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I would like to start a debate on redlinks in lists. The disapproval of redlinks in lists and dab pages was inserted with this edit into WP:REDLINK apparently without discussion and a rather misleading edit summary. The requirements for featured lists include both completeness and minimal redlinks. That is, some redlinks in a featured list are acceptable; kind of implying that a lesser list might have more redlinks. The redlink issue has been debated numerous times regarding FA and FL and still it remains in the requirements. The most extensive debate concerning FL I could find was Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria/Archive 2#RfC: Removal of minimal red link criteria in 5a. My reading here is that although controversial, redlinks in lists have consensus.
A list to my mind should be comprehensive, even if that means including redlinks. WP:N and WP:V apply to lists just as much as articles and they are sufficient reasons to remove entries which do not belong. Removing entries solely because they are redlinks is entirely wrong. Dab pages are different, but I think the guidelines at MOS:DAB have got it about right and WP:REDLINK should merely refer to the MoS rather than promulgating contradictory rules. So in short, my proposal for WP:REDLINK is to remove the special exception for lists and refer to MOS:DAB for dab pages. SpinningSpark 18:49, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
I mostly agree with WP:MOSDABRL, in that we have to have some criteria for why we deem a subject notable enough for a redlink. Mention and links in the English Wikipedia are a logical place to look for such justification. The one extension of this I've long wanted to see is to allow redlinks when foreign-language Wikipedias have encyclopedic treatment of subjects we still lack here. This comes up a lot in foreign literature, geography, etc. For one thing, templates like {{ ill}} and {{ ill2}} would allow us to point multi-lingual readers to articles on the subjects they want. (It's not that our average reader reads language X; it's that so many readers perusing "List of rivers in Brazil" or "Some Russian Name (disambiguation)" do!) Wareh ( talk) 15:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I’m delighted to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation has engaged Maggie Dennis ( User:Moonriddengirl on the English Wikipedia and elsewhere) to serve as our first Community Liaison. The Community Liaison role is envisioned to be a rotating assignment, filled by a new Wikimedian each year, half year or quarter. One of Maggie’s responsibilities is to begin to lay out a process for how this rotating posting would work.
Maggie has been a contributor to the projects since 2007 and is an administrator on the English Wikipedia and an OTRS volunteer. She has over 100,000 edits, including edits to 40 of the language versions of our projects. Her broad experience and knowledge made her a natural fit for this role.
This role is a response to requests from community members who have sometimes felt they didn’t know who to ask about something or weren’t sure the right person to go through to bring up a suggestion or issue. Her initial thrust will be to create systems so that every contributor to the projects has a way to reach the Foundation if they wish and to make sure that the Foundation effectively connects the right resources with people who contact us. If you aren’t sure who to call, Maggie will help you. Obviously, most community members will never need this communications channel - they’re happy editing, doing the things that make the projects great - but we want to make it as easy as possible for people to communicate with the Foundation.
The job of the liaison will have two major parts. First are standard duties that every liaison will perform which may include maintaining a FAQ about what each department does, making sure that inquiries from email or mailing lists are brought to the attention of appropriate staff members, etc. However, we also want liaisons to be free to pursue unique projects suited to their particular skill sets. Maggie will develop such projects in the coming weeks.
Maggie will be on the projects as User:Mdennis (WMF) and can be reached at mdenniswikimedia.org. Her initial appointment runs for six months. I look forward to working with Maggie in this new role!
Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation ( talk) 21:51, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Asking for community input on the use of news leaks in Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#Leaks patsw ( talk) 23:59, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Is the message If you are undoing an edit that is not vandalism, explain the reason in the edit summary. Do not use the default message only a suggestion or policy ? Gnevin ( talk) 12:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm in the process of compiling my own Voter Guide and could use more input.
-- Alecmconroy ( talk) 10:58, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
How do you think we should improve this matter? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
SuperX9 (
talk •
contribs) 04:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
( association football, that is)
There is a discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#Live scores issue again regarding whether it is appropriate to add football scores during a match. It would be helpful if others could contribute to the discussion. Thanks, Chzz ► 22:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
I was surprised to see that a redirect, cellar spider, had been locked. Is there a policy on this? (I didn't find one.) The basis given in this case, "no reason to move or edit redirect without discussion," seems understandable but subjectively applicable to an endless number of redirects and, I would say, counter to Wikipedia's spirit and best interest. Certainly WP:BOLD and WP:IGNORE. What's the story? Is this case a relic/anomoly? ENeville ( talk) 03:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Must images of historical importance be "subjects of commentary" before we can use them under a claim of fair use? See RfC here. Input from uninvolved editors would be particularly appreciated. SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 05:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Is there a page/discussion on Wikipedia that deals with the issue of companies selling books based on Wikipedia articles e.g. [2] Thanks. Eldumpo ( talk) 20:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Agree with the above. Why does Wikipedia want to enable profits for these shoddy companies. Couldn't it all be avoided by stating that you can freely use/distribute it, but not for commerical purposes. Eldumpo ( talk) 16:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
While it is permitted, one thing that bothers me is that these books are listed at online book retailers without any indication of the nature of the book. For example, check out this "book" selling on Amazon for $116.98 (and up) that I wrote probably about 80% of: [4]. There's nothing on the page to indicate that it's all Wikipedia content. Just about no one would buy this if they understood what it was. By the same token, I'm sure just about everyone who buys it feels very ripped off once they crack the cover, and some may blame Wikipedia despite the unfairness of that. Maybe we can somehow influence the big sellers into instituting a policy of disclosure on their sites when acting as the intermediary for such manuscripts?-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 04:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
I can't imagine that if the project knew that this was being done in the manner it is being done, there wouldn't be a move to amend the license. I would suggest that we stipulate that any commercial work comprised in part or in whole of Wikipedia article(s) as content (as opposed to, they're presenting a selection of articles in totem and they then analyze or review the benefits and drawbacks of the phenomenon of user-generated content, or they're quoting Wikipedia coverage of a subject among other sources), must indicate this fact in the subtitle of the work and at point of sale. How can a buyer beware if sales happen sight-unseen over the internet and we are abetting such highway robbery by allowing our content to be repackaged wholesale (as in its entirety, not as in discount from retail) for profit?
Upon the death of Farrah Fawcett, I was casting about for material commemorating her life and career. I did a good deal of work at Farrah Fawcett before and after her death, and when I discovered that a new book with the working title The Accomplishments of Farrah Fawcett was available for pre-order at Amazon.com, I thought, "what an odd title," but I put it in my watchlist. When the cover art was finally published, my suspicions were confirmed. Two-bit graphics and the only attribution on the cover was "The Editors". Sample pages showed cut-and-pasted refs (replete with blue type where the links were) from the Wikipedia bio I'd been working on. http://www.amazon.com/Accomplishments-Farrah-Fawcett-Editors/dp/1448630169/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306394782&sr=1-13 That title is now out of print, replaced by "Farrah Fawcett and Charlie's Angels" http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1448644313/ref=si_aps_sup?p=random&ie=UTF8&qid=1306393505, which is the same bio appended with the Wiki bios of some of the notables she portrayed in TV films and, I suppose, the series article and bios on the other Angels. As bad as it was that such an incomplete and skewed bio was up there representing her life and career for free on Wikipedia, I was repulsed to learn that someone would sell such a half-baked product and without any indication of the source of the material. No place on the depicted covers, on their Amazon pages, or in the sample pages available for view, does it attribute the authorship or origin of this material. This is a scam, it reflects poorly on Wikipedia, and it's apparently not isolated to one publisher—the "Emporium Books" the OP notes is nowhere to be found on these pages, the covers or the sample pages. These are attributed in the Amazon Product Details section to "CreateSpace". Yet CreateSpace isn't searchable, only the author is searchable. The author for the "Accomplishments" was "The Editors", which is ambiguous enough to bring up hundreds of thousands of hits including credible sources, which is misleading. The author for the second version is listed as "Old School Cinema", but this is the only title linked to that author name. (Adding insult to injury, someone is selling this thing used for $19.99.)
Again, this isn't like, "hey, I want my cut of the $19.99." It's, "hey, I feel partly responsible for everyone who paid $19.99." Or worse, over $110! I'm not saying they should be prevented from offering this work for sale, and I'm not saying that free mirror sites should be forced to attribute the work, I'm saying that someone republishing this for commercial sale should be required to indicate on the cover and at point of sale (the description they provide to Amazon, for example) that the material was previously published, and by Wikipedia. Abrazame ( talk) 07:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Collectively, Wikipedians buy a lot of books. My guess is that making it clear to e-retaillers (
Amazon.com,
Barnes & Noble,
Alibris, and such) that we find it offensive would be helpful. Most of these retaillers have websites that accept reviews, we could simply (even automagically) submit reviews that disclose the publisher's practice when one of these is found. Of course, they'd get zero star ratings too. Note too that we should have {{
Backwardscopy}}
on the article talkpages.
LeadSongDog
come howl! 16:38, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for all the posts on this topic. It seems it is a concern for others as well. Has anyone got a copy of one of these books so they could scan a page so we can get a fuller understanding of what is included from the Wikipedia article. In particular I'm wondering how they deal with referencing. Presumably they just cut out the references and external links sections, and the in-line citations? Does that mean that if any of the Wiki articles they use were themselves effectively direct copies from another source, then they are liable for copyright breach from the original source? Eldumpo ( talk) 10:40, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
so what happens if one of these "publishers" grabs a copy of an article at a time when the article contains inappropriate cut and paste copyrighted content? Active Banana (bananaphone 05:36, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I ask because an ongoing dispute on the talk page for an article about an Australian politician seems to indicate that some editors believe that Australian censorship law should take precedence over the inclusion of reliably sourced from several national newspapers describing how that politician has been charged with child pornography offenses and suspended from his party. Edit-warring to exclude this information from the article has been ongoing for more than a month, with absurd claims that even linking to said reliable sources is unacceptable. Nevard ( talk) 08:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
The current written arbitration policy dates from 2004 and much has evolved since then. It has been extensively reviewed over the last two years, with a series of wide-ranging community consultations. A proposed update has now been posted and is awaiting community ratification. All editors are cordially invited to participate in the ratification process, which is now open. Roger Davies talk 23:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
There has been a lot of confusion over what IMHO should be a relatively uncontroversial exertion of wise editorial policy such that proscribed "hate speech" type language, ie., certain highly derogatory slang words, be subjected to a simple naming convention. Surprisingly, some editors fail to distinguish a naming convention from outright censorship and as a result the culpable articles remain, alienating faculty and students around the world.
Specifically, article titles about words such as ch*nk, in the derogatory slang sense of "Chinese-descended person" would be better put as "Ch*mk (Slang, prejudicial) or something like that.
What should be a no-brainer has become a twisted pretzel argument. Please think this through - there is no censorship impliced. And articles about mere words don't really belong here in the first place, they are dictionary words to begin with.
Discussion is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chink#The_proposal_as_it_now_stands Bard गीता 02:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
A draft of how to run the trial is now located here. Crossposting from WP:VPR. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 16:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I've written a proposed policy to use pending changes level two protection on certain articles with a history of BLP problems for which semi-protection is inadequate. Comments are welcome. Chester Markel ( talk) 18:33, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I would like to request some eyes on WP:VIDEOLINK. The initial reasoning for starting the essay was because I saw a gap in how YouTube links are handled. Both guidelines and policies still fail to address how YouTube is used as a source. The essay has been sitting at mid-impact for several months. I have even seen others pointing to it in discussions. I would love some copyediting. I also want to ensure that it is completely inline with precedent. Cptnono ( talk) 05:56, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi everyone -
WMF's fundraiser team will be testing our banner, landing page and analytics systems this week (starting today). This is the first time we're turning on our systems since last year's fundraiser -- so we want to work out any bugs that crawled in first before getting others involved. Banners will appear for about 30-60 minutes per country in 15 to 20 countries (a couple a day). A few will be the Jimmy banners with pictures but most will be more subtle.
We test before the fundraiser starts so that staff are well trained and systems function well during the fundraiser. This year, we're training more people to code banners and landing pages than last year so that we can help chapters and other country and language communities do better testing.
I'm going to update this thread each day with the countries we'll be testing on so that people have a heads up but if you have any questions please let us know. All banners will be anonymous only and short term.
Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Team
As an update for Friday. Our plan is to test banners in a bunch of countries including larger ones. Currently planned for about 1 hour in the Morning US Pacific time: Unites States, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Greece and Singapore. Jalexander--WMF 08:24, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
The straw poll regarding disambiguation links in maintenance lists of mathematics articles is scheduled to close in about three hours. Speak now or - well, you know the rest. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:41, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I've set up an RfC WT:No original research#RfC: Are_maps in general secondary sources?. Sounds like we should soon have hundreds of thousands of new things to write about :) Dmcq ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:20, 4 June 2011 (UTC).
What are policies on images describing a fictional character played by an actor requiring no special costume or prosthetics? For example, Jack Bauer has the exact same face as Kiefer Sutherland. Surely that would count as replacable? Or is the fact that Kiefer Sutherland not playing Jack Bauer in File:Kiefer Sutherland 2008.jpg make this an unacceptable image for the article? I can somewhat understand a case like Spock, because he has stylized ears/eyebrows/uniform, and so looks very distinct from Leonard Nimoy. Regular human actors playing regular human characters should fall under the same umbrella as photos of living celebrities. If you want to know what Jack Bauer looks like, I'm pretty sure a picture of Kiefer will do the trick (just imagine a gun and a lack of sleep). I'm wondering because I came across File:Rhys Williams (Torchwood).jpg being used for Rhys Williams, and I tagged it invalid non-free, before realizing it was also used in the character article. But surely it is still invalid, as there is no visible distinction between character and actor? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:File mover ( | 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, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:File mover ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Interested people may wish to see Wikipedia talk:Edit warring#RfC on proposed new 3RR exemption. Well, interested people obviously will wish to see it, but you know what I mean... :) ╟─ Treasury Tag► Acting Returning Officer─╢ 10:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
There are only a few days left in the election-- could anyone provide advice or endorsements for voters who are short on time?? Please share the people you like, and add a link to it on Meta:Template:Board elections 2011 infobox. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 02:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
The current written arbitration policy dates from 2004 and much has evolved since then. The policy has been extensively reviewed over the last two years, with a series of wide-ranging community consultations, to bring the written document up to date. The proposed update is posted and is undergoing community ratification, which is due to close on 13 June 2011. All editors are cordially invited to participate in the ratification process. Roger Davies talk 06:02, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
I have started this RfC to determine whether or not the Romanization of Russian guideline actually reflects consensus. Comments there would be greatly appreciated; thanks. Mlm42 ( talk) 17:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
There is a proposal to change the first sentence of wp:ver at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Proposal for a change in the first sentence. Your input is requested. Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 22:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
For particular cases in Singapore (and I imagine elsewhere where press freedom or journalist access is an issue, such as war-torn zones or countries affected by the Arab Spring), opposition viewpoints, whose American equivalents would be well-sourced in the press, are forced to turn to self-published sources. For this reason they make weak sources individually. Suppose however, you aggregate them -- and critically, you corroborate them to sources with opposing points of view -- perhaps in the most clear-cut case, a reliable one, or an "official statement" from a reliable source known to have a bias Straits Times, People's Daily, etc. If you find that the official statement corroborates certain facts with the opposition media's own statements. Some of these sources also publish cases of investigative journalism that are remarked on passingly in the international press but are furiously reported by domestic opposition sources (and by writers with a reputation, but are forced to stay anonymous).
I believe in these cases, on a case by case basis, arrangements should be made to permit them as reliable sources, based on the low likelihood of fabrication, widespread corroboration and so forth. There are often details that are likely to be true, but they are not reported in government media and are not mentioned in the international press (for reasons of brevity and audience, not significance). In these cases (repressed countries all over the world), it's as though opposition media (examples include The Online Citizen and Temasek Review) have to wait helplessly on the international press (The Economist et al) to pick one of the many issues, sourced from them, to report on. We note that the Washington Post can use undisclosed sources that we can't verify for ourselves, but based on reputation as a professional organisation their report is classified as reliable. Yet, opposition press which chances upon a key piece of government material or policy (and publishes it -- or it was public to begin with) -- because they are not professional (i.e. sold for money) they are not classed as reliable. But if an alternative or opposition news commentary organisation a) receives donations from the public b) is in fact acknowledged and actively rebutted by the mainstream press c) is by common sense rules, written professionally, critically, and well-sourced (even if it uses primary sources and primary analysis), their insertion still faces opposition and reversion by people who claim, OMG IT'S A BLOG.
