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A question and a comment:
Question: do we have a concise Wikipedia essay on what plagiarism is and isn't and is there a way to provide an internal link to it? If I deleted a plagiarized passage or entry and wanted to place a helpful note at a User's Talkpage like "please see Wikipedia policy here" or "for a definition of plagiarism, please click here" or some such. Can someone please advise?
Comment: plagiarism is rife in articles about entertainers; for some reason people think it's fine to copy from e.g. the IMDB. I think this is aided by well-meaning responses on the HelpDesk that say things like, "if you retype in your own words, it's fine". Well, no, I don't think it is; we were taught that paraphrasing is still plagiarism.
Quill 23:42, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses, folks. Okay, that sorts things through WRT the 1911 EB, but how about the other stuff? Deco, I see it all the time because I spend a lot of time on actors and singers and the like. Pages lifted from IMDB, liner notes, websites--sometimes this is listed as a 'reference', sometimes not.
I'll have to do some more thinking about it; can't quite reconcile this "Keep in mind that the role of an encyclopedia is quite different from that of a typical paper — there is no implication that any of our text is our own original idea." with this "By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public domain resources — this does not include most web pages."
I like your idea about a guideline page. Can something be done about this?
Quill 20:09, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Maxx 15:21, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Do we really need a threat as ... threatening as
in the sandbox, where people are encouraged to experiment, and likely make their first edit on WP? Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a script that replaces the {{sandbox}} template every 10 minutes or so, if it is removed? Just a consideration of not barking at the wrong people. dab 17:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I started a discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Spam about the use of bots to mass-post on user talk pages. My hope is that it can result in a policy one way or the other. PRiis 01:21, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
An issue has arisen at Kenneth Bigley, the British hostage in Iraq who was beheaded, about whether it's appropriate to provide links to the video showing his death. I feel it's not appropriate (a) because I regard it as the worst kind of pornography, (b) because the killers wanted it to be shown widely and we shouldn't assist them, and (c) one of the websites hosting it apparently shows bestiality videos, so we'd be helping readers to find them too. Is there a Wikipedia policy that covers this, or has a consensus been reached about it? Slim 06:09, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
What is the policy for external links? For example, what if a linked site is purely vicious invective. I am thinking of the Counterpunch link on Tom Lantos. It seems perfectly reasonable to summarize those criticisms raised in this link which are legitimate in the body of the article along with a summary of what Congressman Lantos has accomplished, but I am uncomfortable with a stub which links to an article that is nothing more than a vicious attack.
Should individuals known publicly to have suffered from a pathology be mentioned in the article? How?
At issue is whether Gayle Laverne Grinds should be referenced in the bedsore article. This issue potentially affects a large number of articles. Your comments at Talk:Bedsore would be most welcome. -- Pontifex 22:02, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have a policy on accepting uploaded PDFs as media to be linked in articles? Rafti Institute has uploaded a quite a few, including some that are original research. -- Whosyourjudas (talk) 21:23, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
crossposted to
Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)
Sysops now have the ability to undelete selected revisions of a deleted article. Please see
Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages by sysops for explanation of this feature (what I've figured out by
playing with it) and
Wikipedia talk:Undeletion policy for some questions on its use. —
Charles
P.
(Mirv) 13:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have a policy on whether/when it's acceptable to post somebody's contact details in an article?
I ask because an anon recently added to the William Schnoebelen article "You can contact him via e-mail at [address]." The address given does appear in two places on the web, but it's not clear that Schnoebelen intends it to be used as a general public contact address (his site offers a different contact address). Further, Schnoebelen is a very controversial figure; posting the guy's email address and encouraging people to contact him would seem to invite abusive behaviour, IMHO. Is there a standard policy on this sort of thing? -- Calair 23:21, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've noticed that an anonymous user has added donation appeals to the Bobbie Jo Stinnett page and the Bobbie Jo Stinnett/Temp page. Is there an official policy on things like this? Should they be removed or just copyedited. Evil Monkey → Talk 20:08, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
Is it Wikipedia policy to capitalise headwords in the body of articles as a matter of course? For example, the names of animals often seem to have initial capitals in Wikipedia where they would not normally.
I have just removed an initial capital from the entry for "cyclist", which began:
The capital "C" is completely unnecessary here.
I ask because I often refer to Wikipedia when contributing to Wiktionary, and it is irritating not to be able to know whether a capitalised word is actually a proper noun or really just a common noun.
In my opinion, capitals should only be used in Wikipedia where appropriate, that is, at the beginning of sentences and in proper nouns.
Thanks for any useful feedback.
— Paul G 15:17, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
(Copied from Wikipedia talk:Fair use since this may be a better place to ask...) I've been working on fleshing out the article on the Samogitian language, and I would like to include a recorded example of the spoken language. I have some (copyrighted) folklore recordings of native speakers singing, telling stories, etc. If I take a short (~15 seconds) excerpt of one story and credit it appropriately, is this fair use? The key, I think, is that the content of the story is not important to the article. -- Theodore Kloba 20:20, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
Do we want articles on common first names? Where should the disambiguation pages for first names go? Are hybrid disambiguation articles ok? Comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Rmhermen 21:26, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
I don't see why we are trying to make a special case out of first names. Looking at the example of William it is clearly an encyclopedia article. The confusion seems to be that people have used firstname articles as disambigs when in fact they really should be articles. Wikipedia is for the end user, not for the convience of editors. Stbalbach 04:10, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
For older discussion on this, see VFD/Precedents#Are_all_first_names_valid_topics_for_articles -- Key45 00:21, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Do we have any standard on how to reference a foreign-language wikipedia article? It seems that no matter what I do, people come through and edit it.
Originally, when indicating (for example) a Spanish-language Wikipedia article as a reference I would refer, for example, to:
...which shows as:
After being admonished that this constitutes an unacceptable self-reference (because the interwiki link would break when used elsewhere, I started using:
...which shows as:
Now someone is going through editing those back to how I had it in the first place. Is there a policy on this? If not, can we please establish one? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:55, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
Originally, I was of the mind that schools are not per se notable; that articles about schools should be included here if and only if the school met some sort of notability standard. I've changed my opinion on this for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's like pushing rope; every high school kid is going to want to (a) look up their own school, and (b) make an entry for it if it's not there. Secondly, the fact that every school kid is going to want to look up their own school (as will every alum) in some ways defines the usefulness of these entries: it's information people will naturally seek here, whether we like it or not.
With that in mind, I propose a naming standard for schools. There appear to be only a limited number of names for schools; any school named after an American president, for example, is not going to be unique. I suggest that school articles be always titled (for example) William Howard Taft High School (Woodland Hills, CA), to differentiate it from William Howard Taft High School (Dallas, TX) and so on; a disambiguation page of course would exist. We should make a point of renaming existing American school articles using this standard. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 19:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It there are two schools with the same name, then the oldest one should be able to claim seniority and keep the page with links to disambiguation pages for the others if neccessary. I do not see why "Rugby School" should be put on a new page called "Rugby School (Rugby, Warwickshire, England, UK)" even if there is one in another country called Rugby School Philip Baird Shearer 18:02, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In response to some new developments, I'd like comment on a possible update to the currently-outdated meta:Video policy. Please comment on the discussion here, as this involves all Wikimedia projects. grendel| khan 13:10, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
a) If a page on VfD gets M keep votes, with the only opposition being the nominator, the discussion shall be archived and the page kept.
b) If a page on VfD gets N delete votes, not including the nominator, with no opposition, the discussion shall be archived and the page deleted.
c) If a page is nominated in obvious bad faith, the VfD subpage shall be deleted and the page kept.
d) The usual vote exclusions for sockpuppets apply.
Some feedback would be greatly appreciated on the VfD talk section. My preferred values of M and N would be 5 and 3, but I've left that open intentionally. Vacuum c 17:17, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
Can I put ebooks (possibly illegal) links in my wikipedia user pages? To know about the kind of links, see this page. (When you reply, please drop me a message in my talk page) - Sridhar 06:55, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Policy regarding user space is being clarified at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/User:Amgine/Maureen's RfC. The issue is whether or not it is appropriate for someone to keep a copy of an uncertified RfC in their user space when policy calls for the RfC to be deleted. Is this similar to copying a deleted article to BJAODN or is it circumventing Wikipedia policy? Your input is welcome. SWAdair | Talk 03:14, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Policy over stub sorting is currently being decided at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Policy. Please help us form a consensus on the matter. Thanks! -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:10, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In the 9 or so months I've been here, I have gotten the strong sense that blank pages are undesirable--that any page in the article space should be an article, a disamb page, a redir, or else be deleted. However, when that opinion was challenged, I couldn't find anything it writing to that effect (of course, it doesn't help that realtime search is currently disabled). Am I wrong, or can someone point me to a policy/guideline page that supports that view? Help!?! Niteowlneils 17:31, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, guys. FWIW, in the case in question, a Wikpedian created a redirect to an existing article, then decided the article didn't discuss the subject as described in the redirect's title adequately, and blanked the redir because "deletion is anti-wiki", so I reverted the blanking (in hindsight, if I had speedied it as 'blanked by author' probably nobody would have complained). Redirects for deletion I guess would be the most proper way to handle it if the redir really isn't called for. BTW, while hunting I did find Wikipedia:List of blank pages, but it hasn't been updated since May--are they being tracked somewhere else now, or can it be updated automatically, or would this possibly be a job for one of the query/collaborate whizzes (Topbanana, Nickj, et al)? Niteowlneils 20:54, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There seems to be a policy to refer to eg The Lord Williams of Mostyn. I haven't checked to see if this is correct, but I do know it sounds ridiculous and no-one ever says this. Who makes these decisions? Is there a style guide? And how would one go about getting the style changed?
Check the Debretts website [2]. It is the "correct" formal style for a baron and Life Peer. Dabbler 13:18, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"I haven't checked to see if this is correct" - what more can I say? (Needless to say, it is correct.) Proteus (Talk) 14:47, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You say it's correct, I think it's a level of formality that isn't necessary for this encyclopaedia and I think it's liable to mislead people into thinking anyone ever says it. - Andrew Roberts
Btw, does anyone know what the DNB does?
When will Wikipedia enter the 21st century and allow Flash files to be imbedded into article pages like images? - XED. talk. stalk. mail. csb 23:51, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Would that mean that non-broadband users would have to wait for a long time or that the page would cause a "flash-block" (ie. "I refuse to load because you do not have Flash installed")? - Skysmith 09:09, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Will this essentially require that users use a proprietary software package? I suspect many would object to it if it does, and as a practical matter it might. The SWF format (Flash 7) is available at http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/licensing/fileformat/ but the license described there only permits creating the format, not displaying it, which raises concerns. I believe there was some partial open source software implementation of the SWF format, but I do not know how complete it is. -- Dwheeler 19:36, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)
The article on The Six Million Dollar Man contained a trivia item (which I did not contribute, I should note) which turned out to be a cut-and-paste of a trivia item from IMDb. Back in November someone placed a copyvio tag on the page. About 5 minutes later I spotted this and rewrote the trivia item on the temp page so that it was no longer a copyvio (I also made factual corrections since the original IMDb trivia item was erroneous anyway). It's my understanding the copyvio notice was to have been removed by an admin within a week, but it's been more than a month. Is there a penalty for going ahead and removing the copyvio notice and replacing the offending material so we can lose the ugly (and no longer necessary) copyvio notice in the middle of the article? Cheers 23skidoo 02:41, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Can't find anything on the naming convention pages whether there should be a comma between a last name and 'Jr.' in the article/page title, and current usage/precedent doesn't seem to help much, EG Joseph Pulitzer Jr. but Ed Begley, Jr.; William Usery Jr. but Martin Luther King, Jr. (I'm assuming constructions like Whitney Moore Jr. Young were caused by scripts that (I assume) created Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics/Biographies Y.)
Anyone know if there's a preferred standard that I'm not finding? Any similar policies/guidelines to extrapolate from? Other comments or suggestions? Niteowlneils 01:51, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. OK, I think we've established Wikipedia has not yet developed a standard. I lean toward including the comma, as, at least here in the US, in formal, written documents, it is pretty much always included. Is there a different standard in other English speaking countries? (I guess I have to break down and get Strunk & White, AP Style, and Chicago style manuals here, even tho' I already have copies of the first two back in my Seattle apt.) The exactness of Wikipedia search beyond just punctuation, while vexing, is probably part of a bigger discussion than this. Of the google hits, the ones that say not to use the comma seem to fall into two categories--those that say it's common, but nowadays not necessary, and medical and professorial style guides that deal with other suffixes after last names (EG MD, PhD). Niteowlneils 16:49, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hello. I've had this doubt for quite a while now, and this is the best way I could find to discuss about it. It does concern the French Wikipedia, I know, but since I'm not a member from that version, and since I do not speak French either, perhaps I could talk about this here.
