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I don't know if I am at the right place to discuss this, so please redirect me if possible. This is with regards to the censorship of Wikipedia in China. With the alarming growth of Baidu Baike (seriously, Baidu ripped off and took unfair advantage of many Google and other internet trends and are profiting off of them as if it is their own), I am wondering if Wikipedia could take a similar stance to Google and agree to China's censorship demands on the Chinese version of Wikipedia. After all, with the entire Chinese population as an editors base within a year I can guarantee that the content on the Chinese Wikipedia will rival that of the English Wikipedia. I realize this is a great shift in Wikipedia's policies, and one that may require a lot of work, but in the end it is my belief that there is a lot more to gain. With the increasing influence of Wikipedia as a global knowledge base it is a shame to not have the vast majority of Chinese on board. By the end of this year China will have more internet users than any other country in the world, it will be a shame if the knowledge and shared experience of the vast majority of Chinese people are not able to enjoy the potential of Wiki because of a few of their government's policies. Personally I would say Wikipedia has more potential in the world's most populous nation by sacrificing the articles on Falun Gong and 1989 Tiananmen Protests than to uphold a rightful, but impractical moral standard. Colipon+( T) 05:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. - Colipon+( T) 18:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I will take this cause elsewhere. Thank you all for your responses. Colipon+( T) 05:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I believe this is the core of maintaining a NPOV on Cesar Millan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Millan
I have posted a link below, if you are reading and responding to this, you might the lower article first.
"essentially contested concept is one where there is widespread agreement on an abstract core notion itself (e.g., "fairness"), whilst there is endless argument about what might be the best instantiation, or realization of that notion.[4]
Some of the notability of this person revolves around this issue. (controversy) He is in a profession of diverse opinions. He has reached celebrity status.
Although I have internet articles that support that this is indeed the case, there is no published media that describes the issue itself. Controversy is not over a fundamental issue but how that issue should be treated or resolved. The scope of the discussion is a topic in itself and perhaps that is the best way to handle it..if I can think of a title..other than Dog Training (which has been transwikied to wikibooks, prematurely in my mind.)
Can I use internet articles that describe the controversy (essentially contested concept)as there is no other source material that does (that I know of)and I have been researching this for some time (years) prior to editing this article.
I'll provide a link to an overview which I feel reflects this accurately. http://www.puppywishes.com/1601-puppies/Cesar%20Millan%20Vs%20Jean%20Donaldson.html
I feel that any controversy around him should be explained and placed in its proper context. I attempted to do this but an anon user reverted and changed my edit.There is no current discussion other than my own comments.
I would like to proceed with cleaning up this article, but I'm not clear on how to handle it.
Thank you Tintina 05:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I have seen a gradually increasing contamination of Desert hot springs with commercial links. I had suggested nicely a few times that they put their links only on Wikitravel; I even provided a link in the Exterior links section of the WP article, but they have just been polluting. I am torn but it really is unencyclopedic as near as I can tell. At least if they would write something interesting about themselves I could sort of justify it, but this is just abuse.-- Filll 03:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I noted yesterday that Michael Wissot was all edited by a single purpose account that was almost certainly non-biased. I added an autobiography tag, which was then removed, and two new (I would assumed sockpuppet) SPA's arrived to make changes. The subject is probably notable, so I can't really AfD it, but I don't like the fact the the content is probably biased POV. -- ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 22:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a trend for non-notable footballers to set up their user pages as articles. An example is User:Jonesy702. Is there any policy on this, please? BlueValour 21:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Every time we get a new featured article it gets swamped by puerile little twits at school computers who thinks they're being clever, cute or funny. It's a long-known problem and I fail to understand why something hasn't been done about it. Semi-protect the article while it's on the front page and then revert it when it rolls over to something else. Anything on the front page is basically a standing target to these people. HalfShadow 19:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I have recently become aware of a user who routinely blanks his own talk page. It doesn't appear that he is trying to hide something, such as warnings, but is rather just blanking everything left on the page without archiving it. Is there an official Wikipedia policy regarding this sort of action, and if so, is there a template regarding it? i haven't been able to find one, but I'd appreciate any insight. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 16:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
That is why when I wanted to clear some of the clutter from my own page, I installed George Money's Auto-Archive system.It does all the work without requiring a bot.I never ask something of other users that I would not do myself.
Besides, I had some users delete conversations that weren't complete.They responded on my talk page and deleted the post from theirs.That left me with no way to reply other than to restore the post. Will ( Talk - contribs) 19:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's a pretty odd case of this.An editor made comments about me on her talk page, ones that were demonstrably false (that I reverted something, when the diffs show I didn't).When I asked for clarification or pointed out that it was false, she just deleted my response but left her comments.After a couple tries, I tried deleting her false statement but she just reverted that.It seems to me that if someone is going to make comments about me, particularly false ones, I should have the right to respond to those comments.Any suggestions on how to deal with this?-- Milo H Minderbinder 20:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty much what I wrote above.So you have me all for it. Will ( Talk - contribs) 23:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 00:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I do not like conflict. However, I have noticed a number of disagreements here on WP where a Mediation or RfC is held, and overwhelming support for one position is expressed, but one or two people disagree. These dissenters then fight a rear guard action, reverting changes agreed to, subverting community consensus, driving away other editors, etc. I have witnessed this at black people. I have witnessed this at Singapore Changi Airport. I have recently been told by a dissenting editor that the other 25 editors that disagreed with him were "deranged". Of course, this might be correct, but how does one give much credence to one person who claims everyone else is wrong, in the face of all evidence to the contrary?-- Filll 16:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
That can make it impossible. At least on the evolution and creationism articles that I work with, we have not had that problem (yet, as far as I know anyway). I am glad to cite the nonpeer-reviewed nonsense of creationists because I think it is dangerous to not know what the other side is thinking. I want the biggest pile of evidence of their position in their own words possible, because it is interesting and valuable and informative. And if one wants to argue against them, very often their own words and sources will end up hanging them. And I think the readers deserve to see the unvarnished evidence on all sides (of course the creationism situation is a bit more serious at least in the US and some Muslim countries where we might end up with making science illegal).-- Filll 17:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I've run into a dispute with another user over a section that is essentially recording criticism of an experiment and a rebuttal to that criticism. The other user says that the section is unbalanced because the criticism goes into more depth than the rebuttal so they have deleted the entire of the section (both criticism and rebuttal). They've done this 4 times (though outside of the 3RR time period), and I've repeatedly asked them to either tag the section as being disputed, or to expand the rebuttal themselves, but they have continued to delete it and have stated that it should be me who expands the rebuttal because it was me who wrote the criticism section.
Are there any specific policies that I can quote to them which say that disputed sections should be tagged rather than deleted, that balance is best resolved by strengthening the weaker side of the argument rather than deleting the strong side, or that if you think that something is unbalanced, you can't demand that the original author balance it themselves but instead should do it yourself?
(The factual accuracy and verifiability are not in dispute, only the balance between criticism and rebuttal).
perfectblue 13:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
What do you do if the persons are anon and do not discuss? Tintina 02:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I wonder about the protocols regarding uploading images. In particular, I was reading a (motor vehicle) page tonight, and several images uploaded showed the user's personal vehicle in states of aftermarket upgrade. In addition, the comments attached indicate that the sole purpose of the upload was/is to use Wikipedia as a showcase - not the intention of the project, I believe. Any protocols for replacing with stock photos of the vehicle model, or would an addition be the best course? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PKBear ( talk • contribs) 07:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
I am interested in beginning a topic in wikipedia which has the same as an article that was successfully transwikiedto wikibooks where it was appropriately renamed (by me)to reflect its non NPOV.
Can the Wikipedia article be deleted? I can't seem to rename it because it was moved yet it holds a general title.
It is also not sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_training
Tintina 05:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I want to reintroduce the topic from a broader perspective, including some history.
I was reluctant to continue in Wikipedia as I'm not clear about the transwiki to Wikibooks. Do the edits automatically end up in wikibooks?
I'll try to lay this out more clearly article #1 titled Dog Training transW to Wikibooks and renamed (I did not transwiki-someone else did)Pos Only Dog Training (as that is what the article reflected.) Perhaps others have not worked on this over the same issue-I don't know. the original title Dog Training exists in wikipedia so cannot be transwikied again. If the wikipedia article is deleted will the title Dog Training become free to reuse?it seems there would be no point working on the wikipedia version if it cannot be transwikied into wikibooks and into theDog Portal. It means working on two different formats of the same thing. As there is not a single source in the article I would like to delete it. editors have been absent for quite some time (months). If the existing wikipedia article is edited over it is orphaned in wikipedia unable to migrate to wikibooks UNLESS there is a way to change to the title or to reclaim it after deletion.
Tintina 03:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Query,talk page entrys demonstrating a solution/extra information about an article or subject ONLY by quoting widely known and definitively proved information in a linked context,Valid or not valid? 76.0.39.38 01:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)Iron Head 76.0.39.38 01:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Hello all. This morning I found that external links to the USGS had been posted to the articles of every state and territory of the USA in the course of a few hours by Spydrlink ( Talk| contribs). I have witnessed previous cases where an editor posted dozens of links to useful, reputable sites- and they were all deleted as spam. Is there a real consensus on that though? I wanted to ask the user about this on his talk page, but I'm not even sure how to approach it since I'm not sure if he/she actually violated any policies. His last edit was to the USGS page itself, so perhaps it's a case of WP:COI? I don't know. Comments please! -- Elipongo ( Talk| contribs) 17:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
But should it be cluttering up the External links section if it's not referenced in the article yet? I can't say I care for it when somebody slaps a link up and doesn't add anything substantive to the article. To me it's like saying, "I'm too busy/important to actually write anything— here's a reference, go write something about it, flunky!", but maybe I'm taking too personally! Maybe a good idea would to be to have a "Potential references" section on the talk page.-- Elipongo ( Talk| contribs) 15:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems we need a guideline to define notability for film articles.Currently, the guideline seems stalled out, but a few people are looking for input to get the process going again.