My main concern is that many government sources (esp. that of governments with poor press freedom) around the world, known to have a certain bias, enjoy an unfair reputation over opposition media, even when a) the citizenry sometimes trusts the opposition media more b) certain portions of the opposition media are by common sense definition respectable sources, they are just not sold on the street or sold online (though they receive donations) for fear of persecution or because activist dissemination is their model. Shouldn't on a case by case basis, these sources be permitted, if a persuasive argument can be made? Elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( be free) 05:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
This template is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 June 11 used in 250,000 articles. Completely contradicts MOS:FLAG which individuals use as a policy. Either we accept flags in articles and infoboxes or we don't. Personally I do not care either way, but this is a double standard wherever I look.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
I recently asked about a page (a redirect) locking out changes by registered editors.
I now see that Wikipedia:Article titles is locking out changes by registered editors, and without apparent notification even as by an icon (that I'm seeing), only by an absence of an "Edit this page" link. My original concern returns that such inaccessibility is counter to the foundations and future of Wikipedia. When, how, and by whom was this pro tem version approved? What notification of this impending settling was given? Why does no lock icon display on this page as for Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which has also been locked but at least shows a tag that such is not an endorsement of current text?
Please understand my alarm, as the apparent extent of this matter is new to me, and strikes me as a major issue. ENeville ( talk) 19:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Notability guide#Essay to Guideline. RightCowLeftCoast ( talk) 21:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC) (Using {{ pls}})
When linking a location, which method do you prefer?
Example location text: Princeton, New Jersey
Option 1: Link both Princeton and New Jersey separately, so that the wikitext looks like [[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]], [[New Jersey]]
Option 2: Link only Princeton, New Jersey directly, so that the wikitext looks like [[Princeton, New Jersey]]
I realize that there can be other issues (including United States, for example), but if we could limit support/oppose and discussion to just this one area for now, I think that would be informative. Thank you in advance,
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs) 20:20, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
It is currently 10:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC) , voting closes at 23:59 UTC, so just hours after this post. If you want to vote, please do so. Additionally, there's been an on-going discussion about a recommendation for voting to be extended to give people more time, opinions welcome. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 10:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations in Poland) ( | 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, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Should the policy on living people, WP:BLP, be clarified to allow off-hand criticism of living people on Talk pages?
Currently, there is some dissent about an editor saying something like " Kim Jong-il is corrupt." or "Bill O'Reilly is a pathetic excuse for journalist." on a Talk page. Some people, perhaps a majority, think it is a blockable offense. Others think it is not. Some think WP:BLP clearly prohibits even casual criticism of living people in random conversation, others do not.
The relevant policy excerpt re non-article space is "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices, should be removed..." [12].
A few points...
Feel like voting? Support = allow minor or off-hand criticism of living people in non-article space, as long as it is not defamation. Oppose = editors should never be alllowed to criticize a living person, unless directly related to work on an article. Mindbunny ( talk) 17:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
What is the problem this is trying to solve? Seems to me that we haven't had a spate of people being blocked for posting "I don't particularly like George Bush" or "My own opinion is that Obama is the worst president ever". There is a danger that any loosening of the policy will move us towards being a forum, and we do have an issue with that. So, what's the real, practical, gain? As long as admins use common sense and don't go jumping on harmless (but off-topic) asides in userspace, I'm not seeing it. Any user who is deliberately wanting to create a policy space to allow an increase in people posting opinions on living people, is heading in the wrong direction. Don't jump on people for slightly off-topic opining but, on the other hand, don't encourage it either.-- Scott Mac 20:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Of course, the question isn't whether we are allowed to libel anyone. That's non-negotiable. Libel/defamation/slander refer to factual claims, or opinions with factual implications. "Bill O'Reilly is a crappy journalist" does not claim or imply a fact. This topic is about statements of opinion. Such opinions may not be useful to improving Wikipedia, that doesn't mean anything should be banned (see point about WP:FORUM above). All sorts of off-hand comments are allowed, even though they aren't particularly useful. In my view, this is mostly about recognizing the nature of any social enterprise: people share ideas, opinions, pictures of their pet cats, and so on. As long as the place doesn't become a forum for such things, they should be allowed. You can have a picture of your cat on your desk at work, even though work is not a forum for pictures of your cat. You can discuss your cat at the water cooler. And so on. The question is merely whether opinions about living people (such as mine that Bill O'Reilly is a jerk) fall into the same category. (Also, this isn't just about Article/Talk, it concerns any non-article space including your own Talk page, RFCs, and so on.)
Mindbunny (
talk) 20:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Be aware Mindbunny is over at BLPNB arguing exactly the opposite ( Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#User:SlimVirgin/Poetgate). There he is arguing that remarks about other users in userspace ARE serious BLP violations . You are being played. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott MacDonald ( talk • contribs) 23:58, 1 June 2011
Among explicit votes, I see 5 supports and 1 oppose. Inferring what seems like the obvious, I see 6 supports (add Blade of Northern Lights) and 2 opposes (add Off2riorob), So, let's work on specific wording to add to WP:BLP. For starters, I propose something like:
I think some background is missing here. This entire discussion is a virtually pointless waste of time, arising following a recent request for arbitration in which Mindbunny came very close to being topic-banned from commenting about any living person across the whole project—a proposal I may renew if he wastes much more of the community's time in this vein. There is no real dispute or controversy that exists concerning "offhand comments about living persons on talkpages"; this is an entirely made-up pseudo-controversy, which is distracting attention from serious BLP issues of an entirely greater nature. I object to any modification of the policy as a result of this inanely-motivated discussion. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 20:02, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
The idea is a non-starter, goes against the ideals of our core policies and whoever came up with or supported such a thing should receive the mother of all troutings :) If someone is expressly making statements about their views on living person on talk pages they should be encouraged to find something constructive to do. And individuals personal view is, fairly obviously, fringe - and self-published. If that view is negative it is a BLP issue, if it is glowing then it is a BLP/NPOV/SOAPBOX issue. And should be dealt with accordingly. If an editor fails to understand why they should focus on content and quit telling everyone how great/bad X is - and continues to say these things - they should be blocked for WP:POINT violations. This is just forum shopping of a new form of that POINT violation which you were blocked for Mindbunny. -- Errant ( chat!) 20:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
Thinking more about ErrantX's concern about WP:CREEP.... it occurs to me that no new wording needs to be added. The existing wording, in the section on non-article space, can just be fine tuned. Currently it reads "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices, should be removed..." Really, the hub of the issue is "contentious." Anytime the basis for removing something is that it is controversial, there are going to be problems of censorship. The mere expression of a contentious opinion shouldn't be a basis for blocking anything. So, maybe this is a simpler solution:
This is already in the non-article space section, on the BLP page, so I don't think those specifics need to be in the wording. This is a rough draft. Please contribute constructively, such as by suggesting improvements.... Mindbunny ( talk) 15:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Even though I know the support/oppose votings already over, I would just like to say that I think this is a misuse of talk pages. Talk pages should be used for idea's of improvement or suggestions for the article, not to express one's opinion on the person or subject. Sorry, I just had to get that out, continue on.-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 01:36, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi, can someone advise me what is the best way to prevent an AfD discussion from being pulled off-track by several experienced editors tag-teaming to inundate it with ADHOM/ NOREASON votes? Thanks. ╟─ Treasury Tag► without portfolio─╢ 20:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
[...]
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.
If you have a view on flags in infoboxes you may be interested in the discussion Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (icons)#Infobox flags here. -- Bermicourt ( talk) 06:26, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Recommendation: - I would like to suggest rewriting the citation template documentation (such as {{
Cite Web}}
) into a central consolidated document.
Problem description: - Currently each template has its own documentation page which means that whenever a change is made to one of the core templates we need to modify each and every one of the others. What this has led to is the documentation for each of the templates to be out of sync with the actual code and with the other associated templates. This means essentially that there are parameters missing from the documentation of each template, the verbiage differs between templates, some have documentation for parameters that were eliminated but the verbiage remains, etc.
Solution: - Because the functionality of the tempaltes is virtually the same (Most look like Cite X, X being the template extension) it should be fairly easy to write the document in a general way that covers most or all of these templates. This will allow 1 change to be made to the documentation rather than changing them all, or, rather, not changing them all.
I also believe this will simplify the instructions for users of the templates, will clarify the meaning and language of what each parameter does and generally make it easier to update and use these templates.
I would also create a sortable wikitable of all the parameters and which is used in what template.
I believe I can start the writing process but as its been pointed out to me in the past my grammer and punctuation are not as good as others no doubt due in part to the lacking American educational system (just joking don't take offense) so I would need others to proof read and help out. Does anyone have any comments on this proposal. -- Kumioko ( talk) 14:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Category:Living people currently contains 526,970 pages. Three of these are not biographies, but lists:
While these lists do concern living people, this category is something of a special case with respect to categorization rules. The category description page states:
Should these articles be in this category? If so, what should determine whether list articles are so categorized? (There are, of course, many more lists of living people than these three). Gurch ( talk) 16:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
{{
BLP}}
is a talk page template, and adds the talk page to
Category:Biography articles of living people. This is separate from
Category:Living people, which goes on the article.
Category:Biography articles of living people is more broad in its scope – its description states it is for "the talk pages of articles which relate to living persons", rather than specifically for individual biographies.{{
BLP}}
itself is inherently somewhat arbitrary in its application; "This article and talk page must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons" is a statement that is true wherever the template is placed; we merely choose to reiterate that fact on biographical talk pages.
Gurch (
talk) 20:56, 16 June 2011 (UTC)I'm looking at List of Guatemalans, which lists people with [[First name Last name|Last name, First name]] syntax. I want to remove the pipes, but can't find policy that states this is proper procedure. Anyone know where it is? Thanks, -- JaGa talk 17:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
There is a term which frequently pops up in biographical info boxes that does not seem to have a consistent meaning; 'years active'. For some individuals the term seems to refer to the years during which they worked; Betty White's "years active" are 1939-present, because she got her first job in 1939. In other articles, the term refers to the years during which they worked at whatever made them famous; Bob Barker's years active are 1956-2007 because that is the period during which he hosted game shows, even though he had worked at radio stations during the 1940s and has continued to appear frequently since 2007 as guest hosts at different events. There are more examples that are even more ridiculous, but I simply cant recall any at the moment. I'm sure you've seen them, though. I'm wondering if there is any 'official’ interpretation of the term, and if there's not, I suggest that one be formulated. theBOBbobato ( talk) 19:22, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
I've seen enough cases where this has happened to warrant my suggesting it... should we have a speedy deletion criterion for unreferenced articles created in a foreign language that have no equivalent in another language Wikipedia? There's no real reason why an unreferenced stub in a foreign language should be sitting around with a PROD tag on for 7 days or go to an AfD debate. If the subject is notable enough, someone will eventually start an article about it in English. XXX antiuser eh? 07:27, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
{{
not English}}
to the article brings this to the attention to people who might do that sort of thing; in practise,
pages needing translation into English isn't that active. They should at least be given a chance to, though, so I don't think speedy deletion is a good idea.
Gurch (
talk) 10:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Given that any newbie can slop a speedy delete tag on any wikipedia article there is something very wrong if experienced editors like myself here can't be trusted to remove clearly invalid speedy deletion tags to articles, especially after they have made improvements to it. It is extremely irritating to remove invalid tags [placed by inexperienced or disinterested individuals and then be instantly reverted by a bot and drilled a warning. Can we PLEASE change this speedy deletion tag to exclude the experienced editors here with privelages, much like rollbacking and auto new page patrol. We should be trusted to know when articles meet speedy criteria or not, even our own articles. This is potentially damaging as any admin could accept speedy delete tags and delete content which could be easily improved and the speedy tag removed. Vandals can do this to any article and the experienced editors here cannot revert their speedy tagging if it is their own article which is wrong.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I can't as I've worked with so many articles, but I do know admins have been warned in the past for deleting articles which were sloppily speedy tagged and they didn't even look into them before deleting them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
There was a recent discussion on whether/how to deal with publishers that sell repackaged Wikipedia content as what appears to be original work. A similar discussion has begun at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#LivingBot where it was pointed out that Amazon is starting to acknowledge the problem and that the number of such titles is in the hundreds of thousands. In the previous discussion, User:Spinningspark suggesting adding reviews for these books on Google and Amazon so people will have fair warning before they buy. I'd like to suggest a boilerplate review, possibly to be attached to Wikipedia:Buying Wikipedia articles in print or another form. This would allow people to copy and paste rather than write they're own, which should be a big time saver if this is to be done many times. It would also save on possible blow-back if the language is reviewed for legal implications. As a first pass, I'm proposing:
This book seems to consist of repackaged free content from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org). Wikipedia content can be purchased in hard copy form from Pedia Press ( http://pediapress.com), some of proceeds of which will support the Wikimedia Foundation.
-- RDBury ( talk) 16:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
While there is an RfC and it's on WP:CENT I was a bit surprised a vote was on-going here and I thought it might be of interest to those who follow this noticeboard. Hobit ( talk) 08:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I've started a disucssion on linking to OpenCorporates, following an approach they've made to Wikipedia. Please feel free to comment there. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:02, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I noticed that some articles have been getting nominated more than ten to even twenty times, such as the Gay Nigger Association of America, and the article of now-defunct Encyclopedia Dramatica. I thought a question should be asked to the community of Wikipedia on how many times an article should be allowed to go through deletion, and if possible, should it be limited to a set amount? Rain bow Dash 14:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest, instead, that an unsuccessful XfD should preclude another XfD for a reasonable period, say a minimum of six months between bites of the apple. Right now, sometimes the very week an XfD has been closed, another nomination for deletion is made, or a discussion arguning for such is made on the article talk page. This verges on gameplaying at that point. Collect ( talk) 18:45, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
Isn't this already covered by Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing#Refusal_to_.22get_the_point.22? The GNAA didn't satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines until the At&T Email leak, so it was the 18th AfD that finally fulfilled what the AfD was meant for, and it was the 12th DRV that finally fulfilled what DRV was meant for. As I'm said in the last GNAA DRV, some of discussion were started by trolls wishing to heighten GNAA's AfD high score rather than "haters", and the haters in opposition were correct about the GNAA's lack of notability until about a year ago. It also took many discussions for the community to realize that Daniel Brandt wasn't notable. Somethings, the community is too stubborn to admit that it's wrong, so repeating discussions in order reaffirm or overturn the previous consensus isn't such a good thing. Wikipedia needs to be open to new discussions. There's a chance that a group of users may try to continuously create new AfD in hopes that the community will eventually lose the willpower to combat them, but that's why we have closing admins who could see through these attempts. Disruptive users may also be warned or blocked. -- Michaeldsuarez ( talk) 14:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
If this was ever to be implemented, it would have to be limited to good faith nominations. Without that caveat it would be quite possible for someone to nominate an article for deletion several times, withdraw the nomination quickly each time, and reach the limit so it couldn't be nominated again, thereby removing any possibility of it being deleted even if it deserves to be. Alzarian16 ( talk) 15:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I have at various times proposed rules, but in practice, it does depend on the details, and I would not like to try to solve any general problem using GNAA as an example. I think we are in general getting more reasonable about this--there is much less repeated abusive nomination going on than there used to be 3 years ago when I first discovered AfD process. I've also seen objections to renominations after repeated non-consensus, and this is a very different matter than if after repeated keeps. If there's no consensus we need to admit it, and see if we can get it a little later. My suggestion was 3 to 6 months after a keep,doubling after each successive keep, with anything need to be done quicker being approved by deletion review. There is sometimes a need to quickly revisit a keep that was anomalous. What I think we really need, is some way to equally easily review a deletion. DGG ( talk ) 00:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
I understand concerns about rules creep but conversely does anyone have a valid example of where more than 5 nominations was ANYTHING BUT an attempt to do by brute force what could not be done by consensus? I am entirely in favor of both a hard cap on the number of tries (remember notability is not temporary, but a page's defenders may move on as time goes by) and a hard limit on renomination after a valid consensus close. HominidMachinae ( talk) 06:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Is it written for the worlds population at large? Or just the part of it that regularly visits Wikipedia? I can't find a policy for this. It should have an impact on every other policy. You can't really talk about neural points of view or global styles unless you know which part of the worlds population you're talking about when you say global. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.121.68.1 ( talk) 10:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Editors may be interested in revisiting this RFC, now that there is discussion of its implementation:
Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?
