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I was in a discussion with another editor about current policies concerning autobiographies on Wikipedia. In the course of this discussion, I noticed that there is apparent conflict between the content guideline at Wikipedia:Autobiography and the policy stated at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Specifically, at WP:YOURSELF, the guideline states that "[i]f you are not "notable" under Wikipedia guidelines, creating an article about yourself may violate the policy that Wikipedia is not a personal webspace provider and would thus qualify for speedy deletion." This conflicts with CSD policy at WP:NOTCSD. In the section entitled "The following are not by themselves sufficient to justify speedy deletion," the first enumerated point is "[r]easons based on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not..." I would like to bring the two into agreement, and policy would seem to be held higher than a content guideline, but it is good to have consensus before altering either. As I see it, Option 1 would be to alter WP:AB to read "...and thus would likely be deleted." This seems the least controversial. As an alternative, Option 2 would be to alter CSD to allow for speedy deletion using WP:NOT as a criteria. I would like to read the opinions of other editors in this matter. -- Nouniquenames ( talk) 02:06, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion about the manner in which promotional usernames should be blocked. Please participate at Wikipedia talk:Username policy#RfC - Handling promotional usernames to help reach a consensus. NTox · talk 02:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
A style of editing which was carried out by an individual a couple of years ago appears to have returned in the last month under a number of different UK IP addresses [1]. Cannot be certain if it is the same person or not but the style is always the same. Characteristics of the edit are always the same, basically adding many more wikiprojects to a talk page and over linking words in articles. [2], [3] is a couple of examples, although the long text is new. Question is, should this form of editing be reverted or not? There was an attempt to block the user a couple of years back but the constant change of IP address made it impossible. Comments and requests on the talk pages have never been answered. -- Traveler100 ( talk) 21:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Mediation Committee#Time to shutter formal mediation?, in which there is discussion about reforming the formal mediation process so that it is more suited to the needs of the community today. All comments and opinions are welcome. AGK [•] 15:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
This is a question that I have so far been unable to answer by reading the relevant MoS and policy pages. I've noticed that virtually none of the "Plot summary" sections in articles related to novels and films ever cite sources for the information therein. Is this an area where original research is permitted, or even encouraged, to some degree? Are we for some reason not required to provide reliable sources for information regarding fictitious scenarios? If so, why? Thanks in advance for your responses. Evanh2008 ( talk| contribs) 06:01, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
"Is this an area where original research is permitted, or even encouraged, to some degree?"It is best to just write a straight summary without interpretation. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Contextual presentation, which states "Presenting fictional material from the original work is fine... If such passages stray into the realm of interpretation, secondary sources must be provided to avoid original research."
"Are we for some reason not required to provide reliable sources for information regarding fictitious scenarios?"Plot summaries are typically not referenced. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Film#Plot, which states, "Since films are primary sources in their articles, basic descriptions of their plots are acceptable without reference to an outside source." and also "Since the film is the primary source and the infobox provides details about the film, citing the film explicitly in the plot summary's section is not necessary." This example is for films, but similar things apply for plots in other media. 64.40.54.48 ( talk) 10:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been cleaning up overly long and overly detailed plot summaries for years, and I think we honestly need to start requiring reliable sources for two reasons: 1) these plot summaries are typically filled with all sorts of WP:SYNTHESIS or original conclusions about what happened in the source that in many cases are completely different from what is actually in the source, and the people who put it there just then say "it's in the source". Second, a lot of plot summaries are way too long and go into details that are simply nonnotable trivia and violations of WP:NOT.
These problems largely go away if we require secondary reliable sources for anything in a plot summary beyond just the most basic summary. First, the conclusions about what happens in the plot can be attributed to someone who is a step up from the average Wikipedia plot sections contributor (who is typically someone who is less skilled in editing and in making sound judgment calls in general). Second, we tone down the trivia because reliable sources generally only mention the most notable parts. As far as what we can do if there are no reliable sources giving a plot summary, I don't see that as a real problem, as there should be countless reviews out there covering the important parts of any notable work. If it's not out there it simply isn't notable and should not be in Wikipedia in the first place.
Plot summaries on Wikipedia have been extremely embarrassing for years, to be quite honest. Generally the people contributing to the plot summary guideline were also the people most interested in filling articles up with low quality summaries, so encourages the kinds of things most encyclopedia editors would not do in an article in any other section.
I also think we desperately need a hard rule that any plot summary can at most be 25% of an article's size. If we can't find reliable sources for what impact the work had, how it was developed, and so forth, then it's the kind of work that an encyclopedia shouldn't bother having a plot summary for, as it had no notable impact anywhere. At that point summarizing the pliot is just fanwankery. DreamGuy ( talk) 16:59, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Some Chinese editors suggests that Chinese Wikipedia should not link to any pages in English and other foreign Wikipedias. Should English Wikipedia forbid acticles linking to Chinese Wikipedia?-- 王小朋友 ( talk) 07:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
It seems that THE user who take this subject misunderstanding the real meaning of the other user said.It is not "suggests that Chinese Wikipedia should not link to any pages in English",what he mean is that "Should use temp {{link-en}}
properly".--
113.71.194.251 (
talk) 15:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Could anyone close this please? Idk why 王小朋友 bring the discussion to here even though it's clearly unrelated. For the people who want to know what's happening on zhwiki, here's an example. As you can see, currently users such as 王小朋友 are adding an interlanguage link after each red link (that is "used routinely"), which looks terrible.-- Jsjsjs1111 ( talk) 01:52, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Some Chinese Wikipedian says, enwiki is wrong place to discuss this issue. I apology. I moved this disscusion to meta:Help_talk:Interwiki_linking#Forbid_linking_to_other_language_Wikipedia_within_articles. Discuss in meta, please.-- 王小朋友 ( talk) 08:00, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I translate here some opposite reasons gave by Chinese users, because it may be useful for English users to decide whether it should be forbidden. ('English' replaced 'Chinese'.)
A current case of an editor using obvious and non-legit socks, and my attempts to interface with the SPI forum has illustrated to me that it cannot be accessed properly, or that its requirements are not specific enough and defeat the aim of the process, or both.
I have more than sufficient data to present to meet the required level of probability, I have enough data to remove all reasonable doubt. The SPI process defeats its own purpose by requiring all known data to be reduced by a undefined method, pure assumption is the only process available as a result. This means unnecessary information would be posted. Editors who are not familiar with the process, which means almost all editors, would be forced to lay out guides for the sockmaster to read, study, and improve their methods of attack. So in my case, if I post the extensive data I have, I attack the project by assisting it's enemy. I have been in touch with some investigators, but there is simply no clarity in who may or may not handle the case. I was directed to our IRC channel where I asked politely and waited so long for a response that it appeared to raise suspicion that I was 'lurking'. (Like my bot and everything else, it's left on when I sleep) The investigation page attracted no requests for more information, just an incompetent statement (Partisan), and it was closed and archived.
My own assessment of the process indicates that an assignment of a specific person to converse with, like in mediation, would be appropriate, rather than the apparent disinterest from investigators and the resulting frustration provoking complete walk-throughs being posted by frustrated but intelligent people. My own integrity prevents me from divulging more information (all of which is detrimental in the wrong hands) than is absolutely necessary. Although I can simply post all names of editors as a way to prevent this discussion from being ignored or overlooked, the discussion which that would provoke would also involve discussion by other people of the sockpuppets tactics, which in turn would educate the puppet-master, and so I am unable at this point to do that either.
Pesky did post some good advice on my talkpage about what to do, that is to prepare all evidence, or enough, with diffs, and then reduce that over and over down to some small amount, maybe a page or so, and email that. I refuse to do so, and the reason I refuse to do so is patently obvious to me, if a two-way process whereby an investigator can ask for guidance to information he or she wants, conversing in a two way manner, then the process is simplified and the labour cost of finding and processing a sockpuppet remains comparable in economics of effort to that of producing a sock in the first place. However, to find a place between posting all contributions the sock has made, all mannerisms a sock has illustrated, a report into their culture, interests, location, editing patterns, times, styles and so on (not listing all for walk thru concerns) and compressing all the data into an exact amount required by an unknown investigator requires considerably more skill and effort to do properly than it does to just make another sock. Either the investigator does as I do and looks at everything, finding the required data themself, or the requesting party has to make blind assumptions about the investigators abilities or shortcomings and use their unknown level of skill in order to guess what data is needed, even though all data is available to the investigator already. None of this makes sense, and the process is broken to the point that I cannot get it to operate properly. If someone as smart as me cannot get it to work, if I cannot present a case, then something is fucked up right here. That's all I'm saying basically. Penyulap ☏ 11:37, 29 Jul 2012 (UTC)
A technical question: WP:OA states that repeat copyright infringers may have their accounts "terminated" under the DMCA. How is this implemented? Is this done by an indefinite block, or are there additional measures? Dragon 280 ( talk/ contribs) 17:46, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
This thread stems from a discussion for The Killers article where there has been addition and deletion of the album Sawdust to the discography section. The album is a compilation of B-sides and rarities. I have heard from different sources that only studio albums should be listed in the discography section of band articles; however, I have not found a corresponding policy/guideline/MoS that codifies this. All I have found is from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Discographies:
This does not limit the section to solely studio albums. Is there some other policy/guideline/MoS that I am missing? Is this just Wikipedia common law? Is it OK to list a compilation album in a discography section so long it is labeled as such, and not as a studio album? Hopefully someone else knows more than I on this subject. Angryapathy ( talk) 17:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi everyone! (I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so please direct me if so.) I'm curious as to the application of WP:BURDEN - it's really important in science (in fact fundamental), and same in formal debates, so given this plus its prominent position in WP:V, I would have expected it to be important here, but I've never actually seen it cited by anyone.
The policy states the burden is with the editor who adds or restores material. Does/should this apply to cases of BRD? Presumably as the bold editor, I shouldn't have to write detailed justifications unless I think it's likely someone will object (it isn't for most of the edits I make). But then, if I make many changes at once and get reverted per BRD, can the reverter's reason be something vague enough to requires me to write out a justification for every single one of these edits, or can I reasonably ask that they tell me specific ones they would like to discuss? However, if they simply don't answer or provide only general statements, I'm essentially required to provide such a list of justifications if I want my changes to go through.
(None of this applies to any situation I'm involved in, although I'm currently watching a DRN thread where some of the information might be applicable. I'm not likely to comment there.)
On a related note, doesn't BRD essentially preclude any and all use of reversion beyond 1RR except in cases of vandalism? Maybe I don't edit the right pages, but when would someone ever want to go beyond one revert if not dealing with vandalism or a similar extreme case? Arc de Ciel ( talk) 10:22, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Per a discussion at WP:ANI, several editors (including myself) have called for a new policy or an amendment to an existing policy on article creation. The what happens occasionally is that an editor will mass produce articles with minor information, such as this one. In the discussion that prompted this proposal, User: Jaguar was mass creating articles with only one line, acknowledging that the town/county was there, with no other information. In that discussion I also talked about User:Carlossuarez46, who creates in a similar manner, but adds information such as population, size and other census information. Following this discussion, and seeing as this issue has come up many times before, I am here to resolve this issue. I propose a new policy that will not limit the rate at which articles can be created, as many users are in favor of, but will set guidelines on quality issues, such as one-line articles. I believe the policy should require articles about minor communities, towns, counties and other municipal locations to have some basic information, such as population, size and a main industry (farming, hunting, fishing). Please note that this will not limit these amount of articles an editor can create nor the rate at which they can make them. This is simply addressing the quality of these articles. Wikipedia is for the reader, and they want know more information about these locations, other than that they exist. I ask to please let me know what you think of this proposal, and discuss about creating it. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 20:29, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Any new article created should add information to Wikipedia. Taking information already present in a list and creating substubs without adding anything that would require individual articles (like interwikilinks or coordinates) is something that should not be done. It is insulting to the reader who has clicked on the link in the list to obtain information about the list item, and destroys the opportunity for other editors to fill the beautiful red link. — Kusma ( t· c) 06:11, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
We barely got this started and it has already been tagged for MfD and created its own debate to even exist in its infancy.-- Canoe1967 ( talk) 07:20, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
-- Canoe1967 ( talk) 21:27, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I have a draft essay called NPOV is a problem for images. I would appreciate any comments on. In particular I am interested in topics I missed that I should have covered. Please put comment on the essay's talk page. Jason Quinn ( talk) 14:40, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
On the banning policy's talk page at Wikipedia talk:Banning policy#Quick question, Nobody Ent ( talk · contribs), a non-administrator, has added "Site bans should not be proposed for indefinitely blocked editors" in the community ban section. I had no objections to it, but I felt that we could gain a more clear consensus on the matter here. Please comment on the policy's talk page. Thanks, Darth Sjones23 ( talk - contributions) 16:49, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force/Sources ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
There is an ambiguity about using "uncontroversial maintenance" to move articles – see Wikipedia talk:Moving a page#.7B.7Bdb-move.7D.7D. Nobody commented it for more than a week. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 11:22, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
There is currently discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Is wikipedia a devotional compendium? regarding possible changes to that policy page to deal with article content of what might broadly be called a "religious" nature. Any and all input is more than welcome. Religious topics tend to be among the more contentious around here, and because of that I believe the discussion would welcome as many cool heads as it can get. John Carter ( talk) 15:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
See Template talk:Citation needed#Unverified information for a RfC proposal to change the banner wording of {{ citation needed}} from "citation needed" to "unverified information" -- PBS ( talk) 17:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
In English Wikipedia there are a lot of lists of notable/famous subjects (see also about situation in German Wikipedia etc.) Usually these lists don’t contain the word «famous/notable» in its names, but such point is indicated in introductions (e. g., List of Asian Americans).
Some users in Russian Wikipedia suppose all such lists to be an immanent original research, because (as they think) notability is only a inner Wiki-concept; there is no one reliable source which contains lists, being based on the principle of notability; and lists of «famous Ns» in sources may contradict each other, because «famous» is not an exact term.
Other users (including myself) suppose, that Wiki-lists should not be based on original idea (any absurd principle of different subjects’ unification), but may have an original content, more vast, that any specific source.
Do en-wiki users see any problem here? Thanks for your comments. -- Chronicler ( talk) 19:17, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
There are currently two different RfCs in which users familiar to the debate are discussing the use of accent marks in article titles. Some believe that accent marks should not be used and all article titles should be restricted to the ASCII character set. Some believe that the article title should should be guided by WP:V and follow usage in reliable English language sources (as described in WP:UE). Some believe names should be spelled the way they are in the native language of the subject of the article with little or no regard to English usage (the argument put forward is that any English language source that does not use the native language spelling is an unreliable source for deciding on the correct spelling of a name). Input from more editors would perhaps help form a consensus on which strategy is the best to follow. See:
-- PBS ( talk) 15:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
-- ThaddeusB ( talk) 15:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
There's been a lot of issues with behavior problems revolving around various celebrity's "...on Twitter" articles. Examples include
Uncle G has provided a good summary of the poor behavior that these articles are creating (either way), in that we have "empty" AFD !votes, articles at GAN/FAC being sent to AFD, articles at AFD being sent to GAC/FAC, etc. Plus a race to create more, put more to GA (at minimum) as "protection" from AFD, etc. Rightly so, the problem is that these are articles that we don't know what to do with yet, and there are arguments on both sides regarding them.
First, I'd like to propose an informal halt to any meta-activity on these articles, at least until some resolve has been made. No creation, no AFD'ing, no GAN/FAC (allowing the current running ones to complete of course).
But we do need some resolve. I have my own ideas how these articles should be treated, but I don't want to taint the discussion with my opinion here. Instead, I'd like to see what the general community feels about these, are they appropriate, are there better ways of handling it, should they not even exist? Based on what consensus says, we can make appropriate changes to guideline/policy that summarizes that and then and only then can we turn back to what we have to see if the articles themselves may be affected.
Note that I am going to assume that we are talking about "...on Twitter" articles that already meet WP:V in terms of sourcing, and we're talking only those that other sources have clearly recognized, not a random celebrity or nobody. The three examples above are the ones that I would expect of minimum quality for an "on Twitter" article to even exist, so this is not meant to say that we can create a "On Twitter" article for any random person X. But even when they get as largely sourced as the above three, the questions on appropriateness remain.
