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A dispute has arisen between myself and User:Dr Zak over whether Image:Inglis.jpg counts as "unsourced" and should be deleted because it doesn't contain the name of the photographer - simply the (reputable) website where it was found. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of images hosted on Wikipedia that 'do their best' to correctly attribute the source and rationale - in fact, I daresay the vast majority of image sources contain the url where the image was found, not a photographer/newspaper name (which is certainly also acceptable). I would appreciate any clarification if this image is in fact somehow deserving to be deleted since we list the immediate source, but not the pressPhotographer/newspaperName - or if we have indeed done all the work necessary to try and find the original source of the courtroom photo, and it is all but an Orphaned work. Sherurcij ( Speaker for the Dead) 21:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please helpt me explain the meanings of WP:V and WP:NOR here? Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 18:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not trying to be rude in my discussion, but I do think you are taking those policies to the extreme. -- Pinkkeith 18:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm skeptical of the dance moves, but most of the references in that list are so inherently obvious that a source stating "X is a reference to Y" is just unnecessary. For example, one does not need a secondary source stating that the line "My mana tap brings all the boys to the yard" is a reference to the lyric "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard" from the song "Milkshake," because there is no other plausible explanation for that particular phrasing being used. The only needed sources are thus the game containing the reference, and the song containing the lyric that is referenced. The same with the He-Man reference: "The Arathi Basin Battlemaster is named "Adam Heman" in reference to the popular tv show character. He also has a "Zulian Battle-tiger" as a pet, in reference to his tiger, Cringer. He also appears with a gnome behind him called "Oric Coe" in reference to Orko." I'd require a source stating that it wasn’t such a reference because that is so incredibly improbable. Postdlf 18:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Citing info from a source isn't an observation or a judgement call. To verify a song lyric, just listen to the song. To verify a line of dialogue from the movie, just watch the movie. That's referencing a source, not doing OR or observation. The reliable sources are the game and the song. Obviously wikipedia allows using primary sources (as does any encyclopedia) - would it really make sense if to say in the article about Romeo and Juliet "Romeo and Juliet die at the end" I couldn't use Romeo and Juliet as a source and had to find the info somewhere else? It would be practially impossible to write about any fiction at all. I can see why some oppose the article on "cruft" concerns, but NOR unquestionably does not apply and isn't grounds for deletion - if it was, the vast majority of articles on fiction could be deleted on the same grounds. -- Milo H Minderbinder 15:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Note: This was cross-posted at Wikipedia talk:Categorization, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies
Category:Terrorists was up for CfD, which passed as Delete. In a deletion review, I proposed an alternative categorization that would merge several top-level categories into one. My proposal is at User:Irixman/TerrorismProposal. Before I am bold and just do it, I really want some feedback -- should I? What do y'all think? :) Please direct any and all comments to User:Irixman/TerrorismProposal#Comments -- Irixman (t) (m) 16:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Could there possibly be a better voting system on Wikipedia than having to manually type the vote and reason? I mean, could there be a bunch of users set up to handle a certain vote (say, on their talk pages, or even their user pages), and then archive it once its done? Pages such as WP:RfA are getting quite cluttered with all of the questions, votes, and opinions on the pages. Could a consensus vote be handled on a user page, and the discussion on the talk page? Someone please add on to this. Diez2 02:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The reason WP:RfA is "cluttered" is because it is a collection of many individual pages on which discussion happens. It is just an overview, and the discussions don't take place there. And the individual discussions are archived and removed from the page. Does that make sense? -- Milo H Minderbinder 15:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The last thing we want to do is encourage voting. Votes here are a means to finding consensus, not to be encouraged as a decision process in themselves. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 21:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there a policy/guideline on putting image attribution in captions within articles? I looked at Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Captions, but could not find anything, and am not sure where this would go exactly.
I think the traditional approach has been not to attribute the author of an image in the caption (whatever the licence - fair use, GFDL etc), but instead to do it on the image description page. For example I have never seen caption attribution in a featured article.
What do I say to a photographer who uploads a {{ Cc-by-sa-2.5}} image (the licence requires attribution) and then insists on putting their name and website in the caption? At the moment I tell them that it is not the Wikipedia way, but pointing to a policy or guideline would be helpful. Cheers -- Commander Keane 02:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I could extend WP:NOT#Not a soapbox to captions under the advertising clause; I think that's the policy cited for linkspam. I wouldn't have the same objection to an external link in the image's page itself. Durov a Charge! 15:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
This has come up here before. The Creative Commons license requires attribution "reasonable to the medium or means" [2]. Putting the copyright information on the image page only would, in my non-lawyerly opinion, be perfectly reasonable to the medium (a wiki) and thus would be in full compliance with the license. I was actually tempted to email Larry Lessig and ask his opinion on it (seeing as how he wrote the license). Raul654 19:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Does this summary constitute a legal threat? Dylan Lake ( t· c· ε) 02:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm tired of new users not understanding what this thing means and not realizing that people are leaving them messages. What if we changed it (through MediaWiki) to say "A Wikipedia user has left you a message. Please read it and respond if necessary"? -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 22:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I reversed it before seeing this discussion, but looking at it now I don't think there is a consensus for it. "A Wikipedia user" is misleading. The message could be from an IP (not a user account); it could be from a bot (not a person); it could be from someone passing by who has never edited Wikipedia before and may never again or from a banned user's several sockpuppets (not a Wikipedian). The message is shown simply when the user talk page is changed, and adding more specific verbiage of this kind separates it even further from its real meaning. — Centrx→ talk • 02:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Where did this idea that people don't understand what "You Have New Messages" means come from? Where is the evidence that people aren't seeing vandal warnings? How does adding "on your Wikipedia talk page" solve that? If people don't understand new messages, then they're certainly not going to know what a talk page is. If this was a site with flashing advertisements everywhere telling people they've one things, then this might be understandable. But there's not a single advert on this side (apart from possibly the contents of CAT:SPAM). -- Steel 18:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Rschen, I fail to see how that is evidence for anything, other than that the user clearly doesn't want to discuss whatever he's doing. That user was left his first message on the 12th September. Are you suggesting that in two months he's not once clicked the bright orange banner which won't go away? -- Steel 15:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Tito xd( ?!?) 08:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are wikipedians obsessed with warning templates? Why does WP:AIV tell you not to bother listing a vandal if they haven't been warned 4 times or vandalised within the last 5 minutes?
For example: a user who replaces "Nelson Mandela" with "Buttfucker" doesn't need to be told that his edit is considered vandalism... if he's smart enough to edit a page, he's probably smart enough to know that it's vandalism.
I'm an admin on other wikimedia projects. If someone vandalises a page, they get blocked. No warning, no cute templates added to their user page, nada... just blocked.
Blatant and sophisticated vandals who upload nasty images and/or alter templates are blocked permanently. No warning, no templates, etc. Should WP:BITE really apply to vandals? Why does blocking vandals cause an existential crisis? -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 17:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
You might want to look at Wikipedia_talk:Assume_good_faith#Proposal_to_consider_the_removal_of_this_paragraph_from_Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith_policy — Omegatron 03:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
As someone who may not edit here every day, I find it frustrating to have to nominate a (previously warned)vandal for blocking within 24 hours of his vandalism. - Freekee 05:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to make the point that this is a Crime Prevention vs. Criminal Lockup discussion. I don't think that we need to swing to either polar extreme by either blocking fewer people and trying to stop people from vandalism with pleading/educating or blocking everyone at first infraction. Right now, however, I think we're giving Wikicriminals -- the type who are committing crimes for the thrill of it -- too many chances. I think we're giving the Wikinaive -- the folks who are driving down one way streets because they don't know the area -- the "right" amount of discipline. I do think we should follow up where good faith is necessary and try and bring people onto the right path. Anyone, member or IP, who is committing any type of vandalism that is detrimental to the wiki and does not appear to be acting in good faith, needs to see less of our "other cheek," though. We don't need to be issuing four template warnings for people who are clearly doing wrong for the heck of it. For everyone's sake -- editor and admin alike -- we need to begin blocking vandals faster and for longer periods of time. Everyone's stress will go down, we'll see less reversions overall, and admins will be chasing fewer people around the streets cleaning up after them. -- Wolf530 06:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
As far as the AGF argument goes, I thinik it's more important to assume the good faith of the people reporting vandals than it is to assume that vandals might not know they're vandals. It just seems a bit over the top to require that vandals be warned 4 times before a block can be "justified", and good-faith users shouldn't be required to "build a case" about the vandalishness of the vandals (unless we want to assume that people regularly report vandals because they're wikisadists and only want to block vandals because that's how they get their jollies). This only serves to further frustrate people who are already frustrated by having to waste time reverting bad-faith edits. It would be a lot nicer if when checking my watchlist I'd find mostly additions to the articles (maybe even really good additions that will teach me something new), rather than yet another reference to questionable uses of cucumbers.
I think the problem is rooted in misplaced empathy. We (the good-faith contributors to wikipedia) would be terribly unhappy if we found ourselves unable to edit. Vandals on the other hand will probably find something else to do (like throwing gobs of wet toilet paper at the nearest librarian). And even if they are terribly unhappy about being unable to vandalise wikipedia... so what?
There's a difference between newbie tests, clever jokes (which seems to be what the {{ test}} templates are designed to address), inane vandalism (blanking, toilet humor, etc.), and sophisticated vandalism (uploading and placing obscene images, altering templates, and so on). The latter two kinds of vandals should just be blocked on sight, no warnings, no messages on their talk explaining it (i.e., no "monuments"). Rollback the edits, block the vandal, delete the nasty images, semiprotect regular targets (autoconfirmed only), move on. We were having a big laugh on IRC yesterday after importing a 1-page document that had over 300 revisions. A lot of the articles we import have rediculously long contrib histories full of mostly vandalism and reversions of vandalism, and a lot of the vandalism was by the same users. We don't put up with that kind of nonsense on wikibooks.
As far as needing more admins: yes, we probably do (though it's hard to believe... aren't there over a thousand already?). I've considered doing an RfA myself, but I suspect that having the tools but not being able to use them properly (because of unneccessary bureaucratic requirements) might be even more frustrating than just not having them (which is actually much more frustrating when you're used to having them). Doing an RfA on wikipedia seems to have become something akin to running for U.S. congress... it's not supposed to be a big deal. As far as "corrupt" admins are concerned, desysopping someone who isn't using the tools properly shouldn't be a big deal either.