On the few times I've been to the French Wikipedia, I noticed their policy on dealing with categories and languages on articles is to add their tags in the beginning of the page. While I'm not aware of everything about styles regarding this and different Wikipedias, I do think that's a very bad habit. Adding those tags to the beginning of each article adds a good share of unnecessary spaces there, which, in my opinion, makes those pages look strange. That's why I always move those tags to the bottom in the English Wikipedia, and it looks like that's the style we've addopted here.
I Once edited an article on the French Wikipedia, moving languages and categories tags to the bottom of the page, among with other small edits. Well, that was promptly reverted by someone else, easy like that. That member labeled what I did as "vandalism" (yes, I understood that). I don't keep rancor or anything, but I'd just like to know why that happens, and if it really should be that way. Why they have such a preference. Wouldn't it be better if they just did it like we do? I'm not asking for the whole stuff to be changed (also because that would be damn hard to do, manually), though I do think it would be better to keep those tags at the bottom.
Anyhow, I'd just like to hear your opinion.
Thank you.-- Kaonashi 19:20, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. However, I never stated we're superior, or that our standards should be everybody else's standards. I just wanted to understand why they do that, or most importantly, why my action was seen as vandalism. I am allowing differences. That's exactly what I did when I accepted my edit being reverted. I guess it's just a point of view, after all. To me that drops the article's aesthetics way down, but that's just my opinion. I created this discussion here because perhaps I was missing something on this. It's all I wanted to know.-- Kaonashi 20:31, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, yes. I sure hope that problem will be fixed in the next versions. It's just like the hidden text feature. It'll add a blank line instead of just making the text disappear, so to avoid that it's necessary to add the tags to the beginning or end of another block of text. Another problem is the way those boxes (usually made up from HTML tags in the article's own body, or sometimes via template) will add blank spaces to the beginning of an article that can't be removed (at least I can rarely manage to do so).
By the way, thanks for sharing what you found out about the French Wikipedia. I appreciate it.-- Kaonashi 01:32, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Aah, I see. Thanks for clearing that up. But yes, you're right. Not much to be done about this, except to wait until the developers can fix the interlinks and prevent them from converting into spaces. Also, thanks for the tip. I'll drop by sometime. =] -- Kaonashi 20:47, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps as dry as you could possibly get (I'm sure the taxonomic geeks might take issue with that ;)), but something I'm hoping to nail down a decent consensus on. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government departments and ministers). Fire/ignore away. -- The Tom 04:34, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What's policy on pages in the User: namespace that don't have a corresponding user? Are these speedyable, or painfully-slow-VfDable, or what?
The specific case I have in mind is User:Gabriel Kent, which seems to have been created shortly after Gabriel Kent went through VfD (discussion here). I rather suspect it's identical to the deleted page, though of course I can't be sure since I can't see it. While I don't think the resume's any more appropriate in userspace than WP proper (let alone in non-user userspace), I wouldn't bother to bring it up except that anons have been redirecting Gabriel Kent there. — Korath 会話 00:59, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I was fixing up some of the articles on the "orphans" page. I happened to notice that there is this category [[Category:7-Flushing Train stations]] with 22 short articles, each for a station on one line of the New York City subway system. The first thing I notice is that many don't bother to mention that the stations are in New York City (I happen to know, as I live here), some of them don't actually mention that they are about train stations, although one might infer that from the mention of tracks. (The articles are all written from the point of view of a New York resident, who knows where Queens is, but just needs to know the exact layout of a subway station). Should they be fixed up (with some boilerplate, about "this is a station in New York City's Public Transit...) or should they all be listed on the VFD page as being beyond any appropriate level of detail, or nothing? Morris 05:36, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
File:Beef noodle soup food stand.jpg
The picture is reverted but I still do not see any explaination. -- Toytoy 14:42, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
Whoever deletes this image please explain. I altered much about this image that I can easily claim fair use or derivated work. The useful information in this picture is ALL ADDED BY ME. The background is only A BACKGROUND. -- Toytoy 12:35, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
I happened to stumble upon Russian entry on "Latvia" ( http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%8F).
It is a short entry, providing with relatively little information and, unlike English version, contains only one additional link, that is "Latvian Legionaries of Waffen SS" http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8B%D1%88%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%8B_Waffen_SS
No doubt that even Germany between 1933 and 1945, if taken neutrally, had something else in addition to Hitler, nazies, ss, gestapo etc, worth mentioning would for examle be victims, devastation, war refugees etc, not even mentioning a usual eastern-european country of the year 2004, not fighting in World War II anymore.
The problem seems to be that there's political argument between modern Russian leadership, in particular Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Latvia over the history and interpretation of history of Latvia in 2 World War. This is why Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued its official opinion on those Latvian-related units which fought with the Germans against Soviet Union in form of waffen ss, which has similarity of attitude with the entry in question. ( http://www.ln.mid.ru/Bl.nsf/arh/ACC381543BF4F1D7C3256E5B003561F1?OpenDocument).
I would like to draw attention to the estimates of international organizations such as Freedom House and Reporteurs sans frontiers who, in their annual estmates, in recent years gave Russian media very low index, putting it essentially close to the level of media of some of worst dictatorships, thus siting absence of media freedom. Together with the fact that official Kremlin and its security services have launched a controlled media campaign against Latvia, this implies that Russian sources-based information in Wikipedia's Russian page on Latvia, emphasizing "latvian waffen ss" could be politically motivated and one-sided. As now, it seems to be based on USSR sources and no mentioning of the opinion of western countries (or Latvia) is provided. For example, US Commission of Refugees issued an opinion in 1950s that baltic waffen ss members, who, in fact, fought against USSR in front combat units, cannot be considered "criminal" or nazies, therefore undermining any special meaning that the Russians attach to artifitial entry on "latvian waffen ss units". At least such an entry should have a note that the opinion given is not shared in Lavia.
I think, while it largely corresponds to the believes of most of population of modern Russia, as one-sided and propaganda-influenced information, it should not be part of Wikipedia.
Please communicate this to the persons responsible for management,
Best Regards
Raul Nugis
Estonia
PS: I hope it is understood that as though now it is justified to consider Wikipedia to large extent as a product of information stored elsewhere, in future, it could be considered as actually souce of information in itself. That's why, if somebody puts his or her distorted or one-sided information in Wikipedia, later, provided this person is dishonest or disoriented, he or she can further facilitate his or her claims citing Wikipedia's entries and using Wikipedia's authority and trust of its users, which it will perhaps have.
No offence is meant, and I hope none is taken. My respects to all the English-speaking Wikipedia community - I do envy you for being that far ahead of us in both diversity and depth. Sincerely yours, Wulfson 06:19, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Browsing the Category:Time I stumbled upon this little article - Chronovisor. It made me think of what is the wikipedian standard on inclusion of articles on alleged phenomena/devices/etc.
It's clear that an article on a fictional object such as One Ring is warranted and generally non-controversial, unless it's really on some obscure item (the 5th Ring of Dwarves), when it becomes an example of fancruft.
Articles on real objects that are subject of unfounded claims such as Shroud of Turin are also warranted, especially when a large number of people have some beliefs (no matter how crazy) about these.
It's also clear that even articles on alleged (but not real) phenomena such as Bermuda Triangle are warranted when they have a large amount of influence on culture, society, even science.
But what about articles about trivial items such as this Chronovisor? Obviously, it could not work, almost surely it never even existed (although if it did, it would be very interesting evidence of idiocy of Catholic scientists) and it's not like it even has a strong following of conspiracy theorists.
What do you think? Paranoid 21:22, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A lot of people feel the current Candidates for Speedy Deletion criteria are too narrow, and they are probably right that something should be done; Just ignoring policy and deleting non-CSD articles is not a solution however. I'd like to make a strong statement here that this is not acceptable. Please sign to indicate that you agree (or give a reason why we shouldn't stick to the speedy deletion rules I suppose). (The reason I want this is to be able to link this statement when people keep CSD-marking and SDing non-candidates defending it as 'standard practice').
Some random examples from the current deletion log, names removed because I don't want to single out any specific editors:
And the list goes on and on. None of these articles had already previously been deleted, so CSD criterion 5 didn't apply. -- fvw * † 02:57, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)
French Absolutism was an obvious joke. It was a personal letter from "Heroin Fred" trying to get himself a date. The other two deserve to go, but weren't CSDs. -- Cyrius| ✎ 05:03, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The article of Jay Chow contains a lot of personal profile, such as "his favorite..., his favorite...", etc. Can anyone tell me that whether these kind of articles should be cleanup? Thank you! Mickeymousechen 03:56, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)mickeymousechen
Copyvio concerns aside, this kind of obsessive detail seems to be typical of fandom in China and Japan. Keep it because it tells us a lot about how his business is conducted. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 14:50, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't have a clear policy on the proper response to legal threats. According to Wikipedia:No legal threats, legal threats against Wikipedia by editors are a violation of policy, but there does not seem to be consensus to block or ban users who engage in this practice. Nevertheless, many admins do routinely block people for making legal threats. I don't believe these blocks are justified by policy. Whether or not you believe blocking should be allowed, the policy is currently inconclusive. Maybe someone could clarify this, or if necessary, we could have a vote about it. Cross-posted to WIKIEN-L. Rhobite 00:31, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
Question: Why is the Wikipedia running beta software? The MediaWiki site says it "may not be stable. Recommended only for adventurous souls." I can't imaging my credit card company or even Yahoo! or Google running beta software which hasn't been thoroughly tested. — Mike 06:47, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC).
The GFDL license is an overly-restrictive license that isn't compatible with any other content licenses (that I know of). Unless the FSF reforms it significantly, I would really rather not publish anything under it personally. WikiTravel uses the much more lightweight and compatible by-sa Creative Commons license. Why does Wikipedia insist on using such a beast as the GFDL? I'm sure more than a few people are sick of having to dual (or tri-) license their writing in order to put it on Wikipedia and other websites. If we're not using a license that's compatible with any other websites, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of having "free" content, IMO. For more information see the following:
Moved to Wikipedia_talk:Privacy_policy.
I am not clear where this belongs, so I am reposting it from the Proposals page:
I think Wikipedia needs a general disclaimer on all Palestine/Israel-related issues, like The majority of the editors on Israel-Palestine issues have a strong bias and all readers are requested to make independent conclusions, cross-check information themselves and best of all, avoid reading these pages for authoritative information very importantly, not take offense at the presentation of historical facts on these pages. This will stop the more conscientious editors from stressing over every moronic agenda-based edit that mutates Wikipedia every few moments and focus on articles they can actually make progress on. --
Simonides 01:24, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Zain 22:34, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
NEW: See additional discussion below at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Nudity (full frontal) pictures in an encyclopedia?
