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 30 | ← | Archive 32 | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | → | Archive 40 |
For the purpose of my argument below, by "public census data" I mean any geographic or demographic data collated and analysed by a government-sponsored organisation on the places or people in territories within its control. This includes national and intranational census bureaux, polling organisations, land registries, and the like. This definition of itself does not imply that the data is verifiable.
The purpose of this argument is to refute the repeated statements in the thread, above, that census data are "primary sources". I will go on to show that I believe that bot-generated geostubs are WP:RS and WP:V. That, then, leaves the problem of accepting or rejecting geostubs being one of deciding if they are covered by WP:N.
WP:PRIMARY defines primary sources as being "very close to an event", and in its elaboration of that concentrates mostly on events. Nevertheless, it says "A primary source may only be used to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge." Thus, if public census data is considered a primary source, it can hardly be admitted at all, since few educated people can practically verify the data in the census by taking rogation days and so forth; and even if they could, it would probably constitute OR.
Thus, it is imperative that public census data are deemed to be secondary sources, if they are to be accepted at all. Now, WP:PRIMARY defines a secondary source as those that "rely for their material on primary sources, often making analytic or evaluative claims about them". It seems to me that is exactly what a census organisation does: the primary sources are the people making their census returns; the census organisation analyses them and makes evaluative claims. A census organisation is thus the epitome of a secondary source.
Whether a census organisation is a reliable source, of course, may be open to debate. WP:RS makes no mention of government at all, nor has any guideline for assessing their reliability. Editors might reach a consensus that a particular source is unreliable (it fakes the figures). However, I would assert that all open democratic states' census bureaux are reliable (in the Wikipedia sense) in their hard facts, within the bounds of statistical error and allowing for human error, if not in any interpretation put on those facts. That begs the question what an open democratic state is, but it is an example not a definition; and does not exclude other states.
Many census bureaux' data, such as the French INSEE and the Hungarian KSH (two I happen to use when expanding geostubs) are easily verifiable in that they are online sources. Many others are verifiable in print. In general, I think it is safe to assume that one of the purposes of a census bureau is to publish, and ipso facto the work of a census bureau is verifiable. For the case of private polling organisations and the like, the information may not be verifiable; nor for more-secret government bureaux who collate the data but do not publish it externally.
But in the case of bot-generated geostubs, the data is presumably transferred from public census data and so is presumably verifiable. For if not, the bot would have no data to transfer (unless it has access to the data that other Wikipedians do not). Again, this does not imply that because the data is verifiable then it is reliable.
I have shown that census bureaux are secondary sources and, for bot-generated data, are verifiable. That leaves open WP:N, whether such geostubs are notable. But it at least if it accepted that bot-generated geostubs can be presumed WP:RS and WP:V, the debate can concentrate on whether unimproved bot-generated geostubs as a class meet WP:N.
This is outside the ambit of WP:NOT, but bots importing public census data should clearly indicate the source of the data, including the date of census and a link to the online census bureau where available (for example, for Hungarian geostubs, it can use {{
ksh url}}
and {{
Infobox Hungarian settlement}}
; a similar mechanism exists on French geostubs with the
INSEE). This would help show WP:V more clearly.
Si Trew ( talk) 09:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
The bot that imported the Hungarain articles failed to leave a trace, which is why I and the missus have to follow up and make RS. 15:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure that census data can be described as secondary source data, for the simple reason that it is devoid of the commentary, crticism or analysis that are the hallmarks of significant coverage required by WP:GNG.
The reason is that census data is a snap shot of population at a particular time, rather than being an in depth analysis its development. Whilst it is possible to "slice and dice" the data to provide averages, means and variances, the value of one year's data provides little information on its own, so the censensus bureau collects the data, makes comparisons with previous census returns, and analyses the trends. It then issues reports (with commentary & analysis of those trends) to government departments, who use the these reports to plan things like road construction, schools, hospitals etc.
Going back to the example of Mountainburg, Arkansas, you can see that the source of the article is a statistical table from the 2000 census data. What this article does not show is the brief which the bureau prepares, such as the Census 2000 Brief on Gender.
The main criticism I have of the idea that census data is a secondary source is that it is based on a misunderanding that significant coverage is merely a summary of the primary source. The fact is that a summary or a regugitation of primary source is still a primary source, since there is a lack of significant coverage. In the case of census data, it is the Census Brief that is the secondary source, not the statistical tables. The tables are a summary of the primary source, and on their own provide little context to the reader. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 13:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Since Wikipedia is not a discussion forum and the Wikipedia organization has no interesting in running a discussion forum, I'd like to suggest that each topic have a link to an external "official" forum, one that is chosen by direct vote once every year or two by registered users. This would give Wikipedia users a single place to discuss the topic. 173.58.64.64 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC).
Another relevant content guideline is the one for external links. I do not endorse the suggestion made by anon. patsw ( talk) 20:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it is possible for something as big as Wikipedia to be not censored. The exceeding claim "Wikipedia is not censored" is like saying "Wikipedia is not flawed" or "Wikipedia is always right" because avioding all types of censorship is not as easy as it sounds. "Wikipedia tries not to be censored" would be a much more... honest sounding statement. 66.183.59.211 ( talk) 07:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
From Template talk:Nazi-stub, the consensus seems to be that "Wikipedia is not censored" means that swastikas - and indeed any symbol, image or word that has been found offensive by anyone - cannot be removed. The notion that "it is not censorship to exercise mature editorial judgment" might, with care, be factored into this section, but I think that the problem is a lot less simple than most editors' opinions on the subject. SHEFFIELDSTEEL TALK 23:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
WP:NOTCENSORED is unnecessary because anyone trying to delete material on the grounds that it is objectionable could be dealt with by noting that there is no policy that says objectionable is a valid reason for exclusion while there are policies justifying the inclusion of educational material. What this policy does is reduce the need for people to explain why the offensive material they want to include is educational: they can just say "we don't censor." Fact is, if there are two edits of equal educational or encyclopedic value and one causes more offence than the other the less offensive one could and should be preferred. This policy essentially says there is no legitimate grounds for such a preference. This despite the fact social norms are considered in the most offensive cases, e.g. an explicit photo for an underage Rainbow party (sexuality) would not be included on Wikipedia even if it imparted more knowledge. There is a larger problem here that I discuss elsewhere Bdell555 ( talk) 11:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
See here. MickMacNee ( talk) 01:10, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Does, or should, WP:NOTMYSPACE apply to secret pages. — Becksguy ( talk) 14:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Some Person/The Real Secret Page and Secret Barnstar, some editors believe that WP:NOTMYSPACE is not applicable to secret pages. I believe that it is applicable because the policy states: "Wikipedia is not a social network like MySpace or Facebook." By playing games on Wikipedia, users are treating Wikipedia like MySpace, where social-networking occurs, and Facebook, where games (albeit not of this nature) abound.I would like to clarify the policy to state that using Wikipedia as a server for games such as secret pages is not acceptable. Cunard ( talk) 05:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
"Secret pages" are not encyclopedia content and do not contribute to building an encyclopedia. It is my belief that they set a poor tone, encouraging editors who enjoy such non-productive activities rather than editors who create or improve encyclopedic content. However, as SmokeyJoe observed at Wikipedia talk:UP#Secret pages: Ok or not? back in April, secret page deletion depends on the Wikipedia status (prestige, if you will) of the editor hosting the page. That offends my sense of justice slightly: either "secret pages" should be OK for all editors, or none.
