothing I've seen so far can top this as a contender for most useless pop culture reference ever added to an article. Postdlf ( talk) 16:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Is it time to point to User:Uncle G/Cargo cult encyclopaedia article writing and User:Uncle G/On the discrimination of what is indiscriminate again, so soon? Uncle G ( talk) 22:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
God, can't we focus on content instead of squabbling? Let's try a few examples, to see if we can figure a rough guideline - I doubt of bright line is possible:
These are just examples of the top of my head. I suggest other contribute examples and then we have a decent range we try try ranking them and then which fails passes the cut. -- Philcha ( talk) 09:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Fiction is not a topic of less worth than others. By it's nature it must be handled with care, to avoid mixing fiction and reality, but that's it. And "popular culture" of today will be classical stuff of tomorrow, as classical stuff of today was "popular culture" of it's time.
Having said that, I notice there's a problem in some of the links provided, but the real problem is not fiction or popular culture: it's the degree of detail that articles should have, and how to keep them well focused on their topic. It would be a bad idea to mention all the times the White House has appeared on movies, TV shows or whatever (either as a location of a story or as a background building), as it would be to mention all the real events, ceremonies, rulings and whatever that took place inside it's walls (even if all real and "scholary"). Perhaps the thread should be restarted from that angle, popular culture is not the real issue but just a manifestation of it, and it tends to polarize opinions of users. MBelgrano ( talk) 01:35, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
The real problem is that that information should only be given to people who want it. The films that use Carmina Burana in their soundtrack may have it noted, it should then be simple a simple extension of intersecting "what links here" and "category:films" (or more smartly). Rich Farmbrough, 12:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC).
My take on pop culture references (and for purposes of discussion, say work X is "referenced" in work Y) is that:
Any other use is frivolous and engages in OR. This allows for some "in pop culture" sections, but keeps them trimmed to what is appropriate for an encyclopedia. -- MASEM ( t) 14:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Actually... Couldn't WP:UNDUE apply in this case? In a sense, different aspects of the subject of the article (including popular culture references) might not be that different from points of view... -- Martynas Patasius ( talk) 22:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Of course there is already an essay that deals excellently with this topic. WP:IPC says ""In popular culture" sections should be carefully maintained and contain sourced examples demonstrating a subject's cultural significance." I don't think it can be summarised any better then that, and I hope nobody disagrees with that statement. Lampman ( talk) 12:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I believe it's high time we made WP:IPC a guideline, and the arguments against it I've seen above haven't really impressed me at all. Here's how I'd categorise them:
We need to put WP:IPC into guideline form fast. The absolute purists among us may not agree with the wording of this essay, but I think it's the best we'll be able to pass at the moment. The reason why it's important, is that if anyone gets into an edit war over the usefulness of popular culture trivia in an article; then being able to point to a guideline will really help their cause. I suggest we take this to the WP:IPC page, and try to gain consensus for creating a new guideline. Lampman ( talk) 02:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
There's an essay floating around about how some articles simply don't need to link to others, more or less because of WP:WEIGHT, and about what I'm going to say.
If say, I take the article Oregon, and I want to link it to the city I call my home (away from school), that would be giving my quite small city, which is relatively unimportant to the overall topic of the state of Oregon, unneeded weight in 'Oregon'. It's (might be) alright, however, to link to Oregon from Forest Grove, because Forest Grove is in Oregon and is part of Oregon's topic.
This can be applied to the ordinary case of trivia/popular culture, easily. Say we have random Simpsons episode #XYZ. This Simpsons episode may make reference to A place, B person, and C meme. These things, however, aren't relevant to that A place, B person, or C meme as wholes, but they might be relevant to Simpsons episode article. In that case, we then need to judge the referencing available for this connection, so that we can avoid original research. If the referencing is poor for the connection, simply put, the information should be removed. If not, then it should still be up to the individual article contributors. If they think it's worthy of inclusion in the Simpsons article and that it has the right context, then they have the power to include it. If they don't think it is worthy of inclusion, then we default again to the case of removal.
That's basically what our guidelines say, too. -- Izno ( talk) 05:30, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
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As in any utopia, Wiki started with Good Intentions to encompass as much knowledge as possible with as few rules as possible. The site has been, and continues, to undergo a metamorphosis into an elite static battleground of editors.
Although there are exhortations to be bold and break rules ... in practice no edit to a page is ever quite good enough, and few pages meet the increasingly picky standards of increasing picky elite editors. Although the claim is that anyone can edit without exhaustive familiarity with the current editorial standards, in practice that is not the case. There is now a very exacting process for submission and approval of new work. One editor even went as far as to say about all the articles folks have interest in, already appear in Wiki. That is the same as the senior Patent Official in the US about a 100 years ago saying there are no further inventions to patent anymore.
Evidence of this can be seen in the increasing bureaucratic rules governing edit wars, the time and efforts devoted to conflict resolution, "consensus", what Wiki "isn't", what is notable, what is significant, etcetera, etcetera. Wiki has gone from acquiring new information to defense of existing information and rejection of new information.
Editors are by nature and practice negative. In lieu of submitting fresh data it is always easier and more satisfying to delete and criticize and find fault. One editor stated that cleaning up an article was more difficult and important than acquisition of new data (aka an article).
I believe the tide has now turned such that no newbie is welcome anymore, and unless an existing Wiki gatekeeper can be absolutely convinced of the notability of an article and that precise editorial standards be followed, forget about it appearing in Wiki. Ever. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and the Wiki quality assurance Gestapo is in full control today.
If anyone has any suggestions how to reverse this downward death spiral, please offer them up. Google's Knol seems to be the logical successor to Wiki, where authors lock down their work, are named, and articles compete in usefulness.
I mean, if folks are going have to go through the same effort to see their work in Wiki or Knol, might as well submit to Knol and not have to worry about getting abruptly deleted at the whim of yet another elitist.
Google is so powerful simply because it doesn't screen anything out. Annoying to sort through all the rubbish, but I am also grateful to find what I need even if it means sorting through 20 search pages. And I am keenly aware that one person's rubbish is another person's goldmine.
If anyone here believes utopias are sustainable ... they are not. Wiki can either evolve or end up on the ash heap of every single utopia that has ever been tried. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs) 15:56, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
You are correct, there are a couple of points here intertwined. I'll defer to your expertise that Wiki will survive beyond Jimmy Wales. My concern would be that without revenue from ads or a broad base of donors ... it is in a risky position. A lot of my original works have been picked up by other web sites that sustain on advertising revenues, so if I went away tomorrow I'm pretty sure the works would continue on. (Greed is a much more reliable predictor of human behavior than altruism.)
My issue with notability is that there is no accepted standard. And what is notable today is often not notable in the future. And what seems unremarkable today can prove crucial in the future. In the print days, editors had to cut, that was just the nature of the technology, and no way around it. There are always limits, but computers have extended the possibilities enormously. My guess is Wiki could handle 30 million articles now and upwards 300 million in the future. The money may not be there but the technology is. Notability is such a nebulous concept that most decisions are just arbitrary anyway and guaranteed to inflame folks.
As you hint, trying to shake human nature is difficult, and in the case of WP:NOTABILITY probably impossible. Wiki's professed ideals (grandiose but inspiring nonetheless) of a comprehensive source of reasonably reliable data that anyone can add to, is simply not being followed. Period. I believe that disconnect of practice from theory is what galls people. If Wiki had said upfront you need prior approval for articles, nothing is guaranteed to appear, etc., etc. folks would understand and not do a slow burn.
So if I ran the circus, I would have every editor read and sign a statement of principles (or the equivalent) that makes it crystal clear nothing gets deleted unless there is a compelling reason. And if the data can possibly be included ... it stays. An editor should stretch the limits within legal requirements.
Second, I would have a very brief training program for editors. Have them write a sample article, another persons makes changes to their article (good, bad, off topic, on topic, vandalism, unkind comments, etc.) and check their reaction to it. Do they accept the data and stretch? Or get ticked anyone touched their work and delete it.
Wiki is going to end up with a lot of seemingly trivial data, and a lot of pages of no interest to anyone but the author for now. That isn't a lot different than reality at a major computer center now. (The acronym is "WORN" ... write once, read never.)
On the other hand Wiki stands by its egalitarian principles, and creates a big pool (we are talking millions here) of potential donors softened up, ego stroked, and easy to tap. And these donors don't have to do much heavy lifting to justify their donation, maybe just some innocuous edits would satisfy their need to contribute.
Three percent (not unreasonable for a charity drive) of 3 million is 90,000 that at $100 per donor (average) is $9 mil a year. Year after year you can hit these folks up and they are already in an automated system. Of course, if you get 30 million articles ... you are talking upwards $100 mil and real money. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 17:35, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it obligatory to include "moron", "idiot", "kook", "troll", and "lunatic" in discussions on this page? Just curious. However I commend Camelbinky for sticking by his principles. And not being afraid to say so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs) 02:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Good G! First some well-mannered wikipedian calls me a troll, then the Oracle Himself (hush ye peasants!) calls me "by nature and practice negative". Doctor, they're everywhere! duck and cover. Sysops: don't you dare archiving this, we might miss some crucial revelations here... NVO ( talk) 03:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Well you do have a way with the King's English! Editors exist in the real world to smooth out the rough edges and keep things within available technology and resources ("money"). If Wikipedia (there I spelled it out) has limits (disk space, article #, article length, etcetera) then decisions are made to content and priorities made. The decisions about notability will be arbitrary and capricious but ... tough noogies. Technology limits are technology limits. People understand.
And so now my crucial revelations are now revealed. Wikipedia is text and doesn't handle multimedia well (no indexing system does). My area of expertise (music performance) does not lend itself to writing an article within the rules of Wikipedia ... even the ones I agree with.
If I dumped on the Couperin page guy, I have to apologize. After being called a kook, lunatic, idiot, moron, etc. here I thought by avoiding insults I was well within the general quality of discourse. Obviously I was wrong.
Since Wikipedia doesn't handle multi-media well, most music composer pages have outside links to sheet music, YouTube performances, commercial sites, etc. There is just no other easy way to handle it. There is text about composers, text about pieces, but musicians just want the music and sound file. Period. With as little hassle as possible. Like just one click.