I have my own perspective, but limited experience in these matters.My first basic question is, "are the notability requirements on Wikipedia intentionally loose?"That is, is it preferred to have a largely open door policy that allows vast amounts of articles with little claim to notability, or is it preferred to set a high hurdle for articles to clear?
As it is, films generally get reviewed in multiple publications, which makes "multiple published works" apply to literally tens of thousands of films if we regard reviews as "non-trivial" and "reliable."The current films guideline seems to take this approach.
Other loose standards are permitted, including major studio releases of feature films, which again in itself allows tens of thousands of films, whether or not these can reasonably regarded as "notable."There is a clause allowing films released nationwide in a country (presumably this means commercial releases outside festivals), or on 200 screens worldwide (which is a hard hurdle to clear, but only denotes popularity, not notability).
I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, as many people seem to want a further loosening up of the standards before endorsing the guideline, whereas I think it needs very tough, strict standards, which I commented on here.
What's the general feeling on this?I'm I just being too much of a hard ass?Is simply having one's work flickered in front of the eyes of a few thousand people, a couple of whom hold pens in their hands, enough to ensure eternal notability?Can some kind of consensus be found? zadignose 15:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm repeating here what I posted at the film project page, so forgive me, but I'd like to see some more opinions focused on this discussion.I've recently made significant edits to the guideline, and would like to solicit further discussion in the relevant talk page.I seem to have become the recent outspoken proponent of tougher guidelines, but I would like to seek reasonble compromise, and find some workable solutions.I think that my recent efforts at least demonstrate a sincere interest in drafting a sensible guideline that isn't "all inclusive," but might help improve the quality of our coverage of notable films.Thank you. zadignose 16:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The description page of images which appear on the main page should always contain a link to the English Wikipedia article the topic of the image so that when someone clicks on an image on the main page, they don't have to go back to click the link to the article about it. e.g. Image:Raccoon_(Procyon_lotor)_2.jpg does have a link, while Image:Playoffs_021_crop.jpg which currently appears on the main page has no link (currently) from the image description page to what it's about. I've been adding these links to wildlife-related images but it's quite frustrating that other sysops don't do it. It makes for a horrible user experience not having anywhere to go after blowing up an image of interest from the main page, and as the images descriptions are always locked, normal users cannot fix it. — Pengo talk · contribs 09:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a good thing to remind people of, but if they miss it, you can always propose an edit on the talk page of the image with {{ editprotected}}. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 12:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
This has bugging me for some time, and I can't really seem to understand it. Why do we strive so hard to make Wikipedia so completely free? I'm not talking about free to access, but free to take and use.
Why do we encourage derivative works such as how answers.com uses us when it will always be inferior to the actual article hosted on Wikipedia? Why can't we edit Wikipedia articles for Wikipedia? It seems stupid to not allow copyrighten images that we've obtained permission to use just because we can't let anyone else use them. It doesn't matter if someone mirrors the page, prints it in a book, or puts it on a CD. In the end, the online article will always be better, more up to date, and what people will actually use.
The goal may be to spread knowledge and information, but in reality it ends up stagnating it. How does having the same (but slightly inferior) information repeated accross a thousand other websites do anyone any good? I've actually come accross the problem of doing research on a subject, only to have difficulty finding original information because now everyone is too lazy to write their own summaries of a subject, as they can just use what Wikipedia has to say. Free information is bad, as it becomes the only information. Wikipedia is like the smart kid in class that lets everyone copy off of him, and now nobody else feels like doing their own homework anymore.
So aside from say, a teacher printing off a Wikipedia page to help teach class, how does being so free actually benefit anyone?-- SeizureDog 10:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:ADMIN says that non-admins may behave exactly as admins, except for the extra capabilities that admins have. This is backed up on the same page by Jimbo's assertion that adminship is "not a big deal" and that he wants to "dispel the aura of "authority" around the position". Nevertheless, Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions creates new, purely social, restrictions on how and when non-admins may close deletion discussions "keep", which of course they are capable of doing. I propose changing DELPRO to dispel the aura of authority around adminship per Jimbo and bring it into line with WP:ADMIN, please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process#Social restrictions on non-admin behaviour. — Ashley Y 05:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I was looking up policies regarding enterprises and came across this article/policy: Articles_about_ongoing_enterprises.Can someone tell me why it is archived? It seems reasonable.Did something take its place? Alex Jackl 06:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to ask whether people are obliged to put some warning (like "contains explicit content")when they link to some external websites with the explicit content. If not, do you plan anything like that or can you somehow take care of this for benefit of the underage? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.113.69.26 ( talk) 01:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
One argument in favor of fairly broad guidelines for including high schools is that an existing article can be built upon when something newsworthy happens at the school. For example, today there was a fatal stabbing at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Luckily, there already was an adequate article on the school to which details on the stabbing could be added. -- Eastmain 21:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
While deleting fair use images of living people is valid, far too many users delete without deleting references to the images themselves. This create complete and utterly horrible looking articles, and references to non-existent material. I have noticed this inaccusable act of lazyness in three users over the last month or so, without even trying to look for such descrepencies.
Take for example this electorial district article, which from November 27 to today lasted in such a delapitated state.
I propose that we have a three strike system for sysops deleting images CSD:I7. If they delete images without removing references to that images within the next two hours of the image deletion, they can be issued a warning by any registered user. This warning will be recorded on a special page.
If any user receives three or more warnings, they must stop deleting images for a period of a week, sufficient time for other users to locate all the mess they may have made. If they try to delete images during this time, they will loose admin priviliges. This process repeats itself once the ban on deleting images is over, indefinitely.-- Zanimum 15:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be kind of cool to make a template to go along with the existing talk page {{ reqphoto}}, that sits on the side of the article where a photo would go as a placeholder and tell people "replace me!" like an expand tag. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 03:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
To deal with the fact that none of us are answering the reports at the failed Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets, I have proposed a new way of dealing with users approaching admins about potential abuse of sock puppets. Please see:
Robdurbar 14:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
What are our conventions on how to acknowledge authorship history when copying material from external, non-Wikimedia wiki sites under GFDL or similar licenses? I am thinking of a site like phantis.com, a free GFDL-licensed wiki about Greece, which some users have taken articles from. This is quite a good and trustworthy site, the copying should be legal and the articles are generally decent and should be highly welcome here. But at the same time, it's not something we should quote as a "reliable source" in terms of WP:V. Adding it as a standard "external link" also doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as it won't provide the reader with more info than they already have in the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
While perusing the List of military aircraft of the United States on English Wikipedia, I found an entry for the YF-24 that holds nothing but Arabic. What is the policy on such a page? Mikieminnow 23:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Please take a look at Singapore Changi Airport. I thought this Lead problem had been resolved with an RfC, but apparently not.-- Filll 21:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I came across this which is just one paragraph of the banning policy copied verbatim into its own page. Only one person contributed to the new page. Not sure what to do with it as it seems completely redundant; could /should it be MfD'd? Or just redirected to the banning policy? Trebor 19:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd say redirect it if it's not goint to be expanded. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 22:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I think importance is really subjective. There are plenty of articles about the made up technologies if science fiction books and tv shows.But psuedoscience articles are labelled as important to only a small number of people, and therefore not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Even if they aren't true, psuedoscience is important for other reasons.Why do people invent this stuff. What similarities do they have to so-called "real" science?
NPOV requires a tag saying-this is not consensus among scientists.But I would like to argue for more leniency in the case of articles considered Psuedoscience. After all, every scientific theory was unproved, and therefore psuedoscience, at one time.
Just because only a few people believe in a theory doesn't neccessarily mean it's IMPORTANT to only a few people.A lot of people might be interested in what a few whackos think.
I'm sure a lot of people have opinions on importance.But that's my 2c.
I make is stupid -- Puddytang 05:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone has created Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images, in effort to remove {{ click}}.This is with good intention, but think wider discussion of this and possible alternatives available is needed. This user is now going through all the portal pages and doing mass removal of {{ click}}.It's not being discussed on Portal talk pages, nor is any alternative being implemented in place of {{ click}}. One alternative is the new ImageMap extension, which can be used on portal pages for "Related portals".(see Portal:Criminal justice)It doesn't yet work in templates, so can't be built into {{ click}} itself at this point. Such mass removal of the template without discussion and putting in place an alternative is not okay with me.This is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images. -- Aude ( talk) 14:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place so if not, point me in the right direction.
I've come to the conclusion (and let talk about it in general terms for the moment), that many wiki projects actually operate as special interest groups and their goal (generally not spelt out in the project aims) is just to generate as much content about their given subject as possible - regardless of the wikipedia guidelines. Those special interest groups turn up on-mass on an AFD attempt and the articles just get longer and more full of crap (and there is no other way to put it).