There are exceptional cases, of course. You generally wouldn't want to block a school IP for a long period, though if the school IP is consistently a source of vandals, then it's obvious that the school either can't or doesn't bother to keep an eye on their students... if they can't be bothered with that, then their students will just have to sign up accounts on other computers (they can still read the encyclopedia, of course). And of course you can't permablock IPs (they sometimes change hands), but if an IP is causing a lot of problems, you can block them for a year (during which time the vandal might experience some personal growth). The problem is that we're making the rules based on the exceptions, which is an ass-backwards way of going about things. -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 12:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
My two cents here... I have noticed significant increase in vandalism since early September when school started. College/University students are not so much a problem, but high school and lower are often a source (when I run the IP through WHOIS). This school year, I am far less tolerant of vandalism. If the talk page has past warnings, I start with {{ bv}}, and then block. Another useful tactic is to look through their recent contributions of articles they have vandalized. Pick the most embarrassing one, make the heading "Your edits to Mental retardation", for example [4]. If it's a school, corporate, or government IP, I will also add {{ Ipowner}}, such as here [5] and [6]. With this template, the name of the organization can be made into an external link; I will try and find the school's computer use policy and link to that. [7] Though, kids may still vandalize, anyway. If the vandalism is really blatant, such as involving an obscene image or a template, it indicates the vandal knows what he/she is doing and will be blocked on sight. Of course it's tricky when the school IP is a shared IP. In those cases, the blocks may be relatively short, but long enough so that the kid has moved on to something else (e.g. next class). As pointed out above, we have just slightly over 1000 admins (not all that many). It's a waste of valuable admin time, to go through test, test2, test3, test4, and then block if the intent is obvious. Basically, zero tolerance is needed when the intent is clear, their vandalism is particularly harmful to Wikipedia, and I don't think they will stop. Other times, instinct tells me the vandal wants attention, and it's best to revert, ignore them, and they go away. And sometimes, the "vandalism" is really a test, and will handle it accordingly. -- Aude ( talk) 19:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
This shouldn't fall into archive. Per my above, if it is normal policy that blatant vandals do not need the whole range of template warnings, then Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism and the other policy pages which require this action need to be updated. I don't want to go updating without consensus, though... -- Wolf530 ( talk) 16:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
So the question becomes, how the heck do we go about changing or making policy? I'll bet that if we made an attempt, there would be a large consensus that we don't need to be as lenient on the "buttfucker"/"jonny's mother is a gay whore" vandals as on the vandal that puts "hi" at the end of a page. Any ideas? - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 20:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
As suggested above, I was bold and created the essay as suggested by Durova. Everyone else should be bold as well and edit or comment on the essay. What do y'all think? -- Jayron 32 05:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that sandboxes should be created in userspace only. If article X exists in wikispace, is it ok to create X/Sandbox to work on a potential addition to that article? Is there a guideline on this? I thought I saw something that said it was ok in certain cases but cannot find that information now. *Sparkhead 14:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
A user has posted a photograph that is almost certainly a picture of herself, but the image has embedded on it a copyright notice with the name of the photographer. The image was uploaded with I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain - what is the correct way to deal with this? -- ArmadilloFromHell 01:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
The image is watermarked, which is against policy and grounds for deletion in itself. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 19:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
To most people in general, a copyright is simply atool to keep your work from being copied, however, copyrights have been abused multiple times and there isnt a plan to stop it. Copyrights have impeded progress in genetic research and many other things. I think a copyright should only apply to things like competitors (using copyrighted things for profit). -Charlie34 8:13 09 November 2006
Perhaps it would be better to have four special question sections, review questions, open questions, article concerns (typographic, factual and compo), and one for non-neutral points of view.
I also believe that the focus of Wikipedia should be based primarily on comprehending, with a bias towards the sympathetic, sort of like Wikinfo. Lets all get on the same page. Then try to understand other people and synthesize if we can. I think that's the best way.
I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready now?
The only thing I forsee as being potentially contentious is the chronological ordering of filmographies, but I still suspect (hope) a supermajority will quickly emerge, once put to wider discussion, favouring consistency and traditional listing standards.
Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :-) -- Quiddity 20:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
One of our Indian editors, Bharatveer, feels very strongly that Hindi/Hindustani names and words should not be rendered in Nastaliq script in Bollywood-related articles. He has removed the Nastaliq script from more than a dozen actor/actress articles, claiming that since Urdu is not their native tongue, their name should not be given in Nastaliq script. He is up to three reverts on Anupam Kher.
This is a complex issue. One underlying language ( Hindustani) has been written in two scripts for centuries. Muslims tended to use a Perso-Arabic alphabet (which is what they used to read Arabic and Persian literature) and Hindus used Devanagari. The Muslims also tended to speak a Hindustani that contained more Persian and Arabic loan words, a dialect generally called Urdu. The Hindu version of Hindustani is called Hindi and contains more Sanskrit loan words. Since the Partition of India, the divergence between the Pakistani version of Urdu and the Indian version of Hindi has increased. However, at the level of the man in the street, people still speak Hindustani, without fancy loan words. Bollywood films aim for the widest possible audience and they are generally written in a Hindustani-leaning Hindi that is easily understood by Pakistanis as well as North Indians. Not only that, movie titles and credits are usually given in both Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts, so that all audiences can read them.
The continued presence of Muslims and Muslim script in India is profoundly irritating to followers of Hindutva, an Indian political movement, and Bharatveer seems to be following a Hindutva line in most of his edits. Recently he tried to remove the Nastaliq script from the Bollywood article; a long edit war ensued, in the course of which it was established that most Bollywood films use both scripts in their titles and advertising, and that if there is any justification for adding Devanagari versions of words, names, and titles (the convenience of South Asian users of the English WP), it applies equally to Nastaliq.
Bharatveer gave up trying to remove Nastaliq from the Bollywood article, but has, in the last couple of days, switched to removing it from the actor/actress articles. He says that if the actor/actress isn't a "native Urdu speaker," then his/her name shouldn't be given in Nastaliq script. But of course the issue isn't native speech (many actors/actresses are NOT native Hindustani speakers -- they had to learn Hindi in order to get roles) but giving the name in forms that allow South Asian readers to figure out the proper pronunciation (which is not apparent from the Romanized form of the name).
Can we have a blankety-blank policy that says that if Devanagari is used to render a Hindi word, that Nastaliq can be used also? Without a policy, I forsee a grinding war of attrition over all the India and Indian cinema related articles, in which some editors are adding the Devanagari and Nastaliq forms of words, names, and titles, and Bharatveer is removing the Nastaliq. Over and over. He's removing information that could be useful to some users because he wants to make a political point, and it's taking time and energy away from writing the dang encyclopedia.
If a policy isn't the proper way to handle this, what is? Is this going to have to go to RfC and Arbcom? I'm not sure that stopping Bharatveer's personal anti-Nastaliq crusade would solve the general problem, since there are other Hindutva WP editors who would be happy to take up the struggle. But I'd be open to any suggestions for stopping the edit wars. Zora 08:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, some guidelines for ALL articles would seem to be useful. In addition to dealing with Devanagari and Nastaliq, I've also run into Arabic (lots of Arabic), Persian, Turkish, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam ... It gets to be just too much at the start of an article. The article will start like this: XXX (script A, script B, script C) blah blah blah. That's actually kind of hard to read. Suppose we had a little infobox (as small as feasible) that could sit off to one side and hold the various non-Roman scripts. In tiny print. Enlargeable. No more than four scripts? I'll have think about general guidelines for which to choose. Very good points re thinking in broader terms. Zora 08:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
As a Wikipedist who deals in primarily articles about upcoming films, particularly superhero films, I'm curious about others' perspectives about how to determine when to create articles for upcoming films. What criteria should an upcoming film meet if the film has not reached the production stage yet? Is it enough to have a writer and director attached, like Ant-Man? What about films that don't have anything attached, but still generate the occasional news, like The Punisher 2 or Wolverine? What about the notability of a sequel based on its predecessor's success, such as The Dark Knight? I've used the crystal ball and notability policies both ways, defending something like Interstellar or voting for the deletion of something like Battle Angel. When can an upcoming film go from its subsection on the source material's article or a director's article to become an article that would grow in time? -- Erik ( talk/ contrib) @ 18:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Many articles in Wikipedia contain the phrase "it is interesting to note...". Perhaps I'm being nitpicky, but that doesn't seem NPOV. Who it to decide what is interesting? The "interestingness" of something is completely subjective. Encyclopedias shouldn't tell us what is interesting and what is not. I propose that all such instances be replaced with "it may be noted that...". -- Munchkinguy 04:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
I've added a suggestion to a POV term that I think should be avoided at Wikipedia_talk:Words_to_avoid#Homophobic. I would really appreciate comment on this one. Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 05:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
In the "See Also" section, user-friendly articles include links to both the wikilink dump and related articles, but less user-friendly articles only include a link to dump.
The practice of not including related links within the article hides information from novice users, who rely upon their browser's 'find' tool to locate specific information quickly. If a 'find' search fails to locate the keyword within the article, novice users are likely to assume that Wikipedia does not contain the information they seek. [This happened to me when I tried to find a list of Philippine holidays; I am sure that this situation has happened to others as well.]
Some articles are more useful than others because the "See Also" layout guidelines do not specify that the "See Also: wikilink dump" format can not be used to fulfill the requirements of the See Also section.
Discuss here 70.112.29.65 12:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Wangi, thanks for admitting that you don't understand. I'll explain the problem in a different manner: Assume that 1) The user wants to find a list of the public holidays in a certain country, 2) The primary article for that country does not contain the list, 3) The list is in another article related to that country, 4) The user uses the following methodology:
1) User types the country name into the Wiki search box & selects "go" --> Result: User is redirected to the primary article for the country.
2) User types in 'Holidays' into his/her Internet browser's "find in this page" search tool.
The result of step #2 varies, based on the layout of the "See Also" section at the end of the article. In user-friendly articles, (such as the United States), the browser finds the link to the information in the article's primary "See also" section. In less user-friendly articles, (such as the Philippines), the browser fails to find the link to the information. Novice users may incorrectly assume that Wikipedia does not contain the information they seek.
The reason for the failure is that the See Also section in less user-friendly articles only gives the link to the relevant "List of xyz related articles" (the Wikilink dump). Whereas, the primary See Also section in user-friendly articles include links to the related articles and the link to relevant "List of xyz related articles" page.
