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Trying to draw comments to Wikipedia talk:Avoid self-references#Self-referential content
Is there any rule about content that refers to itself? Not referring to Wikipedia, but referring to itself. I think it's inappropriate, as it could lead to confusion, could be "broken" by other editors who don't understand the example, etc. Examples of typography, code, and so on should be explicit and separate from the text of the article. Some examples:
The Zakir Naik article, about an Islamic evangelist from Mumbai, seems to have settled down somewhat. The antagonists have basically accepted a division of the material into Naik's views, Naik-supporter views, and Naik-critic views. However, I am still at loggerheads with one editor who (IMHO) feels that the article is a great opportunity for dawa, Islamic evangelism, and that duplicate links to Naik's websites, video-taped lectures, and e-books should be scattered throughout the article.
I am trying to keep all such links in a sub-section of the external links section and moreover, trying to eliminate links to material that is already accessible through higher-level links. That is, if Naik's website has links to two e-books, I don't think we need to link the website AND then add separate links for each e-book.
Wallah96, the other editor, strongly disagrees, and keeps restoring duplicate links (once in the links section, once in the article) and multiple lower-level links. My admittedly jaundiced perception is that he believes the more links there are, the more likely it is that a random reader will click on one of them and be converted.
I would love to be able to cite our links policy and say, "Look, you aren't supposed to do that," but our links policy is silent on the issue of link multiplication. What are the view here on making "Do not multiply links without necessity" an official policy, and how would I go about rewriting the policy and getting a consensus behind the rewrite? Zora 22:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Why are additions of Template:prod supposed to be marked as minor edits? Ardric47 04:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I would like to ask you to comment on Wikipedia:No factions of belief, a new proposal to prevent Wikipedia from being split into factions of people who hold particular beliefs on certain issues, while allowing limited expressions of personal belief, and encouraging groups dedicated to working on shared interests (e.g. WikiProjects).-- Eloquence * 04:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Is currently being used to censor images, mostly of human penises, on the pretext of preventing vandalism of user pages. Currently, any user can add an image to the list; this is being done in some cases without discussion and without notification, and against consensus on the relevant article pages about the images. A user has proposed a simple change whereby images could be tagged for use only in articles, preventing them from being placed on user pages. This is a tidy solution that prevents both vandalism and censorship. I strongly object to the current system and its name. Exploding Boy 19:36, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
"Penis vandalism" heheheh. Exploding Boy 07:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
A number of articles on books and films consist partly or mainly of notes provided by the publisher/distributor. For example, The Reckoning contains unattributed text probably (I'm guessing) provided by the film distributor for publicity, see [1] [2] [3] [4]. Articles on books often contain text taken from the cover of the paperback edition. What is the policy on these matters? does the text stay in as useful, or is it pitched out as copyviol, plagiarism, unattributed, or what? Mr Stephen 10:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I have posted a proposal for this at Wikipedia talk:Spam#Proposal: Enable outside the main namespace. Please comment there. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 15:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
One editor i.e. user:Jossi at Talk:Prem Rawat argues that an article Past teachings of Prem Rawat can be merged with Prem Rawat in spite of 1) a failed AFD on the article Past teachings of Prem Rawat with the outcome "keep" and 2) an objection to the merge at talk:Prem Rawat. I think that Jossi's proposed procedure is wrong: I argue that the article cannot be merged unless it has been agreed on in yet another AFD on Past teachings of Prem Rawat. Who is right? Andries 08:07, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
The article in question is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crime Fiction which seems to be linked (judging by this blog, bottom of page) with hoaxing on Wikipedia connected to the minor actor Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rikki_Lee_Travolta claiming he was being considered for James Bond and that he wrote a book Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/My Fractured Life both of which involved inserting false information on this actor and book to a large number of Wikipedia articles. In this article [5] it states that the film was directed by Will Slocombe of the award-winning student film “Stoke Mechanics”, but Google shows no evidence that any such film existed or received any award. An interview on the local Chicago website the Chicagoist [6] reveals they actively hyped the film: "Were there any worries about posting up so many stories about conflicts on the set? Will: No. If Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Gangs of New York, and Citizen Kane are any indication, breathless stories about actor-infighting (and insleeping), directorial egomania, and suit skepticism all sell newspapers, which in turn sell movies.". Should we have articles on unreleased obscure movies? Doesn't it encourage exactly this sort of manipulation? Arniep 01:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I am involved in a dispute at Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images#Wikipedia:_Possibly_unfree_images.2FUS_government_portraits regarding the copyright status of official potraits commissioned by the U.S. government. Since this could lead to the deletion or "fair use" tagging of these images, some more input here is really needed here.
I listed Image:Rbreich.jpg as a PUI because the painter, Richard Whitney, does not seem to be a U.S. federal government employee and claims the portrait was commissioned. According to 17 U.S.C. §101 "A ' work of the United States Government' is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." If Richard Whitney was not employed by the DoL with the assigned duty of painting an official portrait, then I do not believe the image can be claimed to be public domain. Commissioned works and works for hire can still be copyrighted.
Some with the legal expertise or insight should comment here. If I am held to be right, then a great number of images clearly not created by a federal employee or officer will have to be de-tagged as PD.-- Jiang 19:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Even though I know I'm not yet eligible (is that misspelled?), I was wondering what the basic requirements are to become an editor? AK-17 13:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
How do we deal with editors who produce esseys, put them on personal websites and then have their "buddies" use those as references in articles? At Volunteer_Ministers, in the Reference section appears an original reseach, created by a Wikipedia editor who has administrator status. That link is: personal website and has Chris Owen ( User:ChrisO's) essey which is his own opinion and research on a subject. User:ChrisO actively edits the articles in Dianetics and Scientology, his buddies put his essey into the Scientology Volunteer Ministers article. Is it reasonable that a wikipedia editor have his buddies include links to his original research ? My comments on that discussion page have produced no results. Terryeo 09:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
If the request for arbitration has already failed, an incident report including the above statement would be your best bet. Simple banning for disruption is the next step. – Someguy0830 ( Talk | contribs) 01:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
When does the description of a political party's platform or program or the description of its declaration of principles construe bias? Is there a wikipedia policy or guideline in describing the ideology of political parties? Thanks! Intangible 20:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a bit dodgy. You can and should quote what the party says - that's sourced. You can equally quote what others say about the party. But to discuss the pros and cons, etc., without having a source is a violation of No Original Research. Runcorn 20:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the policy on talkpages for closed AfD nominations? I put in a speedy delete for this (which was reverted), since there's no explicable reason why this talkpage exists (and it's not really going in any useful direction either). Any help would be appreciated, thanks. --→ Buchanan-H e rmit™.. Talk to Big Brother 05:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Nobody's ever going to see it, except those of us who read Village Pump and find this discussion! Runcorn 20:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
It's time to overhaul wikigovernment: please see my userpage for a discussion. ShootJar 01:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
There are authority structures, like the ArbCom and the hierarchy of admins, bureaucrats, etc. If that's not a government, what is? Runcorn 20:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I've proposed imposing signature restrictions over at WP:SIG. In particular, I would like to see if there is consensus to prohibit images from signatures and to set a maximum character/byte size. Please comment! ~ MDD 46 96 23:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Within limits, it's harmless fun. Very few signatures are really awful. Runcorn 20:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Please see Image:Bellatrix Lestrange.jpg. Doesn't a "fan drawing" fall under Original Research? User:Zoe| (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If it's too close a copy of a photo, is it a copyvio? Runcorn 19:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I am looking for some reference of whether we can put home address,e-mail address,phone number or not. Where can I look for related policy? Thanks. borgx ( talk) 03:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If it's on their web page, fine (though you can just link their web page). If it's given in some standard work of reference like Who's Who, I can't see how anyone could object. Runcorn 19:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Over the past week, I've become really annoyed when all year references are wikilinked. If the article's subject is mentioned in the year, that's obviously fine. But I don't see the point in linking all years... any thoughts? RyanEberhart 23:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
If it's a biography and you don't have the exact date of birth, should you link the year, like John Smith ([[1885]]-[[1958]])? Runcorn 19:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
With the burgeoning amount of minor game mods that are having articles created, prodded, deprodded, and AFDd with increasing regularity, might it be a good idea to create a notability section on game mods? Certainly there are some mods, like Counter-Strike, that are indisputably notable, but these seem to be a minority. Stifle ( talk) 21:26, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
In my experience, putting {{ verify}} on is only effective if someone chases it up and eventually moves for deletion if it's not verified. That doesn't always happen! We also have to watch for adverts and vanity articles. Runcorn 18:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
As for adverts and vanity articles, well, as long as they're encyclopedic . . . — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 22:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi all.
Could someone please advise. I have been helping to edit the entry for 'private detective' which is very bare at the minute and has a minimum of useful information. To external links, I have added a professional investigators' association several times now, as it would obviously be a good place to get further information. However, this keeps being deleted with messages to me such as "Wikipedia is not a link farm nor does it promote individual associations". Could someone please clarify this for me? I have noted that many pages (for example, on doctors, vets and graphologists) carry links to respective associations. Why would professional investigators be any different? I am very new to Wikipedia, so any advice would be much appreciated. Blaise Joshua 15:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I am a professional investigator, hence my interest in the page. I haven't added any associations that are profit-making businesses. Blaise Joshua 08:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Earlier today, SlimVirgin ( talk · contribs) applied some large IP blocks to deal with a persistent vandal:
Those are AT&T DSL pool addresses, 1280 of them. This knocks out Wikipedia access for a sizable fraction of AT&T DSL users in Silicon Valley, even those logged in. That's overkill. Requesting a new IP address lease won't work when the block is that big; the new address will be blocked, too. I'd suggest that big-block IP address blocks be discussed first on the administrator's notice board. Those always have collateral damage, and should not be done without some admin consensus.
What's really needed is to finish the implementation of Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal, which was accepted but doesn't work yet. Is there a completion date on that? -- John Nagle 20:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
there needs to be a wiki-collection of music related stuff. there are a lot of tab wikis and lyric wikis, and are there any sheet music ones? but the point is they should all be together. then again, should they just be inside wikipedia. do song lyrics and such have a place on wikipedias pages?
Surely not all lyrics are copyright; if they author has been dead long enough, they're public domain. I could post everything by say Sir Arthur Sullivan. However, I would regard that as unencyclopaedic. Runcorn 19:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
See usability-related discussion initiated at Help talk:Footnotes#The bigger picture: use of "H:", "Phh", "Ph" and other related templates in Help namespace -- Francis Schonken 12:42, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Following banned user Zephram Stark's attempt to rewrite WP:SOCK using two sockpuppet accounts, there is a proposal to limit the editing of policy pages either to admins, or to editors with six months editing experience and 1,000 edits to articles. Please vote and comment at Wikipedia:Editing policy pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
If something that has a name, but is not notable enough for an article, is made into a redirect to the best place to find something on that subject, is it OK to categorise the redirect? Two current examples are Gorcrows and Merlock Mountains. Both are redirects to the relevant article, but have been categorised to appear in Category:Middle-earth races and Category:Mountains of Middle-earth respectively.
So is it OK in general to categorise redirects? I don't recall seeing this done anywhere, but I couldn't find anything about this at Help:Redirect. I've also asked this question at WP:Help Desk. Carcharoth 12:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
In addition, this would allow categories to be fully populated. Rather than having a "list article" for the full list, and only articles in the category, everything could be in the category. Carcharoth 13:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Please also see the discussion below, on scientific and common names. Rather fortuitously, maybe by some strange synchronicity, the one discussion concerns the other one as well! Carcharoth 20:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Having categorized a few redirects myself, I think it is a useful tool for alternate names and for divisions of a main article that are to stubby to warrant their own article. For instance, block vertebrae and butterfly vertebrae redirect to congenital vertebral anomaly, but their respective names are more likely to be what someone is looking for. -- Joelmills 21:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it ever appropriate for a user page to redirect to an article? Ardric47 22:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I have been active in Wik for a number of months and have started a number of articles. To-day, I wanted to enter an article on Manierre Dawson. Two times when I tried to do that, I was told I could suggest an article, but the 'you can write an article' was in red and struck through. A third time, I wasn't even given this option, being simply told that there were no hits. I thought the new policy on new articles only applied to unregistered and very new users. Kdammers 05:01, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion going about a specific template that was made to warn people that the page contains nudity Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_May_11#Template:Nudity_warning. I think it should be brough here as well as this involves a very basic change in the (unofficial?) policy untill now, and could brings us at the slippery slope of many content warning disclaimers. Kim van der Linde at venus 15:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Now, if people search for something, they find a wikipedia entry at the 1st position most likely. Good for wikipedia. However, this implies obligation to improve wikipedia in way towards what people are expecting from the internet.
What about a wikipedia 2.0, not to bother about my worries with policies (WP:EL), which must be fulfilled literally. At other places, we (not further explained) do not have this need. There are articles which do need more external links. Probably it is possible to argue, wikipedia would prejudice/filter/comment internet search action. There are numerous informations on the internet, which are not really encyclopedic (WP:NOR, WP:NPOV), but people are searching for them. People like me (who created a few good pages) should have the opportunity to include them into an article (
Aztec Calendar). It does not make sense to directly extend the article with this data. It is not advert/advert supported.
If you do not understand this, or if you mind my language skills, then consider the 3rd world. They search the net, and the 1st thing they see is a wikipedia article. My idea is it to make a (better) wikipedia 2.0, instead of criticizing its weak points, or to go into the various evidences of "articles in need". Never change a running system. But i do not think so. I believe wikipedia is a prototype, too much based on paper format (and color scheme). It would be a research piece to research about bad white. This suits for paper prints, but not for the internet. This means (you can derive it yourself), people are doing the wrong thing. Black on white=wrong, it actually hurts the eyes. Just one aspect, to enable people to customize the display colors. Much more, much more. I hope you get the idea about wikipedia 2.0; wikipedia 1.0 is just a prototype. It looks more helpful than to criticize it, or to abandon it, because wikipedia indeed supports a few topics, which oterwise do not have much room for internet publication. Encyclopedic means, if the Encyclopedia Brittania is going top include it in the future? If an editor (supported by admin friends) believes it important? If it has been printed somewhere? If it is useful for people? If lot's of people are talking about it? I do not exactly know.
If you make replies, then please about any of your wikipedia 2.0 (previously, color schemes have been suggested/discussed elsewhere). I do not have the time to go into it) Yy-bo 12:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Where to begin? Black on white is not in any way hard on the eyes. You read books, don't you? They're black on white. Second, Wikipedia is not Google. We do not need tons of external links. Third, your grammar is still verging on horrible. You need to accept this. Ignoring the results of your mediation attempt will not help. These suggestions will likely never be implemented because they detract from the encyclopedia. – Someguy0830 ( Talk | contribs) 21:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not believe in censorship - but at the same time can understand those who do not wish to view offensive images, but might still want to view an article. I believe Cool Hand Luke had a solution for this (ie 2 templates). I may be behind the times here, but offering more choice to the user does not seem a bad compromise in exceptional circumstances - not sure on the technical side of things.. From what I see Wikipedia is fairly liberal and a situation like the Abu Ghraib photos is an exception. Wikipedia is an amazing invention for the internet -- so any idea which propagates it, is all to the good. Is there a Wikipedia for children for example? -- Hopefully censored to some degree.
You're equivocating two issues: what is offensive and what is age-appropriate. Unless you're trying to say that anything adults take offense at is something that children should be prohibited from viewing, which is a bit of a non sequitor. Postdlf 23:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, so both the inclusionists and deletionists have been very strong in the userbox wars, but all the proposals so far have been very one sided... so, I have attempted to make a new, moderate proposal for everyone to (hopefully) agree on. See the proposal: Wikipedia:May_Userbox_policy_poll.
What this attempts to do is create a new namespace for Userboxes themselves, to move them out of the NPOV Template namespace; while I know Userboxes shouldn't need their own namespace, it's really the only viable solution I've seen, as deleting them all causes fury, substing them removes the community sense of Wikipedia, and keeping them makes the Template namespace have POVs- which it shouldn't have.
Also, MediaWiki dev Rob Church has stated that it would not be difficult to the developers to implement a new namespace, so don't let that factor into your vote.
Overall, I'm hoping to resolve this issue so that Wikipedians can get back to doing what they should be doing- helping us build a better encyclopedia. Thanks all, // The True Sora 18:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a proposed change to RfC policy [9] which you may be interested in taking a look at. Under the current wording, someone who has written an outside view cannot endorse any other view in the RfC. In practice, no one pays any attention to this at all, and so a removal of this restriction has been proposed. JoshuaZ 16:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If someone puts in an "outside view", can they just sign another section without saying anything? Runcorn 19:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, I really go crazy of the depressing flood of user boxes this Wikipedia has been undergoing last year. I am a strong proponent of deleting all of hem, perhaps except for the language skill templates, the location templates and the WikiProject boxes, that's it. However, I have a more fundamental solution for the user boxes problem: discard the user page namespace. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it is not intented for vanity. However this rule does not seem to apply for user pages - they are sometimes expended to sheer home pages or web logs. We should put an end to this. What I envision is a non-wiki page, comparable to "my preferences", where you can enter your real name (optional, of course!), your nationality/location, your profession, your expertise, your language skills and your home page (if you have one). Single login should automatically generate interwiki links. That really is enough. This topic borders to being better fitted for the technical village pump, btw.
Are there any people that agree with me? Here an example of what such a page might look like (all names are fictional!):
Looks quite trimmed. Personally it would feel like a liberation to me!
Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 21:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it feasible to have pages only visible to the logged-in users, where they can list articles in progress or have a personal sandbox? That's already the case for personal watchlists. Runcorn 18:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
But what about User_talk? Any restriction of the User page will simply result in its content being dumped into User_talk, so the only way to make it work would be to restrict both of them. Considering how vital User_talk is to Wikipedia's functioning, that would seem a very serious move. Fagstein 17:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a very funny proposal. Let's say the box you propose is placed at the left side of User_talk and you can also add optional photo above it. Try to imagine that layout. Now go to http://www.myspace.com and open a random user page! The similarity is striking, isn't it ;) Grue 18:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I put a discussion on the Admin/Incident page. It is probably better here. My problem is that two people get into edit wars over content. This degrades into name calling. If one is an admin, or has a good friend who is an admin, he/she pulls rank, and virtually says, the article is this way, end of story. If the other person debates this, it becomes typically personal, and the admin will start the name calling, eg, troll vandal etc. If the other person responds, and especially breaks a rule, the admin can ban that person. Does anyone else notice this? Does anyone have solution or a way forward? Thank you. Wallie 08:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Some editing had been occuring at Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages as well as a straw poll that would strengthen the limitations on length and content of signatures. This is currently being driven by a few editors, however as this is an issue which effects a very large number of users, wider input would be desirable. - brenneman {L} 08:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Recently much fun was had when during stub cleaning someone nominated a bunch of Jewish summer camps together with a bunch of Hasidic rebbes on AfD.