Note that I'm looking ahead to any type of "X on Y" where Y is some social media application, like YouTube, or Facebook, or whatever. There may not be any articles that meet these now, but we should be considering the potential of what future such services may bring.
Given this, I'm breaking up the discussion into three areas, below. Two for "Generally acceptable" and "Generally unacceptable", and a third for "Other options", which I hope people expand with possible ideas for determining between acceptable and unacceptable. -- MASEM ( t) 14:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
No special guideline is needed, just the usual WP:GNG. Has anyone written a book about Lady Gaga's twitter account? Are there serious articles from reliable sources that survey the history, behavior, and influence of Lady Gaga's twitter account? I just took a quick look at Lady Gaga on Twitter, and there do appear to be quite a few articles cited, in legitimate newspapers, whose main topic is indeed Lady Gaga's twitter account. There is enough material for a substantial article, with no padding or gratuitous quotations or cherry-picking references. Seems like a slam dunk to me.
OK, now I just took a quick look at Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. It seems to be a little more focused on trivia (do we really need to know the exact second that the account was created? do we need a list of his venture-capital investments? technology-related characters that Kutcher plays?? that he advertises digital cameras???), but there seem to be plenty of serious articles that really have this Twitter account as their main topic. I haven't gone over the article carefully, but it appears that even if the non-salient fluff were pared away, there is still plenty of factual material to make an article. The basis for notability is WP:NOTINHERITED from Kutcher's celebrity, it's that this was the first Twitter account to reach 1,000,000 followers. We don't just have a bunch of miscellaneous press coverage, we have a clear explanation for why the account received so much press coverage, in the form of a main fact that has a lot of closely related facts surrounding it, which got covered because that main fact was so important. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we write encyclopedia articles about.
— Ben Kovitz ( talk) 02:04, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Shouldn't our usual metrics apply? Primarily, the one that says develop related content in the main article and only split when the content threatens to become too large? Powers T 14:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Now, both of these two issues are valid discussion points, and it's good to see them raised. However, I think there's a third issue being brought into play here, one that's really, seriously obscuring the discussion we should be having about issues 1 and 2. That issue is "do we, personally, like recentist-type content, especially involving newfangled celebrities or newfangled communication mediums?" and I think the issue of whether we like Twitter, or think Justin Bieber is ridiculous, or wonder why the hell all these news bureaus care about what Ashton Kutcher tweets when there's a war on, etc, is acting as a huge derail from what we should be looking at.
It shouldn't matter whether we think a topic is childish or too new - if that were a criterion for our inclusion, I'd be running around nominating every Pokemon article we have for deletion, because you kids and your newfangled games...!. But the fact is we have documentation and sources to show that Bulbasaur is notable, no matter how much its existence makes me want to headdesk. People talk about Pokemon, they write about them, and no matter how silly I find them, they're notable and sourceable. Can the same be said for "...on Twitter" topics, some or all? I obviously can't say for sure, but I do wish the community would focus on addressing that issue rather than the issue of whether those durn kids today have strange taste in what they write about. Relatedly, I would love to know how I've somehow found myself speaking up for anything having to do with Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. One second I was mid-crotchety-cane-thump, the next I was copyediting a Twitter article! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 20:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong support Twitter accounts are no different than any other topic, they are not presumed to be automatically notable or non-notable, they should be considered notable if there's been enough coverage in multiple reliable sources. Yes, it's true that topics like this are prime symbols in grand narratives of The Decline of Western Civilization, this vague (and empirically unrigorous) feeling that "we used to care about important matters but now all we care about is the Kardashians". But such feelings ought to have no bearing on our consideration of whether these articles actually meet the notability policy. If the current articles don't, I'm fine deleting them, but I'm embarassed to see DGG of all people endorsing the notion that a topic can be presumed inherently unencyclopedic. If more serious publications are starting to cover Twitter accounts on a par with blogs or YouTube series as a creative form, who are we to second guess them? (I've seen trends in this direction, if nothing that yet indicates true notability, for instance Pitchfork Media including "best Twitter account" in their end-of-year music polls).
Maybe it's just the "X on Twitter" framing that's tripping us up here. Shit My Dad Says is an article on a discrete creative product; @FakeAPStylebook could be one if you could find enough sources; so what's inherently wrong with @kanyewest or @justinbieber as a topic (given enough sources)? Of course that's not the same as collating every media reference to "X said something on twitter today". We don't have "X on Youtube" articles either but we do have articles such as The Angry Video Game Nerd whose scope basically coincides with a YouTube channel. 169.231.53.116 ( talk) 23:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
for example "When the resources consumed by discussion about N or EV, such as drive space and editor time is expected to exceed by a factor of 20 the size of the article, it should be included in order to render further haemorrhaging of editorial and server resources moot".
Just a thought, I figure it would be nice to leave it here so it can be overlooked. "Wikipedia, discussion ad nauseam" Penyulap ☏ 13:02, 29 Jul 2012 (UTC)
...Umm... Shall we move this to WP:village pump (idea lab)? Well, there is no policy on exact accounts used by people; just X on Y policies and guidelines, which might be vague. -- George Ho ( talk) 19:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I think there's a wider discussion that needs to be had on forking out single aspects from BLPs. There was also the recent AfD for Personal life of Jennifer Lopez (and current Articles for deletion/Bennifer.) If we simply use the standard of "possible to cobble together enough news coverage to satisfy WP:GNG" there are almost endless aspects that could be broken out as separate articles for high profile celebrities. Siawase ( talk) 20:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
My opinion is to deal with these articles on a case by case basis. By setting a policy in stone, we may find ourselves in a tricky situation in future when there is a highly notable incident involving Twitter's use by a celebrity. However, we should also not get carried away and create an article on Twitter use by top-10 celebrities by the number of followers. EngineerFromVega ★ 07:11, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Let's write similar articles, but about people who are not internet celebrities:
And so on and on. When a person is famous enough, articles about him start digressing about minor aspects of his life. By picking pieces here and there, you can write tomes about any minor aspect of a famous person. (see also Siawase's comment above) -- Enric Naval ( talk) 11:02, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
For what it's worth: When researching Harriet Hanson Robinson recently, I found that she has two Facebook accounts. ("Activities: Women's Suffrage Interests: Books, Sewing". I kid you not. No, they're not in the mirroring-Wikipedia section, obviously, since Wikipedia has only just gained an article.) This is fairly good Internet-fu for someone who died in 1911. FDR only gets a page in the mirroring-Wikipedia section of Facebook. So come back with FDR only when you can write Franklin D. Roosevelt on Facebook to match Harriet Hanson Robinson on Facebook. ☺
Uncle G ( talk) 11:38, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
As near as I can tell, these "Twitter" articles are spinoffs of famous people. Now normally such things are Bibliography of X (for books) or Filmography of Y (for films) or Album of Z. I can't imagine why Social Media Activities of X would be any different, as its just another form of media. Yes, its recent media, yes its hard to judge its impact objectively, but SO much ink has been spilled its hard to see why such activities should be forced onto RandomCeleb's main page. Its a fairly natural sort of break, and obviously some of these activities attract a lot of attention. Treat em as subarticles I say: Consideration must be given to size, notability and potential neutrality issues before proposing or carrying out a split. The Steve 06:39, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
By no means am I trying to infer that these two are acceptable, but while the Bieber and Kutcher's have been deleted:
If we recognize these as exemptions to the general !voting trend about that "'X on Twitter' articles are generally not appropriate" above, then what type of advice can we give to reconcile these exceptions?
My observations is the argument WP:NOTDIARY is strong and prevailing in both previous AFD closures; when much of the page is repeating the events of the person's life as lived out by twitter, the "...on Twitter" article becomes redundant and/or excessively detailed. This is combined with the overall BLP aspect, which is something that we have to be very careful under the Foundation's guidance. For the above counter examples, the Lady Gaga Twitter article has little to do with her as much as that Twitter account; in Obama's Twitter case, its more on his use professionally for the account, there's no diary aspects or BLP aspects that seep into them.
Thus, to start some type of division, we have to look at how the sources discuss the Twitter account, praising or criticizing the accounts as a whole, and not at what is necessarily actually said on the account. In otherwords, there is a GNG aspect here in that we're looking for secondary sources specifically on the account and not on the person themselves. Just having a Twitter account isn't sufficient, and having many sources use the account often to iterate information out from it isn't sufficient.
There is also the Summary Style issue. I think for both Gaga and Obama, their personal articles are already quite long and merging those above Twitter articles back in wouldn't help. This was definitely not the case for Bieber's or Kutcher's, once the NOTDIARY aspects were removed, in that the parent articles are reasonably sized to have a section to talk about their use of Twitter. Thus, the "... On Twitter" articles should only be created when there's a SIZE issue with the personality's main article. Otherwise, a summary of the personality's use of social media is certainly not unwarranted within their respective articles.
A final consideration is that focusing on "...on Twitter" might be a problem. I'm sure, 2-3 years ago, we could probably have some "...on Facebook" pages, and years before that "...on MySpace". I'd rather see encouraging those personalities that use social media to have sections and/or articles towards all social media aspects and not just Twitter; eg "Social media use by Justin Bieber" may be more acceptable (if it was needed) than just "Justin Bieber on Twitter". Social media is here to stay (I would think) and while the means of social media will change with time, the general class of applications and interactions holds true. I think the same can apply to both Gaga's and Obama's articles too, renaming them and including more (IIRC, for example, the President doing YouTube Q&A. -- MASEM ( t) 16:38, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
So considering what we have said:
Given that, I would suggest that the following courses of action be taken:
The current articles that are inplace shouldn't be touched, though editors involved are free to discuss issues, but we should strongly discourage other articles of the type "X on Twitter" if they are created in the future without considering other ways of discussing the topic. -- MASEM ( t) 16:28, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I just was BOLD and moved Barack Obama on twitter to Communications of Barack Obama, some celebreities have extensive contact with the traditional media and social media and have noteworthy public relations teams often with spokes or lawyers that are of note even on here so this way we can avoid an unlimited amount of BO on facebook, youtube etc. and it can be more encyclopedic and comprehensive, however I highly suggest we add that since these articles suitability may be marginal we should set the bar very high LuciferWildCat ( talk) 20:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Slightly off-topic but relevant: I recall an article Elephant (Wikipedia article) which was quickly deleted. If we can have 'X on twitter' articles, why not to have 'X (Wikipedia article)', too? Imagine having Barack Obama (Wikipedia article) which will go through the article development, related disputes, blocks, sanctions, arbitration cases, etc. ;-). EngineerFromVega ★ 10:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Ashton Kutcher on Twitter has been undeleted and then relisted as AFD. -- George Ho ( talk) 03:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
There is an internal interest group on Wikipedia which developed the article incubator and tried to get into the nether world of articles that could be perhaps saved from deletion but really weren't anywhere near ready for prime time and usually were deleted anyway. This ranged from simply poorly written articles and articles that suffered from notability problems yet still seemed like something that should exist on Wikipedia in some form (such as emerging technologies or some person doing something very interesting but still hasn't received widespread press coverage yet). Some are simply articles that are just in a horrible state that simply need a whole lot of TLC in order to even be readable, thus are commonly deleted by otherwise lazy editors.
More to the point, this is something which I think could be an alternative to deletion in AfD discussions or even a place to "park" articles with notability concerns for awhile as a way to be a little bit friendly to new users. I've seen it in action where it can be positive.
The problem with the project, and why I'm bringing it up here on the Village Pump, is that the project seems to be dead with a group of editors zombifying a nearly year old RfC discussion to simply shut down the project altogether. That the discussion itself was not really dealt with in over a year should say something about the activity of the project that even the opponents lost steam to shut it down. At the moment it is sitting in a limbo state neither really alive or dead, with unfortunately a whole lot of content sitting in the wings that needs to be dealt with in some fashion as well.
I love the concept personally, and I'm willing to put in some effort to restart the project if necessary, but I would need some extra help doing that as well. It also needs wider support from the greater Wikipedia community and even a solid discussion about what role it should even have in terms of how it relates to other parts of Wikipedia, in particular the AfD process, New Page Patrol, or even the general article creation process as a whole. There is a danger to the concept as a way to make an already bureaucratic process of creating an article even more convoluted, so I can even see some merit to shutting down this project and marking it as historical. My main question posed to the general Wikipedia community is this: Should there even be an article incubator? -- Robert Horning ( talk) 15:44, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
"Should there even be an article incubator?"Yes, there should be an incubator or something with a similar function. 64.40.54.10 ( talk) 09:48, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
It sounds like a good idea but I think that it has floundered because it misses the mark in several ways:
Probably a better approach would be to list or tag specially selected articles (that are in mainspace) for development from stubs or rescue. I imagine that some system halfway like this exists, although probably obscure and not focused. Possibly the incubator could be morphed into such a list with pointers? North8000 ( talk) 12:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Why do non-free images used in multiple articles need completely separate usage rationales for each article? It it okay to have a single rationale for multiple named articles with only the differences noted? For example, one could use the following if the purpose of the usage is the same:
One will need to replace the "it is being used in educational articles..." with something like "In [[ABC]], it is being used for.... In [[XYZ]], it is being used for...." if the purposes are different. Does policy actually prohibit this? If so, why? — DragonLord ( talk/ contribs) 15:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
See WT:PROTECT#Removal of highly-visible templates protection. ~~ Ebe 123~~ → report 14:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
You are hereby invited to comment on the proposal to promote Wikipedia:Official names to guideline status. See you there. -- BDD ( talk) 22:29, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
Hello my name shall be jimyn less than I'm studying psychology. This is my first comment on this board for a little swap in the articles from "lavender" | "lavandula angustifolia" to "lavandula angustifolia" | "lavender". The brain remains to remember more likely the first in line, for the concentration induced by the thirst for knowledge which made one open the specific page in the first place. In a growing global world this would for one to another only care benefits for pointing out precisely the same thing. Like it is being done on the english Wikipedia already, this could spread around so that it is being coercively executed by all the other Wikipedia's around the world (french for example brings the common name first). This act would bring us even closer, and get's Wikipedia written in history as a platform where free knowledge is presented to connect people all around the world. This would be the ultimate place for Maria Treben's legacy for example - never checked if it can be found... Back to the topic: It seems the Latin word is always seperated by a bracket - so it should be possible to write a script which exchanges both I imagine. What do you guys think? Wish you all a nice day! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimyn ( talk • contribs) 14:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
On Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines#RfC: Top X lists in video games, there is a request for comment on whether we should use "Top X lists" to determine a video game character's notability if the list has significant coverage from a reliable source. Please comment on the guidelines' talk page. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 ( talk - contributions) 01:30, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Argument collapsed. Editor requested participation at
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DVBViewer. --
Philosopher
Let us reason together. 21:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
|
---|
I think there may be a little bit of bias going on with the two latter issues (possibly with a bias towards open source software, however smallscale), as seen on the current AFD for
DVBViewer
here. The software is created in Germany, but has a large following in the UK, and smaller userbases in Japan, Australia & New Zealand, but notably perhaps, not really in North America so it has no significant coverage there on any websites. I feel that is giving a mistaken impression that it is not notable amongst the first voters on this AFD, when it is one of the most used HTPC software in the UK after
Windows Media Center and
MediaPortal, and is mentioned in
16 reviews on techradar, one with
multiple screenshots, techradar is a major website & magazine from
Future plc. It also has a
review in
Computer Active the UK's highest selling computer magazine that has been going for 14 years, and 1000s of mentions on UK forums
AVForums &
Digital Spy. The software is also included as OEM by multiple TV card & box manufacturers such as
TechniSat,
Terratec & Technotrend. I'd appreciate if others could put some input into the AFD as I feel there may be an element of not wanting to be proved wrong going on, as well as rather unethical behaviour (I think) of the nominator
removing a large amount of content before nominating .
|
Ezekial 9 ( talk) 17:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I have recently requested a merger of the List of computer viruses page, with its corresponding lists List of computer viruses (A-D), List of computer viruses (E-K) etc... However looking again at the articles in question, a merger as such would not be needed as the information contained within the List of computer viruses (x-x) pages, already appears in exactly the same way on the List of computer viruses page.
My question is this. As I have opened this merger discussion here, do I have to wait for this discussion to end before I can request deletion of the pages in question, or given that they are clone copies containing the same information but spread over different pages, that I can just close off the merger request and request deletion immediately.