To solve the problem and possibly avoid some future discussions over exactly what constitutes an inappropriate game, I propose linking the relevant part of this policy to the guideline at WP:UP#GAMES, where it is clear that such pages are neither appropriate nor endorsed.
Question: how is it possible to have a "secret page" on Wikipedia? They all show up in the index; are we talking about pages with white font applied or something? -- Kotniski ( talk) 14:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Part of the difficulty of approaching this issue that makes it so intractable is that for some people such activity is their primary focus and primary motivation for being here, whereas for others such activities are a means for blowing off steam after spending a month bringing an article to FA status, that they spend only the occasional edit upon here and there. There's a conflict between the notion that writers are the people that we actually want, and people who are here to use the wiki as a free scribbling board for their own personal use are those that should be encouraged to go elsewhere; and notions of egalitarianism and "equal justice", derived from the doctrine of perpetual openness to all comers. Two of the principles that are fundamental to these Wikimedia Foundation projects come into opposition, here. Uncle G ( talk) 15:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Another facet of the problem is that these are projects where the notion of freedom embodied in the fundamental principle of free content. The reason why people want to codify a prohibition against acting counter to community norms, is that they want something to point to in order to say, to those who argue "But I'm free to do what I want! There's no rule against it. Freedom is what you're about, isn't it?", that there is a codified community norm. But, again, there's another tension between principles here. The basic idea underpinning Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is that our purpose here is not to make rules for making an encyclopaedia, but to make that encyclopaedia itself. (It's all to easy to fall into the trap of spending all one's time in deciding what colour the wheel should be before one goes about actually inventing it.) But, in opposition to that, the idea that we're here to make an encyclopaedia not just scribble and play around, and that people who don't share our purpose are encouraged to go elsewhere and use their own property for such activities (rather than the property of a charitable foundation), is the very one that people are attempting to codify. Uncle G ( talk) 16:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
NOTE: During this RfC, the preceding discussion on WT:UP was archived to Wikipedia_talk:User_pages/Archive_7#Secret_pages:_Ok_or_not.3F. Jclemens ( talk) 16:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
I totally agree with Jclemens that "Secret pages" are not encyclopedia content... I can also see how there are editors that believe secret pages ... do not contribute to building an encyclopedia. On the surface, secret pages don't directly contribute. However, I believe that is an unintentionally short sighted view. Yes, secret pages cost a bit in storage and bandwidth, but if a hypothetical user produces even 1000 constructive edits and one secret page, that would be a great return on investment, and a net positive for Wikipedia. I don't really care about any particular secret page, but I do care very very much that we retain editors that produce content that helps Wikipedia to increase article quality and to grow. As an example: For a car assembler in Detroit, the only direct productive labor would be with a wrench in hand, putting parts on cars. Anything else, such as cleaning up, having coffee breaks, or attending quality improvement or plant safety seminars is non-productive. Yet they are necessary to support and improve production. In Wikipedia, the only activity that directly produces our product is article writing. How many words per hour does one produce in mainspace, as it were. No one is claiming secret pages are productive. What they are, however, is a way for editors that otherwise do produce content, or copy edit content, to have a bit of fun, to socialize, and remain interested, and thus stay here and produce the content that is our reason for existing. This is a volunteer effort without pay, not a third world sweat shop that exploits people. Humans are social animals and we need to have some small amount of fun and socialization with our productive work in order to stay interested and productive. I'm very concerned that WP:BITEing new and younger users (the ones that seem to like these kinds of games) will lead to loosing them. Please read Wikipedia:Editors matter and User:Bahamut0013/Secret pages. Because if we blanket forbid secret pages, it will be kinda like banks that hold underwater mortgages insisting on foreclosing and winding up with houses they can't sell, versus negotiating with the owners for a new easier payment schedule. Sometimes an overly strict interpretation is not in everyone's best interests. And I believe that's the case here, and that Wikipedia will suffer from loss of editors. If a specific user creates secret pages and does not materially contribute, then take the secret page to MfD, on a case by case basis. WP:UP#GAMES does not forbid secret page, rather by using the header "Excessive unrelated content" which excludes less than excessive content, it is therefore permissive. It also says: Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. My point also.
You are a volunteer worker in a charity shop. Everything that you do in the shop is visible to the public through the shop window. Whilst you are putting price tags on second-hand clothing you may well indulge in a little playing with your volunteer colleagues. But you know that if you aren't here to do the work, you don't have any right to the play. Moreover, at the end of a hard day's work you know that the world outside has pubs, clubs, bowling alleys, cinemas, and all sorts of other places for amusement and relaxation. You also know that the facilities aren't yours, are provided for a specific purpose, and that should be seen, by that public looking in through the shop window, not to be abused by volunteers, in order to encourage and retain other volunteers. So you don't set up your personal fairground amusement stall in the middle of the shop. You respect the endeavour that you are here for, and the organization supporting that endeavour, and you go elsewhere in the world for other personal endeavours.
This ethos is what people are trying to codify. It is what they are trying to convey. The problem is that, as with legislation in general, it's difficult to write rules to express this sort of thing without coming up with rules that express something else. It's worth looking at codes of conduct for other charitable enterprises, here. It's certainly worth noting that charitable enterprises have formal codes of conduct.
Here's just one example of such a code of conduct, from the many that some searching will turn up, that might be close to home. It's an excerpt from the model policy and code of conduct manual for volunteers in the Court Appointed Special Advocates programme in New York:
Uncle G ( talk) 17:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)CASA Volunteers may use the telephones in the CASA offices for CASA purposes. We ask that only essential personal calls be placed through CASA office telephones. We request that volunteers do not make personal toll calls while at the CASA offices.