When someone has doubts on the merits of a particular article he can always go to the talk page before the entry ends up on AfD. Besides, AfD isn't a substitute for the {{ cleanup}} tag.
But where does one go when a whole class of articles look doubtful? It could be useful to set up a page where groups of articles can be discussed, to find out if they should be merged, improved or maybe thrown out altogether.
Such a page might also reduce the hostility on AfD when a group of articles ends up there; if large amounts of "cruft" are there there are the inevitable calls of "keep all bits of cruft", even if it's really crummy cruft. Dr Zak 22:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I have just placed the following on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism, it touches on a broad range of issues. Thank you. IZAK 09:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Articles on individual Christian churches/congregations get deleted regularly, because they aren't considered notable unless they reach a certain size or do something to distinguish themselves from every other church within their denomination. Synagogues (or Judaism-related topics generally) aren't being singled out. From the deleted history, this particular one did not have any information of substance beyond an explanation of its name. You could always try WP:DRV, but I can't see that succeeding here. Postdlf 17:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely nothing improper has been done here. Sending articles straight to articles for deletion is completely legitimate. If it wasn't vast amounts of articles would never get dealt with. Calsicol 18:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
For the first page, I feel I must argue in favor of deletion. Only 124 Google hits? Of course, I highly doubt that the user's vote was simply ignored. It's just that the deletion "votes" had much better arguments (show, don't tell) than the keep "vote". -- M1ss1ontomars2k4 | T | C | @ 04:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
If I give my sister my camera to take a picture, then I do the downloading from the camera to my PC, and then upload it to Wikipedia, am I the "creator" of the image, or is my sister, who pushed the button? Does my sister have to give permission for release, or is it my prerogative? User:Zoe| (talk) 19:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Copyrights made for hire are owned by the one who does the hiring (17 USC § 201(b)). If the work was not made for hire, the one who created it is the copyright holder, irrespective of motive (17 USC § 201(a)). — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 20:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there any way to prevent vandals from hiding an unsuitable article name behind a piped link? Like a link to Encyclopedia Britannica? Is the "hover" tag and the link name being shown at bottom left (in some browsers) the only way to check this sort of thing? Is there a way to turn off piping if you want to check an article for this sort of thing? Carcharoth 17:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Please look over this proposed policy: Event Proposal. This is a proposal I started along with PFHLai and Rklawton, as we have encountered issues with the lack of policy in guiding the posting of events as frequent editors in this Wikiproject. Feel free to provide comments and constructive criticism. This has already been up for discussion in the project's talk page for almost two weeks. Fabricationary 20:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone point me to any guidelines concerning the notability requirements for schools? Specifically, I'm wondering if we are to allow articles for every elementary school & high school in the US? That seems to be the precedent, but I would like to know if that is laid out anywhere. -- cholmes75 ( chit chat) 14:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
On the high school issue, a reasonably good article usually brings overwhelming keep results on AFD. There is no consensus on the elementary school issue, and as long as the article is reasonably good, it is unlikely that it will be deleted. Actually, I don't know if an article has to be reasonably good even, take a look at this kept on AFD version of St. Mary's Catholic in Portslade for an example of what I mean. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Buu, some kind of character from a cartoon, has what I consider a pretty excessive amount of fair use and/or completely unsourced images. Thirty-eight screenshots, to be exact. Does that seem a bit much for the purposes of illustrating a cartoon character? This situation was (accidentally) brought to my attention by Zarbon, who wanted my help putting yet another image in the article (his was a little movie). This editor has had a lot of problems in the past, leading him to several blocks and an RfC from me, so I'm hoping someone else here can weigh in on that article and make the changes that need to be made (if, in fact, I am correct here). It might be better if it doesn't come from me. If anyone here disagrees, and thinks 38 pics is a reasonable amount, please let me know. Thanks! Kafziel 04:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I've brought this article up before to no avail, and oddly enough was just talking with Angr about it this morning. Angr feels (and I think I agree, in so far as I understand the issue) that there's a serious fair use issue with the images. One think that makes it hard to fix is that one editor in particular (not Zarbon) feels an incredible degree of ownership on that article, as you can see from the talk page, and any change or "meddling" is likely to be followed by a great deal of argument. I haven't taken it on because I thought the task of building a consensus to prune on the article's talk page was just too daunting. But I think just pitching in and pruning isn't a good idea either. Perhaps a note on the talk page that it's being discussed here? · rodii · 14:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Currently, if someone wants to find something on Wikipedia, they have four main options as I see it:
The first two methods work well when you have a well-defined subject with a well-known name or that has well-known search terms associated with it. Those methods are not so good when you are not sure exactly what you are after, but you know the subject area - which is where browsing comes in. Which brings me on to redirects. Currently, while browsing in main article namespace, if you see something that looks like what you are after, you can click on it, even if it is a redirect. Thus technical terms can be phrased differently, in more familiar terms, making it more likely that people will recognise something and click on the link. Sometimes an editor will want to use a different phrase, but still point at a certain article, even if the article name is clumsy (for example, if it has disambiguation parentheses). This can be done by piping (using the "|" trick to hide the article name behind what you want the reader to see).
This makes browsing main article namespace and following links very intuitive and easy. A big problem, and I'm almost certain this has been raised before, is that you cannot do this in categories. There is no control over how an article name displays in category space. At the moment, the only way to get a genuinely alternative name to appear in category space is to categorise the relevant redirects, and, unfortunately, I don't see many people doing that, though I think it should be encouraged.
Finally, is there likely to be "piping" in category space any time soon? Carcharoth 17:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I know we do not allow redirects to user space, but some users seem to be getting around this by using categories. For an example see Category:Aviation statistics. Is this an accepted policy? Vegaswikian 23:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Signed: Travb ( talk) 11:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Fair use images in templates: exceptions -- I'd appreciate any comments on the associated Talk page. Thnx SteveBaker 14:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
At dead-end we get a large number of articles like ZSBoS, which contain adverts, whether added by a well-meaning inclusionist or a conniving exploiter, of such patent inappropriateness that it seems highly roundabout to go through the whole rigmarole of AfD, or even Prod, to get rid of them. For example, the cited example reads:
As far as I can see, this is not covered under any speedy deletion criteria, but i think it should be. This editor is clearly using wikipedia for apparently commercial purposes, in a cynical and blatant way. I propose some kind of {{db-vanity}} rule. Since every speedy deletion has to be taken care of by an admin, any bad faith or questionable speedy nominations would still be sent to AfD or whatever, but a criterion of this nature would help speed up the wikipurging process no end. Jdcooper 02:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Pages like that are routinely speedied as crap. We probably don't need an extra CSD for them. -- Tony Sidaway 02:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The policy change that was approved in December 2005 was: "In short, my proposal is to expand CSD A7 to include non-notable groups of people as well as individuals. This would apply to bands, clubs, organizations, couples, families, and any other collections of individuals that do not assert their importance or significance." (my highlighting) [11] CSD really should apply to organizations, because that was the wording that was voted on and approved. So why doesn't the current wording reflect this? Because of edits like this. GeorgeStepan e k\ talk 05:12, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The worst of crap is often deleted by G2 (vandalism). I would estimate that over half of all advertising articles get deleted for being copyvios of the companies' webpages. Otherwise, we always have a chance to improve an advertisement to a reasonably neutral article, so all is not lost if we fail to delete those things speedily. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
See Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary#Requested move. Alas, but:
I get the creepy feeling this is a test case for the Polish Cabal how far they can go in bending wikipedia their way. Note that Piotrus' argument regarding the dictionary resumes to: look how successful we've been thus far in replacing "Polish Biographical Dictionary" by "Polski Słownik Biograficzny" in many wikipedia articles (which is an unacceptable self-reference argument). It has been amply demonstrated by me that the English version "Polish Biographical Dictionary" is commonly used in *external sources* to refer to this multivolume dictionary, and not to the other, one-volume, one (see talk in archive).
Sorry, don't want to offend people doing hard work in WikiProjects on specific topics (like the Wikipedia:Polish Wikipedians' notice board).
Anyway, didn't surprise me a bit that Piotrus (the initiator of the vote above) opposes the new Wikipedia:No factions of belief proposal ( [12]), as far as I can see entirely for the wrong reasons. -- Francis Schonken 08:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
While I appreciate that this thread will bring more needed comments to the move page, and perhaps to the naming guideline itself, I don't appreciate Francis reposting his statements, bordering on personal attacks, about me being a Polish nationalist, member of some Polish CabalTM and editing Wikipedia articles to swing the vote, especially considering that I could have just moved the page like Francis did in the past instead of listing it on RM to let the community voice its opinion (not for the first time, as I have listed that issue on RfC some time ago, too). I asked Francis to explain his accusations on the article's talk page and await his reply there. That aside, I think Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) is a useful tool, and I believe it was advertised widely enough (many of those guidelines don't attract attention no matter what the creator tries...). Nonetheless the policy is not clear what to do when the only sensible English title is the same as the title of an already existing English publication. Given the choice between making creating a disambig and moving the article to a completly fictional title (like Polish Biographical Dictionary (Polish) as one of the discutants have suggested) and using the Polish name which is used by the majority of academic publications (Google Print test), I think the solution is simple.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Something else: you know where there's a difference between factionalism and a non-factionalist approach?
We have (for example):
And we have (for example):
The difference is that in the first case listing on the page is open to anyone, e.g. a heterosexual without any particular commitment to write LGBT articles, but committing him/herself to keeping the development of LGBT topics on en:wikipedia checked can list him/herself. The only condition/criterion is that you're "interested" and "active" (without any indicated qualification in what domain you're supposed to be "active" as a wikipedian), see Active Wikipedians interested in LGBT issues
In the second case the notice board is (by it's very name) limited to wikipedians that are Polish. There are no names listed of wikipedians interested in Polish topics (no names are listed on the notice board page, see below), but in all clarity, the thing is managed by people with a pro-Polish POV. And if you're not Polish, you need at least to write Poland-related articles (see intro of the page), or you're supposed even not to have business looking at the page.
So I recommend to rename Wikipedia:Polish Wikipedians' notice board to Wikipedia:Polish topics notice board (which could be done by WP:RM if we don't establish consensus here). I'd prefer not to use Wikipedia:Polish notice board while that might create misunderstandings with " Polish", the language. And rewrite the intro, making clear the page is for anyone interested in Polish topics.
Further I'd recommend to allow wikipedians to list their name on the page (like for any usual WikiProject-like page). And leave it up to those users whether they qualify their listing on the page with something like "not Polish, but interested", or just put their name, whatever their provenance or ability to speak a foreign language.
I think that the List of Polish Wikipedians (which on the notice board is a link to Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Poland - meaning that nor learning to speak Polish outside Poland, nor living abroad from a Polish descendance, nor being a professor in Polish history at a foreign university, etc, are sufficient to declare membership) should no longer be used as mechanism to list interest. After all, one might live in Poland, and be more interested in the LGBT notice board, than in a notice board on Polish topics... Listing oneself as a "Wikipedian from Poland" or as a " LGBT/Queer wikipedian" is entirely something different than listing on a notice board on a topic one is interested in. It's better to keep them separated IMHO, while I think not separating "interests" from "de facto membership criteria" is fostering factionalism.
So, that are some small steps I recommend towards a less factionalist approach. -- Francis Schonken 12:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Here's a cute one. Marketing managers of national brands aren't normally considered notable for Wikipedia purposes. If the marketing manager is for a band, does that make them notable? We've been arguing over this at Talk:Bill Ham, who was the manager for ZZ Top back when they were famous.
If you go down the list for notability in WP:BAND or WP:BIO, this guy doesn't really qualify. He didn't contribute musically. He's not listed as having won any awards, and there are awards a rock band manager could win. Nobody ever wrote a book about him. He didn't write a book about himself. There's only a little biographical info about him available on line. He was apparently a good band manager and promoter. He did record a record once himself, early in his career, but that apparently made it clear he had no future as a performer.
For other bands, the band's manager usually seems to have an article only if the manager was a musical contributor. Three Dog Night's manager isn't even mentioned. The Beatles' Brian Epstein does have an article, but that's an unusual case; someone is making a movie about him as "The Fifth Beatle". Britney Spears' original manager Larry Rudolph does not. Kenny Laguna, the manager of Joan Jett, does not.
Am I being too harsh here? Someone really wants him to have an article (why a '70s band manager would have a fanatical fan at this late date is puzzling, but whatever). Comments? -- John Nagle 19:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
In the #Offensive comments in afd discussions section above User:Arniep stated "the nominator of this article is Jewish and five of the delete votes at least were from Jewish users". How does Arniep know this, and why on earth would it make a difference, or even be relevant to this particular discussion? Can Arniep explain how he calculated this, and why he made this outrageously gratuitous and offensive statement? Jayjg (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Arniep, who are the 6 Jewish editors you have mentioned, and how do you know this? Jayjg (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Arniep stated "the nominator of this article is Jewish" ... As the nominator of the article, I'm not sure why Arniep thinks he knows this since I am careful to not state my ethnicity (or ethnicities), since it is irrelevant. Furthermore, I take offense that he would assume that I (or others) are somehow anti-Palestinian, based solely on alleged ethnicity, or that my proposal to delete a non-notable article that doesn't measure up to Wikipedia standards is somehow based on a racist agenda. It's ironic that someone so concerned about another editor being offensive makes comments a hundred times more offensive himself. -- MPerel ( talk | contrib) 22:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Arniep, let's recall that some of the most outspoken critics of Israel and some of the leading figures in the Palestinian rights movement are ethnic Jews. See Uri Avneri, Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, Adam Shapiro, etc. Like them or hate them, your conspiracy theory (let's call it what it is) doesn't hold true. For the future, please remember that it is wrong to mix ethnicity with political views. Considering that NPOV policy was not killed (pun intended) last time I checked, you are doubly wrong. This is my last post on the subject. ← Humus sapiens ну? 03:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not think this debate should continue; I have warned Arniep on his talk page that these generalizations and assumptions about religion/ethnicity cannot be tolerated (for Jews, Serbs, Catholics or anyone else), whether he believes they are justified or not. I gave this warning in my capacity as an administrator, and further issues are more properly a topic for Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard -- SCZenz 19:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
If a large number of commentors/voters belong to a small special interest group it is entirely proper to point that out. If these biases are not identified and discounted, Wikipedia is just a plaything of special interest groups. It is the consensus among global Wikipedians that matter. A "consensus" created by partisans is not a consensus at all and had no validity, but I don't think this point is observed nearly often enough. Bhoeble 13:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
In the article on the 70 steps plan (Belgium) an editor included a section "Further Reading" in which he mentions (as only entry) an earlier work by the author of the described plan. The "70 steps plan" (a plan for the 'solution of the foreigner problem' in Belgium) dates from 1992, the work mentioned in "Further Reading" dates from 1991. The work in question doesn't provide further reading about the "70 steps plan", but is a tract on the same subject as the plan. What is the general feeling about this ? In my view, the "further reading" section should contain textbook about an article's subject. Thanks for your input.-- LucVerhelst 20:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Please see User:ShootJar/ProtectionProposal for a new idea on combatting vandalism and protecting pages.
As a result of an RfC, I stumbled into an edit war at Rotary International, where I found some "click on a name to read an article about..."-type comments, which I removed, partly following WP:SELF, but mostly because I felt at the time that it was a downright unnecessary and silly thing to say on the internet: where a person incapable of realising you click the links is unlikely to have gotten here in the first place.
Anyway, my edit was reverted by user:PierreLarcin2, whose comments on the article's talk page, and my own talk page, indicate that he is blind, and that he finds headers of that kind useful on his browser. Several users have pointed out that there is no great merit in editing a single article for greater accessibility by the blind, and the suggestion was made to bring the matter to the Village Pump, which I am now doing. Here are some preliminary questions I have, although I invite comments on the subject generally:
PS There is a substantial (if rather rambling) discussion to be found here: Talk:Rotary International#Membership: Explanation of how to use links. AndyJones 20:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
One method used by screen reader software to identify links is to change the gender of the voice. For example, plain text might be read in a male voice and links in a female voice. StuRat 13:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian views of Hanukkah, somebody opined that there was a copyvio. The text in question was extracted from the Hanukkah page. Turns out it was originally added in 2004. That is, the cited page is actually a copy of Wikipedia from several months later than the original section!
Remember, folks cite Wikipedia without attribution. The fact that Google finds them does not make a good test for copyvio.
The articles about missiles and unguided rockets badly need a naming convention, especially the Russian ones. So I'm posting it here as requested on WP:NAME. - Dammit 14:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Background: If an admin just "doesn't like your face", and finds an excuse, and bans you forever. Note there are many many rules, and just by writing any text in an article it could be considered POV, or trolling etc, and these are just the simple rules.
Can you:
This is not targeted towards anyone. It is just what I interpret the policy could allow. Wallie 15:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Just curious what the policy is on this... the article on " Baby Carrots" was brought to my attention by a merge proposal, and the article as it stood was about "Baby Carrots", not about baby carrots (hope you get my meaning). The original writer of the article has been quite understanding and no edit war arose (we're working together on a better version), but I'm just curious how such things should be handled in less friendly situations. At least a partial explanation is on the talk page for the article (we were back and forth on user talks for a while earlier), but my more general question is about how to write a good article that points out the differences between traditional and commercial uses without getting soapboxish about the virtues of one meaning or the other. SB Johnny 21:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Since discussion of userboxes and their speedy deletion was overwhelming Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion, some of us decided to try to organize the enormous, sprawling, and often repetitive debate over the criteria T1 and T2, as applied to userboxes. Thus, we have a new page: Wikipedia:T1 and T2 debates, and all of the discussion of those criteria that was at CSD talk is now at Wikipedia talk:T1 and T2 debates.
At the main page, we're trying to somehow organize and fairly and neutrally present all of the relevant arguments regarding userboxes, their recent deletions, and their eventual fate. Editors are very welcome to help out with this project, which I hope may point the way towards a sensible resolution of the current drama and consternation. - GTBacchus( talk) 08:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
do you beleive in caste sysetm !! this is the basic question and if so , do you not beleive in global community
we as humen being are same
only economic conditions may requoire help and assistance for thre upliftment we can not keep reserved seat only on grouds of caste basis
doing so will hamper the rights of other deserving people -- <anon>
The Wikipedia does not support the action of no criminal, much less protects the same. It's correct. what's this: Wikipedia:No legal threats? -- Eduardo Corrêa 08:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean by that? – Someguy0830 ( Talk | contribs) 08:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Which is the punishment by fight to his rights? Someone spoke me: you would be blocked in the wiki. It's truth?
