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(See above related discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Censorship and wikipedia)
See important discussion about this subject taking place at Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images [1]
This subject seems to have ignited recently at Talk:Breast#Image [2] and Talk:Breast#New Image [3] and at Talk:Nudity [4] and Talk:Nudity#Lead image [5] and at several other places.
Recently, when looking at User:Rickyrab's [6] home page I saw this image of a voluptuous brunnete (see Exhibit A) (Exhibit A): "Frua" photo, is she also "meditating"? taken from the German Wikipedia article on Frau [7] (" Woman" in the German language) only added Dec 1, 2004 by Benutzer:Wikibär (who is warned - in German - about his unseemly behavior on his talk page), see Benutzer Diskussion:Wikibär [8]. The English article on Woman does not have this photo, but it does have this one [9] of a woman "meditating" (pubic hair and all..is that what a "woman" is?) (see Exhibit B) (Exhibit B): "Woman meditating" photo Exhibit B is taken from "copyright" http://buecax.deviantart.com/ ..."deviantart"???
Is this a new " German" "trend" to flood Wikipedia with still life reality pornography? Perhaps we could live with the "sketch" (see Exhibit C) (Exhibit C): Woman sketch (from NASA plaque). But here are some big questions:
It is time to set clear policy on excluding anything that is even border-line pornographic, pulling the plug on it and excluding it, and anything like it, because it is clearly unbefitting a genuine encyclopedia. IZAK 08:55, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Everything that is "visible" to the "naked eye" should now be depicted in an encyclopedia? This makes no sense! IZAK 09:52, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
ToyToy:Think in logical terms. IF this is only the start of Wikipedia, what will it look like once we post all imaginable and freely available explicit photos all erotica?
Ah yes, the Holocaust which was genocide, how that was related to pornography must have been a very interesting lecture in abstract " logic". Sexy women posing for cameras does not equal starved skeletons of victims (in Image:Mass Grave Bergen Belsen May 1945.jpg they actually look more like a bunch of broken matches than "humans"). In any case, I do NOT say that having pictures of naked dead Holocaust victims is acceptable. One can skip photos of dead Jews with (what was left of) their exposed shriveled genitals to realize what happened to them at the "hands" of the Nazis. And yes, the subjects of nudity and violence are connected when it comes to controlling how we expose YOUNG readers to life in an encyclopedia. There ARE better ways to doing this, and you know it! IZAK 10:27, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I am NOT saying cut out the topics! I AM saying be more careful with images you flash! We don't need to turn Wikipedia into a "nudist colony" of nude editors/students! IZAK 13:12, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Judge for yourself: Is this "pornography"? IZAK 11:22, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC):
I fail to see any pornography in these 'exhibits'. What are you talking about? And why, why, Evil Monkey and IZAK, does it always have to be about the Holocaust, even in completely unrelated discussions? I agree that the "Frau" picture would be controversial by some standards on woman, but what's wrong with the Pioneer image? or the Marilyn cover? And why shouldn't there be a picture of a nipple on nipple?? ffs, people... dab (ᛏ) 11:16, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I was not the one to drag the Holocaust into this discussion. (But come to think of it the Nazis would make the Jewish women - and men - strip...why?...the Nazis must have been perverts!) The main topics of discussion here are "Exhibits A and B", does it have to be "full motion action" to qualify as pornography? It can also be the "gentlest" and "quietest" of shots, the photos are very alluring and should be published in a venue other than Wikipedia. IZAK 11:22, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I guess you live and learn don't you! It's not amusing at all really. Someone has to do some "housekeeping" as so many people think that Wikipedia should become a kind of "free-for-all" with all sorts of ansavory photos and just "make peace with it". I am not scared that you may be shocked, I am more worried that Wikipedia, becuase it is so "welcoming" should NOT turn into a "red light district" in the name of "gathering information". Not everything needs to be graphic. What will we say on "Judgment Day" when we are asked: "How could you allow such things to co-exist?" Someone has to make the case, may as well be me. How else can we protect the truly innocent by the way? When working in the " sewage" there is always the risk of the smell, but it's important to make sure that the sewage and garbage MOVES O U T and NOT "back up" into the Wikipedia mainstream! IZAK 11:38, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
TVPR: The discussion is NOT just about some "nipples". Your "logic" to defend obvious graphic pornographic images of FULLY (frontaly) naked women (now now, let's call a "spade a spade") falls flat. For example: Is all nudity pornographic? The answer is, it depends how and where it's presented: When Playboy presents it, it is, but when nude in the doctor's office it is NOT, so what is your point and where is your logic? I am not talking for myself, but if you have pre-pubescent children you don't want to expose them to a photo of a lady showing off her pubic hairs...now doesn't that make good sense? IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This stuff is nothing new really... nothing that you don't see like on a documentary on an African tribe or when the Discovery channel visits an African tribe. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This is Wikipedia it is NOT the African "jungle" either, so don't get so jaded. IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
man, 'Exhibit A' is not even linked from any article. Just list it on images for deletion. If 'Exhibit B' is pornography, so is half Image:Nudemaja.JPG, and thousands of cherished works of art. If you think an image of an unclad human is 'sewage', I guess we cannot help you, but you can hardly expect others just accept such an opinion as a fact. dab (ᛏ) 11:46, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
dab:FYI:Exhibit A is being HOTLY debated in Talk:Breast and at Talk:Nudity (see below also), and it's ignited a call for "censorship" by some people. IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just to note, I raised a similar issue with an adult content warning template. See The archive of the Village pump discussion for more information. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:49, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ok, so let's try to create some sanity. It's never too late. IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The bottom line is that no matter how ridiculous you think IZAK's view is, he holds it genuinely, and he is not alone. Wikipedia is supposed to be for everyone. Does that not include IZAK and others who find these pictures offensive? Personally, I'm all for the Frau and I don't mind pics of anything and everything. But Wikipedia is not about my POV, is it? Dr Zen 12:29, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Er, but take a look, it's a lot more than a couple of "nipples" we're talking about here. IZAK
Yes, but Wikipedia MUST NOT join that filthy bandwagon! It can serve as a better and more cultured example to the human race. Just because "everyone is doing it" does it mean that I too must become involved? Hang on to your hat there...! IZAK 13:17, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Clearly there are some issues to discuss. As indicated, this is really part of a wider discussion on generally sensitive/offensive/disturbing images as currently being voted on at Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images. For my part, its a question of boundaries. I'm sure there are images I wouldn't want to see on Wikipedia and I'm sure my boundaries aren't the same as those of other editors. As such we need to decide as a matter of collective policy where those boundaries should be, or come up with some technical solution such as image tagging and allowing an individual to set their own preferences as to which classes of image are visible.
A few other points of reference are;
I also think it is useful to consider which images a conventional encyclopedia would include or exclude - though they have the advantage of firm editorial control without needing to arrive at a consensous for each and every controversial picture. -- Solipsist 14:30, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I don't see any problem with Exhibit A or Exhibit B but I do have to point out two things.
-- Ssokolow 15:45, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Banning nude pictures would be a gratuitous expression of a point of view. The criteria should be whether it is encyclopaedic; that is, whether it provides useful and relevant information - a picture of a naked person has a clear information content relevant to some articles, and so should certainly be included. -- Khendon 17:28, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I can't see how a warning attached to a specific picture is not inherently POV. There are already warnings attached to pictures on Wikipedia that I do not find objectionable, while there are other pictures on Wikipedia that, while very few people would call them objectionable, do give me some problems because of a phobia, so for me they are very objectionable pictures. Fortunately for Wikipedia I don't make a fuss about this and slap a POV warning on selected pictures. Things would get silly very fast. I just read the articles without downloading the pictures.
The site disclaimer is on every page and warns that, subject to the laws of Florida, Wikipedia does contain material, including pictures, that some people will find objectionable. This kind of site-wide disclaimer is appropriate. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 05:53, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to concur with Tony, here; Izak is using 'morality' as an argument in favor of censorship. IMHO, 'morality' is *inherently* POV, by definition. AFAIC, as long as a photograph is illustrative of the issue, and is not a violation of law which can get Wikipedia in hot water, it should stay. I've got a little personal rant on zero tolerance policies that speaks to this directly: if you *don't* have zero tolerance policies, then some people will try to 'sneak stuff by', by taking advantage of judgement. But that doesn't justify such policies. Ruling out nudity would be a zero tolerance policy, and I'm against it as much on those grounds as on any others. -- Baylink 05:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There is one small thing I must add to this discussion. I was the one that searched diligently and, at long last, found a picture that seemed suitable to represent the nude female body. It was difficult to find a nude image of a woman that was both natural (in pose and appearance (like no tattoos, no makeup, etc)) and not sexually charged. When I did, I went through the process of personally contacting the fantastic artist responsible and asking him if we could use his image to benefit Wikipedia. Amazingly, he agreed. Finally, we had a natural-looking, relatively neutral, non-sexually charged image of a nude woman to adorn the woman article.
All of this is why I must laugh, but particularly at statements like "pubic hair and all..is that what a "woman" is?" because I am a woman, and yes, this is what a woman is. She is not the makeup or the clothing she wears. And I openly wonder, after reading this statement, IZAK: would you prefer if she had the carefully trimmed and styled cunt of your friendly neighborhood prostitute, or would you prefer the waxed-smooth cooch of a ten year old girl? I'd be delighted to hear about your point of view on this matter. →Reene ✎ 06:35, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
Reene:Try to maintain a dignified discussion at times like this please. IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I would just like to make point that Exhibit B is not a 'deviantart' photo. It is a photo by a real life artist which has placed the given photo on display at deviantart. Artists like to have their artwork seen. Tyln 07:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
(Exhibit F): Wax play on back. I'm the photographer of the "sadomasochism" picture that Solipsist mentioned above. The wax play picture is also mine. It's pretty, it adds greatly to the article, and it couldn't be illustrated without nudity. (Wax doesn't come out of clothing, believe me.) It's at an article about a deviant sexual act. It clearly illustrates the concept. Now, tell me why the image doesn't belong on that page.
Also, it is POV that woman has a naked photo of a woman on it, while man has only a line drawing. Clearly, a male Wikipedian needs to photograph himself in all his naked, furry glory, and fix this notable gap.
I agree that putting the naked meditating woman in as part of an article on meditation isn't the right thing to do. It doesn't illustrate the article, unless it's an article about meditating naked. This is the only test to which it should be put. Period. Nudity is in; gratuitous nudity is out.
We don't have harlequin type ichthyosis illustrated on-page for the same reason we don't have goatse.cx illustrated on-page: both are used as shock sites. Wikipedia is not a tool to scare the crap out of people, or to vandalize Slashdot with. Note that gangrene, amputation and palmoplantar keratoderma are illustrated on-page, however, which I support.
Line drawings are well-used on some of the sex position articles, like 69 sex position and tribadism (as I mentioned above). I think these are a good compromise between not illustrating and putting in GFDL'd porn, which, face it, never comes out quite right.
One of the things I love dearly about Wikipedia is that I can look up a potentially offensive topic, something like flatulence or inflammatory bowel disease, and learn a lot. The highest of quality, in all things---this is what we're standing for, not shoveling parts of our bodies and lives into poorly-written and non-illustrated back alleys of the site. grendel| khan 09:01, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
grendel:We should still keep our senses though and not create a cesspool that will come back to haunt us when Wikipedia is finally called a "fully-certfied" porn site. IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Reene:What are you trying to prove: "Lowest Common Denominators" or "Highest Common Factors"? IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I mean to say, are we going to reach for "higher standards" or "lower standards", you figure it out. IZAK
It should be fairly obvious to everyone that this is not a child's encyclopedia. There will be no 'G' rating, and we might be lucky to get a 'PG' rating. But I concur with the arguments that have been made that nudity is appropriate when illustrating a point. However I also took a look at Woman and I cannot see how the so-called 'Exhibit B' satisfies that condition. The caption makes no attempt at illustrating anything, and the text of the article makes no reference to the image. The image should be removed. Oh, and Reene, unless you manage to illustrate a point, don't bother uploading a naked photo of your hubby, boyfriend, boss, or whatever—I would be inclined to personally zap it, faster than you can say...well, uh, "zap". :-) — Mike 12:56, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
I would just like to say my two cents on this issue. First of all, I'd like to say that I consider myself a normal, rational, moral person. I definitely do not beleive Wikipedia should be a "free-for-all" and I have found that Wikipedia has done fairly well at editing out images that have no purpose other than to shock. However, I have to wonder if User: IZAK is not pulling some huge joke on us. Wikipedia become a pornographic site? Wikipedia becoming a "sewer"? Are you serious? I have to seriously wonder if it is not you, IZAK, who has the problem. I think as has been demonstrated in this discussion most people have no objection to the images of nude human beings on here. Pornography is meant to sexually stimulate through mental imagery and honestly it seems like you are the only one on here who is being sexually stimulated by the images you object to, as you constantly refer to them as "sexy" and "alluring" while most people here consider them simple images of humans. To adress the second issue, I believe it was User: Samboy who made a good comment about how some people might object to nudity, etc. and decide not to visit Wikipedia. That is an excellent point, but what can I say? There has always been such a divide between what certain people might consider objectionable and what the greater community might. This is nothing new and is most certainly not unique to Wikipedia. I also do not believe we will solve such a divide anytime soon here on Wikipedia as in order to do so we would have to have everyone see the world through objective eyes which is impossible. My personal suggestion is that a warning be posted on the main Wikipedia page warning that this website should only be used under Parental/Adult Supervision. This is overdue as due to the nature of Wiki-editing and of an encyclopedia itself, material can always be questionable. Also, it would do away with a lot of the arguments of people like IZAK and give the rest of us freer reign and freedom from nudity-censorship. Secondly I would like to point out that I beleive we are doing a good job. Contrary to IZAK's beliefs, Wikipedia is FAR, FAR from being anything remotely pornographic and I beleive the vast majority of people who visit do not go away offended. Lets keep up the good job and fight censorship. - CunningLinguist 12:29, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The following appears on Talk:Breast [12] :
...Here's the controversial image here, if anyone needs it for reference in the discussion. Rickyrab 01:22, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Nude, breasty Woman... Note - if you're reading this at school, you can get in trouble! (comment by User:Sam Spade.)]]
All other disputes aside, who thought "breasty" (in the photo caption) was an acceptable encyclopedia term? - leigh (φθόγγος) 01:40, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
New Image
Breasts. (By User:Sam Spade.)
I've cropped the old breast image to make it more appropriate for this article... Feel free to add it to the article.
New vote option...
