This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU, AV, AW, AX, AY, AZ, BA, BB, BC, BD, BE, BF, BG, BH, BI, BJ, BK, BL, BM, BN, BO · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191
I'm interested to know why articles on non-notable topics are deleted. I mean, I get that not many people will read them, but if no one reads it is doesn't cause anyone a problem ( it's not like you have to scroll through an index of all the articles)and if someone reads it is clearly at least marginally notable. So basically what I want to know is: what HARM do non-notable articles do? please can someone explain. Alicianpig ( talk) 10:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Bermicourt: I see what you mean. That makes sense. Thanks Alicianpig ( talk) 11:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Dmcq: I don't really see how it could be cluttered as you only find what you search for. someone looking up World War Two isn't going to find an article on Bob's favourite colour of fairy liquid. Surely however much rubbish there is you still find what you're looking for. Thanks Alicianpig ( talk) 11:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
North8000: Surely it doesn't increase the amount of 'true information', rather it decreases the amount of information which most people may find useless and insignificant but which may be useful to a select group of people. Because you locate information by searching rather than by looking through a list, narrowing is not neccessary as it is easy to filter what you find by what you search. Thanks Alicianpig ( talk) 12:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Sjakkalle: wikipedia already has very little credibility. Alicianpig ( talk) 12:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
GB Fan: If an article is of a non-notable subject which no one will look at, who will see it and think wikipedia is non-notable? Someone who would not think it was notable will not know about it to look it up, and someone who looks it up must think it is at least notable enough to be on wikipedia. Alicianpig ( talk) 14:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I understand that some things are not relevant, such as an article on your pet cat, but take for example the article on whinge wars. The type of subject isn't intrinsicly non notable, but that particular game is not. What few sources there are about it are written, and there is nothing unreliable about the article. However, in this instance the subject matter is not well known.
North8000: if you made a wikipedia article called (for example) Bob's favourite washing up liquid, then searched Bob's favourite washing up liquid, you would find the article. If you made a website with the same name then searched it on google, you wouldn't be able to find it.
Alicianpig ( talk) 18:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
This seems to contradict the assuming good faith policy. The internet is not the only source of information. someone who is an expert on a particular subject could write a perfectly good article without using online information, and assuming the editor is trying to help the project, it is not neccessary to prove the information with internet references.
Also, someone said that if people could make non-notable articles it would ruin wikipedia's credibility. However, the articles on notable subjects would be just as good as before, so it would not decrease the credibility of those. Alicianpig ( talk) 18:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
There is no 'pizza'. Wikipedia is the easiest way to access information. Alicianpig ( talk) 19:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I think this mostly comes down to whether or not there is any sourcing independent of the topic, with which one can build an article. While it has little to do with the sources being online or off, for most editors, online sources tend to be much easier to find and cite these days (though one must still be mindful about their independence and depth). Nobody can write an article drawn from sources they've written themselves which have not been independently published/cited, whatever their credentials may be, that's beyond the bounds allowed by the original research policy and beyond the ken of an encyclopedia. Why? Because without independent sourcing, the reader has no way to check up, if need be, on what they've read. The bounds on WP:BLP, articles about living people, are much sterner, because such articles can have meaningful sway on their lives. As for reliability, Wikipedia is not reliable, no encyclopedia is thought of as reliable. Wikipedia is a handy tool for looking stuff up, either as a quick, messy take on a topic, or as a means to get an overview for learning much more. Wikipedia is built mostly from independent secondary sources which the reader can one way or another check out. Since most secondary sources do carry deep flaws, so does Wikipedia. Reader beware. Gwen Gale ( talk) 20:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
GraemeLeggett: Wikipedia is free pizza with free delivery. However bad something is, no one cares as long as it's free and easy to get
Alicianpig (
talk) 07:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
If a pizza takeaway (continuing on the pizza theme) started selling all sorts of food, yes the new food would probably be badly done by the dodgy new people you bought in to make it, but the pizza would be just as good as before as long as the same pizza guy kept making it, and people who thought the pizza was good would keep coming for that. Alicianpig ( talk) 13:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
But articles on mainstream subjects could still be just as good no matter how many rubbish ones there were Alicianpig ( talk) 07:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
I know this is a very late addition to the discussion but it's also a matter of reputation and mission. There's a reason no one takes a facebook page as a serious source of information. Wikipedia's goal is to be the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If we cease to be free, cease to be an encyclopedia, or cease letting anyone edit, then Wikipedia is no longer Wikipedia, it has failed. Ensuring only proper topics of encyclopedic merit are included is a core part of what we are.
HominidMachinae (
talk) 02:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Out of interest, is there any policy against this? An editor is using article talkpages as a sandbox (which I have reverted) and he has been using his talk page as such for longer... Giant Snowman 14:08, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
Does WP:OVERLINK apply to links brought into articles by the use of templates? Specifically, stub templates. Please see the recently revived long-running discussion which is presently at WT:WSS#Possible overlinking in bio stubs. -- Redrose64 ( talk) 15:07, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_reports#Alberto_Emilio_Lopez_Vi.C3.B1als--Carozo 16:18, 6 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alberto Lopez Viñals ( talk • contribs)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Canada-related articles ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Canada-related articles) ( | 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, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm told that technically using the actual law that establishes a city (village, town, whatever) as a city, etc is a primary source and thereby not allowed but yet using a book, film, etc for article information is an acceptable form of primary source. I dont wish to start the second round of the "plot/spoilers war" we had like two years ago. I'm not talking about whether or not plots are allowed, I'm talking about why is it ok for books, movies, etc to be acceptable primary sources in use on themselves in those cases. There are plenty of secondary sources that cover the plot, actors, and anything else. So I'm just curious is it simply a matter of those individuals who work on those articles are a strong lobby or am I missing a reasoning? Camelbinky ( talk) 04:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
But to respond to the original poster's question if all you are doing is, in effect, repeating what the source says & not offering your interpretation of what it says, then don't worry about it. Yes, primary sources are often wrong about details -- even the most reliable ones are incorrect about some of their facts -- but that's why we have WP:NPOV. The article states what the primary source says on one hand, & what corrections the recognized experts have made about the matter on the other. (And if the experts haven't made corrections, then one should reasonably assume the primary source is correct.) -- llywrch ( talk) 07:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
In view of ongoing hyphen replacement with endash in the words, beginning with "anti-" (which is performed by bots as well), I just noticed a deviation from WP:ENDASH. The prefix "anti" is not an individual, standalone word, as suggested by the guideline (as it's always succeeded by noun or adjective), and as such does not require a separating endash (apparently that's why one of the examples in WP:ENDASH, "a pro-establishment–anti-intellectual alliance", is written with hyphen, not endash. This is exactly the idea envisaged by WP:HYPHEN ("to link certain prefixes") Most likely the guideline's wording should be amended (because it's hardly, if ever, possible to substitute the prefix "anti" with the word "versus", as recommended by WP:ENDASH), with the existing moves being reversed. -- Brandmeister t 13:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles ( | 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, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles) ( | 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, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Stub articles are a drain on Wikipedia's resources. They should be deleted after six months if they are not accepted as a Good Article (GA). Allowing them to be here encourages lazy editing.-- andreasegde ( talk) 23:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Ignore this guy. He's popped up several times on my watchlist today making inflammatory or otherwise less than useful statements. It's probably my fault for responding to him on his talk page that this wound up here. My bad I guess. Can we snow close this now? Sven Manguard Wha? 00:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC) |
I'd like to throw around the idea of fully protecting policy pages. Past discussion on this (see: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_58#Full_protect_important_policies, for example) seems to have revolved around the idea that "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy", "Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and "too much fork for admins". My first thought is that pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and especially policy pages, are encyclopedic content. I mention this because it seems to me that the past opposition to this has relied on the idea that the encyclopedic content should be editable by anyone, which is an idea that I very much agree with. However, our policies (which aren't "rules", but are commonly agreed to community standards) are not the same as our content. I don't think that they should change much, and any changes should go through a minimum amount of procedural process in order to ensure that they meet expectations.
For the most part, this is already the way that policy pages work, in that any change to any policy page is almost reflexively reverted until and unless a significant number of participants force the change through or agree to it. Part of the problem though is that this leads to some rather unnecessarily emotional confrontations, which even leads to editors being blocked occasionally, or dragged through one or more of our dispute resolution processes. One reason why I think this happens so often is that we've chosen to leave our policy and guideline pages to appear as though they are the same as our article content, when clearly the reality is much different. We should do something in order to make that distinction real to would be editors. Using some sort of protection isn't going to solve all of our problems when it comes to dealing with policy pages, but it should help.
Alternatives to using Full protection include semi protection or some form of pending changes. I don't like the idea of using semi because it only affects IP's, which sends the wrong "political" message in my eyes. Using pending changes may be good to think about, but... I just think that it would be best for everyone if all editors were required to start a talk page discussion prior to any change. Administrators are, of course, able to edit though full protection, which could turn into a real problem (and I'm sure that it will be a significant drama filled issue at some point in the future, if something comes from this), but that's at least part of what arbcom is for. More importantly, it'll likely be clear as day what's going on if some admin in the middle of a dispute goes and edits through protection to change policy. We're remarkably good at catching and punishing people for things like that, now.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs) 16:57, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
I've been working on User:Tryptofish/Arguments to avoid in image deletion discussions. Feedback prior to moving it into the mainspace would be welcome (there, rather than here). Thanks! -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:53, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929. |
and
This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1977 inclusive, without a copyright notice. Unless the author has been dead for several years, it is not in the public domain in countries that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works. This includes Canada, China (not Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan Area), Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and other countries with individual treaties. See also further explanation. |
for example, which no newbie has access to, even if they apply.
So I would respectfully suggest that you burn the whole thing and start over from that angle. We don't need to make photo uploading any more difficult and convoluted than it already is... Carrite ( talk) 15:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Should such employees declare their potential COI right away, or if this is not voluntarily done, should notices be issued on the talk page? Some of these editors have been involved in an edit war over Tony Tan Keng Yam, which had to be protected. This especially came up when one of the users involved submitted an OTRS ticket to Commons to establish permission for one of the images, "taken from the subject's workplace", that is, the politician in question. elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( be free) 16:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Nomenclature ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (chemistry)/Nomenclature ( | 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, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
According to search statistics, 16/17 people landing on Anne Hathaway mean to look for the actress, not the Bard's wife. By WP:ASTONISH, the actress' article should be moved over the disambig, and a hatnote placed on that page to also inform readers of the Shakespearean actress. However, people are also opposing, arguing that "Shakespeare's wife will be remembered long after the actress has been forgotten". Seriously? Does this sort of sentiment override WP:ASTONISH? Perhaps the wider community should comment on this discussion. elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( be free) 17:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Search statistics are not everything. I expect that most people searching Georgia want the US state, but there are good reasons not to make that the main topic. — Kusma ( t· c) 19:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC) "There are no absolute rules for determining how likely a given topic is to be sought by readers entering a given term" – WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- Cybercobra (talk) 04:49, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I used to make comments about bots on wikipedia. I wish there were more good bots doing a lot of the tedious work out there, and the bigger wikipedia gets, the more they are needed for mundane tasks. However, I find the bot community to be unresponsive to input from community members. Case in point, the instructions on the WP:RfBA board state that "After a reasonable amount of time has passed for community input, an approvals group member may approve a trial for your bot and move the request to this section." What happened recently, though, is that a BRfA was posted, 4 minutes later a trial was approved, [4] and the BRfA for that bot was removed from the "Current requests for approval" section, where one would expect BRfA to be for some time ("a reasonable amount of time ... for community input"), to the bots in a trial section, where it is difficult to see there is a community discussion or find the discussion.
Notice that if you look at the trial section you do not see a discussion listed:
If you wish to comment on me, go for it here or on my IP talk page. If you wish to comment on the BAG instructions, etc., please do so here. -- 68.127.234.159 ( talk) 21:39, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
A hard thing that currently plagues the project is the fact that we have no clear way to deal with people edit warring to enforce consensus. I'm sure this is a kink in the BRD cycle. Jasper Deng (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
(Undent)Jayron, you said above: "The person who wins should always be the person who is willing to allow the version they DISAGREE with to be the publicly viewable version." I need help understanding this. Suppose a person is willing to allow the version they DISAGREE with to be the publicly viewable version, so they stop reverting. Even if that person can and does prove at the article talk page that consensus supports their version, the other version is allowed to remain, the other side refuses to concede, no admin wants to get involved, and the publicly viewable version eventually becomes a de facto consensus version due to not being reverted. How exactly is that a "win" for the person willing to allow the version they DISAGREE with to be the publicly viewable version? Anythingyouwant ( talk) 20:43, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
I think in order to prevent the initial editor (the one starting the war) from winning due to 3RR, let's put him/her under 2RR restrictions in situations like the following: User A edits, is reverted by User B. User A reverts and gets reverted by User B. User A reverts again and is reverted by User B. Now User A, under 3RR, could "win" by using his/her third revert to bring back his/her version. Jasper Deng (talk) 16:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
The problem here is that the whole idea that we can decide edit wars (content disputes) by counting reverts (or by counting heads) is flawed. 3RR or any variants thereof should be seen as just a stopgap measure until we have a rational means of resolving such disputes that puts the quality of the encyclopedia first and editors' personal agendas last.-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
In what surely must be a triumph for Wikipedia, consensus has once more banished reality and rationality from the astrology pages, driving away all sincere editors, with a little help from administrators, delivering the whole shebang into the hands of the magi.
How did this come to pass? Gaming of the system? Gibber-jabber and endless circular arguments, underpinned by idiot interpretations of having to extend good faith and civility to deliberate and irrational gibberish merchants, driving away all but those with the agenda of legitimating astrology? Who can say, since administrator intervention played its own part in stripping away the encyclopaedic ethic, along with a few editors.
So, once more it's no longer true in the Wikiuniverse that astrology is a pseudoscience, or that it is concerned, at least in part, with commercially motivated practices aimed at parting fools from their money, based on claptrap and gullibility. No, no! It is merely the respectable study of mysterious cosmic causalities in human affairs.
And of course, with all rational critics of such bullshit banished, the consensus of three or four editors is all it takes to turn sense and science upside down to present the world with a Wikipedia exposition of astrology that sounds downright reputable.
No hint here that ‘Hermetic principles’ are derived from a mythical Hermes Trismegistus, carving arcane wisdom into a mythical Emerald Tablet (as you would). It’s all true, see! Is it just me or does this sound a bit like an unpublished Tolkien book?
A mere trifle, then, to abolish Sir Francis Bacon from the English Renaissance and to endlessly fork the astrology content into labyrinthine sub-pages to avoid even non-existent scrutiny.
And in the meantime one magus has even acquired his own personal Wikipedia vanity page, edited mainly by ... wait for it ... fellow magi. Maybe this will turn into a round-robin until all of them have personal Wikipedia pages. Robes and wizard hats in portrait photos optional. Then they could start quoting each others' authoritative, sage words on any number of topics.
Perfect. A case study of what rather shallow, mechanistic enforcement of WP guidelines has made of Wikipedia. All it would take to complete this picture of blithe profligacy is a reply to this post along the lines of ‘why doncha do summink ‘bout it’ or ‘you’re posting in the wrong place’, or maybe even a threat to ban me from posting about rationality at all.
Well, the answer is already out there: some editors have already put in as much effort as they’re willing to in representing rationality against self-appointed magicians and administrators willing to lend their authority to the nonsense being promoted in the astrology pages.
To any administrators watching, I'd say: This is YOUR mess. The superstitious nonsense in the astrology pages was put there on YOUR watch. The people who opposed the snake oil sales pitch where driven away by YOUR interpretations of Wikipedia guidelines. Now stand by what’s published to the world as received wisdom, or clean it up yourselves. It is, after all, a perfect illustration of what y’all have made of Wikipedia with your shallow, indolent lack of care about the responsibilities that ought to come with your white hats, spurs and six-guns.
To the more fundamentalist, literal-minded I'd say: at what point does it become irrational to back WP policy on consensus, neutrality and civility when they're used to abolish reality and rationality?
