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I was directed here by one of the admins to express my concerns over the issue of third party sources for verification, and how it is affected by original research as well as proving notability and all that.
There are a number of locations in the world where notable events occur and there is no record of it that would under normal circumstances be recorded due to local circumstances - such as the lack of a local newspaper, or the lack of a local subject specific publication. Even though the event or group or anything else is worth recording as it is no different to others that have such sources.
It concerns me that it will leave the WP database incomplete. There is a dispute occuring at present where a number of wrestling promotions were marked for deletion due to an alleged lack of notability and a lack of sources. To me that looked like an over reaction - particularly in the case of one article. PCW
An admin who shall remain nameless alleged that unsourced articles will be deleted - even if the article is not original research. The Carnage Controversy noted in the article I mentioned is definitely a notable event - in that it had a major negative effect on the industry in Melbourne as a whole. But because this fact was never recorded - it could lead to an wholly unacceptable article deletion. It creates a conundrum - if articles like this and events like this are deleted, editors will leave. WP relies heavily on editors to get the information to make WP reliable, and the less editors there are the less reliable WP will be.
Whether WP likes it or not - it is seen by the Internet community as an "Encyclopedia for Everything". It is widely used as a source in this regard - indeed I've used it myself for this reason, and have linked the Aspergers Syndrome article which is magnificent. I mention Wikipedia a lot in other regards as a spot to start research. I am now discouraged from doing this because of the rock hard belief that all articles have to have reliable third party sources. It stops me from providing articles on other independant pro wrestling promotions in Australia, as one place that is not seen as a reliable source as I understand it is the fed's official website. That's a bad thing because mostly in this case it is the ONLY external source.
I hope I have covered the problem sufficiently, and I seek comment. I am seriously considering leaving WP over this issue, because if I hold to this rock hard attitude I have nothing to contribute. And the amount of material that I wanted to place on Wikipedia will not be added. I consider that to be poor form and a bad thing for an online encyclopedia. Curse of Fenric 21:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
All: I am currently in a dispute with (mainly) User:Lunokhod on the interpretation of the Wikipedia:No_original_research policy. He recently started a project on everything related to the Moon, and included some articles that I have been contributing to. I had added some numerical facts, that I derived from published and referenced sources. He objects on grounds of the NOR policy. I understand his objection to be that the exact numerical values listed in the articles have not been taken literally from published sources, but computed from them: he regards that as "original research" and therefore forbidden by the NOR policy. He wants these published in a reliable source (journal or on-line) literally before accepting them in a Wikipedia article. I disagree with this interpretation for reasons that I will outline below. I ask for the opinion of the Wikipedia community on this issue. Disputed pages are mainly new moon, also full moon and lunar phase, and (related but in my opinion centered on other issues) full moon cycle.
Tom Peters 14:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
{{
confusing}}
.Tom Peters's derivations of astronomical ephemerises is not the first to cause problems in Wikipedia. Last month, a user had derived an ephemeris for Halley's Comet and had posted it on the Halley's Comet page. He later removed it when he learned about the original research policy. (The user was unhappy about many things in Wikipedia. He seemed particularly upset that most people did not want to use Comet Halley in the title of the article on the comet.)
This leads to a particular problem. At the moment, we only have the assertion of Tom Peters and his collaborators that their derivation is valid. The same could be said about other people who place such derivations on Wikipedia. What if someone (not necessarily Peters) has made a mistake but refuses to admit it (or does not recognize it)? Worse yet, what if someone intentionally falsifies an ephemeris. This could be problematic. It makes Wikipedia look like it is directly disseminating bad information. On the other hand, if a primary or secondary reference contains the error, then Wikipedia is not directly responsible for disseminating the bad informaton. Moreover, it is more likely that the reference will have been reviewed before publication, so it is more likely that the material will be accurate.
I do not think that Tom Peters should take this personally. It sounds like he has put a lot of work into his calculations. Nonetheless, the "original research" policy is intended as protection against the people who lie or make egregious mistakes. Unfortunately, it means that some good original research cannot be placed on Wikipedia. Dr. Submillimeter 22:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Question: Let's say that I wanted to use these formulae in a scientific article, and I gave as a justification of the new adjusted ephemerides a reference to Wikipedia. Would this be acceptable for a peer reviewed scientific journal? I would say No. While what Tom Peters did might be considered "simple" (by some), it is not "trivial" (as in the above example of the area of a circle for an arbitrary radius). I object to his claim that this is too simple to be published, as there are a large number of "reputable" (in the words of wikipedia) possibilities that range from journals for teachers to technical reports published by amateur astronomical societies. In some cases, a reputable source might not even be peer reviewed (as in the case of online or supplementary documentation of, say, the DE405 ephemerides). "Reputable" should not be confused with "hard-core" astronomical journals. I do not doubt the accuracy of what he wrote, but the important point is: the ONLY way that this material can be verified is for the reader to rederive the equations himself. I think Dr. Submillimeter's point that Wikipedia is a tertiary source is important. We are only allowed to summarize what has been previously published. As much as we might like to, this forbids us from "improving" upon previously published material in the process. This is too bad in some cases, but that is the consequence of the NOR policy. Lunokhod 16:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I recently added an External links section to Vegetarianism after suggesting it on the talk page, and added http://www.vegsoc.org/ and http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/. I also explained on the talk page that both sites were respected non-profit organizations.
Soon after Mwanner removed both links and completely deleted the External links section, on the basis that no External links section existed before I added one, so there is no reason to add one now. Their reason for deleting the links was that both the sites "engage in retail", which is very misleading; both sites are registered charities. The Vegetarian Society is the oldest vegetarian organization in the world, their front page has over 40 links, one of which leads to their website store. I didn't even know it was there until I tried to find anything commercial on that site just now.
The only guidelines I can find related to the "engage in retail" reason that Mwanner gave are "sites that primarily exist to sell products or services" and "sites with objectionable amounts of advertising". Neither of the sites I added come anywhere near those guidlines.
I'd really appreciate it if someone could take a look at the sites I linked to and also the talk page, and give me any suggestions on what they think. Thanks - Psychonaut3000 01:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I, for one, sometimes find the demands for citations, etc, to be dull, and sometimes I even carp about it. Here is a cautionary tale.
In 1926 Maurice Maeterlinck, a Nobel Prize winner, published La Vie des Termites (The Life of the White Ant) plagiarising "The Soul of the White Ant" researched and written by the South African poet and scientist Eugene Marais (1871 - 1936). Marais's later suicide has been attributed to this act of plagiarism by some. Maeterlinck's own words in La Vie de Termites indicate that the possible discovery or accusation of plagiarism worried him:
It would have been easy, in regard to every statement, to allow the text to bristle with footnotes and references. In some chapters there is not a sentence but would have clamoured for these; and the letterpress would have been swallowed up by vast masses of comment, like one of those deadful books we hated so much at school. There is a short bibliography at the end of the volume which will no doubt serve the same purpose.
Sadly, the name of Eugene Marais is conspicuous by its absence from the bibliography. pietopper 11:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Today an athlete, Shane Warne, decided to retire. This is apparently of enough importance to be placed in In the News. Warne follows Ian Thorpe, Michael Schumacher and others. There was a bit of controversy when Thorpe's retirement was included but Milton Friedman's death wasn't (see Template talk:In the news/Archive 10#Please add Friedman). Now, I'm willing to accept that if a famous person dies of natural causes, it isn't important enough for ITN. But not if athletes' retirements are added. I don't care if it's the world's highest-paid athlete or a x-times gold olympic swimmer. It's simply retirement. Retirement from sports also occur because of natural causes! Some athletes come out of retirement. Would that be ITN-worthy? Michael Jordan would have certainly been an ITN-Allstar if Wikipedia had been around during his retirement from basketball, retirement from baseball, recall of retirement from basketball, and final retirement from basketball! Anyway, I bring this up here because doing so was suggested to me back during the Friedman controversy last month, and since this topic really needs some additional debate. For the current debate regarding Shane Warne, see Template talk:In the news#Shane Warne. - newkai t- c 07:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I have a recurring problem when editors on their own, after no discussion, take on the task of diffusing large categories into smaller subcategories. I am fully aware of how this used to be the norm, and necessary for technical reasons, especially with subcategories by nationality. However, that is no longer the case. Many perfectly fine categories are getting chopped into little pieces for no good reason. A pure wiki system of regulating this does not work. Unchecked, categories will be diffused into meaningless tiny overcategorizations. It has been my understanding that the diffusion of large categories should happen only after there has been discussion. Id like to formalize this as policy and propose that CFD be the forum for these discussions. The problem is that unless this is caught early, it is huge task to undo or redo. The policy should be "Depopulating of existing categories should not be undertaken without discussion at CFD". There could be an exception for quick depopulation shortly after the category was created, and if it was created by the same person. I'd go so far as to say I think that if depopulation continues after a warning, it should be a blockable offense. Any other opinions? Please respond on the CFD talk page. -- Samuel Wantman 09:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Hey everyone. Over at Wikipedia:Usurpation we've got a useful proposed policy to allow active users in good standing be renamed to already existing but totally unused accounts. It's got a fair bit of support, but it doesn't seem to have been commented on by a lot of people, so the bureaucrats are worried the community doesn't really know about it. It'd be pretty good if people would go read it and comment. -- Gwern (contribs) 20:16 3 December 2006 (GMT)
Rationale: Generally, only experienced users know about templates, and how they are used. Templates ate frequently targeted for vandalism, due to their wide reaching effects. While we already have many high profile templates protected, there are many more that can be used disruptively, and few, if any reasons why new or anonymous users would need to edit them. Also, it can be reasonably assumed that anyone with sufficient knowledge of templates that would be affected by this and would reasonably need to change a template would also know how to request a change.
Proposed Policy Admins are permitted and encouraged to indefinitely sprotect templates used in the article namespace (only established users able to edit it), in order to prevent their use for mass vandalism.
Current Policy A current de facto policy of full-protecting high risk templates seems to exist, both to prevent vandalism and denial of service.
Comments? - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
{{
Wiktionary}}
, {{
Commonscat}}
, {{
Wikibooks}}
, {{
Wikisource}}
, etc. (Most of those are, however, Wikisource is open). Support sprotect seems reasonable given the wide-ranging effects template vandalism can have across hundreds of articles. An anon could easily suggest changes on the template's Talk page, and should be encouraged to create an account anyway. Zun aid © Please rate me at Editor Review! 11:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I have proposed a new guideline for notable alumni.
This page in a nutshell: In an article about a school, any person on a list of "notable alumni" should qualify for their own Wikipedia article, and the inclusion of any such person in such a list should be considered appropriate. |
Any commentary would be appreciated. Thesmothete 05:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
“ | Some of them have already said that they are going to do that," says Sanger, referring to the competition over at Wikipedia. "That would be great, because if they do that, they'll have to link back to us. [4] | ” |
What? Wouldn't we only have to note in the edit summary that we got it from CZ? Unless they are basing their articles off original research, then they're just at level as any other contributor to Wikipedia, and no one can sign their own work on the site. -- Zanimum 17:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Some of you might not agree with me, but I think that all photos in wikipedia should be censored. By no means am I saying that pictures of nude persons or of sexual organs, should be deleted; all I'm saying is that photos portraying some sort of nudity should be replaced by diagrams. There are two main reasons for this to be done
As I said before, I'm not against pictures showing nudity or sexual organs, but against photos. Once again I'd like to emphatise that I thing that the solution to this is by replacing such photos by diagrams. Keith Azzopardi 19:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
As it very well known there are many current or historical real people wich are "added" to fictional works, not as "guest appearence" but as regular characters from it. Not very common with current and alive people, but common with iconic people from history.