It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. Noetica Tea? 00:56, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Should the random article function be redefined to link to stubs or disambiguation pages?
What is the purpose of the "Random article" function? Is there an intention that it cause users to expand stubs, or just to read interesting articles? If the latter, then most stubs aren't enough to be interesting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.171.128 ( talk) 06:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
IMO it should be what it says it is. And there is no one pre-defined purpose. Different users can each have their own purpose for using it. North8000 ( talk) 13:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Did you know that the random function can also be applied to other namespaces? See here. Trouble is, for some of the namespaces, you mostly hit archived discussions or other subpages (I'd love it if there was the option to ignore subpages). I think I once worked out how to generate random hits on AfDs (see here), which was pretty pointless as well, but fun for about 30 seconds... The most disconcerting thing about the random function is that Wikipedia is so large that it is likely that any page you visit and think ("Ooh, that looks interesting, I'll read that later"), you will likely never visit or see again (unless you preserve your browser history or make a note of the article). Carcharoth ( talk) 14:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. state and territory highways) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Hello,
I was wondering whether there was a policy on example code in articles. Specifically, does uncited example code (such as that in cycle detection) constitute original research? As well, if it is cited, what license must the code be released under to be acceptable for use on Wikipedia?
Thank you. InverseHypercube 20:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian ( | 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, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been asked before, somewhere. But I don't notice links to a person's (or entity's) Facebook page in the same way that I know a link to a person's website is permitted, and indeed encouraged. Is there a usage policy on this? Is it encouraged or discouraged or not permitted? JohnClarknew ( talk) 15:41, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
I bring up Oprah Winfrey's page, as an example. I see a link to her at Twitter and YouTube. I don't see a way to find her instantly on Facebook. And Facebook pages are not necessarily self-published. And (permitted) Websites obviously are! What would it add, really? Information. Information. Information. That's what an Encyclopedia is supposed to do, isn't it? JohnClarknew ( talk) 05:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
You: Bite 22:32, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian ( | 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, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I've been here for a long time. I've improved hundreds of articles ranging from rattlesnakes, to aristolochic acid to the Bataan Death March to Goju Ryu karate. I've created templates, edited Wikibooks, uploaded images, and improved Wikipedia policy pages. I've removed hundreds of vandalism edits, patrolled new pages, and dealt with all sorts of other Wikignome-ish activities. Well, after nearly 16,000 edits here, I'm going to leave, and I'd like to talk a little bit about why, so that hopefully someone else can deal with the problem.
What ultimately made me decide to leave was the disruptive edit warrior User:V7-sport stalking me around from page to page, and forcing me to choose between spending large amounts of time arguing with him (an endless process), or just going away and giving him free reign to destroy articles. Most of my work was outside of the articles he's harassing me on, but the amount of time I've had to dedicate to him alone is enormous, and I see no hope of it stopping any time soon.
Before I go further, I'd really like you all to go and open up his list of contributions, and judge for yourself what type of editor he is.
You'll notice a few things:
One of many possible examples of the behaviors listed above: He comes to the article state terrorism, because he is convinced that if he changes the definition there, he can then remove reliably sourced content regarding "state terrorism" from another article by claiming it doesn't fit the definition that he's written in the Wikipedia article state terrorism (even after it has been explained to him that this is not the case). He makes an edit to the definition section, which misrepresents the (low-quality) source that he cites, which myself and another editor have to explain to him. He then makes a false accusation of me stalking him when he actually followed me to the page. [19] When this is pointed out to him, he doesn't admit fault, but rather changes the subject and tells me that I'm being "disruptive" and "pathetic" [20], and informs me that "evidently" I think the page is "mine" (because I keep reverting junk edits like this one) and that I think that attempts to "improve them" (which I suppose is code for "adding original research and misrepresenting sources") are disruptive. When I tell him that I never said this, he says that he only said that "Evidently I feel" that this is the case, and that I'm " behaving like a yipping little dog that's defending a lawn it's previously peed on"... and so on (along with edit summaries like "Don't you have a dumpster to dive?" - a reference to the fact that he's been reading my personal blog - and "Shouldn't you be packing to move to Venezuela?"). This is the type of shit that I've been dealing with for months now, on multiple articles that he's followed me to.
He's taken special liking to me, and is stalking me both on and off-wiki (at least he only stalks me around in articles related to his nationalistic obsession -- he hasn't started harassing me at rattlesnake just yet). So I've had to deal with his removal of large amounts of sourced content, his soapboxing, his personal attacks, his misrepresentation of sources and of other editors' positions, and his persistent edit warring, on several pages. Quite frankly, I'm sick of it, and am deeply upset with the community for not having done anything about this by now. Why am I having to waste my time dealing with his bullshit, instead of editing?
Again, please look through his contributions, and verify for yourself that this type of thing is the norm for him. Now that you've done that, please answer me this: WHY IS THIS EDITOR STILL HERE? Seriously -- What is he contributing to the encyclopedia that makes him worth keeping around?
During an ANI he attempted to file against me when I called him out for repeatedly lying (a claim that was validated by the people at ANI), an uninvolved editor told him: "Reading the talkpage actually suggests to me that it would be a far more collegial environment if you weren't involved in it, rather than Jtayloriv." I would argue that the same could be said of the project as a whole. I welcome someone to explain to me the benefit of keeping people like this around.
Well, what do I suggest doing about it? Personally, I'd suggest blocking him indefinitely, as it appears User:Kww almost did, because he's clearly not a useful contributor, and wastes an enormous amount of community time. But, of course, that's not going to happen, because the policy here is currently designed to accommodate people of his ilk. The process goes like this: Act like an ass, get blocked, grovel and lie, get unblocked ("Free and rehabilitated!"? ... how cute), act like an ass in the same manner you did before, get blocked, grovel and lie, get unblocked, repeat ad nauseum ... He can keep going as long as he wishes, because nobody is asking the question "When we unblock him, do we expect it to improve the state of the encyclopedia?"
Of course, I'm not saying that everyone who edit wars should be indef'ed immediately. A lot of good editors, including myself, have gotten into an edit war during their time here. Everybody makes mistakes, and I am very supportive of Wikipedia maintaining a policy of "forgive and forget" for people who have obviously just screwed up. But when people are repeatedly blocked for the same behavior, and repeatedly act obnoxious, and repeatedly fail to contribute quality content, and give no indication that they are going to change their behavior, then maybe we should ask the question: "What good are we doing for ourselves by unblocking this person?" Limiting ourselves to waiting for them to violate 3RR or call someone an " ugly little loser" is not helping. Those types of things are easy to skirt around, while still being able to prevent productive editors from getting work done.
By repeatedly unblocking him when it's clear that he still doesn't give a shit, and doesn't intend to behave differently, we're just training an obnoxious and completely useless editor to game the system more effectively. He might be stupid enough to have been blocked for 3RR 3 times, and maybe he's even stupid enough to go for a 4th. But eventually he'll learn to control himself enough to be able to stay active in the battlegrounds he's created. He will learn how to act like as much of a dick as possible, while managing to just barely avoid getting himself blocked. And then we'll be stuck with him. He'll become a permanently useless and disruptive editor. We'll get to endlessly waste our time dealing with him, and in return our readers will get biased, low-quality content (and less of it too, since we'll be hanging out with V7-sport on talk pages, rather than writing articles). I don't want to be around to deal with that; he's already drained enough of my time as it is. So, in effect, you're losing an editor has contributed an enormous amount of quality content, and you've held on to a nationalistic zealot who contributes rude, inane comments on talk pages, deletes reliably sourced content that doesn't fit his POV, and contributes little, if anything, of value. I'd love to hear how that's going to result in the creation of a decent encyclopedia. (And I'm still waiting for information about that article he's written).
I suggest that you all figure out some way to revise the blocking policy for chronic cases like V7-sport, because what we've got now is not working. Unlike him, I'm not here looking for a political forum. I'm here to write content. It's too draining for me to have to spend several hours a week dealing with a single non-productive, nationalist extremist, because the community is assuming a bit too much good faith, and letting him come back "into the fight", when it's quite clear that he doesn't give a shit about collaborating with other editors. I also think that it needs to be made clear that admins should take into account users' contributions when determining block-lengths and unblock decisions. If a user isn't contributing anything useful, then why do we want them to come back, even if they don't violate 3RR and just spend all of their time arguing? What are we trying to do here -- have an open political forum, or produce something useful?
If I can't spend the large majority of my time writing content, and spend my talk time collaborating with people, I don't want to be here. Until you all decide to fix this, you can all enjoy dealing with his shit yourselves. I'm done. V7-sport, you win. Wikipedia, you lose. -- Jrtayloriv ( talk) 12:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
In practice (and based on personal experience) when someone who has been repeatedly attacked or harassed finally makes an AN/I post, the individual(s) who have been attacking or harassing them will usually try to turn the AN/I discussion on the very person they've been targeting. (See Cyberstalking#Definitions "key factors") The effectiveness of this tactic depends on the initial AN/I statement, how the targeted individual has previously responded to attacks and harassment (ignoring and staying calm vs frustration, anger, etc), how much the issue has previously been known to other community members, and so on. One of the boilerplate ArbCom principles you often see is "Administrators should be sensitive in dealing with harassed editors who have themselves breached acceptable standards.", unfortunately this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
I can say from experience that simply making a statement on AN/I and providing a few diffs generally isn't enough to put a stop to attacks and harassment the first few times. In my case, after it got really bad, even trying to get ArbCom involved didn't help the first time around, and in the end, the community got involved and put a stop to it. Looking back over the material, it began on May 26, 2009 and was finally stopped on November 6, 2010, so it took place over roughly a year and a half (although it seemed like it was longer). In terms of how it played out as a whole, that isn't the way it is supposed to work at all, which is why I continue to push for change in this area. -- Tothwolf ( talk) 23:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
A variety of IP editors insists on adding a long list of nn people to the Fnatic article. I've tried removing all of the names which have no Wikipedia articles, and there aren't even any references to indicate that these people exist, let alone that they meet the requirements to be in a Wikipedia article. Am I wrong to remove these names, or should I start issuing BLP warnings to the editors who insist on re-adding the names? The Mark of the Beast ( talk) 18:49, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation, at the direction of the Board of Trustees, will be holding a vote to determine whether members of the community support the creation and usage of an opt-in personal image filter, which would allow readers to voluntarily screen particular types of images strictly for their own account.
Further details and educational materials will be available shortly. The referendum is scheduled for 12-27 August, 2011, and will be conducted on servers hosted by a neutral third party. Referendum details, officials, voting requirements, and supporting materials will be posted at m:Image filter referendum shortly.
For the coordinating committee,
Philippe
Cbrown1023
Risker
Mardetanha
PeterSymonds
Robert Harris
Cross posted by -- DQ (t) (e) 21:44, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
I've noticed that apparently Methodist churches are now to be put in the category for Lutheran churches... Being Jewish I must admit I'm not always up-to-date on the very multitude of different Christian denominations, but I must say I see this as being quite peculiar and think the community as a whole may want to discuss and possibly override the decision reached in a smaller venue. From what I was able to research quickly in the last 10 mins since discovering this anomaly Ive found that while several Methodist and Lutheran organizations have decided to recognize each other's communions etc, I have found that they are still separate and more importantly have different histories. Methodists are a branch broken from Episcopalian/Anglicanism and Lutherans are directly broken from Roman Catholicism (Martin Luther and his 99 theses). I see that they are not combined in form and that several of their joint "declarations" of working together are also joint declarations of working together signed by Catholics and Episcopalians/Anglicans. Nobody would say Episcopalians and Catholics have given up their independence. And I think putting Methodist Churches in the Lutheran category would create a problem with ex-Methodist Churches that are now historical sites, labelling them as Lutheran could be insulting and inflammatory. I dont know the reasoning behind "Methodists are Lutherans" but if there is a good reason how is it possibly in the best interest of Wikipedia to categorize Methodist churches as Lutheran churches? Camelbinky ( talk) 05:05, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
I have written a new essay related to the recent RfC and arbitration request on campaign for "santorum" neologism:
Editors are cordially invited to review or improve the essay, leave comments on its talk page, etc. Cheers, -- J N 466 15:18, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps it's unwise to base essays like this on single events. This one in particular seems too focused on the details of what happened in the one case rather than the general issue. Will Beback talk 22:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
It looks to me suspiciously like an example of what it is talking about. At the very least references to the specific example should be removed. Dmcq ( talk) 22:15, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I've rewritten the essay in line with comments above: [25]. Further input welcome. Cheers, -- J N 466 04:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
It's markedly not our job to fix Google's ranking of pages and topics. Googles algorithm is proprietary and very confidential. Nearly everything circulating about it is highly speculative and likely wrong. We should not try to second-guess them and to orient our policy to do what we think would change their results to what we think they should be. It's in Google's interest to provide their users with the best results. Unlike us, they have the know-how to achieve this. Let them do their job (being a useful search engine), and let us do our job (building a great encyclopedia). -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 18:05, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
A new discussion on wording changes to the current guideline to clarify the use of diacritics for subjects whose native names contain them has been initiated. It can be found at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)/Diacritics RfC Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:43, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
It seems to me that, while wikipedia is presented as the encycleopedia that anyone can edit, this is very misleading. It seems a lot more like an encycleopaedia which only experienced, well connected people who know all the tricks to keep their articles on and delete other people's can edit. And also, the rules are supposed to be all community driven and democratic, but democracy doesn't work when most people are wrong about something. It is the more experienced editors who know how to change things on wikipedia, and these are the people who the unfair, biased, current system benefits. I keep hearing the saying 'When in Rome, Do as the Romans'. I prefer the saying 'Be in the world, but not of the world'. Just because most people are wrong, that doesn't mean I should be wrong as well. It also seems that people on here enjoy deleting people's articles for fun, however much they may make excuss about 'official wikipedia rules'. so I think the whole sysem needs sorting out, but the chances are this will never happen, because of who gets to make the decisions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alicianpig ( talk • contribs) 12:42, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
In some way this is true. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a place where everybody can write whatever he or she wants to. In order for this to work, there have to be some rules, otherwise everybody would just make what he or she wanted to and no encyclopedia would be built.