I have currently not had any feedback on the discussion page regarding this matter, and as I am quite new I am uncertain as how best to proceed.
Any advice on how best to proceed would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
Sirkus ( talk) 04:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I have filed a RFC on {{ Magazine}} because I feel it is a problematic cleanup template. Please discuss here. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 21:45, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't know whether this concern has been raised before, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while now.
WP:ARTICLETITLE reads, "The title indicates what the article is about", speaking of course of any given article's title and how it ought to relate to the article's subject. We have articles about all manner of things, and often, many articles that need disambiguation because they share names with other things. What we likely shouldn't have by these accounts are articles whose titles don't match their subjects. And yet we do have such articles.
I'm referring to List of... articles, which seem to disagree with the logic behind WP:ARTICLETITLE. Visiting articles titled The X-Files, President of the United States, or monolith takes one to articles about The X-Files, the role of President of the United States, and monoliths, respectively, as suggested by the fact that each of these things are the subject in the article's title. Meanwhile, list of The X-Files episodes, list of Presidents of the United States, and list of largest monoliths in the world all suggest that their subjects are, in fact, lists, by way of having the article's title's subject be the word "List".
To be clear, I'm aware this is a somewhat trivial issue of semantics, but this is an article about a list...so is this, sort of. The 'List of The X-Files episodes' article is not about a list, though. It's about the episodes, even if it presents them in list form. We've never encouraged making things longer or more complicated than they need to be on Wikipedia, so why encourage including "List of..." in the title of list-dependent articles?
Today's featured list includes several recently featured lists: Olympic records in athletics, Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography, and Puerto Ricans missing in action in the Korean War. While the first and third links take the reader to articles that begin with "List of...", the implications of 'Puerto Ricans missing in action in the Korean War' and 'Olympic records in athletics' are clear: clicking those links will lead to an article detailing athletic Olympic records or MIA Puerto Ricans. Whether these articles do this in list form or not shouldn't affect the very title of the article. (As a sidenote, the title 'Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography' clearly states the subject of the article. No problem with that title.)
On any given article, even "List of..." ones, the reader expects to find information on the subject. For this reason, Featured Lists (and many others) include ancillary information along with a list. For some "List of..." articles, there is no corresponding non-"List of..." article, further eliminating the need for the extra words in the title. ( List of unexplained sounds exists, for example, though there is no article for unexplained sounds.)
I realize this has rambled a lot, so to condense all these thoughts:
Any thoughts? It's very possible that there's some reason in Wikipedia's history that we differentiate the "List of..." from the rest, and if that's the case, then I apologize for the excessive pseudo-proposal. (I'm not proposing changing the guidelines from suggesting "List of..." to suggesting going without in article titles just yet, because I feel like I don't have all the facts.) Thanks for your consideration. BobAmnertiopsis ∴ ChatMe! 19:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Hello there. I'm a translator of Chinese Wikipedia. I suggest add an Crowdin-like translation tool that with collaborative function, multi-lang. support, etc.
Sorry it's my first post on EnWiki. I don't know if I put this on the wrong page (cause my bad English)
Thanks!
by L19980623 ( talk) 10:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
There have been many proposals recently regarding de-adminship and an improvement of community processes on Wikipedia. However, to reduce the amount of bureaucratic overhead that these proposals would have were they passed individually, I think that it would be wise to discuss a wholesale reform of governance on Wikipedia, with no existing governing body left untouched. While we may not hold the same opinions about how Wikipedia should be run, I think that we can all agree that a rational debate on the subject must begin.
Disclaimer: I have made several proposals on the topic in the past, none of which were accepted and all of which were disliked greatly by the community. I am not submitting a proposal here myself for this express reason. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Wer900 (
talk •
contribs) 16:35, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
The reason Wer900's proposals failed was, at least in part, that they were too big and bold. And went in the opposite direction that any such reforms should go, but that's another point. That basic failure isn't going to be overcome by proposing an even bigger proposal! -- Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:40, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Philosopher, you write that my proposals were going in the wrong direction. If so, could you please outline to me how you would take to the task of governance reform? I've been told several times before that my proposals will make Wikipedia like the most hopelessly failed fat bureaucracy in human history, but that's at least an improvement from an hyperdecentralized outdated system which generally doesn't last too long. And while I would never conflate Wikipedia with the slave system, many aspects of Wikipedia, such as its split judiciary and limited central legislative and executive power, have caused harm to Wikipedia. Some centralization is needed in order for us to be able to track excessive bureaucracy, get rid of what we do not need, and make the most of the remaining bureaucracy. A rational starting point for any conversation on the subject should, at least, recognize that Wikipedia is in need of a wholesale review of its policies, given that the existing policies were made in different circumstances and times. Wer900 • talk • coordination consensus defined 20:07, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
did anybody notice this link? someone wants to create bad name for wikimedia foundation. Some of the internal links leads to wiki related websites.
is there any restictional law to stop this?-- Tenkasi Subramanian ( talk) 17:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
The most annoying part about this site is that they link to our contact page as their own. OTRS probably gets at least 10 emails a day from people complaining that some article has been grossly vandalized that is actually on lohere. Legal is looking into solutions, but they didn't seem optimistic about how long that would take. Someguy1221 ( talk) 03:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
On many types of computer-screen, the lines of text in W'pedia articles are far too long to read comfortably (look at this one!). W'pedia needs to have body-text that's no wider than the type you find in a book or newspaper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 ( talk) 07:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (people) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
I signed up for the Wikipedia:Feedback request service in the area of Maths, science, and technology. The bot is choosing RfCs on pages such as Talk:Barack Obama on Twitter, Talk:Penis and Talk:Abortion -- not Maths, science, or technology. I brought this up at Wikipedia talk:Feedback request service#Miscategorized Requests and Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment#Feedback request service. No luck.
I do realize that I can unsubscribe or ignore the unwanted requests, but I think that the feedback request service is a good idea and I would like it to work properly, sending science and technology RfCs to those who sign up for science and technology RfCs, and sending political RfCs to those who sign up for political RfCs.
When I look at Talk:Abortion#rfc_E9CB18E, I see that the RfC was listed under Maths, science, and technology instead of where it should be, under Politics, government, and law.
Any ideas about how we can make this little part of Wikipedia work better? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 21:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
To assist with PRODs and AfDs we sorely need to rehash Wikipedia:Notability (companies) and create a Wikipedia:Notability (products) guideline (currently an old draft of mine). They need something that is quite prescriptive like Wikipedia:Notability (people) because, as with biographical articles, company and product articles are created all too readily (IMO). -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 19:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
More "guideline" than "policy". A request to write an 800-word op-ed for a PR newsletter, to represent the Wikipedia community (email quoted with permission):
Phil is from CIPR and he was the other guy in the webcast we did on Wikipedia and PR editors. I expect I'll basically rewrite what I said in that webcast, but wanted to ask here if there's anything that was seriously missing that needs mention - David Gerard ( talk) 22:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
Considering how we have a pillar here of Civility, doesn't it seem a little un-Wikipedian to be hostile to anyone? Maybe it is time to remind people what we're supposed to be about here. PR people don't necessarily get a class in Wikipedia best practices, yet some editors think not only PR people, but almost any new person should immediately know the 'rules' here. All the wiki-jargon, WP:THIS and WP:THAT. Maybe it is time to remind people that everyone here was new once, and PR people aren't necessarily here to bring down the order of things. Ultimately, the idea of a free and open encyclopedia is a pretty new concept in the history of the world. So let's give people some slack, and help them out, instead of just getting mad because they're making a living at this or because they're new to it. -- Avanu ( talk) 06:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Two days to deadline and I have a draft, at User:David Gerard/scratch. I throw it to the Disunited Bikeshedders of Wikipedia to do as they will.
I'm not entirely happy with its tone, it's long on how-to but short on objections. I have nicked helpful sentences from the above discussion. This is about 650 words, so there's headroom for more. Comments here please - David Gerard ( talk) 14:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
OK, it's been sent off! Text above is what I sent. Out first week Sept. - David Gerard ( talk) 15:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
wp:mosnum says:
Numbers with five or more digits to the left of the decimal point (i.e. 10,000 or greater) should be delimited into groups so they can be easily parsed, such as by using a comma (,) every three digits (e.g. 12,200, 255,200, 8,274,527). A full stop (.) should not be used to separate thousands (e.g. 12.200, 255.200) to avoid confusion with the decimal point.
But several articles such as Giga- intentionally put gaps between groups of three digits instead of commas. Doesn't this violate the MoS? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 17:50, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
As many of us have noticed, quite a high percentage of new users create accounts directly relating to the subject about which they intend to write; this is, of course, almost always followed by a username block or a spamusername block. Many of these editors are totally well-meaning, but not properly informed. And when blocked some, possibly the majority, get discouraged and never come back. I believe that we may well be losing some potentially good editors in this way.
I personally have no in-depth programming expertise. but is it not possible for a message to be shown, when an account is newly created, warning the editor at the outset, to avoid this pitfall?-- Anthony Bradbury "talk" 20:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not the only one who has noticed conflicting treatment of articles about ongoing political controversies. You didn't build that (originally 2012 Roanoke Obama campaign speech) survived a very contentious AfD, but Mitt Romney's tax returns did not. The awkwardly named Mitt Romney dog incident survived two AfDs under previous names, but Obama Eats Dogs was deleted. Other deleted articles in this vein include Forward (generic name of socialist publications), Mitt Romney Cranbrook incident and Teleprompter usage by Barack Obama, while Todd Akin rape and pregnancy controversy rages on. If you think these outcomes are all the result of judicious application of our policies and guidelines, I think you're adorable. I have two major concerns about these types of articles:
These issues have been destroying two of our pillars, specifically neutrality and civility. I don't see how someone could be satisfied with the status quo, but perhaps I'm alone in my views.
I see this question as similar to the recent VPP discussion on the appropriateness of Twitter articles, in which a series of contentious AfDs is resulting in some serious discussions about what content we deem appropriate and encyclopedic for inclusion. Taking a cue from that discussion, I'm outlining a few positions and seeing where that takes us. I really don't know where I come down, or else I would have made a proposal rather than an open discussion; all of the below options appeal to me but the status quo. -- BDD ( talk) 03:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I've just opened up a request for comment on whether to enable the Education Program extension for managing and monitoring Wikipedia educational assignments. If it does get enabled, there are related technical (user rights) and policy (who should be able to use it, and how will user rights be assigned?) issues that will need to be sorted out. (For that reason, I'm cross-posting it here.)-- Sage Ross (WMF) ( talk) 12:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Best regards, Helder 15:01, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
A discussion on the encyclopedic need for the use of military dates on United States military related articles is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Proposal to strike out the requirement that American military articles use military dates. Please join in.-- JOJ Hutton 23:25, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
In the Dodo article, I added a 17th century Dutch poem in a 2002 translation from a book, but I realise this would be a copyright violation, though the poem itself is obviously in the public domain. So I asked a Dutch editor to make an original translation (which he did), but now I'm unsure if that would count as original research? What should I do? FunkMonk ( talk) 04:02, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
|others=
parameter), but I suppose you could include a wikilink on his name (to his userpage) if you wanted to. Don't worry about the fact that the username is a
pseudonym, pseudonymous works have existed since long before the internet. --
Philosopher
Let us reason together. 09:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
I did a new translation of a quote from a German textbook for Women in Nazi Germany, as requested by another editor, to improve the accuracy of the translation. Since I translated it myself, I added my translation side-by-side in the layout next to the German original. Both are inside a blockquote, which is in turn nested inside 'div col|2' and 'div col end' tags (with curly brackets instead of the ' ). I didn't add my name as a reference for the quote. I think putting the translation next to the original would imply to readers that the editor of the article has done the translation themselves. The original German work is cited of course. I saw someone do the same thing in an article quite awhile ago, and I can't remember where else I've seen it, but that's my suggestion. Otherwise, add the original in a footnote linked to the original translation you've made. And indicate that the foreign language is the original source of the quote that you've translated. OttawaAC ( talk) 01:36, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I have been unable to find a guideline on when IPA should be used in an article. I have found information on how to introduce it into an article, what it means, etc., but nothing about when it's appropriate to do it. Frank Abagnale is an example of an editor who introduced two IPA defintions, one English and one Italian. I reverted because I thought neither was strictly necessary, but particularly the Italian one as it's not clear from the article that it's an Italian name. The editor added it back, and I left it alone, not wanting to fight over it and, honestly, not being completely sure of my ground. Without a guideline on the issue, it's hard to evaluate additions to articles except some sort of ambiguous, problematic common sense.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 01:08, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Consensus ( | 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, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
WP:SCIRS has been around for some time. It's guidelines reflect the current practice of the community. Is there any reason it shouldn't be made into a guideline? IRWolfie- ( talk) 21:16, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:No consensus ( | 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, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Pages at Articles for creation are often added to Wikipedia content categories. They should not be added until they become an actual article in article namespace. I would like to have them prevented from being added to save a lot of work in cleaning up polluted categories. While we are at it they should have the __NOINDEX__ magic word added automatically. -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 07:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I brought this up in the "talk" section of an article about a political figure, and a mod directed me here.
Why do we call malicious rewriting of a (usually political) article "vandalism?" We are literally handing the authors cans of spray paint and pointing them to the boxcars sitting quietly on a siding.
We don't vet our contributors. Yes, it's our claim to fame, our silver bullet, but it's also the bullet that hits us in the ass every time the subject comes up.
I am constantly berated and belittled on sites left and right because I sometimes quote WP. One site, where I'm a moderator, will literally kick me off if I quote WP. Unless/until some sort of contributor vetting takes place, Wikipedia is doomed to the lower depths of information media. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tbone0106 ( talk • contribs) 20:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Consensus ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I have seen a page (I can't recall which one, but it was probably a link from Brahmagupta where we have a strange mix of BC and BCE, namely 283 BCE. This must be wrong. How do I decide whether to change it to 283 BC or 283 BCE? -- SGBailey ( talk) 11:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
[[283 BC]]E
looks to me like a failed attempt to apply link suffix combining, where [[bar]]s
is equivalent to [[bar|bars]]
giving "
bars". For English, this only works for lowercase letters in the suffix (except maybe between June and August 2008). So IMO, [[283 BC]]E
should be probably just be replaced with [[283 BCE]]
or [[283 BC|283 BCE]]
(depending on whether you abhor linking to redirects).It's out: [13] Various gratuitous wording changes from the original. The changes didn't make it hopelessly wrong at a glance, though that won't stop loophole-seekers. The rest is worth reading too. Thanks to all for help - David Gerard ( talk) 07:34, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I have initiated an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Misuse of primary sources, comment there welcome. -- PBS ( talk) 09:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
How much do we respect a company's right to decide that their products are xy and not xyz? For one instance- a Chevrolet Camaro is stated in our article that it is a Pony car, however the Camaro team at GM has told automotive news outlets that they dont wish for the latest Camaro to be called a pony car because they want it to compete more with Nissan 370Z and BMW 3series instead of the Mustang. Do we give any consideration to their classification? Similarly Personal computer and Apple Macintosh both declare an Apple computer to be a PC, but historically (and still in commercials) a PC is an "IBM Clone" and excludes Apple and Commedore. At what point do we say "Yes, technically by definition of what a PC is, an Apple is a PC, but because of history and corporate marketing, they are not". All soda's are called "Coke" down South ("What kind of coke do you want?", "I'll take a Dr. Pepper"), especially in Georgia, but we don't label Pepsi as a coke. 97.88.87.68 ( talk) 19:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the exact location for this, but would like to invite your attention to Meta RfC on Global rename policy. -- Jyothis ( talk) 20:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Many editors and admins have great prejudice against editors that violate 3rr, yet lionize the people edit warring with them, encouraging them to game the system, why is this seen as "good" or "normal"?
Take the simplest example, two editors are edit warring until the person that reverted the first edit breaks 3rr. First, let's say that the Admin intervenes neutrally, follows wikipedia policy admin guidance and "consider[s] all sides, since perceived unfairness can fuel issues". The admin rightfully sees both sides as guilty, and, per wiki policy, acts not as judge dredd, judge, jury, and executioner, but instead acts to prevent damage to the site, and impartially warns both parties of their infractions, tells them how the dispute resolution process works, and works to facilitate and enforce the dispute resolution process.