I understand that by introducing this topic yet again (not by me, but as a topic) that I am pouring salt on a few open sores, but I feel I must find a place to discuss it. Wikipedia has a problem in several articles concerning the inclusion of nude, obscene, or vulgar images. An example is Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse where there is actually a censored version of the article. However, at this location there is an attempt to delete the censored article. Shouldn't Wikipedia attempt to protect users who want to use its resources but have moral or ethical sensibilities to such material? For example, Nude celebrities on the internet actually contains links to pornographic websites. Is this really necessary? There are of course, many more examples (such as male circumcision, which carries no warning label). At the very least, I propose that pages with possibly offensive pictures contain warnings at the top, as a matter of Wikipedia policy. I am not advocating their complete censorship (although it might be best), but shouldn't we make our materials available to everyone? What about underage users (like myself, I'm 17) and the legal aspects of such actions. More importantly, what about school children? Sexuality is a common topic of research among teens, do we want them to come across obscene images as well as objective information? I'd like other user's opinions on this please.-- naryathegreat 04:52, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
You are just coming up with an excuse for irrational behavior. We all have about the same guidelines concerning what is "obscene". You can say that you don't want people to take it that far, but what you really mean is that you have no reasonable objection to the proposal. The articles on World War II don't have graphic pictures or links to pornographic websites either (at least, the ones I've been on).-- User:naryathegreat (t) 21:39, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
Jooler:Merely because half of Europe "does it" does not make it "correct" or acceptable. Why don't you question the greedy motivation of the advertisers and the TV companies, and the unashamed actors who "act" being nude for the camera, all of whom are only out to make big bucks and they don't care if they trash the human race and human dignity and self-respect in the process. Please get some perspective! IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Photos of graphic violence are just as deplorable as graphic nudity and both cannot be shown in a general encyclopedia like Wikipedia which is used by millions of children who don't need to see things that most people don't see on a regular basis. IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The article at Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse is already censored. The pictures have fuzzy bits over parts of the images that someone somewhere has deemed too shocking to show. I feel that the providing a separate "censored" version without the pictures can only have a political agenga. It it curious that of all the pages in Wikipedia this one should provide the incentive for someone to produce a separate page "to lessen the impact" of the article. The story of this article is the pictures. Without the pictures there would have been no story in the first place. There would just have been unsubstantiated rumous of abuse. To remove the pictures is an attempt to water down the article so that it can be forgotten about. Jooler 17:58, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Evil: Logic and reality say that "words" and "photos" are NOT equal (maybe only "in the minds' of some beholders"). There are ways of saying things, and then again, there are ways of saying things. Wikipedia is NOT a trapdoor to all things negative. IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think, by default, nothing should be censored. However, it would be quite upsetting to me if a middle school library or a popular filtering software allowed no one to view an article I wrote simply because it contained images they deemed too sensitive. Because I can't change society, and because Wikipedia is not paper, we should take advantage of customizable settings to expose the encyclopedia to the largest possible audience. Although the default would be to include all such material some articles could have short warnings with a link to a discussion of the setting, how to set it, and how it works, for those who wish to use it. Deco 06:31, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
To censor is to be inherently biased. Who are we to declare what is or what is not obscene? Our responsibility as editors of an encyclopedia is to collect and present information in as clear and neutral a manner as possible. We are not here to protect sensitive people. Sometimes the truth hurts - yes, women have clitorises. Yes, people got abused in Abu Ghraib. Do we have photographs which illustrate these things clearly and with the intention to explain and not to shock? Yes. And those pictures make the article more informative, so yes, they belong. Not everything in the world is pretty. Not everything in the world is nice. But it is still our responsibility to present it. If we censor, we make the decision for our readers - do we not trust them to decide for themselves what they want to read? I, for one, am throughly and totally against censoring or adding warnings to anything. [[User:Premeditated Chaos| User:Premeditated Chaos/Sig]] 08:07, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Censorship is lying. I dont always tell my mother the whole truth, leaving out parts that I know would upset her, but thats basically the same as lying to her. Its an attempt to divert her from the truth. An encyclopedia should strive for truth. If you censor something, you help the people who are offended by it to avoid it, but you keep that information from anyone who wishes to use it. You would ultimately help more people to not censor the articles, but warnings of possibly objectional material would not effect the articles in any adverse way. Perhaps you could make warnings an option under user preferences. Inebriation station 2005- 01-03 21:54 (UTC)
Censorship is not in the spirit of the NPOV policy of Wikipedia. It is bias in its most basic form. I completely disagree with the idea of censoring articles with dipictions and/or descriptions that are relevent to the articles they lie within. If they are not relevent, they should not be present. One precedent of proper discretion against use of a picture depicting a nude woman is on the Talk page for the Breast article. The picture that was removed was not relevant enough to the article (ie. it was considered pornographic and not informative). Summation: Censorship = Bad -ÅrУnT 06:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I see no reason why warnings could not be placed at the top of pages that contain material that could offend some viewers. This does not censor the page, nor does it hamper its effectiveness in any way, but merely serves to give viewers a choice, similar to the way spoiler warnings are used. Does anybody here disagree with spoiler warnings? -ÅrУnT 06:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Since when is using one's common sense and applying one's sense of decency "equal" to "censorship"? To refuse to allow Playboy or Penthouse into your home is NOT "censorship", it is rather an application of good ethics and superior morality, and shows that as responsible humans we are capable of knowing right from wrong by excluding moral poison and corruption from Wikipedia. Unless of course we want to invite Hugh Hefner and company (and those who admire him and his ilk) from setting up Wikipedia's policy of "new tastes" in photography of women etc? IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You know, I raised this issue about 6 months ago in requesting whether a template should be created for a warning that an article contains adult content. What the discussion boiled down to was that the template should not be created, due to the fact that it might end up inviting more trouble that its worth. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:38, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In terms of looking for a consensus, I think we should accept that any form of censorship besides self-censorship cannot achieve consensus. However, I think we should also recognize that expecting users to know which pages contain images that they don't want to see before they see them is not a reasonable approach to self-censorship. To this end, I think we could put the issue to rest if the MediaWiki software supported the following feature:
Each user may maintain a list of categories, such that images labeled with one of those categories appear in a linked rather than inline form on their display.
The category system we already have, and as applied to the image namespace, it allows us to transcend the debate over whether a picture would be found objectionable by a suitably large number of people, and just objectively place it in a category like Category: Diseased anatomy, Category: Explicit human death, Category: Nazi propoganda, or Category: Female nipple. The classification of what an image actually shows can be done at least somewhat objectively. Objectively determining which images should be displayed is in many cases hopeless. Shimmin 14:01, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
do we want them to come across obscene images? This debate should be dubbed "The morality of neutrality". Honestly, this isn't christian conservative America - it's Wikipedia. Almost everyone here has sucked on titties before - either as a baby and possibly later. It's nothing new to any of us, and as a neutral encyclopedia, well, I must revert to the infamous Joe Friday. We are here to report, "Just the Facts, Ma'am". Maybe we can exercise a teensy bit of discretion by not showing rolled heads at guillotine, but breasts and penis? come on! -- Alterego 06:11, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that registered user accounts were intended for the use of one individual only, not for a "group." The reason I bring it up is because of the following account: User:Asexual same-sex marriage, on whose user page is the following message:
"""thank you."
Now, this smacks of advertising to me (never mind that the user(s) has been making non-NPOV edits to the Same-sex marriage article which reflect his/her/their stated mission.
Anyone?
Exploding Boy 21:26, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
User:Mikkalai has created a Russian (usage) page, and is busy replacing links to the Russian (language) page with links to his Russian (usage) page, on the grounds that he wants to declutter links to the "Russian language" article. Is this in keeping with Wikipedia policy? Jayjg | (Talk) 19:03, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
He tells his story in a teenage slang called "Nadsat", which mixes Russian with English slang.
I see he has created a Russian (spelling) article for the same purpose. Jayjg | (Talk) 20:38, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've put it up for VfD here: Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Russian_(usage)#.5B.5BRussian_.28usage.29.5D.5D Jayjg | (Talk) 22:00, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Please also see Talk:Russian (spelling) for more comments on this.— Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 22:02, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
Because it was 2 against 1 on a little-known article, I thought this debate was concluded, but just yesterday someone posted on my talk page in support of me.
A while back, I thought the image at the Lolicon article was too offensive, and replaced it with a different one. Compare
An objection was immediately raised to my image; that it wasn't a fair representation of the sexual basis of lolicon. As the tentative statement at Wikipedia:Profanity says, accuracy should not be sacrificed in order to be less objectionable. So I dropped my case at that time.
However, the anonymous note on my talk page reminds me that unlike the stylized or medical images on other articles, the Lolicon picture is objectionably pornographic. The Profanity page also notes that you should not use pictures that are illegal for many Wikipedia readers to download, and I think this might fall into that category. Since there is still an even split on the issue-- 2 vs. 2-- I'd like the opinion of the Village Pump on which image to use.
Ashibaka tlk 06:54, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The picture you chose doesn't look like lolicon to me because it is not sexualized in any way. I won't look at the other picture but I read the article without images. In my view, a genuine lolicon picture could be unsuitable for Wikipedia because it may be illegal under Florida law. People who really want to see lolicon online can use a search engine. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 14:44, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just a note on the legality of these things: It is typical for H-manga (especially of this kind) even in Japan to have forenotes that essentially state that every girl featured in that publication, despite her appearance, is of a legal age of consent. This is enough in most countries (the US included) to clear a person of any sort of legal wrongdoing despite how young the girls may appear to be. So that really isn't an issue here. →Reene ✎ 03:49, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
For a while now I have been frustrated at the lack of restraint displayed by partisan editors in many of Wikipedia's college and university articles. So I've drafted a guideline on academic boosterism at User:Rbellin/Avoid academic boosterism. (It's purely a statement of voluntary principle, and anyway it's a special case of Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms, so I don't think it needs to become anything more "official policy"-ish than a statement of principles for a segment of the WP community.) Feedback, discussion, and edits are welcome. Does this seem potentially useful enough to move into the Wikipedia namespace? -- Rbellin| Talk 20:17, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. It seems as though at least a continued discussion would be useful, so I'm going to move the page into the Wikipedia namespace. Further comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:Avoid academic boosterism. -- Rbellin| Talk 01:09, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I feel there is a problem with the democratic process on Wikipedia. If for example people from the Church of Scientology created several hundred accounts on Wikipedia (making legitimate edits so as not to be accused of sock puppetry), they could decide to vote down any proposal for the inclusion of content that might be seen as detrimental to the image of Scientology (to the point of deleting pages on VFD), and nobody could do anything to stop it. The whole process therefore seems fundamentally flawed. Right now a vote is going on at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (censored) and there's nothing to stop members of the USMC (or whoever) ganging up on Wikipedia and voting for the retention of this page. Jooler 04:09, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree with the possibility of the hypothetical scenario. I think that if wikipedia gets to the point of being considered an authoritative source (which could have already happened) it will be more likely. I am actually more worried about groups that are more subtle than the U.S. Marine. How about The Olin Foundation, or AIPAC. Morris 13:24, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
The nice thing about GFDL is that if Wikipedia were really to be overwhelmed by a particular faction, there is nothing to stop a different group from forking, setting up a somewhat more restrictive set of rules as to who can edit, and taking the project from there. And then the world will presumably sort out which fork has more credibility. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:35, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
This scenario already exists. Several interest groups already do control articles by exactly this method. (I won't name names but I will say that in some cases those interest groups do not even realise that they are doing anything like this: they are just defending their interest.) Wikipedia was in fact designed to negate the effect, by insisting that decisions should be consensual, that is, include all views, but the drift from that to a community that votes on proposals, deletion, this, that and the other opens the door to the dedicated POV pushers. The interest group need only hold a poll on an article and it can then enforce the majority decision for the rest of the article's life. Or of course it can simply outrevert any opposition. The policy on reversion allows groups to tag-revert individuals, so minority voices can be shut down by interest groups without any difficulty. Dr Zen 12:22, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The general point here is, it seems to me, that if you move away from genuine concensus decision-making to the rule of the majority, then you enable vote-rigging and the territorial rule over certain groups of articles by interest-groups who can simply vote-down any minority view that comes along, regardless of merit. These groupings can then find ways to use house rules like the 3RR to protect their turf by playing on the frustration of the dissenting voices. Personally, I have walked away from articles like Historicity of Jesus because I felt this going on by a group of users some of whom were acting in good faith in the way Dr Zen indicates above (others I feel fairly sure knew exactly what they were doing). Filiocht 11:40, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
Recently, the List of anime page was turned into a redirect to Category:Anime, and the red-links for the list page were put at the top of the category page. I restored the previous version of List of anime, and think that the list of anime articles which don't exist isn't something that belongs in a category page. I've poked around the Wikipedia category pages, but aside from a page saying why list pages can be useful even though there's categories, I can't find anything else. -- Khym Chanur 07:44, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
We appear to be getting quite a bit of vandalism from marketscore proxies. It's technically an open proxy, so current policy says block it, but there have also been useful edits coming from these proxies (they're not quite in line with normal anonymous proxies in that users get suckered into using them without being aware of it). What should we do, block them with a pretty little "Why Marketscore is evil and how to get rid of it" template, or leave them open until they start getting abused on a large scale? -- fvw * 23:08, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
I plan to collaborate with CannedLizard on doing high resolution Counter-Strike comparisons. Since we might be doing multiple large images I was wondering what the policy was on deciding where to upload images. When should one upload to Wikicommons, and when to upload to Wikipedia? - RoyBoy [ ∞] 20:14, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've come across Mount_Ida... and it does not have a disambig page but it has it on the bottom. I've tried reading the Wiki page on disambiguation, I don't know why... maybe I'm tired or something, but it didn't help me comprehend when/why disambigs are put on the bottom rather than having a proper page made and a clear warning at the top of the main article for quick navigation. - RoyBoy [ ∞] 21:47, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In case of Mount Ida a disamb is in order, as I can't see how one of the mountains is more important than any of the others which would warrant their placement at the Mount Ida page with the disamb moving to Mount Ida (disambiguation). I'll see if I can fix it. Mgm| (talk) 22:22, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
The current external link (semi?, quarter?) policy Wikipedia:External links is rather terse and doesn't decide much. A proposal for a new policy Wikipedia:External links/temp seems to be stalled. Discussion there seems to be centered on a heated side issue (dmoz).
This is a bit surprising to me, as from several discussions on talk pages, as well as from discussions seen on the mailing list, I very much feel that there is an implicit external link policy in action. Actually not unlike the explicit one on de.wikipedia.
