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I am working on a group of topics in which the terminology varies dramatically from one country to another. The biggest and most controversial example is the definition of the term "Learning Disability" as used in the US as compared to the UK.
In the US, the term is used to mean a specific difficulty with learning that is unexpected given the cognitive ability of the affected person, for example, a specific difficulty in learning to read where the person's overall cognitive ability is intact and in the normal range. In contrast, in the UK the term is used to refer to severe cognitive deficits (the old term for this in the US is "mental retardation").
Clearly, this could cause confusion in readers, and could even be terribly offensive to some people coming to the article for information.
Are there guidelines somewhere regarding what do do when the term relevant to a topic varies dramatically in different English-speaking countries?
Thanks in advance for any help,
smoran 19:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to write some articles em but I am not too good with writing. I haerd that there are people on here who you can pay to write articles for you. Where can I find them? Gatorphat 17:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi, is there a template can be used for articles translated from other languages to English by someone who is not a native English speaker? Some zh.wp user is worried about the quality of articles translated by non-English speakers and might use that template to ask for quality improvements like grammar correction or reorganize the article. Thanks. -- H.T. Chien ( Discuss| Contributions) 16:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
If there is no such template existed, what do you think to have a template like This article or section is been translated by someone who is not a native English speaker, you may help to improve it.?-- H.T. Chien ( Discuss| Contributions) 16:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Your input is requested here: Wikipedia_talk:No_legal_threats#Passive_but_intimidating_legal_FYIs. This is a proposed clarification, to indicate that WP:LEGAL is a bright line policy, but that "passive threats" can be uncivil. Thanks, Kla'quot 05:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I vaugley remember their being a policy about Fair Use images couldn't be above a certain resolution. Could anyone direct me towards a page or policy that confirms or denies this? The Placebo Effect 01:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
B"H
Concerning Trivia-sections in articles. Trivia-sections are preceded by the following announcement: Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.
I happen to disagree with this, and my argument is as follows.
Frequently the information in the trivial-section is very interesting to the casual reader. Although information from the trivial-section might appear elsewhere in the article, the existence of a trivia-section is actually an asset to any article.
For your consideration, sincerely, Dovid de Bresser, Kemerovo , Russia . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.89.159.36 ( talk) 05:35, 25 April 2007 (UTC).
Is this new thing I'm seeing? I've never seen this "trivia" tag until today. I can find nothing in WP policy that says there should be no trivia. See
WP:N, specifically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:N#Notability_guidelines_do_not_directly_limit_article_content -- "These guidelines do not specifically regulate the content of articles, which is governed by other Wikipedia's guidelines, such as those on the reliability of sources and trivia."
One reason I use WP is because you can't get the trivia in normal encyclopedias. The trivia sections in the articles are great, and one could argue that we should have a tag for articles that don't yet have trivia: "This article has no 'trivia' section. You can help by adding a trivia section." I hope there is NOT a new effort to remove trivia; or, to move trivia up into the main article sections, as it will be impossible to go specifically looking for trivia without the pain of reading the ENTIRE articles.
And if a reader doesn't like the trivia sections, they can simply ignore them. They serve a purpose, providing information. This is the WP goal. Gekritzl 20:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
The article Gumpert Apollo lists a price as "198.000 EUR," which can be inferred to mean one hundred and ninety-eight thousand euros, while other approximations of currency conversions use a comma to seperate the thousands from the hundreds. For consistancy, I changed the dot to a comma. The manual of style is somewhat vague on the usage of a dot in place of a comma. Because the use of a dot is accepted in much of the world, should some clarification be made as to its usage in the English Wikipedia? This usage is uncommon in English, so if it is considered acceptable usage, should it be replaced by a space, which is international standard? J Are you green? 21:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
"Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)" specifies "Large numbers may be divided up by commas every three places" and "A period (".") must be used as the decimal separator". I don't see this as somewhat vague. (1,079,252,848.8 km/h) is the usage in North America and the Commonwealth, and this is an English encyclopedia, not German or French.
Chris the speller 22:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
An editor is trying to distort the D. James Kennedy article by using unreliable sources. None of these people in the sources have qualifications to speak authoritatively on religious issues, yet by including them in the article who give credence to their outlandish claims that Dobson is a "leader" in the "Dominionist movement." I have checked sources, ranging from the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, to various religious, sociological and political journals and magazines carried by major academic databases such as Academic Source Premier and UMI/Proquest. I cannot find any other sources who make this outlandish claims except for these small group of journalists (and an activist website Theocracy Watch, which is even more unreliable as source). If this inclusion can be carried as NPOV, then I am not sure what can be excluded from Wikipedia at all. Please advice. --LC 19:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
As I said at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#marginal journalism where LC posted exactly te same spurious complaint:
“ | The sources I have added are:
I also restored material from Theocracy Watch, which was present when LC whitewashed the whole section. I did not say "X is Y", I stated that "X has been described as being Y" and supplied the (reliable) sources. 72.198.121.115 19:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC) |
” |
Please comment on my suggested additions to Wikipedia:List guideline about what lists should not be created, here. Thanks in advance huji— TALK 10:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I originally posted this at Bugzilla as Bug 9710, but it was rejected as asking for consensus on a Wiki.
By popular demand, I am posting a request to allow administrators to sacrifice their sysop bit in order to take away one other administrator's sysop bit. There are many reasons for this. First, a few administrators, like Wonderfool a.k.a. Dangherous on Wiktionary and Robdurbar on Wikipedia, become vandals and must be taken down ASAP. Second, some public terminals are zombies with keyloggers on them. Administrators who uses such terminals could get their accounts compromised by a vandal. Third, the steep price of losing one's sysop status will keep most administrators from abusing this. Fourth, by pointing the business end of this ability at oneself, it makes an easy way to resign without asking for a steward's help, which might have prevented Robdurbar from needing to go on a vandalism spree. Fifth, someone suggested that this would be a way for wheel warriors to stop wheel wars by themselves.
If this ability is implemented, a log for this type of action must be implemented. It cannot be a standard log, because stewards must be able to process and mark incidents in the log. When the ability is used, a new case is generated. These cases must be differentiated from other cases. The possible statuses (which should only be changed by stewards for reasons below) should be New, Assigned to a steward (which should indicate the steward's name), Forwarded to ArbCom (which would apply only to wikis with Arbitration Committees), and Closed. If the case is a resignation, it should automatically be entered as Closed instead of New in the sacrifice log.
Whenever this ability is used, a log entry must be generated for a steward to look at. The reason that only a steward should process this is that stewards are trusted enough to make final decisions on who should stay desysoped. If it is a resignation, no action needs to be taken. If it is an obvious case like the Robdurbar or Wonderfool cases, the steward can simply repromote the hero who stopped the rogue administrator. If it is a wheel war, the steward will have to investigate the case if it is on a small wiki and decide what to do. If it is on a wiki with an ArbCom, the case should be forwarded to the ArbCom for investigation. After the appropriate actions have been taken (e.g. the ArbCom closes the case or the steward who takes the case makes a decision), the steward needs to mark the incident as closed in the log. If it is decided that later on that bureaucrats should be able to desysop others, then the ability of handling sacrifice log entries should also be granted to them as well.
Of course, attempts to take away a steward's sysop bit should fail and result in no action whatsoever besides an error page explaining that stewards are immune to this, because stewards are required to be able to promote and demote other users.