--
Eduardo Corrêa 23:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
As an amateur herpetologist and former snake keeper, I recently took an interest in writing articles on the many different species of vipers (see Viperidae). I really only started doing this in earnest back in April this year. The very first problem I recognized, was that there was no common structure to tie all of the existing articles together. For example, sometimes only a subspecies was described, but not the species, the genus or the subfamily to which it belongs. This is not very orderly -- chaotic even -- and a waste if the descriptions in such articles cover characteristics common to an entire family. Wikipedia obviously has a lot more growing to do, so I think it would be in the best interest of everyone to prevent this kind of disorder from getting out of hand before the number of articles on biological organisms becomes too great.
The most obvious structure to apply here is systematics: the science of taxonomy and binomial nomenclature. More than a million species of animals and half a million species of plants and microorganisms have been described by science and I'm sure that it is everyone's hope and wish that we will eventually see Wikipedia articles dedicated to each and every one of them. However, it is obvious to myself and others that the current policy of using common names over scientific names for page titles whenever possible (the consensus for which I hear has only been more or less agreed upon) is simply not good enough to achieve this end. What we need is a standard for naming articles on biological organisms that is predictable, promotes structure and prevents the propagation of errors. The best way to achieve this is with scientific names: not common names with a needless array of redirects and disambiguation pages.
Except in the case of birds, where the American Ornithologists' Union has established official common names for each species, there are often many different common names. Snakes are a good example. Take Sistrurus catenatus: if this page were to be changed to a common name, should it be massasauga, or eastern massasauga, or ground rattler, or swamp rattler, or even Michigan rattler? Those are all recognized common names for this species, particularly in the United States, but naming Wikipedia's page for it should not be reduced to a popularity contest. There is one perfectly valid name for this species, recognized the world over, and that is its scientific name: Sistrurus catenatus. Only then can there be no doubt regarding the subject of the article.
Another thing I've noticed about Wikipedia, is that only the article names get indexed, as opposed to redirects and entries in disambiguation pages. This is hardly surprising, but if ten years from now we have 100,000 articles on biological organisms -- most with common names -- this will make the indexes pretty much useless. How can you be sure how many Trimeresurus articles there are if they're scattered all across the index? There are currently 43 different species and subspecies, yet if the standard was to use only scientific names for each page, they would all be found under the T and line up neatly under the entry for Trimeresurus.
Let's take a further look at this with some current indexing examples.
Looking again at that Eagle page, it reminds me of how common names do not encourage any structure when writing articles on biological organisms. There are many genera of eagles listed there, yet it seems the authors have spent most of their time producing articles only for the individual species. It would have been far more efficient to tackle the families, subfamilies and genera first. Those are the places to describe the defining characteristics of each in order to avoid having to repeat them in each of the species articles. A single eagle article to describe a number of genera is not specific enough. If all of the species are going to be described anyway, the more structured approach is also the best way to show people the differences between the various eagle genera.
Recently, one Wikipedian argued that things should be left as they are, because for a "normal" person to look for "gaboon viper" and end up with Bitis gabonica would be too jarring an experience. I say that if systematics is the best way for Wikipedia to self-organize, then why shouldn't we encourage people to follow and learn? We can still use common names as redirects, in disambiguation pages, and even make liberal use of them if necessary in the actual articles; that way, people will still know what they are about. But just as long as we emphasize the importance and use of scientific names for organizing those articles. I also believe that this is a good way to attract more interest from graduate students, professionals and other more knowledgeable individuals who would then be more willing to write articles for us. Which is what we want, right?
It is said that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. As opposed to common names, binomial nomenclature is the best way to illustrate how the different species are related because of the way they evolved. Those names are a reflection of our current understanding of how life evolved on the planet. If Wikipedia is still around in some form or another 100 or even 1000 years from now, our generation will not be remembered as much for the articles that we wrote, as for the structure and organization that we imposed upon them at this early stage, which in turn allowed it all to grow properly and thrive.
In case you're interested, I've argued before in favor of scientific names over common names on my user:talk page and on the Tree of Life page. At one point it was suggested to me that this was the proper place for me to state my case. I hope so, as well as that reason will eventually win the day concerning this issue. -- Jwinius 19:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia policy is to use titles which are the most commonly known to the average reader, not to the scientific community. Should we call blackbirds turdus? Who's going to know that? Call it by the common name and redirect the scientific name. User:Zoe| (talk) 19:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree entirely that both common names and scientific names should be listed in the category system, but in separate areas. Thus people would be able to choose the option to browse by common name, or by genus name. One way to do this is to categorise redirects, but really any method would be OK as long as people retain the option to browse either way. We should not force people to browse only one way. Can someone please pass these ideas over to the people working on biological articles. Carcharoth 20:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Nobody is suggesting that Wikipedia be turned into some kind of a platform for scientific publications; only that there is a better naming convention for the articles. Binomial nomenclature isn't just popular with scientists: it's a common language for normal people all over the world who just want to make sure that they're all talking about the same organisms. The Linnean system has done a great job at this for almost 300 years, which is why not using it is big a mistake. Why reinvent the wheel?
To suggest creating redirects for scientific names instead is to miss the point entirely. That is to trivialize the value and ignore the utility of the binomial system:
It is ridiculous to say that those in favor of scientific names are out to stop people from using common names or something. Even if the blackbird article was renamed Turdus merula, most of us, including myself, would still think of a blackbird as a blackbird. However, scientific names inspire both authors and readers alike to think about the big picture. Since this particular blackbird (there are many other blackbirds) it is a member of the genus Turdus, we learn that it is a thrush just like Turdus migratorius, the American robin (a misleading common name). They both belong to the subfamily Turdinae (true thrushes), and in turn the family Turdidae (thrushes, robins, chats, and wheatears). Each of these groups has its own defining characteristics. In other words, a blackbird is not just a blackbird and the way we write and organize the articles in Wikipedia should reflect this. -- Jwinius 12:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Has anyone ever suggested combining the common and scientific names in the titles? Then we would have, for example: American robin (Turdus migratorius) and Lion (Panthera leo)? Other examples would be Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus), and so on. Carcharoth 19:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I have heard conflicting statements on whether a user may blank (not archive) their talk page. I am unable to find official policy one way or another. Some admins claim that the user's talk page is an official record of other people's interaction with you while other admins claim that you have as much right to blank the page as others do to place comments there in the first place. WP:OWN comes in to play here and I tend to fall on the side of the no-blanking people. However, I am at a loss as to what the official policy is. Can someone point me in the right direction with an unambiguous determination? While this is most definitely not an academic question, I will never blank my own talk page. -- Yamla 16:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I should point out that it is indeed blanking of current warnings that I am most concerned about. Removing warnings that are a month or three old is probably a different matter. But what about a user who is removing current warnings? We seem to think this is not acceptable? -- Yamla 17:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
And then there's the type of user who blanks out comments in their talk page from people they dislike, sometimes with snarky edit comments like "Deleted unread... I *told* you not to post to my talk page!" This seems akin to the childish practice of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and saying "La La La I Can't Hear You!". *Dan T.* 14:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a policy I have proposed that will make it easier to distinguish the point in an article's edit history when it receives/looses featured status from the current revision of the article.-- Conrad Devonshire Talk 01:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that Wikipedia put all featured articles under the semi-protection policy for their stay on the main page. On May 28th, 2006, anonymous user 209.172.32.70 vandalized the Jarmann M1884 article multiple times, deleting large portions of it and replacing them with nonsense. His or her edits were later reverted; nevertheless, several people saw the article with his or her edits in place, and putting featured articles under the semi-protection policy for their 24-hour exposition on the main page could prevent another similar incident. 69.177.176.154 14:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Hmains 15:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
(numbered) The 7-day debate was completed a couple of days ago.
Sorry, I left out the word 'not': I do not agree with the deletion.
I think that categories are useful only if they are supported by content in the articles. If the article says the person has F00 ethnic/national origin, then an ethnic category is correct; if the article is wrong, then it and its categorization can and should be corrected. If we cannot accept the article content as 'fact', why would other references added to lists be accepted as better?
If there is a plan to delete a category and replace it with a list, I think the proponent should be required to first put all the people then currently in the category into the list and not rely on the 'hope' and 'wish' that this will be taken care of later by editors of the list. Again, the bio article editors may know nothing about such lists.
Thanks Hmains 19:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Please consider this guideline proposed as an addition to the Manual of Style: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction).-- ragesoss 22:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
According to current banning policy, a user remains community banned when they satisfy: "Some editors are so odious that not one of the 915 administrators on Wikipedia would ever want to unblock them."
So according to this sentence, if any single admin is willing to unblock a user, then consensus to block does not exist. This sentence has two problems. Firstly, it discounts entirely the opinions of nonadmins. Why should only an admin's willingness to unblock matter? What if a dozen good-faith editors ask for a user to be unblocked, but no admins are willing. This is probably an unrealistic situation; if there are a dozen users willing to stand up for another, then there is an admin also willing to listen. Nevertheless, the wording is bad.
Secondly, does the existence of a single admin willing to unblock really constitute consensus? This sentence has been invoked recently in ArbCom cases and on AN/I to override nearly unanimous consensus that a user should remain blocked. It does make sense that permbans should require a very strict supermajority kind of consensus, but is 100% too high?
Note that recent unilateral unbans of two extremely controversial permbanned users have apparently recently caused 2 admins ( 1 2) to leave the project. These unbans are perfectly justifiable in the name of this policy. I propose that this policy is too extreme, and should instead rely on more conventional forms of consensus. WIthout requiring a formal vote-like consensus building forum, shouldn't something like an informal discussion with nearly unanimous support like the one linked be strong enough form of consensus? No need to formalize this rule. Just delete the offending sentence ( added last July by David Gerard). - lethe talk + 20:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
This sentence has been used in defense of linuxbeak's controversial unban, as well as in recent ArbComm cases. - lethe talk + 20:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
No, the unanimity phrasing is both important and functional. It is important because it rules out unequivocally the possibility that some have tried to exploit recently of banning a user by a quick straw poll in a section of AN/I among the admins who happen to spot it on their watchlists before it is 10 sections from the bottom. It is functional because, if the one admin disagrees, they can only continue to unblock for so long as their courage permits. If they persist in the face of overwhelming opposition then the subject will get repeatedly reblocked, adn the dissenting admin will undoubtedly be wheel-warring. If it came to such a situation which, to my knowledge it never has, it is reasonable to suppose an Arb case would result with a rapid injunction. In the case to hand, there is not a single admin prepared to unblock at present: Linuxbeak did it once, was quickly reversed and has not repeated the action. The admins are, for now, unanimous. The opinions of non-admins matter, but do not ultimately have an effect in such situations since none of them are the ones who will take the fall for (un)(re)blocking. - Splash talk 21:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
When I wrote that sentence, the context was that people were having trouble accepting such bans as being things only Jimbo or the Jimbo-like powers invested in the ArbCom by him could create. It was to point out that if someone is that much of a troublemaking troll/arsehole/crazy person, and not one of the (then) 500+ admins — all of whom could be presumed to have passed a basic sanity check by getting nominated and accepted as admins — could be bothered unblocking, then the block was probably one of substance. As sometimes happens around Wikipedia, some have tried using this somewhat casual statement of the obvious as a rule to be bent into weird shapes using the same words. (A good example of why process, although important, is not more important than either product or not being stupid.) I hope the spirit of it remains clear enough for sensible use, if not lacking-in-sense use - David Gerard 21:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
By the way, I strongly object to the idea that a few admins should be able to essentially strongarm consensus by threatening to leave if they don't get their way. That's not actually what happened here, but using the decisions of certain members to (quite likely temporarily) leave Wikipedia as grounds for favoring a policy change is a Very Bad Idea. More cynical and angry people than I, and I neither share their assumptions nor their assumptions' opposites, have suggested that SlimVirgin et al. left precisely in order to effect some kind of backlash against Linuxbeak, or otherwise get their way. Even if they didn't, a question I don't feel I'm competent to judge, it's bad policy to allow anyone the opportunity to do things like that. If someone wants to leave Wikipedia, don't bend Wikipedia around them to get them to stay. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pav Akhtar is currently assessing the notability of someone formerly active in student politics who has recently become a councillor. His ward will contain about 5000 people, including nonvoting minors. I nominated the article at Afd (and csd - the originator removed it). My understanding of WP:BIO is that as he does not hold "international, national or statewide/provincewide office" he is non-notable. More opinions (of whatever flavour) to assert the level of the bar, please. Mr Stephen 23:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I've got a question.
I made a mistake (?) recently on a talk page (I forgot it was a talk page) and removed a comment that could be insulting towards the person in question featured in the article. I realized by looking later at my contributions that I actually censored by accident someone's (loud and opinionated) opinion. Where does wikipedia stand on this? Should all comments be allowed, or should the obvious negative comments be removed? For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Robert_Smith_%28musician%29&action=history ...
-- mimithebrain 04:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I find this edit upsetting and offensive [21], (instead of voting delete, to vote "kill" on an article about a member of the ISM who was shot by the IDF). Is there any policy or guideline that would prevent users making edits such as this as I feel such comments can only add a feeling of hostility to the project which should not be what we want here. Arniep 01:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
This complaint is ridiculous, does anybody actually believe that Arneip was actually offended? I found the basis of his "indignancy" either extremely disingenuous or unbelievably silly.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 06:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
You know what's far more offensive than the use of the word "Kill"? It's Arniep's statement that "the nominator of this article is Jewish and five of the delete votes at least were from Jewish users". How does Arniep know this, and why on earth would it make a difference, or even be relevant to this particular discussion? Care to explain, Arniep? Jayjg (talk) 13:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Prometheuspan 21:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC) The use of intentionally insulting, derogatoary, or inflammatory language ought to be banned from vfds and for good reason. A vote should be based on neutrality. logic, reason, and a strong sense of relevant policies, not appeals to emotion. Again, wikipedia obviously needs to learn about conversational logic. An appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy, and should be treated no differently than any other logical fallacy; with sharp education first, and disciplinary action if further abuses continue. I find racism disgusting also, but at this point, this is actually changing the topic to attack the person, rather than deal with the issue. I'm not taking sides. Both sides of this argument should go read up on conversational logic and apologize to each other. Prometheuspan 21:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC) Prometheuspan 21:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
When editing articles, we "agree to license our contributions under the GFDL." Now the GFDL allows free redistribution and modification, as long as the original authors are credited. These credits are done via the page history, where the usernames of contributors are noted, with a link to the users' pages, where they can, if they so wish, identify themselves with their real names. Thus, as long as the entire database is being distributed, there is certainly no violation of the licence.
Now, I noted that you can download stripped versions of the database, containing only the current versions of the articles. This appears to be a violation of the GFDL, since there is no way to link texts to their copyright owners if the full page history is not provided. To the best of my knowledge, contributors do not yield their copyright to Wikimedia, with Wikimedia in turn publishing the material under the GFDL (in which case a single "from Wikipedia" credit would suffice); rather, they publish their contribution under the GFDL, allowing Wikimedia and anyone else to host it with proper attribution. All Wikipedia mirrors that do not also mirror page histories are of course also in violation of the GFDL if I am correct, but it strikes me as particularly questionable if even Wikimedia itself offers GFDL-violating database dumps for download. dab (ᛏ) 09:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Coming back to the authorship algorithm, I'm not sure it would work. Someone can write a relatively small percentage of the text that has a disproportionat effect on the article; no automatic algorithm is likely to pick that up.-- Runcorn 19:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
CREATIVE PRODUCTS. As far as I can tell, capitalizing every letter of this company name is accurate. But, it's inconsistent and rather ugly. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (ALL CAPS) doesn't cover this. What's the policy? ~ Booya Bazooka 00:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Is there a set policy concerning the proper way to list a rank of a given institution? For example, at the Virginia Military Institute article there is a dispute occuring partly due to the use of the words "number one", "first out of 20", or "top". I couldn't find any link to a policy concerning rankings under the Manual of Style. Thanks. Cowman109 Talk 00:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Because wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and strives to be as accurate as possible, shouldn't we have a scientific point of view, rather than a neutral point of view?
It becomes very difficult to edit articles on pseudoscience, such as astrology, when describing the scientific point of view is treated as a form of bias. For example, there is strong disagreement on mentioning the mainstream scientific view in the introduction to astrology, as it is might be considered as bias. I think implementing a scientific point of view, will go a long way in improving the quality of articles on wikipedia. At the least, we could amend the NPOV, so that more emphasis is provided to the mainstream scientific view, when disputes arise. 59.92.62.97 15:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I just had a look at the astrology page. The introduction and the few other sections I looked at were all excellent. I don't think it's a good idea to slant the NPOV toward the consensus of mainstream science. Doing so, after all, wouldn't be NPOV any more as it presumes the superiority of scientific knowledge over other types. Besides, mainstream science has at many times throughout history endorsed utter gibberish. We shouldn't feel immune to this possibility in our era any more than Newton should have in his.
Blaise Joshua 20:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
siddharth 04:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC) The point is, IMO, the scientific method is superior because it works. The only way to test a hypotheisis is by experiment, and this will straight away show what is right and what is wrong. So, as far as we are concerned with the accuracy of something, science is what we turn to.
Just look at Demarcation problem#Demarcation in contemporary scientific method. Can you really objectively say whether something is parsimonious, pertinent, etc.? I doubt it. It's perfectly sufficient to say "nearly all scientists believe this idea is total garbage"; that gets the point across. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
As for "examples of when mainstream science has supported absolute gibberish", you have to define "mainstream science" first. You haven't. If you take it as "consensus of people with extensive formal education in the subject", then ridiculous theories abound. If you take it as "consensus of people who follow the scientific method in the subject", then you have to define the scientific method so rigorously that it can be applied by an average person without significant ambiguity to any particular case. When you do that, we can discuss treating scientists' views differently from those of other people; until then, "scientific point of view" will be equal to "the point of view that most editors support". — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 09:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Utter gibberish? Well, just one example that made me smile today - Dr Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment Centre (Chicago) asserted that: "Pizza eaters' favourite toppings show a correlation to their behaviour. Ordering a pizza together can be very revealing for someone who wants to get to know the person they are dating." According to the Irish Daily Mail's item on his findings, researchers say men who order a pizza with a single topping of meat, like ham or pepperoni, are likely to be irritable and indecisive. This Dr Hirsch has apparantly conducted numerous studies, many of of which have been published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Call me a unqualified skeptic if you will, but it's very hard to read of "scientific research" like this without the words "utter gibberish" springing to mind. It makes astrology seem quite plausible. But then again, I may be wrong. Maybe this a major breakthrough and instead of the psychometric tests we're all used to on job applications we'll just be asked to order a pizza instead. Blaise Joshua 12:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
How does one meaningfully apply the scientific point of view to the majority of subjects that fall into the fields of art, jurisprudence, history, philosophy, or religion? Science is a powerful tool, but there are limits to its ability to find truth. Many areas of human endeavor fall outside the umbrella of scientific knowledge yet are still encyclopedic in nature. Consider the article on Jesus, there is no scientific method currently available to prove or refute the claims that he lived around the early 1st century CE (this is true for historical figures in general), yet his influence on Western society through the credited founding of a major religion is irrefutable. Similar limitations are faced when trying to use a scientific point of view to analyze the meaning of an artwork, judge the fairness of a legal system, or when searching for the meaning of life. Using a scientific point of view when dealing with any article that falls outside the scope of scientific inquiry simply adds a bias that is unneeded in an encyclopedia article. -- Allen3 talk 13:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I fail to see how putting a mention that "some critics view Astrology as a psuedo-science" is harmful to the overall article, it's not compromising any beliefs as your baisicly saying "some people say this, others say this" Also an encyclapedia isn't neccesarilly SPOV, sure an article on Astrology would start out with "Some critics argue" but a majority of the article wouldn't be all that concerened with what mainstream science thinks, likewise an article on Darwins Theory of Evolution wouldn't state it as absolute fact. So in closing we shouldn't hold Wikipedia to SPOV because well most encyclapedias arn't SPOV.