...added to Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images. All those who think we shouldn't be creating blanket rules for censorship of Wikipedia, feel free to vote with me. — マイケル ₪ 03:12, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
I think Exhibit A is sufficiently likely to be generally seen as erotic that it would only be appropriate on a topic where eroticism was inherent in the subject matter. Exhibit B strike me as generally innocuous, I would guess that "community standards" in at least 90% of the English-speaking world would consider it acceptable, although there certainly are places in India or Arkansas where it would violate those standards. The holocaust photo is, of course, hideous, but I think appropriately so. One of the things with a picture like that is that it plays very differentl at low resolution than it would in full, excruciating detail. Exhibit A would have to shrink to very tiny to change its effect. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:06, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
Is this "parading men like naked cattle"? IZAKs rantings about "pornography" are particularly ironic given that Wikipedia is apparently partly funded by pornography (via Jimbo Wales' bomis.com). Perhaps he thinks that all women on wikipedia should be wearing a burkas? I remember seeing a Australian car sticker which said "Thank God it was the Convicts and not the Puritans" - XED. talk. stalk. mail. csb. donate 00:55, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't find the connection that makes bomis.com a pornographic site, it's just an informational portal it seems to me, so your exaggerations are not welcome. IZAK
Is this degrading to the Elephant? And why not stop with humans. We have an image of an Elephant's penis on Wikipedia. Evil Monkey → Talk 23:40, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
A this rate nothing will be out of the question on Wikipedia. IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
With a bit of luck, yes, as long as by "nothing" you mean "nothing will be removed from wikipedia on moral grounds". Words like "immoral" or "offensive" are never useful when deciding what should be in wikipedia; only what is informative and encyclopaedic. -- Khendon 17:23, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Wrong: There will have to be a standard or else Wikipedia is in effect open to become known as a porn site if every single naked human body and pornographic related article/s will be "blessed" with images and photos that depict all manner of erotic and sexually-related subjects. It's not that complicated really. And at some point Wikipedia editors will have to make a profound choice and find a way of having many photos "packaged" so that they don't break the bounds and boundaries known to most of the human race. IZAK 10:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to think that people are able to form their own opinions about this subject without adding moral to it. If you upload an image of a nude woman not doing anything pornographic (ie, she isnt depicted in a sexual act of any kind) because the article is about women my mind boggles why this isn't perfectly okay. I usually get the impression that in general Europeans seems to be far more forgiving when it comes to this subject than their American brothers and sisters and since I am European, I wouldn't think two seconds about seeing a picture of a nude woman, say, laying on a bed looking suggestively at the camera. It's a woman for crying out loud. How more natural can it get? That said, I do agree that certain things aren't appropriate for Wikipedia to display, but if such a picture would come along it should be treated along with its article in what it conveys. If its fluff, we delete it, if it's appropriate because it conveys information that is useful (like the 69 article), then for the love of all that is holy (I consider sex between two people who love eachother one of the most holy things in the history of holy, there's nothing dirty about it at all), let it be. Inter 20:22, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Would IZAK like to have a look at William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery and explain why he does or does not think that that page should be stricken from Wikipedia before we become a cesspool of late nineteenth-century art? grendel| khan 07:53, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
Who says that the entire universe needs to view naked ladies from the nineteenth century or Hindu strip shows from "temples"? We can find ways of putting little black covering marks over their naked vitals if need be. No need to go ga-ga all "in the name of art." There are other criteria besides "art" that govern human life, and that too should be prominently conveyed in a respectable and serious encyclopedia. IZAK 10:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Isn't this all a bit of a red herring? Equating the National Gallery with Hustler is not a serious argument on either side, is it? Filiocht 11:43, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
With that last comment from IZAK, I've decided that this whole discussion just has to be a huge joke pulled by IZAK. He can not be seriously suggesting that just because Hindu's don't worship a Judeo-Christian God, their religion cannot be taken seriously and their places of worhip should be written with quotation marks as if they have no right to use the word Temple.
Also according to the Art article , art it "any product of the creative impulse, out of which sprang all other human pursuits". Of course this is pretty vague but we have to remember that one person's Rembrant is another person's 'filthy' porn. Evil Monkey → Talk 19:49, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
I'm afraid I haven't read all of this debate, but yeah, I saw enough. What I'll say is, excessive puritanism and a project which proposal is to deliver the user all kinds of information, in an ever-growing, ever-evolving fashion, will never mix. There is nothing wrong, pornographic or corruptive in the depiction of a woman's naked body, nor anything like that. If you are malicious enough to think of 230957093270497049 naughty things when you see a naked woman,
well, that's your problem, I'm sorry. Everybody is free to think as they please, and nobody minds that. Our mind is ours to be used the way we want it. About the drawings, for Christ's sake. If you're offended by the drawing of a naked couple included in a greeting message sent to space, or a little sketch (made by one of our fellow users, if I'm not mistaken) of a couple of lesbians making sex, I am sorry, you'd just do better to cover your eyes and refrain from looking at Wikipedia's articles. It's clear that such a person cannot endure this content, no matter how much this is discussed, so it's better just to refrain from coming here, instead of trying to change what's already stablished (and surprisingly, tolerated by everybody else). It's year 2005, people. Let's evolve. My (more than) two cents.-- Kaonashi 00:36, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You know IZAK, it has occurred to me, after reading most of the debate, your view is a very biased point of view. Think about it. Culturally, there are different degrees of what people accept as "sex" and what is "porn." By making your claim of censorship, you are making the encyclopedia more POV. For example, there is far more blood in Japanese animation, anime, than the stuff that they place on Cartoon Network. There was an episode of Outlaw Star which involved nudity that was banned from Cartoon Network... however, during the series run of Outlaw Star, a Japanese animation TV show, on Japanese television, it must have been seen. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:00, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
To me, nudity has artistic or scientific value, while pornography is simply meant for sexual arousal/pleasure. Usually, it's very easy to tell the difference between the two. A nude painting or statue would constitute nudity, whilst a picture of two people engaging in sexual intercourse would most likely be pornographic. I think it really has a lot to do with common sense, yet many people are afraid they might be perceived as perverted or abnormal if they find nothing wrong with a depiction of a penis or breast. Yes, it's possible to come up with all matter of varied circumstances that would put my above idea to question, i.e. "Well what about this picture, what would this be, huh?" All I can say is most of the people I've known are able to make a distinction, and the people asking this question are doing so just to make a nuisance of themselves. People should be held accountable for themselves, so if they do find something offensive, they just need to stop looking at it and not let everybody else know they find it offensive. | Aequo 18:41, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"An argument could be made that I have perused and considered this image in a way that is 'contemplative'--which is the an aim of art--rather than "arousing"--which is the ain of pornography. Whether the image is pornographic or not is a wholly subjective decision, another viewer might dismiss my analysis completely and see nothing but base purposes at work [...] Sexuality and its depictions remain contested, which is not all bad. Despite the evident threat for moral crusaders, sexual pictures shouldn't be noramlized as "art" just so that they'll be considered fit to view, nor should they be sorted into predetermined categories. The difference between "pornography" and "erotica" may, in fact, simply be one of style. Ideally, the entire realm of sexual imagery will remain ambiguous and fugitive, hard to pin down, in its fleeting refusals and taunting provocations, it will maintain substantial disruptive power." Squiers, Carol (2000). An introduction to a book of sexual photographs Peek: Photographs from the
Kinsey Institute ISBN 1892041359
Flickr has a great system where anyone can simply click "Flag this photo as 'may offend'." I suggest we adopt this policy.
-- Alterego 07:47, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)
If this is going to be a useful and trustworthy source you CAN NOT let the general public edit.
I've found 2 glaring mistakes without trying.
Maya Angelou did NOT receive a Tony nomination for her preformance in Roots. Roots was a television production. Tonys are for stage productions only. And she didn't receive an Emmy nomination for it either!
Check it out at tonys.org in the archives you'll see she was nominated once.
Robert Mugabe's first wife Sally did die in 1992, but my research has them having a son that died at age 4 while Mugabe was in prison. Which means your statement that she died childless is wrong. Current Biography 1979 as well as other publications list this information.
You need trained and quailifed researchers and librarians, not good intentioned John and Jane Q Public adding information they got from a source that got it third hand and wrong.
Cantus wants to have a page where people can nominate images which they think are "unsuitable for inline display", and seems to intend to have this raised to the standard of policy. There is an ongoing discussion on this proposal at Wikipedia talk:Images unsuitable for inline display.
Speaking purely for myself, the words " instruction creep" come to mind. Do we really need a page on which to nominate things to be done which we can easily do just by editing the image on the page in question? -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 18:25, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Cantus unilaterally reduced the size of the image on the Nudism article to a very small 50px [13], which I have since reverted [14]. There is a slow-paced discussion on the image at Talk:Nudism, but reducing the size of the image was not even proposed there. I posted a message on this talk page, he has not replied (yet?). Thryduulf 18:38, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC) He's tried the image display size reduction edit a few times on different articles over the past day or two, but without finding any takers. Now I think he's trying the top-down approach. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 19:42, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
(Also being discussed here.)
This basically boils down to Template talk:Picp. If one can orphan a template without discussion and without a WP:TFD vote, doesn't that give a single person excessive power? "Unorphaning" a template is not easily done. — Itai ( f&t) 14:43, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I am writing an article on Wine Gums, and I would like to take a picture of the Maynard's Wine Gums package and put it in the article. Can do this? If so, what would the image tag be?
I put in the greater part of the effort required to create the David Quantick article.
I have since happened upon the shocking revelation that the biography has been stolen and is now being used under a stringent copyright license! Who has committed this atrocity? DAVID QUANTICK!
OK, I'm kidding a bit... let me explain. He's just written to me to say that he has submitted the biog to the IMDB as his official biog. He then says it dawned on him after the event that this was rather cheeky, and has asked me if that's OK.
Now, I knew that the important thing here was to look at the IMDB's terms of use for material and found this (my bolding):
Copyright
All content included on this site, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, video clips, digital downloads, data compilations, and software, is the property of IMDb or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content on this site is the exclusive property of IMDb and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. All software used on this site is the property of IMDb or its software suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. [15]
And it seems safe to say that the bio at IMDB will now fall under this.
David has said that if I just give the nod he will ask for it to be taken down. I'm in the position now, aren't I, of having to act according to the terms of the GNU license and ask that he does just that?
This is rather a harsh lesson for me of what it means to submit stuff here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not worried about money, as none is offered. What is now a personal shame for me is that a man I greatly admire is going to get a thumbs down from me. In addition, he works in an industry I could happily use a contact in... and it would be to my advantage to be as accomodating as possible.
So, then... how can I get out of this best? Presumably I could write a similar article for him - perhaps asking him for some more detail to add in - and create a new work in a different style?
Help!
-- bodnotbod 01:26, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
copy of message to IMDB
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a contributor to the free content encyclopedia Wikipedia:
www.wikipedia.com
Some time ago I wrote an article about a performer there. Rather delightfully
that performer has now contacted me to say that he has used that article in its
entirity as their biography page at the IMDB.
As a fan of the performer's work this is a personal triumph. However, as I
understand it, if I allow the biography to remain at IMDB I am giving up the
copyright to you.
We at Wikipedia feel this is a pretty rum deal, and in essence we provide
information freely and should - strictly speaking - only allow that info to be
used provided it is not then subject to more restrictive copyright terms.
However, were the biography page in question to include the caveat that the
biography is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright
And include a link to Wikipedia that would be acceptable to us.
Please let me know if this compromise is possible. Otherwise it looks like
I'll have to either a) ask that the biography be taken down or b) come to some
arrangement with the performer as to providing them with an alternate biography.
Thank you,
User bodnotbod
The assignment of the article by a third party not owning the copyright cannot supersede the copyright. The third party's agreement is void (even if he or she is the subject of the article, he is not the author). Unlike other forms of intellectual property, copyright cannot be stolen if you fail to safeguard it. There is no harm in letting this person use the article on that website, the website has absolutely no ownership rights in the article. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:20, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Please see Flag of New Zealand. Here we find two external links to a petition for the replacement of the NZ flag. While it seems POV links are OK (according to the current standard) as long as it's clear that's what they are, surely a link to a political campaign such as this is not acceptable. The site being linked to imparts no further knowledge. It is a single issue campaigning site. By including it in Wikipedia we are extending its reach. As such, Wikipedia could be viewed as being helpful to the campaign. In the absence of a link to a petition to keep the current flag - thereby 'balancing' the effect of the link in question - I would recommend that links such as these should be discouraged. Are there any other opinions or current policy? Arcturus 16:16, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
When my removal of an opening header was questioned, I went looking for written MoS policy/guidelines to back me up. Best I've found so far is a bit indirect: Wikipedia:Guide_to_Layout#Introductory_material says "...because the first paragraph, above the first header, should be the introduction to the article.", although it also describes itself as "Wikipedia Guide to Layout is an annotated, working example of some of the basics of laying out an article." (emphasis added), with that sentence coming before the first header. Anyone know someplace it is stated more explicitly? Niteowlneils 16:17, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hello, didn't really know where to post this, but here it goes! There are a couple of articles about people who are maybe non-notable, and their articles are not much of use to anyone. I heard one person complaining that his article has no reason to be here, and would like to have it deleted. The article is well written and I think that it might be kept because of that. So, what should he do? Edit the article or try to have it deleted? I mean can we make an article on someone who does not want to have an article here. Lapinmies 06:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is it public domain because they are government funded? I wanted to add the chart from this story to Nanotechnology http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4187813.stm
I think it would make it damn sexy! - RoyBoy [ ∞] 22:36, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The BBC's policy is:
You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use bbc.co.uk content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any bbc.co.uk content except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of bbc.co.uk content requires the prior written permission of the BBC.
Even if it were government funded, British Government material is Crown Copyright, not public domain. Proteus (Talk) 22:00, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I created the template to flag articles for cleanup, i.e. those that mentioned books and needed an ISBN added. User:Ctorok has been in touch with me about the category and I put up a suggestion on Template talk:ISBN about what numbers should be cited. I'd appreciate Wikipedians adding their suggestions there. Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 19:57, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
What is the correct position for the disambiguation notice, before or after the text? I see both, but I consider it more "correct" for the notice to be on the bottom. - RoyBoy [ ∞] 23:26, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The doubling occurred] betweeen the Revision as of 11:32, 2005 Jan 11 and the Revision as of 11:33, 2005 Jan 11. The only intentional risk of error that I took was assuming that the only intended change in that edit was adding "right" into the specs for the display of the Naked Maja censored image, and that the only other change was embedding one copy of the file in the middle of another. (Actually, I don't know or care if the two versions of the image specs were identical or not.)
So I worked on the basis of convincing evidence that
While I am not prepared to certify that those are accurate and that I made no errors i acting on them, I consider the possibility that the doubling edit involved other changes the prinicpal risk, and am notifying that editor of the situation.
What standard, if any, is there for entries on "List of x people" pages?
In early January, the article on Marco of Alexandria was deleted as being non-notable, after a contentous VfD: 20 "delete" from longstanding editors, 5 "keep" from longstanding editors, 10 "keep" from IP addresses and brand-new accounts. Links to that article were removed from List of Egyptians.
Since then, Omar Filini has added entries for Marco several times: as a redlink to the deleted article, as an external link to Marco of Alexandria's website, and as an unlinked name. After each addition, I've removed it, on the grounds that the person is non-notable as established in the VfD page, and thus shouldn't be in the list. Am I correct in assuming this?
On a larger scale, most of the entries on List of Egyptians are redlinks. What standards are there for establishing who should be on one of these lists? Should it just be people who already have articles? People who should have articles, and if so, how should notability be indicated?