Also, I think that I am also still a relatively new editor (I started editing in mid 2010). And I have made some mistakes since then. At the beginning, I really had no idea, where to look for anything I wanted to know (rules or policies for example). My experience is, it requires some time to be able to become a "well working editor". You can't expect to simply jump in and know all the nos and goes of Wikipedia. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes in good faith. I have also made a number of mistakes since I began editing here. I think you simply have to take Wikipedia a bit serious and you should always try to improve your knowledge of the working of Wikipedia. If you don't know how something works, don't just give up. If you really can't make sense of something yourself, you can always ask at WP:Help desk. Don't be afraid to ask question you think might sound silly, simply bring up what you have problems with, and try to behave as intended (eg try to avoid coming into the NOs part of Wikipea, such as Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not). For example, Wikipedia is not a democracy. And if there is anything you need help with, you can always ask me on my talk page. I simply try to be a helpful part of this community and while there are editors who bite other people or might seem unfriendly, there are also a lot of welcoming people on Wikipedia. I hope I am one of them. Cheers. Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 11:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who seemed to agree with me about the unfairness of the current wikipedia system with regards to the treatment of new editors. I think that if so many people disagree with the way more experienced editors aggressively treat newer ones, maybe it is time for this to be changed. Please leave your opinions about this below ( Alicianpig ( talk) 17:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
I'm not entirely sure this is relevant. However, deleting it would go entirely against what I'm trying to say. (even though your post was actually pointless, thanks for giving me an oppurtunity to make this point)( Alicianpig ( talk) 18:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
Beyond that, the problem with deletion continues to be the creation of articles that need to be deleted. I think we need to require sources before an article can be created, one for identifiability of the article name, and one for content. Also, the creator needs to place a rationale for creation to start the talk page. Another reasonable idea that was proposed was to require that a red link to the article exist before the article could be created. Yet another idea would be to start the article on the talk page, and it would require a second editor to actually create the article itself. Maybe it would make sense to start all articles in the incubator. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles goes in the right direction. Unscintillating ( talk) 03:00, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
"Change" is an attractive, but utterly meaningless term. Everyone can say "oh yes change is good" but what change? How can we avoid biting new editors and deleting their articles when a good number of those articles violate core Wikipedia tenets? Should we throw out notability requirements and let anyone post anything? Should we throw out Verifiability requirements, or allow only one self-published source to suffice for an article? Without doing both of those things the fact of the matter is a good chunk of new articles will be summarily deleted. I am all for changes but there are no CORE POLICY issues here. Except maybe us being less tolerant of incivility everywhere and much more liberal with indef. bans for incivility and personal attacks. now THAT is change I can support. HominidMachinae ( talk) 07:23, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Right yeah 'change' - are you actually suggesting something? Bob House 884 ( talk) 17:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm thinking about changing the rules so that it is not so easy to delete other people's articles and so the rules are less complicated (as this gives an advantage to experienced people who learn them). However, I'm interested to hear what other, possibly more experienced editors, have to say about this issue. Thanks for asking, I didn't make it very clear to start with. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 17:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
Oh. so it's bad doing that stuff, but it's ok to do vicious, underhand stuff as long as it fits in with the ridiculous rules on this website. It's ok to repeatedly come up with different excuses to delete someones website. It's ok to call someone a sockpuppeteer and a troll. It's ok to accuse them of breaking copyright laws with a photo they NEVER ACTUALLY ENDED UP PUTTING IN THEIR ARTICLE. I think I'm starting to get the idea. If you're an experienced editor who knows the tricks of the trade, sure, it's fine to do bad stuff, go ahead, as long as you keep within your own stupid rules. But a new editor doing what's necessary to fight his own against repeated harassment and aggression? Who could think such a ridiculous thing?.( Alicianpig ( talk) 18:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
Both, and more. Not just on a personal level, I do think that there needs to be a certain amount of help and protection for newcomers. However, I am also expressing a certain amount of anger about how I have been treated by certain editors so far, both with regards to my Whinge Wars article, and also to my suggestions of change. Thanks for asking. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 18:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
I agree with PrimeHunter here. I thought several other editors made this clear several threads above. Wikipedia is not intended as a substitute for the rest of the Internet, but rather it is a complement. This all concerns an article you created that was doing to be deleted regardless of how lax we would have been with the guidelines we have. Once again, it is (or was) not your article; once you hit that "Save page" button, it becomes the community's article and can be edited at will, within common sense and the basic rules we have. That is one of the most basic aspects of a wiki-editing environment (its communal nature), and editors who cannot understand that will likely not get along well here.
As far as the perceived harassment is concerned, we have several people who are trying to help you and trying to guide you in the correct direction, but, from what I have seen so far, you have not tried to follow our guidance. If you feel you have a problem with being harassed, then I suggest that you step back a bit and try to put things in perspective.
That being said, when I started here some 3 years ago, to me, it seemed like common sense that we try and build up articles whose content is verifiable, and that not everything under the sun is going to be included; otherwise, Wikipedia ceases to be what its primary purpose is – which is an encyclopedia. – MuZemike 21:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
That's what I'm trying to say. If the old rules are wrong, however 'fundamental' they may be, surely they need changing. Nothing is really ever going to be changed if no one is willing to do anything more than modify the most minute rules. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 06:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC))
Proposal: why don't we try and make sure that our rules and guidelines are written in a vocabulary that our younger editors can actually understand without having to have a dictionary on-hand while they read them? Young !=stupid. But it can very reasonably = reduced vocabulary. So, with rules and guidelines, the first one to follow is WP:KISS. This might not only solve quite a few problems, but actually encourage and retain the next generation of Wikipedians. If we can't make our rules easy to understand, then the fault lies with us, not with them. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 05:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Re-wording templates, rules, all-sorts.
Suggest adding a "The Simplest Explanation" sentence to the top of each rule page.
Example:
Simple stuff. Who do we have who's creative enough and interested enough to make this work? Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 06:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
This sounds like a very good idea. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 06:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC))
People who fall foul of the rules, either because they don't even know what they are, that the rules exist, etc., are our target-audience for the policy pages. In order to be able to understand what the policies actually mean, so that we can make sure they don't continue to fall foul of them, there has to be a dead-simple explanation which that target audience can understand. As we're for the main part likely to be talking about newbies, and often young newbies, it's therefore our responsibility to make sure that there's a jargon-free, readily-understandable 'simple concept' thing right near the top of the page. There's almost always a way of describing a concept so that a 12-year-old can at least understand what we mean by what we're saying; and if we write the entire page in language which is hard for them to understand, from start to finish, then we can hardly blame them for our failure to make it clear to them. It may be one's view that 12-year-olds shouldn't be trying to edit Wikipedia in the first place, or that 12-year-olds should come to us ready-equipped with an internal WikiJargon dictionary - but that's not what happens in real life. The target audience for policy pages is going to be precisely those people who don't yet know the rules or understand the jargon. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 10:35, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Can someone do this? I feel that the 'simplest explanation' thing should be in a box right under 'this page in a nutshell'. :o) Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 06:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
My concern is that at least the basics of each rule, the why and the how, must be able to be understood by the person we've just directed to the page, whoever they are. It seems unfair to expect people to abide by rules which we can't make really clear for them, and all of us should be able to word things in a way in which people don't have to be totally fluent in the jargon to understand. I hope this is clear :o) So, a summary which a 12-year-old can understand will help them not to fall foul of the rule. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 09:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
You don't have to get all the small details into a 'The simplest explanation sentence. You just have to get the general point across. for example 'don't take sides' doesn't give you an exact, detailed explanation of NPOV, but it gets the general sentiment across. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 12:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC))
If Nutshells are too complicated, re-write the "in a nutshell" section. but we are a grown-up encyclopedia not one for kids. That means we get into areas and issues that require complex policy to deal with. Some policies are easy to break down to a very simple sentence (WP:V "do not say anything you cannot prove" WP:RS "only use sources that you can trust to tell the truth") others are definitely not. The above example of WP:NPOV for instance is a great example. "don't take sides" isn't accurate, as has been pointed out. The simplest any explanation could be would be something like "keep the same ratio in our articles as the sources do. If a viewpoint is the majority, say so. If it is a significant minority, add it but keep the section small. If a viewpoint is a small minority, it is best left out unless the article is about that viewpoint specifically" HominidMachinae ( talk) 07:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Time and time again I have been drawn into conversations about the size of WikiProject United States I want to have a discussion about how big a project should be.
Should WikiProject's have a maximum size or scope? Should they be limited by the members in the project or have their scope dictated to them by others outside the project? and if the decision is that a project should not exceed a certain size, what if anything should be done, to reduce it? -- Kumioko ( talk) 02:21, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
In a similar sense than with content forks, the best approach may be to let the wikiproject grow, and if it gets too large, begin to create task forces for specific subtopics. In other cases, a certain group of articles with an overlapping project may be left to the other project, and the wikiproject tag may be simply removed: for example, most comics and videogames are from the US, so it may not be needed to include them within the WP:USA, even if the projects are not subprojects in a conceptual way.
In other cases, as in countries with few editors around, the best approach is the opposite, to group all articles within their single country wikiproject. Is there's a problem with an article of a comic book from Argentina, an Argentine editor, living in Argentina, with knowledge of Argentina or whatever would be more likely to be able to help than the average editor of wikiproject comics.
The hierarchy of categories must be precise, but the hierarchy of wikiprojects should be pragmatic and empirical. Cambalachero ( talk) 03:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Before we get any further, please note the following important definition:
WikiProject is not a bunch of pages, a set of categories, a subject, or a list of articles that those editors are interested in. A WikiProject is a group of editors.
This question, therefore, translates as "Should the community tell a group of editors who work together that they may not work together on more than a set number of articles?"
The answer, BTW, is in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide: "members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project....if a WikiProject says that an article is within their scope, then you may not force them to remove the banner." WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:51, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
WPUS is really not that large when you compare it to WikiProject Biography... 930,000 pages! - Mabeenot ( talk) 20:55, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Why would we limit our editors from collaborating in anyway? As noted on the Council-guide bot alerts notifications for deletion, RfC, disputed etc.. will be seen thus participated in by many projects and more editors. All this is a plus. Founding principle #4 say - creation of a welcoming and collegial editorial environment. Jimbo has stated in the past - Wikipedia's success to date is entirely a function of our open community'. So lets let our editors decide what they would like to collaborate on and in what way. Moxy ( talk) 21:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Is this question about wikiprojects in general, or about WP:USA in particular? If it is the later, discuss it at the project talk page, and if the inclusion of the banners does not have internal consensus, then they may be removed Cambalachero ( talk) 21:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I think I may see an underlying issue: some editors believe that wikiprojects " own" articles; that they can decide how articles should be structured or styled, with no regard to wider consensus or even policy. Nothing could be further from the truth Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:25, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
I think the long-term solution is to move WP into a " buddy system" ( WP:BUDDY) like with SCUBA divers who should never dive alone, so when it comes to new articles, then the buddies also can watch for speedies, or help improve articles, when others are on wikibreak or sleeping (see topic: " #Speedy deletion process broken"). Almost everyone on Earth sleeps at night, and so " night owls" are the rare exception, although many thousands of people work the graveyard shift. I'm advocating that WP be turned into "87" welcoming teams for new users, and now for new articles, where a welcoming team could be a buddy system for new articles, although any 2 or more people could use a buddy system. I cannot emphasize the number of times I have tried to collaborate with other editors, to establish a background for creating new articles, and I was accused of nefarious collusion, topic-banned 3 months ("92 days") for WP:CANVASing (because I notified 2 pro-article editors but only 1 anti-article), and recently smeared as being the " ringleader" of other editors whom I had contacted for advice. However, use of buddy-system groups (called " collaboration") is the logical future of WP, with more WikiProjects (as in WP:GOCE), and an editor can be in many buddy-system groups. Hence, we need WP:BUDDY, and few could claim "ringleader" when a person is following the tactics of WP:BUDDY to save articles from speedy or stop the WP:AfD rush-to-delete SNOW actions. Enough said: I think this is obvious to most. -- Wikid77 11:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (stand-alone lists) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive248#Request exemption of restrictions ΔT The only constant 02:23, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely no offense or bad faith assumed for any of the editors mentioned but I have to make this observation. Whinge wars was proposed and then nominated for deletion by an editor with the username "Steamroller Assault". I can't help but wonder what newbies think when they are warned/blocked by an admin named "Smashville" or even reverted by a bot called "Smackbot". I'll state again that I have no problem with any of these policy compliant usernames but I can see how some newbies might feel that they have been "steamrolled" "smashed" and "smacked". This was actually an issue in Snotty Wong's RFA. (another 100% policy compliant username). My advise to anybody with a username that suggests aggression is to take their usernames into consideration if they do anything, such as NPP/RC patrol, AFD nomming etc. which brings them into close contact with newbies. IMHO you have to be just a little more civil then the rest of us. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 14:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
All games are made up. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 12:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC))
We've moved on from that now. Let's not step backwards. Put down the swords and pick up the ploughshares, guys :o) Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 05:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Can somebody plese explain to me what we solved in this entire discussion?-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 00:59, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
This was a conflict of interest with me, the system is unfair sometimes and it can be bias. And from what I see, absolutly nothing has been solved. I hate to drag on something that someone out of nowhere said to be moved on, but this is something that really needs fixing, especially for newbies.-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 11:38, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
We did achieve something - an amendment to the nutshell box on WP:V. I'm hoping to get some similar minor improvements on understandability on some others, too; so not a total loss. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 09:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
(Steamroller Assault) The newbies is one example. If they post an article it's immediatly deleted, and if a user does not know the policy and he/she commits a bad edit, he/she is warned and eventully blocked. There needs to be a different and better way to deal with clueless newbies. As for being bias, the more experianced editors are ussaly put into consideration more and consulted more than the newbies, this esspecialy apllies with administators. No editor is over another editor regardless of what extra "buttons" thay have. And to call my statement unmeaningfull is another example of slight unfairness, anybody's statement should be put into consideration even if it is meaningless. This can also go with the IP users as well. Now if this statement is still considered unmeaningfull, then you need not reply at all.-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 21:49, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Do you have a suggestion on how that system could improve for new editors?
Possibly by teaching them better at the rules of wikipedia and creating an article. Just like TheParasite said earliar, For a newbie, it's bassicly like giving them a badge and a gun and sending them out in a perfect world of written laws. When I was a newbie(and I still considerably am) It was like that.
meningless statements carry zero weight
Not unless there completly meaningless, such as "this proposal is stupid".-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 01:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
I think all of this sounds like a good idea. However, I think that the actual rules need to be simpler, not just the way they are written. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 12:14, 6 July 2011 (UTC))
Wikipedia:WikiProject Firearms contains the project's guidelines, a certain portion of which appears to depart significantly from the spirit if not the wording of our core content policies. Namely, Wikipedia:GUNS#Criminal use says:
“ | In order for a criminal use to be notable enough for inclusion in the article on the gun used, it must meet some criteria. For instance, legislation being passed as a result of the gun's usage (ex. ban on mail-order of firearms after use of the Carcano in JFK's assassination would qualify). Similarly, if its notoriety greatly increased (ex. the Intratec TEC-DC9 became infamous as a direct result of Columbine). As per WP:UNDUE, editors "should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject". | ” |
The inclusion criteria of "legislation being passed as a result of the gun's usage" or "if [the gun's] notoriety greatly increased" strike me as completely arbitrary demands, which are --in actual practice-- being placed on the inclusion of any bit of information into any gun article.
And to top it off, there is the barefaced WP:NPOV quote, which actually prohibits precisely the kinds of arbitrary demands the WP:GUNS guideline makes, since WP:UNDUE works both ways: "treat[ing] each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject" means that notable and verifiable information should be included, just that it should be represented according to its relative importance and notability.
I'd like to put this up for debate with neutral, uninvolved editors (ie. not at WT:GUNS). Is such an arbitrary threshold compatible with the spirit and aims of Wikipedia? -- 87.78.52.92 ( talk) 12:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Ultimately, WikiProject 'guidelines' are useful but non-binding. WP:IAR aside, they cannot trump WP:NOTE and WP:V etc. ╟─ Treasury Tag► Tellers' wands─╢ 12:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
WP guidelines are somewhere between weak to non-existent regarding relevance and significance for inclusion of material into articles. (only a weak bit bit is available under wp:undue) Some of the projects try to make up for this by making their own rules, some of which go too far and/or arbitrary. I've seen this under other topics. In then end they have to be considered to be non-binding.
The solution is to make up some general guidelines regarding relevance and significance for inclusion into articles, only to be brought into play where there is some question or dispute beyond meeting the guideline.North8000 ( talk) 12:53, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I can't say I understand the issues here entirely, but I tagged the section with {{ WikiProject style advice}}, to clarify that it's not a site-wide "Guideline", in the usual Wikipedia sense of the word. Mlm42 ( talk) 21:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I have to say I see what they are trying to do here. If it were not for a guideline like this then gun articles would become POV battlegrounds as one side tries to put every time someone is killed by a gun into the gun's article and the gun manufacturer's article and everywhere else they could. The other side would want NO information that guns are ever used in crime on Wikipedia. I see the existing suggestion as an extension of WP:UNDUE. Sometimes a gun is notable for how it is used. The fact Dirty Harry carried a .44 magnum is notable, often-talked-about, ect. The fact that Machinegun Kelly got his name for his use of a Browning Automatic Rifle is notable. The fact that babyface Nelson used one as well is not. If a gun is widely vilified (the TEK-9, the MAC-10 and -11) for its criminal use that is notable. Trivia should be rooted out whenever found.