Jesse Viviano 16:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
As I commented on Jesse Viviano's page, this is an excellent idea that cuts down on abuse and encourages resolution of serious admin disputes through discussion and mediation. I do not feel implementation will lead to "torpedo warfare" as from what experience I have it seems more that imminent threat of removal of privileges can pursuade hot-headed conflicting editors to calm down and reassess their actions in a fashion somewhat like that of the Nash equilibrium or Mutually Assured Destruction. It benefits neither editor for them both to be blocked, especially with the prospect of investigation and possible severe reprimand in the case of abuse. The occasions when this mechanism would come into play would be inherently serious and command attention. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹ Speak 17:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Off topic: This discussion reminds me a lot of DEFCON (computer game). Mutual assured destruction here we come! -- Netsnipe ► 19:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Bringing the good old days of IRC wars to wikis! What a fun idea. Of course, at some point, someone is going to bring in bots (apprpriately named chanserv and nickserv? Hmmm, no, Articleserv and Adminserv perhaps?) to fix the issues and allow people to actually edit again? :-) And then you'd have a whole new level of hierarchy and bureaucracy. Fascinating. -- Kim Bruning 19:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
As an admin on other projects (not here), I'd just like to point out that this conversation is completely insane. If an admin turns into a vandal, you get in touch with a steward and have their tools (at least temporarily) removed. It's bad enough already that being an "admin" has the political connotations on this project that it does... please don't provide tools for "purging". An admin is supposed to be just another user who's trustworthy enough to have access to a few buttons we don't let people have the first day they show up. If a person is no longer trusted, the process of removing access to the buttons should be open to all. -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 00:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
(EC) This seems like a solution in search of a problem. If an admin has obviously either lost it or had their account compromised, and is going around blocking people for no reason, deleting the main page, etc., you find a steward, they perform an emergency desysop, problem solved. If that type of incident were happening all the time, I could see a need for this, but not just based on a couple of occurrences. Similarly with disabling admins from unblocking themselves-you unblock yourself in a case like Riana did, where the block was obviously without cause, no one in their right mind is going to say you did wrong. You unblock yourself after getting blocked for 3RR, you're very shortly getting desysopped. Again, it's a rare problem and is already adequately handled. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Bizarre. Double edge attack will lead to more problems. Imagine a war between democrat admins and republican admins. We should be encouraging discussion not the contrary. Admins should be avoiding wheel wars willingly. -- Cat chi? 20:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I get the feeling this is going to be extremely controversial, but I think it's important to discuss. I'm not very neutral (since I'm a student at Virginia Tech and lost more than one close friend), so I won't suggest many specific ideas--just describe the problem.
Freedom of information is important, but at some point it may become a violation of integrity. For example, the shooter at Virginia Tech sent a video to NBC of himself as he wanted to be seen. By airing this video, NBC gave him the voice he wanted even as he took away the voices of thirty-two other individuals.
The worst part is that this voice is what will inspire (and in fact already has inspired) others to follow in his footsteps. He desired infamy, and he got it. Others will see that and try to get the same thing for themselves. This is pretty well-documented, I think (I don't remember names, but I think it's reasonably accepted by criminal psychologists).
My very general proposal is that Wikipedians take steps to take away the voices of those who commit acts of infamy. While it is absolutely necessary to document their lives--ideally to prevent it from happening in the future--it is not necessary to show their videos and pictures in order to understand them better. If videos and such things must be kept, put them on a separate page on psychology of killers. Don't attach them to the killer him/herself.
Additionally, if the shooter gets his or her own Wikipedia page, give each of the victims a page (rather than a redirect).
A quick clarification: such a policy would not apply to, say, Hitler, because although Hitler was responsible for many acts of infamy, the acts themselves were committed by others at his behest. In the case of the shooter at Virginia Tech, the danger is not of history repeating itself in the group sense, but rather in the individual sense.
In other words, studying Hitler tells people how to prevent/avoid acts of genocide. People are collectively capable of preventing those crimes. However, a shooting is not an act that involves any collective political momentum, and is very hard to prevent with any amount of study (except psychological).
Please, discuss. I may elect to stay out of the discussion, except to clarify individual points. -- aciel 22:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Is there a policy on image-naming conventions that would settle whether it's permissible to include the name of the author and contributor of an image in the image's filename? The author/contributor in question is also a Wikipedia editor who uses his real name as his userid, and includes this name in the image's filename, so that the filename for a picture of a Corvette, for example, would be Corvette_by_[User's]_[Name].jpg .
I AGF, but also wonder if the purpose might not be self-promotion: a Google search on the editor's real name returns hits for the image files on Wikipedia precisely because the author has included his name in the image's filename. I note that in several articles the editor has without explanation substituted his own work for perfectly adequate images. Doing so has not appreciably improved the articles, but it has, of course, replaced the file with one bearing the editor's name and increased his visibility on the web.
In fact, on other websites the user advertises his work as a photographer by inviting people to view his work at Wikipedia -- and to visit his Wikipedia userpage, which raises the possibility that the userpage itself may be being used for self-promotion, contrary to WP:NOT#USER.
I have hunted around without much success for relevant policies, and while I suspect WP:NOT#SOAP is probably applicable, I'm wondering if there are other more precisely on point. Is there a policy on claiming authorship that might be applicable? -- Rrburke( talk) 13:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
This one has been burning for quite a while here, what is WP:RTP? WP:EP#Editing_and_refactoring_talk_pages infers that it's a guideline, WP:TPG#User_talk_pages doesn't say much, there is no template on the page and I'm wondering if this can be interpreted as policy at all. (I've seen this used to 'refactor out' (delete) users comments on another talk page so I'm wondering what people think about this.) MrMacMan Talk 14:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
This
WP:RTP contains
instructions, advice, or how-to content. |
Please edit and discuss. See the talk page for background to this proposal. -- Tony Sidaway 15:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Where do you report someone for repeated personal attacks? Aaron Bowen 04:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
When you reference an online article that has 8-9 pages is there a way to indicate what page you're referencing in particular? I'm using this article [1] to add some to The Sopranos and series creator Dacid Chase. Should I even make each ref independent and link to that portion of the interview? Aaron Bowen 22:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a bizarre NPOV inconsistency being raised over articles relating to people killed in Ireland. There are (1) victims of IRA / PIRA such as 86 year old Sir Norman Stronge, 8th Baronet and James Stronge; (2) victims of Loyalists such as Pat Finucane (solicitor), (3) “victims” of the British army such as Kieran Fleming; and (4) suicides such as Bobby Sands. There is a vocal and persistent lobby which is pro Irish Republican, many of whom belong to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Irish_Republicanism, which argues (I think) that a death is a killing until somebody is found guilty of murder even when that killing is generally defined and established as murder by law and in the international press. That lobby argues that the phrase “member of the IRA” should read “member ( Volunteer) in the IRA” although this is not the consensus reached to date – the consensus was “member” on the first mention and volunteer on a subsequent occasion. They also argue that Northern Ireland should not be depicted with any flag even though the other constituent countries of UK enjoy flags; a different perspective is that the last flag used by the province should be depicted for consistency. Passions run high on both sides of the argument, many leaning heavily on WP:POV and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. In any event, a discussion would be helpful as to when the word “murder” is appropriate, with a view to achieving some sort of consistency. - Kittybrewster (talk) 16:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Generally, I'd say we should use "murder" in the following cases:
In other cases, neutral terms such as "death" or "killing" probably are better-suited. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
My view is that "killed" should be used in place of "murdered" or "assasinated" in all articles related to the Troubles. Inserting/removing these type of words into articles is fairly clear POV pushing on both sides. To quote WP:NPOV, views should be represented without bias and let the facts speak for themselves. Stu ’Bout ye! 08:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Interesting approach people take. I wonder how VK would describe the murder of two Australians in the Netherlands by IRA operatives? -- Michael Johnson 00:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Very well put. I agree, the default should be "killed". Otherwise murder should only be used when a conviction was made. And it should state who they were convicted by. eg the Louis Mountbatten article could read - "He was killed by the Provisional IRA, who planted a bomb in his boat at Mullaghmore, County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland. Thomas McMahon was subsequently convicted of his murder in the Irish High Court. Stu ’Bout ye! 16:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The template {{ ChemicalSources}}, which I came across today, is a tricky case of being a self-reference that does serve a certain purpose, and I'm not sure what should be done with it. If the template does go, it needs to be noted that it's transcluded in over 3000 articles on chemical substances, which sounds like bot work to me. Unfortunately, I think it's meant to pass the name of the substance to the Wikipedia:Chemical sources page to become a parameter in the searches, presumably in a fashion similar to Special:Book sources, but I have no idea how that's supposed to happen, and at the moment it looks like it doesn't. Can someone please explain this to me? Confusing Manifestation 23:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
"Whether a history article published in a general, but respected newspaper can be reliable if it is written by a journalist with no established record of writing on historical topics?" The editors involved with Przyszowice massacre article are unable to agree (for weeks) on that issue. See also this disussion on WP:RS talk. Commons are very much appreciated, so that hopefully a clear majority of voices supporting one or another side can put an end to this dispute (and tag revert warring in article itself).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 18:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion between different schools of thought on Delisting Featured Pictures. Central to the debate is the "burden of proof" for a delisting - whether to require a photo to justify being an FP, or conversely, justify being delisted. Please comment at: Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates#Criteria For Delisting.
