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I think so. Too many citations introduce visual clutter in the middle of a sentence, interrupting the flow of a user reading the page.
For instance, look at this sentence, from Catcher_in_the_Rye#Controversy. There is an average of one citation per 6.125 words. (49 words, 8 citations)
Look at the edit code for this section: This single sentence is 46 lines in edit mode. Who is going to try to change that sentence with all that unreadable stuff in there?
I know that as an encyclopedia you probably want as many references as you can get, but is it too much to ask that the article's content be arranged in such a way so that you can read a sentence without reading: "..Undermining of family values forty-seven and moral codes forty-eight holden's being a poor role model forty-nine, encouragement of rebellion fifty, and promotion of drinking, smoking, lying, and promiscuity fifty-one." I'm tolerant of end-of-sentence citations but breaking up the sentence arbitrarily just seems awkward.
I wrote an infobox that could be used in situations like this:
The frequent
references in this article or section reduce readability. Please improve the article by rearranging citations so they interrupt the text less frequently. |
What do you think, would this make a reasonable policy? Phort99 ( talk) 08:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
"I know that as an encyclopedia you probably want as many references as you can get,". This bald statement would encourage the overuse of referencing. There are two issues at stake:
The quotation from Catcher in the rye above is over the top. I'd advise bunching the humbers 1–6 at the end, after "promiscuity". It doesn't appear to be critical that the reader know "fuck" is the subject of one reference in particular, and "goddam" of another. This is a case of overkill-specificity.
I recently tried to convince WT:FAC that the FA criteria should specify a preference for list-defined citations. The result was my being booed off the stage. Tony (talk) 05:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Please list examples of problematic citation usage, along with a few keywords describing the perceived problem(s). Paradoctor ( talk) 18:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems a similar discussion is occurring over at WP:VPM#Over-sourcing?. For those that want to effect a change, Wikipedia:Citation overkill is currently proposed as a policy, guideline, or process. -- œ ™ 23:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
In case
User:Dragons flight or any other
mw:Extension:Cite developer is watching, we could probably use a little technical help here. It might be nice if consecutive references were rendered slightly differently. The example given above is: "here is some example sentence.[1][2][8][15][6]" If the Extension were able to render that as something like: "here is some example sentence.[1, 2, 8, 15, 6]" I think that this problem wouldn't bug people quite as much. We could quibble about the connecting characters of course (commas, dashes, em-dashes, etc...), but I bet that most would appreciate the general change.
—
V = I * R (
Talk •
Contribs) 14:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
<ref>
tag.
Paradoctor (
talk) 15:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)display:
for class .reference
. If you want to try it, just add .reference {display:none !important
} to your custom CSS.I'm hoping to solicit further comments on this proposed guideline. Input has previously been solicited from WikiProject Manual of Style and WikiProject Thailand, and an RfC listed, but it hasn't attracted enough discussion to determine consensus. Your comments are appreciated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Thailand-related articles)/Draft#Request for comment - implementation as guideline. Thank you. -- Paul_012 ( talk) 12:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:BLP semiprotection petition —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbharris ( talk • contribs) 10:17, January 31, 2010 (UTC)
Also, please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Semiprotection_of_BLP_articles_for_Super_Bowl_players. -- NeilN talk to me 04:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#G5 - some clarification and discussion about speedy deletion criterion G5 (pages created by banned users). Essentially three issues have been raised: (1) what exactly does G5 mean? (2) should a topic ban be treated differently from a general ban, apart of course from the fact that a topic ban applies only within its own topic, and (3) would it be better to apply the same criterion to blocks as well as bans? JamesBWatson ( talk) 13:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Moving_images_to_the_Commons has a list of instructions to follow in moving an image to the Wikimedia Commons. So too does Commons:Moving_to_Commons. The two pages, however, have some inconsistencies. The Wikipedia page states, "The best practice is to use CommonsHelper to make the move (you will need a TUSC account). This tool automatically copies all necessary information and makes things much easier for administrators reviewing the move. This is easiest using the user script CommonsHelper Helper." (emphasis added) The Commons page, on the other hand, has a lengthy list of all the things that the script ignores. It appears that the script (in apparent contradiction to its stated results on the Wikipedia page) actually ignores virtually everything. Can we get some reconciliation between the two pages, either by getting a script that actually transfers information along with the image or by simply transcluding the Commons page on Wikipedia? (Preferably by getting a better tool.) Banaticus ( talk) 22:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Are there any credible estimates on how much yearly revenue Wikipedia would make if it allowed advertising? Has anyone considered what to do with the money? With Wikipedia being one of the top websites on earth, is it not rational to think that Wikipedia could make a great sum of money from advertising? My apologies if this query is posted in the wrong place as I could not find anywhere else to post this. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 05:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
So I see advertising is one of those "perennial proposals," and thank you for pointing that out. However, is it not time to revisit the situation today as many contributors are leaving Wikipedia anyway, as loudly covered by the press. Has the exodus of editors from Wikipedia affected donations? Are there any estimates of how donations to Wikipedia will be affected in the future if this trend keeps up? Advertising might be one way to staunch the flow of capital from Wikipedia. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 05:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Another thing i just thought of: Is the decision to allow or forever decline advertising made by us, the wikipedians, or is it a matter for the real-world owners of the site? If Mr. Wales and his company didn't want advertising, could we, the users, make them accept advertising through on-wiki discussion and consensus? Conversely, can the owners/managers of Wikipedia unilaterally accept advertising over community objection? PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 06:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I see a lot of well-written and well-referenced articles about current events put up for AFD. Often editors will find analysis pieces in the news that speak to enduring notability of the situation, and the article is saved. Other times, the article is lost, and even if the article is kept, a lot of time is expended that could have been used to improve existing articles.
It seems to me that there'd be many advantages in adding a message on the order of If this is about a breaking news event, consider creating your article on Wikinews instead to the screen that comes up when you create a new article. I don't know where that messgae template lives or who's in charge of it, but it seems like there'd be some real advantages in adding a message like that. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 03:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I have recently accepted an invitation to become a wikipedian and I look forward to working with you all on some of the most pressing issues that we all face in this day and age. It will take me a while to figure out some of the applications on the Wikipedia platform. Please have patience as I learn this system. --〜〜〜〜 17:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Synergy44 ( talk • contribs)
There's a lot of pages about districts in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanamar. Sometines is "xxx district" and sometimes "xxxx District" (only less times there's a redirection). Im'm really surprised that there's no policiy about this. I suggest to adopt a policy in one or other sense, but as soon as possible. I believe that a boot can correct all articles wrong labelled. -- 83.52.18.163 ( talk) 15:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I know that article creation for anons is ban, but why is template creation so? 174.3.98.236 ( talk) 17:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Agreeable to consensus and proper discussion and proceedure, WP:Naming conventions has now been renamed/moved to WP:Article titles. While considering this change, we agreed to limit the discussion to changing the title of the policy page, and purposely did not discuss whether we should also change the myriad topic related guidelines derived from it... these are currently listed using the format: "WP:Naming conventions (topic X)". I now open discussion on that question. thoughts? Blueboar ( talk) 18:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello, all.
The Living People task force begins work Monday with part one, board recommendations and proposal. This will run for two months, with the second half beginning in April on community focus.
This is a global project, and we highly encourage active global participation in discussion.
More information can be found here.
We hope to see you all there, and everyone have a good weekend.
Keegan ( talk) 18:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article titles ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It has been brought to my attention that WP:COLORS must be followed, however, it doesn't indicate how much so. The w3c standard allows pass, warning, and fail. I'm wondering if a warning is acceptable, or if a pass is needed. This is in regards to a template (see User:Floydian/Highway 401). Blue on white somehow registers a warning (even though I doubt anyone couldn't differentiate between blue and white). Is this acceptable, or must I pass both the brightness and contrast tests for a colour scheme to be acceptable? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Some time ago a number of articles were created (accidentally I presume) with extra commas at the end of the title - for example "Desktop environment, and Grand Theatre de Bordeaux,. They were quickly moved to the correct title, but a redirect was left behind. There are probably several hundred. Recently User:Basilicofresco marked a large number of them for speedy delete under category R3 (recently created implausible redirect), even though strictly some of them were three or four years old. I deleted many of them on the grounds of "non-controversial housekeeping" and Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, even if they weren't strictly recent.
However User:Nancy declined some and User:DESiegel objected to the deletions since they didn't fall within the strict definition of the category and Wikipedia:Process is important. So we are here to ask for more opinions on the matter.
It should be said that noone has come up with a reason why these articles might be useful, except the unlikely event that an external site is linking to it rather than the correct title. None of them have any edit history. None of them are linked to. If you put the exact title of the deleted article into Wikipedia search the correct title without the comma always comes up first. If someone can think of a reason for keeping them we're certainly eager to hear it.
Here are some suggestions that have been made:
Comments, and other suggestions, are welcome. DJ Clayworth ( talk) 18:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I've speeied these and closed the pointless RfD. So sue me.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 19:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
It should be noted that DJ Clayworth's initial deletion log entries cited R# in the standard way, they did not site "housekeeping" not IAR. DES (talk) 20:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
It is my view that the Speedy deletion criteria are intentionally narrow, and should be observed strictly. It is also my view that IAR is not an appropriate justification for any page deletion ever. That said, it is hard to argue that these redirects have any positive value to Wikipedia. Perhaps we should broaden R3 to cover the case where the redirect is very unlikely to be the target of a link from an external site. But I strongly oppose the unilateral deletion of any page without consensus. The CSD represent pre-formed consensus for particular kinds of deletions, but only for the narrowly specified kinds. It might be argued that these deletions fall under the G6 housekeeping criterion. But they do not fall under R3 as now established, and IAR simply does not suffice.
I also object strongly to an attempt to clsoe this discussion within hours, and to the grossly improper close of the RfD (though having both an RfD and a discussion here might be seen as redundant). DES (talk) 20:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The whole purpose of IAR when properly used is not to discuss things that evidently don't need discussing, and to avoid using unneccessay process. DES may wish that we "played by rules and process", but that's not how Wikipedia works. That would be to ignore basic Wikiphilosopy and longstanding core policy (IAR). If DES doesn't like the way we do things round here, maybe he'd like to propose a change. But IAR is foundational, and this is an excellent use of it. I've no more energy to debate this pointlessness that doesn't improve wikipedia, and that too is the reason we have IAR. I speedy closed the RfD because it was also quite pointless.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 20:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I support the "just do it" school of IAR thought. Sometimes editors are clueful enough to know what to do without having to run the gauntlet of process to confirm their cluefulness. older ≠ wiser 20:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
(unindent) In response to User:Scott MacDonald, I am tempted to say that the set of things that don't need discussion is the empty set. But that isn't quite right. I would say, however, that the set of things that don't need discussion after a good faith objection is made is empty. Deletion, while easily undone by an admin, is none the less a large step. Non admins cant see the content to ask about it, and even admins can't easily find it without a precise indication. Therefore our policies such as WP:DEL generally emphasize that deletion occurs only by specific consensus. There are a number of narrow categories where the consensus has been established in advance. These are the speedy deletion criteria. It is my view that the combination of WP:CSD and WP:DEL says that there is a long-standing policy-based consensus against undiscussed deletions outside of the CSD. Whatever IAR is for, it is not for operating against established consensus, i think. (I should add that my name has for years been on the list at WT:IAR of editors opposed to IAR in principle, but it does have general agreement, whatever I think of it.) I might add that an involved editor ought not to close a deletion discussion, however "pointless" he may think it -- If you don't have time to waste, you need not discuss the matter at all. And current practice and policy as I understand it is now generally opposed to early closes for deletion discussions except in cases where the page involved fits one of the CSD, or where the nomination is withdrawn. This was neither. DES (talk) 21:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I daresay Scott nailed it. Paradoctor ( talk) 04:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC) Paradoctor ( talk) 04:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The fact is that we have huge numbers of frankly implausible redirects with things like leading, trailing, or surrounding punctuation or wikimarkup that don't get deleted because they don't qualify as "recently created" and mass RfD noms don't scale above about 50. Yes, 50 or so is a lot, but it's not enough to address some of these problems. If the issue is that people want an actual deletion criterion beyond IAR/housekeeping/nobody cares, then the solution is probably just to gin up a speedy criterion for the - call it "seriously, really really implausible typos that are implausible and probably redundant" or some such thing. They ought to be gone, though, if there's no reason to think that deleting them would make it any harder to find their targets. — Gavia immer ( talk) 04:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article titles ( | 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, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Risker has closed the RFC on BLPs. -- Cybercobra (talk) 09:26, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
A volunteer to do the January update for the 6 conduct policies would be appreciated. Either leave a note on my talk page or jump in at WP:Update/3, please. - Dank ( push to talk) 13:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Often I've found that 'problem' images seem to come in runs, therefore...
Where there is a indication of a run of more than 4 images from a single uploader that have been deleted by WP:PUI process or have had to be tagged for license, source or permissions issue within the last 7 days, an automatic 'time-out' in respect of upload rights only (which would require technical changes inside mediawiki) would be applied to the uploader concerned.
The length of the inital 'time-out' should be decided by community process. Upon repeat problems, the time-out should be extended progressively, up to a maximum period of 6 months. As at present admins would retain the ability to apply 'blocking' as appropriate.
I would also like to suggest :
uploaded, and that said status could be updated when a check is made manually. The user would be prompted to re-confirm with thier login password if tineye found an identical match for the image.
Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 20:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Images on Wikipedia have to have sufficient information on them to enable their source and status to be checked..
Therefore, any image uploaded after March 1st 2010, which contains no information at all on it's File description page, can be deleted without notification to the uploader if the information is not added within a period not less than 2 days from the upload.
Images uploaded prior to this would have to be treated on a case by case basis.
As part of this, an appropriately worded template {{ Needs infobox}} should be written to tag images that have information, but which is not yet in the form used by {{ information}} so that they can be identified for cleanup.
Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 20:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I am new to Wikipedia. I am interested in offering articles that have similar material to existing articles. I note that, for example, the excellent article on 'Original Sin' may have a cohesive unity that would not benefit from being significantly edited. My pace and style of writing and the content would be from a Classical Attic Greek perspective. I would offer complementory information. I would feel guilty in editing and possibly destabilising the existing article. I would not duplicate more than 50 words, dispute with or compromise an existing article Is a second article justified or permissable? All comments would be greatly appreciated.
It might be appropriate to contact the person who wrote the origin?
Kind regards to everyone Chris —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harry C H ( talk • contribs) 15:27, February 7, 2010
I blocked this username, and there's some discussion about whether this was the right thing to do. I'm particularly interested in feedback from females, since we're always looking to bump female editor participation up from its current dismal 15%, and I think it's possible that more women than men would be offended by the name. - Dank ( push to talk) 17:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
A Request for comment which may be of interest to the readers of the Village Pump: Template talk:Unreferenced#RFC: should this tag be allowed on stubs?. Fram ( talk) 15:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm coming from discussion around the use or non-use of a copyrighted flag icon to represent the Ireland national rugby union team. As the island of Ireland does not have a universally recognized flag, the flag used on Wikipedia to represent Irish sporting teams is which ever flag is used by that team's governing body. In the case of rugby union is this one. That flag is copyright of the sport's governing body and so (consensus opinion is that) it cannot be used on Wikipedia as flag cruft. No image is used in its place owing to concerns over original research and images.