My understanding is that Wikipedia should keep both things clearly apart. One thing is the real person, and another the ficticious character made from him/her. When I found an article about a politician categorized as a character, I removed that category, as it seemed incorrect, but such change was later reverted.
To avoid starting a circle of place/remove editions I want to know then wich is the policy about this. Can an article about a real person, who is used as a fictional character in a work of fiction, be categorized about things that relate not to the real person but to the character made of it? -- Perón 18:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
A new proposed guideline is under discussion inside the Basque WikiProject. It is: Wikipedia:WikiProject Basque/Basque toponyms, that some felt was really needed. If you are interested pass by and discuss. -- Sugaar 00:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Again, as I hear the sad news of the death of James Brown, I took a trip to his article, and found it semi-protected. Looking at the history, it seems that virtually all of the vandalism done to that page were done by unregistered accounts. Hence, the page got semi-protected as per semi-protection policy. I have noticed the same thing happened when Richard Hammond had his Vampire dragster crash and Steve Irwin died. In every case, the pages were semi-protected.
In light of what keeps happening to pages when a major event happens, would it be possible if an event happens (as I have said above) could the article be semi-protected immediately to avoid widespread vandalism. For example, if the {{ current}} or {{ current-section}} templates are added, an administrator is alerted and can review the article before deciding whether it deserves semi-protection or not. In regards to what gets written by vandalising IP's, even if it is reverted quickly, it could damage Wikipedia's reputation. -- tgheretford ( talk) 11:19, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi all,
There is a vote to allow the fair use of promotional photographs of living people. Some people believe the fair use policy currently disallows fair use of promotional photographs of living people if they occasionally make public appearances, others disagree with this. This proposal would clarify the issue.
Cedars 22:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Are we officially allowed to put song lyrics on the song pages? Or is it considered violating copyright? I couldn't find a specific answer to it in the Policy and whatnot BlackxxJapan 16:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Please consider the Wikipedia:Images for blocking policy proposal `' mikkanarxi 19:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
[moved from Talk:Main Page
I am working on a guideline, Wikipedia:Writing about math. Can you people please look at it? -- Ineffable3000 23:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it is not wise for Wikipedia to allow un-registered users to freely edit. I must revert at least 5 pages a day that have been vandalized by an anonymous user. Since registration is free and simple, and does not really reveal your identity, then what would be the argument against only allowing registered users to edit Wikipedia? You might still have revert wars, but not wholesale vandalism. Dullfig 22:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, as I said most other editors do. The only vandals we might discourage are the single-edit IPs, of whom, as you know, we get quite a lot. But I'm not arguing, because it was decided long ago.-- Anthony.bradbury 23:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I do recommend people to create accounts versus editing from IP's because it has been said in the past that anonymity is actually greater when using a named account than when using an IP ... the IP provides a varying degree of information depending on the subnet and the nature of the ISP, which anyone can access, while it takes special privileges to uncover the IP address and associated ISP information for a registered user — and I don't think there is any limit (over the practical availability limits) as to how many registered accounts a person might make over time; they would be socks by definition, but that would not be an issue if the conduct of the editing was well behaved and constructive. At any rate, the majority of IP-associated editors are constructive and help us; it just so happens that a majority (I think) of the hit-and-run vandals are IP-associated editors. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me) 00:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
There are problems when people edit anonymously from schools or Internet cafés, or from ISPs that keep reassigning IP addresses, because there may be several people behind a given IP - some vandals, some not.-- Runcorn 19:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (all) is a page that shows all the current discussions on all the villiage pump pages. New discussions aren't supposed to be added to it. Werdnabot doesn't archive it. On the rare occasion that someone posts to it they don't get an adequate response.
After some confusion, I removed the old discussions from it the other day, then requested permanent full protection for it. It seems to me that there's no reason not to protect it, and every reason to protect it. I realize that protected pages are considered harmful; but in this case I think that having it unprotected does more harm. The request was denied, ("There is not enough recent activity to justify protection at this time") however.
Looking at Wikipedia:Protection policy, however, it seems like it might be similar to the "*Protecting certain "system administration" pages. This includes many editorial templates, such as deletion notices and stub templates.
clauses.
Basically, there's no reason for anyone to be editing that page; it's a "system administration" page. So why not protect it? ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) 15:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Various Indian editors have been adding caste information to South Asian biographical articles. When I see it, I've been removing it -- that is, unless the subject him or herself has made a point of publicly identifying with that caste, as in the case of Dalit activists. I don't think editors should be classifying subjects of biographies by caste. Someone added caste information to the article on Madhuri Dixit, an Indian actress, I removed it, and there's an on-going fight at Talk:Madhuri Dixit. Several editors are claiming that of course articles on South Asians should state the subject's caste. What? Can we have a ruling that this is just out of bounds? We don't classify US citizens as white, black, mulatto, octoroon, etc., or South Africans as white, colored, or black ... why should the proponents of the Indian caste system get to classify people who haven't indicated their willingness to be so classified? Zora 18:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Well Zora, you really dont understand. In India, caste is the basic and most primary identifying parameter used by the people (yes ask anyone, even the guys at SM will vouch for this). We are NOT being casteist by identifying with our caste. Every caste has its own localised culture and history.
why should the proponents of the Indian caste system get to classify people who haven't indicated their willingness to be so classified?
One i'm not a proponent of casteist nonsense. Secondly you are opening a can of worms here. As i said. Sadly caste is A primary ethnic identifying factor for Indians. Even Indian government demand people to declare their caste (see Indian Quota system. I can take you views even further by isisting we remove any mention of a person's nationality unless he prefers to be identified with it.
अमेय आर्यन DaBrood © 18:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
अमेय आर्यन DaBrood © 19:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
This is a tough issue to deal with as many people do view the caste system as a form of discrimination. However, Wikipedia is not censored and the fact remains that a person's caste has been of the utmost importance throughout the region's history and though it is less important now, it still remains notable enough to place in their articles. In this instance we are merely recording fact and making no value judgements. Its up to the readers to decide their own opinions on trhe caste system, we can't censoer it out of articles as that would mean that we would be taking the POV that the caste system is bad and that we want to pretend it doesn't exist. Also, it should not be relevant as to whether or not the individuals in question publicly embrace their caste. We don't have that criteria for other facts regarding people, if we did it would be a lot harder to include any 'negative' information. -- The Way 20:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
"Indians want to do this" is a bad argument for classifying South Asian biographical subjects by caste (varna and jati). Some Indians want to do this; other Indians regard the caste-ist Indians as benighted reactionaries and bigots. The post-Independence Congress government in India tried to wipe out caste and stopped recording caste in censuses. However, they did make an exception for Untouchables/Harijans/Dalits and OBC (Other Backward Castes) who could claim caste status to qualify for various affirmative action set-asides. These set-asides have been extremely controversial. You'll find people of all politcal persuasions supporting them or calling for their abolition.
So the government of India doesn't support labeling people by varna and jati unless they are dalits or OBCs. What about popular practice? The old strictures about not taking food from lower castes, not being touched by lower castes, etc. may survive in villages but have been dropped in urban centers. You can't live a modern life if you're worried that the cook in the restaurant is the wrong caste! However, a significant proportion of Indians still want their children to marry within their jati. You'll see this baldly stated in matrimonial ads. However, there are also ads that say "caste no bar". In public life, in the media, the subject of caste is suppressed. In Bollywood movies, the prejudiced parents who keep loving couples apart are motivated by class prejudice, not caste. Being concerned with caste is not "modern". It's the kind of thing one keeps to oneself -- like being a racist in America. It's not publicly acceptable, even if it's common.
The Indian editors arguing in favor of mentioning caste are presenting themselves as representing all of India. That's simply not true. For some reason, we have an over-abundance of Hindu nationalist editors on WP, and very few secularists and modernists. This is just one of the many demographic imbalances here. I think it would be tragic if we let a few editors who support the caste system convince us that it was OK for WP to support it too, when in fact it's an extremely contentious topic in India and an large but unknown percentage of Indians reject it totally. Zora 20:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Of Note Relative to this discussion - Wikipedia_talk:Notice_board_for_India-related_topics/archive18#Caste_lists_vs._Caste_cats the official status quo of keeping caste/community classifications to lists and not categories. Adding two words on the community is not classifying. Adding them to a list/cat is. Baka man 21:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Zora... You've got it all wrong. We are NOT being casteist. Needless to say caste is used as more of an ethnic term rather than varna. Caste system as layed down by Manu has been all but dead expect perhaps in remotests of places. More of your insinuations that I am a Hindu nationalist is comical... I've published work critical of the movement
[5] at a popular British blog (we are a sister blog of Sepia Mutiny).. whats more,
Hindutavdis themselves are OBCs...
Mentioning caste carrys no racist/casteist connotations. अमेय आर्यन DaBrood © 17:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
the title is "south asians," but who else use caste system? Aren't Indians the only people who use that? do people form pakistan or burma use that, too? 75.3.235.100 00:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Its clear that policy states that Featured Articles should not be protected except for short times and for good reason. However, there appears to be a growing problem of accounts uploading extremely obscene, violent, and even illegal shock images and posting them on the article. Unlike normal text vandalism, this is far more detrimental to Wikipedia and its readers, yet even semiprotection won't stop them--they need to have an autoconfirmed account to upload images in the first place. I propose a new type of protection, which though would require some technical work, should be quite possible.
Is this type of protection even technically possible? I suppose I can see its value, but I don't think it can be implemented at this point. Fagstein 06:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
This sounds like a good idea. Adding images is not a type of editing that someone does upon discovering Wikipedia. - Freekee 04:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I like this idea if it is technically feasible. If it is not technically feasible, then an exception should be made to allow at least semi-protection of the article for as long as it is a featured article. This is the public face of Wikipedia, and it should not be allowed to be (virtually) spraypainted by taggers. -- BenBurch 03:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The owner and admin of the political discussion forum Democratic Underground was contacted by the U.S. Secret Service requesting info on two banned users who posted what the Secret Service considered to be possible threats. This info was not reported by any RS V secondary sources, just on Democratic Underground and a couple very minor blogs which are neither notable, nor RS V. Some editors want to include info on this incident, and link to the posts on Democratic Underground itself, claiming that this falls under WP:self published. I disagree and claim it's WP:OR. Who is right? info in question Note that I would not be objecting to the inclusion of this info if it were documented by RS V secondary sources, like the mention of the 'Tsunami theories' or disparaging comments following Reagan's death. It wasn't. Thanks - F.A.A.F.A. 09:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
If there has been no journalistic reports, it is likely OR. For exceptions please see [Wikipedia:Attribution#Questionable_or_self-published_sources], which perhaps fits under the first exception (Questionable or self-published sources in articles about their authors). I could see how the incident could be relevant to the article, but it seems otbe supporting claims not directly related to the source, or about third parties. Atom 12:31, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello, User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard is currently up for deletion.
My question:
I am wondering what the precedence is on deleting userpages which encourage others to comment a certain way in AfDs MfDs and on wikipolicy.
Wikipedia:Spam#Canvassing and Wikipedia:User page don't seem to address this particular issue.