Deathawk 02:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
If people are removing dictionary definitions and adding a link to Wiktionary, should the removed content be added to Wiktionary if it is not there? I think so, otherwise you are effectively removing material without going through the transwiking process. I am thinking in particular of disambiguation pages, where it is common to replace dictionary definitions with a link to wikitionary. Unfortunately, the wiktionary entries sometimes lack the definitions that were removed from Wikipedia. What should be done in those cases, especially if an editor does not have time to go and add it to Wiktionary themselves? Carcharoth 17:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Have there been any proposals to have the self-referential tools "What links here" and "Special pages" used in article namespace for the readers of Wikipedia? I have seen people linking to Special pages, especially the index prefix one. I haven't seen people linking within an article to a "what links here" page for an article, but I suspect it has been done somewhere. I agree that these are useful tools for the readers, as well as the editors, but in their current incarnation they are rather self-referential. Are the tools advertised to readers as an alternative to the options of: searching, browsing (categories, portals, navigational boxes)? Carcharoth 11:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I found Wikipedia:Basic_navigation which points readers towards these useful tools. However, they are not really held up as useful browsing tools, which I think they are. Would anyone object if I wrote something on how to use these tools to browse Wikipedia? Even better, does anyone know of something that exists already, written for readers, not editors? Carcharoth 17:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it's a case of WP:IAR; do whatever improves Wikipedia. -- Runcorn 17:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
"Yet it's not _identical_ (think for example of -ise and -ize. -ize is as rare as hen's teeth in Australia, but is endorsed by many sources in England; British Oxford dictionaries prioritize -ize, but the Australian Oxford Dictionary has -ise as the main form; program is more used in Australia than in Britain; etc.;" I was aware all along that Britsh spelling (I read this on this page) allowed for both the -ise and -ize eidings after haiving read that, however I ommitted to mention it all along for the simple reason that most Australians (I was one of them before I read it in that article) think of -ize as "American" spelling, I appricate JackLumber for mentioning the manual of style after all that time Jack had tried to tell me about "British" and "Australian" "spelling differences" but gave me no evidence until then. I have been wondering about the origens of the -ise spelling, could it somehow have come from German? Could -ise also have become as "rare as hen's teeth" in Australia as a result of Germanisation (although this leaves unexplained why it didn't happen in the USA) too? I have notced a mistake in the table, the word 'fiord' is not used in New Zealand, they call them by the Maori term for them which I can only half-remember. The other one is that spellings of the word 'manoeuvre/maneuver/manoeuver' are given in the UK/US/CA columns but not in others (we do use that word here in Australia, I wonder what the German equivelet term is), and according to that column there 'is' such a thing as "Commonwealth spelling" so Jack was wrong to call it an incorrect term, also according to that column, "British" spelling is also utilised for writing Irish English, so "British spelling" does turn out to be an NNPOV term after all, but it is an NOR term. Myrtone@Doco.com.au:-)
The reason I added this here is because I tried doing this on Doco's talkpage but Doco removed it for no apparant reason. Myrtone@Village pump (policy).com.au:-(
"the MoS is wrong. There's no Commonwealth authority estabilishing a "Commonwealth" spelling; strictly speaking, each Commonwealth nation has its own spelling system." Then why does it have it in the first place, then again, why hasn't anyone removed it? And the reason I put it on Doco's talkpage is because I wanted a comment from a Non-native English speaker, I have now put it here. In this whole discusssion, I have not had one comment from a non-US wikipedian, let alone a non-UK/US user. Myrtone@Village pump (policy).com.au:-(
Why shoudn't I know that about Kiwi English, their treatment of 'fish and chips' is 'fush 'n' chups' unlike us Australians. Myrtone@Village pump (policy).com.au
Moved to Talk:Backronym.
Is there a policy in which an article must be written in third person? If not, I suggest it should be made. -- Dom th e dude 0 0 1 20:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I've certainly spotted some parts of articles written in the second person. Usually instantly deletable, borderline illiterate rubbish. -- Necrothesp 23:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I support the above; I'd do something about any second and certainly first person text I found. -- Runcorn 15:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I have been thinking about this a while. I can't decide whether an article about a hospital is per se notable. Example is Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital although there are many many more out there. Should these be included? Should these be deleted? I'm new here and I really don't know, and can't seem to find any precedent. Sometimes, what looks like (to me) non-notable stuff has an article, sometimes I see them being prod-ed. Is this the right place to discuss this? If so, what are your opinions? If not, where should I move this to? :) Thanks! JByrd 17:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Seems to me that some institutions are notable, for example major universities. Too many rules would rather straitjacket contributors. -- Runcorn 07:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Note from our archive page: After 7 days the [archived] discussion will be permanently removed. Why?? I can think of several good reasons why VPs discussions should be preserved: 1) Wikipedia is not paper, 2) the discussion contain important issues related to a) Wikipedia's history and b) decision making process (I recently wanted to refer ppl to an older discussion here... but all I can do is to refer them to history page) and c) study of Wikipedia, and 3) many other Wikipedia's namespace discussions are preserved (admins noticeboard, regional noticeboards, etc.). I'd therefore like to propose the change to the archiving process so the current discussions are not deleted but moved to archival sections and that all deleted discussions are restored to older archives.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
User A writes a comment on a talk page, and his comment contains a spelling error. User B edits User A's comment to correct the spelling error. Is this against Wikipedia custom, Wikipedia policy, or neither? —
WCityMike (
T |
C) ⇓ plz reply HERE (
why?) ⇓ 02:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
If it's fixing a broken link, can't you just put the correct link in a separate comment? -- Runcorn 19:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I find there is a problem. The best and brightest Wikipedians are the admins. However, before this some of them were even ordinary users. My point is that the main function of Wikipedia is to write articles, or am I wrong? The best authors are promoted to be admins. At that stage, they change function. They then become like, well, Military Police officers, and the senior ones Judges tracking and punishing small time vandals. After the best authors have changed function, the vandals will all be gone, but the articles will not be as good. Is this really the way forward? Wallie 18:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Is the suggestion that all the best and brightest Wikipedians are the admins? Aren't there any good editors who have declined adminship? -- Runcorn 17:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'd like to know something about the licence thing. I translated an article from the english wikipedia: McLibel case into french. There are two pictures that I would like to use in the french article. One of the picture is copyrighted, the other has got a weird status that I didn't get. Is it possible to use it in my french article? How to do it? Is there anyone who could help me about this problem
Thanks,
Ajor
The article in french: McLibel
Vandalism by "clean up" is wrong. I had a good edit. This was my edit: [22]. I worked hard on that edit. It seems EurekaLott ( 07:08, June 5, 2006) didn't even read it. The left-hand tab says project. EurekaLott's so-called "clean up" of 07:08, June 5, 2006 was therefore wrong. It seems to have been automated, without any thought.
I spend a fair bit of time doing this sort of "cleanup"--articles on software-related subjects in particular are magnets for spam or just gratuitous mentions for the purpose of raising pagerank. So some practical guidelines have emerged independently on a number of articles.
So a lot of what I do is pruning external links and redlinks from articles, looking for spam, SEO, self-promotion, registration-only sites that turn into sales pitches, disguised google ad sites, etc., sometimes very deviously salted among large lists of legitimate sites. Figuring out which are the quality links and which aren't is a tedious process, and involves some personal judgment and inevitably some mistakes, no doubt. In this particular case, the judgment would have been easy, though--legit or not, those links were in the wrong place, and a couple wikilinks (maybe Google and Yahoo) would have done the trick--but oh, wait, those, and more were already in the article. As an aside, please go easy on accusations of vandalism. Vandalism doesn't mean "an edit that makes me mad." Good faith edits are never vandalism.· rodii · 16:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I have always taken WP:V at face value when speaks of published sources. Specifically, internal-use-only sources, no matter how reliable, are not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to suggest calling the agency. I seem to be having a problem explaining this to another editor on Talk: Army of the United States. This editor (whom I believe to be acting in good faith) is using internal-use-only sources and has actually suggested calling the relevant agency if one wants to verify.
I suppose wiki-lawyers could argue whether this is more specifically contrary to WP:V, WP:CITE or WP:NOR, but I am hoping for a kind soul or two to help convince the other editor that I am not just being quixotic. Thanks. Robert A.West ( Talk) 06:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
There his a new proposal at WP:NPA for addressing the issues related to off-wiki personal attacks. See WP:NPA#Off-wiki personal attacks. Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks#Proposal. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Is there any policy for/against archiving deleted articles on userspace? I've noticed some cases where after an article is deleted due to AfD, a user has pasted the content of the deleted article on the original editor's User or User Talk page. Not a huge deal, but seems reasonable that if the article was deemed inappropriate for the Main space, it shouldn't exist elsewhere either, since WP is not free web space. -- mtz206 ( talk) 02:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I’ve stumbled across a couple of pages that look like articles, but are in fact user pages. In other words, they are written in the third person and wax lyrical about the user’s achievements, as if it were an autobiography. I can't find a note on how to deal with such. One in particular is very odd, namely User:Daniel_Dennis_de_Wit. This reads like an article, and a google search found his home page that cites the Wikipedia user page as if it were an article. Looks all wrong to me. I’ve put some stuff on his talk page, and put in a line about it not being an article onto the user page (I did have a npov tag on, which seemed extreme, so I took it out).
There are a few of these pages, normally from obscure artists, and as this is not a homepage space for anyone I believe there should be a policy that such autobiographies are not allowed. Perhaps the policy should be that user pages must be written in the first person, therefore they cannot be confused by a casual user as being an article. LeeG 19:32, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I would like to start a cleanup project on the page The X-Files. I believe it needs a lot of work to get in line with Wikipedia's standards. I made a large list of edits that I feel need to be made on the talk page. It takes up a lot of the talk page, and I have the feeling if many people make comments, it will get unruly fast. Is it possible/allowable for me to make a subpage where these can go? Thanks in advance for your help. - Zepheus 16:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I understand the WP:NOR policy but does that mean that the only items which can be successfully defended against a call for deletion are plagiaristic items? ... IMHO ( Talk) 01:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll tell you why. Do a Goggle search now-a-days and more often than not you will get a hit on the Wikipedia. People have therefore begun to trust the Wikipedia that it is authoritative and comprehensive when in fact it is not. The Wikipedia is based upon prior publication rather than truth. Huh? Can you substantiate that by citing a prior publication instead of using logic? Consequently I must conclude that the Wikipedia is ignorant and that anyone who believes otherwise has been deceived. But how and why you ask? Prior publication is the foundation of academia all over the world. Nothing gets published unless it has been approved by peer review and/or acknowledged by someone recognized as a master in a topic’s field, etc. Why do you have a problem with this? How can this result in ignorance or deception? Where is your reference to a prior publication that substantiates your argument or conclusion? If you can not provide one then your argument must be original research and therefore must be dismissed. The Wikipedia is beginning to sound more and more like a publication of the academic guild to me. My real disgust comes from the hypocrisy of your rejecting even prior publication (both cognitive bias and Systemic bias) that I cite to substantiate the basis of my conclusion. You leave me with no other choice but to conclude that the Wikipedia is based upon ignorance and deception rather than upon the truth. ... IMHO ( Talk) 10:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I may be being over-worried here but I want to check what policy is on articles like Agent Lemon. It clearly describes a bit of home-chemistry which clearly could be dangerous (not the process itself; you'd have to be a bit cack-handed to blow yourself up, but consuming the product) and is also clearly intended to be used for potentially-illegal purposes (it explicitly states that in many jurisdictions consuming the product is illegal). Now, on the one hand, knowledge is just knowledge and what's the harm, but on the other it looks like a non-sensible thing to include in Wikipedia. I can't work out where in the Policy pages to look for advice so I thought I'd just ask.
(I was going through the Category:Category needed pages categorising stuff. It's amazing what you learn - but sometimes you don't want to ...)
Thanks for any advice, -- JennyRad 14:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I've removed info from the IRC article (I think that was it, anyway) on how to trick people into typing a command that will immediately begin formatting their hard drive. There were benign examples of malicious stuff that sufficed to make the point, and I didn't see any reason to tell people to shove beans up their noses. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 02:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer seems most appopriate to bring up.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:29, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Earlier today I noticed something on the article about an album ( We Don't Need to Whisper by Angels and Airwaves): in the 19:21, May 21, 2006 edit, someone added a link to download a . torrent file that would allow BitTorrent users to download the entire album. The link was soon deleted citing WP:NOT.
I think it should have stayed--Wikipedia is a place to find information and a great way to find out information about a musical album is by listening to it. Of course Wikipedia cannot host a copy of the album but if someone else wants to do it illegally, I feel that linking to it is completely appropriate. After all, Wikipedia is not censored.
This topic might even encompass other issues that are not specifically the download of music albums.
-- Stellis 04:50, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm looking for help figuring out how to do this. In particular, I'm working on articles for plants, which often wax how-toish when it comes to growing, harvesting, or using the plants in question.
I'd like to find a way of preserving this information (much of it is good), as I am aware of the WP policy against having this sort of thing in articles (see the wikibook A Wikimanual of Gardening for details). However, the only way of moving the information that I can think of is to simply cut and paste, which would of course lose the history of contributors. Is there a graceful way to do this? Is this even a "real" problem? SB Johnny 19:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Can we come to consensus on the standard punctuation and capitalization of this? In the Oxford English Dictionary, the only use of the letter "e" as a prefix meaning "electronic" is for "email", all lower case. Knowing the OED, and knowing that we don't capitalize Book (or Tape or Download or any other adjective or noun as a generic format), I am nearly positive that the standard spelling is, or will eventually be, ebook (not e-book, eBook, or Ebook, except as forced by Wikipedia title limitations <g>). Can we work this into the naming conventions somewhere? I have posted this at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books) as well. It came up during a recent CfD discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pegship ( talk • contribs)
I do hope we don't end up with "eBook" - that's a monstrosity.-- Runcorn 22:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I would like to reiterate that either ebook or e-book makes sense, but capitalizing any letter in the generic term does not, as "e-book" is not a trademark or proper noun. "...we don't capitalize Book (or Tape or Download [or Paperback] or any other adjective or noun [for] a generic format)..." I don't for a moment believe that what we decide will have a big impact on external use, nor is it carved in stone. I would just like to try to standardize it generally here for now. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 14:31, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I had to make this same decision for the E-books section of my Print and Web Publishing page. I selected e-book. I don't recall all of the reasons, but that's my vote. There are links to e-book publishers and retailers in that section so you can see what others are calling them. A search engine survey may help too. I probably did that when I was deciding. -Barry- 12:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I usually write "e-mail" so I vote for "e-book". -- Runcorn 20:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I have access to the full online OED (my local library service gives free access online at home access to everybody with a library card) and it gives the spelling as e-book. However, I suspect that in general the world will move to ebook even though I personally believe e-bookis the correct way to go.
This just in - Both Library of Congress and the British Library use e-book. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 19:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
The straw poll on Talk:ebook seems to have a clear victory for e-book (assuming it ends soon). Best regards // Fra nkB 17:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I have created a proposal regarding the notability of organizations, I would like some comment and dissucssion on it. I looked around wikipedia for awhile and I don't I am duplicating any existing policy. Dspserpico 20:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
What makes a scholarship "notable" for Wikipedia purposes? -- JChap 03:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
A Fulbright scholarship is certainly notable.-- Runcorn 19:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I made a change at Wikipedia:Lead section based on some comments on the talk page where several people felt that the lead section shouldn't contain references as these should instead be provided in the main body of the article. More comments at Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Change_to_guideline_-_please_discuss would be appreciated to help form a wider consensus. Also, how widely does something like this have to be advertised before a change has reached a broad enough consensus? Thanks. Carcharoth 11:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, WP:IAR; we should do whatever is best for Wikipedia in the circumstances. -- Runcorn 19:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Should user subpages be in categories? I noticed that Category:Websites contains User:Whytee/Spymac rewrite1, User:Oven Fresh/Download.com, and User:Stollery/T-Nation. This seems not ideal. ~ Booya Bazooka 23:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
{{#if:{{NAMESPACE}}|| [[Category:Foo]] }}
would be cleaner, and would accomplish the same (except for the subst: trick, which I left out). Not that I actually recommend either: let's keep
ParserFunctions out of articles, please. —
Ilmari Karonen (
talk) 11:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)There are special categories just for user pages, e.g. users in some county. Are there any categories just for user subpages?-- Runcorn 19:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
We have all three levels of audience at wikipedia at once, and we often find level 1 people opposing level 3 policies and vice versa.
I think we should arrange our policy pages along the lines of three levels of audience, so as to make it explicit, and so that people stop opposing policies intended for the other level! :-)
Comments?
Kim Bruning 10:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Recently, I placed a request for a photograph of a notable personality in the main space. The image I received via email is unavailable elsewhere, either on the WWW, or from any press packets. What licence is appropriate for such items? Folajimi 02:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I have merged (or at least tried to) Wikipedia:Long article layout(weird thing that offered a different system) and Wikipedia:How to break up a page(not an actual how-to, and less detailed than WP:SS) into Wikipedia:Summary style. The result, however, is not excellent, and I would greatly appreciate help in working that page up to a real good guideline, since it is explicitely referred to by, amongst others, WP:WIAFA. Circeus 00:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
To get a sense for the possible level of support for accepting the proposal at WP:LISTS a poll is being conducted. Your comments will be welcome at Wikipedia_talk:Lists_in_Wikipedia#Poll:_WP:LISTS_upgrade_to_guideline ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
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Trying to draw comments to Wikipedia talk:Avoid self-references#Self-referential content
Is there any rule about content that refers to itself? Not referring to Wikipedia, but referring to itself. I think it's inappropriate, as it could lead to confusion, could be "broken" by other editors who don't understand the example, etc. Examples of typography, code, and so on should be explicit and separate from the text of the article. Some examples:
The Zakir Naik article, about an Islamic evangelist from Mumbai, seems to have settled down somewhat. The antagonists have basically accepted a division of the material into Naik's views, Naik-supporter views, and Naik-critic views. However, I am still at loggerheads with one editor who (IMHO) feels that the article is a great opportunity for dawa, Islamic evangelism, and that duplicate links to Naik's websites, video-taped lectures, and e-books should be scattered throughout the article.
