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As I'm very new to Wikipedia, I just wanted to check what the policy is regarding information containted in articles that seems to be a guide of the "how to" sort. When I first started using Wikipedia, there was a fierce debate on the suicide page about information that some felt was listing methods along with their pros and cons. However, of particular note to myself is the page on surveillance. There is an extremely lengthy sub-section on counter-surveillance, including lists of methods for performing it. Is this what Wikipedia is? It doesn't seem appropriate to an encyclopaedia (in my opinion), as there are ample "How To" guides available for any given subject, it would seem risky for Wikipedia to offer "advice" on such sensitive issues and it would seem highly difficult (again in my humble opinion) to maintain NPOV while telling people the right way of doing things. I would like to suggest and possibly make changes to this page, but wanted to check the relevent policies before doing so. Blaise Joshua 11:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I often wonder how many of these folks have ever actually seen an encyclopedia? OF COURSE AN ENCYCLOPEDIA HAS DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS.
My grandfather's encyclopedia circa 1915 had pages of details about building steam engines, radios, and making batteries for your radio using (then) common household chemicals, such as borax. It was fascinating reading as I was growing up.
There's a balance to be struck. Wikipedia is meant to represent the sum of human knowledge, but it is not meant to be a how-to guide.-- Runcorn 10:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I have for the past hour been doing Status Quo articles. I have done most of the albums. I am going to make a Status Quo template. I make a page about Matt Letley. I add in some information, not wanting to create a worthless article. Then, some admin goes ahead and deletes it within three minutes with no reason given, just deletes it. I appreciate the right of Admin's to delete it, but give me a reason, I have feelings to you know. I had a much more strongly worded letter drafted berfore this. Hol e in the wall 18:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I just looked there and there's no sodding information on it... I am really getting annoyed now. Hol e in the wall 18:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks SCZenz! Just for future reference, where can I go to see reasons for deletion? Hol e in the wall 21:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I have a similar complaint. I have made several articles, all notable in their own right. However, each and every one of them has been deleted, and most speedily deleted. As with Hole_in_the_Wall's problem, I respect admin's right to delete it. Granted they may not be as important as chemistry or the arts, but if I recall the original goal (I don't see it anymore on the main page, then again I didn't look that much) of MediaWiki was to provide a place for ALL human knowledge. I mean, it's not like I'm posting just gibberish. If Wikipedia wishes to have all human knowledge, then it must have all human knowledge. Therefore everything is notable. I know merging plays a role in this, and the meaningful articles I attempted to post could not be merged anywhere. This doesn't mean they're worthless. Don't get me wrong, Wikipedia is a great site for information, but it just seems a bit too selective and snobby. Perhaps the policies should be more open in the future if it wishes to encompass more information. Just a thought.
The trouble is that things can get speedily deleted before the author realises that speedy deletion has been proposed. The deletion does not show up in your watch list, so you don't know that the article has gone until you look for it. Inexperienced users will not know how to find who deleted it. Should deleting admins notify every (non-anon) article editor that they have deleted it?-- Runcorn 11:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone. A representative of Scientific American recently began posting external links to online articles from the magazine. There has been much dispute about whether this is a good thing or not. On the pro side, Sci Am is a highly-reputable popular science magazine, and the links are all relevant and may very well provide useful information on the topic for users who want to learn more than our article has. On the con side, the Sci Am online articles have ads, so they are making money off the links, and the linking is massive and systematic. The representative recently posted the following text on the subject:
I think we should discuss whether we find such linking desirable, and get back to the Scientific American representative only once we have consensus to avoid confusion (which there was some of in our earlier response). Previous discussions can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics#Massive insertion of Scientific American links and WP:AN/I#Apparent SEO/Linkspam to Scientific American articles. -- SCZenz 18:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
If Amazon started posting links to there products, evry Wikipedian would be up in arms. How is this any differant. And why do the need a 'team' to ad links? Surely, if their articles were so relavent people would be doing it allready and SA wouldn;t need to do it. This looks super fishy to me. Hol e in the wall 18:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Since the person at SciAm is editting the articles, it seems to me that using the ref tag would be a better use of the time. However, we often have external links to nytimes, guardian, and other on-line articles supported by advertising. AND we all love Google, a service supported by advertising, to verify references and notability. Quite different from Amazon, where a link doesn't actually contain information.
Amazon contains Discographies, album covers, album reviews and information on the album. Yet I see no links of Amazon. Hol e in the wall 19:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Their explanation is much appreciated. But I can't say it makes me like any better that a commercial entity is adding links to their own site. Who will be the next? Wikipedia does not let affiliate programs determine its content — and links aren't even content. It'd actually be preferable they'd skip the links and start directly adding the relevant content to the articles. Links would neither be necessary nor appropriate then — not even for reference, when the creator of the referenced content itself adds it, think about it! Why would anybody with a financial responsibility to their shareholders bother to do such a thing? It still stinks of bargaining for advertising space, in their own interest they should refrain. Femto 19:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I would say that, so long as the links are relevant to the article, and go into more depth than the wikipedia article, they can only be benificial. Ideally, the relevant content from the SA articles would be merged into the WP article, with the SA article then used as a reference - but failing that, pointing readers to a useful article to read next is the next best thing. With luck, it will prompt people to add content from that page back into the WP article (with appropriate references). I recognise that there is a money-making and publicity side to this, but I tend to focus more on the quality of WP articles than that. Responding to the external links point above: yes, it's nice to keep them down to a reasonable number, but if the external articles/websites will be of use to the reader wanting to go into more depth, then they should be added regardless of how many are currently there. Or will WP abruptly run out of space / words if we do that? Mike Peel 22:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Allowing any organization to add self-links in articles' external links sections sets a dangerous precedent, IMO. At the very least it shows a blatent disregard for WP:SPAM, one of the few tools we have in the fight against the rising tide of spam here. What motivation does said organization have to spend time adding their links as proper citations when they can get away with simply dumping them en-masse, especially if someone is doing it "on the clock"? Ok, so Sci Am articles are often relevant and useful - but would it be so bad to request that Sci Am either add their links to the articles' talk pages (to allow other neutral editors to determine their worth), or add them as citiations? -- AbsolutDan (talk) 05:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I've come a bit late to this discussion, but my suggestion is that we let SciAm add all the relevant link they can come up with, and that we, as Wikipedia editors, then form a WikiProject to tidy up after them and turn the "external links" into chunks of readable prose summarising the relevant points of the article, and that have a link to the article as a reference for the information. In other words, they link to what could be useful content, and we then edit the articles to add any missing information from those article, and reference those articles if we judge them to be appropriate references for the new information. Does that sound acceptable? Or would that be too much like hard work? Carcharoth 23:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I am also a bit late, but I do want to add my $0.02. I feel SA are wrong on two counts:
I welcome Scientific American adding links to relevant articles, although I am a little concerned about setting a precendent. It isn't reasonable to expect them to contribute the material to the articles directly: it would be far more work for them, with less return, than adding a link. They could not simply paste the contents of their articles into Wikipedia, both because we have existing entries which would need to be integrated with, and because their articles, no matter how good, are phrased as magazine articles and not as encyclopedia entries. I also don't expect them to give up their copyright so freely.
User:Carcharoth had a good idea a few posts up from this: encourage them to post their links, freely mine the articles for useful content (rewording so as not to contravene copyright), and convert the link to a reference. They still get the hits from click-throughs, and our articles improve.
I expect that New Scientist, Nature, Time, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer will want similar arrangements. We need to set up a suitable group which will evaluate such proposals and determine whether they are in our interests.- gadfium 08:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Coming into this debate a little bit late, I want to add that I think it is a neat idea for SciAm to be adding quality links to Wikipedia articles. Particularly if the focus of the article is specifically about the Wikipedia article topic, I don't see what the real problem is here. I would likely try to strongly recommend that for SciAm to do this, they should voluntarily restrict themselves to only one or two Wikipedia articles per SciAm article, and avoid spamlinking dozens of SciAm articles for a single Wikipedia article. If done in moderation, I think this would be a fantastic thing for Wikipedia.
BTW, the same thing can be said for the New York Times, or even scientific publications like Nature or New England Journal of Medicine. A few high quality reference links to publications like these is something reasonable and indeed should be commended. And don't tell me that the New York Times doesn't have a single reference in Wikipedia linking to their website. Precedence is already on Wikipedia to permit these links, so it is really more of a manner of how and in what quantity should links like these be permitted. The whole Amazon.com debate is moot as Amazon.com already is listed as one of the ISBN links. As far as some companies making money off of Wikipedia, get used to it. While annoying advertisements aren't permitted for Wikipedia, commercial links certainly have been for some time. They must be on-topic, verifiable, and relevant to the Wikipedia article in question. A link selling viagra pills on the William Clinton article is clearly not going to be allowed. -- Robert Horning 20:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Would there be all this fuss if Scientific American had added something from the article, then cited it as a reference? What's the practical difference?-- Runcorn 12:05, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
If a certain point of view on a particular issue can be proven beyond reasonable doubt to be false (as is the case with some pseudosciences), do they require a mention? If something is proven, it holds true to all, so can a false point of view still be considered valid? -- 81.156.50.151 19:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
We report what the sources say. If there is only one notable view of the truth, there will be few reliable sources that say otherwise. But what is truth? It is a simplification to say that the Earth is round; it is a much closer approximation to the truth than the statement that the Earth is flat, but it is not exactly true. Similarly, few people would reject Newtonian dynamics, although we know that it is not exactly correct.-- Runcorn 12:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there a policy or guideline about articles about books in Wikipedia? Any notability or any other criterion for inclusion of books? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be over-prescriptive to have lots of rules about this; anything that should not be included ought to be picked up by the usual procedures for deleting articles.-- Runcorn 12:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a certain document that is relevant for an article in Wikipedia. The document is open source; so it can be legally uploaded to Wikisource. The document has been cited in published works, but it is itself unpublished; so under the policies of Wikisource, it should not be uploaded. The reason for this policy is verifiability (as I understand things).
I would like to find a way to upload the document to Wikisource, but still maintain verifiability. The document was written by a professor at a university. Ordinarily, a simple solution would be to ask the professor to publish the document on his web page at the university. In this case, however, the professor has now retired, and he does not have a web page. (He is emeritus, and is still listed as being a member of the faculty on his department's web page.)
Another obvious solution would be to ask the university department to which the professor belongs to publish the document on its web site. In this case, however, the document was written for something that was unrelated to the department. The committee to which professor belonged for the context of writing the document has since been disbanded, and it does not have a web page at the university.
The document is on file with the university administration. So, could someone in the administration, or the professor himself, upload the document to Wikisource? I think not directly, because the identity of the uploader could not be certified.
So, could someone in the administration, or the professor, e-mail the document to a Wikipedia/Wikisource administrator? The e-mail address could be verified by the having the administrator get the address from the univeristy web site. I thought that this would give some confidence in the source of the document. (As a variant, three administrators could be involved: one to upload, the other two to check the upload.)
In any case, no matter how the document is uploaded, some third-party verification could always be done by having the third party e-mail the univeristy administration and asking for an original copy of the document. The central point that I wish to make is that some verifiability/certifiability is feasible, even though the document is unpublished, because the document is on file with the administration. And I would not think that this constitutes original research, because the document has been cited in other publications.
Finally, I don't think it's relevant, but the document is a page of text. Also, the language is Swedish (though the Wikipedia article is English). Presumably the Swedish Wikisource would be appropriate, although an English translation of the document in the English Wikisource would also be valuable.
Suggestions as to how to properly proceed would be much welcome...!
— Daphne A 12:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I've newly registered an account here at Wikipedia, though I've been a site user and occasional editor for 3-4 years now. My question is, in Macromanagement (computer gaming) and Actions Per Minute, there is an occurence of "citation needed." However, I'm a bit confused as to why it is there. In both cases, I didn't feel any citation was needed because it is common knowledge that anyone who would be writing about this would have. For example, why is there a citation needed for "The game is broadcasted in TV, showing off pro-gamers' micromangement skills."? That's identical to saying you need a citation for "Baseball is broadcasted on TV, showing off how baseball players throw the ball." It just doesn't strike me as something that needs to be cited.