I am simply asking what the AfD precedent is. Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Travb ( talk) 02:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales has stepped in and stopped straw poll voting on a proposal to clarify the policy allowing fair use of promotional photos of living people. In addition, Wales blanked the page in question, while encouraging Wikipedians to engage in what he calls a "continuation of a healthy and robust discussion of this complex issue." Wales newly-blanked page failed to include a link to an area deemed more appropriate for such further discussion.
The page had attracted a fair amount of attention over the Christmas holiday season, with more than 85 editors and Wikipedia administrators making their views known via the now-closed and removed straw poll. Wales' message to Wikipedia editors seeking to change the current promotional photography policies was unambigious. "We do not vote on issues in this manner," the Wikipedia founder wrote in bold type at the top of the page. Wales also indicated the page was "meaningless," writing of the oft-contentious debate, "enough is enough." When shut down, the straw poll was running about even, with no clear consensus in favor of adopting a wording change in the fair use criteria permitting, but not encouraging, the fair use of promotional photographs of living people (including bands) in articles describing those people until a free alternative becomes available. Jenolen speak it! 12:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Proposal to allow the fair use of promotional photographs of living people
Please note that this is a meaningless page. It now closed and all further discussion moved elsewhere. We do not vote on issues in this manner.
You may visit the history of this page to see what all the fuss was about. But enough is enough. This is not the right way to change policy in Wikipedia, and the proposal listed here is entirely contrary to our fundamental goals. -- Jimbo Wales 02:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
To be clear, I support the continuation of a healthy and robust discussion of this complex issue. I do not support a premature and heavily biased "vote" or "straw poll" which will only serve to entrench people in various extreme positions. Let's seek common ground.-- Jimbo Wales 03:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Here is the problem. Wikipedia recently use color at Recentchanges and Watchlist, green for positive, and red for negative. But these colors not apply worldwide. In China, and perhaps also other East Asian cultures, they are used exactly opposite — red for positive, green for negative. For most westerners, if you see the screen found in a Chinese stock market, you might feel strange and very uncomfortable, so do I here. In my opinion, English Wikipedia only written in English language, it should be neutral among cultures. I hope this feature could be customized per user. Yao Ziyuan 14:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a truly remarkable experiment. One of the ironies is that its strength can also be its weakness.
The opportunity for "just anyone" to edit content is exciting. It makes it possible to get information that otherwise would not be available, as well as provide information one might not otherwise have had an opportunity to provide.
One of the major frustrations I have is when someone decides to adopt a series of articles and appoints themselves as gatekeeper; these types basically lurk, wait for others to make changes, and then simply reverts the changes, dismissing the contributions of others with no regard for the level of merit that may have been in the contribution.
What makes this even more sad is when the contributions they revert are of value. Yet, simply because they have the time to sit and just revert each change, their point of view will win out. It's especially obvious when a contribution someone makes based on some breadth of research and experience is almost immediately instantly reverted by someone who couldn't possibly have taken any time to research the contribution first to assess the merit in it - it's just a knee-jerk reversion based purely on their self-appointed gatekeeper status.
The problem is, again, the open nature of the wiki is the strength. This unfortunate byproduct ma be a problem, but it appears to be intrinsic to the nature of the wiki itself. If it's going to be open, it's going to be open. The obvious solution is to hire qualified moderators...but then this is most probably best seen as an evolutionary step backwards towards what the wiki was intended in part to get away from - authorities preventing anyone from having a contribution.
I don't know what the solution is, I just think some kind of dialog should begin to consider this real problem.
Perhaps a limit saying a contribution can't be reverted for a minimum of 48 hrs - perhaps most lurks might forget about the changes by then...? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.116.214.132 ( talk • contribs)
Yes, there are some articles that are infested by POV-warriors who keep down reasonable edits, but they are outnumbered by the articles that are guarded by knowledgable, responsible editors. Robert A.West ( Talk) 19:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm very happy to know that you folks are at least thinking of the issue. I agree that edit freezing is not a good idea, I was merely stoking the fires of discussion to come up with SOME WAY to address this issue of "edit warring".
The concept of revision status pending a vote of approval is an interesting idea. It might slow down the process, but then that might be a small price to pay.
A specific example of what finally prompted me to make this entry in the Village pump is regarding the article on heavy metal. In it, I referred to "glam rock"'s alternate name, "glitter rock." No sooner had I finished saving it, some other contributor reverted it, and his comment was 'glitter rock'? what?" suggesting that, since he'd never heard of it, it must not be. I felt it a worthy contribution to the article simply because glam metal in the 80s is not just an extension of glam rock of the 70s; further, the concept of "glitter" in the 70s was very connected to the culture of the 70s and has almost no similar connection to the culture of the 80s. Anyway, the wiki article on glitter rock further expands this discussion. I referred the warring editor to that article showing that, even though he hadn't heard of it (and therefore really should consider himself unqualified to be so quick and unthoughtful in his editing) there is plenty of documentation that artists such as Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop and Gary Glitter are primary examples of this sub-genre under that name.
This may sound trite and silly, but insofar as this is a discussion of socio-cultural history and art history (and in asmuch as wikipedia wants to be recognized as an authoritative and reliable source of information, useful in academic circles and scholarly discourses) quality of information should not be hampered by people with scant regard for the integrity of the website beyond their own promotion.
Is there currently an official policy or guideline page on handling publicity rights for images of living people? That is, a statement of if/when we need the subject's permission to use their photo, and how complete that permission must be (e.g. a model's release). Given that the only practical/realistic way of getting a free image of a celeb, is generally having an amateur take it, I think clearer rules are needed on this. Many of the free photos we have have no indication of the subject's permission, or if they do, its simply permission to have the photo taken, and no more. Generally, we've worked on the premise that the copyright holder (usually the photographer) has the exclusive right to release the image under a free license, and that's all that's needed. Now, if that's what the rule should be, then that should be stated. If that's insufficient to publish an image, we should state precisely what is needed. We should have rules for varying circumsntances: nudity/suxual images (obviously these need a model's release), private images of private people (likely need a release), public images of public people (hopefully, they don't need a release). IANL, and I'm frustrated at contridictory information I've read around Wikipedia. I mentioned this there as well, but PUMP may be more appropriate. If this is already discussed and/or settled elsewhere, please point me to the appropriate page. I haven't a particular position on what policy should be, but I want to know what it is, before investing time taking photos, uploading them, and having somebody delete them in the future. -- Rob 21:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Central to the potential of Wikipedia is it's capabiltiy to adapt--unlike conventional print encyclopedias which become out of date as soon as they come off the press. Wikipedia is not paper-and-ink bound, which is a great advantage. But the "-pedia" component of its name may be an impediment, for it may sugges our model to be the traditional encyclopedia. Such a conventional presumption limits exploration of this electronic media.
Encyclopedias developed in an age of printing, prior to the advent of photography, when even use of labor-intensive engravings was limited. We may carry, unquestioned, a notion of what a proper "encyclopedia" should be: pages of dense text, with few illustrations, these restricted to postage-stamp size.
I have been discussing the matter of format with several others, who seem to share that sort of notion of what is "proper" for an encyclopedia. Why, I ask, should this be a proper encyclopedia? Why not do what paper encyclopedias cannot do? Cost of paper and ink is not a limitation with Wikipedia, nor is heft of volumes in the hands of readers. This is why Wikipedia has become the largest encyclopedia in the world. In many ways it is innovative, but far less so in the "image' we carry in our mind's eye, our paradigm of what an "encyclopedia" should be.
Specifically, why should we constrain the size of images in this electronic medium? Is cost a factor? Capactiy of the pipeline? Someone has mentioned slowness of loading image-heavy pages. That may be the case in some parts of the world, but surely technology is rapidly changing. Dial-up modems are largely historic relics here, where broadband cable connections make slowness a non-issue.
I have contributed articles to conventional encyclopedias and have prepared websites. They are two different sorts of projects, with very different limitations and potentials. I certainly find the potential of the electronic media far more promising, and have became quite a regular contributor to Wikipedia. I continue to have issues with editors, however, who seem to prefer the text-heavy convention of the paper-and-print encyclopedis, suggesting that large images are inappropriate. Why?
As the old adage goes, "the picture is worth a thousand words." And, for increasingly less literate users, "the medium is the message." Can we cease discouraging use of large images?
Paul Malo Phmalo 23:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi all. I would like some feedback on this issue: User:Attilios has been posting aircraft profiles to multiple Wikipedia pages. Apparently, he worked out a deal with the creator of the profiles where his copyright work could be displayed on Wikipedia in exchange for what effectively amounts to advertisement. For example, see Image:1SPIT Vb RAF JPG Copyright Giovanni Paulli.jpg and how it is used on Supermarine Spitfire (down by the "Specifications" section, also read the comments section of the image tag). This is obviously "free use in exchange for ad space" which is not directly addressed by any Wikipedia policies that I could find. I'm conflicted -- on the one hand the material is nice and it is a potential avenue for use of copyrighted non-Fair Use material on WP. On the other hand, this type of exchange will open monster floodgates to advertising and the material is not really essential to the page. Thus, my inclination is to remove it from Spitfire and several other pages where it is used, but I would like some feedback from the community first (and so I can direct the original poster/dealmaker to this discussion). Thanks! - Emt147 Burninate! 00:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
The uploader used the {{CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat}} template with the condition that the author and the website link are shown in every article using the image. That's pretty blatant advertisement. Of course, the simple solution would be to not obey the conditions and not use the images. - Emt147 Burninate! 01:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think including a link on the article page is a good idea, unless the images provided are very exceptional (for whatever reason). On the image page would be fine, but this does seem like pretty blatant advertising. Trebor 01:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
It seems like this deal that was struck goes against Wikipedia policies, and unless a new one can be struck, the images will have to be deleted. Attilios doesn't speak for the Foundation, and it is not within his capability to accept a deal that requires image attribution above and beyond what our site policies already provide. We do image attribution on the image pages and in the image names (as applicable); we don't do image attribution on the articles the images are used in because that is unenforceable, and also leads to spam. Please get in contact with the guy who originally made the images and ask if he can just release them under plain GFDL; the attributions will still be on all of the images pages. -- Cyde Weys 06:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I created an article Fortran_FAQ with a few frequently asked questions about the Fortran programming language and their answers. The article was immediately deleted with the curt explanation, (paraphrasing), "Wikipedia is not a free hosting service for FAQs." There is an article on Fortran, but an FAQ could cover some topics not in that article. Is there a blanket policy against FAQs? If so, could a Fortran FAQ be a reasonable topic for a Wikibook or a chapter of a Wikibook?
Please allow registered users to change their User name too.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.75.192.20 ( talk • contribs)
I came across this today: Wikipedia:Reward board. Before my edit, the lead of the article was describing financial rewards offered and asked for editing articles. I was surprised that I never saw that page before. I bring this to the attention of the community at large to discuss the implications of such Reward board. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
This page in a nutshell: Categories that overlap, are irrelevant or overly limited in scope should not be created, such as "Bald people", "Famous people" or "Male models from Dallas". |
A user asserts that this guidelines not only violates consensus, but was proposed without telling the community (besides proofs to the contrary). Are there any other users that believes the guidelines is not consensual? Circeus 14:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Didn't we have some guidance to the effect of "Guidelines that overlap, are irrelevant or overly limited in scope should not be created". Oh yes we have, it's called Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep. For that reason I'd reject Wikipedia:Overcategorization. Seems like rulecruft to me.