On the other hand, consider how admins seem to believe the process is "supposed" to work. The admin metes out harsh punishment on whichever side violates 3RR, tacitly endorsing the actions and edits of the other party, puts them in a position where basically their only "out" is to go through wikipedia's favored ritual humiliation. This sours one side, makes them think that the system is unfair, while at the same time it emboldens the other side, thinking that their edit warring was justified, and good, and that admins endorsed their actions. Then they see that admins and other editors treat them like the injured party, the saintly editor that was besmirched by the terrible bad editor, and likewise the other party is ostracized.
Why is this condoned?
And for the admins, it reinforces poor behavior.
Is my analysis wrong? Are there editors that follow policy admin guidance?
People talk about the terrible damage of "troublesome" editors, yet they ignore the damage of the editors that wield the system as a club. Editors that feel impervious to edit warring policy because they game the system so that they are always one revert behind the other, and thus seen as innocent. FYI, I mostly edit logged out. Bstone1 ( talk) 01:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi to all,
I'm opening here a proposition to change the current rule about the usurpation request.
First i have to remember what is an usurpation request and from where it comes from. An usurpation request corresponds to the fact to request a username already created by another user but unused. It's mainly coming from problems with the single user login (where a single username is used on several languages of Wikipedia).
I initiated recently a long discussion about the usurpation process (that you can find here: Discussion) after a refused usurpation request ( refused usurpation request), and especially about the rules that allows to validate the usurpation.
One rule seems to make debate between users (see here: Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard/Archive_10#Modification_of_usurpation_practice_for_SUL_requests and Consultation on remanes): If the target account registers an opposition to usurpation, the request will not be performed. If an opposition is made, the usurpation request will be automatically refused, even if there is no justification for keeping the username (see examples here: [14], [15], Special:Contributions/Gsamat)
It's this point that i would like to discuss with the users to possibly modify it. This point does not detail what should contains an opposition, and gives unlimited power to an inactive member to stuck a username in opposition with an active member. I consider that it would be fair to support active, constructive members in regards to inactive, passive members.
As suggested the user WJBscribe: I proposed, where the target had made no (or no significant) edits to articles, a usurpation request for SUL would be performed "even where the target user has objected to being renamed". The idea here is that the inactive member will have to justify clearly why he should keep the username-source-of-conflict in regard to the other member that requests it.
I thanks you all for your contributions to this discussion that i hope will make this process less rigid.
-- Ndiverprime ( talk) 13:18, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
The current requirement for getting access to WP:AWB is 500 mainspace edits. It should be lowered or should include revert edits too. Harsh (talk) 17:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Editors with less than 500 edits still can get access but they haver to state a good reason for that. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 18:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
If you personally are in the process of applying for a right and running into difficulty, trying to change the requirements in order so that you can get the right is... well... not what I'd consider the ethical or proper thing to do. It also means that people will only consider your ulterior motive and not your actual arguments when responding to the proposal, as I am demonstrating right here. That in mind, I believe that we should both close this debate and deny your AWB request. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I opine that atleast automated edits excluding revert edits should be included in the threshold limit of 500.
Harsh
(talk) 18:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
We have an unblock ticket system URTS which has this privacy policy. Currently I understand it to mean that, in practice anyway, what is posted on UTRS doesn't end up on the wiki. However the current Philip Roth incident took place on UTRS, ticket 3217. I was the admin who handled the ticket. I can see that there is an interest in transparency and the actual text of the exchange, the username concerned etc. Is it appropriate to copy this information from UTRS to the wiki? What information should be copied across? None of the information is strictly private as any admin can see it, but we have told them that we handle data a certain way and they haven't given permission for re-publication.
There are other issues where UTRS exchanges don't get published and perhaps it would be beneficial if they did. If a ticket tells me they are the IP address of a school should this be recorded somewhere? If someone says they are the marketing director of the the company they are editing about, should we tell? Currently all of this intelligence is lost and kept in a semi-walled garden.
I personally don't want to publish the contents of the ticket without community consensus, although any admin with access could do so. What do people think? Secretlondon ( talk) 21:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Fresh input would be helpful at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Internal consistency versus consistency across articles. The RfC is about this sentence: "An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole." The question is whether the words "though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole" should be removed or retained. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:56, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I am making the proposal that MOS:IDENTITY, bullet #2 should be changed to:
I believe that this change will help prevent recurring debate issues. The present guideline is a failure because it creates a situation that sets Wikipedia apart from mainstream sources and groups us with advocacy sources. An example is our article
Alexis Reich....you know who calls this person that? LGBT publications and Wikipedia. Mainstream sources still call him Mark Karr. I have listed a few in
this discussion as examples. If someone brings a new ref to the article, the ref will be calling him Karr which is inconsistent with our article.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk) 13:16, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
It's a difficult question, and it's not easy to handle name changes whatever the reason. My preference is to use the current status in the biographical articles (as every other source will) and use the name that literally appears on the credits or cover for artistic works (for artistic and historical accuracy) - regardless of the reason for name change (personal choice, sex change, marriage, etc). As a comparison, our article on Huckleberry Finn says the book is by Mark Twain and does not mention Samuel Clemens in the lede. I have no objections to the wording that is currently on "Switched on Bach" [23], where both the current name and previous name are used; that would correspond to "Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Samuel Clemens, writing as Mark Twain". However, just as it would be inappropriate to leave out all mention of Mark Twain in the article on Huckleberry Finn, it would be inappropriate to leave out all mention of Walter Carlos on Switched on Bach (because that name appears on the cover) or all mention of Larry Wachowski on The Matrix (because that name was listed on the credits, movie posters, etc.). I think that almost all readers will be aware that the name that appears on an artistic work is only a label, and the person's actual name may differ. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 11:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
So where do we go now? There seems to be a general feeling that this is a good idea, but I wouldn't think a policy change could be made based solely on this discussion as of writing. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 21:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
There is an open RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalising the definite article when mentioning the band's name in running prose. This is a long-standing dispute that has implications for the manual of style, and the case mediators are requesting your help with determining current community consensus. Thank you for your time. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 00:01, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi all. There has been for 13 days a content noticeboard discussion on a citations reference to a fanbase as
whitetrash and
hillbilly. Both Volunteers are European, with one admitting basically not having any knowledge about the offensiveness of the terms (despite the provision of links to the wiki articles) and the other asking and reasking for the cited source (after being provided it several times), and now the first volunteer is back requesting which citation stated w.t. and h.b., which is fine for the 2nd or 3rd day, not the 13th day. My concern here is if it is taking 13 days to find a linked source with two volunteers that either admit or seem not to understand the racial injection here (because of apparent cultural differences), then my next step is Mediation? (but since my request is for the deletion of two racist slurs from a about a Lakers, Knicks, Dolphins, Manchester United fanbase article is there any compromise on my part?) Arbitration, is more about editor behavior, or would 2 racial slurs being inserted in the article be enough.
Marketdiamond (
talk) 22:05, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I propose that Wikipedia establish a policy that articles may not speculate that a subject was homosexual unless they admit it about themselves. It is too easy to say that "someone" was gay because people said they were. This is especially true of those who have been dead a long time, and the further back in history we go, the harder it is to prove such a claim. Wikipedia examples include articles on Moss Hart and William North, both of which I edited, but there may be a hundred others. It is appropriate to say Elton John or Neal Patrick Harris are gay because they have said so. It is inappropriate to allow such claims about historical figures simply because some obscure book says so. Several articles contain arguments among editors about a subjects alleged homosexuality; a clear Wikipedia policy limiting such claims is necessary. Catherinejarvis ( talk) 22:07, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I was just over at Wikipedia: Citing Sources and I noticed something rather disturbing. Under "Preventing and Repairing Dead Links" The fifth item lists this.
"Remove hopelessly lost web-only sources: If the source material does not exist offline, and if there is no archived version of the webpage (be sure to wait ~24 months), and if you are unable to find another copy of the material, then the dead citation should be removed and the material it supports should be regarded as unverifiable. If it is material that is specifically required by policy to have an inline citation, then please consider tagging it with citation needed. It may be helpful to future editors if you move the citation to the talk page with an explanation."
This is rather disturbing as sooner or later all links will go bad, and we can't always count on the Internet Wayback Machine, to be there. Essentially if that site goes down this policy is saying that all dead link citations would have to be removed, which would be a disaster for this project. I propose we change this policy to better protect the future of Wikipedia.
I propose we amend the policy to state that if links are hopelessly dead that they can remain, after all if all copies of a book were lost that wouldn't necessarily mean that all the info in it is then useless.
I don't know I just really feel this policy could be problematic for the future.
-- Deathawk ( talk) 07:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
There are cases where it is justified to remove a citation: where it is used to justify (subtle) vandalism. I have seen many cases like this -- often pointing to irrelevant or random sources which have nothing to do with the subject at hand, never mind the statement to be supported. When I come across these, I replace them with a "Citation Needed." In one case (that I know of, the editor in question provided a citation that was behind a paywall. I took the the trouble and expense to pay for the information ($12 just for the one piece cited) but it contained no reference whatsoever relating to the statements in the article -- or even to the article itself. pietopper ( talk) 13:04, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I think it should absolutely stay in the policy. We should never be in the position of telling our readers, "Trust us on this." If we can't point our readers to a verifiable source, then we're not a serious reference work. That said, archives exist for exactly this reason. Haven't some editors looked into having a bot crawl every link on Wikipedia and manually archiving them? Did anything ever come of that? Someguy1221 ( talk) 03:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
IMO that policy should not exist. Most old web pages can be accessed via wayback etc.. This is not to say that a dead link necessarily counts as sourcing or sufficient sourcing, but that can be decided elsewhere. North8000 ( talk) 11:33, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I should make it clear that I have no problem with replacing dead links with newer ones that state the same thing (as long as the info is updated accordingly.) The thing is many things in a web-connected world will only appear once and never again. Again this is not a problem for subjects such as history, however for subjects like video games and even some current events it could be next to impossible to find new sources for such info. -- Deathawk ( talk) 00:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I think that some folks are conflating two completely different questions:
Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 14:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I wish it were not the case, but in a few instances where I tracked down the original material, I found the link never supported the claims made for it in the first place. As a result, I tend to think discretion requires that "really most sincerely dead" links ought to be removed. If the information was only to be found in that one place in the first place, we ought not assume the claim to be well-supported. Important stuff should be noted by at least one other source, no? Collect ( talk) 15:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
It occurs to me to mention webcite, which I assume we all know and use, but on the off chance we don't I'll put it on the radar. I don;t know if it would be possible to build a bot which could read a reference, extract the url and submit and then extract the archival page and add it to the reference, but it is rather more simple for humans. It would be a worthy goal if everyone in this conversation ran through their watchlist and performed this useful task, wouldn't it? Hiding T 12:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Discussion at Bot owners' noticeboard. - 68.107.140.60 ( talk) 01:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Input is welcome at an RfC about the DRN process. The RfC concerns the list of DRN volunteers, and whether the DRN process should treat them specially. -- Noleander ( talk) 01:02, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
I think sensitive address should include Cleanfeed Server ONLY.And the IP address about governmental organizations should be REMOVED from the list!Because the IP of governmental organizations SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY PRIVILEGE! -- Wangjinting ( talk) 16:59, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
This is a notice of discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Proposal - bird names. This is merely a clerical issue to add a note that bird names for their English name capitalize all words (not preceded by a dash), such as Black-headed Lapwing. This is not a policy change. Current policy states that there is a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds to do that, and is exactly what has been done for all bird articles. Apteva ( talk) 17:56, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
I only just received an email message listed as from the "Wikipaedia 'Editor'" calling my linguistic, semantical, theory of proof, and logic revisions to the "Wikipaedia 'article' TENSOR" vandalism. I ASK WHY?? Furthermore, I ASK WHO?? I currently am a member of a number of "Leading Authority In The World" mathematics and computational sciences colloquia that meet regularly addressing topical and important issues from research mathematics throughout New York City. One is the NUMBER THEORY SEMINAR which rotates between the COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, CITY UNIVERSITY of NEW YORK Graduate Center, and the NEW YORK UNIVERSITY "COURANT INSTITUTE" institutions such being the leading mathematics centers in the world. I also am a member of the COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY "Minerva Lectures", "The Applied Mathematics Colloquia", and the Physics Department's "Large Scale Deep Space Telepscope Data Collection and Assessment" meeting group which uses advanced mathematics tools to model and represent star information from the very depths of outer space.
I learned logic, proof theory, linguistic analysis, and semantical construction from such world class authorities as Wistar Comfort[encrypted topologies & proof theory], Fred Linton[logic & proof theory], Herve Jaquet[differential geometries & analytic geometry], Dorian Goldfeld[number theory & encrypted topology], Joan Birman[encrypted topology & proof theory], Gregor Oshansky [Markov chain topology & semantical analysis], Kathryn Johnston[large scale deep space data collection & evaluation], Seeley Fu[linguistic analysis], and Louis Quintas[proof theory & data assessment]. All these individuals are the very leading sources in their fields and have been so for many, many, many years. I have been a member of the New York Academy of Sciences Mathematics and Computing Section since first becoming a member circe 1983 or so.
I myself served as a large scale computational sciences data expert while doing FDA patient assessment and evaluation project approvals at the Purdue Frederick Company's medical research division in South Norwalk, Connecticut and as a computational sciences statistics and database design and creation expert at Nabisco Brands HQ World Research located in Wilton, Connecticut. I was also the programming and computational sciences large scale data processing expert on the team which created General Electric's first commercially successful Computer Assisted Tomographic technology now used successfully for many years worldwide. The same exact programming and data processing methods and technologies were also implemented for GE's Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Nuclear MRI, Functional MRI, and Positron Emission Tomographic technologies. I am honored to say the work of my small hands has now saved hundreds of thousands amounting rapidly into the millions of lives worldwide since my efforts circe 1980.
I also served as the State Of VERMONT Chapter Chairperson for the ASSOCIATION for COMPUTING MACHINERY for several years during the mid 1980's. I have been a member of MENSA since the 1960's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ely306B ( talk • contribs) 08:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
I do not feel I "vandalized" the TENSOR Wikipaedia article. Using customary and soundly accepted methods of logic, proof theory, and linguistic and semantical analysis and review, I corrected the TENSOR article to a better, more easily read and understood, and clearer and more precise statement about and supporting TENSORS. Should anyone wish to discuss, argue about, or otherwise challenge my contention that I improved the TENSOR article highly, please feel free to contact me directly at <SAG111382.FYCTE@gmail.com> theresoto for an opportunity to schedule a conversation within possibly one of the above named meetings, colloquia, or sessions or at a monthly New York Academy of Sciences Mathematics and Computing Sectional meeting, or as a presented and scheduled event through my personal and private not for profit 501(c)(3) charitable foundation based in the City of New York in Manhattan Borough called the FRANCES YORK CHARITABLE TRUST ENDOWMENT which is named after my indomitable and loving Grandmother, Frances Belford Poland York, and yes, that is the same YORK as Fergy's and Andrew's YORK Duchy, England, UK, her and my heritage tracing its roots back about 1,000 years.
I do not take lightly having my efforts and work called "vandalism". As a world authority on logic, proof theory, and linguistic and semantical analysis of mathematics statements, I am open to honest and honorable discussions, differences of opinion, fair argument, and likewise when reviewing mathematics statements and presentations. Such as they only help to advance sound wisdom and egalitarian colleagual discourse. But blind comments to the nature of "vandalism" only decrease the elegance and beauty of honorable mathematics creation, endowment, and precision.
At the time of the CAT and MRI efforts my name was Linda Milliguay. I was born Linda Frances Miller. I used the name for about 20 years, Catherine Felicitas, recognizing an affiliation with the Roman Catholic clerical order, the Ancient Order of Carmel[3rd Order]. My name ELYAS FRAENKEL ISAACS was designated after months of deep catechetical research and analysis looking at the theopolitical foundations of my person, name, and works.