Now while I would disagree that this is not an example of "fair-use", I'm happy to accept consensus on the subject. (For example, I recently amended the Irish MOS to reflect this consensus and I !voted for the status quo during a discussion at WikiProject Rugby union.) What galls me, however, is the inconsistent and willy-nilly approach to this purported policy.
For example, the flag of the African Union is not allowed in flag cruft because it is copyright. The flag of NATO is similarly not allowed in flag cruft because it too is copyright. At the same time a plethora of non-free flags and emblems are used in flag cruft across the 'pedia either through the turning of a blind eye or in error.
The Canadian flag, for example, is copyright of the Canadian Crown (© 1965). The European flag is copyright of the Council of Europe (© 1955). Both of these are available under what would be considered quite liberal licenses: Canadians, for example, are free to use and display the national flag of Canada as they wish except for commercial purposes. The European flag may be used so long as it use does not conflict with the aims of the EC (effectively the EU) or the Council of Europe and so long as there is no likelihood of confusion between the user of the emblem and those institutions. However, neither of these licenses are free. Neither are compatible with CC-BY-SA or the GFDL. Yet both are used as flag cruft for Canadian and European sporting teams, etc..
(To make matter worse, both of these images are on the Commons and marked as being in the public domain. A brief discussion on the Canadian example ended in agreement that while it is in copyright our use was not "improper" and so OK - regardless of the absence of explicit agreement to release it under CC-BY-SA or GFDL. A request for deletion of European flag was shot down by two user !voting Keep on the basis that the image is just "some stars on a field of blue" and so ineligible for copyright!)
The Canadian and European flags are but two examples. There are a plethora of examples - effectively every flag in the world made public for the first time since 1923. Bear in mind Wikipedia:Copyrights and remember that all creative works are copyrighted, by international agreement, unless either they fall into the public domain (currently pre-1923) or their copyright is explicitly disclaimed. That includes flags.
So, the purpose of this post is to ask:
--rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid ( coṁrá) 20:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950; [7] Gnevin ( talk) 23:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I found that a topic I had posted on months earlier had been archived, and the archive had the template {{talkarchive}}. However, the best way to revive the discussion, after I found something I should have seen months ago when the discussion was new, appeared to be to remove the entire topic from the archive and post it back on the talk page. I also split the archive because it was excessively long, and it probably needs splitting again. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
It has been suggested by Kransky that all decade articles be split into two sets of articles:
Please express your opinion here on the proposed splits. TheCuriousGnome ( talk) 22:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
New articles are often immediately deleted, usually per WP:Notability. This can be frustrating for new authors, and I've known a few people who were upset and never returned. A better approach would be to welcome the new (and presently unsuitable) articles by moving them to the Wikipedia:Article Incubator, and placing a warmly worded template on the author's page explaining why, with easy to understand details about what the author can do to make the article suitable and verify that it is notable. If the article is not improved within one month, it should be PRODed in the incubator and then deleted after seven days. My proposal is to incubate the majority of articles by new authors that would normally be tagged AfD/PROD, especially for overzealous speedy deletion A7 (notability). I think speedy incubation would be much better. - kslays ( talk • contribs) 00:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
:This system would be too slow. I think the current system works fine, since it usually involves two sets of eyes, the first "tagging" editor then the administrator who actually deletes the page.
PeterbrownDancin (
talk) 01:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC) removing
WP:SOCK comments -
Wikidemon (
talk) 13:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
New page patrollers (well, me anyway) will normally do a check for sources before tagging for CSD (unless it's obviously about one of the editor's classmates) or PROD, and when leaving a PROD I will always recommend that the article creator cite some source to show the subject is notable. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 02:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a new group I co-founded of editors willing to use extreme measures to fight for the survival of BLPs, the Wikipedia:Article Special Commandos. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 02:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
This is no joke. We are on the precipice of a mass 60,000 article deletion. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 02:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
There has been quite a bit of discussion on the thread "Contradiction at WP:Content fork: content forks are not always bad" about what to do about the contradiction between the definition of content fork at WP:NPOV and the definition of content fork at WP:CFORK. In fact that thread was a revival of a previous thread from months ago that died. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any forthcoming consensus about what "content fork" is supposed to mean. We do, however, have two concepts available that are well-defined and mutually agreed upon: POV (point of view) forks and articles on the same subject. This last concept is already mentioned by WP:CFORK and has been proposed as a new term at least a couple of times under names like "content duplication" or "topic fork." Trying to build on this, I propose the following solution for the "content fork" problem.
1. List same-topic articles as a problem to avoid
2. Drop the term "content fork" and instead rely on "point of view fork" and "same-topic articles"
Implementing this proposal would take three steps:
1. Make a page called "same-topic articles." Content fork is already defined as "multiple separate articles all treating the same subject," so this would not be a new concept, just a language clarification. Relevant material from WP:Content_forking would be moved to the new page.
2. Move WP:Content_forking to WP:POV_fork, replace any usage of content fork in the remaining material with POV fork, leave a redirect
3. Add same-topic articles as a reason for deletion to WP:DEL#REASON, change reason content fork to POV fork
4. Am I forgetting anything?
I think this proposal is good since it builds on past ones by Andrew Gradman, ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ, and others. However, it needs to be voted on to see if there is consensus for it. Thanks.
—
Khin2718 19:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The third sentence of WP:Content fork implies that content forks are always bad ("content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia").
For this to be true, we'd have to be defining "content fork" to not include the overlap between article spinouts (e.g.
history of coffee) and summary-style-sections (e.g.
Coffee#History). But that's not how we're defining it: the first sentence of
WP:Content fork defines the term to mean, quite simply, redundancy between articles ("A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject"; and
coffee and
history of coffee both "treat" the history of coffee). This contradiction has apparently been noticed, because someone
has attempted to answer it, but the attempt just equates content forks with POV forks. ("Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of View") (emphasis added). (not really relevant.)
I propose to rewrite the lead at WP:Content fork as follows, to reflect that the term "content fork" is used to refer to two different things -- one which is acceptable, one which isn't.
A content fork occurs when there is more than one article containing a treatment of a given topic. This redundancy is problematic because it forces related discussions onto multiple talk pages, hinders coordination and consensus-building, and leads to inconsistencies between articles. Nevertheless, content forking is made inevitable to some degree by the natural overlap between encyclopedia topics, and is often encouraged in order to avoid overly lengthy articles (see Wikipedia:Summary style).
Unacceptable content forks are of two kinds.
A point of view (POV) fork refers to an article whose existence has no justification except to promote violations of Wikipedia's neutral point of view guidelines. POV forks are assumed to be content forks, because they are generally redundant to (and may even be created to intentionally circumvent) a pre-existing but neutral discussion of that POV. They tend to cluster among articles whose title identifies a POV (e.g., "Criticism of [topic X]"), although these articles are not always POV forks.
The second kind is confusingly referred to simply as a "content fork". These occur when there more than one article that is entirely dedicated to a given topic. These redundant articles often arise accidentally. When they are identified, all substantive content should be merged into one of these articles; the others should be replaced with redirects to that article.
This is a revival (and improvement) of a
proposal I made in August at the WP:Content fork talk page which ran out of steam.
Thoughts? Would anyone support introducing a new term -- "topic fork" or "article fork" -- to refer to bad content forks that are not POV forks?
Andrew Gradman
talk/
WP:Hornbook 21:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't quite understand the issue. Couldn't it just say "Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking", and be done with it, no qualifier required? Summary style is pretty clear, and should involve summary, not duplication. Rd232 talk 11:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
←The basic principle of the guideline, i.e. multiple articles on a single distinct topic is undesirable, is sound. For editors, it dilutes collaborative article building; for readers, either the duplicates provide no further information, wasting their time or, they only find one article, it's of inferior quality to its four-pronged siblings, thus we do them a disservice. I too think conflating content forks with notability is a mistake. – Whitehorse1 18:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
But Wikipedia includes articles of different types that share the same scope and which are entirely dedicated to the same topics, which makes them "content forks" according to the "The second kind" definition provided above. Wikipedia has prose articles and list articles. Topic lists (such as "
List of opera topics" and
Outline of geography are Wikipedia articles, and they share the same scope as the corresponding prose articles (
Opera and
Geography). But, topic lists serve different purposes than conventional (prose) articles: lists deal more specifically with the presentation of subjects' structures, and their format allows for faster readability, skim-ability, and navigation (they are somewhat menu-like). The cfork guideline apparently assumed "article" meant "prose article". Having two prose articles on the same subject or two glossaries on exactly the same subject is bad. But having an article and a glossary (and an index, and an outline) isn't bad (if the scope of the subject is broad enough to support these article types).
Therefore, the "second kind" definition should accomodate the other types of articles, perhaps like this:
The second kind is confusingly referred to simply as a "content fork". These occur when there are more than one article of the same type that are entirely dedicated to a given topic. These redundant articles often arise accidentally. When they are identified, all substantive content should be merged into one of these articles; the others should be replaced with redirects to that article. Articles of different types (a standard prose article, a portal, a timeline, a glossary, an index, etc.) that cover the same subject are not considered to be harmful content forks, and they should not be merged together just because they cover the same subject.
The Transhumanist 23:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
An excellent point about the "bureaucracy." Truthfully, I think that the WP:IGNOREALLRULES policy is very applicable here. Let's say for the sake of discussion that Gavin Collins was right by the "letter of the law." Even if there were no secondary sources identifying the title of the article (there are, and they have been pointed out), it's still a very useful page that adds to the value of Wikipedia as a resource. It's heavily visited. It's a topic that's in the news...a lot. It's relevant to the average American (and others) who wants to know if there really is a division in "scientific opinion on climate change." Finally, it is not covered in sufficient depth on other pages to provide an answer for many people who come here looking for an answer. "Scientific opinion on the shape of the earth" shares none of these dynamics. In light of this, most people would still be willing to not follow a strict interpretation of the letter of the law simply because the article makes Wikipedia better. Consider this from WP:BURO: "Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy without consideration for the principles of policies. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures." Destroying useful knowledge cannot be the answer. Improving the article with the other editors is the best choice. Airborne84 ( talk) 06:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Gavin Collins, why don't you just say what this is really about? It's not about geography, it's your disagreement with the Scientific Opinion on Climate Change article in that it is (as per your claim) an unacceptable content fork from Climate Change; thus, since the words "scientific opinion" in the title do not have a footnote after them, the article should be deleted - or condensed and combined into "Climate Change" with all other articles on Climate Change (regardless of the current size of that article). Thoughts anyone? Airborne84 ( talk) 13:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- Alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors. Also disfavored are double or "segmented" article names, in the form of: Flat Earth/Round Earth; or Flat Earth (Round Earth). Even if a synthesis is made, like Shape of the Earth, or Earth (debated shapes), it may not be appropriate, especially if it is a novel usage coined specifically to resolve a POV fork.
I think this proposal would add much confusion to what is only a slightly confusing name for the policy. A "content fork" is mean to mean a split of identical content to two different articles, without attempting to sort out a valid difference between the one and the other. And specifically, because editor POV is not supposed to affect the article, that is not a valid difference. The policy is self-evident from the nature of Wikipedia: without setting meaningful distinctions between what articles cover, there would be one "Article" split into three million parts all covering everything at random. It also extends naturally to improperly segregated "Criticism" sections automatically, because sections of an article likewise should be distinguished by valid differences; so the article should be separated in terms of the major real-world activities/ideas/processes it addresses, not the opinions different groups of editors have about each individual detail. The bottom line is that when content is organized into articles or sections, it should be divided according to some rational, encyclopedic set of subdivisions. Wnt ( talk) 21:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
First I'd like to say that I think the current contradiction between WP:NPOV and WP:CFORK is very confusing. I had initially read WP:NPOV and internalized its difference between POV fork and content fork, and when I finally read the other policy I did a double take.
From reading this discussion it seems clear there is widespread disagreement about what "content fork" means. Some people think that there are good content forks and bad content forks. Other people think that content forks are always bad. Because I do not see much consensus here on the definition and the above contradiction is very confusing, I propose that we simply remove the term "content fork" from all pages until such time as a consensus about what it means can be found.
I agree with the basic structure of Andrew Gradman's first proposal, the very first proposal anybody made in this discussion, and think "POV fork" should clearly be retained as a concept. However I think "content fork" in both of the places he uses it should be replaced. ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ's suggestion that we call articles covering the same topic by the simple name "duplication" seems to represent progress here. But instead of "duplication," I say an even better term would be "redundant," because it is rare that two articles are entirely duplicates of each other, and it is more common for two articles to simply have a high, but not necessarily total, degree of redundancy. Either "duplication" or "redundant" would be fairly acceptable to me, however. Most important is to have at least a recognizable term.
There is the other question of what to call a parent-child relationship. (Ludwig2 suggested "branch," which mimics my thinking pretty well.) But because parent-child relationships are not bad, and a positive part of WP:SUMMARY, I think there is no reason to delay and try to come up with any special term for them right now. Let's stick to the more important points of bad organization and get rid of the current contradictions. Khin2718 ( talk) 04:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Here's my proposal in a nutshell:
Implementing this proposal would take three steps:
1. Make a page called "same-topic articles." Content fork is already defined as "multiple separate articles all treating the same subject," so this would not be a new concept, just a language clarification. Relevant material from WP:Content_forking would be moved to the new page.
2. Move WP:Content_forking to WP:POV_fork, replace any usage of content fork in the remaining material with POV fork, leave a redirect
3. Add same-topic articles as a reason for deletion to WP:DEL#REASON, change reason content fork to POV fork
4. Am I forgetting anything?
If there is consensus for this then it can be done in the next week. However, input is needed.
—
Khin2718 18:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
One paragraph in Wikipedia's policy on self published sources currently says the following:
I propose we add the following line to this paragraph:
Discussions can continue from below. Thanks. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 13:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC):
Given the points above, I've changed the proposal to what is written below. I suggest we add the line mentioned below to the current WP:SPS, to incorporate the points mentioned above by some editors. Do give me your responses (please note: only the line in bold is what is being added to the current WP:SPS; everything else is retained as is there currently). Thanks.
<-------->
<-------->
Discussions could be held from here on. Thanks ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 03:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
text | footnote | |
---|---|---|
In X, Mary said "Joe said Q (in S)" | good | |
Joe said "Q"[1] | See X, where Mary said that Joe said "Q" (in S) | good |
Joe said "Q" (in S) | bad (if you haven't read S) |
(continued in What is an SPS?)
PLEASE NOTE: The short cut WP:RS now points to WP:Verifiability#Reliable sources... while the text of the old WP:Reliable sources guideline has been moved to the new guideline title WP:Identifying reliable sources. These moves were fairly well discussed on the relavant talk pages, and I think they were done in good faith. However, it might have been better to have notified more people... by initiating an RfC and announcing the move here before actually making them. In any event... please note these changes. Blueboar ( talk) 18:29, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources ( | 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 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Reliable sources ( | 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, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I bought this on Amazon for £41, only to find it is simply sections of wikipedia, completely unedited! An example of someone shamelessy making money from Wikipedia.