This problem can be corrected by clarifying the layout guidelines for the primary "See Also" section at the end of the article. It should require that the primary See Also section contains individual links to all the related articles. 70.112.29.65 23:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Uhm, what do you mean by "wikilink dump"? The United States see also is nearly unreadable, while the Philippines one is much better. I would prefer that they did list the most major sub-articles there, but it's certainly better than the US article's multiple screens of uncollapsed templates. -- tjstrf Now on editor review! 23:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Wangi, no, it's not a recent edit. But its OK that you commented before reading the links carefully. I am sure that the clarification helped others to see the problem more clearly.
You state that one of the mechanisms for "helping people along to other articles" is the inclusion of "Categories of related articles, linked at the bottom of each article." The omission of this mechanism at the end of the "bad" article is precisely my point. It should be present, but it is not.
Perhaps you intended to state that when there are just a few related articles, links to those articles are included, like in the case of Peru. However, when there are many related links, then Wikipedians could not "possibly include enough links on any given article to match every user's expectations - it's simply not maintainable and would swamp the real content."
I disagree. If a "List of XYZ related articles" page can be maintained, then the contents of that page can be appended to the primary XYZ page. To do anything less hides information from novice users.
Tjstrf, Yes, the See Also section of the "bad" article is more readable than the one in the "good" article. The "bad" article See Only section only contains one link, whereas the one in the "good" article constains more than 50 links.
In regards to your query on on the term "Wikilink dump" it was used by Howard the duck in reference to the List of Philippine-related topics. He stated, "that list is for maintainance (for checking on related changes), and is a wikilink dump." If you need greater clarification, you will have to ask him. 70.112.29.65 03:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I have a question about notability guidelines, particularly WP:WEB... if something meets a criteria and then at some point -stops- meeting the criteria. I ask because a webcomic may be notable under point 3 for being on Keenspot, but after they leave keenspot to be independent it's not clear what that means. Webrunner 20:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd say once notable, always notable, because we document history, not current events. Criteria changing is entirely separate from whether something has met the criteria at some point in time or not. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 18:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
An editor asked me what one policy I could enact by fiat. I had to say I couldn't do any such thing, even if I had the authority. Then I thought that was ducking the question and said No wheel warring.
I can't think of anything I'd like better than to see this tagged {{ policy}}. It's not for me to do this; I'm too involved. Before the last merge, both halves of this page were tagged, without controversy, {{ guideline}}. The page is stable and there is no controversy on talk.
I'd like to ask our community to visit this page, judge it on its merits, and see if the policy tag is warranted. If not, of course, please feel free to air concerns, propose changes, and edit this page. Thank you. John Reid ° 10:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I would like feedback on whether the currently proposed wording of this guideline is an accurate description of the status quo in Wikipedia. Please respond on its talk page. ( Radiant) 10:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to solicit feedback from the Wikipedia community on the following four points concerning campaign advertisements (i.e., advertisements supporting a particular ArbCom, Administrator, or Bureaucrat candidate):
— Psychonaut 10:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't bother me particularly. How else do you plan on getting people to vote? Without publicizing it, the arbcom elections will basically stay as a walled garden. If you actively advertise them, then maybe we will get wider input from the less prolific and less meta- editors. -- tjstrf Now on editor review! 10:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Does the 3RR apply to reverts over continued insertion of copyrighted/text-dumped material into an article, or is it considered vandalism? Cheers. Bubba hot ep 09:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Someone pointed out recently on the Noticeboard that we had discussions about warning removal here here and here. I'm looking at the poll, at least, and it looked pretty strongly like consensus was for keep. First, why is it not then a policy? Second, is there anything that can be done about it? I find it a ridiculous example of the "free speech" clause gone overboard - wikipedia is WP:NOT anarchy, which says: "Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia." I can't possibly see how warning removal could do anything other than reduce free speech. And if someone says "george bush is a buttfucker" on his page, I also can't see why they should have the "right" not to have that warning pasted on their talkpage. - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 01:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
OK; so then it's allowed to restore warnings given in good faith when it's clear that the editor has removed them so that they won't be seen. - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 06:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but other than POV and verifiable sources, I don't think Wiki has a policy on election coverage. On the eve of the US 2006 midterm elections, this has led to considerable confusion / anarchy in certain articles while votes are being tabulated. For example, on the
Kerry Healey page, announcements on her defeat by Deval Patrick in the recent MA election was posted and reposted multipled times throughout the evening.
Some people may feel that this is really a non-issue, as the controversy will tend to sort itself out, generally by the next day. However, I feel that some type of official policy should be in place for two reasons. First, it helps sort through the anarchy on election day. Secondly, and more importantly, many people use wiki (like it or not) as a source of information on current events, especially on election candidates. We all remember the United States Presidential Elections of 2000, when Florida flip-flopped between Bush and Gore all evening on the major networks. It has been claimed (though I have not seen solid evidence), that calling an election before the close of polls can discourage voting and is in itself a violation of
NPOV.
PROPOSED
The wiki policy should extend to coverage on election tabulation as well.
Firstly, posting a projected winner of an election before the close of polls should be strictly forbidden as NPOV.
Secondly, stating a clear winner of an election in one where there is a) a very narrow margin AND b) a very possible recount should be discouraged unless the posted explicitly states it as such. Violations of such should be classified as a violation of
Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Thirdly, posting a candidate's victory is allowed if credible sources demonstrate a substantial margin after polls have closed, though votes are not completely tabulated.
If people have an opinion on this, I would greatly appreciate your input.
Djma12 21:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
There is a recently created tag {{ Replaceable fair use}} which is used to categorizes a given image into a dated category for deletion if it can possibly be replaced by a "free" image in the future - even if there isn't one currently available. Now it looks like this is being applied to all biographies of living people, bands, etc, with fair use images. However, there is an older template {{ promophoto}} which used to say that a promotional photo (released by the copyright holder for the press) can be used "in the absence of a free alternative" (now changed) - so if no current alternative exists a fair use promotional photo could have been used, now it has been changed to say that if there is no possibility for free alternatives (which means most recent photos of living people are disqualified, as you can go out and take a picture of them).
So people who uploaded images in good faith under this criteria are still having their uploads deleted without much futher warning. Literally thousands of articles are losing their images that were put up in good faith and with a long-standing template to justify it.
Why don't we do something like what we have for fair use rationale and have some date before which these images are deemed ok to leave, but no new ones are uploaded (say October 13, 2006 when the template was changed). If it is under proper fair use then let the older ones be but do not allow any newer ones. No copyright laws are being violated here, and the only reason cited is to promote more "free" images, so I see no urgency to delete.-- Konst.able Talk 08:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Related question: Should a fair use promotional image be removed from an article in favor of a free one, even when the free image doesn't illustrate the subject as well? - Freekee 18:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
There's a good "as well" example on the Neil Young article. A current free-use photo is buried way down, because, in the words of one fan/editor, he looks "like a potato", and, frankly, it's not that good a photo. A fair-use image from back in the 1960s-70s is at the top in the infobox. But the idea of replaceable fair-use is that all someone has to do is ask Neil Young or his people for an acceptable photo to be released under a free license.
This policy is a pretty harsh awakening. It's tended to suck the fun out of things and it's being wantonly applied in some cases. But it seems this is way it's going to be. Acceptance and adaptability are the keys.
So, I think there should be a news release to raise awareness of the need for free-use images vs copyright images. The idea that promophotos and eventually other fair-use photos can be done away with stems from the notion that Wikipedia is big enough and influential enough it ought to be able to force a change. And eventually, the thinking goes, PR agencies and companies will release their promotional works under a free license. More about this policy can be found here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use#Replaceable fair use and especially, Wikipedia talk:Publicity photos#This page is dangerous.- Wisekwai 03:56, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
The results have been encouraging. And the more times I do it, the more success I'm having. Most folks are pretty excited about having their work in Wikipedia. I just explain the licensing terms and that it will need to be uploaded to the commons, where they will receive attribution and a link back to their site and they are happy. In just a few cases so far, I've either been flat-out ignored, or one guy wrote and said he was really sorry, he just couldn't let his work go, which was really nice, actually. At least he answered.
Flickr is a good source of images, and many of them are already under a Creative Commons license, though you have to be careful, because it's not always a CC license that is used on the Commons. Still, Flickr is a good source because you can directly contact the people through Flickr mail. And Commons has a scheme to scour Flickr for usable images to upload under free-licenses from Flickr to Commons.
Still, I don't believe the current way of going about things is the right way to go. The only people who seem to have gotten wind of this are people who have uploaded images. Understandably, many are quite unhappy that "their" images are being deleted. It is creating a lot of uncivility. There should be a general announcement to the Wikimedia community at large, as well as the general public, that free-license is the way to go and that fair-use images are no longer acceptable if they are replaceable. - Wisekwai 19:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
There is alot of debate in talk pages about handling a criticism section. I feel it is important to address this issue specifficaly. I think there needs to be a policy on how you address sections like this. -- Zonerocks 20:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
This form of "undue weight" is an inevitable result of the "notability" policy for inclusion. Some people and subjects are notable because they are notorious. This automatically results in a large amount of negative information, since most of the verifiable information from reliable sources is negative. Other information would be original research or from unacceptable sources. That's life. As long as the information is properly sourced and worded in an NPOV manner (simply presenting the POV, without advocating or attacking it), then there's no problem.
For controversial subjects, with editors on both sides of the issue, this can still end up with an unbalanced article. In scientific and medical matters this is because the scientists usually have better sources and are better at presenting their arguments than the quacks, pseudoscientists, and true believers, who don't have very good sources (just anecdotes or hate sites), and whose arguments are often filled with logical fallacies.
The way forward in such cases is as suggested -- to build up what's lacking, not to exercise bad faith towards other editors by deleting their hard work. Bad people or subjects should not be whitewashed by deleting valid and well-sourced information. Suppression of opposing POV is a very unwikipedian thing to do.
