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Hello, A wiki seems like the ideal way for people to share all kinds of genealogical information about towns, family names, research materials, etc. I have found a few genealogy wikipedias on the Web, but they all seem pretty "small" and it isn't clear how well they are/will be maintained/supported or how much disk space and bandwidth they are prepared to provide, and so forth.
(1) Is there any reason not to use Wikipedia for this purpose? (2) If I want to initiate this use among many genealogists, what kinds of guidelines do you recommend? (3) Is there a concept of a sub-administrator for particular kinds of information?
Thanks.
[Originally posted on HelpDesk, but this seems a more appropriate posting location. Sorry for duplication.]
-- Billf 03:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Note to both mav and gkhan: Your "ultra lame" remarks are uncalled for and a violation of civility, which should not happen on the Wikipedia, especially in as public a place as the Village Pump.
As for a Genealogical Wiki: If done right, it would be a great idea. It shouldn't be a collection of the geneologies themselves—there are already a number of those on the internet, both commercial ( ancestry.com) and non-commercial (the Latter Day Saints' familysearch.com website). Instead, it would be collections of info on doing geneology in various cities, counties, states, and countries. There are already a number of those types of websites, but they are either one-person efforts that will never stay current, or ones with "editors" for various topics (which often haven't been updated in years). BlankVerse ∅ 07:48, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
This is a blatant attempt at advertising this proposal to become official policy, or at least a guideline. It's been out there for a few months and hasn't gotten any horrible objections. Go, read, discuss. SchmuckyTheCat 23:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
66.167.137.182 02:00, 24 August 2005 (UTC): I've been contributing to Wikipedia for over two years now, and I have recently becoming a bit frustrated with what I would consider the abuse of Wikipedia:Redirect. The specific issue I have is the redirection of specific and wikipedia-precise terms into large articles of a broader nature which include a sentence or two about the specific term. For example, until I introduced a starting point for an article on agricultural subsidy, that phrase and several others like it were redirected to agricultural policy. Likewise for feature film, which until I introduced a new specific article was redirected to the massive article on film.
I suspect that some contributors use redirects to reduce or even eliminate references to as-yet-unwritten articles. Others may do it because they are glad to see at least some mention of a term, yet don't consider it from the readers perspective who didn't follow a link to get a treatise that is too broad or complete for the purpose.
Wikipedia of course needs the big overview articles, but I would hope that the practice of redirecting specific terms to big-picture general ones should be discouraged. There are all sorts of option. Even though I contribute anonymously, I'd be fine about having redirects be for logged-in users only. Heck, for the logged-in I'd even add a check box that must be checked in order to check in a REDIRECT. That would at least reinforce the notion that redirects should be used in specific ways. Or maybe a report should be available on old redirects?
Or am I in a minority about this issue? Policies such as the principle of least astonishment give me hope that I am not, as do comments seen in this vote for redirect templates deletion.
Recently I read of a German interview with one of Wikipedia's creators or some managerial position about the possibility of making some apparently well established articles fixed, that is, not be open for addition, deletion, or any other editing. There are two major problems that may at least somewhat be lessened by simply making users create a profile like the talk pages require. Is there a reason the less important talk pages require that users sign in while article pages, that take hours to work on, and hours to keep up in reverting pranks and other bad uses, allow anyone with an IP address to edit pages? I understand that even a profile is not much deterrent but even that process could be made more demanding. Imagine something like Paypal, but without the sensitive information of SSNs, credit, etc., but does identify users beyond easily displaced IP and email addresses. No way to simply create an extra user on a computer with a different IP address, but a profile that is universally accepted and demands personal responsibility where ever it is used. So, the problem of adding to pages that one could contribute to may remain open, and irresponsible users cannot enjoy this freedom without risking their privilege. BeyondBeyond
Some editors have put together a page, Wikipedia:Stalking which is being propsed as a guideline. Feedback from other users would be appreciated. Thanks, - Willmcw 23:26, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Note: The discussion above concerns a notice on the stalking article that was posted by Willmcw simultaneous to the posting of another notice on the same subject by the proposal's author. Upon finding the redundant notices the two were merged and the more detailed version retained. [4] Notice of this merge was also posted at the time on the proposal's talk page. [5] Shortly thereafter User:SlimVirgin objected to the merging of the two notices for reasons unrelated to their content. Rangerdude 01:55, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Ranger, no matter how much you think you're helping, you don't delete someone else's comments, and it is amusing how much text you've expended trying to defend what you did. Admit fault and get on with life. -- Golbez 20:48, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Er - the Village Pump is not so congested that a short duplicate notice is such a problem; the principle of Don't mess with other people's comments is a much stronger principle. Rangerdude(and anyone else who's done this) don't mess with other people's comments. If Will's notice was duplicative, then comment so underneeth it, and/or copy your explanation there. This ought to be obvious, eh? ;-) JesseW 08:48, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
the wrong version should be deleted. Whenever it is cited it is invariably an insult and personal attack by the person citing it. It promotes a culture of mocking entitlement and hubris among the admins, which is increased even more by Jimbo's apparent approval of it. It is in poor taste. the wrong version is an insult to us all that take wikipedia seriously, and try to work within both the spirit and letter of its rules. We all know cases of admins violating and abusing the application of protection, and this article's mocking tone contributes to that attitude. I vote that it be deleted, and good riddance. -- Silverback 09:20, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think this Meta article is both harmless and hilarious. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, I need to lighten up myself occasionally. Andrewa 21:01, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Silverback, in regards to "the culture of the administration of page protection were more ope, ethical and transparent" I encourage you write up a well sourced essay(in your userspace) on the culture of page protection, laying out the culture as you understand it, and providing copious references to specific diffs (and the protection log) to justify your points. I'd read it, and I think quite a few other people would too. I look forward to it. Thanks to everyone involved for all your good work on the 'pedia. JesseW 08:35, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Copied for VP (proposals). Dragons flight 16:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
It has also been suggested that deletion discussions involving Wikipedia:, User: and other namespaces have a seperate process, tenatively called WfD, which would of course mean a change in policy (or creating a new version of the old policy), so I am also listing this proposal here. Dragons flight 16:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
I just checked out Skyscraper and I noticed that it starts with a quote.
"What is the chief characteristics of the tall office building? It is lofty. It must be tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line." —Louis Sullivan's The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered (1896)
this doesn't seem very encyclopedic to me... but maybe I'm just being anal. Opinions? -- Quasipalm 20:14, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree in a general sense, but let's remember WP:IAR - just because we have a rule about the general practice, shouldn't mean that we remove it from the one or two articles where it improves them! Trollderella 15:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
The epigraph started out as a proof text, as it were. It was a citation at the head of a discussion that was supposedly "What made me start writing was reading these words by this famous person." Thus, its origin is the the old ecclesiastic tradition and then, in the 19th c., the essay tradition. It's still a cool thing for a particular type of writing (hint: the essay), as anyone who reads Lewis Lapham's essays in Harper's Magazine knows, but these days the epigraph is most often false learning and borrowing a don's robes. Most importantly, though, epigraphs absolutely are not, under any circumstances, encyclopedic. The encyclopedist is not an essayist. Got a quote? Cite it. Don't splatter it on the top. Geogre 03:56, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Recently, I posted a few articles about some indie bands -- Strange Presence and Freebooter -- of whom few know little. A few days after posting, I saw that my submissions had been flagged for deletion. Someone had decided that the entries were band vanity, even though I am a longtime entertainment journalist who wanted to simply offer information about people not widely know. According to Wikipedia, it seems that, unless a subject can be found elsewhere on the Net, it appears suspect, and should be discarded. I feel a bit frustrated for my wasted efforts, but I feel bad for Wikipedia. Indie bands can and do accomplish great things. They can influence people who do go on to celebrity, and they do make up the fabric of what was. They're fact. They existed. They inhabited physical space, and I wanted to believe that Wikipedia could be a starting point to offer and preserve fragile information, but it appears that I am wrong in this belief. I won't contribute again to Wikipedia, because I don't wish to feel as if I'm wasting my time and the time of others, but I do feel for the many artists out there who will pass into oblivion. I tried to help, but, well, you can see the result.
I hope you reconsider contributing to Wikipedia. Have a look at the guidelines we've set up at WP:MUSIC, that will give you a good idea of what articles we will keep and what articles we'll delete. While we want articles on obscure bands, we also don't want articles on every kid's high school band, so we have to take steps to prevent the latter. Gamaliel 19:18, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
If these articles were about people not widely known then they were at least arguabley non-notable. If there was some reason why they were notable nonetheless, it would be wise to mention it in the articled. See WP:MUSIC for criteria on inclusion of bands and band members followed by many, although not official policy. I agree with Gamaliel, I hope you reconsider. DES (talk) 19:21, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. I am sorry we had to remove your work. I understand it is frustrating to earnestly contribute only to be rebuffed. However, I will try to explain our reasoning. Wikipedia functions based on the open review or maintenance. Hopefully most articles can be verified through online sources. If there are no alternative sources readily accessible, then other editors are unable to challenge the text. Wikipedia can not work if there is only one participant behind an article. lots of issues | leave me a message 02:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
With respect to the original question, good faith listings of totally unknown indie bands are unfortunately inseparable from band vanity pages, since presumably the only reason to write about an indie group that is happily flailing around in oblivion is because you (the author) like them, which presumably supports boosterism. The assertion (being bandied about here above) that notability is not grounds for deletion is simply a quixotic personal position and a largely untenable position wrt consensus community opinion (which clearly is to maintain a notability standard). Thus, the guidelines appear to be a straightforward solution to the question of asserting notability, and the good faith intent of the original author, while admirable, is inevitably of subsidiary importance in assessing whether to keep an unknown indie band entry or not. Dottore So 23:01, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I am a new user. I found much detail with statistics from your entry under "religion." Where do I find the crdentials of the person or committee that prepares such an article and revises it? Is that person responsible for the text if it is lifted and reprinted? Who Brian0918?
I know of one article about a controversial figure that has 77 external links. It seems like overkill for a biographical article. Moreover, while 5 of those links are written by the subject and 8 are supportive of his views, 64 are criticisms of his views, most of them emanating from one side of the political spectrum (a majority of which come from unpublished sources). What are some appropriate guidelines for the make-up of external links sections? Shouldn't links sections aspire towards representative relevance rather than just throwing up anything anyone has ever said about a figure? user: yen 17:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Recently someone added a few lines to Tonya Harding regarding her performance in a porn video ("On the tape Harding shows her breasts, buttocks and pubic area. She is shown performing oral sex on her husband and then having sex with him."). My instinct tells me that this information isn't necessary and shouldn't be there. Is there any Wiki policy regarding this kind of thing? Thanks. Fang Aili 19:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Would the same criteria proposed for blogs be applied similiar sources such as opinion columns in printed publications or non-blog online-only sites in deciding to include or exclude links? Are blogs tainted in a way that a corporate online site isn't? patsw 23:08, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Some editors are profusely linking to moderated discussion forums/chatrooms, or resort to copying conversations from these discussion forums into websites, and then use these webpages as "references" to backup a certain POV. Can we expand Wikipedia:Cite your sources and/or Wikipedia:Reliable sources to give some guidelines to combat this? Many of the issues discussed above for Blogs are also relevant to this. -- ≈ jossi ≈ 03:49, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
Another reason not to link to a forum is that you should only provide links that are going to last. Since forums almost always discard old posts, any link to a particular post on a forum will go dead in a short time. Most of us are here to share their professional knowledge and their hobbies. The few who think this is a place for political propaganda are, I think, providing many of these objectionable links. - Rick Norwood
Type vice chancellor of austria in the search box and hit <Enter> or click GO or click Search. Hitting <Enter> is the same as clicking Search and gives a list of possible hits. Clicking Go invites you to write a new article and DOES NOT GO TO the existing article Vice Chancellor of Austria. * very puzzled expression * -- Sitearm | Talk 19:23, 2005 August 21 (UTC)
Moved to perennial proposals as subsection of previous discussion, Abolish anonymous users. Steve block talk 13:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Encyclopædia Dramatica is an article about a website that has many detractors. In the interest of NPOV the detractors criticisms of the site should be included in the article, of course, but they should not be allowed to use Wikipedia as a foundation to harass and attack the websites owner.