Right, I'm off to tea with the Red Queen, Baron Muenchhausen and Hermes Trismegistus to discuss what centuries we can delete from world history. Regards Peter S Strempel | Talk 23:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
USchick, your response was unexpected and refreshing. I had never seen the ‘don’t give a fuck’ advice before, and although I find Antandrus to be a little bit on the fatalistic side, it’s sage advice from someone who has taken far more beatings than I by a system characterised by another editor, Malleus Faturom, as run by children. In fact, I ‘d have to say that my beatings were largely self-inflicted because I give a damn about what we do here and what Wikipedia says to the world. My mistake. I see now that Wikipedia is a vast and anarchic playground for all sorts, some of whom aspire to no more than seeing their own gibber-jabber validated in a Wikipedia article.
Alas, I can’t just resign myself to what JP Sartre called the quietism of despair. Call it ego or smug pomposity, but I like to think that what I do and say here reflects at least some of my education and idealism about people and rationality. However, in keeping with your advice, my initial comment fell out of a thought process that already saw me recuse myself from the said article, and some others where Wikipedia guidelines were being applied almost as if in mockery of them: consensus being used to override rationality, and administrator interventions taking place like dictatorial fiat rather than sincere concern for verifiability, civility or encyclopaedic anything. The reply by Tagishsimon above is a case in point: requesting specifics and diffs says ‘I can’t be bothered reading the thing myself, nor do I want to make up my own mind about what it says, but I’m happy to adjudicate a dispute because all I have to do is apply guidelines mechanistically without regard to consequences for Wikipedia as a whole’.
This raises the question: should we all just flip the bird to guidelines as irrelevances and do whatever the hell we please here, so long as we can get away with it by gaming the system, allying ourselves with like-minded administrators, and putting the encyclopaedic endeavour a distant last to more immediate self-gratification or amusement? That seems to be the way we are being pointed by the gangs that have coalesced around the children with administrator rights Malleus Faturom referred to.
And yes, USchick, Wikipedia is exactly what we make of it, and therefore a perfect reflection of who we are as a group and as a culture. The best of it is very good, but you’ll have to excuse me for cringing at the worst of it, like gibber-jabber and the bone-headed pursuit of what Antony Beevor labelled ‘counterknowledge’ —
All this has coincided with what one might call the Wikipedia age. A populist notion has grown that anyone has the right to correct or change the truth according to their own beliefs. In a way, it is a democratic ideal taken to its most grotesque extreme, but in practice it is the opposite of democratic, because it allows the demagogue to exploit gullibility and ignorance.
— Antony Beevor, Real concerns, The Guardian, 25 July 2009.
This is eerily analogous to the use of consensus in Wikipedia to override rationality. What do we do when a consensus of editors says that two plus two equals five, or three? Do we just accept it silently? Back to a quietism of despair, eh? But that’s another debate.
My old man once told me that if he gained just one new idea or insight from a book he read, it had been worth the effort. Your post, USchick, certainly met that test, and I thank you for the reference. Stay well, Wikipedia probably needs more editors like you. Regards Peter S Strempel | Talk 21:59, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm busy translating an article from the French Wikipedia for the English version. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Heitz
The article has numerous citations to documents that the reader can find by clicking on links within the citation to French government databases available on the Web. One major one is Joconde, a database that is an index of all documents, works of art, etc. owned by the French Ministry of Culture. The French version of Wikipedia has a template for citing Joconde, and some other government databases on the Web: Template:Joconde
This template does not work in the English version of Wikipedia, so I'm assuming that a new English version of this template must be created by me and saved somehow to the English Wikipedia? But what is the policy under the English Wikipedia for citing databases? I've been searching for info and haven't found very much at all.
Please let me know where this type of issue is discussed... thank you!
OttawaAC ( talk) 02:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
. As long as it's from a reliable source it should be allowed. We have templates like {{
pubmed}}
and {{
imdb}}
, for example. The template shouldn't be hard to make. It may be appropriate to include some kind of "title" field along with the ID, though, to make the links easier to use. —
Designate (
talk) 06:19, 13 August 2011 (UTC)There has been a consensus reached long ago by Wikipedia that if a person of note/public figure has established they are GLBTQ in such a fashion as to be reliably sourced or cited, it is encyclopedic and valid for inclusion in their article. The reasons for this have been debated back and forth so many times, it has become exhausting. There needs to be an absolute and stated policy on this issue put into Wikipedia somewhere so that it can be referenced and these arguments can be avoided from now on.
GLBTQ people are a minority, and unlike minorities based on race or gender, they are not a minority that can be identified by sight. Because of this, it is a simple fact that all people are by and large presumed to be heterosexual unless otherwise stated. One of the straw man arguments you often hear is 'We don't state in every heterosexual's article that they are straight." That's because we don't have to, because - again - it is presumed unless otherwise stated.
The contributions of GLBTQ individuals to the arts, history, politics etc... are valid, and establishing their sexual identity is encyclopedic because the contributions of GLBTQ people should be documented. Even in California they have passed a law so that schools music include curriculum about the contributions of GLBTQ individuals. If we don't state that a person is gay within their biographical information, we disassociate them from the documenting of the accomplishments of gay people.
The fact that the Luke Evans (actor) page has been locked down and all information to his sexual preference removed is insulting and borders on offensive. The citation from his interview in The Advocate magazine is more that sufficient. The ludicrousness of this is so outrageous that it has attracted attention in the gay press. The time is now for an official policy on sexual preference in biographies to be set: is it or isn't it worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia? CouplandForever ( talk) 16:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
I think there is a wider issue beyond gay/straight, which is where to draw the line between adding noteworthy information to an article and adding non-noteworthy information intending to push an agenda. Bio articles often include a 'Personal life' section with significant others, children etc. But not every bit of personal information that can found in the media should be put in an article. For example, it was once common to publish actress's measurements (just an example so don't quote me on it), but that information (usually) doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article. WP:IINFO covers this in a way but it seems to be limited to lists. If a 'List of people who are X' is unencyclopedic under this policy then it's also unencyclopedic to automatically add '(subject) is X' to every article where it applies. WP:IINFO seems a bit noncommittal on this and perhaps it should be rephrased to make it clear that its not just the form in which the information is listed which makes it unencyclopedic. We can't always know whether a specific edit is intended to push an agenda, but we can set criteria which say whether the information added is noteworthy and remove the issue of whether it's indented to push an agenda from consideration. To me, one condition is whether the information is coming from a source which is giving the information specifically about the subject rather than an indiscriminate list. For example, if the source is a book chapter on (subject) and there is a paragraph about the subject being X then the info is encyclopedic and should be in the article. But if the source is "The Directory of X" and lists 9,999 names besides the subject, most of which are not notable, then the information is not encyclopedic and should be removed from an article if added. In the Luke Evans case, I haven't read the interview but I'd say that if it includes more a couple sentences on whether he is gay then it's in the first category and belongs in the article. Conversely, if he happened to be straight and the interview went on for a paragraph or two about his "straight lifestyle" then it would be encyclopedic as well, but the media tends not to do that sort of thing (not counting The Daily Show).-- RDBury ( talk) 22:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
The problem with the Luke Evans argument which clogged up the BLPN (and that I was involved on) was that it was a editorial judgement issue that was being argued as a BLP one. That made it extremely difficult to find a resolution. I think we could do with just a sentence or two in the BLP reiterating that if there's a reliable source for the subject self-identifying then there's no BLP issue but that's inclusion is still down to the editors or something. That way, the discussion stays on the talk page and it remains a consensus issue, especially since what is and isn't encyclopedic can be quite subjective at times. AlbionBT ( talk) 07:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
I wrote about Gunpowder Plot used Scholastic's The Slimy Stuarts. Someone delete it because this source doesn't trusted. Scholastic's Horrible Histories (The Slimy Stuarts is one of these) has been used in U.K's school education. I know the article has win several award in Wikipedia. And Lady Antonia Fraser win some prize about this article. But if there is another theory, must Wikipedia covering the theory, isn't it??? And had my English was bad (since I'm originally Japanese), before delete, you must read the book. Is it not the Wikipedia style? -- K84 ( talk) 02:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I have recently been told that failure to leave edit summaries is a violation of policy and is considered a "disruption". I suppose according to the literal wording of the policy WP:EDIT it could be taken that way. However, it has never been enforced as such and since policy must DESCRIBE how Wikipedia actually works and not PROSCRIBE how it MUST, I would say that the policy is out of wack with actual practice. I open this discussion up to see what views are on the idea of "is it mandatory to leave edit summaries" or is it "greatly encouraged to leave edit summaries in the spirit of good will". There's a slight but meaningful difference. One is blockable and actionable by admins the other not. This thread is about this general topic, not specific problems people personally have with me not leaving edit summaries. Not everything is about me. (Well... just not in this case) Camelbinky ( talk) 01:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion about which units of measure shouldn't generally be linked. Guidance already addresses overlinking of units (based on obscurity, or presence of a conversion) but doesn't define which units are the worst offenders for overlinking. People are now debating a table listing specific units. More opinions are needed. Lightmouse ( talk) 20:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
There is a proposal to re-write the WP:NONENG section of WP:Verifiability being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#A_proposed_rewording_of_WP:NONENG_.232.
NONENG is the section that deals with the use of non-English sources to support article content. If someone challenges the non-English source, NONENG recommends that editors provide a quotation from the sources (if feasible; it's exactly what we do for sources that are written in English but aren't available free online), and it requests that editors provide a translation into English (again, if feasible).
NONENG says that professional translations/as published in a reliable source, are best, that translations by editors are second best, and machine translation, which does not work well for many languages, may be used as a last resort.
Some editors (all of whom appear to speak German, a language for which machine translation into English is particularly weak) would like to completely ban the use of machine translations for any purpose at all, unless "the Wikipedian speaks the source language and confirms the accuracy of the translation". If no Wikipedian who speaks the source language is available, then they would prefer that editors who do not speak the language of the source be given an unintelligible (to them) quotation with no translation at all, rather than a machine translation.
If you have opinions about this, please share your thoughts there. Thanks, WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Are there any established guidelines or substantive AFDs dealing with the notability of cemeteries, preferably in the U.S.? (My main interest right now is Ohio.) There are several I'd like to start articles on that are old, some quite large, may have notable burials, and/or are in a major metropolitan area. But I am currently unable to find anything online beyond simple verification of their existence and location, except primary source (?) histories such as websites authored by the nonprofit orgs that manage a cemetery (which I think should be considered reliable, but falls short of WP:GNG). I'd also like to make/expand comprehensive lists for certain geographic regions that would at least provide a place to cover those for which a substantive standalone article would be difficult to justify, but I'm wary of starting this without feeling out the possible WP:NOTDIR objections. I think such lists would be a valuable part of the coverage of the geography, history, and culture of populated places, and a large part of my interest is noting historic cemeteries that no longer exist but had their burials moved and consolidated into larger cemeteries (a common practice in the U.S. at least as cities grew). Thanks for your comments. postdlf ( talk) 19:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Regarding your comment about local historical societies or libraries, probably so, but I'm asking more about how a cemetery list would be viewed for which that had not yet been demonstrated. We presume named populated places are notable, for example, or a bio that satisfies WP:POLITICIAN, even if GNG hasn't been demonstrated at the outset because we either assume that such sources do exist or will exist eventually, or that the subject is important enough for inclusion even if we can't get significant coverage but can verify the facts. In my own case, I'm currently living in a developing nation and so I'm stuck with just the books I personally own or what I can find on the web, which may be enough for verification but not GNG (yet). So I'd like to at least start on what I'm capable of doing now, and others (or myself, once I've returned to civilization) can develop it further.
I've started working in my sandbox on a list format, but haven't yet incorporated formatting for sourcing, and some of the cemeteries ( this one, for example) I have been unable to find any print sources online discussing it, but in the meantime its existence can be verified as existing on maps even if nowhere else, and plaques at the location give some information about it (though lo and behold, it looks like we have Template:Cite sign, so maybe that's less of a problem than I think). Other cemeteries, as I noted, have histories on web sites run by the managing organization; I think the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus, for example, would be a reliable source for a history of a cemetery it maintains, but that would arguably be a primary source not independent of the subject. Notwithstanding those issues, I think those should be considered appropriate for list inclusion, whether justified by the value in making the lists as comprehensive as verifiably possible, the judgment that cemeteries are inherently notable, or the assumption that additional (secondary) sourcing can eventually be found for any cemetery. postdlf ( talk) 17:47, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
"El cementerio de las axilas" (English: The Armpit Cemetery) is a burial ground in El Armpitto, New Mexico. [1] The cemetery is notable as the resting place of Joe Schmoe who received the congressional medal of honour for his actions during the Aphid war of 1896, and died defending Grover Cleveland's presidential rose garden from attack. [2] Opened in 1813 the cemetery is still in use today, open 9am-5pm weekdays and by appointment on the weekend. [1]
Generally, does one need a specific consensus from the community before adding anything to the Manual of Style or one of its subpages? Such as, "I want to add this to the MOS, any thoughts/objections?" -- Rs chen 7754 00:29, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (writing systems) ( | 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, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
A couple of months ago an editor created an essay, Wikipedia:Wikibombing (SEO), to discuss the alleged use of search engine optimization techniques on Wikipedia to influence search engine rankings. I have carried out an experiment to see whether this is actually possible in practice and have posted the results at User:Prioryman/Use of SEO techniques on Wikipedia. I would appreciate any feedback from editors. Prioryman ( talk) 18:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Recently, there was a deletion review regarding a massive deletion of uploaded image files, all of which are images of signatures of living people that fits our BLP policies.
That deletion review was upheld pending a RFC/VPP at my suggestion, therefore, I propose this question to the community: What should we do regarding signatures of living people? What should we do about WP:BLPSIGN? - Penwhale | dance in the air and follow his steps 12:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
There shouldn't be any concern or controversy regarding the signatures of living public officials (like Obama or Schwarzenegger): their signature on public documents is widely available and has/had the force of law. I can't fathom a reasonable argument for not having those (unless it's outside the U.S. and of unclear copyrightability), regardless of whether it's taken from a "primary source" like a signed act or executive order. Similarly, the signatures of artists are (often) displayed on their works or otherwise widely publicized as their identifying mark, basically like a brand logo, so there is no privacy concern there (this might apply to other kinds of celebrities or entertainers too, if they've used their signature in advertisements, album covers, etc). Beyond that, it should be a case-by-case determination as to whether it's actually relevant or informative to an article and/or an invasion of privacy. If your only source for a minor actor's signature is a divorce court filing, then we probably shouldn't include it. postdlf ( talk) 15:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Naming conventions ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Naming Conventions ( | 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, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
There is a outside website called WikiSpot that is somehow directly wikilinked. For example Hiking trails in Santa Clara County leads to http://sanjose.wikispot.org/Hiking/. There are about 90 such pale blue but otherwise not EL-looking links hither and yon in Wikipedia, some in See Also sections instead of External Links sections. Why are these links allowed, and why are they allowed to look like internal Wikipedia links? Speciate ( talk) 06:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
(N.B. Crosspost with Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#Suggested_change_to_WP:ADMINACCT_wording - I'm not sure which is the more appropriate venue)
Currently, WP:ADMINACCT contains the following sentence:
"Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions"
I think a reasonable reading of this sentence - with particular attention to the usage of the words "only" and "free" - would interpret the sentence as meaning that as long as an editor abides by WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and WP:AGF, any criticism or questioning of admin actions that editor makes are protected by this policy. However, the consensus and ruling at Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Surturz/AdminWatch seems to be that such questions/criticisms must be with a view to dispute resolution. In particular, WP:ADMINACCT does not protect an editor from WP:UP#POLEMIC in their user space. In terms of accountability, editors are not allowed to keep a permanent "account" (list) of admin actions in their userspace. Therefore I think this sentence should be changed to reflect this consensus. I suggest the following rewording (I have including the surrounding text for context, the bolded part is new):
"Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools.
Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions.Subject to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are allowed to question or criticize administrator actions on appropriate pages as part of the dispute resolution process. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed."
-- Surturz ( talk) 02:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
"Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools.
Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions.Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed."