Wikipedia's NPOV policy must not be misused so it becomes synonymous with revisionism, censorship, whitewashing, or political correctness. One must allow presentation of both sides of any controversy. To leave out or suppress one side amounts to promoting the other side's POV. Wikipedia should include more information than other encyclopedias, not less. -- Fyslee 22:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Today I came across a personal "user watchlist" as a subpage of an editor's user talk. It's meant to be a list of editors that the editor in question feels should be watched for controversial or problematic activities. It just doesn't feel right to me, too much like a personal attack. Any comments? -- Zeraeph 23:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
As far as I am aware ArbCom has actually approved of such lists in the past. I have, however, always seen this as a mistake. Such a page is really nothing more than an attack page - a public statement that that user intends to stalk and harrass those on their watchlist, exercising a personal, and often immediate, veto on anything they disagree with. It is also a clear statement that the person maintaining the watchlist assumes those listed on it are acting in bad faith, jguk 09:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs.
Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It is not a
trivia collection, a
soapbox, a
vanity publisher, an experiment in
anarchy or
democracy, or a web
directory. Nor is Wikipedia a collection of
source documents, a
dictionary, or a
newspaper, for these kinds of content should be contributed to the sister projects,
Wikisource,
Wiktionary, and
Wikinews, respectively. Wikipedia is not the place to insert your own opinions, experiences, or arguments — all editors must follow our no original research policy and strive for accuracy. |
If someone wants to maintain such a list, why not just encourage them to maintain it privately and offline on their own machine? Certainly we couldn't prohibit that anyway, and I think that would prevent a lot of issues. Seraphimblade 08:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Certainly, it's not right to have a "user watchlist" if it's inflammatory. However, I have one myself, and it survived an MfD because:
Hi, I've created a new proposed notability guideline for albums Wikipedia:Notability (albums), and would be interested in any feedback. Thanks, Addhoc 13:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I know no policy or guideline directly covers the issue of removing warnings but I'm seeking advice on a specific case, see Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings#Advice on what I should do Nil Einne 10:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
What is the community position on retrospectively adding references to support facts?
Regarding this edit; the reason for the "unneeded notations" were that I had added the refs to somone else's work. Why do I consider this a potential problem?
A) If we don't know the actual source, there may be legal/academic issues in implying someone got a fact from a particular place, when in fact they got it elsewhere.
B) Circular references:-
Fourohfour 15:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
There is currently some debate on whether to keep WP:RS as a Guideline or demote it to Essay status. The issue revolves around what the community consensus is (one side claims that the Guideline has lost community consensus support and thus should be demoted, the other contends that there is consensus to keep it as a Guideline - although it may need continued work). Please pop over... read the guideline and the discussion on the topic, reach your own conclusions and tell us what you think. Blueboar 01:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Elonka, please do not distort reality in order to gain sympathy. You were one of the people who were asking for a poll in the first place [12]. We could delete that poll right now and still have the discussion area, which would still support what is being said in the guideline. I've also stated that I would not have a major problem with restarting the poll to make this all more clear, since you had concerns with the poll changes. The poll is simply a list of people who agree with certain statements, but we do not need numbers to come to the same conclusion. -- Ned Scott 23:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting discussion when the fair use photos are to be deleted: when the free replacement is theoretically possible (e.g. photos of any living person) or then they are already present. See Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use#A_change_to_FUC_.231 Alex Bakharev 00:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Is information about one of our biographies which is included in a "gotcha" youtube video useable? Would YOU TUBE be the source? Reportersue 19:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikibooks has has Special:Import for about a month now, and I've been doing several imports per week in the hopes of cleaning up Category:Articles containing how-to sections and Category:Copy to Wikibooks. After transwikiing, I replace whichever template it was with {{ Copied to Wikibooks}} or {{ Copied to Wikibooks Cookbook}} (I should probably make a third to replace the how-to template?).
This adds the pages into the category Category:Articles copied to Wikibooks in need of cleanup. I had been adding to the transwiki log as well, but it's gotten to be enormous, so I've given up on that and just log it in on wikibooks. For the how-tos, I've recently been adding {{ howtobook}} to the talk page as well to make sure editors are informed.
The problem is that even after the copying, templating, etc., 2 things are happening:
In cases where the article seems to be nothing but a how to, I just prod it (I also prod things that are much too stubby for wikibooks... stubs don't fare as well there as they do here on wikipedia). But what to do about these other cases? People seem quick enough to add the tags, and while I'm happy to do my part and help wittle down the backlog in the to-be-transwikied cue, there seems to be no follow-up on the wikipedia side rewriting the articles to be "encyclopedic".
I'm bringing this up here because on the Category:Articles containing how-to sections page, it reads
Now that Wikibooks has the tools to run down the wikipedia backlogs in this area, maybe it's time to come up with some sort of policy on this? -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 14:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
In recently noticed that the template for the stubs appears in the stub lists inside the stub category. And most often amongst the stub articles under the letter "T". Wouldn't it be more logical to have a category for stub templates and not include template the stub category. If it is necessary to place a link to the stub template, why not put it on top of the respective stub category in the how-to section? OMG, you may have to read this twice cause I got dizzy just writing it. Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 10:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I know all that, but some people seeem to think they belong in the stub category rather than in the stub template category and remove the includeonly clause. Or they misplace the templage page by removing the noinclude in [[Category:Page<noinclude>|*</noinclude>]]. What is the policy on that? Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 20:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
If you look at the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:217.21.232.179 you can see that repeatedly giving gentle hints is pointless. These type of vandals know from the start that it's vandalism. It's not accidental in the slightest, and I can imagine them laughing at the suckers who keep on posting them "do it 3 more times and you'll be blocked" "do it 2 more times and you'll be blocked" messages. My plan? If the vandalism is pointless and not accidental (this is usually obvious) give them one warning. After that, block for 6 months. Pussyfooting around, trying to "win them over" is not going to work. If you don't believe me, take another look at the page. Thanks. -- SpookyMulder 09:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
SpookyMulder 09:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
imho, vandalism-only IPs may well be blocked for a couple of months at a time. Just put a polite note on the user page, along the lines, we apologize if you run into this block guiltlessly etc., bona fide users can always request unblocking. I am thinking on a guideline like, if an IP shows persistent vandalism with not a single good edit for more than half a year, feel free to block it for three months. After all, our vandal-fighting and RCP resources are limited and we don't want to waste them on pointless friendliness to dyed-in-the-wool vandals. dab (ᛏ) 10:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I submit that the terms vandal and sockpuppet are frequently misused when discussing a user who contributes to Wikipedia in a questionable fashion.
To vandalize an article is to deface it, with obviously out-of-place or out-of-context additions -- almost always profanity.
If a user adds questionable material which is not obvious defacement they should not be called a vandal. They may be silly, misguided, foolish, defying the NPOV or citation principles, or otherwise damaging the credibility and/or accuracy of Wikipedia. They need to be corrected, of course. But please, use the correct language!
To sockpuppet is to use multiple accounts to attempt to build false consensus.
Making second accounts without the intent to build false consensus is not sockpuppetry. If it is for the purpose of editing Wikipedia while blocked, it may well result in further blocking. But to give the reason as 'sockpuppetry' is a complete lie. Just say: this person has been banned, and will remain banned so long as there is any indication that two accounts belong to the same person. Yes, this requires more typing! But at least it is fair and accurate.
I'm sure that this over-use of the 'vandal' and 'sockpuppet' epithets is for a simple reason: Wikipedia has clear and simple rules that forbid vandalism and sockpuppetry. To expand the definitions of either of those two terms is a simple, lazy effort, and it effectively condemns the offending user without ambiguity. But it is nonetheless a misuse of language.
Please, admins and other individuals who monitor Wikipedia for unhelpful contributions: use the right language. Be brave -- call someone an idiot, if they are indeed being an idiot. Remember to uphold the spirit of the law, and do not be overly concerned with the letter of it.
Please, discuss!
Takesh 20:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with this. Another similar "epithet" is calling any external link "spam" whether it is or not. Why debate the merits of a link when you can just make an accusation (even if it's false) that most won't want to argue with. -- Milo H Minderbinder 21:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree that the words are used carelessly but I very much disagree with your definitions. Someone who maliciously changes dates in an article is a vandal. Someone who deletes sections of an article is a vandal. So is anyone who knowingly decreases the quality of an article, I don't think profanity has anything to do with it. Similarly, any alternate account which is used knowingly to game the system is sockpuppetry, whether or not they are used to build false consensus. That includes evading blocks. Pascal.Tesson 00:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Regarding overuse of the word "vandal", I believe Wikipedia:On assuming good faith is a relevant essay. - GTBacchus( talk) 00:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza. I have already commented there that I believe that's the wrong venue for disbandment and deletion of a wiki-project. I'm not endorsing or opposing any views, but letting everyone know what is going on. I hope that we can actually have some discussion here as opposed to what goes on there. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 00:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I know this is just an opinion here, but if it were just a discussion and just that, then there would be no bold words at all. We wouldn't bold the words delete or keep at all. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 01:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I thought XfDs were now called X for discussion? Like WP:CfD. Or was that the only one to get changed? Carcharoth 01:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Wow, 150,000 keystrokes in the first 12 hours. That's an almost-audible 3.4 hertz. Certainly a lively discussion. -- Interiot 04:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I have cross posted this from Wikipedia talk:Categorization.
I have noticed a few users "categorising" articles by simply adding stub tags, (often replacing the {{ uncategorised}} tag with a stub for example). Can we formally add a sentence explicitly explaining that a stub tag (or any maintenance tag) does not categorise an article (in an encyclopedic sense), despite the fact that it does add a category.