Is there a way to call a failing wiki-project to task? if not, should there be? -- Larry laptop 00:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
See I don't really think that's true - many AFD slip pass the radar and if 3 people provide well-reasoned arguments that someone/something should be removed and ten people from the project turn up posting WP:ILIKEIT arguments - as best, you will get "no consensus". -- Larry laptop 00:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
An example would help illuminate this problem.Also, after being a Wikipedian for about three years, I think I would have noticed if this was a big problem.Therefore, I can only assume this is happening within a very narrow subject area. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 00:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Em no - so no sherlock holmes award for you - I was actually thinking of a few projects, I now realise this is sure way to get myself on various hitlists. Let's drop this I'm clearly very mistaken, this is all my mistake and I've made an awful error. Nothing to see here.-- Larry laptop 01:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I feel that username blocks are spiraling out of control.New users are being blocked for poorly defined "username policy violations", a move that will hurt the future of the project.From recent block logs, here are some examples:
Revertinging (
talk •
contribs)
Wippippippipp (
talk •
contribs)
Godpreist54 (
talk •
contribs)
Thabo Mkbeki (
talk •
contribs)
Kiddybandit (
talk •
contribs)
Cheap couilles (
talk •
contribs)
Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus (
talk •
contribs)
WikiWarrior1 (
talk •
contribs)
Loser12345 (
talk •
contribs)
Sexybot12 (
talk •
contribs)
Joeyjimbob (
talk •
contribs)
Wowwoweeewow (
talk •
contribs)
WikipediaFun (
talk •
contribs)
Blabber mouth katie (
talk •
contribs)
Youratowel (
talk •
contribs)
Wheeeee! (
talk •
contribs)
Wknight91 (
talk •
contribs)
For the record, I did not "cherry pick" from X-weeks of block logs on purpose.I chose a half day period so I could draw attention to how widespread the problem is.Each of these had "username" listed as the block rationale.
I viewed a roughly 11 hour period to gather the names above, and does not represent a thorough examination.There are probably more questionable username blocks in that time period.There are hundreds each week, each one potentially a future valuable editor who decides to just walk away from the project.Perhaps some of them are legit (Is couilles something obscene in another language, for instance?) but I argue that most of them do not appear to properly violate WP:USERNAME.I'm not certain that the problem is to blame on anyone specifically, but the policy regarding username blocks appears to be flawed.
As I mentioned in my RfA many months ago, Wikipedia faces a growing crisis.We are constantly raising new barriers against contributors when we should be looking to cultivate new editors.If the policy of username blocking is not adjusted, the long term health of the project is at additional risk.
I'm not looking to specifically criticize the above username blocks, else I'd post this on AN or AN/I.Instead, I'd like to discuss the policy that tacitly allows this to happen.Does the community agree that protecting our eyes from the wicked text "Sexybot12" or "Godpreist54" is worth the trade off in curious new users who decide to go elsewhere because it's "just not worth it"?Let's focus on the long term health implications of this policy and determine a method for fixing this problem.Thoughts?- CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 17:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington blocked Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus
A summary of WP:RFCN wouldn't really be more helpful than WP:USERNAME.The idea of having blocking admins specifying which element of the username policy they felt was being violated is a good idea, I'd support that.One concept here and in the WP:U talk page related to this that I can't agree with is the assertion that to do anything with Wikipedia, users need thick skins.To be clear, the folks we're talking about are brand new users.Their _very first_ interaction on Wikipedia is dealing with a block.That's pretty harsh medicine.I'm also troubled with the idea that 'we have so many users, we can afford to scare folks off'.If the person isn't doing something wrong, we shouldn't be "throwing then away", which was the implication I read.If that's not an accurate read, please correct me.The root issue, of course, is that I feel there are lots of 'bad blocks' happening here.The answer isn't more policy, the answer needs to be better community involvement in validating the quality of the username blocks. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 04:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The username blocking has gone completely overboard. Why is it our job to make sure no one on Wikipedia is ever offended, or, God-forbid, exposed to something less than completely serious? Why would we consider "Wheeeee!" to be a threat to Wikipedia? Who considers "Godpreist54" offensive to thier religious sensibilities? 90% of the blocks listed above seem completely asinine to me. Do people really believe these blocks are benefitting Wikipedia? This seems to be an example of rules overriding common sense. Kaldari 07:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
While I agree that there should be standards for user names, particularly when it comes to names that are malicious or offensive, it appears to me that Wikipedia is taking the same path as a lot of the networks are these days and is saying "We can't do that in case in case we offend somebody". Honestly;Loser12345, joeyjimbob, Wowwoweeewow? In a normal civil community, none of these should be considered blockable based on their names and if Wikipedia were a non-US based entity I doubt that they would be blocked. Even Blabber mouth katie should be acceptable as it is/seems pretty that Katie is the user in question.
This appears to be a case of overkill
perfectblue 11:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
My problem with the complaint here is that people seem to forget that when {{ usernameblocked}} is put in the summary, on the next edit attempt it expands and gives all the information about our username policy, where to find it and how to go about requesting a change. No need to add instruction creep with numbers, that is the whole point of that template. The template also has been overhauled in the recent past to make it more friendly than it was. Users are not just being left out in the cold with no explanation. If you don't understand a particular block, talk to the admin who did it. They usually have a good reason. I don't see this as a rampant abuse problem or something that needs to be re-evaluated. pschemp | talk 03:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I seem to remember a discussion similar to this some months back when many editors, myself included, voiced a concern that too many new usernames were being arbitrarily blocked.Almost none of the above listed usernames should have been blocked, Sexybot being an exception (since using 'bot' is banned for valid reasons).Only usernames that are blatantly offensive should get blocked on site.The current 'policy' gives admins too much power to subjectively remove names they don't like.The fact that one admin posted above that one username was blocked because it resembled usernames used by vandals previously is especially unsettling; vandals can, and do, make all sorts of names and we can't possibly block everything that resembles a name previously used by a vandal.Overall I agree with some of the other editors that this has gotten way out of hand.Usernames should be accepted in good faith until they prove themselves to be a vandal (innocent until proven guilty) or unless its cleary offensive/obscene. -- The Way 03:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I've recently rewritten the three-revert rule. You can see discussion here and the rewrite here. Comments are invited. -- bainer ( talk) 07:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
According to the image use policy, as image contributors, users are supposed to "always specify on the description page where the image came from." I recently tagged Image:Punjabi gurmukhi shahmukhi.png (an image tagged as ineligible for copyright) for speedy deletion, however, because a source is not specified. I was soon, however, reverted by an anononymous user. When I restored the deletion tag and engaged in conversation with said user, an administrator removed it. Finally, when I restored the tag again and contacted said administrator, it was restored by another experienced Wikipedian.
I am confused. For the record, I am not opposed to the image. My only issue with it is that the source is not specified. Is there a discrepancy between the image use policy and {{ PD-ineligible}}? Or is there a misunderstanding on my part about either or both? Please, I would really like to know so I can get all of this off of my back. I would really appreciate comments. (Note: I will immediately notify the three users of this post.) -- Iamunknown 00:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I have permission to use a photo by the photographer. It was taken in a certain context with another internationally well known (though not celebrity ) person. This person however has expertise and is well respected in his field which is part of the article I am working on.(He is mentioned and quoted in it). I originally sought permission from him and he directed me to the photographer (who is also a member of the organization and is more remotely connected to the topic.)This person did give permission to use any material of his and his organization.
so I have permission from both the photographer and the other person at a specific event recognizing the celebrity. can this photo be used without further permission. I have read the image use policy but am still not clear.
Tintina 00:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes thank you, the photographer (owner of the photo) is aware of that. I sent him wikipedia policy. FYI The photo is displayed on the relative organizations website. What I want to clarify is if the celebrity in the photo in any way has to give permission for it's use.
Tintina 01:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I was recently thinking about the idea of WikiProjects when I came to the realization that they should be used for much more than they are already being used for. Right now, they are a loose organization that has little power in regulating the pages under their jurisdiction. I think a problem now, though, with XfDs though, is that when something is proposed for deletion, it is just commented on by people who have little or no affiliation or knowledge of the topic which it covers. I think it would be a great idea instead of having XfDs open to the public, have them referred to a WikiProject or a few WikiProjects for review and subsequent deletion, if seen fit. The only prerequisite for voting on one of these new XfDs would be that you would have to be a member of one of the reviewing WikiProjects (not necessarily, but possibly, for a certain amount of time).
I think this is a pretty fair suggestion, given the nature of Wikipedia. Many users have sectioned themselves off into certain niches of the "society" and it should only follow that pages are maintained in this manner. Comments will be gratefully accepted! → JARED (t) 22:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
As an active maintainer of Wikipedia:List of banned users, I'm looking for clarification regarding the ban of Brian G. Crawford ( talk · contribs · block log). He was banned upon recommendation of Foundation counsel BradPatrick, and his userpage says he's "banned by the Wikimedia Foundation". However, he's on the banned user list under the heading "Banned by the Wikipedia community". I was thinking about moving his entry to a new "Banned by the Wikimedia Foundation" section, but I wanted to make sure everyone agrees his ban should be listed as a "Foundation ban". Of course, BradPatrick, Danny and others involved in the WP:OFFICE system are analogous to Jimbo and the Board of Trustees in their authority to issue bans. I'd argue Crawford is "banned by the Foundation", but does anyone disagree? Also, does anyone know of other instances I'm unaware of when the Foundation has banned a user, aside from Anthere's cross-project ban of JarlaxleArtemis? szyslak ( t, c) 22:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I've got a problem with a user who is systematically reverting every change made to a page and I need to know if there is a policy that I can hit them with or what the most appropriate admin intervention to ask for is.
This user has apparent ownership issues with a page, they revert every change that I've made and put these really loose reasonings in the summary box. They also refuse point blank to tag anything or discuss why they are reverting. For example, they might revert 10-20 changes in one go and state something along the lines of"WP:V, WP:OR, WP:POV" in the summary box but not say what which bit was reverted for which reason.