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the way you have cited User:Bahamut0013/Secret pages as if it supports your opinion. I've taken great pains to make it as neutral as possible, and it cites numerous arguments both in support and opposition of your position. After Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bahamut0013/Secret pages, I'm a bit leery about the reputation of this essay being unbalanced. I would feel better if you amended it to cite specifically the For section. bahamut0013 words deeds 15:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
To be brief,
You mention that hidden pages should be evaluated on a case by case basis, although most should be deleted. What kind of hidden pages should/can be kept? Netalarm talk 23:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Jclemens stated above "Secret pages" are not encyclopedia content and do not contribute to building an encyclopedia. The first is indisputable, the second is a question of fact. Whilst Wikipedia is not Myspace or Facebook (sociality for its own sake), it cannot be overlooked that Wikipedia's success in creating and maintaining a community-built encyclopedia depends on the health of its community. That health may well involve a degree of socialising, and given a proportionally extremely low cost (in terms of burden placed on servers), such socialising should be tolerated as long as it broadly contributes to the health and vitality of the Wikipedia community, which is to say, it encourages people to continue to participate in it. Unless we imagine hordes of Secret Page junkies coming to Wikipedia solely for that (not impossible, but unlikely, and a matter of demonstrable fact if true), then Secret Pages ought to be part of the class of things that are a waste of time in themselves, but do contribute to the vitality of the community, and thereby indirectly to the encyclopedia. In which case, rather than stomping on these things, we should try to find ways to link them back to the core task - for instance, a WikiCup-style Secret Page competition which mixes Secret Page activity with editing/maintenance targets.
In fact, as the nature of Wikipedia work develops increasingly towards maintenance (which is less attractive to most than creating content, especially new articles), the challenge of maintaining the health and vitality of the community (people coming back regularly to contribute) becomes greater. This means, if anything, that we need to find more ways to encourage people to interact with the website in ways that aren't directly contributing to the encyclopedia - but which help keep them engaged, visiting the website, and occasionally checking their watchlist etc. Do we want to become Myspace? Of course not. The fact that if this shortcut were being created today it would be WP:NOTFACEBOOK as the primary shortcut tells its own story: even big social websites can die a slow death. That includes Wikipedia! If we want to imagine Wikipedia in 2015 or 2020 or beyond, how are we going to keep enough people around and interested in maintaining and updating an encyclopedia? I'd say if anything, it means finding ways to be more social. Preferably this will be in ways related to the encyclopedia mission, but that might be too limiting if approached strictly; if so, those "other" ways or somehow "mixed" ways should be permitted and even encouraged, as long they do not themselves begin to distract too much from the core task.
As to policy, WP:NOTMYSPACE, in both actual content and original intent, is to prevent Wikipedia being abused for purposes entirely unrelated to it. Secret Page games by active contributors do not fall into that category. Rd232 talk 14:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
God, and Jiong I'm totally tired of these long and endless discussions now. What about that, we just leave things as they are, stop having these pointless discussions, and leave them to MfD, and judge secret pages on case-by-case basis etc. Please. Just stop this unwanted drama. Kayau Voting IS evil 01:37, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Myspacing activities on Wikipedia are a waste of time, but so is enforcing WP:MYSPACE under most circumstances. If it's not harming article content or causing some sort of disruption to the community (and given how fast RC here flows, it's not like myspacing tends to flood it a lot), it's really not that important. We should find some policies actually worth enforcing. Like these right here! Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
I will provide an example to illustrate why it is harmful to hold double standards. Let's say that Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Some Person/The Real Secret Page and Secret Barnstar is closed as "keep" because Some Person ( talk · contribs) is considered an "productive editor", whereas Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Fiddlekid's secret pages is closed as "delete" because Fiddlekid ( talk · contribs) is an "unproductive editor".
Fiddlekid returns to Wikipedia after a lengthy hiatus. He notices the "new messages" banner, clicks on it, and is surprised to discovers that his secret pages have been deleted. Fiddlekid clicks on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Fiddlekid's secret pages and discovers links to WP:NOTMYSPACE and WP:UP#GAMES which explain why the page has been deleted.
Then, Fiddleclick starts contributing to articles more and less to games and Myspacing. One day, he finds a secret page from a "productive editor" that has not been deleted. Believing that all editors are treated equally when they violate policy, Fiddleclick nominates the secret page for deletion whereupon users flood the MfD page saying "Keep. This editor is productive and is here to build the encyclopedia so the page should be kept."
How would Fiddleclick react to that? Perhaps he would think: people support keeping this user's page because he is better and more popular than I. Why else would people delete my page and not his?" Would Fiddleclick wish to contribute to this project anymore? I think not.