HominidMachinae (
talk) 08:51, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I read through about half of this, so this might have already been said, but 84.44.182.35 is blowing up a content dispute from one article into a crusade against the guideline itself. Frankly, that's inappropriate. I take issue with 84.44.182.35's tone as well. This isn't the proper place for this, the proper place for this is the talk page of the game, where normal consensus practice applies. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:57, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
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I would like to start a debate on redlinks in lists. The disapproval of redlinks in lists and dab pages was inserted with this edit into WP:REDLINK apparently without discussion and a rather misleading edit summary. The requirements for featured lists include both completeness and minimal redlinks. That is, some redlinks in a featured list are acceptable; kind of implying that a lesser list might have more redlinks. The redlink issue has been debated numerous times regarding FA and FL and still it remains in the requirements. The most extensive debate concerning FL I could find was Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria/Archive 2#RfC: Removal of minimal red link criteria in 5a. My reading here is that although controversial, redlinks in lists have consensus.
A list to my mind should be comprehensive, even if that means including redlinks. WP:N and WP:V apply to lists just as much as articles and they are sufficient reasons to remove entries which do not belong. Removing entries solely because they are redlinks is entirely wrong. Dab pages are different, but I think the guidelines at MOS:DAB have got it about right and WP:REDLINK should merely refer to the MoS rather than promulgating contradictory rules. So in short, my proposal for WP:REDLINK is to remove the special exception for lists and refer to MOS:DAB for dab pages. SpinningSpark 18:49, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
I mostly agree with WP:MOSDABRL, in that we have to have some criteria for why we deem a subject notable enough for a redlink. Mention and links in the English Wikipedia are a logical place to look for such justification. The one extension of this I've long wanted to see is to allow redlinks when foreign-language Wikipedias have encyclopedic treatment of subjects we still lack here. This comes up a lot in foreign literature, geography, etc. For one thing, templates like {{ ill}} and {{ ill2}} would allow us to point multi-lingual readers to articles on the subjects they want. (It's not that our average reader reads language X; it's that so many readers perusing "List of rivers in Brazil" or "Some Russian Name (disambiguation)" do!) Wareh ( talk) 15:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I’m delighted to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation has engaged Maggie Dennis ( User:Moonriddengirl on the English Wikipedia and elsewhere) to serve as our first Community Liaison. The Community Liaison role is envisioned to be a rotating assignment, filled by a new Wikimedian each year, half year or quarter. One of Maggie’s responsibilities is to begin to lay out a process for how this rotating posting would work.
Maggie has been a contributor to the projects since 2007 and is an administrator on the English Wikipedia and an OTRS volunteer. She has over 100,000 edits, including edits to 40 of the language versions of our projects. Her broad experience and knowledge made her a natural fit for this role.
This role is a response to requests from community members who have sometimes felt they didn’t know who to ask about something or weren’t sure the right person to go through to bring up a suggestion or issue. Her initial thrust will be to create systems so that every contributor to the projects has a way to reach the Foundation if they wish and to make sure that the Foundation effectively connects the right resources with people who contact us. If you aren’t sure who to call, Maggie will help you. Obviously, most community members will never need this communications channel - they’re happy editing, doing the things that make the projects great - but we want to make it as easy as possible for people to communicate with the Foundation.
The job of the liaison will have two major parts. First are standard duties that every liaison will perform which may include maintaining a FAQ about what each department does, making sure that inquiries from email or mailing lists are brought to the attention of appropriate staff members, etc. However, we also want liaisons to be free to pursue unique projects suited to their particular skill sets. Maggie will develop such projects in the coming weeks.
Maggie will be on the projects as User:Mdennis (WMF) and can be reached at mdenniswikimedia.org. Her initial appointment runs for six months. I look forward to working with Maggie in this new role!
Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation ( talk) 21:51, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Asking for community input on the use of news leaks in Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#Leaks patsw ( talk) 23:59, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Is the message If you are undoing an edit that is not vandalism, explain the reason in the edit summary. Do not use the default message only a suggestion or policy ? Gnevin ( talk) 12:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm in the process of compiling my own Voter Guide and could use more input.
-- Alecmconroy ( talk) 10:58, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
How do you think we should improve this matter? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
SuperX9 (
talk •
contribs) 04:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
( association football, that is)
There is a discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#Live scores issue again regarding whether it is appropriate to add football scores during a match. It would be helpful if others could contribute to the discussion. Thanks, Chzz ► 22:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
I was surprised to see that a redirect, cellar spider, had been locked. Is there a policy on this? (I didn't find one.) The basis given in this case, "no reason to move or edit redirect without discussion," seems understandable but subjectively applicable to an endless number of redirects and, I would say, counter to Wikipedia's spirit and best interest. Certainly WP:BOLD and WP:IGNORE. What's the story? Is this case a relic/anomoly? ENeville ( talk) 03:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Must images of historical importance be "subjects of commentary" before we can use them under a claim of fair use? See RfC here. Input from uninvolved editors would be particularly appreciated. SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 05:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Is there a page/discussion on Wikipedia that deals with the issue of companies selling books based on Wikipedia articles e.g. [2] Thanks. Eldumpo ( talk) 20:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Agree with the above. Why does Wikipedia want to enable profits for these shoddy companies. Couldn't it all be avoided by stating that you can freely use/distribute it, but not for commerical purposes. Eldumpo ( talk) 16:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
While it is permitted, one thing that bothers me is that these books are listed at online book retailers without any indication of the nature of the book. For example, check out this "book" selling on Amazon for $116.98 (and up) that I wrote probably about 80% of: [4]. There's nothing on the page to indicate that it's all Wikipedia content. Just about no one would buy this if they understood what it was. By the same token, I'm sure just about everyone who buys it feels very ripped off once they crack the cover, and some may blame Wikipedia despite the unfairness of that. Maybe we can somehow influence the big sellers into instituting a policy of disclosure on their sites when acting as the intermediary for such manuscripts?-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 04:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
I can't imagine that if the project knew that this was being done in the manner it is being done, there wouldn't be a move to amend the license. I would suggest that we stipulate that any commercial work comprised in part or in whole of Wikipedia article(s) as content (as opposed to, they're presenting a selection of articles in totem and they then analyze or review the benefits and drawbacks of the phenomenon of user-generated content, or they're quoting Wikipedia coverage of a subject among other sources), must indicate this fact in the subtitle of the work and at point of sale. How can a buyer beware if sales happen sight-unseen over the internet and we are abetting such highway robbery by allowing our content to be repackaged wholesale (as in its entirety, not as in discount from retail) for profit?
Upon the death of Farrah Fawcett, I was casting about for material commemorating her life and career. I did a good deal of work at Farrah Fawcett before and after her death, and when I discovered that a new book with the working title The Accomplishments of Farrah Fawcett was available for pre-order at Amazon.com, I thought, "what an odd title," but I put it in my watchlist. When the cover art was finally published, my suspicions were confirmed. Two-bit graphics and the only attribution on the cover was "The Editors". Sample pages showed cut-and-pasted refs (replete with blue type where the links were) from the Wikipedia bio I'd been working on. http://www.amazon.com/Accomplishments-Farrah-Fawcett-Editors/dp/1448630169/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306394782&sr=1-13 That title is now out of print, replaced by "Farrah Fawcett and Charlie's Angels" http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1448644313/ref=si_aps_sup?p=random&ie=UTF8&qid=1306393505, which is the same bio appended with the Wiki bios of some of the notables she portrayed in TV films and, I suppose, the series article and bios on the other Angels. As bad as it was that such an incomplete and skewed bio was up there representing her life and career for free on Wikipedia, I was repulsed to learn that someone would sell such a half-baked product and without any indication of the source of the material. No place on the depicted covers, on their Amazon pages, or in the sample pages available for view, does it attribute the authorship or origin of this material. This is a scam, it reflects poorly on Wikipedia, and it's apparently not isolated to one publisher—the "Emporium Books" the OP notes is nowhere to be found on these pages, the covers or the sample pages. These are attributed in the Amazon Product Details section to "CreateSpace". Yet CreateSpace isn't searchable, only the author is searchable. The author for the "Accomplishments" was "The Editors", which is ambiguous enough to bring up hundreds of thousands of hits including credible sources, which is misleading. The author for the second version is listed as "Old School Cinema", but this is the only title linked to that author name. (Adding insult to injury, someone is selling this thing used for $19.99.)
Again, this isn't like, "hey, I want my cut of the $19.99." It's, "hey, I feel partly responsible for everyone who paid $19.99." Or worse, over $110! I'm not saying they should be prevented from offering this work for sale, and I'm not saying that free mirror sites should be forced to attribute the work, I'm saying that someone republishing this for commercial sale should be required to indicate on the cover and at point of sale (the description they provide to Amazon, for example) that the material was previously published, and by Wikipedia. Abrazame ( talk) 07:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Collectively, Wikipedians buy a lot of books. My guess is that making it clear to e-retaillers (
Amazon.com,
Barnes & Noble,
Alibris, and such) that we find it offensive would be helpful. Most of these retaillers have websites that accept reviews, we could simply (even automagically) submit reviews that disclose the publisher's practice when one of these is found. Of course, they'd get zero star ratings too. Note too that we should have {{
Backwardscopy}}
on the article talkpages.
LeadSongDog
come howl! 16:38, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for all the posts on this topic. It seems it is a concern for others as well. Has anyone got a copy of one of these books so they could scan a page so we can get a fuller understanding of what is included from the Wikipedia article. In particular I'm wondering how they deal with referencing. Presumably they just cut out the references and external links sections, and the in-line citations? Does that mean that if any of the Wiki articles they use were themselves effectively direct copies from another source, then they are liable for copyright breach from the original source? Eldumpo ( talk) 10:40, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
so what happens if one of these "publishers" grabs a copy of an article at a time when the article contains inappropriate cut and paste copyrighted content? Active Banana (bananaphone 05:36, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I ask because an ongoing dispute on the talk page for an article about an Australian politician seems to indicate that some editors believe that Australian censorship law should take precedence over the inclusion of reliably sourced from several national newspapers describing how that politician has been charged with child pornography offenses and suspended from his party. Edit-warring to exclude this information from the article has been ongoing for more than a month, with absurd claims that even linking to said reliable sources is unacceptable. Nevard ( talk) 08:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
The current written arbitration policy dates from 2004 and much has evolved since then. It has been extensively reviewed over the last two years, with a series of wide-ranging community consultations. A proposed update has now been posted and is awaiting community ratification. All editors are cordially invited to participate in the ratification process, which is now open. Roger Davies talk 23:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
There has been a lot of confusion over what IMHO should be a relatively uncontroversial exertion of wise editorial policy such that proscribed "hate speech" type language, ie., certain highly derogatory slang words, be subjected to a simple naming convention. Surprisingly, some editors fail to distinguish a naming convention from outright censorship and as a result the culpable articles remain, alienating faculty and students around the world.
Specifically, article titles about words such as ch*nk, in the derogatory slang sense of "Chinese-descended person" would be better put as "Ch*mk (Slang, prejudicial) or something like that.
What should be a no-brainer has become a twisted pretzel argument. Please think this through - there is no censorship impliced. And articles about mere words don't really belong here in the first place, they are dictionary words to begin with.
Discussion is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chink#The_proposal_as_it_now_stands Bard गीता 02:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
A draft of how to run the trial is now located here. Crossposting from WP:VPR. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 16:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I've written a proposed policy to use pending changes level two protection on certain articles with a history of BLP problems for which semi-protection is inadequate. Comments are welcome. Chester Markel ( talk) 18:33, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I would like to request some eyes on WP:VIDEOLINK. The initial reasoning for starting the essay was because I saw a gap in how YouTube links are handled. Both guidelines and policies still fail to address how YouTube is used as a source. The essay has been sitting at mid-impact for several months. I have even seen others pointing to it in discussions. I would love some copyediting. I also want to ensure that it is completely inline with precedent. Cptnono ( talk) 05:56, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi everyone -
WMF's fundraiser team will be testing our banner, landing page and analytics systems this week (starting today). This is the first time we're turning on our systems since last year's fundraiser -- so we want to work out any bugs that crawled in first before getting others involved. Banners will appear for about 30-60 minutes per country in 15 to 20 countries (a couple a day). A few will be the Jimmy banners with pictures but most will be more subtle.
We test before the fundraiser starts so that staff are well trained and systems function well during the fundraiser. This year, we're training more people to code banners and landing pages than last year so that we can help chapters and other country and language communities do better testing.
I'm going to update this thread each day with the countries we'll be testing on so that people have a heads up but if you have any questions please let us know. All banners will be anonymous only and short term.
Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Team
As an update for Friday. Our plan is to test banners in a bunch of countries including larger ones. Currently planned for about 1 hour in the Morning US Pacific time: Unites States, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Greece and Singapore. Jalexander--WMF 08:24, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
The straw poll regarding disambiguation links in maintenance lists of mathematics articles is scheduled to close in about three hours. Speak now or - well, you know the rest. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:41, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I've set up an RfC WT:No original research#RfC: Are_maps in general secondary sources?. Sounds like we should soon have hundreds of thousands of new things to write about :) Dmcq ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:20, 4 June 2011 (UTC).
What are policies on images describing a fictional character played by an actor requiring no special costume or prosthetics? For example, Jack Bauer has the exact same face as Kiefer Sutherland. Surely that would count as replacable? Or is the fact that Kiefer Sutherland not playing Jack Bauer in File:Kiefer Sutherland 2008.jpg make this an unacceptable image for the article? I can somewhat understand a case like Spock, because he has stylized ears/eyebrows/uniform, and so looks very distinct from Leonard Nimoy. Regular human actors playing regular human characters should fall under the same umbrella as photos of living celebrities. If you want to know what Jack Bauer looks like, I'm pretty sure a picture of Kiefer will do the trick (just imagine a gun and a lack of sleep). I'm wondering because I came across File:Rhys Williams (Torchwood).jpg being used for Rhys Williams, and I tagged it invalid non-free, before realizing it was also used in the character article. But surely it is still invalid, as there is no visible distinction between character and actor? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:File mover ( | 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, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:File mover ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Interested people may wish to see Wikipedia talk:Edit warring#RfC on proposed new 3RR exemption. Well, interested people obviously will wish to see it, but you know what I mean... :) ╟─ Treasury Tag► Acting Returning Officer─╢ 10:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
There are only a few days left in the election-- could anyone provide advice or endorsements for voters who are short on time?? Please share the people you like, and add a link to it on Meta:Template:Board elections 2011 infobox. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 02:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
The current written arbitration policy dates from 2004 and much has evolved since then. The policy has been extensively reviewed over the last two years, with a series of wide-ranging community consultations, to bring the written document up to date. The proposed update is posted and is undergoing community ratification, which is due to close on 13 June 2011. All editors are cordially invited to participate in the ratification process. Roger Davies talk 06:02, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
I have started this RfC to determine whether or not the Romanization of Russian guideline actually reflects consensus. Comments there would be greatly appreciated; thanks. Mlm42 ( talk) 17:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
There is a proposal to change the first sentence of wp:ver at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Proposal for a change in the first sentence. Your input is requested. Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 22:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
For particular cases in Singapore (and I imagine elsewhere where press freedom or journalist access is an issue, such as war-torn zones or countries affected by the Arab Spring), opposition viewpoints, whose American equivalents would be well-sourced in the press, are forced to turn to self-published sources. For this reason they make weak sources individually. Suppose however, you aggregate them -- and critically, you corroborate them to sources with opposing points of view -- perhaps in the most clear-cut case, a reliable one, or an "official statement" from a reliable source known to have a bias Straits Times, People's Daily, etc. If you find that the official statement corroborates certain facts with the opposition media's own statements. Some of these sources also publish cases of investigative journalism that are remarked on passingly in the international press but are furiously reported by domestic opposition sources (and by writers with a reputation, but are forced to stay anonymous).
I believe in these cases, on a case by case basis, arrangements should be made to permit them as reliable sources, based on the low likelihood of fabrication, widespread corroboration and so forth. There are often details that are likely to be true, but they are not reported in government media and are not mentioned in the international press (for reasons of brevity and audience, not significance). In these cases (repressed countries all over the world), it's as though opposition media (examples include The Online Citizen and Temasek Review) have to wait helplessly on the international press (The Economist et al) to pick one of the many issues, sourced from them, to report on. We note that the Washington Post can use undisclosed sources that we can't verify for ourselves, but based on reputation as a professional organisation their report is classified as reliable. Yet, opposition press which chances upon a key piece of government material or policy (and publishes it -- or it was public to begin with) -- because they are not professional (i.e. sold for money) they are not classed as reliable. But if an alternative or opposition news commentary organisation a) receives donations from the public b) is in fact acknowledged and actively rebutted by the mainstream press c) is by common sense rules, written professionally, critically, and well-sourced (even if it uses primary sources and primary analysis), their insertion still faces opposition and reversion by people who claim, OMG IT'S A BLOG.