Imho it's up to those who propose new guidance, to convince their fellow-wikipedians that the new guidance...
Sorry, no, not a good idea imho. -- Francis Schonken 18:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
One of the things I've tried to do more recently is greeting new users, but then I realized, when you sign up on many other websites, you'll get an automatic greeting, be it an email, message box or whatnot. Why don't we do it here? Xiner ( talk, email) 17:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Why is there a policy NOT to use YouTube links ? If the video is on topic and adds value to the article, I do not see a problem with it. Wiki allows other external links. Perhaps, we could discuss the policy on this matter. Headphonos 13:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Appologies if this is the wrong place to raise this...
Editing this page, I am presented with the Sitenotice banner regarding the current fundraiser. While I have always recognized that as a "necessary evil" in and of itself, I've noticed today that there is an additional advertisement link for Virgin Unite with their company logo, announcing that they are matching donations today.
So, when did Wikipedia become an advertising platform? -- Connel MacKenzie - wikt 00:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The matching donations by virgin unite (VU) is obviously extremely dangerous and clear evidence that Wikipedia needs a strong, PERPETUAL and committed "ABSOLUTELY NO ADVERTISING" policy and it needs it now! This donation and VU article has effectively become a cheap advert for virgin foundation and -- by extension -- Virgin group. Accepting and advertising these corporate-based funds could go down as Wikipedia's biggest mistake to date. Would we accept and advertise a corporate donation or grant from one of those supposedly independent "public interest" or "research" groups funded by the tobacco or oil industry? This is a very slippery slope indeed!
It is notable that that despite the many debates in the media over the virgin foundation there is no critique to be found in the article. The {POV} tag and discussion entry were immediately censored. But the situation is deeper and more troubling than the lack of a criticism section in an article. (1) The point is it that every edit to a Virgin Foundation or Virgin Group entry will now be judged in terms of whether wikipedians are being soft on the foundation because of financial contributions or, conversely, harsh in order to prove that we're really very objective! (2) The virgin icon is now being plastered on the Main Page and across wikipedia pages of countless topics in multiple languages! Such practices do not engender confidence in an encyclopedia! By having a logo on unrelated entries, the "donation" is insidiously tainting every ad-tagged article and undermining the neutral POV policy wholesale.
Impartiality is like justice: It's not enough for it to be done, it must be seen to be done! It doesn't matter whether the VU donations are generous or intended as lobbying. The funds and postings are clearly being seen by many as sponsored advertising and no explaining in the world can help remove that doubt.
In the short term, the only way I can see to deal with this is to immediately stop this particular VU promotional run and remove the logo from all article headers. In the long term, there needs to be a new Wikipedia-wide policy implemented as broadly as these icons were plastered. It's time to go beyond the wishy-washy "no immediate plans for advertising" and make "no advertising" a permanent and perpetual pillar of Wikipedia. That's the only way to fix the VU article in particular and its essential for ensuring confidence that Wikipedia is truly independent and will continue to forward and uphold the highest principles. OFW (Open and Free Wikian - as in free from corporate bias). 74.12.147.213 15:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
"No non-commercial images except by fair use" still applies to Creative Commons {{ cc-by-nc-2.0}}, {{ cc-by-nc-nd-2.0}}, etc., right? So I'm a bit confused by these edits ( [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] ) removing speedy tags from images I put on images which were clearly mistagged by the uploader (if you look at the original Flickr pages, you can see these images being clearly marked as non-commercial only). Thanks. cab 08:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Here in the UK we still use miles for road signs and distances. WP policy is to use measurement units appropriate to the country being discussed.
I have been writing a few articles on villages in Lincolnshire and expressed all distances in miles. One of my pages, Hackthorn has been edited several times and they have been changed to km with the miles equivalent in brackets. Further more he has changed the 'as the crow flies' distance to the acual distance by road (which is significantly further). I tried changing it back but he reverted it. I think the chap who has done the changes lives there but gives no user name (last edit was 86.31.193.189).
Am I right in thinking that for articles on geographic places the distances should be 'as the crow flies' and in the appropriate units for the country, ie miles in this case? Should I revert the edits or give in? Dsergeant 09:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Given that Jimmy Wales is considering the advertising option and a search engine rival to Google, it seems, especially given the latter, that the advertising option is going to be exercised.
Is this good or bad? Is it the start of the decline of Wikipedia? Should we embrace it, if so how? Should we reject it and make Wikipedia a pay for access site?
I think the decision on advertising will be the turning point in this glorious experiment - although which way that turn goes is an enormous unknown. I suspect most would probably prefer to see Wikipedia continue as an open source, free information, global contribution, sharing the body of knowledge (about time the Universities started doing that a little more too!) - and ditto Wiki Projects. But the thing needs money to run. Will Jimmy use the search engine as a commercial (advertising) platform to raise money? Will the advertising model be Google like (and as suspect) or something else? Your thoughts on this matter are important so please contribute your perspective. How should WIKI evolve???
-- Rimrock 12:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm hoping we can get a lively debate going on the direction of Wikipedia with consideration of the whole issue of advertising - and funding methods - rather than discussion of specific interpretations of what constitutes an advertising spot or if Virgin is getting cheap exposure. Feel free to comment. -- Rimrock 13:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I was tempted to put a {{fact}} tag on the assertion that Jimmy Wales is considering the advertising option, but instead, I will just say it here. Where do you find any such assertion? User:Zoe| (talk) 17:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes I also was wondering the same thing as Zoe. Care to provide a link to a valid source which states this? ¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 20:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I propose the following change to clear up statements. I believe this would be a better wording. Just moving the statment to a more appropiate bullet Navou talk 16:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
In general, administrators are responsible for closing discussions about deletions. In practice, the various deletion discussions tend to be badly backlogged. Editors in good-standing who have not been made administrators may close deletion discussions under the following conditions:
This conversation [15] didn't answer my questions, and I am wondering if this issue is covered by policy, and I just can't find it? (I have noticed Arbcom cases in which users were unblocked strictly to participate in dispute resolution, so I thought there was precedent.) Thanks in advance for any help or advice, Cindery 02:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Tell me what you think of it. -- Chris is me 07:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete -- This propsal accomplishes nothing that cannot be accmplished using WP:N, either in its current form, or in some modified form. WP:N needs to be better enforced(I don't think its being properly enforced at the moment), and this policy proposal will make WP:N harder to enforce. Librarylefty 01:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
This is not a new guideline, just a spin-off of the "internal spamming" content from
WP:SPAM to make both guidelines more readable. So for all intents and purposes the content stays the same, except in separate places. Discussion at
WT:SPAM#WP:CANVAS
WT:CANVAS. ~
trialsanderrors 03:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I have a IP address that is trying to cause a edit war with me, but im trying to settle it with him personally before I goto the article's talk page for 2nd opinions. There is a fact that a user is claiming, his sources dont back up his fact what so ever and he claims they are Press Releases/News Releases, they are links to homepages of 2 companies, 1 indirectly related to the article, the other not at all. The websites do not answer his fact or my fact as true or false. My side of the fact is supported by mostly forum posts(poor source I know), and 1 Consumer Reports article. Anyways, what policys/guidelines can I look at to determine if I am right or wrong, and if he is right or wrong, and what can I point out to him? I am thinking something along the lines of "irrelavent/invalid source", "spam" (I cant see what his websites are trying to sell, so it might not be spam?????), maybe "orignal research" (then again what im saying can be seen as OR), "verifiable" (how can something be verified that a company refuses to talk about and is considered proprietory business practices/trade secrets, and is only known by hackers and enthusiasts and is never discussed by the company since it can be viewed as a dark secret?) "pushing a cause" (is this a WP policy? I could be doing it myself, if I use NPOV, then all criticism is considerd POV) I need a wiki lawyer. I first want to try deal with this person myself, if that doesnt work, then I guess Ill deal with it on the articles talk page or whatever WP does for edit wars. It shouldnt matter what the subject is at this point. I have a username but I dont want this person tracking me to this post. 24.90.122.153 05:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed some images, for example Image:Nintendo 64.jpg and Image:Nintendo DS Lite side.jpg feature copyrighted logos. They are tagged as GFDL and used as GFDL, but they do incorporate copyrighted content. In both such cases, the images could be edited to remove the fair use parts, while still illustrating the subject well. Any input? Scepia 07:23, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I am a born again 5-point reformed/calvinist noncessational, covenantal, evangelical, presuppositional, nondenominational, protestant Christian. I am an apologist in training and a member of CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry). As a member of CARM and the Counter-Cult Movement, I seek to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet receive it, defend the Christian faith against nonbelievers, and counter nonchristian cults such as Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Catholicism, Oneness Pentecostal, Unitarianism, Christadelphianism, Christian Science, and so on.
I personally find it mildly disturbing. He has a lot of other stuff on his page too. And he has a long history of vandalism of other's pages as well in his "spreading the gospel" mission. Comments?-- Filll 05:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
He is entitled to his personal beliefs. Evangelism, however is immoral, and we should stop any attempts by him, or anyone else to evangelize their religious beliefs on Wikipedia, should this occur. Atom 16:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you might be replying to. I am stating that people that feel that they are obligated to interfere with other belief systems are immoral. We should respect all belief systems and superstitions. No one is suggesting that the facts about any belief system should be omitted or prohibited from Wikipedia. NPOV would suggest that allowing all perspectives is appropriate. What I object to is evangelism, not religion or other superstitions. Evangelism is not a religion, evangelism is a mode of preaching or proseltyzing ones particular religion. Moreso, Christian Evangelists believe that it is their obligation, their duty, a directive from God, to "save" others from their "incorrect" religious beliefs and make them christians. It is a kind of religious imperialism. So, what I am saying is that people who want to interfere with others religious views, or feel obligated to force their personal dogma on others should be asked to do that elsewhere.
Remember that the original context was concern given about editor/user User:Jedi_Davideus whose user page says "I seek to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet receive it, defend the Christian faith against nonbelievers, and counter nonchristian cults such as Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Catholicism, Oneness Pentecostal, Unitarianism, Christadelphianism, Christian Science, and so on." and "My goal in Wikipedia is to ...Counter/correct biased articles that are slanted towards a secular point of view ", "From my experience, many articles are presented either from an atheistic, evolutionist, or simply a secular point of view."
Of course I respect his right to be whatever he wants, and to believe whatever he wants, and to practice his religion however he chooses. I do have concerns if his intent is to vandalize Wikipedia articles by trying to remove non-theistic, evolutionist and secular views in favor of views that he has stated (for instance, that catholics and mormons are not christians, and his intent to push his views on others.)
Atom 16:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I have encountered a very difficult editor who is throwing what appears to be tantrums and is deleting material from my user talk page (at least once), the article's talk page (5 or 6 times at least), and being combative and slinging insults. What are the rules about this?-- Filll 01:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I would like to have somebody clarify a case of application of policy. Is 'unholy alliance' personal attack? In English Wiki I used it referring to some sysops in zh.wiki (the notorious Chinese Wiki, which is recently greatly discredited by major media), and I got a warning from Tjstrf saying such 'personal attack' will result in my being banned from English Wiki. I think it's only a common rhetoric usage. Does that qualify a 'personal attack'? Thank you. -- Uponsnow 12:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the quick response. Would you mind elaborate more? What if I used 'holy alliance' to intend some humor? Thanks. -- Uponsnow 13:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Season's greetings here. -- Uponsnow 10:36, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
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I was directed here by one of the admins to express my concerns over the issue of third party sources for verification, and how it is affected by original research as well as proving notability and all that.