Is this the message we want to be giving new users? That tenure, content contributions, and a high number of edits to the mainspace "buys" them the right to host secret pages on Wikipedia's servers? I hope not, which is why I am strongly against deleting secret pages for some editors and then keeping them for a "clique" of "productive editors". I concur with Becksguy ( talk · contribs) that editors matter. As such all editors should be treated fairly and equally—all secret pages should be accorded the same treatment. Cunard ( talk) 05:19, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Some people seem to interpret WP:MEMORIAL to mean that any mention of a dead person, even as part of a notable accident article, violates this policy. There is currently an RfC for a featured aviation accident article, where the list of victims and their ages is included in hidden format, requiring the reader to click on 'show' to view. Assuming there are reliable sources for the names, does this violate WP:MEMORIAL? Crum375 ( talk) 11:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not at all sure I want to achieve any change here. My primary objective on this page is to understand the current WP:MEMORIAL policy. As you can see in the RfC, there are other issues there, such as style, but here I'd like to focus specifically on whether WP:MEMORIAL means more than it currently says. Crum375 ( talk) 16:20, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
If we have a reliable secondary source mentioning a fact related to the article topic, we may include it in the article. Notability only comes into play for articles dedicated to the specific fact. So WP:MEMORIAL tells us not to create articles for deceased persons unless they are notable independent of their death, but it doesn't tell us not to mention their name in relation to an article topic which is otherwise notable. This applies to any cause of death: accident, crime or natural. If WP:MEMORIAL is intended to prohibit mentioning deceased people's names in general, unless they are very notable in their own right, it should say so, but that would be absurd, and fly in the face of many of our articles. Imagine an article about a famous painter, with some reliable secondary source telling us that the painter was influenced by some person he met when he was young, who is now deceased. Are we not allowed to mention that name, unless that person is notable enough to merit his own article? Clearly we may mention anything that a reliable source mentions in relation to the article topic, and notability (in the wiki WP:N sense) only comes into play as justification for creating an article for someone or something, not for adding facts about otherwise notable subjects. Crum375 ( talk) 19:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean by being "bold", since WP:MEMORIAL seems very clear to me as it stands. WP:MEMORIAL does not prohibit the name and age of a non-notable crime or accident victim to be included in an article about a notable subject, as published by a reliable secondary source in connection with that subject. What it does prohibit is to create an article about a person who died, unless that person meets Wikipedia's notability requirements. This is the current policy, and it is logical. If you think it needs to be changed, try to get consensus for your version. Crum375 ( talk) 00:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
If there is a difference between a crime and an accident in this respect, I don't see it. The point is simple: WP requires that people be notable to have a dedicated article about them. It does not require that they be notable to be merely mentioned in another article, not about them, so long as there is a reliable secondary source connecting them to that article. So in the case of a non-notable accident or crime victim, there is nothing to prohibit mentioning their name and age in an article about the crime or accident, if a reliable secondary source mentions them in that connection. If there is any doubt about this issue, it should be clarified via an RfC here, and it has to be generic, about WP:MEMORIAL in general, as it applies to any crime or accident article, and in fact any article. Crum375 ( talk) 21:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Clearly wikipedia is not a political system, but equally clearly wikipedia has a political system (we have policies, rules of conduct, systems for problem solving and enforcement, etc). That's just a no-brainer: even anarchy is a political system, after all. is this worth clarifying? -- Ludwigs2 23:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
There will be situations where this page wont give the editor a definite answer, and if their edit is in the interests of improving Wikipedia then surely WP:IAR applies?-- Topperfalkon ( talk) 13:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia, and it means that it not belongs to any country or nation at all. But this principal proposition is not stated in this policy. I think this thesis is necessary to protect Wikipedia. Wertuose ( talk) 22:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I have frequently heard people saying things along the lines of "My business needs to get a Wikipedia." Or, as was the case of this user: "People keep asking me why I am not on Wikipedia.... How do I get on Wikipedia?. I've also seen stuff like, "Please could you help me find an editor to help edit my manuscript and handle my publishing deals?" ( here). So I'm proposing two more WP:NOT guidelines: 1. Wikipedia is not a business profile site (Maybe that would go under the heading of WP:PROMOTION or WP:NOTDIR?), and 2. Wikipedia is not Craigslist. (Maybe that would go under WP:NOTDIR?) --- cymru lass (hit me up)⁄ (background check) 22:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
The trick here is notability of a business. There are many businesses that haven't had articles written about them which would fit notability guidelines, but a whole bunch more that don't. Bob's Used Cars in Podunk, Nebraska isn't really a notable business and shouldn't expect to get a Wikipedia entry... unless there is something notable about this place and reliable sources to verify that notability. The sort spot comes when a business sees that their "competitor" has a Wikipedia entry... and for whatever reason it happened that the entry for their business has been deleted. Yes, you can point out things like having a neutral point of view and working on keeping the language of the article toned down in terms of self-promotion (something very hard to do if you are used to writing promotional advertising). All that business sees is that their competitor is getting a higher Google rank due to the Wikipedia article and they want a piece of that action too.
Articles about businesses are on Wikipedia, and I personally don't see a problem with somebody starting a good-faith effort to create a stub of an article they are involved with (and marking it as such). Indeed I've had far too many problems lately where I start writing an article about a business and before I can get the second edit on the article (a minute or two later at that) it has already been proded for deletion due to a lack of sources listed on the article. That kind of hostility to business articles is something that I think is also counter-productive to Wikipedia. While Wikipedia may not be a "Craig's List", it is a site that has... and I've used to find more information about a business or organization that I may want to become more involved with. In this regard, Wikipedia is a business profile site with the note that the information on those business profiles are only for notable organizations that fit NPOV standards and will contain both positive and negative information about that organization. It will also exist on Wikipedia regardless of if the company or organization wants that information on Wikipedia in the first place or not. -- Robert Horning ( talk) 01:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Facebook seems to be fully integrated with Wikipeda and it is a forum. Can we declare it to be the official Wikiipedia forum, at least until something better comes along? Would anyone object to links to Facebook pages in articles?
Here is an example on a Facebook page about Nanotechnology - http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Nanotechnology/109438169076102?ref=ts
Why can't this work? 173.58.64.64 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC).
"Wikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be primary sources." - unless we're employing journalists in the field, this strikes me as incorrect. Shouldn't it be "Wikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be using primary sources."? Casliber ( talk · contribs) 18:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I read the current version of WP:LINKFARM only today, but I don't understand the rationale behind it. Can anyone explain why Index of Korea-related articles is not a linkfarm? Intuitively, I think there is something wrong here. I don't think this list of links can be characterised else other than non-encyclopaedic, because it is a set of barebone links that provides no context to the reader, and no verifiable evidence for inclusion in Wikipedia. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 22:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Maybe you should list it for deletion and see what happens. That may clarify whether the community agrees with you that an index of encyclopedia articles and categories is not encyclopedic, and that whether an article is related to Korea is not verifiable. postdlf ( talk) 18:06, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Categories must also be verifiable, NPOV, and encyclopedic. No one asks the nonsensical question of whether a category is notable, but it's not a free-for-all. postdlf ( talk) 14:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree with "mainspace is reserved for content, whilst navigation pages should be treated as categories". There are navigational templates living in Template: space but seen by readers in article space. Disambiguation pages are navigation-like (which is why I can accept the argument that indexes are disambiguation-like). Categories aren't just for navigation between articles, but also for machine-reading, higher level organization of articles (bear in mind that an index organizes links, while a category actually organizes the articles) and to some extent, "eyeball search" (not just moving between related articles, but as a means of finding an article in the first place). The real value to an index is that it can be far more highly structured than a category, and does not need to be ordered alphabetically but can be done e.g. thematically and divided into sections; it escapes the flaw of the "200 viewable article limit" but that's probably a secondary concern (an index containing hundreds of articles may be hard to use and probably should be broken up). My personal preference - though not a strong one, and based entirely on the supposition that an index or outline may be far more complex than a disambiguation page - would be to use Portal: space if possible (bearing in mind search problems), perhaps as subpages or sections (collapsed by default?) of the topical portal page. An alternative would be an Index: space. That's not unreasonable, since an index does serve a distinct function and indexes and outlines are a feature found in conventional encyclopedias. Also, including the Index: namespace in searches seems more likely to bring good results than including Portal: since portals contain fragments of articles. (Other projects seem to have been more radical about new namespaces. Wiktionary has now added Thesaurus:, Appendix: and Concordance:, while the French Wikipedia has namespaces for reference material.)
