This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Does anyone have an idea of how many K - 12 educators are using twitter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.84.184.239 ( talk) 19:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Is there a shorthand way to make a signature similar to the way four tildas makes a date stamp? How to make a signature should be easier to find. 17:04, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
The lead section needs to be more clear, and the guideline as a whole more consistently supportive of on just what is meant by "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." It can too easily sound absurd. It is so alone. The fact that it is in bold in the lead paragraph all by itself begs me to try to defend it.
Wiktionary defines "opinion" as "A thought that a person has formed about a topic or issue." That person is not you! The purpose of the talk page is ??? Therefrom I quote:
And that is what the talk page would seem to be when you actually visit them.
Q. Why the bold statement "no personal views"?
A. It's a highly advanced theory of communication for highly advanced beings, and I've yet to sense it on a talk page. It's buried in the Stay objective section: (edited here) A viewpoint is not a personal view, it's an objective view. Talk pages are not a forum for editors to argue their personal view about a controversial issue. They are a forum to discuss how a viewpoint obtained from secondary sources should be included in the article, so that the end result is neutral, and has an objective tone (which means it includes conflicting viewpoints). Bolding mine. These ideas, they are mine, and I get to write them on discussion pages like the guideline doesn't clarify. Q. They are not my personal view, they're my objective view. Don't we all have objective consciousness? Don't we all speak the truth on discussion pages?
A. Best not to think so on Wikipedia anywhere. Someone else got to be cited, not me. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. (And if it was anything less, it would be an "enCITEobedient", not an "inPSYCHOphilia.)
I will continue to answer my own questions by editing the talk guideline towards
and watching for any kind of response here. CpiralCpiral 05:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#New_topics_and_headings_on_talk_pages discourages addressing editors by name in talk page headers. It's presumably trying to discourage ==John is an idiot== or ==John, please discuss your changes== kinds of headings. I saw it recently misunderstood as meaning that userids should never be present in headers, which is a problem for most of the noticeboards, which use these guidelines as a model.
Is it worth saying something like "This doesn't apply to noticeboards" or "Some discussion and administrative pages, such as WP:RFC/U and WP:ANI frequently include editors' names in headers"? Or even "Including editors' names in headers may be acceptable if it's done in a neutral or positive fashion (e.g., ==Thanks, John==)? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
The article is clear that talk pages are not to be used merely as platforms to air personal views on the article's subject. So when someone goes ahead and does it anyway, what is the appropriate response? Deletion? Contacting them and politely requesting removal, as per the guideline for uncivil comments? Report to administrator?
Look at this example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Slavery_(Ottoman_Empire). The fellow is not particularly uncivil, yet the comment clearly has nothing to do with improving the article and is simply airing the editor's personal views. What to do? Pirate Dan ( talk) 22:20, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
How do I talk to anyone on my posts about Yelp? I have tried different approached but do not get any response. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noopyman ( talk • contribs) 19:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Post by 166.179.113.151 ( talk) 00:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC) removed. It should go on an article talk page, not here. Ty 08:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Any thoughts? A user has just been blocked for the use of sockpuppets. Four of his identities were used to simulate consensus in an RfC on a talk page.
That user has earned a one month block for his actions, and an indefinite ban on the sockpuppet accounts.