Please reply at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#stubs_and_categories. thanks Martin 16:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I just had this idea. Most anonnymous users, even if doing good edits, do not enter edit summaries and therefore it is difficult to distiguish good intentions from bad ones. In preferences there is a check box saying "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary". If you check this and forgot to fill edit summary, editor returs once again and asks if you really mean it. You can still go without edit summary, but you have been warned. What I propose is to make this behaviour default for anonymous users. It will not stop the vandalism, but it will prompt good users to explain their edits. The side efect is that it might slow vandals who do not fill edit summaries as they will have to send form twice. Is this a good idea, bad idea or what kind of idea? -- Jan.Smolik 12:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately such a change would probably lead to vandalism going undetected in cases where the vandal uses an edit summary and the user browsing the recent changes assumes good faith and takes that summary at face value. I often come across vandalism edits with unrelated (and good) edit summaries as things are just now... Ta/ wangi 14:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I think it's already a default setting. At least; when I first edited as an anon I got a "Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary. If you click Save again, your edit will be saved without one." message. I remember thinking; "edit summary? What the hell's an edit summary? I just want to fix a friggin typo here!" ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) 17:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
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A dispute has arisen between myself and User:Dr Zak over whether Image:Inglis.jpg counts as "unsourced" and should be deleted because it doesn't contain the name of the photographer - simply the (reputable) website where it was found. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of images hosted on Wikipedia that 'do their best' to correctly attribute the source and rationale - in fact, I daresay the vast majority of image sources contain the url where the image was found, not a photographer/newspaper name (which is certainly also acceptable). I would appreciate any clarification if this image is in fact somehow deserving to be deleted since we list the immediate source, but not the pressPhotographer/newspaperName - or if we have indeed done all the work necessary to try and find the original source of the courtroom photo, and it is all but an Orphaned work. Sherurcij ( Speaker for the Dead) 21:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please helpt me explain the meanings of WP:V and WP:NOR here? Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 18:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not trying to be rude in my discussion, but I do think you are taking those policies to the extreme. -- Pinkkeith 18:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm skeptical of the dance moves, but most of the references in that list are so inherently obvious that a source stating "X is a reference to Y" is just unnecessary. For example, one does not need a secondary source stating that the line "My mana tap brings all the boys to the yard" is a reference to the lyric "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard" from the song "Milkshake," because there is no other plausible explanation for that particular phrasing being used. The only needed sources are thus the game containing the reference, and the song containing the lyric that is referenced. The same with the He-Man reference: "The Arathi Basin Battlemaster is named "Adam Heman" in reference to the popular tv show character. He also has a "Zulian Battle-tiger" as a pet, in reference to his tiger, Cringer. He also appears with a gnome behind him called "Oric Coe" in reference to Orko." I'd require a source stating that it wasn’t such a reference because that is so incredibly improbable. Postdlf 18:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Citing info from a source isn't an observation or a judgement call. To verify a song lyric, just listen to the song. To verify a line of dialogue from the movie, just watch the movie. That's referencing a source, not doing OR or observation. The reliable sources are the game and the song. Obviously wikipedia allows using primary sources (as does any encyclopedia) - would it really make sense if to say in the article about Romeo and Juliet "Romeo and Juliet die at the end" I couldn't use Romeo and Juliet as a source and had to find the info somewhere else? It would be practially impossible to write about any fiction at all. I can see why some oppose the article on "cruft" concerns, but NOR unquestionably does not apply and isn't grounds for deletion - if it was, the vast majority of articles on fiction could be deleted on the same grounds. -- Milo H Minderbinder 15:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Note: This was cross-posted at Wikipedia talk:Categorization, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies
Category:Terrorists was up for CfD, which passed as Delete. In a deletion review, I proposed an alternative categorization that would merge several top-level categories into one. My proposal is at User:Irixman/TerrorismProposal. Before I am bold and just do it, I really want some feedback -- should I? What do y'all think? :) Please direct any and all comments to User:Irixman/TerrorismProposal#Comments -- Irixman (t) (m) 16:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Could there possibly be a better voting system on Wikipedia than having to manually type the vote and reason? I mean, could there be a bunch of users set up to handle a certain vote (say, on their talk pages, or even their user pages), and then archive it once its done? Pages such as WP:RfA are getting quite cluttered with all of the questions, votes, and opinions on the pages. Could a consensus vote be handled on a user page, and the discussion on the talk page? Someone please add on to this. Diez2 02:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The reason WP:RfA is "cluttered" is because it is a collection of many individual pages on which discussion happens. It is just an overview, and the discussions don't take place there. And the individual discussions are archived and removed from the page. Does that make sense? -- Milo H Minderbinder 15:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The last thing we want to do is encourage voting. Votes here are a means to finding consensus, not to be encouraged as a decision process in themselves. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 21:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there a policy/guideline on putting image attribution in captions within articles? I looked at Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Captions, but could not find anything, and am not sure where this would go exactly.
I think the traditional approach has been not to attribute the author of an image in the caption (whatever the licence - fair use, GFDL etc), but instead to do it on the image description page. For example I have never seen caption attribution in a featured article.
What do I say to a photographer who uploads a {{ Cc-by-sa-2.5}} image (the licence requires attribution) and then insists on putting their name and website in the caption? At the moment I tell them that it is not the Wikipedia way, but pointing to a policy or guideline would be helpful. Cheers -- Commander Keane 02:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I could extend WP:NOT#Not a soapbox to captions under the advertising clause; I think that's the policy cited for linkspam. I wouldn't have the same objection to an external link in the image's page itself. Durov a Charge! 15:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
This has come up here before. The Creative Commons license requires attribution "reasonable to the medium or means" [2]. Putting the copyright information on the image page only would, in my non-lawyerly opinion, be perfectly reasonable to the medium (a wiki) and thus would be in full compliance with the license. I was actually tempted to email Larry Lessig and ask his opinion on it (seeing as how he wrote the license). Raul654 19:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Does this summary constitute a legal threat? Dylan Lake ( t· c· ε) 02:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm tired of new users not understanding what this thing means and not realizing that people are leaving them messages. What if we changed it (through MediaWiki) to say "A Wikipedia user has left you a message. Please read it and respond if necessary"? -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 22:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I reversed it before seeing this discussion, but looking at it now I don't think there is a consensus for it. "A Wikipedia user" is misleading. The message could be from an IP (not a user account); it could be from a bot (not a person); it could be from someone passing by who has never edited Wikipedia before and may never again or from a banned user's several sockpuppets (not a Wikipedian). The message is shown simply when the user talk page is changed, and adding more specific verbiage of this kind separates it even further from its real meaning. — Centrx→ talk • 02:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Where did this idea that people don't understand what "You Have New Messages" means come from? Where is the evidence that people aren't seeing vandal warnings? How does adding "on your Wikipedia talk page" solve that? If people don't understand new messages, then they're certainly not going to know what a talk page is. If this was a site with flashing advertisements everywhere telling people they've one things, then this might be understandable. But there's not a single advert on this side (apart from possibly the contents of CAT:SPAM). -- Steel 18:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Rschen, I fail to see how that is evidence for anything, other than that the user clearly doesn't want to discuss whatever he's doing. That user was left his first message on the 12th September. Are you suggesting that in two months he's not once clicked the bright orange banner which won't go away? -- Steel 15:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Tito xd( ?!?) 08:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are wikipedians obsessed with warning templates? Why does WP:AIV tell you not to bother listing a vandal if they haven't been warned 4 times or vandalised within the last 5 minutes?
For example: a user who replaces "Nelson Mandela" with "Buttfucker" doesn't need to be told that his edit is considered vandalism... if he's smart enough to edit a page, he's probably smart enough to know that it's vandalism.
I'm an admin on other wikimedia projects. If someone vandalises a page, they get blocked. No warning, no cute templates added to their user page, nada... just blocked.
Blatant and sophisticated vandals who upload nasty images and/or alter templates are blocked permanently. No warning, no templates, etc. Should WP:BITE really apply to vandals? Why does blocking vandals cause an existential crisis? -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 17:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
You might want to look at Wikipedia_talk:Assume_good_faith#Proposal_to_consider_the_removal_of_this_paragraph_from_Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith_policy — Omegatron 03:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
As someone who may not edit here every day, I find it frustrating to have to nominate a (previously warned)vandal for blocking within 24 hours of his vandalism. - Freekee 05:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to make the point that this is a Crime Prevention vs. Criminal Lockup discussion. I don't think that we need to swing to either polar extreme by either blocking fewer people and trying to stop people from vandalism with pleading/educating or blocking everyone at first infraction. Right now, however, I think we're giving Wikicriminals -- the type who are committing crimes for the thrill of it -- too many chances. I think we're giving the Wikinaive -- the folks who are driving down one way streets because they don't know the area -- the "right" amount of discipline. I do think we should follow up where good faith is necessary and try and bring people onto the right path. Anyone, member or IP, who is committing any type of vandalism that is detrimental to the wiki and does not appear to be acting in good faith, needs to see less of our "other cheek," though. We don't need to be issuing four template warnings for people who are clearly doing wrong for the heck of it. For everyone's sake -- editor and admin alike -- we need to begin blocking vandals faster and for longer periods of time. Everyone's stress will go down, we'll see less reversions overall, and admins will be chasing fewer people around the streets cleaning up after them. -- Wolf530 06:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
As far as the AGF argument goes, I thinik it's more important to assume the good faith of the people reporting vandals than it is to assume that vandals might not know they're vandals. It just seems a bit over the top to require that vandals be warned 4 times before a block can be "justified", and good-faith users shouldn't be required to "build a case" about the vandalishness of the vandals (unless we want to assume that people regularly report vandals because they're wikisadists and only want to block vandals because that's how they get their jollies). This only serves to further frustrate people who are already frustrated by having to waste time reverting bad-faith edits. It would be a lot nicer if when checking my watchlist I'd find mostly additions to the articles (maybe even really good additions that will teach me something new), rather than yet another reference to questionable uses of cucumbers.
I think the problem is rooted in misplaced empathy. We (the good-faith contributors to wikipedia) would be terribly unhappy if we found ourselves unable to edit. Vandals on the other hand will probably find something else to do (like throwing gobs of wet toilet paper at the nearest librarian). And even if they are terribly unhappy about being unable to vandalise wikipedia... so what?
There's a difference between newbie tests, clever jokes (which seems to be what the {{ test}} templates are designed to address), inane vandalism (blanking, toilet humor, etc.), and sophisticated vandalism (uploading and placing obscene images, altering templates, and so on). The latter two kinds of vandals should just be blocked on sight, no warnings, no messages on their talk explaining it (i.e., no "monuments"). Rollback the edits, block the vandal, delete the nasty images, semiprotect regular targets (autoconfirmed only), move on. We were having a big laugh on IRC yesterday after importing a 1-page document that had over 300 revisions. A lot of the articles we import have rediculously long contrib histories full of mostly vandalism and reversions of vandalism, and a lot of the vandalism was by the same users. We don't put up with that kind of nonsense on wikibooks.
As far as needing more admins: yes, we probably do (though it's hard to believe... aren't there over a thousand already?). I've considered doing an RfA myself, but I suspect that having the tools but not being able to use them properly (because of unneccessary bureaucratic requirements) might be even more frustrating than just not having them (which is actually much more frustrating when you're used to having them). Doing an RfA on wikipedia seems to have become something akin to running for U.S. congress... it's not supposed to be a big deal. As far as "corrupt" admins are concerned, desysopping someone who isn't using the tools properly shouldn't be a big deal either.