Witty Lama 00:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
An interesting and important debate is taking place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices about the correctness of creating a list for information in a category that is facing a CfD, at the exact time that the category is facing its own CfD. Are there any precedants for this, and does it run counter to procedures, similar to the rule of not emptying a category while a vote is taking place (when by creating the list, one is in effect doing the reverse of emptying the category by preserving the category -- or vice versa)? Is it correct? Should it be permitted? Are there clear policy guidelines and what should (if anything) be done about it in terms of clarifying what the correct action should be? Thank you. IZAK 18:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
BrownHairedGirl: Allow me to repeat myself. I am well aware of the differences between categories and lists and how they function and the subject of categories versus lists. I created Category:Jews and Judaism about three years ago and I have done extensive work with all levels of categories and with lists. So that is not the discussion at hand. My concern in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices is very simple that it is highly problematic to create a list that mirrors the contents for a category at the exact moment that there is a CfD vote for the elimination of that category and its contents. Just as it goes against procedure for any editor to empty a category during a CfD vote, to do the reverse, of "preserving" the contents of that category via the creation of a list is also out of line. (If, as you say, there is a concern about information being lost, then there are other ways of saving it on Wikipedia, like so: User:BrownHairedGirl/List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices, but not by jumping to create a list for it before the debate has been concluded and closed.) That is the core of the objection, and ultimately the request for clarification, that I request here at the Village pump. Thank you, IZAK 20:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
A change in the way bots are approved has been proposed at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#BAG reform proposal. According to the new proposal, bots are approved by the community rather than the BAG (bot approvals group). Tizio 17:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
For those who follow such matters, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard.
...This board is no longer used to discuss pressing issues for the community but rather a brand new version of Wikipedia:Quickpolls... ( Ryulong)
... There is no way to truly know if a user is community banned without ratifying it - this is the ideal place for it... ( Ryanpostlethwaite).
The significance of the WP:CSN was that it allowed some discussion of long-term problematic editors without the full Arbcom process. As you see from the above, opinions differ as to whether it was useful. EdJohnston 13:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
In advance of the above MfD's resolution, and over objections, the text about the Community sanction noticeboard has already been deleted from WP:BAN#Community ban. See discussion at WT:BAN. -- Ben TALK/ HIST 14:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
This is more procedural than policy-related, but since it may affect how many Wikipedians prepare articles for featured article status, I thought you might be interested...
Dweller, a student and coach at the Virtual classroom, has written for the VC a lesson on developing articles to featured article status. To get it ready to be posted at the VC, it needs to be proofread and copy-edited. Please help us polish the lesson and make it as good as it can be. Thank you. The Transhumanist 03:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Not about a particular policy, but about policy, process and rules on Wikipedia in general. I'd like your thoughts on the following two links: [2] [3]. The first is an important essay by Clay Shirky, the second is my take on it. Feel free to go to the second and tell me how full of it I am - David Gerard 23:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi all, I would really appreciate if others could sound off about whether they feel the creation of Wikipedia image description pages for media on the Commons is acceptable or not. Part of the current criteria reads: If there is any information not relevant to any other project on the image description page (like {{ FeaturedPicture}}), the image description page must be undeleted after the file deletion.
My understanding was that that implied IDPs not containing such templates would have already been deleted. A user is arguing that categorisation also requires undeletion, which means that the vast majority of media on the Commons, if not all 1.4 million, could have IDPs recreated on Wikipedia (like so [4] [5] [6]). The views of editors experienced with this type of issue would be welcome here. Tewfik Talk 03:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed a simple policy that would allow any non-administrator to pseudo-delete articles on AfD in a reversible fashion. Please review Wikipedia:Soft deletion and comment on the talk page. Thanks, -- Eloquence * 22:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Way back in July 2005, a guideline was inserted into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) on a 20-6-2 vote (the latter 2 arguing "No more stupid votes"). This was apparently done without consulting the editors of articles which would be affected by this change. As a result, discussions have flared up several times since then, with Manual of Style regulars generally favoring the status quo, and editors of the articles in question generally opposing the guideline. Recent discussion clearly shows that the guideline has no consensus at this point in time. I have stated on the talk page that I will remove it on the grounds of lack of consensus, and have been told in return that I can't do that, that a lack of consensus always defaults to the status quo. This seems wrong to me. A tiny handful of editors can make "consensus" on one corner of Wikipedia, and then enforce it everywhere and demand that others form a consensus against them before it stops? I do not believe the Manual of Style was ever intended for such purposes. Which interpretation of consensus policy is correct? Do MoS guidelines need consensus to remove, or is the lack of any consensus for keeping them enough to deprecate them? *** Crotalus *** 21:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Consensus is people agreeing to do stuff. If there are people in the field doing one thing, and there are some letters elsewhere saying another thing, then the consensus is with the people and the doing, not so much with the letters and the saying. :-) -- Kim Bruning 02:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems like more work perhaps, but it's actually less work than dealing with the static generated by being stubborn. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
As for it being "for one person to decide that a consensus never existed", I don't get the impression we're dealing with just one person - am I wrong? If someone is disagreeing with the guideline, then whoever is "enforcing" the guideline should at least stop for long enough to point them to the appropriate talk page, and they'll either see that there really is broad agreement, or we'll all see that there isn't. I don't see what the hurry is to get the guideline enforced without pausing to talk about it. Communication is work, and it's worth it. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
These are not rigid laws: they are principles that many editors have found to work well in most circumstances, but which should be applied with flexibility. In this vein, editors should strive to have their articles follow these guidelines. While quality of writing may be more important than presentation and formatting, these elements also have their place in clear and unbiased delivery of information. One of the joys of wiki editing is that Wikipedia does not demand perfection. Wikipedia does not require writers to follow all or any of these rules, but their efforts will be more appreciated when they are guided by them.
The guideline you're trying to "enforce" must not have a very strong consensus behind it, or you wouldn't be running into so much opposition. Your job, and the job of those opposing you, is to stop editing, talk on the guideline talk page, and determine what the consensus is now. It doesn't matter what it was two years ago; it matters what it is now. Since it's now in dispute, your editing to "enforce" it is inappropriate.
It's this simple: Once you know there's a conflict, stop and talk. We're not in a hurry, but we are under an obligation to be excellent to each other always. That means listening, and trying to respond to current consensus as you detect it. Consensus is not detected by reading a guideline, but by listening to editors. If there's no consensus, then editing binary prefixes in either direction is inappropriate, just like we don't edit "BC" vs "BCE" or "color" vs "colour". - GTBacchus( talk) 19:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
As for consistency being more important than not edit warring, that makes no sense - allow me to explain why. We work towards consensus because this is a wiki. It's inherent in the software that we can't just go around enforcing our ideas against significant disagreement. Anyone can edit, and if you go against a lot of people, they'll edit it back anyway. Since you can't control them, you have to discuss. It's not a rule so much as a law of nature: if you don't swim, you're gonna sink. The name of the game here is consensus, and we have no choice about that.
It's not about "fear" of binding rules, it's about how we work together as human beings and get something done. If you think Wikipedia needs more binding rules, then I think you can find other online encyclopedias that work that way. They're not nearly as successful as Wikipedia, which is why I think the "No binding rules" philosophy is actually pretty effective. Edit wars are caused by edit warriors, and they're always wrong.
Edit warring is bad because it makes article histories and "recent changes" less useful, it distracts editors from getting productive work done, and it encourages others to edit war, over style, content, and everything else, leading to a Wikipedia that's bogged down in back-and-forth, "is not!"/"is too!" arguments. The only civilized solution, the only solution that works on a wiki, is for everyone to work for consensus. Yes, that means stopping and talking. Yes, that makes things take longer. No, we're not in a hurry. No, it doens't make guidelines "worthless"; it makes them more responsive to the community and better indicators of consensus. Yes, we all learn more and respect each other more in the process. - GTBacchus( talk) 00:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Policies and guidelines should reflect the consensus, then we should always assume than they reflect consensus until they are actually changed. We should "stop and talk" only if it doesn't concern a guideline or a policy. We don't "stop and talk" when dealing with vandalism. We shouldn't "stop and talk" when dealing with style, we should talk... and stop only if there's a new strong consensus or if there's no guideline. IMHO that's a pragmatic application of the "consensus spirit". Sarenne 10:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
The whole point of a Manual of Style is to suggest a uniform style for the entire project. It doesn't "enforce" anything.
Consensus can always change, and "consensus to change a guideline" or "consensus to demote a guideline" is a bogus idea. Policies and guidelines don't become "stuck" after a small number of people have agreed on them. As soon as editors stop agreeing on something, it is no longer binding. — Omegatron 14:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Message to GTBacchus, there are alot more then just five of us as a matter of fact we (user who think MB is more exceptable then MiB) greatly outnumber the ones like Sarenne.-- Planetary Chaos Talk to me 17:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Isn't there some page in the WP:MOS somewhere that indicates we shouldn't have separate pages on e.g. centigram, microgram, nanogram etc? >Radiant< 12:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there a policy on articles which are really unsourcable, but "everyone knows" already. Here is an example to show what I am talking about.