Am I within my rights to remove the comments? Sumbuddi ( talk) 18:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Seems weird to have two guidelines, one called Talk page and the other called Talk page guidelines. Please see my suggestion at WT:Talk page as to how this might be sorted out.-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:49, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
The section on the above issue contains a summation, bolded, towards the top of the section. It states the general rule about not deleting other people's comments at an article talkpage. Following this is an explanation about how the rule specifically applies, and what exceptions can be made to the general rule. As the "general rule" portion was removed for several hours on 24 October, I thought perhaps it might be necessary to open a discussion here. I've also added a similarly explanatory comment as a hidden note behind the bolded summation. U A 00:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I like to use bold or capital letters to show important emphasis of points, usually specific words and rarely entire phrases and almost never an entire sentence, unless I am emphasising a previously stated statement or phrase that was misquoted or misrepresented by another side. I do not believe italics represent the same degree as bold or capital letters are "shouting" or "ranting". I am too old to A- understand why, B- care one bit, why the younger generation that is now growing up with twittering, ims, email, etc that I did not have consider such markup to be "shouting" or "ranting", such tween ideas should stay away from a serious endeavor such as Wikipedia. Excessive use or use in a disruptive manner, sure I can see it being discouraged, but let us now have this page say that this is the use of bold and capital letters and you cant write like that. That is censorship and not what Wikipedia is about. I am not going to write with little slang like LOL and little emoticons, I am not going to change my style, and after over 3 years on Wikipedia I suddenly got accused of "yelling", I'm not even talking, how does bold or capital letters "hurt" the eyes as yelling can hurt the ears? It cant and capital letters are older and the original forms of letters, so lower case are the newbies btw, so I dont see how they are "harder" to read, or harsher to the eyes or brain. We arent children. What ever happened to Assume good faith, if someone puts bold or capital letters then they should be given AGF in that they are using them in a non-offensive manner, not as "shouting". I for one wont be treated as a teenager. Camelbinky ( talk) 01:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted. The the guidance in the text has been a long standing consensus. Ty 17:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I suggest the following:
Avoid excessive markup: CAPITAL LETTERS are considered shouting and are virtually never appropriate. Bolding may be used to highlight key words or phrases (most usually to highlight "oppose" or "support" summaries of an editor's view), but should be used judiciously, as it may appear the equivalent of the writer raising his voice. Italics may be used more frequently for emphasis or clarity on key words or phrases, but should be avoided for long passages. Remember that overuse of markup can undermine its impact. If adding emphasis to quoted text, be sure to say so. Italics can also be used to distinguish quoted text from new text and, of course, book titles, ship names, etc.
Rd232 talk 22:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
I wrote an article; the article was published by the Mesa Verde Museum Association. This organization made know changes to the article. The article was based on my original research from government archives. It contains no copyrighted material. Do I need the publishers permission to use in Wikipedia.
Who owns the copy right? Irvdiamond ( talk) 13:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I've partially reverted the recent change to the lede [2] discussed in Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines/Archive_7#No_Personal_Viewpoints.2C_Please.. "...evaluating the use of information derived from secondary sources" is only a small part of the proper use of a talk page. Talk pages are the primary forum for in-depth discussions to build consensus for disputes regarding the associated article. This is already partially stated in the first sentence of the lede. If any elaboration is necessary, it should more accurately summarize the rest of this guideline, possibly referring to WP:CON. -- Ronz ( talk) 18:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Please clarify the status of the page Wikipedia:Active editing. Is it "essay", "policy proposal", "historical"? Otherwise just linking it into a guideline is a confusion. I commented it in "see also", but the page still needs a header about its statrus. Mukadderat ( talk) 19:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
This seems poorly worded, since most template warnings, e.g. for vandalism contain an explicit threat of blocking. Pcap ping 15:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I saw that a user had been editing the remarks of others on talk pages, with edit summaries like "fix link to redirect" and such. I was going to warn him about it, but I thought I'd better check here. To my surprise, it enumerates an exception for changing links to pages that have moved.
I think this is incorrect. As a practical matter it's not needed anyway, because when a page moves, a redirect is left, and links to redirects are just fine. As a matter of principle, one editor should not be second-guessing another editor's intent as to where he chooses to link. I agree that reformatting should be allowed, but changing links, in my opinion, should not. -- Trovatore ( talk) 07:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
The idea of having a talk page/discussion page with every article is very wise. However, when I started with Wikipedia there was a talk page for every article. Now there is a Discussion page. For beginners to have two words for the same thing is confusing, especially within all the texts regarding Wikipedia. Hugten ( talk) 12:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Currently the section When pages get too long says:
From my experience topics on discussions seldom are less than several KB, and this 32KB or 50 topics is somewhat inconsistent. I would suggest rewriting it to recommend a larger file size, a smaller number of topics (say 10) and an explicit recommendation to delete older topics. Something like:
Since this adds time as well as length as a factor, perhaps the section heading should be changed from "When pages get too long" to something like "When to condense pages" Comments please -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 03:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Large talk pages become difficult to read and strain the limits of older browsers. It is helpful to archive or refactor a page either when it exceeds 50 KB; has more than 10 main topics, or has topics that have had no responses in over four months.