The current protected version is actual, real-life harassment of the websites owner. It is harassment to link the owner of the site to their real-life employer, a fact that has nothing to do with the website itself. It is wiki-vandalism (and further harassment) to include an excessive number of inline links to outside information and pictures that have been removed from the article itself.
This information says, in essence: "I know where you live." "I know where you work." "I know what you look like." That is stalker behavior, not encyclopedic. Publicizing it is incitement to other detractors to take on real life harassment via letters to employers, prank calls, etc.
I reverted the page firmly believing this is vandalism and harassment. I'm now blocked. 3RR does not cover vandalism and harassment. If listing to this information was done on a talk page it would fall under WP:RPA, we shouldn't allow it in an article either.
Yeah, I feel pretty strongly about this. There is a real life person here who these detractors are trying to ruin by sending disparaging letters to real life employers. By not doing a sanity check before blocking someone on 3RR and then PROTECTING the page with the links intact, Wikipedia administrators have tacitly endorsed using Wikipedia as an information source for this harassment. User:SchmuckyTheCat 135.214.154.104 21:59, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed a recent spate of VfDs on pubs. Some examples: The Cambridge Arms, The Champion of the Thames, The Granta, The King Street Run (pub). The only specific guidance I can find on this is Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Precedents#Cities and villages which says "Bars, pubs, cafes and hotels should be listed on WikiTravel", but this page doesn't seem to list sources. Presumably there is some minimum level of encyclopedic interest required for articles on drinking establishments, based on factors such as age, references in the news/literature/fiction, and uniqueness. Has this been discussed before? Are more specific guidelines available? Does anyone have any suggestions? Cheers, Bovlb 17:02:17, 2005-08-29 (UTC)
I recently ended up with a 2-day block under 3RR, as a result of an edit war at Asperger's Syndrome, after an argument was started by 1 user making gratuitous personal attacks on my character out of nowhere, in talk.It setoff a bullying situation of implacable group psycholkogy that resulted in an edit war because there was no other way to communicate having to answer personal attacks on the time and not being listened to.The bullies,who appear strongly likely to be cronies of one particular relevant website's leadership, used force of numbers to pool their 3RR rights to strike every few minutes and keep totally deleting all mention of a medically relevant item. You see how the balance of power was unbalanced if a group ganging up to suppress 1 issue have stronger 3RR rights in their favour, than their target has?
I can see the point of trying to bring some calm to the situation by trying to see if some reasoned discussion takes place while the contenders are silenced. So I actually don't contest my block provided all the opponents I had during the preceding day were blocked as well. Only they weren't. My edits were not even simple reversions but attempts to find consensual new edits incorporating others' feelings and interventions, and only the opponents' POV gets favoured by them each having a personal right to 3RR which they can pool.
How then is Wikipedia to guard against having its ethic of neutral content destroyed by the 3RR rule working in favour of bullying campaigns and organised frequent attacks on pages? An ethical concern for the entire nature of Wikipedia and reform proposal to solve the anomaly, arises from this case. It should be circulated to the entire community from top to users, for comment, so it can be put into practice straightaway. The proposal is, simply enact this:
(i) the 3RR rule also to apply when different people make the same revert, exactly the same as when 1 person does. Hence a group of users all editing on the same side of an argument will be subject to the rule, collectively, on equal terms to an individual.
(ii) When a 2-sided high-frequency edit war is happening, if a 3RR block is made it must be made simultaneously on every person on both sides who took part during the preceding day. Admins at all levels with discretion whether to apply a 3RR block, shall not have discretion to apply one to only 1 side of such a dispute.
(iii) Except as part of such a 2-sided parity, a reverter who does not make simple reverts to the past but writes new adaptations can't be given a 3RR block, unless - There is a constructive editorial discussion in progress, that is about content not personal attacks towards that person's side, and about factuality not an insistence on simply deleting an item on grounds of not thinking it important.
Studying this case, do you see that without these rule changes, Wikipedia can be dragged into giving non-neutral positions with content censored by the agenda of a group who keep editing the same way? even on medically serious issues to do with children? On the basis of this case that has just happened, I contend that Wikipedia visibly owes to its members to make this rule adjustment.
Just in case anyone thinks this guy is legit, Tern (the user who started this topic) has just been banned permanently for linkspamming, personal attacks and legal threats (and that's not even half the rules he's violated, really). He makes more personal attacks in his average single comment than he has been on the recieving end of in his entire time at Wikipedia, and what he characterizes as everyone ganging up on him is nothing more than what most other Wikipedia editors refer to as "consensus". He never produced any evidence that his so-called "medically serious issue" is considered to be such by anyone but himself despite repeated requests to do so and even a detailed explanation from myself of what would be required. Tern's concerns were listened to and responded to in great detail - HE is the one who refused to listen to the comments of others with anything even vaguely resembling an open mind. His Web site, which he was put on a 48-hour block for linkspamming within hours of posting the above... well, I'll let it speak for itself. It has been called a hate site, though personally I would not go that far. (Interestingly, he has removed his attack on Wikipedia - I would have expected it to instead expand after this.)
He also has bizarre interpretations of many Wikipedia rules, for example insisting that the links to his site could only be removed if links to other sites he has had bad experiences on were also removed due to a... unique... interpretation of NPOV, which he refers to as "parity logic".
And speaking of NPOV, the content he kept reverting back to, starting this whole mess in the first place, was being reverted chiefly because it was blatantly POV; one version of it ran:
He has repeatedly insisted that this is, in fact, NPOV, despite having it repeatedly explained to him, with far more patience and openmindedness than he himself has shown, why it isn't. His response? To cry "bullying" and "personal attack" and virtually accuse other editors, including myself, of child abuse.
In short, there is nothing vaguely resembling meatpuppetry going on here (and how dare anyone suggest otherwise when they clearly have not actually checked); there is one user with a persecution complex, a bizarre agenda and no respect for Wikipedia's rules trying - and, happily, failing - to hold an important page hostage to his distorted view of reality. PurplePlatypus 07:00, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I would like to ask questions about two pages on Wikipedia:
Wikipedia:Announcements and
Wikipedia:Goings-on. First what is the Annoucements page for? There's no description at all about the aim of this page and what it should be annouced. It's maybe known that significant milestones are put into this page, but what about announcing new projects? There's no consensus and you have a 50% chance that it will be deleted by an editor (I tried many times) whereas less important annoucements are sometimes kept (like the fact the the
WP:RFC is split into sections). And what about the
Wikipedia:Goings-on page? It states that it should keep annoucements about news in the Wikipedia community. But it doesn't do this at all. It includes only current collaborations and new featured content.
My point is: The goals of these two pages should be stated clearly by consensus and "activated".
I like what the French Wikipedia has done: the Announcement page keeps only important milestones, alexa rankings and server news, while the goings-on page is onpened publicly for any user to state new projects, policies, portals, admins, important issues, even new significant categories and templates.
CG 08:54, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Based on the suggestions from the French Wikipedia, current convention, and my own unique ideas, etc. I propose the following goals for the three pages:
What do people think of these proposed goals? Wording changes, basic philosphical disagreements? Once a number of people have chimed in, and assumeing they gain consensus, we could migrate them onto the headers of the respective pages, and {{ welcome}}. Well, folks? JesseW 09:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
I have difficulties putting this into words, but here is how I think of it:
— Sverdrup 14:15, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Please comment on this proposed policy to enable patent copyvio material to be speedy deleted. thanks! Martin - The non-blue non-moose 18:29, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Splash,
Thanks for the response but you couldn't be more wrong.
I HAVE repeatedly tried to correct some of the NUMBEROUS smears against O'Reilly but each and every time they were removed and I've been repeatedly threatened with the false accusation of 'vandalism.'
Vandalism??? What, to correct the record when they call conservarive organizations 'right-wing' yet REFUSE to allow my edit which CORRECTLY labels Media Matters and FAIR as left wing?
I'm sorry pal, you're DREAMING if you think ANYONE can edit it.
I'm more than willing to over each and every point of contention in this piece (as well as other left leaning biased pieces) with someone being reasonable fair and NEUTRAL.
But all I've experiences is censorships, false accusations of vandalism and a generally dismissive attitude.
Wikipedia will NOT survive if it continues along this vein.
Once it gets tagged as left wing in the media (as I surely will if they don't correct themselves) you will lost MUCH of your credibility.
And that is a shame because it's a great concept and could be a very powerful information tool.
But not if you let it turn into the metafilter of encyclopedias.
Allowing Media Matters to essentially control the content of the Bill O'Reilly entry, it's akin to letting Dick Morris do the write up on Hillary Clinton!
Mark
Ps The editor who 'erased' all my comments called them in violation of the neutrality doctrine. What a joke! The whole page was biased before I ever laid eyes on it. She just wants to keep it that way.
And as a rep for Wikipedia, one must assume so does the rest of this organization.
NGB,
I've cooled off a bit, so here's a more reasoned response.
Of course, the comment you quoted above was unacceptable. But, how would you feel if you visited an entry that was so BLATANTLY biased, you'd think it was written by Al Franken and yet, EVERY SINGLE time you tried to edit it to bring balance, it was COMPLETELY erased by someone who REFUSES to take emails???
It was an act of desperate communication to someone I perceived to be a church-lady type nitpicking all my comments, whilst at the same time all too happy to let stand existing comments that were far more egregious in their blatant non-neutrality.
Now that I've been made aware of a little more of the ins & outs of wikipedia (thanks to a gracious editor in the UK) I understand better how to communicate my concerns.
It is also important to point out that the rightfully deleted edit of mine above was NOT characteristic of ANY of my other edits. And I was not threatening BUT BEING THREATENED by someone with whom I could not communicate with.
How frustrating!
And, as far as I'm concerned, she still has a lot to answer for in the WHOLESALE gutting of the rest of what I contributed, most of which brought much needed balance to the O'Reilly entry.
Look, you don't have to sugarcoat anything here. I'm just asking for simple, decent fairness.
And it is absent in the O'Reilly entry which is a smear job. Not entirely, but enough so that, as a serious encyclopedic entry, it falls FAR short of any standard Wikipedia strives to achieve.
Big Daddy
The entry for Bill O'Reilly was cobbed together largely from sources such as Media Matters and FAIR.