Thanks, Carnildo 00:56, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[17] [18] - User:Maveric149 is going through articles and moving tags like {{ POV check}} to the talk pages. I've already protested, and he didn't say anything; if this is in fact a bad thing to do, can someone else do so? -- SPUI ( talk) 00:05, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
He shouldn't be moving tags without a community-wide consensus. The neutrality and disputed tags are particularly important on the articles themselves, so that readers can see there's an acknowledged problem that is being addressed. SlimVirgin 00:21, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I see he's still doing it. What's the next step? WP:RFC? -- SPUI ( talk) 01:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Too POV={{POV}}, factually disputed={{disputed}}, or too short={{stub}} (and variants). I'm not moving any of those tags, because they are useful to readers as well as editors. The tags I'm moving and/or replacing with HTML comments, are primarily useful to writers, not readers. That is what talk pages are for.
Also, if any of these messages were made by just inserting in the actual text vs a template, then those messages would be moved to the talk page. Just because it it done via a template, does not excuse things. These types of self-referential tags must be kept to a bare minimum to keep Wikipedia maximally useful to third parties - none of which are called Wikipedia and very, very few of which are editable. Use the talk page. That said, I'll let things settle down a bit for now. I need to concentate on other things right now. -- mav 02:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree fully with mav. — Catherine\ talk 03:25, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I disagree that he should decide unilaterally to make such changes. He needs to seek consensus first and not only from the editors of each page that's affected but from the community as a whole. Some of these tags would make no sense on a talk page e.g. the expand tag, which is there to encourage people to work on it, and also to signal to the reader that we're not content with the current state of the page. Readers aren't necessarily going to check the talk pages of tiny stubs, or indeed of any article. SlimVirgin 03:33, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I have created Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maveric149. I apologize if this is not the right place to take this, but no one has mentioned another way. -- SPUI ( talk) 20:59, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Template messages#Moving templates to talk pages for continued discussion.
In the recent VfD discussion on the St. Thomas Tommies, I raised a concern about consistent treatment of Canadian Interuniversity Sport teams. The VfD consensus was to merge it into the article on Saint Thomas University. As things now stand, Category:Canadian Interuniversity Sport teams now contains 56 articles on teams, and one article on a university.
A person who comes to Wikipedia isn't going to see this and think there must be a notability cutoff; they're going to see this and think we're a bunch of sloppy idiots who are too careless to make sure that we present the information in a consistent manner. The teams are by definition of equal notability to each other, since they all compete on an equal footing in the same sporting body, and therefore by definition, they need to either all have articles of their own, or all be merged into their respective universities. It's like saying that some National Hockey League teams deserve their own articles, while others should be merged into their home city. NHL teams can't be divided into notable vs. non-notable when they're all in the same sporting league; CIS teams have to be given the same "all or none" treatment. And they can't be treated as less notable than an equivalent university sports league in another country, either, so we can't say that Canadian university sports teams get merged but American university sports teams get articles. Which is why, thus, I really have to insist on a clear policy that either university sports teams are encyclopedic or they're not.
Sporting teams are but one example; my concern also applies to any group of related things that are essentially equivalent to each other. I think there are some categories where we need to have a clearer policy on notability as a group, because there isn't a meaningful or legitimate way to divide them into "notable" vs. "non-notable" individual topics.
My other concern is that when these divisions are applied, Canadian examples are disproportionately singled out for VfD nominations and for subsequent deletion. Just in the past couple of weeks alone, each of the following category areas has had one or more Canadian examples singled out as a priori less notable than American or European examples in the same categories: university sports teams, university newspapers, murder victims, military-related deaths, university student unions, high schools, city mayors.
I recognize that some of these topics are of debated encyclopedic value in general, but as things stand right now, two articles of identical notability to each other frequently end up with opposite results in a VfD vote just because of who happens to show up to express an opinion. As a result, I just don't think that a case-by-case approach works for some groupings of articles. Even decisions that get taken as precedents aren't consistently applied -- as we've seen with high schools, a concerted group of voters can still shift a particular vote one way or the other and lead to conflicting precedents. There have actually been high school articles deleted that were more notable than other high schools that survived VfD.
I'm not asking for anything unprecedented. For politicians, the general agreement already exists that anybody who's held elected office at the national or provincial/state level can have an article. And certainly, there are categories where a legitimate notability cutoff exists. But I really believe that some groups of topics require a consistent policy on their notability or lack thereof as a group, which is then actually applied to all relevant articles, because there are categories (sports teams within a single league, etc.) where inconsistency only makes Wikipedia look bad to an outside user. Bearcat 01:16, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
You are right it should be consistent. Categories apply to articles. There shouldn't be a mix of "team" articles, and "school" articles in the category, especially since the title of the Category refers to teams. That means.
We currently have case 3). Case 2) can possibly be brought about by submitting the other 55 teams to VfD, based on the precedent of the Tommies. VfD being not very consistent or respectful of precedents, it is probable that some of the teams will be deleted and some won't be, leaving us in case 3). Either way, best to delete or rename the category. -- BM 01:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I had a conversation yesterday with a friend, a respected academic, who remarked that he tried putting into Wikipedia some material that he had already published elsewhere; his intent was to "donate" it. He wasn't very experienced with Wikipedia, probably didn't make it clear what he was up to and, unsurprisingly, it ended up deleted as a copyvio. I've seen similar things happen a few other times; I've occasionally been able to intervene to reach the relevant party by email and sort things out, but not always.
I was wondering: is there somewhere in Wikipedia or Meta space a page discussing:
If not, I'd like to create one, but I don't want to duplicate effort. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:08, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
One thought is that for work published in academic journals and conference proceedings, the copyright holder is almost invariably the publisher not the author. I agree that there should be some procedure for the case that you really do have permission from the copywrite holder to publish something under the GFDL (not likely is the copywrite holder is Springer Verlag).
Morris 12:27, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
I've put a draft together at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. Comments, edits, etc., would be greatly appreciated. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:15, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
Unless someone speaks up in the next 24 hours or so, I'm going to remove the notice at the top of Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials that says it's only a draft, and start looking for appropriate Project Pages from which to link it. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:34, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
Why is Category:Ashlee Simpson onb the Categories for deletion page? It was deleted once on February 4, and seems to have been recreated, and people are still voting on it, even though the vote deadline has passed. Why was it recreated? Rick K 23:37, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
At Open Directory Project, on each new attempt to enhance the article and finally get rid of the neutrality problems and tag, User:Netesq reverts at least some of the changes with the argument:
The content of this article was the result of mediation. It cannot be overruled by a simple vote of two to one, and it cannot be overruled by a doctrine of laches.
Is this backed up by policy? And if yes, what is the procedure to change this result. (And there are more than two editors who want to see changes, see the extensive talk page). -- Pjacobi 17:36, 2005 Feb 9 (UTC)
-MarkSOp
-MarkSop
User Charles Stewart reverted my edit of Bombing of Dresden in World War II:
When we talk about a number, we hire accountants, mathematicians, logicians, historians, witnesses, all kinds of experts to prove or disprove the validity of that number. The fact that Mr. Blah-Blah-Blah used to be a goddamn crazy liar or has some sort of bias is not a good reason to reject the number. That is POV. You don't reject someone's point just because he/she is a f**king: communist, atheist, idol-worshipper, cannibal, child-molester, Macintosh advocate, dog eater, drug-abuser, flat-earth believer, imperialist, feminist, tree-hugger, thief, PETA member, Pantagon employee, terrorist, anyone over 30 years old ... You reject it simply because it is proven wrong. -- Toytoy 09:49, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
Charles Stewart I cannot believe you're a logician. :) I did not use jargons because I did not want to make my point too difficult to understand. Now I am using them.
"Holocaust denier" is a political label. You can safely call Mr. Blah-Blah-Blah a Congolese, Harvard student, Pepsi stockholder, car owner, IEEE member, ex-convict, professional karate coach, Playboy centerfold photographer, because these titles are well-defined. The label "Holocaust denier" is not so.
I haven't reviewed the Irving v. Lipstadt cases. Based on my understanding of the law, I believe it was Irving's wrong litigation strategy (self-representation) and the hostile attitude towards him that cost his case. Details aside, it was Deborah Lipstadt who was the defendant. The court cannot sentence David Irving as a holocaust denier whatever the crime is. Irving's use of bad materials and methodology clears Lipstadt's libel accusation and that's all. You may call Irving a lousy researcher. Your label of "Holocaust denier" is only protected by the Freedom of Speech.
The U.S. case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell let Larry Flynt get away from tort damages. But the court did not sentence Jerry Falwell a mother fucker as a result of it. "Jerry Falwell fucks his mother" is not a logical conclusion here.
Your use of label is ad hominem and not logical.
My suggestion:
If you think it is clumsy, it is. The possibility or fact of right-wing misuse of Irving's view is not relevant. You don't base your judgement on it. It is logically like "... because someone could rape my daughter on her way to school, I lock her in the basement." -- Toytoy 10:58, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
My motivation for getting involved in the issue is that I want to counter manipulation of Wikipedia by right-extremists and their useful idiots. That is all personal, subjective, POV etc. and isn't appropriate either as content or an editing crieria for Wikipedia articles. My editing of Wikipedia articles and criticisms of other's edits on the talk pages is done according to my best understanding of Wikipedia policy (with the occasional lapses, which I will apologise for if they are brought to my attention), and will be done in accordance with NPOV standards. So: motivation for my edits: POV, standards of editing: NPOV. It is appropriate to bring the attention of other editors to the sensitive nature of the anniversary of the bombing, and the right-extremist campaign going on here in Dresden and elsewhere so that they pay particular attention to dubious editing.
My case for rving your deletion of the label holocaust denier to the person David Irving in that article is that:
Since I understand the application of that label to that person to be (i) accurate according to policy and (ii) cogent, any edit that removes the label I infer to be a bad edit, and as an interested editor, I am obliged to repair the damage. ---- Charles Stewart 12:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See Irving's own website for proof of how he arrived at the wrong number http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/General/Dresden/TheTimes070766.html The link is included in the references on the wikipedia page "Bombing of Dresden in World War II". The trouble is, as noted in the footnote on the same wikipedia page, that since the letter to the Times, he has continued to state numbers in excess of 100,000 for the dead in Dresden raids. Philip Baird Shearer
For further details see http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/evidence/evans006.asp as presented in court by by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge. Here is quote from Paragraph 21:
Given the drubbing that Irving received from Evans and others in court, it is not surprising that the trial judge, Justice Charles Gray said:
To call Irving a Holocaust denier is not "only protected by the Freedom of Speech" By which I presume Toytoy means the US first amendment. Most people do not live by or under the US constitution. It is also protected by the findings of a court of law in Britain. Where there was so much evidence supporting this view that it is difficult to see any court anywhere disagreeing with the judges conclusions.
All of this has already been discussed (several times) on the Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II and Talk:David Irving and their archives which are available to anyone who wishes to modify the parent articles. Philip Baird Shearer 14:14, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Toytoy: I don't have a problem with a critical presentation of Irving's estimate, though I think it is a sideshow, and I think would best be dealt with in a more specialised article,, say David Irving's estimate of causualies of the Dresden bombing. There is ample material to draw from on the Irving talk page. Why not add the edits, and we can figure out what to do with the material.
I do have issues with the following parts of your proposed wording:
---- Charles Stewart 13:22, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
hi, user 151.203.229.38 has broke the 3 revert rule in article about the dresden bombing. he has accused me of being a vandal whose edits were vandalism and said that justifies the brach of the rule. however, my edits were not vandalism as you can easily see - i merely added that some people think bombing was a war crime and restored a section about other bombings from the site itself (it was not marked as the vandalism at the time). this edit (adding a section) was reverted more than 3 times by that user. also, i suspect that rmherman, who is operator here, is the same as user 151.203.229.38, but have no way of knowing. Is it allowed for the operators to intimidate users in this way about the views that they disagree with? are there going to be any sanctions against user 151.203.229.38, or rmherman if he was indeed the same person - i find this behaviour extremelly upseting and abusive? (unsigned)
Am I to understand this is a little too strongly worded? It's confusing given the templates exist and are being used. So it's discouraging non-free images, but they are allowed right... I can upload them? - RoyBoy [ ∞] 01:24, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
We have stated posting a "Bias" notice where we believe it to be very appropriate. It is despicable to find numerous articles created and added to by one or two contributors that go beyond NPOV and are filled with omissions, distortions, absolute falsehoods, and in several cases, racism.
This problem was well enunciated at:
Many articles related to Quebec are in this category where the bias and fraud perpetuated on Wikipedia is massive and pervasive. Wikipedia has come under sharp criticism and dismissed as unreliable by a number of sources precisely because of this type of thing. The very nature of Wikipedia opens the door to those with an agenda and a place where radicals can get there say that they can't get elsewhere. The many legitimate and dedicated article contributors to Wikipedia do not want to devote hours correcting deliberate NPOV and fabricated articles. We come here to enjoy the participation concept, not to spend our time protecting Wikipedia from those with an agenda.
If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask. However, we are not interested in having those who have been part of this biased input pretend innocence and ask questions. Those people will not be responded to under any circumstances. So far, we have posted "bias" notices on the following:
JillandJack 18:13, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
A fairly important poll is under way on Talk:Autofellatio concerning whether to link the image or keep it inline. Consensus level is set to 70% and the deadline is presently set to 20 March, 2005. Click the link in the heading of this section. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 12:35, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Should wikipedia have a policy on citing the new online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography? In many cases the new edition of the DNB will have the most up to date and comprehensive biog of UK people, esp of minor figures. However the online version is subscription only, so is it good policy to link a wiki article to a URL of the ODNB entry?
For a sample of the ODNB compare wiki on Matt Busby with the DNB page on Busby, Sir Matthew (1909-1994) (sub required, but currently viewable here as a "life of the day" free preview).
-- mervyn 14:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is kind of old, but I like this and its template. I would like people to comment on it, and hope to see it to be official policy. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:40, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Is there a Wikipedia policy on table syntax? Is the wiki syntax preferred, and am I thus justified in replacing the HTML coding with the wiki stuff? And, as a final question, is there a case for a wikiproject (à la User:Yann/Untagged Images) to sort out table syntax? Thanks. Smoddy (t) (e) (c) 23:03, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
((I believe this belongs here, if not, please move it to the appropriate place.))
One thing about this series of articles seems dangerously non-NPOV to me (to put it friendly, 'a violation of human dignity' to be somewhat more polemic): the item about 'military manpower' gives us the estimated numbers of 'males age 15?49' 'available' and 'fit for military service' for the country in question.
This suggests that males and only males (of the given age) are universally predestined to serve in the military. Which is certainly a POV, and might be seen as degrading by many. Were these figures only given on pages on countries which do draft recruits along these criteria (which certainly holds for many, if not most countries) I might not be alarmed. However, I stumbled across it in the article Military of Iceland, which explicitly states that Iceland 'has never had a military'?ie never drafted, and a fortiori never drafted only males.
People, this is terrible. Please let's take our policies serious and get rid of it, quickly.
((By the way, just to pour some oil on the waters of the 'Americentric' debates: Why are the military expenditures given in Chilean pesos ↑?))