I am trying to keep all such links in a sub-section of the external links section and moreover, trying to eliminate links to material that is already accessible through higher-level links. That is, if Naik's website has links to two e-books, I don't think we need to link the website AND then add separate links for each e-book.
Wallah96, the other editor, strongly disagrees, and keeps restoring duplicate links (once in the links section, once in the article) and multiple lower-level links. My admittedly jaundiced perception is that he believes the more links there are, the more likely it is that a random reader will click on one of them and be converted.
I would love to be able to cite our links policy and say, "Look, you aren't supposed to do that," but our links policy is silent on the issue of link multiplication. What are the view here on making "Do not multiply links without necessity" an official policy, and how would I go about rewriting the policy and getting a consensus behind the rewrite? Zora 22:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Why are additions of Template:prod supposed to be marked as minor edits? Ardric47 04:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I would like to ask you to comment on Wikipedia:No factions of belief, a new proposal to prevent Wikipedia from being split into factions of people who hold particular beliefs on certain issues, while allowing limited expressions of personal belief, and encouraging groups dedicated to working on shared interests (e.g. WikiProjects).-- Eloquence * 04:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Is currently being used to censor images, mostly of human penises, on the pretext of preventing vandalism of user pages. Currently, any user can add an image to the list; this is being done in some cases without discussion and without notification, and against consensus on the relevant article pages about the images. A user has proposed a simple change whereby images could be tagged for use only in articles, preventing them from being placed on user pages. This is a tidy solution that prevents both vandalism and censorship. I strongly object to the current system and its name. Exploding Boy 19:36, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
"Penis vandalism" heheheh. Exploding Boy 07:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
A number of articles on books and films consist partly or mainly of notes provided by the publisher/distributor. For example, The Reckoning contains unattributed text probably (I'm guessing) provided by the film distributor for publicity, see [1] [2] [3] [4]. Articles on books often contain text taken from the cover of the paperback edition. What is the policy on these matters? does the text stay in as useful, or is it pitched out as copyviol, plagiarism, unattributed, or what? Mr Stephen 10:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I have posted a proposal for this at Wikipedia talk:Spam#Proposal: Enable outside the main namespace. Please comment there. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 15:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
One editor i.e. user:Jossi at Talk:Prem Rawat argues that an article Past teachings of Prem Rawat can be merged with Prem Rawat in spite of 1) a failed AFD on the article Past teachings of Prem Rawat with the outcome "keep" and 2) an objection to the merge at talk:Prem Rawat. I think that Jossi's proposed procedure is wrong: I argue that the article cannot be merged unless it has been agreed on in yet another AFD on Past teachings of Prem Rawat. Who is right? Andries 08:07, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
The article in question is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crime Fiction which seems to be linked (judging by this blog, bottom of page) with hoaxing on Wikipedia connected to the minor actor Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rikki_Lee_Travolta claiming he was being considered for James Bond and that he wrote a book Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/My Fractured Life both of which involved inserting false information on this actor and book to a large number of Wikipedia articles. In this article [5] it states that the film was directed by Will Slocombe of the award-winning student film “Stoke Mechanics”, but Google shows no evidence that any such film existed or received any award. An interview on the local Chicago website the Chicagoist [6] reveals they actively hyped the film: "Were there any worries about posting up so many stories about conflicts on the set? Will: No. If Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Gangs of New York, and Citizen Kane are any indication, breathless stories about actor-infighting (and insleeping), directorial egomania, and suit skepticism all sell newspapers, which in turn sell movies.". Should we have articles on unreleased obscure movies? Doesn't it encourage exactly this sort of manipulation? Arniep 01:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I am involved in a dispute at Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images#Wikipedia:_Possibly_unfree_images.2FUS_government_portraits regarding the copyright status of official potraits commissioned by the U.S. government. Since this could lead to the deletion or "fair use" tagging of these images, some more input here is really needed here.
I listed Image:Rbreich.jpg as a PUI because the painter, Richard Whitney, does not seem to be a U.S. federal government employee and claims the portrait was commissioned. According to 17 U.S.C. §101 "A ' work of the United States Government' is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." If Richard Whitney was not employed by the DoL with the assigned duty of painting an official portrait, then I do not believe the image can be claimed to be public domain. Commissioned works and works for hire can still be copyrighted.
Some with the legal expertise or insight should comment here. If I am held to be right, then a great number of images clearly not created by a federal employee or officer will have to be de-tagged as PD.-- Jiang 19:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Even though I know I'm not yet eligible (is that misspelled?), I was wondering what the basic requirements are to become an editor? AK-17 13:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
How do we deal with editors who produce esseys, put them on personal websites and then have their "buddies" use those as references in articles? At Volunteer_Ministers, in the Reference section appears an original reseach, created by a Wikipedia editor who has administrator status. That link is: personal website and has Chris Owen ( User:ChrisO's) essey which is his own opinion and research on a subject. User:ChrisO actively edits the articles in Dianetics and Scientology, his buddies put his essey into the Scientology Volunteer Ministers article. Is it reasonable that a wikipedia editor have his buddies include links to his original research ? My comments on that discussion page have produced no results. Terryeo 09:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
If the request for arbitration has already failed, an incident report including the above statement would be your best bet. Simple banning for disruption is the next step. – Someguy0830 ( Talk | contribs) 01:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
When does the description of a political party's platform or program or the description of its declaration of principles construe bias? Is there a wikipedia policy or guideline in describing the ideology of political parties? Thanks! Intangible 20:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a bit dodgy. You can and should quote what the party says - that's sourced. You can equally quote what others say about the party. But to discuss the pros and cons, etc., without having a source is a violation of No Original Research. Runcorn 20:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the policy on talkpages for closed AfD nominations? I put in a speedy delete for this (which was reverted), since there's no explicable reason why this talkpage exists (and it's not really going in any useful direction either). Any help would be appreciated, thanks. --→ Buchanan-H e rmit™.. Talk to Big Brother 05:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Nobody's ever going to see it, except those of us who read Village Pump and find this discussion! Runcorn 20:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
It's time to overhaul wikigovernment: please see my userpage for a discussion. ShootJar 01:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
There are authority structures, like the ArbCom and the hierarchy of admins, bureaucrats, etc. If that's not a government, what is? Runcorn 20:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I've proposed imposing signature restrictions over at WP:SIG. In particular, I would like to see if there is consensus to prohibit images from signatures and to set a maximum character/byte size. Please comment! ~ MDD 46 96 23:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Within limits, it's harmless fun. Very few signatures are really awful. Runcorn 20:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Please see Image:Bellatrix Lestrange.jpg. Doesn't a "fan drawing" fall under Original Research? User:Zoe| (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If it's too close a copy of a photo, is it a copyvio? Runcorn 19:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I am looking for some reference of whether we can put home address,e-mail address,phone number or not. Where can I look for related policy? Thanks. borgx ( talk) 03:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If it's on their web page, fine (though you can just link their web page). If it's given in some standard work of reference like Who's Who, I can't see how anyone could object. Runcorn 19:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Over the past week, I've become really annoyed when all year references are wikilinked. If the article's subject is mentioned in the year, that's obviously fine. But I don't see the point in linking all years... any thoughts? RyanEberhart 23:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
If it's a biography and you don't have the exact date of birth, should you link the year, like John Smith ([[1885]]-[[1958]])? Runcorn 19:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
With the burgeoning amount of minor game mods that are having articles created, prodded, deprodded, and AFDd with increasing regularity, might it be a good idea to create a notability section on game mods? Certainly there are some mods, like Counter-Strike, that are indisputably notable, but these seem to be a minority. Stifle ( talk) 21:26, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
In my experience, putting {{ verify}} on is only effective if someone chases it up and eventually moves for deletion if it's not verified. That doesn't always happen! We also have to watch for adverts and vanity articles. Runcorn 18:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
As for adverts and vanity articles, well, as long as they're encyclopedic . . . — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 22:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi all.
Could someone please advise. I have been helping to edit the entry for 'private detective' which is very bare at the minute and has a minimum of useful information. To external links, I have added a professional investigators' association several times now, as it would obviously be a good place to get further information. However, this keeps being deleted with messages to me such as "Wikipedia is not a link farm nor does it promote individual associations". Could someone please clarify this for me? I have noted that many pages (for example, on doctors, vets and graphologists) carry links to respective associations. Why would professional investigators be any different? I am very new to Wikipedia, so any advice would be much appreciated. Blaise Joshua 15:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I am a professional investigator, hence my interest in the page. I haven't added any associations that are profit-making businesses. Blaise Joshua 08:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Earlier today, SlimVirgin ( talk · contribs) applied some large IP blocks to deal with a persistent vandal:
Those are AT&T DSL pool addresses, 1280 of them. This knocks out Wikipedia access for a sizable fraction of AT&T DSL users in Silicon Valley, even those logged in. That's overkill. Requesting a new IP address lease won't work when the block is that big; the new address will be blocked, too. I'd suggest that big-block IP address blocks be discussed first on the administrator's notice board. Those always have collateral damage, and should not be done without some admin consensus.
What's really needed is to finish the implementation of Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal, which was accepted but doesn't work yet. Is there a completion date on that? -- John Nagle 20:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
there needs to be a wiki-collection of music related stuff. there are a lot of tab wikis and lyric wikis, and are there any sheet music ones? but the point is they should all be together. then again, should they just be inside wikipedia. do song lyrics and such have a place on wikipedias pages?
Surely not all lyrics are copyright; if they author has been dead long enough, they're public domain. I could post everything by say Sir Arthur Sullivan. However, I would regard that as unencyclopaedic. Runcorn 19:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
See usability-related discussion initiated at Help talk:Footnotes#The bigger picture: use of "H:", "Phh", "Ph" and other related templates in Help namespace -- Francis Schonken 12:42, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Following banned user Zephram Stark's attempt to rewrite WP:SOCK using two sockpuppet accounts, there is a proposal to limit the editing of policy pages either to admins, or to editors with six months editing experience and 1,000 edits to articles. Please vote and comment at Wikipedia:Editing policy pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
If something that has a name, but is not notable enough for an article, is made into a redirect to the best place to find something on that subject, is it OK to categorise the redirect? Two current examples are Gorcrows and Merlock Mountains. Both are redirects to the relevant article, but have been categorised to appear in Category:Middle-earth races and Category:Mountains of Middle-earth respectively.
So is it OK in general to categorise redirects? I don't recall seeing this done anywhere, but I couldn't find anything about this at Help:Redirect. I've also asked this question at WP:Help Desk. Carcharoth 12:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
In addition, this would allow categories to be fully populated. Rather than having a "list article" for the full list, and only articles in the category, everything could be in the category. Carcharoth 13:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Please also see the discussion below, on scientific and common names. Rather fortuitously, maybe by some strange synchronicity, the one discussion concerns the other one as well! Carcharoth 20:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Having categorized a few redirects myself, I think it is a useful tool for alternate names and for divisions of a main article that are to stubby to warrant their own article. For instance, block vertebrae and butterfly vertebrae redirect to congenital vertebral anomaly, but their respective names are more likely to be what someone is looking for. -- Joelmills 21:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it ever appropriate for a user page to redirect to an article? Ardric47 22:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I have been active in Wik for a number of months and have started a number of articles. To-day, I wanted to enter an article on Manierre Dawson. Two times when I tried to do that, I was told I could suggest an article, but the 'you can write an article' was in red and struck through. A third time, I wasn't even given this option, being simply told that there were no hits. I thought the new policy on new articles only applied to unregistered and very new users. Kdammers 05:01, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion going about a specific template that was made to warn people that the page contains nudity Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_May_11#Template:Nudity_warning. I think it should be brough here as well as this involves a very basic change in the (unofficial?) policy untill now, and could brings us at the slippery slope of many content warning disclaimers. Kim van der Linde at venus 15:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Now, if people search for something, they find a wikipedia entry at the 1st position most likely. Good for wikipedia. However, this implies obligation to improve wikipedia in way towards what people are expecting from the internet.
What about a wikipedia 2.0, not to bother about my worries with policies (WP:EL), which must be fulfilled literally. At other places, we (not further explained) do not have this need. There are articles which do need more external links. Probably it is possible to argue, wikipedia would prejudice/filter/comment internet search action. There are numerous informations on the internet, which are not really encyclopedic (WP:NOR, WP:NPOV), but people are searching for them. People like me (who created a few good pages) should have the opportunity to include them into an article (
Aztec Calendar). It does not make sense to directly extend the article with this data. It is not advert/advert supported.
If you do not understand this, or if you mind my language skills, then consider the 3rd world. They search the net, and the 1st thing they see is a wikipedia article. My idea is it to make a (better) wikipedia 2.0, instead of criticizing its weak points, or to go into the various evidences of "articles in need". Never change a running system. But i do not think so. I believe wikipedia is a prototype, too much based on paper format (and color scheme). It would be a research piece to research about bad white. This suits for paper prints, but not for the internet. This means (you can derive it yourself), people are doing the wrong thing. Black on white=wrong, it actually hurts the eyes. Just one aspect, to enable people to customize the display colors. Much more, much more. I hope you get the idea about wikipedia 2.0; wikipedia 1.0 is just a prototype. It looks more helpful than to criticize it, or to abandon it, because wikipedia indeed supports a few topics, which oterwise do not have much room for internet publication. Encyclopedic means, if the Encyclopedia Brittania is going top include it in the future? If an editor (supported by admin friends) believes it important? If it has been printed somewhere? If it is useful for people? If lot's of people are talking about it? I do not exactly know.
If you make replies, then please about any of your wikipedia 2.0 (previously, color schemes have been suggested/discussed elsewhere). I do not have the time to go into it) Yy-bo 12:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Where to begin? Black on white is not in any way hard on the eyes. You read books, don't you? They're black on white. Second, Wikipedia is not Google. We do not need tons of external links. Third, your grammar is still verging on horrible. You need to accept this. Ignoring the results of your mediation attempt will not help. These suggestions will likely never be implemented because they detract from the encyclopedia. – Someguy0830 ( Talk | contribs) 21:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not believe in censorship - but at the same time can understand those who do not wish to view offensive images, but might still want to view an article. I believe Cool Hand Luke had a solution for this (ie 2 templates). I may be behind the times here, but offering more choice to the user does not seem a bad compromise in exceptional circumstances - not sure on the technical side of things.. From what I see Wikipedia is fairly liberal and a situation like the Abu Ghraib photos is an exception. Wikipedia is an amazing invention for the internet -- so any idea which propagates it, is all to the good. Is there a Wikipedia for children for example? -- Hopefully censored to some degree.
You're equivocating two issues: what is offensive and what is age-appropriate. Unless you're trying to say that anything adults take offense at is something that children should be prohibited from viewing, which is a bit of a non sequitor. Postdlf 23:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, so both the inclusionists and deletionists have been very strong in the userbox wars, but all the proposals so far have been very one sided... so, I have attempted to make a new, moderate proposal for everyone to (hopefully) agree on. See the proposal: Wikipedia:May_Userbox_policy_poll.
What this attempts to do is create a new namespace for Userboxes themselves, to move them out of the NPOV Template namespace; while I know Userboxes shouldn't need their own namespace, it's really the only viable solution I've seen, as deleting them all causes fury, substing them removes the community sense of Wikipedia, and keeping them makes the Template namespace have POVs- which it shouldn't have.
Also, MediaWiki dev Rob Church has stated that it would not be difficult to the developers to implement a new namespace, so don't let that factor into your vote.
Overall, I'm hoping to resolve this issue so that Wikipedians can get back to doing what they should be doing- helping us build a better encyclopedia. Thanks all, // The True Sora 18:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a proposed change to RfC policy [9] which you may be interested in taking a look at. Under the current wording, someone who has written an outside view cannot endorse any other view in the RfC. In practice, no one pays any attention to this at all, and so a removal of this restriction has been proposed. JoshuaZ 16:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If someone puts in an "outside view", can they just sign another section without saying anything? Runcorn 19:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, I really go crazy of the depressing flood of user boxes this Wikipedia has been undergoing last year. I am a strong proponent of deleting all of hem, perhaps except for the language skill templates, the location templates and the WikiProject boxes, that's it. However, I have a more fundamental solution for the user boxes problem: discard the user page namespace. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it is not intented for vanity. However this rule does not seem to apply for user pages - they are sometimes expended to sheer home pages or web logs. We should put an end to this. What I envision is a non-wiki page, comparable to "my preferences", where you can enter your real name (optional, of course!), your nationality/location, your profession, your expertise, your language skills and your home page (if you have one). Single login should automatically generate interwiki links. That really is enough. This topic borders to being better fitted for the technical village pump, btw.
Are there any people that agree with me? Here an example of what such a page might look like (all names are fictional!):
Looks quite trimmed. Personally it would feel like a liberation to me!
Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 21:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it feasible to have pages only visible to the logged-in users, where they can list articles in progress or have a personal sandbox? That's already the case for personal watchlists. Runcorn 18:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
But what about User_talk? Any restriction of the User page will simply result in its content being dumped into User_talk, so the only way to make it work would be to restrict both of them. Considering how vital User_talk is to Wikipedia's functioning, that would seem a very serious move. Fagstein 17:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a very funny proposal. Let's say the box you propose is placed at the left side of User_talk and you can also add optional photo above it. Try to imagine that layout. Now go to http://www.myspace.com and open a random user page! The similarity is striking, isn't it ;) Grue 18:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I put a discussion on the Admin/Incident page. It is probably better here. My problem is that two people get into edit wars over content. This degrades into name calling. If one is an admin, or has a good friend who is an admin, he/she pulls rank, and virtually says, the article is this way, end of story. If the other person debates this, it becomes typically personal, and the admin will start the name calling, eg, troll vandal etc. If the other person responds, and especially breaks a rule, the admin can ban that person. Does anyone else notice this? Does anyone have solution or a way forward? Thank you. Wallie 08:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Some editing had been occuring at Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages as well as a straw poll that would strengthen the limitations on length and content of signatures. This is currently being driven by a few editors, however as this is an issue which effects a very large number of users, wider input would be desirable. - brenneman {L} 08:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Recently much fun was had when during stub cleaning someone nominated a bunch of Jewish summer camps together with a bunch of Hasidic rebbes on AfD.