This makes me wonder, whether it is an oversight or by design, that no written policy exists.
Pjacobi 21:08, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)
OK. I know some people go mad if a woman does not cover her hair. I wonder if there can be a system to flag images based on its contents. If I cannot tolerate any picture of nudity, I set a personal preference to filter all images with a nudity flag.
The HTML code may need no modification but the server only sends out a blank image.
We need all kinds of flags to help people co-exist with their fears. A true veggie may not want to see the picture of a sausage. Personally, I hate to see a sausage that's too small to feed me. I want mine big. -- Toytoy 14:48, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
Evil Monkey → Talk 00:00, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
The very act of tagging articles and photos as offensive will offend people. In addition, by tagging a specific item as possibly offensive you will be offending someone who finds that item as particularly non-offensive. Obviously there is a certain low level of filter that could be applied. George Carlin's seven dirty words for example, and we already filter much nudity. -- Alterego 03:19, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
Make it all or nothing. No user or group of users should have the right to decide what is and is not potentially offensive. So either move for an option to block all images on Wikipedia (which would be a great option for dialup users as well; perhaps with a "click to load image" placeholder on pages) or don't even bother implimenting anything at all. I realize this can be a touchy subject with some (I daresay even most) people, but don't let your (general "your") personal, religious, or cultural biases override your common sense. →Reene ✎ 10:09, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that this would be useful, but I also have pointed out that all web browsers known to me permit the user to decide whether or not to download and display images. I used to do this with NCSA Mosaic and Netscape when I had a slow (v32) modem, and have used the same feature more recently for various reasons on
Firefox and
Internet Explorer. So while it would be a nice-to-have feature on Wikipedia (and in my opinion the only form of server-side image barring that is fully compatible with NPOV) it isn't as if the user didn't already have the option to accept or decline images. --
Tony Sidaway|
Talk 10:58, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I feel that as long as pictures fit an article there's no need to censor them to the public at large. And parents should be advised there is such a thing as filters to protect their kids from pretty much anything they want. If a user activated censor option could settle this entire discussion I'm all for it. However, most images will be found obscene by someone. I say, categorize a picture in one or more NPOV cats and use these so users can click an option in their preferences. Problem solved? Mgm| (talk) 22:06, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
I tried to find some good advice on structuring articles in wikipedia namespaces. All I found were some pages in the Style and How-to Directory, some pages in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and some links on template:FAPath. They mostly deal with the issue from a general stylistic and aesthetic viewpoint, and only touch on the underlying reasons for giving a logical and fairly standardized structure to encyclopedia articles.
I've therefore written up a draft guideline for writing articles in a "pyramid structure". Being mostly based on common sense, it is in part a description of what we already do, but its goal is also to explain why structuring articles in this way is good. It's at User:Zocky/Pyramid structure. Please feel free to improve and comment.
I'm not sure how to proceed. Proper structure should obviously be a FA requirement, and this should probably also be in the how-to series. But since structure is a fundamental editorial issue which heavily affects both quality and NPOV, it could also be a part of the Manual of Style. Zocky 14:07, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hello, This is my first post to Village pump.. Anyway is it alright to copy content from a Wikipedia article into another one. For example, I want to copy some content from an article into a country article and then delete some bits out, so it becomes like a summary to the article which I copied from. Is it alright? Squash 00:36, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The Thai government closed the country’s border with Cambodia following the riots. The border was re-opened on 21 March 2003, following the Cambodian government’s payment of $6 million compensation for the destruction of the Thai embassy. The Cambodian government also agreed to compensate individual Thai businesses for the losses which they had suffered, to be negotiated separately.
into
The Thai government closed the country’s border with Cambodia following the riots. The border was re-opened on 21 March 2003, following the Cambodian government’s payment of $6 million compensation. The Cambodian government also agreed to compensate individual Thai businesses.
just an example... Squash 00:36, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
We had a discussion at the recent Seattle meetup about what might be done to set up policies for controversial articles and vandal magnets, policies that might be distinct from those applied to typical Wikipedia articles, but short of outright protection. I was wondering, is there already a page somewhere to discuss ideas like this, or should I start one, maybe at Wikipedia:controversial articles and vandal magnets? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:17, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
When articles are engaged in prolonged edit wars, readers may get very different versions of the same article, depending on when they click on it. The Christian Science article is a very good example of this.
I propose that a new template be created to prominently and specifically direct readers to a disputed article's History page, so that they can get a better idea of the disputed information by viewing the different versions.
The "Twoversions" template almost does this, but it refers to two separate versions instead of to one hotly disputed article.
Also, would it be possible to give only administrators the power to remove (and possibly place) this template on an article?
This policy/tech stuff is unknown territory for me, so forgive me if I'm asking a stupid and/or obvious question.
Thanks, dablaze 08:47, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
This problem cannot be solved by a new template but can already be solved by existing measures. Articles subject to significant edit warring should normally be protected until the warring parties are able and willing to discuss their differences. There already exists a template for this purpose. If edit warring isn't a problem then there's no need for further action. Wikipedia readers already know better than to rely on the accuracy of Wikipedia articles; the content disclaimer linked to every page tells them they should not do this. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 12:01, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think the problem here is that you're misusing language. You said you were concerned that readers wouldn't be aware, in a specific case, that a Wikipedia article "may convey inaccurate or biased information."
But this is the case with every single article on Wikipedia.
There are no exceptions.
You poo-pooed my mention of the disclaimer, but it really is a very important part of Wikipedia. In particular, every single reader of Wikipedia is advised as follows: Wikipedia cannot guarantee, in any way whatsoever, the validity of the information found here. It may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the particular area you are interested in learning about.
The Wikipedia:Peer review and Wikipedia:Featured articles processes are mentioned, but even then, the reader is told "articles that have been vetted by those processes may later have been inappropriately edited just before you view them."
People who either do not read this disclaimer (and there are many) or do not understand its sheer extent probably will be misled by what they read on Wikipedia. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 16:55, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion there shouldn't be any unprotected articles that are undergoing edit wars. If an article is reverted more than three times then it should be protected. violet/riga (t) 20:49, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This article is often subject to edits slanted towards certain points of view. Although we make every effort to maintain a neutral point of view and present all perspectives within the article, you might find that previous revisions of this page carry additional information of use to you.
Does that clarify? Catherine\ talk 03:12, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
{{ long npov}}
Catherine, you're a mensch.
Violet, I don't think those templates are adequate. I've found in my own long-term editing disputes that the people entering their own counter-edits don't necessarily include inaccurate information, but instead include only the information that's both accurate and favorable to their point of view. So the question of whether something's NPOV is subject to debate.
Plus, the talk pages a tend to be chaotic, whereas previous versions and the version comparison tool on the History page speak for themselves. Besides, a POV notice at the top of the page might just set people off, whereas a pointer to the History page will put all contributors on notice that readers may be going back to see exactly what information is in dispute, and exactly who adds or deletes what.
I guess it's kind of a "meta" move, but one that could be valuable in the ever-changing world of Wiki, no?
-- dablaze 05:36, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Is there a way of displaying these templates without adding the pump to the categories? Filiocht 10:37, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
We have 'spoiler' warnings. We have 'Unicode glyphs' warnings. We have 'graphic images' warnings. And now, we have Template:tetragrammaton too. Please tell me this was created by a troll?! Because, you know, if you are an orthodox jew, I would expect that you know about the tetragrammaton already. And if you're not, well, the template tells you nothing. Can we get rid of the more superfluous warnings please? There is no limit to the imagination of what other warnings people will include if we do not develop some reasonable policy on this. dab (ᛏ) 22:46, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
What is the difference between the NPOV and the Objective POV? What types of text does one enclude that the other doesn't? Does the NPOV not contain conclusions from the facts, while the Objective POV does? Does the NPOV state the popular point of view while the Objective POV doesn't if it isn't the POV of one of the sides? All of these are theories. - Lee S. Svoboda 17:49, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
What is the policy for Events capitalization? Should it be 1996 Saguenay Flood or 1996 Saguenay flood? What about the recent 1998 Ice Storm? -- Circeus 00:59, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to list principle translators into English on the pages of well-known foreign authors (either if, or if not these people have pages)? -- Neo 19:46, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
How about just including an ISBN link to the translated edition, with a mention of the translator's name? Unless the translator is particularly notable. Rick K 22:35, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
Can you think of terms defining notability in this context? The reason I ask is as I know of a couple of translators who have won prizes for translating the works of José Saramago, although these prizes are not widely known (and have no articles on wikipedia). Soes this make the translator notable outside the world of translated fiction? -- Neo 00:21, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
How about creating an article on the prize, with a list of winners? And then if you have enough biographical info, you can create articles about the translators. Rick K 21:49, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Administrator assistance is required on
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Swastika - this is regarding
User:Swastika and not our article on Swastika.
Jooler - this issue has been dealt with
Jooler 10:37, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I was interested to see RickK's user page is protected. I have asked him why this is and was interested in the opinions of others. Ollieplatt 07:51, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The protection of my User page is none of Ollieplatt's business, unless he was attempting to vandalize it. My Talk page is available for discussion. Rick K 07:55, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
I have asked some valid questions about this, which may have some simple answers., from RickK's user talk
Hello. I have some questions relating to administrator powers and the interaction between those powers and user pages.
Thanks for your prompt response,
Ollieplatt 07:48, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I would appreciate a response to the above, I don't propose to edit the page at all. I noticed it was protected and am entitled to ask, as above, why it is protected, whether it is a privilege only available to yourself, whether it is within Wikipedia guidelines for it to be protected, whether you protected it or procured its protection, what time limit if any exists on its protection. I would appreciate a response, and not a personal attack along the lines that I am planning to edit the page. I pledge not to do so under any circumstances and accordingly invite your response to the questions asked. Clearly it is a sensitive matter, and perhaps warrants wider discussion, although the reason I asked you directly was that there may have already been such a discussion prior to my arrival. If you could answer the questions or just point me to when it was discussed that would be splendiferous. :-)
Ollieplatt 07:57, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I can't see a problem with a user page being protected. Mine gets vandalised occasionally. If it happens too often, I might protect mine too. Why are you so concerned Ollieplatt, since you don't intend to edit it? What business could it possibly be of yours?- gadfium 08:29, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I have only one further comment to make on this discussion. My User page WILL NOT be unprotected. End of discussion. Rick K 08:51, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
A loosely related issue (what are User pages for, and whose are they?), we have users like User:Vergina, who create whole subtrees to their User pages. At some point, this turns WP into personal webspace. Obviously, subpages are the right place for WP-related writeups, and drafts, but at which point does it cross the line to the blogosphere, and to what point should pov forks into User: namespace be tolerated? dab (ᛏ) 09:05, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I dont see what business it is of anyone else what someone does with their userpage. Nobody else should be editing it anyway. G-Man 20:20, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
<s
I see that someone has recently introduced {{cleanup-translation}}. As far as I can tell, the main effect of this will be to subvert the excellent process we have had working for about a year at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. (Note, by the way, that this is, and should remain, a separate process from Wikipedia:Translation into English, which is a way to request translation of an article in a foreign-language Wikipedia.)
A tag like {{cleanup-translation}} might be useful to mark articles that need further language-related cleanup but are far enough along in this process that it is now clear that they will not be deleted (at least not for this reason: they can still be VfD'd like anything else). That is, for pages that are "mostly done" but could still use some attention from someone who approaches dual-native. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:53, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
I don't know who is active in managing cleanup, but I'd appreciate if someone who is would leave a note on Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English so that we can reconcile the two processes. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:04, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
Why not list "cleanup-translation" on the tfd page? Rick K 06:56, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/proposed revision 1) proposes "BC" and "AD" (in contrast with "BCE" and "CE") as standard for Wikipedia, 2) apparently encourages linking of years, and 3) encourages linking of units of measurement, among other changes. It also reverses the style of many of the dates used within the guide (such as "February 12" to "12 February"). See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) for discussion. Maurreen 01:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Since the appearance of Wikinews there is obvious need to reform Template:In the news. I asked a couple of people on IRC earlier if they thought linking to an article on from the latter to the former was acceptable, particularly given that wikinews is in a relative limbo regarding contributions. The general feeling was positive, and I linked two stories [15] [16] on ITN to their respective wikinews article (while not removing any content from the summary).
These stories were later removed by blankfaze for a reason that I think could be boiled down to "the wrong thing was bolded". This is an obvious sign that we need to review what is acceptable at in the news, especially given that the wikinews stories were more useful at describing the immediate event that lead to them being listed in the first place. -- BesigedB ( talk) 19:50, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I personally would just stick something at the end of the article, like a link saying "more", "news", "WN", or just an icon, or something like that. -- user:zanimum
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A question and a comment:
Question: do we have a concise Wikipedia essay on what plagiarism is and isn't and is there a way to provide an internal link to it? If I deleted a plagiarized passage or entry and wanted to place a helpful note at a User's Talkpage like "please see Wikipedia policy here" or "for a definition of plagiarism, please click here" or some such. Can someone please advise?