I realize the music community is quite a bit different than the Wikipedia text article writing community (especially now). But if Wikipedia wants to extend their outreach a bit, some rules have to be ... stretched. People here that write more than a plausible # of articles in their area of expertise, like essjay with 16,000, are just copying stuff from the internet, changing enough words to avoid copyright violation, and calling it their own. That isn't in the same ballpark as the world class pages at Wikipedia.
Music (and other multimedia) on the other hand, is quite a bit different ball of wax. Few people (unlike text) can use a music editor or have much training in the area. Copyrights are hotly contested and productivity seems low compared to text writing. And no composer is going to casually give up copyright. (WikiMusic appears to be copyright-violation heaven.)
So if anyone can point me to a place where this can get ironed out without having to personally negotiate and get pre-approval from over a hundred editors that range from "its okay" to "I'm going to blow a nut" ... please let me know. I think I have resolved the only bona fide technical issue that folks could object to, short of satisfying increasing narrow nit-picky rules that spring up like crabgrass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 16:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a big difference between "can not" and "don't want your stuff". I think unless a page goes over the top with more than 50 outside links, it is not an issue. When a page has NO link to ANY sheet music, your claim is really really reaching for some reason, any reason, to exclude data.
There is really no hardware capacity issue with including a lot of text and outside links in an article. But it may offend an editor that there might, just might be other sources folks are interested in, besides their sum total article.
I'm more than familiar with the music sites you gave, and many more (including ones with significant copyright issues). I didn't bother with them because of their difficulty of use and odd indexing schemes. Besides my stuff is already at 8notes.com (I have one piece on their classical top 20), and a hundred pieces at freescores.com (without my permission). It is a bit difficult going after a person in another country for copyright infringement, and since I'm in it for the fame anyway, don't mind the exposure.
If I seem a little unhappy, it is not with a particular editor's judgement to accept or reject. It is with Wikipedia's grandiose philosphy and come on that anybody can add, edit, and contribute ... and find out it is just not so. Knol says upfront here are the rules, you can get bounced at anytime, and we will likely not tell you why. And your page is locked. Truthful and upfront. Take your chances.
Now if you want to outreach to the music performance community, it is time to go back to basic Wikipedia principles (which at this point is just hype) and dispense with spending ever more effort to find reasons to reject data. Multimedia files get large quickly and Wikipedia is not prepared to handle them (few sites are). Links are the only feasible solution. If an editor is offended that folks want the music and not the article text, that is the way it is in music performance.
Now if you want to ding me about self-aggrandizement, why exactly are you and everyone else at Wikipedia? To be anonymous? To cut stuff simply because there could possibly be an outside chance they may benefit from it (aka fame) is ridiculous. If the data are good and on topic, no Wikipedia user cares, no matter how much Wikipedia bureaucracy gets entirely bent out of shape about it.
Sorry for the length here, but it seems short compared with a whole lot of guidance stuff within Wikipedia. (I haven't seen a rule about length here ... but the day isn't over yet.) And you are welcome to call it a rant ... but it doesn't score any points with professionals and whomever reads this stuff for their research on Wikipedia's strengths and weaknesses.
Don't think that the upper echelon of Wikipedia hasn't closely studied Knol and is worried (anything Google does can be worrisome), and Google didn't spend a lot of time and money studying Wikipedia and its strengths and weaknesses, before launching Knol.
So here is a chance for you to champion opening up Wikipedia through your experience and insider knowledge. Oracle2universe ( talk) 19:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
You are right, and I was wrong to place my opinions on this page. And your advice is excellent! Adieu! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs) 13:56, August 28, 2009
Lately, I've noticed that in different language versions of Wikipedia people have started to become a little rebellious and keep referring to everything as "that's the way eng wikipedia handles things, our wikipedia is different". This seems to be #1 reason to change and remove basic rules of the original wikipedia, to shape it for their pleasing. Is this kind of behavior allowed and encouraged or is it not? -- 88.115.50.38 ( talk) 08:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't. Read the original question. -- 88.115.50.38 ( talk) 16:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
In the Irish Wolfhound article under the history section an editor has added several paragraphs of text from a public domain work, without attribution. What is the Wikipedia policy on this? There is a huge amount of text to format. Should the text be left in, whilst a gradual effort to format it is made, or should it be excised from the article? Matt J User| Talk 12:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your help everyone, I have decided to remove the text in question, as it was not formatted correctly, and written in the first person.Matt J User| Talk 14:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Could someone explain what an XfD close of "Keep without prejudice" means/implies/entails? OrangeDog ( talk • edits) 18:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
That is already the case now, even if no editor comes out and says so. Effectively the pages are edit locked ... only it is AFTER you edit that you find it out when stuff is deleted. Human nature being what it is, no author ever wants their work touched and finding ever more picky and silly reasons to reject edits ... is how it is done. (Amazing how people rationalize.)
Just take your information (and whatever else looks good on the page), go to Knol, rewrite enough to avoid copyright infringement, and if you work is accepted, figure no one is going to change it.
I'm surprised folks here haven't figured this out yet. I mean, you can be the essjay of Knol! (And remember with all the Wiki stuff under some commons license, it doesn't take too much rewriting to clear copyright issues.)
Jimmy Wales just HAS to be getting tired of the endless hassles his baby creates for him.
I mean, here is an innocuous mainstream media story, talking about a plan and yet another Wiki apologist blows a nut and trashes anyone outside their Wiki sewing circle. Yes, let's strive for as much accuracy in Wiki and immediately assume a professional journalist at the Telegraph is knee-jerk wrong —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracle2universe ( talk • contribs)
I notice that many articles have book titles italicized in the bibliographies. This contradicts prevailing print conventions, in which book titles are underlined. Can someone point me to a place where this protocol has been discussed? If it hasn't been, is there any good reason why Wikipedia shouldn't conform with the published academic literature? 24.22.141.252 ( talk) 10:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
At the top of the article titled prisoner, I added this:
Is there a standard form for such notices? Or is Wikipedia forbidden to mention that this word is a euphemism? Michael Hardy ( talk) 13:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
The Wiktionary templates are not limited solely to disambiguation articles, nor were ever meant to be, Propaniac. And, Michael Hardy, such links to Wiktionary should be interwiki links ([[wikt:inmate#English|its Wiktionary entry]], producing " its Wiktionary entry") not external links as you have in the above. Notice, by the way, the specification of the relevant language heading in the link. Uncle G ( talk) 13:16, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
A Wiktionary link never belongs at the top of an article. Further, Wikipedia relies on WP:V and WP:RS; wikis are not reliable sources, and their links belong in WP:EL. We don't link to non-reliable sources in Wikipedia articles, by policy. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 14:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
And on the original question, I changed the redirect on "inmate" to point to the more logical Prisoner instead. I don't think there's a need for a second wiktionary link on the prisoner page (I guess if people are given a link to "prisoner" on Wiktionary, they'll be able to navigate to the "inmate" entry fairly easily from that). And the information about it being a euphemism etc. (unless you have some extensive sourced material on that subject) certainly seems to belong in a dictionary rather than an encyclopedia.-- Kotniski ( talk) 15:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conflict ( | 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) 02:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Due to the latest conflict over this guideline, I have fully-protected the page for two weeks. Hopefully that will give everyone time to sort it all out on the talk page. — Kralizec! ( talk) 01:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Hello Wikipedians, thanks for all your great work. I'm new to Wikipedia, and interested in the rules defining movie entries and personal opinion.As encylopedia facts should be verified by previous written sources, do I have to find a review of a movie that I agree with to quote? Naturally my point of view regarding any movie is the only one that matters, and all should bow down before me....I realise that opinions of movies are wildly varied. I'm trying to understand the definitive wikipedia view of movie information. I appreciate that maths, science, academic subjects etc must have accepted sources and be written in neutral tones. (This does not exclude a warm and enthusiastic sense of the subject matter).If Wikipedia has a movie that is extremely contentious,who has the final say as to it's social meaning or intent? If the director is the arbitor of meaning, the author of the book the movie is made from might strongly disagree.I realise also that any major stuff ups I enter will be deleted by the more knowledgable. Hoping to avoid the bunfight of subjectivity ,I remain yours sincerely Ern Malleyscrub ( talk) 06:46, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Anarchism referencing guidelines ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm wondering how one deals with articles that seem to have a long history of tendentious editing, basically, articles that are lengthy and have a great deal of content, but the article is strongly unbalanced toward a particular point of view or otherwise has undue weight problems. In other words, one editor or a group of editors have basically flooded the article with a large mass of cited content, but clearly leaning (and in some cases, only giving) one point of view on a controversial topic. Three articles I have in mind are Adolescent sexuality in the United States, Feminist views on prostitution, and Prostitution (criminology). It seems in dealing with articles of this kind, one is left with two bad alternatives: 1) start adding balancing content, which in the case of a "flooded" article, may take a great deal of time and effort to get the article to a point where its balanced, or 2) start deleting or paring down content that contributes toward slanting the article, but in the process end up deleting valid, referenced content. I'm not really sure how to deal with articles of this type, but unfortunately, it seems that a kind of "He who gets their soonest with the most 'facts', wins" dynamic can create a winning strategy for POV pushing on Wikipedia. Thoughts? Iamcuriousblue ( talk) 21:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
So in the past week, in the discussion on the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, 3 separate controversies about naming victims within the context of existing articles have arisen that can not be solved simply by WP:BLP.
1) Jaycee Lee Dugard is a (alleged) rape victim, and is clearly also an underage rape victim. Her name has been reported in major media publications as such, but clearly not with the victim's consent.
2) Jaycee Lee has two children whose names have been given in major media reports. These children are presumed to also be victims of physical abuse. Reporting these children's names may violate Florida's Crime Victim's Prevention Act of 1995 and other rape shield laws, and in many editors eyes, violates all standards of decency, as evidenced on the talk page. At this point, the children's names are not given in the article.
3) Another previous victim of the accused has appeared on "Larry King Live", giving her name and being interviewed about her rape experience. There is debate about whether to include her name in the article. Her name has been removed at the current time.