Some historic context may help: 5-6 years ago, before the "category" feature, but after exponential growth, there were loads of primarily navigational lists to keep track of the sudden bulk of articles, and then lists of lists to navigate between them! (This in turn was a big improvement on using nested subarticles to organize information - "/"s in pagenames to break general topics down to specific articles.) Most of this infrastructure was deleted as redundant when categories were instituted; I felt this was a shame as it contained structured navigational information, and wasn't surprised when a similar idea emerged for navigational "portals". The math crowd fought hard to preserve their (unusually well-developed) article index system - I don't think they liked categories and they didn't implement quite the same categorization schema as the rest of the site for some time! There has been a rebirth of "outlines of knowledge" and "index" articles in the past year or two, and our treatment of them doesn't seem standardized - similar material previously made up a substantial proportion of mainspace, but in my opinion many of the new "outlines of knowledge" and "index" articles are actually far better than the old equivalents. Had their forebears been as good 5 years ago, I suspect more would have survived alongside the math index. But even the math one has been controversial over the years - I seem to recall some editors arguing for deletion while part of it was up for FLC! This is not a new debate, but rather an old one stoked up again. In terms of WP:NOT, I can't see why developing a suitable index and navigation system is "unencyclopedic" - it's a natural aspect of any encyclopedia. There is also no harm developing more than one navigation system; in wilder flights of fancy, we might someday develop a Micropedia: as another way. Citizendium is pretty close to that with its articles all possessing a short paragraph definition field that is used to automatically fill in disambiguation pages, and they have a much richer kind of "Related Articles" subpage - also utilizing the definitions - that's more informative than our "See also" sections and massively superior to a bloated navbox. I am open to treating indexes here like disambiguation pages, like special kinds or subpages of portals, or in their own space, but most of all I urge anyone discussing this to be prepared to see things in historical context (and context in terms of what other publications do, not just our current ruleset), bear the readers' needs in mind, and think radically! A focus on WP:NOT may be misplaced; an index or navigation system isn't meant to be "part of" the encyclopedia. A rule primarily related to what content the encyclopedia should contain, isn't there to demolish navigation systems around it. But it might affect namespace considerations. TheGrappler ( talk) 05:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a bit of a thought experiment, because I think there might be something missing from NOT. (it's related to WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:DIRECTORY and several other places). If a Topic X is notable, consensus [acknowledging that there are dissenters] seems to be that a List of instances of X would also be notable. But taking the argument to the absurd, that could mean an article listing every Headstone (edit+) found in some RS in the world would pass muster (lets assume with a description and photo for each) UNLESS there was something to over-ride WP:N in WP:NOT - and currently I don't think there is. I think this relates closely to the debate above re Linkfarm, and that the focus on linking may be overstated. There needs to be something stating that lists should be discriminate - such as of 'notable' or 'significant' instances (allowing that there are cases where EVERY potential member is significant).
A lot of this is covered at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lead and selection criteria but I think there needs to be something short here to justify some of the stuff there. (And also that some of the stuff there is problematic, but that debate continues elsewhere). Can we (please) keep the issue in this section to whether there is a need to add to WP:INDISCRIMINATE a list related item that says Wikipedia is not a place for editors to indiscriminately assemble a listing of all the instances of anything, and if so, how should it be said.
(That's a lot of text for what is actually a fairly minor matter) ‒ Jaymax✍ 03:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I want to extend this to consider the potential VOLATILITY of lists - a list built upon a property of an instance that is unstable can't be good for us, and I think that probably also falls under the heading of 'indiscriminate' ‒ Jaymax✍ 03:59, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I believe the NOT#STATS should be deleted as it is just a way of saying "I don't find this list useful" with a bluelink to an apparent policy. Why is the list of presidential pollings not indiscriminate stats, but this is? I think it should either be re-worded to make clear that wikipedia does indeed accept stats-pages (but we have to like them) or deleted. Sandman888 ( talk) 11:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
I think a lot of people look at the shortcuts (like WP:NOT#STATS or WP:NOT#DIR) and presume that "WP is not a bunch of statistics" or "WP is not a directory". That's not true; NOT calls out "excessive" statistics, and "directories" in association with program guides or the like. Exactly where the line is drawn is of course likely impossible to actually write down, but that's why consensus is used to judge which side of the line we should be on. Much of NOT is difficult to "enforce" as rules, but only as evaluation of content and quality of coverage. -- MASEM ( t) 19:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Right now, we have NOTNEWS stating:
Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews. See also: Wikipedia:Notability (events)
NOTNEWS is frequently cited in deletion discussions in which some users, perhaps without actually reading the policy, vigourously state that an article fails NOTNEWS simply because it is ¨news¨. We need to strengthen the diction of this policy so that even a cursory glance gives the clear impression that a notable news story covered by several independent reliable sources usually should not be subjected to a deletion discussion. (If the people involved are not individually notable, their names should simply redirect to the article.) It gives a bad impression of Wikipedia when an internet user specifically comes here to read an article about a newsworthy event and sees a big deletion tag at the top of the page. Heroeswithmetaphors ( talk) 21:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Brainstorm: What about an article tag that says, right across the top, something to the effect of "This article depicts a currently evolving news story. Once the coverage of this event slows or after 30 days, a discussion on whether or how this event should be permanently and encyclopedically recorded will be started". Idea being, it gives a new article an automatic grace period, as well as fair warning that after that grace period, it might well be merged or deleted. Thoughts? Jclemens ( talk) 01:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
A few things:
HTH. -- Quiddity ( talk) 05:45, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I noticed to day that some of the points in this policy are oddly placed - wp:NOTDIR and wp:IINFO, for instance, seems to be a bit mix-and-match. I'm going to restructure a bit, just for increased clarity: please feel free to revert if you feel changes are inappropriate. -- Ludwigs2 18:55, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Does exactly what it says on the tin. See Wikipedia:Notability (fatal hull loss civil aviation accidents) for details. MickMacNee ( talk) 16:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
This page, where it says, "Wikipedia will report about your work once it is published and becomes part of accepted knowledge", appears to contradict Wikipedia:Verifiability, which clearly states:
“ | The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. | ” |
We ought not to try to determine whether an article is "accepted knowledge" for the purposes of deciding whether it should be included in Wikipedia, because that necessarily involves determining whether it is true. Something can only be knowledge if it's true - that's part of the generally accepted ordinary English meaning of the word knowledge.