Any advice? They have already refused to talk so I'd like to get some intervention.
perfectblue 16:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone recently uploaded an image containing nothing but text which he had made for use as a subheader in one of the articles he'd been working on. It was subsequently replaced with plain text and the image was listed for deletion. A rather heated argument ensued, and the creator of this image is now threatening to quit Wikipedia. It seems that many of the people involved in this argument aren't aware of the benefits of plain text over text in images, so I was wondering if perhaps there should be an official Wikipedia policy on this issue. I've made a template that could be used to flag images of this type. It's based on the {{ BadJPEG}} template — feel free to make whatever changes you feel are necessary). Wealso need to set up a new category for these images ( Category:Images that should be replaced with plain text, perhaps?), and make suitable changes to the WP policy pages. There are probably other things that will also have to be done that I haven't thought of. Is this idea worth pursuing? Can anyone provide any pointers? -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 13:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Just an idea to throw out here. Since IP blocks aren't effective (with all the new Tor and open proxies appearing everyday) and problematic when it's a shared IP like Qatar, would it be a bad thing if Wikipedia required Java enabled to edit and then the Java read some hardware serial number? Not MAC address, which is easily spoofed and some people don't have, but some other thing like CPU ID or hard drive serial number. Or would this be shunned as a privacy violation (even if the hardware data is encrypted and salted--like they are in Second Life and how passwords in MediaWiki are encrypted and salted)? Anomo 04:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I am a new contributor to Wiki and am working on a Bio of a LP. The person has recently reached celebrity status though his main contribution is in the field of canine management.
My approach would be to treat the bio in his main field, with, of course, his celebrity status being a large part of his current international influence. On first reading the article struck me as emphasizing the celebrity and controversy more than his actual profession. Of course that may change over time, but currently his profession is primarily in handling canines.
This Bio is tagged to go into the larger Canine Portal.
Other difficulties are in establishing MPOV. Because of media attention and the nature of the [dog]industry it is very difficult to find NPOV sources. There has been controversy over certain handling methods long before Cesar Millan came along and this is the direction I have taken in handling it. I have tried to downplay the controversy so that it is not the focus of the bio.
Should ONLY sources of equal weight be included. ie one expert vs another, one shelter manager vs another etc?
The POV that criticises him and causes most of the controversy IMPLIES and states that they ARE the current standard in dog handling, but there is no real way to measure this.
The popularity of the show alone would say otherwise. Can this fact be used?
Thank you Tintina 03:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay thank you! Tintina 02:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Since I run the Christian Music wiki at Wikia.com, I would like some help understanding the reasoning.My policy had been to attempt to obtain one image (or more, if requested by the artist) per artist.I typically e-mail the promoters for each artist asking for offical photos.Several times I have gotten replies providing them -- in one case, at high res!
So, should I now turn those images down? Will ( Talk - contribs) 21:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I control the policy other than what Wikia.com declares.(They chose GFDL, but for the most part it is up to me to interpet and apply that policy.) Will ( Talk - contribs) 22:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Not really.If you read carefully, you will see I am asking about Wikipedia's policy and why it is that way. Will ( Talk - contribs) 03:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Why? WP:FUC criteria #1 prohibits using fair use if a free one could be reasonably located.It's just being enforced more heavily now, espeically with the introduction of {{ Replaceable fair use}}.Such removal has been controversial - some users think that it's better to have an image than none at all, or that free images don't look as professional as promo images.But it's still going ahead. Hbdragon88 04:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I wish to know if this version of Joanna Lumley's talk page is acceptable: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Joanna_Lumley&oldid=101844308
I have since reverted the offending section - is this a case of vandalism? Pendragon39 22:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I was deeply offended by what an admin said concerning me. He refuses to apologize on the grounds that I mischaracterized him, when I mistakenly accused him of semi-protecting a talk page in an ongoing debate. Would saying that another user has his "facts" wrong as usual be considered a personal attack? you can find the edit in question here-- Acebrock 22:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Could I gently suggest that Acebrock try to develop a slightly thicker skin. He falsely accused MONGO of making an out-of-policy block. MONGO falsely or justly (I don't know) accused him of often making errors. Without having looked into Acebrock's history, I'll assume that MONGO's accusation is false. So we have (first of all) editor A implicitly accusing editor B of a lack of integrity, and editor B implicitly accusing editor A of a lack of sense. Then we have editor A being deeply offended, demanding an apology, and taking the matter further, while editor B seems to be able to move on. Acebrock, is it really worth this fuss? To me, the accusation made by you was worse, and was demostrably false — just look at the logs. It's pretty bad to go to a protection page and accuse a (former) admin of violating policy. And how can saying that you have your facts wrong "as usual" be an attack on your character? It's perfectly possible to be a good person and to get your facts wrong. Why not just drop the whole thing now and move on with dignity? If you keep going, you're going to get more upset, because nobody is going to think that what MONGO said was worth making a complaint to the community about. Musical Linguist 23:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed changes to Wikipedia:Copyrights, in order to move it a little closer in line with the GFDL (in my view).Please contribute your thoughts at Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#GFDL_Notice. Superm401 - Talk 21:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I came across the article of Souhaila Andrawes which looked like this. It was correctly tagged as a biography of living person but it did not really meet the strict requirements for such bios, there was not a single source in the article and the article was of a negative tone (the article claimed the person was a terrorist, airline hijacker, sentenced to 12 years, etc.) But then again, it is not exactly difficult to find information about her, and I remember that the case was a big news issue in Norway in 1995. The article was definitely not created as a bad faith attempt to disparage the subject with libellous, slanderous and false accusations.
For this particular article the question is moot, because the brevity of the article made it fairly easy to source it (which I have now done). But I am wondering what our policy is on things like this. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo on blanking -- Larry laptop 15:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Stubify and then notify the article's major author is sometimes useful. WAS 4.250 16:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Copyrights says that "If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work". Does the ban against linking to a copyvio site extend to citations based on that site? In particular, can I use a fair use-violating lyrics web site as a citation in the List of backmasked messages when no other citation can be found? Λυδαcιτγ 00:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Now that both these elements have acquired the statues of policy (which really shouldn't surprise anybody), it is clear that there is no reason to state these elements on two different pages, but I'd like to gather some more opinions before I initiate discussion on the talk pages. Circeus 16:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
On [ [2]] (a link page, to link the battles off, so you can easily find which battles occured in a particular time period). This is an ordered chronological list and originally only the years were wikified, but not the month and day, because it is much easier to follow if the format is "Year Month Day". You'll notice that people keep "wikifying" the date format, meaning that dates become "day month year" or "month day year" depending on user prefs. What's worse, the latest modifications only modified SOME of the dates, meaning that (if you can follow this) the first incidence of a year is wikified but not the rest, but ALL months and days are wikified, meaning that in some cases you get "year month day" and in some you get "day month year", as well as some where only the month is known so you get "year month" as well. In addition to THAT, someone has decided to remove more than the first incidence of some years, and list each battle in that year as a sub-indent. They've only done this with some years though, so you get "1884" on one line and then just "month day" or "day month" on the next few lines. This is very difficult to read and I've reverted it twice but they use bots to keep wikifying the dates. Can anyone stop them? I'm not an admin and they just ignore me. The format I prefer is "year month day" on every line (most years don't have more than 1 battle anyway so having the year and then sub-indents just looks silly). It's a page I've contributed a lot to, not that that means much perhaps, but it's already gone through one deletion attempt and formatting it this crazy way is not helping its usefulness. Thanks muchly! SpookyMulder 13:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a serious lack of policy concerning the notability of current events. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed a specific notability criteria and in this case, WP:N is really not applicable. Any current event, by definition, will be the subject of multiple, non-trivial current events, and there are many, many events that occur every day that are covered by multiple media sources but are not remotely notable enough to include in an encyclopedia. For a silly example, take an incident last week in which a really fat cat ran away and got trapped in a doggy door. A google news search on the cat's owner reveals 143 results [3]. Admittedly, many of these are from the AP wire, but I found two independent sources. If someone created an article about this event, there would be no policy reason to delete it, and thats absurd.
For a more significant example, take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proposed Israeli Nuclear First Strike on Natanz Facility. This article is problematic because of OR problems, but should we have an article about a newspaper report?The report in question was widely talked about initially, it was the top story in Israel and probably Iran too. However, will it prove significant in the long run? Discussion seems to have died down very quickly and I doubt it will warrant more than a footnote in any history book. The problem is that nobody has sat down and thought about what makes a current event notable, and as a result there are no guidelines for those of us trying to decide whether to delete article's about current events. I don't have a proposal, but I do want to gather some input.
So in order to start the discussion, what makes current events notable? How can we judge their notability without violating WP:NOR when there hasn't been enough time for secondary sources to evaluate an event's importance? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GabrielF ( talk • contribs) 01:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC).
I think well-researched articles on recent news stories are not a problem, they can be used to increase the quality of the articles they'll be merged into once a current hype is over. Kusma (討論) 15:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Here is a VERY early draft of a notability criteria:
In order for an event to be notable, the length, breadth, depth and prominence of the media's coverage of that event must be greater than average.