There are a number of locations in the world where notable events occur and there is no record of it that would under normal circumstances be recorded due to local circumstances - such as the lack of a local newspaper, or the lack of a local subject specific publication. Even though the event or group or anything else is worth recording as it is no different to others that have such sources.
It concerns me that it will leave the WP database incomplete. There is a dispute occuring at present where a number of wrestling promotions were marked for deletion due to an alleged lack of notability and a lack of sources. To me that looked like an over reaction - particularly in the case of one article. PCW
An admin who shall remain nameless alleged that unsourced articles will be deleted - even if the article is not original research. The Carnage Controversy noted in the article I mentioned is definitely a notable event - in that it had a major negative effect on the industry in Melbourne as a whole. But because this fact was never recorded - it could lead to an wholly unacceptable article deletion. It creates a conundrum - if articles like this and events like this are deleted, editors will leave. WP relies heavily on editors to get the information to make WP reliable, and the less editors there are the less reliable WP will be.
Whether WP likes it or not - it is seen by the Internet community as an "Encyclopedia for Everything". It is widely used as a source in this regard - indeed I've used it myself for this reason, and have linked the Aspergers Syndrome article which is magnificent. I mention Wikipedia a lot in other regards as a spot to start research. I am now discouraged from doing this because of the rock hard belief that all articles have to have reliable third party sources. It stops me from providing articles on other independant pro wrestling promotions in Australia, as one place that is not seen as a reliable source as I understand it is the fed's official website. That's a bad thing because mostly in this case it is the ONLY external source.
I hope I have covered the problem sufficiently, and I seek comment. I am seriously considering leaving WP over this issue, because if I hold to this rock hard attitude I have nothing to contribute. And the amount of material that I wanted to place on Wikipedia will not be added. I consider that to be poor form and a bad thing for an online encyclopedia. Curse of Fenric 21:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
All: I am currently in a dispute with (mainly) User:Lunokhod on the interpretation of the Wikipedia:No_original_research policy. He recently started a project on everything related to the Moon, and included some articles that I have been contributing to. I had added some numerical facts, that I derived from published and referenced sources. He objects on grounds of the NOR policy. I understand his objection to be that the exact numerical values listed in the articles have not been taken literally from published sources, but computed from them: he regards that as "original research" and therefore forbidden by the NOR policy. He wants these published in a reliable source (journal or on-line) literally before accepting them in a Wikipedia article. I disagree with this interpretation for reasons that I will outline below. I ask for the opinion of the Wikipedia community on this issue. Disputed pages are mainly new moon, also full moon and lunar phase, and (related but in my opinion centered on other issues) full moon cycle.
Tom Peters 14:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
{{
confusing}}
.Tom Peters's derivations of astronomical ephemerises is not the first to cause problems in Wikipedia. Last month, a user had derived an ephemeris for Halley's Comet and had posted it on the Halley's Comet page. He later removed it when he learned about the original research policy. (The user was unhappy about many things in Wikipedia. He seemed particularly upset that most people did not want to use Comet Halley in the title of the article on the comet.)
This leads to a particular problem. At the moment, we only have the assertion of Tom Peters and his collaborators that their derivation is valid. The same could be said about other people who place such derivations on Wikipedia. What if someone (not necessarily Peters) has made a mistake but refuses to admit it (or does not recognize it)? Worse yet, what if someone intentionally falsifies an ephemeris. This could be problematic. It makes Wikipedia look like it is directly disseminating bad information. On the other hand, if a primary or secondary reference contains the error, then Wikipedia is not directly responsible for disseminating the bad informaton. Moreover, it is more likely that the reference will have been reviewed before publication, so it is more likely that the material will be accurate.
I do not think that Tom Peters should take this personally. It sounds like he has put a lot of work into his calculations. Nonetheless, the "original research" policy is intended as protection against the people who lie or make egregious mistakes. Unfortunately, it means that some good original research cannot be placed on Wikipedia. Dr. Submillimeter 22:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Question: Let's say that I wanted to use these formulae in a scientific article, and I gave as a justification of the new adjusted ephemerides a reference to Wikipedia. Would this be acceptable for a peer reviewed scientific journal? I would say No. While what Tom Peters did might be considered "simple" (by some), it is not "trivial" (as in the above example of the area of a circle for an arbitrary radius). I object to his claim that this is too simple to be published, as there are a large number of "reputable" (in the words of wikipedia) possibilities that range from journals for teachers to technical reports published by amateur astronomical societies. In some cases, a reputable source might not even be peer reviewed (as in the case of online or supplementary documentation of, say, the DE405 ephemerides). "Reputable" should not be confused with "hard-core" astronomical journals. I do not doubt the accuracy of what he wrote, but the important point is: the ONLY way that this material can be verified is for the reader to rederive the equations himself. I think Dr. Submillimeter's point that Wikipedia is a tertiary source is important. We are only allowed to summarize what has been previously published. As much as we might like to, this forbids us from "improving" upon previously published material in the process. This is too bad in some cases, but that is the consequence of the NOR policy. Lunokhod 16:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I recently added an External links section to Vegetarianism after suggesting it on the talk page, and added http://www.vegsoc.org/ and http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/. I also explained on the talk page that both sites were respected non-profit organizations.
Soon after Mwanner removed both links and completely deleted the External links section, on the basis that no External links section existed before I added one, so there is no reason to add one now. Their reason for deleting the links was that both the sites "engage in retail", which is very misleading; both sites are registered charities. The Vegetarian Society is the oldest vegetarian organization in the world, their front page has over 40 links, one of which leads to their website store. I didn't even know it was there until I tried to find anything commercial on that site just now.
The only guidelines I can find related to the "engage in retail" reason that Mwanner gave are "sites that primarily exist to sell products or services" and "sites with objectionable amounts of advertising". Neither of the sites I added come anywhere near those guidlines.
I'd really appreciate it if someone could take a look at the sites I linked to and also the talk page, and give me any suggestions on what they think. Thanks - Psychonaut3000 01:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I, for one, sometimes find the demands for citations, etc, to be dull, and sometimes I even carp about it. Here is a cautionary tale.
In 1926 Maurice Maeterlinck, a Nobel Prize winner, published La Vie des Termites (The Life of the White Ant) plagiarising "The Soul of the White Ant" researched and written by the South African poet and scientist Eugene Marais (1871 - 1936). Marais's later suicide has been attributed to this act of plagiarism by some. Maeterlinck's own words in La Vie de Termites indicate that the possible discovery or accusation of plagiarism worried him:
It would have been easy, in regard to every statement, to allow the text to bristle with footnotes and references. In some chapters there is not a sentence but would have clamoured for these; and the letterpress would have been swallowed up by vast masses of comment, like one of those deadful books we hated so much at school. There is a short bibliography at the end of the volume which will no doubt serve the same purpose.
Sadly, the name of Eugene Marais is conspicuous by its absence from the bibliography. pietopper 11:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Today an athlete, Shane Warne, decided to retire. This is apparently of enough importance to be placed in In the News. Warne follows Ian Thorpe, Michael Schumacher and others. There was a bit of controversy when Thorpe's retirement was included but Milton Friedman's death wasn't (see Template talk:In the news/Archive 10#Please add Friedman). Now, I'm willing to accept that if a famous person dies of natural causes, it isn't important enough for ITN. But not if athletes' retirements are added. I don't care if it's the world's highest-paid athlete or a x-times gold olympic swimmer. It's simply retirement. Retirement from sports also occur because of natural causes! Some athletes come out of retirement. Would that be ITN-worthy? Michael Jordan would have certainly been an ITN-Allstar if Wikipedia had been around during his retirement from basketball, retirement from baseball, recall of retirement from basketball, and final retirement from basketball! Anyway, I bring this up here because doing so was suggested to me back during the Friedman controversy last month, and since this topic really needs some additional debate. For the current debate regarding Shane Warne, see Template talk:In the news#Shane Warne. - newkai t- c 07:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I have a recurring problem when editors on their own, after no discussion, take on the task of diffusing large categories into smaller subcategories. I am fully aware of how this used to be the norm, and necessary for technical reasons, especially with subcategories by nationality. However, that is no longer the case. Many perfectly fine categories are getting chopped into little pieces for no good reason. A pure wiki system of regulating this does not work. Unchecked, categories will be diffused into meaningless tiny overcategorizations. It has been my understanding that the diffusion of large categories should happen only after there has been discussion. Id like to formalize this as policy and propose that CFD be the forum for these discussions. The problem is that unless this is caught early, it is huge task to undo or redo. The policy should be "Depopulating of existing categories should not be undertaken without discussion at CFD". There could be an exception for quick depopulation shortly after the category was created, and if it was created by the same person. I'd go so far as to say I think that if depopulation continues after a warning, it should be a blockable offense. Any other opinions? Please respond on the CFD talk page. -- Samuel Wantman 09:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Hey everyone. Over at Wikipedia:Usurpation we've got a useful proposed policy to allow active users in good standing be renamed to already existing but totally unused accounts. It's got a fair bit of support, but it doesn't seem to have been commented on by a lot of people, so the bureaucrats are worried the community doesn't really know about it. It'd be pretty good if people would go read it and comment. -- Gwern (contribs) 20:16 3 December 2006 (GMT)
Rationale: Generally, only experienced users know about templates, and how they are used. Templates ate frequently targeted for vandalism, due to their wide reaching effects. While we already have many high profile templates protected, there are many more that can be used disruptively, and few, if any reasons why new or anonymous users would need to edit them. Also, it can be reasonably assumed that anyone with sufficient knowledge of templates that would be affected by this and would reasonably need to change a template would also know how to request a change.
Proposed Policy Admins are permitted and encouraged to indefinitely sprotect templates used in the article namespace (only established users able to edit it), in order to prevent their use for mass vandalism.
Current Policy A current de facto policy of full-protecting high risk templates seems to exist, both to prevent vandalism and denial of service.
Comments? - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
{{
Wiktionary}}
, {{
Commonscat}}
, {{
Wikibooks}}
, {{
Wikisource}}
, etc. (Most of those are, however, Wikisource is open). Support sprotect seems reasonable given the wide-ranging effects template vandalism can have across hundreds of articles. An anon could easily suggest changes on the template's Talk page, and should be encouraged to create an account anyway. Zun aid © Please rate me at Editor Review! 11:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I have proposed a new guideline for notable alumni.
This page in a nutshell: In an article about a school, any person on a list of "notable alumni" should qualify for their own Wikipedia article, and the inclusion of any such person in such a list should be considered appropriate. |
Any commentary would be appreciated. Thesmothete 05:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
“ | Some of them have already said that they are going to do that," says Sanger, referring to the competition over at Wikipedia. "That would be great, because if they do that, they'll have to link back to us. [4] | ” |
What? Wouldn't we only have to note in the edit summary that we got it from CZ? Unless they are basing their articles off original research, then they're just at level as any other contributor to Wikipedia, and no one can sign their own work on the site. -- Zanimum 17:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Some of you might not agree with me, but I think that all photos in wikipedia should be censored. By no means am I saying that pictures of nude persons or of sexual organs, should be deleted; all I'm saying is that photos portraying some sort of nudity should be replaced by diagrams. There are two main reasons for this to be done
As I said before, I'm not against pictures showing nudity or sexual organs, but against photos. Once again I'd like to emphatise that I thing that the solution to this is by replacing such photos by diagrams. Keith Azzopardi 19:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
As it very well known there are many current or historical real people wich are "added" to fictional works, not as "guest appearence" but as regular characters from it. Not very common with current and alive people, but common with iconic people from history.