? Anothername 21:03, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#Military The US CIA "World fact book" is persumably the source. It would be difficult to find the correct figures for 18-49 when the figures from the CIA can be reused without copyright problems (although with a little bit of work one could extrapolate them). The UK recruits from "16 years of age for voluntary military service" [21]. As for a modern country which would ignore the military resources of women and recruits all men, try Switzerland: "[all men] 19 years of age for compulsory military service; 17 years of age for voluntary military service; conscripts receive 15 weeks of compulsory training, followed by 10 intermittent recalls for training over the next 22 years" [22] (and any man who is not fit for military service, but is fit enought to work has to pay more taxes as their bit towards national defence!). Philip Baird Shearer 00:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The point I try to make (possibly in poor English) is: Notwithstanding the fact that most countries (as I believe) draft men, not women, this is still nothing more than 'politics' (or tradition, whatever). There is no necessary link so to speak between the property of being male and the dispositional property of being 'draftable'. (And it is about 'draftability' here, not the factual drafting of men, as we have seen in the Iceland article.) Assuming that being male makes a citizen particularly fit (more so at least than being female does) for being drafted to the military is non-NPOV. As such I believe it should not be stated in the article series the way it is now. Even more so as some (men or women) might take offence in the presentation as a fact of some connexion 'male?military'. I, for one, do. Personally I'd like to see the info in question kicked out of the articles, but a clear indication of source (making clear that it is not Wikipedia's policy to establish that link, but eg the CIA's, for what reason ever) might do as well and perhaps better. ? Anothername 14:01, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I recently added NPOV tags to
Military of Iceland and
Military of France. In principle, my argument holds for all articles with the CIA databox. But the stupidness of the CIA data is most evident in articles like these two: for Iceland, see above; for France, I quote: in 2001, conscription was ended. However, young people must still register for possible conscription should the events call for it, with the change that now females must register as well.
?
Anothername 13:10, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC) (and yes, I did get my account just when I started this discussion, but I'm an anonymous contributor for quite some time)
I would like to question this page's neutrality. The way I saw it, it was blatantly pro-Sandinista, anti-Somoza. It could not have been more slanted if Ortega himself had written it.
I edited the pages Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Sandinista, Ian Smith, and others (and listed my sources), yet they were changed back to how they were. What's up with that?
Also this one. I would like this policy to be voted on and made official as well. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:43, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Managers of Wikipedia:
I'm a newcomer to Wikopedia. I have already become a registered contributor and have made a few such contributions to the Wikopedia encyclopedia. In so doing, I've come to realize that you suffer a bandwidth shortage that limits Wikopedia's value as an online reference. Pages often take anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds to appear, which often makes browsing or any serious research a rather frustrating endeavor. To that end, I have a few suggestions that might be considered, as follows:
-- REQUIRE ALL CONTRIBUTORS TO REGISTER. I don't think it would be asking too much to limit contributions to persons who register. With this change, people could browse the listings without registering but could not make edits. Requiring registration would also cut down on the instances of vandalism, since such fraudulent changes would be easier to trace if you had more information about the contributor than merely their IP address.
-- I'd be willing to contribute money to the Wikipedia Foundation if I knew more specifically how that money would be used. For instance, would it be used to help solve the current bandwidth shortage? If funding is a serious problem, perhaps you need to charge a small "contributor's fee" to support these much-needed upgrades. If you have as many contributors as I suspect, then asking each to contribute $5 or $10 per year may not be too much to ask. However, I believe that Wikipedia should always remain free to browsers who don't wish to edit its contents.
Thanks for letting me express my ideas. I think Wikipedia has a tremendous potential if these issues are addressed. I am very pleased that I stumbled upon this online resource, and I look forward to making additional contributions in the future.
Bart 18:06, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
There are many types of documents that could be quite important for an article to be clear. Is there a place for them on wikipedia? For instance, an article about a poet could include his works on seperate pages, as long as it's legally correct. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. Why? Maybe there should be (or already is) a seperate wiki for it?
Do we have a policy on absent or misleading edit summaries, meaning, is there an accepted way to approach editors who consistently do not include proper summaries? This may involve the abuse of the "minor edit" feature, but the two also happen independently of each other. -- Eddi (Talk) 13:27, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Forgive me if this has been discussed ad infinitum, and also if this is the wrong place for such a question.
I am very new to Wikipedia, having lurked for awhile before making a login. During the lurk phase, I had occasion to look at a user page of a person who had reverted a minor change I'd made. I noticed he'd catalogued the dates upon which he had acheived certain numbers of edits, as if the primary reason to work on Wikipedia is to have more edits than the next guy.
That cannot possibly be the mindset of the majority of Wikiphiles, or the system wouldn't work. I've tried to find some info in the FAQ/wikiquette section about edit-count-inflation -- to no avail, but perhaps I wasn't looking in the right place.
Can an old hat please provide some insight on how Wikipedia deals with those who edit for the sakle of increasing their total number of edits?
Thanks,
Throbblefoot
In most communities, including Wikipedia, people who do things merely to seem like they merit status are visible as such, and said efforts are ignored. That being said, cataloguing numbers of edits, provided it isn't tossed around as evidence of quality contribution or status, seems harmless enough. For people who arn't out to glorify themselves, it's probably true that their number of edits provides a rough measure of the degree of their contributions, although it is certainly an abusable measure, and doesn't take into account the other ways someone can contribute. -- Improv 01:56, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
(via edit conflict) Mostly we laugh at these people and move on. Anyone who edits just to get a higher editcount is, to put it kindly, missing the point of editing here; anyone who cares about someone else's editcount really needs to find some more important things to care about. — Charles P. (Mirv) 02:01, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If your only motivation is making your editcount bigger, humbug to you. Quality over quantity is always valued here on the 'pedia (as far as I've seen). That said, I smiled at my 100th and 200th edits, and will probably smile at my 1000th edit. It's kind of like celebrating a birthday - it doesn't make you a better person but it still gives people a rough estimate on your experience level. (of course there's always exceptions). [[User:Consequencefree| Ardent † ∈]] 02:11, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Was it me? I collect edit counts just as I collect everything else (but really - that stack of old newspapers will have to go at some time). Recording my milestones on my user page is just for me to chart my addiction. Probably half my edits are just vandalism or test rvs, and MoS corrections, so I accept that people like Mirv will just smile and shake their head. Whatever. Noisy | Talk 13:09, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
I have to say, I think Noisy's argument is exactly right. I actually have a link to my edit count in my signature (the (c) at the end). It is not a matter of bragging - I only have about 730 edits, so bragging would be pointless. It is a matter of feeling good about reaching a certain milestone (and I would lose the link to the tool if I didn't put it there). Take a sporting analogy: in soccer, Thierry Henry does not set out to be the top scorer in the season, but he still celebrates that he is. In cricket, a batsman gets a great feeling about reaching a century - but he didn't set out solely to score a century. If you don't like people doing it, ignore it. Smoddy (t) (e) (c) 17:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks very for your responses. Some seem to think I meant that keeping track of your post count is inherently bad, which isn't my point. I think Consequencefree said it best: "If your only motivation is making your editcount bigger, humbug to you." The question I meant to ask was "how does the community manage the problem?" It seems that the general answer is "the system works," which I never doubted. I suppose I'll just have to stick around to figure it out!
For what it's worth (approximately nothing), I took the liberty of looking up your numbers of edits, and none of you are even in the same ballpark as the person I mentioned, who is closer to 10,000 edits than he is to any of your totals. I'm going to chalk him up as an anomaly. Thanks again! -Throbblefoot
I'd like to start a discussion and perhaps form a policy surrounding the inclusion of political slogans as their own articles.
I, for one, believe that slogans should be treated like songs in this respect. They should by all means be included in the relevant articles, but they do not each merit individual articles unless they have been particuliarly influencial. Of course more clear guidelines have to be developped to this end, but this is a starting point for discussion. [[User:Consequencefree| Ardent † ∈]] 01:04, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I know we can copy text from here as long as we follow the GNU policies. But can we also copy images?
Please let me know, Thanks
On controversial pages, saying 'some people believe' vs. 'many people believe' can be a point of disagreement and the choice could appear to subtly push the POV of the article toward one of the sides. Has there ever been discussion on this?-- Nectarflowed 09:18, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Best practise is to avoid both of those and any phrasing like it. See
Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms. --
Tony Sidaway|
Talk 21:03, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Two things:
Please see Talk:Sybian. The images at the bottom of the page were listed for deletion on the IfD page because they have embedded URLs which link to a commercial site. There was very little discussion about them on the IfD page, one person voting to delete, the person who spammed Wikipedia with them voting to keep. With no consensus, they're being kept. But do we really want to allow images on Wikipedia with URLs embedded in them? Rick K 01:02, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
Based on the furor over the display/non-display of "offensive" images in articles, I've been looking into various methods of tagging images so that users can keep from seeing images that they find objectionable. However, none of the existing systems seem usable:
Are there any I've missed? -- Carnildo 23:21, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This issue has been, and continues to be, discussed on Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 00:26, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've posted a proposed image tagging system at Wikipedia:Descriptive image tagging. -- Carnildo 08:11, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hello,
I was wondering if there was a way to stop censorship hidden behind the banner of "defending against POVs". Too often it seems whenever someone says this they just want to start a witch hunt against the view they disagree with. I am currently faced with this problem in the George W. Bush article. -- Karmafist 06:03, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I was just going to add Michael Häupl to the alphabetical list of people when I realized I had no idea about our policy here. As "ä" can be transcribed "ae" (and "ö" can be "oe" etc.), there are basically three options. Considering alphabetical lists in German, I have come across all of them, sometimes even within the same list (telephone directories). I'd like to avoid that kind of chaos in Wikipedia, so who can point me to a reference?
The three options (as I said, all taken from real life) are:
(1) ä regarded as a: Habicht, Hall, Haller, Haubner, Haunold, Häupl, Haupt, Häuser, Hausman, Hawelka.
(2) ä regarded as ae: Habicht, Häupl, Häuser, Hall, Haller, Haubner, Haunold, Haupt, Hausman, Hawelka.
(3) ä as a kind of addendum to a: Habicht, Hall, Haller, Haubner, Haunold, Haupt, Hausman, Hawelka, Häupl, Häuser.
With more and more German names being added to Wikipedia, I think this is something that should be discussed / clarified.
Could you please also put a brief message on my talk page? Thanks. <KF> 22:46, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
I'd say it should definitely be sorted as "a", since that's (I think) how most people would do it English. -- Khendon 12:25, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Out of interest, who agrees that there should be such a thing as "general knowledge" in Wikipedia articles? In other words, knowledge that is so general it doesn't need a source to back it up. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:29, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I found what looks like copyvio concern in Persistent Organic Pollutant. I replaced the block of text in the middle that the submitter marked as "The following paragraphs (until the trends) are from an article in the Environmental Chemistry Group Newsletter, issue no. 14, July 2001." (italics mine). Is replacing part of the article with the copyvio template correct? (I also left a message on the submitter's talk page asking if the copyright was cleared and lsited it at WP:CP). RJFJR 22:58, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
Is there a policy on writing about family members. I got criticised for starting an article on my grandfather Roberto Weiss. A deletion debate confirmed my own feeling that he should be in Wikipedia, purely on merit. It seems to me that an article should not be judged on the basis of the person who writes it, but should be purely judged on it's own merit. I would say the same for articles about oneself. For instance, George Michael or Margaret Thatcher should be allowed to contribute to the articles on themselves, as it is clear that these people deserve to have an article on merit (these are randomn examples). What do folk think? -- SqueakBox 18:36, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
I found out this web site ( http://www.greatestinfo.org/). It is using the Wikipedia icon for its own use and does not clearly respect Wikipedia policy. You may contact them, it is an english site and my english is not good enough to.
Please see Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks/Mno. Rick K 00:13, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
Should include a link to one of the pages describing how to add/edit the page, since it isn't super clear, especially to old returning wikipedians like me that you need to add a category tag to the article in question, instead of editting the category. Maybe instead of the 'edit this page' link at the top (which isn't precisely true), those links should be disabled.
~ender 2004-02-24 23:18:MST
There is some discussion in Talk:Supercentenarian over whether my recent conversion of several bullet-point lists to tables is worthwhile or not. The main concern is that one editor uses the lynx web browser and (I understand) the tables display vitually identically to the lists but are much more difficult for him to edit (although other text browsers and editors may make it easier).
I think policy ( Wikipedia:How to use tables, "When tables are appropriate", "When tables are inappropriate") is to have tables where they add value ("Tables are perfect for organizing any information that is best presented in a row-and-column format ... Many times, a list is best left as a list ... consider whether the information will be more clearly conveyed by virtue of having rows and columns"). I think these ones conform to policy, but I'd be gratful for other views, and also on whether the web browser/editing issue is a significant one. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:35, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that there are too many Categories existing, especially some with only one article. Shouldn't this list be reorganized and many of them be put into subcategories? Tezeti 02:01, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry if this was asked at some other place. Is it automatically allowed to publish screenshots (prepared by myself) of GPL software (what is the typical licence? GFDL?) or should the author be contacted first? -- Fpga 07:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hi,
I recently edited a page for the date of January 18th. I posted my mother's date of death. It's been removed, somewhat expectedly. Does this mean my mother is not as important as all of the other people listed? What criteria is used to determine if a person is notable enough to be commemorated? I'm pretty educated (master's degree, Geography) and I read every newspaper I can get my hands on ,but somehow I have never heard of many of the people listed. I'm sure many of the people that are listed are important to a very small number of people, but unknown to much of the world. Why are they allowed? My mom was an important person to me and many other people. I realize that if everybody did what I did, then there would be many more entries. Is that such a bad thing?
The Community Portal is currently being heavily vandalised. Perhaps a new policy could be introduced to allow earlier blocking for vandalising pages in the Wikipedia: and Template: namspaces (e.g. block on third offense)? Bart133 (t) 23:22, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Classical definition of republic was recently deleted as being POV and original research. The creator of that article has moved it to Wikinfo, as is his right, but he has also gone through replacing internal links with links to the Wikinfo page [24] and adding it to the external links section of other articles [25]. I feel that if an article was poor enough to be deleted it is also not worth being linked to. The author of the piece disagrees and my removal of the links have been removed. As there is no official policy in this area what do others think? - SimonP 21:29, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
What is Wikipedia policy on user's that post open letters on their web sites that give specific instructions to readers to create accounts on Wikipedia and auto-revert edits for a specific page? In other words, is there such a thing as incitement to revert/edit war. What could be done about such a user? Should something be done about such a user? -- Axon 19:52, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
There is no specific policy, but votes by anons and by people who created accounts after the filing of the VfD are generally discounted. Rick K 22:27, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
Is what user GRider doing considered to be within wikiquette ? Look at the user profile and the number of VfD postings that the user is making. A large number of VfD entries seem to be without substantiation, and therefore could appear random and rather subjective, even qualifying as vandalism. Am I being not accomodating enough in my approach to Wikipedia, or is this user just annoying ? Any advice welcome ! Thanks
I just noticed this, with answers.com
They are using wikipedia articles in their own format, and placing advertising over the articles.
does anyone know about this? and is wikipedia getting money from this?