There are exceptional cases, of course. You generally wouldn't want to block a school IP for a long period, though if the school IP is consistently a source of vandals, then it's obvious that the school either can't or doesn't bother to keep an eye on their students... if they can't be bothered with that, then their students will just have to sign up accounts on other computers (they can still read the encyclopedia, of course). And of course you can't permablock IPs (they sometimes change hands), but if an IP is causing a lot of problems, you can block them for a year (during which time the vandal might experience some personal growth). The problem is that we're making the rules based on the exceptions, which is an ass-backwards way of going about things. -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 12:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
My two cents here... I have noticed significant increase in vandalism since early September when school started. College/University students are not so much a problem, but high school and lower are often a source (when I run the IP through WHOIS). This school year, I am far less tolerant of vandalism. If the talk page has past warnings, I start with {{ bv}}, and then block. Another useful tactic is to look through their recent contributions of articles they have vandalized. Pick the most embarrassing one, make the heading "Your edits to Mental retardation", for example [4]. If it's a school, corporate, or government IP, I will also add {{ Ipowner}}, such as here [5] and [6]. With this template, the name of the organization can be made into an external link; I will try and find the school's computer use policy and link to that. [7] Though, kids may still vandalize, anyway. If the vandalism is really blatant, such as involving an obscene image or a template, it indicates the vandal knows what he/she is doing and will be blocked on sight. Of course it's tricky when the school IP is a shared IP. In those cases, the blocks may be relatively short, but long enough so that the kid has moved on to something else (e.g. next class). As pointed out above, we have just slightly over 1000 admins (not all that many). It's a waste of valuable admin time, to go through test, test2, test3, test4, and then block if the intent is obvious. Basically, zero tolerance is needed when the intent is clear, their vandalism is particularly harmful to Wikipedia, and I don't think they will stop. Other times, instinct tells me the vandal wants attention, and it's best to revert, ignore them, and they go away. And sometimes, the "vandalism" is really a test, and will handle it accordingly. -- Aude ( talk) 19:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
This shouldn't fall into archive. Per my above, if it is normal policy that blatant vandals do not need the whole range of template warnings, then Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism and the other policy pages which require this action need to be updated. I don't want to go updating without consensus, though... -- Wolf530 ( talk) 16:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
So the question becomes, how the heck do we go about changing or making policy? I'll bet that if we made an attempt, there would be a large consensus that we don't need to be as lenient on the "buttfucker"/"jonny's mother is a gay whore" vandals as on the vandal that puts "hi" at the end of a page. Any ideas? - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 20:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
As suggested above, I was bold and created the essay as suggested by Durova. Everyone else should be bold as well and edit or comment on the essay. What do y'all think? -- Jayron 32 05:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that sandboxes should be created in userspace only. If article X exists in wikispace, is it ok to create X/Sandbox to work on a potential addition to that article? Is there a guideline on this? I thought I saw something that said it was ok in certain cases but cannot find that information now. *Sparkhead 14:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
A user has posted a photograph that is almost certainly a picture of herself, but the image has embedded on it a copyright notice with the name of the photographer. The image was uploaded with I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain - what is the correct way to deal with this? -- ArmadilloFromHell 01:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
The image is watermarked, which is against policy and grounds for deletion in itself. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 19:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
To most people in general, a copyright is simply atool to keep your work from being copied, however, copyrights have been abused multiple times and there isnt a plan to stop it. Copyrights have impeded progress in genetic research and many other things. I think a copyright should only apply to things like competitors (using copyrighted things for profit). -Charlie34 8:13 09 November 2006
Perhaps it would be better to have four special question sections, review questions, open questions, article concerns (typographic, factual and compo), and one for non-neutral points of view.
I also believe that the focus of Wikipedia should be based primarily on comprehending, with a bias towards the sympathetic, sort of like Wikinfo. Lets all get on the same page. Then try to understand other people and synthesize if we can. I think that's the best way.
I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready now?
The only thing I forsee as being potentially contentious is the chronological ordering of filmographies, but I still suspect (hope) a supermajority will quickly emerge, once put to wider discussion, favouring consistency and traditional listing standards.
Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :-) -- Quiddity 20:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
One of our Indian editors, Bharatveer, feels very strongly that Hindi/Hindustani names and words should not be rendered in Nastaliq script in Bollywood-related articles. He has removed the Nastaliq script from more than a dozen actor/actress articles, claiming that since Urdu is not their native tongue, their name should not be given in Nastaliq script. He is up to three reverts on Anupam Kher.
This is a complex issue. One underlying language ( Hindustani) has been written in two scripts for centuries. Muslims tended to use a Perso-Arabic alphabet (which is what they used to read Arabic and Persian literature) and Hindus used Devanagari. The Muslims also tended to speak a Hindustani that contained more Persian and Arabic loan words, a dialect generally called Urdu. The Hindu version of Hindustani is called Hindi and contains more Sanskrit loan words. Since the Partition of India, the divergence between the Pakistani version of Urdu and the Indian version of Hindi has increased. However, at the level of the man in the street, people still speak Hindustani, without fancy loan words. Bollywood films aim for the widest possible audience and they are generally written in a Hindustani-leaning Hindi that is easily understood by Pakistanis as well as North Indians. Not only that, movie titles and credits are usually given in both Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts, so that all audiences can read them.
The continued presence of Muslims and Muslim script in India is profoundly irritating to followers of Hindutva, an Indian political movement, and Bharatveer seems to be following a Hindutva line in most of his edits. Recently he tried to remove the Nastaliq script from the Bollywood article; a long edit war ensued, in the course of which it was established that most Bollywood films use both scripts in their titles and advertising, and that if there is any justification for adding Devanagari versions of words, names, and titles (the convenience of South Asian users of the English WP), it applies equally to Nastaliq.
Bharatveer gave up trying to remove Nastaliq from the Bollywood article, but has, in the last couple of days, switched to removing it from the actor/actress articles. He says that if the actor/actress isn't a "native Urdu speaker," then his/her name shouldn't be given in Nastaliq script. But of course the issue isn't native speech (many actors/actresses are NOT native Hindustani speakers -- they had to learn Hindi in order to get roles) but giving the name in forms that allow South Asian readers to figure out the proper pronunciation (which is not apparent from the Romanized form of the name).
Can we have a blankety-blank policy that says that if Devanagari is used to render a Hindi word, that Nastaliq can be used also? Without a policy, I forsee a grinding war of attrition over all the India and Indian cinema related articles, in which some editors are adding the Devanagari and Nastaliq forms of words, names, and titles, and Bharatveer is removing the Nastaliq. Over and over. He's removing information that could be useful to some users because he wants to make a political point, and it's taking time and energy away from writing the dang encyclopedia.
If a policy isn't the proper way to handle this, what is? Is this going to have to go to RfC and Arbcom? I'm not sure that stopping Bharatveer's personal anti-Nastaliq crusade would solve the general problem, since there are other Hindutva WP editors who would be happy to take up the struggle. But I'd be open to any suggestions for stopping the edit wars. Zora 08:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, some guidelines for ALL articles would seem to be useful. In addition to dealing with Devanagari and Nastaliq, I've also run into Arabic (lots of Arabic), Persian, Turkish, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam ... It gets to be just too much at the start of an article. The article will start like this: XXX (script A, script B, script C) blah blah blah. That's actually kind of hard to read. Suppose we had a little infobox (as small as feasible) that could sit off to one side and hold the various non-Roman scripts. In tiny print. Enlargeable. No more than four scripts? I'll have think about general guidelines for which to choose. Very good points re thinking in broader terms. Zora 08:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
As a Wikipedist who deals in primarily articles about upcoming films, particularly superhero films, I'm curious about others' perspectives about how to determine when to create articles for upcoming films. What criteria should an upcoming film meet if the film has not reached the production stage yet? Is it enough to have a writer and director attached, like Ant-Man? What about films that don't have anything attached, but still generate the occasional news, like The Punisher 2 or Wolverine? What about the notability of a sequel based on its predecessor's success, such as The Dark Knight? I've used the crystal ball and notability policies both ways, defending something like Interstellar or voting for the deletion of something like Battle Angel. When can an upcoming film go from its subsection on the source material's article or a director's article to become an article that would grow in time? -- Erik ( talk/ contrib) @ 18:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Many articles in Wikipedia contain the phrase "it is interesting to note...". Perhaps I'm being nitpicky, but that doesn't seem NPOV. Who it to decide what is interesting? The "interestingness" of something is completely subjective. Encyclopedias shouldn't tell us what is interesting and what is not. I propose that all such instances be replaced with "it may be noted that...". -- Munchkinguy 04:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
I've added a suggestion to a POV term that I think should be avoided at Wikipedia_talk:Words_to_avoid#Homophobic. I would really appreciate comment on this one. Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 05:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
In the "See Also" section, user-friendly articles include links to both the wikilink dump and related articles, but less user-friendly articles only include a link to dump.
The practice of not including related links within the article hides information from novice users, who rely upon their browser's 'find' tool to locate specific information quickly. If a 'find' search fails to locate the keyword within the article, novice users are likely to assume that Wikipedia does not contain the information they seek. [This happened to me when I tried to find a list of Philippine holidays; I am sure that this situation has happened to others as well.]
Some articles are more useful than others because the "See Also" layout guidelines do not specify that the "See Also: wikilink dump" format can not be used to fulfill the requirements of the See Also section.
Discuss here 70.112.29.65 12:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Wangi, thanks for admitting that you don't understand. I'll explain the problem in a different manner: Assume that 1) The user wants to find a list of the public holidays in a certain country, 2) The primary article for that country does not contain the list, 3) The list is in another article related to that country, 4) The user uses the following methodology:
1) User types the country name into the Wiki search box & selects "go" --> Result: User is redirected to the primary article for the country.
2) User types in 'Holidays' into his/her Internet browser's "find in this page" search tool.
The result of step #2 varies, based on the layout of the "See Also" section at the end of the article. In user-friendly articles, (such as the United States), the browser finds the link to the information in the article's primary "See also" section. In less user-friendly articles, (such as the Philippines), the browser fails to find the link to the information. Novice users may incorrectly assume that Wikipedia does not contain the information they seek.
The reason for the failure is that the See Also section in less user-friendly articles only gives the link to the relevant "List of xyz related articles" (the Wikilink dump). Whereas, the primary See Also section in user-friendly articles include links to the related articles and the link to relevant "List of xyz related articles" page.