My understanding is that Wikipedia should keep both things clearly apart. One thing is the real person, and another the ficticious character made from him/her. When I found an article about a politician categorized as a character, I removed that category, as it seemed incorrect, but such change was later reverted.
To avoid starting a circle of place/remove editions I want to know then wich is the policy about this. Can an article about a real person, who is used as a fictional character in a work of fiction, be categorized about things that relate not to the real person but to the character made of it? -- Perón 18:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
A new proposed guideline is under discussion inside the Basque WikiProject. It is: Wikipedia:WikiProject Basque/Basque toponyms, that some felt was really needed. If you are interested pass by and discuss. -- Sugaar 00:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Again, as I hear the sad news of the death of James Brown, I took a trip to his article, and found it semi-protected. Looking at the history, it seems that virtually all of the vandalism done to that page were done by unregistered accounts. Hence, the page got semi-protected as per semi-protection policy. I have noticed the same thing happened when Richard Hammond had his Vampire dragster crash and Steve Irwin died. In every case, the pages were semi-protected.
In light of what keeps happening to pages when a major event happens, would it be possible if an event happens (as I have said above) could the article be semi-protected immediately to avoid widespread vandalism. For example, if the {{ current}} or {{ current-section}} templates are added, an administrator is alerted and can review the article before deciding whether it deserves semi-protection or not. In regards to what gets written by vandalising IP's, even if it is reverted quickly, it could damage Wikipedia's reputation. -- tgheretford ( talk) 11:19, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi all,
There is a vote to allow the fair use of promotional photographs of living people. Some people believe the fair use policy currently disallows fair use of promotional photographs of living people if they occasionally make public appearances, others disagree with this. This proposal would clarify the issue.
Cedars 22:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Are we officially allowed to put song lyrics on the song pages? Or is it considered violating copyright? I couldn't find a specific answer to it in the Policy and whatnot BlackxxJapan 16:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Please consider the Wikipedia:Images for blocking policy proposal `' mikkanarxi 19:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
[moved from Talk:Main Page
I am working on a guideline, Wikipedia:Writing about math. Can you people please look at it? -- Ineffable3000 23:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it is not wise for Wikipedia to allow un-registered users to freely edit. I must revert at least 5 pages a day that have been vandalized by an anonymous user. Since registration is free and simple, and does not really reveal your identity, then what would be the argument against only allowing registered users to edit Wikipedia? You might still have revert wars, but not wholesale vandalism. Dullfig 22:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, as I said most other editors do. The only vandals we might discourage are the single-edit IPs, of whom, as you know, we get quite a lot. But I'm not arguing, because it was decided long ago.-- Anthony.bradbury 23:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I do recommend people to create accounts versus editing from IP's because it has been said in the past that anonymity is actually greater when using a named account than when using an IP ... the IP provides a varying degree of information depending on the subnet and the nature of the ISP, which anyone can access, while it takes special privileges to uncover the IP address and associated ISP information for a registered user — and I don't think there is any limit (over the practical availability limits) as to how many registered accounts a person might make over time; they would be socks by definition, but that would not be an issue if the conduct of the editing was well behaved and constructive. At any rate, the majority of IP-associated editors are constructive and help us; it just so happens that a majority (I think) of the hit-and-run vandals are IP-associated editors. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me) 00:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
There are problems when people edit anonymously from schools or Internet cafés, or from ISPs that keep reassigning IP addresses, because there may be several people behind a given IP - some vandals, some not.-- Runcorn 19:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (all) is a page that shows all the current discussions on all the villiage pump pages. New discussions aren't supposed to be added to it. Werdnabot doesn't archive it. On the rare occasion that someone posts to it they don't get an adequate response.
After some confusion, I removed the old discussions from it the other day, then requested permanent full protection for it. It seems to me that there's no reason not to protect it, and every reason to protect it. I realize that protected pages are considered harmful; but in this case I think that having it unprotected does more harm. The request was denied, ("There is not enough recent activity to justify protection at this time") however.
Looking at Wikipedia:Protection policy, however, it seems like it might be similar to the "*Protecting certain "system administration" pages. This includes many editorial templates, such as deletion notices and stub templates.
clauses.
Basically, there's no reason for anyone to be editing that page; it's a "system administration" page. So why not protect it? ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) 15:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Various Indian editors have been adding caste information to South Asian biographical articles. When I see it, I've been removing it -- that is, unless the subject him or herself has made a point of publicly identifying with that caste, as in the case of Dalit activists. I don't think editors should be classifying subjects of biographies by caste. Someone added caste information to the article on Madhuri Dixit, an Indian actress, I removed it, and there's an on-going fight at Talk:Madhuri Dixit. Several editors are claiming that of course articles on South Asians should state the subject's caste. What? Can we have a ruling that this is just out of bounds? We don't classify US citizens as white, black, mulatto, octoroon, etc., or South Africans as white, colored, or black ... why should the proponents of the Indian caste system get to classify people who haven't indicated their willingness to be so classified? Zora 18:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Well Zora, you really dont understand. In India, caste is the basic and most primary identifying parameter used by the people (yes ask anyone, even the guys at SM will vouch for this). We are NOT being casteist by identifying with our caste. Every caste has its own localised culture and history.
why should the proponents of the Indian caste system get to classify people who haven't indicated their willingness to be so classified?
One i'm not a proponent of casteist nonsense. Secondly you are opening a can of worms here. As i said. Sadly caste is A primary ethnic identifying factor for Indians. Even Indian government demand people to declare their caste (see Indian Quota system. I can take you views even further by isisting we remove any mention of a person's nationality unless he prefers to be identified with it.
अमेय आर्यन DaBrood © 18:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
अमेय आर्यन DaBrood © 19:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
This is a tough issue to deal with as many people do view the caste system as a form of discrimination. However, Wikipedia is not censored and the fact remains that a person's caste has been of the utmost importance throughout the region's history and though it is less important now, it still remains notable enough to place in their articles. In this instance we are merely recording fact and making no value judgements. Its up to the readers to decide their own opinions on trhe caste system, we can't censoer it out of articles as that would mean that we would be taking the POV that the caste system is bad and that we want to pretend it doesn't exist. Also, it should not be relevant as to whether or not the individuals in question publicly embrace their caste. We don't have that criteria for other facts regarding people, if we did it would be a lot harder to include any 'negative' information. -- The Way 20:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
"Indians want to do this" is a bad argument for classifying South Asian biographical subjects by caste (varna and jati). Some Indians want to do this; other Indians regard the caste-ist Indians as benighted reactionaries and bigots. The post-Independence Congress government in India tried to wipe out caste and stopped recording caste in censuses. However, they did make an exception for Untouchables/Harijans/Dalits and OBC (Other Backward Castes) who could claim caste status to qualify for various affirmative action set-asides. These set-asides have been extremely controversial. You'll find people of all politcal persuasions supporting them or calling for their abolition.
So the government of India doesn't support labeling people by varna and jati unless they are dalits or OBCs. What about popular practice? The old strictures about not taking food from lower castes, not being touched by lower castes, etc. may survive in villages but have been dropped in urban centers. You can't live a modern life if you're worried that the cook in the restaurant is the wrong caste! However, a significant proportion of Indians still want their children to marry within their jati. You'll see this baldly stated in matrimonial ads. However, there are also ads that say "caste no bar". In public life, in the media, the subject of caste is suppressed. In Bollywood movies, the prejudiced parents who keep loving couples apart are motivated by class prejudice, not caste. Being concerned with caste is not "modern". It's the kind of thing one keeps to oneself -- like being a racist in America. It's not publicly acceptable, even if it's common.
The Indian editors arguing in favor of mentioning caste are presenting themselves as representing all of India. That's simply not true. For some reason, we have an over-abundance of Hindu nationalist editors on WP, and very few secularists and modernists. This is just one of the many demographic imbalances here. I think it would be tragic if we let a few editors who support the caste system convince us that it was OK for WP to support it too, when in fact it's an extremely contentious topic in India and an large but unknown percentage of Indians reject it totally. Zora 20:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Of Note Relative to this discussion - Wikipedia_talk:Notice_board_for_India-related_topics/archive18#Caste_lists_vs._Caste_cats the official status quo of keeping caste/community classifications to lists and not categories. Adding two words on the community is not classifying. Adding them to a list/cat is. Baka man 21:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Zora... You've got it all wrong. We are NOT being casteist. Needless to say caste is used as more of an ethnic term rather than varna. Caste system as layed down by Manu has been all but dead expect perhaps in remotests of places. More of your insinuations that I am a Hindu nationalist is comical... I've published work critical of the movement
[5] at a popular British blog (we are a sister blog of Sepia Mutiny).. whats more,
Hindutavdis themselves are OBCs...
Mentioning caste carrys no racist/casteist connotations. अमेय आर्यन DaBrood © 17:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
the title is "south asians," but who else use caste system? Aren't Indians the only people who use that? do people form pakistan or burma use that, too? 75.3.235.100 00:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Its clear that policy states that Featured Articles should not be protected except for short times and for good reason. However, there appears to be a growing problem of accounts uploading extremely obscene, violent, and even illegal shock images and posting them on the article. Unlike normal text vandalism, this is far more detrimental to Wikipedia and its readers, yet even semiprotection won't stop them--they need to have an autoconfirmed account to upload images in the first place. I propose a new type of protection, which though would require some technical work, should be quite possible.
Is this type of protection even technically possible? I suppose I can see its value, but I don't think it can be implemented at this point. Fagstein 06:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
This sounds like a good idea. Adding images is not a type of editing that someone does upon discovering Wikipedia. - Freekee 04:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I like this idea if it is technically feasible. If it is not technically feasible, then an exception should be made to allow at least semi-protection of the article for as long as it is a featured article. This is the public face of Wikipedia, and it should not be allowed to be (virtually) spraypainted by taggers. -- BenBurch 03:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The owner and admin of the political discussion forum Democratic Underground was contacted by the U.S. Secret Service requesting info on two banned users who posted what the Secret Service considered to be possible threats. This info was not reported by any RS V secondary sources, just on Democratic Underground and a couple very minor blogs which are neither notable, nor RS V. Some editors want to include info on this incident, and link to the posts on Democratic Underground itself, claiming that this falls under WP:self published. I disagree and claim it's WP:OR. Who is right? info in question Note that I would not be objecting to the inclusion of this info if it were documented by RS V secondary sources, like the mention of the 'Tsunami theories' or disparaging comments following Reagan's death. It wasn't. Thanks - F.A.A.F.A. 09:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
If there has been no journalistic reports, it is likely OR. For exceptions please see [Wikipedia:Attribution#Questionable_or_self-published_sources], which perhaps fits under the first exception (Questionable or self-published sources in articles about their authors). I could see how the incident could be relevant to the article, but it seems otbe supporting claims not directly related to the source, or about third parties. Atom 12:31, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello, User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard is currently up for deletion.
My question:
I am wondering what the precedence is on deleting userpages which encourage others to comment a certain way in AfDs MfDs and on wikipolicy.
Wikipedia:Spam#Canvassing and Wikipedia:User page don't seem to address this particular issue.