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(See above related discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Censorship and wikipedia)
See important discussion about this subject taking place at Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images [1]
This subject seems to have ignited recently at Talk:Breast#Image [2] and Talk:Breast#New Image [3] and at Talk:Nudity [4] and Talk:Nudity#Lead image [5] and at several other places.
Recently, when looking at User:Rickyrab's [6] home page I saw this image of a voluptuous brunnete (see Exhibit A) (Exhibit A): "Frua" photo, is she also "meditating"? taken from the German Wikipedia article on Frau [7] (" Woman" in the German language) only added Dec 1, 2004 by Benutzer:Wikibär (who is warned - in German - about his unseemly behavior on his talk page), see Benutzer Diskussion:Wikibär [8]. The English article on Woman does not have this photo, but it does have this one [9] of a woman "meditating" (pubic hair and all..is that what a "woman" is?) (see Exhibit B) (Exhibit B): "Woman meditating" photo Exhibit B is taken from "copyright" http://buecax.deviantart.com/ ..."deviantart"???
Is this a new " German" "trend" to flood Wikipedia with still life reality pornography? Perhaps we could live with the "sketch" (see Exhibit C) (Exhibit C): Woman sketch (from NASA plaque). But here are some big questions:
It is time to set clear policy on excluding anything that is even border-line pornographic, pulling the plug on it and excluding it, and anything like it, because it is clearly unbefitting a genuine encyclopedia. IZAK 08:55, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Everything that is "visible" to the "naked eye" should now be depicted in an encyclopedia? This makes no sense! IZAK 09:52, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
ToyToy:Think in logical terms. IF this is only the start of Wikipedia, what will it look like once we post all imaginable and freely available explicit photos all erotica?
Ah yes, the Holocaust which was genocide, how that was related to pornography must have been a very interesting lecture in abstract " logic". Sexy women posing for cameras does not equal starved skeletons of victims (in Image:Mass Grave Bergen Belsen May 1945.jpg they actually look more like a bunch of broken matches than "humans"). In any case, I do NOT say that having pictures of naked dead Holocaust victims is acceptable. One can skip photos of dead Jews with (what was left of) their exposed shriveled genitals to realize what happened to them at the "hands" of the Nazis. And yes, the subjects of nudity and violence are connected when it comes to controlling how we expose YOUNG readers to life in an encyclopedia. There ARE better ways to doing this, and you know it! IZAK 10:27, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I am NOT saying cut out the topics! I AM saying be more careful with images you flash! We don't need to turn Wikipedia into a "nudist colony" of nude editors/students! IZAK 13:12, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Judge for yourself: Is this "pornography"? IZAK 11:22, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC):
I fail to see any pornography in these 'exhibits'. What are you talking about? And why, why, Evil Monkey and IZAK, does it always have to be about the Holocaust, even in completely unrelated discussions? I agree that the "Frau" picture would be controversial by some standards on woman, but what's wrong with the Pioneer image? or the Marilyn cover? And why shouldn't there be a picture of a nipple on nipple?? ffs, people... dab (ᛏ) 11:16, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I was not the one to drag the Holocaust into this discussion. (But come to think of it the Nazis would make the Jewish women - and men - strip...why?...the Nazis must have been perverts!) The main topics of discussion here are "Exhibits A and B", does it have to be "full motion action" to qualify as pornography? It can also be the "gentlest" and "quietest" of shots, the photos are very alluring and should be published in a venue other than Wikipedia. IZAK 11:22, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I guess you live and learn don't you! It's not amusing at all really. Someone has to do some "housekeeping" as so many people think that Wikipedia should become a kind of "free-for-all" with all sorts of ansavory photos and just "make peace with it". I am not scared that you may be shocked, I am more worried that Wikipedia, becuase it is so "welcoming" should NOT turn into a "red light district" in the name of "gathering information". Not everything needs to be graphic. What will we say on "Judgment Day" when we are asked: "How could you allow such things to co-exist?" Someone has to make the case, may as well be me. How else can we protect the truly innocent by the way? When working in the " sewage" there is always the risk of the smell, but it's important to make sure that the sewage and garbage MOVES O U T and NOT "back up" into the Wikipedia mainstream! IZAK 11:38, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
TVPR: The discussion is NOT just about some "nipples". Your "logic" to defend obvious graphic pornographic images of FULLY (frontaly) naked women (now now, let's call a "spade a spade") falls flat. For example: Is all nudity pornographic? The answer is, it depends how and where it's presented: When Playboy presents it, it is, but when nude in the doctor's office it is NOT, so what is your point and where is your logic? I am not talking for myself, but if you have pre-pubescent children you don't want to expose them to a photo of a lady showing off her pubic hairs...now doesn't that make good sense? IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This stuff is nothing new really... nothing that you don't see like on a documentary on an African tribe or when the Discovery channel visits an African tribe. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This is Wikipedia it is NOT the African "jungle" either, so don't get so jaded. IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
man, 'Exhibit A' is not even linked from any article. Just list it on images for deletion. If 'Exhibit B' is pornography, so is half Image:Nudemaja.JPG, and thousands of cherished works of art. If you think an image of an unclad human is 'sewage', I guess we cannot help you, but you can hardly expect others just accept such an opinion as a fact. dab (ᛏ) 11:46, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
dab:FYI:Exhibit A is being HOTLY debated in Talk:Breast and at Talk:Nudity (see below also), and it's ignited a call for "censorship" by some people. IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just to note, I raised a similar issue with an adult content warning template. See The archive of the Village pump discussion for more information. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:49, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ok, so let's try to create some sanity. It's never too late. IZAK 12:44, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The bottom line is that no matter how ridiculous you think IZAK's view is, he holds it genuinely, and he is not alone. Wikipedia is supposed to be for everyone. Does that not include IZAK and others who find these pictures offensive? Personally, I'm all for the Frau and I don't mind pics of anything and everything. But Wikipedia is not about my POV, is it? Dr Zen 12:29, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Er, but take a look, it's a lot more than a couple of "nipples" we're talking about here. IZAK
Yes, but Wikipedia MUST NOT join that filthy bandwagon! It can serve as a better and more cultured example to the human race. Just because "everyone is doing it" does it mean that I too must become involved? Hang on to your hat there...! IZAK 13:17, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Clearly there are some issues to discuss. As indicated, this is really part of a wider discussion on generally sensitive/offensive/disturbing images as currently being voted on at Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images. For my part, its a question of boundaries. I'm sure there are images I wouldn't want to see on Wikipedia and I'm sure my boundaries aren't the same as those of other editors. As such we need to decide as a matter of collective policy where those boundaries should be, or come up with some technical solution such as image tagging and allowing an individual to set their own preferences as to which classes of image are visible.
A few other points of reference are;
I also think it is useful to consider which images a conventional encyclopedia would include or exclude - though they have the advantage of firm editorial control without needing to arrive at a consensous for each and every controversial picture. -- Solipsist 14:30, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I don't see any problem with Exhibit A or Exhibit B but I do have to point out two things.
-- Ssokolow 15:45, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Banning nude pictures would be a gratuitous expression of a point of view. The criteria should be whether it is encyclopaedic; that is, whether it provides useful and relevant information - a picture of a naked person has a clear information content relevant to some articles, and so should certainly be included. -- Khendon 17:28, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I can't see how a warning attached to a specific picture is not inherently POV. There are already warnings attached to pictures on Wikipedia that I do not find objectionable, while there are other pictures on Wikipedia that, while very few people would call them objectionable, do give me some problems because of a phobia, so for me they are very objectionable pictures. Fortunately for Wikipedia I don't make a fuss about this and slap a POV warning on selected pictures. Things would get silly very fast. I just read the articles without downloading the pictures.
The site disclaimer is on every page and warns that, subject to the laws of Florida, Wikipedia does contain material, including pictures, that some people will find objectionable. This kind of site-wide disclaimer is appropriate. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 05:53, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to concur with Tony, here; Izak is using 'morality' as an argument in favor of censorship. IMHO, 'morality' is *inherently* POV, by definition. AFAIC, as long as a photograph is illustrative of the issue, and is not a violation of law which can get Wikipedia in hot water, it should stay. I've got a little personal rant on zero tolerance policies that speaks to this directly: if you *don't* have zero tolerance policies, then some people will try to 'sneak stuff by', by taking advantage of judgement. But that doesn't justify such policies. Ruling out nudity would be a zero tolerance policy, and I'm against it as much on those grounds as on any others. -- Baylink 05:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There is one small thing I must add to this discussion. I was the one that searched diligently and, at long last, found a picture that seemed suitable to represent the nude female body. It was difficult to find a nude image of a woman that was both natural (in pose and appearance (like no tattoos, no makeup, etc)) and not sexually charged. When I did, I went through the process of personally contacting the fantastic artist responsible and asking him if we could use his image to benefit Wikipedia. Amazingly, he agreed. Finally, we had a natural-looking, relatively neutral, non-sexually charged image of a nude woman to adorn the woman article.
All of this is why I must laugh, but particularly at statements like "pubic hair and all..is that what a "woman" is?" because I am a woman, and yes, this is what a woman is. She is not the makeup or the clothing she wears. And I openly wonder, after reading this statement, IZAK: would you prefer if she had the carefully trimmed and styled cunt of your friendly neighborhood prostitute, or would you prefer the waxed-smooth cooch of a ten year old girl? I'd be delighted to hear about your point of view on this matter. →Reene ✎ 06:35, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
Reene:Try to maintain a dignified discussion at times like this please. IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I would just like to make point that Exhibit B is not a 'deviantart' photo. It is a photo by a real life artist which has placed the given photo on display at deviantart. Artists like to have their artwork seen. Tyln 07:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
(Exhibit F): Wax play on back. I'm the photographer of the "sadomasochism" picture that Solipsist mentioned above. The wax play picture is also mine. It's pretty, it adds greatly to the article, and it couldn't be illustrated without nudity. (Wax doesn't come out of clothing, believe me.) It's at an article about a deviant sexual act. It clearly illustrates the concept. Now, tell me why the image doesn't belong on that page.
Also, it is POV that woman has a naked photo of a woman on it, while man has only a line drawing. Clearly, a male Wikipedian needs to photograph himself in all his naked, furry glory, and fix this notable gap.
I agree that putting the naked meditating woman in as part of an article on meditation isn't the right thing to do. It doesn't illustrate the article, unless it's an article about meditating naked. This is the only test to which it should be put. Period. Nudity is in; gratuitous nudity is out.
We don't have harlequin type ichthyosis illustrated on-page for the same reason we don't have goatse.cx illustrated on-page: both are used as shock sites. Wikipedia is not a tool to scare the crap out of people, or to vandalize Slashdot with. Note that gangrene, amputation and palmoplantar keratoderma are illustrated on-page, however, which I support.
Line drawings are well-used on some of the sex position articles, like 69 sex position and tribadism (as I mentioned above). I think these are a good compromise between not illustrating and putting in GFDL'd porn, which, face it, never comes out quite right.
One of the things I love dearly about Wikipedia is that I can look up a potentially offensive topic, something like flatulence or inflammatory bowel disease, and learn a lot. The highest of quality, in all things---this is what we're standing for, not shoveling parts of our bodies and lives into poorly-written and non-illustrated back alleys of the site. grendel| khan 09:01, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
grendel:We should still keep our senses though and not create a cesspool that will come back to haunt us when Wikipedia is finally called a "fully-certfied" porn site. IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Reene:What are you trying to prove: "Lowest Common Denominators" or "Highest Common Factors"? IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I mean to say, are we going to reach for "higher standards" or "lower standards", you figure it out. IZAK
It should be fairly obvious to everyone that this is not a child's encyclopedia. There will be no 'G' rating, and we might be lucky to get a 'PG' rating. But I concur with the arguments that have been made that nudity is appropriate when illustrating a point. However I also took a look at Woman and I cannot see how the so-called 'Exhibit B' satisfies that condition. The caption makes no attempt at illustrating anything, and the text of the article makes no reference to the image. The image should be removed. Oh, and Reene, unless you manage to illustrate a point, don't bother uploading a naked photo of your hubby, boyfriend, boss, or whatever—I would be inclined to personally zap it, faster than you can say...well, uh, "zap". :-) — Mike 12:56, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
I would just like to say my two cents on this issue. First of all, I'd like to say that I consider myself a normal, rational, moral person. I definitely do not beleive Wikipedia should be a "free-for-all" and I have found that Wikipedia has done fairly well at editing out images that have no purpose other than to shock. However, I have to wonder if User: IZAK is not pulling some huge joke on us. Wikipedia become a pornographic site? Wikipedia becoming a "sewer"? Are you serious? I have to seriously wonder if it is not you, IZAK, who has the problem. I think as has been demonstrated in this discussion most people have no objection to the images of nude human beings on here. Pornography is meant to sexually stimulate through mental imagery and honestly it seems like you are the only one on here who is being sexually stimulated by the images you object to, as you constantly refer to them as "sexy" and "alluring" while most people here consider them simple images of humans. To adress the second issue, I believe it was User: Samboy who made a good comment about how some people might object to nudity, etc. and decide not to visit Wikipedia. That is an excellent point, but what can I say? There has always been such a divide between what certain people might consider objectionable and what the greater community might. This is nothing new and is most certainly not unique to Wikipedia. I also do not believe we will solve such a divide anytime soon here on Wikipedia as in order to do so we would have to have everyone see the world through objective eyes which is impossible. My personal suggestion is that a warning be posted on the main Wikipedia page warning that this website should only be used under Parental/Adult Supervision. This is overdue as due to the nature of Wiki-editing and of an encyclopedia itself, material can always be questionable. Also, it would do away with a lot of the arguments of people like IZAK and give the rest of us freer reign and freedom from nudity-censorship. Secondly I would like to point out that I beleive we are doing a good job. Contrary to IZAK's beliefs, Wikipedia is FAR, FAR from being anything remotely pornographic and I beleive the vast majority of people who visit do not go away offended. Lets keep up the good job and fight censorship. - CunningLinguist 12:29, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The following appears on Talk:Breast [12] :
...Here's the controversial image here, if anyone needs it for reference in the discussion. Rickyrab 01:22, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Nude, breasty Woman... Note - if you're reading this at school, you can get in trouble! (comment by User:Sam Spade.)]]
All other disputes aside, who thought "breasty" (in the photo caption) was an acceptable encyclopedia term? - leigh (φθόγγος) 01:40, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
New Image
Breasts. (By User:Sam Spade.)
I've cropped the old breast image to make it more appropriate for this article... Feel free to add it to the article.
New vote option...