I noticed WKQX was a red link in an article I was looking at, and discovered that someone had deleted it as a non-controversial administrative action. I recreated it only to find it deleted again, recreated it and then I found out I couldn't look up who deleted it to go to their talk page.
This is not a non-controversial delete; WKQX changed its call letters, resulting in a move that left behind a redirect, and all the information about WKQX remains in WWWN. The action left red links all over creation, although they needed to be updated anyway. I took care of that where I could find the links to update. Even when piped, radio station call letters might be used again and the link would go to the new station. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
I have updated all links in article space (some were really hard to find) to WKQX. I restored one to the Watseka station that I had deleted because I could find no evidence it existed on Wikipedia. Would it be all right, until that station gets its own article, to mention in the WWWN article what happened to the call letters, with reliable sources backing up the facts? Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:43, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
There's a growing disease among some writers the symptoms of which are quoting and italicisation of passages. What is the point? Italics are, anyway, more difficult to read on a screen, and should be preserved for titles, names of vessels, emphasis of words and phrases – oh, the usual. I see this bizarre habit in blogs and other online content, when the quote marks should tell us it's a quote. Like, duh, to borrow from the vernacular. So I wonder if there are people out there who have more influence in deciding Wikipedia style who might look out for these weird typographical combinations and advise people that they're rather silly and shouldn't be used.
There is another point about quoting, too. If the style of the publication is for, say, doubles, no singles should be used except for nested quotations (i.e. quotes within quotes). Some writers think a single word or a phrase can make do with single quotes, and then use doubles for full sentences. Ain't so, and it's illogical and unnecessary, when spotting a quote of the style that is opposite to that of the publication (single in doubles or double in singles) can tell a reader immediately that he/she is reading a nested quote.
Again, I appeal to Wiki staff and editors and others of influence to try to steer contributors away from these nonsenses. I appreciate that, with so many contributors, some are going to choose a style that may not be that of the organization as a whole. But, even then, if they choose, say, single quotes (maybe they're made used to them by living in and reading books published in the UK, for instance) as the primary quote mark, they should stick to it (using doubles only for nested quotes). But I gather the style is for the American-preferred doubles (I, although British, prefer them too).
Andy (-- Ajarmitage ( talk) 06:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC))
An RfC to determine the threshold for successful Requests for bureaucratship is now at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Requests for bureaucratship threshold. All of the community is invited to comment. Thanks. - Hydroxonium ( T• C• V) 01:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
As I understand Wikipedia title guidelines, only proper names should be capitalized. There are a number of article titles about technical methods and systems that are fully capitalized (but most are not). Almost all of these methods and systems are identified by an acronym which may lead to incorrect capitalization in this project. I have been trying to figure out when one of these names is a proper name and when it is a common name so I can fix those that are incorrectly capitalized. I understand that this is a sensitive issue since the proponents of these methods may consider capitalization as a sign of distinction and validation. Here are some example titles with both proper and common name capitalization:
Software development
Project management
I see no examples of proper name capitalization for medical procedures though many have acronyms.
What determines whether a name is a proper name in this context? From proper noun lead sentence:
Is the uniqueness of these methods and techniques sufficient to make their names proper? Or does it require a legal brand name? Or ...? Joja lozzo 16:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
I think there are a several reasons for capitalizing technical terms in source documents. Technical papers in engineering and computer science use capitalization for multiple purposes including
It's clear to me that the first two of these purposes are not covered by our capitalization guidelines. I think it's the third purpose that is giving us trouble since unique identity is one of the requirements for a proper name. I think the authors of these terms think their referents are unique entities but does that mean they are? Joja lozzo 03:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents: "Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth (as a common noun), original sin or transubstantiation." Would this translate to other areas of the project? Joja lozzo 20:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I've started a more general discussion on proper names at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#When is something a proper noun?. Please comment there if you have an opinion on how to address such thing by more general guidance. Dicklyon ( talk) 00:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I think calling anything "automatically notable, end of discussion" slings mud in the face of verifiability, implying that some "pseudo-information" out there that might establish notability, without making any effort towards actually trying to establish it. That does not make for substantive articles (i.e. something more than a pretty infobox, navbox, and "The XYZ Wikipedia is a Wikipedia written in the XYZ language."). That being said, I know that we presume various things (high schools come to mind) that are likely to be notable, mainly because nearly all of them do, at one point or another, get covered in some secondary source or another. – MuZemike 00:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
(ec) I think that articles in the main article space should abide by both WP:N and WP:V, regardless of the topic being WMF affiliated or not. There is no reason not to use the Wikipedia namespace for a comprehensive descriptive listing of other Wikipedias ... or all other WMF-affiliated projects, without regard to WP:N but with regard to WP:V. If providing information about the other wikipedias is the goal, then this will serve that purpose. "Forcing" WMF-topical articles into the main article space undermines the WP:N standard, unless there is a consensus agreement on the matter, articulated in something akin to
WP:NSPORTS but rather
WP:NWMF. Proposal of such a new Notability Policy should be done to cover this if people feel strongly that WMF-topical content should be encyclopedic by default. --User:Ceyockey (
talk to me) 03:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
@Finlay McWalter: I disagree with the assessment that Wikipedia is good in the way it reports itself. While the article on Wikipedia itself is quite impartial, the reality of the rest is very different, hence this proposal.
Articles on [major] Wikimedia projects do rely heavily on primary sources and as such do not actually prove notability. Some actually seem to rely on the impression of notability. For example, some language wikis on major European languages (random example: Danish Wikipedia) do not have sources that prove notability or do not have sources at all, yet they are not AfD'd as often as the more obscure (to westerners) Asian and African language Wikipedias. As mentioned before, our article on Wikimedia Commons, in its current state, also does not prove notability and seems to be an exception instead of WP:N (as it is credited in a huge amount of reliable sources as a source for their pictures, but is not actually discussed in depth). So if everyone is assuming I was only talking about small language Wikipedias, I assure you, I'm not. I wouldn't have brought this discussion up in the first place.
While I obviously want them to be excluded in light of the aims of the entire project and not just en.wp, I have to also sadly agree with most of the rationales. I agree with Fut.Perf. ☼'s argument that in most cases, there really is nothing to write about them. I would also happily support a merged article for all other-language Wikipedias that are deemed not notable for their own articles, drawing notability from Wikipedia itself instead. In that way, we still are making them visible to regular readers.
However, I also think hiding our sister projects in Wikipedia space or worse, making it the sole responsibility of metawiki, is both draconian and shortsighted, given that these projects are a part of Wikipedia. But, whatever. As long as there is a community decision on this, I'll be satisfied.
And in case anyone thinks otherwise, a disclaimer : I am not involved in any other Wikimedia projects other than en.wp and commons and have no personal stake in the matter.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Title see ISBN 1234567890.
Just for ease of reference:
Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
There is a discussion currently under way at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (road junction lists) regarding the Geographical tagging of roads and various points in roads. If you are interested in this topic you may want take a moment to comment. -- Kumioko ( talk) 14:30, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
We could really do with some fresh eyes and fresh voices in a discussion aimed at improving clarity here and here; quite a few of us have gone stale and ratty, so extra brains, energy, fresh outlook, fresh input, creativity, good temper and such-like would really be most welcome! Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 04:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
An {{ Accessibility dispute}} template I placed on an article is being removed by another editor because it's "ugly" and the article was "GA" (before the inaccessible content was added). Do we have a policy on the placement/ removal of such banners,and if so can someone point me to it, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:42, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
First let me tell you what I am not arguing: I am not arguing people censor pictures related to nudes of adults on WP and I'm not arguing censoring minors from viewing WP.
What I am arguing is that I believe that there should be some way to know that the people, or body parts, in the photos we are viewing are adults. I think there should be some sort of accountability to prevent child porn being uploaded to WP. As long as they are verifiable adults, I don't see a problem with these pics on WP. I've been starting to wonder is if WP has any policy for age requirements with sexually explicit photos? I know there is a policy for public/private pictures of individuals. If there is, could someone point me to it? If there isn't, why is one not set in place?
I was shown by someone else that Wikipedia is not required to check age and identity of "models" in their photos (at least in the US). But this doesn't wrap everything in a tidy package. I know why Wikipedia doesn't have to follow this rule: Wikipedia is not considered a porn site by the United States government. There is some entity, I'm not sure what division it is, that does keep track of the porn sites--they are required to keep rather detailed information about their models. Because Wikipedia is not considered a porn site by the country, then it goes through a loophole. But that doesn't mean that child porn is not uploaded to Wikipedia.
In any event, I think we need to figure out some sort of policy to hold people accountable for this sort of stuff. I'm not some crazy person trying to get rid of all nudes on WP. I just don't want child porn on Wikipedia, and the law in many countries is very specific on what they consider child porn.-- Henriettapussycat ( talk) 20:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Release_form_for_sexual_images_as_mitigation_against_child_pornography
That topic includes pointers to previous relevant discussions on Wikipedia. Please comment at Commons. Thanks.
Rubywine . talk 20:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
User:ConcernedVancouverite yesterday was deleted this article about the Slovene actor and writer Branko Pintarič. ConcernedVancouverite continuously maintains the A7 rule, but Pintarič is famous person in Slovenia(!). In this case, should be deleted other articles about Slovene actors or writers. Doncsecz talk 13:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
The user restore the deletion-template, but the sources is available. Doncsecz talk 14:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Contract bridge/Manual of Style/Appendix 1: Article creation and naming guidelines ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Several of the articles in spree-killer category have an infobox with a section titled killings that lists weapons, kill count, injured count, and so on. It makes me vaguely uneasy, because it seems like a list of "accomplishments." It feels like glorifying serial killers, reminding me a bit of a trading card in its format. I first noticed this at the Kip Kinkel page (where I started a discussion), but then discovered that it is a widespread template, e.g. George Banks and Jennifer San Marco. I don't see how it is notable that Kinkel's victims were murdered with a 9 mm Glock 19 pistol, sawn-off .22LR Ruger 10/22 rifle, and .22LR Ruger MK II pistol, or why such information should be featured. I do see how it could be considered insensitive. I propose the template be altered to make it less reminiscent of a trading card. Noloop ( talk) 18:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Okiedokie, I started an RFC [10] Noloop ( talk) 00:57, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I have started an RfC on tendentious editing of policy Wikipedia:Verifiability with the view to impose community sanctions, this is the summary:
There is a lot of contention around WP:V, and the policy has been placed under protection because of edit warring. Since this is a core policy, such behavior is to be dealt with seriously by the community. The goal of this RfC is to get the policy placed under community sanctions as described below. These sanctions would apply to all editors in this topic area. The goal is to protect a core policy from tendentious editing, and to provide an environment that leads to positive improvement of the policy. This RfC is not intended to endorse the current version of the policy, and supporting this RfC cannot be considered as such, rather it addressed serious concerns with editor behavior in the talk pages and serious edit warring in the actual policy. It includes a general amnesty for involved editors, providing a clean slate from which better practices can emerge.
The RfC is here: Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#RfC: Tendentious editing of policy Wikipedia:Verifiability
Please participate and comment.-- Cerejota ( talk) 23:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) ( | 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, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
This has been a point of contention in a few discussions. I want to determine if these disputes are local in nature and if there's a broader consensus at large.
Should editors be writing articles that are entirely based on primary sources?
It's not something that we're always good at. But we certainly have been striving for it. Just to put the challenge in perspective, the number of articles sourced entirely to primary sources is roughly in the same ballpark as the number of articles tagged with neutrality disputes. It's somewhat larger, but not nearly as big as the number of unsourced BLPs when that issue came to a head.
The current policy says we don't base articles entirely on primary sources. Does that policy describe a "best practice" and a "standard that all users should normally follow"? We should either establish a consensus for the policy or remove it. Shooterwalker ( talk) 17:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
WP:V has demanded that articles be based on third-party sources for years. There absolutely should be a complete prohibition on the practice of basing articles on primary sources. It's always frustrated me that we have a group of editors so eager to include details on fictional characters that they ignore all relevant policies on article creation and retention.— Kww( talk) 18:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
This is a very important aspect of our verifiability policy, and a fundamental aspect of article writing. Removing it would be a detriment to our goal of being a neutral, high-quality encyclopedia. While primary sources can (and should!) be used when appropriate, they cannot be the sole source of information on a topic. There are inherent notability problems with articles that are only based on primary sources. We only document notable topics, and topics are only notable through their reception in secondary sources (we have a few guidelines that allow for blanket notability for subjects that meet certain conditions, but even these mostly assume some sort of reception such as an award for a film or citations for professors). Removing this provision would allow for many poorly-sourced articles, promotional articles, and articles about fan-minutia. It would greatly lower the bar of quality for our articles. Them From Space 19:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
There are two problems with the exclusive use of primary sources: (1) WP:N: we use secondary sources as one of tests to determine if a topic should have a stand-alone Wikipedia article. (2) WP:OR: when primary sources are exclusively used, it is the Wikipedia editor who becomes the author of the contextual information and interpretation of the facts (i.e. good, bad, expected, unlikely, etc.) patsw ( talk) 12:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
So I think that there is agreement that articles should have secondary sources (which envelopes "not just primary sources"). The question is "what happens when they don't"? Currently such weighs heavily nominating and discussing AFD's where wp:notability is the basis. And its grounds for tagging and improving. So the question is should additional actions be enabled based on that? (e.g. categorical deletion of articles solely on that basis). IMHO the best answer is "no". North8000 ( talk) 15:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
The whole mess with "primary" versus "secondary" sources has long been one of my pet peeves, and IMO the entire section at WP:OR#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources should be moved out into an essay. When it comes down to it, we quite simply don't need to care whether a source is "primary", "secondary", or whatever.
IMO, WP:OR needs to be drastically overhauled to remove the cruft related to WP:N and WP:V and "primary-source paranoia" that it has accumulated. WP:V could use a bit too, especially the section WP:V#Verifiability and other principles. And WP:N could use some refocusing on the real criteria rather than secondariness in places. But I doubt any of that will ever actually happen, as too many have invested too much in pushing exactly that cruft in for ammunition in deletion discussions. Anomie ⚔ 16:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I accept that in some fields, History jumps to mind, primary sources could be a bad idea, and have likely been analysed in a secondary source. However, in science, primary sources published in high-profile journals ( Nature and Science being the obvious examples) have likely undergone more scrutiny than a review paper (secondary source) published in a small/low impact journal. By this policy, basing articles upon a fringe-published review is encouraged, but writing about cutting-edge, high-profile discoveries, less so. I do see some merit in warning against excessive primary sources, but I think in the field of science particularly, primary sources are as valuable as secondary. As a further point, they contain the methods and technical details of how results were obtained, which underpin verifiability as part of the scientific method (albeit not verifiability for our purposes, lest we breach NOR) Jebus989 ✰ 16:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
A scientific article describing a new species is not a primary source, in regards to the species. The primary source in regards to the species would be the specimen itself. The same article is also a primary source in regards to the author of the article, and of the journal it is published in, etc. — Akrabbim talk 18:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
There was an interesting discussion at ANI regarding account creation. The basic question that came up is this: why are new accounts allowed to create more than one extra account? It's clear that we don't want to completely cut off the ability of new accounts to create accounts (in case someone with an inappropriate username wants to a new name compliant with policy). However, I cannot think of a good reason for new accounts to create more than one new account. Is it possible to limit new accounts to the creation of one new account? TN X Man 14:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
A bot should notify active users who haven't registered an email address after 200 edits (possibly fewer). At this point the account starts to become valuable and a more likely target for attack. The email address provides a
second factor for authentication and allow recovery of forgotten passwords. The Toolserver will generate a list of users that have (1) recently edited, (2) have user_email_authenticated
NULL or 0, and (3) are above the edit threshold. Note: Registering an email is separate from the ability for other users to email you. —
Dispenser 00:37, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Verifiability/Draft ( | 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 September 2011 (UTC)
I would like an uninvolved editor to please close the RfC at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#RfC: Tendentious editing of policy Wikipedia:Verifiability
It has the support of 2 editors, and the opposition of 16 editors, and it seems unlikely to gain consensus support. Thanks in advance. -- Avanu ( talk) 03:17, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
I have seen in several discussions someone referring to "Wikipedia's gazetteer function". However, I haven't been able to find any policy or guideline discussing this. The only thing I see is at WP:Five pillars:
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers.
