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Just curious, please answer on my talk page if I'm at the wrong place: Why do we post warnings to IP users if they must go out of their way to see their "user page"? It makes no sense to me to write You will be blocked if you continue to... if nobody actually gets these messages. Would it not make more sense to do either of the following:
-- Pgallert ( talk) 17:00, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
They are totally meaningless. The warnings are for admins to decide that they have been uselessly warned enough times before a block is enforced. Angryapathy ( talk) 17:37, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
IP users don't have to go out of their way to see their talk page. I just go to the last page I edited and click on the talk link beside my IP as the editor on the page or in the page history or I can click on my IP as the contributor in the history and see the talk page link in the upper left. I've edited as an IP for years. I have rolling addresses, and sometimes I want to go back and find something. It's not a problem at all. -- 69.226.106.109 ( talk) 00:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
MediaWiki has an "emailconfirmed" group (see mw:Manual:User_rights) which prevents any editing until an email address is confirmed. This is not used on Wikipedia. I would like to see it activated for a trial period to see if it reduces the work on Wikipedia:New pages patrol and vandalism in general. A percentage of new pages by new accounts are vandalism. It is possible that the need to supply an email address will deter vandal accounts (and there are plenty of those - see Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages). -- Alan Liefting ( talk) - 04:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Don't get tense but this is not the 'people's encyclopaedia' it's obviously just typed out by the public. By insisting on references you allow power to control the content, because power controls what constitutes a legitimate reference - typically, the often bought and paid for, university academic.
This is just a statement of the undeniably obvious. It you say something like: 'Oh well, if you take that sort of line nothing works.' Then you are just double-thinking as our masters would wish.
This is so fundamental it is absurd I have to bring it up.
The rationale is, as I understand it, to keep out 'physics cranks'. For heaven's sake is that the best you can come up with? In order to keep out 'physics cranks' you sell the thing out to power and betray the demos.
It really isn't good enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sporus ( talk • contribs) 03:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I've idly wondered sometimes about proposals for deleting articles that are not sourced, perhaps within, say, two weeks after they are created. Has this been discussed before? What were the arguments for/against it? Buckshot06( prof) 09:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
This is a proposal to make optionally speedy deletion templates for certain criteria more user-friendly, for those articles that don't obviously meet the criteria or could be improved to no longer meet them. Please see and comment on the proposal here. Cenarium ( talk) 18:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conflict ( | 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, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Over the past few weeks, several editors have revamped the Wikipedia:Linkrot essay. Please take a look.-- Blargh29 ( talk) 06:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
One of the more common questions at the various help desks is how to move an article from user space to article space. This type of request will become more common as more people use the New Article Wizard and accept the advice to create a new article in user space. New users do not have the "move" button until they are auto-confirmed. I don't know the complete reasoning behind disallowing moves for four days, but I presume that someone has concluded or observed that one can vandalize by moving existing articles to new locations. If that is the rationale, it might make sense to allow moves from user space to article space, while continuing to disallow moves from article space to article space. I realize this may be technically non-trivial, but before I formally propose the idea, is there something I'm missing? Is there a good reason to disallow moving an article from user space to article space for new editors?-- SPhilbrick T 15:12, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Incidentally, implementing this would go nicely with the proposal at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication. Rd232 talk 23:09, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Process question - I posted this in the policy section because I feared there was some nuance of existing policy that would make the idea non-starter. That doesn't appear to be the case, and I'm happy to hear some belief that it wouldn't be a technical nightmare. Should I write this up as a formal proposal in the Proposal section or assume that those who could implement this are reading this thread as well? -- SPhilbrick T 12:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe that pages created in user space show up as new pages. Do they show up as pages that haven't been patrolled? -- Onorem ♠ Dil 15:55, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
{{
move draft}}
for new users to request a move. It would be quite simple for new users (much simpler than moving), you put on {{
Userspace draft}} and in help pages something like 'to move your draft to article space, add {{
move draft}}
below.' And {{
move draft}}
adds a tracking category.
Cenarium (
talk) 00:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)It's used, check out Category:Requests to move a userspace draft. Cenarium ( talk) 22:36, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
According to WP:ELG, exit lists should use abbreviations. Assuming a cleaner table is made that avoids the need for abbreviations, is it correct to assume that style issues remain the decision of the individual editor? MUST an abbreviation be used, or is it an option, provided the article remains consistent throughout with that decision? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a guideline against WP:Overlinking, but there is no guideline against over-referencing, and I suggest we create one. Responding to a content issue on an article I had been involved with prior to the subject's recent and untimely death, I wrote, "...multiple references for a single statement are only required when that statement is something like 'various sources have...', or '(responses/reviews) were mostly (positive/negative)'. Three and four refs for a single declarative statement of fact is gratuitous and seems to serve no purpose other than to declare that the subject or the story is getting lots of press, which isn't entirely the point."
In fact, among many double-reffed sentences, there are simple and uncontroversial statements of fact with five and even six refs. An example of the sort of sentence being over-referenced: at the end of four paragraphs of amply (indeed over-) referenced coverage of the backlash against a newspaper editorial comes the five-word sentence "Scotland Yard received a complaint." This is followed by four references. Four refs for five words about one complaint, when the whole section is about the general complaint and has almost twenty refs preceding these four.
In response to my talk page comment, an editor responded, "I believe that there is no accepted Wikipedia consensus or guidance as to this point and the reverse may be true (in that editors are encouraged to not remove relevant reliable sources), if you know of some guidance that supports your viewpoint I'd be grateful for a link to it."
Surely the observation "the reverse may be true" cannot be the case. Surely Wikipedia does not intend for sentences that are neither complex nor controversial to be referenced to as many as three, four, five or six sources, as in the article in question. If "the reverse" were true, and applies to six refs, why would an editor stop there? To prove his favorite subject had gotten a lot of press (perhaps more than a competing subject), why wouldn't he prove it by noting every ref he can find, if it be seven, seventeen, or seventy-seven? I despise the "slippery slope" argument, and indeed my problem is not with an imaginary 77 but with so many simple statements actually given two, three, four, five, and six refs each.
I have experience with contentious political articles and I don't argue against multiple refs when there is good reason for them. Of course I realize that good, concise encyclopedia writing would have us crafting sentences that dispense several pieces of information which may require several sources, and there may be cases where editorial consensus could not be reached on which of two or three refs was most appropriate in tone or context and so all are included. However, in the absence of any compelling reason, I suggest the guideline be that when a single reliable source adequately conveys a fact, then adding superfluous additional sources is discouraged.
For full disclosure, I brought this up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2009_October_31#Multiple_references on October 31, 2009, where I inquired if such a guideline existed, if such a discussion had transpired elsewhere, or where I might begin one. Some comment ensued there but the drift was that this is the place to have that discussion.
As this is my first such suggestion, should the community decide it is appropriate to move forward on this, I invite guidance in that process. Thanks, Abrazame ( talk) 10:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
The problem isn't at all that multiple references are being used as support for a single sentence; that should always be seen as a good thing, because it allows for more substantial support for a statement (particularly to counter the impression that it's a minority view) and it allows a reader more opportunity to follow up on a given fact through multiple authors.
The problem here is instead the footnoting format the article uses. The use of the "name" parameter in a footnote (<ref name="Foo source />) is popular because it keeps contributors from having to restate the same citation over and over again or from having to use a short form citation for subsequent cites, but I think it has more drawbacks than benefits. As relevant here, it prevents multiple references for the same statement from being combined into one footnote, and it also prevents and discourages explanative notes from being added to the reference, which ideally most (all?) footnotes should include so as to comment on how the source relates to the statement.
In the Christ myth theory article, the fourteen footnotes need to be combined into one footnote, with at least a "see, e.g." preface before listing the fourteen sources, or a concise summary of some kind explaining how those sources support the statement and/or why they are chosen as representative (but not exclusive) supporting references. postdlf ( talk) 14:33, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
In general I would think that a single WP:RS ought to be sufficient for any given fact; a second source may be added to corroborate the first in cases where some doubt exists. A statement is either true or not true, and having it supported by fifteen different sources does not make it any more true than having it supported by only one source. Adding multiple sources to emphasize a point seems to be stepping outside the bounds of what we ought to be doing in an encyclopedia; we ought to be limiting which facts we choose to emphasize or else risk running afoul of our neutral point of view policy. I would hope common sense would prevail in these instances of reference-overload and that we would not have to create a general rule to that effect, however. Sher eth 15:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I am not opposing the practice of editorial discretion in such matters, discretion is not in evidence viz a viz the multiplicity of references in the article I described and would not be in evidence in the articles to which my proposed guideline would be applied. I don't propose that a guideline remove editorial discretion, I'm suggesting that one illuminate what such discretion might (and what it should not) be. Rules are made to be broken, but for good reason. That's the great thing about Wikipedia, we who are aware of these circumstances would be the ones who devise it; it would be pinpointed to those situations where it is not appropriate and not written to dissuade those where it is, as could be enumerated therein; and any rule we come up with would have the ability to be revised if compelling situations arise which we didn't foresee and which truly justify additional exemption/inclusion/shading.
I think that when several refs are called for, the emphasis given by enumerating those in the body of the text can be a plus. But it's sloppy and irresponsible to have an implicit sky's-the-limit policy regarding multiple references. I have conceded at the article's talk page, at the Help desk, and here at the Village Pump already, that there are circumstances under which more than one reference is called for or even required, be it by the broadness of the statement, a claim of universality, the statement's controversial nature, the inability of the editors involved to reach a consensus about which ref gives the most appropriate tone or context, and other reasons as editors validly contribute here and if we were to move forward in the process of determining such a guideline.
However, other reasons for multiple refs could be zealotry (LOOK at all the articles about my pet subject!!!!!), laziness (they all came up when I Googled it, I didn't have time to read them all and choose), indecision (I'm just gonna throw it all up there because I expect someone else to come along and decide which of this should be whittled down), spamming, me-tooism, etc.
I hope some editors will see the distinction between what I am suggesting and what they were reacting to above, and I invite others to contribute their thoughts on how such a guideline might not only adequately protect but enhance or instill the editorial judgment and common sense they and I value. Abrazame ( talk) 08:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I need some assistance on deciding an appropriate time for a bot to add maintenance templates. I am currently developing Coreva-Bot, a bot whose task is to check new article's for the need to ask standard maintenance templates. During the development i tried to mimic "Living" new page patrols utilizing tools such as WP:Friendly to tag pages.
To prevent unneeded tags currently wait till an article is at least an hour old before tagging this. This hour was based upon the somewhat average tag time for manual editors. My reasoning for this would be that an hour would give an editor some time to finish his article, while still being sufficient to show new contributers the templates, thus giving them some advice on how to develop the article. At the RFBA a user commented on this and suggested that this time is rather short, and therefor might catch editors midway trough creating an article which is disturbing.
From a technical side this is just a number, so i care little to change it. Yet what would be an appropriate amount of time? Any suggestions? Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs) 21:33, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
I hope it is more than 15 minutes for this bot. I once created an article, with just two sentences, just to get it created, went to another user's talk page to let him know "this is the name of the article and I just created it, so come on and help if you have time" and went back to add much more (the time I was away was maybe 2 minutes) and it had already been labelled with a PROD, and orphan tag. And I dont think it was a bot that did it. So obviously just a few minutes isnt enough. And it PISSED me off royally, if a bot starts tagging articles I create after a few minutes because I'm at work and I didnt have time to flesh out the article before saving it quickly I will start screaming at someone. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will get angry, but I will be the most vocal. Camelbinky ( talk) 01:05, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Reference related templates shouldn't be added by bots. There are many potencial false positives: the sources are "mentioned" in text or in an unconventional manner, sources are added as raw links in the middle of the text, the article is a stub without any potencially questionable information (such as "X is a city in the Foo province of Fooland"), etc. MBelgrano ( talk) 14:42, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
To get back to the original question, I would suggest 1 day from the date of creation. That would be plenty of time for the author of the article to put it everything that needs to be there. The type of tags you're talking about (orphan, no categories etc.) are more or less just reminders, not major problems that need to be corrected as soon as possible. In my experience with creating new articles these reminders can be helpful but are sometimes annoying when they are being added while you are still actively editing the article. I think a day gives enough time to presume that the first draft is complete and any omissions won't be fixed without a reminder.-- RDBury ( talk) 19:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Swiss municipalities/Article title 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, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I would like to request that
User:Epbr123 be removed as moderator for the Aft discussion of
Heather Harmon and an administrator of proven neutrality be put in his place. Epbr123 has proven to be very opinionated and uncooperative. He has failed to answer my questions and complaints about his practices. Please note that he deleted most of my posts to his talk page without responding to my concerns. -
Stillwaterising (
talk) 09:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your input. I am cancelling my request as the issue seems to be resolved for the time being. I have been informed about how warnings templates are inappropiate for experienced users on another thread. I had never used them before so I thought they were required in order to build a case against a user. I have also never participated in Afd before so please understand my confusion. -- Stillwaterising ( talk) 14:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Page blanking ( | 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, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is entirely the right place to raise this, but I'm curious about a bit of a loophole that is created by the current One Event wording in both WP:BLP and WP:Notability (People). In the case where an event concerns an otherwise non-notable person, WP:BLP1E would recommend creating an article on the event rather than the individual. I see this as a good thing, as it means that we avoid problems of balance - in many cases, writing a fair and neutral article would be impossible, as we only have coverage of the person in regard to this one event. If we place the person in the context of the event, though, their actions are shown to be part of bigger things, and, presumably, the event itself warrants coverage.
However, if the event is entirely based around the individual's actions, then the event article may portray the individual even more negatively that a BLP would. For example, 2009 Louisiana interracial marriage incident. When taken to AfD as a biography, consensus was to delete as a 1E violation. When reworded to become about the event, the content remains virtually the same, but now there is less of an opportunity to balance this account of an aspect of the person's life with more general details about him. Not that there was much of a chance before, of course, due the issues raised above. (And I'm not really concerned specifically about this article, but more the situation it describes).
In short, in the case where a person would not warrant a bio according to 1E but where the event is intrinsically about them, we can simply rename the article and trim details about the person to produce an article that is within policy. My concern is whether or not such an article remains within the spirit of 1E, and if there is any means of balancing this - or, indeed, if we need to be concerned at all. - Bilby ( talk) 03:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
{{
db-g4|discussionlink}}
.--
Unionhawk
Talk
E-mail
Review 03:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)I'm putting on my asbestos suit for this one, but over the past few months I've seen quite a bit of overapplication of BLP. Particularly in articles about crime, and almost always editors coming from the UK, Canada, or Australia. More generally, the "deletionist" editors on the BLP noticeboard all seem to come from Commonwealth countries. I'm curious if there's an unacknowledged cultural difference between the US and the UK on what's "fair game" to include in crime reporting. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 16:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
The Politeness Police will be admins who have regard to the important part of the pillars which is civility. HarryAlffa ( talk) 20:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Page has been deleted via MFD process, Spitfire Tally-ho! 21:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
There has been growing controversy around the current convention of allowing corporate entities to buy the right to advertise through the name of buildings and events, particularly when those buildings or events have been built with public funds. I have noticed that Wikipedia appears to use the official corporate names when referring to buildings and events, and it makes me wonder whether this is not a case of de facto (if not de jure) spamming. Does Wikipedia have any policy with regard to the appearance of corporate advertising in its articles and, if not, should there be? Beyond the ethical issue, there is also the matter that as time passes, the names of these buildings and events change as their corporate sponsorship changes. It is especially egregious for editors to have to waste their time to make sure the correct corporate entity is receiving the advertising for which it has paid. SmashTheState ( talk) 21:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
There is no single rule that can be applied. Allow me to demonstrate using car races. We have the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. However, this year's full, current, sponsored name, was the I Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. However, we omit sponsors in these cases because, while sponsors come and go, the locale doesn't change. The sponsor is secondary to the race. It is referred to among people with only the year and the locale. No one cares that Santander sponsored this year's British Grand Prix.