Frederic P. Miller; Agnes F. Vandome; John McBrewster (January 2010). Judith Butler: Post- Structuralism, Ethics, Political Philosophy, Queer Theory, Feminism, Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Feminist Theory, Jewish Philosophy, Gender Trouble, Performativity, American Philosoph. Alphascript Publishing. ISBN 9786130630805. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
They should be stopped! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.149.18 ( talk) 14:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Just so long as they give credit to Wikipedia and their derivative works fall under the same license then they are all good with us. Anyone who buys it may have an ax to grind though. I have often thought of making a picture book from Wikipedia's featured pictures, a nice coffee talk volume/conversation piece. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 15:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I support Amazon's stance on not taking responsibility for the content of books as long as the books are legal. If they did try to take such responsibility then numerous edgy books would have to be removed from their offerings. Unless some sort of fraud is going on here then it is just a really shitty product with its disclaimer in small print. It is common in the book industry to repackage freely usable material in low quality form and sell it, it is not going to stop over this incident. Amazon is a reseller, it is up to you the customer to decide which book you want to buy. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 15:52, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello, first at all, sorry for my english. Im from the spanish wiki and there, we are talking about the IP policies referred to vandalism [13]. And someones there say that this wiki has blocked the IP editions, it seems thats not true but maybe it was. For that, I asked for you all, if this wiki have statistics about it. Some statistics like an before and after if that decision was taken sometime. Thanks, sorry for my english and i hope that someone could understand this!-- Mechusriva ( talk) 01:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
English: It's only the creation of new articles what has been denied. Unregistered users can still edit existing unprotected articles as always. But complete forbiding unregistered users from editing will not happen, as it would go against the Founding principles Spanish: Lo único que se impidió es que creen artículos nuevos. Los usuarios no registrados siguen pudiendo editar artículos existentes no protegidos como siempre. Pero impedir por completo que los usuarios no registrados editen no va a pasar, ya que iría en contra de los Principios fundacionales MBelgrano ( talk) 15:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Anarchism/Participate/Solidarity? ( | 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, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I noticed some articles that have not been to Afd, but the subject has. These don't have {{
oldafdfull}}
on the talk page. Would it be helpful to show them in some way, and if so how? Example would be
LoveGame
talk - where there was an Afd as
Lovegame and
Love Game. Regards,
SunCreator (
talk) 16:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
[14]. Who think's she should stay on wikipedia, as Casey Anthony. Admins deleted my page saying she's not notable Di Natale Massimo ( talk) 19:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I can't seem to find any policy or guideline relating to lists of minor characters, which has come up through an AfD discussion. We have a category full of these lists ( Category:Lists of minor fictional characters, 122 articles at present) but they can present problems. As minor characters, they are by definition, not notable (although notability would apply to the list as a whole, rather than individual characters). The lists actually exist because no single character would qualify for an individual article. I have no problem with this and support the existence of these lists. However, the lack of any guidelines one way or the other makes AfD difficult and could cause problems in the future. The closest thing I could find to an actual policy is this obsolete and apparently rejected attempt: Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters. So, I would like some advice on when a list of minor characters is appropriate and what the content should be. Thanks, AdamBMorgan ( talk) 17:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I would like to point out that individual entries in a list do not need to meet the same standard for inclusion as a standalone article would. It is the list as a whole whose importance should be gauged by coverage in reliable sources. Powers T 13:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
This complaint is based on a simple fallacy. If a work is notable and its article grows to great size, then a separate article about all the characters (even minor ones) can be split off and is noticeable. If that article would be too large, the individual major characters can be split off. What is left after all that does not suddenly lose notability - in fact, it is necessary to complete a thorough coverage of the parent topic. Wnt ( talk) 22:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Could someone answer a small question for me?
I met a new user at the January Wiki-Conference in New York. He had created a BLP article a week before (something about a cousin of the Kennedys running for some office in California?) and it was deleted with only a cryptic message on his talk page. It had taken him several hours to enter the article and he had tried to be neutral. (I got the impression that he had just combined several local new articles and press releases.) But, being a newbie, he had no backup. He was understandably pissed and said he would never edit Wikipedia again.
When a sysop speedily deletes a BLP article for valid reasons, shouldn't he paste the content somewhere accessible but non-searchable, unless there's a problem with liable (G10)? -- RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 21:03, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
The main point I was trying to make was that we should have something that doesn't scare away newcomers when some sysop off-hand speedily deletes "their" article. Newcomers are the prime source of new, active editors. It's great to say "When I requested a copy of a deleted page, it was promptly mailed to me" but newbies have never heard of sysops/administrators and don't have the foggiest notion that they need to contact one or how.
In my opinion, sysops should always insert a new section on the creator's (or creators') talk page(s) that says:
This should be part and parcel of the standard procedure for all speedy deletions. What would be even better is if we could replace the disallowed content with these messages, just in case the newbie doesn't know that his talk page exists. (In my opinion as well, the deleting sysop should take the primary responsiblity for leading the creator(s) through the appeal process and, if he thinks it justified, restoring the article. But I know that many sysops would object to the additional work.) -- RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 23:22, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
FRINGE is relatively easy to define in scientific subjects, where there's a mainstream scientific view, and a literal fringe of pseudoscience around it. But what is FRINGE in issues of political dispute? It would seem to me that the analogy in U.S. politics to "FRINGE" would be extremist political parties or conspiracy theorists/theories with little or no base of support: David Duke, Leonard Peltier, Walt Brown, John Buchanan, birther claims, Clinton-murdered-Vince-Foster, Bush-blew-up-the-World-Trade-Center, etc. There might be an argument to extend fringe as far inward as Ralph Nader (who has never gotten 4% of the presidential vote despite multiple runs), though I personally wouldn't.
But there is a repeated problem on Wikipedia is the abuse of WP:FRINGE in political subjects as an excuse to exclude notable points of view in violation of WP:NPOV: I have seen editors insist that L. Brent Bozell III, who has published op-eds in mainstream sources such as the New York Times, is "fringe," or that The Weekly Standard (the second-most notable conservative magazine in the US) is "fringe," or even that the Wall Street Journal editorial page is "fringe." This is clearly an unacceptable attempt to evade the WP:NPOV policy by excluding notable points of view. In my eyes, the problem seems to be one-sided: no one claims that Bill Moyers is fringe, though he said that Bush was planning a coup in 2004, but respectable writers on the center-right get tarred with this brush repeatedly. (I've seen talk-page claims that William Kristol, a New York Times columnist, was on the far right, which is self-evidently tendentious.)
How can we craft language in WP:NPOV or WP:FRINGE to help nip these disputes in the bud?
Further discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories#Clarification_needed_for_political_views. THF ( talk) 19:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The main point to consider is that Fringe does not equal minority. Fringe is a special case of minority, a minority that is so small that it does not deserve being taken into account. When legitimate political discussions have clearly moved into accepting one of the competing viewpoints and rejecting the other, that doesn't turn the "defeated" viewpoint into a fringe one. For example, we can't write an article on George Bush with a condeming tone just because by now almost everybody considers him to have been a bad president.
Another point, when we describe mediatic disputes between interlocutors who are notable on their own terms, fringe does not apply. For example: the president said that ("polemic statement"), the leader of the opposing party answered that ("response"), the president of X institution pointed that (etc), etc; all of which being described at whole pages or sections in newspapers as they do on an everyday basis. MBelgrano ( talk) 12:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
If an article is currently under review at AfD, is it speediable? Doesn't that subvert the community process? I can see (and have seen) admins taking action *at* an AfD to delete an article that is obviously speediable, but can someone involved in the AfD debate simply slap a CSD tag on the article? Thoughts? -- SatyrTN ( talk / contribs) 23:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
I keep watching disputes come up at Iraq War and War in Afghanistan (2001-present) about what commanders to include in the infoboxes. Would it be possible to establish some more specific guidelines for editors to cite when trying to make decisions about this? I don't know what should be included, but I'm tired of watching people fight about something so trivial. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 21:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I have an idea which could solve part of the problem (perhaps). Since all infoboxes on conflicts include a list of protagonists, we could include a link immediatly after indicating the theoretical commander-in-chief of this or that force. For instance : United States ( leader) ; Nazi Germany ( leader), etc. (and please don't interpret this juxtaposition wrongly, they're only examples ! :p). This would allow for mentioning the theoretical head of the command chain, whether he/she is "active" or not, which could be pretty hard to decide in some cases (again, was Stalin an "active commander" in World War Two ? What about Roosevelt ? Did Tony Blair have an active involvement in the conduct of the war in Iraq ? etc.) What do you think ? -- Alþykkr ( talk) 13:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Something I've been wondering, and don't see really addressed.
WP:CSD R3 states:
Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are redirects in other languages. This does not apply to articles and stubs that have been converted into redirects. {{ db-r3}}, {{ db-redirtypo}}, {{ db-redirmisnomer}}
How does that cover redirects like "Craig hoffman" > "Craig Hoffman"? The target isn't a hugely trafficked page, so I'm unclear as to whether that's necessary or not. If not R3, should it be PRODed, or just left alone? -Zeus- u| c 21:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I wonder what will happen to Wikipedia badly if people comes in and engage in forum to discuss personal opinions and biases. This certainly won't harm Wikipedia in anyways so what is the side effect as a WP:FORUM?-- 209.129.85.4 ( talk) 17:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Following from the recent RfC, there is an ongoing discussion about the possible implementation of giving bureaucrats the technical ability to remove admin/crat flags, where this is currently done by the stewards. All comments welcome at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bureaucrat Unchecking. Happy‑ melon 15:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I seem to be missing the point. What, if anything, is the practical difference between Wikipedia:Content noticeboard, Wikipedia:Editor assistance, and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Unsorted? Regards, TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 20:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide ( | 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, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's said this before, but the constant notability requirements as well as condensation of highly detailed pages about certain things into a few lines of a compound page (see the Pokemon pages incident) is driving many previous people away, and this issue needs to be dealt with sooner, rather than later. My specific gripe is with an AfD delete about a Castlevania soundtrack producer's page, but there are plenty of articles that have been deleted over the years because of notability along with issues with sources also not being "notable enough" While removing notability requirements would not be good, making them so tight that they cause many users to abandon the site from frustration does no good, and needs to be dealt with yesterday. -- Pichu0102 ( talk) 10:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
What do you suggest should we do for this user? See his contributions. It looks like the ID is being used only to add links to his website under external references section. -- GP Pande 14:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Now that Wikipedia has switched to the Creative Commons license, may we copy all material from EOL into Wikipedia (and Wikispecies) verbatim? Would a reference to the EOL article satisfy the attribution requirement? How about images from EOL into the Commons? See previous village pump discussion. Also see Template:Eol. Here is information on EOL's terms of use, licensing policy, and if you're interested in contributing (eg Wikipedia material) to EOL, here is some information. The EOL already uses extensive material from Wikipedia, for example Theobroma Cacao. - kslays ( talk • contribs) 20:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Category names ( | 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, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) ( | 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, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
I was typing a little bit of German for Wikisource recently, and so far as I could tell, neither the list of special characters nor the standard Windows keyboard options were really usable for the task. It would take far too long to cut-and-paste every umlaut character, but the only alternative provided by Windows is a German keyboard layout with four separate keys dedicated to ä, ö, ü, and ß -- a keyboard which is altogether maddening to use even before one discovers that the Y and Z have swapped positions...
Now there is a fix for this, which is to download a free program Windows Keyboard Layout Creator [20] and generate a custom keyboard. It offers a single-level system of "dead keys" that change the next character typed. This allowed me to define the character "`" so that `a becomes ä, `E = Ë, `s = ß, `n = ñ, `t = þ `+ = ±, `- = — and so on. (Unfortunately it does not seem to allow for double redirects like ``a = à, `'a = á, etc. (nor conditional dead keys like a3 = ǎ but an = an) or you could use one convenient keyboard for German, French, Norwegian and pinyin)
Still, the keyboard setup file it generated could be installed on any Windows machine and would allow people to use an "umlaut key" immediately, without the bother of setting up the file or the privacy issues involved with the Windows validation demanded by the download. So far as I know the keyboard files are freely distributable data files, though the point may not be settled.
Because of the limitation of the program, several different keyboard setup files would be needed for different languages, and of course other operating systems would need their own files. It would be nice to arrange this as a limited-purpose download page linked from the vicinity of the special characters at the bottom of the edit page.
Would Wikipedia allow for this? Mike Serfas ( talk) 02:04, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
There is momentum for a proposal to close the request for comment on unsourced biographies on living people.
The RFC will be open through Monday night, 23:59 Wikipedia (UTC) time.
In a nutshell, this proposal would declare consensus for:
There is a Q&A on the talk page. Maurreen ( talk) 04:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Are High Schools inherently notable? If you look at it purely from a WP: Notability standpoint, it would seem that they are not, but popular convention seems to point towards them being notable. From my perspective, the coverage of High Schools is not uniform and the articles tend to be of a low quality or even stubs. Also, the articles tend to attract vandals and trolls. Obviously some High Schools are notable enough, like the ones scoring in the top ten on the U.S News Best Schools report, but I think the question is mostly applied to the majority of schools that are not, for example, featured in that list. I think the question is: In general, are Articles about High Schools inherently notable and are valuable additions to Wikipedia? 226Trident ( talk) 05:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia's notability guidelines are unfortunately opaque. They say that a thing is notable if notable people or institutions have taken notice of it. Duh. Well, how do you find out if people and institutions are notable? Same problem. Notable writers are identified by the fact that they are published by notable publishers, and the same with notable works. And notable publishers are identified by the fact that they publish notable works and writers. And yes, we identify notable works because notable writers produced them, and notable publishers published them. Are you beginning to see the problem? There's no solid ground to stand on here.
It helps if you replace the fancy word "notable" by the more common word "interesting." Then, whether something is notable (defined as whether notable people took note of it) reduces merely to the less fancy question of whether interesting people took interest in it. And how do we know whether the interested people are themselves interesting? Because other people take interest in THEM. Well, what other people? You? No. Me? No. We're talking about INTERESTING. PEOPLE. You know? Do I have to draw you a picture? Turn on the TV. But not whole sections of the internet. Because the internet is full of great dark areas of uninteresting stuff, written by uninteresting people. Like blogs and wikipedia. Wups. But it is true that the plebian interests of proles like our editors do not count. It is the interests of other media, publishers, and writers that count. Wikipedia is the ultimate parasite, and it rides the "buzz" from those who produce buzz. That's a technical word, there: BUZZ. It means "notability." S B H arris 06:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:ATHLETE clearly lays out notability guidelines for athletes that do not pass WP:GNG. However, Bradjamesbrown brought up a good point at Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Ian_Rogers_(rugby_referee). Referees are not included in WP:ATHLETE. For example, this person does not seem to meet the general notability guideline, but they certainly would pass WP:ATHLETE if it applies to referees. I'm inclined to personally say that it does not, but I figured it would be good to get a discussion on this topic going. So, do referees apply to WP:ATHLETE? NativeForeigner Talk/ Contribs 02:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
In the past I have photographed a couple of pieces of original art, paintings, that I owned. I am not the artist. i placed them on Wikipedia in order to illustrate the artist, a man recently dead, and whose copyright still therefore applies. Those images were removed with the argument that they were a copyright infringement. I am content with that.