All of this together has exposed a need for a policy on victims privacy vs. the need for knowledge dissemination. I propose we think about some proposals.-- CastAStone //₵₳$↑₳ ₴₮ʘ№€ 01:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
There is a review of the first section " Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use the most easily recognized name" of the Naming conventions policy, which could result in fundamental changes to the policy. -- PBS ( talk) 09:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
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I am not sure whether the issue was already discussed and settled, but the FA of Harvey Milk arose my further concerns about LGBT and particularly gay issues in Wiki. I think that further nominations of LGBT persons to FAs or GAs breaches WP:SOAP, not to mention NPOV. In Milk's case the article, but most specifically, the lead does not show that he had better merits other than being the first openly gay in public office in California. As such, I support the introduction of additional notice into WP:WIAFA and WP:WIAGA, which restricts the nominations of persons or subjects, that are notable primarily by LGBT issues in any field (as a part of FA and GA neutrality criterions). Brand t] 11:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I am the primary author of the Harvey Milk article. I was assisted in copy editing the article by another editor, Dank ( talk · contribs), but I constructed the prose and text of the article almost entirely by myself. I am confident that the article reflects a summary of the citations that are listed. They are listed so that anyone who wishes to scrutinize the content knows down to the page number where to find source material. I suppose this should be said: Wikipedia articles should summarize third-party source accurately. The article should be comprehensive, which it is. If you know of source material that is reliable, beyond question in its validity that was not added to the article, please mention it now. I will get hold of it as quickly as possible. What is in the article is the result of two months of reading the various books I either purchased myself, got through Interlibrary Loan, or read through over 200 microfilms to reflect newspaper articles written about Milk at the time. -- Moni3 ( talk) 15:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Wow! Now I really want to write an LGBT-related article and bring it to FA status.
Arthur Rimbaud is certainly
I propose we reject this proposal as a breach of the spirit of wikipedia and spend our time productively getting some LGBT-related articles upto FA. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 17:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
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I've closed this discussion that fell off the page as carried. The proposal as edited (requiring BAG approval, soliciting but not mandating Wikiproject input) has broad support. Objections are split between opinion that BAG may not be the ideal forum in case the creation is semi-automated, hesitation over adding a new hurdle to (some) article creation, and concerns that the proposal is redundant to existing BAG requirements — none of which appear to be compelling enough to override the general support. — Coren (talk) 17:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I seem to recall that there's a policy which says something to the effect that "people might misuse it" is not a valid argument in deletion debates and the like; can someone remind me where and what that policy is, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Category deletion policy ( | 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) 02:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
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After reading Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Lawsuit_against_Wikipedia.3F, it seems apparent to me that we need a policy similar to WP:BLP that covers our editing of articles about companies. In this particular case, I think we're ok as the problematic material referenced by the lawsuit is sourced to secondary sources. However, in general, I think we need a policy that covers this sort of work and carries similar weight to WP:BLP. Wikipedia articles about companies can affect a company's reputation, profitability, and very existence. Wikipedia is a high profile site, and people looking for information about a particular company are likely to find the Wikipedia article about that company. Employee's jobs can be affected, and their families affected as a result. We should be sensitive to that and ensure that articles about companies are written to our highest standard. Jimbo Wales made reference to this three years ago. I do not mean to invoke Jimbo to ensure we get a policy on this matter, only to show that we need to seriously consider it. I've taken the text from WP:BLP and modified it to form Wikipedia:Articles about companies. Feel free to modify of course. Let's get a discussion going about having a policy on this. If this discussion has happened before, I'm all ears. If it has happened before, I'm very curious why it did not turn into policy. It seems very obvious to me that we need such a policy. -- Hammersoft ( talk) 14:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
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Hi. I'm writing regards the Danish wikipedia . Access to the Danish equivalent to 'Village Pump' is not possible with my browser . It is not that technical problem I am concerned about . My concern is that several administrators on the site does not seem to aknowledge argumentation . Instead they state facts . I base this on personal experience, i.e. not on a comprehensive investigation, but on their attitude towards specifically two wikipedia-accounts . Also, there are all of 500 wikipedians, here on the English site, with a reasonable command of Danish, so (I hope) my entry here wil not be a total fault . I can admit that I am close to 'trolling', in writing this, as well as concerning my entries on the Danish 'wikipedia' . But I maintain my 'trolling' must be viewed in context . A single example : Yesterday I added a picture to da:Skara Brae plus a sentence about it being the most complete neolithic settlement . A user then added 'missing source' . For the sentence I then made a note/reference to Skara Brae, using the whole article as source-reference . An administrator objected to the interwiki source-reference . Followingly I objected, since arbitrary articles do get translated, in a worst case by someone not familiar with the articlesubject, and not having read any of the sources mentioned in such an article . The interwiki referencing should obviously be a focus, but a total objection does not align with current praxis, and a specific objection should be a valued judgment . This lead to bombastic 'fact-statements' from yet another administrator, and another user as well . Currently the last sentence of da:Skara Brae reads that it cannot be said if Skara Brae is the most complete neolitic village, but that it gives a rare insight into living conditions and cult in that age, with the source pointing to UNESCO's entry for 'heart of orkney' . This was quite a nice resolve by me . The tone was not nice . Multiple occurences of such nags has, for me, constituted a feeling of being harassed . By administrators . Administrators involved :
da:Bruger:Masz,
da:Bruger:Broadbeer,
da:Bruger:Amjaabc,
da:Bruger:Palnatoke,
da:Bruger:Brandsen, Feel free to add to the list . There is also quite a climax, for those that read Danish, to be found here da:Brugerdiskussion:Pusleogpixi#test2 . The tone is plain mean . 84.238.88.6 ( talk) 02:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC) |
Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary ( | 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) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not contesting this, but where was the discussion about this? Irbisgreif ( talk) 05:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
There's been a fairly long running, slow burning, battle occurring on the
Wikipedia:Naming conflict (
talk page) guideline page (which is a supplement to the
Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy, for those of you who aren't aware of it). The debate seems to have degenerated into internacine infighting by this point, with the same or very similar arguments simply being batted back and forth, so some fresh eyes and opinions on the matter would be a good idea. Note that the guideline is currently edit protected, so nothing is going to change immediately regardless. Hopefully we can settle this before the page protection comes off though, so that it doesn't have to go back on. I would have just started an RfC on this, but we can't even seem to come to a decision about what the RfC would say right now. Any larger participation would be welcome (at least, to me it would be).
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω) 15:33, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Edit war ( | 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) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
It is very often difficult for new users to understand our policies and how our processes work, that's why I think we should have an introductory page on the internal workings of Wikipedia, separate from the introductory pages on editing. It should be easy enough to understand for newcomers, but still cover all our major policies and internal workings. I don't think we have any page like this, or a t any rate widely recognized. I hope we could write one. Though I'm not sure what the title should be. Ideas ? Cenarium ( talk) 00:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
The Guide to deletion is on every AFD notice, and at the top of every per-day AFD page. The Editor's index, Department directory, and Maintenance list are all right at the top of Wikipedia:Community portal. As for policies: Wikipedia:Five Pillars leads to many of them. Uncle G ( talk) 04:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd echo the need for some short, clear, helpful introductions. In developing the Article Wizard I've been conscious that a lot of the policy links we expect newbies to look at for clarification of simple points ("what's a reliable source?") are pretty full-on, having developed over long periods of time to clarify as many internal Wikipedia debates as possible. This would be less of a problem if more policy pages had good leads - but many are pretty crappy, and being placed at the top of a big page gives a WP:TLDR effect anyway. Perhaps we need some "policy summaries" or something; but it's going to lead to extra argument and maintenance so I don't relish the idea. Rd232 talk 08:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Draft policy rewrite has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Given that there are so many pages marked as requiring improvement, and the lists for each category tend to require 'several levels of clicks to find the relevant list' would it be possible to have a 'Random article requiring improvement' link (ie 'Random article' link combined with 'find relevant <tags>')? Jackiespeel ( talk) 17:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
All comments on the possible deprecation/deletion of {{ Future}} and related templates would be much appreciated at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Deprecating "Future" templates. Thank you! – Drilnoth ( T • C • L) 01:27, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
A recent study [4] concludes that "We consider this as evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content, especially when the edits come from occasional editors." I'm concerned with the RC patrol's rate of type I errors (i.e., the error of undue skepticism, e.g., a court finding a person guilty of a crime that they did not actually commit). There should be some penalty for "revert trolls", defined as editors that repeatedly revert legitimate, well-sourced statements that eventually make it into the article after lengthy discussion. It's really a pity that such editors keep wasting the time of experienced contributors and driving away potential new contributors. This issue seems to be of concern at large; see, e.g., 1, 2, [5], [6], and the whole Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary. Thanks. 128.138.43.254 ( talk) 19:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia developing leukemia
I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack ... may I interject some logic here? Based on what I see here there is an enormous amount of time spent resolving disputes instead of focusing on new data and the talent that produces it. It seems that every issue and dispute is just beaten down by the bureaucrats no matter how far they have to reach to find some "rule" that is in their favor. De facto lock down of pages, vengeance, getting even, sadistic revert editors ... is it any wonder that any newbie looks at this and says WTF? And bye bye?
There are more and more police at Wikipedia ("wikipolice") putting every single change under a microscope and deciding it is not appropriate. Too many police, like when a patient with leukemia has too many white blood cells. (Actually "Wiki-sicherheitdienst" might be a better term for the police here.)
The funny part, is that no one comes to Wikipedia with the expectation that the information is reliable. Just an entry point into the subject. Since the pages can be changed before you access them, there is no guarantee any sentence on a page can be relied upon.
If anyone cares to respond, let me save you some time and you can just append this text to your post: This person is a [kook, lunatic, idiot, moron].
Any questions? Oracle2universe ( talk) 00:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Dear Camelbinky ... this page IS for policy, and what my comments simply boil down to is whether Wikipedia is going to be "open" or "closed". A VERY high level policy issue. If the SOP (standard operating procedure) for everything you don't like is to tell them to take a hike, petition this or that bureaucracy, go to another group, and essentially beg and grovel to be part of the clique of the day, forget it. If Wikipedia is de facto closed and page locked, well, that really is the standard everywhere else in publishing and folks would understand if that were made the overall policy.