Thoughts? GabrielF 19:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
It's been well over a year now I think it is time to clear out Category:Images used with permission and Category:Non-commercial use only images. Geni 15:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Debate now at Category_talk:Non-commercial_use_only_images#Time_to_clear_this_lot_out. Inless I hear some valid objections by the next weekend I'm going to remove the remaining images without a fair use claim. Geni 21:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd be careful though and make sure that they wouldn't be legit fair use first. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 06:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
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I don't know if I am at the right place to discuss this, so please redirect me if possible. This is with regards to the censorship of Wikipedia in China. With the alarming growth of Baidu Baike (seriously, Baidu ripped off and took unfair advantage of many Google and other internet trends and are profiting off of them as if it is their own), I am wondering if Wikipedia could take a similar stance to Google and agree to China's censorship demands on the Chinese version of Wikipedia. After all, with the entire Chinese population as an editors base within a year I can guarantee that the content on the Chinese Wikipedia will rival that of the English Wikipedia. I realize this is a great shift in Wikipedia's policies, and one that may require a lot of work, but in the end it is my belief that there is a lot more to gain. With the increasing influence of Wikipedia as a global knowledge base it is a shame to not have the vast majority of Chinese on board. By the end of this year China will have more internet users than any other country in the world, it will be a shame if the knowledge and shared experience of the vast majority of Chinese people are not able to enjoy the potential of Wiki because of a few of their government's policies. Personally I would say Wikipedia has more potential in the world's most populous nation by sacrificing the articles on Falun Gong and 1989 Tiananmen Protests than to uphold a rightful, but impractical moral standard. Colipon+( T) 05:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. - Colipon+( T) 18:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I will take this cause elsewhere. Thank you all for your responses. Colipon+( T) 05:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I believe this is the core of maintaining a NPOV on Cesar Millan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Millan
I have posted a link below, if you are reading and responding to this, you might the lower article first.
"essentially contested concept is one where there is widespread agreement on an abstract core notion itself (e.g., "fairness"), whilst there is endless argument about what might be the best instantiation, or realization of that notion.[4]
Some of the notability of this person revolves around this issue. (controversy) He is in a profession of diverse opinions. He has reached celebrity status.
Although I have internet articles that support that this is indeed the case, there is no published media that describes the issue itself. Controversy is not over a fundamental issue but how that issue should be treated or resolved. The scope of the discussion is a topic in itself and perhaps that is the best way to handle it..if I can think of a title..other than Dog Training (which has been transwikied to wikibooks, prematurely in my mind.)
Can I use internet articles that describe the controversy (essentially contested concept)as there is no other source material that does (that I know of)and I have been researching this for some time (years) prior to editing this article.
I'll provide a link to an overview which I feel reflects this accurately. http://www.puppywishes.com/1601-puppies/Cesar%20Millan%20Vs%20Jean%20Donaldson.html
I feel that any controversy around him should be explained and placed in its proper context. I attempted to do this but an anon user reverted and changed my edit.There is no current discussion other than my own comments.
I would like to proceed with cleaning up this article, but I'm not clear on how to handle it.
Thank you Tintina 05:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I have seen a gradually increasing contamination of Desert hot springs with commercial links. I had suggested nicely a few times that they put their links only on Wikitravel; I even provided a link in the Exterior links section of the WP article, but they have just been polluting. I am torn but it really is unencyclopedic as near as I can tell. At least if they would write something interesting about themselves I could sort of justify it, but this is just abuse.-- Filll 03:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I noted yesterday that Michael Wissot was all edited by a single purpose account that was almost certainly non-biased. I added an autobiography tag, which was then removed, and two new (I would assumed sockpuppet) SPA's arrived to make changes. The subject is probably notable, so I can't really AfD it, but I don't like the fact the the content is probably biased POV. -- ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 22:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a trend for non-notable footballers to set up their user pages as articles. An example is User:Jonesy702. Is there any policy on this, please? BlueValour 21:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Every time we get a new featured article it gets swamped by puerile little twits at school computers who thinks they're being clever, cute or funny. It's a long-known problem and I fail to understand why something hasn't been done about it. Semi-protect the article while it's on the front page and then revert it when it rolls over to something else. Anything on the front page is basically a standing target to these people. HalfShadow 19:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I have recently become aware of a user who routinely blanks his own talk page. It doesn't appear that he is trying to hide something, such as warnings, but is rather just blanking everything left on the page without archiving it. Is there an official Wikipedia policy regarding this sort of action, and if so, is there a template regarding it? i haven't been able to find one, but I'd appreciate any insight. Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 16:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
That is why when I wanted to clear some of the clutter from my own page, I installed George Money's Auto-Archive system.It does all the work without requiring a bot.I never ask something of other users that I would not do myself.
Besides, I had some users delete conversations that weren't complete.They responded on my talk page and deleted the post from theirs.That left me with no way to reply other than to restore the post. Will ( Talk - contribs) 19:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's a pretty odd case of this.An editor made comments about me on her talk page, ones that were demonstrably false (that I reverted something, when the diffs show I didn't).When I asked for clarification or pointed out that it was false, she just deleted my response but left her comments.After a couple tries, I tried deleting her false statement but she just reverted that.It seems to me that if someone is going to make comments about me, particularly false ones, I should have the right to respond to those comments.Any suggestions on how to deal with this?-- Milo H Minderbinder 20:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty much what I wrote above.So you have me all for it. Will ( Talk - contribs) 23:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Chuck Norris' IQ can be expressed simply as a sideways eight. 00:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I do not like conflict. However, I have noticed a number of disagreements here on WP where a Mediation or RfC is held, and overwhelming support for one position is expressed, but one or two people disagree. These dissenters then fight a rear guard action, reverting changes agreed to, subverting community consensus, driving away other editors, etc. I have witnessed this at black people. I have witnessed this at Singapore Changi Airport. I have recently been told by a dissenting editor that the other 25 editors that disagreed with him were "deranged". Of course, this might be correct, but how does one give much credence to one person who claims everyone else is wrong, in the face of all evidence to the contrary?-- Filll 16:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
That can make it impossible. At least on the evolution and creationism articles that I work with, we have not had that problem (yet, as far as I know anyway). I am glad to cite the nonpeer-reviewed nonsense of creationists because I think it is dangerous to not know what the other side is thinking. I want the biggest pile of evidence of their position in their own words possible, because it is interesting and valuable and informative. And if one wants to argue against them, very often their own words and sources will end up hanging them. And I think the readers deserve to see the unvarnished evidence on all sides (of course the creationism situation is a bit more serious at least in the US and some Muslim countries where we might end up with making science illegal).-- Filll 17:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I've run into a dispute with another user over a section that is essentially recording criticism of an experiment and a rebuttal to that criticism. The other user says that the section is unbalanced because the criticism goes into more depth than the rebuttal so they have deleted the entire of the section (both criticism and rebuttal). They've done this 4 times (though outside of the 3RR time period), and I've repeatedly asked them to either tag the section as being disputed, or to expand the rebuttal themselves, but they have continued to delete it and have stated that it should be me who expands the rebuttal because it was me who wrote the criticism section.
Are there any specific policies that I can quote to them which say that disputed sections should be tagged rather than deleted, that balance is best resolved by strengthening the weaker side of the argument rather than deleting the strong side, or that if you think that something is unbalanced, you can't demand that the original author balance it themselves but instead should do it yourself?
(The factual accuracy and verifiability are not in dispute, only the balance between criticism and rebuttal).
perfectblue 13:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
What do you do if the persons are anon and do not discuss? Tintina 02:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I wonder about the protocols regarding uploading images. In particular, I was reading a (motor vehicle) page tonight, and several images uploaded showed the user's personal vehicle in states of aftermarket upgrade. In addition, the comments attached indicate that the sole purpose of the upload was/is to use Wikipedia as a showcase - not the intention of the project, I believe. Any protocols for replacing with stock photos of the vehicle model, or would an addition be the best course? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PKBear ( talk • contribs) 07:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
I am interested in beginning a topic in wikipedia which has the same as an article that was successfully transwikiedto wikibooks where it was appropriately renamed (by me)to reflect its non NPOV.
Can the Wikipedia article be deleted? I can't seem to rename it because it was moved yet it holds a general title.
It is also not sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_training
Tintina 05:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I want to reintroduce the topic from a broader perspective, including some history.
I was reluctant to continue in Wikipedia as I'm not clear about the transwiki to Wikibooks. Do the edits automatically end up in wikibooks?
I'll try to lay this out more clearly article #1 titled Dog Training transW to Wikibooks and renamed (I did not transwiki-someone else did)Pos Only Dog Training (as that is what the article reflected.) Perhaps others have not worked on this over the same issue-I don't know. the original title Dog Training exists in wikipedia so cannot be transwikied again. If the wikipedia article is deleted will the title Dog Training become free to reuse?it seems there would be no point working on the wikipedia version if it cannot be transwikied into wikibooks and into theDog Portal. It means working on two different formats of the same thing. As there is not a single source in the article I would like to delete it. editors have been absent for quite some time (months). If the existing wikipedia article is edited over it is orphaned in wikipedia unable to migrate to wikibooks UNLESS there is a way to change to the title or to reclaim it after deletion.
Tintina 03:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Query,talk page entrys demonstrating a solution/extra information about an article or subject ONLY by quoting widely known and definitively proved information in a linked context,Valid or not valid? 76.0.39.38 01:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)Iron Head 76.0.39.38 01:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Hello all. This morning I found that external links to the USGS had been posted to the articles of every state and territory of the USA in the course of a few hours by Spydrlink ( Talk| contribs). I have witnessed previous cases where an editor posted dozens of links to useful, reputable sites- and they were all deleted as spam. Is there a real consensus on that though? I wanted to ask the user about this on his talk page, but I'm not even sure how to approach it since I'm not sure if he/she actually violated any policies. His last edit was to the USGS page itself, so perhaps it's a case of WP:COI? I don't know. Comments please! -- Elipongo ( Talk| contribs) 17:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
But should it be cluttering up the External links section if it's not referenced in the article yet? I can't say I care for it when somebody slaps a link up and doesn't add anything substantive to the article. To me it's like saying, "I'm too busy/important to actually write anything— here's a reference, go write something about it, flunky!", but maybe I'm taking too personally! Maybe a good idea would to be to have a "Potential references" section on the talk page.-- Elipongo ( Talk| contribs) 15:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems we need a guideline to define notability for film articles.Currently, the guideline seems stalled out, but a few people are looking for input to get the process going again.