These are FAR left wing organizations that have as their agenda to discredit O'Reilly at every turn in the most nitpicking of ways.
To use them as a source in this entry is akin to quoting Neo-Nazis when discussing Orthodox Judaism.
ANY claim by Wikipedia to 'neutrality' is LAUGHABLE until they start getting tougher about the inherent and systematic left-wing bias incorporated in their entries on conservative and traditionalists.
Can someone honestly read the entry on O'Reilly (commentator) and tell me it's dispassionately obejective?
Mike G Ann Arbor
Is there any real definition of "notability" for these? Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair are most assuredly notable, but where is the line drawn? I personally think that the line of notability for pro wrestlers should be something along the lines of at least one or two television appearances with a major federation ( WWE, WCW, NWA/TNA, etc. in the states, for instance), otherwise, I figure eventually people will start listing their local high-school-gym local fed, or, even worse, e-federations, which have about as much notability as a Harry Potter fanfic board. -HX 16:57, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I am hoping to generate a naming convention for long lists that are broken up alphabetically. Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists) and thank you in advance for any input you might have. -- Reinyday, 14:08, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
This is a fascinating web site. However, how can you say that you are not a propaganda voice, yet allow anyone to edit articles? How does the reader know that the edits have any value and/or are not representative of a personal agenda? How does one have any faith in an article that is edited by anyone, that person not necessarily a scholar in the related subject?
I have an questionabout image copyright. I apologive if this isn't the best place to post this. My Grandfather, who died a few months ago, was a member of the Army Air Corp and took part in the Battle of the Aleutian Islands. His effects included a few photographs he took during that time, which I think could be useful to that, and related, articles. My question is: Who owns the copyright? He is survived by one son (my father), four grandchildren (myself and my siblings) and assorted great-grandchildren (all minors, my kids and my siblings' kids). His will divided his estate (small amount of cash left) equally between his son and three of the four grandchildren. (The black sheep is my younger brother.) The will does not mention the photos. My older brother has the the photos. Who owns the copyrights? Is it shared between all of his descendants, the four benficiaries of his will, or the brother who actually has the pictures? Or, are they public domain since he was active duty military at the time? Would they be PD even if they were taken with his personal camera while "off duty".? He was not an Army photographer. Dsmdgold 20:20, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Yesterday, Ted Ted ( talk · contribs) created List of Primary Route Destinations in the United Kingdom and a heck of a lot of lists linked from there. I think they could be useful, but not as they are now.
I've started a discussion at Talk:List of Primary Route Destinations in the United Kingdom, so please come and comment. Sonic Mew | talk to me 14:31, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew) -- Doron 07:50, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Please take a look at Wikipedia:Recentism article and discussion that User:Marskell and I have been batting around. We have also discussed Category:Wikipedia proportion and emphasis. Your inputs and expertise would be apprieciated. MPS 00:53, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
...on Wikipedia:Bureaucrat consensus poll. Andre ( talk) 19:18, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
So... a lot of people keep mentioning Who's Who, like it's the end all, be all of determining if a subject has noteriety. Is there an official policy on this or is this an unofficial standard? It seems like this argument has been used more than once to save some otherwise non-notable person. Syrae Faileas - «Talk» 16:37, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
If you want to see what criteria most editors use for determining whether biographical articles should or should not be included, please see our Wikipedia:criteria for inclusion of biographies. Uncle G 12:10:16, 2005-09-05 (UTC)
As a faculty academic librarian I am upset that Wikipedia allows editing at all. Professors have so much trouble with detecting cut-and-paste plagiarism as it is, that I consider this appalling. You can let people make comments on articles without allowing your articles to be editable. Please reconsider this. Of course, if a student wants to plagiarize they can get around it by cutting and pasting, but why make it easier for them?
Malie Smith, Reference Librarian, Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, NY
I'm sorry to say this, but I strongly suspect the initial comment was written by Somebody who has not yet discovered that it is possible to Save web pages to local disk, or to select a page's entire content and Copy it to the Clipboard. She thinks that allowing readers to open the page for editing makes it possible to copy its content, then dispose of the browser window without making any changes. She very likely has not hit on the strategy of googling distinctive passages from questionable papers.
A person with this perspective may not return to read all our wise responses. Of course, I may be wrong. — Xiong 熊 talk * 09:18, 2005 September 1 (UTC)
I apologize for my assumptions. Here's some suggestions on how you can best work with us to address your concerns:
Good Luck! — Xiong 熊 talk * 06:20, 2005 September 3 (UTC)
---
Going into the metatheory behind Wikipedia as an encyclopedia in general, I do not see how it can possibly have anything to do with plagiarism.
Wikipedia is not a research paper depot. It is not a storage space for essays. It is not an analytical database. It does not have editorials. It officially supports NOTHING that has anything to do with opinionated and argumentative writing.
All Wikipedia does (at least to the bona fide of the community) is provide an EXPOSITORY, clear, unbiased information. Information that should be freely available to anyone, without exception.
Expository means facts. When you assign someone a paper to do, Wikipedia is the place for that person to go to, and gather the facts, so then he or she may write his own essay or paper BASED ON those facts. Articles here (just like in any other encyclopedia) are and should be free to whoever is given an assignment to do. If someone just copies information from here, he or she will fail in his research or essay, not because it is detectable, but because copying from here does NOT substitute writing an essay or paper. Saying it is not OK to go to Wikipedia to gather facts is like restricting someone from going to the library and gathering information from traditional books and encyclopedias. I do not see how you can ask someone to do research without complete and free access to facts.
Furthermore, facts do not even need to be annotated, and they cannot be plagiarized by definition -- THEY ARE FACTS. Just as it is not required to quote Galileo every time one makes reference to gravity, it is not required to annotate common knowledge. Opinions, arguments, positions are to be annotated. Facts can not.
All that being said, if you have a particular grudge against on-line resources, and want to make your students to use exclusively paper-based sources (I had a few of those teachers) then, well... You're a bit behind with the times. Elvarg 05:56, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Ms. (?) Smith: You might also glance at Who writes Wikipedia, essential information to understand when reading articles (for new readers) and Wikipedia:Schools' FAQ - specific questions about Wikipedia use by students . To sign your comments enter ~~~~ -- Sitearm | Talk 23:25, 2005 September 5 (UTC)
I'd like to ask everyone here what information they think is relavent to the Wikipedia, after posting a few Keeps on the daily deletion request page I was asked if there was any articles I would delete. I asked Gateman1997 if he wouldn't mind me putting up our discussion just to see what response I would get. I am sure this question has be raised in the past but I would like to hear other views on the topic, I would certianly like to see it raised as a policy issue in the near future.
I am concerned that deletion happens all to easily on information that might be irrelavant to some but of importance to other. For example how can I, sitting here in Edinburgh, judge the significance both culturally and historically of the Library Hotel to NYC, does the dewey decimal system affect or interact with most people? No, more people will not visit a library or college then those who will and so will possibly never come into contact with it, does that mean the hotel with its marginal connection to the system be included in the encyclopedia?
Is there any kind of article you would delete? Gateman1997 23:17, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
There certainly is, but an encyclopedia, is by definition a compendium of all human knowledge. If that means you need to include an article on a small school fine it has relavance because the school may produce the next Einstein or the next Shakespear. I wouldn't have outright advertising, if someone went through all the books and redirected them to Amazon I would have a problem with that, and I hope other's would too, however a manufacturer who employes 100 people is a medium sized buisness and what's more is probably quite important in their local community, an unbaised article commenting on the production methods used the financial info of the company and its stock ticker would be acceptable.
On a slightly different note, if for example through the course of someones degree they undertake a Doctorate they would be contributing by researching a new technique/process etc, because of that I would consider that they would deserve an entry under their specialisation detailing the research that they did and what was concluded. We already have quite advanced topics in maths, engineering, physics and so on so it would not be unreasonable to include their information if their work has passed peer review (their's not wiki's).
Also take meanings for example, when a word is used in a context that its not suitable for does it become suitable by its use? For example 'I capped the fence post', mean I put on a waterproof top, bears no resembalence to 'I capped some guy', I shot him, if you check the Oxford English Dictionary your only going to find the former meaning and not the latter, but are both equally valid? So if 1 person is known to a hundred people because of something he/she does eg José Fernando Ferreira Mendes or Barbara Schwarz does that mean he/she is important enough to be notable here?
I would argue that provided someone has put the time and effort into developing an article, providing its not gibberish, pure spam, or a falsification then it has a place somewhere here. If a branch needs to be created to hold it then that might be worth doing, but all information has value however small.
I'd be interested in your views. -- Machtzu 23:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
- Yes the main flaw in my arguement is the limited resources that wikipedia has to work with, 6Billion people with 20KB on each is 120TB of data, quite unfeasable. That said the internet is the global village... I'm very new to wiki and I am sure this has been discussed somewhere but is it possible to list my 2 cents somewhere for public discussion?
Your also quite right that any self gratification on these boards is the wrong place but maybe less information about a lot of things is better than a lot of information about less things. ( heck I should be writing sound bites ;) and thats two in one article!)-- Machtzu 00:02, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Would you mind if I included this discussion in a new item at say VFD or the Village Pump?-- Machtzu 00:10, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
What are other people's views?
-- Machtzu 01:02, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
At a medieval monastery the question arose as to the number of teeth in a horse's mouth. The monks began a furious debate, with the "brothers" perusing their great library and quoting one ancient expert or another. After a long and unfruitful argument, one young monk spoke up with the comment, "Why don't we look in a horse's mouth and count its teeth?"
The rest of the monastery was furious and the young monk was in great disfavor for a long time after.
An apocryphal tale can sometimes illustrate a common-sense truth.
In the same way the demand for citations (coupled with a denial of personal research) can backfire on Wikipedia. Most of the time, citations are a good thing. But it's not always the best way to ascertain the truth. In some areas one "expert" may have made a statement which was picked up by other "experts" until it became the "truth" known to all. In such a case, citations, and more citations, are useless.
Sometimes citations are demanded by an one editor during an edit war, to "prove" a negative, which simply cannot be done.
A good example of the problem with the demand for cites is the article on the Ku Klux Klan, in which, among other things, says (twice) that the Klan was "destroyed" by the Klan Act.
I suspect this was a wishful thinking statement made once, and picked up by others until it became a standard quote. Partly because of the secretive nature of the Klan, and the modern embarassment of many of the descendents of Klan members, direct citations to refute this whacky statement are probably non-existant. But the statement is simply untrue, and it's not worthy of Wikipedia to disseminate false information.
Please edit mercilessly and comment on Wikipedia:Redundancy is good. Andre ( talk) 18:07, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Is it legal, and in integrity with Wikipedia policy, to upload screenshots of games that were taken by other people?
In a recent discussian at the Cricket portal, a user suggested that they prefer the Portal:Cricket to be difficult to edit as it prevents newbies and non WikiProject:Cricket members from making changes easily. I had a quick look but didn't find any policies about making articles as simple to edit as possible. What is the policy? -- Commander Keane 04:44, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
I seem to have had a run-in with User:CoolKatt number 99999, over said user adding a link to User:CoolKatt number 99999/Grudges in the Pokemon anime to Pokémon (anime), and readding the link after I removed it.