Today I see a photograph of a sculpture with an artist whose copyright still applies. See File:The Scallop, Maggi Hambling, Aldeburgh.jpg. Please can I learn how this differs from a photograph of a painting and why this is not a copyright infringement? I am aware of the obvious 2 dimensions vs 3 dimensions answer for a photo of a sculpture. I am not sure that argument has validity. Fiddle Faddle ( talk) 12:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
A BLP-related RfC has been opened at the above page. To some extent the issue in the RfC concerns balancing rights of members of a Wikiproject vs. WP:BLP considerations. In any event, extra input, on either side of the dispute, is welcome. Nsk92 ( talk) 02:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a collaboration proposal at OpenNASA that suggests that NASA collaborate with Wikimedia project including Wikipedia. Please vote/comment on it.
There is also a NASA collaboration task force at the strategy wiki.
What are your thoughts on a collaboration between NASA and Wikipedia? Smallman12q ( talk) 13:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
As one of the main contributors to the
Adnan Oktar-article, I discovered that an anonymous user with a Turkish IP-adress added the website
www.replytowikipedia.com/ to the External links-section of this article. How should we deal with it?
A) It is very, very interesitng; thus we rework the article and the WP-policies;
B) It is very interesting; thus we should expand the article with A.O.'s given comments;
C) It is somewhat interesting; thus, we keep the link in the links section and that is it;
D) It is not interesting; thus we delete this link.
I have been too involved into the article to give a neutral opinion. Let me just say that I really tried to give every claim a prper reference, I believe I succeeded in this. SO please give my your opinions and ideas in this.Regards,
Jeff5102 (
talk) 08:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
How effective are cleanup tags and the like? Please join the discussion at the style guide talk page. Maurreen ( talk) 07:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Sdazet ( talk · contribs) is adding artist credits to Michael Doret to several images which are already uploaded, then adding the credit to the images' captions on the articles they decorate. Is this valid? Should there also be a source to prove that Doret is the actual creator of the logo? Woogee ( talk) 04:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
User space is often used for self-promotion ( WP:NOT#MYSPACE and WP:NOT#SOAPBOX), and to draft articles, keep notes, and other miscellaneous material by the user.
Userspace guidelines ( WP:UP) state that where a user page may be used inappropriately the user should be asked, and deletion may be discussed. This can take considerable time and effort though, so problem material proliferates in userspace.
I would like to propose an addition to userspace guidelines, that if it appears a userspace page may be used inappropriately, a NOINDEX tag can be added by any admin.
Rationale:
FT2 ( Talk | email) 19:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
This would help with Google, sure, but what about other mirrors of Wikipedia that don't follow the noindex convention? The Wordsmith Communicate 20:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have an official statement on the validity of articles and lists of bootleg albums? Such articles do exist; I notice some have come up for deletion review recently, and have seen articles deleted in the past just because "it's a bootleg", but they keep coming back, and I can't find an explicit policy against them.
I'm in favour of such a policy. We already have policies regarding copyright violation and spamming. We have rules against inclusion of song lyrics (if protected by copyright), album cover art that goes beyond a reduced size depiction of the front cover only (and these images must be justified by "fair use" declaration), and links to external sites that contain either of these. (Actually I'm writing this immediatly after cleaning up many Beach Boys album pages, most of which had links to lyric sites and a fan site with detailed cover art reproductions; I have to presume these articles have regular watchers who know it's wrong, and just look the other way; consider yourselves admonished!)
Coverage of bootlegs implies advertising an illegal product, especially if the album is not notable. There are probably less than a dozen bootleg albums in existence that could demonstrate mainstream notability beyond the artists' fan bases, and the number of artists involved must be even smaller (Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones... er, that's about it). Even when a bootleg album is alleged to be notable, there is little coverage of it in mainstream or music press, excepting the most underground press, in part because the music industry would cut off any such publication from receiving promotional materials and support. While the obscurity of bootlegs is therefore somewhat artificial, that doesn't diminish their non-notability.
Artists with many bootlegs, or significant bootleg material, nearly always have a "discography" article, and that could be a place to mention a few selected bootlegs that can demonstrate notability. Any guideline on the subject should spell out that discography articles should not include a long list of bootlegs, nor track listings, and certainly not links to places where bootlegs can be illegally downloaded. A bootleg album can also be notable if it prompts an official release of the same material, but here again, this could be covered within the article on the official release, and does not require a separate article.
I just get the feeling that we've been putting off making this policy official, to avoid raising the ire of music fans. But since I'm proposing allowing some limited coverage of these albums, and not an outright ban on any mention of their existence, this proposal should be acceptable and manageable.
Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I'm a bootleg record collector myself, and am aware that they (and their history) have been documented in books. But a personal liking for them does not suddenly lead to an opinion that they are legitimate, nor appropriate for detailed coverage on Wikipedia. -- A Knight Who Says Ni ( talk) 11:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I see this word appearing with much higher frequency in articles than it does when the English language is used elsewhere. This is probably because the word is in the mind of many wikipedians due to Wikipedia:Notability etc. I'm suggesting that it be added to the list of words to avoid. What do you think? Noodle snacks ( talk) 10:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
THF's Third Law of Wikipedia is that the notability of a subject generally varies inversely with the relative frequency of the adjective "notable" in their Wikipedia article. If you look at featured articles about truly notable subjects, you will almost never see the word "notable" used. Nobody says "George Washington was notably the first president of the United States." Its use is generally in sentences like "Smith's notably finished in the semifinals in the Last Comic Standing 6 competition, falling just short of the final twelve contestants" that tend to be evidence against notability. I agree that the word should be avoided in articles, but it should be avoided because it's a ridiculous Wikipedia cliche' that makes our articles look like self-parody. See also Wikipedia:Wikipuffery and {{ puffery}}. THF ( talk) 16:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
"Notable" is listed in Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms, for exactly the reason THF has stated. Nifboy ( talk) 16:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Over use of the term "Notable" isn't just a problem because people want to avoid getting their article deleted. The idea that the lead needs to establish the notability of the topic is rammed home many times in
Wikipedia:Lead section. You can see why people think they have to make it explicit.
Yaris678 (
talk) 11:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
As I started here, WP:BLP applies to all pages, including draft articles in userspace. However, policy is generally to remove all categories from mainspace categories. Category:Living people is for articles and I assume that means mainspace alone. Does anyone know if there's a place for userspace articles? Perhaps another category just for living people articles in userspace? Even articles that are BLP directly could have BLP problems (articles on organizations for example can still have negative unsourced remarks on individuals). -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 00:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
For the New York Times article Paterson Weighs Race as Top Aide Quits in Protest, it states at the top "By DANNY HAKIM and JEREMY W. PETERS", but it also states at the bottom "David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick contributed reporting from New York.".
Should David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick be considered authors as well? Smallman12q ( talk) 00:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
It is a pitty to look at the information and motivation losses incured in quest of relevance and verifiability. Do not understand me wrong: relevant an encyclopedia should truly be. You have the great chance to grow to be something more than relevant without destroying relevance for those who want it.
THis leads me to my question (A), some reasoning, and some proposal for implementation (B)
(A) Wouldn't it be wise to let users filter how relevant they want their wikipedia to be and to take deletion discussion results as a mere relevance score?
(B) I imagine that users chose both the language and what I would call the desired credibility level. The base to calculate the credibility are the voting results of deletion discussions. Below a minority threshold articles continue to be deleted. Articles that were never (or haven't been for a very long time) subject to a deletion discussion have top marks. They are the core encyclopedia. Articles with small deletion margins and high error probabilities are what matters to me. They often are well written, informative and unique to Wikipedia. They have the greatest potential to add strife among contributors. I am an user and I don't find this kind of stuff anywhere else with a fingertip and I'm sad if it is lost some days/month later or marked for speedy deletion. However, I understand perfectly that these articles are not encyclopedia like in the pure sense. But then: Who -if not Wikipedia with its unique base of writers- publishes this kind of stuff between encyclopedia and hot knowledge at the edge of societal and technical progress? And how - if not by such measures that may not fit perfectly to the original aim of Wikipedia- do you preserve your base of contributors and their motivation? I think the discussion on "what fits into an encyclopedia?" could add value if only you frame and use it the right way. And if articles are categorized you do not in any way damage your original aim -being an encyclopedia- but you ensure that you continue to have a proper base of writers. Moreover, you ensure that I continue to have fun using wikipedia.
Stehe ( talk) 00:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
It happened once. Remember all the "consensus" on sighted revisions, flagged revisions, revised revisions, no unchecked contents for unregs etc.? Buried and forgotten. There's never enough volunteers. Even the most populous and active wikiprojects cannot sort their mess. At best we may discuss the ways to cull fifty or forty unreferenced biographies. NVO ( talk) 15:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Different tools on the site, line Twinkle, Friendly, Huggle, or AutoWikiBrowser, all leave a little tag in the edit summary. (TW) or (HG), for example. These are not fully-automated edits, that is to say, without any human interaction. (That would be a bot.) There are "assisted" or semi-automated edits, which make the changes only after a human has eye-balled the change and approved it.
Which gets to my question: If I were to write a script or use a program to semi-automate my edits, do I have to list/flag such usage in the edit summary? -- Avic enna sis 04:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
When creating a citation, such as for {{ cite news}} should archiveurl's be included if the original link is still active? Smallman12q ( talk) 12:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia policies always are made for the general cases and not the exceptions. (For example, ip-blocks are made in general on vandals, knowing very well that there would be cases when non vandals get caught as collateral damage). For exceptions, like the Nazi case you mention, talk page discussions, the RS noticeboard, and consensus are the critical factors (in the same way as the ip-block exempt is provided on a case by case basis). ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 03:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
How does this have anything whatsoever to do with policy? Why not take this to the WP:Reliable sources noticeboard? rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 15:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I've recently run across a problem on talk-pages with about four or five editors who insist that BLP/NPOV prohibits the use of the sources in the left-hand column. Now, I realize that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an excuse, but it's hard for me to look at the sources used in BLPs in the right-hand column and understand why WP:BLP prohibits the use of the sources in the left-hand column--especially since some of the articles in the right-hand column are even starred as "featured articles" as the epitome of Wikipedia standards.
In my mind, NPOV requires the inclusion of notable points of view about the subject: that would include all of the sources in the left-hand column, and most of the sources in the right-hand column. BLP just requires fastidious observation of NPOV to avoid COATRACK, and the requirement of strong sources for potentially libelous claims; it doesn't require censorship of anything negative said about a living person--certainly that's the way it's observed in the articles in the right-hand column, but BLP was used as a rationale for eliminating notable points of view that were critical of the subjects in the left-hand column.
I can understand (though I would disagree with) prohibiting the sources in both columns; I can see permitting the sources in both columns; if pressed to make a decision, I would permit the sources in the left column, and prohibit a handful of the sources in the right-hand column; but what I cannot for the life of me understand is the status quo.
Were the editors on Bill Moyers and Nina Totenberg wrong, or is there a failure to enforce WP:BLP on pages of the more politically unpopular? I could just remove the sources in the right-hand column, but I'd surely get accused of violating WP:POINT. So I'd like to get consensus. Can someone help me understand what the rules are here, so I don't cross the line mistakenly again? Many thanks.
Judged unacceptable source in liberal BLPs and repeatedly deleted and accusing me of being WP:TEDIOUS | Seemingly acceptable source in center-right BLPs
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COI Disclosure: I worked for the McCain-Palin campaign for two months, and volunteered for McCain before that; Chris DeMuth was once my boss; I was a lawyer for Palin in 2008 and for the Weekly Standard in 1997; Scalia and Thomas turned me down for a clerkship, but I have friends who clerked for each of them; a former co-worker was a research assistant for Franken; I've met Kristol and Krauthammer; Applebaum and I once worked for the same employer, though I never met her; Sommers and I once worked for the same employer, and we've dined together; I sat next to Stossel at a lunch, and was on a panel with him another time; Coulter used to work for a friend; a friend works for Palin's PAC; Totenberg interviewed a partner I worked for in 2003, and I declined his suggestion that I also talk to her about the brief I wrote; Sullivan sometimes blogs from a coffeehouse I frequent; Greenwald has blogged negatively about me; Sullivan has blogged neutrally about me; I subscribed to the Weekly Standard, the Nation, the Washington Post, and FAIR's newsletter at one time or another. It's a small world here in DC.
THF ( talk) 05:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, the thing that jumps out at me here is the idea of using opinion writers to diagnose psychiatric conditions (even if they are made-up ones). Seems like a pretty serious BLP problem. Guettarda ( talk) 05:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Of course there are people who take it to mean a real mental disease! Take this for example (one of many): Question: And we all know where Chris Matthews works, right? Answer from Bernard Goldberg: (Laughs) That’s right. By the way, I was asked by Bill O’Reilly a week ago, “Do you think it’s a mental disease or do you think it’s business?” He was actually talking about the general Bush-hating. I immediately said, “It’s a mental disorder, because don’t underestimate the power of insanity. ‘Bush-derangement syndrome’ is for real.” [21] So please, your argument is totally baseless. ► RATEL ◄ 15:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Also, I think it is very difficult to judge the validity of your complaint based solely on this table. What we all want are sources that are authoritative for the purposes of the reference. We don't want secondary sources when we have a primary source, either. There may be invalid uses in the right-hand column; but I don't see how that can be used to justify the sources in the left-hand column. Are your sources witnesses, or commentators? Are they commenting themselves, or repeating other's coments? Also, you are interacting with different editors on the various articles, too, so there will not be identical responses to your edits. I would seek a discussion in the appropriate Wiki project for the articles. Your comments seem directed at the American liberal/right divide; I'm not American, but from what I've seen, using the terms liberal and conservative can be used as insults. The use of the word liberal especially in the phrase 'liberal bias'; so there could be objections on that basis too. Someone can be liberal; but stating that that person has a liberal bias may be beyond what a particular source can show. This whole argument of course can apply from the other point of view; sources have to be able to show the point; the source should illustrate and not be biased itself. ʘ alaney2k ʘ ( talk) 06:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Media Matters is not a reliable source. I can't believe that wasn't established long ago. Maybe we should do an RfC and propose deleting it across the encyclopedia whenever it is used to establish a fact in an article. Even their quotes are unreliable. -- JohnWBarber ( talk) 23:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Further discussion taking place at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RFC_on_Media_watchdog_groups. THF ( talk) 04:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Another perennial target, J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," was challenged in Maine because of the "f" word.
Boron
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).The foremost allegation made against Catcher is... that it teaches loose moral codes; that it glorifies... drinking, smoking, lying, promiscuity, and more.
"The Catcher in the Rye" is perennially banned because Holden Caulfield is said to be an unsuitable role model.
The Catcher in the Rye, interpreted by some as encouraging rebellion against authority...