I have run Evil laugh through AfD and it came through with no consensus. It had also been nominated for deletion as the page Mwahahahaha in a prior AfD but it was decided to keep and rename to evil laugh. I could not see where anyone could provide a citation specific to why it needed to be kept other than it is a common cliche or that it is a "Well-known concept" and the only external links are to a .wav file on a webcomic and to a site for "a proposal for an evil-laugh-activated hand dryer". In addition to this, the Evil lair article seems to meet the same walls, but I have not bothered with the AfD for it since evil laugh seems to bring out some protectiveness.
Evil genius is another article with so many unsourced or unsourcable items, I don't know what could be done with it. My understanding is that, when someone adds something to Wikipedia, if they cannot source it, it should not be added. I could add an article today with tons of made up data that sounds somewhat reliable, but leave it unsourced. Unless we enforce adding sources for content additions, we really are creating a Wikiality or consensus reality. I can't see how requiring sources lessens the quality of Wikipedia. Slavlin 18:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The problem here is not that the articles are unsourcable. Clearly, there are sources for the one that you nominated for deletion. The problem here is that you are employing deletion as if it were the only tool in the toolbox. Deletion is not the only tool in the toolbox. Per our Wikipedia:Deletion policy, before nominating an article for deletion as unverifiable it is incumbent upon you, the nominator, to look for sources. I strongly recommend that you look for sources for evil genius (Hint: Don't stop until you hit Descartes.) and attempt to fix the article working from sources. Deletion is not the tool that gets you, a Wikipedia editor, actually writing a good sourced encyclopaedia article. Actually looking for sources yourself and then hitting the "edit" button and writing is what does that. Uncle G 10:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
What I am trying to get at here is that the onus should be on the shoulders of people wanting to add information to Wikipedia, not on people wanting to remove it. It would be different if people were revising it or trying to upgrade the article. I think that getting rid of unsourced opinions, original research and some of the various pieces of fluff that exist in Wikipedia would make it much better. As it gets larger, I think cleaning out the attic will likely have more of a quality impact than writing a page. In the case of Evil Laugh and Evil Genius, it seems the only things that anyone is ever willing to do is throw a "Keep it" on an AfD. I have tried to improve them some. For example, I removed the HUGE example list from evil genius.
Simply put, I want to improve Wikipedia, or else I would not ask the questions. I could just ignore it and just not look at the pages, but I feel that not holding people to some level of sourcing is ultimately harmful to the project. Slavlin 18:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
From this official policy, it is NOT the responsibility of the nominator of an AfD to look for sources. Looking at the "in a nutshell portion, you can see that The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not with those seeking to remove it. Comments? (BTW- Sorry if this comes off a bit snippy, but I get the same thing in corporate meetings all the time at work.) Slavlin 07:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article. Quotations should also be attributed. If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.
There is currently a move discussion occurring at Wikipedia talk:Handling trivia#Move to Help:Handling trivia? concerning what types of pages should be in the Wikipedia namespace and what should rather be in the Help namespace. Please assist in clarifying the issue. Dekimasu よ! 06:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't sure if this was the right place to ask (so feel free to move this if needed). Is there any Wikipedia policies on listing prices in articles? In my opinion, Wikipedia is slowly turning into a price guide (with some video game articles at least). Wii Points (which cost money) are used to download games, as of now the cost of games hasn't changed, but that doesn't mean it's encyclopedic value to articles. So due to the constant price, people assume it's encyclopedic, "interesting" and "helpful" to the articles. But it's simply just making it a price guide. If people want to find out the prices: they can look elsewhere. If there is no clear policy violation for prices, wouldn't this be violating the I like it policy? See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games#Wii_Points:_to_list_or_to_not_list.3F for a current discussion on the price issue. Also on that talk page: there is a retail price discussion, which is relevant to this as well. RobJ1981 04:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Is it acceptable to double flag something? If somebody were born in Los Angelese, California, could I put a United States flag and a Californian flag? N734LQ 01:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I recently uploaded an image that was, under the copright conditions of the owner, allowed to be displayed for non-commercial use. This image was deleted straight away by Wikipedia. The use of this image on Wikipedia was allowed by the copyright owner. The relevant acknowledgement was attached to the the image (as required by the copyright owner). Why was it deleted? Why if W/P does not allow the uploading of images that are for non-commercial use is there even a tag for it in the first place? Signed puzzled and annoyed. Ozdaren 16:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Noticed the usage of some images from this project, were mislabeled as PD-user. VHD data, though part of the NLM, cannot be assumed to be PD, as it is under a specific type of license, which has some particular terms and requirements.
A template is necessary to handle these, and Ive done my best to sort of summarize the NLM terms. It may be that these are in the PD and can be challenged legally, but it seems that its reasonable enough to comply with the license by simple use of a template, and we can expand our usage of these images, and move them to the Commons. - Ste vertigo 20:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
from WIkipedia:Copyright. Perhaps someone could go into the web site that these images came from to see if the original source of the photographs is documented at all. EdJohnston 14:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)Works produced by civilian and military employees of the United States federal government in the scope of their employment are public domain by statute. However, not every work republished by the U.S. government falls into this category. The U.S. government can own copyrights that are assigned to it by others -- for example, works created by contractors.
Where do you report someone for repeated personal attacks? Aaron Bowen 04:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The pervasiveness of certain types of infobox have been bothering me for some time now, particularly the ethnic groups infobox. My concerns are outlined at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Scrap the infobox. Discussion seems to have stalled, so any fresh input would be welcome.-- Nydas (Talk) 20:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Can we make more interesting use of the way articles are categorised on Wikipedia?
I was wondering if there might be a way to 'query' Wikipedia (as if it were a database) to determine quickly which particular categories contained the most articles. This could be a neat way of allocating effort so that editors spend more time creating and developing articles on whole topics which are under-represented.
For example, which occupations [8] have the fewest articles? Which cultural movements [9] need more work? An interesting variant would be to ask about the cross-over points between categories. The answer might be interesting in itself (not just as a tool to better editing) e.g. how many sportspeople [10] have been businesspeople [11]?
These examples are off the top of my head and I'm sure there are much better ones. To a certain extent the answers would represent the degree to which articles have been categorised. But taken with a pinch of salt they could be very interesting. 87.74.23.135 19:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I feel like this should be common knowledge - I've probably just forgotten - but does WP have a policy on the serial comma - or is just 'use whatever was there first'? daniel folsom 14:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Not a sales catalogue or price guide, and contribute to any discussion there if you have an opinion. Thanks. Carcharoth 12:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
When you reference an online article that has 8-9 pages is there a way to indicate what page you're referencing in particular? I'm using this article [12] to add some to The Sopranos and series creator Dacid Chase. Should I even make each ref independent and link to that portion of the interview? Aaron Bowen 22:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
While following a chain of references, I came across an article which, aside from a few minor errors, contained terms which are otherwise included in the Wikipedia but were not highlighted. Although they were used as if everyone knew their meanings, the very brief in-text definitions merely differentiated them from each other.
From this I (a newbie here) conclude that articles are posted without being reviewed by someone (or an automated process) for cross-references to other articles. Certainly, this should be done with each article, although highlighting need only be used for the first occurrence of each term.
Chessnut 17:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Do you perhaps have a background from which you are asking these obviously leading questions? >Radiant< 10:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
There is only one thing called Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, but the article is at Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue (New York City Subway). I've looked for guidance from the naming conventions but have found nothing concrete. -- NE2 19:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
WP:DAB says: "When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate". Also namingconventions imply to use the most recognizable and correct name. We had similar discussions about this on titles of television episodes. The conclusion was; don't disambiguate when not required, but disambiguated redirects are allowed to simplify coding the lists and creating scripts. However in this case... the subway station is most likely itself NAMED after Stillwell Avenue for instance, which could be cause for confusion. So it's a bit of a gray area I think. Something like Heroes (TV series) for instance primarily uses dab, because Heroes is also the plural form of Hero, which could be cause for confusion. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:42, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
What is the policy on renaming an article due to the name change of the article's subject. For example the article on the rap group Sişu & Puya is La Familia, although the group has changed it's name to Sişu & Puya. Another example is the article WoW Glider, which has been renamed to simply Glider. In both articles the name change is acknowledged, but the article is not renamed. To me it would make sense to rename the articles and make the old article redirect to the new one but, I wanted to see what Wikipedia's policy on it was. Were the name changes of these two articles overlooked or are the titles of articles not supposed to be updated? -- Credema 00:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
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I am working on a group of topics in which the terminology varies dramatically from one country to another. The biggest and most controversial example is the definition of the term "Learning Disability" as used in the US as compared to the UK.