I am simply asking what the AfD precedent is. Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Travb ( talk) 02:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales has stepped in and stopped straw poll voting on a proposal to clarify the policy allowing fair use of promotional photos of living people. In addition, Wales blanked the page in question, while encouraging Wikipedians to engage in what he calls a "continuation of a healthy and robust discussion of this complex issue." Wales newly-blanked page failed to include a link to an area deemed more appropriate for such further discussion.
The page had attracted a fair amount of attention over the Christmas holiday season, with more than 85 editors and Wikipedia administrators making their views known via the now-closed and removed straw poll. Wales' message to Wikipedia editors seeking to change the current promotional photography policies was unambigious. "We do not vote on issues in this manner," the Wikipedia founder wrote in bold type at the top of the page. Wales also indicated the page was "meaningless," writing of the oft-contentious debate, "enough is enough." When shut down, the straw poll was running about even, with no clear consensus in favor of adopting a wording change in the fair use criteria permitting, but not encouraging, the fair use of promotional photographs of living people (including bands) in articles describing those people until a free alternative becomes available. Jenolen speak it! 12:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Proposal to allow the fair use of promotional photographs of living people
Please note that this is a meaningless page. It now closed and all further discussion moved elsewhere. We do not vote on issues in this manner.
You may visit the history of this page to see what all the fuss was about. But enough is enough. This is not the right way to change policy in Wikipedia, and the proposal listed here is entirely contrary to our fundamental goals. -- Jimbo Wales 02:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
To be clear, I support the continuation of a healthy and robust discussion of this complex issue. I do not support a premature and heavily biased "vote" or "straw poll" which will only serve to entrench people in various extreme positions. Let's seek common ground.-- Jimbo Wales 03:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Here is the problem. Wikipedia recently use color at Recentchanges and Watchlist, green for positive, and red for negative. But these colors not apply worldwide. In China, and perhaps also other East Asian cultures, they are used exactly opposite — red for positive, green for negative. For most westerners, if you see the screen found in a Chinese stock market, you might feel strange and very uncomfortable, so do I here. In my opinion, English Wikipedia only written in English language, it should be neutral among cultures. I hope this feature could be customized per user. Yao Ziyuan 14:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a truly remarkable experiment. One of the ironies is that its strength can also be its weakness.
The opportunity for "just anyone" to edit content is exciting. It makes it possible to get information that otherwise would not be available, as well as provide information one might not otherwise have had an opportunity to provide.
One of the major frustrations I have is when someone decides to adopt a series of articles and appoints themselves as gatekeeper; these types basically lurk, wait for others to make changes, and then simply reverts the changes, dismissing the contributions of others with no regard for the level of merit that may have been in the contribution.
What makes this even more sad is when the contributions they revert are of value. Yet, simply because they have the time to sit and just revert each change, their point of view will win out. It's especially obvious when a contribution someone makes based on some breadth of research and experience is almost immediately instantly reverted by someone who couldn't possibly have taken any time to research the contribution first to assess the merit in it - it's just a knee-jerk reversion based purely on their self-appointed gatekeeper status.
The problem is, again, the open nature of the wiki is the strength. This unfortunate byproduct ma be a problem, but it appears to be intrinsic to the nature of the wiki itself. If it's going to be open, it's going to be open. The obvious solution is to hire qualified moderators...but then this is most probably best seen as an evolutionary step backwards towards what the wiki was intended in part to get away from - authorities preventing anyone from having a contribution.
I don't know what the solution is, I just think some kind of dialog should begin to consider this real problem.
Perhaps a limit saying a contribution can't be reverted for a minimum of 48 hrs - perhaps most lurks might forget about the changes by then...? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.116.214.132 ( talk • contribs)
Yes, there are some articles that are infested by POV-warriors who keep down reasonable edits, but they are outnumbered by the articles that are guarded by knowledgable, responsible editors. Robert A.West ( Talk) 19:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm very happy to know that you folks are at least thinking of the issue. I agree that edit freezing is not a good idea, I was merely stoking the fires of discussion to come up with SOME WAY to address this issue of "edit warring".
The concept of revision status pending a vote of approval is an interesting idea. It might slow down the process, but then that might be a small price to pay.
A specific example of what finally prompted me to make this entry in the Village pump is regarding the article on heavy metal. In it, I referred to "glam rock"'s alternate name, "glitter rock." No sooner had I finished saving it, some other contributor reverted it, and his comment was 'glitter rock'? what?" suggesting that, since he'd never heard of it, it must not be. I felt it a worthy contribution to the article simply because glam metal in the 80s is not just an extension of glam rock of the 70s; further, the concept of "glitter" in the 70s was very connected to the culture of the 70s and has almost no similar connection to the culture of the 80s. Anyway, the wiki article on glitter rock further expands this discussion. I referred the warring editor to that article showing that, even though he hadn't heard of it (and therefore really should consider himself unqualified to be so quick and unthoughtful in his editing) there is plenty of documentation that artists such as Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop and Gary Glitter are primary examples of this sub-genre under that name.
This may sound trite and silly, but insofar as this is a discussion of socio-cultural history and art history (and in asmuch as wikipedia wants to be recognized as an authoritative and reliable source of information, useful in academic circles and scholarly discourses) quality of information should not be hampered by people with scant regard for the integrity of the website beyond their own promotion.
Is there currently an official policy or guideline page on handling publicity rights for images of living people? That is, a statement of if/when we need the subject's permission to use their photo, and how complete that permission must be (e.g. a model's release). Given that the only practical/realistic way of getting a free image of a celeb, is generally having an amateur take it, I think clearer rules are needed on this. Many of the free photos we have have no indication of the subject's permission, or if they do, its simply permission to have the photo taken, and no more. Generally, we've worked on the premise that the copyright holder (usually the photographer) has the exclusive right to release the image under a free license, and that's all that's needed. Now, if that's what the rule should be, then that should be stated. If that's insufficient to publish an image, we should state precisely what is needed. We should have rules for varying circumsntances: nudity/suxual images (obviously these need a model's release), private images of private people (likely need a release), public images of public people (hopefully, they don't need a release). IANL, and I'm frustrated at contridictory information I've read around Wikipedia. I mentioned this there as well, but PUMP may be more appropriate. If this is already discussed and/or settled elsewhere, please point me to the appropriate page. I haven't a particular position on what policy should be, but I want to know what it is, before investing time taking photos, uploading them, and having somebody delete them in the future. -- Rob 21:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Central to the potential of Wikipedia is it's capabiltiy to adapt--unlike conventional print encyclopedias which become out of date as soon as they come off the press. Wikipedia is not paper-and-ink bound, which is a great advantage. But the "-pedia" component of its name may be an impediment, for it may sugges our model to be the traditional encyclopedia. Such a conventional presumption limits exploration of this electronic media.
Encyclopedias developed in an age of printing, prior to the advent of photography, when even use of labor-intensive engravings was limited. We may carry, unquestioned, a notion of what a proper "encyclopedia" should be: pages of dense text, with few illustrations, these restricted to postage-stamp size.
I have been discussing the matter of format with several others, who seem to share that sort of notion of what is "proper" for an encyclopedia. Why, I ask, should this be a proper encyclopedia? Why not do what paper encyclopedias cannot do? Cost of paper and ink is not a limitation with Wikipedia, nor is heft of volumes in the hands of readers. This is why Wikipedia has become the largest encyclopedia in the world. In many ways it is innovative, but far less so in the "image' we carry in our mind's eye, our paradigm of what an "encyclopedia" should be.
Specifically, why should we constrain the size of images in this electronic medium? Is cost a factor? Capactiy of the pipeline? Someone has mentioned slowness of loading image-heavy pages. That may be the case in some parts of the world, but surely technology is rapidly changing. Dial-up modems are largely historic relics here, where broadband cable connections make slowness a non-issue.
I have contributed articles to conventional encyclopedias and have prepared websites. They are two different sorts of projects, with very different limitations and potentials. I certainly find the potential of the electronic media far more promising, and have became quite a regular contributor to Wikipedia. I continue to have issues with editors, however, who seem to prefer the text-heavy convention of the paper-and-print encyclopedis, suggesting that large images are inappropriate. Why?
As the old adage goes, "the picture is worth a thousand words." And, for increasingly less literate users, "the medium is the message." Can we cease discouraging use of large images?
Paul Malo Phmalo 23:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi all. I would like some feedback on this issue: User:Attilios has been posting aircraft profiles to multiple Wikipedia pages. Apparently, he worked out a deal with the creator of the profiles where his copyright work could be displayed on Wikipedia in exchange for what effectively amounts to advertisement. For example, see Image:1SPIT Vb RAF JPG Copyright Giovanni Paulli.jpg and how it is used on Supermarine Spitfire (down by the "Specifications" section, also read the comments section of the image tag). This is obviously "free use in exchange for ad space" which is not directly addressed by any Wikipedia policies that I could find. I'm conflicted -- on the one hand the material is nice and it is a potential avenue for use of copyrighted non-Fair Use material on WP. On the other hand, this type of exchange will open monster floodgates to advertising and the material is not really essential to the page. Thus, my inclination is to remove it from Spitfire and several other pages where it is used, but I would like some feedback from the community first (and so I can direct the original poster/dealmaker to this discussion). Thanks! - Emt147 Burninate! 00:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
The uploader used the {{CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat}} template with the condition that the author and the website link are shown in every article using the image. That's pretty blatant advertisement. Of course, the simple solution would be to not obey the conditions and not use the images. - Emt147 Burninate! 01:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think including a link on the article page is a good idea, unless the images provided are very exceptional (for whatever reason). On the image page would be fine, but this does seem like pretty blatant advertising. Trebor 01:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
It seems like this deal that was struck goes against Wikipedia policies, and unless a new one can be struck, the images will have to be deleted. Attilios doesn't speak for the Foundation, and it is not within his capability to accept a deal that requires image attribution above and beyond what our site policies already provide. We do image attribution on the image pages and in the image names (as applicable); we don't do image attribution on the articles the images are used in because that is unenforceable, and also leads to spam. Please get in contact with the guy who originally made the images and ask if he can just release them under plain GFDL; the attributions will still be on all of the images pages. -- Cyde Weys 06:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I created an article Fortran_FAQ with a few frequently asked questions about the Fortran programming language and their answers. The article was immediately deleted with the curt explanation, (paraphrasing), "Wikipedia is not a free hosting service for FAQs." There is an article on Fortran, but an FAQ could cover some topics not in that article. Is there a blanket policy against FAQs? If so, could a Fortran FAQ be a reasonable topic for a Wikibook or a chapter of a Wikibook?
Please allow registered users to change their User name too.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.75.192.20 ( talk • contribs)
I came across this today: Wikipedia:Reward board. Before my edit, the lead of the article was describing financial rewards offered and asked for editing articles. I was surprised that I never saw that page before. I bring this to the attention of the community at large to discuss the implications of such Reward board. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
This page in a nutshell: Categories that overlap, are irrelevant or overly limited in scope should not be created, such as "Bald people", "Famous people" or "Male models from Dallas". |
A user asserts that this guidelines not only violates consensus, but was proposed without telling the community (besides proofs to the contrary). Are there any other users that believes the guidelines is not consensual? Circeus 14:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Didn't we have some guidance to the effect of "Guidelines that overlap, are irrelevant or overly limited in scope should not be created". Oh yes we have, it's called Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep. For that reason I'd reject Wikipedia:Overcategorization. Seems like rulecruft to me.