I have my own perspective, but limited experience in these matters.My first basic question is, "are the notability requirements on Wikipedia intentionally loose?"That is, is it preferred to have a largely open door policy that allows vast amounts of articles with little claim to notability, or is it preferred to set a high hurdle for articles to clear?
As it is, films generally get reviewed in multiple publications, which makes "multiple published works" apply to literally tens of thousands of films if we regard reviews as "non-trivial" and "reliable."The current films guideline seems to take this approach.
Other loose standards are permitted, including major studio releases of feature films, which again in itself allows tens of thousands of films, whether or not these can reasonably regarded as "notable."There is a clause allowing films released nationwide in a country (presumably this means commercial releases outside festivals), or on 200 screens worldwide (which is a hard hurdle to clear, but only denotes popularity, not notability).
I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, as many people seem to want a further loosening up of the standards before endorsing the guideline, whereas I think it needs very tough, strict standards, which I commented on here.
What's the general feeling on this?I'm I just being too much of a hard ass?Is simply having one's work flickered in front of the eyes of a few thousand people, a couple of whom hold pens in their hands, enough to ensure eternal notability?Can some kind of consensus be found? zadignose 15:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm repeating here what I posted at the film project page, so forgive me, but I'd like to see some more opinions focused on this discussion.I've recently made significant edits to the guideline, and would like to solicit further discussion in the relevant talk page.I seem to have become the recent outspoken proponent of tougher guidelines, but I would like to seek reasonble compromise, and find some workable solutions.I think that my recent efforts at least demonstrate a sincere interest in drafting a sensible guideline that isn't "all inclusive," but might help improve the quality of our coverage of notable films.Thank you. zadignose 16:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The description page of images which appear on the main page should always contain a link to the English Wikipedia article the topic of the image so that when someone clicks on an image on the main page, they don't have to go back to click the link to the article about it. e.g. Image:Raccoon_(Procyon_lotor)_2.jpg does have a link, while Image:Playoffs_021_crop.jpg which currently appears on the main page has no link (currently) from the image description page to what it's about. I've been adding these links to wildlife-related images but it's quite frustrating that other sysops don't do it. It makes for a horrible user experience not having anywhere to go after blowing up an image of interest from the main page, and as the images descriptions are always locked, normal users cannot fix it. — Pengo talk · contribs 09:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a good thing to remind people of, but if they miss it, you can always propose an edit on the talk page of the image with {{ editprotected}}. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 12:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
This has bugging me for some time, and I can't really seem to understand it. Why do we strive so hard to make Wikipedia so completely free? I'm not talking about free to access, but free to take and use.
Why do we encourage derivative works such as how answers.com uses us when it will always be inferior to the actual article hosted on Wikipedia? Why can't we edit Wikipedia articles for Wikipedia? It seems stupid to not allow copyrighten images that we've obtained permission to use just because we can't let anyone else use them. It doesn't matter if someone mirrors the page, prints it in a book, or puts it on a CD. In the end, the online article will always be better, more up to date, and what people will actually use.
The goal may be to spread knowledge and information, but in reality it ends up stagnating it. How does having the same (but slightly inferior) information repeated accross a thousand other websites do anyone any good? I've actually come accross the problem of doing research on a subject, only to have difficulty finding original information because now everyone is too lazy to write their own summaries of a subject, as they can just use what Wikipedia has to say. Free information is bad, as it becomes the only information. Wikipedia is like the smart kid in class that lets everyone copy off of him, and now nobody else feels like doing their own homework anymore.
So aside from say, a teacher printing off a Wikipedia page to help teach class, how does being so free actually benefit anyone?-- SeizureDog 10:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:ADMIN says that non-admins may behave exactly as admins, except for the extra capabilities that admins have. This is backed up on the same page by Jimbo's assertion that adminship is "not a big deal" and that he wants to "dispel the aura of "authority" around the position". Nevertheless, Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions creates new, purely social, restrictions on how and when non-admins may close deletion discussions "keep", which of course they are capable of doing. I propose changing DELPRO to dispel the aura of authority around adminship per Jimbo and bring it into line with WP:ADMIN, please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process#Social restrictions on non-admin behaviour. — Ashley Y 05:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I was looking up policies regarding enterprises and came across this article/policy: Articles_about_ongoing_enterprises.Can someone tell me why it is archived? It seems reasonable.Did something take its place? Alex Jackl 06:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to ask whether people are obliged to put some warning (like "contains explicit content")when they link to some external websites with the explicit content. If not, do you plan anything like that or can you somehow take care of this for benefit of the underage? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.113.69.26 ( talk) 01:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
One argument in favor of fairly broad guidelines for including high schools is that an existing article can be built upon when something newsworthy happens at the school. For example, today there was a fatal stabbing at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Luckily, there already was an adequate article on the school to which details on the stabbing could be added. -- Eastmain 21:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
While deleting fair use images of living people is valid, far too many users delete without deleting references to the images themselves. This create complete and utterly horrible looking articles, and references to non-existent material. I have noticed this inaccusable act of lazyness in three users over the last month or so, without even trying to look for such descrepencies.
Take for example this electorial district article, which from November 27 to today lasted in such a delapitated state.
I propose that we have a three strike system for sysops deleting images CSD:I7. If they delete images without removing references to that images within the next two hours of the image deletion, they can be issued a warning by any registered user. This warning will be recorded on a special page.
If any user receives three or more warnings, they must stop deleting images for a period of a week, sufficient time for other users to locate all the mess they may have made. If they try to delete images during this time, they will loose admin priviliges. This process repeats itself once the ban on deleting images is over, indefinitely.-- Zanimum 15:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be kind of cool to make a template to go along with the existing talk page {{ reqphoto}}, that sits on the side of the article where a photo would go as a placeholder and tell people "replace me!" like an expand tag. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 03:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
To deal with the fact that none of us are answering the reports at the failed Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets, I have proposed a new way of dealing with users approaching admins about potential abuse of sock puppets. Please see:
Robdurbar 14:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
What are our conventions on how to acknowledge authorship history when copying material from external, non-Wikimedia wiki sites under GFDL or similar licenses? I am thinking of a site like phantis.com, a free GFDL-licensed wiki about Greece, which some users have taken articles from. This is quite a good and trustworthy site, the copying should be legal and the articles are generally decent and should be highly welcome here. But at the same time, it's not something we should quote as a "reliable source" in terms of WP:V. Adding it as a standard "external link" also doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as it won't provide the reader with more info than they already have in the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
While perusing the List of military aircraft of the United States on English Wikipedia, I found an entry for the YF-24 that holds nothing but Arabic. What is the policy on such a page? Mikieminnow 23:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Please take a look at Singapore Changi Airport. I thought this Lead problem had been resolved with an RfC, but apparently not.-- Filll 21:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I came across this which is just one paragraph of the banning policy copied verbatim into its own page. Only one person contributed to the new page. Not sure what to do with it as it seems completely redundant; could /should it be MfD'd? Or just redirected to the banning policy? Trebor 19:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd say redirect it if it's not goint to be expanded. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 22:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I think importance is really subjective. There are plenty of articles about the made up technologies if science fiction books and tv shows.But psuedoscience articles are labelled as important to only a small number of people, and therefore not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Even if they aren't true, psuedoscience is important for other reasons.Why do people invent this stuff. What similarities do they have to so-called "real" science?
NPOV requires a tag saying-this is not consensus among scientists.But I would like to argue for more leniency in the case of articles considered Psuedoscience. After all, every scientific theory was unproved, and therefore psuedoscience, at one time.
Just because only a few people believe in a theory doesn't neccessarily mean it's IMPORTANT to only a few people.A lot of people might be interested in what a few whackos think.
I'm sure a lot of people have opinions on importance.But that's my 2c.
I make is stupid -- Puddytang 05:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone has created Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images, in effort to remove {{ click}}.This is with good intention, but think wider discussion of this and possible alternatives available is needed. This user is now going through all the portal pages and doing mass removal of {{ click}}.It's not being discussed on Portal talk pages, nor is any alternative being implemented in place of {{ click}}. One alternative is the new ImageMap extension, which can be used on portal pages for "Related portals".(see Portal:Criminal justice)It doesn't yet work in templates, so can't be built into {{ click}} itself at this point. Such mass removal of the template without discussion and putting in place an alternative is not okay with me.This is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images. -- Aude ( talk) 14:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place so if not, point me in the right direction.
I've come to the conclusion (and let talk about it in general terms for the moment), that many wiki projects actually operate as special interest groups and their goal (generally not spelt out in the project aims) is just to generate as much content about their given subject as possible - regardless of the wikipedia guidelines. Those special interest groups turn up on-mass on an AFD attempt and the articles just get longer and more full of crap (and there is no other way to put it).