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I think so. Too many citations introduce visual clutter in the middle of a sentence, interrupting the flow of a user reading the page.
For instance, look at this sentence, from Catcher_in_the_Rye#Controversy. There is an average of one citation per 6.125 words. (49 words, 8 citations)
Look at the edit code for this section: This single sentence is 46 lines in edit mode. Who is going to try to change that sentence with all that unreadable stuff in there?
I know that as an encyclopedia you probably want as many references as you can get, but is it too much to ask that the article's content be arranged in such a way so that you can read a sentence without reading: "..Undermining of family values forty-seven and moral codes forty-eight holden's being a poor role model forty-nine, encouragement of rebellion fifty, and promotion of drinking, smoking, lying, and promiscuity fifty-one." I'm tolerant of end-of-sentence citations but breaking up the sentence arbitrarily just seems awkward.
I wrote an infobox that could be used in situations like this:
The frequent
references in this article or section reduce readability. Please improve the article by rearranging citations so they interrupt the text less frequently. |
What do you think, would this make a reasonable policy? Phort99 ( talk) 08:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
"I know that as an encyclopedia you probably want as many references as you can get,". This bald statement would encourage the overuse of referencing. There are two issues at stake:
The quotation from Catcher in the rye above is over the top. I'd advise bunching the humbers 1–6 at the end, after "promiscuity". It doesn't appear to be critical that the reader know "fuck" is the subject of one reference in particular, and "goddam" of another. This is a case of overkill-specificity.
I recently tried to convince WT:FAC that the FA criteria should specify a preference for list-defined citations. The result was my being booed off the stage. Tony (talk) 05:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Please list examples of problematic citation usage, along with a few keywords describing the perceived problem(s). Paradoctor ( talk) 18:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems a similar discussion is occurring over at WP:VPM#Over-sourcing?. For those that want to effect a change, Wikipedia:Citation overkill is currently proposed as a policy, guideline, or process. -- œ ™ 23:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
In case
User:Dragons flight or any other
mw:Extension:Cite developer is watching, we could probably use a little technical help here. It might be nice if consecutive references were rendered slightly differently. The example given above is: "here is some example sentence.[1][2][8][15][6]" If the Extension were able to render that as something like: "here is some example sentence.[1, 2, 8, 15, 6]" I think that this problem wouldn't bug people quite as much. We could quibble about the connecting characters of course (commas, dashes, em-dashes, etc...), but I bet that most would appreciate the general change.
—
V = I * R (
Talk •
Contribs) 14:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
<ref>
tag.
Paradoctor (
talk) 15:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)display:
for class .reference
. If you want to try it, just add .reference {display:none !important
} to your custom CSS.I'm hoping to solicit further comments on this proposed guideline. Input has previously been solicited from WikiProject Manual of Style and WikiProject Thailand, and an RfC listed, but it hasn't attracted enough discussion to determine consensus. Your comments are appreciated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Thailand-related articles)/Draft#Request for comment - implementation as guideline. Thank you. -- Paul_012 ( talk) 12:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:BLP semiprotection petition —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbharris ( talk • contribs) 10:17, January 31, 2010 (UTC)
Also, please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Semiprotection_of_BLP_articles_for_Super_Bowl_players. -- NeilN talk to me 04:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#G5 - some clarification and discussion about speedy deletion criterion G5 (pages created by banned users). Essentially three issues have been raised: (1) what exactly does G5 mean? (2) should a topic ban be treated differently from a general ban, apart of course from the fact that a topic ban applies only within its own topic, and (3) would it be better to apply the same criterion to blocks as well as bans? JamesBWatson ( talk) 13:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Moving_images_to_the_Commons has a list of instructions to follow in moving an image to the Wikimedia Commons. So too does Commons:Moving_to_Commons. The two pages, however, have some inconsistencies. The Wikipedia page states, "The best practice is to use CommonsHelper to make the move (you will need a TUSC account). This tool automatically copies all necessary information and makes things much easier for administrators reviewing the move. This is easiest using the user script CommonsHelper Helper." (emphasis added) The Commons page, on the other hand, has a lengthy list of all the things that the script ignores. It appears that the script (in apparent contradiction to its stated results on the Wikipedia page) actually ignores virtually everything. Can we get some reconciliation between the two pages, either by getting a script that actually transfers information along with the image or by simply transcluding the Commons page on Wikipedia? (Preferably by getting a better tool.) Banaticus ( talk) 22:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Are there any credible estimates on how much yearly revenue Wikipedia would make if it allowed advertising? Has anyone considered what to do with the money? With Wikipedia being one of the top websites on earth, is it not rational to think that Wikipedia could make a great sum of money from advertising? My apologies if this query is posted in the wrong place as I could not find anywhere else to post this. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 05:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
So I see advertising is one of those "perennial proposals," and thank you for pointing that out. However, is it not time to revisit the situation today as many contributors are leaving Wikipedia anyway, as loudly covered by the press. Has the exodus of editors from Wikipedia affected donations? Are there any estimates of how donations to Wikipedia will be affected in the future if this trend keeps up? Advertising might be one way to staunch the flow of capital from Wikipedia. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 05:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Another thing i just thought of: Is the decision to allow or forever decline advertising made by us, the wikipedians, or is it a matter for the real-world owners of the site? If Mr. Wales and his company didn't want advertising, could we, the users, make them accept advertising through on-wiki discussion and consensus? Conversely, can the owners/managers of Wikipedia unilaterally accept advertising over community objection? PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 06:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I see a lot of well-written and well-referenced articles about current events put up for AFD. Often editors will find analysis pieces in the news that speak to enduring notability of the situation, and the article is saved. Other times, the article is lost, and even if the article is kept, a lot of time is expended that could have been used to improve existing articles.
It seems to me that there'd be many advantages in adding a message on the order of If this is about a breaking news event, consider creating your article on Wikinews instead to the screen that comes up when you create a new article. I don't know where that messgae template lives or who's in charge of it, but it seems like there'd be some real advantages in adding a message like that. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 03:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I have recently accepted an invitation to become a wikipedian and I look forward to working with you all on some of the most pressing issues that we all face in this day and age. It will take me a while to figure out some of the applications on the Wikipedia platform. Please have patience as I learn this system. --〜〜〜〜 17:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Synergy44 ( talk • contribs)
There's a lot of pages about districts in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanamar. Sometines is "xxx district" and sometimes "xxxx District" (only less times there's a redirection). Im'm really surprised that there's no policiy about this. I suggest to adopt a policy in one or other sense, but as soon as possible. I believe that a boot can correct all articles wrong labelled. -- 83.52.18.163 ( talk) 15:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I know that article creation for anons is ban, but why is template creation so? 174.3.98.236 ( talk) 17:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Agreeable to consensus and proper discussion and proceedure, WP:Naming conventions has now been renamed/moved to WP:Article titles. While considering this change, we agreed to limit the discussion to changing the title of the policy page, and purposely did not discuss whether we should also change the myriad topic related guidelines derived from it... these are currently listed using the format: "WP:Naming conventions (topic X)". I now open discussion on that question. thoughts? Blueboar ( talk) 18:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello, all.
The Living People task force begins work Monday with part one, board recommendations and proposal. This will run for two months, with the second half beginning in April on community focus.
This is a global project, and we highly encourage active global participation in discussion.
More information can be found here.
We hope to see you all there, and everyone have a good weekend.
Keegan ( talk) 18:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article titles ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It has been brought to my attention that WP:COLORS must be followed, however, it doesn't indicate how much so. The w3c standard allows pass, warning, and fail. I'm wondering if a warning is acceptable, or if a pass is needed. This is in regards to a template (see User:Floydian/Highway 401). Blue on white somehow registers a warning (even though I doubt anyone couldn't differentiate between blue and white). Is this acceptable, or must I pass both the brightness and contrast tests for a colour scheme to be acceptable? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Some time ago a number of articles were created (accidentally I presume) with extra commas at the end of the title - for example "Desktop environment, and Grand Theatre de Bordeaux,. They were quickly moved to the correct title, but a redirect was left behind. There are probably several hundred. Recently User:Basilicofresco marked a large number of them for speedy delete under category R3 (recently created implausible redirect), even though strictly some of them were three or four years old. I deleted many of them on the grounds of "non-controversial housekeeping" and Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, even if they weren't strictly recent.
However User:Nancy declined some and User:DESiegel objected to the deletions since they didn't fall within the strict definition of the category and Wikipedia:Process is important. So we are here to ask for more opinions on the matter.
It should be said that noone has come up with a reason why these articles might be useful, except the unlikely event that an external site is linking to it rather than the correct title. None of them have any edit history. None of them are linked to. If you put the exact title of the deleted article into Wikipedia search the correct title without the comma always comes up first. If someone can think of a reason for keeping them we're certainly eager to hear it.
Here are some suggestions that have been made:
Comments, and other suggestions, are welcome. DJ Clayworth ( talk) 18:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I've speeied these and closed the pointless RfD. So sue me.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 19:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
It should be noted that DJ Clayworth's initial deletion log entries cited R# in the standard way, they did not site "housekeeping" not IAR. DES (talk) 20:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
It is my view that the Speedy deletion criteria are intentionally narrow, and should be observed strictly. It is also my view that IAR is not an appropriate justification for any page deletion ever. That said, it is hard to argue that these redirects have any positive value to Wikipedia. Perhaps we should broaden R3 to cover the case where the redirect is very unlikely to be the target of a link from an external site. But I strongly oppose the unilateral deletion of any page without consensus. The CSD represent pre-formed consensus for particular kinds of deletions, but only for the narrowly specified kinds. It might be argued that these deletions fall under the G6 housekeeping criterion. But they do not fall under R3 as now established, and IAR simply does not suffice.
I also object strongly to an attempt to clsoe this discussion within hours, and to the grossly improper close of the RfD (though having both an RfD and a discussion here might be seen as redundant). DES (talk) 20:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The whole purpose of IAR when properly used is not to discuss things that evidently don't need discussing, and to avoid using unneccessay process. DES may wish that we "played by rules and process", but that's not how Wikipedia works. That would be to ignore basic Wikiphilosopy and longstanding core policy (IAR). If DES doesn't like the way we do things round here, maybe he'd like to propose a change. But IAR is foundational, and this is an excellent use of it. I've no more energy to debate this pointlessness that doesn't improve wikipedia, and that too is the reason we have IAR. I speedy closed the RfD because it was also quite pointless.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 20:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I support the "just do it" school of IAR thought. Sometimes editors are clueful enough to know what to do without having to run the gauntlet of process to confirm their cluefulness. older ≠ wiser 20:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
(unindent) In response to User:Scott MacDonald, I am tempted to say that the set of things that don't need discussion is the empty set. But that isn't quite right. I would say, however, that the set of things that don't need discussion after a good faith objection is made is empty. Deletion, while easily undone by an admin, is none the less a large step. Non admins cant see the content to ask about it, and even admins can't easily find it without a precise indication. Therefore our policies such as WP:DEL generally emphasize that deletion occurs only by specific consensus. There are a number of narrow categories where the consensus has been established in advance. These are the speedy deletion criteria. It is my view that the combination of WP:CSD and WP:DEL says that there is a long-standing policy-based consensus against undiscussed deletions outside of the CSD. Whatever IAR is for, it is not for operating against established consensus, i think. (I should add that my name has for years been on the list at WT:IAR of editors opposed to IAR in principle, but it does have general agreement, whatever I think of it.) I might add that an involved editor ought not to close a deletion discussion, however "pointless" he may think it -- If you don't have time to waste, you need not discuss the matter at all. And current practice and policy as I understand it is now generally opposed to early closes for deletion discussions except in cases where the page involved fits one of the CSD, or where the nomination is withdrawn. This was neither. DES (talk) 21:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I daresay Scott nailed it. Paradoctor ( talk) 04:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC) Paradoctor ( talk) 04:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The fact is that we have huge numbers of frankly implausible redirects with things like leading, trailing, or surrounding punctuation or wikimarkup that don't get deleted because they don't qualify as "recently created" and mass RfD noms don't scale above about 50. Yes, 50 or so is a lot, but it's not enough to address some of these problems. If the issue is that people want an actual deletion criterion beyond IAR/housekeeping/nobody cares, then the solution is probably just to gin up a speedy criterion for the - call it "seriously, really really implausible typos that are implausible and probably redundant" or some such thing. They ought to be gone, though, if there's no reason to think that deleting them would make it any harder to find their targets. — Gavia immer ( talk) 04:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article titles ( | 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, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Risker has closed the RFC on BLPs. -- Cybercobra (talk) 09:26, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
A volunteer to do the January update for the 6 conduct policies would be appreciated. Either leave a note on my talk page or jump in at WP:Update/3, please. - Dank ( push to talk) 13:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Often I've found that 'problem' images seem to come in runs, therefore...
Where there is a indication of a run of more than 4 images from a single uploader that have been deleted by WP:PUI process or have had to be tagged for license, source or permissions issue within the last 7 days, an automatic 'time-out' in respect of upload rights only (which would require technical changes inside mediawiki) would be applied to the uploader concerned.
The length of the inital 'time-out' should be decided by community process. Upon repeat problems, the time-out should be extended progressively, up to a maximum period of 6 months. As at present admins would retain the ability to apply 'blocking' as appropriate.
I would also like to suggest :
uploaded, and that said status could be updated when a check is made manually. The user would be prompted to re-confirm with thier login password if tineye found an identical match for the image.
Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 20:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Images on Wikipedia have to have sufficient information on them to enable their source and status to be checked..
Therefore, any image uploaded after March 1st 2010, which contains no information at all on it's File description page, can be deleted without notification to the uploader if the information is not added within a period not less than 2 days from the upload.
Images uploaded prior to this would have to be treated on a case by case basis.
As part of this, an appropriately worded template {{ Needs infobox}} should be written to tag images that have information, but which is not yet in the form used by {{ information}} so that they can be identified for cleanup.
Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 20:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I am new to Wikipedia. I am interested in offering articles that have similar material to existing articles. I note that, for example, the excellent article on 'Original Sin' may have a cohesive unity that would not benefit from being significantly edited. My pace and style of writing and the content would be from a Classical Attic Greek perspective. I would offer complementory information. I would feel guilty in editing and possibly destabilising the existing article. I would not duplicate more than 50 words, dispute with or compromise an existing article Is a second article justified or permissable? All comments would be greatly appreciated.
It might be appropriate to contact the person who wrote the origin?
Kind regards to everyone Chris —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harry C H ( talk • contribs) 15:27, February 7, 2010
I blocked this username, and there's some discussion about whether this was the right thing to do. I'm particularly interested in feedback from females, since we're always looking to bump female editor participation up from its current dismal 15%, and I think it's possible that more women than men would be offended by the name. - Dank ( push to talk) 17:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
A Request for comment which may be of interest to the readers of the Village Pump: Template talk:Unreferenced#RFC: should this tag be allowed on stubs?. Fram ( talk) 15:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm coming from discussion around the use or non-use of a copyrighted flag icon to represent the Ireland national rugby union team. As the island of Ireland does not have a universally recognized flag, the flag used on Wikipedia to represent Irish sporting teams is which ever flag is used by that team's governing body. In the case of rugby union is this one. That flag is copyright of the sport's governing body and so (consensus opinion is that) it cannot be used on Wikipedia as flag cruft. No image is used in its place owing to concerns over original research and images.