However, WP:ENC never mentions the term, WP:Gazetteer is no help, there is no WP:Notability (places) or anything, and I don't see anything useful at WP:WPGEOG. I'm sure there are numerous discussions archived all over the place, but it would be good to see what has been written to reflect the consensus that has been reached. — Akrabbim talk 17:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
There are limitations to what can be done with the Wikipedia is an automated way. Conversion en masse of all placename articles which remained in their robotic stub form, without loss of information, into lists within new or existing articles is a bot on an order of complexity that one doesn't see in bots. At some point, one accepts the Wikipedia as it is. What could be done if one were King and Lawgiver of the Wikipedia on a blank page is necessarily different from collaboration in the Wikipedia as it is at this point. patsw ( talk) 15:52, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
On animal species, if it is verifiably a separate species, then it means that someone has written a description of it: its range, type specimen(s), and what particular features differentiate it from other species in its genus. Whether that has been, to date, done in only one source should not preclude an article from being started on it, assuming that we can consider that source reliable for that purpose (i.e., it's published in a peer reviewed journal, written by a recognized specialist in the field, etc.).
So whether something can only be sourced to only one reliable source or only to primary sources is a separate question from whether it can, or should be, merged or redirected somewhere. If twenty reliable sources do nothing more than list the names of species in a single genus, then you have a good basis only for one article on that genus as a whole. But if there are twenty reliable sources that each describe a single different species, then you have a good basis for twenty species articles. postdlf ( talk) 01:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I am curious about what you might think about the new article Fursatganj Airport Raebareli. My feeling is that this should not be a standalone article but a list entry in List of airports in India. I do agree that consensus is that a populated place which is verifiable in its existence is de facto notable regardless of its size. I don't think that this consensus covers major man-made works such as pieces of transportation infrastructure. Thanks for your input. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me) 03:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Is this user name actually a reference to a marketing firm on Wikipedia? And what is the policy for these? The Wedbush Securities page that I happened to see reads like a marketing handout anyway. Needs clean up - makes Wikipedia look bad. Stronger policies are needed? History2007 ( talk) 08:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
You just made my point Akrabbim. I have to spend effort on and on and on to deal with this? No, policy should be stronger so I do not have to do this at my salary level. Wikipedia effort is not unlimited. We need stronger policies so these things can be stopped with "minimal effort". There are probably 300 other pages like that. We will never catch up with the paid marketing people in the long run. History2007 ( talk) 13:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I think Blade made a valid point above: promotionalism is not harmless. My real issue is that my own feeling about my level of reliance on Wikipedia diminishes as I see junk floating around. Less than 48 hours ago I had no idea who this Wadbush company was, then I saw a Google news item, and looked it up on Wikipedia because I use Wiki as one of my main source of info. I was surprised what a glowing marketing page that was and how different it was from the newspaper report. As I see unreliable info, I trust Wikipedia less. What would have happened if I looked them up before seeing that newspaper article? What about other companies, etc.
As trust in Wikipedia diminishes, so will the levels of financial donations and volunteer edits. I think Blade's point that:
should be emphasized. Promotionalism is not harmless. History2007 ( talk) 21:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree that Wedbush article is a blatant advert. I've suggested a chop and rearranged for balance here. Moriori ( talk) 23:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
There are a couple of ways. {{ advert}} places the article in Category:All articles with a promotional tone, or one could pore over Pages that link to "Template:Advert". There are, to forestall part of your next post, 12,878 articles in the category. Out of 3,700,000, that would be. [This was unsigned]...
Discussions went further at wp:articles for deletion, and policy wording has been changed saying that speedy deletion criteria are also AFD deletion criteria. So, being a 100% advertisement is grounds for AFD nomination and deletion. North8000 ( talk) 19:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Nomenclature ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
My recommendation in closing this discussion is that such situations be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the level of disruption in the nomination, as well as the number and the value of the contributions by those participating after the initiation but before the initiator is discovered to be a sockpuppet. I think this situation is probably sufficiently rare that we can afford to determine the best course of action case by case. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Over the last few months or so, there have been multiple XfDs nominated by sock-puppets of indef-blocked users. Some people's nominations fared better (in the terms of valid reasoning), but technically all would have been closed procedurally had they been discovered sooner. By the time that the confirmation from CU arrives, some of those nominations already had multiple other editors weighing in their opinions, and the closing admins decided to let the AfDs run their cases.
For example, Donald Schroeder JWH018 ( talk · contribs · logs · block log) is a sock-puppet of Torkmann ( talk · contribs · logs · block log) and was blocked when CU discovered it. However, DSJ made multiple AfDs prior to the block of that account. By the time the block was conducted, 7 AfDs were listed by DSJ, of which only 1 resulted in a Keep.
WP:Banning Policy has a section that stipulates Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor, but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert. Several comments were recently raised here regarding Speedy Keep policy (and by extension Speedy Delete criteria) vs banning policy.
So I'm asking the community to comment on this issue: What should we do regarding processes that require a nomination, and it was later found out that the nominator shouldn't have been able to do so (either due to blocks/bans/topic bans), but not before multiple legitimate editors have voiced valid supporting views of the nomination? Should we Dismiss the nomination altogether due to its invalid nomination? Do we Let the Process run its course, then if needed, raise corresponding issues at appropriate boards (such as deletion review)? Or do we have other options?
A simple example: A sock-puppet of a blocked/banned user nominated a valid article for deletion at AfD. (Legitimate) editors put in their views, and 2 days into the 7-day period required for AfD, it is then discovered that the nominator was a sockpuppet (and subsequently blocked/banned). What should we do about the ongoing AfD? - Penwhale | dance in the air and follow his steps 16:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
My own personal preference (using my personal judgement and sometimes using IAR) is to close with leave to speedy renominate if it's a "low risk" article and let it run if it's a "high risk" article. See this thread for my definition of high risk/low risk. That way if another Claritas sock shows up and starts opening up a can of whupass on Transformers articles, I can put a quick stop to it. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 16:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Let the process run. The closing administrator is free to ignore the contributions of the banned user, but it is unhelpful to remove or ignore the opinions of good-faith editors. Reyk YO! 18:30, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Or to put it another way: all users, banned or not, are forbidden from making bad contributions. What additional effect does a ban have except to limit the banned user's good contributions as well?
So we have to scrap such discussions and start again. Whether the AfD is good shouldn't matter. Ken Arromdee ( talk) 16:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm wondering what happens when a sock of a banned user starts another process.
Recently an RFARB was allowed to run after a sock started it. What should we do when sock starts a process like these and the process is underway before we find out it's a banned user? - Hydroxonium ( T• C• V) 03:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Should people go back to closed discussions like concluded AfDs to remove or strike through comments made by people later found to be socks of banned users?
Many of the editors commenting above didn't discriminate between a blocked editor and a banned editor. A key comment at ANI was that this is a case where there is a difference between de facto and de jure bans. So the focus of this particular section has to do with the de jure ban, meaning the editor has actually been banned, not that his status is similar to being banned.
Wikipedia:BAN#Bans apply to all editing, good or bad states
At first glance, this would seem to end the discussion about AfD nominations and banned editors.
But before getting to that, it is worth asking, why would a detail this small require any further discussion? After all, among the edits that a user makes, the number of AfD nominations would on average be almost non-existant. Yet experience shows otherwise, so we have to reverse the question and ask, why do banned editors make an unusually high percentage of AfD nominations?
So in fact, banned editors have reason to love making a sock and making AfD nominations, and the record also shows that they like to make delete !votes at other AfD discussions. Even if the nomination fails, they have succeeded in increasing the "burden of deletion". If we can assume that Keep !votes take more time than Delete !votes, and that the result of an AfD discussion is partially a function of the work expended to prepare a posting, a failed AfD nomination has still biased all other AfD discussions toward deletion.
So back to the policy, Wikipedia:BAN#Bans apply to all editing, good or bad, why does this policy statement not end the question?
Unscintillating ( talk) 02:55, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
== Evasion and enforcement ==
Wikipedia's approach to enforcing bans balances a number of competing concerns:
As a result, enforcement has a number of aspects. While all editors are expected to respect the enforcement of policies by not undermining or sabotaging them, no editor is personally obligated to help enforce any ban.
[end of quote] Unscintillating ( talk) 21:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Unscintillating ( talk) 05:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
“ | @Penwhale, (1) Do you agree that banned editors make a notably high number of AfD nominations? (2) Do you agree that the AfD process begun by AfD nominations takes a large amount of the time resource of Wikipedia editors? (3) Do you agree that restoring the edits of banned users is "undermining or sabotage"? | ” |
It doesn't seem like I would get a reply over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books)#Title_translations_on_old_.28French.2C_German.29_books, so I'll ask here (sorry for the double post).
I have been running into an editor who thinks that titles of old German/French books should all be replaced by English titles. I explained that changing the title would effectively change the book, which is given as a reference in the article, to one that does not exist as such. Furthermore, WP:Naming conventions (books)#Title translations states that the title is translated for non-Latin names, normally, and for books that haven't been published in English yet: this obviously does not apply for old books/essays, which are unlikely to be published as English versions. I concluded that English translations may be added in parentheses to the original title as a courtesy to the reader, but is there an official policy or guideline on this? Also, the editor has given only machine-translated titles, which I contested because they are obviously inaccurate. I think that translations should be provided by native speakers or via the language reference desk, but the editor is of the opinion that his machine translations are better than nothing (accusing me of complaining rather than correcting the titles). What is the view on machine translations? Thanks, Nageh ( talk) 12:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The title should be provided in the original language, if you're citing the edition in the original language (such as Marcel Proust's classic novel "A la recherche du temps perdu"). If you cite a translated title, that can differ, depending upon which translated edition is being cited. The first translation of Proust's novel into English was titled "Remembrance of Things Past". A better translation was released in recent years, under a new English title, "In Search of Lost Time". So, the title of the translation will refer to a specific work of translation.
I have provided my own English translation of works mentioned within the body of an article, such as titles of doctoral dissertations, that only exist in the original language and have not been translated or published in English. When I do this, I write out the full title of the work in the original language, followed by my own translation in brackets. I would never put my own translation of a publication's title as a cited reference; this is incorrect and misleading, as it implies that there is a complete official translated edition of the work in existence, when there is not.
OttawaAC ( talk) 14:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
OttawaAC ( talk) 18:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
That's a good point I hadn't thought of; I suspect that it may be a result of informal convention, rather than an academic standard, because that practise isn't done consistently. Die Fleidermaus is usually Die Fleidermaus; Liszt's Liebestraum works are not given English titles, nor are Polonaises, etc. On the other hand, no one in the English-speaking world calls the Mona Lisa La Giaconda, although in French it's known as the Joconde... I'm going to check the Chicago Manual of Style and perhaps some other sources to see what the accepted academic formatting ought to be... OttawaAC ( talk) 12:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
{{
Cite book}}
, then use the |trans_title=
parameter for the translation.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 23:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
As a newbie, I brought heavy inquisition with regard to an initial entry being deleted because it wasn't "published" or from a "reliable source." As a newbie, I entered a 'chat' channel embedded in an admin's page, and after using the word 'pee' was banned and my problem still left unresolved and conversation left unfinished. Inquiries to his reasonings left unanswered. What kind of open forum tells people to post info about topics/individuals, makes some vague descriptions about what you 'can or cant' post,' and then bans you because you don't type the same monotomous 12 year old jibberish that you find on 'published' public blogs like yahoo or paris hilton... wiki has disappointed me... while i came here with the intent on disproving my colleagues that the site wasn't a total waste of time for random unsubstantiated information... it appreas all the rumors are true...
by the way, all i wanted to do was edit the 'personal section' of a biography to read that the individual was a good cook and always left his door open for people to listen to his music... and it was promptly delted for being "totally unsourced" -- this site is a joke... just a bunch of old men who couldn't make manager in their field in the real world, flexing their typing prowess here late at night with a box of twinkies next to their monitor... yes ive resulted to insults... seems like stupid random discussion is the only thing that gets "published" without scrutiny... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 16:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not some place to insert your personal feelings about someone, as indicated by your edit here, nor does it serve as a memorial or obituary of someone. We strive to include unbiased, neutral, and verifiable information – that had none of that. If you cannot understand this, then you completely miss what the concept of an encyclopedia is.
Now if you excuse me, I'm going back do doing more productive stuff, such as enhancing my typing prowess and eating twinkies that are next to my monitor. – MuZemike 18:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Of course, because once you make a rule about something, IT CAN NEVER CHANGE... there should NEVER... EVER... be any amendments or discussions, or ADVERSE opinions on how to improve or better a program... heaven forbid we make you stop and consider a ding dong every now and then instead of a twinkie... people who value HUMAN INTERACTION and TRUTH will understand the need for personal recounts in history and as many before have said 'getting it straight from the horses mouth' -- its quite sad that you are willing to accept cut and pastes as law versus the potential to hear from relatives, close friends, colleagues, etc of an individual versus some potential nut case(s) who collects random data from "published and reliable" sources and stamps it as GOLD simply because you were able to electronically provide a link to some corner of cyberspace... setting up recordable audio, photos, video, etc. of events/individuals would do this site some class... but if the pervasive attitude is OMG, DONT CHANGE WHAT WE HAVE, WE CANT HANDLE TRYING TO ADAPT TO SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT... then you're better off continuing to websurf 10-12 hours a day...
kumioko, the last delete was me typing in a response without logging in first, so i logged backed in so that the comment wouldn't be anonymous... as far as explaining what it is 'i want' you're an adult, go back and read, its pretty clear.. i cant explain everything for you... if you cant understand that adding personal content would help if done the right way, you're just a megabyte jockey like the rest of them and are content to be spoonfed whatever people can cleverly link and creatively drum up and get 'published' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 19:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
im sorry, i coulda sworn this section was called "policy" -- i didn't mean to ask about new ideas to the existing policy... how silly of me... perhaps i should post in the JUST DO WHAT YOUR TOLD section...? why do you think today's generation loves reality tv? because kids are simpler, yes maybe not as educated, but simpler, and prefer to learn about relationships and how they relate to individuals versus the historical collection of a person's accomplishments... facebook figured it out... lots of video and audio there... check out their user numbers... am i saying turn wiki into facebook? no... i see thats the way you went though with your response trying to extreme side my argument... all im saying is that there is room to fit in some personal touches to the medium without compromising the integrity of the data... but since apparently that is impossible according to the almighty gods of wiki, then we are stuck simply reading dull, boring "reliable" and "published" sources of data from the INTERNET.. yes the internet, the world's foremost reliable data platform... there is a reason why people don't buy encylopedias anymore and why places like myspace and facebook are so successful... without change and open ears to new ideas, this medium will die a lonely death or at least until the old money runs out and someone young buys it and then realizes the potential for change without chastizing the occasional user(s) who has a thought differing from the norm... especially in a designated area that is SUPPOSE TO ENCOURAGE sharing of new ideas... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 19:47, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
let me apologize as by reading the top a bit more, it seems this probably should've gone in the 'proposals' section instead of this existing policy area... all the text and links are sometimes a blur... you know, there are a lot of ways to go with my suggestion... you could do a 'wikipedia light' perhaps with a more liberal section that allowed video or audio related posts with less 'policy' and more personality... you could have a group of people verify personal information and then once verified, add to the page... but sorry oops... i dont want to suggest anything outside of the nerd norm thats been embedded here... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 19:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, the last response was professional and detailed. And yes, my text, while it may have seemed immature, was merely reacting to the user's responses... i have since read a bit more, and understand more now the retaliations i received... and also found this very telling sentence right at the beginning of one of your core principles:
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"
-- had i saw that, it would've stopped my rant a while back... youre right this isn't the place to find truth... and that i believe will continue to be the butt of anti-wiki humor and sentiments and the "core" of its possible demise in the future... i dont know how long people will buy into having "verified sources" versus having the "truth" -- my bad.. sorry for trying to shove a round peg in a square hole... dmacks, for real thank you... sorry for the uproar... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 20:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" <-- this really speaks volumes... i dont have to say anything else... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 23:35, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU, AV, AW, AX, AY, AZ, BA, BB, BC, BD, BE, BF, BG, BH, BI, BJ, BK, BL, BM, BN, BO · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191
I'm interested to know why articles on non-notable topics are deleted. I mean, I get that not many people will read them, but if no one reads it is doesn't cause anyone a problem ( it's not like you have to scroll through an index of all the articles)and if someone reads it is clearly at least marginally notable. So basically what I want to know is: what HARM do non-notable articles do? please can someone explain. Alicianpig ( talk) 10:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Bermicourt: I see what you mean. That makes sense. Thanks Alicianpig ( talk) 11:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Dmcq: I don't really see how it could be cluttered as you only find what you search for. someone looking up World War Two isn't going to find an article on Bob's favourite colour of fairy liquid. Surely however much rubbish there is you still find what you're looking for. Thanks Alicianpig ( talk) 11:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
North8000: Surely it doesn't increase the amount of 'true information', rather it decreases the amount of information which most people may find useless and insignificant but which may be useful to a select group of people. Because you locate information by searching rather than by looking through a list, narrowing is not neccessary as it is easy to filter what you find by what you search. Thanks Alicianpig ( talk) 12:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Sjakkalle: wikipedia already has very little credibility. Alicianpig ( talk) 12:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
GB Fan: If an article is of a non-notable subject which no one will look at, who will see it and think wikipedia is non-notable? Someone who would not think it was notable will not know about it to look it up, and someone who looks it up must think it is at least notable enough to be on wikipedia. Alicianpig ( talk) 14:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I understand that some things are not relevant, such as an article on your pet cat, but take for example the article on whinge wars. The type of subject isn't intrinsicly non notable, but that particular game is not. What few sources there are about it are written, and there is nothing unreliable about the article. However, in this instance the subject matter is not well known.