Is there a way to call a failing wiki-project to task? if not, should there be? -- Larry laptop 00:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
See I don't really think that's true - many AFD slip pass the radar and if 3 people provide well-reasoned arguments that someone/something should be removed and ten people from the project turn up posting WP:ILIKEIT arguments - as best, you will get "no consensus". -- Larry laptop 00:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
An example would help illuminate this problem.Also, after being a Wikipedian for about three years, I think I would have noticed if this was a big problem.Therefore, I can only assume this is happening within a very narrow subject area. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 00:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Em no - so no sherlock holmes award for you - I was actually thinking of a few projects, I now realise this is sure way to get myself on various hitlists. Let's drop this I'm clearly very mistaken, this is all my mistake and I've made an awful error. Nothing to see here.-- Larry laptop 01:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I feel that username blocks are spiraling out of control.New users are being blocked for poorly defined "username policy violations", a move that will hurt the future of the project.From recent block logs, here are some examples:
Revertinging (
talk •
contribs)
Wippippippipp (
talk •
contribs)
Godpreist54 (
talk •
contribs)
Thabo Mkbeki (
talk •
contribs)
Kiddybandit (
talk •
contribs)
Cheap couilles (
talk •
contribs)
Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus (
talk •
contribs)
WikiWarrior1 (
talk •
contribs)
Loser12345 (
talk •
contribs)
Sexybot12 (
talk •
contribs)
Joeyjimbob (
talk •
contribs)
Wowwoweeewow (
talk •
contribs)
WikipediaFun (
talk •
contribs)
Blabber mouth katie (
talk •
contribs)
Youratowel (
talk •
contribs)
Wheeeee! (
talk •
contribs)
Wknight91 (
talk •
contribs)
For the record, I did not "cherry pick" from X-weeks of block logs on purpose.I chose a half day period so I could draw attention to how widespread the problem is.Each of these had "username" listed as the block rationale.
I viewed a roughly 11 hour period to gather the names above, and does not represent a thorough examination.There are probably more questionable username blocks in that time period.There are hundreds each week, each one potentially a future valuable editor who decides to just walk away from the project.Perhaps some of them are legit (Is couilles something obscene in another language, for instance?) but I argue that most of them do not appear to properly violate WP:USERNAME.I'm not certain that the problem is to blame on anyone specifically, but the policy regarding username blocks appears to be flawed.
As I mentioned in my RfA many months ago, Wikipedia faces a growing crisis.We are constantly raising new barriers against contributors when we should be looking to cultivate new editors.If the policy of username blocking is not adjusted, the long term health of the project is at additional risk.
I'm not looking to specifically criticize the above username blocks, else I'd post this on AN or AN/I.Instead, I'd like to discuss the policy that tacitly allows this to happen.Does the community agree that protecting our eyes from the wicked text "Sexybot12" or "Godpreist54" is worth the trade off in curious new users who decide to go elsewhere because it's "just not worth it"?Let's focus on the long term health implications of this policy and determine a method for fixing this problem.Thoughts?- CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 17:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington blocked Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus
A summary of WP:RFCN wouldn't really be more helpful than WP:USERNAME.The idea of having blocking admins specifying which element of the username policy they felt was being violated is a good idea, I'd support that.One concept here and in the WP:U talk page related to this that I can't agree with is the assertion that to do anything with Wikipedia, users need thick skins.To be clear, the folks we're talking about are brand new users.Their _very first_ interaction on Wikipedia is dealing with a block.That's pretty harsh medicine.I'm also troubled with the idea that 'we have so many users, we can afford to scare folks off'.If the person isn't doing something wrong, we shouldn't be "throwing then away", which was the implication I read.If that's not an accurate read, please correct me.The root issue, of course, is that I feel there are lots of 'bad blocks' happening here.The answer isn't more policy, the answer needs to be better community involvement in validating the quality of the username blocks. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 04:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The username blocking has gone completely overboard. Why is it our job to make sure no one on Wikipedia is ever offended, or, God-forbid, exposed to something less than completely serious? Why would we consider "Wheeeee!" to be a threat to Wikipedia? Who considers "Godpreist54" offensive to thier religious sensibilities? 90% of the blocks listed above seem completely asinine to me. Do people really believe these blocks are benefitting Wikipedia? This seems to be an example of rules overriding common sense. Kaldari 07:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
While I agree that there should be standards for user names, particularly when it comes to names that are malicious or offensive, it appears to me that Wikipedia is taking the same path as a lot of the networks are these days and is saying "We can't do that in case in case we offend somebody". Honestly;Loser12345, joeyjimbob, Wowwoweeewow? In a normal civil community, none of these should be considered blockable based on their names and if Wikipedia were a non-US based entity I doubt that they would be blocked. Even Blabber mouth katie should be acceptable as it is/seems pretty that Katie is the user in question.
This appears to be a case of overkill
perfectblue 11:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
My problem with the complaint here is that people seem to forget that when {{ usernameblocked}} is put in the summary, on the next edit attempt it expands and gives all the information about our username policy, where to find it and how to go about requesting a change. No need to add instruction creep with numbers, that is the whole point of that template. The template also has been overhauled in the recent past to make it more friendly than it was. Users are not just being left out in the cold with no explanation. If you don't understand a particular block, talk to the admin who did it. They usually have a good reason. I don't see this as a rampant abuse problem or something that needs to be re-evaluated. pschemp | talk 03:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I seem to remember a discussion similar to this some months back when many editors, myself included, voiced a concern that too many new usernames were being arbitrarily blocked.Almost none of the above listed usernames should have been blocked, Sexybot being an exception (since using 'bot' is banned for valid reasons).Only usernames that are blatantly offensive should get blocked on site.The current 'policy' gives admins too much power to subjectively remove names they don't like.The fact that one admin posted above that one username was blocked because it resembled usernames used by vandals previously is especially unsettling; vandals can, and do, make all sorts of names and we can't possibly block everything that resembles a name previously used by a vandal.Overall I agree with some of the other editors that this has gotten way out of hand.Usernames should be accepted in good faith until they prove themselves to be a vandal (innocent until proven guilty) or unless its cleary offensive/obscene. -- The Way 03:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I've recently rewritten the three-revert rule. You can see discussion here and the rewrite here. Comments are invited. -- bainer ( talk) 07:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
According to the image use policy, as image contributors, users are supposed to "always specify on the description page where the image came from." I recently tagged Image:Punjabi gurmukhi shahmukhi.png (an image tagged as ineligible for copyright) for speedy deletion, however, because a source is not specified. I was soon, however, reverted by an anononymous user. When I restored the deletion tag and engaged in conversation with said user, an administrator removed it. Finally, when I restored the tag again and contacted said administrator, it was restored by another experienced Wikipedian.
I am confused. For the record, I am not opposed to the image. My only issue with it is that the source is not specified. Is there a discrepancy between the image use policy and {{ PD-ineligible}}? Or is there a misunderstanding on my part about either or both? Please, I would really like to know so I can get all of this off of my back. I would really appreciate comments. (Note: I will immediately notify the three users of this post.) -- Iamunknown 00:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I have permission to use a photo by the photographer. It was taken in a certain context with another internationally well known (though not celebrity ) person. This person however has expertise and is well respected in his field which is part of the article I am working on.(He is mentioned and quoted in it). I originally sought permission from him and he directed me to the photographer (who is also a member of the organization and is more remotely connected to the topic.)This person did give permission to use any material of his and his organization.
so I have permission from both the photographer and the other person at a specific event recognizing the celebrity. can this photo be used without further permission. I have read the image use policy but am still not clear.
Tintina 00:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes thank you, the photographer (owner of the photo) is aware of that. I sent him wikipedia policy. FYI The photo is displayed on the relative organizations website. What I want to clarify is if the celebrity in the photo in any way has to give permission for it's use.
Tintina 01:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I was recently thinking about the idea of WikiProjects when I came to the realization that they should be used for much more than they are already being used for. Right now, they are a loose organization that has little power in regulating the pages under their jurisdiction. I think a problem now, though, with XfDs though, is that when something is proposed for deletion, it is just commented on by people who have little or no affiliation or knowledge of the topic which it covers. I think it would be a great idea instead of having XfDs open to the public, have them referred to a WikiProject or a few WikiProjects for review and subsequent deletion, if seen fit. The only prerequisite for voting on one of these new XfDs would be that you would have to be a member of one of the reviewing WikiProjects (not necessarily, but possibly, for a certain amount of time).
I think this is a pretty fair suggestion, given the nature of Wikipedia. Many users have sectioned themselves off into certain niches of the "society" and it should only follow that pages are maintained in this manner. Comments will be gratefully accepted! → JARED (t) 22:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
As an active maintainer of Wikipedia:List of banned users, I'm looking for clarification regarding the ban of Brian G. Crawford ( talk · contribs · block log). He was banned upon recommendation of Foundation counsel BradPatrick, and his userpage says he's "banned by the Wikimedia Foundation". However, he's on the banned user list under the heading "Banned by the Wikipedia community". I was thinking about moving his entry to a new "Banned by the Wikimedia Foundation" section, but I wanted to make sure everyone agrees his ban should be listed as a "Foundation ban". Of course, BradPatrick, Danny and others involved in the WP:OFFICE system are analogous to Jimbo and the Board of Trustees in their authority to issue bans. I'd argue Crawford is "banned by the Foundation", but does anyone disagree? Also, does anyone know of other instances I'm unaware of when the Foundation has banned a user, aside from Anthere's cross-project ban of JarlaxleArtemis? szyslak ( t, c) 22:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I've got a problem with a user who is systematically reverting every change made to a page and I need to know if there is a policy that I can hit them with or what the most appropriate admin intervention to ask for is.
This user has apparent ownership issues with a page, they revert every change that I've made and put these really loose reasonings in the summary box. They also refuse point blank to tag anything or discuss why they are reverting. For example, they might revert 10-20 changes in one go and state something along the lines of"WP:V, WP:OR, WP:POV" in the summary box but not say what which bit was reverted for which reason.