I often see users replying to posts that are several years old, sometimes reviving the discussion, sometimes not. Either way, the age of the post shouldn't make that user's comments irrelevant or obsolete, and until LiquidThreads or something better comes along, I think we should keep the older posts and let the size of the page determine whether to archive or not, rather than the age of the post. -- œ ™ 22:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
The notion that a point raised by someone who is not currently active on Wikipedia -- or even is not currently alive -- is not relevant to a discussion has a very limited historical perspective. Questions over issues endure, and ideas raised by past participants in a discussion can contribute to the ongoing discussion. Loading time seems to be emerging as the essential issue, and I have no problem with setting a recommended maximum size for Talk pages. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 15:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
It is common on talk pages to discuss text copied from the article or proposed drafts, either of which may contain footnotes. There are only two ways that I am aware of to make the footnoted citations visible. One way is to reformat each one to remove the <ref> tags. Its disadvantages are that it is harder to reader, more tedious to add, and error-prone. The other is to add a {{reflist}} section at the bottom of the page. (A better solution might be to add the references following the text, but {reflist} gets confused if there are more than one on a page). The disadvantage to having a references section at the end is that it has to be moved back to the end whenever a new thread with footnotes is started, and it confuses veteran Wikipedians accustomed to looking to the bottom of the page for new threads. Thoughts? Will Beback talk 21:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
|close=1
technique. I'm sure I've done it elsewhere. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 21:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC){{
Reflist-talk}}
? –
Whitehorse1 21:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)This text has two different citations. [1] [2]
{{
reflist|close=1}}
. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 08:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
{{
reflist|close=1}}
:{{
reflist|close=1}}
|close=1
method does rely on there being no instances of {{
reflist}}
with no parameters at all. But at least it is documented on the
template's page. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 08:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
In my opinion, there is no reason whatsoever to use footnotes on talkpages. Simply none. Talkpages are for discussing articles. Say what you have to say in a threaded discussion and do without footnotes and other gimmicks. --
dab
(𒁳) 12:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
When a poster confuses an English language homophone the result is that the meaning that is read is not what the poster intended. Unlike most typos such an error cannot be caught by a spell checker, only by an observant reader.
Examples of homophone pairs.
I have added a guideline that one should not edit homophones in the posts of others on Talk or Ref. Desk pages. One may only ask the poster what they meant to say. Cuddlyable3 ( talk) 17:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Does anyone have an idea of how many K - 12 educators are using twitter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.84.184.239 ( talk) 19:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Is there a shorthand way to make a signature similar to the way four tildas makes a date stamp? How to make a signature should be easier to find. 17:04, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
The lead section needs to be more clear, and the guideline as a whole more consistently supportive of on just what is meant by "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." It can too easily sound absurd. It is so alone. The fact that it is in bold in the lead paragraph all by itself begs me to try to defend it.
Wiktionary defines "opinion" as "A thought that a person has formed about a topic or issue." That person is not you! The purpose of the talk page is ??? Therefrom I quote:
And that is what the talk page would seem to be when you actually visit them.
Q. Why the bold statement "no personal views"?
A. It's a highly advanced theory of communication for highly advanced beings, and I've yet to sense it on a talk page. It's buried in the Stay objective section: (edited here) A viewpoint is not a personal view, it's an objective view. Talk pages are not a forum for editors to argue their personal view about a controversial issue. They are a forum to discuss how a viewpoint obtained from secondary sources should be included in the article, so that the end result is neutral, and has an objective tone (which means it includes conflicting viewpoints). Bolding mine. These ideas, they are mine, and I get to write them on discussion pages like the guideline doesn't clarify. Q. They are not my personal view, they're my objective view. Don't we all have objective consciousness? Don't we all speak the truth on discussion pages?
A. Best not to think so on Wikipedia anywhere. Someone else got to be cited, not me. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. (And if it was anything less, it would be an "enCITEobedient", not an "inPSYCHOphilia.)
I will continue to answer my own questions by editing the talk guideline towards
and watching for any kind of response here. CpiralCpiral 05:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#New_topics_and_headings_on_talk_pages discourages addressing editors by name in talk page headers. It's presumably trying to discourage ==John is an idiot== or ==John, please discuss your changes== kinds of headings. I saw it recently misunderstood as meaning that userids should never be present in headers, which is a problem for most of the noticeboards, which use these guidelines as a model.