However, then we have something like the Coca Cola 600. This has been branded by Coke since 1985; before then it was the "World 600", a fact I did not know til I checked it out. However, this has no possible other name. What would you call it? "The annual 600-mile race at Lowe's Motor Speedway"? (Which of course runs into further problems; I guess we'd have to use its old name, Charlotte Motor Speedway) We couldn't call it "Lowe's Motor Speedway race"; there are four or so races that take place there each year. (And a fun one: What would we have called The Winston?) The Coca Cola in the name is a fundamental part of its identity. The same with most other NASCAR races, though most of them change names on a far more regular basis than the Coca Cola 600.
With stadiums, generally the naming rights become a fundamental part of the name. The stadium the Carolina Panthers played in was initially named Ericsson Stadium; now it is Bank of America Stadium. I know no one who refers to it as Ericsson, or as "Panthers" Stadium. The latter would be, in fact, incorrect. It is not our job to make up names because we find the concept of corporate sponsorship distasteful. However, with events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the aforementioned Ottawa Blues Fest, you could get away with omitting the sponsor. It's not fundamental to an understanding of the subject at hand. Naming the article FedExField is, however.
I guess that's the point: If the sponsor/name (and really, these aren't just sponsorships - many times they are NAMES, like with stadiums and such) is absolutely necessary to an understanding of what subject we're talking about (like Qualcomm Stadium or the Coca Cola 600) then include it. If it's secondary (i.e. people will still know what Ottawa Bluesfest is without the Cisco; people will still know what the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is without Etihad; but they will not know what the Coca Cola 600 is without the Coca Cola), then it can and perahps should be omitted.
And doing it for ideological reasons is just crazy talk. -- Golbez ( talk) 10:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Corporate sponsors haven't spammed Wikipedia; they've spammed reality. Wikipedia is not a forum for changing that, and it can't ignore it, particularly given that the sources we must use to build Wikipedia do not.
One thing you could do here, however, is work to improve topics such as Anti-consumerism, to further Wikipedia's coverage of those concepts, movements, and activists. postdlf ( talk) 23:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure where the best place for this is, but there is a discussion at ANI that some here may find of interest. I'm also going to post this at WP:VPT, but please feel free to move the discussion to the most appropriate venue. Thanks! TN X Man 19:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Question: Occasionally users will declare that some user they have a dispute with should never post to their talk page again. My impression is that it's becoming more common; that the meme of making such declarations is slowly spreading. Yet talk pages are there for communication, and such declarations may make future drama more likely, by forcing the "banned" user to avoid the primary dispute resolution route. Of course we shouldn't permit harassment, but, such general, open-ended declarations seem very unhelpful. General requests, or demands if limited in time or by subject, might be OK. Thoughts? Rd232 talk 14:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a lot of discussion going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of wineries and vineyards in Maine regarding what to do with list articles that are essentially a WP:DIRECTORY listings of mostly non-notable wineries. The vast, vast majority of these wineries would not pass WP:CORP and have an article which would help these list fulfill 2 of the 3 main purposes of a list according to WP:LIST--Navigational and Developmental. A consistent question that is coming up is the "special place" that wineries have in the world that would make a list of non-notable wineries different than articles like List of unsigned rock bands in California, List of autoparts stores in Chicago, List of mustard producers or List of pizza shops in New York. Wine has a lot of romantic connotations attached to is, but is this an area that we can get community consensus to give a "free pass" to winery articles when it comes to notability? It is not unprecedented as WP:SCHOOL and WP:ATHLETE give similar "free passes", so to speak, to school and athlete articles when it comes to establishing notability. Agne Cheese/ Wine 15:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I am interested in this rule: Any editor who disagrees with a proposed deletion can simply remove the tag which is explicitly rejected by administrators of Russian wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sergei Gutnikov ( talk • contribs) 14:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Some rules should be decided at project-specific levels, but some other core policies (such as neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research, biographies of living people, What Wikipedia is not, for example) should be universal, written in detail at meta and apply for everybody. There has to be some cohesion among projects, and smaller ones shouldn't take advantage of not being checked by enough people in order to redefine things at unacceptable levels. MBelgrano ( talk) 22:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if this is completely the right place for this. I initially posted this on the talk page of the template, but it has been a week, and only one person has responded (and has supported the notion). Here is my original post:
The current problem that I see with alma mater is that is is ambiguous. The dictionary definition isn't precise (using words like "usually"), and can cause confusion. For example many people have been awarded honorary diplomas and some have not finished college (hence dropped out, or currently enrolled). Some articles consider this to be an alma mater, while some use "Education".
Completely unrelated, if one were to have multiple alma maters, it would be gramatically incorrect to include multiple colleges in the section alma mater, since the plural of alma mater is almae matres. It would be similar to listing multiple awards in a section labeled Award:. TheWeakWilled ( T * G) 21:51, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
How does notability for lists work. Does a list have to be notable? Does every item on the list have to be notable? Does the list itself have to be notable? Or is there really no guidelines on notability of lists? SunCreator ( talk) 10:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) ( | 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, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
In the interest of increasing community notification of, and participation in, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion, a number of CfD regulars have been discussing placing notices on the talk pages of every article that is included in a category listed at CfD. Deletion tags for images can be easily added to article image captions; deletion notices for templates get displayed in every article that uses it; but categories don't allow for this. So the talk page notices would tell every editor interested in that article that a category applied to it is under discussion for deletion, merging, or renaming.
This would likely be bot-implemented as manually-applied notifications would be prohibitively time-consuming. It would not apply to "speedy renamings," which involve minor corrections to category names such as spelling, capitalization, etc. This also might be only a temporary procedure, pending whether a software change could allow for deletion notices to be appended to article category tags themselves.
So I wanted to get wider community input as to whether article talk page notices would be considered a benefit or a nuisance. And/or if anyone has any thoughts on the feasibility/desirability of a software change, and what it should look like. postdlf ( talk) 13:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
A recent change was made to WP:RFC/U, without prior discussion or notification. The change replaced the previous statement "An RfC cannot impose involuntary sanctions on a user, such as blocking or a topic ban; it is a tool for developing voluntary agreements and collecting information." with "An RfC may sometimes lead to consensus for community sanctions." This has now been reverted and is being discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#What_happened_to_Community_sanctions.3F. Rd232 talk 16:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy criteria, criterion number 6 reads:
Disambiguation fixes from an unqualified name (for example, Category:Georgia → Category:Georgia (country) or Category:Georgia (U.S. state))
The consensus regarding what this criterion means and how it applies is unclear at present. Generally on Wikipedia we do no0t pre-emptively disambiguate, by which I mean we do not tend to disambiguate unless there is a reason to, per Wikipedia:Disambiguation, which states that
Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might use the "Go button", there is more than one Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead.
Given that it is unlikely that people actually search for categories using the go button, and that most people will navigate to a category through articles or other categories, which will make context clear, is there a need to pre-emptively disambiguate categories on a wide scale, or should any such re-namings be subject to a full discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion rather than speedily performed? Hiding T 10:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
This criterion is not for "pre-emtively" disambiguating. If somebody stubled over it hard enough to nominate it, that means it is about time. I have seen this criterion being applied, and am very happy with it. It significantly lowers the workload at the non-speedy Cfd. Debresser ( talk) 21:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I deprecated it on the strength of this discussion, which shows that it does not reflect consensus. Given that policies and processes need to reflect consensus, I can;t see how it can be retained in current form given the shape of the above discussion and the fact that it requires a consensus to remain. Hiding T 21:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Just dropping a notice here to draw attention to this new proposed notability guideline that I have helped create. Please post feedback to the relevant section on its Talk page. Thanks, The Wordsmith Communicate 18:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Where is the RFC? The link to Notability is the proposed policy, not the RFC. Thank you. Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 15:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Can an editorial from a respected newspaper be mentioned on Wikipedia? I thought that this is to be mostly avoided. However, this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state_terrorism has full of it.
American presidents are often mentioned in editorials. Currently, American presidents' article have a structure like "President -- signed the XYZ Act in 1999". If editorials are allowed, then the structure could be "President --- signed the XYZ Act in 1999. The New York Times opposed the act because it would ---. However, the Chicago Tribune cited --- provisions of the act which would help ---"
These additions would help understanding of the historical facts but would have to be carefully written with many people. Not having these additions makes the article incomplete.
What's the position of Wikipedia about use of editorials? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk • contribs) 18:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
An article that demonstrates notability without the ability to verify said notability. How should it be treated? I know that demonstrating notability even without referencing it is enough to block CSD. Second, referencing facts are necessary to prevent hoaxes and false info.
When an article is obviously not a hoax (as shown by minimal sources, a framework, or other method), what are your thoughts regarding the need for verifiability in existing articles?
For example, I wrote an article on my old army unit, Bahad 16. While I can't cite my knowledge ( WP:OR), the article describes the unit's notability. Joe407 ( talk) 13:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources
- WP:GNG
On the one hand I understand this policy as a filtering tool. On the other hand it poses a different definition of notability than may be in common use. We are requiring RS to create notability, while creation of RS is generally bases on public interest, which is not always the same as notability. A topic which people are familiar with yet holds no special interest to the media would be notable while lacking RS. For example, the plastic furniture covers that little old ladies put on all of their furniture. This is a topic that we all know about and may even have ourselves but is a topic of zero interest to anyone who might generate WP:RS.
Taemyr is correct that the process is self-perpetuating but my question is what about when it can not get started? Joe407 ( talk) 05:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I do remember seeing a discussion about this somewhere. Should two separate articles exist for a village at the same location which has been known by different names in history? It has come up again here. Other examples include Shechem & present day Salim, Nablus or Gibeon (ancient city) & Jib, Jerusalem. Sepphoris and Saffuriya both redirect to Tzippori. Chesdovi ( talk) 17:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Once again, you have not provided one single source showing that Neve Ativ was "formerly Jubata" or provided evidence for anything else you have said. -- Supreme Deliciousness ( talk) 21:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
If a village have occupied exactly the same location over time, it is hard to see a legitimate case for having two separate articles. If it were otherwise, there would be multiple articles for every settlement that has ever seen a population change or a name-change or a short break in settlement continuity. Regardless of its ethnic makeup, or the buildings that comprise it, it is the same settlement. They would be different settlements only if there was a serious and long-lasting break in the continuity of function on the same site (the function being its use as a human settlement). A settlement does not become a different settlement just because it it is given a different name, or because all its old buildings are replaced by new ones, or because it was abandoned for several years and then resettled by a different population or ethnic group. The case of a modern town or village built on the site of the ruins of a Classical city is different - they could have separate articles because their histories and functions could be very different. Meowy 20:37, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I think this very much depends on how much information is available. There are a lot of examples on WP of one article covering two different cities/villages that have been in the same location. (One example is Port Royal, Nova Scotia, a city founded by French immigrants, burned to thr ground and all its residents expelled, then rebuilt and settled by English immigrants - all done in one article.) If so much information is available that the location can't be adquately covered in one article, then the content should be split per WP:Summary. Karanacs ( talk) 21:12, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a well used User box for people who program with Python called {{ User py}}. A user from Paraguay would like to know if it is ok to use {{ User PY}}? See for example Template talk:User py. The issue is to use case sensitive names. 199.125.109.126 ( talk) 07:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Dear colleagues
Many editors participated in a recent RfC, Public polling versus secret ballot. The results were not conclusive.
A compromise solution has been proposed here, on which all users are welcome to voice their opinion. Tony (talk) 09:19, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I contended on Talk:Su’heita that just as the villages of Bălteni, Boteni, Călugăreni, Conţeşti, Crângaşi, Gămăneşti, Heleşteu, Napclaşarea and Mereni in Conţeşti, Dâmboviţa are not notable and therefore do not warrant their own pages, so too does the same apply to the villages listed at List of Syrian towns and villages destroyed by Israel. Supreme Deliciousness has pointed out, however, that there are individual pages for French villages destroyed in the First World War. Not only that; if you take a look at Category:Communes of Nord for example, most of the communes featured are one liners and have no apparent notability; they could also have a population as small as 58, ( Les Éparges). I have in the past created pages for villages ( Amnaş) but they were immediately merged. What is the official policy on this? Does every village or hamlet that exists or has existed warrant a page? Chesdovi ( talk) 16:04, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
It may be worth noting here that 4 of the 6 French villages destroyed in the First World War which have not been rebuilt and were used by Supreme Deliciousness to back up inclusion of destroyed Syrian villages were indeed created by User:Dr. Blofeld. Chesdovi ( talk) 23:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
For anyone brave enough to grapple with "what is policy?", please have a look at Wikipedia_talk:Policies_and_guidelines#New_classification. I'm proposing using the enforcement policy subcat for some policy pages that people have been arguing about for a long time, and trying to get some clarification on what makes policy pages different from other pages. - Dank ( push to talk) 17:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi,
I notice that BIOS has external links (as a reference) to several articles at Smart Computing. When I followed these links I found them to be unavailable without a paid-for subscription. While I understand that all references cannot be to free content this seems a bit like using Wikipedia for advertising. What irks is that the links are to a page with a "pay me money now" button.
Apologies for being lazy and not researching whether this topic has already been throughly discussed and exhausted.
-- kop ( talk) 16:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The original discussion was here [3]
I saw a Newslibrary link in a reference for one article I was working on I suppose a free source is possible, but what if it isn't? I used to be able to see certain Newslibrary articles for free, but my user page shows why I can't any more.
EBSCO Host didn't work for me for one article where someone reverted me for an expired link, which of course would not have been allowed, but just in case the person does come back, it would be nice to have something to show him/her. Not that this person would pay.
I did use EBSCO where all the sources had formatted templates already, but I made a note about that in the edit summary and I suppose a link wouldn't be needed. My link might not work anywya even if someone is at a library that pays, simply because it's no longer my session. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Discuss and draft graphical layout overhauls ( | 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, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Motivated by a question at WP:RD/S, I tagged the redirect page Luekemia, which redirected to Leukemia, for speedy deletion, for maintenance reasons. I sincerely believed that the deletion would be uncontroversial, because the initial creation of the page appeared to have been motivated by vandalism (in 2006), and that someone later redirected it to Leukemia, and that it had no incoming links, until the question which contained the typo appeared at the refdesk now. Because the typo was part of the section title, I stated in the thread that it was a typo, and that I was about to tag it for deletion. To my surprise, the deletion was contested; see the RD thread here.