Any advice? They have already refused to talk so I'd like to get some intervention.
perfectblue 16:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone recently uploaded an image containing nothing but text which he had made for use as a subheader in one of the articles he'd been working on. It was subsequently replaced with plain text and the image was listed for deletion. A rather heated argument ensued, and the creator of this image is now threatening to quit Wikipedia. It seems that many of the people involved in this argument aren't aware of the benefits of plain text over text in images, so I was wondering if perhaps there should be an official Wikipedia policy on this issue. I've made a template that could be used to flag images of this type. It's based on the {{ BadJPEG}} template — feel free to make whatever changes you feel are necessary). Wealso need to set up a new category for these images ( Category:Images that should be replaced with plain text, perhaps?), and make suitable changes to the WP policy pages. There are probably other things that will also have to be done that I haven't thought of. Is this idea worth pursuing? Can anyone provide any pointers? -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 13:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Just an idea to throw out here. Since IP blocks aren't effective (with all the new Tor and open proxies appearing everyday) and problematic when it's a shared IP like Qatar, would it be a bad thing if Wikipedia required Java enabled to edit and then the Java read some hardware serial number? Not MAC address, which is easily spoofed and some people don't have, but some other thing like CPU ID or hard drive serial number. Or would this be shunned as a privacy violation (even if the hardware data is encrypted and salted--like they are in Second Life and how passwords in MediaWiki are encrypted and salted)? Anomo 04:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I am a new contributor to Wiki and am working on a Bio of a LP. The person has recently reached celebrity status though his main contribution is in the field of canine management.
My approach would be to treat the bio in his main field, with, of course, his celebrity status being a large part of his current international influence. On first reading the article struck me as emphasizing the celebrity and controversy more than his actual profession. Of course that may change over time, but currently his profession is primarily in handling canines.
This Bio is tagged to go into the larger Canine Portal.
Other difficulties are in establishing MPOV. Because of media attention and the nature of the [dog]industry it is very difficult to find NPOV sources. There has been controversy over certain handling methods long before Cesar Millan came along and this is the direction I have taken in handling it. I have tried to downplay the controversy so that it is not the focus of the bio.
Should ONLY sources of equal weight be included. ie one expert vs another, one shelter manager vs another etc?
The POV that criticises him and causes most of the controversy IMPLIES and states that they ARE the current standard in dog handling, but there is no real way to measure this.
The popularity of the show alone would say otherwise. Can this fact be used?
Thank you Tintina 03:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay thank you! Tintina 02:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Since I run the Christian Music wiki at Wikia.com, I would like some help understanding the reasoning.My policy had been to attempt to obtain one image (or more, if requested by the artist) per artist.I typically e-mail the promoters for each artist asking for offical photos.Several times I have gotten replies providing them -- in one case, at high res!
So, should I now turn those images down? Will ( Talk - contribs) 21:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I control the policy other than what Wikia.com declares.(They chose GFDL, but for the most part it is up to me to interpet and apply that policy.) Will ( Talk - contribs) 22:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Not really.If you read carefully, you will see I am asking about Wikipedia's policy and why it is that way. Will ( Talk - contribs) 03:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Why? WP:FUC criteria #1 prohibits using fair use if a free one could be reasonably located.It's just being enforced more heavily now, espeically with the introduction of {{ Replaceable fair use}}.Such removal has been controversial - some users think that it's better to have an image than none at all, or that free images don't look as professional as promo images.But it's still going ahead. Hbdragon88 04:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I wish to know if this version of Joanna Lumley's talk page is acceptable: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Joanna_Lumley&oldid=101844308
I have since reverted the offending section - is this a case of vandalism? Pendragon39 22:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I was deeply offended by what an admin said concerning me. He refuses to apologize on the grounds that I mischaracterized him, when I mistakenly accused him of semi-protecting a talk page in an ongoing debate. Would saying that another user has his "facts" wrong as usual be considered a personal attack? you can find the edit in question here-- Acebrock 22:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Could I gently suggest that Acebrock try to develop a slightly thicker skin. He falsely accused MONGO of making an out-of-policy block. MONGO falsely or justly (I don't know) accused him of often making errors. Without having looked into Acebrock's history, I'll assume that MONGO's accusation is false. So we have (first of all) editor A implicitly accusing editor B of a lack of integrity, and editor B implicitly accusing editor A of a lack of sense. Then we have editor A being deeply offended, demanding an apology, and taking the matter further, while editor B seems to be able to move on. Acebrock, is it really worth this fuss? To me, the accusation made by you was worse, and was demostrably false — just look at the logs. It's pretty bad to go to a protection page and accuse a (former) admin of violating policy. And how can saying that you have your facts wrong "as usual" be an attack on your character? It's perfectly possible to be a good person and to get your facts wrong. Why not just drop the whole thing now and move on with dignity? If you keep going, you're going to get more upset, because nobody is going to think that what MONGO said was worth making a complaint to the community about. Musical Linguist 23:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed changes to Wikipedia:Copyrights, in order to move it a little closer in line with the GFDL (in my view).Please contribute your thoughts at Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#GFDL_Notice. Superm401 - Talk 21:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I came across the article of Souhaila Andrawes which looked like this. It was correctly tagged as a biography of living person but it did not really meet the strict requirements for such bios, there was not a single source in the article and the article was of a negative tone (the article claimed the person was a terrorist, airline hijacker, sentenced to 12 years, etc.) But then again, it is not exactly difficult to find information about her, and I remember that the case was a big news issue in Norway in 1995. The article was definitely not created as a bad faith attempt to disparage the subject with libellous, slanderous and false accusations.
For this particular article the question is moot, because the brevity of the article made it fairly easy to source it (which I have now done). But I am wondering what our policy is on things like this. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo on blanking -- Larry laptop 15:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Stubify and then notify the article's major author is sometimes useful. WAS 4.250 16:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Copyrights says that "If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work". Does the ban against linking to a copyvio site extend to citations based on that site? In particular, can I use a fair use-violating lyrics web site as a citation in the List of backmasked messages when no other citation can be found? Λυδαcιτγ 00:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Now that both these elements have acquired the statues of policy (which really shouldn't surprise anybody), it is clear that there is no reason to state these elements on two different pages, but I'd like to gather some more opinions before I initiate discussion on the talk pages. Circeus 16:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
On [ [2]] (a link page, to link the battles off, so you can easily find which battles occured in a particular time period). This is an ordered chronological list and originally only the years were wikified, but not the month and day, because it is much easier to follow if the format is "Year Month Day". You'll notice that people keep "wikifying" the date format, meaning that dates become "day month year" or "month day year" depending on user prefs. What's worse, the latest modifications only modified SOME of the dates, meaning that (if you can follow this) the first incidence of a year is wikified but not the rest, but ALL months and days are wikified, meaning that in some cases you get "year month day" and in some you get "day month year", as well as some where only the month is known so you get "year month" as well. In addition to THAT, someone has decided to remove more than the first incidence of some years, and list each battle in that year as a sub-indent. They've only done this with some years though, so you get "1884" on one line and then just "month day" or "day month" on the next few lines. This is very difficult to read and I've reverted it twice but they use bots to keep wikifying the dates. Can anyone stop them? I'm not an admin and they just ignore me. The format I prefer is "year month day" on every line (most years don't have more than 1 battle anyway so having the year and then sub-indents just looks silly). It's a page I've contributed a lot to, not that that means much perhaps, but it's already gone through one deletion attempt and formatting it this crazy way is not helping its usefulness. Thanks muchly! SpookyMulder 13:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a serious lack of policy concerning the notability of current events. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed a specific notability criteria and in this case, WP:N is really not applicable. Any current event, by definition, will be the subject of multiple, non-trivial current events, and there are many, many events that occur every day that are covered by multiple media sources but are not remotely notable enough to include in an encyclopedia. For a silly example, take an incident last week in which a really fat cat ran away and got trapped in a doggy door. A google news search on the cat's owner reveals 143 results [3]. Admittedly, many of these are from the AP wire, but I found two independent sources. If someone created an article about this event, there would be no policy reason to delete it, and thats absurd.
For a more significant example, take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proposed Israeli Nuclear First Strike on Natanz Facility. This article is problematic because of OR problems, but should we have an article about a newspaper report?The report in question was widely talked about initially, it was the top story in Israel and probably Iran too. However, will it prove significant in the long run? Discussion seems to have died down very quickly and I doubt it will warrant more than a footnote in any history book. The problem is that nobody has sat down and thought about what makes a current event notable, and as a result there are no guidelines for those of us trying to decide whether to delete article's about current events. I don't have a proposal, but I do want to gather some input.
So in order to start the discussion, what makes current events notable? How can we judge their notability without violating WP:NOR when there hasn't been enough time for secondary sources to evaluate an event's importance? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GabrielF ( talk • contribs) 01:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC).
I think well-researched articles on recent news stories are not a problem, they can be used to increase the quality of the articles they'll be merged into once a current hype is over. Kusma (討論) 15:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Here is a VERY early draft of a notability criteria:
In order for an event to be notable, the length, breadth, depth and prominence of the media's coverage of that event must be greater than average.
Thoughts? GabrielF 19:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
It's been well over a year now I think it is time to clear out Category:Images used with permission and Category:Non-commercial use only images. Geni 15:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Debate now at Category_talk:Non-commercial_use_only_images#Time_to_clear_this_lot_out. Inless I hear some valid objections by the next weekend I'm going to remove the remaining images without a fair use claim. Geni 21:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd be careful though and make sure that they wouldn't be legit fair use first. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 06:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)