...added to Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images. All those who think we shouldn't be creating blanket rules for censorship of Wikipedia, feel free to vote with me. — マイケル ₪ 03:12, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
I think Exhibit A is sufficiently likely to be generally seen as erotic that it would only be appropriate on a topic where eroticism was inherent in the subject matter. Exhibit B strike me as generally innocuous, I would guess that "community standards" in at least 90% of the English-speaking world would consider it acceptable, although there certainly are places in India or Arkansas where it would violate those standards. The holocaust photo is, of course, hideous, but I think appropriately so. One of the things with a picture like that is that it plays very differentl at low resolution than it would in full, excruciating detail. Exhibit A would have to shrink to very tiny to change its effect. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:06, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
Is this "parading men like naked cattle"? IZAKs rantings about "pornography" are particularly ironic given that Wikipedia is apparently partly funded by pornography (via Jimbo Wales' bomis.com). Perhaps he thinks that all women on wikipedia should be wearing a burkas? I remember seeing a Australian car sticker which said "Thank God it was the Convicts and not the Puritans" - XED. talk. stalk. mail. csb. donate 00:55, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't find the connection that makes bomis.com a pornographic site, it's just an informational portal it seems to me, so your exaggerations are not welcome. IZAK
Is this degrading to the Elephant? And why not stop with humans. We have an image of an Elephant's penis on Wikipedia. Evil Monkey → Talk 23:40, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
A this rate nothing will be out of the question on Wikipedia. IZAK 09:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
With a bit of luck, yes, as long as by "nothing" you mean "nothing will be removed from wikipedia on moral grounds". Words like "immoral" or "offensive" are never useful when deciding what should be in wikipedia; only what is informative and encyclopaedic. -- Khendon 17:23, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Wrong: There will have to be a standard or else Wikipedia is in effect open to become known as a porn site if every single naked human body and pornographic related article/s will be "blessed" with images and photos that depict all manner of erotic and sexually-related subjects. It's not that complicated really. And at some point Wikipedia editors will have to make a profound choice and find a way of having many photos "packaged" so that they don't break the bounds and boundaries known to most of the human race. IZAK 10:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to think that people are able to form their own opinions about this subject without adding moral to it. If you upload an image of a nude woman not doing anything pornographic (ie, she isnt depicted in a sexual act of any kind) because the article is about women my mind boggles why this isn't perfectly okay. I usually get the impression that in general Europeans seems to be far more forgiving when it comes to this subject than their American brothers and sisters and since I am European, I wouldn't think two seconds about seeing a picture of a nude woman, say, laying on a bed looking suggestively at the camera. It's a woman for crying out loud. How more natural can it get? That said, I do agree that certain things aren't appropriate for Wikipedia to display, but if such a picture would come along it should be treated along with its article in what it conveys. If its fluff, we delete it, if it's appropriate because it conveys information that is useful (like the 69 article), then for the love of all that is holy (I consider sex between two people who love eachother one of the most holy things in the history of holy, there's nothing dirty about it at all), let it be. Inter 20:22, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Would IZAK like to have a look at William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery and explain why he does or does not think that that page should be stricken from Wikipedia before we become a cesspool of late nineteenth-century art? grendel| khan 07:53, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
Who says that the entire universe needs to view naked ladies from the nineteenth century or Hindu strip shows from "temples"? We can find ways of putting little black covering marks over their naked vitals if need be. No need to go ga-ga all "in the name of art." There are other criteria besides "art" that govern human life, and that too should be prominently conveyed in a respectable and serious encyclopedia. IZAK 10:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Isn't this all a bit of a red herring? Equating the National Gallery with Hustler is not a serious argument on either side, is it? Filiocht 11:43, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
With that last comment from IZAK, I've decided that this whole discussion just has to be a huge joke pulled by IZAK. He can not be seriously suggesting that just because Hindu's don't worship a Judeo-Christian God, their religion cannot be taken seriously and their places of worhip should be written with quotation marks as if they have no right to use the word Temple.
Also according to the Art article , art it "any product of the creative impulse, out of which sprang all other human pursuits". Of course this is pretty vague but we have to remember that one person's Rembrant is another person's 'filthy' porn. Evil Monkey → Talk 19:49, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
I'm afraid I haven't read all of this debate, but yeah, I saw enough. What I'll say is, excessive puritanism and a project which proposal is to deliver the user all kinds of information, in an ever-growing, ever-evolving fashion, will never mix. There is nothing wrong, pornographic or corruptive in the depiction of a woman's naked body, nor anything like that. If you are malicious enough to think of 230957093270497049 naughty things when you see a naked woman,
well, that's your problem, I'm sorry. Everybody is free to think as they please, and nobody minds that. Our mind is ours to be used the way we want it. About the drawings, for Christ's sake. If you're offended by the drawing of a naked couple included in a greeting message sent to space, or a little sketch (made by one of our fellow users, if I'm not mistaken) of a couple of lesbians making sex, I am sorry, you'd just do better to cover your eyes and refrain from looking at Wikipedia's articles. It's clear that such a person cannot endure this content, no matter how much this is discussed, so it's better just to refrain from coming here, instead of trying to change what's already stablished (and surprisingly, tolerated by everybody else). It's year 2005, people. Let's evolve. My (more than) two cents.-- Kaonashi 00:36, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You know IZAK, it has occurred to me, after reading most of the debate, your view is a very biased point of view. Think about it. Culturally, there are different degrees of what people accept as "sex" and what is "porn." By making your claim of censorship, you are making the encyclopedia more POV. For example, there is far more blood in Japanese animation, anime, than the stuff that they place on Cartoon Network. There was an episode of Outlaw Star which involved nudity that was banned from Cartoon Network... however, during the series run of Outlaw Star, a Japanese animation TV show, on Japanese television, it must have been seen. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:00, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
To me, nudity has artistic or scientific value, while pornography is simply meant for sexual arousal/pleasure. Usually, it's very easy to tell the difference between the two. A nude painting or statue would constitute nudity, whilst a picture of two people engaging in sexual intercourse would most likely be pornographic. I think it really has a lot to do with common sense, yet many people are afraid they might be perceived as perverted or abnormal if they find nothing wrong with a depiction of a penis or breast. Yes, it's possible to come up with all matter of varied circumstances that would put my above idea to question, i.e. "Well what about this picture, what would this be, huh?" All I can say is most of the people I've known are able to make a distinction, and the people asking this question are doing so just to make a nuisance of themselves. People should be held accountable for themselves, so if they do find something offensive, they just need to stop looking at it and not let everybody else know they find it offensive. | Aequo 18:41, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"An argument could be made that I have perused and considered this image in a way that is 'contemplative'--which is the an aim of art--rather than "arousing"--which is the ain of pornography. Whether the image is pornographic or not is a wholly subjective decision, another viewer might dismiss my analysis completely and see nothing but base purposes at work [...] Sexuality and its depictions remain contested, which is not all bad. Despite the evident threat for moral crusaders, sexual pictures shouldn't be noramlized as "art" just so that they'll be considered fit to view, nor should they be sorted into predetermined categories. The difference between "pornography" and "erotica" may, in fact, simply be one of style. Ideally, the entire realm of sexual imagery will remain ambiguous and fugitive, hard to pin down, in its fleeting refusals and taunting provocations, it will maintain substantial disruptive power." Squiers, Carol (2000). An introduction to a book of sexual photographs Peek: Photographs from the
Kinsey Institute ISBN 1892041359
Flickr has a great system where anyone can simply click "Flag this photo as 'may offend'." I suggest we adopt this policy.
-- Alterego 07:47, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)
If this is going to be a useful and trustworthy source you CAN NOT let the general public edit.
I've found 2 glaring mistakes without trying.
Maya Angelou did NOT receive a Tony nomination for her preformance in Roots. Roots was a television production. Tonys are for stage productions only. And she didn't receive an Emmy nomination for it either!
Check it out at tonys.org in the archives you'll see she was nominated once.
Robert Mugabe's first wife Sally did die in 1992, but my research has them having a son that died at age 4 while Mugabe was in prison. Which means your statement that she died childless is wrong. Current Biography 1979 as well as other publications list this information.
You need trained and quailifed researchers and librarians, not good intentioned John and Jane Q Public adding information they got from a source that got it third hand and wrong.
Cantus wants to have a page where people can nominate images which they think are "unsuitable for inline display", and seems to intend to have this raised to the standard of policy. There is an ongoing discussion on this proposal at Wikipedia talk:Images unsuitable for inline display.
Speaking purely for myself, the words " instruction creep" come to mind. Do we really need a page on which to nominate things to be done which we can easily do just by editing the image on the page in question? -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 18:25, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Cantus unilaterally reduced the size of the image on the Nudism article to a very small 50px [13], which I have since reverted [14]. There is a slow-paced discussion on the image at Talk:Nudism, but reducing the size of the image was not even proposed there. I posted a message on this talk page, he has not replied (yet?). Thryduulf 18:38, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC) He's tried the image display size reduction edit a few times on different articles over the past day or two, but without finding any takers. Now I think he's trying the top-down approach. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 19:42, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
(Also being discussed here.)
This basically boils down to Template talk:Picp. If one can orphan a template without discussion and without a WP:TFD vote, doesn't that give a single person excessive power? "Unorphaning" a template is not easily done. — Itai ( f&t) 14:43, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I am writing an article on Wine Gums, and I would like to take a picture of the Maynard's Wine Gums package and put it in the article. Can do this? If so, what would the image tag be?
I put in the greater part of the effort required to create the David Quantick article.
I have since happened upon the shocking revelation that the biography has been stolen and is now being used under a stringent copyright license! Who has committed this atrocity? DAVID QUANTICK!
OK, I'm kidding a bit... let me explain. He's just written to me to say that he has submitted the biog to the IMDB as his official biog. He then says it dawned on him after the event that this was rather cheeky, and has asked me if that's OK.
Now, I knew that the important thing here was to look at the IMDB's terms of use for material and found this (my bolding):
Copyright
All content included on this site, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, video clips, digital downloads, data compilations, and software, is the property of IMDb or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content on this site is the exclusive property of IMDb and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. All software used on this site is the property of IMDb or its software suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. [15]
And it seems safe to say that the bio at IMDB will now fall under this.
David has said that if I just give the nod he will ask for it to be taken down. I'm in the position now, aren't I, of having to act according to the terms of the GNU license and ask that he does just that?
This is rather a harsh lesson for me of what it means to submit stuff here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not worried about money, as none is offered. What is now a personal shame for me is that a man I greatly admire is going to get a thumbs down from me. In addition, he works in an industry I could happily use a contact in... and it would be to my advantage to be as accomodating as possible.
So, then... how can I get out of this best? Presumably I could write a similar article for him - perhaps asking him for some more detail to add in - and create a new work in a different style?
Help!
-- bodnotbod 01:26, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
copy of message to IMDB
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a contributor to the free content encyclopedia Wikipedia:
www.wikipedia.com
Some time ago I wrote an article about a performer there. Rather delightfully
that performer has now contacted me to say that he has used that article in its
entirity as their biography page at the IMDB.
As a fan of the performer's work this is a personal triumph. However, as I
understand it, if I allow the biography to remain at IMDB I am giving up the
copyright to you.
We at Wikipedia feel this is a pretty rum deal, and in essence we provide
information freely and should - strictly speaking - only allow that info to be
used provided it is not then subject to more restrictive copyright terms.
However, were the biography page in question to include the caveat that the
biography is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright
And include a link to Wikipedia that would be acceptable to us.
Please let me know if this compromise is possible. Otherwise it looks like
I'll have to either a) ask that the biography be taken down or b) come to some
arrangement with the performer as to providing them with an alternate biography.
Thank you,
User bodnotbod
The assignment of the article by a third party not owning the copyright cannot supersede the copyright. The third party's agreement is void (even if he or she is the subject of the article, he is not the author). Unlike other forms of intellectual property, copyright cannot be stolen if you fail to safeguard it. There is no harm in letting this person use the article on that website, the website has absolutely no ownership rights in the article. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:20, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Please see Flag of New Zealand. Here we find two external links to a petition for the replacement of the NZ flag. While it seems POV links are OK (according to the current standard) as long as it's clear that's what they are, surely a link to a political campaign such as this is not acceptable. The site being linked to imparts no further knowledge. It is a single issue campaigning site. By including it in Wikipedia we are extending its reach. As such, Wikipedia could be viewed as being helpful to the campaign. In the absence of a link to a petition to keep the current flag - thereby 'balancing' the effect of the link in question - I would recommend that links such as these should be discouraged. Are there any other opinions or current policy? Arcturus 16:16, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
When my removal of an opening header was questioned, I went looking for written MoS policy/guidelines to back me up. Best I've found so far is a bit indirect: Wikipedia:Guide_to_Layout#Introductory_material says "...because the first paragraph, above the first header, should be the introduction to the article.", although it also describes itself as "Wikipedia Guide to Layout is an annotated, working example of some of the basics of laying out an article." (emphasis added), with that sentence coming before the first header. Anyone know someplace it is stated more explicitly? Niteowlneils 16:17, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hello, didn't really know where to post this, but here it goes! There are a couple of articles about people who are maybe non-notable, and their articles are not much of use to anyone. I heard one person complaining that his article has no reason to be here, and would like to have it deleted. The article is well written and I think that it might be kept because of that. So, what should he do? Edit the article or try to have it deleted? I mean can we make an article on someone who does not want to have an article here. Lapinmies 06:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is it public domain because they are government funded? I wanted to add the chart from this story to Nanotechnology http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4187813.stm
I think it would make it damn sexy! - RoyBoy [ ∞] 22:36, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The BBC's policy is:
You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use bbc.co.uk content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any bbc.co.uk content except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of bbc.co.uk content requires the prior written permission of the BBC.
Even if it were government funded, British Government material is Crown Copyright, not public domain. Proteus (Talk) 22:00, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I created the template to flag articles for cleanup, i.e. those that mentioned books and needed an ISBN added. User:Ctorok has been in touch with me about the category and I put up a suggestion on Template talk:ISBN about what numbers should be cited. I'd appreciate Wikipedians adding their suggestions there. Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 19:57, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
What is the correct position for the disambiguation notice, before or after the text? I see both, but I consider it more "correct" for the notice to be on the bottom. - RoyBoy [ ∞] 23:26, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The doubling occurred] betweeen the Revision as of 11:32, 2005 Jan 11 and the Revision as of 11:33, 2005 Jan 11. The only intentional risk of error that I took was assuming that the only intended change in that edit was adding "right" into the specs for the display of the Naked Maja censored image, and that the only other change was embedding one copy of the file in the middle of another. (Actually, I don't know or care if the two versions of the image specs were identical or not.)
So I worked on the basis of convincing evidence that
While I am not prepared to certify that those are accurate and that I made no errors i acting on them, I consider the possibility that the doubling edit involved other changes the prinicpal risk, and am notifying that editor of the situation.
What standard, if any, is there for entries on "List of x people" pages?
In early January, the article on Marco of Alexandria was deleted as being non-notable, after a contentous VfD: 20 "delete" from longstanding editors, 5 "keep" from longstanding editors, 10 "keep" from IP addresses and brand-new accounts. Links to that article were removed from List of Egyptians.
Since then, Omar Filini has added entries for Marco several times: as a redlink to the deleted article, as an external link to Marco of Alexandria's website, and as an unlinked name. After each addition, I've removed it, on the grounds that the person is non-notable as established in the VfD page, and thus shouldn't be in the list. Am I correct in assuming this?
On a larger scale, most of the entries on List of Egyptians are redlinks. What standards are there for establishing who should be on one of these lists? Should it just be people who already have articles? People who should have articles, and if so, how should notability be indicated?