I don't want to violate the 3RR by removing that link again, but I'm almost entirely sure that links to user-space pages in article-space articles isn't kosher. In any case, the user-space article page in question, User:CoolKatt number 99999/Grudges in the Pokemon anime, is a rescue of Grudges in the Pokémon anime (which was deleted by VFD process).
I would normally toss it off and maybe bring it up at WP:PAC or WP:PCP, but CoolKatt number 99999 has accused me of vandalism, so I'd like a more immediate third opinion. Is the link I removed appropriate? Is this vandalism?
Relevant pages:
Input would be appreciated. - A Man In Black ( Talk | Contribs) 04:18, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I have archived this at User talk:A Man In Black/Archive Other. - A Man In Black ( Talk | Contribs) 05:59, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I entered in a description of my product and saw there was a copyright violation on it because the content was copied from my web site. How can I "give permissioN" to myself to post the info there and/or remove the copyright infringement notice?? Thanks
I was wondering that if I come across an article that's not really an article but an account or something to that regard, what is the policy for dealing with such articles? Deyyaz 05:12, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
You seem to have gotten a touch carried away with something-or-other here. An evidently unfamiliar user asked a simple question. He was given two simple answers. I don't think it is at all helpful to complicate things with what amounts to a soapboxing on the Village Pump. - Splash 16:32, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Recently there has been talk on Wikibooks of removing content that doesn't fit our tightened inclusion guidelines, and among these are game guides for things like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I've already organised a new home on Wikicities, but that creates a problem. According to {{ wikicities}}, it isn't allowed to be linked to with sideboxes like the one at the right.
I don't want the shift to Wikicities to result in a loss of attention. Part of the shift is also because of the potential revenue from Google ads being "lost" by the current hosting arrangement, not to mention attracting more interest in Wikicities in general and demonstrating that it hosts a lot of legitimate and meaningful content... therefore I don't want the various game guides to fade into obscurity amongst a million fragillion fansite links just because we've made a minor change from one Foundation-funded wiki to another.
I'd already drafted a makeshift sidebox for the Academic Publishing Wiki (see Battle of Artemisium#External links) before I knew a Wikicities template existed; that seems fine to me the way it is and no-one's complained about it.
Really I'm just wanting some explanation of why the sidebox can't be the same. I don't see the problem, it's funded by the Foundation, it's interrelated and interlinked with us, its ads indirectly fund us, and the space to the right in the External Links section is usually blank anyway!
This is now the ONLY thing making me unhappy with the prospected move. I would just be bold and draft up some cross-wiki template for it regardless of this supposed rule, but if that means the streets are going to run red with my blood I might as well know in advance. :) Garrett Talk 04:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Just to clear up some misunderstandings, Wikicities is not hosted by Wikimedia. Neither Wikimedia not Wikicities is owned by Bomis. Bomis no longer donate to the Foundation. And Wikiversity does not exist. Wanting money from Google ads is not a reason to ever move anything from Wikibooks to Wikicities. Wikicities has a policy to not fork Wikimedia content, so if the content is wanted in Wikibooks, it must stay there. Angela . 09:35, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
Last night I inserted an gratuitous dig at one singer within the talk page of the article about another, irrelevant singer. While this may be judged odd behavior, rude, etc., it was limited to just two words and I think was well within the bounds of Wikiquette. To my irritation, an IP a few minutes ago removed those two words. I of course reverted. Well, it's not that big a deal; it's not as if he or she had changed "worst" to "best" or similar, and even I can't get all that excited about it. (I hope I've struck the right tone in my complaint, but since this is an AOL IP, even that's probably a waste of my time.)
So now to my main point. Editing not only an article but also a talk page brings up this message: If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it (in bold, to boot). WP thus forewarned me that my signed comment could be edited mercilessly, etc.
I suggest that this warning is inappropriate here; it either should be reworded to distinguish between articles and talk pages, or should not appear when editing a talk page. -- Hoary 04:12, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Editing another person's signed comments gives the impression that the person wrote something other than what they did. This is forgery; it is falsification of the record of discussion; and it is not an okay thing to do. If a person makes a talk-page comment that is nothing but vandalism or a pure personal attack, go ahead and delete the whole comment -- but never allow someone else's signature to stand on words that they did not themselves write. -- FOo 04:11, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
So, if the original poster didn't get his question answered, Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks is a guideline, not a policy, and it is disputed, meaning not everyone agrees with it and some disagree with it strongly. Which is another way of saying you never know who you'll run into. I do it on rare occaision myself, and generally I replace the attack with the word "interesting" in parenthesis. If someone posts "You're a moronic editor, with stupid ideas", it becomes "you're an (interesting) editor with (interesting) ideas". I then put something in the edit summary saying something like "certainly some (interesting) comments" because if you say they're personal attacks then the person might get angry at the acusation and feel teh need to get defensive. I do it on rare occaision and so far it's worked. Your milage may vary. FuelWagon 08:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Is there (scope for) on of these Wikipedia:Wikipedian of the month things? Where the creme de la creme get a monthly pat on the back from the community? I dont wanna go making a whole page and then have it rfded. Cheers pedians -- Wonderfool t (c) 23:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I know the anti-Vanity policy on Wikipedia disallows any kind of article on a subject that has no notability or importance.
However, does Wikipedia maintain "past the post" system -- "if an article is minimally notable not to be deleted as vanity, it is good enough to be of any size and detailness"?
Or does Wikipedia consider an appropriate MAXIMAL size for certain articles, according to their importance?
It would seem, for example, that an article about a local highschool may be justifiable for existance, in 2-3 summary paragraphs, outlining the school, subjects, perhaps notable alumni. But having a 50KB article about it, talking about every single teacher, classroom, and cafeteria lunch menu item, would seem to be too much.
Wikipedia emphasized a minimal size on articles a long time ago, and pointed out that the more notable the article is, the larger should it's minimal size be. But does the opposite hold true as well?
The whole issue of deletion is way too complicated. I don't thnk I have yet read all of the articles about when to / what to delete, let alone put them into correct operation. Instead i do things that I am sure are strictly incorrect in order to flag to others that a page is questionable. In particular...
AfD is increadibly long winded - especially since wikipedia is still very slow and unreliable at saving edits. ((I know it is 100 times better than 2 years ago, but IMO it has another factor of 100 to go - a typical page download of a text only page over 0.5Mbs broadband can still often take a whole minute. Saving often appears to lock up and you don't know if a save has failedor if the failure is in the post-save read-back. FWIW Preview tends to work quicker.)) Anyway, because of this I usually don't do AfDs.
Speedys deletes are much easier and quicker, you just add a flag to the bad page. One edit and it's done. However The help page for speedy deletes is too tedious and the terms aren't well enough / easily enough explained defined. So I would like a "Speedy deletes made simple" page which doesn't list all the rules, purely lists each of the (7?) categories by: Title; what you type - in {{}}; and a handful of examples.
For example what should I enter as a speedy for:
Additionally I would like an overall speedy flag to add when something is obviously wrong and the page needs attention / deleting. Maybe {{badpage}} that could be used to warn of potential deleteion and get other wikipedians to come and pay attention to it. (BTW, if such a templae exists I haven't discovered it. -- SGBailey 21:05:10, 2005-09-07 (UTC)
{{ cleanup}} is perhaps the closest we have to your sugested {{ badpage}}. DES (talk) 22:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
La plume de ma tante. Easily {{db|very short article with little or no context (A1)}}. The fact that it is not in English does not protect it from speedy or AfD; it just isn't a reason for speedy or AfD. -- Jmabel 07:11, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
What is the Wikipedia policy on diacritics in names? Should accented characters be avoided or not? User:Hektor ( talk • contribs) keeps changing Leopold I of Belgium, Leopold II of Belgium and Leopold III of Belgium to Léopold I of Belgium etc. I personally think this is not right, because these names are not usually spelt with the accent in English NOR in Dutch, which is the majority language in Belgium. There is no reason why the French spelling should be preferred here. Karl Stas 12:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
To answer the first question: Diacritics are used all the time for article titles on the Wikipedia. For just one example, Beyoncé Knowles. There is a small, but very vocal minority that continue to rail against "funny foreign squiggles", but quite frankly, I think that they have lost the war and haven't realized it yet. That means that the same argument gets rehashed on article after article, but almost always with the same result. BlankVerse ∅ 21:20, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
There is also an ongoing discussion about this on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English); we should try to keep it in one place. dab (ᛏ) 08:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm one of those who think that the "Names and Titles" naming conventions guideline could be written in a format that makes it sound less as an exception to general wikipedia principles on article naming ref.
The issue has been discussed recently on severeral talk pages, and there appears to be a group of wikipedians that neither wants to get really involved, neither is particularily fond of the present complications for naming a "lucky-by-birth stiff who had some pretentions to a hereditary right to rule others or had the remotest ancestral connections to such a person" ref
The problem is, these wikipedians have no alternative: either it's the complicated "exception" rule, either it's only the basic rules that lead to ambiguity in many cases of article naming on persons.
That's why I announce here my plan to start a {{proposed}} guideline for dealing with article naming of articles on people. I think the logical name for such guideline would be:
Using a guideline name differing from the existing ones, as long as it's merely a proposal, also helps not to disturb existing rules (and their talk pages) too much: while in the end it might result in no more than a few ideas of this proposition being "absorbed" by other guidelines (or the other way around). But that's for the wikipedia community to decide then. First I try to cooperate in building a valid alternative, better in line with general Naming Conventions guidelines. -- Francis Schonken 11:54, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I think Wikipedia needs a policy on the inclusion of gossip (supported or not) in celebrity articles. Please see Elvis Presley, James Dean and Nick Adams for examples of how articles can get bogged down as editors work to stop the content from being skewed and overwhelmed by unsupported tabloid stuff . Wyss 03:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Is it OK for Wikipedia to show images of children without their consent (see Carey Baptist Grammar School)? I know parents probably signed a release for these images to be placed on the school's website, but that release probably doesn't cover Wikipedia. New laws were recently introduced by the Victorian Bracks government (the school is in Melbourne) to ban this sort of stuff involving Victorian kids, but Wikipedia is subject to different laws I think. Please reply at the Talk:Carey Baptist Grammar School page. Harro5 09:34, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
my eyes! I thought I was almost-an-inclusionist, but articles of that length about a grammar school? Images like Image:Careyprincipal.jpg should be ifd'd as UE, if not speedied. Do you know how many principals of grammar schools there are in this world? And what is to stop people from uploading images of every teacher who ever worked at any grammar school, once we're at this stage? This is on the brink of abusing Wikipedia as a private homepage. dab (ᛏ) 12:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I know this doesn't apply here but it may in related cases: in UK law you need the permission of the subject of the photograph to feature their image on your website. If that subject is unable to give consent (either through being too young or whatever other grounds) you need the consent of their parent/guardian or legal next of kin. They must sign that they understand where the image is being used and in what context. If you have their permission to use the image on a school website for instance, and that gets transferred across to Wikipedia without their prior knowledge, the image may not be usable. -- Francs2000 | Talk File:Uk flag large.png 12:48, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I've posted a proposal for minor RFC reform. It is available here Wikipedia:RFCReform. Basically, I think the user RFC instructions need clarification one way or another, and the name "user RFC" may need to be changed depending on what it is meant to intend. FuelWagon 18:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
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Hello, A wiki seems like the ideal way for people to share all kinds of genealogical information about towns, family names, research materials, etc. I have found a few genealogy wikipedias on the Web, but they all seem pretty "small" and it isn't clear how well they are/will be maintained/supported or how much disk space and bandwidth they are prepared to provide, and so forth.