When someone has doubts on the merits of a particular article he can always go to the talk page before the entry ends up on AfD. Besides, AfD isn't a substitute for the {{ cleanup}} tag.
But where does one go when a whole class of articles look doubtful? It could be useful to set up a page where groups of articles can be discussed, to find out if they should be merged, improved or maybe thrown out altogether.
Such a page might also reduce the hostility on AfD when a group of articles ends up there; if large amounts of "cruft" are there there are the inevitable calls of "keep all bits of cruft", even if it's really crummy cruft. Dr Zak 22:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I have just placed the following on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism, it touches on a broad range of issues. Thank you. IZAK 09:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Articles on individual Christian churches/congregations get deleted regularly, because they aren't considered notable unless they reach a certain size or do something to distinguish themselves from every other church within their denomination. Synagogues (or Judaism-related topics generally) aren't being singled out. From the deleted history, this particular one did not have any information of substance beyond an explanation of its name. You could always try WP:DRV, but I can't see that succeeding here. Postdlf 17:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely nothing improper has been done here. Sending articles straight to articles for deletion is completely legitimate. If it wasn't vast amounts of articles would never get dealt with. Calsicol 18:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
For the first page, I feel I must argue in favor of deletion. Only 124 Google hits? Of course, I highly doubt that the user's vote was simply ignored. It's just that the deletion "votes" had much better arguments (show, don't tell) than the keep "vote". -- M1ss1ontomars2k4 | T | C | @ 04:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
If I give my sister my camera to take a picture, then I do the downloading from the camera to my PC, and then upload it to Wikipedia, am I the "creator" of the image, or is my sister, who pushed the button? Does my sister have to give permission for release, or is it my prerogative? User:Zoe| (talk) 19:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Copyrights made for hire are owned by the one who does the hiring (17 USC § 201(b)). If the work was not made for hire, the one who created it is the copyright holder, irrespective of motive (17 USC § 201(a)). — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 20:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there any way to prevent vandals from hiding an unsuitable article name behind a piped link? Like a link to Encyclopedia Britannica? Is the "hover" tag and the link name being shown at bottom left (in some browsers) the only way to check this sort of thing? Is there a way to turn off piping if you want to check an article for this sort of thing? Carcharoth 17:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Please look over this proposed policy: Event Proposal. This is a proposal I started along with PFHLai and Rklawton, as we have encountered issues with the lack of policy in guiding the posting of events as frequent editors in this Wikiproject. Feel free to provide comments and constructive criticism. This has already been up for discussion in the project's talk page for almost two weeks. Fabricationary 20:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone point me to any guidelines concerning the notability requirements for schools? Specifically, I'm wondering if we are to allow articles for every elementary school & high school in the US? That seems to be the precedent, but I would like to know if that is laid out anywhere. -- cholmes75 ( chit chat) 14:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
On the high school issue, a reasonably good article usually brings overwhelming keep results on AFD. There is no consensus on the elementary school issue, and as long as the article is reasonably good, it is unlikely that it will be deleted. Actually, I don't know if an article has to be reasonably good even, take a look at this kept on AFD version of St. Mary's Catholic in Portslade for an example of what I mean. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Buu, some kind of character from a cartoon, has what I consider a pretty excessive amount of fair use and/or completely unsourced images. Thirty-eight screenshots, to be exact. Does that seem a bit much for the purposes of illustrating a cartoon character? This situation was (accidentally) brought to my attention by Zarbon, who wanted my help putting yet another image in the article (his was a little movie). This editor has had a lot of problems in the past, leading him to several blocks and an RfC from me, so I'm hoping someone else here can weigh in on that article and make the changes that need to be made (if, in fact, I am correct here). It might be better if it doesn't come from me. If anyone here disagrees, and thinks 38 pics is a reasonable amount, please let me know. Thanks! Kafziel 04:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I've brought this article up before to no avail, and oddly enough was just talking with Angr about it this morning. Angr feels (and I think I agree, in so far as I understand the issue) that there's a serious fair use issue with the images. One think that makes it hard to fix is that one editor in particular (not Zarbon) feels an incredible degree of ownership on that article, as you can see from the talk page, and any change or "meddling" is likely to be followed by a great deal of argument. I haven't taken it on because I thought the task of building a consensus to prune on the article's talk page was just too daunting. But I think just pitching in and pruning isn't a good idea either. Perhaps a note on the talk page that it's being discussed here? · rodii · 14:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Currently, if someone wants to find something on Wikipedia, they have four main options as I see it:
The first two methods work well when you have a well-defined subject with a well-known name or that has well-known search terms associated with it. Those methods are not so good when you are not sure exactly what you are after, but you know the subject area - which is where browsing comes in. Which brings me on to redirects. Currently, while browsing in main article namespace, if you see something that looks like what you are after, you can click on it, even if it is a redirect. Thus technical terms can be phrased differently, in more familiar terms, making it more likely that people will recognise something and click on the link. Sometimes an editor will want to use a different phrase, but still point at a certain article, even if the article name is clumsy (for example, if it has disambiguation parentheses). This can be done by piping (using the "|" trick to hide the article name behind what you want the reader to see).
This makes browsing main article namespace and following links very intuitive and easy. A big problem, and I'm almost certain this has been raised before, is that you cannot do this in categories. There is no control over how an article name displays in category space. At the moment, the only way to get a genuinely alternative name to appear in category space is to categorise the relevant redirects, and, unfortunately, I don't see many people doing that, though I think it should be encouraged.
Finally, is there likely to be "piping" in category space any time soon? Carcharoth 17:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I know we do not allow redirects to user space, but some users seem to be getting around this by using categories. For an example see Category:Aviation statistics. Is this an accepted policy? Vegaswikian 23:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Signed: Travb ( talk) 11:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Fair use images in templates: exceptions -- I'd appreciate any comments on the associated Talk page. Thnx SteveBaker 14:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
At dead-end we get a large number of articles like ZSBoS, which contain adverts, whether added by a well-meaning inclusionist or a conniving exploiter, of such patent inappropriateness that it seems highly roundabout to go through the whole rigmarole of AfD, or even Prod, to get rid of them. For example, the cited example reads:
As far as I can see, this is not covered under any speedy deletion criteria, but i think it should be. This editor is clearly using wikipedia for apparently commercial purposes, in a cynical and blatant way. I propose some kind of {{db-vanity}} rule. Since every speedy deletion has to be taken care of by an admin, any bad faith or questionable speedy nominations would still be sent to AfD or whatever, but a criterion of this nature would help speed up the wikipurging process no end. Jdcooper 02:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Pages like that are routinely speedied as crap. We probably don't need an extra CSD for them. -- Tony Sidaway 02:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The policy change that was approved in December 2005 was: "In short, my proposal is to expand CSD A7 to include non-notable groups of people as well as individuals. This would apply to bands, clubs, organizations, couples, families, and any other collections of individuals that do not assert their importance or significance." (my highlighting) [11] CSD really should apply to organizations, because that was the wording that was voted on and approved. So why doesn't the current wording reflect this? Because of edits like this. GeorgeStepan e k\ talk 05:12, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The worst of crap is often deleted by G2 (vandalism). I would estimate that over half of all advertising articles get deleted for being copyvios of the companies' webpages. Otherwise, we always have a chance to improve an advertisement to a reasonably neutral article, so all is not lost if we fail to delete those things speedily. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
See Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary#Requested move. Alas, but:
I get the creepy feeling this is a test case for the Polish Cabal how far they can go in bending wikipedia their way. Note that Piotrus' argument regarding the dictionary resumes to: look how successful we've been thus far in replacing "Polish Biographical Dictionary" by "Polski Słownik Biograficzny" in many wikipedia articles (which is an unacceptable self-reference argument). It has been amply demonstrated by me that the English version "Polish Biographical Dictionary" is commonly used in *external sources* to refer to this multivolume dictionary, and not to the other, one-volume, one (see talk in archive).
Sorry, don't want to offend people doing hard work in WikiProjects on specific topics (like the Wikipedia:Polish Wikipedians' notice board).
Anyway, didn't surprise me a bit that Piotrus (the initiator of the vote above) opposes the new Wikipedia:No factions of belief proposal ( [12]), as far as I can see entirely for the wrong reasons. -- Francis Schonken 08:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
While I appreciate that this thread will bring more needed comments to the move page, and perhaps to the naming guideline itself, I don't appreciate Francis reposting his statements, bordering on personal attacks, about me being a Polish nationalist, member of some Polish CabalTM and editing Wikipedia articles to swing the vote, especially considering that I could have just moved the page like Francis did in the past instead of listing it on RM to let the community voice its opinion (not for the first time, as I have listed that issue on RfC some time ago, too). I asked Francis to explain his accusations on the article's talk page and await his reply there. That aside, I think Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) is a useful tool, and I believe it was advertised widely enough (many of those guidelines don't attract attention no matter what the creator tries...). Nonetheless the policy is not clear what to do when the only sensible English title is the same as the title of an already existing English publication. Given the choice between making creating a disambig and moving the article to a completly fictional title (like Polish Biographical Dictionary (Polish) as one of the discutants have suggested) and using the Polish name which is used by the majority of academic publications (Google Print test), I think the solution is simple.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Something else: you know where there's a difference between factionalism and a non-factionalist approach?
We have (for example):
And we have (for example):
The difference is that in the first case listing on the page is open to anyone, e.g. a heterosexual without any particular commitment to write LGBT articles, but committing him/herself to keeping the development of LGBT topics on en:wikipedia checked can list him/herself. The only condition/criterion is that you're "interested" and "active" (without any indicated qualification in what domain you're supposed to be "active" as a wikipedian), see Active Wikipedians interested in LGBT issues
In the second case the notice board is (by it's very name) limited to wikipedians that are Polish. There are no names listed of wikipedians interested in Polish topics (no names are listed on the notice board page, see below), but in all clarity, the thing is managed by people with a pro-Polish POV. And if you're not Polish, you need at least to write Poland-related articles (see intro of the page), or you're supposed even not to have business looking at the page.
So I recommend to rename Wikipedia:Polish Wikipedians' notice board to Wikipedia:Polish topics notice board (which could be done by WP:RM if we don't establish consensus here). I'd prefer not to use Wikipedia:Polish notice board while that might create misunderstandings with " Polish", the language. And rewrite the intro, making clear the page is for anyone interested in Polish topics.
Further I'd recommend to allow wikipedians to list their name on the page (like for any usual WikiProject-like page). And leave it up to those users whether they qualify their listing on the page with something like "not Polish, but interested", or just put their name, whatever their provenance or ability to speak a foreign language.
I think that the List of Polish Wikipedians (which on the notice board is a link to Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Poland - meaning that nor learning to speak Polish outside Poland, nor living abroad from a Polish descendance, nor being a professor in Polish history at a foreign university, etc, are sufficient to declare membership) should no longer be used as mechanism to list interest. After all, one might live in Poland, and be more interested in the LGBT notice board, than in a notice board on Polish topics... Listing oneself as a "Wikipedian from Poland" or as a " LGBT/Queer wikipedian" is entirely something different than listing on a notice board on a topic one is interested in. It's better to keep them separated IMHO, while I think not separating "interests" from "de facto membership criteria" is fostering factionalism.
So, that are some small steps I recommend towards a less factionalist approach. -- Francis Schonken 12:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Here's a cute one. Marketing managers of national brands aren't normally considered notable for Wikipedia purposes. If the marketing manager is for a band, does that make them notable? We've been arguing over this at Talk:Bill Ham, who was the manager for ZZ Top back when they were famous.
If you go down the list for notability in WP:BAND or WP:BIO, this guy doesn't really qualify. He didn't contribute musically. He's not listed as having won any awards, and there are awards a rock band manager could win. Nobody ever wrote a book about him. He didn't write a book about himself. There's only a little biographical info about him available on line. He was apparently a good band manager and promoter. He did record a record once himself, early in his career, but that apparently made it clear he had no future as a performer.
For other bands, the band's manager usually seems to have an article only if the manager was a musical contributor. Three Dog Night's manager isn't even mentioned. The Beatles' Brian Epstein does have an article, but that's an unusual case; someone is making a movie about him as "The Fifth Beatle". Britney Spears' original manager Larry Rudolph does not. Kenny Laguna, the manager of Joan Jett, does not.
Am I being too harsh here? Someone really wants him to have an article (why a '70s band manager would have a fanatical fan at this late date is puzzling, but whatever). Comments? -- John Nagle 19:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
In the #Offensive comments in afd discussions section above User:Arniep stated "the nominator of this article is Jewish and five of the delete votes at least were from Jewish users". How does Arniep know this, and why on earth would it make a difference, or even be relevant to this particular discussion? Can Arniep explain how he calculated this, and why he made this outrageously gratuitous and offensive statement? Jayjg (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Arniep, who are the 6 Jewish editors you have mentioned, and how do you know this? Jayjg (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Arniep stated "the nominator of this article is Jewish" ... As the nominator of the article, I'm not sure why Arniep thinks he knows this since I am careful to not state my ethnicity (or ethnicities), since it is irrelevant. Furthermore, I take offense that he would assume that I (or others) are somehow anti-Palestinian, based solely on alleged ethnicity, or that my proposal to delete a non-notable article that doesn't measure up to Wikipedia standards is somehow based on a racist agenda. It's ironic that someone so concerned about another editor being offensive makes comments a hundred times more offensive himself. -- MPerel ( talk | contrib) 22:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Arniep, let's recall that some of the most outspoken critics of Israel and some of the leading figures in the Palestinian rights movement are ethnic Jews. See Uri Avneri, Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, Adam Shapiro, etc. Like them or hate them, your conspiracy theory (let's call it what it is) doesn't hold true. For the future, please remember that it is wrong to mix ethnicity with political views. Considering that NPOV policy was not killed (pun intended) last time I checked, you are doubly wrong. This is my last post on the subject. ← Humus sapiens ну? 03:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not think this debate should continue; I have warned Arniep on his talk page that these generalizations and assumptions about religion/ethnicity cannot be tolerated (for Jews, Serbs, Catholics or anyone else), whether he believes they are justified or not. I gave this warning in my capacity as an administrator, and further issues are more properly a topic for Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard -- SCZenz 19:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
If a large number of commentors/voters belong to a small special interest group it is entirely proper to point that out. If these biases are not identified and discounted, Wikipedia is just a plaything of special interest groups. It is the consensus among global Wikipedians that matter. A "consensus" created by partisans is not a consensus at all and had no validity, but I don't think this point is observed nearly often enough. Bhoeble 13:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
In the article on the 70 steps plan (Belgium) an editor included a section "Further Reading" in which he mentions (as only entry) an earlier work by the author of the described plan. The "70 steps plan" (a plan for the 'solution of the foreigner problem' in Belgium) dates from 1992, the work mentioned in "Further Reading" dates from 1991. The work in question doesn't provide further reading about the "70 steps plan", but is a tract on the same subject as the plan. What is the general feeling about this ? In my view, the "further reading" section should contain textbook about an article's subject. Thanks for your input.-- LucVerhelst 20:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Please see User:ShootJar/ProtectionProposal for a new idea on combatting vandalism and protecting pages.
As a result of an RfC, I stumbled into an edit war at Rotary International, where I found some "click on a name to read an article about..."-type comments, which I removed, partly following WP:SELF, but mostly because I felt at the time that it was a downright unnecessary and silly thing to say on the internet: where a person incapable of realising you click the links is unlikely to have gotten here in the first place.
Anyway, my edit was reverted by user:PierreLarcin2, whose comments on the article's talk page, and my own talk page, indicate that he is blind, and that he finds headers of that kind useful on his browser. Several users have pointed out that there is no great merit in editing a single article for greater accessibility by the blind, and the suggestion was made to bring the matter to the Village Pump, which I am now doing. Here are some preliminary questions I have, although I invite comments on the subject generally:
PS There is a substantial (if rather rambling) discussion to be found here: Talk:Rotary International#Membership: Explanation of how to use links. AndyJones 20:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
One method used by screen reader software to identify links is to change the gender of the voice. For example, plain text might be read in a male voice and links in a female voice. StuRat 13:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian views of Hanukkah, somebody opined that there was a copyvio. The text in question was extracted from the Hanukkah page. Turns out it was originally added in 2004. That is, the cited page is actually a copy of Wikipedia from several months later than the original section!
Remember, folks cite Wikipedia without attribution. The fact that Google finds them does not make a good test for copyvio.
The articles about missiles and unguided rockets badly need a naming convention, especially the Russian ones. So I'm posting it here as requested on WP:NAME. - Dammit 14:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Background: If an admin just "doesn't like your face", and finds an excuse, and bans you forever. Note there are many many rules, and just by writing any text in an article it could be considered POV, or trolling etc, and these are just the simple rules.
Can you:
This is not targeted towards anyone. It is just what I interpret the policy could allow. Wallie 15:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Just curious what the policy is on this... the article on " Baby Carrots" was brought to my attention by a merge proposal, and the article as it stood was about "Baby Carrots", not about baby carrots (hope you get my meaning). The original writer of the article has been quite understanding and no edit war arose (we're working together on a better version), but I'm just curious how such things should be handled in less friendly situations. At least a partial explanation is on the talk page for the article (we were back and forth on user talks for a while earlier), but my more general question is about how to write a good article that points out the differences between traditional and commercial uses without getting soapboxish about the virtues of one meaning or the other. SB Johnny 21:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Since discussion of userboxes and their speedy deletion was overwhelming Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion, some of us decided to try to organize the enormous, sprawling, and often repetitive debate over the criteria T1 and T2, as applied to userboxes. Thus, we have a new page: Wikipedia:T1 and T2 debates, and all of the discussion of those criteria that was at CSD talk is now at Wikipedia talk:T1 and T2 debates.
At the main page, we're trying to somehow organize and fairly and neutrally present all of the relevant arguments regarding userboxes, their recent deletions, and their eventual fate. Editors are very welcome to help out with this project, which I hope may point the way towards a sensible resolution of the current drama and consternation. - GTBacchus( talk) 08:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
do you beleive in caste sysetm !! this is the basic question and if so , do you not beleive in global community
we as humen being are same
only economic conditions may requoire help and assistance for thre upliftment we can not keep reserved seat only on grouds of caste basis
doing so will hamper the rights of other deserving people -- <anon>
The Wikipedia does not support the action of no criminal, much less protects the same. It's correct. what's this: Wikipedia:No legal threats? -- Eduardo Corrêa 08:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean by that? – Someguy0830 ( Talk | contribs) 08:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Which is the punishment by fight to his rights? Someone spoke me: you would be blocked in the wiki. It's truth?