"Don't be afraid to edit — anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold!" - Wikipedia
"If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." - Wikipedia
I mean, do you really understand those quotes from Wikipedia? Truly? To the point where we can dispense with calling everyone you personally dislike a troll?
The main thing is the data. It is not an ever increasing thicket of rules, regulations, and bureaucracy that just feeds upon itself to exclude more and more data. There is no computer hardware capacity issue to limit more articles, regardless if the Wiki-Gestapo at the moment think it is significant or not.
At this point all the creative types are being turned off and told to leave Wikipedia, and if they don't pronto, yet another arcane obscure rule is going to be recited to make sure they do.
Tagishsimon said it the best: "... leave us alone but in peace with our shabby broken promises."
That place I can't mention could care less about the articles, as long as they get a lot of page hits and have an advertisement. Quality, format, notability, verifiability, style manual, etc. don't matter in the least. If the internet community finds it useful, so be it and let them decide instead of the wildly capricious editor sewing circles at Wikipedia.
I would be surprised if some Wiki-minion isn't following the comments here and reporting the interesting ones to a higher level. They will find a bona fide contributor called names (I thought that was against Wiki policy), told to take a hike, pounced on, told Wiki isn't this or that, trashed for being bold and breaking rules (exactly what Wiki says in the above quotes), and generally completely despised by the established sewing circles/mutual admiration societies within Wikiland.
A million folks have visited my creative works on the internet (really, I have the ISP logs) and I gave my rationale for handling multi-media (large file sizes).
So what's it going to be? Take a chance, be bold, attract new ideas and creative types? Or continue the death spiral towards stasis?
Any questions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 12:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Dear TheRedPenOfDoom ... the improvements should be obvious to a subject matter expert. Having each person justify this or that why the edit was made ... is just another way of entangling folks up in Wiki-bureaucracy. When in doubt, leave it in and let the users of Wikipedia decide if it is useful or not. And if a newbie (like myself) has to extensively justify what seems obvious to me, there is little point in contributing. In my case, there are musicians that play for weddings and not familiar with the music requested by the wedding party. They want something simple to sight read and improvise from. (After one acquires the basic musianship in their chosen instrument, the only thing ensembles care about is if you can sight read.) That is why "fake books" are so popular, only they don't indicate what inversion of the chord is best and some other details. Nowadays people either want something simple for weddings and Christmas carols, or listen to the definitive performance on their iPOD. All the in-between arrangements don't have much use anymore (including the elaborate ones by Franz Liszt).
So if any Wiki-revert enthusiast had shown the LEAST bit of interest and read the hundreds of comments in my guestbook, and shown ANY interest in researching exactly what is going on, it might have made some sense to them. Instead of knee-jerk deletion with some ridiculous canned policy copied that has zero bearing on the issue.
Soooooooooooooo, as entertaining as it may be to debate the finer points of Wiki-rule-making-and-capricious-enforcement, it has nothing to do with adding value and new data to the project. Especially from the user point of view. I'm now familiar with that other site I can't mention, and on a roll to add about 100 new articles.
Anymore questions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 12:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
dear HandThatFeeds - a. I don't want to be called names here (aka troll since that appears to be negative) and certainly must be against some Wiki rule or another, and b. don't think calling my concerns a "rant" is likewise within Wiki rules. It sorts of sets a negative tone from the get go. Don't you think?
The solution to all these issues is simple. Lock down the pages. That is defacto the case now, and potential contributors can submit their contributions, and take their chances. Completely disclosed.
That would eliminate about a zillion disputes, discussions, rules, policies, soul-searching, revert wars, article ownership, watch lists, your term "rants", complaints, hard feelings, vandalism, authenticity of information, assurance no one changes the page right before a user accesses it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Right now there can be no expectation that any Wiki article is reliable do to the possibility a change can be made at any time. So any push for "greater quality" is a hoot.
Now this major policy change would upset all the police rapidly proliferating on Wikipedia, the bureaucrats and sadistic revert editors, and certainly end the grandiose utopian dreams of folks not involved in the day to day administration, but is really the only feasible solution.
So there is your solution, simple, clean, and easy to implement. And I can't believe this is the first time anyone has proposed it. (More like the thousandth time is my guess.)
Any more questions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 ( talk) 13:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Just the expectation of the person submitting material. If they know upfront it may (or highly likely) be rejected, that is no different from any publishing house and well understood. People may be unhappy but they can't say they weren't warned. To actually see you material in Wikipedia, and then ripped from the very depths of your psyche (or some similar psychobabble) makes for some really hard feelings.
All utopias come to an end and Wikipedia has had a good run. Time to move on and metamorphose to the next stage. Oracle2universe ( talk) 20:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I ran across this, Wikipedia:User categories, which expresses several contentious ideas that have repeatedly been rejected when put up as guidelines in the past. Looking at the history, I only saw a few contributors, and nothing on the talk page discussing it on the merits. So, I deprecated it to essay, instead of guideline. This was quickly reverted, [10] with the edit summary supposedly pointing to a discussion showing concensus. The archived VPP page shows one line, from a bot, which says the page has been marked as a guideline, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_42#Wikipedia:Requests_for_drama_has_been_marked_as_a_policy. Zero discussion. It appears that those that want this to be a guideline have simply written a new page and tagged it as a guideline without outside input.
The category discussion/deletion process has been openly claimed as broken for a while, and this minor subset issue of user categories is challenged even moreso.
So, what's the criteria for marking an essay as a guideline, besides just someone saying so? SchmuckyTheCat ( talk)
The Wikimedia Foundation has begun a year long phase of strategic planning. During this time of planning, members of the community have the opportunity to propose ideas, ask questions, and help to chart the future of the Foundation. In order to create as centralized an area as possible for these discussions, the Strategy Wiki has been launched. This wiki will provide an overview of the strategic planning process and ways to get involved, including just a few questions that everyone can answer. All ideas are welcome, and everyone is invited to participate.
Please take a few moments to check out the strategy wiki. It is being translated into as many languages as possible now; feel free to leave your messages in your native language and we will have them translated (but, in case of any doubt, let us know what language it is, if not english!).
All proposals for the Wikimedia Foundation may be left in any language as well.
Please, take the time to join in this exciting process. The importance of your participation can not be overstated.
(please cross-post widely and forgive those who do)
Is there a right for a person not to have an article on Wikipedia about themself?
Jim Hawkins is against the existance of an article about himself. The article is currently at AfD for the 2nd time. He has requested deletion of the article via OTRS and an editor has posted the AfD, which is currently ongoing. My belief is that he is above the notability threshold to sustain an article. The article is now fully in compliance with WP:V (hasn't been in the past) but JH stated to me in a phone call that he doesn't want personal info such as where born, where he lives etc in the article (he doesn't want the article at all) - this is info he is apparantly quite happy for his employer to publish though.
The crux of the matter is this:- Should a person have the right to demand that an article on Wikipedia about themself is removed? Mjroots ( talk) 08:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Already implemented. Actually, in my experience, people already do have such a right, because, as in the case of Robert I. Sherman, the subject of an article can manage to get the article deleted by writing a complain about it. You most likely don't know who this guy is, but he is the person who is responsible for the rumour that the elder Bush once said that "atheists" shouldn't be considered as citizens". I suppose, every atheist in the United States has heard of that. I actually had this issue worked out (it is not proven that Bush ever said that), but I didn't find the time to write a proper article on Robert I. Sherman. The article as it was had issues, but I didn't even get a chance to fix them. So, as it stands, the alleged Bush statement is covered by the partisan right-wingers at Wikiality, but not by Wikipedia; I had worked it out completely, but they deleted it, because they wouldn't allow me the 48 hours to fix it or to merge the material into another article. All I am left to wonder about is the question, if the article was deleted because Wikipedia is suffering from a Christian bias, an atheist bias or simply a bias of over-anxious blp people.
So, in my experience, if your personal notability isn't to obvious and your Wikipedia article isn't that good, there is a good chance that you can get it deleted by simply writing an email-complaint about it. Of course, a right not to have a Wikipedia article about oneself would be against our policies, but factually this right already exists for some people. Zara1709 ( talk) 23:16, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Speaking of "already implemented", and I do hesitate to mention this due to all the drama this caused, but from my memory the Brian Peppers article was deleted in large part due to a family member requesting the page be deleted, which is pretty much the same type of situation as the one being discussed here. Granted, in the end Jimbo unilaterally came in and deleted it, but while the AfDs/DRVs were going on, many of the arguments for deletion directly related to the rempoval request. VegaDark ( talk) 04:36, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion regarding this issue at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Proposed_clarification. Erik9 ( talk) 16:13, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
What's the word on this? (couldn't find this in the pump archives) -- Anna Frodesiak ( talk) 05:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
We have large numbers of bios of Portuguese and Spanish princes and princesses that start with the titles ' Infante' and 'Infanta', such as Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain. Per WP:English, WP:Common name, and WP:Naming conventions (names and titles), shouldn't this be Princess Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain? I moved some of these articles and got a very irate response from their author. I understand that the English is not as precise as the Portuguese, but that will be made clear in the text of the article. As it is, the effect is that of half gibberish, and half calling these people 'infants', since only a very small minority of English speakers have ever heard of the Portuguese titles. kwami ( talk) 21:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I have been watching Venezuela, related political articles and Caracas, for a year or so and have been dismayed that editors are unable to get basic political facts into the article due to highly knowledgeable and alert "counter-editors" who immediately revert anything resembling the truth with polished Wikipedia statements. So Venezuela is a paradise where there are no political problems. Caracas, the worst country capital, per capita, for murders in the world (in truth before the current regime) has no entry for that because it has been reverted many times. There is no mention of weapons that came from Venezuela that have "fallen into" the hands of nearby Columbian rebels. An offhand mention of the effective removal of the elected mayor of Caracas by the regime, replacing him (in effect)with an appointed governor.
Not every proposed edit has been perfect, but some haven't been too bad and would be accepted in most any other article I watch. All can be found well-documented in an unbiased way, in the media. All efforts at unbiased editing are rejected in favor of no edit at all. So I have been made to feel foolish when criticizing well-meant editors, ultimately resulting in their efforts being purged instead of modified, as they would be in a regular article.