North8000: if you made a wikipedia article called (for example) Bob's favourite washing up liquid, then searched Bob's favourite washing up liquid, you would find the article. If you made a website with the same name then searched it on google, you wouldn't be able to find it.
Alicianpig ( talk) 18:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
This seems to contradict the assuming good faith policy. The internet is not the only source of information. someone who is an expert on a particular subject could write a perfectly good article without using online information, and assuming the editor is trying to help the project, it is not neccessary to prove the information with internet references.
Also, someone said that if people could make non-notable articles it would ruin wikipedia's credibility. However, the articles on notable subjects would be just as good as before, so it would not decrease the credibility of those. Alicianpig ( talk) 18:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
There is no 'pizza'. Wikipedia is the easiest way to access information. Alicianpig ( talk) 19:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I think this mostly comes down to whether or not there is any sourcing independent of the topic, with which one can build an article. While it has little to do with the sources being online or off, for most editors, online sources tend to be much easier to find and cite these days (though one must still be mindful about their independence and depth). Nobody can write an article drawn from sources they've written themselves which have not been independently published/cited, whatever their credentials may be, that's beyond the bounds allowed by the original research policy and beyond the ken of an encyclopedia. Why? Because without independent sourcing, the reader has no way to check up, if need be, on what they've read. The bounds on WP:BLP, articles about living people, are much sterner, because such articles can have meaningful sway on their lives. As for reliability, Wikipedia is not reliable, no encyclopedia is thought of as reliable. Wikipedia is a handy tool for looking stuff up, either as a quick, messy take on a topic, or as a means to get an overview for learning much more. Wikipedia is built mostly from independent secondary sources which the reader can one way or another check out. Since most secondary sources do carry deep flaws, so does Wikipedia. Reader beware. Gwen Gale ( talk) 20:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
GraemeLeggett: Wikipedia is free pizza with free delivery. However bad something is, no one cares as long as it's free and easy to get
Alicianpig (
talk) 07:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
If a pizza takeaway (continuing on the pizza theme) started selling all sorts of food, yes the new food would probably be badly done by the dodgy new people you bought in to make it, but the pizza would be just as good as before as long as the same pizza guy kept making it, and people who thought the pizza was good would keep coming for that. Alicianpig ( talk) 13:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
But articles on mainstream subjects could still be just as good no matter how many rubbish ones there were Alicianpig ( talk) 07:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
I know this is a very late addition to the discussion but it's also a matter of reputation and mission. There's a reason no one takes a facebook page as a serious source of information. Wikipedia's goal is to be the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If we cease to be free, cease to be an encyclopedia, or cease letting anyone edit, then Wikipedia is no longer Wikipedia, it has failed. Ensuring only proper topics of encyclopedic merit are included is a core part of what we are.
HominidMachinae (
talk) 02:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Out of interest, is there any policy against this? An editor is using article talkpages as a sandbox (which I have reverted) and he has been using his talk page as such for longer... Giant Snowman 14:08, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
Does WP:OVERLINK apply to links brought into articles by the use of templates? Specifically, stub templates. Please see the recently revived long-running discussion which is presently at WT:WSS#Possible overlinking in bio stubs. -- Redrose64 ( talk) 15:07, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_reports#Alberto_Emilio_Lopez_Vi.C3.B1als--Carozo 16:18, 6 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alberto Lopez Viñals ( talk • contribs)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Canada-related articles ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Canada-related articles) ( | 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, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm told that technically using the actual law that establishes a city (village, town, whatever) as a city, etc is a primary source and thereby not allowed but yet using a book, film, etc for article information is an acceptable form of primary source. I dont wish to start the second round of the "plot/spoilers war" we had like two years ago. I'm not talking about whether or not plots are allowed, I'm talking about why is it ok for books, movies, etc to be acceptable primary sources in use on themselves in those cases. There are plenty of secondary sources that cover the plot, actors, and anything else. So I'm just curious is it simply a matter of those individuals who work on those articles are a strong lobby or am I missing a reasoning? Camelbinky ( talk) 04:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
But to respond to the original poster's question if all you are doing is, in effect, repeating what the source says & not offering your interpretation of what it says, then don't worry about it. Yes, primary sources are often wrong about details -- even the most reliable ones are incorrect about some of their facts -- but that's why we have WP:NPOV. The article states what the primary source says on one hand, & what corrections the recognized experts have made about the matter on the other. (And if the experts haven't made corrections, then one should reasonably assume the primary source is correct.) -- llywrch ( talk) 07:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
In view of ongoing hyphen replacement with endash in the words, beginning with "anti-" (which is performed by bots as well), I just noticed a deviation from WP:ENDASH. The prefix "anti" is not an individual, standalone word, as suggested by the guideline (as it's always succeeded by noun or adjective), and as such does not require a separating endash (apparently that's why one of the examples in WP:ENDASH, "a pro-establishment–anti-intellectual alliance", is written with hyphen, not endash. This is exactly the idea envisaged by WP:HYPHEN ("to link certain prefixes") Most likely the guideline's wording should be amended (because it's hardly, if ever, possible to substitute the prefix "anti" with the word "versus", as recommended by WP:ENDASH), with the existing moves being reversed. -- Brandmeister t 13:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles ( | 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, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles) ( | 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, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Stub articles are a drain on Wikipedia's resources. They should be deleted after six months if they are not accepted as a Good Article (GA). Allowing them to be here encourages lazy editing.-- andreasegde ( talk) 23:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Ignore this guy. He's popped up several times on my watchlist today making inflammatory or otherwise less than useful statements. It's probably my fault for responding to him on his talk page that this wound up here. My bad I guess. Can we snow close this now? Sven Manguard Wha? 00:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC) |
I'd like to throw around the idea of fully protecting policy pages. Past discussion on this (see: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_58#Full_protect_important_policies, for example) seems to have revolved around the idea that "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy", "Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and "too much fork for admins". My first thought is that pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and especially policy pages, are encyclopedic content. I mention this because it seems to me that the past opposition to this has relied on the idea that the encyclopedic content should be editable by anyone, which is an idea that I very much agree with. However, our policies (which aren't "rules", but are commonly agreed to community standards) are not the same as our content. I don't think that they should change much, and any changes should go through a minimum amount of procedural process in order to ensure that they meet expectations.
For the most part, this is already the way that policy pages work, in that any change to any policy page is almost reflexively reverted until and unless a significant number of participants force the change through or agree to it. Part of the problem though is that this leads to some rather unnecessarily emotional confrontations, which even leads to editors being blocked occasionally, or dragged through one or more of our dispute resolution processes. One reason why I think this happens so often is that we've chosen to leave our policy and guideline pages to appear as though they are the same as our article content, when clearly the reality is much different. We should do something in order to make that distinction real to would be editors. Using some sort of protection isn't going to solve all of our problems when it comes to dealing with policy pages, but it should help.
Alternatives to using Full protection include semi protection or some form of pending changes. I don't like the idea of using semi because it only affects IP's, which sends the wrong "political" message in my eyes. Using pending changes may be good to think about, but... I just think that it would be best for everyone if all editors were required to start a talk page discussion prior to any change. Administrators are, of course, able to edit though full protection, which could turn into a real problem (and I'm sure that it will be a significant drama filled issue at some point in the future, if something comes from this), but that's at least part of what arbcom is for. More importantly, it'll likely be clear as day what's going on if some admin in the middle of a dispute goes and edits through protection to change policy. We're remarkably good at catching and punishing people for things like that, now.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs) 16:57, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
I've been working on User:Tryptofish/Arguments to avoid in image deletion discussions. Feedback prior to moving it into the mainspace would be welcome (there, rather than here). Thanks! -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:53, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929. |
and
This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1977 inclusive, without a copyright notice. Unless the author has been dead for several years, it is not in the public domain in countries that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works. This includes Canada, China (not Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan Area), Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and other countries with individual treaties. See also further explanation. |
for example, which no newbie has access to, even if they apply.
So I would respectfully suggest that you burn the whole thing and start over from that angle. We don't need to make photo uploading any more difficult and convoluted than it already is... Carrite ( talk) 15:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Should such employees declare their potential COI right away, or if this is not voluntarily done, should notices be issued on the talk page? Some of these editors have been involved in an edit war over Tony Tan Keng Yam, which had to be protected. This especially came up when one of the users involved submitted an OTRS ticket to Commons to establish permission for one of the images, "taken from the subject's workplace", that is, the politician in question. elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( be free) 16:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Nomenclature ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (chemistry)/Nomenclature ( | 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, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
According to search statistics, 16/17 people landing on Anne Hathaway mean to look for the actress, not the Bard's wife. By WP:ASTONISH, the actress' article should be moved over the disambig, and a hatnote placed on that page to also inform readers of the Shakespearean actress. However, people are also opposing, arguing that "Shakespeare's wife will be remembered long after the actress has been forgotten". Seriously? Does this sort of sentiment override WP:ASTONISH? Perhaps the wider community should comment on this discussion. elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( be free) 17:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Search statistics are not everything. I expect that most people searching Georgia want the US state, but there are good reasons not to make that the main topic. — Kusma ( t· c) 19:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC) "There are no absolute rules for determining how likely a given topic is to be sought by readers entering a given term" – WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- Cybercobra (talk) 04:49, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I used to make comments about bots on wikipedia. I wish there were more good bots doing a lot of the tedious work out there, and the bigger wikipedia gets, the more they are needed for mundane tasks. However, I find the bot community to be unresponsive to input from community members. Case in point, the instructions on the WP:RfBA board state that "After a reasonable amount of time has passed for community input, an approvals group member may approve a trial for your bot and move the request to this section." What happened recently, though, is that a BRfA was posted, 4 minutes later a trial was approved, [4] and the BRfA for that bot was removed from the "Current requests for approval" section, where one would expect BRfA to be for some time ("a reasonable amount of time ... for community input"), to the bots in a trial section, where it is difficult to see there is a community discussion or find the discussion.
Notice that if you look at the trial section you do not see a discussion listed:
If you wish to comment on me, go for it here or on my IP talk page. If you wish to comment on the BAG instructions, etc., please do so here. -- 68.127.234.159 ( talk) 21:39, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
A hard thing that currently plagues the project is the fact that we have no clear way to deal with people edit warring to enforce consensus. I'm sure this is a kink in the BRD cycle. Jasper Deng (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
(Undent)Jayron, you said above: "The person who wins should always be the person who is willing to allow the version they DISAGREE with to be the publicly viewable version." I need help understanding this. Suppose a person is willing to allow the version they DISAGREE with to be the publicly viewable version, so they stop reverting. Even if that person can and does prove at the article talk page that consensus supports their version, the other version is allowed to remain, the other side refuses to concede, no admin wants to get involved, and the publicly viewable version eventually becomes a de facto consensus version due to not being reverted. How exactly is that a "win" for the person willing to allow the version they DISAGREE with to be the publicly viewable version? Anythingyouwant ( talk) 20:43, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
I think in order to prevent the initial editor (the one starting the war) from winning due to 3RR, let's put him/her under 2RR restrictions in situations like the following: User A edits, is reverted by User B. User A reverts and gets reverted by User B. User A reverts again and is reverted by User B. Now User A, under 3RR, could "win" by using his/her third revert to bring back his/her version. Jasper Deng (talk) 16:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
The problem here is that the whole idea that we can decide edit wars (content disputes) by counting reverts (or by counting heads) is flawed. 3RR or any variants thereof should be seen as just a stopgap measure until we have a rational means of resolving such disputes that puts the quality of the encyclopedia first and editors' personal agendas last.-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
In what surely must be a triumph for Wikipedia, consensus has once more banished reality and rationality from the astrology pages, driving away all sincere editors, with a little help from administrators, delivering the whole shebang into the hands of the magi.
How did this come to pass? Gaming of the system? Gibber-jabber and endless circular arguments, underpinned by idiot interpretations of having to extend good faith and civility to deliberate and irrational gibberish merchants, driving away all but those with the agenda of legitimating astrology? Who can say, since administrator intervention played its own part in stripping away the encyclopaedic ethic, along with a few editors.
So, once more it's no longer true in the Wikiuniverse that astrology is a pseudoscience, or that it is concerned, at least in part, with commercially motivated practices aimed at parting fools from their money, based on claptrap and gullibility. No, no! It is merely the respectable study of mysterious cosmic causalities in human affairs.
And of course, with all rational critics of such bullshit banished, the consensus of three or four editors is all it takes to turn sense and science upside down to present the world with a Wikipedia exposition of astrology that sounds downright reputable.
No hint here that ‘Hermetic principles’ are derived from a mythical Hermes Trismegistus, carving arcane wisdom into a mythical Emerald Tablet (as you would). It’s all true, see! Is it just me or does this sound a bit like an unpublished Tolkien book?
A mere trifle, then, to abolish Sir Francis Bacon from the English Renaissance and to endlessly fork the astrology content into labyrinthine sub-pages to avoid even non-existent scrutiny.
And in the meantime one magus has even acquired his own personal Wikipedia vanity page, edited mainly by ... wait for it ... fellow magi. Maybe this will turn into a round-robin until all of them have personal Wikipedia pages. Robes and wizard hats in portrait photos optional. Then they could start quoting each others' authoritative, sage words on any number of topics.
Perfect. A case study of what rather shallow, mechanistic enforcement of WP guidelines has made of Wikipedia. All it would take to complete this picture of blithe profligacy is a reply to this post along the lines of ‘why doncha do summink ‘bout it’ or ‘you’re posting in the wrong place’, or maybe even a threat to ban me from posting about rationality at all.
Well, the answer is already out there: some editors have already put in as much effort as they’re willing to in representing rationality against self-appointed magicians and administrators willing to lend their authority to the nonsense being promoted in the astrology pages.
To any administrators watching, I'd say: This is YOUR mess. The superstitious nonsense in the astrology pages was put there on YOUR watch. The people who opposed the snake oil sales pitch where driven away by YOUR interpretations of Wikipedia guidelines. Now stand by what’s published to the world as received wisdom, or clean it up yourselves. It is, after all, a perfect illustration of what y’all have made of Wikipedia with your shallow, indolent lack of care about the responsibilities that ought to come with your white hats, spurs and six-guns.
To the more fundamentalist, literal-minded I'd say: at what point does it become irrational to back WP policy on consensus, neutrality and civility when they're used to abolish reality and rationality?