From the Actions Per Minute entry, "A highly skilled or professional StarCraft player would normally execute an average of 230 to 400 apm in a game, whereas most average players will most likely be executing below 150 APM.", while more applicable than the first mention, still doesn't need to be cited. The person who wrote the entry just knows this for a fact like I do. We didn't get it anywhere other than learning the game and watching the matches...
Thanks for any help. PGT.Endurance 04:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I understand what you said and thank you for your response. However, I am still a bit edgy on it because I could throw up a source but it would simply be off of a message board or news post which a Starcraft community member or even myself wrote. However, is the point simply to point to an external, uneditable (at least as easy as Wikipedia), source? As I wrote, say I linked to one of my own official Starcraft community posts on a known Starcraft website, would that be considered a source? Thanks.
PGT.Endurance 04:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok thank you very much for your help! ^^ PGT.Endurance 04:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
As a follow-up to this, I saw in
Valve Anti-Cheat "VAC1 swiftly became all but useless during this period of development, but since its 20 June 2005 launch VAC2 has successfully overseen a precipitous decline in the number of cheating players across the entire multi-player Steam library." By those rules, wouldn't something like this also need citation? Thanks.
PGT.Endurance 04:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Could someone help me understand if there is any policy about using Wikipedia as a vehicle for political POV? Multiiple articles have been created for the sole purpose of pushing a tort reform POV. There is already a long article on tort reform, and it just links to a multitude of other 'articles' (rants is more like it) on tort reform, under the guise of separate topics. I don't care what the personal POV is, a political debate has no place on Wikipedia, does it? It certainly is inconsistent with a *regular* encyclopedia. I have changed one article to turn it into a legimate article, which warrants an entry. However, the trend just propagates. I checked Encyclopedia Britannica online, and there is no article on 'tort reform' for good reason. The only references that are cited - both pro and against - almost all violate the guidelines of Reliable Resources. They are almost all political sites, either for or against tort reform. One 'reference' frequently cited on these articles is Tillinghast/Towers Perrin which is an interested party in the politics of tort reform with its operations as a major consultant to the insurance industry and as an insurance company itself with its reinsurance business. There are also lobbying groups (for and against) tort reform that are used as 'references'. This is not encyclopedic. THe nature of an article on a political agenda precludes neutral point of view references and invites polemic sources.
I am asking about this here, because this is not an isolated example, but a consistent pattern. Here is one example of an article that was originally created for the clear purpose of advancing a tort reform agenda, and not to discuss the actual topic itself:
Medical Malpractice -- The article previously had a very short 'explanation' of the elements of the claim (which were misstatements of law), with the rest of the paper a tirade about tort reform. I made corrections to the misstatements of law, and added a discussion on the incidents and types of medical malpractice -- citing both a medical journal and the Institute of Medicine. I also suggested that 'tort reform' not be included here. Below is a quote of what one editor added just today. However, he is not alone among a small group of political activists pushing this agenda.
This is under the heading "Malpractice Settlement Alternatives" (which makes no sense in itself since this proposal is not this at all) --
The group, Common Good has proposed creating specialized medical courts to improve the American system where almost 60% of all plaintif judgments are now consumed by attorney fees & court costs. These specialty "Health Courts" (similar to existing administrative tax or workmen's comp court proceedings)whose hallmark would be medically-trained, full-time judges making precedent-setting decisions about proper standards of care, would remedy the unreliability of our current system.
Proponents believe that giving up jury trials and scheduling noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering would lead to more people being compensated, and to their receiving their money sooner. Support for this alternative comes from sources ranging from The National Law Journal 1,the USA Today editorial page 2, The Wall Street Journal 3, Forbes magazine, the AMA, and the American College of Surgeons. The Harvard School of Public Health has been working with the Common Good initiative 4in conducting research to answer unresolved health court policy questions by analyzing individual state constitutional impediments to health courts, doing projected cost analyses, developing a tiered schedule for noneconomic damages-which would have upper limits-and working out the standards for compensation.
Opponents of tort reform object to the idea. 5
The entire paragraph is pro 'tort reform' with one sentence that "Opponents of tort reform object to the idea." Can ANYONE explain how this is NPOV? Also, the 60% reference is from an uncited report and the 60% is incorrectly reported and out of context. The actual report concluded that there was no effect on the cost of health care.
This is what these multiple tirades on tort reform end up looking like:
"Proponents of tort refom argue (fill in the blank)". -- then a long tirade
"Critics of tort reform argue (fill in the blank)" -- and inevitably a rebuttal tirade
Then there is a vicious edit war, with no real resolution because the article by nature is a political debate.
First none of these anonymous groups of 'critics and proponents' are sourced, but broad agendas are nonetheless attributed to them. Then the argument devolves into the tirade (on either side) with polemic references.
The articles become so unreadable and so argumentative that any iota of encyclopedic content is lost. Is there any policy at all on this kind of thing? Why is WIkipedia even including entries on purely political debates? jgwlaw 02:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
This is precisely why we need the NPOV policy. Any article purely there for POV purposes needs to be re-written or, if there is nothing worth salvaging, nominated for deletion.--
Runcorn 10:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Discussions about the large number of articles about schools, guyed masts, railway stations, and the like seem to happen frequently. I've written a proposal discussing such articles, and I'd welcome anyone who'd like to comment on it or edit it to help make it better to do so. TIA, JYolkowski // talk 14:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I removed a list of translations of stevia into other languages from the Stevia article and put it on Wiktionary instead, but someone put it right back. Is there an existing policy on this? — Keenan Pepper 23:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that Wikipedia and the Foundation be added to Wikipedia:No legal threats. Currently, only legal threats to against users are covered. The only mention of Wikipedia or the Foundation is, "If your issue involves Wikipedia itself, you should contact Wikipedia's parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation." Since threatening to sue Wikipedia or the Foundation causes many of the same problems that the policy describes, I think it should be modified to explicitly cover them. -- Kjkolb 13:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a persistent pornlinkspammer with multiple socks for something called thesexlane.com, mainly active on Oral sex and Webcam. I've repeatedly reverted him. Am I violating the rules here? Do some others want to keep an eye on these articles for awhile? Fan-1967 15:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
After some observations and discussions with User:Harmil, I think that we could benefit from a more coordinated and organized response to incidents like Colbert's call for vandalism of Elephant. I've written an essay that discusses how existing policies apply to such situations, so that useful information can be at one place. See Wikipedia:Dealing with coordinated vandalism (or WP:COLBERRORISM for "short").
I'd like to note that this is not an effort to formulate any new polices or guidelines. Also, although some of the comments are based on actions I'm concerned about from the handling of the Colbert incident, this page is in no way intended as an attack on any user who was involved. The goal is to do things better next time.
Please help improve the essay! If it ends up being useful, perhaps it can be linked from templates like {{ P-protected}} so that users dealing with the issue have a reference—and observers and potential vandals have some idea how we deal with such things in general, and why. -- SCZenz 20:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
A two part question for newly created company pages. 1. For ones that seem just like a promotional blurb should they be speedily deleted and if so, what db tag is best used? 2. For those that look like they should stay, but are in non-English speaking countries and are wrriten with a lot of spelling and grammer mistakes, (and sometimes border on being unreadable) what it the right thing to do (possibly a cleanup w/date tag)? -- Brat32 03:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
FYI, I added this obvious fact to WP:ASR, since this question seems to come up a lot lately. -- SCZenz 23:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
This is something that has been bothering me for some times now. It seems that there's more articles with no sourcing at all than there are properly cited pages. I know I've read the formal policy, which states that -everything- needs to be sourced and verifiable. But in practice.. Well, honestly, in practice, the "citation needed" tag is only ever really used to point out specific lines the editor disagrees with or doesn't fit their POV on the article in question. And many edits take place with no mention of a source whatsoever.
In particular I'm thinking of many of the articles on media, like games and movies. Many of the articles I've seen in that vein have no "references" section at all, and few seem to at least have an "external links". It might not be as bad as I'm thinking, because after all, I tend to notice the absence of a references section more than I notice the presence, so it might not be as big an issue as it appears, but I do notice that, at least half the time, the citation needed tags I run across are just lumped onto statements that put the article's subject in any sort of bad light, or are otherwise... I don't know.. unpleasant? Not necessarily untrue, and possibly verifiable. And I realize that burden of proof is on the original editor, so unsourced stuff can always be removed if they're of questionable veracity, but it doesn't seem to me that the tags are actually used for that.
I dunno, I think I guess I want to know the difference between policy as it is written here, and policy how it is actually put to practice. Errick 04:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I have written up a rough policy proposal for a Naming convention for Finnish proper names: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Finnish), and am now posting a link here as per WP:HCP. Please give your input! Elrith 14:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I have seen a large number of guitar model pages being added in the last day of so, all by the same person. e.g. ESP LTD KH-602 and ESP James Hetfield. This seems like a thinly disguised attempt to put a manufacturers catalog in wikipedia. -- Brat32 01:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Late last month, I noticed that users from Philadelphia had added the portal template to several hundred articles, many of them tenuously related to the city. I thought its application was rather excessive, and after looking around a bit, I found a discussion between several respected contributors that obtained consensus for a limited set of articles and categories where the template should be used. When I asked the users from Philadelphia to back off a bit, they replied that since it was not policy they had no reason to comply with my request and that I was being overly bureaucratic. Since that time, the template has been added to hundreds more pages, putting the total at close to 600 articles, with no signs of slowing down. So, I guess it's necessary to develop a guideline designating appropriate uses of the the template. Thoughts? - EurekaLott 04:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a place to find other wikipedia from uzbekistan yes? I shall (want) to order/make a new asscosiation for uzbek wikipedians? yes or no or maybe -- Uzerbaaji 10:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I've read through the agreement and have become very confused on how to use information from here on my website. If I come across an article and image that I want to use on my website, what do I need to do in order to use it on my site? I notice that some topics have several sections. What if I just want to take one section?
63.95.36.13 20:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Does wikipedia currently have a policy/guideline on quoting people's opinions on a subject? If so, I think it might need to be advertised more prominently. If not, we should perhaps consider making one. JulesH 07:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, WP:RS#Some definitions is quite clear about quoting opinions:
And:
And:
Now, "direct quotes" of opinions (e.g. expressed in an autobiography) are usually primary sources too, so:
None of the Wikipedia:Reliable sources guideline clarifications supersede the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy of course, for instance (from WP:NPOV#Undue weight):
This means that not every "verifiable" and "quotable" opinion is necessarily included in Wikipedia. It might be a "tiny minority view", even if printed in a reliable source. Or the WP:NOT policy might provide a ground for barring it from Wikipedia, etc. -- Francis Schonken 08:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed quite a lot of vandalism lately, as Wikipedia is becoming more and more well-known. It wasn't just at the Elephant article, which appeared on the Colbert Report, there were many others. Why can't a policy be set in place that allows only registered users to edit articles? We could even let unregistered people edit the talk pages and ask questions, just ban them from editing the articles. Gary 12:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I am having a problem doing this. Someone I know complained about the article on her and I checked it out. It seemed to me that this was an attack article, on a person without much public importance. I tried to do something with the article itself, including requesting its deletion, but I found myself having to confront the attackers as (almost) no one else seemed to care.* I sent an e-mail message to the address that is given for people to complain about what is written about them. However this e-mail did not go through. Is there some other way to let them now that there is a potential problem? Thanks. Steve Dufour 14:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out, Fan. I just checked out BLP and it seems to cover a lot more than just that point. Steve Dufour 01:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
If verified, sourced facts paint a negative picture, that is not a justification for deleting the article. As far as complaining is concerned, you can go to User:Jimbo Wales and click on "Email this user" but I don't think you'll get anywhere. Fan-1967 15:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. I did try to have it deleted; not because it is false -- I have no reason to think that it is, but because it is a personal attack against an individual. I have read the policy about biographies of living persons and the one about attack articles and I don't think this article belongs on Wikipedia. I have strong personal feelings since I know the person so I will not do anything directly with the article anymore.