As I am not a native English speaker, it is possible that I regard the typo as less likely to occur than a native speaker would. However, at the moment, the only link to the typo-redirect page comes from my user page, motivated by my interest in seeing whether it is deleted or not. As "gardening" and anti-vandalism work is a major part of my participation in this project, and as my general frame of mind is inclusionist, I need clearly need guidance on this issue. Thanks in advance for your advice on how to handle redirect pages for typos, and for links to policies that I may not be aware of. -- NorwegianBlue talk 00:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
WP:Spoilers is a vaguely worded Wikipedia guideline. Pages and pages of back and forth have been written about it and probably frayed countless nerves and continues to do so but no one has addressed the problem, a problem that can be sourced in part to the absolutist interpretation people give this guideline. Someone should give a one-stop reference on the issue that brings up all the arguments on both sides of the debate and can be used to quickly address and dispel issues.
I have proposed as a solution a hyperlink to WP:Spoilers as a way of addressing the issue but am being told that would be a violation of WP:Spoilers. I disagree because I think a hyperlink falls under the auspices of WP:Link. Pointy bureaucrats are pushing an absolutist interpretation instead of trying to find a mutually acceptable solution. Let's lay out all the arguments in one place and compare and stop going in circles. To that end I plan to edit this section in such a way that keeps a focus on the points made. Lambanog ( talk) 17:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I've had several edits reverted because, according to the edit summary, the reference did not exist.
Actually, it did exist at one time and still does exist in forms the person who reverted might have a hard time getting to. I used to not provide links for newspaper and magazine articles because, as was true in this case, the links no longer work after a few months. But then I had someone revert my edit for NOT providing a link, so for that reason, and because some articles generally have links, I've been providing them.
I'm not sure how to handle this. I consider the information important, although over time it might be true that the information makes the article too wordy. Right now the issues are still coming up. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I've had some luck with the newspaper that is the source for most of the information in the article on EBSCO Host. It's not a guarantee, though, and I certainly don't look forward to doing that much work. I could just tell this person if I find the articles on EBSCO and then it's up to that person, using what I give him/her, to find them. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I propose that we do have rules on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia wikis that forbids certain content. While Wikipedias goal is to become the the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, with complete information about everything. That's just where the problems start - let's jsut take an example, an underage can easily be tricked to articles containing pictures with pornography, for example the adult video game Bubble Bath Babes, with no warning preciding whatsover, a higly illegal fact. There's even worse examples, like the cover band of Virgin Killer, with Internet Watch Foundation even blacklisting certain Wikipedia articles, due to it breaking international laws. Yet, it was left due to informational purposes.
This is basically why I propose that we add rules to all Wikimedia wikis, all of which (if possibly) depends on the country the wiki is situated in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Von Mario ( talk • contribs) 12:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia ( | 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, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I nominated the article on David R. Brown (neuroscientist) for deletion because it is a clear autobiography/vanity article (see talk page for explanation). The subject is known within his professional field, but the article does not give a neutral, unbiased view. Every one of the 18 items in "further reading" is authored/co-authored by the subject. Of the 11 references, 5 are authoured/co-authored by the subject and one is an interview with the subject. The author of the article has previously deleted discussion of these issues on the talk page, saying "I don't think it is appropriate for it remain there as it is not about the contents of the article and it also makes me known publically as the person that created it. I keep trying to delete it but it keeps being put back. Please can this be remove or at least my name be removed." Since the page was moved into mainspace on 1st May 2009, only 3 other users have edited the main text at all, which would tend to argue against notability. I've never been that confident with Wikipedia policies, but after reading the biography guidelines I got the clear impression that Wikipedia did not want unsourced autobiographies, so thought it seemed reasonable to propose the article for deletion. I was surprised to get the response (via the article history page): "absurd nomination. Take it to AfD if you dare)". I've never nominated anything for deletion before, so could someone explain whether a) I went down the wrong deletion 'route' or b) biased unsourced autobiography is just fine? Purple 01:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
The issue is whether articles should be required to use "named footnotes" when there are duplicates (for example, <ref name="myfootnote">). This change is currently implemented automatically by AWB. The discussion has been moved to Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Refname_footnotes_(from_village_pump); please continue the discussion there. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Going to Category:Requests for unblock, I was surprised to read that "...[admins should not] review an unblock request where they have a conflict of interest, whether by having set the original block or by participating in disputes relating to it." I agree that it would be wrong for me to decline an unblock request put up by someone whom I blocked, but what if I think that I made a mistake and want to unblock? What's the benefit in saying that I'm effectively prohibited from unblocking a user because they've asked for it? Nyttend ( talk) 05:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Some time back, Erik9bot added Category:Articles_lacking_sources_(Erik9bot) to about 115,000 pages. The original proposal was for editors to manually review these pages and take whatever action is appropriate. There is now a proposal, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot XXI, to go through all the articles in that category and automatically mark them with the {{ unreferenced}} tag. Those who are interested may comment on the bot request page. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
When a user first creates a page they get this warning, "When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references may quickly be deleted." This warning is not enough. Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion deals with a lot of frustrated users who have provided references, but haven't shown Notability. A lot of them then complain at WP:Deletion Review. Improving this warning sentence to make a claim about notability would not be a cure-all, but it might provide a few less upset new users and over time, a significant saving of time for contributors at AfD and DelRev. This is an area where strong editors quickly burn out, even if 1% of new article writers read the sentence would help.
Though the guideline itself is inactive and is retained for historical reference, I think it should be a formal guideline since though a software given five stars or equivalents should have an independent articles, some Wikipedians differentiate it from regular software awards. So I make a proposal: as long as a software has been mentioned non-trivially by more than one computer book, magazine or other publications, or has been given five stars or editor's pick or equivalents by a reputable download site or computer magazine, or has been commented by a celebrity, or is not freeware, it should have an independent article. In fact I truly hate to propose new policies or guidelines since it effects instruction creep, however, I have to propose a new notability guideline since some notable software, such as O&O Defrag, XnView, BS.Player and K-Lite Codec Pack have been AfD-ed, BS.Player was even deleted despite it has been given five stars on Download.com. Two years ago one Wikipedian considered a software notability guideline necessary, however no one noticed it, Now let's face the AfD problem and propose a software guideline to curb illegitimate deletions of software articles.-- RekishiEJ ( talk) 12:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
We are still in the middle of a controversy over spoilers, but I would like to put out this proposal-
An established form of the first sentence of a lead in many Wikipedia articles is (made this example up for demonstration):
Term
A Term ( Latin terminus, "boundary"') is a word or phrase, especially one from a specialised area of knowledge.
However, often they look like this:
Term
A Term ( Middle English: terme, from Old French: terme, originally from Latin: terminus, a bound, boundary, limit, end, Medieval Latin: also "a time", "period", "word", "covenant"; not to be confused with turm; plural: terms) is a word or phrase, especially one from a specialised area of knowledge.
Here are some actual examples:
Cathetus,
Octopus,
Phlox,
Hippopotamus,
Magi,
Ballista,
Mount Carmel.
Although Wikipedia is not a dictionary, grammatical information ( etymology, plural etc.) is often still desirable, but in the lead section when very long it compromises readability. When such extensive grammatical information is desirable, it should be repositioned outside of the lead section. I would suggest recommending this in the guidelines for first sentence format. Dan ☺ 21:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
RL, you're perfectly right in observing that articles should generally be about the subject and not about the word designating it; still, personally I'd enjoy learning about etymologies and would appreciate being informed about an irregular plural and I'd prefer being able to do so without having to click my way into Wiktionary. Thus I'd prefer, while reading Hippopotamus, to have all this information right there in the article, only not rendering the first sentence practically illegible but rather separately, either neatly in a grammar box or just elsewhere in the article. This way, the quality of an article in Wikipedia and the monitoring of its contents remain independent of contents and edits in Wiktionary (which I believe take place with little monitoring of Wikipedia editors). As long as grammatical information doesn't become the inappropriate focus of an article, its inclusion won't turn the article into a dictionary entry, but it will improve it by making it more comprehensive. Dan ☺ 01:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Check out Knights Hospitaller: same awkwardness, but the parenthetical consists mostly of alternative designations. For the sake of better readability, I'd avoid a parenthetical and move the contents out of the first sentence also with this kind of information. Dan ☺ 22:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
There has been a related discussion recently at WP:Content noticeboard#Language. Hans Adler 14:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Another at Wikipedia talk:Lead section#Etymology in first sentence? -- Quiddity ( talk) 00:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Over at the
Wine Project, we have had a horrendously messy category structure for sometime. For years people just made categories and slapped them around articles with no inclination to organize them into anything consistent or cohesive. One of the most glaring mistakes was having categories such
Category:French wines or
Category:Italian wines (which would be for individual specific wines like
Nicolas Joly Savennières-Coulée-de-Serrant or
1998 Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Bolgheri Superiore and different from the general head cats for
Category:French wine and
Category:Italian wine). These cats (with the plural "wines") were being misapplied to wine regions like
Corsica wine, producers such
Château Pétrus, or DOC quality designations like
Brindisi Rosso and so forth. Obviously better categories existed for things like
Category:Wine regions of France,
Category:Bordeaux wine producers,
Category:Italian DOCs and the Wine Project went about with this housekeeping. This included removing the poor categorization which left these unneeded categories obviously empty. The chances of articles being written on specific French or Italians wines are rather slim. We mostly include info on these specific wines in articles about their producers or regions such as
Nicolas Joly or
Ornellaia, etc. Well I guess some of the CfD regulars didn't like this and called foul over what they viewed as
"abusing the process", being
"out of process" and stating that
"cfd is the place to go" to discuss miscategorization.
What I would like to know is what is the balance between cleaning up blatantly wrong categorizations versus going to CfD for everything? I've always used the controversial vs non-controversial rule of thumb and I would have thought removing categories for individual specific wines from articles about wine regions, producers and quality level designations would be non-controversial but apparently it isn't. Apparently the "controversy" itself, is not going to CfD first to explain why
Chianti is a region/DOC and not an individual specific wine like
Villa Antinori Chianti Reserva is and so should be classified as
Category:Wine regions of Italy or
Category:Italian DOC, etc. So what is the balance? Does everything need to go through CfD?
Agne
Cheese/
Wine 23:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Any editor can unilaterally create a category and add however many articles to it they want. Any editor can also unilaterally decide to remove an article from a category. Either action can be challenged by other editors, but in neither instance is preapproval required by any policy or guideline. If an editor's removal of articles from a category is controversial, then it would be challenged and the issue discussed and resolved in any number of forums, including CFD. If it isn't challenged, then the category could be emptied without objection, but anyone could of course still refill it to prevent its speedy deletion for being empty, or recreate it after it is speedied for being empty.
The only action for which CFD is absolutely required is to delete a category page that does not qualify for speedy deletion (merging and renaming are still just deletions of category pages accompanied by the recategorization of articles), and to provide a basis for speedy deleting recreated categories that have been deleted as a result of CFD discussions. Consensus to empty a category could also be established on a category's talk page, on a Wikiproject's talk page, or on article talk pages, but then none of those discussions in non-CFD forums could be the basis for speedy deleting the category if it is recreated. Which is a good reason for going to CFD in the first place, but still not a mandate. postdlf ( talk) 17:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Duh, Chianti is a region in italy that makes wine. It wouldn't be called Chianti if it wasn't grown in that exact area. Seriously dude, even I know that and the only time I drink wine is when my girlfriend makes me. Now I don't understand all the stuff that the wine guy Agne was talking about but it seems like it makes sense. What I don't get is Wikipedia's problem with letting people who know their stuff edit that stuff the way it needs to be edit. This is where Wikipedia looks like a joke when you have doofus heads like the Chianti guy above (or me for that matter LOL) trying to tell the expert people how to edit. Well duh! But Wikipedia is so afraid of having experts involved that they tolerate stupid stuff instead of....you know, making an encyclopedia that is actually good? Stuff like this is why wikipedia is a joke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.216.224.7 ( talk) 04:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it's a good idea to discuss the way blocked users are treated. I had a look at the checkuser pages and what I saw was shocking. People are treated like they are criminals. There is no one to help them when a group of editors or admins decides that they want to block someone.
The blocked users get signs on their user and talk pages screaming:" This is a sock of so and so and he is blocked. See evidence for more info etc.". They are helpless against editors/admins who know every little rule.
My proposal:
This guideline was downgraded to an essay in a recent and little noticed disagreement by Rd232. His reasoning is explained on the talk page, but what bothers me is that it was justified by "
undo upgrading to guideline without apparent talk consensus". I would usually agree that building a consensus is an essential first step in guideline formulation, but insisting that there is currently no consensus that "common sense" is a good concept to be sprinkled liberally (as it is on {{
guideline}}) seems absurd. When met with opposition, this very concise policy was buried as an addendum to another essay, thereby made to appear unrecognized and disturbingly obscured in favor of having a compromise rather than a clear and supported stance. ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩ 11:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I think they should. 1st choice would be to Google Books, Amazon Reader or other sites where the cited text can be read. And if it's not available online to its WorldCat page.
http://www.worldcat.org/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lenbrazil ( talk • contribs) 11:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Here's a question that has never been fully answered. Are roads notable by default? If not, which ones are not notable, and why is that so? The only "accepted" guideline I can currently find on the subject is the US Wikiproject's page on notability, which provides one of the most well articulated answers I have come across: "[County roads] may or may not be sufficiently notable to merit a unique article".
However, as I have learned, the consensus of the US roads wikiproject is that of 5 or 6 editors who have a lot of ownership issues with transportation articles outside of their own country. This couples with the beatnik answer that the guideline provides, as well as the more core policies of WP:ALMANAC and the historic policy of WP:Gazetteer which allude to the opposite - That all roads are notable, as they have to have been created and funded from pubic money for a reason. Obviously side streets and concession roads are exceptions, as there is no use in articles that read "Vesper court is a street in BLAH with 11 houses on it."
In my opinion, all arterial roads in cities, as well as all signed&numbered county/state/provincial roads qualify as notable, as they have some history that cannot be represented with a single map. Freeways are obviously always notable.
Any thoughts? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 17:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
"Roads" is very ambiguous, and thus it is impossible to determine whether they're inherently noteworthy. Do we include random dirt paths in our definition of the term? If so, then no, roads are not always notable. – Juliancolton | Talk 04:46, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Isn't this whole discussion overcomplicating things a bit? If a road is covered substantially by multiple independent reliable sources, it's notable. If not, it's not. That's the same as anything else. Nothing is notable because "it's a...", it's notable or not based upon sourcing available. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Content should be verifiable with citations to reliable sources. Our editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, an indiscriminate collection of information, or a web directory. It is not a dictionary, newspaper, or a collection of source documents; that kind of content should be contributed instead to the Wikimedia sister projects.
I'm personally of the view that some are, some aren't, and there is a grey area in the middle. For instance on the Australian project we seem to have decided that major roads within metropolitan areas, and highways and major roads outside of metropolitan areas are notable, while almost everything else is not. There are exceptions to the latter. Trying to decide whether all of x are inherently notable is making all manner of assumptions which I don't think we really can justify. Orderinchaos 20:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Generally, I do not hold all roads to be notable, in many cases the road is too short/too unremarkable/too commonplace. On the other hand, I hold railway lines to be notable, since they are less commonplace, and generally in heavier use. Also, paper encyclopedias contain articles on railway lines, including short branch lines like the
Arendal Line. Pretty much ditto with small airports, they are also covered in paper encyclopedias and are important transportation nodes. Hence, the question I ask when faced with determining the notability of a road article is: "Is the significance of this particular road on par with that of a small airport or small branch line?" If yes, I generally deem the road notable. This test generally favors the inclusion of highways and main arterial roads in cities, while excluding residential drives and cul-de-sacs.