In the US, the term is used to mean a specific difficulty with learning that is unexpected given the cognitive ability of the affected person, for example, a specific difficulty in learning to read where the person's overall cognitive ability is intact and in the normal range. In contrast, in the UK the term is used to refer to severe cognitive deficits (the old term for this in the US is "mental retardation").
Clearly, this could cause confusion in readers, and could even be terribly offensive to some people coming to the article for information.
Are there guidelines somewhere regarding what do do when the term relevant to a topic varies dramatically in different English-speaking countries?
Thanks in advance for any help,
smoran 19:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to write some articles em but I am not too good with writing. I haerd that there are people on here who you can pay to write articles for you. Where can I find them? Gatorphat 17:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi, is there a template can be used for articles translated from other languages to English by someone who is not a native English speaker? Some zh.wp user is worried about the quality of articles translated by non-English speakers and might use that template to ask for quality improvements like grammar correction or reorganize the article. Thanks. -- H.T. Chien ( Discuss| Contributions) 16:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
If there is no such template existed, what do you think to have a template like This article or section is been translated by someone who is not a native English speaker, you may help to improve it.?-- H.T. Chien ( Discuss| Contributions) 16:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Your input is requested here: Wikipedia_talk:No_legal_threats#Passive_but_intimidating_legal_FYIs. This is a proposed clarification, to indicate that WP:LEGAL is a bright line policy, but that "passive threats" can be uncivil. Thanks, Kla'quot 05:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I vaugley remember their being a policy about Fair Use images couldn't be above a certain resolution. Could anyone direct me towards a page or policy that confirms or denies this? The Placebo Effect 01:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
B"H
Concerning Trivia-sections in articles. Trivia-sections are preceded by the following announcement: Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.
I happen to disagree with this, and my argument is as follows.
Frequently the information in the trivial-section is very interesting to the casual reader. Although information from the trivial-section might appear elsewhere in the article, the existence of a trivia-section is actually an asset to any article.
For your consideration, sincerely, Dovid de Bresser, Kemerovo , Russia . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.89.159.36 ( talk) 05:35, 25 April 2007 (UTC).
Is this new thing I'm seeing? I've never seen this "trivia" tag until today. I can find nothing in WP policy that says there should be no trivia. See
WP:N, specifically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:N#Notability_guidelines_do_not_directly_limit_article_content -- "These guidelines do not specifically regulate the content of articles, which is governed by other Wikipedia's guidelines, such as those on the reliability of sources and trivia."
One reason I use WP is because you can't get the trivia in normal encyclopedias. The trivia sections in the articles are great, and one could argue that we should have a tag for articles that don't yet have trivia: "This article has no 'trivia' section. You can help by adding a trivia section." I hope there is NOT a new effort to remove trivia; or, to move trivia up into the main article sections, as it will be impossible to go specifically looking for trivia without the pain of reading the ENTIRE articles.
And if a reader doesn't like the trivia sections, they can simply ignore them. They serve a purpose, providing information. This is the WP goal. Gekritzl 20:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
The article Gumpert Apollo lists a price as "198.000 EUR," which can be inferred to mean one hundred and ninety-eight thousand euros, while other approximations of currency conversions use a comma to seperate the thousands from the hundreds. For consistancy, I changed the dot to a comma. The manual of style is somewhat vague on the usage of a dot in place of a comma. Because the use of a dot is accepted in much of the world, should some clarification be made as to its usage in the English Wikipedia? This usage is uncommon in English, so if it is considered acceptable usage, should it be replaced by a space, which is international standard? J Are you green? 21:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
"Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)" specifies "Large numbers may be divided up by commas every three places" and "A period (".") must be used as the decimal separator". I don't see this as somewhat vague. (1,079,252,848.8 km/h) is the usage in North America and the Commonwealth, and this is an English encyclopedia, not German or French.
Chris the speller 22:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
An editor is trying to distort the D. James Kennedy article by using unreliable sources. None of these people in the sources have qualifications to speak authoritatively on religious issues, yet by including them in the article who give credence to their outlandish claims that Dobson is a "leader" in the "Dominionist movement." I have checked sources, ranging from the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, to various religious, sociological and political journals and magazines carried by major academic databases such as Academic Source Premier and UMI/Proquest. I cannot find any other sources who make this outlandish claims except for these small group of journalists (and an activist website Theocracy Watch, which is even more unreliable as source). If this inclusion can be carried as NPOV, then I am not sure what can be excluded from Wikipedia at all. Please advice. --LC 19:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
As I said at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#marginal journalism where LC posted exactly te same spurious complaint:
“ | The sources I have added are:
I also restored material from Theocracy Watch, which was present when LC whitewashed the whole section. I did not say "X is Y", I stated that "X has been described as being Y" and supplied the (reliable) sources. 72.198.121.115 19:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC) |
” |
Please comment on my suggested additions to Wikipedia:List guideline about what lists should not be created, here. Thanks in advance huji— TALK 10:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I originally posted this at Bugzilla as Bug 9710, but it was rejected as asking for consensus on a Wiki.
By popular demand, I am posting a request to allow administrators to sacrifice their sysop bit in order to take away one other administrator's sysop bit. There are many reasons for this. First, a few administrators, like Wonderfool a.k.a. Dangherous on Wiktionary and Robdurbar on Wikipedia, become vandals and must be taken down ASAP. Second, some public terminals are zombies with keyloggers on them. Administrators who uses such terminals could get their accounts compromised by a vandal. Third, the steep price of losing one's sysop status will keep most administrators from abusing this. Fourth, by pointing the business end of this ability at oneself, it makes an easy way to resign without asking for a steward's help, which might have prevented Robdurbar from needing to go on a vandalism spree. Fifth, someone suggested that this would be a way for wheel warriors to stop wheel wars by themselves.
If this ability is implemented, a log for this type of action must be implemented. It cannot be a standard log, because stewards must be able to process and mark incidents in the log. When the ability is used, a new case is generated. These cases must be differentiated from other cases. The possible statuses (which should only be changed by stewards for reasons below) should be New, Assigned to a steward (which should indicate the steward's name), Forwarded to ArbCom (which would apply only to wikis with Arbitration Committees), and Closed. If the case is a resignation, it should automatically be entered as Closed instead of New in the sacrifice log.
Whenever this ability is used, a log entry must be generated for a steward to look at. The reason that only a steward should process this is that stewards are trusted enough to make final decisions on who should stay desysoped. If it is a resignation, no action needs to be taken. If it is an obvious case like the Robdurbar or Wonderfool cases, the steward can simply repromote the hero who stopped the rogue administrator. If it is a wheel war, the steward will have to investigate the case if it is on a small wiki and decide what to do. If it is on a wiki with an ArbCom, the case should be forwarded to the ArbCom for investigation. After the appropriate actions have been taken (e.g. the ArbCom closes the case or the steward who takes the case makes a decision), the steward needs to mark the incident as closed in the log. If it is decided that later on that bureaucrats should be able to desysop others, then the ability of handling sacrifice log entries should also be granted to them as well.
Of course, attempts to take away a steward's sysop bit should fail and result in no action whatsoever besides an error page explaining that stewards are immune to this, because stewards are required to be able to promote and demote other users.