Right, I'm off to tea with the Red Queen, Baron Muenchhausen and Hermes Trismegistus to discuss what centuries we can delete from world history. Regards Peter S Strempel | Talk 23:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
USchick, your response was unexpected and refreshing. I had never seen the ‘don’t give a fuck’ advice before, and although I find Antandrus to be a little bit on the fatalistic side, it’s sage advice from someone who has taken far more beatings than I by a system characterised by another editor, Malleus Faturom, as run by children. In fact, I ‘d have to say that my beatings were largely self-inflicted because I give a damn about what we do here and what Wikipedia says to the world. My mistake. I see now that Wikipedia is a vast and anarchic playground for all sorts, some of whom aspire to no more than seeing their own gibber-jabber validated in a Wikipedia article.
Alas, I can’t just resign myself to what JP Sartre called the quietism of despair. Call it ego or smug pomposity, but I like to think that what I do and say here reflects at least some of my education and idealism about people and rationality. However, in keeping with your advice, my initial comment fell out of a thought process that already saw me recuse myself from the said article, and some others where Wikipedia guidelines were being applied almost as if in mockery of them: consensus being used to override rationality, and administrator interventions taking place like dictatorial fiat rather than sincere concern for verifiability, civility or encyclopaedic anything. The reply by Tagishsimon above is a case in point: requesting specifics and diffs says ‘I can’t be bothered reading the thing myself, nor do I want to make up my own mind about what it says, but I’m happy to adjudicate a dispute because all I have to do is apply guidelines mechanistically without regard to consequences for Wikipedia as a whole’.
This raises the question: should we all just flip the bird to guidelines as irrelevances and do whatever the hell we please here, so long as we can get away with it by gaming the system, allying ourselves with like-minded administrators, and putting the encyclopaedic endeavour a distant last to more immediate self-gratification or amusement? That seems to be the way we are being pointed by the gangs that have coalesced around the children with administrator rights Malleus Faturom referred to.
And yes, USchick, Wikipedia is exactly what we make of it, and therefore a perfect reflection of who we are as a group and as a culture. The best of it is very good, but you’ll have to excuse me for cringing at the worst of it, like gibber-jabber and the bone-headed pursuit of what Antony Beevor labelled ‘counterknowledge’ —
All this has coincided with what one might call the Wikipedia age. A populist notion has grown that anyone has the right to correct or change the truth according to their own beliefs. In a way, it is a democratic ideal taken to its most grotesque extreme, but in practice it is the opposite of democratic, because it allows the demagogue to exploit gullibility and ignorance.
— Antony Beevor, Real concerns, The Guardian, 25 July 2009.
This is eerily analogous to the use of consensus in Wikipedia to override rationality. What do we do when a consensus of editors says that two plus two equals five, or three? Do we just accept it silently? Back to a quietism of despair, eh? But that’s another debate.
My old man once told me that if he gained just one new idea or insight from a book he read, it had been worth the effort. Your post, USchick, certainly met that test, and I thank you for the reference. Stay well, Wikipedia probably needs more editors like you. Regards Peter S Strempel | Talk 21:59, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm busy translating an article from the French Wikipedia for the English version. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Heitz
The article has numerous citations to documents that the reader can find by clicking on links within the citation to French government databases available on the Web. One major one is Joconde, a database that is an index of all documents, works of art, etc. owned by the French Ministry of Culture. The French version of Wikipedia has a template for citing Joconde, and some other government databases on the Web: Template:Joconde
This template does not work in the English version of Wikipedia, so I'm assuming that a new English version of this template must be created by me and saved somehow to the English Wikipedia? But what is the policy under the English Wikipedia for citing databases? I've been searching for info and haven't found very much at all.
Please let me know where this type of issue is discussed... thank you!
OttawaAC ( talk) 02:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
. As long as it's from a reliable source it should be allowed. We have templates like {{
pubmed}}
and {{
imdb}}
, for example. The template shouldn't be hard to make. It may be appropriate to include some kind of "title" field along with the ID, though, to make the links easier to use. —
Designate (
talk) 06:19, 13 August 2011 (UTC)There has been a consensus reached long ago by Wikipedia that if a person of note/public figure has established they are GLBTQ in such a fashion as to be reliably sourced or cited, it is encyclopedic and valid for inclusion in their article. The reasons for this have been debated back and forth so many times, it has become exhausting. There needs to be an absolute and stated policy on this issue put into Wikipedia somewhere so that it can be referenced and these arguments can be avoided from now on.
GLBTQ people are a minority, and unlike minorities based on race or gender, they are not a minority that can be identified by sight. Because of this, it is a simple fact that all people are by and large presumed to be heterosexual unless otherwise stated. One of the straw man arguments you often hear is 'We don't state in every heterosexual's article that they are straight." That's because we don't have to, because - again - it is presumed unless otherwise stated.
The contributions of GLBTQ individuals to the arts, history, politics etc... are valid, and establishing their sexual identity is encyclopedic because the contributions of GLBTQ people should be documented. Even in California they have passed a law so that schools music include curriculum about the contributions of GLBTQ individuals. If we don't state that a person is gay within their biographical information, we disassociate them from the documenting of the accomplishments of gay people.
The fact that the Luke Evans (actor) page has been locked down and all information to his sexual preference removed is insulting and borders on offensive. The citation from his interview in The Advocate magazine is more that sufficient. The ludicrousness of this is so outrageous that it has attracted attention in the gay press. The time is now for an official policy on sexual preference in biographies to be set: is it or isn't it worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia? CouplandForever ( talk) 16:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
I think there is a wider issue beyond gay/straight, which is where to draw the line between adding noteworthy information to an article and adding non-noteworthy information intending to push an agenda. Bio articles often include a 'Personal life' section with significant others, children etc. But not every bit of personal information that can found in the media should be put in an article. For example, it was once common to publish actress's measurements (just an example so don't quote me on it), but that information (usually) doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article. WP:IINFO covers this in a way but it seems to be limited to lists. If a 'List of people who are X' is unencyclopedic under this policy then it's also unencyclopedic to automatically add '(subject) is X' to every article where it applies. WP:IINFO seems a bit noncommittal on this and perhaps it should be rephrased to make it clear that its not just the form in which the information is listed which makes it unencyclopedic. We can't always know whether a specific edit is intended to push an agenda, but we can set criteria which say whether the information added is noteworthy and remove the issue of whether it's indented to push an agenda from consideration. To me, one condition is whether the information is coming from a source which is giving the information specifically about the subject rather than an indiscriminate list. For example, if the source is a book chapter on (subject) and there is a paragraph about the subject being X then the info is encyclopedic and should be in the article. But if the source is "The Directory of X" and lists 9,999 names besides the subject, most of which are not notable, then the information is not encyclopedic and should be removed from an article if added. In the Luke Evans case, I haven't read the interview but I'd say that if it includes more a couple sentences on whether he is gay then it's in the first category and belongs in the article. Conversely, if he happened to be straight and the interview went on for a paragraph or two about his "straight lifestyle" then it would be encyclopedic as well, but the media tends not to do that sort of thing (not counting The Daily Show).-- RDBury ( talk) 22:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
The problem with the Luke Evans argument which clogged up the BLPN (and that I was involved on) was that it was a editorial judgement issue that was being argued as a BLP one. That made it extremely difficult to find a resolution. I think we could do with just a sentence or two in the BLP reiterating that if there's a reliable source for the subject self-identifying then there's no BLP issue but that's inclusion is still down to the editors or something. That way, the discussion stays on the talk page and it remains a consensus issue, especially since what is and isn't encyclopedic can be quite subjective at times. AlbionBT ( talk) 07:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
I wrote about Gunpowder Plot used Scholastic's The Slimy Stuarts. Someone delete it because this source doesn't trusted. Scholastic's Horrible Histories (The Slimy Stuarts is one of these) has been used in U.K's school education. I know the article has win several award in Wikipedia. And Lady Antonia Fraser win some prize about this article. But if there is another theory, must Wikipedia covering the theory, isn't it??? And had my English was bad (since I'm originally Japanese), before delete, you must read the book. Is it not the Wikipedia style? -- K84 ( talk) 02:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I have recently been told that failure to leave edit summaries is a violation of policy and is considered a "disruption". I suppose according to the literal wording of the policy WP:EDIT it could be taken that way. However, it has never been enforced as such and since policy must DESCRIBE how Wikipedia actually works and not PROSCRIBE how it MUST, I would say that the policy is out of wack with actual practice. I open this discussion up to see what views are on the idea of "is it mandatory to leave edit summaries" or is it "greatly encouraged to leave edit summaries in the spirit of good will". There's a slight but meaningful difference. One is blockable and actionable by admins the other not. This thread is about this general topic, not specific problems people personally have with me not leaving edit summaries. Not everything is about me. (Well... just not in this case) Camelbinky ( talk) 01:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion about which units of measure shouldn't generally be linked. Guidance already addresses overlinking of units (based on obscurity, or presence of a conversion) but doesn't define which units are the worst offenders for overlinking. People are now debating a table listing specific units. More opinions are needed. Lightmouse ( talk) 20:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
There is a proposal to re-write the WP:NONENG section of WP:Verifiability being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#A_proposed_rewording_of_WP:NONENG_.232.
NONENG is the section that deals with the use of non-English sources to support article content. If someone challenges the non-English source, NONENG recommends that editors provide a quotation from the sources (if feasible; it's exactly what we do for sources that are written in English but aren't available free online), and it requests that editors provide a translation into English (again, if feasible).
NONENG says that professional translations/as published in a reliable source, are best, that translations by editors are second best, and machine translation, which does not work well for many languages, may be used as a last resort.
Some editors (all of whom appear to speak German, a language for which machine translation into English is particularly weak) would like to completely ban the use of machine translations for any purpose at all, unless "the Wikipedian speaks the source language and confirms the accuracy of the translation". If no Wikipedian who speaks the source language is available, then they would prefer that editors who do not speak the language of the source be given an unintelligible (to them) quotation with no translation at all, rather than a machine translation.
If you have opinions about this, please share your thoughts there. Thanks, WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Are there any established guidelines or substantive AFDs dealing with the notability of cemeteries, preferably in the U.S.? (My main interest right now is Ohio.) There are several I'd like to start articles on that are old, some quite large, may have notable burials, and/or are in a major metropolitan area. But I am currently unable to find anything online beyond simple verification of their existence and location, except primary source (?) histories such as websites authored by the nonprofit orgs that manage a cemetery (which I think should be considered reliable, but falls short of WP:GNG). I'd also like to make/expand comprehensive lists for certain geographic regions that would at least provide a place to cover those for which a substantive standalone article would be difficult to justify, but I'm wary of starting this without feeling out the possible WP:NOTDIR objections. I think such lists would be a valuable part of the coverage of the geography, history, and culture of populated places, and a large part of my interest is noting historic cemeteries that no longer exist but had their burials moved and consolidated into larger cemeteries (a common practice in the U.S. at least as cities grew). Thanks for your comments. postdlf ( talk) 19:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Regarding your comment about local historical societies or libraries, probably so, but I'm asking more about how a cemetery list would be viewed for which that had not yet been demonstrated. We presume named populated places are notable, for example, or a bio that satisfies WP:POLITICIAN, even if GNG hasn't been demonstrated at the outset because we either assume that such sources do exist or will exist eventually, or that the subject is important enough for inclusion even if we can't get significant coverage but can verify the facts. In my own case, I'm currently living in a developing nation and so I'm stuck with just the books I personally own or what I can find on the web, which may be enough for verification but not GNG (yet). So I'd like to at least start on what I'm capable of doing now, and others (or myself, once I've returned to civilization) can develop it further.
I've started working in my sandbox on a list format, but haven't yet incorporated formatting for sourcing, and some of the cemeteries ( this one, for example) I have been unable to find any print sources online discussing it, but in the meantime its existence can be verified as existing on maps even if nowhere else, and plaques at the location give some information about it (though lo and behold, it looks like we have Template:Cite sign, so maybe that's less of a problem than I think). Other cemeteries, as I noted, have histories on web sites run by the managing organization; I think the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus, for example, would be a reliable source for a history of a cemetery it maintains, but that would arguably be a primary source not independent of the subject. Notwithstanding those issues, I think those should be considered appropriate for list inclusion, whether justified by the value in making the lists as comprehensive as verifiably possible, the judgment that cemeteries are inherently notable, or the assumption that additional (secondary) sourcing can eventually be found for any cemetery. postdlf ( talk) 17:47, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
"El cementerio de las axilas" (English: The Armpit Cemetery) is a burial ground in El Armpitto, New Mexico. [1] The cemetery is notable as the resting place of Joe Schmoe who received the congressional medal of honour for his actions during the Aphid war of 1896, and died defending Grover Cleveland's presidential rose garden from attack. [2] Opened in 1813 the cemetery is still in use today, open 9am-5pm weekdays and by appointment on the weekend. [1]
Generally, does one need a specific consensus from the community before adding anything to the Manual of Style or one of its subpages? Such as, "I want to add this to the MOS, any thoughts/objections?" -- Rs chen 7754 00:29, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (writing systems) ( | 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, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
A couple of months ago an editor created an essay, Wikipedia:Wikibombing (SEO), to discuss the alleged use of search engine optimization techniques on Wikipedia to influence search engine rankings. I have carried out an experiment to see whether this is actually possible in practice and have posted the results at User:Prioryman/Use of SEO techniques on Wikipedia. I would appreciate any feedback from editors. Prioryman ( talk) 18:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Recently, there was a deletion review regarding a massive deletion of uploaded image files, all of which are images of signatures of living people that fits our BLP policies.
That deletion review was upheld pending a RFC/VPP at my suggestion, therefore, I propose this question to the community: What should we do regarding signatures of living people? What should we do about WP:BLPSIGN? - Penwhale | dance in the air and follow his steps 12:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
There shouldn't be any concern or controversy regarding the signatures of living public officials (like Obama or Schwarzenegger): their signature on public documents is widely available and has/had the force of law. I can't fathom a reasonable argument for not having those (unless it's outside the U.S. and of unclear copyrightability), regardless of whether it's taken from a "primary source" like a signed act or executive order. Similarly, the signatures of artists are (often) displayed on their works or otherwise widely publicized as their identifying mark, basically like a brand logo, so there is no privacy concern there (this might apply to other kinds of celebrities or entertainers too, if they've used their signature in advertisements, album covers, etc). Beyond that, it should be a case-by-case determination as to whether it's actually relevant or informative to an article and/or an invasion of privacy. If your only source for a minor actor's signature is a divorce court filing, then we probably shouldn't include it. postdlf ( talk) 15:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Naming conventions ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Naming Conventions ( | 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, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
There is a outside website called WikiSpot that is somehow directly wikilinked. For example Hiking trails in Santa Clara County leads to http://sanjose.wikispot.org/Hiking/. There are about 90 such pale blue but otherwise not EL-looking links hither and yon in Wikipedia, some in See Also sections instead of External Links sections. Why are these links allowed, and why are they allowed to look like internal Wikipedia links? Speciate ( talk) 06:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
(N.B. Crosspost with Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#Suggested_change_to_WP:ADMINACCT_wording - I'm not sure which is the more appropriate venue)
Currently, WP:ADMINACCT contains the following sentence:
"Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions"
I think a reasonable reading of this sentence - with particular attention to the usage of the words "only" and "free" - would interpret the sentence as meaning that as long as an editor abides by WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and WP:AGF, any criticism or questioning of admin actions that editor makes are protected by this policy. However, the consensus and ruling at Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Surturz/AdminWatch seems to be that such questions/criticisms must be with a view to dispute resolution. In particular, WP:ADMINACCT does not protect an editor from WP:UP#POLEMIC in their user space. In terms of accountability, editors are not allowed to keep a permanent "account" (list) of admin actions in their userspace. Therefore I think this sentence should be changed to reflect this consensus. I suggest the following rewording (I have including the surrounding text for context, the bolded part is new):
"Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools.
Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions.Subject to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are allowed to question or criticize administrator actions on appropriate pages as part of the dispute resolution process. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed."
-- Surturz ( talk) 02:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
"Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools.
Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions.Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed."
I noticed WKQX was a red link in an article I was looking at, and discovered that someone had deleted it as a non-controversial administrative action. I recreated it only to find it deleted again, recreated it and then I found out I couldn't look up who deleted it to go to their talk page.