Sjakkalle
(Check!) 12:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Following on from the debate at Wikipedia talk: Lists - All Lists Are Subject Driven, I stumbled across this " List of controversial books" (forgive the euphemism), which I feel represents the problem whereby lists are being used as vehicles for topic inclusion as a means to circumvent Wikipedia's inclusion criteria based on notability.
Setting aside the sexual subject matter of the article for a moment, the issue here is that the boundries between the compilation of lists and original reseach/ Synthesis of published material have become blurred, and these boundries need to be more clearly demarcated. Whilst the compilation of such lists is a useful and worthy accademic exercise outside of Wikipedia, the creation of list articles by Wikipedians themselves is a type of orginal research (if unsourced) or synethesis (if sourced) where the list is not itself notable in any way.
Take the "List of controversial books" above. Although it is clearly a list, the source of the article's title and the rationale for its inclusion in Wikipedia is misleading. Perhaps the article should have correctly titled "List of contraversial books selected arbitarily, loosely associated by subject matter, which one or more editors thinks is important enough to have its own list article". The problem is with self-compiled list is, if it is not notable, then the reader will not have any reference point from which to start when they ask the question "why was this list compliled to start with?" Is it a legitimate acaedmic exercise to complile this list, and if so, why? By contrast, if a list that is notable will have been compiled for a reason, which becomes more or less apparent from the significant coverage in the form of commentary, criticism or analysis that would accompany it.
My view is that without evidence of notability, the "List of controversial books" is effectively a content fork and as such is not compliant with Wikipedia's content policies. Not only is it a content fork because its subject matter is featured in one or more article topics where the topic is the subject of significant coverage from reliable secondary sources, but I believe it to be a POV fork, i.e. it is a content fork which is promoting a particular viewpoint. The reason why I say it is POV fork is that, in the case of List of controversial books, the absence of commentary, criticism or analysis is deafening. Without significant coverage, this list article is attempting to circumvent Wikipedia content policies by virtue of the fact that it is silent about its subject matter, as cannot be considered to neutral or compliant with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
The question I have is, if I nominate this article for deletion (for a third time), would this be a fair rationale, or is there a flaw in my thinking? -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 21:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Could a policy be formed about this? I make the point never to delete/remove another's work but request comment or encourage for a better article page. However, we see people removing articles on the Gospel of Pilot etc. very much part of Church History. You cannot have an Encyclopedia if you remove all the bits you don't like! The same is true of associated article pages of Carl Gustav Jung. People on one expertise should not cross-over and interfer with article pages the subject they have not studied, and give witness to this by saying "I know nothing of this particular topic, but....". Or say: "I have not discovered the addiction in question, but...", but still give an unresearched opinion, or unread opinion. If one is referring to such they should ask a question. There should be a policy about this, for otherwise chaos may begin.
MacOfJesus ( talk) 00:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Traditionally this has been referred to as the Gospel of Pilate and in most Commentries is referred to as such, even though it reads as a declaration, but too, is referred to as Acts of Pilate.
In the talk page of Acts of Pilate you will see other entrants complaining about the same thing. This is the point I am making: That people who don't know the signifance of these article pages and how they are dealt with in other sources are taking it upon themselves to deleate and remove.
We all need to study not only from Wikipedia the article page but from other sources, too, before offering opinion.
MacOfJesus ( talk) 09:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
The point I'm making is about deleting and removing, sorry for calling the Gospel of Pilate. It is one of the terms I came across in studying Scripture at length, not from the net but from Commentries and Libraries and from lectures and exams and from the Exegesis world. Sorry.
MacOfJesus ( talk) 17:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
User:Str1977 has methodically gone through articles included in the Category:Christian mythology removing them. This article was one of those removed.Perhaps not in the interests of the non-indoctrinated Wikipedia reader? I have no opinion in this particular case myself. --Wetman 09:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
:Just asking for a uniform policy, sorry if I have misunderstood. MacOfJesus ( talk) 20:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I must have a tough skin! after all! The other bits of the we may have gone! It was the "Royal We" I must have been using. But in all honesty some in the Jung world thought (including me), that it was one and the same person! Do remember we the studying-writers of article pages, do feed the Wikipedia world, and at no cost. I must have a hard skin! MacOfJesus ( talk) 20:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Is there a speedy or relative speedy deletion criterion for files under blatantly incorrect licences (for example, something that is obviously an official logo and yet is licensed, absent OTRS, under a free licence). If so, someone familiar with such areas may want to look at File:FarmFresh102-9 FM-Logo small.JPG. Intelligent sium 02:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I have closed this Request for Comment. My detailed review of the issues and the results of that discussion may be found here. To summarize, I found that consensus exists as follows:
Questions or comments may be posted at The RFC's Talk Page. Thank you to all who participated. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 16:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Please see WT:NPOV#Redirects and NPOV. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)Thanks Shereth, fixed link
To answer the question: you'll see in that section that there's a fiercely-fought DRV at the moment where many people are invoking NPOV ... except NPOV says nothing about redirects in general, and neither has its talk page, for the last year or so. We should probably add something to the text, one way or another (and I personally don't care which way it goes, although I felt strongly about the related BLP issue). - Dank ( push to talk) 04:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Here is a simple one, but a sysop doesn't seem to get this concept. Abbreviations are not used except in cases where they have been defined and entered common use. This is a simple fact along the same line as concepts such as neologisms. If there is no way to verify that an abbreviation is used, it should not be used, as that would constitute original research. Have I lost anybody so far? Continuing, who does the burden of proof lie upon to find a source indicating whether something is normally abbreviated or not? Does it fall on the person wishing to use the abbreviation, or on the person wishing to use the spelt out version (assuming there is no proof of either in the jurisdiction that the article falls under)? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 01:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Burden of proof is, as always, firmly on those making a positive assertion. If they claim the abbreviations are widespread, they need to prove it. You can't be realistically expected to prove a negative. From the Manual of Style-
Generally avoid making up new abbreviations, especially acronyms. For example, while it is reasonable to provide World Union of Billiards as a translation of Union Mondiale de Billard, the former is not the organization's name, and the organization does not use the acronym or initialism WUB; when referring to it in short form, use the official abbreviation UMB. In a wide table of international economic data, it might be desirable to abbreviate a United States gross national product heading; this might be done with the widely recognized initialisms US and GNP spaced together, with a link to appropriate articles, if it is not already explained: US GNP, rather than the made-up initialism USGNP.
-- King Öomie 18:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
The following was just posted on WP:VPM [9], but I'm moving it here since it seems more relevant here, and I agree with it anyway.
{{
pathnav}}
and has added it to the top of 20 or so articles. For one example, see
[10]. This is a major change to the layout of article ledes and should have been discussed before being implemented (not to mention the 'levels' listed in the path are somewhat questionable, a mix of formal administrative levels and theoretical geo-social constructs, so it would be hard to maintain a standard format for them). I think these edits should be rolled back until a discussion takes place.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 05:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)Thoughts? Zzyzx11 ( talk) 05:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
United States > Western United States > California > Los Angeles County |
I think Wikitravel uses something like this, but that is also a much more geographically structured wiki. -- Apoc2400 ( talk) 01:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Proposed a paragraph titled: "Administrator's abuses of power in the blocking policy". Discussion
here
bye --
Mashra (
talk) 22:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
[11] An editor has questioned the notability of the subject of an article. When it was shown that the subject's books have been reviewed by mainstream sources, the editor responds that the books may be notable, but the author is not notable. I believe that the idea is absurd and flies in the face of Wikipedia policy. Thoughts? — goethean ॐ 16:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Regarding vandalism by the ip address, 89.240.115.135, on Barge I have not the power to block the ip address, who do I alert. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oliver Barge ( talk • contribs) 19:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#RfC_on_page_move. Should Wikipedia:Reliable sources be moved to Wikipedia:Verifiability/reliable sources to become a subpage of the sourcing policy, WP:V? There would be no change in either page's status: the policy would remain policy, and RS would retain its status as a guideline. 23:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
There is only one WILI disambiguation page, with two radio stations.
Some Wikipedia editors have chosen to spell the nickname of Wilhelmina Slater as "Wili". In articles where I saw it, I changed the name to the proper name for clarity but created a redirect so people who thought of her as "Wili" could use that. It's sure a lot easier to spell, although I've never seen proof of the spelling. I'll look for it.
But what would be the proper way to handle a disambiguation page? Using "search", There are two uses of "Wili"-- Harold Lamont Otey and Wili Jønsson--in addition to the two radio stations and Wili Slater. I see another redirect I need to create because I don't know how the heck, other than copy and paste with the article, one comes up with that character.
There's also a redirect for Willi Weber. And I see a bunch more uses of "Wili" to refer to Wilhelmina. I don't think of her as having a nickname, so I imagine others will do a double-take unless I fix that.
Incidentally, how would I add "Willi" to the hatnote on Slavic fairies? I just added that in anticipation of a new disambiguation page, and then carelessly clicked on "Save page" when I meant to "show preview". Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
When creating an article, what instances would count as Conflict of Interest? Simply south ( talk) 21:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Currently marked as policy, see here. Cenarium ( talk) 00:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello, FYI I've started a RfC on our semi-protection policy. Thanks. Soque1 ( talk) 11:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
In the past several months I have been dealing with a pair of extremely persistent sockpuppet vandals.
The first one I was involved with was a Japanese editor who normally edits ja.wikipedia. This vandal was quite clever and the majority of his edits skated the line between vandalism and good faith (they were subtly slanderous or POV edits concerning a living person for the most part). When reverted or questioned, his communications were highly uncivil and he demonstrated such a high degree of ownership over pages that I believe his eventual indefinite blocking was as much for behavior as it was for vandalism. After months of struggles, both of his IPs here were blocked and his army of 30 (by last count) sockpuppets were blocked as well. Although he has returned a number of times in the past for further vandalism, he seems to be limiting his activities to ja.wikipedia for the present.
The second vandal puppetmaster I am currently involved with is an English editor who normally edits en.wikipedia. This editor is in many ways the exact opposite of the first one: he makes very obvious vandalistic edits (like blanking pages or requesting bans from admin), and he is usually caught and blocked within hours. The problem is that he often edits obscure little-watched pages, and also he operates from behind a dynamic IP range. So often all he has to do is to disconnect from the internet and then connect back again and he is assigned a new unblocked IP. His ISP also changes his IP automatically every few days. When this editor is blocked on en.wikipedia he nearly always goes to simple.wikipedia to continue his mayhem. To date this puppetmaster has 15 username puppets across both projects (only 9 here at en.wiki), and close to 100 IP puppets (over 80 here at en.wiki).
In dealing with these exceptionally persistent puppetmasters it takes a lot of coordination between the different language versions in order to properly block them. Admin on one language wikipedia will usually not be aware of problems from the same editor on another language wikipedia, and clever vandalism or vandalism of obscure pages often takes months of dedicated monitoring of multiple language versions of wikipedias to squelch. I have been thinking for a while now that there has to be a better way than this, and I think I've come up with a good solution.
The reason I think it should only apply to IP blockings is that there's always some uncertainty that "User:Mort" (chosen semi-arbitrarily) is the same on en.wiki as it is on fr.wiki. It would be an exceptionally difficult judgment call for an admin to make even if the edits on both interlanguage versions look highly similar. An IP, however, will be the same here as it will be on fr.wiki or de.wiki or what have you. By allowing admins/mods to block the IP on all language versions of wikipedia simultaneously in one simple action, this provides increased notice to editors/admin at the other language versions that the blocked IP editor is in trouble at en.wiki. This should increase the effectiveness of the response to further vandalism on the other project. This also serves the goal of creating heightened disincentives to vandalize.
I hope this is the right place to make such a proposal. If this seems to be an issue for Village Pump (proposals) or if this seems to be a higher-order proposal better suited for something like the Wikimedia Foundation or something, please let me know where you think I should make my case. Thanks. - Thibbs ( talk) 18:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Appealing a block ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Should the the following section be inserted into WP:N to explain better to both article writers and inexperienced AFD participants that it's not a matter of "getting boxes checked", but that the reliability and independence of the sources cited in an article are important?
Self promotion and indiscriminate publicity In some instances, publication in a reliable source is not actual good evidence of notability:
Wikipedia is not a promotional medium. The barometer of notability is whether third parties in the wider world have independently considered the topic significant. Paid material, self-promotion, solicitation, and product placement are not evidence of notability as they do not measure the attention a subject has received by the world at large.
Credible writers who have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus upon it – without incentive, promotion, or other influence by people connected to the topic matter – are good evidence, but the nature of the material must be examined to consider if it shows genuine independent interest, or is more likely to result from indiscriminate coverage or promotion.
In particular:
then the resulting text is unlikely to be good evidence.
Comments are invited and are most welcome at Wikipedia Talk:Notability. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 16:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a an RFC at Template talk:Refimprove. It would be helpful to include a link to a commercial search engine in the template. But this means that there will be external links outside the "External links" section in hundreds of articles. Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? See Template talk:Refimprove#RFC: Should a link to a commercial search engine be included in the template Refimprove? -- PBS ( talk) 17:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I asked over at WT:CfD if they want to handle this, since it involves creating a new category ... apparently not, there were no responses. Short version: Some policy pages haven't been edited in a while, some of them should rarely be changed because they involve Foundation, legal or technical issues, and the policy nutshell at the top of these pages should be changed (in many cases, it already has been changed). There seems to be agreement at WT:POLICY#list of pages that some new category, maybe Category:Wikipedia administrative policies, would be appropriate. Thoughts? Is there a simple yes/no question somewhere in here that would be suitable for an RFC? - Dank ( push to talk) 23:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Since this is going well, is everyone comfortable with the suggested division at WT:POLICY#list of pages (leaving the special cases aside) into a "legal" subcat and another subcat that might or might not be named "administrative"? On most policy pages, we don't add the (somewhat outdated) navigation template that lists all the policy pages ... probably a good idea, we don't want to overwhelm people with rules when they're just getting started. How about a "legal policy" template, etc? (These already exist for some subcats.) What I'm saying is ... does the grouping we're suggesting seem useful enough to put it in a navigation template at the bottom of policy pages? - Dank ( push to talk) 15:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC) tweaked
This is possibly just the lawyer in me overthinking things, but perhaps we should have a clear statement somewhere that the category tags are not to be read as part of the policy itself. Instead, the categorization of policy pages into different groupings is for convenience only, and such categorization is not to be interpreted as limiting or expanding their scope or as implying a hierarchy of relative importance. postdlf ( talk) 15:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, this is my understanding of what we're doing. Unless someone tells me I've got it wrong, I'll do it all late on Monday November 30 if no one else has done it, and explain what we're doing in Monday's Signpost.