I looked at Iran which seemed slightly better. Just changed a comment about "western suspicion" (about nuclear program) adjective to "suspicion" since it was the Security Council, on which Russia, and China sit and which, typically, has members from all over the world. It was prima facie, wrong.
North Korea came close to the truth, if only because they probably don't care what anybody thinks and are not monitoring articles! :)
I can appreciate that all countries get an equal shot on bias. As of now, political subsections on Venezuela are nonsense and nearly useless. We need an admin without a pro-Chavez bias, and probably more than one, monitoring. I realize that we have no input from here into the Spanish-language Wikipedia, but whatever is happening here, is probably worse there. Having said that, we simply may not be able to counter, with volunteer editors, a well-paid staff. Student7 ( talk) 20:56, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Screenshots of Microsoft products may be licensed under something other than a non-free fair use rationale. See disccusion. Smallman12q ( talk) 23:07, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
As per Item 5 of the recent Arbcom case: Wikipedia Arbitration - Abd-William M. Connolley:
The community is urged to engage in a policy discussion and clarify under what circumstances, if any, an administrator may issue topic or page bans without seeking consensus for them, and how such bans may be appealed. This discussion should come to a consensus within one month of this notice.
This discussion will conclude by midnight, 12 October, 2009 (UTC). Manning ( talk) 07:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Is there any policy or guideline with respect to images like the ones on Phil Hartman of Poco, Paul Reubens, and Sinbad, where the image has nothing to do with the topic, and is simply an image of something else that's mentioned briefly in the article? -- NE2 12:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
What is the correct order of See Also, Further Reading, External Links, References, Bibliography sections? I see that MOS:APPENDIX has a specification, but it isn't strictly followed. Is it article/author preference? Or should there be a bot that corrects the order? Smallman12q ( talk) 00:50, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
When editors can not even agree on how to word an RFC, you know there is a crying need to have one... and to get outside involvement. So, to be utterly neutral, I will simply say: Please swing by, read the talk page discussions and give us your opinion. Blueboar ( talk) 16:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Help desk ( | 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) 02:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Can a website owner request that their links not be used on wikipedia? If so, how would such enforcement be carried out? (See Wikipedia:Help_desk#Website editor requesting no external links and the relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#External link naming) Smallman12q ( talk) 12:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
/etc/init.d/apache2 stop
For future reference however links shouldn't be disallowed simply because of a request the same way that info shouldn't be removed per request. If I'm a big star that gets arrested, but I don't want negative publicity on the internet we can't just remove it because I request it. black ngold29 01:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Are ribbons considered to be userboxes; and if so, would having them in template namespace be appropriate? Please see Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_September_9#Template:9-11_Ribbon for related discussion. Smallman12q ( talk) 13:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
At the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) talk page, we've recently been discussing the issue of when to allow regional or topical style conventions for digit grouping (in the context of rephrasing a WP:MOSNUM section).
On Wikipedia, should the selection of digit grouping styles depend upon regional and topical conventions used in the English language?
Discussion on WT:MOSNUM has included arguments for and against this (see that talk page for the lengthy details). Opposition was mainly based on increased confusion that might result from multiple styles being permitted. One editor suggested that (for example) English-reading Europeans were generally familiar with several styles of digit grouping, while many Americans were only familiar with American custom and would be unnecessarily confused by other digit grouping styles, and that Wikipedia should not prescribe an unfamiliar convention. Support was based on symmetry with Wikipedia style precedents for significant English-language usages (like synonyms, British "boot" vs. American "trunk", or words with variant spellings but the same meanings, British "theatre" vs. American "theater"), particularly the WP:ENGVAR MoS guideline.
As examples of region-specific digit grouping styles, European Commission English Style Guide recommends a convention where groups of digits are separated by spaces, while the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual recommends using commas on the left of the decimal place, and spaces on the right. As examples of topic-specific styles, NIST (American standards body in science and technology) recommends a convention where groups of digits are separated by spaces, while The Chicago Manual of Style (targeted at writers, editors and publishers) recommends using commas for numbers of one thousand or more. (These are examples only; this does not assert that these guides are authoritative in a particular field.)
Please express your opinion regarding the above question on this page. (If you'd like to address the detailed proposals that were made at MOSNUM, please continue the existing discussion on the MOSNUM talk page.) TheFeds 03:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
If someone wants to suggest that MOSNUM be changed to become silent on this fundamental issue, then they should come to WT:MOSNUM and propose that change. Given that the result will be a hodgepodge of different styles in our general-interest articles, I wouldn’t cross my fingers on such a suggestion being favorably received. Greg L ( talk) 19:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (broadcasting) ( | 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) 02:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Gravity ( | 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) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
What did this page said? MBelgrano ( talk) 18:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
{{Humorantipolicy}} {{nutshell|Obey gravity. It's the law!}}
^ – xeno talk 18:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Things had gotten a bit heated in the past and now the situation is clear. Everyone else has to back off and allow another editor to stretch basic guidlines and ignore official policy. It is not about the editor......it's bout the fair use images. Most of which are good enough to use but not if they are being used against policy to overwieght a subject or or take advantage of fair use.
Carmel-by-the-Sea seems to have a problem with it's arts section being basically about two theatres and nearly nothing else. Too many images of the Golden Bough Theatre, two of which are Fair Use and are basically the same subject; a fire that destroyed the original building in 1949. I have communicated this on the talk page but I think this may simply be an editor trying to push the envelope on guidelines. He has a conflict of interest that consensus seems to allow, but regardless of consensus, we have to report the founder of a theatre who insists on emphasising theatre arts in Carmel (especially those theatres he is directly involved in) and no expansion of Visual arts in a town that is world famous for painters and paintings. I will continue to try and work in good faith and with the editor, but with every subject I bring up he just pushes back and rallies others to back him up. Fine, consensus will allow many things but not overuse of inappropriate use of images.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 01:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
No....those are your accusations against me, sir. Your claim of Wikistalking was not agreed on by Admin. They felt it might be boarderline, but you gave out your personal information on the image you uploaded to the article...actualy more than one. You gave away the information that you are an artistic director/manager and founder of a few theatres in Carmel and created and edit your own wiki article.
Admin requested that I voluntarily step back for two weeks and also asked Smartpat;
Smatprt, on your side, please avoid edits in the hot-button issues that Amadscientist identified while they are staying away from the articles, and please do what you can to disengage as well for that informal cool down period. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
He too was asked to disengage, but refused, and kept going while making these same false accusations about me as well as my not being able to edit the page. He has also posted on the talk page of Carmel-by-the-Sea, an attack on me for bringing this to the village pump. That seems to be harrassive if you ask me. Fair use being used for public domain images from the turn of the centry and far too many fair use images of the Golden Bough Plyhouse. There are free images that can be used. The editor has files full of images that he can not attribute to the copyright owner and is using fair use around the issue innappropriatly.
No action has been taken against me by any admin over anything I have done in this situation. Claims of harrasment and stalking were false. I discoverd his conflict of interest though his own uploads and posts. He admited who he was and now has removed all identyfication, but he still has a conflict of interest. Maybe consensus is allowing it and maybe it is not. It's a case by case matter with an editor that refuses to lighten up or take it easy on article he has been identyfied with having COI. When something new happens...I will report each one.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 05:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I have a question regarding the consistency of two Wikipedia practices of attribution to free content.
In the case of material from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Template:1911 is placed on the main page of the article. In case of material translated from another language version of wikipedia, Template:Translated page is used and it is placed in the Discussion page. Why not on the main Article page?
If a Wikipedia article is used by another media outlet, we do require the Wikipedia attribution to be part of the copied material, why not do the same for our translation between Wikipedia projects? -- İnfoCan ( talk) 14:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
My question is on the existing policy on Wkipedia forks. We had the following story on ru.wp. User A runs an external website. He copied over there several templates from Russian Wikipedia failing to credit the source. When reminded he refused to credit Wikipedia as the source. Then sysop B blocked A for copyright violations. The copyright violation policies we have are ambiguously formulated, but have been previously applied only when smbody posted copyrighted materials from external sites (aka copyvio) to Wikipedia, not vice versa. C asked B to unblock A, and B refused. Then C filed n arbitration request, which we have to consider. Have you encountered smth similar on en.wp previously? Do you have any policies about such situations? We have to decide it anyway according to our policies, but if such policies exist in any Wikipedia, this would help us a lot. Thanks in advance.-- Yaroslav Blanter ( talk) 23:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 52#Cite youtube template 18:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Is there any clarification on when an image becomes public domain if it had corporate authorship in the UK/EU? Our current templates do not apply. Magog the Ogre ( talk) 18:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions ( | 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) 02:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm looking for advice; maybe I am missing something in WP:IUP. A IP user has added a couple of diagrams to an article; they are useful and accurate, and I've got no problem with having the info in the article since it improves it. But, they are (good quality) scans of hand-drawn notes, possibly taken in a class, or created while researching the topic. I'm not 100% about the handwriting, it's quite stylised and to me a bit unclear in a couple of cases.
There used to be a policy page for diagrams WP:DIAGRAM, but it indicates it is no longer active. Is there any current MOS policy on diagrams that illustrate articles? Is this sort of diagram generally acceptable? I like what the IP user did and want to encourage them, but am also concerned with style etc.. EasyTarget ( talk) 09:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
In the past I had more than one account because I thought it wasn't against the Wikipedia rules. I had two other accounts: one has about 5 edits and the other one has about 20. They were last used in 2008. I am afraid someone will find out and get me banned or blocked. Now I wrote on those other accounts that they were mine (with a link to my main account) and wouldn't be used again. Will this be enough? What must I do? If an admin finds out he/she will ban me for sure. They weren't used for vandalism, nor have I had warnings or bannings.