Thank you for contacting me regarding your interests on how I improved the TENSOR article. Annotated 12 September 2012 at Manhattan, New York, USA at 3:33AM EDT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ely306B ( talk • Dr. Elyas Fraenkel Isaacs 07:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC) contribs) 07:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
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I was in a discussion with another editor about current policies concerning autobiographies on Wikipedia. In the course of this discussion, I noticed that there is apparent conflict between the content guideline at Wikipedia:Autobiography and the policy stated at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Specifically, at WP:YOURSELF, the guideline states that "[i]f you are not "notable" under Wikipedia guidelines, creating an article about yourself may violate the policy that Wikipedia is not a personal webspace provider and would thus qualify for speedy deletion." This conflicts with CSD policy at WP:NOTCSD. In the section entitled "The following are not by themselves sufficient to justify speedy deletion," the first enumerated point is "[r]easons based on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not..." I would like to bring the two into agreement, and policy would seem to be held higher than a content guideline, but it is good to have consensus before altering either. As I see it, Option 1 would be to alter WP:AB to read "...and thus would likely be deleted." This seems the least controversial. As an alternative, Option 2 would be to alter CSD to allow for speedy deletion using WP:NOT as a criteria. I would like to read the opinions of other editors in this matter. -- Nouniquenames ( talk) 02:06, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion about the manner in which promotional usernames should be blocked. Please participate at Wikipedia talk:Username policy#RfC - Handling promotional usernames to help reach a consensus. NTox · talk 02:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
A style of editing which was carried out by an individual a couple of years ago appears to have returned in the last month under a number of different UK IP addresses [1]. Cannot be certain if it is the same person or not but the style is always the same. Characteristics of the edit are always the same, basically adding many more wikiprojects to a talk page and over linking words in articles. [2], [3] is a couple of examples, although the long text is new. Question is, should this form of editing be reverted or not? There was an attempt to block the user a couple of years back but the constant change of IP address made it impossible. Comments and requests on the talk pages have never been answered. -- Traveler100 ( talk) 21:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Mediation Committee#Time to shutter formal mediation?, in which there is discussion about reforming the formal mediation process so that it is more suited to the needs of the community today. All comments and opinions are welcome. AGK [•] 15:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
This is a question that I have so far been unable to answer by reading the relevant MoS and policy pages. I've noticed that virtually none of the "Plot summary" sections in articles related to novels and films ever cite sources for the information therein. Is this an area where original research is permitted, or even encouraged, to some degree? Are we for some reason not required to provide reliable sources for information regarding fictitious scenarios? If so, why? Thanks in advance for your responses. Evanh2008 ( talk| contribs) 06:01, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
"Is this an area where original research is permitted, or even encouraged, to some degree?"It is best to just write a straight summary without interpretation. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Contextual presentation, which states "Presenting fictional material from the original work is fine... If such passages stray into the realm of interpretation, secondary sources must be provided to avoid original research."
"Are we for some reason not required to provide reliable sources for information regarding fictitious scenarios?"Plot summaries are typically not referenced. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Film#Plot, which states, "Since films are primary sources in their articles, basic descriptions of their plots are acceptable without reference to an outside source." and also "Since the film is the primary source and the infobox provides details about the film, citing the film explicitly in the plot summary's section is not necessary." This example is for films, but similar things apply for plots in other media. 64.40.54.48 ( talk) 10:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been cleaning up overly long and overly detailed plot summaries for years, and I think we honestly need to start requiring reliable sources for two reasons: 1) these plot summaries are typically filled with all sorts of WP:SYNTHESIS or original conclusions about what happened in the source that in many cases are completely different from what is actually in the source, and the people who put it there just then say "it's in the source". Second, a lot of plot summaries are way too long and go into details that are simply nonnotable trivia and violations of WP:NOT.
These problems largely go away if we require secondary reliable sources for anything in a plot summary beyond just the most basic summary. First, the conclusions about what happens in the plot can be attributed to someone who is a step up from the average Wikipedia plot sections contributor (who is typically someone who is less skilled in editing and in making sound judgment calls in general). Second, we tone down the trivia because reliable sources generally only mention the most notable parts. As far as what we can do if there are no reliable sources giving a plot summary, I don't see that as a real problem, as there should be countless reviews out there covering the important parts of any notable work. If it's not out there it simply isn't notable and should not be in Wikipedia in the first place.
Plot summaries on Wikipedia have been extremely embarrassing for years, to be quite honest. Generally the people contributing to the plot summary guideline were also the people most interested in filling articles up with low quality summaries, so encourages the kinds of things most encyclopedia editors would not do in an article in any other section.
I also think we desperately need a hard rule that any plot summary can at most be 25% of an article's size. If we can't find reliable sources for what impact the work had, how it was developed, and so forth, then it's the kind of work that an encyclopedia shouldn't bother having a plot summary for, as it had no notable impact anywhere. At that point summarizing the pliot is just fanwankery. DreamGuy ( talk) 16:59, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Some Chinese editors suggests that Chinese Wikipedia should not link to any pages in English and other foreign Wikipedias. Should English Wikipedia forbid acticles linking to Chinese Wikipedia?-- 王小朋友 ( talk) 07:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
It seems that THE user who take this subject misunderstanding the real meaning of the other user said.It is not "suggests that Chinese Wikipedia should not link to any pages in English",what he mean is that "Should use temp {{link-en}}
properly".--
113.71.194.251 (
talk) 15:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Could anyone close this please? Idk why 王小朋友 bring the discussion to here even though it's clearly unrelated. For the people who want to know what's happening on zhwiki, here's an example. As you can see, currently users such as 王小朋友 are adding an interlanguage link after each red link (that is "used routinely"), which looks terrible.-- Jsjsjs1111 ( talk) 01:52, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Some Chinese Wikipedian says, enwiki is wrong place to discuss this issue. I apology. I moved this disscusion to meta:Help_talk:Interwiki_linking#Forbid_linking_to_other_language_Wikipedia_within_articles. Discuss in meta, please.-- 王小朋友 ( talk) 08:00, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I translate here some opposite reasons gave by Chinese users, because it may be useful for English users to decide whether it should be forbidden. ('English' replaced 'Chinese'.)
A current case of an editor using obvious and non-legit socks, and my attempts to interface with the SPI forum has illustrated to me that it cannot be accessed properly, or that its requirements are not specific enough and defeat the aim of the process, or both.
I have more than sufficient data to present to meet the required level of probability, I have enough data to remove all reasonable doubt. The SPI process defeats its own purpose by requiring all known data to be reduced by a undefined method, pure assumption is the only process available as a result. This means unnecessary information would be posted. Editors who are not familiar with the process, which means almost all editors, would be forced to lay out guides for the sockmaster to read, study, and improve their methods of attack. So in my case, if I post the extensive data I have, I attack the project by assisting it's enemy. I have been in touch with some investigators, but there is simply no clarity in who may or may not handle the case. I was directed to our IRC channel where I asked politely and waited so long for a response that it appeared to raise suspicion that I was 'lurking'. (Like my bot and everything else, it's left on when I sleep) The investigation page attracted no requests for more information, just an incompetent statement (Partisan), and it was closed and archived.
My own assessment of the process indicates that an assignment of a specific person to converse with, like in mediation, would be appropriate, rather than the apparent disinterest from investigators and the resulting frustration provoking complete walk-throughs being posted by frustrated but intelligent people. My own integrity prevents me from divulging more information (all of which is detrimental in the wrong hands) than is absolutely necessary. Although I can simply post all names of editors as a way to prevent this discussion from being ignored or overlooked, the discussion which that would provoke would also involve discussion by other people of the sockpuppets tactics, which in turn would educate the puppet-master, and so I am unable at this point to do that either.
Pesky did post some good advice on my talkpage about what to do, that is to prepare all evidence, or enough, with diffs, and then reduce that over and over down to some small amount, maybe a page or so, and email that. I refuse to do so, and the reason I refuse to do so is patently obvious to me, if a two-way process whereby an investigator can ask for guidance to information he or she wants, conversing in a two way manner, then the process is simplified and the labour cost of finding and processing a sockpuppet remains comparable in economics of effort to that of producing a sock in the first place. However, to find a place between posting all contributions the sock has made, all mannerisms a sock has illustrated, a report into their culture, interests, location, editing patterns, times, styles and so on (not listing all for walk thru concerns) and compressing all the data into an exact amount required by an unknown investigator requires considerably more skill and effort to do properly than it does to just make another sock. Either the investigator does as I do and looks at everything, finding the required data themself, or the requesting party has to make blind assumptions about the investigators abilities or shortcomings and use their unknown level of skill in order to guess what data is needed, even though all data is available to the investigator already. None of this makes sense, and the process is broken to the point that I cannot get it to operate properly. If someone as smart as me cannot get it to work, if I cannot present a case, then something is fucked up right here. That's all I'm saying basically. Penyulap ☏ 11:37, 29 Jul 2012 (UTC)
A technical question: WP:OA states that repeat copyright infringers may have their accounts "terminated" under the DMCA. How is this implemented? Is this done by an indefinite block, or are there additional measures? Dragon 280 ( talk/ contribs) 17:46, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
This thread stems from a discussion for The Killers article where there has been addition and deletion of the album Sawdust to the discography section. The album is a compilation of B-sides and rarities. I have heard from different sources that only studio albums should be listed in the discography section of band articles; however, I have not found a corresponding policy/guideline/MoS that codifies this. All I have found is from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Discographies:
This does not limit the section to solely studio albums. Is there some other policy/guideline/MoS that I am missing? Is this just Wikipedia common law? Is it OK to list a compilation album in a discography section so long it is labeled as such, and not as a studio album? Hopefully someone else knows more than I on this subject. Angryapathy ( talk) 17:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi everyone! (I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so please direct me if so.) I'm curious as to the application of WP:BURDEN - it's really important in science (in fact fundamental), and same in formal debates, so given this plus its prominent position in WP:V, I would have expected it to be important here, but I've never actually seen it cited by anyone.
The policy states the burden is with the editor who adds or restores material. Does/should this apply to cases of BRD? Presumably as the bold editor, I shouldn't have to write detailed justifications unless I think it's likely someone will object (it isn't for most of the edits I make). But then, if I make many changes at once and get reverted per BRD, can the reverter's reason be something vague enough to requires me to write out a justification for every single one of these edits, or can I reasonably ask that they tell me specific ones they would like to discuss? However, if they simply don't answer or provide only general statements, I'm essentially required to provide such a list of justifications if I want my changes to go through.
(None of this applies to any situation I'm involved in, although I'm currently watching a DRN thread where some of the information might be applicable. I'm not likely to comment there.)
On a related note, doesn't BRD essentially preclude any and all use of reversion beyond 1RR except in cases of vandalism? Maybe I don't edit the right pages, but when would someone ever want to go beyond one revert if not dealing with vandalism or a similar extreme case? Arc de Ciel ( talk) 10:22, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Per a discussion at WP:ANI, several editors (including myself) have called for a new policy or an amendment to an existing policy on article creation. The what happens occasionally is that an editor will mass produce articles with minor information, such as this one. In the discussion that prompted this proposal, User: Jaguar was mass creating articles with only one line, acknowledging that the town/county was there, with no other information. In that discussion I also talked about User:Carlossuarez46, who creates in a similar manner, but adds information such as population, size and other census information. Following this discussion, and seeing as this issue has come up many times before, I am here to resolve this issue. I propose a new policy that will not limit the rate at which articles can be created, as many users are in favor of, but will set guidelines on quality issues, such as one-line articles. I believe the policy should require articles about minor communities, towns, counties and other municipal locations to have some basic information, such as population, size and a main industry (farming, hunting, fishing). Please note that this will not limit these amount of articles an editor can create nor the rate at which they can make them. This is simply addressing the quality of these articles. Wikipedia is for the reader, and they want know more information about these locations, other than that they exist. I ask to please let me know what you think of this proposal, and discuss about creating it. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 20:29, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Any new article created should add information to Wikipedia. Taking information already present in a list and creating substubs without adding anything that would require individual articles (like interwikilinks or coordinates) is something that should not be done. It is insulting to the reader who has clicked on the link in the list to obtain information about the list item, and destroys the opportunity for other editors to fill the beautiful red link. — Kusma ( t· c) 06:11, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
We barely got this started and it has already been tagged for MfD and created its own debate to even exist in its infancy.-- Canoe1967 ( talk) 07:20, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
-- Canoe1967 ( talk) 21:27, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I have a draft essay called NPOV is a problem for images. I would appreciate any comments on. In particular I am interested in topics I missed that I should have covered. Please put comment on the essay's talk page. Jason Quinn ( talk) 14:40, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
On the banning policy's talk page at Wikipedia talk:Banning policy#Quick question, Nobody Ent ( talk · contribs), a non-administrator, has added "Site bans should not be proposed for indefinitely blocked editors" in the community ban section. I had no objections to it, but I felt that we could gain a more clear consensus on the matter here. Please comment on the policy's talk page. Thanks, Darth Sjones23 ( talk - contributions) 16:49, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force/Sources ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
There is an ambiguity about using "uncontroversial maintenance" to move articles – see Wikipedia talk:Moving a page#.7B.7Bdb-move.7D.7D. Nobody commented it for more than a week. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 11:22, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
There is currently discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Is wikipedia a devotional compendium? regarding possible changes to that policy page to deal with article content of what might broadly be called a "religious" nature. Any and all input is more than welcome. Religious topics tend to be among the more contentious around here, and because of that I believe the discussion would welcome as many cool heads as it can get. John Carter ( talk) 15:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
See Template talk:Citation needed#Unverified information for a RfC proposal to change the banner wording of {{ citation needed}} from "citation needed" to "unverified information" -- PBS ( talk) 17:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
In English Wikipedia there are a lot of lists of notable/famous subjects (see also about situation in German Wikipedia etc.) Usually these lists don’t contain the word «famous/notable» in its names, but such point is indicated in introductions (e. g., List of Asian Americans).
Some users in Russian Wikipedia suppose all such lists to be an immanent original research, because (as they think) notability is only a inner Wiki-concept; there is no one reliable source which contains lists, being based on the principle of notability; and lists of «famous Ns» in sources may contradict each other, because «famous» is not an exact term.
Other users (including myself) suppose, that Wiki-lists should not be based on original idea (any absurd principle of different subjects’ unification), but may have an original content, more vast, that any specific source.
Do en-wiki users see any problem here? Thanks for your comments. -- Chronicler ( talk) 19:17, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
There are currently two different RfCs in which users familiar to the debate are discussing the use of accent marks in article titles. Some believe that accent marks should not be used and all article titles should be restricted to the ASCII character set. Some believe that the article title should should be guided by WP:V and follow usage in reliable English language sources (as described in WP:UE). Some believe names should be spelled the way they are in the native language of the subject of the article with little or no regard to English usage (the argument put forward is that any English language source that does not use the native language spelling is an unreliable source for deciding on the correct spelling of a name). Input from more editors would perhaps help form a consensus on which strategy is the best to follow. See:
-- PBS ( talk) 15:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
-- ThaddeusB ( talk) 15:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
There's been a lot of issues with behavior problems revolving around various celebrity's "...on Twitter" articles. Examples include
Uncle G has provided a good summary of the poor behavior that these articles are creating (either way), in that we have "empty" AFD !votes, articles at GAN/FAC being sent to AFD, articles at AFD being sent to GAC/FAC, etc. Plus a race to create more, put more to GA (at minimum) as "protection" from AFD, etc. Rightly so, the problem is that these are articles that we don't know what to do with yet, and there are arguments on both sides regarding them.
First, I'd like to propose an informal halt to any meta-activity on these articles, at least until some resolve has been made. No creation, no AFD'ing, no GAN/FAC (allowing the current running ones to complete of course).
But we do need some resolve. I have my own ideas how these articles should be treated, but I don't want to taint the discussion with my opinion here. Instead, I'd like to see what the general community feels about these, are they appropriate, are there better ways of handling it, should they not even exist? Based on what consensus says, we can make appropriate changes to guideline/policy that summarizes that and then and only then can we turn back to what we have to see if the articles themselves may be affected.
Note that I am going to assume that we are talking about "...on Twitter" articles that already meet WP:V in terms of sourcing, and we're talking only those that other sources have clearly recognized, not a random celebrity or nobody. The three examples above are the ones that I would expect of minimum quality for an "on Twitter" article to even exist, so this is not meant to say that we can create a "On Twitter" article for any random person X. But even when they get as largely sourced as the above three, the questions on appropriateness remain.