Is it worth saying something like "This doesn't apply to noticeboards" or "Some discussion and administrative pages, such as WP:RFC/U and WP:ANI frequently include editors' names in headers"? Or even "Including editors' names in headers may be acceptable if it's done in a neutral or positive fashion (e.g., ==Thanks, John==)? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
The article is clear that talk pages are not to be used merely as platforms to air personal views on the article's subject. So when someone goes ahead and does it anyway, what is the appropriate response? Deletion? Contacting them and politely requesting removal, as per the guideline for uncivil comments? Report to administrator?
Look at this example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Slavery_(Ottoman_Empire). The fellow is not particularly uncivil, yet the comment clearly has nothing to do with improving the article and is simply airing the editor's personal views. What to do? Pirate Dan ( talk) 22:20, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
How do I talk to anyone on my posts about Yelp? I have tried different approached but do not get any response. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noopyman ( talk • contribs) 19:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Post by 166.179.113.151 ( talk) 00:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC) removed. It should go on an article talk page, not here. Ty 08:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Any thoughts? A user has just been blocked for the use of sockpuppets. Four of his identities were used to simulate consensus in an RfC on a talk page.
That user has earned a one month block for his actions, and an indefinite ban on the sockpuppet accounts.
Am I within my rights to remove the comments? Sumbuddi ( talk) 18:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Seems weird to have two guidelines, one called Talk page and the other called Talk page guidelines. Please see my suggestion at WT:Talk page as to how this might be sorted out.-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:49, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
The section on the above issue contains a summation, bolded, towards the top of the section. It states the general rule about not deleting other people's comments at an article talkpage. Following this is an explanation about how the rule specifically applies, and what exceptions can be made to the general rule. As the "general rule" portion was removed for several hours on 24 October, I thought perhaps it might be necessary to open a discussion here. I've also added a similarly explanatory comment as a hidden note behind the bolded summation. U A 00:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I like to use bold or capital letters to show important emphasis of points, usually specific words and rarely entire phrases and almost never an entire sentence, unless I am emphasising a previously stated statement or phrase that was misquoted or misrepresented by another side. I do not believe italics represent the same degree as bold or capital letters are "shouting" or "ranting". I am too old to A- understand why, B- care one bit, why the younger generation that is now growing up with twittering, ims, email, etc that I did not have consider such markup to be "shouting" or "ranting", such tween ideas should stay away from a serious endeavor such as Wikipedia. Excessive use or use in a disruptive manner, sure I can see it being discouraged, but let us now have this page say that this is the use of bold and capital letters and you cant write like that. That is censorship and not what Wikipedia is about. I am not going to write with little slang like LOL and little emoticons, I am not going to change my style, and after over 3 years on Wikipedia I suddenly got accused of "yelling", I'm not even talking, how does bold or capital letters "hurt" the eyes as yelling can hurt the ears? It cant and capital letters are older and the original forms of letters, so lower case are the newbies btw, so I dont see how they are "harder" to read, or harsher to the eyes or brain. We arent children. What ever happened to Assume good faith, if someone puts bold or capital letters then they should be given AGF in that they are using them in a non-offensive manner, not as "shouting". I for one wont be treated as a teenager. Camelbinky ( talk) 01:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted. The the guidance in the text has been a long standing consensus. Ty 17:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I suggest the following:
Avoid excessive markup: CAPITAL LETTERS are considered shouting and are virtually never appropriate. Bolding may be used to highlight key words or phrases (most usually to highlight "oppose" or "support" summaries of an editor's view), but should be used judiciously, as it may appear the equivalent of the writer raising his voice. Italics may be used more frequently for emphasis or clarity on key words or phrases, but should be avoided for long passages. Remember that overuse of markup can undermine its impact. If adding emphasis to quoted text, be sure to say so. Italics can also be used to distinguish quoted text from new text and, of course, book titles, ship names, etc.
Rd232 talk 22:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
I wrote an article; the article was published by the Mesa Verde Museum Association. This organization made know changes to the article. The article was based on my original research from government archives. It contains no copyrighted material. Do I need the publishers permission to use in Wikipedia.