Justanaccount4 ( talk) 13:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style ( | 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) 02:00, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
How about if on BLPs we get rid of all category listings that aren't concrete, factual information? American President, University Provost, Persons Born in 1942, Licensed Mole Drainer, ok; Bad Person, Stupid Conservative, Fascist Liberal, not ok. That sort of thing. (OK, a little exaggeration for effect but you get the point.) Listing people in these categories is an endless source of drama, can negatively affect the individuals in question, and often cannot be conclusively verified one way or the other. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 01:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
At WP:CFD, we've routinely deleted categories for people that aren't concrete, even where they may not be explicitly pejorative, such as vague political labels the original poster suggests. One may be able to find reliable sources calling this or that politician a liberal, but because of the nature of such labels it's still that source just making a characterization rather than stating what is or isn't an objective fact (and in our reliance on reliable sources, we as Wikipedia contributors are not slavish copyists just parroting whatever we find).
Other people categories that are problematic are ones based on accusations, such as the "accused spies" category scheme that was deleted recently. Accusations are far too easy to make for it to be the threshold for category inclusion, and the circumstances under which one may be accused of something heinous would vary too much from individual to individual to merit lumping them together in a category. Narrowing it to "people indicted of spying" or whatever may go some length towards solving such a problem, but still may be unworkable.
Any such problematic classifications or characterizations of people may still be properly handled in article text, because it can be directly sourced and explained for that individual; categories can't do that and so should be limited to concrete and non-controversial classifications. Postdlf ( talk) 17:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games) ( | 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) 02:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines/Naming ( | 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) 02:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Recently getting into an edit war with interwiki bots on pages Lichfield and Worcester, it strikes me that there is something fundamentally unsound in letting these beasts roam free, propagating errors as they go. I appreciate that there appears to be a consensus that these bots are a "good thing", so I would like to propose a way of mitigating the problems. I propose a set of Laws of botics, as follows.
Jan1nad ( talk) 19:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
<!-- NOBOT -->
, no interwiki bot shall change it.Just to note here, one way of stopping interwiki bots from reapplying unwanted changes was indeed implemented some time ago, but it's unfortunately not well documented: if you have a problem with a bot adding an inappropriate link, don't just delete the link but place it in html comment tags (<!-- [[foo:bar]] -->), then the bots will leave it alone. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:08, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
When an article is mentioned on bing such as in this reference do we use the {{ press}} or {{ high traffic}} template? Is Bing using a cached version of wikipedia's page, or is it simply serving it up in a frame?(If its cached, then perhaps press is best). 65.51.38.194 ( talk) 23:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
The Wikipedia request for bot approval board has gone unanswered by BAG members for a couple of weeks now. When I pointed this out, a BAG member came by, and, in 28 seconds approved most outstanding requests without reading any of the discussions.
BAG is self-selected, self-directed, self-elected entity foisted onto en.wikipedia. If they select themselves and direct themselves to oversee the approval of bots, but are not up to spending the time necessary to oversee approval, and ignore (by simply not reading, it appears) all community input into discussing bots according to the rules for bots, why are they the group doing this?
-- 69.225.3.119 ( talk) 01:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I apologize for that. Still, it appears you did not read or acknowledge any of the outstanding comments. Since the most discussion was about one bot and you ignored ALL comments about it. -- 69.225.3.119 ( talk) 01:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Please express your opinion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion discussions#Renaming of multiple categories, including one or more stub categories. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
[13] was a recent addition. I don't know that it adds anything to what was there. The other source may have had sufficient information. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Being a blog is not some special category of disreputability. For every source, the basic questions are the same; is this self-published? ( not all blogs are) has this been subject to peer review or editorial oversight?( in some cases, yes) do the authors/publishers have a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy? ( many blogs do). In short, see Wikipedia:Blogs as sources. Skomorokh 04:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I have opened a request for comment at Wikipedia:Naming conventions. This is the second RFC at WP:NC in a little over a week. My concerns is that since September 6 the page has undergone on-going and substantial revision while discussion for such change take place on the talk page.
I'm worried that such a manner of editing a policy page brings instability to policy pages - and reduce their worthiness as reference points for other editors. I am also concerned as to the degree of community involvement in the changes taking place. Several of the editors involved say they "know" what a "new consensus" for the policy is. I am concerned that while they may be well-intentioned, if that was the case they would not still be wrangling over the page nearly three weeks later. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid ( coṁrá) 21:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Several months ago, I drafted a policy for the use of the revision deletion function for administrators on the English Wikipedia. After consultation with a small group of users, I made modifications and changes (with the help of FT2) to better address the suggestions of these people. I have waited a while for the policy to become more stable before consulting the wider community, because it is in my belief that there is nothing worse than discussing a policy draft that still does not have the consensus of its drafters. The policy in its current state is quite similar to the Criteria for Speedy Deletion policy, in that it defines very specific circumstances in which the revision deletion functionality can be used. The policy is defined so strictly to help allay some of the fears of potential misuse of the functionality, with deviation from the set criteria resulting in whatever sanctions are decided upon by the community. I would invite all users to read the statement and FAQs that I have written at Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion#Community consultation regarding the functionality and then discuss on the talk page the merits of ratifying this policy, and subsequently enabling the feature for administrators on this project. Thanks for listening and happy editing! ~ fl 05:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/editorial guidelines ( | 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) 02:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
There is a proposal that the WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary policy be moved down to being only a guideline, or 'merged into WP:ISNOT' (i.e. removed completely as an independent policy).
It is currently being discussed at: Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary#Change_to_guideline.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 01:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Input needed at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(web)#Quotations proposal.-- Otterathome ( talk) 15:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Non-free content ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
A year ago, deletion of disambiguation pages seemed to be a rare event, to the point of some admins not even knowing whether or not a dab page is subject to a prod. Some claimed that disambiguation pages are not articles (although, like redirects, they are usually in articlespace) and thus PROD would not be appropriate for them; others contend that they are articles and should be prodded (because of the controversy in the status, and WP:PROD explicitly states that it applies only to noncontroversial deletions, this needs to be addressed in a wider arena than the WT:PROD discussion page). Because a disambiguation page (and not a list article, which is an article with encyclopedic information) is essentially an extended redirect, a navigation tool and not intended to be a significangt source of encyclopedic information, I propose the following: since disambiguation pages are not encyclopedia articles, they are not subject to WP:Proposed deletion; furthermore, requests for deletion of disambiguation pages are to be posted and considered at WP:RfD (which can be renamed "Wikipedia:Redirects and disambiguation pages for discussion").
The reasons for treating dab pages and redirects in the same fashion should be rather obvious. In addition to both being purely navigational tools with very strict methods of style restricting the information and presentation of each of them, neither permit the inclusion of citations and other information required for WP:V and WP:RS. Redirects and dab pages cannot assert notability if properly formatted (one AfD of a disambiguation page was couched on an editor's objection that it did not have any cited evidence of notability of a particular name/phrase). The deletion of a dab page should be a deliberate process (Quite often the disambiguation page was proposed or nominated for deletion simply because it had two valid bluelinks. On more than one occasion, an AfD nomination was withdrawn after someone found a third, or even a fourth, bluelink. Had the prod process gone through, the otherwise-valid dab page would have been lost). Moving a deletion discussion of a disambiguation page from WP:AfD (which processes anywhere between 120 and 220 entries a day) to WP:RfD (which usually processes less than ten nominations a day) would give the community a better opportunity to improve its navigational tools.
One of the questions that was mentioned at WT:PROD concerned those "half disambiguation pages, half articles" and where to delete them. If the page is tagged as a disambiguation page, the software recognizes it when someone edits it - these, for the purposes of this proposal, would be dab pages ineligible for prod and should be taken to RfD; those that are not (and thus would be list articles) would be considered articles for the purposes of WP:PROD and this proposal. I think that now is a good time to resolve the controversies regarding disambiguation pages and establish a policy of deletion consistent with that of other navigational aids. I thank the Wikipedia community for its consideration and feedback on my proposal. B.Wind ( talk) 04:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Many high-profile politicians and celebrities have images of their signatures in their infoboxes. Examples: John Adams, Stephen Hawking. These are generally images that have been traced by Wikipedia users into the SVG format.
Putting aside the argument of whether the signatures should be there to begin with, can we talk about this tracing thing? Tracing a signature into a vector format is inherently inaccurate, especially when you start with a tiny image and blow it up. As the entire value of a signature is that it is difficult to forge, it seems rather misleading to use an image that has been scanned at an unknown resolution and traced to an unknown fidelity by an anonymous person and present it without qualifications as an authentic signature. I think we should consider a policy to use only actual photographs of signatures, not versions that have been traced or altered. — Noisalt ( talk) 16:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
The vectorisation issue is not really policy, it's technical. As far as accuracy of images goes there is policy already which covers it. Rich Farmbrough, 21:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
I would say that John Hancock's signature is important to the understanding of his standing in popular culture, and if a person's signature is widely distributed on notes of monetary exchange (paper money), then that is also important. As well, the signatures artists use to sign their works. And counterfeit signatures produced by counterfeiters and fraudsters... (and probably the non-fraudulent version to compare it to) 76.66.197.30 ( talk) 04:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Quick (hopefully) question as things seem to have changed or become unclear: Should the |accessdate= parameter in {{ cite}} templates be given as in ISO (2009-09-16) format, or to match the format in the prose (16 September 2009)? OrangeDog ( talk • edits) 00:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Straight answer to the original question: write the month out in full. There is no need to use all-numeric dates in footnotes, we aren't that short of space. A majority at MOSNUM currently think that the YYYY-MM-DD format is user-hostile; some don't even regard it as completely unambiguous. -- Alarics ( talk) 10:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
{{#dateformat:date|format}}
where format is mdy, dmy, ymd or ISO 8601. But how compare {{#dateformat:2009-09-24|dmy}}
to September 9, 2009
? Then you would have to have a switch to disable formatting for dates outside the Gregorian calendar. ---—
Gadget850 (Ed)
talk 00:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC){{#dateformat:...|{{{dateformat}}}}}
around the dates output by the templates, adding a "dateformat" parameter to all the cite templates, and editing every use of the cite templates in the article to specify the appropriate value for the dateformat parameter. And then watching forever for anyone to add new references to the article without a dateformat or with the wrong dateformat.{{#dateformat:...}}
around the dates output by the templates, and adding {{DEFAULTDATEFORMAT:...}}
to the article.The community has determined, in more than several RfCs and long discussions, that date formats are best left alone. We do not want to return to the situation where WPian editors see something different from what our readers see. The shambolic state of date formats under the old "dynamic dates" system (they were anything but dynamic) demonstrated the need for us as WPians not privilege ourselves over our readers, especially when (1) what was at issue was so trivial, and (2) dmy and mdy are readily understood by all English-speakers. The same principle has recently come up WRT to the selection by a small proprortion of WPians of a default thumbnail size bigger than the 180px our readers see. This is not conducive to the exercise of reader-oriented judgements and maintenance. End of story.