Other pages have been mentioned by several of us as likely candidates for one of these cats and I don't have a preference what we do with them, except I'd prefer we go ahead and make a decision on WP:IAR and WP:NFCC (I have summaries to do before the end of the month). I just noticed that someone had independently suggested at WT:LOP on November 10 that NFCC be moved to the legal subcat ... their reasoning is good, and two of us mentioned NFCC at WT:POLICY as well. Blueboar was in favor of moving IAR from conduct policy to content policy and also making it a "principle", but there was only support for the "principle" part of that in the (very short) discussion at WT:IAR, and it seems to me we can address Blueboar's concern by adding a footnote to IAR to mention that it tends to apply more to content policies. - Dank ( push to talk) 21:35, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Note, Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines may need to be updated to reflect these changes. -- œ ™ 18:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
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Just curious, please answer on my talk page if I'm at the wrong place: Why do we post warnings to IP users if they must go out of their way to see their "user page"? It makes no sense to me to write You will be blocked if you continue to... if nobody actually gets these messages. Would it not make more sense to do either of the following:
-- Pgallert ( talk) 17:00, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
They are totally meaningless. The warnings are for admins to decide that they have been uselessly warned enough times before a block is enforced. Angryapathy ( talk) 17:37, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
IP users don't have to go out of their way to see their talk page. I just go to the last page I edited and click on the talk link beside my IP as the editor on the page or in the page history or I can click on my IP as the contributor in the history and see the talk page link in the upper left. I've edited as an IP for years. I have rolling addresses, and sometimes I want to go back and find something. It's not a problem at all. -- 69.226.106.109 ( talk) 00:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
MediaWiki has an "emailconfirmed" group (see mw:Manual:User_rights) which prevents any editing until an email address is confirmed. This is not used on Wikipedia. I would like to see it activated for a trial period to see if it reduces the work on Wikipedia:New pages patrol and vandalism in general. A percentage of new pages by new accounts are vandalism. It is possible that the need to supply an email address will deter vandal accounts (and there are plenty of those - see Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages). -- Alan Liefting ( talk) - 04:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Don't get tense but this is not the 'people's encyclopaedia' it's obviously just typed out by the public. By insisting on references you allow power to control the content, because power controls what constitutes a legitimate reference - typically, the often bought and paid for, university academic.
This is just a statement of the undeniably obvious. It you say something like: 'Oh well, if you take that sort of line nothing works.' Then you are just double-thinking as our masters would wish.
This is so fundamental it is absurd I have to bring it up.
The rationale is, as I understand it, to keep out 'physics cranks'. For heaven's sake is that the best you can come up with? In order to keep out 'physics cranks' you sell the thing out to power and betray the demos.
It really isn't good enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sporus ( talk • contribs) 03:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I've idly wondered sometimes about proposals for deleting articles that are not sourced, perhaps within, say, two weeks after they are created. Has this been discussed before? What were the arguments for/against it? Buckshot06( prof) 09:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
This is a proposal to make optionally speedy deletion templates for certain criteria more user-friendly, for those articles that don't obviously meet the criteria or could be improved to no longer meet them. Please see and comment on the proposal here. Cenarium ( talk) 18:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conflict ( | 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, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Over the past few weeks, several editors have revamped the Wikipedia:Linkrot essay. Please take a look.-- Blargh29 ( talk) 06:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
One of the more common questions at the various help desks is how to move an article from user space to article space. This type of request will become more common as more people use the New Article Wizard and accept the advice to create a new article in user space. New users do not have the "move" button until they are auto-confirmed. I don't know the complete reasoning behind disallowing moves for four days, but I presume that someone has concluded or observed that one can vandalize by moving existing articles to new locations. If that is the rationale, it might make sense to allow moves from user space to article space, while continuing to disallow moves from article space to article space. I realize this may be technically non-trivial, but before I formally propose the idea, is there something I'm missing? Is there a good reason to disallow moving an article from user space to article space for new editors?-- SPhilbrick T 15:12, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Incidentally, implementing this would go nicely with the proposal at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication. Rd232 talk 23:09, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Process question - I posted this in the policy section because I feared there was some nuance of existing policy that would make the idea non-starter. That doesn't appear to be the case, and I'm happy to hear some belief that it wouldn't be a technical nightmare. Should I write this up as a formal proposal in the Proposal section or assume that those who could implement this are reading this thread as well? -- SPhilbrick T 12:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe that pages created in user space show up as new pages. Do they show up as pages that haven't been patrolled? -- Onorem ♠ Dil 15:55, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
{{
move draft}}
for new users to request a move. It would be quite simple for new users (much simpler than moving), you put on {{
Userspace draft}} and in help pages something like 'to move your draft to article space, add {{
move draft}}
below.' And {{
move draft}}
adds a tracking category.
Cenarium (
talk) 00:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)It's used, check out Category:Requests to move a userspace draft. Cenarium ( talk) 22:36, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
According to WP:ELG, exit lists should use abbreviations. Assuming a cleaner table is made that avoids the need for abbreviations, is it correct to assume that style issues remain the decision of the individual editor? MUST an abbreviation be used, or is it an option, provided the article remains consistent throughout with that decision? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a guideline against WP:Overlinking, but there is no guideline against over-referencing, and I suggest we create one. Responding to a content issue on an article I had been involved with prior to the subject's recent and untimely death, I wrote, "...multiple references for a single statement are only required when that statement is something like 'various sources have...', or '(responses/reviews) were mostly (positive/negative)'. Three and four refs for a single declarative statement of fact is gratuitous and seems to serve no purpose other than to declare that the subject or the story is getting lots of press, which isn't entirely the point."
In fact, among many double-reffed sentences, there are simple and uncontroversial statements of fact with five and even six refs. An example of the sort of sentence being over-referenced: at the end of four paragraphs of amply (indeed over-) referenced coverage of the backlash against a newspaper editorial comes the five-word sentence "Scotland Yard received a complaint." This is followed by four references. Four refs for five words about one complaint, when the whole section is about the general complaint and has almost twenty refs preceding these four.
In response to my talk page comment, an editor responded, "I believe that there is no accepted Wikipedia consensus or guidance as to this point and the reverse may be true (in that editors are encouraged to not remove relevant reliable sources), if you know of some guidance that supports your viewpoint I'd be grateful for a link to it."
Surely the observation "the reverse may be true" cannot be the case. Surely Wikipedia does not intend for sentences that are neither complex nor controversial to be referenced to as many as three, four, five or six sources, as in the article in question. If "the reverse" were true, and applies to six refs, why would an editor stop there? To prove his favorite subject had gotten a lot of press (perhaps more than a competing subject), why wouldn't he prove it by noting every ref he can find, if it be seven, seventeen, or seventy-seven? I despise the "slippery slope" argument, and indeed my problem is not with an imaginary 77 but with so many simple statements actually given two, three, four, five, and six refs each.
I have experience with contentious political articles and I don't argue against multiple refs when there is good reason for them. Of course I realize that good, concise encyclopedia writing would have us crafting sentences that dispense several pieces of information which may require several sources, and there may be cases where editorial consensus could not be reached on which of two or three refs was most appropriate in tone or context and so all are included. However, in the absence of any compelling reason, I suggest the guideline be that when a single reliable source adequately conveys a fact, then adding superfluous additional sources is discouraged.
For full disclosure, I brought this up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2009_October_31#Multiple_references on October 31, 2009, where I inquired if such a guideline existed, if such a discussion had transpired elsewhere, or where I might begin one. Some comment ensued there but the drift was that this is the place to have that discussion.
As this is my first such suggestion, should the community decide it is appropriate to move forward on this, I invite guidance in that process. Thanks, Abrazame ( talk) 10:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
The problem isn't at all that multiple references are being used as support for a single sentence; that should always be seen as a good thing, because it allows for more substantial support for a statement (particularly to counter the impression that it's a minority view) and it allows a reader more opportunity to follow up on a given fact through multiple authors.
The problem here is instead the footnoting format the article uses. The use of the "name" parameter in a footnote (<ref name="Foo source />) is popular because it keeps contributors from having to restate the same citation over and over again or from having to use a short form citation for subsequent cites, but I think it has more drawbacks than benefits. As relevant here, it prevents multiple references for the same statement from being combined into one footnote, and it also prevents and discourages explanative notes from being added to the reference, which ideally most (all?) footnotes should include so as to comment on how the source relates to the statement.
In the Christ myth theory article, the fourteen footnotes need to be combined into one footnote, with at least a "see, e.g." preface before listing the fourteen sources, or a concise summary of some kind explaining how those sources support the statement and/or why they are chosen as representative (but not exclusive) supporting references. postdlf ( talk) 14:33, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
In general I would think that a single WP:RS ought to be sufficient for any given fact; a second source may be added to corroborate the first in cases where some doubt exists. A statement is either true or not true, and having it supported by fifteen different sources does not make it any more true than having it supported by only one source. Adding multiple sources to emphasize a point seems to be stepping outside the bounds of what we ought to be doing in an encyclopedia; we ought to be limiting which facts we choose to emphasize or else risk running afoul of our neutral point of view policy. I would hope common sense would prevail in these instances of reference-overload and that we would not have to create a general rule to that effect, however. Sher eth 15:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I am not opposing the practice of editorial discretion in such matters, discretion is not in evidence viz a viz the multiplicity of references in the article I described and would not be in evidence in the articles to which my proposed guideline would be applied. I don't propose that a guideline remove editorial discretion, I'm suggesting that one illuminate what such discretion might (and what it should not) be. Rules are made to be broken, but for good reason. That's the great thing about Wikipedia, we who are aware of these circumstances would be the ones who devise it; it would be pinpointed to those situations where it is not appropriate and not written to dissuade those where it is, as could be enumerated therein; and any rule we come up with would have the ability to be revised if compelling situations arise which we didn't foresee and which truly justify additional exemption/inclusion/shading.
I think that when several refs are called for, the emphasis given by enumerating those in the body of the text can be a plus. But it's sloppy and irresponsible to have an implicit sky's-the-limit policy regarding multiple references. I have conceded at the article's talk page, at the Help desk, and here at the Village Pump already, that there are circumstances under which more than one reference is called for or even required, be it by the broadness of the statement, a claim of universality, the statement's controversial nature, the inability of the editors involved to reach a consensus about which ref gives the most appropriate tone or context, and other reasons as editors validly contribute here and if we were to move forward in the process of determining such a guideline.
However, other reasons for multiple refs could be zealotry (LOOK at all the articles about my pet subject!!!!!), laziness (they all came up when I Googled it, I didn't have time to read them all and choose), indecision (I'm just gonna throw it all up there because I expect someone else to come along and decide which of this should be whittled down), spamming, me-tooism, etc.
I hope some editors will see the distinction between what I am suggesting and what they were reacting to above, and I invite others to contribute their thoughts on how such a guideline might not only adequately protect but enhance or instill the editorial judgment and common sense they and I value. Abrazame ( talk) 08:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I need some assistance on deciding an appropriate time for a bot to add maintenance templates. I am currently developing Coreva-Bot, a bot whose task is to check new article's for the need to ask standard maintenance templates. During the development i tried to mimic "Living" new page patrols utilizing tools such as WP:Friendly to tag pages.
To prevent unneeded tags currently wait till an article is at least an hour old before tagging this. This hour was based upon the somewhat average tag time for manual editors. My reasoning for this would be that an hour would give an editor some time to finish his article, while still being sufficient to show new contributers the templates, thus giving them some advice on how to develop the article. At the RFBA a user commented on this and suggested that this time is rather short, and therefor might catch editors midway trough creating an article which is disturbing.
From a technical side this is just a number, so i care little to change it. Yet what would be an appropriate amount of time? Any suggestions? Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs) 21:33, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
I hope it is more than 15 minutes for this bot. I once created an article, with just two sentences, just to get it created, went to another user's talk page to let him know "this is the name of the article and I just created it, so come on and help if you have time" and went back to add much more (the time I was away was maybe 2 minutes) and it had already been labelled with a PROD, and orphan tag. And I dont think it was a bot that did it. So obviously just a few minutes isnt enough. And it PISSED me off royally, if a bot starts tagging articles I create after a few minutes because I'm at work and I didnt have time to flesh out the article before saving it quickly I will start screaming at someone. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will get angry, but I will be the most vocal. Camelbinky ( talk) 01:05, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Reference related templates shouldn't be added by bots. There are many potencial false positives: the sources are "mentioned" in text or in an unconventional manner, sources are added as raw links in the middle of the text, the article is a stub without any potencially questionable information (such as "X is a city in the Foo province of Fooland"), etc. MBelgrano ( talk) 14:42, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
To get back to the original question, I would suggest 1 day from the date of creation. That would be plenty of time for the author of the article to put it everything that needs to be there. The type of tags you're talking about (orphan, no categories etc.) are more or less just reminders, not major problems that need to be corrected as soon as possible. In my experience with creating new articles these reminders can be helpful but are sometimes annoying when they are being added while you are still actively editing the article. I think a day gives enough time to presume that the first draft is complete and any omissions won't be fixed without a reminder.-- RDBury ( talk) 19:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Swiss municipalities/Article title 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, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I would like to request that
User:Epbr123 be removed as moderator for the Aft discussion of
Heather Harmon and an administrator of proven neutrality be put in his place. Epbr123 has proven to be very opinionated and uncooperative. He has failed to answer my questions and complaints about his practices. Please note that he deleted most of my posts to his talk page without responding to my concerns. -
Stillwaterising (
talk) 09:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your input. I am cancelling my request as the issue seems to be resolved for the time being. I have been informed about how warnings templates are inappropiate for experienced users on another thread. I had never used them before so I thought they were required in order to build a case against a user. I have also never participated in Afd before so please understand my confusion. -- Stillwaterising ( talk) 14:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Page blanking ( | 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, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is entirely the right place to raise this, but I'm curious about a bit of a loophole that is created by the current One Event wording in both WP:BLP and WP:Notability (People). In the case where an event concerns an otherwise non-notable person, WP:BLP1E would recommend creating an article on the event rather than the individual. I see this as a good thing, as it means that we avoid problems of balance - in many cases, writing a fair and neutral article would be impossible, as we only have coverage of the person in regard to this one event. If we place the person in the context of the event, though, their actions are shown to be part of bigger things, and, presumably, the event itself warrants coverage.
However, if the event is entirely based around the individual's actions, then the event article may portray the individual even more negatively that a BLP would. For example, 2009 Louisiana interracial marriage incident. When taken to AfD as a biography, consensus was to delete as a 1E violation. When reworded to become about the event, the content remains virtually the same, but now there is less of an opportunity to balance this account of an aspect of the person's life with more general details about him. Not that there was much of a chance before, of course, due the issues raised above. (And I'm not really concerned specifically about this article, but more the situation it describes).
In short, in the case where a person would not warrant a bio according to 1E but where the event is intrinsically about them, we can simply rename the article and trim details about the person to produce an article that is within policy. My concern is whether or not such an article remains within the spirit of 1E, and if there is any means of balancing this - or, indeed, if we need to be concerned at all. - Bilby ( talk) 03:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
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Unionhawk
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Review 03:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)I'm putting on my asbestos suit for this one, but over the past few months I've seen quite a bit of overapplication of BLP. Particularly in articles about crime, and almost always editors coming from the UK, Canada, or Australia. More generally, the "deletionist" editors on the BLP noticeboard all seem to come from Commonwealth countries. I'm curious if there's an unacknowledged cultural difference between the US and the UK on what's "fair game" to include in crime reporting. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 16:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
The Politeness Police will be admins who have regard to the important part of the pillars which is civility. HarryAlffa ( talk) 20:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Page has been deleted via MFD process, Spitfire Tally-ho! 21:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
There has been growing controversy around the current convention of allowing corporate entities to buy the right to advertise through the name of buildings and events, particularly when those buildings or events have been built with public funds. I have noticed that Wikipedia appears to use the official corporate names when referring to buildings and events, and it makes me wonder whether this is not a case of de facto (if not de jure) spamming. Does Wikipedia have any policy with regard to the appearance of corporate advertising in its articles and, if not, should there be? Beyond the ethical issue, there is also the matter that as time passes, the names of these buildings and events change as their corporate sponsorship changes. It is especially egregious for editors to have to waste their time to make sure the correct corporate entity is receiving the advertising for which it has paid. SmashTheState ( talk) 21:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
There is no single rule that can be applied. Allow me to demonstrate using car races. We have the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. However, this year's full, current, sponsored name, was the I Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. However, we omit sponsors in these cases because, while sponsors come and go, the locale doesn't change. The sponsor is secondary to the race. It is referred to among people with only the year and the locale. No one cares that Santander sponsored this year's British Grand Prix.