Comment: plagiarism is rife in articles about entertainers; for some reason people think it's fine to copy from e.g. the IMDB. I think this is aided by well-meaning responses on the HelpDesk that say things like, "if you retype in your own words, it's fine". Well, no, I don't think it is; we were taught that paraphrasing is still plagiarism.
Quill 23:42, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses, folks. Okay, that sorts things through WRT the 1911 EB, but how about the other stuff? Deco, I see it all the time because I spend a lot of time on actors and singers and the like. Pages lifted from IMDB, liner notes, websites--sometimes this is listed as a 'reference', sometimes not.
I'll have to do some more thinking about it; can't quite reconcile this "Keep in mind that the role of an encyclopedia is quite different from that of a typical paper — there is no implication that any of our text is our own original idea." with this "By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public domain resources — this does not include most web pages."
I like your idea about a guideline page. Can something be done about this?
Quill 20:09, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Maxx 15:21, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Do we really need a threat as ... threatening as
in the sandbox, where people are encouraged to experiment, and likely make their first edit on WP? Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a script that replaces the {{sandbox}} template every 10 minutes or so, if it is removed? Just a consideration of not barking at the wrong people. dab 17:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I started a discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Spam about the use of bots to mass-post on user talk pages. My hope is that it can result in a policy one way or the other. PRiis 01:21, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
An issue has arisen at Kenneth Bigley, the British hostage in Iraq who was beheaded, about whether it's appropriate to provide links to the video showing his death. I feel it's not appropriate (a) because I regard it as the worst kind of pornography, (b) because the killers wanted it to be shown widely and we shouldn't assist them, and (c) one of the websites hosting it apparently shows bestiality videos, so we'd be helping readers to find them too. Is there a Wikipedia policy that covers this, or has a consensus been reached about it? Slim 06:09, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
What is the policy for external links? For example, what if a linked site is purely vicious invective. I am thinking of the Counterpunch link on Tom Lantos. It seems perfectly reasonable to summarize those criticisms raised in this link which are legitimate in the body of the article along with a summary of what Congressman Lantos has accomplished, but I am uncomfortable with a stub which links to an article that is nothing more than a vicious attack.
Should individuals known publicly to have suffered from a pathology be mentioned in the article? How?
At issue is whether Gayle Laverne Grinds should be referenced in the bedsore article. This issue potentially affects a large number of articles. Your comments at Talk:Bedsore would be most welcome. -- Pontifex 22:02, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have a policy on accepting uploaded PDFs as media to be linked in articles? Rafti Institute has uploaded a quite a few, including some that are original research. -- Whosyourjudas (talk) 21:23, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
crossposted to
Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)
Sysops now have the ability to undelete selected revisions of a deleted article. Please see
Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages by sysops for explanation of this feature (what I've figured out by
playing with it) and
Wikipedia talk:Undeletion policy for some questions on its use. —
Charles
P.
(Mirv) 13:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have a policy on whether/when it's acceptable to post somebody's contact details in an article?
I ask because an anon recently added to the William Schnoebelen article "You can contact him via e-mail at [address]." The address given does appear in two places on the web, but it's not clear that Schnoebelen intends it to be used as a general public contact address (his site offers a different contact address). Further, Schnoebelen is a very controversial figure; posting the guy's email address and encouraging people to contact him would seem to invite abusive behaviour, IMHO. Is there a standard policy on this sort of thing? -- Calair 23:21, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've noticed that an anonymous user has added donation appeals to the Bobbie Jo Stinnett page and the Bobbie Jo Stinnett/Temp page. Is there an official policy on things like this? Should they be removed or just copyedited. Evil Monkey → Talk 20:08, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
Is it Wikipedia policy to capitalise headwords in the body of articles as a matter of course? For example, the names of animals often seem to have initial capitals in Wikipedia where they would not normally.
I have just removed an initial capital from the entry for "cyclist", which began:
The capital "C" is completely unnecessary here.
I ask because I often refer to Wikipedia when contributing to Wiktionary, and it is irritating not to be able to know whether a capitalised word is actually a proper noun or really just a common noun.
In my opinion, capitals should only be used in Wikipedia where appropriate, that is, at the beginning of sentences and in proper nouns.
Thanks for any useful feedback.
— Paul G 15:17, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
(Copied from Wikipedia talk:Fair use since this may be a better place to ask...) I've been working on fleshing out the article on the Samogitian language, and I would like to include a recorded example of the spoken language. I have some (copyrighted) folklore recordings of native speakers singing, telling stories, etc. If I take a short (~15 seconds) excerpt of one story and credit it appropriately, is this fair use? The key, I think, is that the content of the story is not important to the article. -- Theodore Kloba 20:20, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
Do we want articles on common first names? Where should the disambiguation pages for first names go? Are hybrid disambiguation articles ok? Comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Rmhermen 21:26, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
I don't see why we are trying to make a special case out of first names. Looking at the example of William it is clearly an encyclopedia article. The confusion seems to be that people have used firstname articles as disambigs when in fact they really should be articles. Wikipedia is for the end user, not for the convience of editors. Stbalbach 04:10, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
For older discussion on this, see VFD/Precedents#Are_all_first_names_valid_topics_for_articles -- Key45 00:21, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Do we have any standard on how to reference a foreign-language wikipedia article? It seems that no matter what I do, people come through and edit it.
Originally, when indicating (for example) a Spanish-language Wikipedia article as a reference I would refer, for example, to:
...which shows as:
After being admonished that this constitutes an unacceptable self-reference (because the interwiki link would break when used elsewhere, I started using:
...which shows as:
Now someone is going through editing those back to how I had it in the first place. Is there a policy on this? If not, can we please establish one? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:55, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
Originally, I was of the mind that schools are not per se notable; that articles about schools should be included here if and only if the school met some sort of notability standard. I've changed my opinion on this for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's like pushing rope; every high school kid is going to want to (a) look up their own school, and (b) make an entry for it if it's not there. Secondly, the fact that every school kid is going to want to look up their own school (as will every alum) in some ways defines the usefulness of these entries: it's information people will naturally seek here, whether we like it or not.
With that in mind, I propose a naming standard for schools. There appear to be only a limited number of names for schools; any school named after an American president, for example, is not going to be unique. I suggest that school articles be always titled (for example) William Howard Taft High School (Woodland Hills, CA), to differentiate it from William Howard Taft High School (Dallas, TX) and so on; a disambiguation page of course would exist. We should make a point of renaming existing American school articles using this standard. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 19:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It there are two schools with the same name, then the oldest one should be able to claim seniority and keep the page with links to disambiguation pages for the others if neccessary. I do not see why "Rugby School" should be put on a new page called "Rugby School (Rugby, Warwickshire, England, UK)" even if there is one in another country called Rugby School Philip Baird Shearer 18:02, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In response to some new developments, I'd like comment on a possible update to the currently-outdated meta:Video policy. Please comment on the discussion here, as this involves all Wikimedia projects. grendel| khan 13:10, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
a) If a page on VfD gets M keep votes, with the only opposition being the nominator, the discussion shall be archived and the page kept.
b) If a page on VfD gets N delete votes, not including the nominator, with no opposition, the discussion shall be archived and the page deleted.
c) If a page is nominated in obvious bad faith, the VfD subpage shall be deleted and the page kept.
d) The usual vote exclusions for sockpuppets apply.
Some feedback would be greatly appreciated on the VfD talk section. My preferred values of M and N would be 5 and 3, but I've left that open intentionally. Vacuum c 17:17, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
Can I put ebooks (possibly illegal) links in my wikipedia user pages? To know about the kind of links, see this page. (When you reply, please drop me a message in my talk page) - Sridhar 06:55, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Policy regarding user space is being clarified at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/User:Amgine/Maureen's RfC. The issue is whether or not it is appropriate for someone to keep a copy of an uncertified RfC in their user space when policy calls for the RfC to be deleted. Is this similar to copying a deleted article to BJAODN or is it circumventing Wikipedia policy? Your input is welcome. SWAdair | Talk 03:14, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Policy over stub sorting is currently being decided at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Policy. Please help us form a consensus on the matter. Thanks! -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:10, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In the 9 or so months I've been here, I have gotten the strong sense that blank pages are undesirable--that any page in the article space should be an article, a disamb page, a redir, or else be deleted. However, when that opinion was challenged, I couldn't find anything it writing to that effect (of course, it doesn't help that realtime search is currently disabled). Am I wrong, or can someone point me to a policy/guideline page that supports that view? Help!?! Niteowlneils 17:31, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, guys. FWIW, in the case in question, a Wikpedian created a redirect to an existing article, then decided the article didn't discuss the subject as described in the redirect's title adequately, and blanked the redir because "deletion is anti-wiki", so I reverted the blanking (in hindsight, if I had speedied it as 'blanked by author' probably nobody would have complained). Redirects for deletion I guess would be the most proper way to handle it if the redir really isn't called for. BTW, while hunting I did find Wikipedia:List of blank pages, but it hasn't been updated since May--are they being tracked somewhere else now, or can it be updated automatically, or would this possibly be a job for one of the query/collaborate whizzes (Topbanana, Nickj, et al)? Niteowlneils 20:54, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There seems to be a policy to refer to eg The Lord Williams of Mostyn. I haven't checked to see if this is correct, but I do know it sounds ridiculous and no-one ever says this. Who makes these decisions? Is there a style guide? And how would one go about getting the style changed?
Check the Debretts website [2]. It is the "correct" formal style for a baron and Life Peer. Dabbler 13:18, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"I haven't checked to see if this is correct" - what more can I say? (Needless to say, it is correct.) Proteus (Talk) 14:47, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You say it's correct, I think it's a level of formality that isn't necessary for this encyclopaedia and I think it's liable to mislead people into thinking anyone ever says it. - Andrew Roberts
Btw, does anyone know what the DNB does?
When will Wikipedia enter the 21st century and allow Flash files to be imbedded into article pages like images? - XED. talk. stalk. mail. csb 23:51, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Would that mean that non-broadband users would have to wait for a long time or that the page would cause a "flash-block" (ie. "I refuse to load because you do not have Flash installed")? - Skysmith 09:09, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Will this essentially require that users use a proprietary software package? I suspect many would object to it if it does, and as a practical matter it might. The SWF format (Flash 7) is available at http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/licensing/fileformat/ but the license described there only permits creating the format, not displaying it, which raises concerns. I believe there was some partial open source software implementation of the SWF format, but I do not know how complete it is. -- Dwheeler 19:36, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)
The article on The Six Million Dollar Man contained a trivia item (which I did not contribute, I should note) which turned out to be a cut-and-paste of a trivia item from IMDb. Back in November someone placed a copyvio tag on the page. About 5 minutes later I spotted this and rewrote the trivia item on the temp page so that it was no longer a copyvio (I also made factual corrections since the original IMDb trivia item was erroneous anyway). It's my understanding the copyvio notice was to have been removed by an admin within a week, but it's been more than a month. Is there a penalty for going ahead and removing the copyvio notice and replacing the offending material so we can lose the ugly (and no longer necessary) copyvio notice in the middle of the article? Cheers 23skidoo 02:41, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Can't find anything on the naming convention pages whether there should be a comma between a last name and 'Jr.' in the article/page title, and current usage/precedent doesn't seem to help much, EG Joseph Pulitzer Jr. but Ed Begley, Jr.; William Usery Jr. but Martin Luther King, Jr. (I'm assuming constructions like Whitney Moore Jr. Young were caused by scripts that (I assume) created Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics/Biographies Y.)
Anyone know if there's a preferred standard that I'm not finding? Any similar policies/guidelines to extrapolate from? Other comments or suggestions? Niteowlneils 01:51, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. OK, I think we've established Wikipedia has not yet developed a standard. I lean toward including the comma, as, at least here in the US, in formal, written documents, it is pretty much always included. Is there a different standard in other English speaking countries? (I guess I have to break down and get Strunk & White, AP Style, and Chicago style manuals here, even tho' I already have copies of the first two back in my Seattle apt.) The exactness of Wikipedia search beyond just punctuation, while vexing, is probably part of a bigger discussion than this. Of the google hits, the ones that say not to use the comma seem to fall into two categories--those that say it's common, but nowadays not necessary, and medical and professorial style guides that deal with other suffixes after last names (EG MD, PhD). Niteowlneils 16:49, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hello. I've had this doubt for quite a while now, and this is the best way I could find to discuss about it. It does concern the French Wikipedia, I know, but since I'm not a member from that version, and since I do not speak French either, perhaps I could talk about this here.