I tried to help by changing the wording to make it less attacking (and by adding a link to a personal web page by the subject) but when it was changed back I lost my temper and tagged it for speedy deletion as an attack article (db-attack), when the tag was removed I put it back twice. For this I was threatened with blocking as a "vandal".
BTW the article is Barbara Schwarz. Here is the first paragraph:
Thanks again. Steve Dufour 18:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Here is the URL http://www.thunderstar.net/~schwarz/lrh/fbidocs.html
Any article that is good enough can become a featured article. I don't think that the importance of its subject matter is a major consideration.-- Runcorn 22:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I need some clarification on this issue... does wikipedia consider criticism to be encyclopaedic content? It seems fairly evident to me that: (1) criticism can not be "true" nor "false" -- it is an opinion; (2) the motives of those who post criticism are not known, referencable, or verifiable; (3) criticism is necessarily biased (violating WP:NPOV); QED (4) criticism is either off-topic or completely inappropriate in most instances?
A mini-edit war regarding the placement of an off-topic tag on the criticism section of a particular article (I, of course, stopped editing when I realized the cirucmstances), and the more I think about it, the more I believe that the content is inappropriate entirely (though my point is simply the existance of the off-topic notice).
What do you guys think? A CC: to my talk page (or at least a note to come look here) would also be appreciated. Tnx!
/ Blaxthos 05:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a guideline proposal: Wikipedia:Criticism. Don't know if that would help. Or Jimbo's quote on that proposed guideline page:
it isn't that we should not include the criticisms, but that the information should be properly incorporated throughout the article rather than having a troll magnet section of random criticisms.
-- Francis Schonken 07:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Seems worth noting for unbiased observers that Blaxthos is the admin of bash.org, the website that the article is about. He has a definite axe to grind in trying to make that article look biased -- he thinks ANY criticism is biased against him. 81.1.73.247 13:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
See Talk:Quotation#Korean_law_and_Fair_use.
My english is not good, so understand it. :)
I think, image quotation are to be permit in All language Wikipedias. In All language Wikipedias, text quotation is not prohibited. right?
text quotation is free? -> To quote a image is to be free. of course, in fair practice.
User can quote copyrighted image in only a few language version wikipedia.
But in my legal mind, logical mind...
ALL language user can quote copyrighted text. but, a few language user can quote copyrighted image. It is wong legally.
User can quote copyrighted text? If it is so, User must be able to quote image, moving image, etc. TO ALL LANGUAGE WIKIPEDIA.
fair use image is only US? It is wrong. ALL country permit it.
Do you know a contry that prohibit to quote a text to make a work? I don't know.
TEXT QUOTATION is OK? so, IMAGE QUOTATION is OK. -- WonYong ( Talk / Contrib) 12:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Not sure where to put this I'm posting this here and at RfC for politics and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names). There are several articles about inter-state relations (e.g. Sino-American relations), but no clear naming convention. For instance, why is this article not American-Chinese relations? I have proposed a solution, but I'm not sure what everyone else thinks about it. From Talk:Sino-African relations:
There is not a dispute per se about the names, but I suppose I'm not clear on them and there is no obvious standard (although the alphabetical seems obvious to me.) Anyway, can anyone help me out here? - Justin (koavf)· T· C· M 20:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Fictional works often have an article describing their elements, but sometimes an interpretation or opinion is "explained" by the author, as if it were definitive. Since the examination is not fact, one has to accept the analysis as one out of several interpretations, still being a point of view but being general eough to be accepted in the article. One has to acknowledge the article is presenting a point of view. I've noticed this essay style writing in House of 1000 Corpses and Othello. The article almost becomes an editorial, acceptable enough to not be removed.
The other type of POV in articles is Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters in video and computer games. Not the subject, but the "in subject." What if it were an article for nudity in videogames, sharp weapons in videogames, martial arts in videogames, etc? The pairing of "this instance in this subject" could be infinite. Humor in movies, female characters in literature, non-costumed characters in comicbooks... yes the presentation can be verified and factual, but isn't it more of a thesis, an essay, or a presentation?
Both of these types of articles seem to allow POV and opinion as a way to offer subjective but verifiable description. What do you think? Should there be more like them? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ihavenolife ( talk • contribs) .
After getting the creation of this a little bit wrong and having Tyrenius help me avoid a lot of hassle, Wikipedia:Don't be shy is currently an essay. It's not currently a proposal, as it needs to be polished up first.
The essay originates from an editor querying why we have "Be bold!" and recieving a reply from me to the extent that it's probably because it sounds better than the above. They then commented that they like the above more, and hence after a quick edit, their wish was granted.
As far as I can tell, Be bold is aimed more at editing articles, and at encouraging significant contributions. Don't be shy (also availible via WP:SHY and WP:NOSHY, add more if you like) aims to support people in making smaller but useful changes and, more importantly, in joining in with the community, such as talk pages.
The essay is currently in it's infancy and I'm working on expanding it. But as we all know, wikis work best with other people digging in and lending a hand. Please feel free to help me work on expanding this to be a gentle encouragement to new people. LinaMishima 14:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators, we say, "As a general rule, don't delete pages you nominate for deletion. Let someone else do it."
I propose that we amend that to: "As a general rule, don't close discussions in which you have been involved. Let someone else do it."
I often find that the "consensus" decision by which admins close AfD discussions is suspiciously agreeable to their own vote in that discussion, and not necessarily reflective of the actual consensus. It's usually not too big a deal but it's still, in my judgment, improper. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Year pronunciation is a recent example.
UPDATE: I was just made aware that Wikipedia:Deletion process says, "People should not close discussions in which they have been involved. To do so presents a conflict of interest." -- Hyphen5 20:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I am an admin who thinks its time to leave WP (addiction issues). I see here Meta:Right to vanish that I can delete my user page and talk pages in an attempt to "vanish." It seems odd that I can remove all record of my discussion history (except for Admins who can view/restore). Is that true. Can I just *POOF* delete my pages and disappear? (follow up, can I get a permanent block on my account if I'm concerned about wikiaddition?).
There exists a foundation issue about this. Kim Bruning 23:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I move that blocks should only be issued in cases of vandalism. It is written in the policy, that for other issues (POINT, NPA, civility etc.) an editor should only be blocked in extreme cases and that all blocks should only be preventive. The common practice, however, is that the admins block very easily, issuing punitive blocks all the time. If a long-time trolling or other misbehavior occurs, there should be a process established to block the user, not just a 1 admin's decision. Ackoz 21:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
(Note: this follows from a post at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Extend the blocking templates to give more information.3F)
As it stands, the various blocking templates give differing amount of information, most saying that the user has been blocked and giving the reason (e.g. Template:Test5 or Template:Blank5), most of which optionally let the user know where the problem edit occurred, some additionally telling the user how to oppose the block (e.g. Template:Vbc) and some additionally telling the user how long they have been blocked for (e.g. Template:Sockblockdodge). The one which seems to give the most information is Template:Block-reason, which gives the length of the block as well as (optionally) the reason for the block, and the page that the block is based on.
I would like to see every block template always providing the following information:
All block notices should also link to Wikipedia:Blocking policy (most already do, but some don't).
The reason for having the first two is obvious, as they're in general use. (Note that I think that it should be possible to base a block on multiple pages, normally as a 1-2-3-block count.) The length of the block is currently not given in the majority of templates, which I think is likely to cause confusion amongst most people who get blocked as they won't know where to find this information and hence won't know when they can start editing wikipedia again. The information on how to oppose the block is vital in the case of any unjustified blocks, and this information should always be given at the same time as the block to avoid discouraging editors by making them search for the information on how to unblock themselves. (Note that this will likely cause more work at Category:Requests for unblock, but that's probably good.)
This change would entail adding several compulsory sections to the block templates, which would obviously impact anyone using them, hence the reason for me posting this here for comment.
It may also be an idea to move to a single block template (or a set of block templates with the same functionality but different visual designs), such that the use would be something like {{subst:block|NPOV|Page1|Page2|BlockLength}}, in any order. This is not required for the above suggested changes, however.
I should also add that I don't use the blocking templates myself - I am not an admin - and that these comments come from me seeing the blocking templates in use on various user talk pages. Mike Peel 10:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The current state of copyright tagging of U.S. flags at federal, state, and local levels is a bit of a mess. There's no clear picture of exactly what status these flag images may have as a group.
I'd like to see some input from people knowledgeable about the copyright status of specifically U.S. flags. -- Durin 18:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC) I also found some related discussion at Template_talk:Flagimage#Copyright_redux-- Durin 18:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I know that general policy is to use the abbreviations "U.S." and "UK", but what is the guidance for when the two occur in close proximity. Having mixed usage looks very odd. Should we standardise to either "U.S." and "U.K." or "US" and "UK" depending on which version of english is being used in the page? Or should we stick with a mixed usage? Bluap 14:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I have made a proposal at Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises concerning editing standards for business and organizations. It is based on Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and follows the same principles. Fred Bauder 02:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
It is common to get around blocked URL's by using redirection addresses. Latest example is an outfit called thesexlane.com, that has repeatedly inserted linkspam into articles like Webcam and Oral Sex. Since that one's been blocked, they use redirection URL's, like myftp.biz, zapto.org, no-ip.net, and redirectme.com. It appears there are occasional uses of these domains in legitimate articles, but it seems there ought to be direct links to any legitimate content. Question: should we disable these domains that exist only for redirection? Fan-1967 03:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to call people's attention to the fact that I have nominated Category:Administrators open to recall for deletion. CFDs rarely attract much attenion, but as this one deals with the policy issues surrounding the possiblity of voluntary administrator recall, I feel that it deserves to be considered by a broad audience. Dragons flight 16:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
When did Special:Linksearch get created? Has it always been around? Only I asked for something like this a while back (about a year ago), and no-one seemed to be aware of this then. Is there a history of Wikipedia anywhere that records the dates when various functions were added? (Posting here because someone mentioned this link a few posts above). Carcharoth 08:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)#Clarification of "notability" for fictional characters and its subsections contain some discussion about revising the WP:FICT guideline to require secondary or tertiary sources for standalone articles abnout characters or other fictional elements, and to require that such articles contain no more than half plot summary / backstory, in order to ensure an out-of-universe perspective in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). Comments are welcome. — TKD:: Talk 10:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
What do you think?-- Eggplant WP:EGG 18:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Template:Update after - Described at Wikipedia:Updating information, this is proposed as a partial replacement for the much-misused Wikipedia:As of convention. 06:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Moved from main page talk:
I hope I am placing this comment in an appropriate location. In a section on the Semitone (music), I removed a reference to the Reimann Hypothesis because it is still neither proven nor disproven.(This seems to be in agreement with the basic Wikipedia principles.)
Have you considered a new section, in which the following two areas might be presented: 1) Conclusions and applications which result from yet-unproven theories (such as "super-string theory"). 2) A place for the results of independent research.
I believe that this could greatly enhance Wikipedia, making it not only the best source of reference for already-known information, but a source of fresh ideas and theories, by which human knowledge could expand in exponential proportions. Discussion pages could make this most viable, since any erroneous contributions would be weighed and challenged, and if unreasonable, quickly defeated.
For example, if Einstein were to present E = to Wikipedia, it would probably be removed because it is both the result of original research, and lacking in verifiable references. In effect, Wikipedia would be masking viable thought and theory.
Perhaps an easy way to accomplish this, allowing personal research and unverified data to enter established articles, would be to use a specific font for each of these two areas. (Another method might be to used specifically coloured fonts for reference indexing, to express the nature of a reference, e.g. Blue = verifiable; Red = yet unverified; Green = result of independent research.) Of course, another approach would be to create an "Appendix" of articles based upon unverified data, and another for "Original Research".
Having personally arrived at several "original theories" in the fields of Math and Music, I think it would be wonderful to have such a highly-recognized source as Wikipedia in which not only to present them, but also to have them tested and challenged by others. (I am not not interested in personal recognition, or profits...simply a means of sharing the results of my research with others.)