Thanks, Carnildo 00:56, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[17] [18] - User:Maveric149 is going through articles and moving tags like {{ POV check}} to the talk pages. I've already protested, and he didn't say anything; if this is in fact a bad thing to do, can someone else do so? -- SPUI ( talk) 00:05, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
He shouldn't be moving tags without a community-wide consensus. The neutrality and disputed tags are particularly important on the articles themselves, so that readers can see there's an acknowledged problem that is being addressed. SlimVirgin 00:21, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I see he's still doing it. What's the next step? WP:RFC? -- SPUI ( talk) 01:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Too POV={{POV}}, factually disputed={{disputed}}, or too short={{stub}} (and variants). I'm not moving any of those tags, because they are useful to readers as well as editors. The tags I'm moving and/or replacing with HTML comments, are primarily useful to writers, not readers. That is what talk pages are for.
Also, if any of these messages were made by just inserting in the actual text vs a template, then those messages would be moved to the talk page. Just because it it done via a template, does not excuse things. These types of self-referential tags must be kept to a bare minimum to keep Wikipedia maximally useful to third parties - none of which are called Wikipedia and very, very few of which are editable. Use the talk page. That said, I'll let things settle down a bit for now. I need to concentate on other things right now. -- mav 02:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree fully with mav. — Catherine\ talk 03:25, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I disagree that he should decide unilaterally to make such changes. He needs to seek consensus first and not only from the editors of each page that's affected but from the community as a whole. Some of these tags would make no sense on a talk page e.g. the expand tag, which is there to encourage people to work on it, and also to signal to the reader that we're not content with the current state of the page. Readers aren't necessarily going to check the talk pages of tiny stubs, or indeed of any article. SlimVirgin 03:33, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I have created Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maveric149. I apologize if this is not the right place to take this, but no one has mentioned another way. -- SPUI ( talk) 20:59, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Template messages#Moving templates to talk pages for continued discussion.
In the recent VfD discussion on the St. Thomas Tommies, I raised a concern about consistent treatment of Canadian Interuniversity Sport teams. The VfD consensus was to merge it into the article on Saint Thomas University. As things now stand, Category:Canadian Interuniversity Sport teams now contains 56 articles on teams, and one article on a university.
A person who comes to Wikipedia isn't going to see this and think there must be a notability cutoff; they're going to see this and think we're a bunch of sloppy idiots who are too careless to make sure that we present the information in a consistent manner. The teams are by definition of equal notability to each other, since they all compete on an equal footing in the same sporting body, and therefore by definition, they need to either all have articles of their own, or all be merged into their respective universities. It's like saying that some National Hockey League teams deserve their own articles, while others should be merged into their home city. NHL teams can't be divided into notable vs. non-notable when they're all in the same sporting league; CIS teams have to be given the same "all or none" treatment. And they can't be treated as less notable than an equivalent university sports league in another country, either, so we can't say that Canadian university sports teams get merged but American university sports teams get articles. Which is why, thus, I really have to insist on a clear policy that either university sports teams are encyclopedic or they're not.
Sporting teams are but one example; my concern also applies to any group of related things that are essentially equivalent to each other. I think there are some categories where we need to have a clearer policy on notability as a group, because there isn't a meaningful or legitimate way to divide them into "notable" vs. "non-notable" individual topics.
My other concern is that when these divisions are applied, Canadian examples are disproportionately singled out for VfD nominations and for subsequent deletion. Just in the past couple of weeks alone, each of the following category areas has had one or more Canadian examples singled out as a priori less notable than American or European examples in the same categories: university sports teams, university newspapers, murder victims, military-related deaths, university student unions, high schools, city mayors.
I recognize that some of these topics are of debated encyclopedic value in general, but as things stand right now, two articles of identical notability to each other frequently end up with opposite results in a VfD vote just because of who happens to show up to express an opinion. As a result, I just don't think that a case-by-case approach works for some groupings of articles. Even decisions that get taken as precedents aren't consistently applied -- as we've seen with high schools, a concerted group of voters can still shift a particular vote one way or the other and lead to conflicting precedents. There have actually been high school articles deleted that were more notable than other high schools that survived VfD.
I'm not asking for anything unprecedented. For politicians, the general agreement already exists that anybody who's held elected office at the national or provincial/state level can have an article. And certainly, there are categories where a legitimate notability cutoff exists. But I really believe that some groups of topics require a consistent policy on their notability or lack thereof as a group, which is then actually applied to all relevant articles, because there are categories (sports teams within a single league, etc.) where inconsistency only makes Wikipedia look bad to an outside user. Bearcat 01:16, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
You are right it should be consistent. Categories apply to articles. There shouldn't be a mix of "team" articles, and "school" articles in the category, especially since the title of the Category refers to teams. That means.
We currently have case 3). Case 2) can possibly be brought about by submitting the other 55 teams to VfD, based on the precedent of the Tommies. VfD being not very consistent or respectful of precedents, it is probable that some of the teams will be deleted and some won't be, leaving us in case 3). Either way, best to delete or rename the category. -- BM 01:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I had a conversation yesterday with a friend, a respected academic, who remarked that he tried putting into Wikipedia some material that he had already published elsewhere; his intent was to "donate" it. He wasn't very experienced with Wikipedia, probably didn't make it clear what he was up to and, unsurprisingly, it ended up deleted as a copyvio. I've seen similar things happen a few other times; I've occasionally been able to intervene to reach the relevant party by email and sort things out, but not always.
I was wondering: is there somewhere in Wikipedia or Meta space a page discussing:
If not, I'd like to create one, but I don't want to duplicate effort. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:08, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
One thought is that for work published in academic journals and conference proceedings, the copyright holder is almost invariably the publisher not the author. I agree that there should be some procedure for the case that you really do have permission from the copywrite holder to publish something under the GFDL (not likely is the copywrite holder is Springer Verlag).
Morris 12:27, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
I've put a draft together at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. Comments, edits, etc., would be greatly appreciated. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:15, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
Unless someone speaks up in the next 24 hours or so, I'm going to remove the notice at the top of Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials that says it's only a draft, and start looking for appropriate Project Pages from which to link it. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:34, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
Why is Category:Ashlee Simpson onb the Categories for deletion page? It was deleted once on February 4, and seems to have been recreated, and people are still voting on it, even though the vote deadline has passed. Why was it recreated? Rick K 23:37, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
At Open Directory Project, on each new attempt to enhance the article and finally get rid of the neutrality problems and tag, User:Netesq reverts at least some of the changes with the argument:
The content of this article was the result of mediation. It cannot be overruled by a simple vote of two to one, and it cannot be overruled by a doctrine of laches.
Is this backed up by policy? And if yes, what is the procedure to change this result. (And there are more than two editors who want to see changes, see the extensive talk page). -- Pjacobi 17:36, 2005 Feb 9 (UTC)
-MarkSOp
-MarkSop
User Charles Stewart reverted my edit of Bombing of Dresden in World War II:
When we talk about a number, we hire accountants, mathematicians, logicians, historians, witnesses, all kinds of experts to prove or disprove the validity of that number. The fact that Mr. Blah-Blah-Blah used to be a goddamn crazy liar or has some sort of bias is not a good reason to reject the number. That is POV. You don't reject someone's point just because he/she is a f**king: communist, atheist, idol-worshipper, cannibal, child-molester, Macintosh advocate, dog eater, drug-abuser, flat-earth believer, imperialist, feminist, tree-hugger, thief, PETA member, Pantagon employee, terrorist, anyone over 30 years old ... You reject it simply because it is proven wrong. -- Toytoy 09:49, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
Charles Stewart I cannot believe you're a logician. :) I did not use jargons because I did not want to make my point too difficult to understand. Now I am using them.
"Holocaust denier" is a political label. You can safely call Mr. Blah-Blah-Blah a Congolese, Harvard student, Pepsi stockholder, car owner, IEEE member, ex-convict, professional karate coach, Playboy centerfold photographer, because these titles are well-defined. The label "Holocaust denier" is not so.
I haven't reviewed the Irving v. Lipstadt cases. Based on my understanding of the law, I believe it was Irving's wrong litigation strategy (self-representation) and the hostile attitude towards him that cost his case. Details aside, it was Deborah Lipstadt who was the defendant. The court cannot sentence David Irving as a holocaust denier whatever the crime is. Irving's use of bad materials and methodology clears Lipstadt's libel accusation and that's all. You may call Irving a lousy researcher. Your label of "Holocaust denier" is only protected by the Freedom of Speech.
The U.S. case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell let Larry Flynt get away from tort damages. But the court did not sentence Jerry Falwell a mother fucker as a result of it. "Jerry Falwell fucks his mother" is not a logical conclusion here.
Your use of label is ad hominem and not logical.
My suggestion:
If you think it is clumsy, it is. The possibility or fact of right-wing misuse of Irving's view is not relevant. You don't base your judgement on it. It is logically like "... because someone could rape my daughter on her way to school, I lock her in the basement." -- Toytoy 10:58, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
My motivation for getting involved in the issue is that I want to counter manipulation of Wikipedia by right-extremists and their useful idiots. That is all personal, subjective, POV etc. and isn't appropriate either as content or an editing crieria for Wikipedia articles. My editing of Wikipedia articles and criticisms of other's edits on the talk pages is done according to my best understanding of Wikipedia policy (with the occasional lapses, which I will apologise for if they are brought to my attention), and will be done in accordance with NPOV standards. So: motivation for my edits: POV, standards of editing: NPOV. It is appropriate to bring the attention of other editors to the sensitive nature of the anniversary of the bombing, and the right-extremist campaign going on here in Dresden and elsewhere so that they pay particular attention to dubious editing.
My case for rving your deletion of the label holocaust denier to the person David Irving in that article is that:
Since I understand the application of that label to that person to be (i) accurate according to policy and (ii) cogent, any edit that removes the label I infer to be a bad edit, and as an interested editor, I am obliged to repair the damage. ---- Charles Stewart 12:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See Irving's own website for proof of how he arrived at the wrong number http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/General/Dresden/TheTimes070766.html The link is included in the references on the wikipedia page "Bombing of Dresden in World War II". The trouble is, as noted in the footnote on the same wikipedia page, that since the letter to the Times, he has continued to state numbers in excess of 100,000 for the dead in Dresden raids. Philip Baird Shearer
For further details see http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/evidence/evans006.asp as presented in court by by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge. Here is quote from Paragraph 21:
Given the drubbing that Irving received from Evans and others in court, it is not surprising that the trial judge, Justice Charles Gray said:
To call Irving a Holocaust denier is not "only protected by the Freedom of Speech" By which I presume Toytoy means the US first amendment. Most people do not live by or under the US constitution. It is also protected by the findings of a court of law in Britain. Where there was so much evidence supporting this view that it is difficult to see any court anywhere disagreeing with the judges conclusions.
All of this has already been discussed (several times) on the Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II and Talk:David Irving and their archives which are available to anyone who wishes to modify the parent articles. Philip Baird Shearer 14:14, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Toytoy: I don't have a problem with a critical presentation of Irving's estimate, though I think it is a sideshow, and I think would best be dealt with in a more specialised article,, say David Irving's estimate of causualies of the Dresden bombing. There is ample material to draw from on the Irving talk page. Why not add the edits, and we can figure out what to do with the material.
I do have issues with the following parts of your proposed wording:
---- Charles Stewart 13:22, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
hi, user 151.203.229.38 has broke the 3 revert rule in article about the dresden bombing. he has accused me of being a vandal whose edits were vandalism and said that justifies the brach of the rule. however, my edits were not vandalism as you can easily see - i merely added that some people think bombing was a war crime and restored a section about other bombings from the site itself (it was not marked as the vandalism at the time). this edit (adding a section) was reverted more than 3 times by that user. also, i suspect that rmherman, who is operator here, is the same as user 151.203.229.38, but have no way of knowing. Is it allowed for the operators to intimidate users in this way about the views that they disagree with? are there going to be any sanctions against user 151.203.229.38, or rmherman if he was indeed the same person - i find this behaviour extremelly upseting and abusive? (unsigned)
Am I to understand this is a little too strongly worded? It's confusing given the templates exist and are being used. So it's discouraging non-free images, but they are allowed right... I can upload them? - RoyBoy [ ∞] 01:24, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
We have stated posting a "Bias" notice where we believe it to be very appropriate. It is despicable to find numerous articles created and added to by one or two contributors that go beyond NPOV and are filled with omissions, distortions, absolute falsehoods, and in several cases, racism.
This problem was well enunciated at:
Many articles related to Quebec are in this category where the bias and fraud perpetuated on Wikipedia is massive and pervasive. Wikipedia has come under sharp criticism and dismissed as unreliable by a number of sources precisely because of this type of thing. The very nature of Wikipedia opens the door to those with an agenda and a place where radicals can get there say that they can't get elsewhere. The many legitimate and dedicated article contributors to Wikipedia do not want to devote hours correcting deliberate NPOV and fabricated articles. We come here to enjoy the participation concept, not to spend our time protecting Wikipedia from those with an agenda.
If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask. However, we are not interested in having those who have been part of this biased input pretend innocence and ask questions. Those people will not be responded to under any circumstances. So far, we have posted "bias" notices on the following:
JillandJack 18:13, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
A fairly important poll is under way on Talk:Autofellatio concerning whether to link the image or keep it inline. Consensus level is set to 70% and the deadline is presently set to 20 March, 2005. Click the link in the heading of this section. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 12:35, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Should wikipedia have a policy on citing the new online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography? In many cases the new edition of the DNB will have the most up to date and comprehensive biog of UK people, esp of minor figures. However the online version is subscription only, so is it good policy to link a wiki article to a URL of the ODNB entry?
For a sample of the ODNB compare wiki on Matt Busby with the DNB page on Busby, Sir Matthew (1909-1994) (sub required, but currently viewable here as a "life of the day" free preview).
-- mervyn 14:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is kind of old, but I like this and its template. I would like people to comment on it, and hope to see it to be official policy. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:40, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Is there a Wikipedia policy on table syntax? Is the wiki syntax preferred, and am I thus justified in replacing the HTML coding with the wiki stuff? And, as a final question, is there a case for a wikiproject (à la User:Yann/Untagged Images) to sort out table syntax? Thanks. Smoddy (t) (e) (c) 23:03, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
((I believe this belongs here, if not, please move it to the appropriate place.))
One thing about this series of articles seems dangerously non-NPOV to me (to put it friendly, 'a violation of human dignity' to be somewhat more polemic): the item about 'military manpower' gives us the estimated numbers of 'males age 15?49' 'available' and 'fit for military service' for the country in question.
This suggests that males and only males (of the given age) are universally predestined to serve in the military. Which is certainly a POV, and might be seen as degrading by many. Were these figures only given on pages on countries which do draft recruits along these criteria (which certainly holds for many, if not most countries) I might not be alarmed. However, I stumbled across it in the article Military of Iceland, which explicitly states that Iceland 'has never had a military'?ie never drafted, and a fortiori never drafted only males.
People, this is terrible. Please let's take our policies serious and get rid of it, quickly.
((By the way, just to pour some oil on the waters of the 'Americentric' debates: Why are the military expenditures given in Chilean pesos ↑?))