This problem can be corrected by clarifying the layout guidelines for the primary "See Also" section at the end of the article. It should require that the primary See Also section contains individual links to all the related articles. 70.112.29.65 23:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Uhm, what do you mean by "wikilink dump"? The United States see also is nearly unreadable, while the Philippines one is much better. I would prefer that they did list the most major sub-articles there, but it's certainly better than the US article's multiple screens of uncollapsed templates. -- tjstrf Now on editor review! 23:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Wangi, no, it's not a recent edit. But its OK that you commented before reading the links carefully. I am sure that the clarification helped others to see the problem more clearly.
You state that one of the mechanisms for "helping people along to other articles" is the inclusion of "Categories of related articles, linked at the bottom of each article." The omission of this mechanism at the end of the "bad" article is precisely my point. It should be present, but it is not.
Perhaps you intended to state that when there are just a few related articles, links to those articles are included, like in the case of Peru. However, when there are many related links, then Wikipedians could not "possibly include enough links on any given article to match every user's expectations - it's simply not maintainable and would swamp the real content."
I disagree. If a "List of XYZ related articles" page can be maintained, then the contents of that page can be appended to the primary XYZ page. To do anything less hides information from novice users.
Tjstrf, Yes, the See Also section of the "bad" article is more readable than the one in the "good" article. The "bad" article See Only section only contains one link, whereas the one in the "good" article constains more than 50 links.
In regards to your query on on the term "Wikilink dump" it was used by Howard the duck in reference to the List of Philippine-related topics. He stated, "that list is for maintainance (for checking on related changes), and is a wikilink dump." If you need greater clarification, you will have to ask him. 70.112.29.65 03:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I have a question about notability guidelines, particularly WP:WEB... if something meets a criteria and then at some point -stops- meeting the criteria. I ask because a webcomic may be notable under point 3 for being on Keenspot, but after they leave keenspot to be independent it's not clear what that means. Webrunner 20:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd say once notable, always notable, because we document history, not current events. Criteria changing is entirely separate from whether something has met the criteria at some point in time or not. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 18:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
An editor asked me what one policy I could enact by fiat. I had to say I couldn't do any such thing, even if I had the authority. Then I thought that was ducking the question and said No wheel warring.
I can't think of anything I'd like better than to see this tagged {{ policy}}. It's not for me to do this; I'm too involved. Before the last merge, both halves of this page were tagged, without controversy, {{ guideline}}. The page is stable and there is no controversy on talk.
I'd like to ask our community to visit this page, judge it on its merits, and see if the policy tag is warranted. If not, of course, please feel free to air concerns, propose changes, and edit this page. Thank you. John Reid ° 10:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I would like feedback on whether the currently proposed wording of this guideline is an accurate description of the status quo in Wikipedia. Please respond on its talk page. ( Radiant) 10:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to solicit feedback from the Wikipedia community on the following four points concerning campaign advertisements (i.e., advertisements supporting a particular ArbCom, Administrator, or Bureaucrat candidate):
— Psychonaut 10:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't bother me particularly. How else do you plan on getting people to vote? Without publicizing it, the arbcom elections will basically stay as a walled garden. If you actively advertise them, then maybe we will get wider input from the less prolific and less meta- editors. -- tjstrf Now on editor review! 10:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Does the 3RR apply to reverts over continued insertion of copyrighted/text-dumped material into an article, or is it considered vandalism? Cheers. Bubba hot ep 09:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Someone pointed out recently on the Noticeboard that we had discussions about warning removal here here and here. I'm looking at the poll, at least, and it looked pretty strongly like consensus was for keep. First, why is it not then a policy? Second, is there anything that can be done about it? I find it a ridiculous example of the "free speech" clause gone overboard - wikipedia is WP:NOT anarchy, which says: "Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia." I can't possibly see how warning removal could do anything other than reduce free speech. And if someone says "george bush is a buttfucker" on his page, I also can't see why they should have the "right" not to have that warning pasted on their talkpage. - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 01:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
OK; so then it's allowed to restore warnings given in good faith when it's clear that the editor has removed them so that they won't be seen. - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 06:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but other than POV and verifiable sources, I don't think Wiki has a policy on election coverage. On the eve of the US 2006 midterm elections, this has led to considerable confusion / anarchy in certain articles while votes are being tabulated. For example, on the
Kerry Healey page, announcements on her defeat by Deval Patrick in the recent MA election was posted and reposted multipled times throughout the evening.
Some people may feel that this is really a non-issue, as the controversy will tend to sort itself out, generally by the next day. However, I feel that some type of official policy should be in place for two reasons. First, it helps sort through the anarchy on election day. Secondly, and more importantly, many people use wiki (like it or not) as a source of information on current events, especially on election candidates. We all remember the United States Presidential Elections of 2000, when Florida flip-flopped between Bush and Gore all evening on the major networks. It has been claimed (though I have not seen solid evidence), that calling an election before the close of polls can discourage voting and is in itself a violation of
NPOV.
PROPOSED
The wiki policy should extend to coverage on election tabulation as well.
Firstly, posting a projected winner of an election before the close of polls should be strictly forbidden as NPOV.
Secondly, stating a clear winner of an election in one where there is a) a very narrow margin AND b) a very possible recount should be discouraged unless the posted explicitly states it as such. Violations of such should be classified as a violation of
Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Thirdly, posting a candidate's victory is allowed if credible sources demonstrate a substantial margin after polls have closed, though votes are not completely tabulated.
If people have an opinion on this, I would greatly appreciate your input.
Djma12 21:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
There is a recently created tag {{ Replaceable fair use}} which is used to categorizes a given image into a dated category for deletion if it can possibly be replaced by a "free" image in the future - even if there isn't one currently available. Now it looks like this is being applied to all biographies of living people, bands, etc, with fair use images. However, there is an older template {{ promophoto}} which used to say that a promotional photo (released by the copyright holder for the press) can be used "in the absence of a free alternative" (now changed) - so if no current alternative exists a fair use promotional photo could have been used, now it has been changed to say that if there is no possibility for free alternatives (which means most recent photos of living people are disqualified, as you can go out and take a picture of them).
So people who uploaded images in good faith under this criteria are still having their uploads deleted without much futher warning. Literally thousands of articles are losing their images that were put up in good faith and with a long-standing template to justify it.
Why don't we do something like what we have for fair use rationale and have some date before which these images are deemed ok to leave, but no new ones are uploaded (say October 13, 2006 when the template was changed). If it is under proper fair use then let the older ones be but do not allow any newer ones. No copyright laws are being violated here, and the only reason cited is to promote more "free" images, so I see no urgency to delete.-- Konst.able Talk 08:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Related question: Should a fair use promotional image be removed from an article in favor of a free one, even when the free image doesn't illustrate the subject as well? - Freekee 18:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
There's a good "as well" example on the Neil Young article. A current free-use photo is buried way down, because, in the words of one fan/editor, he looks "like a potato", and, frankly, it's not that good a photo. A fair-use image from back in the 1960s-70s is at the top in the infobox. But the idea of replaceable fair-use is that all someone has to do is ask Neil Young or his people for an acceptable photo to be released under a free license.
This policy is a pretty harsh awakening. It's tended to suck the fun out of things and it's being wantonly applied in some cases. But it seems this is way it's going to be. Acceptance and adaptability are the keys.
So, I think there should be a news release to raise awareness of the need for free-use images vs copyright images. The idea that promophotos and eventually other fair-use photos can be done away with stems from the notion that Wikipedia is big enough and influential enough it ought to be able to force a change. And eventually, the thinking goes, PR agencies and companies will release their promotional works under a free license. More about this policy can be found here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use#Replaceable fair use and especially, Wikipedia talk:Publicity photos#This page is dangerous.- Wisekwai 03:56, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
The results have been encouraging. And the more times I do it, the more success I'm having. Most folks are pretty excited about having their work in Wikipedia. I just explain the licensing terms and that it will need to be uploaded to the commons, where they will receive attribution and a link back to their site and they are happy. In just a few cases so far, I've either been flat-out ignored, or one guy wrote and said he was really sorry, he just couldn't let his work go, which was really nice, actually. At least he answered.
Flickr is a good source of images, and many of them are already under a Creative Commons license, though you have to be careful, because it's not always a CC license that is used on the Commons. Still, Flickr is a good source because you can directly contact the people through Flickr mail. And Commons has a scheme to scour Flickr for usable images to upload under free-licenses from Flickr to Commons.
Still, I don't believe the current way of going about things is the right way to go. The only people who seem to have gotten wind of this are people who have uploaded images. Understandably, many are quite unhappy that "their" images are being deleted. It is creating a lot of uncivility. There should be a general announcement to the Wikimedia community at large, as well as the general public, that free-license is the way to go and that fair-use images are no longer acceptable if they are replaceable. - Wisekwai 19:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
There is alot of debate in talk pages about handling a criticism section. I feel it is important to address this issue specifficaly. I think there needs to be a policy on how you address sections like this. -- Zonerocks 20:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
This form of "undue weight" is an inevitable result of the "notability" policy for inclusion. Some people and subjects are notable because they are notorious. This automatically results in a large amount of negative information, since most of the verifiable information from reliable sources is negative. Other information would be original research or from unacceptable sources. That's life. As long as the information is properly sourced and worded in an NPOV manner (simply presenting the POV, without advocating or attacking it), then there's no problem.
For controversial subjects, with editors on both sides of the issue, this can still end up with an unbalanced article. In scientific and medical matters this is because the scientists usually have better sources and are better at presenting their arguments than the quacks, pseudoscientists, and true believers, who don't have very good sources (just anecdotes or hate sites), and whose arguments are often filled with logical fallacies.
The way forward in such cases is as suggested -- to build up what's lacking, not to exercise bad faith towards other editors by deleting their hard work. Bad people or subjects should not be whitewashed by deleting valid and well-sourced information. Suppression of opposing POV is a very unwikipedian thing to do.