Furthermore, the notion that edit-mode should be cluttered (a lot, since there are a lot of dates) with in-house syntax goes against the principle that WP is the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". There are growing complaints that WP is less welcoming and a little daunting for outsiders to edit. See the Time magazine article linked from The Signpost this week for more on that. We need to minimise syntax bloat. Tony (talk) 03:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
It’s not complex. Do what is common practice in any well-written, English-language publication that is intended to be read by people for whom English is their first language, as well as by those for whom English is their second language: write out the name of the month. Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book are found in libraries throughout the world. Notwithstanding this international readership, these quality publications wisely don’t write out event times like “2008-11-09T17:42.” Even though English-language newspapers are found all over the world, something like 99% of those that subscribe to the Associated Press feed also adhere to the AP’s manual of style, which also calls for writing out the names of months and also provides a short-form list (May, June, Sept. Oct.). If a date is in a citation, use the A.P. short-form (Science Week, Issue 136, Sept. 15, 2006). If it’s a table, consider using fixed three-letter abbreviations. In full-blown body text, write the name of the month completley; everyone understands what “9 November 2008” and “November 9, 2008” means. Moreover, the practice reads very naturally and smoothly without having to count on one’s fingers to find out what month “5” is. Just write ‘em out. That simple. That Wikipedia is *international* does not make it unique. That it is *electronic* doesn’t change a thing. Greg L ( talk) 06:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
To answer the original question, either is acceptable, it's your choice. wjemather bigissue 08:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Accessdates are meta-data. As such they really don't belong on the rendered page at all. We only allow them there because of the vagaries of the web - can you imagine if we cited "J. Bio Phys V 115 pp. 112-8 read 13 September at Stamford Public Library, seat N.13"? I am not sure hiding them completely or making them (part of) alt text is a good idea, but I certainly wouldn't be against it. Who would miss having them on display? Not I! Rich Farmbrough, 12:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC).
The references section should use whatever is used in the rest of the article. That is: normal English dates, in whatever country's format is appropriate. No ISO dates, and no magic words, unless we agree to do those for all dates throughout the article. — Noisalt ( talk) 16:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
There is now a page inviting comments on the proposal to deprecate YYYY-MM-DD in footnotes. It is at Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal_on_YYYY-MM-DD_numerical_dates. -- Alarics ( talk) 19:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Is the following quote from the Chemtrail conspiracy theory considered neutral? It seems to be an application of the ad hominem argument
Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is quoted in USA Today as saying that logic is not exactly a real selling point for most chemtrail proponents: "If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it's, 'Well, you're just part of the conspiracy'," he said.
Further discussion at Talk:Chemtrail conspiracy theory#Maintaining NPOV. Smallman12q ( talk) 12:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
A little while back now English Wikipedia approved a trial of some configuration changes to allow users to control the default display of recent revisions to anonymous readers using new classes of page protection which delay the display of new edits by anons rather than prohibiting editing like normal forms of protection do. This is described over at Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions. The Wikimedia technical staff setup a staging wiki to try out the configuration before hitting the switch on English Wikipedia. But the configuration has not been activated there and I have seen further publicly visible progress in spite of multiple inquiries.
I've begun a thread on foundation-l about this. I thought it may be of a more general interest because of the considerable impact to the English Wikipedia. Cheers. -- Gmaxwell ( talk) 04:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
It has become increasingly obvious that we have some serious confusion when it comes to the various policies and guidelines that tell us how to name articles. There are so many sub-conventions, "carve outs" and exceptions to general WP:Naming conventions policy that it is almost meaningless. In addition, we have several guidelines, originally created to further explain things stated in the policy, that have been edited to the point where they actually contradict the policy and/or each other. I think the only way to resolve this confusion is to conduct a systematic review of the entire policy area... determine where consensus has and has not changed, what should and should not be an exception to the policy... and get rid of contradictions. This is not a task that should be undertaken by a few... broad community involvement is needed. Blueboar ( talk) 14:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
It was recently agreed in a discussion here that any large-scale automated or semi-automated article creation task should go through WP:BRFA. Not much seems to have been done to implement this though, and such large-scale article creations as Sasata's recent fungi articles, or Fergananim's very short articles on medieval Irish abbots (currently at articles for deletion) have apparently received no such approval. I was very much in favour of this decision, but I remember some contributors objecting that it would just be another layer of rules that would have no practical effect. Are there any suggestions on how to advertise and implement this decision? Lampman ( talk) 16:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
The Irish abbots are not really large-scale. Rich Farmbrough, 22:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
One idea would be an edit filter to trigger (throttle) a warning message after creating a several new pages in a short period of time. -- ThaddeusB ( talk) 02:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Note: this "policy" that was decided upon, by the way, isn't in accordance with wikipedia bot policy. Wikipedia bot policy requires a community discussion of the issue, not BAG approval, for a bot. -- 69.225.5.4 ( talk) 18:19, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
In Naomi Klein somebody is changing the code style of citation templates, because he thinks it gets more readable. Although it's obvious that the formatting he uses is bad, he is right that it's hard to read and edit big citation macros. But I'm not sure what is best. Is there some guideline for this? I can't find anything.
As an example, the "inline" formatting that is most commonly used is hard to read:
Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://departmentofculture.ca/video-naomi-klein-at-last-nights-town-hall/| title= Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall|accessdate=2009-02-17 |author= |date= September 4, 2008 |work= | publisher= DepartmentOfCulture.ca}}</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
But the vertical layout makes the two parts of text look like they don't aren't in the same paragraph any more:
Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref> {{cite web |url= http://departmentofculture.ca/video-naomi-klein-at-last-nights-town-hall/ |title= Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall |accessdate= 2009-02-17 |author= |date= September 4, 2008 |work= |publisher= DepartmentOfCulture.ca }}</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
The using in question in his edits( [14] as one example) uses the vertical layout, but for some reason with one empty line in between each row, which is completely weird. So I'll change that, but to what? Is there a style guide for this, and if not, what do people here prefer in general? Is there a better option? -- OpenFuture ( talk) 20:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
{{cite xxx}}
templates down the bottom and out of the text, which would then have the two ends of <ref></ref>
much closer together:Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref>[[#refDofCvideo|Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall]]</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
Article 35 of Argentina's Ley de Propiedad Intelectual (Ley 11.723 (235) del Poder Ejecutivo Nacional) sets the copyright for photographs at twenty years from the date of first publication. The WP pd-license tag Template:PD-AR-Photo says essentially the same thing; however, the corresponding Commons tag, Commons:Template:PD-AR-Photo also requires that the photograph have been created at least twenty-five years ago in order for it to be considered PD, a condition set out in the Berne Convention, Article 7(4). Two questions:
-- Rrburke( talk) 22:29, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
i installed a "gallery" in the article Love and Rockets (comics) which has been "deleted"... i just read the policy on Wikipedia:Galleries (#6 fair use) but i think it does not apply to a "gallery" of different books, which is still "fair use" for me...
it means, for an article like Whitney Houston discography, we will never see the cover near the title for every cd?!
thanks in advance for your comment + help kernitou talk 23:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thanks kernitou talk 05:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
WP has about 10,000,000 user accounts but only 150,000 active within a one month period. Of the 10 million accounts I suspect that the vast majority have only been used to create one page or used for vandalism. Also, many users are blocked for various reasons. Having an easy process to create an account adds an unnecessary workload to editors (and to the servers to a lesser degree). Since anonymous editors can edit WP there is no reason for the easy creation of an account unless the editor is prepared to help rather than hinder the building of WP. Any edits that an anon editor would want to see happen but cannot do can be outlined on the talk page.
In order to restrict new accounts I propose that:
Note that my proposal still allows for editing WP by anyone (as an anon) but it restricts the creation of an account. WP should be "the free encyclopedia that anyone who wants to help can edit" and not for the hordes of vandals and others intent on wrecking WP. This proposal will hopefully keep the vandals at bay but not scare off those who help WP (as anons or users). Spending time at Special:NewPages will see that there is merit in this proposal since a large percentage of pages from new accounts are deleted.
An alternative method of reducing editor workload would be to have full implementation of Flagged revisions. -- Alan Liefting ( talk) - 07:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
(outdent)
Replies:
Accounts used to create one page if that is a good page are great accounts. We block accounts fairly easily and more people are probably creating accounts since we stopped anons doing it. It takes about 2-3 users on Huggle to keep up with newbie vandalism I reckon, and allowing newbie accounts to vandalise then get banned means they spend more time creating accounts and getting past edit filters than they so vandalising. The average quality of the writing on WP articles is so low we desperately need more people who will fix the copy-edit requirements. Rich Farmbrough, 21:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
I think this proposal goes in exactly the wrong direction. Its main effects would be (1) to discourage people from bothering to become seriously involved, because of the extra trouble, and (2) to encourage people to continue indefinitely to edit from IP addresses, which makes it less easy to keep track off who is doing what. I really do not see that it would have any significant advantage at all. The requirement to provide an email address is totally pointless, as people would simply create pointless throwaway email addresses: that is what I do when registering on sites that require an email address and I see no reason why they should do so, and that is what I would have done when I registered on Wikipedia had it been a requirement. The idea that this wold be a way to "to restrict new accounts" makes very little sense. JamesBWatson ( talk) 09:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I posted a link to a Facebook page and it was removed by an editor citing WP:NOTFACEBOOK. To me that policy seems to mean that WP is not to be used for social networking. It doesn't say that it's forbidden to post a link to a Facebook page (under "external links") that is related to the article's topic and may be of interest to readers. It might well be a good idea to have a policy forbidding Facebook links, but that is not what WP:NOTFACEBOOK says. The discussion is at Talk:Moonie (term). Steve Dufour ( talk) 23:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
For the convenience of anyone reading this and wanting to read where this is spelt out, WP:ELNO number 10 is it. JamesBWatson ( talk) 09:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I'm generally a believer that myspace and facebook links should be blacklisted. They are not reliable, and they are not professional. These are two criterion that links to any other website would be scrutinized against. However, as JC mentioned, there are always exceptions. Facebook and myspace are not reliable for a BLP. However, if an article-worthy news event surfaces that is centred upon something on myspace or facebook, it may warrant linking to. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
refDofCvideo
(ie [[#refDofCvideo|Vid ...]]
and |ref=refDofCvideo
) you don't need to "manually have to figure out what reference is meant". The click on the [1] takes you to the short notes, the relevant one being (in Firefox anyway, with Monobook) highlighted in pale blue. Part of the short note will be a bluelink. Click that, it takes you to the relevant citation which is also highlighted in pale blue. For a working example in a short article, try
Abingdon Road Halt railway station --
Redrose64 (
talk) 22:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Bla bla bla bla text text text.<ref>"[http://departmentofculture.ca/video-naomi-klein-at-last-nights-town-hall/ Video: Naomi Klein at last night’s town hall]." DepartmentOfCulture.ca. September 4, 2008. Retrieved 2009-02-17.</ref> Bla bla bla bla text text text.