? Anothername 21:03, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#Military The US CIA "World fact book" is persumably the source. It would be difficult to find the correct figures for 18-49 when the figures from the CIA can be reused without copyright problems (although with a little bit of work one could extrapolate them). The UK recruits from "16 years of age for voluntary military service" [21]. As for a modern country which would ignore the military resources of women and recruits all men, try Switzerland: "[all men] 19 years of age for compulsory military service; 17 years of age for voluntary military service; conscripts receive 15 weeks of compulsory training, followed by 10 intermittent recalls for training over the next 22 years" [22] (and any man who is not fit for military service, but is fit enought to work has to pay more taxes as their bit towards national defence!). Philip Baird Shearer 00:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The point I try to make (possibly in poor English) is: Notwithstanding the fact that most countries (as I believe) draft men, not women, this is still nothing more than 'politics' (or tradition, whatever). There is no necessary link so to speak between the property of being male and the dispositional property of being 'draftable'. (And it is about 'draftability' here, not the factual drafting of men, as we have seen in the Iceland article.) Assuming that being male makes a citizen particularly fit (more so at least than being female does) for being drafted to the military is non-NPOV. As such I believe it should not be stated in the article series the way it is now. Even more so as some (men or women) might take offence in the presentation as a fact of some connexion 'male?military'. I, for one, do. Personally I'd like to see the info in question kicked out of the articles, but a clear indication of source (making clear that it is not Wikipedia's policy to establish that link, but eg the CIA's, for what reason ever) might do as well and perhaps better. ? Anothername 14:01, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I recently added NPOV tags to
Military of Iceland and
Military of France. In principle, my argument holds for all articles with the CIA databox. But the stupidness of the CIA data is most evident in articles like these two: for Iceland, see above; for France, I quote: in 2001, conscription was ended. However, young people must still register for possible conscription should the events call for it, with the change that now females must register as well.
?
Anothername 13:10, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC) (and yes, I did get my account just when I started this discussion, but I'm an anonymous contributor for quite some time)
I would like to question this page's neutrality. The way I saw it, it was blatantly pro-Sandinista, anti-Somoza. It could not have been more slanted if Ortega himself had written it.
I edited the pages Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Sandinista, Ian Smith, and others (and listed my sources), yet they were changed back to how they were. What's up with that?
Also this one. I would like this policy to be voted on and made official as well. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:43, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Managers of Wikipedia:
I'm a newcomer to Wikopedia. I have already become a registered contributor and have made a few such contributions to the Wikopedia encyclopedia. In so doing, I've come to realize that you suffer a bandwidth shortage that limits Wikopedia's value as an online reference. Pages often take anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds to appear, which often makes browsing or any serious research a rather frustrating endeavor. To that end, I have a few suggestions that might be considered, as follows:
-- REQUIRE ALL CONTRIBUTORS TO REGISTER. I don't think it would be asking too much to limit contributions to persons who register. With this change, people could browse the listings without registering but could not make edits. Requiring registration would also cut down on the instances of vandalism, since such fraudulent changes would be easier to trace if you had more information about the contributor than merely their IP address.
-- I'd be willing to contribute money to the Wikipedia Foundation if I knew more specifically how that money would be used. For instance, would it be used to help solve the current bandwidth shortage? If funding is a serious problem, perhaps you need to charge a small "contributor's fee" to support these much-needed upgrades. If you have as many contributors as I suspect, then asking each to contribute $5 or $10 per year may not be too much to ask. However, I believe that Wikipedia should always remain free to browsers who don't wish to edit its contents.
Thanks for letting me express my ideas. I think Wikipedia has a tremendous potential if these issues are addressed. I am very pleased that I stumbled upon this online resource, and I look forward to making additional contributions in the future.
Bart 18:06, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
There are many types of documents that could be quite important for an article to be clear. Is there a place for them on wikipedia? For instance, an article about a poet could include his works on seperate pages, as long as it's legally correct. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. Why? Maybe there should be (or already is) a seperate wiki for it?
Do we have a policy on absent or misleading edit summaries, meaning, is there an accepted way to approach editors who consistently do not include proper summaries? This may involve the abuse of the "minor edit" feature, but the two also happen independently of each other. -- Eddi (Talk) 13:27, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Forgive me if this has been discussed ad infinitum, and also if this is the wrong place for such a question.
I am very new to Wikipedia, having lurked for awhile before making a login. During the lurk phase, I had occasion to look at a user page of a person who had reverted a minor change I'd made. I noticed he'd catalogued the dates upon which he had acheived certain numbers of edits, as if the primary reason to work on Wikipedia is to have more edits than the next guy.
That cannot possibly be the mindset of the majority of Wikiphiles, or the system wouldn't work. I've tried to find some info in the FAQ/wikiquette section about edit-count-inflation -- to no avail, but perhaps I wasn't looking in the right place.
Can an old hat please provide some insight on how Wikipedia deals with those who edit for the sakle of increasing their total number of edits?
Thanks,
Throbblefoot
In most communities, including Wikipedia, people who do things merely to seem like they merit status are visible as such, and said efforts are ignored. That being said, cataloguing numbers of edits, provided it isn't tossed around as evidence of quality contribution or status, seems harmless enough. For people who arn't out to glorify themselves, it's probably true that their number of edits provides a rough measure of the degree of their contributions, although it is certainly an abusable measure, and doesn't take into account the other ways someone can contribute. -- Improv 01:56, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
(via edit conflict) Mostly we laugh at these people and move on. Anyone who edits just to get a higher editcount is, to put it kindly, missing the point of editing here; anyone who cares about someone else's editcount really needs to find some more important things to care about. — Charles P. (Mirv) 02:01, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If your only motivation is making your editcount bigger, humbug to you. Quality over quantity is always valued here on the 'pedia (as far as I've seen). That said, I smiled at my 100th and 200th edits, and will probably smile at my 1000th edit. It's kind of like celebrating a birthday - it doesn't make you a better person but it still gives people a rough estimate on your experience level. (of course there's always exceptions). [[User:Consequencefree| Ardent † ∈]] 02:11, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Was it me? I collect edit counts just as I collect everything else (but really - that stack of old newspapers will have to go at some time). Recording my milestones on my user page is just for me to chart my addiction. Probably half my edits are just vandalism or test rvs, and MoS corrections, so I accept that people like Mirv will just smile and shake their head. Whatever. Noisy | Talk 13:09, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
I have to say, I think Noisy's argument is exactly right. I actually have a link to my edit count in my signature (the (c) at the end). It is not a matter of bragging - I only have about 730 edits, so bragging would be pointless. It is a matter of feeling good about reaching a certain milestone (and I would lose the link to the tool if I didn't put it there). Take a sporting analogy: in soccer, Thierry Henry does not set out to be the top scorer in the season, but he still celebrates that he is. In cricket, a batsman gets a great feeling about reaching a century - but he didn't set out solely to score a century. If you don't like people doing it, ignore it. Smoddy (t) (e) (c) 17:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks very for your responses. Some seem to think I meant that keeping track of your post count is inherently bad, which isn't my point. I think Consequencefree said it best: "If your only motivation is making your editcount bigger, humbug to you." The question I meant to ask was "how does the community manage the problem?" It seems that the general answer is "the system works," which I never doubted. I suppose I'll just have to stick around to figure it out!
For what it's worth (approximately nothing), I took the liberty of looking up your numbers of edits, and none of you are even in the same ballpark as the person I mentioned, who is closer to 10,000 edits than he is to any of your totals. I'm going to chalk him up as an anomaly. Thanks again! -Throbblefoot
I'd like to start a discussion and perhaps form a policy surrounding the inclusion of political slogans as their own articles.
I, for one, believe that slogans should be treated like songs in this respect. They should by all means be included in the relevant articles, but they do not each merit individual articles unless they have been particuliarly influencial. Of course more clear guidelines have to be developped to this end, but this is a starting point for discussion. [[User:Consequencefree| Ardent † ∈]] 01:04, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I know we can copy text from here as long as we follow the GNU policies. But can we also copy images?
Please let me know, Thanks
On controversial pages, saying 'some people believe' vs. 'many people believe' can be a point of disagreement and the choice could appear to subtly push the POV of the article toward one of the sides. Has there ever been discussion on this?-- Nectarflowed 09:18, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Best practise is to avoid both of those and any phrasing like it. See
Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms. --
Tony Sidaway|
Talk 21:03, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Two things:
Please see Talk:Sybian. The images at the bottom of the page were listed for deletion on the IfD page because they have embedded URLs which link to a commercial site. There was very little discussion about them on the IfD page, one person voting to delete, the person who spammed Wikipedia with them voting to keep. With no consensus, they're being kept. But do we really want to allow images on Wikipedia with URLs embedded in them? Rick K 01:02, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
Based on the furor over the display/non-display of "offensive" images in articles, I've been looking into various methods of tagging images so that users can keep from seeing images that they find objectionable. However, none of the existing systems seem usable:
Are there any I've missed? -- Carnildo 23:21, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This issue has been, and continues to be, discussed on Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 00:26, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've posted a proposed image tagging system at Wikipedia:Descriptive image tagging. -- Carnildo 08:11, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hello,
I was wondering if there was a way to stop censorship hidden behind the banner of "defending against POVs". Too often it seems whenever someone says this they just want to start a witch hunt against the view they disagree with. I am currently faced with this problem in the George W. Bush article. -- Karmafist 06:03, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I was just going to add Michael Häupl to the alphabetical list of people when I realized I had no idea about our policy here. As "ä" can be transcribed "ae" (and "ö" can be "oe" etc.), there are basically three options. Considering alphabetical lists in German, I have come across all of them, sometimes even within the same list (telephone directories). I'd like to avoid that kind of chaos in Wikipedia, so who can point me to a reference?
The three options (as I said, all taken from real life) are:
(1) ä regarded as a: Habicht, Hall, Haller, Haubner, Haunold, Häupl, Haupt, Häuser, Hausman, Hawelka.
(2) ä regarded as ae: Habicht, Häupl, Häuser, Hall, Haller, Haubner, Haunold, Haupt, Hausman, Hawelka.
(3) ä as a kind of addendum to a: Habicht, Hall, Haller, Haubner, Haunold, Haupt, Hausman, Hawelka, Häupl, Häuser.
With more and more German names being added to Wikipedia, I think this is something that should be discussed / clarified.
Could you please also put a brief message on my talk page? Thanks. <KF> 22:46, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
I'd say it should definitely be sorted as "a", since that's (I think) how most people would do it English. -- Khendon 12:25, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Out of interest, who agrees that there should be such a thing as "general knowledge" in Wikipedia articles? In other words, knowledge that is so general it doesn't need a source to back it up. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:29, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I found what looks like copyvio concern in Persistent Organic Pollutant. I replaced the block of text in the middle that the submitter marked as "The following paragraphs (until the trends) are from an article in the Environmental Chemistry Group Newsletter, issue no. 14, July 2001." (italics mine). Is replacing part of the article with the copyvio template correct? (I also left a message on the submitter's talk page asking if the copyright was cleared and lsited it at WP:CP). RJFJR 22:58, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
Is there a policy on writing about family members. I got criticised for starting an article on my grandfather Roberto Weiss. A deletion debate confirmed my own feeling that he should be in Wikipedia, purely on merit. It seems to me that an article should not be judged on the basis of the person who writes it, but should be purely judged on it's own merit. I would say the same for articles about oneself. For instance, George Michael or Margaret Thatcher should be allowed to contribute to the articles on themselves, as it is clear that these people deserve to have an article on merit (these are randomn examples). What do folk think? -- SqueakBox 18:36, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
I found out this web site ( http://www.greatestinfo.org/). It is using the Wikipedia icon for its own use and does not clearly respect Wikipedia policy. You may contact them, it is an english site and my english is not good enough to.
Please see Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks/Mno. Rick K 00:13, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
Should include a link to one of the pages describing how to add/edit the page, since it isn't super clear, especially to old returning wikipedians like me that you need to add a category tag to the article in question, instead of editting the category. Maybe instead of the 'edit this page' link at the top (which isn't precisely true), those links should be disabled.
~ender 2004-02-24 23:18:MST
There is some discussion in Talk:Supercentenarian over whether my recent conversion of several bullet-point lists to tables is worthwhile or not. The main concern is that one editor uses the lynx web browser and (I understand) the tables display vitually identically to the lists but are much more difficult for him to edit (although other text browsers and editors may make it easier).
I think policy ( Wikipedia:How to use tables, "When tables are appropriate", "When tables are inappropriate") is to have tables where they add value ("Tables are perfect for organizing any information that is best presented in a row-and-column format ... Many times, a list is best left as a list ... consider whether the information will be more clearly conveyed by virtue of having rows and columns"). I think these ones conform to policy, but I'd be gratful for other views, and also on whether the web browser/editing issue is a significant one. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:35, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that there are too many Categories existing, especially some with only one article. Shouldn't this list be reorganized and many of them be put into subcategories? Tezeti 02:01, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry if this was asked at some other place. Is it automatically allowed to publish screenshots (prepared by myself) of GPL software (what is the typical licence? GFDL?) or should the author be contacted first? -- Fpga 07:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hi,
I recently edited a page for the date of January 18th. I posted my mother's date of death. It's been removed, somewhat expectedly. Does this mean my mother is not as important as all of the other people listed? What criteria is used to determine if a person is notable enough to be commemorated? I'm pretty educated (master's degree, Geography) and I read every newspaper I can get my hands on ,but somehow I have never heard of many of the people listed. I'm sure many of the people that are listed are important to a very small number of people, but unknown to much of the world. Why are they allowed? My mom was an important person to me and many other people. I realize that if everybody did what I did, then there would be many more entries. Is that such a bad thing?
The Community Portal is currently being heavily vandalised. Perhaps a new policy could be introduced to allow earlier blocking for vandalising pages in the Wikipedia: and Template: namspaces (e.g. block on third offense)? Bart133 (t) 23:22, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Classical definition of republic was recently deleted as being POV and original research. The creator of that article has moved it to Wikinfo, as is his right, but he has also gone through replacing internal links with links to the Wikinfo page [24] and adding it to the external links section of other articles [25]. I feel that if an article was poor enough to be deleted it is also not worth being linked to. The author of the piece disagrees and my removal of the links have been removed. As there is no official policy in this area what do others think? - SimonP 21:29, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
What is Wikipedia policy on user's that post open letters on their web sites that give specific instructions to readers to create accounts on Wikipedia and auto-revert edits for a specific page? In other words, is there such a thing as incitement to revert/edit war. What could be done about such a user? Should something be done about such a user? -- Axon 19:52, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
There is no specific policy, but votes by anons and by people who created accounts after the filing of the VfD are generally discounted. Rick K 22:27, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
Is what user GRider doing considered to be within wikiquette ? Look at the user profile and the number of VfD postings that the user is making. A large number of VfD entries seem to be without substantiation, and therefore could appear random and rather subjective, even qualifying as vandalism. Am I being not accomodating enough in my approach to Wikipedia, or is this user just annoying ? Any advice welcome ! Thanks
I just noticed this, with answers.com
They are using wikipedia articles in their own format, and placing advertising over the articles.
does anyone know about this? and is wikipedia getting money from this?