I can see a possible reconciliation here, which is to interpret it as meaning "Wikipedia will report on your work if it becomes accepted knowledge - however, it might be reported on by us even if it isn't part of accepted knowledge, as e.g. in the case of string theory, which is not accepted by all relevant experts and indeed has never been proven experimentally". However, I strongly believe that the present wording is apt to be interpreted in a way totally inconsistent with the quotation from WP:V above. So, I move that the policy be tweaked somehow to make it more clear that it does not contradict WP:V.
Additionally, I note that this wording also appears to contradict WP:OR. To say that something is not "accepted knowledge" is not to say that it is necessarily Original Research in the Wikipedia sense of the term - again, see string theory.
Not only could this bad wording contribute to unfortunate requests for deletions [and here I must declare an interest, for one of the articles I created looks like it is about to be proposed for AfD, perhaps on these grounds but I'm not sure], it could even lead to enthusiastic, good potential editors being discouraged from contributing appropriate content to Wikipedia. A negative outcome, I'm sure you'll all agree.-- greenrd ( talk) 08:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Since no-one else has made a concrete proposal, and I'm the one who brought this up in the first place, I propose to replace this sentence:
“ | Wikipedia will report about your work once it is published and becomes part of accepted knowledge; however, citations of such reliable sources are needed to demonstrate that material is verifiable, and not merely the editor's opinion. | ” |
(which reads very poorly anyway, as if someone has changed the first half and neglected to change the second half) with this sentence:
"Wikipedia might (or might not) eventually report on your work once it has been published in a reliable source; however, articles about your work must fulfill the notability criteria, and novel or fringe theories must not be given undue weight, or implied to be uncontroversially accepted by reliable sources or subject-matter experts when that is not the case."
I have tried to phrase this so that it only summarises other policies and guidelines, without adding any new conditions - and without using the word "knowledge", which replies to me above seemed to agree is problematic. Also, I have tried not to be misleading, which I think is important. Is this all we need, or do we want to say more?-- greenrd ( talk) 19:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
“ | Wikipedia will report about your work once it has been notably mentioned in reliable sources; then it will be included in proportion to the amount of such attention that it has received. | ” |
Ocaasi 10:06, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I've tracked down an edit to the WP:NOTAFORUM policy to February 24, 2008. [5] It added the text "If you wish to ask a specific question on a topic, Wikipedia has a Reference Desk, and questions should be asked there rather than on talk pages.". This was not discussed in the talk page archive for that time [6] which includes only a mild gripe about "forum-only posters".
As such, I would say that the reversion of this edit in fact represents the status quo, to be preferred unless discussion goes against it.
Furthermore, I am finding this intemperately worded rule to be used harshly to remove perfectly valid questions about a topic from the talk pages of articles. For example, I just ran afoul of an editor [7] who seems to make a routine out of this, deleting things like [8] and [9]. Now asking questions like whether oil affects a hurricane is a perfectly reasonable, even essential aspect of creating a comprehensive encyclopedia article, because the whole idea of comprehensiveness is, in essence, to try to out-think the reader about what topics need to be covered. Factual questions should be especially welcome considering how much... other stuff... fills the talk pages of articles! While the Reference Desk serves an invaluable role, questions that simply point out the need for further information in a specific article belong on the Talk page for that article. The whole reason why people are asking at that article rather than the reference desk is that it is information that can enhance the article.
For these reasons, I propose to partially revert the above edit. I don't want to remove mention of the Reference Desk, but I want to make it clear that at least general questions (as opposed to, say, requests for technical advice) should be posed at the article that they concern.
Please, let's fix this problem. Wnt ( talk) 22:00, 12 September 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 30 | ← | Archive 32 | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | → | Archive 40 |
For the purpose of my argument below, by "public census data" I mean any geographic or demographic data collated and analysed by a government-sponsored organisation on the places or people in territories within its control. This includes national and intranational census bureaux, polling organisations, land registries, and the like. This definition of itself does not imply that the data is verifiable.
The purpose of this argument is to refute the repeated statements in the thread, above, that census data are "primary sources". I will go on to show that I believe that bot-generated geostubs are WP:RS and WP:V. That, then, leaves the problem of accepting or rejecting geostubs being one of deciding if they are covered by WP:N.
WP:PRIMARY defines primary sources as being "very close to an event", and in its elaboration of that concentrates mostly on events. Nevertheless, it says "A primary source may only be used to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge." Thus, if public census data is considered a primary source, it can hardly be admitted at all, since few educated people can practically verify the data in the census by taking rogation days and so forth; and even if they could, it would probably constitute OR.
Thus, it is imperative that public census data are deemed to be secondary sources, if they are to be accepted at all. Now, WP:PRIMARY defines a secondary source as those that "rely for their material on primary sources, often making analytic or evaluative claims about them". It seems to me that is exactly what a census organisation does: the primary sources are the people making their census returns; the census organisation analyses them and makes evaluative claims. A census organisation is thus the epitome of a secondary source.
Whether a census organisation is a reliable source, of course, may be open to debate. WP:RS makes no mention of government at all, nor has any guideline for assessing their reliability. Editors might reach a consensus that a particular source is unreliable (it fakes the figures). However, I would assert that all open democratic states' census bureaux are reliable (in the Wikipedia sense) in their hard facts, within the bounds of statistical error and allowing for human error, if not in any interpretation put on those facts. That begs the question what an open democratic state is, but it is an example not a definition; and does not exclude other states.
Many census bureaux' data, such as the French INSEE and the Hungarian KSH (two I happen to use when expanding geostubs) are easily verifiable in that they are online sources. Many others are verifiable in print. In general, I think it is safe to assume that one of the purposes of a census bureau is to publish, and ipso facto the work of a census bureau is verifiable. For the case of private polling organisations and the like, the information may not be verifiable; nor for more-secret government bureaux who collate the data but do not publish it externally.
But in the case of bot-generated geostubs, the data is presumably transferred from public census data and so is presumably verifiable. For if not, the bot would have no data to transfer (unless it has access to the data that other Wikipedians do not). Again, this does not imply that because the data is verifiable then it is reliable.