Note that I'm looking ahead to any type of "X on Y" where Y is some social media application, like YouTube, or Facebook, or whatever. There may not be any articles that meet these now, but we should be considering the potential of what future such services may bring.
Given this, I'm breaking up the discussion into three areas, below. Two for "Generally acceptable" and "Generally unacceptable", and a third for "Other options", which I hope people expand with possible ideas for determining between acceptable and unacceptable. -- MASEM ( t) 14:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
No special guideline is needed, just the usual WP:GNG. Has anyone written a book about Lady Gaga's twitter account? Are there serious articles from reliable sources that survey the history, behavior, and influence of Lady Gaga's twitter account? I just took a quick look at Lady Gaga on Twitter, and there do appear to be quite a few articles cited, in legitimate newspapers, whose main topic is indeed Lady Gaga's twitter account. There is enough material for a substantial article, with no padding or gratuitous quotations or cherry-picking references. Seems like a slam dunk to me.
OK, now I just took a quick look at Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. It seems to be a little more focused on trivia (do we really need to know the exact second that the account was created? do we need a list of his venture-capital investments? technology-related characters that Kutcher plays?? that he advertises digital cameras???), but there seem to be plenty of serious articles that really have this Twitter account as their main topic. I haven't gone over the article carefully, but it appears that even if the non-salient fluff were pared away, there is still plenty of factual material to make an article. The basis for notability is WP:NOTINHERITED from Kutcher's celebrity, it's that this was the first Twitter account to reach 1,000,000 followers. We don't just have a bunch of miscellaneous press coverage, we have a clear explanation for why the account received so much press coverage, in the form of a main fact that has a lot of closely related facts surrounding it, which got covered because that main fact was so important. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we write encyclopedia articles about.
— Ben Kovitz ( talk) 02:04, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Shouldn't our usual metrics apply? Primarily, the one that says develop related content in the main article and only split when the content threatens to become too large? Powers T 14:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Now, both of these two issues are valid discussion points, and it's good to see them raised. However, I think there's a third issue being brought into play here, one that's really, seriously obscuring the discussion we should be having about issues 1 and 2. That issue is "do we, personally, like recentist-type content, especially involving newfangled celebrities or newfangled communication mediums?" and I think the issue of whether we like Twitter, or think Justin Bieber is ridiculous, or wonder why the hell all these news bureaus care about what Ashton Kutcher tweets when there's a war on, etc, is acting as a huge derail from what we should be looking at.
It shouldn't matter whether we think a topic is childish or too new - if that were a criterion for our inclusion, I'd be running around nominating every Pokemon article we have for deletion, because you kids and your newfangled games...!. But the fact is we have documentation and sources to show that Bulbasaur is notable, no matter how much its existence makes me want to headdesk. People talk about Pokemon, they write about them, and no matter how silly I find them, they're notable and sourceable. Can the same be said for "...on Twitter" topics, some or all? I obviously can't say for sure, but I do wish the community would focus on addressing that issue rather than the issue of whether those durn kids today have strange taste in what they write about. Relatedly, I would love to know how I've somehow found myself speaking up for anything having to do with Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. One second I was mid-crotchety-cane-thump, the next I was copyediting a Twitter article! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 20:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong support Twitter accounts are no different than any other topic, they are not presumed to be automatically notable or non-notable, they should be considered notable if there's been enough coverage in multiple reliable sources. Yes, it's true that topics like this are prime symbols in grand narratives of The Decline of Western Civilization, this vague (and empirically unrigorous) feeling that "we used to care about important matters but now all we care about is the Kardashians". But such feelings ought to have no bearing on our consideration of whether these articles actually meet the notability policy. If the current articles don't, I'm fine deleting them, but I'm embarassed to see DGG of all people endorsing the notion that a topic can be presumed inherently unencyclopedic. If more serious publications are starting to cover Twitter accounts on a par with blogs or YouTube series as a creative form, who are we to second guess them? (I've seen trends in this direction, if nothing that yet indicates true notability, for instance Pitchfork Media including "best Twitter account" in their end-of-year music polls).
Maybe it's just the "X on Twitter" framing that's tripping us up here. Shit My Dad Says is an article on a discrete creative product; @FakeAPStylebook could be one if you could find enough sources; so what's inherently wrong with @kanyewest or @justinbieber as a topic (given enough sources)? Of course that's not the same as collating every media reference to "X said something on twitter today". We don't have "X on Youtube" articles either but we do have articles such as The Angry Video Game Nerd whose scope basically coincides with a YouTube channel. 169.231.53.116 ( talk) 23:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
for example "When the resources consumed by discussion about N or EV, such as drive space and editor time is expected to exceed by a factor of 20 the size of the article, it should be included in order to render further haemorrhaging of editorial and server resources moot".
Just a thought, I figure it would be nice to leave it here so it can be overlooked. "Wikipedia, discussion ad nauseam" Penyulap ☏ 13:02, 29 Jul 2012 (UTC)
...Umm... Shall we move this to WP:village pump (idea lab)? Well, there is no policy on exact accounts used by people; just X on Y policies and guidelines, which might be vague. -- George Ho ( talk) 19:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I think there's a wider discussion that needs to be had on forking out single aspects from BLPs. There was also the recent AfD for Personal life of Jennifer Lopez (and current Articles for deletion/Bennifer.) If we simply use the standard of "possible to cobble together enough news coverage to satisfy WP:GNG" there are almost endless aspects that could be broken out as separate articles for high profile celebrities. Siawase ( talk) 20:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
My opinion is to deal with these articles on a case by case basis. By setting a policy in stone, we may find ourselves in a tricky situation in future when there is a highly notable incident involving Twitter's use by a celebrity. However, we should also not get carried away and create an article on Twitter use by top-10 celebrities by the number of followers. EngineerFromVega ★ 07:11, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Let's write similar articles, but about people who are not internet celebrities:
And so on and on. When a person is famous enough, articles about him start digressing about minor aspects of his life. By picking pieces here and there, you can write tomes about any minor aspect of a famous person. (see also Siawase's comment above) -- Enric Naval ( talk) 11:02, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
For what it's worth: When researching Harriet Hanson Robinson recently, I found that she has two Facebook accounts. ("Activities: Women's Suffrage Interests: Books, Sewing". I kid you not. No, they're not in the mirroring-Wikipedia section, obviously, since Wikipedia has only just gained an article.) This is fairly good Internet-fu for someone who died in 1911. FDR only gets a page in the mirroring-Wikipedia section of Facebook. So come back with FDR only when you can write Franklin D. Roosevelt on Facebook to match Harriet Hanson Robinson on Facebook. ☺
Uncle G ( talk) 11:38, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
As near as I can tell, these "Twitter" articles are spinoffs of famous people. Now normally such things are Bibliography of X (for books) or Filmography of Y (for films) or Album of Z. I can't imagine why Social Media Activities of X would be any different, as its just another form of media. Yes, its recent media, yes its hard to judge its impact objectively, but SO much ink has been spilled its hard to see why such activities should be forced onto RandomCeleb's main page. Its a fairly natural sort of break, and obviously some of these activities attract a lot of attention. Treat em as subarticles I say: Consideration must be given to size, notability and potential neutrality issues before proposing or carrying out a split. The Steve 06:39, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
By no means am I trying to infer that these two are acceptable, but while the Bieber and Kutcher's have been deleted:
If we recognize these as exemptions to the general !voting trend about that "'X on Twitter' articles are generally not appropriate" above, then what type of advice can we give to reconcile these exceptions?
My observations is the argument WP:NOTDIARY is strong and prevailing in both previous AFD closures; when much of the page is repeating the events of the person's life as lived out by twitter, the "...on Twitter" article becomes redundant and/or excessively detailed. This is combined with the overall BLP aspect, which is something that we have to be very careful under the Foundation's guidance. For the above counter examples, the Lady Gaga Twitter article has little to do with her as much as that Twitter account; in Obama's Twitter case, its more on his use professionally for the account, there's no diary aspects or BLP aspects that seep into them.
Thus, to start some type of division, we have to look at how the sources discuss the Twitter account, praising or criticizing the accounts as a whole, and not at what is necessarily actually said on the account. In otherwords, there is a GNG aspect here in that we're looking for secondary sources specifically on the account and not on the person themselves. Just having a Twitter account isn't sufficient, and having many sources use the account often to iterate information out from it isn't sufficient.
There is also the Summary Style issue. I think for both Gaga and Obama, their personal articles are already quite long and merging those above Twitter articles back in wouldn't help. This was definitely not the case for Bieber's or Kutcher's, once the NOTDIARY aspects were removed, in that the parent articles are reasonably sized to have a section to talk about their use of Twitter. Thus, the "... On Twitter" articles should only be created when there's a SIZE issue with the personality's main article. Otherwise, a summary of the personality's use of social media is certainly not unwarranted within their respective articles.
A final consideration is that focusing on "...on Twitter" might be a problem. I'm sure, 2-3 years ago, we could probably have some "...on Facebook" pages, and years before that "...on MySpace". I'd rather see encouraging those personalities that use social media to have sections and/or articles towards all social media aspects and not just Twitter; eg "Social media use by Justin Bieber" may be more acceptable (if it was needed) than just "Justin Bieber on Twitter". Social media is here to stay (I would think) and while the means of social media will change with time, the general class of applications and interactions holds true. I think the same can apply to both Gaga's and Obama's articles too, renaming them and including more (IIRC, for example, the President doing YouTube Q&A. -- MASEM ( t) 16:38, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
So considering what we have said:
Given that, I would suggest that the following courses of action be taken:
The current articles that are inplace shouldn't be touched, though editors involved are free to discuss issues, but we should strongly discourage other articles of the type "X on Twitter" if they are created in the future without considering other ways of discussing the topic. -- MASEM ( t) 16:28, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I just was BOLD and moved Barack Obama on twitter to Communications of Barack Obama, some celebreities have extensive contact with the traditional media and social media and have noteworthy public relations teams often with spokes or lawyers that are of note even on here so this way we can avoid an unlimited amount of BO on facebook, youtube etc. and it can be more encyclopedic and comprehensive, however I highly suggest we add that since these articles suitability may be marginal we should set the bar very high LuciferWildCat ( talk) 20:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Slightly off-topic but relevant: I recall an article Elephant (Wikipedia article) which was quickly deleted. If we can have 'X on twitter' articles, why not to have 'X (Wikipedia article)', too? Imagine having Barack Obama (Wikipedia article) which will go through the article development, related disputes, blocks, sanctions, arbitration cases, etc. ;-). EngineerFromVega ★ 10:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Ashton Kutcher on Twitter has been undeleted and then relisted as AFD. -- George Ho ( talk) 03:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
There is an internal interest group on Wikipedia which developed the article incubator and tried to get into the nether world of articles that could be perhaps saved from deletion but really weren't anywhere near ready for prime time and usually were deleted anyway. This ranged from simply poorly written articles and articles that suffered from notability problems yet still seemed like something that should exist on Wikipedia in some form (such as emerging technologies or some person doing something very interesting but still hasn't received widespread press coverage yet). Some are simply articles that are just in a horrible state that simply need a whole lot of TLC in order to even be readable, thus are commonly deleted by otherwise lazy editors.
More to the point, this is something which I think could be an alternative to deletion in AfD discussions or even a place to "park" articles with notability concerns for awhile as a way to be a little bit friendly to new users. I've seen it in action where it can be positive.
The problem with the project, and why I'm bringing it up here on the Village Pump, is that the project seems to be dead with a group of editors zombifying a nearly year old RfC discussion to simply shut down the project altogether. That the discussion itself was not really dealt with in over a year should say something about the activity of the project that even the opponents lost steam to shut it down. At the moment it is sitting in a limbo state neither really alive or dead, with unfortunately a whole lot of content sitting in the wings that needs to be dealt with in some fashion as well.
I love the concept personally, and I'm willing to put in some effort to restart the project if necessary, but I would need some extra help doing that as well. It also needs wider support from the greater Wikipedia community and even a solid discussion about what role it should even have in terms of how it relates to other parts of Wikipedia, in particular the AfD process, New Page Patrol, or even the general article creation process as a whole. There is a danger to the concept as a way to make an already bureaucratic process of creating an article even more convoluted, so I can even see some merit to shutting down this project and marking it as historical. My main question posed to the general Wikipedia community is this: Should there even be an article incubator? -- Robert Horning ( talk) 15:44, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
"Should there even be an article incubator?"Yes, there should be an incubator or something with a similar function. 64.40.54.10 ( talk) 09:48, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
It sounds like a good idea but I think that it has floundered because it misses the mark in several ways:
Probably a better approach would be to list or tag specially selected articles (that are in mainspace) for development from stubs or rescue. I imagine that some system halfway like this exists, although probably obscure and not focused. Possibly the incubator could be morphed into such a list with pointers? North8000 ( talk) 12:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Why do non-free images used in multiple articles need completely separate usage rationales for each article? It it okay to have a single rationale for multiple named articles with only the differences noted? For example, one could use the following if the purpose of the usage is the same:
One will need to replace the "it is being used in educational articles..." with something like "In [[ABC]], it is being used for.... In [[XYZ]], it is being used for...." if the purposes are different. Does policy actually prohibit this? If so, why? — DragonLord ( talk/ contribs) 15:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
See WT:PROTECT#Removal of highly-visible templates protection. ~~ Ebe 123~~ → report 14:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
You are hereby invited to comment on the proposal to promote Wikipedia:Official names to guideline status. See you there. -- BDD ( talk) 22:29, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
Hello my name shall be jimyn less than I'm studying psychology. This is my first comment on this board for a little swap in the articles from "lavender" | "lavandula angustifolia" to "lavandula angustifolia" | "lavender". The brain remains to remember more likely the first in line, for the concentration induced by the thirst for knowledge which made one open the specific page in the first place. In a growing global world this would for one to another only care benefits for pointing out precisely the same thing. Like it is being done on the english Wikipedia already, this could spread around so that it is being coercively executed by all the other Wikipedia's around the world (french for example brings the common name first). This act would bring us even closer, and get's Wikipedia written in history as a platform where free knowledge is presented to connect people all around the world. This would be the ultimate place for Maria Treben's legacy for example - never checked if it can be found... Back to the topic: It seems the Latin word is always seperated by a bracket - so it should be possible to write a script which exchanges both I imagine. What do you guys think? Wish you all a nice day! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimyn ( talk • contribs) 14:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
On Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines#RfC: Top X lists in video games, there is a request for comment on whether we should use "Top X lists" to determine a video game character's notability if the list has significant coverage from a reliable source. Please comment on the guidelines' talk page. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 ( talk - contributions) 01:30, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Argument collapsed. Editor requested participation at
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DVBViewer. --
Philosopher
Let us reason together. 21:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
|
---|
I think there may be a little bit of bias going on with the two latter issues (possibly with a bias towards open source software, however smallscale), as seen on the current AFD for
DVBViewer
here. The software is created in Germany, but has a large following in the UK, and smaller userbases in Japan, Australia & New Zealand, but notably perhaps, not really in North America so it has no significant coverage there on any websites. I feel that is giving a mistaken impression that it is not notable amongst the first voters on this AFD, when it is one of the most used HTPC software in the UK after
Windows Media Center and
MediaPortal, and is mentioned in
16 reviews on techradar, one with
multiple screenshots, techradar is a major website & magazine from
Future plc. It also has a
review in
Computer Active the UK's highest selling computer magazine that has been going for 14 years, and 1000s of mentions on UK forums
AVForums &
Digital Spy. The software is also included as OEM by multiple TV card & box manufacturers such as
TechniSat,
Terratec & Technotrend. I'd appreciate if others could put some input into the AFD as I feel there may be an element of not wanting to be proved wrong going on, as well as rather unethical behaviour (I think) of the nominator
removing a large amount of content before nominating .
|
Ezekial 9 ( talk) 17:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I have recently requested a merger of the List of computer viruses page, with its corresponding lists List of computer viruses (A-D), List of computer viruses (E-K) etc... However looking again at the articles in question, a merger as such would not be needed as the information contained within the List of computer viruses (x-x) pages, already appears in exactly the same way on the List of computer viruses page.
My question is this. As I have opened this merger discussion here, do I have to wait for this discussion to end before I can request deletion of the pages in question, or given that they are clone copies containing the same information but spread over different pages, that I can just close off the merger request and request deletion immediately.