Such a move could prove highly profitable to Wikipedia. If Wikipedia automatically gains copyright on such material, it stands to generate tremendous profits. (For example, there is a $1,000,000. prize offered for the proving or disproving of the Reimann Hypothesis, not to mention the untold revenues resulting from it's practical application.) Wikipedia could potentially become the "owner" of virtually all new knowledge and theory.
I trust you will give these ideas some consideration. Prof.rick 22:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
On Wikipedia:Banning policy it states that bans from Jimbo can't be appealed, while Wikipedia:List of banned users states that people so banned can appeal to the Arbitration or to Jimbo. Does anyone know what the exact situation is, or is it more of a "you can try..." thing? 68.39.174.238 10:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I posted about this a while ago, and not much came of the discussion. I'm still concerned that not enough people realise the need to not copy and paste without attribution. The example at the time illustrates the problem. See the warnings at the top of Talk:History of Greek and Roman Egypt, Talk:Ptolemaic Egypt and Talk:Aegyptus (Roman province), pointing out that the History of Greek and Roman Egypt article was split using copying and pasting, but that this was done without attribution.
An example of the problems this has caused is the issue discussed at Talk:Ptolemaic_Egypt#Monarch_and_Nomarch, where I had to delve all the way back into the history of the original History of Greek and Roman Egypt article to find where the incorrect change from nomarch to monarch took place. This is a classic example of copying and pasting without attribution obscuring the article history. Indeed, if I had not spotted this, it would have been extremely difficult to work out where the text had been copied and pasted from.
Does anyone agree with me that this is a problem that needs to be stamped on hard? Editors need to learn early on that copy and pasting chunks of text around Wikipedia without attribution is a very bad idea. Is there a suitable way to drive this message home? Carcharoth 09:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I've just posted a concern about linking to customer opinion websites on WP:WPSPAM:
What does everyone think about linking to websites which contain customer opinions?
For example consider http://www.airlinequality.com/ which contains passenger opinions on airlines ( all links). I beleive such a site doesn't meet any of WP:ELs "when to link" guidelines (for #4 it's hard to consider it neutral & accurate) and hits against some of the recommendations on when not to link:
- 2: "Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research, as detailed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources"
- 9: "Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to unless mandated by the article itself."
I wonder if there's a parallel here with the WP:BLP policy which is applied to biographies of living people... And has recently spawned a Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises proposal?
Your comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Customer opinion sites. Thanks/ wangi 21:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
friendly.... -- Stephan Schulz 21:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I want a wikipedia without debates about debates over what wikipedia should contain, can I toby this section? Kotepho 23:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Creating a non-editable version of wikipedia is not the best idea, because that would go against the entire purpose of Wikipedia. The most likely purpose that anyone can edit wikipedia is to make the information as up to date as possible. It would be too much of a burden to have to inspect all edits, because Wikipedia probably would not be able to afford it. School principals should view all articles that explain the purpose of Wikipedia. They should know that information that is obscene or innaccurate will not last for more than a few minutes. Content should not be changed, as it would reduce the quality of certain articles. If there is a childrens wikipedia that is separately created, adults should still be able to edit it, because if there were any restrictions on editing, it would take a lot longer to update articles. Most children probably couldn't afford to wait months after a hurricane to read about it. It would make their assignments a lot harder, because they would not be able to get it as easily. I understand that Wikinews exists for that purpose and that other websites tend to write about those things immediately. It would make sense for some articles to be uneditable but it would be complete nonsense for others. There is infact already a feature that allows webpages to be rendered unchangeable, but administrators need to use it a lot more.
Regularly, ads icons are inserted in front of external links, that make it look like Wikipedia treats them special, promoting or endorsing those sites. This gets worse now with the templates used for external links to IMDb, MusicBrainz, etc.
We really could use a specific, explicit point of policy against this (and a direct WP:ICONAD or WP:SPAMICON or something), that could be immediately cited in the edit summary for removing or reverting this spam without long discussions with each "new user" doing the spamming for those sites. We could also mention it in bold as a NoInclude warning in the related templates, so as to remove plausible denial to future offenders.
-- 62.147.37.34 23:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
MusicBrainz is a nonprofit organization with goals in line with wikipedia. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 02:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi there,
I've today developed an extension based on Special:Makesysop that may be a solution to the problems (at least on en: ) with the process of gaining adminship. Part of the problem with adminship is that it is somewhat difficult to remove. This extension may change that. The extension, as currently configured, allows local bureaucrats to desysop a user. I believe that this is sensible. If we can trust bureaucrats to set the sysop bit, why shouldn't we trust them to remove it? Additionally, desysopping is quite a political issue, and generally requires the intervention of somebody *familiar with the situation*, not an outsider who has simply been informed. Therefore, I suggest that we use this extension to allow Bureaucrats to desysop users in serious cases of abuse of powers. A different process for desysopping may need to be developed to accompany this - and a policy on when bureaucrats may use this ability.
Questions, comments and requests for demonstrations are more than welcome. Werdna talk criticism 11:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Don't use a technical solution to solve a political problem, i.e. don't introduce bureaucrat desysopping just because "adminship is difficult to get" on this Wikipedia. 86.134.116.228 10:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that desysopping by a bureaucrat should only be temporary and that ArbCom should make the final decision for now. Eventually, it should be made easier to have someone dysysopped, but we need to be sure that the process is fair to the admin while being responsive to the community (note: I am an admin). It is currently very difficult to get desysopped. You have to go really nuts or piss off someone who is powerful and/or influential.
It would be difficult to reconfirm every admin, so I suggest that when a certain number of users sign a petition for desysopping an admin, he or she would have a reconfirmation RfA (the signers would be subject to the conditions below). Even if you are an excellent admin, you are going to accumulate a few enemies just by doing your duties, and an average admin will collect more. Therefore, I do not think the 80% pass and 70-80% discretion of the closing bureaucrat of RfAs would be appropriate for a reconfirmation RfA. I suggest that the standard be: 70% support is an automatic pass, 60 to 70% is up the the bureaucrat's discretion and less than 60% is an automatic desysop. Requiring the bureaucrat to give a reason for desysopping someone who got more than 65% and not desysopping someone who got less than 65% might be good. Those who participate in the RfA and who sign the petition should have accounts that are at least one month old and have at least 50 edits. I think that this system would be much better than leaving it up to ArbCom. They already have a lot of cases and operate much more slowly than RfA, they are very experienced users and often admins, which means they do not represent the whole community and there is a danger of cronyism, and they only desysop for extreme offenses, when there is a need, I think, to desysop people who are consistently committing minor to moderate offenses and are rude to everyone but their friends. -- Kjkolb 14:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been done and re-done, though I couldn't find a debate on it off hand. Surely the standard form of the English language should be British English as laid out in the OED as "English English" is commonly considered as the international standard, used across the world by organisations such as the UN. cf: International English article. As this is an international project, despite the servers being based in the United Statesand demographicallymany users may herald from the United States... As we must remember America does not constitute the international community. Bensonby 15:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for making that clear, makes sense broadly and it will continue to be contested. Just couldn't find a coherent absolute debate, just found lots of snippets here and there. Cheers. Bensonby 21:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
There was recently a discussion on the Template talk:Copyvio page, dealing with a situation in which you think that there might be a copyright violation in an article, but you're not at all sure. Currently, the two most straightforward options are to use the {{ copyvio}} tag, which kills the article for a week, or to just start a discussion on the article's talk page, which might not be noticed for quite some time if the article is infrequently edited. It was suggested that there be a cleanup-style template for these fringe cases, that would let readers know about the possible problem without killing the article and without using a whole screen's worth of space. Strictly as a mockup, I went ahead and created a {{ PotentialCopyvio}} template. But it later occurred to me that the current split between "just talk about it on the talk page" and "kill the article and investigate" might be for legal reasons, so I'm not sure if this should go further. Kickaha Ota 15:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
In what I believe was a misguided decision, Redirects for Deletion has recently been renamed Redirects for Discussion. The logic was that since CFD had undergone that change, RfD should too. The problem is, RfD and CfD are completely different. When a normal editor wishes to rename or merge a category they must list it on CfD, hence, categories for discussion, not just deletion. But one someone wants to change where a redirect points to, or turn a redirect into an article, or do anything besides delete it, they should do it themselves, with appropriate discussion on the redirect's talk page. This renaming of RfD obscures its purpose, and risks gumming it up by implying that it is a place for "discussion" of redirects. I really see no benefits to this name change and quite a few problems, but the administrator who renamed it no longer wishes to discuss it. To me, the correct name being "Redirects for deletion" seems straightforward and clear. Am I wrong? What does the community think? -- Nscheffey( T/ C) 16:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
To help preserve NPOV in some controversial articles, is there ever a situation where a form of " disclaimer" can appropriately be included in the text?
The following is a part of the introduction to a section in the pseudoscience article. Take a look before preceding:
Here is an example of my "disclaimer" (the bold part):
It was later deleted with this edit summary as justification:
I believe this edit summary says something about NPOV and is itself evidence of the need for this particular disclaimer.
I happen to agree that the subjects currently listed are uncontroversially pseudo, but I don't believe readers should be forced to buy that position, even though I personally and privately think they should come to that conclusion. They just need to do it on their own. It is not my job as a Wikipedia editor to add or remove information for the purpose of causing the reader to accept my personal POV. That's where disclaimers can help to preserve NPOV. They effectively remind the reader that it is their responsibility to determine the truth of the matter.
There is a lot of history to this particular article describing pseudoscience, since it actually describes a particular POV. Maintaining NPOV - while presenting and preserving the POV of the subject of the article - has been difficult. It has been made even more controversial because of the persistant efforts of believers in the mentioned examples of pseudoscience, who force their POV on the article by consistently deleting their favorite quackery, or at least watering it down. This is sometimes done by redefining the conditions for inclusion in the article, so that precisely their favorite quackery is suddenly and legitimately preserved from inclusion. Such efforts also result in a failure of the article to accurately present and describe the subject itself. These editors even attempt to change the meaning of pseudoscience, by including these obviously mainstream scientific subjects as examples of pseudoscience: immunization/immunology, and modern medicine. (To see multiple real examples of attempts to subvert the article to one pseudoscientific POV, as described above, look at all the edits (and edit summaries) to the article itself from just this one editor.)
The paragraph above (Nota Bene....) is especially important, because it allows subject matter to be included without forcing the reader to accept the POV of the article.
A suggested wording follows in its own section. -- Fyslee 18:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to propose the creation of an "NPOV disclaimer" for Wikipedia articles. (Feel free to improve it.)
Far from all readers are aware of the existence and implications of the NPOV policy. It is important for them to understand it while reading articles. If this disclaimer doesn't stand on its own, it can be included in the existing Wikipedia:General disclaimer.
Proposed NPOV disclaimer
Well, what do you think? -- Fyslee 18:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
There is still far too much ambiguity regarding what defines an FP. This is immediately obvious simply by comparing the criteria listed in the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, with those at Wikipedia:What is a featured picture?. In the former, the criteria clearly focus on how well an image contributes to its corresponding article(s). At the latter, it's almost entirely about image quality issues. And the Wikipedia:Featured pictures has yet a third set of criteria ("shocking" etc). Because of this, you get all manner of opinions on whether a nominated picture should be advanced to feature status or not, and it's all highly subjective and amateurish, because the criteria are simply not clear. You also get photographers who put the promotion of their own pictures above the improvement of Wikipedia as a whole, nice though their pictures may be. These issues must be addressed and resolved if Wikipedia as a whole is to improve. Jeeb 19:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
The point of the above is that a clear policy is needed regarding the role of images in Wikipedia, which there currently is not. Jeeb 22:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Privacy_of_article_subjects
I have put up a proposal for a new policy/procedure at Wikipedia:AdminRecall. rootology ( T) 22:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
WP:CREEP. User:Zoe| (talk) 02:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone, the Policy has been updated as follows (in a nutshell), shortcut WP:RECALL:
Active discussion continues~ Please pitch in, and read the great pro and the con arguments on the Talk page. Thanks! rootology ( T) 15:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
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As I'm very new to Wikipedia, I just wanted to check what the policy is regarding information containted in articles that seems to be a guide of the "how to" sort. When I first started using Wikipedia, there was a fierce debate on the suicide page about information that some felt was listing methods along with their pros and cons. However, of particular note to myself is the page on surveillance. There is an extremely lengthy sub-section on counter-surveillance, including lists of methods for performing it. Is this what Wikipedia is? It doesn't seem appropriate to an encyclopaedia (in my opinion), as there are ample "How To" guides available for any given subject, it would seem risky for Wikipedia to offer "advice" on such sensitive issues and it would seem highly difficult (again in my humble opinion) to maintain NPOV while telling people the right way of doing things. I would like to suggest and possibly make changes to this page, but wanted to check the relevent policies before doing so. Blaise Joshua 11:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I often wonder how many of these folks have ever actually seen an encyclopedia? OF COURSE AN ENCYCLOPEDIA HAS DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS.