(1) Is there any reason not to use Wikipedia for this purpose? (2) If I want to initiate this use among many genealogists, what kinds of guidelines do you recommend? (3) Is there a concept of a sub-administrator for particular kinds of information?
Thanks.
[Originally posted on HelpDesk, but this seems a more appropriate posting location. Sorry for duplication.]
-- Billf 03:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Note to both mav and gkhan: Your "ultra lame" remarks are uncalled for and a violation of civility, which should not happen on the Wikipedia, especially in as public a place as the Village Pump.
As for a Genealogical Wiki: If done right, it would be a great idea. It shouldn't be a collection of the geneologies themselves—there are already a number of those on the internet, both commercial ( ancestry.com) and non-commercial (the Latter Day Saints' familysearch.com website). Instead, it would be collections of info on doing geneology in various cities, counties, states, and countries. There are already a number of those types of websites, but they are either one-person efforts that will never stay current, or ones with "editors" for various topics (which often haven't been updated in years). BlankVerse ∅ 07:48, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
This is a blatant attempt at advertising this proposal to become official policy, or at least a guideline. It's been out there for a few months and hasn't gotten any horrible objections. Go, read, discuss. SchmuckyTheCat 23:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
66.167.137.182 02:00, 24 August 2005 (UTC): I've been contributing to Wikipedia for over two years now, and I have recently becoming a bit frustrated with what I would consider the abuse of Wikipedia:Redirect. The specific issue I have is the redirection of specific and wikipedia-precise terms into large articles of a broader nature which include a sentence or two about the specific term. For example, until I introduced a starting point for an article on agricultural subsidy, that phrase and several others like it were redirected to agricultural policy. Likewise for feature film, which until I introduced a new specific article was redirected to the massive article on film.
I suspect that some contributors use redirects to reduce or even eliminate references to as-yet-unwritten articles. Others may do it because they are glad to see at least some mention of a term, yet don't consider it from the readers perspective who didn't follow a link to get a treatise that is too broad or complete for the purpose.
Wikipedia of course needs the big overview articles, but I would hope that the practice of redirecting specific terms to big-picture general ones should be discouraged. There are all sorts of option. Even though I contribute anonymously, I'd be fine about having redirects be for logged-in users only. Heck, for the logged-in I'd even add a check box that must be checked in order to check in a REDIRECT. That would at least reinforce the notion that redirects should be used in specific ways. Or maybe a report should be available on old redirects?
Or am I in a minority about this issue? Policies such as the principle of least astonishment give me hope that I am not, as do comments seen in this vote for redirect templates deletion.
Recently I read of a German interview with one of Wikipedia's creators or some managerial position about the possibility of making some apparently well established articles fixed, that is, not be open for addition, deletion, or any other editing. There are two major problems that may at least somewhat be lessened by simply making users create a profile like the talk pages require. Is there a reason the less important talk pages require that users sign in while article pages, that take hours to work on, and hours to keep up in reverting pranks and other bad uses, allow anyone with an IP address to edit pages? I understand that even a profile is not much deterrent but even that process could be made more demanding. Imagine something like Paypal, but without the sensitive information of SSNs, credit, etc., but does identify users beyond easily displaced IP and email addresses. No way to simply create an extra user on a computer with a different IP address, but a profile that is universally accepted and demands personal responsibility where ever it is used. So, the problem of adding to pages that one could contribute to may remain open, and irresponsible users cannot enjoy this freedom without risking their privilege. BeyondBeyond
Some editors have put together a page, Wikipedia:Stalking which is being propsed as a guideline. Feedback from other users would be appreciated. Thanks, - Willmcw 23:26, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Note: The discussion above concerns a notice on the stalking article that was posted by Willmcw simultaneous to the posting of another notice on the same subject by the proposal's author. Upon finding the redundant notices the two were merged and the more detailed version retained. [4] Notice of this merge was also posted at the time on the proposal's talk page. [5] Shortly thereafter User:SlimVirgin objected to the merging of the two notices for reasons unrelated to their content. Rangerdude 01:55, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Ranger, no matter how much you think you're helping, you don't delete someone else's comments, and it is amusing how much text you've expended trying to defend what you did. Admit fault and get on with life. -- Golbez 20:48, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Er - the Village Pump is not so congested that a short duplicate notice is such a problem; the principle of Don't mess with other people's comments is a much stronger principle. Rangerdude(and anyone else who's done this) don't mess with other people's comments. If Will's notice was duplicative, then comment so underneeth it, and/or copy your explanation there. This ought to be obvious, eh? ;-) JesseW 08:48, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
the wrong version should be deleted. Whenever it is cited it is invariably an insult and personal attack by the person citing it. It promotes a culture of mocking entitlement and hubris among the admins, which is increased even more by Jimbo's apparent approval of it. It is in poor taste. the wrong version is an insult to us all that take wikipedia seriously, and try to work within both the spirit and letter of its rules. We all know cases of admins violating and abusing the application of protection, and this article's mocking tone contributes to that attitude. I vote that it be deleted, and good riddance. -- Silverback 09:20, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think this Meta article is both harmless and hilarious. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, I need to lighten up myself occasionally. Andrewa 21:01, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Silverback, in regards to "the culture of the administration of page protection were more ope, ethical and transparent" I encourage you write up a well sourced essay(in your userspace) on the culture of page protection, laying out the culture as you understand it, and providing copious references to specific diffs (and the protection log) to justify your points. I'd read it, and I think quite a few other people would too. I look forward to it. Thanks to everyone involved for all your good work on the 'pedia. JesseW 08:35, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Copied for VP (proposals). Dragons flight 16:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
It has also been suggested that deletion discussions involving Wikipedia:, User: and other namespaces have a seperate process, tenatively called WfD, which would of course mean a change in policy (or creating a new version of the old policy), so I am also listing this proposal here. Dragons flight 16:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
I just checked out Skyscraper and I noticed that it starts with a quote.
"What is the chief characteristics of the tall office building? It is lofty. It must be tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line." —Louis Sullivan's The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered (1896)
this doesn't seem very encyclopedic to me... but maybe I'm just being anal. Opinions? -- Quasipalm 20:14, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree in a general sense, but let's remember WP:IAR - just because we have a rule about the general practice, shouldn't mean that we remove it from the one or two articles where it improves them! Trollderella 15:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
The epigraph started out as a proof text, as it were. It was a citation at the head of a discussion that was supposedly "What made me start writing was reading these words by this famous person." Thus, its origin is the the old ecclesiastic tradition and then, in the 19th c., the essay tradition. It's still a cool thing for a particular type of writing (hint: the essay), as anyone who reads Lewis Lapham's essays in Harper's Magazine knows, but these days the epigraph is most often false learning and borrowing a don's robes. Most importantly, though, epigraphs absolutely are not, under any circumstances, encyclopedic. The encyclopedist is not an essayist. Got a quote? Cite it. Don't splatter it on the top. Geogre 03:56, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Recently, I posted a few articles about some indie bands -- Strange Presence and Freebooter -- of whom few know little. A few days after posting, I saw that my submissions had been flagged for deletion. Someone had decided that the entries were band vanity, even though I am a longtime entertainment journalist who wanted to simply offer information about people not widely know. According to Wikipedia, it seems that, unless a subject can be found elsewhere on the Net, it appears suspect, and should be discarded. I feel a bit frustrated for my wasted efforts, but I feel bad for Wikipedia. Indie bands can and do accomplish great things. They can influence people who do go on to celebrity, and they do make up the fabric of what was. They're fact. They existed. They inhabited physical space, and I wanted to believe that Wikipedia could be a starting point to offer and preserve fragile information, but it appears that I am wrong in this belief. I won't contribute again to Wikipedia, because I don't wish to feel as if I'm wasting my time and the time of others, but I do feel for the many artists out there who will pass into oblivion. I tried to help, but, well, you can see the result.
I hope you reconsider contributing to Wikipedia. Have a look at the guidelines we've set up at WP:MUSIC, that will give you a good idea of what articles we will keep and what articles we'll delete. While we want articles on obscure bands, we also don't want articles on every kid's high school band, so we have to take steps to prevent the latter. Gamaliel 19:18, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
If these articles were about people not widely known then they were at least arguabley non-notable. If there was some reason why they were notable nonetheless, it would be wise to mention it in the articled. See WP:MUSIC for criteria on inclusion of bands and band members followed by many, although not official policy. I agree with Gamaliel, I hope you reconsider. DES (talk) 19:21, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. I am sorry we had to remove your work. I understand it is frustrating to earnestly contribute only to be rebuffed. However, I will try to explain our reasoning. Wikipedia functions based on the open review or maintenance. Hopefully most articles can be verified through online sources. If there are no alternative sources readily accessible, then other editors are unable to challenge the text. Wikipedia can not work if there is only one participant behind an article. lots of issues | leave me a message 02:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
With respect to the original question, good faith listings of totally unknown indie bands are unfortunately inseparable from band vanity pages, since presumably the only reason to write about an indie group that is happily flailing around in oblivion is because you (the author) like them, which presumably supports boosterism. The assertion (being bandied about here above) that notability is not grounds for deletion is simply a quixotic personal position and a largely untenable position wrt consensus community opinion (which clearly is to maintain a notability standard). Thus, the guidelines appear to be a straightforward solution to the question of asserting notability, and the good faith intent of the original author, while admirable, is inevitably of subsidiary importance in assessing whether to keep an unknown indie band entry or not. Dottore So 23:01, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I am a new user. I found much detail with statistics from your entry under "religion." Where do I find the crdentials of the person or committee that prepares such an article and revises it? Is that person responsible for the text if it is lifted and reprinted? Who Brian0918?
I know of one article about a controversial figure that has 77 external links. It seems like overkill for a biographical article. Moreover, while 5 of those links are written by the subject and 8 are supportive of his views, 64 are criticisms of his views, most of them emanating from one side of the political spectrum (a majority of which come from unpublished sources). What are some appropriate guidelines for the make-up of external links sections? Shouldn't links sections aspire towards representative relevance rather than just throwing up anything anyone has ever said about a figure? user: yen 17:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Recently someone added a few lines to Tonya Harding regarding her performance in a porn video ("On the tape Harding shows her breasts, buttocks and pubic area. She is shown performing oral sex on her husband and then having sex with him."). My instinct tells me that this information isn't necessary and shouldn't be there. Is there any Wiki policy regarding this kind of thing? Thanks. Fang Aili 19:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Would the same criteria proposed for blogs be applied similiar sources such as opinion columns in printed publications or non-blog online-only sites in deciding to include or exclude links? Are blogs tainted in a way that a corporate online site isn't? patsw 23:08, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Some editors are profusely linking to moderated discussion forums/chatrooms, or resort to copying conversations from these discussion forums into websites, and then use these webpages as "references" to backup a certain POV. Can we expand Wikipedia:Cite your sources and/or Wikipedia:Reliable sources to give some guidelines to combat this? Many of the issues discussed above for Blogs are also relevant to this. -- ≈ jossi ≈ 03:49, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
Another reason not to link to a forum is that you should only provide links that are going to last. Since forums almost always discard old posts, any link to a particular post on a forum will go dead in a short time. Most of us are here to share their professional knowledge and their hobbies. The few who think this is a place for political propaganda are, I think, providing many of these objectionable links. - Rick Norwood
Type vice chancellor of austria in the search box and hit <Enter> or click GO or click Search. Hitting <Enter> is the same as clicking Search and gives a list of possible hits. Clicking Go invites you to write a new article and DOES NOT GO TO the existing article Vice Chancellor of Austria. * very puzzled expression * -- Sitearm | Talk 19:23, 2005 August 21 (UTC)
Moved to perennial proposals as subsection of previous discussion, Abolish anonymous users. Steve block talk 13:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Encyclopædia Dramatica is an article about a website that has many detractors. In the interest of NPOV the detractors criticisms of the site should be included in the article, of course, but they should not be allowed to use Wikipedia as a foundation to harass and attack the websites owner.