Wikipedia's NPOV policy must not be misused so it becomes synonymous with revisionism, censorship, whitewashing, or political correctness. One must allow presentation of both sides of any controversy. To leave out or suppress one side amounts to promoting the other side's POV. Wikipedia should include more information than other encyclopedias, not less. -- Fyslee 22:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Today I came across a personal "user watchlist" as a subpage of an editor's user talk. It's meant to be a list of editors that the editor in question feels should be watched for controversial or problematic activities. It just doesn't feel right to me, too much like a personal attack. Any comments? -- Zeraeph 23:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
As far as I am aware ArbCom has actually approved of such lists in the past. I have, however, always seen this as a mistake. Such a page is really nothing more than an attack page - a public statement that that user intends to stalk and harrass those on their watchlist, exercising a personal, and often immediate, veto on anything they disagree with. It is also a clear statement that the person maintaining the watchlist assumes those listed on it are acting in bad faith, jguk 09:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs.
Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It is not a
trivia collection, a
soapbox, a
vanity publisher, an experiment in
anarchy or
democracy, or a web
directory. Nor is Wikipedia a collection of
source documents, a
dictionary, or a
newspaper, for these kinds of content should be contributed to the sister projects,
Wikisource,
Wiktionary, and
Wikinews, respectively. Wikipedia is not the place to insert your own opinions, experiences, or arguments — all editors must follow our no original research policy and strive for accuracy. |
If someone wants to maintain such a list, why not just encourage them to maintain it privately and offline on their own machine? Certainly we couldn't prohibit that anyway, and I think that would prevent a lot of issues. Seraphimblade 08:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Certainly, it's not right to have a "user watchlist" if it's inflammatory. However, I have one myself, and it survived an MfD because:
Hi, I've created a new proposed notability guideline for albums Wikipedia:Notability (albums), and would be interested in any feedback. Thanks, Addhoc 13:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I know no policy or guideline directly covers the issue of removing warnings but I'm seeking advice on a specific case, see Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings#Advice on what I should do Nil Einne 10:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
What is the community position on retrospectively adding references to support facts?
Regarding this edit; the reason for the "unneeded notations" were that I had added the refs to somone else's work. Why do I consider this a potential problem?
A) If we don't know the actual source, there may be legal/academic issues in implying someone got a fact from a particular place, when in fact they got it elsewhere.
B) Circular references:-
Fourohfour 15:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
There is currently some debate on whether to keep WP:RS as a Guideline or demote it to Essay status. The issue revolves around what the community consensus is (one side claims that the Guideline has lost community consensus support and thus should be demoted, the other contends that there is consensus to keep it as a Guideline - although it may need continued work). Please pop over... read the guideline and the discussion on the topic, reach your own conclusions and tell us what you think. Blueboar 01:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Elonka, please do not distort reality in order to gain sympathy. You were one of the people who were asking for a poll in the first place [12]. We could delete that poll right now and still have the discussion area, which would still support what is being said in the guideline. I've also stated that I would not have a major problem with restarting the poll to make this all more clear, since you had concerns with the poll changes. The poll is simply a list of people who agree with certain statements, but we do not need numbers to come to the same conclusion. -- Ned Scott 23:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting discussion when the fair use photos are to be deleted: when the free replacement is theoretically possible (e.g. photos of any living person) or then they are already present. See Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use#A_change_to_FUC_.231 Alex Bakharev 00:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Is information about one of our biographies which is included in a "gotcha" youtube video useable? Would YOU TUBE be the source? Reportersue 19:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikibooks has has Special:Import for about a month now, and I've been doing several imports per week in the hopes of cleaning up Category:Articles containing how-to sections and Category:Copy to Wikibooks. After transwikiing, I replace whichever template it was with {{ Copied to Wikibooks}} or {{ Copied to Wikibooks Cookbook}} (I should probably make a third to replace the how-to template?).
This adds the pages into the category Category:Articles copied to Wikibooks in need of cleanup. I had been adding to the transwiki log as well, but it's gotten to be enormous, so I've given up on that and just log it in on wikibooks. For the how-tos, I've recently been adding {{ howtobook}} to the talk page as well to make sure editors are informed.
The problem is that even after the copying, templating, etc., 2 things are happening:
In cases where the article seems to be nothing but a how to, I just prod it (I also prod things that are much too stubby for wikibooks... stubs don't fare as well there as they do here on wikipedia). But what to do about these other cases? People seem quick enough to add the tags, and while I'm happy to do my part and help wittle down the backlog in the to-be-transwikied cue, there seems to be no follow-up on the wikipedia side rewriting the articles to be "encyclopedic".
I'm bringing this up here because on the Category:Articles containing how-to sections page, it reads
Now that Wikibooks has the tools to run down the wikipedia backlogs in this area, maybe it's time to come up with some sort of policy on this? -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 14:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
In recently noticed that the template for the stubs appears in the stub lists inside the stub category. And most often amongst the stub articles under the letter "T". Wouldn't it be more logical to have a category for stub templates and not include template the stub category. If it is necessary to place a link to the stub template, why not put it on top of the respective stub category in the how-to section? OMG, you may have to read this twice cause I got dizzy just writing it. Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 10:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I know all that, but some people seeem to think they belong in the stub category rather than in the stub template category and remove the includeonly clause. Or they misplace the templage page by removing the noinclude in [[Category:Page<noinclude>|*</noinclude>]]. What is the policy on that? Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 20:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
If you look at the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:217.21.232.179 you can see that repeatedly giving gentle hints is pointless. These type of vandals know from the start that it's vandalism. It's not accidental in the slightest, and I can imagine them laughing at the suckers who keep on posting them "do it 3 more times and you'll be blocked" "do it 2 more times and you'll be blocked" messages. My plan? If the vandalism is pointless and not accidental (this is usually obvious) give them one warning. After that, block for 6 months. Pussyfooting around, trying to "win them over" is not going to work. If you don't believe me, take another look at the page. Thanks. -- SpookyMulder 09:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
SpookyMulder 09:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
imho, vandalism-only IPs may well be blocked for a couple of months at a time. Just put a polite note on the user page, along the lines, we apologize if you run into this block guiltlessly etc., bona fide users can always request unblocking. I am thinking on a guideline like, if an IP shows persistent vandalism with not a single good edit for more than half a year, feel free to block it for three months. After all, our vandal-fighting and RCP resources are limited and we don't want to waste them on pointless friendliness to dyed-in-the-wool vandals. dab (ᛏ) 10:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I submit that the terms vandal and sockpuppet are frequently misused when discussing a user who contributes to Wikipedia in a questionable fashion.
To vandalize an article is to deface it, with obviously out-of-place or out-of-context additions -- almost always profanity.
If a user adds questionable material which is not obvious defacement they should not be called a vandal. They may be silly, misguided, foolish, defying the NPOV or citation principles, or otherwise damaging the credibility and/or accuracy of Wikipedia. They need to be corrected, of course. But please, use the correct language!
To sockpuppet is to use multiple accounts to attempt to build false consensus.
Making second accounts without the intent to build false consensus is not sockpuppetry. If it is for the purpose of editing Wikipedia while blocked, it may well result in further blocking. But to give the reason as 'sockpuppetry' is a complete lie. Just say: this person has been banned, and will remain banned so long as there is any indication that two accounts belong to the same person. Yes, this requires more typing! But at least it is fair and accurate.
I'm sure that this over-use of the 'vandal' and 'sockpuppet' epithets is for a simple reason: Wikipedia has clear and simple rules that forbid vandalism and sockpuppetry. To expand the definitions of either of those two terms is a simple, lazy effort, and it effectively condemns the offending user without ambiguity. But it is nonetheless a misuse of language.
Please, admins and other individuals who monitor Wikipedia for unhelpful contributions: use the right language. Be brave -- call someone an idiot, if they are indeed being an idiot. Remember to uphold the spirit of the law, and do not be overly concerned with the letter of it.
Please, discuss!
Takesh 20:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with this. Another similar "epithet" is calling any external link "spam" whether it is or not. Why debate the merits of a link when you can just make an accusation (even if it's false) that most won't want to argue with. -- Milo H Minderbinder 21:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree that the words are used carelessly but I very much disagree with your definitions. Someone who maliciously changes dates in an article is a vandal. Someone who deletes sections of an article is a vandal. So is anyone who knowingly decreases the quality of an article, I don't think profanity has anything to do with it. Similarly, any alternate account which is used knowingly to game the system is sockpuppetry, whether or not they are used to build false consensus. That includes evading blocks. Pascal.Tesson 00:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Regarding overuse of the word "vandal", I believe Wikipedia:On assuming good faith is a relevant essay. - GTBacchus( talk) 00:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza. I have already commented there that I believe that's the wrong venue for disbandment and deletion of a wiki-project. I'm not endorsing or opposing any views, but letting everyone know what is going on. I hope that we can actually have some discussion here as opposed to what goes on there. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 00:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I know this is just an opinion here, but if it were just a discussion and just that, then there would be no bold words at all. We wouldn't bold the words delete or keep at all. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 01:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I thought XfDs were now called X for discussion? Like WP:CfD. Or was that the only one to get changed? Carcharoth 01:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Wow, 150,000 keystrokes in the first 12 hours. That's an almost-audible 3.4 hertz. Certainly a lively discussion. -- Interiot 04:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I have cross posted this from Wikipedia talk:Categorization.
I have noticed a few users "categorising" articles by simply adding stub tags, (often replacing the {{ uncategorised}} tag with a stub for example). Can we formally add a sentence explicitly explaining that a stub tag (or any maintenance tag) does not categorise an article (in an encyclopedic sense), despite the fact that it does add a category.
Please reply at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#stubs_and_categories. thanks Martin 16:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I just had this idea. Most anonnymous users, even if doing good edits, do not enter edit summaries and therefore it is difficult to distiguish good intentions from bad ones. In preferences there is a check box saying "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary". If you check this and forgot to fill edit summary, editor returs once again and asks if you really mean it. You can still go without edit summary, but you have been warned. What I propose is to make this behaviour default for anonymous users. It will not stop the vandalism, but it will prompt good users to explain their edits. The side efect is that it might slow vandals who do not fill edit summaries as they will have to send form twice. Is this a good idea, bad idea or what kind of idea? -- Jan.Smolik 12:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately such a change would probably lead to vandalism going undetected in cases where the vandal uses an edit summary and the user browsing the recent changes assumes good faith and takes that summary at face value. I often come across vandalism edits with unrelated (and good) edit summaries as things are just now... Ta/ wangi 14:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I think it's already a default setting. At least; when I first edited as an anon I got a "Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary. If you click Save again, your edit will be saved without one." message. I remember thinking; "edit summary? What the hell's an edit summary? I just want to fix a friggin typo here!" ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) 17:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)