Who owns the copy right? Irvdiamond ( talk) 13:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I've partially reverted the recent change to the lede [2] discussed in Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines/Archive_7#No_Personal_Viewpoints.2C_Please.. "...evaluating the use of information derived from secondary sources" is only a small part of the proper use of a talk page. Talk pages are the primary forum for in-depth discussions to build consensus for disputes regarding the associated article. This is already partially stated in the first sentence of the lede. If any elaboration is necessary, it should more accurately summarize the rest of this guideline, possibly referring to WP:CON. -- Ronz ( talk) 18:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Please clarify the status of the page Wikipedia:Active editing. Is it "essay", "policy proposal", "historical"? Otherwise just linking it into a guideline is a confusion. I commented it in "see also", but the page still needs a header about its statrus. Mukadderat ( talk) 19:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
This seems poorly worded, since most template warnings, e.g. for vandalism contain an explicit threat of blocking. Pcap ping 15:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I saw that a user had been editing the remarks of others on talk pages, with edit summaries like "fix link to redirect" and such. I was going to warn him about it, but I thought I'd better check here. To my surprise, it enumerates an exception for changing links to pages that have moved.
I think this is incorrect. As a practical matter it's not needed anyway, because when a page moves, a redirect is left, and links to redirects are just fine. As a matter of principle, one editor should not be second-guessing another editor's intent as to where he chooses to link. I agree that reformatting should be allowed, but changing links, in my opinion, should not. -- Trovatore ( talk) 07:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
The idea of having a talk page/discussion page with every article is very wise. However, when I started with Wikipedia there was a talk page for every article. Now there is a Discussion page. For beginners to have two words for the same thing is confusing, especially within all the texts regarding Wikipedia. Hugten ( talk) 12:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Currently the section When pages get too long says:
From my experience topics on discussions seldom are less than several KB, and this 32KB or 50 topics is somewhat inconsistent. I would suggest rewriting it to recommend a larger file size, a smaller number of topics (say 10) and an explicit recommendation to delete older topics. Something like:
Since this adds time as well as length as a factor, perhaps the section heading should be changed from "When pages get too long" to something like "When to condense pages" Comments please -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 03:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Large talk pages become difficult to read and strain the limits of older browsers. It is helpful to archive or refactor a page either when it exceeds 50 KB; has more than 10 main topics, or has topics that have had no responses in over four months.
I often see users replying to posts that are several years old, sometimes reviving the discussion, sometimes not. Either way, the age of the post shouldn't make that user's comments irrelevant or obsolete, and until LiquidThreads or something better comes along, I think we should keep the older posts and let the size of the page determine whether to archive or not, rather than the age of the post. -- œ ™ 22:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
The notion that a point raised by someone who is not currently active on Wikipedia -- or even is not currently alive -- is not relevant to a discussion has a very limited historical perspective. Questions over issues endure, and ideas raised by past participants in a discussion can contribute to the ongoing discussion. Loading time seems to be emerging as the essential issue, and I have no problem with setting a recommended maximum size for Talk pages. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 15:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
It is common on talk pages to discuss text copied from the article or proposed drafts, either of which may contain footnotes. There are only two ways that I am aware of to make the footnoted citations visible. One way is to reformat each one to remove the <ref> tags. Its disadvantages are that it is harder to reader, more tedious to add, and error-prone. The other is to add a {{reflist}} section at the bottom of the page. (A better solution might be to add the references following the text, but {reflist} gets confused if there are more than one on a page). The disadvantage to having a references section at the end is that it has to be moved back to the end whenever a new thread with footnotes is started, and it confuses veteran Wikipedians accustomed to looking to the bottom of the page for new threads. Thoughts? Will Beback talk 21:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
|close=1
technique. I'm sure I've done it elsewhere. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 21:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC){{
Reflist-talk}}
? –
Whitehorse1 21:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)This text has two different citations. [1] [2]
{{
reflist|close=1}}
. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 08:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
{{
reflist|close=1}}
:{{
reflist|close=1}}
|close=1
method does rely on there being no instances of {{
reflist}}
with no parameters at all. But at least it is documented on the
template's page. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 08:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
In my opinion, there is no reason whatsoever to use footnotes on talkpages. Simply none. Talkpages are for discussing articles. Say what you have to say in a threaded discussion and do without footnotes and other gimmicks. --
dab
(𒁳) 12:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
When a poster confuses an English language homophone the result is that the meaning that is read is not what the poster intended. Unlike most typos such an error cannot be caught by a spell checker, only by an observant reader.
Examples of homophone pairs.
I have added a guideline that one should not edit homophones in the posts of others on Talk or Ref. Desk pages. One may only ask the poster what they meant to say. Cuddlyable3 ( talk) 17:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)