Jesse Viviano 16:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
As I commented on Jesse Viviano's page, this is an excellent idea that cuts down on abuse and encourages resolution of serious admin disputes through discussion and mediation. I do not feel implementation will lead to "torpedo warfare" as from what experience I have it seems more that imminent threat of removal of privileges can pursuade hot-headed conflicting editors to calm down and reassess their actions in a fashion somewhat like that of the Nash equilibrium or Mutually Assured Destruction. It benefits neither editor for them both to be blocked, especially with the prospect of investigation and possible severe reprimand in the case of abuse. The occasions when this mechanism would come into play would be inherently serious and command attention. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹ Speak 17:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Off topic: This discussion reminds me a lot of DEFCON (computer game). Mutual assured destruction here we come! -- Netsnipe ► 19:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Bringing the good old days of IRC wars to wikis! What a fun idea. Of course, at some point, someone is going to bring in bots (apprpriately named chanserv and nickserv? Hmmm, no, Articleserv and Adminserv perhaps?) to fix the issues and allow people to actually edit again? :-) And then you'd have a whole new level of hierarchy and bureaucracy. Fascinating. -- Kim Bruning 19:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
As an admin on other projects (not here), I'd just like to point out that this conversation is completely insane. If an admin turns into a vandal, you get in touch with a steward and have their tools (at least temporarily) removed. It's bad enough already that being an "admin" has the political connotations on this project that it does... please don't provide tools for "purging". An admin is supposed to be just another user who's trustworthy enough to have access to a few buttons we don't let people have the first day they show up. If a person is no longer trusted, the process of removing access to the buttons should be open to all. -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 00:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
(EC) This seems like a solution in search of a problem. If an admin has obviously either lost it or had their account compromised, and is going around blocking people for no reason, deleting the main page, etc., you find a steward, they perform an emergency desysop, problem solved. If that type of incident were happening all the time, I could see a need for this, but not just based on a couple of occurrences. Similarly with disabling admins from unblocking themselves-you unblock yourself in a case like Riana did, where the block was obviously without cause, no one in their right mind is going to say you did wrong. You unblock yourself after getting blocked for 3RR, you're very shortly getting desysopped. Again, it's a rare problem and is already adequately handled. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Bizarre. Double edge attack will lead to more problems. Imagine a war between democrat admins and republican admins. We should be encouraging discussion not the contrary. Admins should be avoiding wheel wars willingly. -- Cat chi? 20:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I get the feeling this is going to be extremely controversial, but I think it's important to discuss. I'm not very neutral (since I'm a student at Virginia Tech and lost more than one close friend), so I won't suggest many specific ideas--just describe the problem.
Freedom of information is important, but at some point it may become a violation of integrity. For example, the shooter at Virginia Tech sent a video to NBC of himself as he wanted to be seen. By airing this video, NBC gave him the voice he wanted even as he took away the voices of thirty-two other individuals.
The worst part is that this voice is what will inspire (and in fact already has inspired) others to follow in his footsteps. He desired infamy, and he got it. Others will see that and try to get the same thing for themselves. This is pretty well-documented, I think (I don't remember names, but I think it's reasonably accepted by criminal psychologists).
My very general proposal is that Wikipedians take steps to take away the voices of those who commit acts of infamy. While it is absolutely necessary to document their lives--ideally to prevent it from happening in the future--it is not necessary to show their videos and pictures in order to understand them better. If videos and such things must be kept, put them on a separate page on psychology of killers. Don't attach them to the killer him/herself.
Additionally, if the shooter gets his or her own Wikipedia page, give each of the victims a page (rather than a redirect).
A quick clarification: such a policy would not apply to, say, Hitler, because although Hitler was responsible for many acts of infamy, the acts themselves were committed by others at his behest. In the case of the shooter at Virginia Tech, the danger is not of history repeating itself in the group sense, but rather in the individual sense.
In other words, studying Hitler tells people how to prevent/avoid acts of genocide. People are collectively capable of preventing those crimes. However, a shooting is not an act that involves any collective political momentum, and is very hard to prevent with any amount of study (except psychological).
Please, discuss. I may elect to stay out of the discussion, except to clarify individual points. -- aciel 22:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Is there a policy on image-naming conventions that would settle whether it's permissible to include the name of the author and contributor of an image in the image's filename? The author/contributor in question is also a Wikipedia editor who uses his real name as his userid, and includes this name in the image's filename, so that the filename for a picture of a Corvette, for example, would be Corvette_by_[User's]_[Name].jpg .
I AGF, but also wonder if the purpose might not be self-promotion: a Google search on the editor's real name returns hits for the image files on Wikipedia precisely because the author has included his name in the image's filename. I note that in several articles the editor has without explanation substituted his own work for perfectly adequate images. Doing so has not appreciably improved the articles, but it has, of course, replaced the file with one bearing the editor's name and increased his visibility on the web.
In fact, on other websites the user advertises his work as a photographer by inviting people to view his work at Wikipedia -- and to visit his Wikipedia userpage, which raises the possibility that the userpage itself may be being used for self-promotion, contrary to WP:NOT#USER.
I have hunted around without much success for relevant policies, and while I suspect WP:NOT#SOAP is probably applicable, I'm wondering if there are other more precisely on point. Is there a policy on claiming authorship that might be applicable? -- Rrburke( talk) 13:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
This one has been burning for quite a while here, what is WP:RTP? WP:EP#Editing_and_refactoring_talk_pages infers that it's a guideline, WP:TPG#User_talk_pages doesn't say much, there is no template on the page and I'm wondering if this can be interpreted as policy at all. (I've seen this used to 'refactor out' (delete) users comments on another talk page so I'm wondering what people think about this.) MrMacMan Talk 14:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
This
WP:RTP contains
instructions, advice, or how-to content. |
Please edit and discuss. See the talk page for background to this proposal. -- Tony Sidaway 15:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Where do you report someone for repeated personal attacks? Aaron Bowen 04:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
When you reference an online article that has 8-9 pages is there a way to indicate what page you're referencing in particular? I'm using this article [1] to add some to The Sopranos and series creator Dacid Chase. Should I even make each ref independent and link to that portion of the interview? Aaron Bowen 22:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a bizarre NPOV inconsistency being raised over articles relating to people killed in Ireland. There are (1) victims of IRA / PIRA such as 86 year old Sir Norman Stronge, 8th Baronet and James Stronge; (2) victims of Loyalists such as Pat Finucane (solicitor), (3) “victims” of the British army such as Kieran Fleming; and (4) suicides such as Bobby Sands. There is a vocal and persistent lobby which is pro Irish Republican, many of whom belong to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Irish_Republicanism, which argues (I think) that a death is a killing until somebody is found guilty of murder even when that killing is generally defined and established as murder by law and in the international press. That lobby argues that the phrase “member of the IRA” should read “member ( Volunteer) in the IRA” although this is not the consensus reached to date – the consensus was “member” on the first mention and volunteer on a subsequent occasion. They also argue that Northern Ireland should not be depicted with any flag even though the other constituent countries of UK enjoy flags; a different perspective is that the last flag used by the province should be depicted for consistency. Passions run high on both sides of the argument, many leaning heavily on WP:POV and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. In any event, a discussion would be helpful as to when the word “murder” is appropriate, with a view to achieving some sort of consistency. - Kittybrewster (talk) 16:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Generally, I'd say we should use "murder" in the following cases:
In other cases, neutral terms such as "death" or "killing" probably are better-suited. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
My view is that "killed" should be used in place of "murdered" or "assasinated" in all articles related to the Troubles. Inserting/removing these type of words into articles is fairly clear POV pushing on both sides. To quote WP:NPOV, views should be represented without bias and let the facts speak for themselves. Stu ’Bout ye! 08:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Interesting approach people take. I wonder how VK would describe the murder of two Australians in the Netherlands by IRA operatives? -- Michael Johnson 00:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Very well put. I agree, the default should be "killed". Otherwise murder should only be used when a conviction was made. And it should state who they were convicted by. eg the Louis Mountbatten article could read - "He was killed by the Provisional IRA, who planted a bomb in his boat at Mullaghmore, County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland. Thomas McMahon was subsequently convicted of his murder in the Irish High Court. Stu ’Bout ye! 16:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The template {{ ChemicalSources}}, which I came across today, is a tricky case of being a self-reference that does serve a certain purpose, and I'm not sure what should be done with it. If the template does go, it needs to be noted that it's transcluded in over 3000 articles on chemical substances, which sounds like bot work to me. Unfortunately, I think it's meant to pass the name of the substance to the Wikipedia:Chemical sources page to become a parameter in the searches, presumably in a fashion similar to Special:Book sources, but I have no idea how that's supposed to happen, and at the moment it looks like it doesn't. Can someone please explain this to me? Confusing Manifestation 23:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
"Whether a history article published in a general, but respected newspaper can be reliable if it is written by a journalist with no established record of writing on historical topics?" The editors involved with Przyszowice massacre article are unable to agree (for weeks) on that issue. See also this disussion on WP:RS talk. Commons are very much appreciated, so that hopefully a clear majority of voices supporting one or another side can put an end to this dispute (and tag revert warring in article itself).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 18:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion between different schools of thought on Delisting Featured Pictures. Central to the debate is the "burden of proof" for a delisting - whether to require a photo to justify being an FP, or conversely, justify being delisted. Please comment at: Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates#Criteria For Delisting.