Now while I would disagree that this is not an example of "fair-use", I'm happy to accept consensus on the subject. (For example, I recently amended the Irish MOS to reflect this consensus and I !voted for the status quo during a discussion at WikiProject Rugby union.) What galls me, however, is the inconsistent and willy-nilly approach to this purported policy.
For example, the flag of the African Union is not allowed in flag cruft because it is copyright. The flag of NATO is similarly not allowed in flag cruft because it too is copyright. At the same time a plethora of non-free flags and emblems are used in flag cruft across the 'pedia either through the turning of a blind eye or in error.
The Canadian flag, for example, is copyright of the Canadian Crown (© 1965). The European flag is copyright of the Council of Europe (© 1955). Both of these are available under what would be considered quite liberal licenses: Canadians, for example, are free to use and display the national flag of Canada as they wish except for commercial purposes. The European flag may be used so long as it use does not conflict with the aims of the EC (effectively the EU) or the Council of Europe and so long as there is no likelihood of confusion between the user of the emblem and those institutions. However, neither of these licenses are free. Neither are compatible with CC-BY-SA or the GFDL. Yet both are used as flag cruft for Canadian and European sporting teams, etc..
(To make matter worse, both of these images are on the Commons and marked as being in the public domain. A brief discussion on the Canadian example ended in agreement that while it is in copyright our use was not "improper" and so OK - regardless of the absence of explicit agreement to release it under CC-BY-SA or GFDL. A request for deletion of European flag was shot down by two user !voting Keep on the basis that the image is just "some stars on a field of blue" and so ineligible for copyright!)
The Canadian and European flags are but two examples. There are a plethora of examples - effectively every flag in the world made public for the first time since 1923. Bear in mind Wikipedia:Copyrights and remember that all creative works are copyrighted, by international agreement, unless either they fall into the public domain (currently pre-1923) or their copyright is explicitly disclaimed. That includes flags.
So, the purpose of this post is to ask:
--rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid ( coṁrá) 20:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950; [7] Gnevin ( talk) 23:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I found that a topic I had posted on months earlier had been archived, and the archive had the template {{talkarchive}}. However, the best way to revive the discussion, after I found something I should have seen months ago when the discussion was new, appeared to be to remove the entire topic from the archive and post it back on the talk page. I also split the archive because it was excessively long, and it probably needs splitting again. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
It has been suggested by Kransky that all decade articles be split into two sets of articles:
Please express your opinion here on the proposed splits. TheCuriousGnome ( talk) 22:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
New articles are often immediately deleted, usually per WP:Notability. This can be frustrating for new authors, and I've known a few people who were upset and never returned. A better approach would be to welcome the new (and presently unsuitable) articles by moving them to the Wikipedia:Article Incubator, and placing a warmly worded template on the author's page explaining why, with easy to understand details about what the author can do to make the article suitable and verify that it is notable. If the article is not improved within one month, it should be PRODed in the incubator and then deleted after seven days. My proposal is to incubate the majority of articles by new authors that would normally be tagged AfD/PROD, especially for overzealous speedy deletion A7 (notability). I think speedy incubation would be much better. - kslays ( talk • contribs) 00:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
:This system would be too slow. I think the current system works fine, since it usually involves two sets of eyes, the first "tagging" editor then the administrator who actually deletes the page.
PeterbrownDancin (
talk) 01:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC) removing
WP:SOCK comments -
Wikidemon (
talk) 13:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
New page patrollers (well, me anyway) will normally do a check for sources before tagging for CSD (unless it's obviously about one of the editor's classmates) or PROD, and when leaving a PROD I will always recommend that the article creator cite some source to show the subject is notable. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 02:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a new group I co-founded of editors willing to use extreme measures to fight for the survival of BLPs, the Wikipedia:Article Special Commandos. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 02:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
This is no joke. We are on the precipice of a mass 60,000 article deletion. PeterbrownDancin ( talk) 02:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
There has been quite a bit of discussion on the thread "Contradiction at WP:Content fork: content forks are not always bad" about what to do about the contradiction between the definition of content fork at WP:NPOV and the definition of content fork at WP:CFORK. In fact that thread was a revival of a previous thread from months ago that died. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any forthcoming consensus about what "content fork" is supposed to mean. We do, however, have two concepts available that are well-defined and mutually agreed upon: POV (point of view) forks and articles on the same subject. This last concept is already mentioned by WP:CFORK and has been proposed as a new term at least a couple of times under names like "content duplication" or "topic fork." Trying to build on this, I propose the following solution for the "content fork" problem.
1. List same-topic articles as a problem to avoid
2. Drop the term "content fork" and instead rely on "point of view fork" and "same-topic articles"
Implementing this proposal would take three steps:
1. Make a page called "same-topic articles." Content fork is already defined as "multiple separate articles all treating the same subject," so this would not be a new concept, just a language clarification. Relevant material from WP:Content_forking would be moved to the new page.
2. Move WP:Content_forking to WP:POV_fork, replace any usage of content fork in the remaining material with POV fork, leave a redirect
3. Add same-topic articles as a reason for deletion to WP:DEL#REASON, change reason content fork to POV fork
4. Am I forgetting anything?
I think this proposal is good since it builds on past ones by Andrew Gradman, ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ, and others. However, it needs to be voted on to see if there is consensus for it. Thanks.
—
Khin2718 19:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The third sentence of WP:Content fork implies that content forks are always bad ("content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia").
For this to be true, we'd have to be defining "content fork" to not include the overlap between article spinouts (e.g.
history of coffee) and summary-style-sections (e.g.
Coffee#History). But that's not how we're defining it: the first sentence of
WP:Content fork defines the term to mean, quite simply, redundancy between articles ("A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject"; and
coffee and
history of coffee both "treat" the history of coffee). This contradiction has apparently been noticed, because someone
has attempted to answer it, but the attempt just equates content forks with POV forks. ("Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of View") (emphasis added). (not really relevant.)
I propose to rewrite the lead at WP:Content fork as follows, to reflect that the term "content fork" is used to refer to two different things -- one which is acceptable, one which isn't.
A content fork occurs when there is more than one article containing a treatment of a given topic. This redundancy is problematic because it forces related discussions onto multiple talk pages, hinders coordination and consensus-building, and leads to inconsistencies between articles. Nevertheless, content forking is made inevitable to some degree by the natural overlap between encyclopedia topics, and is often encouraged in order to avoid overly lengthy articles (see Wikipedia:Summary style).
Unacceptable content forks are of two kinds.
A point of view (POV) fork refers to an article whose existence has no justification except to promote violations of Wikipedia's neutral point of view guidelines. POV forks are assumed to be content forks, because they are generally redundant to (and may even be created to intentionally circumvent) a pre-existing but neutral discussion of that POV. They tend to cluster among articles whose title identifies a POV (e.g., "Criticism of [topic X]"), although these articles are not always POV forks.
The second kind is confusingly referred to simply as a "content fork". These occur when there more than one article that is entirely dedicated to a given topic. These redundant articles often arise accidentally. When they are identified, all substantive content should be merged into one of these articles; the others should be replaced with redirects to that article.
This is a revival (and improvement) of a
proposal I made in August at the WP:Content fork talk page which ran out of steam.
Thoughts? Would anyone support introducing a new term -- "topic fork" or "article fork" -- to refer to bad content forks that are not POV forks?
Andrew Gradman
talk/
WP:Hornbook 21:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't quite understand the issue. Couldn't it just say "Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking", and be done with it, no qualifier required? Summary style is pretty clear, and should involve summary, not duplication. Rd232 talk 11:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
←The basic principle of the guideline, i.e. multiple articles on a single distinct topic is undesirable, is sound. For editors, it dilutes collaborative article building; for readers, either the duplicates provide no further information, wasting their time or, they only find one article, it's of inferior quality to its four-pronged siblings, thus we do them a disservice. I too think conflating content forks with notability is a mistake. – Whitehorse1 18:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
But Wikipedia includes articles of different types that share the same scope and which are entirely dedicated to the same topics, which makes them "content forks" according to the "The second kind" definition provided above. Wikipedia has prose articles and list articles. Topic lists (such as "
List of opera topics" and
Outline of geography are Wikipedia articles, and they share the same scope as the corresponding prose articles (
Opera and
Geography). But, topic lists serve different purposes than conventional (prose) articles: lists deal more specifically with the presentation of subjects' structures, and their format allows for faster readability, skim-ability, and navigation (they are somewhat menu-like). The cfork guideline apparently assumed "article" meant "prose article". Having two prose articles on the same subject or two glossaries on exactly the same subject is bad. But having an article and a glossary (and an index, and an outline) isn't bad (if the scope of the subject is broad enough to support these article types).
Therefore, the "second kind" definition should accomodate the other types of articles, perhaps like this:
The second kind is confusingly referred to simply as a "content fork". These occur when there are more than one article of the same type that are entirely dedicated to a given topic. These redundant articles often arise accidentally. When they are identified, all substantive content should be merged into one of these articles; the others should be replaced with redirects to that article. Articles of different types (a standard prose article, a portal, a timeline, a glossary, an index, etc.) that cover the same subject are not considered to be harmful content forks, and they should not be merged together just because they cover the same subject.
The Transhumanist 23:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
An excellent point about the "bureaucracy." Truthfully, I think that the WP:IGNOREALLRULES policy is very applicable here. Let's say for the sake of discussion that Gavin Collins was right by the "letter of the law." Even if there were no secondary sources identifying the title of the article (there are, and they have been pointed out), it's still a very useful page that adds to the value of Wikipedia as a resource. It's heavily visited. It's a topic that's in the news...a lot. It's relevant to the average American (and others) who wants to know if there really is a division in "scientific opinion on climate change." Finally, it is not covered in sufficient depth on other pages to provide an answer for many people who come here looking for an answer. "Scientific opinion on the shape of the earth" shares none of these dynamics. In light of this, most people would still be willing to not follow a strict interpretation of the letter of the law simply because the article makes Wikipedia better. Consider this from WP:BURO: "Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy without consideration for the principles of policies. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures." Destroying useful knowledge cannot be the answer. Improving the article with the other editors is the best choice. Airborne84 ( talk) 06:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Gavin Collins, why don't you just say what this is really about? It's not about geography, it's your disagreement with the Scientific Opinion on Climate Change article in that it is (as per your claim) an unacceptable content fork from Climate Change; thus, since the words "scientific opinion" in the title do not have a footnote after them, the article should be deleted - or condensed and combined into "Climate Change" with all other articles on Climate Change (regardless of the current size of that article). Thoughts anyone? Airborne84 ( talk) 13:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- Alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors. Also disfavored are double or "segmented" article names, in the form of: Flat Earth/Round Earth; or Flat Earth (Round Earth). Even if a synthesis is made, like Shape of the Earth, or Earth (debated shapes), it may not be appropriate, especially if it is a novel usage coined specifically to resolve a POV fork.
I think this proposal would add much confusion to what is only a slightly confusing name for the policy. A "content fork" is mean to mean a split of identical content to two different articles, without attempting to sort out a valid difference between the one and the other. And specifically, because editor POV is not supposed to affect the article, that is not a valid difference. The policy is self-evident from the nature of Wikipedia: without setting meaningful distinctions between what articles cover, there would be one "Article" split into three million parts all covering everything at random. It also extends naturally to improperly segregated "Criticism" sections automatically, because sections of an article likewise should be distinguished by valid differences; so the article should be separated in terms of the major real-world activities/ideas/processes it addresses, not the opinions different groups of editors have about each individual detail. The bottom line is that when content is organized into articles or sections, it should be divided according to some rational, encyclopedic set of subdivisions. Wnt ( talk) 21:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
First I'd like to say that I think the current contradiction between WP:NPOV and WP:CFORK is very confusing. I had initially read WP:NPOV and internalized its difference between POV fork and content fork, and when I finally read the other policy I did a double take.
From reading this discussion it seems clear there is widespread disagreement about what "content fork" means. Some people think that there are good content forks and bad content forks. Other people think that content forks are always bad. Because I do not see much consensus here on the definition and the above contradiction is very confusing, I propose that we simply remove the term "content fork" from all pages until such time as a consensus about what it means can be found.
I agree with the basic structure of Andrew Gradman's first proposal, the very first proposal anybody made in this discussion, and think "POV fork" should clearly be retained as a concept. However I think "content fork" in both of the places he uses it should be replaced. ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ's suggestion that we call articles covering the same topic by the simple name "duplication" seems to represent progress here. But instead of "duplication," I say an even better term would be "redundant," because it is rare that two articles are entirely duplicates of each other, and it is more common for two articles to simply have a high, but not necessarily total, degree of redundancy. Either "duplication" or "redundant" would be fairly acceptable to me, however. Most important is to have at least a recognizable term.
There is the other question of what to call a parent-child relationship. (Ludwig2 suggested "branch," which mimics my thinking pretty well.) But because parent-child relationships are not bad, and a positive part of WP:SUMMARY, I think there is no reason to delay and try to come up with any special term for them right now. Let's stick to the more important points of bad organization and get rid of the current contradictions. Khin2718 ( talk) 04:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Here's my proposal in a nutshell:
Implementing this proposal would take three steps:
1. Make a page called "same-topic articles." Content fork is already defined as "multiple separate articles all treating the same subject," so this would not be a new concept, just a language clarification. Relevant material from WP:Content_forking would be moved to the new page.
2. Move WP:Content_forking to WP:POV_fork, replace any usage of content fork in the remaining material with POV fork, leave a redirect
3. Add same-topic articles as a reason for deletion to WP:DEL#REASON, change reason content fork to POV fork
4. Am I forgetting anything?
If there is consensus for this then it can be done in the next week. However, input is needed.
—
Khin2718 18:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
One paragraph in Wikipedia's policy on self published sources currently says the following:
I propose we add the following line to this paragraph:
Discussions can continue from below. Thanks. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 13:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC):
Given the points above, I've changed the proposal to what is written below. I suggest we add the line mentioned below to the current WP:SPS, to incorporate the points mentioned above by some editors. Do give me your responses (please note: only the line in bold is what is being added to the current WP:SPS; everything else is retained as is there currently). Thanks.
<-------->
<-------->
Discussions could be held from here on. Thanks ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 03:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
text | footnote | |
---|---|---|
In X, Mary said "Joe said Q (in S)" | good | |
Joe said "Q"[1] | See X, where Mary said that Joe said "Q" (in S) | good |
Joe said "Q" (in S) | bad (if you haven't read S) |
(continued in What is an SPS?)
PLEASE NOTE: The short cut WP:RS now points to WP:Verifiability#Reliable sources... while the text of the old WP:Reliable sources guideline has been moved to the new guideline title WP:Identifying reliable sources. These moves were fairly well discussed on the relavant talk pages, and I think they were done in good faith. However, it might have been better to have notified more people... by initiating an RfC and announcing the move here before actually making them. In any event... please note these changes. Blueboar ( talk) 18:29, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources ( | 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 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Reliable sources ( | 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, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I bought this on Amazon for £41, only to find it is simply sections of wikipedia, completely unedited! An example of someone shamelessy making money from Wikipedia.