On the few times I've been to the French Wikipedia, I noticed their policy on dealing with categories and languages on articles is to add their tags in the beginning of the page. While I'm not aware of everything about styles regarding this and different Wikipedias, I do think that's a very bad habit. Adding those tags to the beginning of each article adds a good share of unnecessary spaces there, which, in my opinion, makes those pages look strange. That's why I always move those tags to the bottom in the English Wikipedia, and it looks like that's the style we've addopted here.
I Once edited an article on the French Wikipedia, moving languages and categories tags to the bottom of the page, among with other small edits. Well, that was promptly reverted by someone else, easy like that. That member labeled what I did as "vandalism" (yes, I understood that). I don't keep rancor or anything, but I'd just like to know why that happens, and if it really should be that way. Why they have such a preference. Wouldn't it be better if they just did it like we do? I'm not asking for the whole stuff to be changed (also because that would be damn hard to do, manually), though I do think it would be better to keep those tags at the bottom.
Anyhow, I'd just like to hear your opinion.
Thank you.-- Kaonashi 19:20, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. However, I never stated we're superior, or that our standards should be everybody else's standards. I just wanted to understand why they do that, or most importantly, why my action was seen as vandalism. I am allowing differences. That's exactly what I did when I accepted my edit being reverted. I guess it's just a point of view, after all. To me that drops the article's aesthetics way down, but that's just my opinion. I created this discussion here because perhaps I was missing something on this. It's all I wanted to know.-- Kaonashi 20:31, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, yes. I sure hope that problem will be fixed in the next versions. It's just like the hidden text feature. It'll add a blank line instead of just making the text disappear, so to avoid that it's necessary to add the tags to the beginning or end of another block of text. Another problem is the way those boxes (usually made up from HTML tags in the article's own body, or sometimes via template) will add blank spaces to the beginning of an article that can't be removed (at least I can rarely manage to do so).
By the way, thanks for sharing what you found out about the French Wikipedia. I appreciate it.-- Kaonashi 01:32, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Aah, I see. Thanks for clearing that up. But yes, you're right. Not much to be done about this, except to wait until the developers can fix the interlinks and prevent them from converting into spaces. Also, thanks for the tip. I'll drop by sometime. =] -- Kaonashi 20:47, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps as dry as you could possibly get (I'm sure the taxonomic geeks might take issue with that ;)), but something I'm hoping to nail down a decent consensus on. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government departments and ministers). Fire/ignore away. -- The Tom 04:34, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What's policy on pages in the User: namespace that don't have a corresponding user? Are these speedyable, or painfully-slow-VfDable, or what?
The specific case I have in mind is User:Gabriel Kent, which seems to have been created shortly after Gabriel Kent went through VfD (discussion here). I rather suspect it's identical to the deleted page, though of course I can't be sure since I can't see it. While I don't think the resume's any more appropriate in userspace than WP proper (let alone in non-user userspace), I wouldn't bother to bring it up except that anons have been redirecting Gabriel Kent there. — Korath 会話 00:59, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I was fixing up some of the articles on the "orphans" page. I happened to notice that there is this category [[Category:7-Flushing Train stations]] with 22 short articles, each for a station on one line of the New York City subway system. The first thing I notice is that many don't bother to mention that the stations are in New York City (I happen to know, as I live here), some of them don't actually mention that they are about train stations, although one might infer that from the mention of tracks. (The articles are all written from the point of view of a New York resident, who knows where Queens is, but just needs to know the exact layout of a subway station). Should they be fixed up (with some boilerplate, about "this is a station in New York City's Public Transit...) or should they all be listed on the VFD page as being beyond any appropriate level of detail, or nothing? Morris 05:36, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
File:Beef noodle soup food stand.jpg
The picture is reverted but I still do not see any explaination. -- Toytoy 14:42, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
Whoever deletes this image please explain. I altered much about this image that I can easily claim fair use or derivated work. The useful information in this picture is ALL ADDED BY ME. The background is only A BACKGROUND. -- Toytoy 12:35, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
I happened to stumble upon Russian entry on "Latvia" ( http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%8F).
It is a short entry, providing with relatively little information and, unlike English version, contains only one additional link, that is "Latvian Legionaries of Waffen SS" http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8B%D1%88%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%8B_Waffen_SS
No doubt that even Germany between 1933 and 1945, if taken neutrally, had something else in addition to Hitler, nazies, ss, gestapo etc, worth mentioning would for examle be victims, devastation, war refugees etc, not even mentioning a usual eastern-european country of the year 2004, not fighting in World War II anymore.
The problem seems to be that there's political argument between modern Russian leadership, in particular Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Latvia over the history and interpretation of history of Latvia in 2 World War. This is why Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued its official opinion on those Latvian-related units which fought with the Germans against Soviet Union in form of waffen ss, which has similarity of attitude with the entry in question. ( http://www.ln.mid.ru/Bl.nsf/arh/ACC381543BF4F1D7C3256E5B003561F1?OpenDocument).
I would like to draw attention to the estimates of international organizations such as Freedom House and Reporteurs sans frontiers who, in their annual estmates, in recent years gave Russian media very low index, putting it essentially close to the level of media of some of worst dictatorships, thus siting absence of media freedom. Together with the fact that official Kremlin and its security services have launched a controlled media campaign against Latvia, this implies that Russian sources-based information in Wikipedia's Russian page on Latvia, emphasizing "latvian waffen ss" could be politically motivated and one-sided. As now, it seems to be based on USSR sources and no mentioning of the opinion of western countries (or Latvia) is provided. For example, US Commission of Refugees issued an opinion in 1950s that baltic waffen ss members, who, in fact, fought against USSR in front combat units, cannot be considered "criminal" or nazies, therefore undermining any special meaning that the Russians attach to artifitial entry on "latvian waffen ss units". At least such an entry should have a note that the opinion given is not shared in Lavia.
I think, while it largely corresponds to the believes of most of population of modern Russia, as one-sided and propaganda-influenced information, it should not be part of Wikipedia.
Please communicate this to the persons responsible for management,
Best Regards
Raul Nugis
Estonia
PS: I hope it is understood that as though now it is justified to consider Wikipedia to large extent as a product of information stored elsewhere, in future, it could be considered as actually souce of information in itself. That's why, if somebody puts his or her distorted or one-sided information in Wikipedia, later, provided this person is dishonest or disoriented, he or she can further facilitate his or her claims citing Wikipedia's entries and using Wikipedia's authority and trust of its users, which it will perhaps have.
No offence is meant, and I hope none is taken. My respects to all the English-speaking Wikipedia community - I do envy you for being that far ahead of us in both diversity and depth. Sincerely yours, Wulfson 06:19, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Browsing the Category:Time I stumbled upon this little article - Chronovisor. It made me think of what is the wikipedian standard on inclusion of articles on alleged phenomena/devices/etc.
It's clear that an article on a fictional object such as One Ring is warranted and generally non-controversial, unless it's really on some obscure item (the 5th Ring of Dwarves), when it becomes an example of fancruft.
Articles on real objects that are subject of unfounded claims such as Shroud of Turin are also warranted, especially when a large number of people have some beliefs (no matter how crazy) about these.
It's also clear that even articles on alleged (but not real) phenomena such as Bermuda Triangle are warranted when they have a large amount of influence on culture, society, even science.
But what about articles about trivial items such as this Chronovisor? Obviously, it could not work, almost surely it never even existed (although if it did, it would be very interesting evidence of idiocy of Catholic scientists) and it's not like it even has a strong following of conspiracy theorists.
What do you think? Paranoid 21:22, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A lot of people feel the current Candidates for Speedy Deletion criteria are too narrow, and they are probably right that something should be done; Just ignoring policy and deleting non-CSD articles is not a solution however. I'd like to make a strong statement here that this is not acceptable. Please sign to indicate that you agree (or give a reason why we shouldn't stick to the speedy deletion rules I suppose). (The reason I want this is to be able to link this statement when people keep CSD-marking and SDing non-candidates defending it as 'standard practice').
Some random examples from the current deletion log, names removed because I don't want to single out any specific editors:
And the list goes on and on. None of these articles had already previously been deleted, so CSD criterion 5 didn't apply. -- fvw * † 02:57, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)
French Absolutism was an obvious joke. It was a personal letter from "Heroin Fred" trying to get himself a date. The other two deserve to go, but weren't CSDs. -- Cyrius| ✎ 05:03, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The article of Jay Chow contains a lot of personal profile, such as "his favorite..., his favorite...", etc. Can anyone tell me that whether these kind of articles should be cleanup? Thank you! Mickeymousechen 03:56, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)mickeymousechen
Copyvio concerns aside, this kind of obsessive detail seems to be typical of fandom in China and Japan. Keep it because it tells us a lot about how his business is conducted. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 14:50, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't have a clear policy on the proper response to legal threats. According to Wikipedia:No legal threats, legal threats against Wikipedia by editors are a violation of policy, but there does not seem to be consensus to block or ban users who engage in this practice. Nevertheless, many admins do routinely block people for making legal threats. I don't believe these blocks are justified by policy. Whether or not you believe blocking should be allowed, the policy is currently inconclusive. Maybe someone could clarify this, or if necessary, we could have a vote about it. Cross-posted to WIKIEN-L. Rhobite 00:31, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
Question: Why is the Wikipedia running beta software? The MediaWiki site says it "may not be stable. Recommended only for adventurous souls." I can't imaging my credit card company or even Yahoo! or Google running beta software which hasn't been thoroughly tested. — Mike 06:47, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC).
The GFDL license is an overly-restrictive license that isn't compatible with any other content licenses (that I know of). Unless the FSF reforms it significantly, I would really rather not publish anything under it personally. WikiTravel uses the much more lightweight and compatible by-sa Creative Commons license. Why does Wikipedia insist on using such a beast as the GFDL? I'm sure more than a few people are sick of having to dual (or tri-) license their writing in order to put it on Wikipedia and other websites. If we're not using a license that's compatible with any other websites, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of having "free" content, IMO. For more information see the following:
Moved to Wikipedia_talk:Privacy_policy.
I am not clear where this belongs, so I am reposting it from the Proposals page:
I think Wikipedia needs a general disclaimer on all Palestine/Israel-related issues, like The majority of the editors on Israel-Palestine issues have a strong bias and all readers are requested to make independent conclusions, cross-check information themselves and best of all, avoid reading these pages for authoritative information very importantly, not take offense at the presentation of historical facts on these pages. This will stop the more conscientious editors from stressing over every moronic agenda-based edit that mutates Wikipedia every few moments and focus on articles they can actually make progress on. --
Simonides 01:24, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Zain 22:34, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
NEW: See additional discussion below at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Nudity (full frontal) pictures in an encyclopedia?