However, then we have something like the Coca Cola 600. This has been branded by Coke since 1985; before then it was the "World 600", a fact I did not know til I checked it out. However, this has no possible other name. What would you call it? "The annual 600-mile race at Lowe's Motor Speedway"? (Which of course runs into further problems; I guess we'd have to use its old name, Charlotte Motor Speedway) We couldn't call it "Lowe's Motor Speedway race"; there are four or so races that take place there each year. (And a fun one: What would we have called The Winston?) The Coca Cola in the name is a fundamental part of its identity. The same with most other NASCAR races, though most of them change names on a far more regular basis than the Coca Cola 600.
With stadiums, generally the naming rights become a fundamental part of the name. The stadium the Carolina Panthers played in was initially named Ericsson Stadium; now it is Bank of America Stadium. I know no one who refers to it as Ericsson, or as "Panthers" Stadium. The latter would be, in fact, incorrect. It is not our job to make up names because we find the concept of corporate sponsorship distasteful. However, with events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the aforementioned Ottawa Blues Fest, you could get away with omitting the sponsor. It's not fundamental to an understanding of the subject at hand. Naming the article FedExField is, however.
I guess that's the point: If the sponsor/name (and really, these aren't just sponsorships - many times they are NAMES, like with stadiums and such) is absolutely necessary to an understanding of what subject we're talking about (like Qualcomm Stadium or the Coca Cola 600) then include it. If it's secondary (i.e. people will still know what Ottawa Bluesfest is without the Cisco; people will still know what the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is without Etihad; but they will not know what the Coca Cola 600 is without the Coca Cola), then it can and perahps should be omitted.
And doing it for ideological reasons is just crazy talk. -- Golbez ( talk) 10:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Corporate sponsors haven't spammed Wikipedia; they've spammed reality. Wikipedia is not a forum for changing that, and it can't ignore it, particularly given that the sources we must use to build Wikipedia do not.
One thing you could do here, however, is work to improve topics such as Anti-consumerism, to further Wikipedia's coverage of those concepts, movements, and activists. postdlf ( talk) 23:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure where the best place for this is, but there is a discussion at ANI that some here may find of interest. I'm also going to post this at WP:VPT, but please feel free to move the discussion to the most appropriate venue. Thanks! TN X Man 19:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Question: Occasionally users will declare that some user they have a dispute with should never post to their talk page again. My impression is that it's becoming more common; that the meme of making such declarations is slowly spreading. Yet talk pages are there for communication, and such declarations may make future drama more likely, by forcing the "banned" user to avoid the primary dispute resolution route. Of course we shouldn't permit harassment, but, such general, open-ended declarations seem very unhelpful. General requests, or demands if limited in time or by subject, might be OK. Thoughts? Rd232 talk 14:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a lot of discussion going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of wineries and vineyards in Maine regarding what to do with list articles that are essentially a WP:DIRECTORY listings of mostly non-notable wineries. The vast, vast majority of these wineries would not pass WP:CORP and have an article which would help these list fulfill 2 of the 3 main purposes of a list according to WP:LIST--Navigational and Developmental. A consistent question that is coming up is the "special place" that wineries have in the world that would make a list of non-notable wineries different than articles like List of unsigned rock bands in California, List of autoparts stores in Chicago, List of mustard producers or List of pizza shops in New York. Wine has a lot of romantic connotations attached to is, but is this an area that we can get community consensus to give a "free pass" to winery articles when it comes to notability? It is not unprecedented as WP:SCHOOL and WP:ATHLETE give similar "free passes", so to speak, to school and athlete articles when it comes to establishing notability. Agne Cheese/ Wine 15:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I am interested in this rule: Any editor who disagrees with a proposed deletion can simply remove the tag which is explicitly rejected by administrators of Russian wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sergei Gutnikov ( talk • contribs) 14:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Some rules should be decided at project-specific levels, but some other core policies (such as neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research, biographies of living people, What Wikipedia is not, for example) should be universal, written in detail at meta and apply for everybody. There has to be some cohesion among projects, and smaller ones shouldn't take advantage of not being checked by enough people in order to redefine things at unacceptable levels. MBelgrano ( talk) 22:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if this is completely the right place for this. I initially posted this on the talk page of the template, but it has been a week, and only one person has responded (and has supported the notion). Here is my original post:
The current problem that I see with alma mater is that is is ambiguous. The dictionary definition isn't precise (using words like "usually"), and can cause confusion. For example many people have been awarded honorary diplomas and some have not finished college (hence dropped out, or currently enrolled). Some articles consider this to be an alma mater, while some use "Education".
Completely unrelated, if one were to have multiple alma maters, it would be gramatically incorrect to include multiple colleges in the section alma mater, since the plural of alma mater is almae matres. It would be similar to listing multiple awards in a section labeled Award:. TheWeakWilled ( T * G) 21:51, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
How does notability for lists work. Does a list have to be notable? Does every item on the list have to be notable? Does the list itself have to be notable? Or is there really no guidelines on notability of lists? SunCreator ( talk) 10:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) ( | 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, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
In the interest of increasing community notification of, and participation in, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion, a number of CfD regulars have been discussing placing notices on the talk pages of every article that is included in a category listed at CfD. Deletion tags for images can be easily added to article image captions; deletion notices for templates get displayed in every article that uses it; but categories don't allow for this. So the talk page notices would tell every editor interested in that article that a category applied to it is under discussion for deletion, merging, or renaming.
This would likely be bot-implemented as manually-applied notifications would be prohibitively time-consuming. It would not apply to "speedy renamings," which involve minor corrections to category names such as spelling, capitalization, etc. This also might be only a temporary procedure, pending whether a software change could allow for deletion notices to be appended to article category tags themselves.
So I wanted to get wider community input as to whether article talk page notices would be considered a benefit or a nuisance. And/or if anyone has any thoughts on the feasibility/desirability of a software change, and what it should look like. postdlf ( talk) 13:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
A recent change was made to WP:RFC/U, without prior discussion or notification. The change replaced the previous statement "An RfC cannot impose involuntary sanctions on a user, such as blocking or a topic ban; it is a tool for developing voluntary agreements and collecting information." with "An RfC may sometimes lead to consensus for community sanctions." This has now been reverted and is being discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#What_happened_to_Community_sanctions.3F. Rd232 talk 16:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy criteria, criterion number 6 reads:
Disambiguation fixes from an unqualified name (for example, Category:Georgia → Category:Georgia (country) or Category:Georgia (U.S. state))
The consensus regarding what this criterion means and how it applies is unclear at present. Generally on Wikipedia we do no0t pre-emptively disambiguate, by which I mean we do not tend to disambiguate unless there is a reason to, per Wikipedia:Disambiguation, which states that
Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might use the "Go button", there is more than one Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead.
Given that it is unlikely that people actually search for categories using the go button, and that most people will navigate to a category through articles or other categories, which will make context clear, is there a need to pre-emptively disambiguate categories on a wide scale, or should any such re-namings be subject to a full discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion rather than speedily performed? Hiding T 10:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
This criterion is not for "pre-emtively" disambiguating. If somebody stubled over it hard enough to nominate it, that means it is about time. I have seen this criterion being applied, and am very happy with it. It significantly lowers the workload at the non-speedy Cfd. Debresser ( talk) 21:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I deprecated it on the strength of this discussion, which shows that it does not reflect consensus. Given that policies and processes need to reflect consensus, I can;t see how it can be retained in current form given the shape of the above discussion and the fact that it requires a consensus to remain. Hiding T 21:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Just dropping a notice here to draw attention to this new proposed notability guideline that I have helped create. Please post feedback to the relevant section on its Talk page. Thanks, The Wordsmith Communicate 18:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Where is the RFC? The link to Notability is the proposed policy, not the RFC. Thank you. Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 15:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Can an editorial from a respected newspaper be mentioned on Wikipedia? I thought that this is to be mostly avoided. However, this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state_terrorism has full of it.
American presidents are often mentioned in editorials. Currently, American presidents' article have a structure like "President -- signed the XYZ Act in 1999". If editorials are allowed, then the structure could be "President --- signed the XYZ Act in 1999. The New York Times opposed the act because it would ---. However, the Chicago Tribune cited --- provisions of the act which would help ---"
These additions would help understanding of the historical facts but would have to be carefully written with many people. Not having these additions makes the article incomplete.
What's the position of Wikipedia about use of editorials? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk • contribs) 18:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
An article that demonstrates notability without the ability to verify said notability. How should it be treated? I know that demonstrating notability even without referencing it is enough to block CSD. Second, referencing facts are necessary to prevent hoaxes and false info.
When an article is obviously not a hoax (as shown by minimal sources, a framework, or other method), what are your thoughts regarding the need for verifiability in existing articles?
For example, I wrote an article on my old army unit, Bahad 16. While I can't cite my knowledge ( WP:OR), the article describes the unit's notability. Joe407 ( talk) 13:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources
- WP:GNG
On the one hand I understand this policy as a filtering tool. On the other hand it poses a different definition of notability than may be in common use. We are requiring RS to create notability, while creation of RS is generally bases on public interest, which is not always the same as notability. A topic which people are familiar with yet holds no special interest to the media would be notable while lacking RS. For example, the plastic furniture covers that little old ladies put on all of their furniture. This is a topic that we all know about and may even have ourselves but is a topic of zero interest to anyone who might generate WP:RS.
Taemyr is correct that the process is self-perpetuating but my question is what about when it can not get started? Joe407 ( talk) 05:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I do remember seeing a discussion about this somewhere. Should two separate articles exist for a village at the same location which has been known by different names in history? It has come up again here. Other examples include Shechem & present day Salim, Nablus or Gibeon (ancient city) & Jib, Jerusalem. Sepphoris and Saffuriya both redirect to Tzippori. Chesdovi ( talk) 17:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Once again, you have not provided one single source showing that Neve Ativ was "formerly Jubata" or provided evidence for anything else you have said. -- Supreme Deliciousness ( talk) 21:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
If a village have occupied exactly the same location over time, it is hard to see a legitimate case for having two separate articles. If it were otherwise, there would be multiple articles for every settlement that has ever seen a population change or a name-change or a short break in settlement continuity. Regardless of its ethnic makeup, or the buildings that comprise it, it is the same settlement. They would be different settlements only if there was a serious and long-lasting break in the continuity of function on the same site (the function being its use as a human settlement). A settlement does not become a different settlement just because it it is given a different name, or because all its old buildings are replaced by new ones, or because it was abandoned for several years and then resettled by a different population or ethnic group. The case of a modern town or village built on the site of the ruins of a Classical city is different - they could have separate articles because their histories and functions could be very different. Meowy 20:37, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I think this very much depends on how much information is available. There are a lot of examples on WP of one article covering two different cities/villages that have been in the same location. (One example is Port Royal, Nova Scotia, a city founded by French immigrants, burned to thr ground and all its residents expelled, then rebuilt and settled by English immigrants - all done in one article.) If so much information is available that the location can't be adquately covered in one article, then the content should be split per WP:Summary. Karanacs ( talk) 21:12, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a well used User box for people who program with Python called {{ User py}}. A user from Paraguay would like to know if it is ok to use {{ User PY}}? See for example Template talk:User py. The issue is to use case sensitive names. 199.125.109.126 ( talk) 07:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Dear colleagues
Many editors participated in a recent RfC, Public polling versus secret ballot. The results were not conclusive.
A compromise solution has been proposed here, on which all users are welcome to voice their opinion. Tony (talk) 09:19, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I contended on Talk:Su’heita that just as the villages of Bălteni, Boteni, Călugăreni, Conţeşti, Crângaşi, Gămăneşti, Heleşteu, Napclaşarea and Mereni in Conţeşti, Dâmboviţa are not notable and therefore do not warrant their own pages, so too does the same apply to the villages listed at List of Syrian towns and villages destroyed by Israel. Supreme Deliciousness has pointed out, however, that there are individual pages for French villages destroyed in the First World War. Not only that; if you take a look at Category:Communes of Nord for example, most of the communes featured are one liners and have no apparent notability; they could also have a population as small as 58, ( Les Éparges). I have in the past created pages for villages ( Amnaş) but they were immediately merged. What is the official policy on this? Does every village or hamlet that exists or has existed warrant a page? Chesdovi ( talk) 16:04, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
It may be worth noting here that 4 of the 6 French villages destroyed in the First World War which have not been rebuilt and were used by Supreme Deliciousness to back up inclusion of destroyed Syrian villages were indeed created by User:Dr. Blofeld. Chesdovi ( talk) 23:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
For anyone brave enough to grapple with "what is policy?", please have a look at Wikipedia_talk:Policies_and_guidelines#New_classification. I'm proposing using the enforcement policy subcat for some policy pages that people have been arguing about for a long time, and trying to get some clarification on what makes policy pages different from other pages. - Dank ( push to talk) 17:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi,
I notice that BIOS has external links (as a reference) to several articles at Smart Computing. When I followed these links I found them to be unavailable without a paid-for subscription. While I understand that all references cannot be to free content this seems a bit like using Wikipedia for advertising. What irks is that the links are to a page with a "pay me money now" button.
Apologies for being lazy and not researching whether this topic has already been throughly discussed and exhausted.
-- kop ( talk) 16:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The original discussion was here [3]
I saw a Newslibrary link in a reference for one article I was working on I suppose a free source is possible, but what if it isn't? I used to be able to see certain Newslibrary articles for free, but my user page shows why I can't any more.
EBSCO Host didn't work for me for one article where someone reverted me for an expired link, which of course would not have been allowed, but just in case the person does come back, it would be nice to have something to show him/her. Not that this person would pay.
I did use EBSCO where all the sources had formatted templates already, but I made a note about that in the edit summary and I suppose a link wouldn't be needed. My link might not work anywya even if someone is at a library that pays, simply because it's no longer my session. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Discuss and draft graphical layout overhauls ( | 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, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Motivated by a question at WP:RD/S, I tagged the redirect page Luekemia, which redirected to Leukemia, for speedy deletion, for maintenance reasons. I sincerely believed that the deletion would be uncontroversial, because the initial creation of the page appeared to have been motivated by vandalism (in 2006), and that someone later redirected it to Leukemia, and that it had no incoming links, until the question which contained the typo appeared at the refdesk now. Because the typo was part of the section title, I stated in the thread that it was a typo, and that I was about to tag it for deletion. To my surprise, the deletion was contested; see the RD thread here.
As I am not a native English speaker, it is possible that I regard the typo as less likely to occur than a native speaker would. However, at the moment, the only link to the typo-redirect page comes from my user page, motivated by my interest in seeing whether it is deleted or not. As "gardening" and anti-vandalism work is a major part of my participation in this project, and as my general frame of mind is inclusionist, I need clearly need guidance on this issue. Thanks in advance for your advice on how to handle redirect pages for typos, and for links to policies that I may not be aware of. -- NorwegianBlue talk 00:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
WP:Spoilers is a vaguely worded Wikipedia guideline. Pages and pages of back and forth have been written about it and probably frayed countless nerves and continues to do so but no one has addressed the problem, a problem that can be sourced in part to the absolutist interpretation people give this guideline. Someone should give a one-stop reference on the issue that brings up all the arguments on both sides of the debate and can be used to quickly address and dispel issues.