This is not a non-controversial delete; WKQX changed its call letters, resulting in a move that left behind a redirect, and all the information about WKQX remains in WWWN. The action left red links all over creation, although they needed to be updated anyway. I took care of that where I could find the links to update. Even when piped, radio station call letters might be used again and the link would go to the new station. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
I have updated all links in article space (some were really hard to find) to WKQX. I restored one to the Watseka station that I had deleted because I could find no evidence it existed on Wikipedia. Would it be all right, until that station gets its own article, to mention in the WWWN article what happened to the call letters, with reliable sources backing up the facts? Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:43, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
There's a growing disease among some writers the symptoms of which are quoting and italicisation of passages. What is the point? Italics are, anyway, more difficult to read on a screen, and should be preserved for titles, names of vessels, emphasis of words and phrases – oh, the usual. I see this bizarre habit in blogs and other online content, when the quote marks should tell us it's a quote. Like, duh, to borrow from the vernacular. So I wonder if there are people out there who have more influence in deciding Wikipedia style who might look out for these weird typographical combinations and advise people that they're rather silly and shouldn't be used.
There is another point about quoting, too. If the style of the publication is for, say, doubles, no singles should be used except for nested quotations (i.e. quotes within quotes). Some writers think a single word or a phrase can make do with single quotes, and then use doubles for full sentences. Ain't so, and it's illogical and unnecessary, when spotting a quote of the style that is opposite to that of the publication (single in doubles or double in singles) can tell a reader immediately that he/she is reading a nested quote.
Again, I appeal to Wiki staff and editors and others of influence to try to steer contributors away from these nonsenses. I appreciate that, with so many contributors, some are going to choose a style that may not be that of the organization as a whole. But, even then, if they choose, say, single quotes (maybe they're made used to them by living in and reading books published in the UK, for instance) as the primary quote mark, they should stick to it (using doubles only for nested quotes). But I gather the style is for the American-preferred doubles (I, although British, prefer them too).
Andy (-- Ajarmitage ( talk) 06:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC))
An RfC to determine the threshold for successful Requests for bureaucratship is now at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Requests for bureaucratship threshold. All of the community is invited to comment. Thanks. - Hydroxonium ( T• C• V) 01:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
As I understand Wikipedia title guidelines, only proper names should be capitalized. There are a number of article titles about technical methods and systems that are fully capitalized (but most are not). Almost all of these methods and systems are identified by an acronym which may lead to incorrect capitalization in this project. I have been trying to figure out when one of these names is a proper name and when it is a common name so I can fix those that are incorrectly capitalized. I understand that this is a sensitive issue since the proponents of these methods may consider capitalization as a sign of distinction and validation. Here are some example titles with both proper and common name capitalization:
Software development
Project management
I see no examples of proper name capitalization for medical procedures though many have acronyms.
What determines whether a name is a proper name in this context? From proper noun lead sentence:
Is the uniqueness of these methods and techniques sufficient to make their names proper? Or does it require a legal brand name? Or ...? Joja lozzo 16:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
I think there are a several reasons for capitalizing technical terms in source documents. Technical papers in engineering and computer science use capitalization for multiple purposes including
It's clear to me that the first two of these purposes are not covered by our capitalization guidelines. I think it's the third purpose that is giving us trouble since unique identity is one of the requirements for a proper name. I think the authors of these terms think their referents are unique entities but does that mean they are? Joja lozzo 03:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents: "Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth (as a common noun), original sin or transubstantiation." Would this translate to other areas of the project? Joja lozzo 20:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I've started a more general discussion on proper names at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#When is something a proper noun?. Please comment there if you have an opinion on how to address such thing by more general guidance. Dicklyon ( talk) 00:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I think calling anything "automatically notable, end of discussion" slings mud in the face of verifiability, implying that some "pseudo-information" out there that might establish notability, without making any effort towards actually trying to establish it. That does not make for substantive articles (i.e. something more than a pretty infobox, navbox, and "The XYZ Wikipedia is a Wikipedia written in the XYZ language."). That being said, I know that we presume various things (high schools come to mind) that are likely to be notable, mainly because nearly all of them do, at one point or another, get covered in some secondary source or another. – MuZemike 00:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
(ec) I think that articles in the main article space should abide by both WP:N and WP:V, regardless of the topic being WMF affiliated or not. There is no reason not to use the Wikipedia namespace for a comprehensive descriptive listing of other Wikipedias ... or all other WMF-affiliated projects, without regard to WP:N but with regard to WP:V. If providing information about the other wikipedias is the goal, then this will serve that purpose. "Forcing" WMF-topical articles into the main article space undermines the WP:N standard, unless there is a consensus agreement on the matter, articulated in something akin to
WP:NSPORTS but rather
WP:NWMF. Proposal of such a new Notability Policy should be done to cover this if people feel strongly that WMF-topical content should be encyclopedic by default. --User:Ceyockey (
talk to me) 03:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
@Finlay McWalter: I disagree with the assessment that Wikipedia is good in the way it reports itself. While the article on Wikipedia itself is quite impartial, the reality of the rest is very different, hence this proposal.
Articles on [major] Wikimedia projects do rely heavily on primary sources and as such do not actually prove notability. Some actually seem to rely on the impression of notability. For example, some language wikis on major European languages (random example: Danish Wikipedia) do not have sources that prove notability or do not have sources at all, yet they are not AfD'd as often as the more obscure (to westerners) Asian and African language Wikipedias. As mentioned before, our article on Wikimedia Commons, in its current state, also does not prove notability and seems to be an exception instead of WP:N (as it is credited in a huge amount of reliable sources as a source for their pictures, but is not actually discussed in depth). So if everyone is assuming I was only talking about small language Wikipedias, I assure you, I'm not. I wouldn't have brought this discussion up in the first place.
While I obviously want them to be excluded in light of the aims of the entire project and not just en.wp, I have to also sadly agree with most of the rationales. I agree with Fut.Perf. ☼'s argument that in most cases, there really is nothing to write about them. I would also happily support a merged article for all other-language Wikipedias that are deemed not notable for their own articles, drawing notability from Wikipedia itself instead. In that way, we still are making them visible to regular readers.
However, I also think hiding our sister projects in Wikipedia space or worse, making it the sole responsibility of metawiki, is both draconian and shortsighted, given that these projects are a part of Wikipedia. But, whatever. As long as there is a community decision on this, I'll be satisfied.
And in case anyone thinks otherwise, a disclaimer : I am not involved in any other Wikimedia projects other than en.wp and commons and have no personal stake in the matter.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Title see ISBN 1234567890.
Just for ease of reference:
Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
There is a discussion currently under way at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (road junction lists) regarding the Geographical tagging of roads and various points in roads. If you are interested in this topic you may want take a moment to comment. -- Kumioko ( talk) 14:30, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
We could really do with some fresh eyes and fresh voices in a discussion aimed at improving clarity here and here; quite a few of us have gone stale and ratty, so extra brains, energy, fresh outlook, fresh input, creativity, good temper and such-like would really be most welcome! Pesky ( talk … stalk!) 04:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
An {{ Accessibility dispute}} template I placed on an article is being removed by another editor because it's "ugly" and the article was "GA" (before the inaccessible content was added). Do we have a policy on the placement/ removal of such banners,and if so can someone point me to it, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:42, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
First let me tell you what I am not arguing: I am not arguing people censor pictures related to nudes of adults on WP and I'm not arguing censoring minors from viewing WP.
What I am arguing is that I believe that there should be some way to know that the people, or body parts, in the photos we are viewing are adults. I think there should be some sort of accountability to prevent child porn being uploaded to WP. As long as they are verifiable adults, I don't see a problem with these pics on WP. I've been starting to wonder is if WP has any policy for age requirements with sexually explicit photos? I know there is a policy for public/private pictures of individuals. If there is, could someone point me to it? If there isn't, why is one not set in place?
I was shown by someone else that Wikipedia is not required to check age and identity of "models" in their photos (at least in the US). But this doesn't wrap everything in a tidy package. I know why Wikipedia doesn't have to follow this rule: Wikipedia is not considered a porn site by the United States government. There is some entity, I'm not sure what division it is, that does keep track of the porn sites--they are required to keep rather detailed information about their models. Because Wikipedia is not considered a porn site by the country, then it goes through a loophole. But that doesn't mean that child porn is not uploaded to Wikipedia.
In any event, I think we need to figure out some sort of policy to hold people accountable for this sort of stuff. I'm not some crazy person trying to get rid of all nudes on WP. I just don't want child porn on Wikipedia, and the law in many countries is very specific on what they consider child porn.-- Henriettapussycat ( talk) 20:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Release_form_for_sexual_images_as_mitigation_against_child_pornography
That topic includes pointers to previous relevant discussions on Wikipedia. Please comment at Commons. Thanks.
Rubywine . talk 20:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
User:ConcernedVancouverite yesterday was deleted this article about the Slovene actor and writer Branko Pintarič. ConcernedVancouverite continuously maintains the A7 rule, but Pintarič is famous person in Slovenia(!). In this case, should be deleted other articles about Slovene actors or writers. Doncsecz talk 13:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
The user restore the deletion-template, but the sources is available. Doncsecz talk 14:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Contract bridge/Manual of Style/Appendix 1: Article creation and naming guidelines ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Several of the articles in spree-killer category have an infobox with a section titled killings that lists weapons, kill count, injured count, and so on. It makes me vaguely uneasy, because it seems like a list of "accomplishments." It feels like glorifying serial killers, reminding me a bit of a trading card in its format. I first noticed this at the Kip Kinkel page (where I started a discussion), but then discovered that it is a widespread template, e.g. George Banks and Jennifer San Marco. I don't see how it is notable that Kinkel's victims were murdered with a 9 mm Glock 19 pistol, sawn-off .22LR Ruger 10/22 rifle, and .22LR Ruger MK II pistol, or why such information should be featured. I do see how it could be considered insensitive. I propose the template be altered to make it less reminiscent of a trading card. Noloop ( talk) 18:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Okiedokie, I started an RFC [10] Noloop ( talk) 00:57, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I have started an RfC on tendentious editing of policy Wikipedia:Verifiability with the view to impose community sanctions, this is the summary:
There is a lot of contention around WP:V, and the policy has been placed under protection because of edit warring. Since this is a core policy, such behavior is to be dealt with seriously by the community. The goal of this RfC is to get the policy placed under community sanctions as described below. These sanctions would apply to all editors in this topic area. The goal is to protect a core policy from tendentious editing, and to provide an environment that leads to positive improvement of the policy. This RfC is not intended to endorse the current version of the policy, and supporting this RfC cannot be considered as such, rather it addressed serious concerns with editor behavior in the talk pages and serious edit warring in the actual policy. It includes a general amnesty for involved editors, providing a clean slate from which better practices can emerge.
The RfC is here: Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#RfC: Tendentious editing of policy Wikipedia:Verifiability
Please participate and comment.-- Cerejota ( talk) 23:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) ( | 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, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
This has been a point of contention in a few discussions. I want to determine if these disputes are local in nature and if there's a broader consensus at large.
Should editors be writing articles that are entirely based on primary sources?
It's not something that we're always good at. But we certainly have been striving for it. Just to put the challenge in perspective, the number of articles sourced entirely to primary sources is roughly in the same ballpark as the number of articles tagged with neutrality disputes. It's somewhat larger, but not nearly as big as the number of unsourced BLPs when that issue came to a head.
The current policy says we don't base articles entirely on primary sources. Does that policy describe a "best practice" and a "standard that all users should normally follow"? We should either establish a consensus for the policy or remove it. Shooterwalker ( talk) 17:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
WP:V has demanded that articles be based on third-party sources for years. There absolutely should be a complete prohibition on the practice of basing articles on primary sources. It's always frustrated me that we have a group of editors so eager to include details on fictional characters that they ignore all relevant policies on article creation and retention.— Kww( talk) 18:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
This is a very important aspect of our verifiability policy, and a fundamental aspect of article writing. Removing it would be a detriment to our goal of being a neutral, high-quality encyclopedia. While primary sources can (and should!) be used when appropriate, they cannot be the sole source of information on a topic. There are inherent notability problems with articles that are only based on primary sources. We only document notable topics, and topics are only notable through their reception in secondary sources (we have a few guidelines that allow for blanket notability for subjects that meet certain conditions, but even these mostly assume some sort of reception such as an award for a film or citations for professors). Removing this provision would allow for many poorly-sourced articles, promotional articles, and articles about fan-minutia. It would greatly lower the bar of quality for our articles. Them From Space 19:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
There are two problems with the exclusive use of primary sources: (1) WP:N: we use secondary sources as one of tests to determine if a topic should have a stand-alone Wikipedia article. (2) WP:OR: when primary sources are exclusively used, it is the Wikipedia editor who becomes the author of the contextual information and interpretation of the facts (i.e. good, bad, expected, unlikely, etc.) patsw ( talk) 12:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
So I think that there is agreement that articles should have secondary sources (which envelopes "not just primary sources"). The question is "what happens when they don't"? Currently such weighs heavily nominating and discussing AFD's where wp:notability is the basis. And its grounds for tagging and improving. So the question is should additional actions be enabled based on that? (e.g. categorical deletion of articles solely on that basis). IMHO the best answer is "no". North8000 ( talk) 15:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
The whole mess with "primary" versus "secondary" sources has long been one of my pet peeves, and IMO the entire section at WP:OR#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources should be moved out into an essay. When it comes down to it, we quite simply don't need to care whether a source is "primary", "secondary", or whatever.
IMO, WP:OR needs to be drastically overhauled to remove the cruft related to WP:N and WP:V and "primary-source paranoia" that it has accumulated. WP:V could use a bit too, especially the section WP:V#Verifiability and other principles. And WP:N could use some refocusing on the real criteria rather than secondariness in places. But I doubt any of that will ever actually happen, as too many have invested too much in pushing exactly that cruft in for ammunition in deletion discussions. Anomie ⚔ 16:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I accept that in some fields, History jumps to mind, primary sources could be a bad idea, and have likely been analysed in a secondary source. However, in science, primary sources published in high-profile journals ( Nature and Science being the obvious examples) have likely undergone more scrutiny than a review paper (secondary source) published in a small/low impact journal. By this policy, basing articles upon a fringe-published review is encouraged, but writing about cutting-edge, high-profile discoveries, less so. I do see some merit in warning against excessive primary sources, but I think in the field of science particularly, primary sources are as valuable as secondary. As a further point, they contain the methods and technical details of how results were obtained, which underpin verifiability as part of the scientific method (albeit not verifiability for our purposes, lest we breach NOR) Jebus989 ✰ 16:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
A scientific article describing a new species is not a primary source, in regards to the species. The primary source in regards to the species would be the specimen itself. The same article is also a primary source in regards to the author of the article, and of the journal it is published in, etc. — Akrabbim talk 18:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
There was an interesting discussion at ANI regarding account creation. The basic question that came up is this: why are new accounts allowed to create more than one extra account? It's clear that we don't want to completely cut off the ability of new accounts to create accounts (in case someone with an inappropriate username wants to a new name compliant with policy). However, I cannot think of a good reason for new accounts to create more than one new account. Is it possible to limit new accounts to the creation of one new account? TN X Man 14:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
A bot should notify active users who haven't registered an email address after 200 edits (possibly fewer). At this point the account starts to become valuable and a more likely target for attack. The email address provides a
second factor for authentication and allow recovery of forgotten passwords. The Toolserver will generate a list of users that have (1) recently edited, (2) have user_email_authenticated
NULL or 0, and (3) are above the edit threshold. Note: Registering an email is separate from the ability for other users to email you. —
Dispenser 00:37, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Verifiability/Draft ( | 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 September 2011 (UTC)
I would like an uninvolved editor to please close the RfC at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#RfC: Tendentious editing of policy Wikipedia:Verifiability
It has the support of 2 editors, and the opposition of 16 editors, and it seems unlikely to gain consensus support. Thanks in advance. -- Avanu ( talk) 03:17, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
I have seen in several discussions someone referring to "Wikipedia's gazetteer function". However, I haven't been able to find any policy or guideline discussing this. The only thing I see is at WP:Five pillars:
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers.