Witty Lama 00:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
An interesting and important debate is taking place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices about the correctness of creating a list for information in a category that is facing a CfD, at the exact time that the category is facing its own CfD. Are there any precedants for this, and does it run counter to procedures, similar to the rule of not emptying a category while a vote is taking place (when by creating the list, one is in effect doing the reverse of emptying the category by preserving the category -- or vice versa)? Is it correct? Should it be permitted? Are there clear policy guidelines and what should (if anything) be done about it in terms of clarifying what the correct action should be? Thank you. IZAK 18:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
BrownHairedGirl: Allow me to repeat myself. I am well aware of the differences between categories and lists and how they function and the subject of categories versus lists. I created Category:Jews and Judaism about three years ago and I have done extensive work with all levels of categories and with lists. So that is not the discussion at hand. My concern in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices is very simple that it is highly problematic to create a list that mirrors the contents for a category at the exact moment that there is a CfD vote for the elimination of that category and its contents. Just as it goes against procedure for any editor to empty a category during a CfD vote, to do the reverse, of "preserving" the contents of that category via the creation of a list is also out of line. (If, as you say, there is a concern about information being lost, then there are other ways of saving it on Wikipedia, like so: User:BrownHairedGirl/List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices, but not by jumping to create a list for it before the debate has been concluded and closed.) That is the core of the objection, and ultimately the request for clarification, that I request here at the Village pump. Thank you, IZAK 20:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
A change in the way bots are approved has been proposed at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#BAG reform proposal. According to the new proposal, bots are approved by the community rather than the BAG (bot approvals group). Tizio 17:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
For those who follow such matters, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard.
...This board is no longer used to discuss pressing issues for the community but rather a brand new version of Wikipedia:Quickpolls... ( Ryulong)
... There is no way to truly know if a user is community banned without ratifying it - this is the ideal place for it... ( Ryanpostlethwaite).
The significance of the WP:CSN was that it allowed some discussion of long-term problematic editors without the full Arbcom process. As you see from the above, opinions differ as to whether it was useful. EdJohnston 13:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
In advance of the above MfD's resolution, and over objections, the text about the Community sanction noticeboard has already been deleted from WP:BAN#Community ban. See discussion at WT:BAN. -- Ben TALK/ HIST 14:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
This is more procedural than policy-related, but since it may affect how many Wikipedians prepare articles for featured article status, I thought you might be interested...
Dweller, a student and coach at the Virtual classroom, has written for the VC a lesson on developing articles to featured article status. To get it ready to be posted at the VC, it needs to be proofread and copy-edited. Please help us polish the lesson and make it as good as it can be. Thank you. The Transhumanist 03:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Not about a particular policy, but about policy, process and rules on Wikipedia in general. I'd like your thoughts on the following two links: [2] [3]. The first is an important essay by Clay Shirky, the second is my take on it. Feel free to go to the second and tell me how full of it I am - David Gerard 23:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi all, I would really appreciate if others could sound off about whether they feel the creation of Wikipedia image description pages for media on the Commons is acceptable or not. Part of the current criteria reads: If there is any information not relevant to any other project on the image description page (like {{ FeaturedPicture}}), the image description page must be undeleted after the file deletion.
My understanding was that that implied IDPs not containing such templates would have already been deleted. A user is arguing that categorisation also requires undeletion, which means that the vast majority of media on the Commons, if not all 1.4 million, could have IDPs recreated on Wikipedia (like so [4] [5] [6]). The views of editors experienced with this type of issue would be welcome here. Tewfik Talk 03:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed a simple policy that would allow any non-administrator to pseudo-delete articles on AfD in a reversible fashion. Please review Wikipedia:Soft deletion and comment on the talk page. Thanks, -- Eloquence * 22:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Way back in July 2005, a guideline was inserted into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) on a 20-6-2 vote (the latter 2 arguing "No more stupid votes"). This was apparently done without consulting the editors of articles which would be affected by this change. As a result, discussions have flared up several times since then, with Manual of Style regulars generally favoring the status quo, and editors of the articles in question generally opposing the guideline. Recent discussion clearly shows that the guideline has no consensus at this point in time. I have stated on the talk page that I will remove it on the grounds of lack of consensus, and have been told in return that I can't do that, that a lack of consensus always defaults to the status quo. This seems wrong to me. A tiny handful of editors can make "consensus" on one corner of Wikipedia, and then enforce it everywhere and demand that others form a consensus against them before it stops? I do not believe the Manual of Style was ever intended for such purposes. Which interpretation of consensus policy is correct? Do MoS guidelines need consensus to remove, or is the lack of any consensus for keeping them enough to deprecate them? *** Crotalus *** 21:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Consensus is people agreeing to do stuff. If there are people in the field doing one thing, and there are some letters elsewhere saying another thing, then the consensus is with the people and the doing, not so much with the letters and the saying. :-) -- Kim Bruning 02:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems like more work perhaps, but it's actually less work than dealing with the static generated by being stubborn. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
As for it being "for one person to decide that a consensus never existed", I don't get the impression we're dealing with just one person - am I wrong? If someone is disagreeing with the guideline, then whoever is "enforcing" the guideline should at least stop for long enough to point them to the appropriate talk page, and they'll either see that there really is broad agreement, or we'll all see that there isn't. I don't see what the hurry is to get the guideline enforced without pausing to talk about it. Communication is work, and it's worth it. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
These are not rigid laws: they are principles that many editors have found to work well in most circumstances, but which should be applied with flexibility. In this vein, editors should strive to have their articles follow these guidelines. While quality of writing may be more important than presentation and formatting, these elements also have their place in clear and unbiased delivery of information. One of the joys of wiki editing is that Wikipedia does not demand perfection. Wikipedia does not require writers to follow all or any of these rules, but their efforts will be more appreciated when they are guided by them.
The guideline you're trying to "enforce" must not have a very strong consensus behind it, or you wouldn't be running into so much opposition. Your job, and the job of those opposing you, is to stop editing, talk on the guideline talk page, and determine what the consensus is now. It doesn't matter what it was two years ago; it matters what it is now. Since it's now in dispute, your editing to "enforce" it is inappropriate.
It's this simple: Once you know there's a conflict, stop and talk. We're not in a hurry, but we are under an obligation to be excellent to each other always. That means listening, and trying to respond to current consensus as you detect it. Consensus is not detected by reading a guideline, but by listening to editors. If there's no consensus, then editing binary prefixes in either direction is inappropriate, just like we don't edit "BC" vs "BCE" or "color" vs "colour". - GTBacchus( talk) 19:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
As for consistency being more important than not edit warring, that makes no sense - allow me to explain why. We work towards consensus because this is a wiki. It's inherent in the software that we can't just go around enforcing our ideas against significant disagreement. Anyone can edit, and if you go against a lot of people, they'll edit it back anyway. Since you can't control them, you have to discuss. It's not a rule so much as a law of nature: if you don't swim, you're gonna sink. The name of the game here is consensus, and we have no choice about that.
It's not about "fear" of binding rules, it's about how we work together as human beings and get something done. If you think Wikipedia needs more binding rules, then I think you can find other online encyclopedias that work that way. They're not nearly as successful as Wikipedia, which is why I think the "No binding rules" philosophy is actually pretty effective. Edit wars are caused by edit warriors, and they're always wrong.
Edit warring is bad because it makes article histories and "recent changes" less useful, it distracts editors from getting productive work done, and it encourages others to edit war, over style, content, and everything else, leading to a Wikipedia that's bogged down in back-and-forth, "is not!"/"is too!" arguments. The only civilized solution, the only solution that works on a wiki, is for everyone to work for consensus. Yes, that means stopping and talking. Yes, that makes things take longer. No, we're not in a hurry. No, it doens't make guidelines "worthless"; it makes them more responsive to the community and better indicators of consensus. Yes, we all learn more and respect each other more in the process. - GTBacchus( talk) 00:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Policies and guidelines should reflect the consensus, then we should always assume than they reflect consensus until they are actually changed. We should "stop and talk" only if it doesn't concern a guideline or a policy. We don't "stop and talk" when dealing with vandalism. We shouldn't "stop and talk" when dealing with style, we should talk... and stop only if there's a new strong consensus or if there's no guideline. IMHO that's a pragmatic application of the "consensus spirit". Sarenne 10:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
The whole point of a Manual of Style is to suggest a uniform style for the entire project. It doesn't "enforce" anything.
Consensus can always change, and "consensus to change a guideline" or "consensus to demote a guideline" is a bogus idea. Policies and guidelines don't become "stuck" after a small number of people have agreed on them. As soon as editors stop agreeing on something, it is no longer binding. — Omegatron 14:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Message to GTBacchus, there are alot more then just five of us as a matter of fact we (user who think MB is more exceptable then MiB) greatly outnumber the ones like Sarenne.-- Planetary Chaos Talk to me 17:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Isn't there some page in the WP:MOS somewhere that indicates we shouldn't have separate pages on e.g. centigram, microgram, nanogram etc? >Radiant< 12:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there a policy on articles which are really unsourcable, but "everyone knows" already. Here is an example to show what I am talking about.