I have proposed as a solution a hyperlink to WP:Spoilers as a way of addressing the issue but am being told that would be a violation of WP:Spoilers. I disagree because I think a hyperlink falls under the auspices of WP:Link. Pointy bureaucrats are pushing an absolutist interpretation instead of trying to find a mutually acceptable solution. Let's lay out all the arguments in one place and compare and stop going in circles. To that end I plan to edit this section in such a way that keeps a focus on the points made. Lambanog ( talk) 17:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I've had several edits reverted because, according to the edit summary, the reference did not exist.
Actually, it did exist at one time and still does exist in forms the person who reverted might have a hard time getting to. I used to not provide links for newspaper and magazine articles because, as was true in this case, the links no longer work after a few months. But then I had someone revert my edit for NOT providing a link, so for that reason, and because some articles generally have links, I've been providing them.
I'm not sure how to handle this. I consider the information important, although over time it might be true that the information makes the article too wordy. Right now the issues are still coming up. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I've had some luck with the newspaper that is the source for most of the information in the article on EBSCO Host. It's not a guarantee, though, and I certainly don't look forward to doing that much work. I could just tell this person if I find the articles on EBSCO and then it's up to that person, using what I give him/her, to find them. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I propose that we do have rules on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia wikis that forbids certain content. While Wikipedias goal is to become the the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, with complete information about everything. That's just where the problems start - let's jsut take an example, an underage can easily be tricked to articles containing pictures with pornography, for example the adult video game Bubble Bath Babes, with no warning preciding whatsover, a higly illegal fact. There's even worse examples, like the cover band of Virgin Killer, with Internet Watch Foundation even blacklisting certain Wikipedia articles, due to it breaking international laws. Yet, it was left due to informational purposes.
This is basically why I propose that we add rules to all Wikimedia wikis, all of which (if possibly) depends on the country the wiki is situated in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Von Mario ( talk • contribs) 12:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia ( | 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, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I nominated the article on David R. Brown (neuroscientist) for deletion because it is a clear autobiography/vanity article (see talk page for explanation). The subject is known within his professional field, but the article does not give a neutral, unbiased view. Every one of the 18 items in "further reading" is authored/co-authored by the subject. Of the 11 references, 5 are authoured/co-authored by the subject and one is an interview with the subject. The author of the article has previously deleted discussion of these issues on the talk page, saying "I don't think it is appropriate for it remain there as it is not about the contents of the article and it also makes me known publically as the person that created it. I keep trying to delete it but it keeps being put back. Please can this be remove or at least my name be removed." Since the page was moved into mainspace on 1st May 2009, only 3 other users have edited the main text at all, which would tend to argue against notability. I've never been that confident with Wikipedia policies, but after reading the biography guidelines I got the clear impression that Wikipedia did not want unsourced autobiographies, so thought it seemed reasonable to propose the article for deletion. I was surprised to get the response (via the article history page): "absurd nomination. Take it to AfD if you dare)". I've never nominated anything for deletion before, so could someone explain whether a) I went down the wrong deletion 'route' or b) biased unsourced autobiography is just fine? Purple 01:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
The issue is whether articles should be required to use "named footnotes" when there are duplicates (for example, <ref name="myfootnote">). This change is currently implemented automatically by AWB. The discussion has been moved to Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Refname_footnotes_(from_village_pump); please continue the discussion there. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Going to Category:Requests for unblock, I was surprised to read that "...[admins should not] review an unblock request where they have a conflict of interest, whether by having set the original block or by participating in disputes relating to it." I agree that it would be wrong for me to decline an unblock request put up by someone whom I blocked, but what if I think that I made a mistake and want to unblock? What's the benefit in saying that I'm effectively prohibited from unblocking a user because they've asked for it? Nyttend ( talk) 05:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Some time back, Erik9bot added Category:Articles_lacking_sources_(Erik9bot) to about 115,000 pages. The original proposal was for editors to manually review these pages and take whatever action is appropriate. There is now a proposal, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot XXI, to go through all the articles in that category and automatically mark them with the {{ unreferenced}} tag. Those who are interested may comment on the bot request page. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
When a user first creates a page they get this warning, "When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references may quickly be deleted." This warning is not enough. Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion deals with a lot of frustrated users who have provided references, but haven't shown Notability. A lot of them then complain at WP:Deletion Review. Improving this warning sentence to make a claim about notability would not be a cure-all, but it might provide a few less upset new users and over time, a significant saving of time for contributors at AfD and DelRev. This is an area where strong editors quickly burn out, even if 1% of new article writers read the sentence would help.
Though the guideline itself is inactive and is retained for historical reference, I think it should be a formal guideline since though a software given five stars or equivalents should have an independent articles, some Wikipedians differentiate it from regular software awards. So I make a proposal: as long as a software has been mentioned non-trivially by more than one computer book, magazine or other publications, or has been given five stars or editor's pick or equivalents by a reputable download site or computer magazine, or has been commented by a celebrity, or is not freeware, it should have an independent article. In fact I truly hate to propose new policies or guidelines since it effects instruction creep, however, I have to propose a new notability guideline since some notable software, such as O&O Defrag, XnView, BS.Player and K-Lite Codec Pack have been AfD-ed, BS.Player was even deleted despite it has been given five stars on Download.com. Two years ago one Wikipedian considered a software notability guideline necessary, however no one noticed it, Now let's face the AfD problem and propose a software guideline to curb illegitimate deletions of software articles.-- RekishiEJ ( talk) 12:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
We are still in the middle of a controversy over spoilers, but I would like to put out this proposal-
An established form of the first sentence of a lead in many Wikipedia articles is (made this example up for demonstration):
Term
A Term ( Latin terminus, "boundary"') is a word or phrase, especially one from a specialised area of knowledge.
However, often they look like this:
Term
A Term ( Middle English: terme, from Old French: terme, originally from Latin: terminus, a bound, boundary, limit, end, Medieval Latin: also "a time", "period", "word", "covenant"; not to be confused with turm; plural: terms) is a word or phrase, especially one from a specialised area of knowledge.
Here are some actual examples:
Cathetus,
Octopus,
Phlox,
Hippopotamus,
Magi,
Ballista,
Mount Carmel.
Although Wikipedia is not a dictionary, grammatical information ( etymology, plural etc.) is often still desirable, but in the lead section when very long it compromises readability. When such extensive grammatical information is desirable, it should be repositioned outside of the lead section. I would suggest recommending this in the guidelines for first sentence format. Dan ☺ 21:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
RL, you're perfectly right in observing that articles should generally be about the subject and not about the word designating it; still, personally I'd enjoy learning about etymologies and would appreciate being informed about an irregular plural and I'd prefer being able to do so without having to click my way into Wiktionary. Thus I'd prefer, while reading Hippopotamus, to have all this information right there in the article, only not rendering the first sentence practically illegible but rather separately, either neatly in a grammar box or just elsewhere in the article. This way, the quality of an article in Wikipedia and the monitoring of its contents remain independent of contents and edits in Wiktionary (which I believe take place with little monitoring of Wikipedia editors). As long as grammatical information doesn't become the inappropriate focus of an article, its inclusion won't turn the article into a dictionary entry, but it will improve it by making it more comprehensive. Dan ☺ 01:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Check out Knights Hospitaller: same awkwardness, but the parenthetical consists mostly of alternative designations. For the sake of better readability, I'd avoid a parenthetical and move the contents out of the first sentence also with this kind of information. Dan ☺ 22:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
There has been a related discussion recently at WP:Content noticeboard#Language. Hans Adler 14:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Another at Wikipedia talk:Lead section#Etymology in first sentence? -- Quiddity ( talk) 00:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Over at the
Wine Project, we have had a horrendously messy category structure for sometime. For years people just made categories and slapped them around articles with no inclination to organize them into anything consistent or cohesive. One of the most glaring mistakes was having categories such
Category:French wines or
Category:Italian wines (which would be for individual specific wines like
Nicolas Joly Savennières-Coulée-de-Serrant or
1998 Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Bolgheri Superiore and different from the general head cats for
Category:French wine and
Category:Italian wine). These cats (with the plural "wines") were being misapplied to wine regions like
Corsica wine, producers such
Château Pétrus, or DOC quality designations like
Brindisi Rosso and so forth. Obviously better categories existed for things like
Category:Wine regions of France,
Category:Bordeaux wine producers,
Category:Italian DOCs and the Wine Project went about with this housekeeping. This included removing the poor categorization which left these unneeded categories obviously empty. The chances of articles being written on specific French or Italians wines are rather slim. We mostly include info on these specific wines in articles about their producers or regions such as
Nicolas Joly or
Ornellaia, etc. Well I guess some of the CfD regulars didn't like this and called foul over what they viewed as
"abusing the process", being
"out of process" and stating that
"cfd is the place to go" to discuss miscategorization.
What I would like to know is what is the balance between cleaning up blatantly wrong categorizations versus going to CfD for everything? I've always used the controversial vs non-controversial rule of thumb and I would have thought removing categories for individual specific wines from articles about wine regions, producers and quality level designations would be non-controversial but apparently it isn't. Apparently the "controversy" itself, is not going to CfD first to explain why
Chianti is a region/DOC and not an individual specific wine like
Villa Antinori Chianti Reserva is and so should be classified as
Category:Wine regions of Italy or
Category:Italian DOC, etc. So what is the balance? Does everything need to go through CfD?
Agne
Cheese/
Wine 23:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Any editor can unilaterally create a category and add however many articles to it they want. Any editor can also unilaterally decide to remove an article from a category. Either action can be challenged by other editors, but in neither instance is preapproval required by any policy or guideline. If an editor's removal of articles from a category is controversial, then it would be challenged and the issue discussed and resolved in any number of forums, including CFD. If it isn't challenged, then the category could be emptied without objection, but anyone could of course still refill it to prevent its speedy deletion for being empty, or recreate it after it is speedied for being empty.
The only action for which CFD is absolutely required is to delete a category page that does not qualify for speedy deletion (merging and renaming are still just deletions of category pages accompanied by the recategorization of articles), and to provide a basis for speedy deleting recreated categories that have been deleted as a result of CFD discussions. Consensus to empty a category could also be established on a category's talk page, on a Wikiproject's talk page, or on article talk pages, but then none of those discussions in non-CFD forums could be the basis for speedy deleting the category if it is recreated. Which is a good reason for going to CFD in the first place, but still not a mandate. postdlf ( talk) 17:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Duh, Chianti is a region in italy that makes wine. It wouldn't be called Chianti if it wasn't grown in that exact area. Seriously dude, even I know that and the only time I drink wine is when my girlfriend makes me. Now I don't understand all the stuff that the wine guy Agne was talking about but it seems like it makes sense. What I don't get is Wikipedia's problem with letting people who know their stuff edit that stuff the way it needs to be edit. This is where Wikipedia looks like a joke when you have doofus heads like the Chianti guy above (or me for that matter LOL) trying to tell the expert people how to edit. Well duh! But Wikipedia is so afraid of having experts involved that they tolerate stupid stuff instead of....you know, making an encyclopedia that is actually good? Stuff like this is why wikipedia is a joke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.216.224.7 ( talk) 04:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it's a good idea to discuss the way blocked users are treated. I had a look at the checkuser pages and what I saw was shocking. People are treated like they are criminals. There is no one to help them when a group of editors or admins decides that they want to block someone.
The blocked users get signs on their user and talk pages screaming:" This is a sock of so and so and he is blocked. See evidence for more info etc.". They are helpless against editors/admins who know every little rule.
My proposal:
This guideline was downgraded to an essay in a recent and little noticed disagreement by Rd232. His reasoning is explained on the talk page, but what bothers me is that it was justified by "
undo upgrading to guideline without apparent talk consensus". I would usually agree that building a consensus is an essential first step in guideline formulation, but insisting that there is currently no consensus that "common sense" is a good concept to be sprinkled liberally (as it is on {{
guideline}}) seems absurd. When met with opposition, this very concise policy was buried as an addendum to another essay, thereby made to appear unrecognized and disturbingly obscured in favor of having a compromise rather than a clear and supported stance. ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩ 11:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I think they should. 1st choice would be to Google Books, Amazon Reader or other sites where the cited text can be read. And if it's not available online to its WorldCat page.
http://www.worldcat.org/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lenbrazil ( talk • contribs) 11:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Here's a question that has never been fully answered. Are roads notable by default? If not, which ones are not notable, and why is that so? The only "accepted" guideline I can currently find on the subject is the US Wikiproject's page on notability, which provides one of the most well articulated answers I have come across: "[County roads] may or may not be sufficiently notable to merit a unique article".
However, as I have learned, the consensus of the US roads wikiproject is that of 5 or 6 editors who have a lot of ownership issues with transportation articles outside of their own country. This couples with the beatnik answer that the guideline provides, as well as the more core policies of WP:ALMANAC and the historic policy of WP:Gazetteer which allude to the opposite - That all roads are notable, as they have to have been created and funded from pubic money for a reason. Obviously side streets and concession roads are exceptions, as there is no use in articles that read "Vesper court is a street in BLAH with 11 houses on it."
In my opinion, all arterial roads in cities, as well as all signed&numbered county/state/provincial roads qualify as notable, as they have some history that cannot be represented with a single map. Freeways are obviously always notable.
Any thoughts? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 17:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
"Roads" is very ambiguous, and thus it is impossible to determine whether they're inherently noteworthy. Do we include random dirt paths in our definition of the term? If so, then no, roads are not always notable. – Juliancolton | Talk 04:46, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Isn't this whole discussion overcomplicating things a bit? If a road is covered substantially by multiple independent reliable sources, it's notable. If not, it's not. That's the same as anything else. Nothing is notable because "it's a...", it's notable or not based upon sourcing available. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Content should be verifiable with citations to reliable sources. Our editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, an indiscriminate collection of information, or a web directory. It is not a dictionary, newspaper, or a collection of source documents; that kind of content should be contributed instead to the Wikimedia sister projects.
I'm personally of the view that some are, some aren't, and there is a grey area in the middle. For instance on the Australian project we seem to have decided that major roads within metropolitan areas, and highways and major roads outside of metropolitan areas are notable, while almost everything else is not. There are exceptions to the latter. Trying to decide whether all of x are inherently notable is making all manner of assumptions which I don't think we really can justify. Orderinchaos 20:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Generally, I do not hold all roads to be notable, in many cases the road is too short/too unremarkable/too commonplace. On the other hand, I hold railway lines to be notable, since they are less commonplace, and generally in heavier use. Also, paper encyclopedias contain articles on railway lines, including short branch lines like the
Arendal Line. Pretty much ditto with small airports, they are also covered in paper encyclopedias and are important transportation nodes. Hence, the question I ask when faced with determining the notability of a road article is: "Is the significance of this particular road on par with that of a small airport or small branch line?" If yes, I generally deem the road notable. This test generally favors the inclusion of highways and main arterial roads in cities, while excluding residential drives and cul-de-sacs.