My main concern is that many government sources (esp. that of governments with poor press freedom) around the world, known to have a certain bias, enjoy an unfair reputation over opposition media, even when a) the citizenry sometimes trusts the opposition media more b) certain portions of the opposition media are by common sense definition respectable sources, they are just not sold on the street or sold online (though they receive donations) for fear of persecution or because activist dissemination is their model. Shouldn't on a case by case basis, these sources be permitted, if a persuasive argument can be made? Elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( be free) 05:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
This template is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 June 11 used in 250,000 articles. Completely contradicts MOS:FLAG which individuals use as a policy. Either we accept flags in articles and infoboxes or we don't. Personally I do not care either way, but this is a double standard wherever I look.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
I recently asked about a page (a redirect) locking out changes by registered editors.
I now see that Wikipedia:Article titles is locking out changes by registered editors, and without apparent notification even as by an icon (that I'm seeing), only by an absence of an "Edit this page" link. My original concern returns that such inaccessibility is counter to the foundations and future of Wikipedia. When, how, and by whom was this pro tem version approved? What notification of this impending settling was given? Why does no lock icon display on this page as for Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which has also been locked but at least shows a tag that such is not an endorsement of current text?
Please understand my alarm, as the apparent extent of this matter is new to me, and strikes me as a major issue. ENeville ( talk) 19:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Notability guide#Essay to Guideline. RightCowLeftCoast ( talk) 21:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC) (Using {{ pls}})
When linking a location, which method do you prefer?
Example location text: Princeton, New Jersey
Option 1: Link both Princeton and New Jersey separately, so that the wikitext looks like [[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]], [[New Jersey]]
Option 2: Link only Princeton, New Jersey directly, so that the wikitext looks like [[Princeton, New Jersey]]
I realize that there can be other issues (including United States, for example), but if we could limit support/oppose and discussion to just this one area for now, I think that would be informative. Thank you in advance,
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs) 20:20, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
It is currently 10:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC) , voting closes at 23:59 UTC, so just hours after this post. If you want to vote, please do so. Additionally, there's been an on-going discussion about a recommendation for voting to be extended to give people more time, opinions welcome. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 10:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations in Poland) ( | 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, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Should the policy on living people, WP:BLP, be clarified to allow off-hand criticism of living people on Talk pages?
Currently, there is some dissent about an editor saying something like " Kim Jong-il is corrupt." or "Bill O'Reilly is a pathetic excuse for journalist." on a Talk page. Some people, perhaps a majority, think it is a blockable offense. Others think it is not. Some think WP:BLP clearly prohibits even casual criticism of living people in random conversation, others do not.
The relevant policy excerpt re non-article space is "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices, should be removed..." [12].
A few points...
Feel like voting? Support = allow minor or off-hand criticism of living people in non-article space, as long as it is not defamation. Oppose = editors should never be alllowed to criticize a living person, unless directly related to work on an article. Mindbunny ( talk) 17:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
What is the problem this is trying to solve? Seems to me that we haven't had a spate of people being blocked for posting "I don't particularly like George Bush" or "My own opinion is that Obama is the worst president ever". There is a danger that any loosening of the policy will move us towards being a forum, and we do have an issue with that. So, what's the real, practical, gain? As long as admins use common sense and don't go jumping on harmless (but off-topic) asides in userspace, I'm not seeing it. Any user who is deliberately wanting to create a policy space to allow an increase in people posting opinions on living people, is heading in the wrong direction. Don't jump on people for slightly off-topic opining but, on the other hand, don't encourage it either.-- Scott Mac 20:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Of course, the question isn't whether we are allowed to libel anyone. That's non-negotiable. Libel/defamation/slander refer to factual claims, or opinions with factual implications. "Bill O'Reilly is a crappy journalist" does not claim or imply a fact. This topic is about statements of opinion. Such opinions may not be useful to improving Wikipedia, that doesn't mean anything should be banned (see point about WP:FORUM above). All sorts of off-hand comments are allowed, even though they aren't particularly useful. In my view, this is mostly about recognizing the nature of any social enterprise: people share ideas, opinions, pictures of their pet cats, and so on. As long as the place doesn't become a forum for such things, they should be allowed. You can have a picture of your cat on your desk at work, even though work is not a forum for pictures of your cat. You can discuss your cat at the water cooler. And so on. The question is merely whether opinions about living people (such as mine that Bill O'Reilly is a jerk) fall into the same category. (Also, this isn't just about Article/Talk, it concerns any non-article space including your own Talk page, RFCs, and so on.)
Mindbunny (
talk) 20:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Be aware Mindbunny is over at BLPNB arguing exactly the opposite ( Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#User:SlimVirgin/Poetgate). There he is arguing that remarks about other users in userspace ARE serious BLP violations . You are being played. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott MacDonald ( talk • contribs) 23:58, 1 June 2011
Among explicit votes, I see 5 supports and 1 oppose. Inferring what seems like the obvious, I see 6 supports (add Blade of Northern Lights) and 2 opposes (add Off2riorob), So, let's work on specific wording to add to WP:BLP. For starters, I propose something like:
I think some background is missing here. This entire discussion is a virtually pointless waste of time, arising following a recent request for arbitration in which Mindbunny came very close to being topic-banned from commenting about any living person across the whole project—a proposal I may renew if he wastes much more of the community's time in this vein. There is no real dispute or controversy that exists concerning "offhand comments about living persons on talkpages"; this is an entirely made-up pseudo-controversy, which is distracting attention from serious BLP issues of an entirely greater nature. I object to any modification of the policy as a result of this inanely-motivated discussion. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 20:02, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
The idea is a non-starter, goes against the ideals of our core policies and whoever came up with or supported such a thing should receive the mother of all troutings :) If someone is expressly making statements about their views on living person on talk pages they should be encouraged to find something constructive to do. And individuals personal view is, fairly obviously, fringe - and self-published. If that view is negative it is a BLP issue, if it is glowing then it is a BLP/NPOV/SOAPBOX issue. And should be dealt with accordingly. If an editor fails to understand why they should focus on content and quit telling everyone how great/bad X is - and continues to say these things - they should be blocked for WP:POINT violations. This is just forum shopping of a new form of that POINT violation which you were blocked for Mindbunny. -- Errant ( chat!) 20:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
Thinking more about ErrantX's concern about WP:CREEP.... it occurs to me that no new wording needs to be added. The existing wording, in the section on non-article space, can just be fine tuned. Currently it reads "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices, should be removed..." Really, the hub of the issue is "contentious." Anytime the basis for removing something is that it is controversial, there are going to be problems of censorship. The mere expression of a contentious opinion shouldn't be a basis for blocking anything. So, maybe this is a simpler solution:
This is already in the non-article space section, on the BLP page, so I don't think those specifics need to be in the wording. This is a rough draft. Please contribute constructively, such as by suggesting improvements.... Mindbunny ( talk) 15:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Even though I know the support/oppose votings already over, I would just like to say that I think this is a misuse of talk pages. Talk pages should be used for idea's of improvement or suggestions for the article, not to express one's opinion on the person or subject. Sorry, I just had to get that out, continue on.-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 01:36, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi, can someone advise me what is the best way to prevent an AfD discussion from being pulled off-track by several experienced editors tag-teaming to inundate it with ADHOM/ NOREASON votes? Thanks. ╟─ Treasury Tag► without portfolio─╢ 20:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
[...]
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.
If you have a view on flags in infoboxes you may be interested in the discussion Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (icons)#Infobox flags here. -- Bermicourt ( talk) 06:26, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Recommendation: - I would like to suggest rewriting the citation template documentation (such as {{
Cite Web}}
) into a central consolidated document.
Problem description: - Currently each template has its own documentation page which means that whenever a change is made to one of the core templates we need to modify each and every one of the others. What this has led to is the documentation for each of the templates to be out of sync with the actual code and with the other associated templates. This means essentially that there are parameters missing from the documentation of each template, the verbiage differs between templates, some have documentation for parameters that were eliminated but the verbiage remains, etc.
Solution: - Because the functionality of the tempaltes is virtually the same (Most look like Cite X, X being the template extension) it should be fairly easy to write the document in a general way that covers most or all of these templates. This will allow 1 change to be made to the documentation rather than changing them all, or, rather, not changing them all.
I also believe this will simplify the instructions for users of the templates, will clarify the meaning and language of what each parameter does and generally make it easier to update and use these templates.
I would also create a sortable wikitable of all the parameters and which is used in what template.
I believe I can start the writing process but as its been pointed out to me in the past my grammer and punctuation are not as good as others no doubt due in part to the lacking American educational system (just joking don't take offense) so I would need others to proof read and help out. Does anyone have any comments on this proposal. -- Kumioko ( talk) 14:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Category:Living people currently contains 526,970 pages. Three of these are not biographies, but lists:
While these lists do concern living people, this category is something of a special case with respect to categorization rules. The category description page states:
Should these articles be in this category? If so, what should determine whether list articles are so categorized? (There are, of course, many more lists of living people than these three). Gurch ( talk) 16:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
{{
BLP}}
is a talk page template, and adds the talk page to
Category:Biography articles of living people. This is separate from
Category:Living people, which goes on the article.
Category:Biography articles of living people is more broad in its scope – its description states it is for "the talk pages of articles which relate to living persons", rather than specifically for individual biographies.{{
BLP}}
itself is inherently somewhat arbitrary in its application; "This article and talk page must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons" is a statement that is true wherever the template is placed; we merely choose to reiterate that fact on biographical talk pages.
Gurch (
talk) 20:56, 16 June 2011 (UTC)I'm looking at List of Guatemalans, which lists people with [[First name Last name|Last name, First name]] syntax. I want to remove the pipes, but can't find policy that states this is proper procedure. Anyone know where it is? Thanks, -- JaGa talk 17:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
There is a term which frequently pops up in biographical info boxes that does not seem to have a consistent meaning; 'years active'. For some individuals the term seems to refer to the years during which they worked; Betty White's "years active" are 1939-present, because she got her first job in 1939. In other articles, the term refers to the years during which they worked at whatever made them famous; Bob Barker's years active are 1956-2007 because that is the period during which he hosted game shows, even though he had worked at radio stations during the 1940s and has continued to appear frequently since 2007 as guest hosts at different events. There are more examples that are even more ridiculous, but I simply cant recall any at the moment. I'm sure you've seen them, though. I'm wondering if there is any 'official’ interpretation of the term, and if there's not, I suggest that one be formulated. theBOBbobato ( talk) 19:22, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
I've seen enough cases where this has happened to warrant my suggesting it... should we have a speedy deletion criterion for unreferenced articles created in a foreign language that have no equivalent in another language Wikipedia? There's no real reason why an unreferenced stub in a foreign language should be sitting around with a PROD tag on for 7 days or go to an AfD debate. If the subject is notable enough, someone will eventually start an article about it in English. XXX antiuser eh? 07:27, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
{{
not English}}
to the article brings this to the attention to people who might do that sort of thing; in practise,
pages needing translation into English isn't that active. They should at least be given a chance to, though, so I don't think speedy deletion is a good idea.
Gurch (
talk) 10:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Given that any newbie can slop a speedy delete tag on any wikipedia article there is something very wrong if experienced editors like myself here can't be trusted to remove clearly invalid speedy deletion tags to articles, especially after they have made improvements to it. It is extremely irritating to remove invalid tags [placed by inexperienced or disinterested individuals and then be instantly reverted by a bot and drilled a warning. Can we PLEASE change this speedy deletion tag to exclude the experienced editors here with privelages, much like rollbacking and auto new page patrol. We should be trusted to know when articles meet speedy criteria or not, even our own articles. This is potentially damaging as any admin could accept speedy delete tags and delete content which could be easily improved and the speedy tag removed. Vandals can do this to any article and the experienced editors here cannot revert their speedy tagging if it is their own article which is wrong.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I can't as I've worked with so many articles, but I do know admins have been warned in the past for deleting articles which were sloppily speedy tagged and they didn't even look into them before deleting them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
There was a recent discussion on whether/how to deal with publishers that sell repackaged Wikipedia content as what appears to be original work. A similar discussion has begun at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#LivingBot where it was pointed out that Amazon is starting to acknowledge the problem and that the number of such titles is in the hundreds of thousands. In the previous discussion, User:Spinningspark suggesting adding reviews for these books on Google and Amazon so people will have fair warning before they buy. I'd like to suggest a boilerplate review, possibly to be attached to Wikipedia:Buying Wikipedia articles in print or another form. This would allow people to copy and paste rather than write they're own, which should be a big time saver if this is to be done many times. It would also save on possible blow-back if the language is reviewed for legal implications. As a first pass, I'm proposing:
This book seems to consist of repackaged free content from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org). Wikipedia content can be purchased in hard copy form from Pedia Press ( http://pediapress.com), some of proceeds of which will support the Wikimedia Foundation.
-- RDBury ( talk) 16:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
While there is an RfC and it's on WP:CENT I was a bit surprised a vote was on-going here and I thought it might be of interest to those who follow this noticeboard. Hobit ( talk) 08:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I've started a disucssion on linking to OpenCorporates, following an approach they've made to Wikipedia. Please feel free to comment there. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:02, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I noticed that some articles have been getting nominated more than ten to even twenty times, such as the Gay Nigger Association of America, and the article of now-defunct Encyclopedia Dramatica. I thought a question should be asked to the community of Wikipedia on how many times an article should be allowed to go through deletion, and if possible, should it be limited to a set amount? Rain bow Dash 14:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest, instead, that an unsuccessful XfD should preclude another XfD for a reasonable period, say a minimum of six months between bites of the apple. Right now, sometimes the very week an XfD has been closed, another nomination for deletion is made, or a discussion arguning for such is made on the article talk page. This verges on gameplaying at that point. Collect ( talk) 18:45, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
Isn't this already covered by Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing#Refusal_to_.22get_the_point.22? The GNAA didn't satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines until the At&T Email leak, so it was the 18th AfD that finally fulfilled what the AfD was meant for, and it was the 12th DRV that finally fulfilled what DRV was meant for. As I'm said in the last GNAA DRV, some of discussion were started by trolls wishing to heighten GNAA's AfD high score rather than "haters", and the haters in opposition were correct about the GNAA's lack of notability until about a year ago. It also took many discussions for the community to realize that Daniel Brandt wasn't notable. Somethings, the community is too stubborn to admit that it's wrong, so repeating discussions in order reaffirm or overturn the previous consensus isn't such a good thing. Wikipedia needs to be open to new discussions. There's a chance that a group of users may try to continuously create new AfD in hopes that the community will eventually lose the willpower to combat them, but that's why we have closing admins who could see through these attempts. Disruptive users may also be warned or blocked. -- Michaeldsuarez ( talk) 14:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
If this was ever to be implemented, it would have to be limited to good faith nominations. Without that caveat it would be quite possible for someone to nominate an article for deletion several times, withdraw the nomination quickly each time, and reach the limit so it couldn't be nominated again, thereby removing any possibility of it being deleted even if it deserves to be. Alzarian16 ( talk) 15:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I have at various times proposed rules, but in practice, it does depend on the details, and I would not like to try to solve any general problem using GNAA as an example. I think we are in general getting more reasonable about this--there is much less repeated abusive nomination going on than there used to be 3 years ago when I first discovered AfD process. I've also seen objections to renominations after repeated non-consensus, and this is a very different matter than if after repeated keeps. If there's no consensus we need to admit it, and see if we can get it a little later. My suggestion was 3 to 6 months after a keep,doubling after each successive keep, with anything need to be done quicker being approved by deletion review. There is sometimes a need to quickly revisit a keep that was anomalous. What I think we really need, is some way to equally easily review a deletion. DGG ( talk ) 00:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
I understand concerns about rules creep but conversely does anyone have a valid example of where more than 5 nominations was ANYTHING BUT an attempt to do by brute force what could not be done by consensus? I am entirely in favor of both a hard cap on the number of tries (remember notability is not temporary, but a page's defenders may move on as time goes by) and a hard limit on renomination after a valid consensus close. HominidMachinae ( talk) 06:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Is it written for the worlds population at large? Or just the part of it that regularly visits Wikipedia? I can't find a policy for this. It should have an impact on every other policy. You can't really talk about neural points of view or global styles unless you know which part of the worlds population you're talking about when you say global. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.121.68.1 ( talk) 10:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Editors may be interested in revisiting this RFC, now that there is discussion of its implementation:
Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?