The current protected version is actual, real-life harassment of the websites owner. It is harassment to link the owner of the site to their real-life employer, a fact that has nothing to do with the website itself. It is wiki-vandalism (and further harassment) to include an excessive number of inline links to outside information and pictures that have been removed from the article itself.
This information says, in essence: "I know where you live." "I know where you work." "I know what you look like." That is stalker behavior, not encyclopedic. Publicizing it is incitement to other detractors to take on real life harassment via letters to employers, prank calls, etc.
I reverted the page firmly believing this is vandalism and harassment. I'm now blocked. 3RR does not cover vandalism and harassment. If listing to this information was done on a talk page it would fall under WP:RPA, we shouldn't allow it in an article either.
Yeah, I feel pretty strongly about this. There is a real life person here who these detractors are trying to ruin by sending disparaging letters to real life employers. By not doing a sanity check before blocking someone on 3RR and then PROTECTING the page with the links intact, Wikipedia administrators have tacitly endorsed using Wikipedia as an information source for this harassment. User:SchmuckyTheCat 135.214.154.104 21:59, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed a recent spate of VfDs on pubs. Some examples: The Cambridge Arms, The Champion of the Thames, The Granta, The King Street Run (pub). The only specific guidance I can find on this is Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Precedents#Cities and villages which says "Bars, pubs, cafes and hotels should be listed on WikiTravel", but this page doesn't seem to list sources. Presumably there is some minimum level of encyclopedic interest required for articles on drinking establishments, based on factors such as age, references in the news/literature/fiction, and uniqueness. Has this been discussed before? Are more specific guidelines available? Does anyone have any suggestions? Cheers, Bovlb 17:02:17, 2005-08-29 (UTC)
I recently ended up with a 2-day block under 3RR, as a result of an edit war at Asperger's Syndrome, after an argument was started by 1 user making gratuitous personal attacks on my character out of nowhere, in talk.It setoff a bullying situation of implacable group psycholkogy that resulted in an edit war because there was no other way to communicate having to answer personal attacks on the time and not being listened to.The bullies,who appear strongly likely to be cronies of one particular relevant website's leadership, used force of numbers to pool their 3RR rights to strike every few minutes and keep totally deleting all mention of a medically relevant item. You see how the balance of power was unbalanced if a group ganging up to suppress 1 issue have stronger 3RR rights in their favour, than their target has?
I can see the point of trying to bring some calm to the situation by trying to see if some reasoned discussion takes place while the contenders are silenced. So I actually don't contest my block provided all the opponents I had during the preceding day were blocked as well. Only they weren't. My edits were not even simple reversions but attempts to find consensual new edits incorporating others' feelings and interventions, and only the opponents' POV gets favoured by them each having a personal right to 3RR which they can pool.
How then is Wikipedia to guard against having its ethic of neutral content destroyed by the 3RR rule working in favour of bullying campaigns and organised frequent attacks on pages? An ethical concern for the entire nature of Wikipedia and reform proposal to solve the anomaly, arises from this case. It should be circulated to the entire community from top to users, for comment, so it can be put into practice straightaway. The proposal is, simply enact this:
(i) the 3RR rule also to apply when different people make the same revert, exactly the same as when 1 person does. Hence a group of users all editing on the same side of an argument will be subject to the rule, collectively, on equal terms to an individual.
(ii) When a 2-sided high-frequency edit war is happening, if a 3RR block is made it must be made simultaneously on every person on both sides who took part during the preceding day. Admins at all levels with discretion whether to apply a 3RR block, shall not have discretion to apply one to only 1 side of such a dispute.
(iii) Except as part of such a 2-sided parity, a reverter who does not make simple reverts to the past but writes new adaptations can't be given a 3RR block, unless - There is a constructive editorial discussion in progress, that is about content not personal attacks towards that person's side, and about factuality not an insistence on simply deleting an item on grounds of not thinking it important.
Studying this case, do you see that without these rule changes, Wikipedia can be dragged into giving non-neutral positions with content censored by the agenda of a group who keep editing the same way? even on medically serious issues to do with children? On the basis of this case that has just happened, I contend that Wikipedia visibly owes to its members to make this rule adjustment.
Just in case anyone thinks this guy is legit, Tern (the user who started this topic) has just been banned permanently for linkspamming, personal attacks and legal threats (and that's not even half the rules he's violated, really). He makes more personal attacks in his average single comment than he has been on the recieving end of in his entire time at Wikipedia, and what he characterizes as everyone ganging up on him is nothing more than what most other Wikipedia editors refer to as "consensus". He never produced any evidence that his so-called "medically serious issue" is considered to be such by anyone but himself despite repeated requests to do so and even a detailed explanation from myself of what would be required. Tern's concerns were listened to and responded to in great detail - HE is the one who refused to listen to the comments of others with anything even vaguely resembling an open mind. His Web site, which he was put on a 48-hour block for linkspamming within hours of posting the above... well, I'll let it speak for itself. It has been called a hate site, though personally I would not go that far. (Interestingly, he has removed his attack on Wikipedia - I would have expected it to instead expand after this.)
He also has bizarre interpretations of many Wikipedia rules, for example insisting that the links to his site could only be removed if links to other sites he has had bad experiences on were also removed due to a... unique... interpretation of NPOV, which he refers to as "parity logic".
And speaking of NPOV, the content he kept reverting back to, starting this whole mess in the first place, was being reverted chiefly because it was blatantly POV; one version of it ran:
He has repeatedly insisted that this is, in fact, NPOV, despite having it repeatedly explained to him, with far more patience and openmindedness than he himself has shown, why it isn't. His response? To cry "bullying" and "personal attack" and virtually accuse other editors, including myself, of child abuse.
In short, there is nothing vaguely resembling meatpuppetry going on here (and how dare anyone suggest otherwise when they clearly have not actually checked); there is one user with a persecution complex, a bizarre agenda and no respect for Wikipedia's rules trying - and, happily, failing - to hold an important page hostage to his distorted view of reality. PurplePlatypus 07:00, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I would like to ask questions about two pages on Wikipedia:
Wikipedia:Announcements and
Wikipedia:Goings-on. First what is the Annoucements page for? There's no description at all about the aim of this page and what it should be annouced. It's maybe known that significant milestones are put into this page, but what about announcing new projects? There's no consensus and you have a 50% chance that it will be deleted by an editor (I tried many times) whereas less important annoucements are sometimes kept (like the fact the the
WP:RFC is split into sections). And what about the
Wikipedia:Goings-on page? It states that it should keep annoucements about news in the Wikipedia community. But it doesn't do this at all. It includes only current collaborations and new featured content.
My point is: The goals of these two pages should be stated clearly by consensus and "activated".
I like what the French Wikipedia has done: the Announcement page keeps only important milestones, alexa rankings and server news, while the goings-on page is onpened publicly for any user to state new projects, policies, portals, admins, important issues, even new significant categories and templates.
CG 08:54, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Based on the suggestions from the French Wikipedia, current convention, and my own unique ideas, etc. I propose the following goals for the three pages:
What do people think of these proposed goals? Wording changes, basic philosphical disagreements? Once a number of people have chimed in, and assumeing they gain consensus, we could migrate them onto the headers of the respective pages, and {{ welcome}}. Well, folks? JesseW 09:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
I have difficulties putting this into words, but here is how I think of it:
— Sverdrup 14:15, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Please comment on this proposed policy to enable patent copyvio material to be speedy deleted. thanks! Martin - The non-blue non-moose 18:29, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Splash,
Thanks for the response but you couldn't be more wrong.
I HAVE repeatedly tried to correct some of the NUMBEROUS smears against O'Reilly but each and every time they were removed and I've been repeatedly threatened with the false accusation of 'vandalism.'
Vandalism??? What, to correct the record when they call conservarive organizations 'right-wing' yet REFUSE to allow my edit which CORRECTLY labels Media Matters and FAIR as left wing?
I'm sorry pal, you're DREAMING if you think ANYONE can edit it.
I'm more than willing to over each and every point of contention in this piece (as well as other left leaning biased pieces) with someone being reasonable fair and NEUTRAL.
But all I've experiences is censorships, false accusations of vandalism and a generally dismissive attitude.
Wikipedia will NOT survive if it continues along this vein.
Once it gets tagged as left wing in the media (as I surely will if they don't correct themselves) you will lost MUCH of your credibility.
And that is a shame because it's a great concept and could be a very powerful information tool.
But not if you let it turn into the metafilter of encyclopedias.
Allowing Media Matters to essentially control the content of the Bill O'Reilly entry, it's akin to letting Dick Morris do the write up on Hillary Clinton!
Mark
Ps The editor who 'erased' all my comments called them in violation of the neutrality doctrine. What a joke! The whole page was biased before I ever laid eyes on it. She just wants to keep it that way.
And as a rep for Wikipedia, one must assume so does the rest of this organization.
NGB,
I've cooled off a bit, so here's a more reasoned response.
Of course, the comment you quoted above was unacceptable. But, how would you feel if you visited an entry that was so BLATANTLY biased, you'd think it was written by Al Franken and yet, EVERY SINGLE time you tried to edit it to bring balance, it was COMPLETELY erased by someone who REFUSES to take emails???
It was an act of desperate communication to someone I perceived to be a church-lady type nitpicking all my comments, whilst at the same time all too happy to let stand existing comments that were far more egregious in their blatant non-neutrality.
Now that I've been made aware of a little more of the ins & outs of wikipedia (thanks to a gracious editor in the UK) I understand better how to communicate my concerns.
It is also important to point out that the rightfully deleted edit of mine above was NOT characteristic of ANY of my other edits. And I was not threatening BUT BEING THREATENED by someone with whom I could not communicate with.
How frustrating!
And, as far as I'm concerned, she still has a lot to answer for in the WHOLESALE gutting of the rest of what I contributed, most of which brought much needed balance to the O'Reilly entry.
Look, you don't have to sugarcoat anything here. I'm just asking for simple, decent fairness.
And it is absent in the O'Reilly entry which is a smear job. Not entirely, but enough so that, as a serious encyclopedic entry, it falls FAR short of any standard Wikipedia strives to achieve.
Big Daddy
The entry for Bill O'Reilly was cobbed together largely from sources such as Media Matters and FAIR.