Frederic P. Miller; Agnes F. Vandome; John McBrewster (January 2010). Judith Butler: Post- Structuralism, Ethics, Political Philosophy, Queer Theory, Feminism, Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Feminist Theory, Jewish Philosophy, Gender Trouble, Performativity, American Philosoph. Alphascript Publishing. ISBN 9786130630805. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
They should be stopped! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.149.18 ( talk) 14:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Just so long as they give credit to Wikipedia and their derivative works fall under the same license then they are all good with us. Anyone who buys it may have an ax to grind though. I have often thought of making a picture book from Wikipedia's featured pictures, a nice coffee talk volume/conversation piece. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 15:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I support Amazon's stance on not taking responsibility for the content of books as long as the books are legal. If they did try to take such responsibility then numerous edgy books would have to be removed from their offerings. Unless some sort of fraud is going on here then it is just a really shitty product with its disclaimer in small print. It is common in the book industry to repackage freely usable material in low quality form and sell it, it is not going to stop over this incident. Amazon is a reseller, it is up to you the customer to decide which book you want to buy. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 15:52, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello, first at all, sorry for my english. Im from the spanish wiki and there, we are talking about the IP policies referred to vandalism [13]. And someones there say that this wiki has blocked the IP editions, it seems thats not true but maybe it was. For that, I asked for you all, if this wiki have statistics about it. Some statistics like an before and after if that decision was taken sometime. Thanks, sorry for my english and i hope that someone could understand this!-- Mechusriva ( talk) 01:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
English: It's only the creation of new articles what has been denied. Unregistered users can still edit existing unprotected articles as always. But complete forbiding unregistered users from editing will not happen, as it would go against the Founding principles Spanish: Lo único que se impidió es que creen artículos nuevos. Los usuarios no registrados siguen pudiendo editar artículos existentes no protegidos como siempre. Pero impedir por completo que los usuarios no registrados editen no va a pasar, ya que iría en contra de los Principios fundacionales MBelgrano ( talk) 15:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Anarchism/Participate/Solidarity? ( | 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, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I noticed some articles that have not been to Afd, but the subject has. These don't have {{
oldafdfull}}
on the talk page. Would it be helpful to show them in some way, and if so how? Example would be
LoveGame
talk - where there was an Afd as
Lovegame and
Love Game. Regards,
SunCreator (
talk) 16:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
[14]. Who think's she should stay on wikipedia, as Casey Anthony. Admins deleted my page saying she's not notable Di Natale Massimo ( talk) 19:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I can't seem to find any policy or guideline relating to lists of minor characters, which has come up through an AfD discussion. We have a category full of these lists ( Category:Lists of minor fictional characters, 122 articles at present) but they can present problems. As minor characters, they are by definition, not notable (although notability would apply to the list as a whole, rather than individual characters). The lists actually exist because no single character would qualify for an individual article. I have no problem with this and support the existence of these lists. However, the lack of any guidelines one way or the other makes AfD difficult and could cause problems in the future. The closest thing I could find to an actual policy is this obsolete and apparently rejected attempt: Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters. So, I would like some advice on when a list of minor characters is appropriate and what the content should be. Thanks, AdamBMorgan ( talk) 17:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I would like to point out that individual entries in a list do not need to meet the same standard for inclusion as a standalone article would. It is the list as a whole whose importance should be gauged by coverage in reliable sources. Powers T 13:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
This complaint is based on a simple fallacy. If a work is notable and its article grows to great size, then a separate article about all the characters (even minor ones) can be split off and is noticeable. If that article would be too large, the individual major characters can be split off. What is left after all that does not suddenly lose notability - in fact, it is necessary to complete a thorough coverage of the parent topic. Wnt ( talk) 22:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Could someone answer a small question for me?
I met a new user at the January Wiki-Conference in New York. He had created a BLP article a week before (something about a cousin of the Kennedys running for some office in California?) and it was deleted with only a cryptic message on his talk page. It had taken him several hours to enter the article and he had tried to be neutral. (I got the impression that he had just combined several local new articles and press releases.) But, being a newbie, he had no backup. He was understandably pissed and said he would never edit Wikipedia again.
When a sysop speedily deletes a BLP article for valid reasons, shouldn't he paste the content somewhere accessible but non-searchable, unless there's a problem with liable (G10)? -- RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 21:03, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
The main point I was trying to make was that we should have something that doesn't scare away newcomers when some sysop off-hand speedily deletes "their" article. Newcomers are the prime source of new, active editors. It's great to say "When I requested a copy of a deleted page, it was promptly mailed to me" but newbies have never heard of sysops/administrators and don't have the foggiest notion that they need to contact one or how.
In my opinion, sysops should always insert a new section on the creator's (or creators') talk page(s) that says:
This should be part and parcel of the standard procedure for all speedy deletions. What would be even better is if we could replace the disallowed content with these messages, just in case the newbie doesn't know that his talk page exists. (In my opinion as well, the deleting sysop should take the primary responsiblity for leading the creator(s) through the appeal process and, if he thinks it justified, restoring the article. But I know that many sysops would object to the additional work.) -- RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 23:22, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
FRINGE is relatively easy to define in scientific subjects, where there's a mainstream scientific view, and a literal fringe of pseudoscience around it. But what is FRINGE in issues of political dispute? It would seem to me that the analogy in U.S. politics to "FRINGE" would be extremist political parties or conspiracy theorists/theories with little or no base of support: David Duke, Leonard Peltier, Walt Brown, John Buchanan, birther claims, Clinton-murdered-Vince-Foster, Bush-blew-up-the-World-Trade-Center, etc. There might be an argument to extend fringe as far inward as Ralph Nader (who has never gotten 4% of the presidential vote despite multiple runs), though I personally wouldn't.
But there is a repeated problem on Wikipedia is the abuse of WP:FRINGE in political subjects as an excuse to exclude notable points of view in violation of WP:NPOV: I have seen editors insist that L. Brent Bozell III, who has published op-eds in mainstream sources such as the New York Times, is "fringe," or that The Weekly Standard (the second-most notable conservative magazine in the US) is "fringe," or even that the Wall Street Journal editorial page is "fringe." This is clearly an unacceptable attempt to evade the WP:NPOV policy by excluding notable points of view. In my eyes, the problem seems to be one-sided: no one claims that Bill Moyers is fringe, though he said that Bush was planning a coup in 2004, but respectable writers on the center-right get tarred with this brush repeatedly. (I've seen talk-page claims that William Kristol, a New York Times columnist, was on the far right, which is self-evidently tendentious.)
How can we craft language in WP:NPOV or WP:FRINGE to help nip these disputes in the bud?
Further discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories#Clarification_needed_for_political_views. THF ( talk) 19:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The main point to consider is that Fringe does not equal minority. Fringe is a special case of minority, a minority that is so small that it does not deserve being taken into account. When legitimate political discussions have clearly moved into accepting one of the competing viewpoints and rejecting the other, that doesn't turn the "defeated" viewpoint into a fringe one. For example, we can't write an article on George Bush with a condeming tone just because by now almost everybody considers him to have been a bad president.
Another point, when we describe mediatic disputes between interlocutors who are notable on their own terms, fringe does not apply. For example: the president said that ("polemic statement"), the leader of the opposing party answered that ("response"), the president of X institution pointed that (etc), etc; all of which being described at whole pages or sections in newspapers as they do on an everyday basis. MBelgrano ( talk) 12:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
If an article is currently under review at AfD, is it speediable? Doesn't that subvert the community process? I can see (and have seen) admins taking action *at* an AfD to delete an article that is obviously speediable, but can someone involved in the AfD debate simply slap a CSD tag on the article? Thoughts? -- SatyrTN ( talk / contribs) 23:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
I keep watching disputes come up at Iraq War and War in Afghanistan (2001-present) about what commanders to include in the infoboxes. Would it be possible to establish some more specific guidelines for editors to cite when trying to make decisions about this? I don't know what should be included, but I'm tired of watching people fight about something so trivial. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 21:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I have an idea which could solve part of the problem (perhaps). Since all infoboxes on conflicts include a list of protagonists, we could include a link immediatly after indicating the theoretical commander-in-chief of this or that force. For instance : United States ( leader) ; Nazi Germany ( leader), etc. (and please don't interpret this juxtaposition wrongly, they're only examples ! :p). This would allow for mentioning the theoretical head of the command chain, whether he/she is "active" or not, which could be pretty hard to decide in some cases (again, was Stalin an "active commander" in World War Two ? What about Roosevelt ? Did Tony Blair have an active involvement in the conduct of the war in Iraq ? etc.) What do you think ? -- Alþykkr ( talk) 13:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Something I've been wondering, and don't see really addressed.
WP:CSD R3 states:
Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are redirects in other languages. This does not apply to articles and stubs that have been converted into redirects. {{ db-r3}}, {{ db-redirtypo}}, {{ db-redirmisnomer}}
How does that cover redirects like "Craig hoffman" > "Craig Hoffman"? The target isn't a hugely trafficked page, so I'm unclear as to whether that's necessary or not. If not R3, should it be PRODed, or just left alone? -Zeus- u| c 21:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I wonder what will happen to Wikipedia badly if people comes in and engage in forum to discuss personal opinions and biases. This certainly won't harm Wikipedia in anyways so what is the side effect as a WP:FORUM?-- 209.129.85.4 ( talk) 17:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Following from the recent RfC, there is an ongoing discussion about the possible implementation of giving bureaucrats the technical ability to remove admin/crat flags, where this is currently done by the stewards. All comments welcome at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bureaucrat Unchecking. Happy‑ melon 15:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I seem to be missing the point. What, if anything, is the practical difference between Wikipedia:Content noticeboard, Wikipedia:Editor assistance, and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Unsorted? Regards, TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 20:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide ( | 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, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's said this before, but the constant notability requirements as well as condensation of highly detailed pages about certain things into a few lines of a compound page (see the Pokemon pages incident) is driving many previous people away, and this issue needs to be dealt with sooner, rather than later. My specific gripe is with an AfD delete about a Castlevania soundtrack producer's page, but there are plenty of articles that have been deleted over the years because of notability along with issues with sources also not being "notable enough" While removing notability requirements would not be good, making them so tight that they cause many users to abandon the site from frustration does no good, and needs to be dealt with yesterday. -- Pichu0102 ( talk) 10:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
What do you suggest should we do for this user? See his contributions. It looks like the ID is being used only to add links to his website under external references section. -- GP Pande 14:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Now that Wikipedia has switched to the Creative Commons license, may we copy all material from EOL into Wikipedia (and Wikispecies) verbatim? Would a reference to the EOL article satisfy the attribution requirement? How about images from EOL into the Commons? See previous village pump discussion. Also see Template:Eol. Here is information on EOL's terms of use, licensing policy, and if you're interested in contributing (eg Wikipedia material) to EOL, here is some information. The EOL already uses extensive material from Wikipedia, for example Theobroma Cacao. - kslays ( talk • contribs) 20:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Category names ( | 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, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) ( | 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, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
I was typing a little bit of German for Wikisource recently, and so far as I could tell, neither the list of special characters nor the standard Windows keyboard options were really usable for the task. It would take far too long to cut-and-paste every umlaut character, but the only alternative provided by Windows is a German keyboard layout with four separate keys dedicated to ä, ö, ü, and ß -- a keyboard which is altogether maddening to use even before one discovers that the Y and Z have swapped positions...
Now there is a fix for this, which is to download a free program Windows Keyboard Layout Creator [20] and generate a custom keyboard. It offers a single-level system of "dead keys" that change the next character typed. This allowed me to define the character "`" so that `a becomes ä, `E = Ë, `s = ß, `n = ñ, `t = þ `+ = ±, `- = — and so on. (Unfortunately it does not seem to allow for double redirects like ``a = à, `'a = á, etc. (nor conditional dead keys like a3 = ǎ but an = an) or you could use one convenient keyboard for German, French, Norwegian and pinyin)
Still, the keyboard setup file it generated could be installed on any Windows machine and would allow people to use an "umlaut key" immediately, without the bother of setting up the file or the privacy issues involved with the Windows validation demanded by the download. So far as I know the keyboard files are freely distributable data files, though the point may not be settled.
Because of the limitation of the program, several different keyboard setup files would be needed for different languages, and of course other operating systems would need their own files. It would be nice to arrange this as a limited-purpose download page linked from the vicinity of the special characters at the bottom of the edit page.
Would Wikipedia allow for this? Mike Serfas ( talk) 02:04, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
There is momentum for a proposal to close the request for comment on unsourced biographies on living people.
The RFC will be open through Monday night, 23:59 Wikipedia (UTC) time.
In a nutshell, this proposal would declare consensus for:
There is a Q&A on the talk page. Maurreen ( talk) 04:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Are High Schools inherently notable? If you look at it purely from a WP: Notability standpoint, it would seem that they are not, but popular convention seems to point towards them being notable. From my perspective, the coverage of High Schools is not uniform and the articles tend to be of a low quality or even stubs. Also, the articles tend to attract vandals and trolls. Obviously some High Schools are notable enough, like the ones scoring in the top ten on the U.S News Best Schools report, but I think the question is mostly applied to the majority of schools that are not, for example, featured in that list. I think the question is: In general, are Articles about High Schools inherently notable and are valuable additions to Wikipedia? 226Trident ( talk) 05:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia's notability guidelines are unfortunately opaque. They say that a thing is notable if notable people or institutions have taken notice of it. Duh. Well, how do you find out if people and institutions are notable? Same problem. Notable writers are identified by the fact that they are published by notable publishers, and the same with notable works. And notable publishers are identified by the fact that they publish notable works and writers. And yes, we identify notable works because notable writers produced them, and notable publishers published them. Are you beginning to see the problem? There's no solid ground to stand on here.
It helps if you replace the fancy word "notable" by the more common word "interesting." Then, whether something is notable (defined as whether notable people took note of it) reduces merely to the less fancy question of whether interesting people took interest in it. And how do we know whether the interested people are themselves interesting? Because other people take interest in THEM. Well, what other people? You? No. Me? No. We're talking about INTERESTING. PEOPLE. You know? Do I have to draw you a picture? Turn on the TV. But not whole sections of the internet. Because the internet is full of great dark areas of uninteresting stuff, written by uninteresting people. Like blogs and wikipedia. Wups. But it is true that the plebian interests of proles like our editors do not count. It is the interests of other media, publishers, and writers that count. Wikipedia is the ultimate parasite, and it rides the "buzz" from those who produce buzz. That's a technical word, there: BUZZ. It means "notability." S B H arris 06:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:ATHLETE clearly lays out notability guidelines for athletes that do not pass WP:GNG. However, Bradjamesbrown brought up a good point at Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Ian_Rogers_(rugby_referee). Referees are not included in WP:ATHLETE. For example, this person does not seem to meet the general notability guideline, but they certainly would pass WP:ATHLETE if it applies to referees. I'm inclined to personally say that it does not, but I figured it would be good to get a discussion on this topic going. So, do referees apply to WP:ATHLETE? NativeForeigner Talk/ Contribs 02:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
In the past I have photographed a couple of pieces of original art, paintings, that I owned. I am not the artist. i placed them on Wikipedia in order to illustrate the artist, a man recently dead, and whose copyright still therefore applies. Those images were removed with the argument that they were a copyright infringement. I am content with that.