It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. Noetica Tea? 00:56, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Should the random article function be redefined to link to stubs or disambiguation pages?
What is the purpose of the "Random article" function? Is there an intention that it cause users to expand stubs, or just to read interesting articles? If the latter, then most stubs aren't enough to be interesting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.171.128 ( talk) 06:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
IMO it should be what it says it is. And there is no one pre-defined purpose. Different users can each have their own purpose for using it. North8000 ( talk) 13:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Did you know that the random function can also be applied to other namespaces? See here. Trouble is, for some of the namespaces, you mostly hit archived discussions or other subpages (I'd love it if there was the option to ignore subpages). I think I once worked out how to generate random hits on AfDs (see here), which was pretty pointless as well, but fun for about 30 seconds... The most disconcerting thing about the random function is that Wikipedia is so large that it is likely that any page you visit and think ("Ooh, that looks interesting, I'll read that later"), you will likely never visit or see again (unless you preserve your browser history or make a note of the article). Carcharoth ( talk) 14:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. state and territory highways) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Hello,
I was wondering whether there was a policy on example code in articles. Specifically, does uncited example code (such as that in cycle detection) constitute original research? As well, if it is cited, what license must the code be released under to be acceptable for use on Wikipedia?
Thank you. InverseHypercube 20:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian ( | 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, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been asked before, somewhere. But I don't notice links to a person's (or entity's) Facebook page in the same way that I know a link to a person's website is permitted, and indeed encouraged. Is there a usage policy on this? Is it encouraged or discouraged or not permitted? JohnClarknew ( talk) 15:41, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
I bring up Oprah Winfrey's page, as an example. I see a link to her at Twitter and YouTube. I don't see a way to find her instantly on Facebook. And Facebook pages are not necessarily self-published. And (permitted) Websites obviously are! What would it add, really? Information. Information. Information. That's what an Encyclopedia is supposed to do, isn't it? JohnClarknew ( talk) 05:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
You: Bite 22:32, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian ( | 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, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I've been here for a long time. I've improved hundreds of articles ranging from rattlesnakes, to aristolochic acid to the Bataan Death March to Goju Ryu karate. I've created templates, edited Wikibooks, uploaded images, and improved Wikipedia policy pages. I've removed hundreds of vandalism edits, patrolled new pages, and dealt with all sorts of other Wikignome-ish activities. Well, after nearly 16,000 edits here, I'm going to leave, and I'd like to talk a little bit about why, so that hopefully someone else can deal with the problem.
What ultimately made me decide to leave was the disruptive edit warrior User:V7-sport stalking me around from page to page, and forcing me to choose between spending large amounts of time arguing with him (an endless process), or just going away and giving him free reign to destroy articles. Most of my work was outside of the articles he's harassing me on, but the amount of time I've had to dedicate to him alone is enormous, and I see no hope of it stopping any time soon.
Before I go further, I'd really like you all to go and open up his list of contributions, and judge for yourself what type of editor he is.
You'll notice a few things:
One of many possible examples of the behaviors listed above: He comes to the article state terrorism, because he is convinced that if he changes the definition there, he can then remove reliably sourced content regarding "state terrorism" from another article by claiming it doesn't fit the definition that he's written in the Wikipedia article state terrorism (even after it has been explained to him that this is not the case). He makes an edit to the definition section, which misrepresents the (low-quality) source that he cites, which myself and another editor have to explain to him. He then makes a false accusation of me stalking him when he actually followed me to the page. [19] When this is pointed out to him, he doesn't admit fault, but rather changes the subject and tells me that I'm being "disruptive" and "pathetic" [20], and informs me that "evidently" I think the page is "mine" (because I keep reverting junk edits like this one) and that I think that attempts to "improve them" (which I suppose is code for "adding original research and misrepresenting sources") are disruptive. When I tell him that I never said this, he says that he only said that "Evidently I feel" that this is the case, and that I'm " behaving like a yipping little dog that's defending a lawn it's previously peed on"... and so on (along with edit summaries like "Don't you have a dumpster to dive?" - a reference to the fact that he's been reading my personal blog - and "Shouldn't you be packing to move to Venezuela?"). This is the type of shit that I've been dealing with for months now, on multiple articles that he's followed me to.
He's taken special liking to me, and is stalking me both on and off-wiki (at least he only stalks me around in articles related to his nationalistic obsession -- he hasn't started harassing me at rattlesnake just yet). So I've had to deal with his removal of large amounts of sourced content, his soapboxing, his personal attacks, his misrepresentation of sources and of other editors' positions, and his persistent edit warring, on several pages. Quite frankly, I'm sick of it, and am deeply upset with the community for not having done anything about this by now. Why am I having to waste my time dealing with his bullshit, instead of editing?
Again, please look through his contributions, and verify for yourself that this type of thing is the norm for him. Now that you've done that, please answer me this: WHY IS THIS EDITOR STILL HERE? Seriously -- What is he contributing to the encyclopedia that makes him worth keeping around?
During an ANI he attempted to file against me when I called him out for repeatedly lying (a claim that was validated by the people at ANI), an uninvolved editor told him: "Reading the talkpage actually suggests to me that it would be a far more collegial environment if you weren't involved in it, rather than Jtayloriv." I would argue that the same could be said of the project as a whole. I welcome someone to explain to me the benefit of keeping people like this around.
Well, what do I suggest doing about it? Personally, I'd suggest blocking him indefinitely, as it appears User:Kww almost did, because he's clearly not a useful contributor, and wastes an enormous amount of community time. But, of course, that's not going to happen, because the policy here is currently designed to accommodate people of his ilk. The process goes like this: Act like an ass, get blocked, grovel and lie, get unblocked ("Free and rehabilitated!"? ... how cute), act like an ass in the same manner you did before, get blocked, grovel and lie, get unblocked, repeat ad nauseum ... He can keep going as long as he wishes, because nobody is asking the question "When we unblock him, do we expect it to improve the state of the encyclopedia?"
Of course, I'm not saying that everyone who edit wars should be indef'ed immediately. A lot of good editors, including myself, have gotten into an edit war during their time here. Everybody makes mistakes, and I am very supportive of Wikipedia maintaining a policy of "forgive and forget" for people who have obviously just screwed up. But when people are repeatedly blocked for the same behavior, and repeatedly act obnoxious, and repeatedly fail to contribute quality content, and give no indication that they are going to change their behavior, then maybe we should ask the question: "What good are we doing for ourselves by unblocking this person?" Limiting ourselves to waiting for them to violate 3RR or call someone an " ugly little loser" is not helping. Those types of things are easy to skirt around, while still being able to prevent productive editors from getting work done.
By repeatedly unblocking him when it's clear that he still doesn't give a shit, and doesn't intend to behave differently, we're just training an obnoxious and completely useless editor to game the system more effectively. He might be stupid enough to have been blocked for 3RR 3 times, and maybe he's even stupid enough to go for a 4th. But eventually he'll learn to control himself enough to be able to stay active in the battlegrounds he's created. He will learn how to act like as much of a dick as possible, while managing to just barely avoid getting himself blocked. And then we'll be stuck with him. He'll become a permanently useless and disruptive editor. We'll get to endlessly waste our time dealing with him, and in return our readers will get biased, low-quality content (and less of it too, since we'll be hanging out with V7-sport on talk pages, rather than writing articles). I don't want to be around to deal with that; he's already drained enough of my time as it is. So, in effect, you're losing an editor has contributed an enormous amount of quality content, and you've held on to a nationalistic zealot who contributes rude, inane comments on talk pages, deletes reliably sourced content that doesn't fit his POV, and contributes little, if anything, of value. I'd love to hear how that's going to result in the creation of a decent encyclopedia. (And I'm still waiting for information about that article he's written).
I suggest that you all figure out some way to revise the blocking policy for chronic cases like V7-sport, because what we've got now is not working. Unlike him, I'm not here looking for a political forum. I'm here to write content. It's too draining for me to have to spend several hours a week dealing with a single non-productive, nationalist extremist, because the community is assuming a bit too much good faith, and letting him come back "into the fight", when it's quite clear that he doesn't give a shit about collaborating with other editors. I also think that it needs to be made clear that admins should take into account users' contributions when determining block-lengths and unblock decisions. If a user isn't contributing anything useful, then why do we want them to come back, even if they don't violate 3RR and just spend all of their time arguing? What are we trying to do here -- have an open political forum, or produce something useful?
If I can't spend the large majority of my time writing content, and spend my talk time collaborating with people, I don't want to be here. Until you all decide to fix this, you can all enjoy dealing with his shit yourselves. I'm done. V7-sport, you win. Wikipedia, you lose. -- Jrtayloriv ( talk) 12:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
In practice (and based on personal experience) when someone who has been repeatedly attacked or harassed finally makes an AN/I post, the individual(s) who have been attacking or harassing them will usually try to turn the AN/I discussion on the very person they've been targeting. (See Cyberstalking#Definitions "key factors") The effectiveness of this tactic depends on the initial AN/I statement, how the targeted individual has previously responded to attacks and harassment (ignoring and staying calm vs frustration, anger, etc), how much the issue has previously been known to other community members, and so on. One of the boilerplate ArbCom principles you often see is "Administrators should be sensitive in dealing with harassed editors who have themselves breached acceptable standards.", unfortunately this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
I can say from experience that simply making a statement on AN/I and providing a few diffs generally isn't enough to put a stop to attacks and harassment the first few times. In my case, after it got really bad, even trying to get ArbCom involved didn't help the first time around, and in the end, the community got involved and put a stop to it. Looking back over the material, it began on May 26, 2009 and was finally stopped on November 6, 2010, so it took place over roughly a year and a half (although it seemed like it was longer). In terms of how it played out as a whole, that isn't the way it is supposed to work at all, which is why I continue to push for change in this area. -- Tothwolf ( talk) 23:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
A variety of IP editors insists on adding a long list of nn people to the Fnatic article. I've tried removing all of the names which have no Wikipedia articles, and there aren't even any references to indicate that these people exist, let alone that they meet the requirements to be in a Wikipedia article. Am I wrong to remove these names, or should I start issuing BLP warnings to the editors who insist on re-adding the names? The Mark of the Beast ( talk) 18:49, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation, at the direction of the Board of Trustees, will be holding a vote to determine whether members of the community support the creation and usage of an opt-in personal image filter, which would allow readers to voluntarily screen particular types of images strictly for their own account.
Further details and educational materials will be available shortly. The referendum is scheduled for 12-27 August, 2011, and will be conducted on servers hosted by a neutral third party. Referendum details, officials, voting requirements, and supporting materials will be posted at m:Image filter referendum shortly.
For the coordinating committee,
Philippe
Cbrown1023
Risker
Mardetanha
PeterSymonds
Robert Harris
Cross posted by -- DQ (t) (e) 21:44, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
I've noticed that apparently Methodist churches are now to be put in the category for Lutheran churches... Being Jewish I must admit I'm not always up-to-date on the very multitude of different Christian denominations, but I must say I see this as being quite peculiar and think the community as a whole may want to discuss and possibly override the decision reached in a smaller venue. From what I was able to research quickly in the last 10 mins since discovering this anomaly Ive found that while several Methodist and Lutheran organizations have decided to recognize each other's communions etc, I have found that they are still separate and more importantly have different histories. Methodists are a branch broken from Episcopalian/Anglicanism and Lutherans are directly broken from Roman Catholicism (Martin Luther and his 99 theses). I see that they are not combined in form and that several of their joint "declarations" of working together are also joint declarations of working together signed by Catholics and Episcopalians/Anglicans. Nobody would say Episcopalians and Catholics have given up their independence. And I think putting Methodist Churches in the Lutheran category would create a problem with ex-Methodist Churches that are now historical sites, labelling them as Lutheran could be insulting and inflammatory. I dont know the reasoning behind "Methodists are Lutherans" but if there is a good reason how is it possibly in the best interest of Wikipedia to categorize Methodist churches as Lutheran churches? Camelbinky ( talk) 05:05, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
I have written a new essay related to the recent RfC and arbitration request on campaign for "santorum" neologism:
Editors are cordially invited to review or improve the essay, leave comments on its talk page, etc. Cheers, -- J N 466 15:18, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps it's unwise to base essays like this on single events. This one in particular seems too focused on the details of what happened in the one case rather than the general issue. Will Beback talk 22:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
It looks to me suspiciously like an example of what it is talking about. At the very least references to the specific example should be removed. Dmcq ( talk) 22:15, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I've rewritten the essay in line with comments above: [25]. Further input welcome. Cheers, -- J N 466 04:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
It's markedly not our job to fix Google's ranking of pages and topics. Googles algorithm is proprietary and very confidential. Nearly everything circulating about it is highly speculative and likely wrong. We should not try to second-guess them and to orient our policy to do what we think would change their results to what we think they should be. It's in Google's interest to provide their users with the best results. Unlike us, they have the know-how to achieve this. Let them do their job (being a useful search engine), and let us do our job (building a great encyclopedia). -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 18:05, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
A new discussion on wording changes to the current guideline to clarify the use of diacritics for subjects whose native names contain them has been initiated. It can be found at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)/Diacritics RfC Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:43, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
It seems to me that, while wikipedia is presented as the encycleopedia that anyone can edit, this is very misleading. It seems a lot more like an encycleopaedia which only experienced, well connected people who know all the tricks to keep their articles on and delete other people's can edit. And also, the rules are supposed to be all community driven and democratic, but democracy doesn't work when most people are wrong about something. It is the more experienced editors who know how to change things on wikipedia, and these are the people who the unfair, biased, current system benefits. I keep hearing the saying 'When in Rome, Do as the Romans'. I prefer the saying 'Be in the world, but not of the world'. Just because most people are wrong, that doesn't mean I should be wrong as well. It also seems that people on here enjoy deleting people's articles for fun, however much they may make excuss about 'official wikipedia rules'. so I think the whole sysem needs sorting out, but the chances are this will never happen, because of who gets to make the decisions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alicianpig ( talk • contribs) 12:42, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
In some way this is true. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a place where everybody can write whatever he or she wants to. In order for this to work, there have to be some rules, otherwise everybody would just make what he or she wanted to and no encyclopedia would be built.