My grandfather's encyclopedia circa 1915 had pages of details about building steam engines, radios, and making batteries for your radio using (then) common household chemicals, such as borax. It was fascinating reading as I was growing up.
There's a balance to be struck. Wikipedia is meant to represent the sum of human knowledge, but it is not meant to be a how-to guide.-- Runcorn 10:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I have for the past hour been doing Status Quo articles. I have done most of the albums. I am going to make a Status Quo template. I make a page about Matt Letley. I add in some information, not wanting to create a worthless article. Then, some admin goes ahead and deletes it within three minutes with no reason given, just deletes it. I appreciate the right of Admin's to delete it, but give me a reason, I have feelings to you know. I had a much more strongly worded letter drafted berfore this. Hol e in the wall 18:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I just looked there and there's no sodding information on it... I am really getting annoyed now. Hol e in the wall 18:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks SCZenz! Just for future reference, where can I go to see reasons for deletion? Hol e in the wall 21:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I have a similar complaint. I have made several articles, all notable in their own right. However, each and every one of them has been deleted, and most speedily deleted. As with Hole_in_the_Wall's problem, I respect admin's right to delete it. Granted they may not be as important as chemistry or the arts, but if I recall the original goal (I don't see it anymore on the main page, then again I didn't look that much) of MediaWiki was to provide a place for ALL human knowledge. I mean, it's not like I'm posting just gibberish. If Wikipedia wishes to have all human knowledge, then it must have all human knowledge. Therefore everything is notable. I know merging plays a role in this, and the meaningful articles I attempted to post could not be merged anywhere. This doesn't mean they're worthless. Don't get me wrong, Wikipedia is a great site for information, but it just seems a bit too selective and snobby. Perhaps the policies should be more open in the future if it wishes to encompass more information. Just a thought.
The trouble is that things can get speedily deleted before the author realises that speedy deletion has been proposed. The deletion does not show up in your watch list, so you don't know that the article has gone until you look for it. Inexperienced users will not know how to find who deleted it. Should deleting admins notify every (non-anon) article editor that they have deleted it?-- Runcorn 11:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone. A representative of Scientific American recently began posting external links to online articles from the magazine. There has been much dispute about whether this is a good thing or not. On the pro side, Sci Am is a highly-reputable popular science magazine, and the links are all relevant and may very well provide useful information on the topic for users who want to learn more than our article has. On the con side, the Sci Am online articles have ads, so they are making money off the links, and the linking is massive and systematic. The representative recently posted the following text on the subject:
I think we should discuss whether we find such linking desirable, and get back to the Scientific American representative only once we have consensus to avoid confusion (which there was some of in our earlier response). Previous discussions can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics#Massive insertion of Scientific American links and WP:AN/I#Apparent SEO/Linkspam to Scientific American articles. -- SCZenz 18:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
If Amazon started posting links to there products, evry Wikipedian would be up in arms. How is this any differant. And why do the need a 'team' to ad links? Surely, if their articles were so relavent people would be doing it allready and SA wouldn;t need to do it. This looks super fishy to me. Hol e in the wall 18:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Since the person at SciAm is editting the articles, it seems to me that using the ref tag would be a better use of the time. However, we often have external links to nytimes, guardian, and other on-line articles supported by advertising. AND we all love Google, a service supported by advertising, to verify references and notability. Quite different from Amazon, where a link doesn't actually contain information.
Amazon contains Discographies, album covers, album reviews and information on the album. Yet I see no links of Amazon. Hol e in the wall 19:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Their explanation is much appreciated. But I can't say it makes me like any better that a commercial entity is adding links to their own site. Who will be the next? Wikipedia does not let affiliate programs determine its content — and links aren't even content. It'd actually be preferable they'd skip the links and start directly adding the relevant content to the articles. Links would neither be necessary nor appropriate then — not even for reference, when the creator of the referenced content itself adds it, think about it! Why would anybody with a financial responsibility to their shareholders bother to do such a thing? It still stinks of bargaining for advertising space, in their own interest they should refrain. Femto 19:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I would say that, so long as the links are relevant to the article, and go into more depth than the wikipedia article, they can only be benificial. Ideally, the relevant content from the SA articles would be merged into the WP article, with the SA article then used as a reference - but failing that, pointing readers to a useful article to read next is the next best thing. With luck, it will prompt people to add content from that page back into the WP article (with appropriate references). I recognise that there is a money-making and publicity side to this, but I tend to focus more on the quality of WP articles than that. Responding to the external links point above: yes, it's nice to keep them down to a reasonable number, but if the external articles/websites will be of use to the reader wanting to go into more depth, then they should be added regardless of how many are currently there. Or will WP abruptly run out of space / words if we do that? Mike Peel 22:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Allowing any organization to add self-links in articles' external links sections sets a dangerous precedent, IMO. At the very least it shows a blatent disregard for WP:SPAM, one of the few tools we have in the fight against the rising tide of spam here. What motivation does said organization have to spend time adding their links as proper citations when they can get away with simply dumping them en-masse, especially if someone is doing it "on the clock"? Ok, so Sci Am articles are often relevant and useful - but would it be so bad to request that Sci Am either add their links to the articles' talk pages (to allow other neutral editors to determine their worth), or add them as citiations? -- AbsolutDan (talk) 05:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I've come a bit late to this discussion, but my suggestion is that we let SciAm add all the relevant link they can come up with, and that we, as Wikipedia editors, then form a WikiProject to tidy up after them and turn the "external links" into chunks of readable prose summarising the relevant points of the article, and that have a link to the article as a reference for the information. In other words, they link to what could be useful content, and we then edit the articles to add any missing information from those article, and reference those articles if we judge them to be appropriate references for the new information. Does that sound acceptable? Or would that be too much like hard work? Carcharoth 23:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I am also a bit late, but I do want to add my $0.02. I feel SA are wrong on two counts:
I welcome Scientific American adding links to relevant articles, although I am a little concerned about setting a precendent. It isn't reasonable to expect them to contribute the material to the articles directly: it would be far more work for them, with less return, than adding a link. They could not simply paste the contents of their articles into Wikipedia, both because we have existing entries which would need to be integrated with, and because their articles, no matter how good, are phrased as magazine articles and not as encyclopedia entries. I also don't expect them to give up their copyright so freely.
User:Carcharoth had a good idea a few posts up from this: encourage them to post their links, freely mine the articles for useful content (rewording so as not to contravene copyright), and convert the link to a reference. They still get the hits from click-throughs, and our articles improve.
I expect that New Scientist, Nature, Time, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer will want similar arrangements. We need to set up a suitable group which will evaluate such proposals and determine whether they are in our interests.- gadfium 08:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Coming into this debate a little bit late, I want to add that I think it is a neat idea for SciAm to be adding quality links to Wikipedia articles. Particularly if the focus of the article is specifically about the Wikipedia article topic, I don't see what the real problem is here. I would likely try to strongly recommend that for SciAm to do this, they should voluntarily restrict themselves to only one or two Wikipedia articles per SciAm article, and avoid spamlinking dozens of SciAm articles for a single Wikipedia article. If done in moderation, I think this would be a fantastic thing for Wikipedia.
BTW, the same thing can be said for the New York Times, or even scientific publications like Nature or New England Journal of Medicine. A few high quality reference links to publications like these is something reasonable and indeed should be commended. And don't tell me that the New York Times doesn't have a single reference in Wikipedia linking to their website. Precedence is already on Wikipedia to permit these links, so it is really more of a manner of how and in what quantity should links like these be permitted. The whole Amazon.com debate is moot as Amazon.com already is listed as one of the ISBN links. As far as some companies making money off of Wikipedia, get used to it. While annoying advertisements aren't permitted for Wikipedia, commercial links certainly have been for some time. They must be on-topic, verifiable, and relevant to the Wikipedia article in question. A link selling viagra pills on the William Clinton article is clearly not going to be allowed. -- Robert Horning 20:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Would there be all this fuss if Scientific American had added something from the article, then cited it as a reference? What's the practical difference?-- Runcorn 12:05, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
If a certain point of view on a particular issue can be proven beyond reasonable doubt to be false (as is the case with some pseudosciences), do they require a mention? If something is proven, it holds true to all, so can a false point of view still be considered valid? -- 81.156.50.151 19:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
We report what the sources say. If there is only one notable view of the truth, there will be few reliable sources that say otherwise. But what is truth? It is a simplification to say that the Earth is round; it is a much closer approximation to the truth than the statement that the Earth is flat, but it is not exactly true. Similarly, few people would reject Newtonian dynamics, although we know that it is not exactly correct.-- Runcorn 12:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there a policy or guideline about articles about books in Wikipedia? Any notability or any other criterion for inclusion of books? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be over-prescriptive to have lots of rules about this; anything that should not be included ought to be picked up by the usual procedures for deleting articles.-- Runcorn 12:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a certain document that is relevant for an article in Wikipedia. The document is open source; so it can be legally uploaded to Wikisource. The document has been cited in published works, but it is itself unpublished; so under the policies of Wikisource, it should not be uploaded. The reason for this policy is verifiability (as I understand things).
I would like to find a way to upload the document to Wikisource, but still maintain verifiability. The document was written by a professor at a university. Ordinarily, a simple solution would be to ask the professor to publish the document on his web page at the university. In this case, however, the professor has now retired, and he does not have a web page. (He is emeritus, and is still listed as being a member of the faculty on his department's web page.)
Another obvious solution would be to ask the university department to which the professor belongs to publish the document on its web site. In this case, however, the document was written for something that was unrelated to the department. The committee to which professor belonged for the context of writing the document has since been disbanded, and it does not have a web page at the university.
The document is on file with the university administration. So, could someone in the administration, or the professor himself, upload the document to Wikisource? I think not directly, because the identity of the uploader could not be certified.
So, could someone in the administration, or the professor, e-mail the document to a Wikipedia/Wikisource administrator? The e-mail address could be verified by the having the administrator get the address from the univeristy web site. I thought that this would give some confidence in the source of the document. (As a variant, three administrators could be involved: one to upload, the other two to check the upload.)
In any case, no matter how the document is uploaded, some third-party verification could always be done by having the third party e-mail the univeristy administration and asking for an original copy of the document. The central point that I wish to make is that some verifiability/certifiability is feasible, even though the document is unpublished, because the document is on file with the administration. And I would not think that this constitutes original research, because the document has been cited in other publications.
Finally, I don't think it's relevant, but the document is a page of text. Also, the language is Swedish (though the Wikipedia article is English). Presumably the Swedish Wikisource would be appropriate, although an English translation of the document in the English Wikisource would also be valuable.
Suggestions as to how to properly proceed would be much welcome...!
— Daphne A 12:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I've newly registered an account here at Wikipedia, though I've been a site user and occasional editor for 3-4 years now. My question is, in Macromanagement (computer gaming) and Actions Per Minute, there is an occurence of "citation needed." However, I'm a bit confused as to why it is there. In both cases, I didn't feel any citation was needed because it is common knowledge that anyone who would be writing about this would have. For example, why is there a citation needed for "The game is broadcasted in TV, showing off pro-gamers' micromangement skills."? That's identical to saying you need a citation for "Baseball is broadcasted on TV, showing off how baseball players throw the ball." It just doesn't strike me as something that needs to be cited.