I have currently not had any feedback on the discussion page regarding this matter, and as I am quite new I am uncertain as how best to proceed.
Any advice on how best to proceed would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
Sirkus ( talk) 04:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I have filed a RFC on {{ Magazine}} because I feel it is a problematic cleanup template. Please discuss here. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 21:45, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't know whether this concern has been raised before, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while now.
WP:ARTICLETITLE reads, "The title indicates what the article is about", speaking of course of any given article's title and how it ought to relate to the article's subject. We have articles about all manner of things, and often, many articles that need disambiguation because they share names with other things. What we likely shouldn't have by these accounts are articles whose titles don't match their subjects. And yet we do have such articles.
I'm referring to List of... articles, which seem to disagree with the logic behind WP:ARTICLETITLE. Visiting articles titled The X-Files, President of the United States, or monolith takes one to articles about The X-Files, the role of President of the United States, and monoliths, respectively, as suggested by the fact that each of these things are the subject in the article's title. Meanwhile, list of The X-Files episodes, list of Presidents of the United States, and list of largest monoliths in the world all suggest that their subjects are, in fact, lists, by way of having the article's title's subject be the word "List".
To be clear, I'm aware this is a somewhat trivial issue of semantics, but this is an article about a list...so is this, sort of. The 'List of The X-Files episodes' article is not about a list, though. It's about the episodes, even if it presents them in list form. We've never encouraged making things longer or more complicated than they need to be on Wikipedia, so why encourage including "List of..." in the title of list-dependent articles?
Today's featured list includes several recently featured lists: Olympic records in athletics, Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography, and Puerto Ricans missing in action in the Korean War. While the first and third links take the reader to articles that begin with "List of...", the implications of 'Puerto Ricans missing in action in the Korean War' and 'Olympic records in athletics' are clear: clicking those links will lead to an article detailing athletic Olympic records or MIA Puerto Ricans. Whether these articles do this in list form or not shouldn't affect the very title of the article. (As a sidenote, the title 'Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography' clearly states the subject of the article. No problem with that title.)
On any given article, even "List of..." ones, the reader expects to find information on the subject. For this reason, Featured Lists (and many others) include ancillary information along with a list. For some "List of..." articles, there is no corresponding non-"List of..." article, further eliminating the need for the extra words in the title. ( List of unexplained sounds exists, for example, though there is no article for unexplained sounds.)
I realize this has rambled a lot, so to condense all these thoughts:
Any thoughts? It's very possible that there's some reason in Wikipedia's history that we differentiate the "List of..." from the rest, and if that's the case, then I apologize for the excessive pseudo-proposal. (I'm not proposing changing the guidelines from suggesting "List of..." to suggesting going without in article titles just yet, because I feel like I don't have all the facts.) Thanks for your consideration. BobAmnertiopsis ∴ ChatMe! 19:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Hello there. I'm a translator of Chinese Wikipedia. I suggest add an Crowdin-like translation tool that with collaborative function, multi-lang. support, etc.
Sorry it's my first post on EnWiki. I don't know if I put this on the wrong page (cause my bad English)
Thanks!
by L19980623 ( talk) 10:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
There have been many proposals recently regarding de-adminship and an improvement of community processes on Wikipedia. However, to reduce the amount of bureaucratic overhead that these proposals would have were they passed individually, I think that it would be wise to discuss a wholesale reform of governance on Wikipedia, with no existing governing body left untouched. While we may not hold the same opinions about how Wikipedia should be run, I think that we can all agree that a rational debate on the subject must begin.
Disclaimer: I have made several proposals on the topic in the past, none of which were accepted and all of which were disliked greatly by the community. I am not submitting a proposal here myself for this express reason. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Wer900 (
talk •
contribs) 16:35, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
The reason Wer900's proposals failed was, at least in part, that they were too big and bold. And went in the opposite direction that any such reforms should go, but that's another point. That basic failure isn't going to be overcome by proposing an even bigger proposal! -- Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:40, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Philosopher, you write that my proposals were going in the wrong direction. If so, could you please outline to me how you would take to the task of governance reform? I've been told several times before that my proposals will make Wikipedia like the most hopelessly failed fat bureaucracy in human history, but that's at least an improvement from an hyperdecentralized outdated system which generally doesn't last too long. And while I would never conflate Wikipedia with the slave system, many aspects of Wikipedia, such as its split judiciary and limited central legislative and executive power, have caused harm to Wikipedia. Some centralization is needed in order for us to be able to track excessive bureaucracy, get rid of what we do not need, and make the most of the remaining bureaucracy. A rational starting point for any conversation on the subject should, at least, recognize that Wikipedia is in need of a wholesale review of its policies, given that the existing policies were made in different circumstances and times. Wer900 • talk • coordination consensus defined 20:07, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
did anybody notice this link? someone wants to create bad name for wikimedia foundation. Some of the internal links leads to wiki related websites.
is there any restictional law to stop this?-- Tenkasi Subramanian ( talk) 17:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
The most annoying part about this site is that they link to our contact page as their own. OTRS probably gets at least 10 emails a day from people complaining that some article has been grossly vandalized that is actually on lohere. Legal is looking into solutions, but they didn't seem optimistic about how long that would take. Someguy1221 ( talk) 03:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
On many types of computer-screen, the lines of text in W'pedia articles are far too long to read comfortably (look at this one!). W'pedia needs to have body-text that's no wider than the type you find in a book or newspaper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 ( talk) 07:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (people) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
I signed up for the Wikipedia:Feedback request service in the area of Maths, science, and technology. The bot is choosing RfCs on pages such as Talk:Barack Obama on Twitter, Talk:Penis and Talk:Abortion -- not Maths, science, or technology. I brought this up at Wikipedia talk:Feedback request service#Miscategorized Requests and Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment#Feedback request service. No luck.
I do realize that I can unsubscribe or ignore the unwanted requests, but I think that the feedback request service is a good idea and I would like it to work properly, sending science and technology RfCs to those who sign up for science and technology RfCs, and sending political RfCs to those who sign up for political RfCs.
When I look at Talk:Abortion#rfc_E9CB18E, I see that the RfC was listed under Maths, science, and technology instead of where it should be, under Politics, government, and law.
Any ideas about how we can make this little part of Wikipedia work better? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 21:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
To assist with PRODs and AfDs we sorely need to rehash Wikipedia:Notability (companies) and create a Wikipedia:Notability (products) guideline (currently an old draft of mine). They need something that is quite prescriptive like Wikipedia:Notability (people) because, as with biographical articles, company and product articles are created all too readily (IMO). -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 19:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
More "guideline" than "policy". A request to write an 800-word op-ed for a PR newsletter, to represent the Wikipedia community (email quoted with permission):
Phil is from CIPR and he was the other guy in the webcast we did on Wikipedia and PR editors. I expect I'll basically rewrite what I said in that webcast, but wanted to ask here if there's anything that was seriously missing that needs mention - David Gerard ( talk) 22:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
Considering how we have a pillar here of Civility, doesn't it seem a little un-Wikipedian to be hostile to anyone? Maybe it is time to remind people what we're supposed to be about here. PR people don't necessarily get a class in Wikipedia best practices, yet some editors think not only PR people, but almost any new person should immediately know the 'rules' here. All the wiki-jargon, WP:THIS and WP:THAT. Maybe it is time to remind people that everyone here was new once, and PR people aren't necessarily here to bring down the order of things. Ultimately, the idea of a free and open encyclopedia is a pretty new concept in the history of the world. So let's give people some slack, and help them out, instead of just getting mad because they're making a living at this or because they're new to it. -- Avanu ( talk) 06:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Two days to deadline and I have a draft, at User:David Gerard/scratch. I throw it to the Disunited Bikeshedders of Wikipedia to do as they will.
I'm not entirely happy with its tone, it's long on how-to but short on objections. I have nicked helpful sentences from the above discussion. This is about 650 words, so there's headroom for more. Comments here please - David Gerard ( talk) 14:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
OK, it's been sent off! Text above is what I sent. Out first week Sept. - David Gerard ( talk) 15:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
wp:mosnum says:
Numbers with five or more digits to the left of the decimal point (i.e. 10,000 or greater) should be delimited into groups so they can be easily parsed, such as by using a comma (,) every three digits (e.g. 12,200, 255,200, 8,274,527). A full stop (.) should not be used to separate thousands (e.g. 12.200, 255.200) to avoid confusion with the decimal point.
But several articles such as Giga- intentionally put gaps between groups of three digits instead of commas. Doesn't this violate the MoS? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 17:50, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
As many of us have noticed, quite a high percentage of new users create accounts directly relating to the subject about which they intend to write; this is, of course, almost always followed by a username block or a spamusername block. Many of these editors are totally well-meaning, but not properly informed. And when blocked some, possibly the majority, get discouraged and never come back. I believe that we may well be losing some potentially good editors in this way.
I personally have no in-depth programming expertise. but is it not possible for a message to be shown, when an account is newly created, warning the editor at the outset, to avoid this pitfall?-- Anthony Bradbury "talk" 20:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not the only one who has noticed conflicting treatment of articles about ongoing political controversies. You didn't build that (originally 2012 Roanoke Obama campaign speech) survived a very contentious AfD, but Mitt Romney's tax returns did not. The awkwardly named Mitt Romney dog incident survived two AfDs under previous names, but Obama Eats Dogs was deleted. Other deleted articles in this vein include Forward (generic name of socialist publications), Mitt Romney Cranbrook incident and Teleprompter usage by Barack Obama, while Todd Akin rape and pregnancy controversy rages on. If you think these outcomes are all the result of judicious application of our policies and guidelines, I think you're adorable. I have two major concerns about these types of articles:
These issues have been destroying two of our pillars, specifically neutrality and civility. I don't see how someone could be satisfied with the status quo, but perhaps I'm alone in my views.
I see this question as similar to the recent VPP discussion on the appropriateness of Twitter articles, in which a series of contentious AfDs is resulting in some serious discussions about what content we deem appropriate and encyclopedic for inclusion. Taking a cue from that discussion, I'm outlining a few positions and seeing where that takes us. I really don't know where I come down, or else I would have made a proposal rather than an open discussion; all of the below options appeal to me but the status quo. -- BDD ( talk) 03:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I've just opened up a request for comment on whether to enable the Education Program extension for managing and monitoring Wikipedia educational assignments. If it does get enabled, there are related technical (user rights) and policy (who should be able to use it, and how will user rights be assigned?) issues that will need to be sorted out. (For that reason, I'm cross-posting it here.)-- Sage Ross (WMF) ( talk) 12:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Best regards, Helder 15:01, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
A discussion on the encyclopedic need for the use of military dates on United States military related articles is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Proposal to strike out the requirement that American military articles use military dates. Please join in.-- JOJ Hutton 23:25, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
In the Dodo article, I added a 17th century Dutch poem in a 2002 translation from a book, but I realise this would be a copyright violation, though the poem itself is obviously in the public domain. So I asked a Dutch editor to make an original translation (which he did), but now I'm unsure if that would count as original research? What should I do? FunkMonk ( talk) 04:02, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
|others=
parameter), but I suppose you could include a wikilink on his name (to his userpage) if you wanted to. Don't worry about the fact that the username is a
pseudonym, pseudonymous works have existed since long before the internet. --
Philosopher
Let us reason together. 09:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
I did a new translation of a quote from a German textbook for Women in Nazi Germany, as requested by another editor, to improve the accuracy of the translation. Since I translated it myself, I added my translation side-by-side in the layout next to the German original. Both are inside a blockquote, which is in turn nested inside 'div col|2' and 'div col end' tags (with curly brackets instead of the ' ). I didn't add my name as a reference for the quote. I think putting the translation next to the original would imply to readers that the editor of the article has done the translation themselves. The original German work is cited of course. I saw someone do the same thing in an article quite awhile ago, and I can't remember where else I've seen it, but that's my suggestion. Otherwise, add the original in a footnote linked to the original translation you've made. And indicate that the foreign language is the original source of the quote that you've translated. OttawaAC ( talk) 01:36, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I have been unable to find a guideline on when IPA should be used in an article. I have found information on how to introduce it into an article, what it means, etc., but nothing about when it's appropriate to do it. Frank Abagnale is an example of an editor who introduced two IPA defintions, one English and one Italian. I reverted because I thought neither was strictly necessary, but particularly the Italian one as it's not clear from the article that it's an Italian name. The editor added it back, and I left it alone, not wanting to fight over it and, honestly, not being completely sure of my ground. Without a guideline on the issue, it's hard to evaluate additions to articles except some sort of ambiguous, problematic common sense.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 01:08, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Consensus ( | 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, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
WP:SCIRS has been around for some time. It's guidelines reflect the current practice of the community. Is there any reason it shouldn't be made into a guideline? IRWolfie- ( talk) 21:16, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:No consensus ( | 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, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Pages at Articles for creation are often added to Wikipedia content categories. They should not be added until they become an actual article in article namespace. I would like to have them prevented from being added to save a lot of work in cleaning up polluted categories. While we are at it they should have the __NOINDEX__ magic word added automatically. -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 07:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I brought this up in the "talk" section of an article about a political figure, and a mod directed me here.
Why do we call malicious rewriting of a (usually political) article "vandalism?" We are literally handing the authors cans of spray paint and pointing them to the boxcars sitting quietly on a siding.
We don't vet our contributors. Yes, it's our claim to fame, our silver bullet, but it's also the bullet that hits us in the ass every time the subject comes up.
I am constantly berated and belittled on sites left and right because I sometimes quote WP. One site, where I'm a moderator, will literally kick me off if I quote WP. Unless/until some sort of contributor vetting takes place, Wikipedia is doomed to the lower depths of information media. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tbone0106 ( talk • contribs) 20:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Consensus ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I have seen a page (I can't recall which one, but it was probably a link from Brahmagupta where we have a strange mix of BC and BCE, namely 283 BCE. This must be wrong. How do I decide whether to change it to 283 BC or 283 BCE? -- SGBailey ( talk) 11:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
[[283 BC]]E
looks to me like a failed attempt to apply link suffix combining, where [[bar]]s
is equivalent to [[bar|bars]]
giving "
bars". For English, this only works for lowercase letters in the suffix (except maybe between June and August 2008). So IMO, [[283 BC]]E
should be probably just be replaced with [[283 BCE]]
or [[283 BC|283 BCE]]
(depending on whether you abhor linking to redirects).It's out: [13] Various gratuitous wording changes from the original. The changes didn't make it hopelessly wrong at a glance, though that won't stop loophole-seekers. The rest is worth reading too. Thanks to all for help - David Gerard ( talk) 07:34, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I have initiated an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Misuse of primary sources, comment there welcome. -- PBS ( talk) 09:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
How much do we respect a company's right to decide that their products are xy and not xyz? For one instance- a Chevrolet Camaro is stated in our article that it is a Pony car, however the Camaro team at GM has told automotive news outlets that they dont wish for the latest Camaro to be called a pony car because they want it to compete more with Nissan 370Z and BMW 3series instead of the Mustang. Do we give any consideration to their classification? Similarly Personal computer and Apple Macintosh both declare an Apple computer to be a PC, but historically (and still in commercials) a PC is an "IBM Clone" and excludes Apple and Commedore. At what point do we say "Yes, technically by definition of what a PC is, an Apple is a PC, but because of history and corporate marketing, they are not". All soda's are called "Coke" down South ("What kind of coke do you want?", "I'll take a Dr. Pepper"), especially in Georgia, but we don't label Pepsi as a coke. 97.88.87.68 ( talk) 19:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the exact location for this, but would like to invite your attention to Meta RfC on Global rename policy. -- Jyothis ( talk) 20:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Many editors and admins have great prejudice against editors that violate 3rr, yet lionize the people edit warring with them, encouraging them to game the system, why is this seen as "good" or "normal"?
Take the simplest example, two editors are edit warring until the person that reverted the first edit breaks 3rr. First, let's say that the Admin intervenes neutrally, follows wikipedia policy admin guidance and "consider[s] all sides, since perceived unfairness can fuel issues". The admin rightfully sees both sides as guilty, and, per wiki policy, acts not as judge dredd, judge, jury, and executioner, but instead acts to prevent damage to the site, and impartially warns both parties of their infractions, tells them how the dispute resolution process works, and works to facilitate and enforce the dispute resolution process.