Imho it's up to those who propose new guidance, to convince their fellow-wikipedians that the new guidance...
Sorry, no, not a good idea imho. -- Francis Schonken 18:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
One of the things I've tried to do more recently is greeting new users, but then I realized, when you sign up on many other websites, you'll get an automatic greeting, be it an email, message box or whatnot. Why don't we do it here? Xiner ( talk, email) 17:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Why is there a policy NOT to use YouTube links ? If the video is on topic and adds value to the article, I do not see a problem with it. Wiki allows other external links. Perhaps, we could discuss the policy on this matter. Headphonos 13:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Appologies if this is the wrong place to raise this...
Editing this page, I am presented with the Sitenotice banner regarding the current fundraiser. While I have always recognized that as a "necessary evil" in and of itself, I've noticed today that there is an additional advertisement link for Virgin Unite with their company logo, announcing that they are matching donations today.
So, when did Wikipedia become an advertising platform? -- Connel MacKenzie - wikt 00:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The matching donations by virgin unite (VU) is obviously extremely dangerous and clear evidence that Wikipedia needs a strong, PERPETUAL and committed "ABSOLUTELY NO ADVERTISING" policy and it needs it now! This donation and VU article has effectively become a cheap advert for virgin foundation and -- by extension -- Virgin group. Accepting and advertising these corporate-based funds could go down as Wikipedia's biggest mistake to date. Would we accept and advertise a corporate donation or grant from one of those supposedly independent "public interest" or "research" groups funded by the tobacco or oil industry? This is a very slippery slope indeed!
It is notable that that despite the many debates in the media over the virgin foundation there is no critique to be found in the article. The {POV} tag and discussion entry were immediately censored. But the situation is deeper and more troubling than the lack of a criticism section in an article. (1) The point is it that every edit to a Virgin Foundation or Virgin Group entry will now be judged in terms of whether wikipedians are being soft on the foundation because of financial contributions or, conversely, harsh in order to prove that we're really very objective! (2) The virgin icon is now being plastered on the Main Page and across wikipedia pages of countless topics in multiple languages! Such practices do not engender confidence in an encyclopedia! By having a logo on unrelated entries, the "donation" is insidiously tainting every ad-tagged article and undermining the neutral POV policy wholesale.
Impartiality is like justice: It's not enough for it to be done, it must be seen to be done! It doesn't matter whether the VU donations are generous or intended as lobbying. The funds and postings are clearly being seen by many as sponsored advertising and no explaining in the world can help remove that doubt.
In the short term, the only way I can see to deal with this is to immediately stop this particular VU promotional run and remove the logo from all article headers. In the long term, there needs to be a new Wikipedia-wide policy implemented as broadly as these icons were plastered. It's time to go beyond the wishy-washy "no immediate plans for advertising" and make "no advertising" a permanent and perpetual pillar of Wikipedia. That's the only way to fix the VU article in particular and its essential for ensuring confidence that Wikipedia is truly independent and will continue to forward and uphold the highest principles. OFW (Open and Free Wikian - as in free from corporate bias). 74.12.147.213 15:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
"No non-commercial images except by fair use" still applies to Creative Commons {{ cc-by-nc-2.0}}, {{ cc-by-nc-nd-2.0}}, etc., right? So I'm a bit confused by these edits ( [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] ) removing speedy tags from images I put on images which were clearly mistagged by the uploader (if you look at the original Flickr pages, you can see these images being clearly marked as non-commercial only). Thanks. cab 08:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Here in the UK we still use miles for road signs and distances. WP policy is to use measurement units appropriate to the country being discussed.
I have been writing a few articles on villages in Lincolnshire and expressed all distances in miles. One of my pages, Hackthorn has been edited several times and they have been changed to km with the miles equivalent in brackets. Further more he has changed the 'as the crow flies' distance to the acual distance by road (which is significantly further). I tried changing it back but he reverted it. I think the chap who has done the changes lives there but gives no user name (last edit was 86.31.193.189).
Am I right in thinking that for articles on geographic places the distances should be 'as the crow flies' and in the appropriate units for the country, ie miles in this case? Should I revert the edits or give in? Dsergeant 09:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Given that Jimmy Wales is considering the advertising option and a search engine rival to Google, it seems, especially given the latter, that the advertising option is going to be exercised.
Is this good or bad? Is it the start of the decline of Wikipedia? Should we embrace it, if so how? Should we reject it and make Wikipedia a pay for access site?
I think the decision on advertising will be the turning point in this glorious experiment - although which way that turn goes is an enormous unknown. I suspect most would probably prefer to see Wikipedia continue as an open source, free information, global contribution, sharing the body of knowledge (about time the Universities started doing that a little more too!) - and ditto Wiki Projects. But the thing needs money to run. Will Jimmy use the search engine as a commercial (advertising) platform to raise money? Will the advertising model be Google like (and as suspect) or something else? Your thoughts on this matter are important so please contribute your perspective. How should WIKI evolve???
-- Rimrock 12:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm hoping we can get a lively debate going on the direction of Wikipedia with consideration of the whole issue of advertising - and funding methods - rather than discussion of specific interpretations of what constitutes an advertising spot or if Virgin is getting cheap exposure. Feel free to comment. -- Rimrock 13:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I was tempted to put a {{fact}} tag on the assertion that Jimmy Wales is considering the advertising option, but instead, I will just say it here. Where do you find any such assertion? User:Zoe| (talk) 17:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes I also was wondering the same thing as Zoe. Care to provide a link to a valid source which states this? ¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 20:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I propose the following change to clear up statements. I believe this would be a better wording. Just moving the statment to a more appropiate bullet Navou talk 16:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
In general, administrators are responsible for closing discussions about deletions. In practice, the various deletion discussions tend to be badly backlogged. Editors in good-standing who have not been made administrators may close deletion discussions under the following conditions:
This conversation [15] didn't answer my questions, and I am wondering if this issue is covered by policy, and I just can't find it? (I have noticed Arbcom cases in which users were unblocked strictly to participate in dispute resolution, so I thought there was precedent.) Thanks in advance for any help or advice, Cindery 02:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Tell me what you think of it. -- Chris is me 07:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete -- This propsal accomplishes nothing that cannot be accmplished using WP:N, either in its current form, or in some modified form. WP:N needs to be better enforced(I don't think its being properly enforced at the moment), and this policy proposal will make WP:N harder to enforce. Librarylefty 01:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
This is not a new guideline, just a spin-off of the "internal spamming" content from
WP:SPAM to make both guidelines more readable. So for all intents and purposes the content stays the same, except in separate places. Discussion at
WT:SPAM#WP:CANVAS
WT:CANVAS. ~
trialsanderrors 03:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I have a IP address that is trying to cause a edit war with me, but im trying to settle it with him personally before I goto the article's talk page for 2nd opinions. There is a fact that a user is claiming, his sources dont back up his fact what so ever and he claims they are Press Releases/News Releases, they are links to homepages of 2 companies, 1 indirectly related to the article, the other not at all. The websites do not answer his fact or my fact as true or false. My side of the fact is supported by mostly forum posts(poor source I know), and 1 Consumer Reports article. Anyways, what policys/guidelines can I look at to determine if I am right or wrong, and if he is right or wrong, and what can I point out to him? I am thinking something along the lines of "irrelavent/invalid source", "spam" (I cant see what his websites are trying to sell, so it might not be spam?????), maybe "orignal research" (then again what im saying can be seen as OR), "verifiable" (how can something be verified that a company refuses to talk about and is considered proprietory business practices/trade secrets, and is only known by hackers and enthusiasts and is never discussed by the company since it can be viewed as a dark secret?) "pushing a cause" (is this a WP policy? I could be doing it myself, if I use NPOV, then all criticism is considerd POV) I need a wiki lawyer. I first want to try deal with this person myself, if that doesnt work, then I guess Ill deal with it on the articles talk page or whatever WP does for edit wars. It shouldnt matter what the subject is at this point. I have a username but I dont want this person tracking me to this post. 24.90.122.153 05:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed some images, for example Image:Nintendo 64.jpg and Image:Nintendo DS Lite side.jpg feature copyrighted logos. They are tagged as GFDL and used as GFDL, but they do incorporate copyrighted content. In both such cases, the images could be edited to remove the fair use parts, while still illustrating the subject well. Any input? Scepia 07:23, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I am a born again 5-point reformed/calvinist noncessational, covenantal, evangelical, presuppositional, nondenominational, protestant Christian. I am an apologist in training and a member of CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry). As a member of CARM and the Counter-Cult Movement, I seek to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet receive it, defend the Christian faith against nonbelievers, and counter nonchristian cults such as Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Catholicism, Oneness Pentecostal, Unitarianism, Christadelphianism, Christian Science, and so on.
I personally find it mildly disturbing. He has a lot of other stuff on his page too. And he has a long history of vandalism of other's pages as well in his "spreading the gospel" mission. Comments?-- Filll 05:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
He is entitled to his personal beliefs. Evangelism, however is immoral, and we should stop any attempts by him, or anyone else to evangelize their religious beliefs on Wikipedia, should this occur. Atom 16:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you might be replying to. I am stating that people that feel that they are obligated to interfere with other belief systems are immoral. We should respect all belief systems and superstitions. No one is suggesting that the facts about any belief system should be omitted or prohibited from Wikipedia. NPOV would suggest that allowing all perspectives is appropriate. What I object to is evangelism, not religion or other superstitions. Evangelism is not a religion, evangelism is a mode of preaching or proseltyzing ones particular religion. Moreso, Christian Evangelists believe that it is their obligation, their duty, a directive from God, to "save" others from their "incorrect" religious beliefs and make them christians. It is a kind of religious imperialism. So, what I am saying is that people who want to interfere with others religious views, or feel obligated to force their personal dogma on others should be asked to do that elsewhere.
Remember that the original context was concern given about editor/user User:Jedi_Davideus whose user page says "I seek to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet receive it, defend the Christian faith against nonbelievers, and counter nonchristian cults such as Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Catholicism, Oneness Pentecostal, Unitarianism, Christadelphianism, Christian Science, and so on." and "My goal in Wikipedia is to ...Counter/correct biased articles that are slanted towards a secular point of view ", "From my experience, many articles are presented either from an atheistic, evolutionist, or simply a secular point of view."
Of course I respect his right to be whatever he wants, and to believe whatever he wants, and to practice his religion however he chooses. I do have concerns if his intent is to vandalize Wikipedia articles by trying to remove non-theistic, evolutionist and secular views in favor of views that he has stated (for instance, that catholics and mormons are not christians, and his intent to push his views on others.)
Atom 16:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I have encountered a very difficult editor who is throwing what appears to be tantrums and is deleting material from my user talk page (at least once), the article's talk page (5 or 6 times at least), and being combative and slinging insults. What are the rules about this?-- Filll 01:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I would like to have somebody clarify a case of application of policy. Is 'unholy alliance' personal attack? In English Wiki I used it referring to some sysops in zh.wiki (the notorious Chinese Wiki, which is recently greatly discredited by major media), and I got a warning from Tjstrf saying such 'personal attack' will result in my being banned from English Wiki. I think it's only a common rhetoric usage. Does that qualify a 'personal attack'? Thank you. -- Uponsnow 12:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the quick response. Would you mind elaborate more? What if I used 'holy alliance' to intend some humor? Thanks. -- Uponsnow 13:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Season's greetings here. -- Uponsnow 10:36, 1 January 2007 (UTC)