I understand that by introducing this topic yet again (not by me, but as a topic) that I am pouring salt on a few open sores, but I feel I must find a place to discuss it. Wikipedia has a problem in several articles concerning the inclusion of nude, obscene, or vulgar images. An example is Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse where there is actually a censored version of the article. However, at this location there is an attempt to delete the censored article. Shouldn't Wikipedia attempt to protect users who want to use its resources but have moral or ethical sensibilities to such material? For example, Nude celebrities on the internet actually contains links to pornographic websites. Is this really necessary? There are of course, many more examples (such as male circumcision, which carries no warning label). At the very least, I propose that pages with possibly offensive pictures contain warnings at the top, as a matter of Wikipedia policy. I am not advocating their complete censorship (although it might be best), but shouldn't we make our materials available to everyone? What about underage users (like myself, I'm 17) and the legal aspects of such actions. More importantly, what about school children? Sexuality is a common topic of research among teens, do we want them to come across obscene images as well as objective information? I'd like other user's opinions on this please.-- naryathegreat 04:52, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
You are just coming up with an excuse for irrational behavior. We all have about the same guidelines concerning what is "obscene". You can say that you don't want people to take it that far, but what you really mean is that you have no reasonable objection to the proposal. The articles on World War II don't have graphic pictures or links to pornographic websites either (at least, the ones I've been on).-- User:naryathegreat (t) 21:39, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
Jooler:Merely because half of Europe "does it" does not make it "correct" or acceptable. Why don't you question the greedy motivation of the advertisers and the TV companies, and the unashamed actors who "act" being nude for the camera, all of whom are only out to make big bucks and they don't care if they trash the human race and human dignity and self-respect in the process. Please get some perspective! IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Photos of graphic violence are just as deplorable as graphic nudity and both cannot be shown in a general encyclopedia like Wikipedia which is used by millions of children who don't need to see things that most people don't see on a regular basis. IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The article at Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse is already censored. The pictures have fuzzy bits over parts of the images that someone somewhere has deemed too shocking to show. I feel that the providing a separate "censored" version without the pictures can only have a political agenga. It it curious that of all the pages in Wikipedia this one should provide the incentive for someone to produce a separate page "to lessen the impact" of the article. The story of this article is the pictures. Without the pictures there would have been no story in the first place. There would just have been unsubstantiated rumous of abuse. To remove the pictures is an attempt to water down the article so that it can be forgotten about. Jooler 17:58, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Evil: Logic and reality say that "words" and "photos" are NOT equal (maybe only "in the minds' of some beholders"). There are ways of saying things, and then again, there are ways of saying things. Wikipedia is NOT a trapdoor to all things negative. IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think, by default, nothing should be censored. However, it would be quite upsetting to me if a middle school library or a popular filtering software allowed no one to view an article I wrote simply because it contained images they deemed too sensitive. Because I can't change society, and because Wikipedia is not paper, we should take advantage of customizable settings to expose the encyclopedia to the largest possible audience. Although the default would be to include all such material some articles could have short warnings with a link to a discussion of the setting, how to set it, and how it works, for those who wish to use it. Deco 06:31, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
To censor is to be inherently biased. Who are we to declare what is or what is not obscene? Our responsibility as editors of an encyclopedia is to collect and present information in as clear and neutral a manner as possible. We are not here to protect sensitive people. Sometimes the truth hurts - yes, women have clitorises. Yes, people got abused in Abu Ghraib. Do we have photographs which illustrate these things clearly and with the intention to explain and not to shock? Yes. And those pictures make the article more informative, so yes, they belong. Not everything in the world is pretty. Not everything in the world is nice. But it is still our responsibility to present it. If we censor, we make the decision for our readers - do we not trust them to decide for themselves what they want to read? I, for one, am throughly and totally against censoring or adding warnings to anything. [[User:Premeditated Chaos| User:Premeditated Chaos/Sig]] 08:07, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Censorship is lying. I dont always tell my mother the whole truth, leaving out parts that I know would upset her, but thats basically the same as lying to her. Its an attempt to divert her from the truth. An encyclopedia should strive for truth. If you censor something, you help the people who are offended by it to avoid it, but you keep that information from anyone who wishes to use it. You would ultimately help more people to not censor the articles, but warnings of possibly objectional material would not effect the articles in any adverse way. Perhaps you could make warnings an option under user preferences. Inebriation station 2005- 01-03 21:54 (UTC)
Censorship is not in the spirit of the NPOV policy of Wikipedia. It is bias in its most basic form. I completely disagree with the idea of censoring articles with dipictions and/or descriptions that are relevent to the articles they lie within. If they are not relevent, they should not be present. One precedent of proper discretion against use of a picture depicting a nude woman is on the Talk page for the Breast article. The picture that was removed was not relevant enough to the article (ie. it was considered pornographic and not informative). Summation: Censorship = Bad -ÅrУnT 06:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I see no reason why warnings could not be placed at the top of pages that contain material that could offend some viewers. This does not censor the page, nor does it hamper its effectiveness in any way, but merely serves to give viewers a choice, similar to the way spoiler warnings are used. Does anybody here disagree with spoiler warnings? -ÅrУnT 06:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Since when is using one's common sense and applying one's sense of decency "equal" to "censorship"? To refuse to allow Playboy or Penthouse into your home is NOT "censorship", it is rather an application of good ethics and superior morality, and shows that as responsible humans we are capable of knowing right from wrong by excluding moral poison and corruption from Wikipedia. Unless of course we want to invite Hugh Hefner and company (and those who admire him and his ilk) from setting up Wikipedia's policy of "new tastes" in photography of women etc? IZAK 11:00, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You know, I raised this issue about 6 months ago in requesting whether a template should be created for a warning that an article contains adult content. What the discussion boiled down to was that the template should not be created, due to the fact that it might end up inviting more trouble that its worth. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:38, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In terms of looking for a consensus, I think we should accept that any form of censorship besides self-censorship cannot achieve consensus. However, I think we should also recognize that expecting users to know which pages contain images that they don't want to see before they see them is not a reasonable approach to self-censorship. To this end, I think we could put the issue to rest if the MediaWiki software supported the following feature:
Each user may maintain a list of categories, such that images labeled with one of those categories appear in a linked rather than inline form on their display.
The category system we already have, and as applied to the image namespace, it allows us to transcend the debate over whether a picture would be found objectionable by a suitably large number of people, and just objectively place it in a category like Category: Diseased anatomy, Category: Explicit human death, Category: Nazi propoganda, or Category: Female nipple. The classification of what an image actually shows can be done at least somewhat objectively. Objectively determining which images should be displayed is in many cases hopeless. Shimmin 14:01, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
do we want them to come across obscene images? This debate should be dubbed "The morality of neutrality". Honestly, this isn't christian conservative America - it's Wikipedia. Almost everyone here has sucked on titties before - either as a baby and possibly later. It's nothing new to any of us, and as a neutral encyclopedia, well, I must revert to the infamous Joe Friday. We are here to report, "Just the Facts, Ma'am". Maybe we can exercise a teensy bit of discretion by not showing rolled heads at guillotine, but breasts and penis? come on! -- Alterego 06:11, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that registered user accounts were intended for the use of one individual only, not for a "group." The reason I bring it up is because of the following account: User:Asexual same-sex marriage, on whose user page is the following message:
"""thank you."
Now, this smacks of advertising to me (never mind that the user(s) has been making non-NPOV edits to the Same-sex marriage article which reflect his/her/their stated mission.
Anyone?
Exploding Boy 21:26, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
User:Mikkalai has created a Russian (usage) page, and is busy replacing links to the Russian (language) page with links to his Russian (usage) page, on the grounds that he wants to declutter links to the "Russian language" article. Is this in keeping with Wikipedia policy? Jayjg | (Talk) 19:03, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
He tells his story in a teenage slang called "Nadsat", which mixes Russian with English slang.
I see he has created a Russian (spelling) article for the same purpose. Jayjg | (Talk) 20:38, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've put it up for VfD here: Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Russian_(usage)#.5B.5BRussian_.28usage.29.5D.5D Jayjg | (Talk) 22:00, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Please also see Talk:Russian (spelling) for more comments on this.— Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 22:02, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
Because it was 2 against 1 on a little-known article, I thought this debate was concluded, but just yesterday someone posted on my talk page in support of me.
A while back, I thought the image at the Lolicon article was too offensive, and replaced it with a different one. Compare
An objection was immediately raised to my image; that it wasn't a fair representation of the sexual basis of lolicon. As the tentative statement at Wikipedia:Profanity says, accuracy should not be sacrificed in order to be less objectionable. So I dropped my case at that time.
However, the anonymous note on my talk page reminds me that unlike the stylized or medical images on other articles, the Lolicon picture is objectionably pornographic. The Profanity page also notes that you should not use pictures that are illegal for many Wikipedia readers to download, and I think this might fall into that category. Since there is still an even split on the issue-- 2 vs. 2-- I'd like the opinion of the Village Pump on which image to use.
Ashibaka tlk 06:54, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The picture you chose doesn't look like lolicon to me because it is not sexualized in any way. I won't look at the other picture but I read the article without images. In my view, a genuine lolicon picture could be unsuitable for Wikipedia because it may be illegal under Florida law. People who really want to see lolicon online can use a search engine. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 14:44, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just a note on the legality of these things: It is typical for H-manga (especially of this kind) even in Japan to have forenotes that essentially state that every girl featured in that publication, despite her appearance, is of a legal age of consent. This is enough in most countries (the US included) to clear a person of any sort of legal wrongdoing despite how young the girls may appear to be. So that really isn't an issue here. →Reene ✎ 03:49, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
For a while now I have been frustrated at the lack of restraint displayed by partisan editors in many of Wikipedia's college and university articles. So I've drafted a guideline on academic boosterism at User:Rbellin/Avoid academic boosterism. (It's purely a statement of voluntary principle, and anyway it's a special case of Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms, so I don't think it needs to become anything more "official policy"-ish than a statement of principles for a segment of the WP community.) Feedback, discussion, and edits are welcome. Does this seem potentially useful enough to move into the Wikipedia namespace? -- Rbellin| Talk 20:17, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. It seems as though at least a continued discussion would be useful, so I'm going to move the page into the Wikipedia namespace. Further comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:Avoid academic boosterism. -- Rbellin| Talk 01:09, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I feel there is a problem with the democratic process on Wikipedia. If for example people from the Church of Scientology created several hundred accounts on Wikipedia (making legitimate edits so as not to be accused of sock puppetry), they could decide to vote down any proposal for the inclusion of content that might be seen as detrimental to the image of Scientology (to the point of deleting pages on VFD), and nobody could do anything to stop it. The whole process therefore seems fundamentally flawed. Right now a vote is going on at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (censored) and there's nothing to stop members of the USMC (or whoever) ganging up on Wikipedia and voting for the retention of this page. Jooler 04:09, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree with the possibility of the hypothetical scenario. I think that if wikipedia gets to the point of being considered an authoritative source (which could have already happened) it will be more likely. I am actually more worried about groups that are more subtle than the U.S. Marine. How about The Olin Foundation, or AIPAC. Morris 13:24, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
The nice thing about GFDL is that if Wikipedia were really to be overwhelmed by a particular faction, there is nothing to stop a different group from forking, setting up a somewhat more restrictive set of rules as to who can edit, and taking the project from there. And then the world will presumably sort out which fork has more credibility. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:35, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
This scenario already exists. Several interest groups already do control articles by exactly this method. (I won't name names but I will say that in some cases those interest groups do not even realise that they are doing anything like this: they are just defending their interest.) Wikipedia was in fact designed to negate the effect, by insisting that decisions should be consensual, that is, include all views, but the drift from that to a community that votes on proposals, deletion, this, that and the other opens the door to the dedicated POV pushers. The interest group need only hold a poll on an article and it can then enforce the majority decision for the rest of the article's life. Or of course it can simply outrevert any opposition. The policy on reversion allows groups to tag-revert individuals, so minority voices can be shut down by interest groups without any difficulty. Dr Zen 12:22, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The general point here is, it seems to me, that if you move away from genuine concensus decision-making to the rule of the majority, then you enable vote-rigging and the territorial rule over certain groups of articles by interest-groups who can simply vote-down any minority view that comes along, regardless of merit. These groupings can then find ways to use house rules like the 3RR to protect their turf by playing on the frustration of the dissenting voices. Personally, I have walked away from articles like Historicity of Jesus because I felt this going on by a group of users some of whom were acting in good faith in the way Dr Zen indicates above (others I feel fairly sure knew exactly what they were doing). Filiocht 11:40, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
Recently, the List of anime page was turned into a redirect to Category:Anime, and the red-links for the list page were put at the top of the category page. I restored the previous version of List of anime, and think that the list of anime articles which don't exist isn't something that belongs in a category page. I've poked around the Wikipedia category pages, but aside from a page saying why list pages can be useful even though there's categories, I can't find anything else. -- Khym Chanur 07:44, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
We appear to be getting quite a bit of vandalism from marketscore proxies. It's technically an open proxy, so current policy says block it, but there have also been useful edits coming from these proxies (they're not quite in line with normal anonymous proxies in that users get suckered into using them without being aware of it). What should we do, block them with a pretty little "Why Marketscore is evil and how to get rid of it" template, or leave them open until they start getting abused on a large scale? -- fvw * 23:08, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
I plan to collaborate with CannedLizard on doing high resolution Counter-Strike comparisons. Since we might be doing multiple large images I was wondering what the policy was on deciding where to upload images. When should one upload to Wikicommons, and when to upload to Wikipedia? - RoyBoy [ ∞] 20:14, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've come across Mount_Ida... and it does not have a disambig page but it has it on the bottom. I've tried reading the Wiki page on disambiguation, I don't know why... maybe I'm tired or something, but it didn't help me comprehend when/why disambigs are put on the bottom rather than having a proper page made and a clear warning at the top of the main article for quick navigation. - RoyBoy [ ∞] 21:47, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In case of Mount Ida a disamb is in order, as I can't see how one of the mountains is more important than any of the others which would warrant their placement at the Mount Ida page with the disamb moving to Mount Ida (disambiguation). I'll see if I can fix it. Mgm| (talk) 22:22, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
The current external link (semi?, quarter?) policy Wikipedia:External links is rather terse and doesn't decide much. A proposal for a new policy Wikipedia:External links/temp seems to be stalled. Discussion there seems to be centered on a heated side issue (dmoz).
This is a bit surprising to me, as from several discussions on talk pages, as well as from discussions seen on the mailing list, I very much feel that there is an implicit external link policy in action. Actually not unlike the explicit one on de.wikipedia.