I have shown that census bureaux are secondary sources and, for bot-generated data, are verifiable. That leaves open WP:N, whether such geostubs are notable. But it at least if it accepted that bot-generated geostubs can be presumed WP:RS and WP:V, the debate can concentrate on whether unimproved bot-generated geostubs as a class meet WP:N.
This is outside the ambit of WP:NOT, but bots importing public census data should clearly indicate the source of the data, including the date of census and a link to the online census bureau where available (for example, for Hungarian geostubs, it can use {{
ksh url}}
and {{
Infobox Hungarian settlement}}
; a similar mechanism exists on French geostubs with the
INSEE). This would help show WP:V more clearly.
Si Trew ( talk) 09:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
The bot that imported the Hungarain articles failed to leave a trace, which is why I and the missus have to follow up and make RS. 15:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure that census data can be described as secondary source data, for the simple reason that it is devoid of the commentary, crticism or analysis that are the hallmarks of significant coverage required by WP:GNG.
The reason is that census data is a snap shot of population at a particular time, rather than being an in depth analysis its development. Whilst it is possible to "slice and dice" the data to provide averages, means and variances, the value of one year's data provides little information on its own, so the censensus bureau collects the data, makes comparisons with previous census returns, and analyses the trends. It then issues reports (with commentary & analysis of those trends) to government departments, who use the these reports to plan things like road construction, schools, hospitals etc.
Going back to the example of Mountainburg, Arkansas, you can see that the source of the article is a statistical table from the 2000 census data. What this article does not show is the brief which the bureau prepares, such as the Census 2000 Brief on Gender.
The main criticism I have of the idea that census data is a secondary source is that it is based on a misunderanding that significant coverage is merely a summary of the primary source. The fact is that a summary or a regugitation of primary source is still a primary source, since there is a lack of significant coverage. In the case of census data, it is the Census Brief that is the secondary source, not the statistical tables. The tables are a summary of the primary source, and on their own provide little context to the reader. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 13:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Since Wikipedia is not a discussion forum and the Wikipedia organization has no interesting in running a discussion forum, I'd like to suggest that each topic have a link to an external "official" forum, one that is chosen by direct vote once every year or two by registered users. This would give Wikipedia users a single place to discuss the topic. 173.58.64.64 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC).
Another relevant content guideline is the one for external links. I do not endorse the suggestion made by anon. patsw ( talk) 20:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it is possible for something as big as Wikipedia to be not censored. The exceeding claim "Wikipedia is not censored" is like saying "Wikipedia is not flawed" or "Wikipedia is always right" because avioding all types of censorship is not as easy as it sounds. "Wikipedia tries not to be censored" would be a much more... honest sounding statement. 66.183.59.211 ( talk) 07:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
From Template talk:Nazi-stub, the consensus seems to be that "Wikipedia is not censored" means that swastikas - and indeed any symbol, image or word that has been found offensive by anyone - cannot be removed. The notion that "it is not censorship to exercise mature editorial judgment" might, with care, be factored into this section, but I think that the problem is a lot less simple than most editors' opinions on the subject. SHEFFIELDSTEEL TALK 23:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
WP:NOTCENSORED is unnecessary because anyone trying to delete material on the grounds that it is objectionable could be dealt with by noting that there is no policy that says objectionable is a valid reason for exclusion while there are policies justifying the inclusion of educational material. What this policy does is reduce the need for people to explain why the offensive material they want to include is educational: they can just say "we don't censor." Fact is, if there are two edits of equal educational or encyclopedic value and one causes more offence than the other the less offensive one could and should be preferred. This policy essentially says there is no legitimate grounds for such a preference. This despite the fact social norms are considered in the most offensive cases, e.g. an explicit photo for an underage Rainbow party (sexuality) would not be included on Wikipedia even if it imparted more knowledge. There is a larger problem here that I discuss elsewhere Bdell555 ( talk) 11:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
See here. MickMacNee ( talk) 01:10, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Does, or should, WP:NOTMYSPACE apply to secret pages. — Becksguy ( talk) 14:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Some Person/The Real Secret Page and Secret Barnstar, some editors believe that WP:NOTMYSPACE is not applicable to secret pages. I believe that it is applicable because the policy states: "Wikipedia is not a social network like MySpace or Facebook." By playing games on Wikipedia, users are treating Wikipedia like MySpace, where social-networking occurs, and Facebook, where games (albeit not of this nature) abound.I would like to clarify the policy to state that using Wikipedia as a server for games such as secret pages is not acceptable. Cunard ( talk) 05:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
"Secret pages" are not encyclopedia content and do not contribute to building an encyclopedia. It is my belief that they set a poor tone, encouraging editors who enjoy such non-productive activities rather than editors who create or improve encyclopedic content. However, as SmokeyJoe observed at Wikipedia talk:UP#Secret pages: Ok or not? back in April, secret page deletion depends on the Wikipedia status (prestige, if you will) of the editor hosting the page. That offends my sense of justice slightly: either "secret pages" should be OK for all editors, or none.
To solve the problem and possibly avoid some future discussions over exactly what constitutes an inappropriate game, I propose linking the relevant part of this policy to the guideline at WP:UP#GAMES, where it is clear that such pages are neither appropriate nor endorsed.