From the Actions Per Minute entry, "A highly skilled or professional StarCraft player would normally execute an average of 230 to 400 apm in a game, whereas most average players will most likely be executing below 150 APM.", while more applicable than the first mention, still doesn't need to be cited. The person who wrote the entry just knows this for a fact like I do. We didn't get it anywhere other than learning the game and watching the matches...
Thanks for any help. PGT.Endurance 04:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I understand what you said and thank you for your response. However, I am still a bit edgy on it because I could throw up a source but it would simply be off of a message board or news post which a Starcraft community member or even myself wrote. However, is the point simply to point to an external, uneditable (at least as easy as Wikipedia), source? As I wrote, say I linked to one of my own official Starcraft community posts on a known Starcraft website, would that be considered a source? Thanks.
PGT.Endurance 04:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok thank you very much for your help! ^^ PGT.Endurance 04:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
As a follow-up to this, I saw in
Valve Anti-Cheat "VAC1 swiftly became all but useless during this period of development, but since its 20 June 2005 launch VAC2 has successfully overseen a precipitous decline in the number of cheating players across the entire multi-player Steam library." By those rules, wouldn't something like this also need citation? Thanks.
PGT.Endurance 04:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Could someone help me understand if there is any policy about using Wikipedia as a vehicle for political POV? Multiiple articles have been created for the sole purpose of pushing a tort reform POV. There is already a long article on tort reform, and it just links to a multitude of other 'articles' (rants is more like it) on tort reform, under the guise of separate topics. I don't care what the personal POV is, a political debate has no place on Wikipedia, does it? It certainly is inconsistent with a *regular* encyclopedia. I have changed one article to turn it into a legimate article, which warrants an entry. However, the trend just propagates. I checked Encyclopedia Britannica online, and there is no article on 'tort reform' for good reason. The only references that are cited - both pro and against - almost all violate the guidelines of Reliable Resources. They are almost all political sites, either for or against tort reform. One 'reference' frequently cited on these articles is Tillinghast/Towers Perrin which is an interested party in the politics of tort reform with its operations as a major consultant to the insurance industry and as an insurance company itself with its reinsurance business. There are also lobbying groups (for and against) tort reform that are used as 'references'. This is not encyclopedic. THe nature of an article on a political agenda precludes neutral point of view references and invites polemic sources.
I am asking about this here, because this is not an isolated example, but a consistent pattern. Here is one example of an article that was originally created for the clear purpose of advancing a tort reform agenda, and not to discuss the actual topic itself:
Medical Malpractice -- The article previously had a very short 'explanation' of the elements of the claim (which were misstatements of law), with the rest of the paper a tirade about tort reform. I made corrections to the misstatements of law, and added a discussion on the incidents and types of medical malpractice -- citing both a medical journal and the Institute of Medicine. I also suggested that 'tort reform' not be included here. Below is a quote of what one editor added just today. However, he is not alone among a small group of political activists pushing this agenda.
This is under the heading "Malpractice Settlement Alternatives" (which makes no sense in itself since this proposal is not this at all) --
The group, Common Good has proposed creating specialized medical courts to improve the American system where almost 60% of all plaintif judgments are now consumed by attorney fees & court costs. These specialty "Health Courts" (similar to existing administrative tax or workmen's comp court proceedings)whose hallmark would be medically-trained, full-time judges making precedent-setting decisions about proper standards of care, would remedy the unreliability of our current system.
Proponents believe that giving up jury trials and scheduling noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering would lead to more people being compensated, and to their receiving their money sooner. Support for this alternative comes from sources ranging from The National Law Journal 1,the USA Today editorial page 2, The Wall Street Journal 3, Forbes magazine, the AMA, and the American College of Surgeons. The Harvard School of Public Health has been working with the Common Good initiative 4in conducting research to answer unresolved health court policy questions by analyzing individual state constitutional impediments to health courts, doing projected cost analyses, developing a tiered schedule for noneconomic damages-which would have upper limits-and working out the standards for compensation.
Opponents of tort reform object to the idea. 5
The entire paragraph is pro 'tort reform' with one sentence that "Opponents of tort reform object to the idea." Can ANYONE explain how this is NPOV? Also, the 60% reference is from an uncited report and the 60% is incorrectly reported and out of context. The actual report concluded that there was no effect on the cost of health care.
This is what these multiple tirades on tort reform end up looking like:
"Proponents of tort refom argue (fill in the blank)". -- then a long tirade
"Critics of tort reform argue (fill in the blank)" -- and inevitably a rebuttal tirade
Then there is a vicious edit war, with no real resolution because the article by nature is a political debate.
First none of these anonymous groups of 'critics and proponents' are sourced, but broad agendas are nonetheless attributed to them. Then the argument devolves into the tirade (on either side) with polemic references.
The articles become so unreadable and so argumentative that any iota of encyclopedic content is lost. Is there any policy at all on this kind of thing? Why is WIkipedia even including entries on purely political debates? jgwlaw 02:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
This is precisely why we need the NPOV policy. Any article purely there for POV purposes needs to be re-written or, if there is nothing worth salvaging, nominated for deletion.--
Runcorn 10:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Discussions about the large number of articles about schools, guyed masts, railway stations, and the like seem to happen frequently. I've written a proposal discussing such articles, and I'd welcome anyone who'd like to comment on it or edit it to help make it better to do so. TIA, JYolkowski // talk 14:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I removed a list of translations of stevia into other languages from the Stevia article and put it on Wiktionary instead, but someone put it right back. Is there an existing policy on this? — Keenan Pepper 23:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that Wikipedia and the Foundation be added to Wikipedia:No legal threats. Currently, only legal threats to against users are covered. The only mention of Wikipedia or the Foundation is, "If your issue involves Wikipedia itself, you should contact Wikipedia's parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation." Since threatening to sue Wikipedia or the Foundation causes many of the same problems that the policy describes, I think it should be modified to explicitly cover them. -- Kjkolb 13:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a persistent pornlinkspammer with multiple socks for something called thesexlane.com, mainly active on Oral sex and Webcam. I've repeatedly reverted him. Am I violating the rules here? Do some others want to keep an eye on these articles for awhile? Fan-1967 15:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
After some observations and discussions with User:Harmil, I think that we could benefit from a more coordinated and organized response to incidents like Colbert's call for vandalism of Elephant. I've written an essay that discusses how existing policies apply to such situations, so that useful information can be at one place. See Wikipedia:Dealing with coordinated vandalism (or WP:COLBERRORISM for "short").
I'd like to note that this is not an effort to formulate any new polices or guidelines. Also, although some of the comments are based on actions I'm concerned about from the handling of the Colbert incident, this page is in no way intended as an attack on any user who was involved. The goal is to do things better next time.
Please help improve the essay! If it ends up being useful, perhaps it can be linked from templates like {{ P-protected}} so that users dealing with the issue have a reference—and observers and potential vandals have some idea how we deal with such things in general, and why. -- SCZenz 20:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
A two part question for newly created company pages. 1. For ones that seem just like a promotional blurb should they be speedily deleted and if so, what db tag is best used? 2. For those that look like they should stay, but are in non-English speaking countries and are wrriten with a lot of spelling and grammer mistakes, (and sometimes border on being unreadable) what it the right thing to do (possibly a cleanup w/date tag)? -- Brat32 03:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
FYI, I added this obvious fact to WP:ASR, since this question seems to come up a lot lately. -- SCZenz 23:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
This is something that has been bothering me for some times now. It seems that there's more articles with no sourcing at all than there are properly cited pages. I know I've read the formal policy, which states that -everything- needs to be sourced and verifiable. But in practice.. Well, honestly, in practice, the "citation needed" tag is only ever really used to point out specific lines the editor disagrees with or doesn't fit their POV on the article in question. And many edits take place with no mention of a source whatsoever.
In particular I'm thinking of many of the articles on media, like games and movies. Many of the articles I've seen in that vein have no "references" section at all, and few seem to at least have an "external links". It might not be as bad as I'm thinking, because after all, I tend to notice the absence of a references section more than I notice the presence, so it might not be as big an issue as it appears, but I do notice that, at least half the time, the citation needed tags I run across are just lumped onto statements that put the article's subject in any sort of bad light, or are otherwise... I don't know.. unpleasant? Not necessarily untrue, and possibly verifiable. And I realize that burden of proof is on the original editor, so unsourced stuff can always be removed if they're of questionable veracity, but it doesn't seem to me that the tags are actually used for that.
I dunno, I think I guess I want to know the difference between policy as it is written here, and policy how it is actually put to practice. Errick 04:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I have written up a rough policy proposal for a Naming convention for Finnish proper names: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Finnish), and am now posting a link here as per WP:HCP. Please give your input! Elrith 14:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I have seen a large number of guitar model pages being added in the last day of so, all by the same person. e.g. ESP LTD KH-602 and ESP James Hetfield. This seems like a thinly disguised attempt to put a manufacturers catalog in wikipedia. -- Brat32 01:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Late last month, I noticed that users from Philadelphia had added the portal template to several hundred articles, many of them tenuously related to the city. I thought its application was rather excessive, and after looking around a bit, I found a discussion between several respected contributors that obtained consensus for a limited set of articles and categories where the template should be used. When I asked the users from Philadelphia to back off a bit, they replied that since it was not policy they had no reason to comply with my request and that I was being overly bureaucratic. Since that time, the template has been added to hundreds more pages, putting the total at close to 600 articles, with no signs of slowing down. So, I guess it's necessary to develop a guideline designating appropriate uses of the the template. Thoughts? - EurekaLott 04:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a place to find other wikipedia from uzbekistan yes? I shall (want) to order/make a new asscosiation for uzbek wikipedians? yes or no or maybe -- Uzerbaaji 10:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I've read through the agreement and have become very confused on how to use information from here on my website. If I come across an article and image that I want to use on my website, what do I need to do in order to use it on my site? I notice that some topics have several sections. What if I just want to take one section?
63.95.36.13 20:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Does wikipedia currently have a policy/guideline on quoting people's opinions on a subject? If so, I think it might need to be advertised more prominently. If not, we should perhaps consider making one. JulesH 07:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, WP:RS#Some definitions is quite clear about quoting opinions:
And:
And:
Now, "direct quotes" of opinions (e.g. expressed in an autobiography) are usually primary sources too, so:
None of the Wikipedia:Reliable sources guideline clarifications supersede the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy of course, for instance (from WP:NPOV#Undue weight):
This means that not every "verifiable" and "quotable" opinion is necessarily included in Wikipedia. It might be a "tiny minority view", even if printed in a reliable source. Or the WP:NOT policy might provide a ground for barring it from Wikipedia, etc. -- Francis Schonken 08:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed quite a lot of vandalism lately, as Wikipedia is becoming more and more well-known. It wasn't just at the Elephant article, which appeared on the Colbert Report, there were many others. Why can't a policy be set in place that allows only registered users to edit articles? We could even let unregistered people edit the talk pages and ask questions, just ban them from editing the articles. Gary 12:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I am having a problem doing this. Someone I know complained about the article on her and I checked it out. It seemed to me that this was an attack article, on a person without much public importance. I tried to do something with the article itself, including requesting its deletion, but I found myself having to confront the attackers as (almost) no one else seemed to care.* I sent an e-mail message to the address that is given for people to complain about what is written about them. However this e-mail did not go through. Is there some other way to let them now that there is a potential problem? Thanks. Steve Dufour 14:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out, Fan. I just checked out BLP and it seems to cover a lot more than just that point. Steve Dufour 01:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
If verified, sourced facts paint a negative picture, that is not a justification for deleting the article. As far as complaining is concerned, you can go to User:Jimbo Wales and click on "Email this user" but I don't think you'll get anywhere. Fan-1967 15:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. I did try to have it deleted; not because it is false -- I have no reason to think that it is, but because it is a personal attack against an individual. I have read the policy about biographies of living persons and the one about attack articles and I don't think this article belongs on Wikipedia. I have strong personal feelings since I know the person so I will not do anything directly with the article anymore.