This makes me wonder, whether it is an oversight or by design, that no written policy exists.
Pjacobi 21:08, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)
OK. I know some people go mad if a woman does not cover her hair. I wonder if there can be a system to flag images based on its contents. If I cannot tolerate any picture of nudity, I set a personal preference to filter all images with a nudity flag.
The HTML code may need no modification but the server only sends out a blank image.
We need all kinds of flags to help people co-exist with their fears. A true veggie may not want to see the picture of a sausage. Personally, I hate to see a sausage that's too small to feed me. I want mine big. -- Toytoy 14:48, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
Evil Monkey → Talk 00:00, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
The very act of tagging articles and photos as offensive will offend people. In addition, by tagging a specific item as possibly offensive you will be offending someone who finds that item as particularly non-offensive. Obviously there is a certain low level of filter that could be applied. George Carlin's seven dirty words for example, and we already filter much nudity. -- Alterego 03:19, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
Make it all or nothing. No user or group of users should have the right to decide what is and is not potentially offensive. So either move for an option to block all images on Wikipedia (which would be a great option for dialup users as well; perhaps with a "click to load image" placeholder on pages) or don't even bother implimenting anything at all. I realize this can be a touchy subject with some (I daresay even most) people, but don't let your (general "your") personal, religious, or cultural biases override your common sense. →Reene ✎ 10:09, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that this would be useful, but I also have pointed out that all web browsers known to me permit the user to decide whether or not to download and display images. I used to do this with NCSA Mosaic and Netscape when I had a slow (v32) modem, and have used the same feature more recently for various reasons on
Firefox and
Internet Explorer. So while it would be a nice-to-have feature on Wikipedia (and in my opinion the only form of server-side image barring that is fully compatible with NPOV) it isn't as if the user didn't already have the option to accept or decline images. --
Tony Sidaway|
Talk 10:58, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I feel that as long as pictures fit an article there's no need to censor them to the public at large. And parents should be advised there is such a thing as filters to protect their kids from pretty much anything they want. If a user activated censor option could settle this entire discussion I'm all for it. However, most images will be found obscene by someone. I say, categorize a picture in one or more NPOV cats and use these so users can click an option in their preferences. Problem solved? Mgm| (talk) 22:06, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
I tried to find some good advice on structuring articles in wikipedia namespaces. All I found were some pages in the Style and How-to Directory, some pages in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and some links on template:FAPath. They mostly deal with the issue from a general stylistic and aesthetic viewpoint, and only touch on the underlying reasons for giving a logical and fairly standardized structure to encyclopedia articles.
I've therefore written up a draft guideline for writing articles in a "pyramid structure". Being mostly based on common sense, it is in part a description of what we already do, but its goal is also to explain why structuring articles in this way is good. It's at User:Zocky/Pyramid structure. Please feel free to improve and comment.
I'm not sure how to proceed. Proper structure should obviously be a FA requirement, and this should probably also be in the how-to series. But since structure is a fundamental editorial issue which heavily affects both quality and NPOV, it could also be a part of the Manual of Style. Zocky 14:07, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hello, This is my first post to Village pump.. Anyway is it alright to copy content from a Wikipedia article into another one. For example, I want to copy some content from an article into a country article and then delete some bits out, so it becomes like a summary to the article which I copied from. Is it alright? Squash 00:36, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The Thai government closed the country’s border with Cambodia following the riots. The border was re-opened on 21 March 2003, following the Cambodian government’s payment of $6 million compensation for the destruction of the Thai embassy. The Cambodian government also agreed to compensate individual Thai businesses for the losses which they had suffered, to be negotiated separately.
into
The Thai government closed the country’s border with Cambodia following the riots. The border was re-opened on 21 March 2003, following the Cambodian government’s payment of $6 million compensation. The Cambodian government also agreed to compensate individual Thai businesses.
just an example... Squash 00:36, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
We had a discussion at the recent Seattle meetup about what might be done to set up policies for controversial articles and vandal magnets, policies that might be distinct from those applied to typical Wikipedia articles, but short of outright protection. I was wondering, is there already a page somewhere to discuss ideas like this, or should I start one, maybe at Wikipedia:controversial articles and vandal magnets? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:17, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
When articles are engaged in prolonged edit wars, readers may get very different versions of the same article, depending on when they click on it. The Christian Science article is a very good example of this.
I propose that a new template be created to prominently and specifically direct readers to a disputed article's History page, so that they can get a better idea of the disputed information by viewing the different versions.
The "Twoversions" template almost does this, but it refers to two separate versions instead of to one hotly disputed article.
Also, would it be possible to give only administrators the power to remove (and possibly place) this template on an article?
This policy/tech stuff is unknown territory for me, so forgive me if I'm asking a stupid and/or obvious question.
Thanks, dablaze 08:47, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
This problem cannot be solved by a new template but can already be solved by existing measures. Articles subject to significant edit warring should normally be protected until the warring parties are able and willing to discuss their differences. There already exists a template for this purpose. If edit warring isn't a problem then there's no need for further action. Wikipedia readers already know better than to rely on the accuracy of Wikipedia articles; the content disclaimer linked to every page tells them they should not do this. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 12:01, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think the problem here is that you're misusing language. You said you were concerned that readers wouldn't be aware, in a specific case, that a Wikipedia article "may convey inaccurate or biased information."
But this is the case with every single article on Wikipedia.
There are no exceptions.
You poo-pooed my mention of the disclaimer, but it really is a very important part of Wikipedia. In particular, every single reader of Wikipedia is advised as follows: Wikipedia cannot guarantee, in any way whatsoever, the validity of the information found here. It may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the particular area you are interested in learning about.
The Wikipedia:Peer review and Wikipedia:Featured articles processes are mentioned, but even then, the reader is told "articles that have been vetted by those processes may later have been inappropriately edited just before you view them."
People who either do not read this disclaimer (and there are many) or do not understand its sheer extent probably will be misled by what they read on Wikipedia. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 16:55, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion there shouldn't be any unprotected articles that are undergoing edit wars. If an article is reverted more than three times then it should be protected. violet/riga (t) 20:49, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This article is often subject to edits slanted towards certain points of view. Although we make every effort to maintain a neutral point of view and present all perspectives within the article, you might find that previous revisions of this page carry additional information of use to you.
Does that clarify? Catherine\ talk 03:12, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
{{ long npov}}
Catherine, you're a mensch.
Violet, I don't think those templates are adequate. I've found in my own long-term editing disputes that the people entering their own counter-edits don't necessarily include inaccurate information, but instead include only the information that's both accurate and favorable to their point of view. So the question of whether something's NPOV is subject to debate.
Plus, the talk pages a tend to be chaotic, whereas previous versions and the version comparison tool on the History page speak for themselves. Besides, a POV notice at the top of the page might just set people off, whereas a pointer to the History page will put all contributors on notice that readers may be going back to see exactly what information is in dispute, and exactly who adds or deletes what.
I guess it's kind of a "meta" move, but one that could be valuable in the ever-changing world of Wiki, no?
-- dablaze 05:36, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Is there a way of displaying these templates without adding the pump to the categories? Filiocht 10:37, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
We have 'spoiler' warnings. We have 'Unicode glyphs' warnings. We have 'graphic images' warnings. And now, we have Template:tetragrammaton too. Please tell me this was created by a troll?! Because, you know, if you are an orthodox jew, I would expect that you know about the tetragrammaton already. And if you're not, well, the template tells you nothing. Can we get rid of the more superfluous warnings please? There is no limit to the imagination of what other warnings people will include if we do not develop some reasonable policy on this. dab (ᛏ) 22:46, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
What is the difference between the NPOV and the Objective POV? What types of text does one enclude that the other doesn't? Does the NPOV not contain conclusions from the facts, while the Objective POV does? Does the NPOV state the popular point of view while the Objective POV doesn't if it isn't the POV of one of the sides? All of these are theories. - Lee S. Svoboda 17:49, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
What is the policy for Events capitalization? Should it be 1996 Saguenay Flood or 1996 Saguenay flood? What about the recent 1998 Ice Storm? -- Circeus 00:59, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to list principle translators into English on the pages of well-known foreign authors (either if, or if not these people have pages)? -- Neo 19:46, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
How about just including an ISBN link to the translated edition, with a mention of the translator's name? Unless the translator is particularly notable. Rick K 22:35, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
Can you think of terms defining notability in this context? The reason I ask is as I know of a couple of translators who have won prizes for translating the works of José Saramago, although these prizes are not widely known (and have no articles on wikipedia). Soes this make the translator notable outside the world of translated fiction? -- Neo 00:21, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
How about creating an article on the prize, with a list of winners? And then if you have enough biographical info, you can create articles about the translators. Rick K 21:49, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Administrator assistance is required on
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Swastika - this is regarding
User:Swastika and not our article on Swastika.
Jooler - this issue has been dealt with
Jooler 10:37, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I was interested to see RickK's user page is protected. I have asked him why this is and was interested in the opinions of others. Ollieplatt 07:51, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The protection of my User page is none of Ollieplatt's business, unless he was attempting to vandalize it. My Talk page is available for discussion. Rick K 07:55, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
I have asked some valid questions about this, which may have some simple answers., from RickK's user talk
Hello. I have some questions relating to administrator powers and the interaction between those powers and user pages.
Thanks for your prompt response,
Ollieplatt 07:48, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I would appreciate a response to the above, I don't propose to edit the page at all. I noticed it was protected and am entitled to ask, as above, why it is protected, whether it is a privilege only available to yourself, whether it is within Wikipedia guidelines for it to be protected, whether you protected it or procured its protection, what time limit if any exists on its protection. I would appreciate a response, and not a personal attack along the lines that I am planning to edit the page. I pledge not to do so under any circumstances and accordingly invite your response to the questions asked. Clearly it is a sensitive matter, and perhaps warrants wider discussion, although the reason I asked you directly was that there may have already been such a discussion prior to my arrival. If you could answer the questions or just point me to when it was discussed that would be splendiferous. :-)
Ollieplatt 07:57, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I can't see a problem with a user page being protected. Mine gets vandalised occasionally. If it happens too often, I might protect mine too. Why are you so concerned Ollieplatt, since you don't intend to edit it? What business could it possibly be of yours?- gadfium 08:29, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I have only one further comment to make on this discussion. My User page WILL NOT be unprotected. End of discussion. Rick K 08:51, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
A loosely related issue (what are User pages for, and whose are they?), we have users like User:Vergina, who create whole subtrees to their User pages. At some point, this turns WP into personal webspace. Obviously, subpages are the right place for WP-related writeups, and drafts, but at which point does it cross the line to the blogosphere, and to what point should pov forks into User: namespace be tolerated? dab (ᛏ) 09:05, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I dont see what business it is of anyone else what someone does with their userpage. Nobody else should be editing it anyway. G-Man 20:20, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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I see that someone has recently introduced {{cleanup-translation}}. As far as I can tell, the main effect of this will be to subvert the excellent process we have had working for about a year at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. (Note, by the way, that this is, and should remain, a separate process from Wikipedia:Translation into English, which is a way to request translation of an article in a foreign-language Wikipedia.)
A tag like {{cleanup-translation}} might be useful to mark articles that need further language-related cleanup but are far enough along in this process that it is now clear that they will not be deleted (at least not for this reason: they can still be VfD'd like anything else). That is, for pages that are "mostly done" but could still use some attention from someone who approaches dual-native. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:53, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
I don't know who is active in managing cleanup, but I'd appreciate if someone who is would leave a note on Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English so that we can reconcile the two processes. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:04, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
Why not list "cleanup-translation" on the tfd page? Rick K 06:56, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/proposed revision 1) proposes "BC" and "AD" (in contrast with "BCE" and "CE") as standard for Wikipedia, 2) apparently encourages linking of years, and 3) encourages linking of units of measurement, among other changes. It also reverses the style of many of the dates used within the guide (such as "February 12" to "12 February"). See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) for discussion. Maurreen 01:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Since the appearance of Wikinews there is obvious need to reform Template:In the news. I asked a couple of people on IRC earlier if they thought linking to an article on from the latter to the former was acceptable, particularly given that wikinews is in a relative limbo regarding contributions. The general feeling was positive, and I linked two stories [15] [16] on ITN to their respective wikinews article (while not removing any content from the summary).
These stories were later removed by blankfaze for a reason that I think could be boiled down to "the wrong thing was bolded". This is an obvious sign that we need to review what is acceptable at in the news, especially given that the wikinews stories were more useful at describing the immediate event that lead to them being listed in the first place. -- BesigedB ( talk) 19:50, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I personally would just stick something at the end of the article, like a link saying "more", "news", "WN", or just an icon, or something like that. -- user:zanimum