--
Eduardo Corrêa 23:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
As an amateur herpetologist and former snake keeper, I recently took an interest in writing articles on the many different species of vipers (see Viperidae). I really only started doing this in earnest back in April this year. The very first problem I recognized, was that there was no common structure to tie all of the existing articles together. For example, sometimes only a subspecies was described, but not the species, the genus or the subfamily to which it belongs. This is not very orderly -- chaotic even -- and a waste if the descriptions in such articles cover characteristics common to an entire family. Wikipedia obviously has a lot more growing to do, so I think it would be in the best interest of everyone to prevent this kind of disorder from getting out of hand before the number of articles on biological organisms becomes too great.
The most obvious structure to apply here is systematics: the science of taxonomy and binomial nomenclature. More than a million species of animals and half a million species of plants and microorganisms have been described by science and I'm sure that it is everyone's hope and wish that we will eventually see Wikipedia articles dedicated to each and every one of them. However, it is obvious to myself and others that the current policy of using common names over scientific names for page titles whenever possible (the consensus for which I hear has only been more or less agreed upon) is simply not good enough to achieve this end. What we need is a standard for naming articles on biological organisms that is predictable, promotes structure and prevents the propagation of errors. The best way to achieve this is with scientific names: not common names with a needless array of redirects and disambiguation pages.
Except in the case of birds, where the American Ornithologists' Union has established official common names for each species, there are often many different common names. Snakes are a good example. Take Sistrurus catenatus: if this page were to be changed to a common name, should it be massasauga, or eastern massasauga, or ground rattler, or swamp rattler, or even Michigan rattler? Those are all recognized common names for this species, particularly in the United States, but naming Wikipedia's page for it should not be reduced to a popularity contest. There is one perfectly valid name for this species, recognized the world over, and that is its scientific name: Sistrurus catenatus. Only then can there be no doubt regarding the subject of the article.
Another thing I've noticed about Wikipedia, is that only the article names get indexed, as opposed to redirects and entries in disambiguation pages. This is hardly surprising, but if ten years from now we have 100,000 articles on biological organisms -- most with common names -- this will make the indexes pretty much useless. How can you be sure how many Trimeresurus articles there are if they're scattered all across the index? There are currently 43 different species and subspecies, yet if the standard was to use only scientific names for each page, they would all be found under the T and line up neatly under the entry for Trimeresurus.
Let's take a further look at this with some current indexing examples.
Looking again at that Eagle page, it reminds me of how common names do not encourage any structure when writing articles on biological organisms. There are many genera of eagles listed there, yet it seems the authors have spent most of their time producing articles only for the individual species. It would have been far more efficient to tackle the families, subfamilies and genera first. Those are the places to describe the defining characteristics of each in order to avoid having to repeat them in each of the species articles. A single eagle article to describe a number of genera is not specific enough. If all of the species are going to be described anyway, the more structured approach is also the best way to show people the differences between the various eagle genera.
Recently, one Wikipedian argued that things should be left as they are, because for a "normal" person to look for "gaboon viper" and end up with Bitis gabonica would be too jarring an experience. I say that if systematics is the best way for Wikipedia to self-organize, then why shouldn't we encourage people to follow and learn? We can still use common names as redirects, in disambiguation pages, and even make liberal use of them if necessary in the actual articles; that way, people will still know what they are about. But just as long as we emphasize the importance and use of scientific names for organizing those articles. I also believe that this is a good way to attract more interest from graduate students, professionals and other more knowledgeable individuals who would then be more willing to write articles for us. Which is what we want, right?
It is said that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. As opposed to common names, binomial nomenclature is the best way to illustrate how the different species are related because of the way they evolved. Those names are a reflection of our current understanding of how life evolved on the planet. If Wikipedia is still around in some form or another 100 or even 1000 years from now, our generation will not be remembered as much for the articles that we wrote, as for the structure and organization that we imposed upon them at this early stage, which in turn allowed it all to grow properly and thrive.
In case you're interested, I've argued before in favor of scientific names over common names on my user:talk page and on the Tree of Life page. At one point it was suggested to me that this was the proper place for me to state my case. I hope so, as well as that reason will eventually win the day concerning this issue. -- Jwinius 19:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia policy is to use titles which are the most commonly known to the average reader, not to the scientific community. Should we call blackbirds turdus? Who's going to know that? Call it by the common name and redirect the scientific name. User:Zoe| (talk) 19:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree entirely that both common names and scientific names should be listed in the category system, but in separate areas. Thus people would be able to choose the option to browse by common name, or by genus name. One way to do this is to categorise redirects, but really any method would be OK as long as people retain the option to browse either way. We should not force people to browse only one way. Can someone please pass these ideas over to the people working on biological articles. Carcharoth 20:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Nobody is suggesting that Wikipedia be turned into some kind of a platform for scientific publications; only that there is a better naming convention for the articles. Binomial nomenclature isn't just popular with scientists: it's a common language for normal people all over the world who just want to make sure that they're all talking about the same organisms. The Linnean system has done a great job at this for almost 300 years, which is why not using it is big a mistake. Why reinvent the wheel?
To suggest creating redirects for scientific names instead is to miss the point entirely. That is to trivialize the value and ignore the utility of the binomial system:
It is ridiculous to say that those in favor of scientific names are out to stop people from using common names or something. Even if the blackbird article was renamed Turdus merula, most of us, including myself, would still think of a blackbird as a blackbird. However, scientific names inspire both authors and readers alike to think about the big picture. Since this particular blackbird (there are many other blackbirds) it is a member of the genus Turdus, we learn that it is a thrush just like Turdus migratorius, the American robin (a misleading common name). They both belong to the subfamily Turdinae (true thrushes), and in turn the family Turdidae (thrushes, robins, chats, and wheatears). Each of these groups has its own defining characteristics. In other words, a blackbird is not just a blackbird and the way we write and organize the articles in Wikipedia should reflect this. -- Jwinius 12:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Has anyone ever suggested combining the common and scientific names in the titles? Then we would have, for example: American robin (Turdus migratorius) and Lion (Panthera leo)? Other examples would be Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus), and so on. Carcharoth 19:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I have heard conflicting statements on whether a user may blank (not archive) their talk page. I am unable to find official policy one way or another. Some admins claim that the user's talk page is an official record of other people's interaction with you while other admins claim that you have as much right to blank the page as others do to place comments there in the first place. WP:OWN comes in to play here and I tend to fall on the side of the no-blanking people. However, I am at a loss as to what the official policy is. Can someone point me in the right direction with an unambiguous determination? While this is most definitely not an academic question, I will never blank my own talk page. -- Yamla 16:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I should point out that it is indeed blanking of current warnings that I am most concerned about. Removing warnings that are a month or three old is probably a different matter. But what about a user who is removing current warnings? We seem to think this is not acceptable? -- Yamla 17:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
And then there's the type of user who blanks out comments in their talk page from people they dislike, sometimes with snarky edit comments like "Deleted unread... I *told* you not to post to my talk page!" This seems akin to the childish practice of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and saying "La La La I Can't Hear You!". *Dan T.* 14:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a policy I have proposed that will make it easier to distinguish the point in an article's edit history when it receives/looses featured status from the current revision of the article.-- Conrad Devonshire Talk 01:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that Wikipedia put all featured articles under the semi-protection policy for their stay on the main page. On May 28th, 2006, anonymous user 209.172.32.70 vandalized the Jarmann M1884 article multiple times, deleting large portions of it and replacing them with nonsense. His or her edits were later reverted; nevertheless, several people saw the article with his or her edits in place, and putting featured articles under the semi-protection policy for their 24-hour exposition on the main page could prevent another similar incident. 69.177.176.154 14:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Hmains 15:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
(numbered) The 7-day debate was completed a couple of days ago.
Sorry, I left out the word 'not': I do not agree with the deletion.
I think that categories are useful only if they are supported by content in the articles. If the article says the person has F00 ethnic/national origin, then an ethnic category is correct; if the article is wrong, then it and its categorization can and should be corrected. If we cannot accept the article content as 'fact', why would other references added to lists be accepted as better?
If there is a plan to delete a category and replace it with a list, I think the proponent should be required to first put all the people then currently in the category into the list and not rely on the 'hope' and 'wish' that this will be taken care of later by editors of the list. Again, the bio article editors may know nothing about such lists.
Thanks Hmains 19:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Please consider this guideline proposed as an addition to the Manual of Style: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction).-- ragesoss 22:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
According to current banning policy, a user remains community banned when they satisfy: "Some editors are so odious that not one of the 915 administrators on Wikipedia would ever want to unblock them."
So according to this sentence, if any single admin is willing to unblock a user, then consensus to block does not exist. This sentence has two problems. Firstly, it discounts entirely the opinions of nonadmins. Why should only an admin's willingness to unblock matter? What if a dozen good-faith editors ask for a user to be unblocked, but no admins are willing. This is probably an unrealistic situation; if there are a dozen users willing to stand up for another, then there is an admin also willing to listen. Nevertheless, the wording is bad.
Secondly, does the existence of a single admin willing to unblock really constitute consensus? This sentence has been invoked recently in ArbCom cases and on AN/I to override nearly unanimous consensus that a user should remain blocked. It does make sense that permbans should require a very strict supermajority kind of consensus, but is 100% too high?
Note that recent unilateral unbans of two extremely controversial permbanned users have apparently recently caused 2 admins ( 1 2) to leave the project. These unbans are perfectly justifiable in the name of this policy. I propose that this policy is too extreme, and should instead rely on more conventional forms of consensus. WIthout requiring a formal vote-like consensus building forum, shouldn't something like an informal discussion with nearly unanimous support like the one linked be strong enough form of consensus? No need to formalize this rule. Just delete the offending sentence ( added last July by David Gerard). - lethe talk + 20:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
This sentence has been used in defense of linuxbeak's controversial unban, as well as in recent ArbComm cases. - lethe talk + 20:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
No, the unanimity phrasing is both important and functional. It is important because it rules out unequivocally the possibility that some have tried to exploit recently of banning a user by a quick straw poll in a section of AN/I among the admins who happen to spot it on their watchlists before it is 10 sections from the bottom. It is functional because, if the one admin disagrees, they can only continue to unblock for so long as their courage permits. If they persist in the face of overwhelming opposition then the subject will get repeatedly reblocked, adn the dissenting admin will undoubtedly be wheel-warring. If it came to such a situation which, to my knowledge it never has, it is reasonable to suppose an Arb case would result with a rapid injunction. In the case to hand, there is not a single admin prepared to unblock at present: Linuxbeak did it once, was quickly reversed and has not repeated the action. The admins are, for now, unanimous. The opinions of non-admins matter, but do not ultimately have an effect in such situations since none of them are the ones who will take the fall for (un)(re)blocking. - Splash talk 21:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
When I wrote that sentence, the context was that people were having trouble accepting such bans as being things only Jimbo or the Jimbo-like powers invested in the ArbCom by him could create. It was to point out that if someone is that much of a troublemaking troll/arsehole/crazy person, and not one of the (then) 500+ admins — all of whom could be presumed to have passed a basic sanity check by getting nominated and accepted as admins — could be bothered unblocking, then the block was probably one of substance. As sometimes happens around Wikipedia, some have tried using this somewhat casual statement of the obvious as a rule to be bent into weird shapes using the same words. (A good example of why process, although important, is not more important than either product or not being stupid.) I hope the spirit of it remains clear enough for sensible use, if not lacking-in-sense use - David Gerard 21:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
By the way, I strongly object to the idea that a few admins should be able to essentially strongarm consensus by threatening to leave if they don't get their way. That's not actually what happened here, but using the decisions of certain members to (quite likely temporarily) leave Wikipedia as grounds for favoring a policy change is a Very Bad Idea. More cynical and angry people than I, and I neither share their assumptions nor their assumptions' opposites, have suggested that SlimVirgin et al. left precisely in order to effect some kind of backlash against Linuxbeak, or otherwise get their way. Even if they didn't, a question I don't feel I'm competent to judge, it's bad policy to allow anyone the opportunity to do things like that. If someone wants to leave Wikipedia, don't bend Wikipedia around them to get them to stay. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pav Akhtar is currently assessing the notability of someone formerly active in student politics who has recently become a councillor. His ward will contain about 5000 people, including nonvoting minors. I nominated the article at Afd (and csd - the originator removed it). My understanding of WP:BIO is that as he does not hold "international, national or statewide/provincewide office" he is non-notable. More opinions (of whatever flavour) to assert the level of the bar, please. Mr Stephen 23:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I've got a question.
I made a mistake (?) recently on a talk page (I forgot it was a talk page) and removed a comment that could be insulting towards the person in question featured in the article. I realized by looking later at my contributions that I actually censored by accident someone's (loud and opinionated) opinion. Where does wikipedia stand on this? Should all comments be allowed, or should the obvious negative comments be removed? For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Robert_Smith_%28musician%29&action=history ...
-- mimithebrain 04:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I find this edit upsetting and offensive [21], (instead of voting delete, to vote "kill" on an article about a member of the ISM who was shot by the IDF). Is there any policy or guideline that would prevent users making edits such as this as I feel such comments can only add a feeling of hostility to the project which should not be what we want here. Arniep 01:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
This complaint is ridiculous, does anybody actually believe that Arneip was actually offended? I found the basis of his "indignancy" either extremely disingenuous or unbelievably silly.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 06:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
You know what's far more offensive than the use of the word "Kill"? It's Arniep's statement that "the nominator of this article is Jewish and five of the delete votes at least were from Jewish users". How does Arniep know this, and why on earth would it make a difference, or even be relevant to this particular discussion? Care to explain, Arniep? Jayjg (talk) 13:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Prometheuspan 21:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC) The use of intentionally insulting, derogatoary, or inflammatory language ought to be banned from vfds and for good reason. A vote should be based on neutrality. logic, reason, and a strong sense of relevant policies, not appeals to emotion. Again, wikipedia obviously needs to learn about conversational logic. An appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy, and should be treated no differently than any other logical fallacy; with sharp education first, and disciplinary action if further abuses continue. I find racism disgusting also, but at this point, this is actually changing the topic to attack the person, rather than deal with the issue. I'm not taking sides. Both sides of this argument should go read up on conversational logic and apologize to each other. Prometheuspan 21:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC) Prometheuspan 21:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
When editing articles, we "agree to license our contributions under the GFDL." Now the GFDL allows free redistribution and modification, as long as the original authors are credited. These credits are done via the page history, where the usernames of contributors are noted, with a link to the users' pages, where they can, if they so wish, identify themselves with their real names. Thus, as long as the entire database is being distributed, there is certainly no violation of the licence.
Now, I noted that you can download stripped versions of the database, containing only the current versions of the articles. This appears to be a violation of the GFDL, since there is no way to link texts to their copyright owners if the full page history is not provided. To the best of my knowledge, contributors do not yield their copyright to Wikimedia, with Wikimedia in turn publishing the material under the GFDL (in which case a single "from Wikipedia" credit would suffice); rather, they publish their contribution under the GFDL, allowing Wikimedia and anyone else to host it with proper attribution. All Wikipedia mirrors that do not also mirror page histories are of course also in violation of the GFDL if I am correct, but it strikes me as particularly questionable if even Wikimedia itself offers GFDL-violating database dumps for download. dab (ᛏ) 09:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Coming back to the authorship algorithm, I'm not sure it would work. Someone can write a relatively small percentage of the text that has a disproportionat effect on the article; no automatic algorithm is likely to pick that up.-- Runcorn 19:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
CREATIVE PRODUCTS. As far as I can tell, capitalizing every letter of this company name is accurate. But, it's inconsistent and rather ugly. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (ALL CAPS) doesn't cover this. What's the policy? ~ Booya Bazooka 00:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Is there a set policy concerning the proper way to list a rank of a given institution? For example, at the Virginia Military Institute article there is a dispute occuring partly due to the use of the words "number one", "first out of 20", or "top". I couldn't find any link to a policy concerning rankings under the Manual of Style. Thanks. Cowman109 Talk 00:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Because wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and strives to be as accurate as possible, shouldn't we have a scientific point of view, rather than a neutral point of view?
It becomes very difficult to edit articles on pseudoscience, such as astrology, when describing the scientific point of view is treated as a form of bias. For example, there is strong disagreement on mentioning the mainstream scientific view in the introduction to astrology, as it is might be considered as bias. I think implementing a scientific point of view, will go a long way in improving the quality of articles on wikipedia. At the least, we could amend the NPOV, so that more emphasis is provided to the mainstream scientific view, when disputes arise. 59.92.62.97 15:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I just had a look at the astrology page. The introduction and the few other sections I looked at were all excellent. I don't think it's a good idea to slant the NPOV toward the consensus of mainstream science. Doing so, after all, wouldn't be NPOV any more as it presumes the superiority of scientific knowledge over other types. Besides, mainstream science has at many times throughout history endorsed utter gibberish. We shouldn't feel immune to this possibility in our era any more than Newton should have in his.
Blaise Joshua 20:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
siddharth 04:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC) The point is, IMO, the scientific method is superior because it works. The only way to test a hypotheisis is by experiment, and this will straight away show what is right and what is wrong. So, as far as we are concerned with the accuracy of something, science is what we turn to.
Just look at Demarcation problem#Demarcation in contemporary scientific method. Can you really objectively say whether something is parsimonious, pertinent, etc.? I doubt it. It's perfectly sufficient to say "nearly all scientists believe this idea is total garbage"; that gets the point across. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
As for "examples of when mainstream science has supported absolute gibberish", you have to define "mainstream science" first. You haven't. If you take it as "consensus of people with extensive formal education in the subject", then ridiculous theories abound. If you take it as "consensus of people who follow the scientific method in the subject", then you have to define the scientific method so rigorously that it can be applied by an average person without significant ambiguity to any particular case. When you do that, we can discuss treating scientists' views differently from those of other people; until then, "scientific point of view" will be equal to "the point of view that most editors support". — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 09:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Utter gibberish? Well, just one example that made me smile today - Dr Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment Centre (Chicago) asserted that: "Pizza eaters' favourite toppings show a correlation to their behaviour. Ordering a pizza together can be very revealing for someone who wants to get to know the person they are dating." According to the Irish Daily Mail's item on his findings, researchers say men who order a pizza with a single topping of meat, like ham or pepperoni, are likely to be irritable and indecisive. This Dr Hirsch has apparantly conducted numerous studies, many of of which have been published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Call me a unqualified skeptic if you will, but it's very hard to read of "scientific research" like this without the words "utter gibberish" springing to mind. It makes astrology seem quite plausible. But then again, I may be wrong. Maybe this a major breakthrough and instead of the psychometric tests we're all used to on job applications we'll just be asked to order a pizza instead. Blaise Joshua 12:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
How does one meaningfully apply the scientific point of view to the majority of subjects that fall into the fields of art, jurisprudence, history, philosophy, or religion? Science is a powerful tool, but there are limits to its ability to find truth. Many areas of human endeavor fall outside the umbrella of scientific knowledge yet are still encyclopedic in nature. Consider the article on Jesus, there is no scientific method currently available to prove or refute the claims that he lived around the early 1st century CE (this is true for historical figures in general), yet his influence on Western society through the credited founding of a major religion is irrefutable. Similar limitations are faced when trying to use a scientific point of view to analyze the meaning of an artwork, judge the fairness of a legal system, or when searching for the meaning of life. Using a scientific point of view when dealing with any article that falls outside the scope of scientific inquiry simply adds a bias that is unneeded in an encyclopedia article. -- Allen3 talk 13:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I fail to see how putting a mention that "some critics view Astrology as a psuedo-science" is harmful to the overall article, it's not compromising any beliefs as your baisicly saying "some people say this, others say this" Also an encyclapedia isn't neccesarilly SPOV, sure an article on Astrology would start out with "Some critics argue" but a majority of the article wouldn't be all that concerened with what mainstream science thinks, likewise an article on Darwins Theory of Evolution wouldn't state it as absolute fact. So in closing we shouldn't hold Wikipedia to SPOV because well most encyclapedias arn't SPOV.