I have run Evil laugh through AfD and it came through with no consensus. It had also been nominated for deletion as the page Mwahahahaha in a prior AfD but it was decided to keep and rename to evil laugh. I could not see where anyone could provide a citation specific to why it needed to be kept other than it is a common cliche or that it is a "Well-known concept" and the only external links are to a .wav file on a webcomic and to a site for "a proposal for an evil-laugh-activated hand dryer". In addition to this, the Evil lair article seems to meet the same walls, but I have not bothered with the AfD for it since evil laugh seems to bring out some protectiveness.
Evil genius is another article with so many unsourced or unsourcable items, I don't know what could be done with it. My understanding is that, when someone adds something to Wikipedia, if they cannot source it, it should not be added. I could add an article today with tons of made up data that sounds somewhat reliable, but leave it unsourced. Unless we enforce adding sources for content additions, we really are creating a Wikiality or consensus reality. I can't see how requiring sources lessens the quality of Wikipedia. Slavlin 18:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The problem here is not that the articles are unsourcable. Clearly, there are sources for the one that you nominated for deletion. The problem here is that you are employing deletion as if it were the only tool in the toolbox. Deletion is not the only tool in the toolbox. Per our Wikipedia:Deletion policy, before nominating an article for deletion as unverifiable it is incumbent upon you, the nominator, to look for sources. I strongly recommend that you look for sources for evil genius (Hint: Don't stop until you hit Descartes.) and attempt to fix the article working from sources. Deletion is not the tool that gets you, a Wikipedia editor, actually writing a good sourced encyclopaedia article. Actually looking for sources yourself and then hitting the "edit" button and writing is what does that. Uncle G 10:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
What I am trying to get at here is that the onus should be on the shoulders of people wanting to add information to Wikipedia, not on people wanting to remove it. It would be different if people were revising it or trying to upgrade the article. I think that getting rid of unsourced opinions, original research and some of the various pieces of fluff that exist in Wikipedia would make it much better. As it gets larger, I think cleaning out the attic will likely have more of a quality impact than writing a page. In the case of Evil Laugh and Evil Genius, it seems the only things that anyone is ever willing to do is throw a "Keep it" on an AfD. I have tried to improve them some. For example, I removed the HUGE example list from evil genius.
Simply put, I want to improve Wikipedia, or else I would not ask the questions. I could just ignore it and just not look at the pages, but I feel that not holding people to some level of sourcing is ultimately harmful to the project. Slavlin 18:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
From this official policy, it is NOT the responsibility of the nominator of an AfD to look for sources. Looking at the "in a nutshell portion, you can see that The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not with those seeking to remove it. Comments? (BTW- Sorry if this comes off a bit snippy, but I get the same thing in corporate meetings all the time at work.) Slavlin 07:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article. Quotations should also be attributed. If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.
There is currently a move discussion occurring at Wikipedia talk:Handling trivia#Move to Help:Handling trivia? concerning what types of pages should be in the Wikipedia namespace and what should rather be in the Help namespace. Please assist in clarifying the issue. Dekimasu よ! 06:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't sure if this was the right place to ask (so feel free to move this if needed). Is there any Wikipedia policies on listing prices in articles? In my opinion, Wikipedia is slowly turning into a price guide (with some video game articles at least). Wii Points (which cost money) are used to download games, as of now the cost of games hasn't changed, but that doesn't mean it's encyclopedic value to articles. So due to the constant price, people assume it's encyclopedic, "interesting" and "helpful" to the articles. But it's simply just making it a price guide. If people want to find out the prices: they can look elsewhere. If there is no clear policy violation for prices, wouldn't this be violating the I like it policy? See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games#Wii_Points:_to_list_or_to_not_list.3F for a current discussion on the price issue. Also on that talk page: there is a retail price discussion, which is relevant to this as well. RobJ1981 04:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Is it acceptable to double flag something? If somebody were born in Los Angelese, California, could I put a United States flag and a Californian flag? N734LQ 01:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I recently uploaded an image that was, under the copright conditions of the owner, allowed to be displayed for non-commercial use. This image was deleted straight away by Wikipedia. The use of this image on Wikipedia was allowed by the copyright owner. The relevant acknowledgement was attached to the the image (as required by the copyright owner). Why was it deleted? Why if W/P does not allow the uploading of images that are for non-commercial use is there even a tag for it in the first place? Signed puzzled and annoyed. Ozdaren 16:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Noticed the usage of some images from this project, were mislabeled as PD-user. VHD data, though part of the NLM, cannot be assumed to be PD, as it is under a specific type of license, which has some particular terms and requirements.
A template is necessary to handle these, and Ive done my best to sort of summarize the NLM terms. It may be that these are in the PD and can be challenged legally, but it seems that its reasonable enough to comply with the license by simple use of a template, and we can expand our usage of these images, and move them to the Commons. - Ste vertigo 20:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
from WIkipedia:Copyright. Perhaps someone could go into the web site that these images came from to see if the original source of the photographs is documented at all. EdJohnston 14:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)Works produced by civilian and military employees of the United States federal government in the scope of their employment are public domain by statute. However, not every work republished by the U.S. government falls into this category. The U.S. government can own copyrights that are assigned to it by others -- for example, works created by contractors.
Where do you report someone for repeated personal attacks? Aaron Bowen 04:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The pervasiveness of certain types of infobox have been bothering me for some time now, particularly the ethnic groups infobox. My concerns are outlined at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Scrap the infobox. Discussion seems to have stalled, so any fresh input would be welcome.-- Nydas (Talk) 20:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Can we make more interesting use of the way articles are categorised on Wikipedia?
I was wondering if there might be a way to 'query' Wikipedia (as if it were a database) to determine quickly which particular categories contained the most articles. This could be a neat way of allocating effort so that editors spend more time creating and developing articles on whole topics which are under-represented.
For example, which occupations [8] have the fewest articles? Which cultural movements [9] need more work? An interesting variant would be to ask about the cross-over points between categories. The answer might be interesting in itself (not just as a tool to better editing) e.g. how many sportspeople [10] have been businesspeople [11]?
These examples are off the top of my head and I'm sure there are much better ones. To a certain extent the answers would represent the degree to which articles have been categorised. But taken with a pinch of salt they could be very interesting. 87.74.23.135 19:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I feel like this should be common knowledge - I've probably just forgotten - but does WP have a policy on the serial comma - or is just 'use whatever was there first'? daniel folsom 14:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Not a sales catalogue or price guide, and contribute to any discussion there if you have an opinion. Thanks. Carcharoth 12:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
When you reference an online article that has 8-9 pages is there a way to indicate what page you're referencing in particular? I'm using this article [12] to add some to The Sopranos and series creator Dacid Chase. Should I even make each ref independent and link to that portion of the interview? Aaron Bowen 22:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
While following a chain of references, I came across an article which, aside from a few minor errors, contained terms which are otherwise included in the Wikipedia but were not highlighted. Although they were used as if everyone knew their meanings, the very brief in-text definitions merely differentiated them from each other.
From this I (a newbie here) conclude that articles are posted without being reviewed by someone (or an automated process) for cross-references to other articles. Certainly, this should be done with each article, although highlighting need only be used for the first occurrence of each term.
Chessnut 17:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Do you perhaps have a background from which you are asking these obviously leading questions? >Radiant< 10:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
There is only one thing called Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, but the article is at Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue (New York City Subway). I've looked for guidance from the naming conventions but have found nothing concrete. -- NE2 19:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
WP:DAB says: "When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate". Also namingconventions imply to use the most recognizable and correct name. We had similar discussions about this on titles of television episodes. The conclusion was; don't disambiguate when not required, but disambiguated redirects are allowed to simplify coding the lists and creating scripts. However in this case... the subway station is most likely itself NAMED after Stillwell Avenue for instance, which could be cause for confusion. So it's a bit of a gray area I think. Something like Heroes (TV series) for instance primarily uses dab, because Heroes is also the plural form of Hero, which could be cause for confusion. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:42, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
What is the policy on renaming an article due to the name change of the article's subject. For example the article on the rap group Sişu & Puya is La Familia, although the group has changed it's name to Sişu & Puya. Another example is the article WoW Glider, which has been renamed to simply Glider. In both articles the name change is acknowledged, but the article is not renamed. To me it would make sense to rename the articles and make the old article redirect to the new one but, I wanted to see what Wikipedia's policy on it was. Were the name changes of these two articles overlooked or are the titles of articles not supposed to be updated? -- Credema 00:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)