I tried to help by changing the wording to make it less attacking (and by adding a link to a personal web page by the subject) but when it was changed back I lost my temper and tagged it for speedy deletion as an attack article (db-attack), when the tag was removed I put it back twice. For this I was threatened with blocking as a "vandal".
BTW the article is Barbara Schwarz. Here is the first paragraph:
Thanks again. Steve Dufour 18:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Here is the URL http://www.thunderstar.net/~schwarz/lrh/fbidocs.html
Any article that is good enough can become a featured article. I don't think that the importance of its subject matter is a major consideration.-- Runcorn 22:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I need some clarification on this issue... does wikipedia consider criticism to be encyclopaedic content? It seems fairly evident to me that: (1) criticism can not be "true" nor "false" -- it is an opinion; (2) the motives of those who post criticism are not known, referencable, or verifiable; (3) criticism is necessarily biased (violating WP:NPOV); QED (4) criticism is either off-topic or completely inappropriate in most instances?
A mini-edit war regarding the placement of an off-topic tag on the criticism section of a particular article (I, of course, stopped editing when I realized the cirucmstances), and the more I think about it, the more I believe that the content is inappropriate entirely (though my point is simply the existance of the off-topic notice).
What do you guys think? A CC: to my talk page (or at least a note to come look here) would also be appreciated. Tnx!
/ Blaxthos 05:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a guideline proposal: Wikipedia:Criticism. Don't know if that would help. Or Jimbo's quote on that proposed guideline page:
it isn't that we should not include the criticisms, but that the information should be properly incorporated throughout the article rather than having a troll magnet section of random criticisms.
-- Francis Schonken 07:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Seems worth noting for unbiased observers that Blaxthos is the admin of bash.org, the website that the article is about. He has a definite axe to grind in trying to make that article look biased -- he thinks ANY criticism is biased against him. 81.1.73.247 13:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
See Talk:Quotation#Korean_law_and_Fair_use.
My english is not good, so understand it. :)
I think, image quotation are to be permit in All language Wikipedias. In All language Wikipedias, text quotation is not prohibited. right?
text quotation is free? -> To quote a image is to be free. of course, in fair practice.
User can quote copyrighted image in only a few language version wikipedia.
But in my legal mind, logical mind...
ALL language user can quote copyrighted text. but, a few language user can quote copyrighted image. It is wong legally.
User can quote copyrighted text? If it is so, User must be able to quote image, moving image, etc. TO ALL LANGUAGE WIKIPEDIA.
fair use image is only US? It is wrong. ALL country permit it.
Do you know a contry that prohibit to quote a text to make a work? I don't know.
TEXT QUOTATION is OK? so, IMAGE QUOTATION is OK. -- WonYong ( Talk / Contrib) 12:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Not sure where to put this I'm posting this here and at RfC for politics and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names). There are several articles about inter-state relations (e.g. Sino-American relations), but no clear naming convention. For instance, why is this article not American-Chinese relations? I have proposed a solution, but I'm not sure what everyone else thinks about it. From Talk:Sino-African relations:
There is not a dispute per se about the names, but I suppose I'm not clear on them and there is no obvious standard (although the alphabetical seems obvious to me.) Anyway, can anyone help me out here? - Justin (koavf)· T· C· M 20:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Fictional works often have an article describing their elements, but sometimes an interpretation or opinion is "explained" by the author, as if it were definitive. Since the examination is not fact, one has to accept the analysis as one out of several interpretations, still being a point of view but being general eough to be accepted in the article. One has to acknowledge the article is presenting a point of view. I've noticed this essay style writing in House of 1000 Corpses and Othello. The article almost becomes an editorial, acceptable enough to not be removed.
The other type of POV in articles is Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters in video and computer games. Not the subject, but the "in subject." What if it were an article for nudity in videogames, sharp weapons in videogames, martial arts in videogames, etc? The pairing of "this instance in this subject" could be infinite. Humor in movies, female characters in literature, non-costumed characters in comicbooks... yes the presentation can be verified and factual, but isn't it more of a thesis, an essay, or a presentation?
Both of these types of articles seem to allow POV and opinion as a way to offer subjective but verifiable description. What do you think? Should there be more like them? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ihavenolife ( talk • contribs) .
After getting the creation of this a little bit wrong and having Tyrenius help me avoid a lot of hassle, Wikipedia:Don't be shy is currently an essay. It's not currently a proposal, as it needs to be polished up first.
The essay originates from an editor querying why we have "Be bold!" and recieving a reply from me to the extent that it's probably because it sounds better than the above. They then commented that they like the above more, and hence after a quick edit, their wish was granted.
As far as I can tell, Be bold is aimed more at editing articles, and at encouraging significant contributions. Don't be shy (also availible via WP:SHY and WP:NOSHY, add more if you like) aims to support people in making smaller but useful changes and, more importantly, in joining in with the community, such as talk pages.
The essay is currently in it's infancy and I'm working on expanding it. But as we all know, wikis work best with other people digging in and lending a hand. Please feel free to help me work on expanding this to be a gentle encouragement to new people. LinaMishima 14:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators, we say, "As a general rule, don't delete pages you nominate for deletion. Let someone else do it."
I propose that we amend that to: "As a general rule, don't close discussions in which you have been involved. Let someone else do it."
I often find that the "consensus" decision by which admins close AfD discussions is suspiciously agreeable to their own vote in that discussion, and not necessarily reflective of the actual consensus. It's usually not too big a deal but it's still, in my judgment, improper. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Year pronunciation is a recent example.
UPDATE: I was just made aware that Wikipedia:Deletion process says, "People should not close discussions in which they have been involved. To do so presents a conflict of interest." -- Hyphen5 20:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I am an admin who thinks its time to leave WP (addiction issues). I see here Meta:Right to vanish that I can delete my user page and talk pages in an attempt to "vanish." It seems odd that I can remove all record of my discussion history (except for Admins who can view/restore). Is that true. Can I just *POOF* delete my pages and disappear? (follow up, can I get a permanent block on my account if I'm concerned about wikiaddition?).
There exists a foundation issue about this. Kim Bruning 23:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I move that blocks should only be issued in cases of vandalism. It is written in the policy, that for other issues (POINT, NPA, civility etc.) an editor should only be blocked in extreme cases and that all blocks should only be preventive. The common practice, however, is that the admins block very easily, issuing punitive blocks all the time. If a long-time trolling or other misbehavior occurs, there should be a process established to block the user, not just a 1 admin's decision. Ackoz 21:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
(Note: this follows from a post at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Extend the blocking templates to give more information.3F)
As it stands, the various blocking templates give differing amount of information, most saying that the user has been blocked and giving the reason (e.g. Template:Test5 or Template:Blank5), most of which optionally let the user know where the problem edit occurred, some additionally telling the user how to oppose the block (e.g. Template:Vbc) and some additionally telling the user how long they have been blocked for (e.g. Template:Sockblockdodge). The one which seems to give the most information is Template:Block-reason, which gives the length of the block as well as (optionally) the reason for the block, and the page that the block is based on.
I would like to see every block template always providing the following information:
All block notices should also link to Wikipedia:Blocking policy (most already do, but some don't).
The reason for having the first two is obvious, as they're in general use. (Note that I think that it should be possible to base a block on multiple pages, normally as a 1-2-3-block count.) The length of the block is currently not given in the majority of templates, which I think is likely to cause confusion amongst most people who get blocked as they won't know where to find this information and hence won't know when they can start editing wikipedia again. The information on how to oppose the block is vital in the case of any unjustified blocks, and this information should always be given at the same time as the block to avoid discouraging editors by making them search for the information on how to unblock themselves. (Note that this will likely cause more work at Category:Requests for unblock, but that's probably good.)
This change would entail adding several compulsory sections to the block templates, which would obviously impact anyone using them, hence the reason for me posting this here for comment.
It may also be an idea to move to a single block template (or a set of block templates with the same functionality but different visual designs), such that the use would be something like {{subst:block|NPOV|Page1|Page2|BlockLength}}, in any order. This is not required for the above suggested changes, however.
I should also add that I don't use the blocking templates myself - I am not an admin - and that these comments come from me seeing the blocking templates in use on various user talk pages. Mike Peel 10:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The current state of copyright tagging of U.S. flags at federal, state, and local levels is a bit of a mess. There's no clear picture of exactly what status these flag images may have as a group.
I'd like to see some input from people knowledgeable about the copyright status of specifically U.S. flags. -- Durin 18:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC) I also found some related discussion at Template_talk:Flagimage#Copyright_redux-- Durin 18:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I know that general policy is to use the abbreviations "U.S." and "UK", but what is the guidance for when the two occur in close proximity. Having mixed usage looks very odd. Should we standardise to either "U.S." and "U.K." or "US" and "UK" depending on which version of english is being used in the page? Or should we stick with a mixed usage? Bluap 14:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I have made a proposal at Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises concerning editing standards for business and organizations. It is based on Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and follows the same principles. Fred Bauder 02:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
It is common to get around blocked URL's by using redirection addresses. Latest example is an outfit called thesexlane.com, that has repeatedly inserted linkspam into articles like Webcam and Oral Sex. Since that one's been blocked, they use redirection URL's, like myftp.biz, zapto.org, no-ip.net, and redirectme.com. It appears there are occasional uses of these domains in legitimate articles, but it seems there ought to be direct links to any legitimate content. Question: should we disable these domains that exist only for redirection? Fan-1967 03:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to call people's attention to the fact that I have nominated Category:Administrators open to recall for deletion. CFDs rarely attract much attenion, but as this one deals with the policy issues surrounding the possiblity of voluntary administrator recall, I feel that it deserves to be considered by a broad audience. Dragons flight 16:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
When did Special:Linksearch get created? Has it always been around? Only I asked for something like this a while back (about a year ago), and no-one seemed to be aware of this then. Is there a history of Wikipedia anywhere that records the dates when various functions were added? (Posting here because someone mentioned this link a few posts above). Carcharoth 08:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)#Clarification of "notability" for fictional characters and its subsections contain some discussion about revising the WP:FICT guideline to require secondary or tertiary sources for standalone articles abnout characters or other fictional elements, and to require that such articles contain no more than half plot summary / backstory, in order to ensure an out-of-universe perspective in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). Comments are welcome. — TKD:: Talk 10:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
What do you think?-- Eggplant WP:EGG 18:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Template:Update after - Described at Wikipedia:Updating information, this is proposed as a partial replacement for the much-misused Wikipedia:As of convention. 06:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Moved from main page talk:
I hope I am placing this comment in an appropriate location. In a section on the Semitone (music), I removed a reference to the Reimann Hypothesis because it is still neither proven nor disproven.(This seems to be in agreement with the basic Wikipedia principles.)
Have you considered a new section, in which the following two areas might be presented: 1) Conclusions and applications which result from yet-unproven theories (such as "super-string theory"). 2) A place for the results of independent research.
I believe that this could greatly enhance Wikipedia, making it not only the best source of reference for already-known information, but a source of fresh ideas and theories, by which human knowledge could expand in exponential proportions. Discussion pages could make this most viable, since any erroneous contributions would be weighed and challenged, and if unreasonable, quickly defeated.
For example, if Einstein were to present E = to Wikipedia, it would probably be removed because it is both the result of original research, and lacking in verifiable references. In effect, Wikipedia would be masking viable thought and theory.
Perhaps an easy way to accomplish this, allowing personal research and unverified data to enter established articles, would be to use a specific font for each of these two areas. (Another method might be to used specifically coloured fonts for reference indexing, to express the nature of a reference, e.g. Blue = verifiable; Red = yet unverified; Green = result of independent research.) Of course, another approach would be to create an "Appendix" of articles based upon unverified data, and another for "Original Research".
Having personally arrived at several "original theories" in the fields of Math and Music, I think it would be wonderful to have such a highly-recognized source as Wikipedia in which not only to present them, but also to have them tested and challenged by others. (I am not not interested in personal recognition, or profits...simply a means of sharing the results of my research with others.)