Deathawk 02:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
If people are removing dictionary definitions and adding a link to Wiktionary, should the removed content be added to Wiktionary if it is not there? I think so, otherwise you are effectively removing material without going through the transwiking process. I am thinking in particular of disambiguation pages, where it is common to replace dictionary definitions with a link to wikitionary. Unfortunately, the wiktionary entries sometimes lack the definitions that were removed from Wikipedia. What should be done in those cases, especially if an editor does not have time to go and add it to Wiktionary themselves? Carcharoth 17:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Have there been any proposals to have the self-referential tools "What links here" and "Special pages" used in article namespace for the readers of Wikipedia? I have seen people linking to Special pages, especially the index prefix one. I haven't seen people linking within an article to a "what links here" page for an article, but I suspect it has been done somewhere. I agree that these are useful tools for the readers, as well as the editors, but in their current incarnation they are rather self-referential. Are the tools advertised to readers as an alternative to the options of: searching, browsing (categories, portals, navigational boxes)? Carcharoth 11:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I found Wikipedia:Basic_navigation which points readers towards these useful tools. However, they are not really held up as useful browsing tools, which I think they are. Would anyone object if I wrote something on how to use these tools to browse Wikipedia? Even better, does anyone know of something that exists already, written for readers, not editors? Carcharoth 17:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it's a case of WP:IAR; do whatever improves Wikipedia. -- Runcorn 17:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
"Yet it's not _identical_ (think for example of -ise and -ize. -ize is as rare as hen's teeth in Australia, but is endorsed by many sources in England; British Oxford dictionaries prioritize -ize, but the Australian Oxford Dictionary has -ise as the main form; program is more used in Australia than in Britain; etc.;" I was aware all along that Britsh spelling (I read this on this page) allowed for both the -ise and -ize eidings after haiving read that, however I ommitted to mention it all along for the simple reason that most Australians (I was one of them before I read it in that article) think of -ize as "American" spelling, I appricate JackLumber for mentioning the manual of style after all that time Jack had tried to tell me about "British" and "Australian" "spelling differences" but gave me no evidence until then. I have been wondering about the origens of the -ise spelling, could it somehow have come from German? Could -ise also have become as "rare as hen's teeth" in Australia as a result of Germanisation (although this leaves unexplained why it didn't happen in the USA) too? I have notced a mistake in the table, the word 'fiord' is not used in New Zealand, they call them by the Maori term for them which I can only half-remember. The other one is that spellings of the word 'manoeuvre/maneuver/manoeuver' are given in the UK/US/CA columns but not in others (we do use that word here in Australia, I wonder what the German equivelet term is), and according to that column there 'is' such a thing as "Commonwealth spelling" so Jack was wrong to call it an incorrect term, also according to that column, "British" spelling is also utilised for writing Irish English, so "British spelling" does turn out to be an NNPOV term after all, but it is an NOR term. Myrtone@Doco.com.au:-)
The reason I added this here is because I tried doing this on Doco's talkpage but Doco removed it for no apparant reason. Myrtone@Village pump (policy).com.au:-(
"the MoS is wrong. There's no Commonwealth authority estabilishing a "Commonwealth" spelling; strictly speaking, each Commonwealth nation has its own spelling system." Then why does it have it in the first place, then again, why hasn't anyone removed it? And the reason I put it on Doco's talkpage is because I wanted a comment from a Non-native English speaker, I have now put it here. In this whole discusssion, I have not had one comment from a non-US wikipedian, let alone a non-UK/US user. Myrtone@Village pump (policy).com.au:-(
Why shoudn't I know that about Kiwi English, their treatment of 'fish and chips' is 'fush 'n' chups' unlike us Australians. Myrtone@Village pump (policy).com.au
Moved to Talk:Backronym.
Is there a policy in which an article must be written in third person? If not, I suggest it should be made. -- Dom th e dude 0 0 1 20:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I've certainly spotted some parts of articles written in the second person. Usually instantly deletable, borderline illiterate rubbish. -- Necrothesp 23:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I support the above; I'd do something about any second and certainly first person text I found. -- Runcorn 15:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I have been thinking about this a while. I can't decide whether an article about a hospital is per se notable. Example is Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital although there are many many more out there. Should these be included? Should these be deleted? I'm new here and I really don't know, and can't seem to find any precedent. Sometimes, what looks like (to me) non-notable stuff has an article, sometimes I see them being prod-ed. Is this the right place to discuss this? If so, what are your opinions? If not, where should I move this to? :) Thanks! JByrd 17:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Seems to me that some institutions are notable, for example major universities. Too many rules would rather straitjacket contributors. -- Runcorn 07:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Note from our archive page: After 7 days the [archived] discussion will be permanently removed. Why?? I can think of several good reasons why VPs discussions should be preserved: 1) Wikipedia is not paper, 2) the discussion contain important issues related to a) Wikipedia's history and b) decision making process (I recently wanted to refer ppl to an older discussion here... but all I can do is to refer them to history page) and c) study of Wikipedia, and 3) many other Wikipedia's namespace discussions are preserved (admins noticeboard, regional noticeboards, etc.). I'd therefore like to propose the change to the archiving process so the current discussions are not deleted but moved to archival sections and that all deleted discussions are restored to older archives.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
User A writes a comment on a talk page, and his comment contains a spelling error. User B edits User A's comment to correct the spelling error. Is this against Wikipedia custom, Wikipedia policy, or neither? —
WCityMike (
T |
C) ⇓ plz reply HERE (
why?) ⇓ 02:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
If it's fixing a broken link, can't you just put the correct link in a separate comment? -- Runcorn 19:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I find there is a problem. The best and brightest Wikipedians are the admins. However, before this some of them were even ordinary users. My point is that the main function of Wikipedia is to write articles, or am I wrong? The best authors are promoted to be admins. At that stage, they change function. They then become like, well, Military Police officers, and the senior ones Judges tracking and punishing small time vandals. After the best authors have changed function, the vandals will all be gone, but the articles will not be as good. Is this really the way forward? Wallie 18:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Is the suggestion that all the best and brightest Wikipedians are the admins? Aren't there any good editors who have declined adminship? -- Runcorn 17:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'd like to know something about the licence thing. I translated an article from the english wikipedia: McLibel case into french. There are two pictures that I would like to use in the french article. One of the picture is copyrighted, the other has got a weird status that I didn't get. Is it possible to use it in my french article? How to do it? Is there anyone who could help me about this problem
Thanks,
Ajor
The article in french: McLibel
Vandalism by "clean up" is wrong. I had a good edit. This was my edit: [22]. I worked hard on that edit. It seems EurekaLott ( 07:08, June 5, 2006) didn't even read it. The left-hand tab says project. EurekaLott's so-called "clean up" of 07:08, June 5, 2006 was therefore wrong. It seems to have been automated, without any thought.
I spend a fair bit of time doing this sort of "cleanup"--articles on software-related subjects in particular are magnets for spam or just gratuitous mentions for the purpose of raising pagerank. So some practical guidelines have emerged independently on a number of articles.
So a lot of what I do is pruning external links and redlinks from articles, looking for spam, SEO, self-promotion, registration-only sites that turn into sales pitches, disguised google ad sites, etc., sometimes very deviously salted among large lists of legitimate sites. Figuring out which are the quality links and which aren't is a tedious process, and involves some personal judgment and inevitably some mistakes, no doubt. In this particular case, the judgment would have been easy, though--legit or not, those links were in the wrong place, and a couple wikilinks (maybe Google and Yahoo) would have done the trick--but oh, wait, those, and more were already in the article. As an aside, please go easy on accusations of vandalism. Vandalism doesn't mean "an edit that makes me mad." Good faith edits are never vandalism.· rodii · 16:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I have always taken WP:V at face value when speaks of published sources. Specifically, internal-use-only sources, no matter how reliable, are not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to suggest calling the agency. I seem to be having a problem explaining this to another editor on Talk: Army of the United States. This editor (whom I believe to be acting in good faith) is using internal-use-only sources and has actually suggested calling the relevant agency if one wants to verify.
I suppose wiki-lawyers could argue whether this is more specifically contrary to WP:V, WP:CITE or WP:NOR, but I am hoping for a kind soul or two to help convince the other editor that I am not just being quixotic. Thanks. Robert A.West ( Talk) 06:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
There his a new proposal at WP:NPA for addressing the issues related to off-wiki personal attacks. See WP:NPA#Off-wiki personal attacks. Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks#Proposal. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Is there any policy for/against archiving deleted articles on userspace? I've noticed some cases where after an article is deleted due to AfD, a user has pasted the content of the deleted article on the original editor's User or User Talk page. Not a huge deal, but seems reasonable that if the article was deemed inappropriate for the Main space, it shouldn't exist elsewhere either, since WP is not free web space. -- mtz206 ( talk) 02:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I’ve stumbled across a couple of pages that look like articles, but are in fact user pages. In other words, they are written in the third person and wax lyrical about the user’s achievements, as if it were an autobiography. I can't find a note on how to deal with such. One in particular is very odd, namely User:Daniel_Dennis_de_Wit. This reads like an article, and a google search found his home page that cites the Wikipedia user page as if it were an article. Looks all wrong to me. I’ve put some stuff on his talk page, and put in a line about it not being an article onto the user page (I did have a npov tag on, which seemed extreme, so I took it out).
There are a few of these pages, normally from obscure artists, and as this is not a homepage space for anyone I believe there should be a policy that such autobiographies are not allowed. Perhaps the policy should be that user pages must be written in the first person, therefore they cannot be confused by a casual user as being an article. LeeG 19:32, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I would like to start a cleanup project on the page The X-Files. I believe it needs a lot of work to get in line with Wikipedia's standards. I made a large list of edits that I feel need to be made on the talk page. It takes up a lot of the talk page, and I have the feeling if many people make comments, it will get unruly fast. Is it possible/allowable for me to make a subpage where these can go? Thanks in advance for your help. - Zepheus 16:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I understand the WP:NOR policy but does that mean that the only items which can be successfully defended against a call for deletion are plagiaristic items? ... IMHO ( Talk) 01:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll tell you why. Do a Goggle search now-a-days and more often than not you will get a hit on the Wikipedia. People have therefore begun to trust the Wikipedia that it is authoritative and comprehensive when in fact it is not. The Wikipedia is based upon prior publication rather than truth. Huh? Can you substantiate that by citing a prior publication instead of using logic? Consequently I must conclude that the Wikipedia is ignorant and that anyone who believes otherwise has been deceived. But how and why you ask? Prior publication is the foundation of academia all over the world. Nothing gets published unless it has been approved by peer review and/or acknowledged by someone recognized as a master in a topic’s field, etc. Why do you have a problem with this? How can this result in ignorance or deception? Where is your reference to a prior publication that substantiates your argument or conclusion? If you can not provide one then your argument must be original research and therefore must be dismissed. The Wikipedia is beginning to sound more and more like a publication of the academic guild to me. My real disgust comes from the hypocrisy of your rejecting even prior publication (both cognitive bias and Systemic bias) that I cite to substantiate the basis of my conclusion. You leave me with no other choice but to conclude that the Wikipedia is based upon ignorance and deception rather than upon the truth. ... IMHO ( Talk) 10:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I may be being over-worried here but I want to check what policy is on articles like Agent Lemon. It clearly describes a bit of home-chemistry which clearly could be dangerous (not the process itself; you'd have to be a bit cack-handed to blow yourself up, but consuming the product) and is also clearly intended to be used for potentially-illegal purposes (it explicitly states that in many jurisdictions consuming the product is illegal). Now, on the one hand, knowledge is just knowledge and what's the harm, but on the other it looks like a non-sensible thing to include in Wikipedia. I can't work out where in the Policy pages to look for advice so I thought I'd just ask.
(I was going through the Category:Category needed pages categorising stuff. It's amazing what you learn - but sometimes you don't want to ...)
Thanks for any advice, -- JennyRad 14:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I've removed info from the IRC article (I think that was it, anyway) on how to trick people into typing a command that will immediately begin formatting their hard drive. There were benign examples of malicious stuff that sufficed to make the point, and I didn't see any reason to tell people to shove beans up their noses. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 02:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer seems most appopriate to bring up.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:29, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Earlier today I noticed something on the article about an album ( We Don't Need to Whisper by Angels and Airwaves): in the 19:21, May 21, 2006 edit, someone added a link to download a . torrent file that would allow BitTorrent users to download the entire album. The link was soon deleted citing WP:NOT.
I think it should have stayed--Wikipedia is a place to find information and a great way to find out information about a musical album is by listening to it. Of course Wikipedia cannot host a copy of the album but if someone else wants to do it illegally, I feel that linking to it is completely appropriate. After all, Wikipedia is not censored.
This topic might even encompass other issues that are not specifically the download of music albums.
-- Stellis 04:50, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm looking for help figuring out how to do this. In particular, I'm working on articles for plants, which often wax how-toish when it comes to growing, harvesting, or using the plants in question.
I'd like to find a way of preserving this information (much of it is good), as I am aware of the WP policy against having this sort of thing in articles (see the wikibook A Wikimanual of Gardening for details). However, the only way of moving the information that I can think of is to simply cut and paste, which would of course lose the history of contributors. Is there a graceful way to do this? Is this even a "real" problem? SB Johnny 19:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Can we come to consensus on the standard punctuation and capitalization of this? In the Oxford English Dictionary, the only use of the letter "e" as a prefix meaning "electronic" is for "email", all lower case. Knowing the OED, and knowing that we don't capitalize Book (or Tape or Download or any other adjective or noun as a generic format), I am nearly positive that the standard spelling is, or will eventually be, ebook (not e-book, eBook, or Ebook, except as forced by Wikipedia title limitations <g>). Can we work this into the naming conventions somewhere? I have posted this at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books) as well. It came up during a recent CfD discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pegship ( talk • contribs)
I do hope we don't end up with "eBook" - that's a monstrosity.-- Runcorn 22:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I would like to reiterate that either ebook or e-book makes sense, but capitalizing any letter in the generic term does not, as "e-book" is not a trademark or proper noun. "...we don't capitalize Book (or Tape or Download [or Paperback] or any other adjective or noun [for] a generic format)..." I don't for a moment believe that what we decide will have a big impact on external use, nor is it carved in stone. I would just like to try to standardize it generally here for now. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 14:31, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I had to make this same decision for the E-books section of my Print and Web Publishing page. I selected e-book. I don't recall all of the reasons, but that's my vote. There are links to e-book publishers and retailers in that section so you can see what others are calling them. A search engine survey may help too. I probably did that when I was deciding. -Barry- 12:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I usually write "e-mail" so I vote for "e-book". -- Runcorn 20:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I have access to the full online OED (my local library service gives free access online at home access to everybody with a library card) and it gives the spelling as e-book. However, I suspect that in general the world will move to ebook even though I personally believe e-bookis the correct way to go.
This just in - Both Library of Congress and the British Library use e-book. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 19:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
The straw poll on Talk:ebook seems to have a clear victory for e-book (assuming it ends soon). Best regards // Fra nkB 17:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I have created a proposal regarding the notability of organizations, I would like some comment and dissucssion on it. I looked around wikipedia for awhile and I don't I am duplicating any existing policy. Dspserpico 20:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
What makes a scholarship "notable" for Wikipedia purposes? -- JChap 03:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
A Fulbright scholarship is certainly notable.-- Runcorn 19:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I made a change at Wikipedia:Lead section based on some comments on the talk page where several people felt that the lead section shouldn't contain references as these should instead be provided in the main body of the article. More comments at Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Change_to_guideline_-_please_discuss would be appreciated to help form a wider consensus. Also, how widely does something like this have to be advertised before a change has reached a broad enough consensus? Thanks. Carcharoth 11:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, WP:IAR; we should do whatever is best for Wikipedia in the circumstances. -- Runcorn 19:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Should user subpages be in categories? I noticed that Category:Websites contains User:Whytee/Spymac rewrite1, User:Oven Fresh/Download.com, and User:Stollery/T-Nation. This seems not ideal. ~ Booya Bazooka 23:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
{{#if:{{NAMESPACE}}|| [[Category:Foo]] }}
would be cleaner, and would accomplish the same (except for the subst: trick, which I left out). Not that I actually recommend either: let's keep
ParserFunctions out of articles, please. —
Ilmari Karonen (
talk) 11:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)There are special categories just for user pages, e.g. users in some county. Are there any categories just for user subpages?-- Runcorn 19:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
We have all three levels of audience at wikipedia at once, and we often find level 1 people opposing level 3 policies and vice versa.
I think we should arrange our policy pages along the lines of three levels of audience, so as to make it explicit, and so that people stop opposing policies intended for the other level! :-)
Comments?
Kim Bruning 10:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Recently, I placed a request for a photograph of a notable personality in the main space. The image I received via email is unavailable elsewhere, either on the WWW, or from any press packets. What licence is appropriate for such items? Folajimi 02:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I have merged (or at least tried to) Wikipedia:Long article layout(weird thing that offered a different system) and Wikipedia:How to break up a page(not an actual how-to, and less detailed than WP:SS) into Wikipedia:Summary style. The result, however, is not excellent, and I would greatly appreciate help in working that page up to a real good guideline, since it is explicitely referred to by, amongst others, WP:WIAFA. Circeus 00:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
To get a sense for the possible level of support for accepting the proposal at WP:LISTS a poll is being conducted. Your comments will be welcome at Wikipedia_talk:Lists_in_Wikipedia#Poll:_WP:LISTS_upgrade_to_guideline ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)