On the other hand, consider how admins seem to believe the process is "supposed" to work. The admin metes out harsh punishment on whichever side violates 3RR, tacitly endorsing the actions and edits of the other party, puts them in a position where basically their only "out" is to go through wikipedia's favored ritual humiliation. This sours one side, makes them think that the system is unfair, while at the same time it emboldens the other side, thinking that their edit warring was justified, and good, and that admins endorsed their actions. Then they see that admins and other editors treat them like the injured party, the saintly editor that was besmirched by the terrible bad editor, and likewise the other party is ostracized.
Why is this condoned?
And for the admins, it reinforces poor behavior.
Is my analysis wrong? Are there editors that follow policy admin guidance?
People talk about the terrible damage of "troublesome" editors, yet they ignore the damage of the editors that wield the system as a club. Editors that feel impervious to edit warring policy because they game the system so that they are always one revert behind the other, and thus seen as innocent. FYI, I mostly edit logged out. Bstone1 ( talk) 01:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi to all,
I'm opening here a proposition to change the current rule about the usurpation request.
First i have to remember what is an usurpation request and from where it comes from. An usurpation request corresponds to the fact to request a username already created by another user but unused. It's mainly coming from problems with the single user login (where a single username is used on several languages of Wikipedia).
I initiated recently a long discussion about the usurpation process (that you can find here: Discussion) after a refused usurpation request ( refused usurpation request), and especially about the rules that allows to validate the usurpation.
One rule seems to make debate between users (see here: Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard/Archive_10#Modification_of_usurpation_practice_for_SUL_requests and Consultation on remanes): If the target account registers an opposition to usurpation, the request will not be performed. If an opposition is made, the usurpation request will be automatically refused, even if there is no justification for keeping the username (see examples here: [14], [15], Special:Contributions/Gsamat)
It's this point that i would like to discuss with the users to possibly modify it. This point does not detail what should contains an opposition, and gives unlimited power to an inactive member to stuck a username in opposition with an active member. I consider that it would be fair to support active, constructive members in regards to inactive, passive members.
As suggested the user WJBscribe: I proposed, where the target had made no (or no significant) edits to articles, a usurpation request for SUL would be performed "even where the target user has objected to being renamed". The idea here is that the inactive member will have to justify clearly why he should keep the username-source-of-conflict in regard to the other member that requests it.
I thanks you all for your contributions to this discussion that i hope will make this process less rigid.
-- Ndiverprime ( talk) 13:18, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
The current requirement for getting access to WP:AWB is 500 mainspace edits. It should be lowered or should include revert edits too. Harsh (talk) 17:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Editors with less than 500 edits still can get access but they haver to state a good reason for that. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 18:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
If you personally are in the process of applying for a right and running into difficulty, trying to change the requirements in order so that you can get the right is... well... not what I'd consider the ethical or proper thing to do. It also means that people will only consider your ulterior motive and not your actual arguments when responding to the proposal, as I am demonstrating right here. That in mind, I believe that we should both close this debate and deny your AWB request. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I opine that atleast automated edits excluding revert edits should be included in the threshold limit of 500.
Harsh
(talk) 18:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
We have an unblock ticket system URTS which has this privacy policy. Currently I understand it to mean that, in practice anyway, what is posted on UTRS doesn't end up on the wiki. However the current Philip Roth incident took place on UTRS, ticket 3217. I was the admin who handled the ticket. I can see that there is an interest in transparency and the actual text of the exchange, the username concerned etc. Is it appropriate to copy this information from UTRS to the wiki? What information should be copied across? None of the information is strictly private as any admin can see it, but we have told them that we handle data a certain way and they haven't given permission for re-publication.
There are other issues where UTRS exchanges don't get published and perhaps it would be beneficial if they did. If a ticket tells me they are the IP address of a school should this be recorded somewhere? If someone says they are the marketing director of the the company they are editing about, should we tell? Currently all of this intelligence is lost and kept in a semi-walled garden.
I personally don't want to publish the contents of the ticket without community consensus, although any admin with access could do so. What do people think? Secretlondon ( talk) 21:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Fresh input would be helpful at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Internal consistency versus consistency across articles. The RfC is about this sentence: "An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole." The question is whether the words "though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole" should be removed or retained. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:56, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I am making the proposal that MOS:IDENTITY, bullet #2 should be changed to:
I believe that this change will help prevent recurring debate issues. The present guideline is a failure because it creates a situation that sets Wikipedia apart from mainstream sources and groups us with advocacy sources. An example is our article
Alexis Reich....you know who calls this person that? LGBT publications and Wikipedia. Mainstream sources still call him Mark Karr. I have listed a few in
this discussion as examples. If someone brings a new ref to the article, the ref will be calling him Karr which is inconsistent with our article.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk) 13:16, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
It's a difficult question, and it's not easy to handle name changes whatever the reason. My preference is to use the current status in the biographical articles (as every other source will) and use the name that literally appears on the credits or cover for artistic works (for artistic and historical accuracy) - regardless of the reason for name change (personal choice, sex change, marriage, etc). As a comparison, our article on Huckleberry Finn says the book is by Mark Twain and does not mention Samuel Clemens in the lede. I have no objections to the wording that is currently on "Switched on Bach" [23], where both the current name and previous name are used; that would correspond to "Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Samuel Clemens, writing as Mark Twain". However, just as it would be inappropriate to leave out all mention of Mark Twain in the article on Huckleberry Finn, it would be inappropriate to leave out all mention of Walter Carlos on Switched on Bach (because that name appears on the cover) or all mention of Larry Wachowski on The Matrix (because that name was listed on the credits, movie posters, etc.). I think that almost all readers will be aware that the name that appears on an artistic work is only a label, and the person's actual name may differ. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 11:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
So where do we go now? There seems to be a general feeling that this is a good idea, but I wouldn't think a policy change could be made based solely on this discussion as of writing. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 21:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
There is an open RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalising the definite article when mentioning the band's name in running prose. This is a long-standing dispute that has implications for the manual of style, and the case mediators are requesting your help with determining current community consensus. Thank you for your time. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 00:01, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi all. There has been for 13 days a content noticeboard discussion on a citations reference to a fanbase as
whitetrash and
hillbilly. Both Volunteers are European, with one admitting basically not having any knowledge about the offensiveness of the terms (despite the provision of links to the wiki articles) and the other asking and reasking for the cited source (after being provided it several times), and now the first volunteer is back requesting which citation stated w.t. and h.b., which is fine for the 2nd or 3rd day, not the 13th day. My concern here is if it is taking 13 days to find a linked source with two volunteers that either admit or seem not to understand the racial injection here (because of apparent cultural differences), then my next step is Mediation? (but since my request is for the deletion of two racist slurs from a about a Lakers, Knicks, Dolphins, Manchester United fanbase article is there any compromise on my part?) Arbitration, is more about editor behavior, or would 2 racial slurs being inserted in the article be enough.
Marketdiamond (
talk) 22:05, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I propose that Wikipedia establish a policy that articles may not speculate that a subject was homosexual unless they admit it about themselves. It is too easy to say that "someone" was gay because people said they were. This is especially true of those who have been dead a long time, and the further back in history we go, the harder it is to prove such a claim. Wikipedia examples include articles on Moss Hart and William North, both of which I edited, but there may be a hundred others. It is appropriate to say Elton John or Neal Patrick Harris are gay because they have said so. It is inappropriate to allow such claims about historical figures simply because some obscure book says so. Several articles contain arguments among editors about a subjects alleged homosexuality; a clear Wikipedia policy limiting such claims is necessary. Catherinejarvis ( talk) 22:07, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I was just over at Wikipedia: Citing Sources and I noticed something rather disturbing. Under "Preventing and Repairing Dead Links" The fifth item lists this.
"Remove hopelessly lost web-only sources: If the source material does not exist offline, and if there is no archived version of the webpage (be sure to wait ~24 months), and if you are unable to find another copy of the material, then the dead citation should be removed and the material it supports should be regarded as unverifiable. If it is material that is specifically required by policy to have an inline citation, then please consider tagging it with citation needed. It may be helpful to future editors if you move the citation to the talk page with an explanation."
This is rather disturbing as sooner or later all links will go bad, and we can't always count on the Internet Wayback Machine, to be there. Essentially if that site goes down this policy is saying that all dead link citations would have to be removed, which would be a disaster for this project. I propose we change this policy to better protect the future of Wikipedia.
I propose we amend the policy to state that if links are hopelessly dead that they can remain, after all if all copies of a book were lost that wouldn't necessarily mean that all the info in it is then useless.
I don't know I just really feel this policy could be problematic for the future.
-- Deathawk ( talk) 07:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
There are cases where it is justified to remove a citation: where it is used to justify (subtle) vandalism. I have seen many cases like this -- often pointing to irrelevant or random sources which have nothing to do with the subject at hand, never mind the statement to be supported. When I come across these, I replace them with a "Citation Needed." In one case (that I know of, the editor in question provided a citation that was behind a paywall. I took the the trouble and expense to pay for the information ($12 just for the one piece cited) but it contained no reference whatsoever relating to the statements in the article -- or even to the article itself. pietopper ( talk) 13:04, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I think it should absolutely stay in the policy. We should never be in the position of telling our readers, "Trust us on this." If we can't point our readers to a verifiable source, then we're not a serious reference work. That said, archives exist for exactly this reason. Haven't some editors looked into having a bot crawl every link on Wikipedia and manually archiving them? Did anything ever come of that? Someguy1221 ( talk) 03:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
IMO that policy should not exist. Most old web pages can be accessed via wayback etc.. This is not to say that a dead link necessarily counts as sourcing or sufficient sourcing, but that can be decided elsewhere. North8000 ( talk) 11:33, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I should make it clear that I have no problem with replacing dead links with newer ones that state the same thing (as long as the info is updated accordingly.) The thing is many things in a web-connected world will only appear once and never again. Again this is not a problem for subjects such as history, however for subjects like video games and even some current events it could be next to impossible to find new sources for such info. -- Deathawk ( talk) 00:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I think that some folks are conflating two completely different questions:
Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 14:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I wish it were not the case, but in a few instances where I tracked down the original material, I found the link never supported the claims made for it in the first place. As a result, I tend to think discretion requires that "really most sincerely dead" links ought to be removed. If the information was only to be found in that one place in the first place, we ought not assume the claim to be well-supported. Important stuff should be noted by at least one other source, no? Collect ( talk) 15:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
It occurs to me to mention webcite, which I assume we all know and use, but on the off chance we don't I'll put it on the radar. I don;t know if it would be possible to build a bot which could read a reference, extract the url and submit and then extract the archival page and add it to the reference, but it is rather more simple for humans. It would be a worthy goal if everyone in this conversation ran through their watchlist and performed this useful task, wouldn't it? Hiding T 12:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Discussion at Bot owners' noticeboard. - 68.107.140.60 ( talk) 01:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Input is welcome at an RfC about the DRN process. The RfC concerns the list of DRN volunteers, and whether the DRN process should treat them specially. -- Noleander ( talk) 01:02, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
I think sensitive address should include Cleanfeed Server ONLY.And the IP address about governmental organizations should be REMOVED from the list!Because the IP of governmental organizations SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY PRIVILEGE! -- Wangjinting ( talk) 16:59, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
This is a notice of discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Proposal - bird names. This is merely a clerical issue to add a note that bird names for their English name capitalize all words (not preceded by a dash), such as Black-headed Lapwing. This is not a policy change. Current policy states that there is a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds to do that, and is exactly what has been done for all bird articles. Apteva ( talk) 17:56, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
I only just received an email message listed as from the "Wikipaedia 'Editor'" calling my linguistic, semantical, theory of proof, and logic revisions to the "Wikipaedia 'article' TENSOR" vandalism. I ASK WHY?? Furthermore, I ASK WHO?? I currently am a member of a number of "Leading Authority In The World" mathematics and computational sciences colloquia that meet regularly addressing topical and important issues from research mathematics throughout New York City. One is the NUMBER THEORY SEMINAR which rotates between the COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, CITY UNIVERSITY of NEW YORK Graduate Center, and the NEW YORK UNIVERSITY "COURANT INSTITUTE" institutions such being the leading mathematics centers in the world. I also am a member of the COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY "Minerva Lectures", "The Applied Mathematics Colloquia", and the Physics Department's "Large Scale Deep Space Telepscope Data Collection and Assessment" meeting group which uses advanced mathematics tools to model and represent star information from the very depths of outer space.
I learned logic, proof theory, linguistic analysis, and semantical construction from such world class authorities as Wistar Comfort[encrypted topologies & proof theory], Fred Linton[logic & proof theory], Herve Jaquet[differential geometries & analytic geometry], Dorian Goldfeld[number theory & encrypted topology], Joan Birman[encrypted topology & proof theory], Gregor Oshansky [Markov chain topology & semantical analysis], Kathryn Johnston[large scale deep space data collection & evaluation], Seeley Fu[linguistic analysis], and Louis Quintas[proof theory & data assessment]. All these individuals are the very leading sources in their fields and have been so for many, many, many years. I have been a member of the New York Academy of Sciences Mathematics and Computing Section since first becoming a member circe 1983 or so.
I myself served as a large scale computational sciences data expert while doing FDA patient assessment and evaluation project approvals at the Purdue Frederick Company's medical research division in South Norwalk, Connecticut and as a computational sciences statistics and database design and creation expert at Nabisco Brands HQ World Research located in Wilton, Connecticut. I was also the programming and computational sciences large scale data processing expert on the team which created General Electric's first commercially successful Computer Assisted Tomographic technology now used successfully for many years worldwide. The same exact programming and data processing methods and technologies were also implemented for GE's Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Nuclear MRI, Functional MRI, and Positron Emission Tomographic technologies. I am honored to say the work of my small hands has now saved hundreds of thousands amounting rapidly into the millions of lives worldwide since my efforts circe 1980.
I also served as the State Of VERMONT Chapter Chairperson for the ASSOCIATION for COMPUTING MACHINERY for several years during the mid 1980's. I have been a member of MENSA since the 1960's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ely306B ( talk • contribs) 08:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
I do not feel I "vandalized" the TENSOR Wikipaedia article. Using customary and soundly accepted methods of logic, proof theory, and linguistic and semantical analysis and review, I corrected the TENSOR article to a better, more easily read and understood, and clearer and more precise statement about and supporting TENSORS. Should anyone wish to discuss, argue about, or otherwise challenge my contention that I improved the TENSOR article highly, please feel free to contact me directly at <SAG111382.FYCTE@gmail.com> theresoto for an opportunity to schedule a conversation within possibly one of the above named meetings, colloquia, or sessions or at a monthly New York Academy of Sciences Mathematics and Computing Sectional meeting, or as a presented and scheduled event through my personal and private not for profit 501(c)(3) charitable foundation based in the City of New York in Manhattan Borough called the FRANCES YORK CHARITABLE TRUST ENDOWMENT which is named after my indomitable and loving Grandmother, Frances Belford Poland York, and yes, that is the same YORK as Fergy's and Andrew's YORK Duchy, England, UK, her and my heritage tracing its roots back about 1,000 years.
I do not take lightly having my efforts and work called "vandalism". As a world authority on logic, proof theory, and linguistic and semantical analysis of mathematics statements, I am open to honest and honorable discussions, differences of opinion, fair argument, and likewise when reviewing mathematics statements and presentations. Such as they only help to advance sound wisdom and egalitarian colleagual discourse. But blind comments to the nature of "vandalism" only decrease the elegance and beauty of honorable mathematics creation, endowment, and precision.
At the time of the CAT and MRI efforts my name was Linda Milliguay. I was born Linda Frances Miller. I used the name for about 20 years, Catherine Felicitas, recognizing an affiliation with the Roman Catholic clerical order, the Ancient Order of Carmel[3rd Order]. My name ELYAS FRAENKEL ISAACS was designated after months of deep catechetical research and analysis looking at the theopolitical foundations of my person, name, and works.
Thank you for contacting me regarding your interests on how I improved the TENSOR article. Annotated 12 September 2012 at Manhattan, New York, USA at 3:33AM EDT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ely306B ( talk • Dr. Elyas Fraenkel Isaacs 07:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC) contribs) 07:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)