Also, I think that I am also still a relatively new editor (I started editing in mid 2010). And I have made some mistakes since then. At the beginning, I really had no idea, where to look for anything I wanted to know (rules or policies for example). My experience is, it requires some time to be able to become a "well working editor". You can't expect to simply jump in and know all the nos and goes of Wikipedia. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes in good faith. I have also made a number of mistakes since I began editing here. I think you simply have to take Wikipedia a bit serious and you should always try to improve your knowledge of the working of Wikipedia. If you don't know how something works, don't just give up. If you really can't make sense of something yourself, you can always ask at WP:Help desk. Don't be afraid to ask question you think might sound silly, simply bring up what you have problems with, and try to behave as intended (eg try to avoid coming into the NOs part of Wikipea, such as Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not). For example, Wikipedia is not a democracy. And if there is anything you need help with, you can always ask me on my talk page. I simply try to be a helpful part of this community and while there are editors who bite other people or might seem unfriendly, there are also a lot of welcoming people on Wikipedia. I hope I am one of them. Cheers. Toshio Yamaguchi ( talk) 11:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who seemed to agree with me about the unfairness of the current wikipedia system with regards to the treatment of new editors. I think that if so many people disagree with the way more experienced editors aggressively treat newer ones, maybe it is time for this to be changed. Please leave your opinions about this below ( Alicianpig ( talk) 17:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
I'm not entirely sure this is relevant. However, deleting it would go entirely against what I'm trying to say. (even though your post was actually pointless, thanks for giving me an oppurtunity to make this point)( Alicianpig ( talk) 18:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
Beyond that, the problem with deletion continues to be the creation of articles that need to be deleted. I think we need to require sources before an article can be created, one for identifiability of the article name, and one for content. Also, the creator needs to place a rationale for creation to start the talk page. Another reasonable idea that was proposed was to require that a red link to the article exist before the article could be created. Yet another idea would be to start the article on the talk page, and it would require a second editor to actually create the article itself. Maybe it would make sense to start all articles in the incubator. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles goes in the right direction. Unscintillating ( talk) 03:00, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
"Change" is an attractive, but utterly meaningless term. Everyone can say "oh yes change is good" but what change? How can we avoid biting new editors and deleting their articles when a good number of those articles violate core Wikipedia tenets? Should we throw out notability requirements and let anyone post anything? Should we throw out Verifiability requirements, or allow only one self-published source to suffice for an article? Without doing both of those things the fact of the matter is a good chunk of new articles will be summarily deleted. I am all for changes but there are no CORE POLICY issues here. Except maybe us being less tolerant of incivility everywhere and much more liberal with indef. bans for incivility and personal attacks. now THAT is change I can support. HominidMachinae ( talk) 07:23, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Right yeah 'change' - are you actually suggesting something? Bob House 884 ( talk) 17:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm thinking about changing the rules so that it is not so easy to delete other people's articles and so the rules are less complicated (as this gives an advantage to experienced people who learn them). However, I'm interested to hear what other, possibly more experienced editors, have to say about this issue. Thanks for asking, I didn't make it very clear to start with. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 17:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
Oh. so it's bad doing that stuff, but it's ok to do vicious, underhand stuff as long as it fits in with the ridiculous rules on this website. It's ok to repeatedly come up with different excuses to delete someones website. It's ok to call someone a sockpuppeteer and a troll. It's ok to accuse them of breaking copyright laws with a photo they NEVER ACTUALLY ENDED UP PUTTING IN THEIR ARTICLE. I think I'm starting to get the idea. If you're an experienced editor who knows the tricks of the trade, sure, it's fine to do bad stuff, go ahead, as long as you keep within your own stupid rules. But a new editor doing what's necessary to fight his own against repeated harassment and aggression? Who could think such a ridiculous thing?.( Alicianpig ( talk) 18:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
Both, and more. Not just on a personal level, I do think that there needs to be a certain amount of help and protection for newcomers. However, I am also expressing a certain amount of anger about how I have been treated by certain editors so far, both with regards to my Whinge Wars article, and also to my suggestions of change. Thanks for asking. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 18:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC))
I agree with PrimeHunter here. I thought several other editors made this clear several threads above. Wikipedia is not intended as a substitute for the rest of the Internet, but rather it is a complement. This all concerns an article you created that was doing to be deleted regardless of how lax we would have been with the guidelines we have. Once again, it is (or was) not your article; once you hit that "Save page" button, it becomes the community's article and can be edited at will, within common sense and the basic rules we have. That is one of the most basic aspects of a wiki-editing environment (its communal nature), and editors who cannot understand that will likely not get along well here.
As far as the perceived harassment is concerned, we have several people who are trying to help you and trying to guide you in the correct direction, but, from what I have seen so far, you have not tried to follow our guidance. If you feel you have a problem with being harassed, then I suggest that you step back a bit and try to put things in perspective.
That being said, when I started here some 3 years ago, to me, it seemed like common sense that we try and build up articles whose content is verifiable, and that not everything under the sun is going to be included; otherwise, Wikipedia ceases to be what its primary purpose is – which is an encyclopedia. – MuZemike 21:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
That's what I'm trying to say. If the old rules are wrong, however 'fundamental' they may be, surely they need changing. Nothing is really ever going to be changed if no one is willing to do anything more than modify the most minute rules. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 06:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC))
Proposal: why don't we try and make sure that our rules and guidelines are written in a vocabulary that our younger editors can actually understand without having to have a dictionary on-hand while they read them? Young !=stupid. But it can very reasonably = reduced vocabulary. So, with rules and guidelines, the first one to follow is WP:KISS. This might not only solve quite a few problems, but actually encourage and retain the next generation of Wikipedians. If we can't make our rules easy to understand, then the fault lies with us, not with them. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 05:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Re-wording templates, rules, all-sorts.
Suggest adding a "The Simplest Explanation" sentence to the top of each rule page.
Example:
Simple stuff. Who do we have who's creative enough and interested enough to make this work? Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 06:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
This sounds like a very good idea. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 06:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC))
People who fall foul of the rules, either because they don't even know what they are, that the rules exist, etc., are our target-audience for the policy pages. In order to be able to understand what the policies actually mean, so that we can make sure they don't continue to fall foul of them, there has to be a dead-simple explanation which that target audience can understand. As we're for the main part likely to be talking about newbies, and often young newbies, it's therefore our responsibility to make sure that there's a jargon-free, readily-understandable 'simple concept' thing right near the top of the page. There's almost always a way of describing a concept so that a 12-year-old can at least understand what we mean by what we're saying; and if we write the entire page in language which is hard for them to understand, from start to finish, then we can hardly blame them for our failure to make it clear to them. It may be one's view that 12-year-olds shouldn't be trying to edit Wikipedia in the first place, or that 12-year-olds should come to us ready-equipped with an internal WikiJargon dictionary - but that's not what happens in real life. The target audience for policy pages is going to be precisely those people who don't yet know the rules or understand the jargon. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 10:35, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Can someone do this? I feel that the 'simplest explanation' thing should be in a box right under 'this page in a nutshell'. :o) Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 06:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
My concern is that at least the basics of each rule, the why and the how, must be able to be understood by the person we've just directed to the page, whoever they are. It seems unfair to expect people to abide by rules which we can't make really clear for them, and all of us should be able to word things in a way in which people don't have to be totally fluent in the jargon to understand. I hope this is clear :o) So, a summary which a 12-year-old can understand will help them not to fall foul of the rule. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 09:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
You don't have to get all the small details into a 'The simplest explanation sentence. You just have to get the general point across. for example 'don't take sides' doesn't give you an exact, detailed explanation of NPOV, but it gets the general sentiment across. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 12:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC))
If Nutshells are too complicated, re-write the "in a nutshell" section. but we are a grown-up encyclopedia not one for kids. That means we get into areas and issues that require complex policy to deal with. Some policies are easy to break down to a very simple sentence (WP:V "do not say anything you cannot prove" WP:RS "only use sources that you can trust to tell the truth") others are definitely not. The above example of WP:NPOV for instance is a great example. "don't take sides" isn't accurate, as has been pointed out. The simplest any explanation could be would be something like "keep the same ratio in our articles as the sources do. If a viewpoint is the majority, say so. If it is a significant minority, add it but keep the section small. If a viewpoint is a small minority, it is best left out unless the article is about that viewpoint specifically" HominidMachinae ( talk) 07:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Time and time again I have been drawn into conversations about the size of WikiProject United States I want to have a discussion about how big a project should be.
Should WikiProject's have a maximum size or scope? Should they be limited by the members in the project or have their scope dictated to them by others outside the project? and if the decision is that a project should not exceed a certain size, what if anything should be done, to reduce it? -- Kumioko ( talk) 02:21, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
In a similar sense than with content forks, the best approach may be to let the wikiproject grow, and if it gets too large, begin to create task forces for specific subtopics. In other cases, a certain group of articles with an overlapping project may be left to the other project, and the wikiproject tag may be simply removed: for example, most comics and videogames are from the US, so it may not be needed to include them within the WP:USA, even if the projects are not subprojects in a conceptual way.
In other cases, as in countries with few editors around, the best approach is the opposite, to group all articles within their single country wikiproject. Is there's a problem with an article of a comic book from Argentina, an Argentine editor, living in Argentina, with knowledge of Argentina or whatever would be more likely to be able to help than the average editor of wikiproject comics.
The hierarchy of categories must be precise, but the hierarchy of wikiprojects should be pragmatic and empirical. Cambalachero ( talk) 03:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Before we get any further, please note the following important definition:
WikiProject is not a bunch of pages, a set of categories, a subject, or a list of articles that those editors are interested in. A WikiProject is a group of editors.
This question, therefore, translates as "Should the community tell a group of editors who work together that they may not work together on more than a set number of articles?"
The answer, BTW, is in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide: "members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project....if a WikiProject says that an article is within their scope, then you may not force them to remove the banner." WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:51, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
WPUS is really not that large when you compare it to WikiProject Biography... 930,000 pages! - Mabeenot ( talk) 20:55, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Why would we limit our editors from collaborating in anyway? As noted on the Council-guide bot alerts notifications for deletion, RfC, disputed etc.. will be seen thus participated in by many projects and more editors. All this is a plus. Founding principle #4 say - creation of a welcoming and collegial editorial environment. Jimbo has stated in the past - Wikipedia's success to date is entirely a function of our open community'. So lets let our editors decide what they would like to collaborate on and in what way. Moxy ( talk) 21:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Is this question about wikiprojects in general, or about WP:USA in particular? If it is the later, discuss it at the project talk page, and if the inclusion of the banners does not have internal consensus, then they may be removed Cambalachero ( talk) 21:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I think I may see an underlying issue: some editors believe that wikiprojects " own" articles; that they can decide how articles should be structured or styled, with no regard to wider consensus or even policy. Nothing could be further from the truth Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:25, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
I think the long-term solution is to move WP into a " buddy system" ( WP:BUDDY) like with SCUBA divers who should never dive alone, so when it comes to new articles, then the buddies also can watch for speedies, or help improve articles, when others are on wikibreak or sleeping (see topic: " #Speedy deletion process broken"). Almost everyone on Earth sleeps at night, and so " night owls" are the rare exception, although many thousands of people work the graveyard shift. I'm advocating that WP be turned into "87" welcoming teams for new users, and now for new articles, where a welcoming team could be a buddy system for new articles, although any 2 or more people could use a buddy system. I cannot emphasize the number of times I have tried to collaborate with other editors, to establish a background for creating new articles, and I was accused of nefarious collusion, topic-banned 3 months ("92 days") for WP:CANVASing (because I notified 2 pro-article editors but only 1 anti-article), and recently smeared as being the " ringleader" of other editors whom I had contacted for advice. However, use of buddy-system groups (called " collaboration") is the logical future of WP, with more WikiProjects (as in WP:GOCE), and an editor can be in many buddy-system groups. Hence, we need WP:BUDDY, and few could claim "ringleader" when a person is following the tactics of WP:BUDDY to save articles from speedy or stop the WP:AfD rush-to-delete SNOW actions. Enough said: I think this is obvious to most. -- Wikid77 11:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (stand-alone lists) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive248#Request exemption of restrictions ΔT The only constant 02:23, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely no offense or bad faith assumed for any of the editors mentioned but I have to make this observation. Whinge wars was proposed and then nominated for deletion by an editor with the username "Steamroller Assault". I can't help but wonder what newbies think when they are warned/blocked by an admin named "Smashville" or even reverted by a bot called "Smackbot". I'll state again that I have no problem with any of these policy compliant usernames but I can see how some newbies might feel that they have been "steamrolled" "smashed" and "smacked". This was actually an issue in Snotty Wong's RFA. (another 100% policy compliant username). My advise to anybody with a username that suggests aggression is to take their usernames into consideration if they do anything, such as NPP/RC patrol, AFD nomming etc. which brings them into close contact with newbies. IMHO you have to be just a little more civil then the rest of us. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 14:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
All games are made up. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 12:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC))
We've moved on from that now. Let's not step backwards. Put down the swords and pick up the ploughshares, guys :o) Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 05:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Can somebody plese explain to me what we solved in this entire discussion?-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 00:59, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
This was a conflict of interest with me, the system is unfair sometimes and it can be bias. And from what I see, absolutly nothing has been solved. I hate to drag on something that someone out of nowhere said to be moved on, but this is something that really needs fixing, especially for newbies.-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 11:38, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
We did achieve something - an amendment to the nutshell box on WP:V. I'm hoping to get some similar minor improvements on understandability on some others, too; so not a total loss. Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 09:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
(Steamroller Assault) The newbies is one example. If they post an article it's immediatly deleted, and if a user does not know the policy and he/she commits a bad edit, he/she is warned and eventully blocked. There needs to be a different and better way to deal with clueless newbies. As for being bias, the more experianced editors are ussaly put into consideration more and consulted more than the newbies, this esspecialy apllies with administators. No editor is over another editor regardless of what extra "buttons" thay have. And to call my statement unmeaningfull is another example of slight unfairness, anybody's statement should be put into consideration even if it is meaningless. This can also go with the IP users as well. Now if this statement is still considered unmeaningfull, then you need not reply at all.-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 21:49, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Do you have a suggestion on how that system could improve for new editors?
Possibly by teaching them better at the rules of wikipedia and creating an article. Just like TheParasite said earliar, For a newbie, it's bassicly like giving them a badge and a gun and sending them out in a perfect world of written laws. When I was a newbie(and I still considerably am) It was like that.
meningless statements carry zero weight
Not unless there completly meaningless, such as "this proposal is stupid".-- GoldenGlory84 (talk) 01:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
I think all of this sounds like a good idea. However, I think that the actual rules need to be simpler, not just the way they are written. ( Alicianpig ( talk) 12:14, 6 July 2011 (UTC))
Wikipedia:WikiProject Firearms contains the project's guidelines, a certain portion of which appears to depart significantly from the spirit if not the wording of our core content policies. Namely, Wikipedia:GUNS#Criminal use says:
“ | In order for a criminal use to be notable enough for inclusion in the article on the gun used, it must meet some criteria. For instance, legislation being passed as a result of the gun's usage (ex. ban on mail-order of firearms after use of the Carcano in JFK's assassination would qualify). Similarly, if its notoriety greatly increased (ex. the Intratec TEC-DC9 became infamous as a direct result of Columbine). As per WP:UNDUE, editors "should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject". | ” |
The inclusion criteria of "legislation being passed as a result of the gun's usage" or "if [the gun's] notoriety greatly increased" strike me as completely arbitrary demands, which are --in actual practice-- being placed on the inclusion of any bit of information into any gun article.
And to top it off, there is the barefaced WP:NPOV quote, which actually prohibits precisely the kinds of arbitrary demands the WP:GUNS guideline makes, since WP:UNDUE works both ways: "treat[ing] each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject" means that notable and verifiable information should be included, just that it should be represented according to its relative importance and notability.
I'd like to put this up for debate with neutral, uninvolved editors (ie. not at WT:GUNS). Is such an arbitrary threshold compatible with the spirit and aims of Wikipedia? -- 87.78.52.92 ( talk) 12:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Ultimately, WikiProject 'guidelines' are useful but non-binding. WP:IAR aside, they cannot trump WP:NOTE and WP:V etc. ╟─ Treasury Tag► Tellers' wands─╢ 12:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
WP guidelines are somewhere between weak to non-existent regarding relevance and significance for inclusion of material into articles. (only a weak bit bit is available under wp:undue) Some of the projects try to make up for this by making their own rules, some of which go too far and/or arbitrary. I've seen this under other topics. In then end they have to be considered to be non-binding.
The solution is to make up some general guidelines regarding relevance and significance for inclusion into articles, only to be brought into play where there is some question or dispute beyond meeting the guideline.North8000 ( talk) 12:53, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I can't say I understand the issues here entirely, but I tagged the section with {{ WikiProject style advice}}, to clarify that it's not a site-wide "Guideline", in the usual Wikipedia sense of the word. Mlm42 ( talk) 21:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I have to say I see what they are trying to do here. If it were not for a guideline like this then gun articles would become POV battlegrounds as one side tries to put every time someone is killed by a gun into the gun's article and the gun manufacturer's article and everywhere else they could. The other side would want NO information that guns are ever used in crime on Wikipedia. I see the existing suggestion as an extension of WP:UNDUE. Sometimes a gun is notable for how it is used. The fact Dirty Harry carried a .44 magnum is notable, often-talked-about, ect. The fact that Machinegun Kelly got his name for his use of a Browning Automatic Rifle is notable. The fact that babyface Nelson used one as well is not. If a gun is widely vilified (the TEK-9, the MAC-10 and -11) for its criminal use that is notable. Trivia should be rooted out whenever found.
HominidMachinae (
talk) 08:51, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I read through about half of this, so this might have already been said, but 84.44.182.35 is blowing up a content dispute from one article into a crusade against the guideline itself. Frankly, that's inappropriate. I take issue with 84.44.182.35's tone as well. This isn't the proper place for this, the proper place for this is the talk page of the game, where normal consensus practice applies. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:57, 5 July 2011 (UTC)