Today I see a photograph of a sculpture with an artist whose copyright still applies. See File:The Scallop, Maggi Hambling, Aldeburgh.jpg. Please can I learn how this differs from a photograph of a painting and why this is not a copyright infringement? I am aware of the obvious 2 dimensions vs 3 dimensions answer for a photo of a sculpture. I am not sure that argument has validity. Fiddle Faddle ( talk) 12:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
A BLP-related RfC has been opened at the above page. To some extent the issue in the RfC concerns balancing rights of members of a Wikiproject vs. WP:BLP considerations. In any event, extra input, on either side of the dispute, is welcome. Nsk92 ( talk) 02:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a collaboration proposal at OpenNASA that suggests that NASA collaborate with Wikimedia project including Wikipedia. Please vote/comment on it.
There is also a NASA collaboration task force at the strategy wiki.
What are your thoughts on a collaboration between NASA and Wikipedia? Smallman12q ( talk) 13:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
As one of the main contributors to the
Adnan Oktar-article, I discovered that an anonymous user with a Turkish IP-adress added the website
www.replytowikipedia.com/ to the External links-section of this article. How should we deal with it?
A) It is very, very interesitng; thus we rework the article and the WP-policies;
B) It is very interesting; thus we should expand the article with A.O.'s given comments;
C) It is somewhat interesting; thus, we keep the link in the links section and that is it;
D) It is not interesting; thus we delete this link.
I have been too involved into the article to give a neutral opinion. Let me just say that I really tried to give every claim a prper reference, I believe I succeeded in this. SO please give my your opinions and ideas in this.Regards,
Jeff5102 (
talk) 08:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
How effective are cleanup tags and the like? Please join the discussion at the style guide talk page. Maurreen ( talk) 07:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Sdazet ( talk · contribs) is adding artist credits to Michael Doret to several images which are already uploaded, then adding the credit to the images' captions on the articles they decorate. Is this valid? Should there also be a source to prove that Doret is the actual creator of the logo? Woogee ( talk) 04:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
User space is often used for self-promotion ( WP:NOT#MYSPACE and WP:NOT#SOAPBOX), and to draft articles, keep notes, and other miscellaneous material by the user.
Userspace guidelines ( WP:UP) state that where a user page may be used inappropriately the user should be asked, and deletion may be discussed. This can take considerable time and effort though, so problem material proliferates in userspace.
I would like to propose an addition to userspace guidelines, that if it appears a userspace page may be used inappropriately, a NOINDEX tag can be added by any admin.
Rationale:
FT2 ( Talk | email) 19:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
This would help with Google, sure, but what about other mirrors of Wikipedia that don't follow the noindex convention? The Wordsmith Communicate 20:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have an official statement on the validity of articles and lists of bootleg albums? Such articles do exist; I notice some have come up for deletion review recently, and have seen articles deleted in the past just because "it's a bootleg", but they keep coming back, and I can't find an explicit policy against them.
I'm in favour of such a policy. We already have policies regarding copyright violation and spamming. We have rules against inclusion of song lyrics (if protected by copyright), album cover art that goes beyond a reduced size depiction of the front cover only (and these images must be justified by "fair use" declaration), and links to external sites that contain either of these. (Actually I'm writing this immediatly after cleaning up many Beach Boys album pages, most of which had links to lyric sites and a fan site with detailed cover art reproductions; I have to presume these articles have regular watchers who know it's wrong, and just look the other way; consider yourselves admonished!)
Coverage of bootlegs implies advertising an illegal product, especially if the album is not notable. There are probably less than a dozen bootleg albums in existence that could demonstrate mainstream notability beyond the artists' fan bases, and the number of artists involved must be even smaller (Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones... er, that's about it). Even when a bootleg album is alleged to be notable, there is little coverage of it in mainstream or music press, excepting the most underground press, in part because the music industry would cut off any such publication from receiving promotional materials and support. While the obscurity of bootlegs is therefore somewhat artificial, that doesn't diminish their non-notability.
Artists with many bootlegs, or significant bootleg material, nearly always have a "discography" article, and that could be a place to mention a few selected bootlegs that can demonstrate notability. Any guideline on the subject should spell out that discography articles should not include a long list of bootlegs, nor track listings, and certainly not links to places where bootlegs can be illegally downloaded. A bootleg album can also be notable if it prompts an official release of the same material, but here again, this could be covered within the article on the official release, and does not require a separate article.
I just get the feeling that we've been putting off making this policy official, to avoid raising the ire of music fans. But since I'm proposing allowing some limited coverage of these albums, and not an outright ban on any mention of their existence, this proposal should be acceptable and manageable.
Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I'm a bootleg record collector myself, and am aware that they (and their history) have been documented in books. But a personal liking for them does not suddenly lead to an opinion that they are legitimate, nor appropriate for detailed coverage on Wikipedia. -- A Knight Who Says Ni ( talk) 11:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I see this word appearing with much higher frequency in articles than it does when the English language is used elsewhere. This is probably because the word is in the mind of many wikipedians due to Wikipedia:Notability etc. I'm suggesting that it be added to the list of words to avoid. What do you think? Noodle snacks ( talk) 10:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
THF's Third Law of Wikipedia is that the notability of a subject generally varies inversely with the relative frequency of the adjective "notable" in their Wikipedia article. If you look at featured articles about truly notable subjects, you will almost never see the word "notable" used. Nobody says "George Washington was notably the first president of the United States." Its use is generally in sentences like "Smith's notably finished in the semifinals in the Last Comic Standing 6 competition, falling just short of the final twelve contestants" that tend to be evidence against notability. I agree that the word should be avoided in articles, but it should be avoided because it's a ridiculous Wikipedia cliche' that makes our articles look like self-parody. See also Wikipedia:Wikipuffery and {{ puffery}}. THF ( talk) 16:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
"Notable" is listed in Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms, for exactly the reason THF has stated. Nifboy ( talk) 16:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Over use of the term "Notable" isn't just a problem because people want to avoid getting their article deleted. The idea that the lead needs to establish the notability of the topic is rammed home many times in
Wikipedia:Lead section. You can see why people think they have to make it explicit.
Yaris678 (
talk) 11:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
As I started here, WP:BLP applies to all pages, including draft articles in userspace. However, policy is generally to remove all categories from mainspace categories. Category:Living people is for articles and I assume that means mainspace alone. Does anyone know if there's a place for userspace articles? Perhaps another category just for living people articles in userspace? Even articles that are BLP directly could have BLP problems (articles on organizations for example can still have negative unsourced remarks on individuals). -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 00:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
For the New York Times article Paterson Weighs Race as Top Aide Quits in Protest, it states at the top "By DANNY HAKIM and JEREMY W. PETERS", but it also states at the bottom "David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick contributed reporting from New York.".
Should David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick be considered authors as well? Smallman12q ( talk) 00:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
It is a pitty to look at the information and motivation losses incured in quest of relevance and verifiability. Do not understand me wrong: relevant an encyclopedia should truly be. You have the great chance to grow to be something more than relevant without destroying relevance for those who want it.
THis leads me to my question (A), some reasoning, and some proposal for implementation (B)
(A) Wouldn't it be wise to let users filter how relevant they want their wikipedia to be and to take deletion discussion results as a mere relevance score?
(B) I imagine that users chose both the language and what I would call the desired credibility level. The base to calculate the credibility are the voting results of deletion discussions. Below a minority threshold articles continue to be deleted. Articles that were never (or haven't been for a very long time) subject to a deletion discussion have top marks. They are the core encyclopedia. Articles with small deletion margins and high error probabilities are what matters to me. They often are well written, informative and unique to Wikipedia. They have the greatest potential to add strife among contributors. I am an user and I don't find this kind of stuff anywhere else with a fingertip and I'm sad if it is lost some days/month later or marked for speedy deletion. However, I understand perfectly that these articles are not encyclopedia like in the pure sense. But then: Who -if not Wikipedia with its unique base of writers- publishes this kind of stuff between encyclopedia and hot knowledge at the edge of societal and technical progress? And how - if not by such measures that may not fit perfectly to the original aim of Wikipedia- do you preserve your base of contributors and their motivation? I think the discussion on "what fits into an encyclopedia?" could add value if only you frame and use it the right way. And if articles are categorized you do not in any way damage your original aim -being an encyclopedia- but you ensure that you continue to have a proper base of writers. Moreover, you ensure that I continue to have fun using wikipedia.
Stehe ( talk) 00:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
It happened once. Remember all the "consensus" on sighted revisions, flagged revisions, revised revisions, no unchecked contents for unregs etc.? Buried and forgotten. There's never enough volunteers. Even the most populous and active wikiprojects cannot sort their mess. At best we may discuss the ways to cull fifty or forty unreferenced biographies. NVO ( talk) 15:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Different tools on the site, line Twinkle, Friendly, Huggle, or AutoWikiBrowser, all leave a little tag in the edit summary. (TW) or (HG), for example. These are not fully-automated edits, that is to say, without any human interaction. (That would be a bot.) There are "assisted" or semi-automated edits, which make the changes only after a human has eye-balled the change and approved it.
Which gets to my question: If I were to write a script or use a program to semi-automate my edits, do I have to list/flag such usage in the edit summary? -- Avic enna sis 04:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
When creating a citation, such as for {{ cite news}} should archiveurl's be included if the original link is still active? Smallman12q ( talk) 12:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia policies always are made for the general cases and not the exceptions. (For example, ip-blocks are made in general on vandals, knowing very well that there would be cases when non vandals get caught as collateral damage). For exceptions, like the Nazi case you mention, talk page discussions, the RS noticeboard, and consensus are the critical factors (in the same way as the ip-block exempt is provided on a case by case basis). ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 03:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
How does this have anything whatsoever to do with policy? Why not take this to the WP:Reliable sources noticeboard? rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 15:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I've recently run across a problem on talk-pages with about four or five editors who insist that BLP/NPOV prohibits the use of the sources in the left-hand column. Now, I realize that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an excuse, but it's hard for me to look at the sources used in BLPs in the right-hand column and understand why WP:BLP prohibits the use of the sources in the left-hand column--especially since some of the articles in the right-hand column are even starred as "featured articles" as the epitome of Wikipedia standards.
In my mind, NPOV requires the inclusion of notable points of view about the subject: that would include all of the sources in the left-hand column, and most of the sources in the right-hand column. BLP just requires fastidious observation of NPOV to avoid COATRACK, and the requirement of strong sources for potentially libelous claims; it doesn't require censorship of anything negative said about a living person--certainly that's the way it's observed in the articles in the right-hand column, but BLP was used as a rationale for eliminating notable points of view that were critical of the subjects in the left-hand column.
I can understand (though I would disagree with) prohibiting the sources in both columns; I can see permitting the sources in both columns; if pressed to make a decision, I would permit the sources in the left column, and prohibit a handful of the sources in the right-hand column; but what I cannot for the life of me understand is the status quo.
Were the editors on Bill Moyers and Nina Totenberg wrong, or is there a failure to enforce WP:BLP on pages of the more politically unpopular? I could just remove the sources in the right-hand column, but I'd surely get accused of violating WP:POINT. So I'd like to get consensus. Can someone help me understand what the rules are here, so I don't cross the line mistakenly again? Many thanks.
Judged unacceptable source in liberal BLPs and repeatedly deleted and accusing me of being WP:TEDIOUS | Seemingly acceptable source in center-right BLPs
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COI Disclosure: I worked for the McCain-Palin campaign for two months, and volunteered for McCain before that; Chris DeMuth was once my boss; I was a lawyer for Palin in 2008 and for the Weekly Standard in 1997; Scalia and Thomas turned me down for a clerkship, but I have friends who clerked for each of them; a former co-worker was a research assistant for Franken; I've met Kristol and Krauthammer; Applebaum and I once worked for the same employer, though I never met her; Sommers and I once worked for the same employer, and we've dined together; I sat next to Stossel at a lunch, and was on a panel with him another time; Coulter used to work for a friend; a friend works for Palin's PAC; Totenberg interviewed a partner I worked for in 2003, and I declined his suggestion that I also talk to her about the brief I wrote; Sullivan sometimes blogs from a coffeehouse I frequent; Greenwald has blogged negatively about me; Sullivan has blogged neutrally about me; I subscribed to the Weekly Standard, the Nation, the Washington Post, and FAIR's newsletter at one time or another. It's a small world here in DC.
THF ( talk) 05:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, the thing that jumps out at me here is the idea of using opinion writers to diagnose psychiatric conditions (even if they are made-up ones). Seems like a pretty serious BLP problem. Guettarda ( talk) 05:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Of course there are people who take it to mean a real mental disease! Take this for example (one of many): Question: And we all know where Chris Matthews works, right? Answer from Bernard Goldberg: (Laughs) That’s right. By the way, I was asked by Bill O’Reilly a week ago, “Do you think it’s a mental disease or do you think it’s business?” He was actually talking about the general Bush-hating. I immediately said, “It’s a mental disorder, because don’t underestimate the power of insanity. ‘Bush-derangement syndrome’ is for real.” [21] So please, your argument is totally baseless. ► RATEL ◄ 15:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Also, I think it is very difficult to judge the validity of your complaint based solely on this table. What we all want are sources that are authoritative for the purposes of the reference. We don't want secondary sources when we have a primary source, either. There may be invalid uses in the right-hand column; but I don't see how that can be used to justify the sources in the left-hand column. Are your sources witnesses, or commentators? Are they commenting themselves, or repeating other's coments? Also, you are interacting with different editors on the various articles, too, so there will not be identical responses to your edits. I would seek a discussion in the appropriate Wiki project for the articles. Your comments seem directed at the American liberal/right divide; I'm not American, but from what I've seen, using the terms liberal and conservative can be used as insults. The use of the word liberal especially in the phrase 'liberal bias'; so there could be objections on that basis too. Someone can be liberal; but stating that that person has a liberal bias may be beyond what a particular source can show. This whole argument of course can apply from the other point of view; sources have to be able to show the point; the source should illustrate and not be biased itself. ʘ alaney2k ʘ ( talk) 06:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Media Matters is not a reliable source. I can't believe that wasn't established long ago. Maybe we should do an RfC and propose deleting it across the encyclopedia whenever it is used to establish a fact in an article. Even their quotes are unreliable. -- JohnWBarber ( talk) 23:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Further discussion taking place at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RFC_on_Media_watchdog_groups. THF ( talk) 04:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Another perennial target, J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," was challenged in Maine because of the "f" word.
Boron
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).The foremost allegation made against Catcher is... that it teaches loose moral codes; that it glorifies... drinking, smoking, lying, promiscuity, and more.
"The Catcher in the Rye" is perennially banned because Holden Caulfield is said to be an unsuitable role model.
The Catcher in the Rye, interpreted by some as encouraging rebellion against authority...