However, WP:ENC never mentions the term, WP:Gazetteer is no help, there is no WP:Notability (places) or anything, and I don't see anything useful at WP:WPGEOG. I'm sure there are numerous discussions archived all over the place, but it would be good to see what has been written to reflect the consensus that has been reached. — Akrabbim talk 17:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
There are limitations to what can be done with the Wikipedia is an automated way. Conversion en masse of all placename articles which remained in their robotic stub form, without loss of information, into lists within new or existing articles is a bot on an order of complexity that one doesn't see in bots. At some point, one accepts the Wikipedia as it is. What could be done if one were King and Lawgiver of the Wikipedia on a blank page is necessarily different from collaboration in the Wikipedia as it is at this point. patsw ( talk) 15:52, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
On animal species, if it is verifiably a separate species, then it means that someone has written a description of it: its range, type specimen(s), and what particular features differentiate it from other species in its genus. Whether that has been, to date, done in only one source should not preclude an article from being started on it, assuming that we can consider that source reliable for that purpose (i.e., it's published in a peer reviewed journal, written by a recognized specialist in the field, etc.).
So whether something can only be sourced to only one reliable source or only to primary sources is a separate question from whether it can, or should be, merged or redirected somewhere. If twenty reliable sources do nothing more than list the names of species in a single genus, then you have a good basis only for one article on that genus as a whole. But if there are twenty reliable sources that each describe a single different species, then you have a good basis for twenty species articles. postdlf ( talk) 01:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I am curious about what you might think about the new article Fursatganj Airport Raebareli. My feeling is that this should not be a standalone article but a list entry in List of airports in India. I do agree that consensus is that a populated place which is verifiable in its existence is de facto notable regardless of its size. I don't think that this consensus covers major man-made works such as pieces of transportation infrastructure. Thanks for your input. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me) 03:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Is this user name actually a reference to a marketing firm on Wikipedia? And what is the policy for these? The Wedbush Securities page that I happened to see reads like a marketing handout anyway. Needs clean up - makes Wikipedia look bad. Stronger policies are needed? History2007 ( talk) 08:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
You just made my point Akrabbim. I have to spend effort on and on and on to deal with this? No, policy should be stronger so I do not have to do this at my salary level. Wikipedia effort is not unlimited. We need stronger policies so these things can be stopped with "minimal effort". There are probably 300 other pages like that. We will never catch up with the paid marketing people in the long run. History2007 ( talk) 13:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I think Blade made a valid point above: promotionalism is not harmless. My real issue is that my own feeling about my level of reliance on Wikipedia diminishes as I see junk floating around. Less than 48 hours ago I had no idea who this Wadbush company was, then I saw a Google news item, and looked it up on Wikipedia because I use Wiki as one of my main source of info. I was surprised what a glowing marketing page that was and how different it was from the newspaper report. As I see unreliable info, I trust Wikipedia less. What would have happened if I looked them up before seeing that newspaper article? What about other companies, etc.
As trust in Wikipedia diminishes, so will the levels of financial donations and volunteer edits. I think Blade's point that:
should be emphasized. Promotionalism is not harmless. History2007 ( talk) 21:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree that Wedbush article is a blatant advert. I've suggested a chop and rearranged for balance here. Moriori ( talk) 23:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
There are a couple of ways. {{ advert}} places the article in Category:All articles with a promotional tone, or one could pore over Pages that link to "Template:Advert". There are, to forestall part of your next post, 12,878 articles in the category. Out of 3,700,000, that would be. [This was unsigned]...
Discussions went further at wp:articles for deletion, and policy wording has been changed saying that speedy deletion criteria are also AFD deletion criteria. So, being a 100% advertisement is grounds for AFD nomination and deletion. North8000 ( talk) 19:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Nomenclature ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
My recommendation in closing this discussion is that such situations be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the level of disruption in the nomination, as well as the number and the value of the contributions by those participating after the initiation but before the initiator is discovered to be a sockpuppet. I think this situation is probably sufficiently rare that we can afford to determine the best course of action case by case. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Over the last few months or so, there have been multiple XfDs nominated by sock-puppets of indef-blocked users. Some people's nominations fared better (in the terms of valid reasoning), but technically all would have been closed procedurally had they been discovered sooner. By the time that the confirmation from CU arrives, some of those nominations already had multiple other editors weighing in their opinions, and the closing admins decided to let the AfDs run their cases.
For example, Donald Schroeder JWH018 ( talk · contribs · logs · block log) is a sock-puppet of Torkmann ( talk · contribs · logs · block log) and was blocked when CU discovered it. However, DSJ made multiple AfDs prior to the block of that account. By the time the block was conducted, 7 AfDs were listed by DSJ, of which only 1 resulted in a Keep.
WP:Banning Policy has a section that stipulates Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor, but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert. Several comments were recently raised here regarding Speedy Keep policy (and by extension Speedy Delete criteria) vs banning policy.
So I'm asking the community to comment on this issue: What should we do regarding processes that require a nomination, and it was later found out that the nominator shouldn't have been able to do so (either due to blocks/bans/topic bans), but not before multiple legitimate editors have voiced valid supporting views of the nomination? Should we Dismiss the nomination altogether due to its invalid nomination? Do we Let the Process run its course, then if needed, raise corresponding issues at appropriate boards (such as deletion review)? Or do we have other options?
A simple example: A sock-puppet of a blocked/banned user nominated a valid article for deletion at AfD. (Legitimate) editors put in their views, and 2 days into the 7-day period required for AfD, it is then discovered that the nominator was a sockpuppet (and subsequently blocked/banned). What should we do about the ongoing AfD? - Penwhale | dance in the air and follow his steps 16:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
My own personal preference (using my personal judgement and sometimes using IAR) is to close with leave to speedy renominate if it's a "low risk" article and let it run if it's a "high risk" article. See this thread for my definition of high risk/low risk. That way if another Claritas sock shows up and starts opening up a can of whupass on Transformers articles, I can put a quick stop to it. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 16:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Let the process run. The closing administrator is free to ignore the contributions of the banned user, but it is unhelpful to remove or ignore the opinions of good-faith editors. Reyk YO! 18:30, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Or to put it another way: all users, banned or not, are forbidden from making bad contributions. What additional effect does a ban have except to limit the banned user's good contributions as well?
So we have to scrap such discussions and start again. Whether the AfD is good shouldn't matter. Ken Arromdee ( talk) 16:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm wondering what happens when a sock of a banned user starts another process.
Recently an RFARB was allowed to run after a sock started it. What should we do when sock starts a process like these and the process is underway before we find out it's a banned user? - Hydroxonium ( T• C• V) 03:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Should people go back to closed discussions like concluded AfDs to remove or strike through comments made by people later found to be socks of banned users?
Many of the editors commenting above didn't discriminate between a blocked editor and a banned editor. A key comment at ANI was that this is a case where there is a difference between de facto and de jure bans. So the focus of this particular section has to do with the de jure ban, meaning the editor has actually been banned, not that his status is similar to being banned.
Wikipedia:BAN#Bans apply to all editing, good or bad states
At first glance, this would seem to end the discussion about AfD nominations and banned editors.
But before getting to that, it is worth asking, why would a detail this small require any further discussion? After all, among the edits that a user makes, the number of AfD nominations would on average be almost non-existant. Yet experience shows otherwise, so we have to reverse the question and ask, why do banned editors make an unusually high percentage of AfD nominations?
So in fact, banned editors have reason to love making a sock and making AfD nominations, and the record also shows that they like to make delete !votes at other AfD discussions. Even if the nomination fails, they have succeeded in increasing the "burden of deletion". If we can assume that Keep !votes take more time than Delete !votes, and that the result of an AfD discussion is partially a function of the work expended to prepare a posting, a failed AfD nomination has still biased all other AfD discussions toward deletion.
So back to the policy, Wikipedia:BAN#Bans apply to all editing, good or bad, why does this policy statement not end the question?
Unscintillating ( talk) 02:55, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
== Evasion and enforcement ==
Wikipedia's approach to enforcing bans balances a number of competing concerns:
As a result, enforcement has a number of aspects. While all editors are expected to respect the enforcement of policies by not undermining or sabotaging them, no editor is personally obligated to help enforce any ban.
[end of quote] Unscintillating ( talk) 21:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Unscintillating ( talk) 05:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
“ | @Penwhale, (1) Do you agree that banned editors make a notably high number of AfD nominations? (2) Do you agree that the AfD process begun by AfD nominations takes a large amount of the time resource of Wikipedia editors? (3) Do you agree that restoring the edits of banned users is "undermining or sabotage"? | ” |
It doesn't seem like I would get a reply over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books)#Title_translations_on_old_.28French.2C_German.29_books, so I'll ask here (sorry for the double post).
I have been running into an editor who thinks that titles of old German/French books should all be replaced by English titles. I explained that changing the title would effectively change the book, which is given as a reference in the article, to one that does not exist as such. Furthermore, WP:Naming conventions (books)#Title translations states that the title is translated for non-Latin names, normally, and for books that haven't been published in English yet: this obviously does not apply for old books/essays, which are unlikely to be published as English versions. I concluded that English translations may be added in parentheses to the original title as a courtesy to the reader, but is there an official policy or guideline on this? Also, the editor has given only machine-translated titles, which I contested because they are obviously inaccurate. I think that translations should be provided by native speakers or via the language reference desk, but the editor is of the opinion that his machine translations are better than nothing (accusing me of complaining rather than correcting the titles). What is the view on machine translations? Thanks, Nageh ( talk) 12:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The title should be provided in the original language, if you're citing the edition in the original language (such as Marcel Proust's classic novel "A la recherche du temps perdu"). If you cite a translated title, that can differ, depending upon which translated edition is being cited. The first translation of Proust's novel into English was titled "Remembrance of Things Past". A better translation was released in recent years, under a new English title, "In Search of Lost Time". So, the title of the translation will refer to a specific work of translation.
I have provided my own English translation of works mentioned within the body of an article, such as titles of doctoral dissertations, that only exist in the original language and have not been translated or published in English. When I do this, I write out the full title of the work in the original language, followed by my own translation in brackets. I would never put my own translation of a publication's title as a cited reference; this is incorrect and misleading, as it implies that there is a complete official translated edition of the work in existence, when there is not.
OttawaAC ( talk) 14:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
OttawaAC ( talk) 18:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
That's a good point I hadn't thought of; I suspect that it may be a result of informal convention, rather than an academic standard, because that practise isn't done consistently. Die Fleidermaus is usually Die Fleidermaus; Liszt's Liebestraum works are not given English titles, nor are Polonaises, etc. On the other hand, no one in the English-speaking world calls the Mona Lisa La Giaconda, although in French it's known as the Joconde... I'm going to check the Chicago Manual of Style and perhaps some other sources to see what the accepted academic formatting ought to be... OttawaAC ( talk) 12:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
{{
Cite book}}
, then use the |trans_title=
parameter for the translation.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 23:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
As a newbie, I brought heavy inquisition with regard to an initial entry being deleted because it wasn't "published" or from a "reliable source." As a newbie, I entered a 'chat' channel embedded in an admin's page, and after using the word 'pee' was banned and my problem still left unresolved and conversation left unfinished. Inquiries to his reasonings left unanswered. What kind of open forum tells people to post info about topics/individuals, makes some vague descriptions about what you 'can or cant' post,' and then bans you because you don't type the same monotomous 12 year old jibberish that you find on 'published' public blogs like yahoo or paris hilton... wiki has disappointed me... while i came here with the intent on disproving my colleagues that the site wasn't a total waste of time for random unsubstantiated information... it appreas all the rumors are true...
by the way, all i wanted to do was edit the 'personal section' of a biography to read that the individual was a good cook and always left his door open for people to listen to his music... and it was promptly delted for being "totally unsourced" -- this site is a joke... just a bunch of old men who couldn't make manager in their field in the real world, flexing their typing prowess here late at night with a box of twinkies next to their monitor... yes ive resulted to insults... seems like stupid random discussion is the only thing that gets "published" without scrutiny... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 16:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not some place to insert your personal feelings about someone, as indicated by your edit here, nor does it serve as a memorial or obituary of someone. We strive to include unbiased, neutral, and verifiable information – that had none of that. If you cannot understand this, then you completely miss what the concept of an encyclopedia is.
Now if you excuse me, I'm going back do doing more productive stuff, such as enhancing my typing prowess and eating twinkies that are next to my monitor. – MuZemike 18:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Of course, because once you make a rule about something, IT CAN NEVER CHANGE... there should NEVER... EVER... be any amendments or discussions, or ADVERSE opinions on how to improve or better a program... heaven forbid we make you stop and consider a ding dong every now and then instead of a twinkie... people who value HUMAN INTERACTION and TRUTH will understand the need for personal recounts in history and as many before have said 'getting it straight from the horses mouth' -- its quite sad that you are willing to accept cut and pastes as law versus the potential to hear from relatives, close friends, colleagues, etc of an individual versus some potential nut case(s) who collects random data from "published and reliable" sources and stamps it as GOLD simply because you were able to electronically provide a link to some corner of cyberspace... setting up recordable audio, photos, video, etc. of events/individuals would do this site some class... but if the pervasive attitude is OMG, DONT CHANGE WHAT WE HAVE, WE CANT HANDLE TRYING TO ADAPT TO SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT... then you're better off continuing to websurf 10-12 hours a day...
kumioko, the last delete was me typing in a response without logging in first, so i logged backed in so that the comment wouldn't be anonymous... as far as explaining what it is 'i want' you're an adult, go back and read, its pretty clear.. i cant explain everything for you... if you cant understand that adding personal content would help if done the right way, you're just a megabyte jockey like the rest of them and are content to be spoonfed whatever people can cleverly link and creatively drum up and get 'published' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 19:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
im sorry, i coulda sworn this section was called "policy" -- i didn't mean to ask about new ideas to the existing policy... how silly of me... perhaps i should post in the JUST DO WHAT YOUR TOLD section...? why do you think today's generation loves reality tv? because kids are simpler, yes maybe not as educated, but simpler, and prefer to learn about relationships and how they relate to individuals versus the historical collection of a person's accomplishments... facebook figured it out... lots of video and audio there... check out their user numbers... am i saying turn wiki into facebook? no... i see thats the way you went though with your response trying to extreme side my argument... all im saying is that there is room to fit in some personal touches to the medium without compromising the integrity of the data... but since apparently that is impossible according to the almighty gods of wiki, then we are stuck simply reading dull, boring "reliable" and "published" sources of data from the INTERNET.. yes the internet, the world's foremost reliable data platform... there is a reason why people don't buy encylopedias anymore and why places like myspace and facebook are so successful... without change and open ears to new ideas, this medium will die a lonely death or at least until the old money runs out and someone young buys it and then realizes the potential for change without chastizing the occasional user(s) who has a thought differing from the norm... especially in a designated area that is SUPPOSE TO ENCOURAGE sharing of new ideas... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 19:47, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
let me apologize as by reading the top a bit more, it seems this probably should've gone in the 'proposals' section instead of this existing policy area... all the text and links are sometimes a blur... you know, there are a lot of ways to go with my suggestion... you could do a 'wikipedia light' perhaps with a more liberal section that allowed video or audio related posts with less 'policy' and more personality... you could have a group of people verify personal information and then once verified, add to the page... but sorry oops... i dont want to suggest anything outside of the nerd norm thats been embedded here... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 19:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, the last response was professional and detailed. And yes, my text, while it may have seemed immature, was merely reacting to the user's responses... i have since read a bit more, and understand more now the retaliations i received... and also found this very telling sentence right at the beginning of one of your core principles:
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"
-- had i saw that, it would've stopped my rant a while back... youre right this isn't the place to find truth... and that i believe will continue to be the butt of anti-wiki humor and sentiments and the "core" of its possible demise in the future... i dont know how long people will buy into having "verified sources" versus having the "truth" -- my bad.. sorry for trying to shove a round peg in a square hole... dmacks, for real thank you... sorry for the uproar... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 20:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" <-- this really speaks volumes... i dont have to say anything else... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodkine ( talk • contribs) 23:35, 4 September 2011 (UTC)