To return to the original question. Templates can be in horizontal or vertical format— there is no consensus for one or the other, but use should be consistent within an article. I see no reason for the blank lines in the vertical format. Some believe it is a good practice to remove unused parameters. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:21, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
We've agreed on a format for Naomi Klein now anyway, and I like it. :-) -- OpenFuture ( talk) 11:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
File:Hematoma Feb 07.jpg was moved to Commons last November and the local image deleted, two months after someone had posted a message on its talk page. I just discovered the existence of the talk page and deleted it under G8, since the local image had been deleted. Is this justified? Moreover, if this talk page had been created after the image was moved to Commons, rather than before, would it be speedyable? It seems so to me, since the local image doesn't exist, but I thought that it might be different because the file exists and is usable here. Nyttend ( talk) 19:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
What about using soft redirects to the relevant commons talk pages? -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 13:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Proposal at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee code of conduct. Input would be appreciated. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 09:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikiproject Baseball has been having a long long discussion (that has gotten nasty at times, but has become civil once more) over just exactly how minor league baseball players fit into WP:ATHLETE, and when exactly some other form of notability or coverage overrides WP:ATH and justifies an otherwise non-notable player from having an independant article. The discussion can be seen here. Here are a few examples of questions I put in a table in the discussion. We'd love any input you folks have. Staxringold talk contribs 16:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Person | Background |
---|---|
Stephen Strasburg | #1 overall pick in 2009 Major League Baseball Draft, and Olympics competition. No ML appearances. |
Tim Beckham | #1 overall pick in 2008 Major League Baseball Draft. No ML appearances. |
Drew Carpenter | Short ML appearance, otherwise non-notable. |
Moonlight Graham | Similar to above, one appearance (though outside fictional notability) |
Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel | No ML appearances but "first" notability as first Indians signed by ML team, also won Indian contest/game show (though that show doesn't yet have an article). In other words, would Jackie Robinson be notable after his signing but before he appeared in an ML game? (perhaps a bad example, since Robinson was a notable Negro Leaguer before that) |
Dustin Ackley | #2 overall pick in 2009 Major League Baseball Draft. Currently 4/5, 7/10, and 12/20 in the 09 draft have their own article. Notability as a #1 overall pick is one thing, but how deep into the draft are you notable simply for being a high draft pick? |
Pat Venditte | 1345th overall pick of the 07 draft, 620th pick in 08 draft. Switch pitcher who had specific MiL rule created to deal with him. |
The guy with Olympic experience would be automatically notable, as would the the guys with "short ML experience." Otherwise, two significant sources is what it will take to be notable (which is not much)... Checking the specifics, all appear to be notable - failing ATH is never sufficient reason to exclude anyone. -- ThaddeusB ( talk) 00:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
There is an open RFC dealing with the mechanics of policy creation. It needs some input. Wikipedia_talk:User_categories#Guideline status. SchmuckyTheCat ( talk) 20:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
The issue of the default thumbnail size of 180px has come to a head after many years. All input is welcome. Thanks. Dabomb87 ( talk) 01:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Same article as discussed above but a different policy. Differences of opinion about WP:Not a dictionary came up in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moonies. (I voted to keep, BTW.) But does "not a dictionary" mean there should be no articles on the meanings and use of words, or are some words so important that they are exceptions? Steve Dufour ( talk) 03:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it really time that this project grew up beyond letting people add every passing mention of an article subject in a Cartoon network show to an article's "In Popular Culture" section. Shouldn't every "in popular culture" listing require a mention in a secondary source to establish the notability of the reference to the subject. Do we really need to know that Downtown Los Angeles was mentioned in a Family Guy episode? Is that inherently notable without a reliable source commenting on it. And don't get me started on people adding that their favorite pop star has played a concert into every article about a concert venue, despite that these venues host concerts by notable people every day of the week. We should have some specific guidelines to cover these things, I'll help write them if people agree. Rant over. Mfield ( Oi!) 04:51, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Most of the pop culture refs in articles are just mere trivia by people with no clue about how encyclopedias work. It's an unfortunate side effect of being open to editing by everyone and there being so many people who want to edit but who have nothing of any value to add. I am one of many editors who go around removing most of this on sight, but it takes determination to stop the flow. Wikipedia should really have some official response for these situations... like a talk page template encouraging them to head over to wikia.com and go crazy with all that crap they want. It might cut down on repeat drive-by triviacruft. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:37, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
The question should always be whether the reference actually tells you something about the subject beyond "this was mentioned here." At its worst, it's almost like reverse annotations—explaining every one-off reference in a song, TV episode, etc. by listing those references in articles on what is referenced rather than in the article on the TV episode. Empire State Building would be seriously lacking without a description of its iconic use in King Kong. But listing every television show or video game where it can be seen in the background is completely useless. That's the issue with such widely-known landmarks—they're shown in so many creative works because they provide a quick and easy way to establish location. Listing all of those in the article on the landmark itself serves no purpose.
Nothing I've seen so far can top this as a contender for most useless pop culture reference ever added to an article. Postdlf ( talk) 16:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Is it time to point to User:Uncle G/Cargo cult encyclopaedia article writing and User:Uncle G/On the discrimination of what is indiscriminate again, so soon? Uncle G ( talk) 22:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
God, can't we focus on content instead of squabbling? Let's try a few examples, to see if we can figure a rough guideline - I doubt of bright line is possible:
These are just examples of the top of my head. I suggest other contribute examples and then we have a decent range we try try ranking them and then which fails passes the cut. -- Philcha ( talk) 09:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Fiction is not a topic of less worth than others. By it's nature it must be handled with care, to avoid mixing fiction and reality, but that's it. And "popular culture" of today will be classical stuff of tomorrow, as classical stuff of today was "popular culture" of it's time.
Having said that, I notice there's a problem in some of the links provided, but the real problem is not fiction or popular culture: it's the degree of detail that articles should have, and how to keep them well focused on their topic. It would be a bad idea to mention all the times the White House has appeared on movies, TV shows or whatever (either as a location of a story or as a background building), as it would be to mention all the real events, ceremonies, rulings and whatever that took place inside it's walls (even if all real and "scholary"). Perhaps the thread should be restarted from that angle, popular culture is not the real issue but just a manifestation of it, and it tends to polarize opinions of users. MBelgrano ( talk) 01:35, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
The real problem is that that information should only be given to people who want it. The films that use Carmina Burana in their soundtrack may have it noted, it should then be simple a simple extension of intersecting "what links here" and "category:films" (or more smartly). Rich Farmbrough, 12:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC).
My take on pop culture references (and for purposes of discussion, say work X is "referenced" in work Y) is that:
Any other use is frivolous and engages in OR. This allows for some "in pop culture" sections, but keeps them trimmed to what is appropriate for an encyclopedia. -- MASEM ( t) 14:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Actually... Couldn't WP:UNDUE apply in this case? In a sense, different aspects of the subject of the article (including popular culture references) might not be that different from points of view... -- Martynas Patasius ( talk) 22:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Of course there is already an essay that deals excellently with this topic. WP:IPC says ""In popular culture" sections should be carefully maintained and contain sourced examples demonstrating a subject's cultural significance." I don't think it can be summarised any better then that, and I hope nobody disagrees with that statement. Lampman ( talk) 12:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I believe it's high time we made WP:IPC a guideline, and the arguments against it I've seen above haven't really impressed me at all. Here's how I'd categorise them:
We need to put WP:IPC into guideline form fast. The absolute purists among us may not agree with the wording of this essay, but I think it's the best we'll be able to pass at the moment. The reason why it's important, is that if anyone gets into an edit war over the usefulness of popular culture trivia in an article; then being able to point to a guideline will really help their cause. I suggest we take this to the WP:IPC page, and try to gain consensus for creating a new guideline. Lampman ( talk) 02:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
There's an essay floating around about how some articles simply don't need to link to others, more or less because of WP:WEIGHT, and about what I'm going to say.
If say, I take the article Oregon, and I want to link it to the city I call my home (away from school), that would be giving my quite small city, which is relatively unimportant to the overall topic of the state of Oregon, unneeded weight in 'Oregon'. It's (might be) alright, however, to link to Oregon from Forest Grove, because Forest Grove is in Oregon and is part of Oregon's topic.
This can be applied to the ordinary case of trivia/popular culture, easily. Say we have random Simpsons episode #XYZ. This Simpsons episode may make reference to A place, B person, and C meme. These things, however, aren't relevant to that A place, B person, or C meme as wholes, but they might be relevant to Simpsons episode article. In that case, we then need to judge the referencing available for this connection, so that we can avoid original research. If the referencing is poor for the connection, simply put, the information should be removed. If not, then it should still be up to the individual article contributors. If they think it's worthy of inclusion in the Simpsons article and that it has the right context, then they have the power to include it. If they don't think it is worthy of inclusion, then we default again to the case of removal.
That's basically what our guidelines say, too. -- Izno ( talk) 05:30, 4 October 2009 (UTC)