Such a move could prove highly profitable to Wikipedia. If Wikipedia automatically gains copyright on such material, it stands to generate tremendous profits. (For example, there is a $1,000,000. prize offered for the proving or disproving of the Reimann Hypothesis, not to mention the untold revenues resulting from it's practical application.) Wikipedia could potentially become the "owner" of virtually all new knowledge and theory.
I trust you will give these ideas some consideration. Prof.rick 22:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
On Wikipedia:Banning policy it states that bans from Jimbo can't be appealed, while Wikipedia:List of banned users states that people so banned can appeal to the Arbitration or to Jimbo. Does anyone know what the exact situation is, or is it more of a "you can try..." thing? 68.39.174.238 10:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I posted about this a while ago, and not much came of the discussion. I'm still concerned that not enough people realise the need to not copy and paste without attribution. The example at the time illustrates the problem. See the warnings at the top of Talk:History of Greek and Roman Egypt, Talk:Ptolemaic Egypt and Talk:Aegyptus (Roman province), pointing out that the History of Greek and Roman Egypt article was split using copying and pasting, but that this was done without attribution.
An example of the problems this has caused is the issue discussed at Talk:Ptolemaic_Egypt#Monarch_and_Nomarch, where I had to delve all the way back into the history of the original History of Greek and Roman Egypt article to find where the incorrect change from nomarch to monarch took place. This is a classic example of copying and pasting without attribution obscuring the article history. Indeed, if I had not spotted this, it would have been extremely difficult to work out where the text had been copied and pasted from.
Does anyone agree with me that this is a problem that needs to be stamped on hard? Editors need to learn early on that copy and pasting chunks of text around Wikipedia without attribution is a very bad idea. Is there a suitable way to drive this message home? Carcharoth 09:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I've just posted a concern about linking to customer opinion websites on WP:WPSPAM:
What does everyone think about linking to websites which contain customer opinions?
For example consider http://www.airlinequality.com/ which contains passenger opinions on airlines ( all links). I beleive such a site doesn't meet any of WP:ELs "when to link" guidelines (for #4 it's hard to consider it neutral & accurate) and hits against some of the recommendations on when not to link:
- 2: "Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research, as detailed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources"
- 9: "Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to unless mandated by the article itself."
I wonder if there's a parallel here with the WP:BLP policy which is applied to biographies of living people... And has recently spawned a Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises proposal?
Your comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Customer opinion sites. Thanks/ wangi 21:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
friendly.... -- Stephan Schulz 21:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I want a wikipedia without debates about debates over what wikipedia should contain, can I toby this section? Kotepho 23:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Creating a non-editable version of wikipedia is not the best idea, because that would go against the entire purpose of Wikipedia. The most likely purpose that anyone can edit wikipedia is to make the information as up to date as possible. It would be too much of a burden to have to inspect all edits, because Wikipedia probably would not be able to afford it. School principals should view all articles that explain the purpose of Wikipedia. They should know that information that is obscene or innaccurate will not last for more than a few minutes. Content should not be changed, as it would reduce the quality of certain articles. If there is a childrens wikipedia that is separately created, adults should still be able to edit it, because if there were any restrictions on editing, it would take a lot longer to update articles. Most children probably couldn't afford to wait months after a hurricane to read about it. It would make their assignments a lot harder, because they would not be able to get it as easily. I understand that Wikinews exists for that purpose and that other websites tend to write about those things immediately. It would make sense for some articles to be uneditable but it would be complete nonsense for others. There is infact already a feature that allows webpages to be rendered unchangeable, but administrators need to use it a lot more.
Regularly, ads icons are inserted in front of external links, that make it look like Wikipedia treats them special, promoting or endorsing those sites. This gets worse now with the templates used for external links to IMDb, MusicBrainz, etc.
We really could use a specific, explicit point of policy against this (and a direct WP:ICONAD or WP:SPAMICON or something), that could be immediately cited in the edit summary for removing or reverting this spam without long discussions with each "new user" doing the spamming for those sites. We could also mention it in bold as a NoInclude warning in the related templates, so as to remove plausible denial to future offenders.
-- 62.147.37.34 23:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
MusicBrainz is a nonprofit organization with goals in line with wikipedia. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 02:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi there,
I've today developed an extension based on Special:Makesysop that may be a solution to the problems (at least on en: ) with the process of gaining adminship. Part of the problem with adminship is that it is somewhat difficult to remove. This extension may change that. The extension, as currently configured, allows local bureaucrats to desysop a user. I believe that this is sensible. If we can trust bureaucrats to set the sysop bit, why shouldn't we trust them to remove it? Additionally, desysopping is quite a political issue, and generally requires the intervention of somebody *familiar with the situation*, not an outsider who has simply been informed. Therefore, I suggest that we use this extension to allow Bureaucrats to desysop users in serious cases of abuse of powers. A different process for desysopping may need to be developed to accompany this - and a policy on when bureaucrats may use this ability.
Questions, comments and requests for demonstrations are more than welcome. Werdna talk criticism 11:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Don't use a technical solution to solve a political problem, i.e. don't introduce bureaucrat desysopping just because "adminship is difficult to get" on this Wikipedia. 86.134.116.228 10:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that desysopping by a bureaucrat should only be temporary and that ArbCom should make the final decision for now. Eventually, it should be made easier to have someone dysysopped, but we need to be sure that the process is fair to the admin while being responsive to the community (note: I am an admin). It is currently very difficult to get desysopped. You have to go really nuts or piss off someone who is powerful and/or influential.
It would be difficult to reconfirm every admin, so I suggest that when a certain number of users sign a petition for desysopping an admin, he or she would have a reconfirmation RfA (the signers would be subject to the conditions below). Even if you are an excellent admin, you are going to accumulate a few enemies just by doing your duties, and an average admin will collect more. Therefore, I do not think the 80% pass and 70-80% discretion of the closing bureaucrat of RfAs would be appropriate for a reconfirmation RfA. I suggest that the standard be: 70% support is an automatic pass, 60 to 70% is up the the bureaucrat's discretion and less than 60% is an automatic desysop. Requiring the bureaucrat to give a reason for desysopping someone who got more than 65% and not desysopping someone who got less than 65% might be good. Those who participate in the RfA and who sign the petition should have accounts that are at least one month old and have at least 50 edits. I think that this system would be much better than leaving it up to ArbCom. They already have a lot of cases and operate much more slowly than RfA, they are very experienced users and often admins, which means they do not represent the whole community and there is a danger of cronyism, and they only desysop for extreme offenses, when there is a need, I think, to desysop people who are consistently committing minor to moderate offenses and are rude to everyone but their friends. -- Kjkolb 14:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been done and re-done, though I couldn't find a debate on it off hand. Surely the standard form of the English language should be British English as laid out in the OED as "English English" is commonly considered as the international standard, used across the world by organisations such as the UN. cf: International English article. As this is an international project, despite the servers being based in the United Statesand demographicallymany users may herald from the United States... As we must remember America does not constitute the international community. Bensonby 15:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for making that clear, makes sense broadly and it will continue to be contested. Just couldn't find a coherent absolute debate, just found lots of snippets here and there. Cheers. Bensonby 21:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
There was recently a discussion on the Template talk:Copyvio page, dealing with a situation in which you think that there might be a copyright violation in an article, but you're not at all sure. Currently, the two most straightforward options are to use the {{ copyvio}} tag, which kills the article for a week, or to just start a discussion on the article's talk page, which might not be noticed for quite some time if the article is infrequently edited. It was suggested that there be a cleanup-style template for these fringe cases, that would let readers know about the possible problem without killing the article and without using a whole screen's worth of space. Strictly as a mockup, I went ahead and created a {{ PotentialCopyvio}} template. But it later occurred to me that the current split between "just talk about it on the talk page" and "kill the article and investigate" might be for legal reasons, so I'm not sure if this should go further. Kickaha Ota 15:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
In what I believe was a misguided decision, Redirects for Deletion has recently been renamed Redirects for Discussion. The logic was that since CFD had undergone that change, RfD should too. The problem is, RfD and CfD are completely different. When a normal editor wishes to rename or merge a category they must list it on CfD, hence, categories for discussion, not just deletion. But one someone wants to change where a redirect points to, or turn a redirect into an article, or do anything besides delete it, they should do it themselves, with appropriate discussion on the redirect's talk page. This renaming of RfD obscures its purpose, and risks gumming it up by implying that it is a place for "discussion" of redirects. I really see no benefits to this name change and quite a few problems, but the administrator who renamed it no longer wishes to discuss it. To me, the correct name being "Redirects for deletion" seems straightforward and clear. Am I wrong? What does the community think? -- Nscheffey( T/ C) 16:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
To help preserve NPOV in some controversial articles, is there ever a situation where a form of " disclaimer" can appropriately be included in the text?
The following is a part of the introduction to a section in the pseudoscience article. Take a look before preceding:
Here is an example of my "disclaimer" (the bold part):
It was later deleted with this edit summary as justification:
I believe this edit summary says something about NPOV and is itself evidence of the need for this particular disclaimer.
I happen to agree that the subjects currently listed are uncontroversially pseudo, but I don't believe readers should be forced to buy that position, even though I personally and privately think they should come to that conclusion. They just need to do it on their own. It is not my job as a Wikipedia editor to add or remove information for the purpose of causing the reader to accept my personal POV. That's where disclaimers can help to preserve NPOV. They effectively remind the reader that it is their responsibility to determine the truth of the matter.
There is a lot of history to this particular article describing pseudoscience, since it actually describes a particular POV. Maintaining NPOV - while presenting and preserving the POV of the subject of the article - has been difficult. It has been made even more controversial because of the persistant efforts of believers in the mentioned examples of pseudoscience, who force their POV on the article by consistently deleting their favorite quackery, or at least watering it down. This is sometimes done by redefining the conditions for inclusion in the article, so that precisely their favorite quackery is suddenly and legitimately preserved from inclusion. Such efforts also result in a failure of the article to accurately present and describe the subject itself. These editors even attempt to change the meaning of pseudoscience, by including these obviously mainstream scientific subjects as examples of pseudoscience: immunization/immunology, and modern medicine. (To see multiple real examples of attempts to subvert the article to one pseudoscientific POV, as described above, look at all the edits (and edit summaries) to the article itself from just this one editor.)
The paragraph above (Nota Bene....) is especially important, because it allows subject matter to be included without forcing the reader to accept the POV of the article.
A suggested wording follows in its own section. -- Fyslee 18:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to propose the creation of an "NPOV disclaimer" for Wikipedia articles. (Feel free to improve it.)
Far from all readers are aware of the existence and implications of the NPOV policy. It is important for them to understand it while reading articles. If this disclaimer doesn't stand on its own, it can be included in the existing Wikipedia:General disclaimer.
Proposed NPOV disclaimer
Well, what do you think? -- Fyslee 18:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
There is still far too much ambiguity regarding what defines an FP. This is immediately obvious simply by comparing the criteria listed in the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, with those at Wikipedia:What is a featured picture?. In the former, the criteria clearly focus on how well an image contributes to its corresponding article(s). At the latter, it's almost entirely about image quality issues. And the Wikipedia:Featured pictures has yet a third set of criteria ("shocking" etc). Because of this, you get all manner of opinions on whether a nominated picture should be advanced to feature status or not, and it's all highly subjective and amateurish, because the criteria are simply not clear. You also get photographers who put the promotion of their own pictures above the improvement of Wikipedia as a whole, nice though their pictures may be. These issues must be addressed and resolved if Wikipedia as a whole is to improve. Jeeb 19:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
The point of the above is that a clear policy is needed regarding the role of images in Wikipedia, which there currently is not. Jeeb 22:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Privacy_of_article_subjects
I have put up a proposal for a new policy/procedure at Wikipedia:AdminRecall. rootology ( T) 22:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
WP:CREEP. User:Zoe| (talk) 02:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone, the Policy has been updated as follows (in a nutshell), shortcut WP:RECALL:
Active discussion continues~ Please pitch in, and read the great pro and the con arguments on the Talk page. Thanks! rootology ( T) 15:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
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