These are FAR left wing organizations that have as their agenda to discredit O'Reilly at every turn in the most nitpicking of ways.
To use them as a source in this entry is akin to quoting Neo-Nazis when discussing Orthodox Judaism.
ANY claim by Wikipedia to 'neutrality' is LAUGHABLE until they start getting tougher about the inherent and systematic left-wing bias incorporated in their entries on conservative and traditionalists.
Can someone honestly read the entry on O'Reilly (commentator) and tell me it's dispassionately obejective?
Mike G Ann Arbor
Is there any real definition of "notability" for these? Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair are most assuredly notable, but where is the line drawn? I personally think that the line of notability for pro wrestlers should be something along the lines of at least one or two television appearances with a major federation ( WWE, WCW, NWA/TNA, etc. in the states, for instance), otherwise, I figure eventually people will start listing their local high-school-gym local fed, or, even worse, e-federations, which have about as much notability as a Harry Potter fanfic board. -HX 16:57, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I am hoping to generate a naming convention for long lists that are broken up alphabetically. Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists) and thank you in advance for any input you might have. -- Reinyday, 14:08, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
This is a fascinating web site. However, how can you say that you are not a propaganda voice, yet allow anyone to edit articles? How does the reader know that the edits have any value and/or are not representative of a personal agenda? How does one have any faith in an article that is edited by anyone, that person not necessarily a scholar in the related subject?
I have an questionabout image copyright. I apologive if this isn't the best place to post this. My Grandfather, who died a few months ago, was a member of the Army Air Corp and took part in the Battle of the Aleutian Islands. His effects included a few photographs he took during that time, which I think could be useful to that, and related, articles. My question is: Who owns the copyright? He is survived by one son (my father), four grandchildren (myself and my siblings) and assorted great-grandchildren (all minors, my kids and my siblings' kids). His will divided his estate (small amount of cash left) equally between his son and three of the four grandchildren. (The black sheep is my younger brother.) The will does not mention the photos. My older brother has the the photos. Who owns the copyrights? Is it shared between all of his descendants, the four benficiaries of his will, or the brother who actually has the pictures? Or, are they public domain since he was active duty military at the time? Would they be PD even if they were taken with his personal camera while "off duty".? He was not an Army photographer. Dsmdgold 20:20, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Yesterday, Ted Ted ( talk · contribs) created List of Primary Route Destinations in the United Kingdom and a heck of a lot of lists linked from there. I think they could be useful, but not as they are now.
I've started a discussion at Talk:List of Primary Route Destinations in the United Kingdom, so please come and comment. Sonic Mew | talk to me 14:31, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew) -- Doron 07:50, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Please take a look at Wikipedia:Recentism article and discussion that User:Marskell and I have been batting around. We have also discussed Category:Wikipedia proportion and emphasis. Your inputs and expertise would be apprieciated. MPS 00:53, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
...on Wikipedia:Bureaucrat consensus poll. Andre ( talk) 19:18, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
So... a lot of people keep mentioning Who's Who, like it's the end all, be all of determining if a subject has noteriety. Is there an official policy on this or is this an unofficial standard? It seems like this argument has been used more than once to save some otherwise non-notable person. Syrae Faileas - «Talk» 16:37, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
If you want to see what criteria most editors use for determining whether biographical articles should or should not be included, please see our Wikipedia:criteria for inclusion of biographies. Uncle G 12:10:16, 2005-09-05 (UTC)
As a faculty academic librarian I am upset that Wikipedia allows editing at all. Professors have so much trouble with detecting cut-and-paste plagiarism as it is, that I consider this appalling. You can let people make comments on articles without allowing your articles to be editable. Please reconsider this. Of course, if a student wants to plagiarize they can get around it by cutting and pasting, but why make it easier for them?
Malie Smith, Reference Librarian, Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, NY
I'm sorry to say this, but I strongly suspect the initial comment was written by Somebody who has not yet discovered that it is possible to Save web pages to local disk, or to select a page's entire content and Copy it to the Clipboard. She thinks that allowing readers to open the page for editing makes it possible to copy its content, then dispose of the browser window without making any changes. She very likely has not hit on the strategy of googling distinctive passages from questionable papers.
A person with this perspective may not return to read all our wise responses. Of course, I may be wrong. — Xiong 熊 talk * 09:18, 2005 September 1 (UTC)
I apologize for my assumptions. Here's some suggestions on how you can best work with us to address your concerns:
Good Luck! — Xiong 熊 talk * 06:20, 2005 September 3 (UTC)
---
Going into the metatheory behind Wikipedia as an encyclopedia in general, I do not see how it can possibly have anything to do with plagiarism.
Wikipedia is not a research paper depot. It is not a storage space for essays. It is not an analytical database. It does not have editorials. It officially supports NOTHING that has anything to do with opinionated and argumentative writing.
All Wikipedia does (at least to the bona fide of the community) is provide an EXPOSITORY, clear, unbiased information. Information that should be freely available to anyone, without exception.
Expository means facts. When you assign someone a paper to do, Wikipedia is the place for that person to go to, and gather the facts, so then he or she may write his own essay or paper BASED ON those facts. Articles here (just like in any other encyclopedia) are and should be free to whoever is given an assignment to do. If someone just copies information from here, he or she will fail in his research or essay, not because it is detectable, but because copying from here does NOT substitute writing an essay or paper. Saying it is not OK to go to Wikipedia to gather facts is like restricting someone from going to the library and gathering information from traditional books and encyclopedias. I do not see how you can ask someone to do research without complete and free access to facts.
Furthermore, facts do not even need to be annotated, and they cannot be plagiarized by definition -- THEY ARE FACTS. Just as it is not required to quote Galileo every time one makes reference to gravity, it is not required to annotate common knowledge. Opinions, arguments, positions are to be annotated. Facts can not.
All that being said, if you have a particular grudge against on-line resources, and want to make your students to use exclusively paper-based sources (I had a few of those teachers) then, well... You're a bit behind with the times. Elvarg 05:56, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Ms. (?) Smith: You might also glance at Who writes Wikipedia, essential information to understand when reading articles (for new readers) and Wikipedia:Schools' FAQ - specific questions about Wikipedia use by students . To sign your comments enter ~~~~ -- Sitearm | Talk 23:25, 2005 September 5 (UTC)
I'd like to ask everyone here what information they think is relavent to the Wikipedia, after posting a few Keeps on the daily deletion request page I was asked if there was any articles I would delete. I asked Gateman1997 if he wouldn't mind me putting up our discussion just to see what response I would get. I am sure this question has be raised in the past but I would like to hear other views on the topic, I would certianly like to see it raised as a policy issue in the near future.
I am concerned that deletion happens all to easily on information that might be irrelavant to some but of importance to other. For example how can I, sitting here in Edinburgh, judge the significance both culturally and historically of the Library Hotel to NYC, does the dewey decimal system affect or interact with most people? No, more people will not visit a library or college then those who will and so will possibly never come into contact with it, does that mean the hotel with its marginal connection to the system be included in the encyclopedia?
Is there any kind of article you would delete? Gateman1997 23:17, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
There certainly is, but an encyclopedia, is by definition a compendium of all human knowledge. If that means you need to include an article on a small school fine it has relavance because the school may produce the next Einstein or the next Shakespear. I wouldn't have outright advertising, if someone went through all the books and redirected them to Amazon I would have a problem with that, and I hope other's would too, however a manufacturer who employes 100 people is a medium sized buisness and what's more is probably quite important in their local community, an unbaised article commenting on the production methods used the financial info of the company and its stock ticker would be acceptable.
On a slightly different note, if for example through the course of someones degree they undertake a Doctorate they would be contributing by researching a new technique/process etc, because of that I would consider that they would deserve an entry under their specialisation detailing the research that they did and what was concluded. We already have quite advanced topics in maths, engineering, physics and so on so it would not be unreasonable to include their information if their work has passed peer review (their's not wiki's).
Also take meanings for example, when a word is used in a context that its not suitable for does it become suitable by its use? For example 'I capped the fence post', mean I put on a waterproof top, bears no resembalence to 'I capped some guy', I shot him, if you check the Oxford English Dictionary your only going to find the former meaning and not the latter, but are both equally valid? So if 1 person is known to a hundred people because of something he/she does eg José Fernando Ferreira Mendes or Barbara Schwarz does that mean he/she is important enough to be notable here?
I would argue that provided someone has put the time and effort into developing an article, providing its not gibberish, pure spam, or a falsification then it has a place somewhere here. If a branch needs to be created to hold it then that might be worth doing, but all information has value however small.
I'd be interested in your views. -- Machtzu 23:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
- Yes the main flaw in my arguement is the limited resources that wikipedia has to work with, 6Billion people with 20KB on each is 120TB of data, quite unfeasable. That said the internet is the global village... I'm very new to wiki and I am sure this has been discussed somewhere but is it possible to list my 2 cents somewhere for public discussion?
Your also quite right that any self gratification on these boards is the wrong place but maybe less information about a lot of things is better than a lot of information about less things. ( heck I should be writing sound bites ;) and thats two in one article!)-- Machtzu 00:02, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Would you mind if I included this discussion in a new item at say VFD or the Village Pump?-- Machtzu 00:10, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
What are other people's views?
-- Machtzu 01:02, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
At a medieval monastery the question arose as to the number of teeth in a horse's mouth. The monks began a furious debate, with the "brothers" perusing their great library and quoting one ancient expert or another. After a long and unfruitful argument, one young monk spoke up with the comment, "Why don't we look in a horse's mouth and count its teeth?"
The rest of the monastery was furious and the young monk was in great disfavor for a long time after.
An apocryphal tale can sometimes illustrate a common-sense truth.
In the same way the demand for citations (coupled with a denial of personal research) can backfire on Wikipedia. Most of the time, citations are a good thing. But it's not always the best way to ascertain the truth. In some areas one "expert" may have made a statement which was picked up by other "experts" until it became the "truth" known to all. In such a case, citations, and more citations, are useless.
Sometimes citations are demanded by an one editor during an edit war, to "prove" a negative, which simply cannot be done.
A good example of the problem with the demand for cites is the article on the Ku Klux Klan, in which, among other things, says (twice) that the Klan was "destroyed" by the Klan Act.
I suspect this was a wishful thinking statement made once, and picked up by others until it became a standard quote. Partly because of the secretive nature of the Klan, and the modern embarassment of many of the descendents of Klan members, direct citations to refute this whacky statement are probably non-existant. But the statement is simply untrue, and it's not worthy of Wikipedia to disseminate false information.
Please edit mercilessly and comment on Wikipedia:Redundancy is good. Andre ( talk) 18:07, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Is it legal, and in integrity with Wikipedia policy, to upload screenshots of games that were taken by other people?
In a recent discussian at the Cricket portal, a user suggested that they prefer the Portal:Cricket to be difficult to edit as it prevents newbies and non WikiProject:Cricket members from making changes easily. I had a quick look but didn't find any policies about making articles as simple to edit as possible. What is the policy? -- Commander Keane 04:44, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
I seem to have had a run-in with User:CoolKatt number 99999, over said user adding a link to User:CoolKatt number 99999/Grudges in the Pokemon anime to Pokémon (anime), and readding the link after I removed it.