Sjakkalle
(Check!) 12:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Following on from the debate at Wikipedia talk: Lists - All Lists Are Subject Driven, I stumbled across this " List of controversial books" (forgive the euphemism), which I feel represents the problem whereby lists are being used as vehicles for topic inclusion as a means to circumvent Wikipedia's inclusion criteria based on notability.
Setting aside the sexual subject matter of the article for a moment, the issue here is that the boundries between the compilation of lists and original reseach/ Synthesis of published material have become blurred, and these boundries need to be more clearly demarcated. Whilst the compilation of such lists is a useful and worthy accademic exercise outside of Wikipedia, the creation of list articles by Wikipedians themselves is a type of orginal research (if unsourced) or synethesis (if sourced) where the list is not itself notable in any way.
Take the "List of controversial books" above. Although it is clearly a list, the source of the article's title and the rationale for its inclusion in Wikipedia is misleading. Perhaps the article should have correctly titled "List of contraversial books selected arbitarily, loosely associated by subject matter, which one or more editors thinks is important enough to have its own list article". The problem is with self-compiled list is, if it is not notable, then the reader will not have any reference point from which to start when they ask the question "why was this list compliled to start with?" Is it a legitimate acaedmic exercise to complile this list, and if so, why? By contrast, if a list that is notable will have been compiled for a reason, which becomes more or less apparent from the significant coverage in the form of commentary, criticism or analysis that would accompany it.
My view is that without evidence of notability, the "List of controversial books" is effectively a content fork and as such is not compliant with Wikipedia's content policies. Not only is it a content fork because its subject matter is featured in one or more article topics where the topic is the subject of significant coverage from reliable secondary sources, but I believe it to be a POV fork, i.e. it is a content fork which is promoting a particular viewpoint. The reason why I say it is POV fork is that, in the case of List of controversial books, the absence of commentary, criticism or analysis is deafening. Without significant coverage, this list article is attempting to circumvent Wikipedia content policies by virtue of the fact that it is silent about its subject matter, as cannot be considered to neutral or compliant with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
The question I have is, if I nominate this article for deletion (for a third time), would this be a fair rationale, or is there a flaw in my thinking? -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 21:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Could a policy be formed about this? I make the point never to delete/remove another's work but request comment or encourage for a better article page. However, we see people removing articles on the Gospel of Pilot etc. very much part of Church History. You cannot have an Encyclopedia if you remove all the bits you don't like! The same is true of associated article pages of Carl Gustav Jung. People on one expertise should not cross-over and interfer with article pages the subject they have not studied, and give witness to this by saying "I know nothing of this particular topic, but....". Or say: "I have not discovered the addiction in question, but...", but still give an unresearched opinion, or unread opinion. If one is referring to such they should ask a question. There should be a policy about this, for otherwise chaos may begin.
MacOfJesus ( talk) 00:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Traditionally this has been referred to as the Gospel of Pilate and in most Commentries is referred to as such, even though it reads as a declaration, but too, is referred to as Acts of Pilate.
In the talk page of Acts of Pilate you will see other entrants complaining about the same thing. This is the point I am making: That people who don't know the signifance of these article pages and how they are dealt with in other sources are taking it upon themselves to deleate and remove.
We all need to study not only from Wikipedia the article page but from other sources, too, before offering opinion.
MacOfJesus ( talk) 09:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
The point I'm making is about deleting and removing, sorry for calling the Gospel of Pilate. It is one of the terms I came across in studying Scripture at length, not from the net but from Commentries and Libraries and from lectures and exams and from the Exegesis world. Sorry.
MacOfJesus ( talk) 17:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
User:Str1977 has methodically gone through articles included in the Category:Christian mythology removing them. This article was one of those removed.Perhaps not in the interests of the non-indoctrinated Wikipedia reader? I have no opinion in this particular case myself. --Wetman 09:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
:Just asking for a uniform policy, sorry if I have misunderstood. MacOfJesus ( talk) 20:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I must have a tough skin! after all! The other bits of the we may have gone! It was the "Royal We" I must have been using. But in all honesty some in the Jung world thought (including me), that it was one and the same person! Do remember we the studying-writers of article pages, do feed the Wikipedia world, and at no cost. I must have a hard skin! MacOfJesus ( talk) 20:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Is there a speedy or relative speedy deletion criterion for files under blatantly incorrect licences (for example, something that is obviously an official logo and yet is licensed, absent OTRS, under a free licence). If so, someone familiar with such areas may want to look at File:FarmFresh102-9 FM-Logo small.JPG. Intelligent sium 02:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I have closed this Request for Comment. My detailed review of the issues and the results of that discussion may be found here. To summarize, I found that consensus exists as follows:
Questions or comments may be posted at The RFC's Talk Page. Thank you to all who participated. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 16:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Please see WT:NPOV#Redirects and NPOV. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)Thanks Shereth, fixed link
To answer the question: you'll see in that section that there's a fiercely-fought DRV at the moment where many people are invoking NPOV ... except NPOV says nothing about redirects in general, and neither has its talk page, for the last year or so. We should probably add something to the text, one way or another (and I personally don't care which way it goes, although I felt strongly about the related BLP issue). - Dank ( push to talk) 04:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Here is a simple one, but a sysop doesn't seem to get this concept. Abbreviations are not used except in cases where they have been defined and entered common use. This is a simple fact along the same line as concepts such as neologisms. If there is no way to verify that an abbreviation is used, it should not be used, as that would constitute original research. Have I lost anybody so far? Continuing, who does the burden of proof lie upon to find a source indicating whether something is normally abbreviated or not? Does it fall on the person wishing to use the abbreviation, or on the person wishing to use the spelt out version (assuming there is no proof of either in the jurisdiction that the article falls under)? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 01:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Burden of proof is, as always, firmly on those making a positive assertion. If they claim the abbreviations are widespread, they need to prove it. You can't be realistically expected to prove a negative. From the Manual of Style-
Generally avoid making up new abbreviations, especially acronyms. For example, while it is reasonable to provide World Union of Billiards as a translation of Union Mondiale de Billard, the former is not the organization's name, and the organization does not use the acronym or initialism WUB; when referring to it in short form, use the official abbreviation UMB. In a wide table of international economic data, it might be desirable to abbreviate a United States gross national product heading; this might be done with the widely recognized initialisms US and GNP spaced together, with a link to appropriate articles, if it is not already explained: US GNP, rather than the made-up initialism USGNP.
-- King Öomie 18:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
The following was just posted on WP:VPM [9], but I'm moving it here since it seems more relevant here, and I agree with it anyway.
{{
pathnav}}
and has added it to the top of 20 or so articles. For one example, see
[10]. This is a major change to the layout of article ledes and should have been discussed before being implemented (not to mention the 'levels' listed in the path are somewhat questionable, a mix of formal administrative levels and theoretical geo-social constructs, so it would be hard to maintain a standard format for them). I think these edits should be rolled back until a discussion takes place.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 05:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)Thoughts? Zzyzx11 ( talk) 05:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
United States > Western United States > California > Los Angeles County |
I think Wikitravel uses something like this, but that is also a much more geographically structured wiki. -- Apoc2400 ( talk) 01:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Proposed a paragraph titled: "Administrator's abuses of power in the blocking policy". Discussion
here
bye --
Mashra (
talk) 22:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
[11] An editor has questioned the notability of the subject of an article. When it was shown that the subject's books have been reviewed by mainstream sources, the editor responds that the books may be notable, but the author is not notable. I believe that the idea is absurd and flies in the face of Wikipedia policy. Thoughts? — goethean ॐ 16:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Regarding vandalism by the ip address, 89.240.115.135, on Barge I have not the power to block the ip address, who do I alert. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oliver Barge ( talk • contribs) 19:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#RfC_on_page_move. Should Wikipedia:Reliable sources be moved to Wikipedia:Verifiability/reliable sources to become a subpage of the sourcing policy, WP:V? There would be no change in either page's status: the policy would remain policy, and RS would retain its status as a guideline. 23:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
There is only one WILI disambiguation page, with two radio stations.
Some Wikipedia editors have chosen to spell the nickname of Wilhelmina Slater as "Wili". In articles where I saw it, I changed the name to the proper name for clarity but created a redirect so people who thought of her as "Wili" could use that. It's sure a lot easier to spell, although I've never seen proof of the spelling. I'll look for it.
But what would be the proper way to handle a disambiguation page? Using "search", There are two uses of "Wili"-- Harold Lamont Otey and Wili Jønsson--in addition to the two radio stations and Wili Slater. I see another redirect I need to create because I don't know how the heck, other than copy and paste with the article, one comes up with that character.
There's also a redirect for Willi Weber. And I see a bunch more uses of "Wili" to refer to Wilhelmina. I don't think of her as having a nickname, so I imagine others will do a double-take unless I fix that.
Incidentally, how would I add "Willi" to the hatnote on Slavic fairies? I just added that in anticipation of a new disambiguation page, and then carelessly clicked on "Save page" when I meant to "show preview". Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
When creating an article, what instances would count as Conflict of Interest? Simply south ( talk) 21:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Currently marked as policy, see here. Cenarium ( talk) 00:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello, FYI I've started a RfC on our semi-protection policy. Thanks. Soque1 ( talk) 11:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
In the past several months I have been dealing with a pair of extremely persistent sockpuppet vandals.
The first one I was involved with was a Japanese editor who normally edits ja.wikipedia. This vandal was quite clever and the majority of his edits skated the line between vandalism and good faith (they were subtly slanderous or POV edits concerning a living person for the most part). When reverted or questioned, his communications were highly uncivil and he demonstrated such a high degree of ownership over pages that I believe his eventual indefinite blocking was as much for behavior as it was for vandalism. After months of struggles, both of his IPs here were blocked and his army of 30 (by last count) sockpuppets were blocked as well. Although he has returned a number of times in the past for further vandalism, he seems to be limiting his activities to ja.wikipedia for the present.
The second vandal puppetmaster I am currently involved with is an English editor who normally edits en.wikipedia. This editor is in many ways the exact opposite of the first one: he makes very obvious vandalistic edits (like blanking pages or requesting bans from admin), and he is usually caught and blocked within hours. The problem is that he often edits obscure little-watched pages, and also he operates from behind a dynamic IP range. So often all he has to do is to disconnect from the internet and then connect back again and he is assigned a new unblocked IP. His ISP also changes his IP automatically every few days. When this editor is blocked on en.wikipedia he nearly always goes to simple.wikipedia to continue his mayhem. To date this puppetmaster has 15 username puppets across both projects (only 9 here at en.wiki), and close to 100 IP puppets (over 80 here at en.wiki).
In dealing with these exceptionally persistent puppetmasters it takes a lot of coordination between the different language versions in order to properly block them. Admin on one language wikipedia will usually not be aware of problems from the same editor on another language wikipedia, and clever vandalism or vandalism of obscure pages often takes months of dedicated monitoring of multiple language versions of wikipedias to squelch. I have been thinking for a while now that there has to be a better way than this, and I think I've come up with a good solution.
The reason I think it should only apply to IP blockings is that there's always some uncertainty that "User:Mort" (chosen semi-arbitrarily) is the same on en.wiki as it is on fr.wiki. It would be an exceptionally difficult judgment call for an admin to make even if the edits on both interlanguage versions look highly similar. An IP, however, will be the same here as it will be on fr.wiki or de.wiki or what have you. By allowing admins/mods to block the IP on all language versions of wikipedia simultaneously in one simple action, this provides increased notice to editors/admin at the other language versions that the blocked IP editor is in trouble at en.wiki. This should increase the effectiveness of the response to further vandalism on the other project. This also serves the goal of creating heightened disincentives to vandalize.
I hope this is the right place to make such a proposal. If this seems to be an issue for Village Pump (proposals) or if this seems to be a higher-order proposal better suited for something like the Wikimedia Foundation or something, please let me know where you think I should make my case. Thanks. - Thibbs ( talk) 18:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Appealing a block ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Should the the following section be inserted into WP:N to explain better to both article writers and inexperienced AFD participants that it's not a matter of "getting boxes checked", but that the reliability and independence of the sources cited in an article are important?
Self promotion and indiscriminate publicity In some instances, publication in a reliable source is not actual good evidence of notability:
Wikipedia is not a promotional medium. The barometer of notability is whether third parties in the wider world have independently considered the topic significant. Paid material, self-promotion, solicitation, and product placement are not evidence of notability as they do not measure the attention a subject has received by the world at large.
Credible writers who have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus upon it – without incentive, promotion, or other influence by people connected to the topic matter – are good evidence, but the nature of the material must be examined to consider if it shows genuine independent interest, or is more likely to result from indiscriminate coverage or promotion.
In particular:
then the resulting text is unlikely to be good evidence.
Comments are invited and are most welcome at Wikipedia Talk:Notability. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 16:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a an RFC at Template talk:Refimprove. It would be helpful to include a link to a commercial search engine in the template. But this means that there will be external links outside the "External links" section in hundreds of articles. Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? See Template talk:Refimprove#RFC: Should a link to a commercial search engine be included in the template Refimprove? -- PBS ( talk) 17:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I asked over at WT:CfD if they want to handle this, since it involves creating a new category ... apparently not, there were no responses. Short version: Some policy pages haven't been edited in a while, some of them should rarely be changed because they involve Foundation, legal or technical issues, and the policy nutshell at the top of these pages should be changed (in many cases, it already has been changed). There seems to be agreement at WT:POLICY#list of pages that some new category, maybe Category:Wikipedia administrative policies, would be appropriate. Thoughts? Is there a simple yes/no question somewhere in here that would be suitable for an RFC? - Dank ( push to talk) 23:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Since this is going well, is everyone comfortable with the suggested division at WT:POLICY#list of pages (leaving the special cases aside) into a "legal" subcat and another subcat that might or might not be named "administrative"? On most policy pages, we don't add the (somewhat outdated) navigation template that lists all the policy pages ... probably a good idea, we don't want to overwhelm people with rules when they're just getting started. How about a "legal policy" template, etc? (These already exist for some subcats.) What I'm saying is ... does the grouping we're suggesting seem useful enough to put it in a navigation template at the bottom of policy pages? - Dank ( push to talk) 15:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC) tweaked
This is possibly just the lawyer in me overthinking things, but perhaps we should have a clear statement somewhere that the category tags are not to be read as part of the policy itself. Instead, the categorization of policy pages into different groupings is for convenience only, and such categorization is not to be interpreted as limiting or expanding their scope or as implying a hierarchy of relative importance. postdlf ( talk) 15:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, this is my understanding of what we're doing. Unless someone tells me I've got it wrong, I'll do it all late on Monday November 30 if no one else has done it, and explain what we're doing in Monday's Signpost.
Other pages have been mentioned by several of us as likely candidates for one of these cats and I don't have a preference what we do with them, except I'd prefer we go ahead and make a decision on WP:IAR and WP:NFCC (I have summaries to do before the end of the month). I just noticed that someone had independently suggested at WT:LOP on November 10 that NFCC be moved to the legal subcat ... their reasoning is good, and two of us mentioned NFCC at WT:POLICY as well. Blueboar was in favor of moving IAR from conduct policy to content policy and also making it a "principle", but there was only support for the "principle" part of that in the (very short) discussion at WT:IAR, and it seems to me we can address Blueboar's concern by adding a footnote to IAR to mention that it tends to apply more to content policies. - Dank ( push to talk) 21:35, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Note, Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines may need to be updated to reflect these changes. -- œ ™ 18:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)