I don't want to violate the 3RR by removing that link again, but I'm almost entirely sure that links to user-space pages in article-space articles isn't kosher. In any case, the user-space article page in question, User:CoolKatt number 99999/Grudges in the Pokemon anime, is a rescue of Grudges in the Pokémon anime (which was deleted by VFD process).
I would normally toss it off and maybe bring it up at WP:PAC or WP:PCP, but CoolKatt number 99999 has accused me of vandalism, so I'd like a more immediate third opinion. Is the link I removed appropriate? Is this vandalism?
Relevant pages:
Input would be appreciated. - A Man In Black ( Talk | Contribs) 04:18, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I have archived this at User talk:A Man In Black/Archive Other. - A Man In Black ( Talk | Contribs) 05:59, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I entered in a description of my product and saw there was a copyright violation on it because the content was copied from my web site. How can I "give permissioN" to myself to post the info there and/or remove the copyright infringement notice?? Thanks
I was wondering that if I come across an article that's not really an article but an account or something to that regard, what is the policy for dealing with such articles? Deyyaz 05:12, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
You seem to have gotten a touch carried away with something-or-other here. An evidently unfamiliar user asked a simple question. He was given two simple answers. I don't think it is at all helpful to complicate things with what amounts to a soapboxing on the Village Pump. - Splash 16:32, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Recently there has been talk on Wikibooks of removing content that doesn't fit our tightened inclusion guidelines, and among these are game guides for things like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I've already organised a new home on Wikicities, but that creates a problem. According to {{ wikicities}}, it isn't allowed to be linked to with sideboxes like the one at the right.
I don't want the shift to Wikicities to result in a loss of attention. Part of the shift is also because of the potential revenue from Google ads being "lost" by the current hosting arrangement, not to mention attracting more interest in Wikicities in general and demonstrating that it hosts a lot of legitimate and meaningful content... therefore I don't want the various game guides to fade into obscurity amongst a million fragillion fansite links just because we've made a minor change from one Foundation-funded wiki to another.
I'd already drafted a makeshift sidebox for the Academic Publishing Wiki (see Battle of Artemisium#External links) before I knew a Wikicities template existed; that seems fine to me the way it is and no-one's complained about it.
Really I'm just wanting some explanation of why the sidebox can't be the same. I don't see the problem, it's funded by the Foundation, it's interrelated and interlinked with us, its ads indirectly fund us, and the space to the right in the External Links section is usually blank anyway!
This is now the ONLY thing making me unhappy with the prospected move. I would just be bold and draft up some cross-wiki template for it regardless of this supposed rule, but if that means the streets are going to run red with my blood I might as well know in advance. :) Garrett Talk 04:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Just to clear up some misunderstandings, Wikicities is not hosted by Wikimedia. Neither Wikimedia not Wikicities is owned by Bomis. Bomis no longer donate to the Foundation. And Wikiversity does not exist. Wanting money from Google ads is not a reason to ever move anything from Wikibooks to Wikicities. Wikicities has a policy to not fork Wikimedia content, so if the content is wanted in Wikibooks, it must stay there. Angela . 09:35, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
Last night I inserted an gratuitous dig at one singer within the talk page of the article about another, irrelevant singer. While this may be judged odd behavior, rude, etc., it was limited to just two words and I think was well within the bounds of Wikiquette. To my irritation, an IP a few minutes ago removed those two words. I of course reverted. Well, it's not that big a deal; it's not as if he or she had changed "worst" to "best" or similar, and even I can't get all that excited about it. (I hope I've struck the right tone in my complaint, but since this is an AOL IP, even that's probably a waste of my time.)
So now to my main point. Editing not only an article but also a talk page brings up this message: If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it (in bold, to boot). WP thus forewarned me that my signed comment could be edited mercilessly, etc.
I suggest that this warning is inappropriate here; it either should be reworded to distinguish between articles and talk pages, or should not appear when editing a talk page. -- Hoary 04:12, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Editing another person's signed comments gives the impression that the person wrote something other than what they did. This is forgery; it is falsification of the record of discussion; and it is not an okay thing to do. If a person makes a talk-page comment that is nothing but vandalism or a pure personal attack, go ahead and delete the whole comment -- but never allow someone else's signature to stand on words that they did not themselves write. -- FOo 04:11, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
So, if the original poster didn't get his question answered, Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks is a guideline, not a policy, and it is disputed, meaning not everyone agrees with it and some disagree with it strongly. Which is another way of saying you never know who you'll run into. I do it on rare occaision myself, and generally I replace the attack with the word "interesting" in parenthesis. If someone posts "You're a moronic editor, with stupid ideas", it becomes "you're an (interesting) editor with (interesting) ideas". I then put something in the edit summary saying something like "certainly some (interesting) comments" because if you say they're personal attacks then the person might get angry at the acusation and feel teh need to get defensive. I do it on rare occaision and so far it's worked. Your milage may vary. FuelWagon 08:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Is there (scope for) on of these Wikipedia:Wikipedian of the month things? Where the creme de la creme get a monthly pat on the back from the community? I dont wanna go making a whole page and then have it rfded. Cheers pedians -- Wonderfool t (c) 23:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I know the anti-Vanity policy on Wikipedia disallows any kind of article on a subject that has no notability or importance.
However, does Wikipedia maintain "past the post" system -- "if an article is minimally notable not to be deleted as vanity, it is good enough to be of any size and detailness"?
Or does Wikipedia consider an appropriate MAXIMAL size for certain articles, according to their importance?
It would seem, for example, that an article about a local highschool may be justifiable for existance, in 2-3 summary paragraphs, outlining the school, subjects, perhaps notable alumni. But having a 50KB article about it, talking about every single teacher, classroom, and cafeteria lunch menu item, would seem to be too much.
Wikipedia emphasized a minimal size on articles a long time ago, and pointed out that the more notable the article is, the larger should it's minimal size be. But does the opposite hold true as well?
The whole issue of deletion is way too complicated. I don't thnk I have yet read all of the articles about when to / what to delete, let alone put them into correct operation. Instead i do things that I am sure are strictly incorrect in order to flag to others that a page is questionable. In particular...
AfD is increadibly long winded - especially since wikipedia is still very slow and unreliable at saving edits. ((I know it is 100 times better than 2 years ago, but IMO it has another factor of 100 to go - a typical page download of a text only page over 0.5Mbs broadband can still often take a whole minute. Saving often appears to lock up and you don't know if a save has failedor if the failure is in the post-save read-back. FWIW Preview tends to work quicker.)) Anyway, because of this I usually don't do AfDs.
Speedys deletes are much easier and quicker, you just add a flag to the bad page. One edit and it's done. However The help page for speedy deletes is too tedious and the terms aren't well enough / easily enough explained defined. So I would like a "Speedy deletes made simple" page which doesn't list all the rules, purely lists each of the (7?) categories by: Title; what you type - in {{}}; and a handful of examples.
For example what should I enter as a speedy for:
Additionally I would like an overall speedy flag to add when something is obviously wrong and the page needs attention / deleting. Maybe {{badpage}} that could be used to warn of potential deleteion and get other wikipedians to come and pay attention to it. (BTW, if such a templae exists I haven't discovered it. -- SGBailey 21:05:10, 2005-09-07 (UTC)
{{ cleanup}} is perhaps the closest we have to your sugested {{ badpage}}. DES (talk) 22:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
La plume de ma tante. Easily {{db|very short article with little or no context (A1)}}. The fact that it is not in English does not protect it from speedy or AfD; it just isn't a reason for speedy or AfD. -- Jmabel 07:11, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
What is the Wikipedia policy on diacritics in names? Should accented characters be avoided or not? User:Hektor ( talk • contribs) keeps changing Leopold I of Belgium, Leopold II of Belgium and Leopold III of Belgium to Léopold I of Belgium etc. I personally think this is not right, because these names are not usually spelt with the accent in English NOR in Dutch, which is the majority language in Belgium. There is no reason why the French spelling should be preferred here. Karl Stas 12:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
To answer the first question: Diacritics are used all the time for article titles on the Wikipedia. For just one example, Beyoncé Knowles. There is a small, but very vocal minority that continue to rail against "funny foreign squiggles", but quite frankly, I think that they have lost the war and haven't realized it yet. That means that the same argument gets rehashed on article after article, but almost always with the same result. BlankVerse ∅ 21:20, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
There is also an ongoing discussion about this on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English); we should try to keep it in one place. dab (ᛏ) 08:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm one of those who think that the "Names and Titles" naming conventions guideline could be written in a format that makes it sound less as an exception to general wikipedia principles on article naming ref.
The issue has been discussed recently on severeral talk pages, and there appears to be a group of wikipedians that neither wants to get really involved, neither is particularily fond of the present complications for naming a "lucky-by-birth stiff who had some pretentions to a hereditary right to rule others or had the remotest ancestral connections to such a person" ref
The problem is, these wikipedians have no alternative: either it's the complicated "exception" rule, either it's only the basic rules that lead to ambiguity in many cases of article naming on persons.
That's why I announce here my plan to start a {{proposed}} guideline for dealing with article naming of articles on people. I think the logical name for such guideline would be:
Using a guideline name differing from the existing ones, as long as it's merely a proposal, also helps not to disturb existing rules (and their talk pages) too much: while in the end it might result in no more than a few ideas of this proposition being "absorbed" by other guidelines (or the other way around). But that's for the wikipedia community to decide then. First I try to cooperate in building a valid alternative, better in line with general Naming Conventions guidelines. -- Francis Schonken 11:54, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I think Wikipedia needs a policy on the inclusion of gossip (supported or not) in celebrity articles. Please see Elvis Presley, James Dean and Nick Adams for examples of how articles can get bogged down as editors work to stop the content from being skewed and overwhelmed by unsupported tabloid stuff . Wyss 03:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Is it OK for Wikipedia to show images of children without their consent (see Carey Baptist Grammar School)? I know parents probably signed a release for these images to be placed on the school's website, but that release probably doesn't cover Wikipedia. New laws were recently introduced by the Victorian Bracks government (the school is in Melbourne) to ban this sort of stuff involving Victorian kids, but Wikipedia is subject to different laws I think. Please reply at the Talk:Carey Baptist Grammar School page. Harro5 09:34, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
my eyes! I thought I was almost-an-inclusionist, but articles of that length about a grammar school? Images like Image:Careyprincipal.jpg should be ifd'd as UE, if not speedied. Do you know how many principals of grammar schools there are in this world? And what is to stop people from uploading images of every teacher who ever worked at any grammar school, once we're at this stage? This is on the brink of abusing Wikipedia as a private homepage. dab (ᛏ) 12:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I know this doesn't apply here but it may in related cases: in UK law you need the permission of the subject of the photograph to feature their image on your website. If that subject is unable to give consent (either through being too young or whatever other grounds) you need the consent of their parent/guardian or legal next of kin. They must sign that they understand where the image is being used and in what context. If you have their permission to use the image on a school website for instance, and that gets transferred across to Wikipedia without their prior knowledge, the image may not be usable. -- Francs2000 | Talk File:Uk flag large.png 12:48, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I've posted a proposal for minor RFC reform. It is available here Wikipedia:RFCReform. Basically, I think the user RFC instructions need clarification one way or another, and the name "user RFC" may need to be changed depending on what it is meant to intend. FuelWagon 18:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)