Question: how is it possible to have a "secret page" on Wikipedia? They all show up in the index; are we talking about pages with white font applied or something? -- Kotniski ( talk) 14:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Part of the difficulty of approaching this issue that makes it so intractable is that for some people such activity is their primary focus and primary motivation for being here, whereas for others such activities are a means for blowing off steam after spending a month bringing an article to FA status, that they spend only the occasional edit upon here and there. There's a conflict between the notion that writers are the people that we actually want, and people who are here to use the wiki as a free scribbling board for their own personal use are those that should be encouraged to go elsewhere; and notions of egalitarianism and "equal justice", derived from the doctrine of perpetual openness to all comers. Two of the principles that are fundamental to these Wikimedia Foundation projects come into opposition, here. Uncle G ( talk) 15:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Another facet of the problem is that these are projects where the notion of freedom embodied in the fundamental principle of free content. The reason why people want to codify a prohibition against acting counter to community norms, is that they want something to point to in order to say, to those who argue "But I'm free to do what I want! There's no rule against it. Freedom is what you're about, isn't it?", that there is a codified community norm. But, again, there's another tension between principles here. The basic idea underpinning Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is that our purpose here is not to make rules for making an encyclopaedia, but to make that encyclopaedia itself. (It's all to easy to fall into the trap of spending all one's time in deciding what colour the wheel should be before one goes about actually inventing it.) But, in opposition to that, the idea that we're here to make an encyclopaedia not just scribble and play around, and that people who don't share our purpose are encouraged to go elsewhere and use their own property for such activities (rather than the property of a charitable foundation), is the very one that people are attempting to codify. Uncle G ( talk) 16:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
NOTE: During this RfC, the preceding discussion on WT:UP was archived to Wikipedia_talk:User_pages/Archive_7#Secret_pages:_Ok_or_not.3F. Jclemens ( talk) 16:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
I totally agree with Jclemens that "Secret pages" are not encyclopedia content... I can also see how there are editors that believe secret pages ... do not contribute to building an encyclopedia. On the surface, secret pages don't directly contribute. However, I believe that is an unintentionally short sighted view. Yes, secret pages cost a bit in storage and bandwidth, but if a hypothetical user produces even 1000 constructive edits and one secret page, that would be a great return on investment, and a net positive for Wikipedia. I don't really care about any particular secret page, but I do care very very much that we retain editors that produce content that helps Wikipedia to increase article quality and to grow. As an example: For a car assembler in Detroit, the only direct productive labor would be with a wrench in hand, putting parts on cars. Anything else, such as cleaning up, having coffee breaks, or attending quality improvement or plant safety seminars is non-productive. Yet they are necessary to support and improve production. In Wikipedia, the only activity that directly produces our product is article writing. How many words per hour does one produce in mainspace, as it were. No one is claiming secret pages are productive. What they are, however, is a way for editors that otherwise do produce content, or copy edit content, to have a bit of fun, to socialize, and remain interested, and thus stay here and produce the content that is our reason for existing. This is a volunteer effort without pay, not a third world sweat shop that exploits people. Humans are social animals and we need to have some small amount of fun and socialization with our productive work in order to stay interested and productive. I'm very concerned that WP:BITEing new and younger users (the ones that seem to like these kinds of games) will lead to loosing them. Please read Wikipedia:Editors matter and User:Bahamut0013/Secret pages. Because if we blanket forbid secret pages, it will be kinda like banks that hold underwater mortgages insisting on foreclosing and winding up with houses they can't sell, versus negotiating with the owners for a new easier payment schedule. Sometimes an overly strict interpretation is not in everyone's best interests. And I believe that's the case here, and that Wikipedia will suffer from loss of editors. If a specific user creates secret pages and does not materially contribute, then take the secret page to MfD, on a case by case basis. WP:UP#GAMES does not forbid secret page, rather by using the header "Excessive unrelated content" which excludes less than excessive content, it is therefore permissive. It also says: Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. My point also.
You are a volunteer worker in a charity shop. Everything that you do in the shop is visible to the public through the shop window. Whilst you are putting price tags on second-hand clothing you may well indulge in a little playing with your volunteer colleagues. But you know that if you aren't here to do the work, you don't have any right to the play. Moreover, at the end of a hard day's work you know that the world outside has pubs, clubs, bowling alleys, cinemas, and all sorts of other places for amusement and relaxation. You also know that the facilities aren't yours, are provided for a specific purpose, and that should be seen, by that public looking in through the shop window, not to be abused by volunteers, in order to encourage and retain other volunteers. So you don't set up your personal fairground amusement stall in the middle of the shop. You respect the endeavour that you are here for, and the organization supporting that endeavour, and you go elsewhere in the world for other personal endeavours.
This ethos is what people are trying to codify. It is what they are trying to convey. The problem is that, as with legislation in general, it's difficult to write rules to express this sort of thing without coming up with rules that express something else. It's worth looking at codes of conduct for other charitable enterprises, here. It's certainly worth noting that charitable enterprises have formal codes of conduct.
Here's just one example of such a code of conduct, from the many that some searching will turn up, that might be close to home. It's an excerpt from the model policy and code of conduct manual for volunteers in the Court Appointed Special Advocates programme in New York:
Uncle G ( talk) 17:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)CASA Volunteers may use the telephones in the CASA offices for CASA purposes. We ask that only essential personal calls be placed through CASA office telephones. We request that volunteers do not make personal toll calls while at the CASA offices.
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the way you have cited User:Bahamut0013/Secret pages as if it supports your opinion. I've taken great pains to make it as neutral as possible, and it cites numerous arguments both in support and opposition of your position. After Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bahamut0013/Secret pages, I'm a bit leery about the reputation of this essay being unbalanced. I would feel better if you amended it to cite specifically the For section. bahamut0013 words deeds 15:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
To be brief,
You mention that hidden pages should be evaluated on a case by case basis, although most should be deleted. What kind of hidden pages should/can be kept? Netalarm talk 23:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Jclemens stated above "Secret pages" are not encyclopedia content and do not contribute to building an encyclopedia. The first is indisputable, the second is a question of fact. Whilst Wikipedia is not Myspace or Facebook (sociality for its own sake), it cannot be overlooked that Wikipedia's success in creating and maintaining a community-built encyclopedia depends on the health of its community. That health may well involve a degree of socialising, and given a proportionally extremely low cost (in terms of burden placed on servers), such socialising should be tolerated as long as it broadly contributes to the health and vitality of the Wikipedia community, which is to say, it encourages people to continue to participate in it. Unless we imagine hordes of Secret Page junkies coming to Wikipedia solely for that (not impossible, but unlikely, and a matter of demonstrable fact if true), then Secret Pages ought to be part of the class of things that are a waste of time in themselves, but do contribute to the vitality of the community, and thereby indirectly to the encyclopedia. In which case, rather than stomping on these things, we should try to find ways to link them back to the core task - for instance, a WikiCup-style Secret Page competition which mixes Secret Page activity with editing/maintenance targets.
In fact, as the nature of Wikipedia work develops increasingly towards maintenance (which is less attractive to most than creating content, especially new articles), the challenge of maintaining the health and vitality of the community (people coming back regularly to contribute) becomes greater. This means, if anything, that we need to find more ways to encourage people to interact with the website in ways that aren't directly contributing to the encyclopedia - but which help keep them engaged, visiting the website, and occasionally checking their watchlist etc. Do we want to become Myspace? Of course not. The fact that if this shortcut were being created today it would be WP:NOTFACEBOOK as the primary shortcut tells its own story: even big social websites can die a slow death. That includes Wikipedia! If we want to imagine Wikipedia in 2015 or 2020 or beyond, how are we going to keep enough people around and interested in maintaining and updating an encyclopedia? I'd say if anything, it means finding ways to be more social. Preferably this will be in ways related to the encyclopedia mission, but that might be too limiting if approached strictly; if so, those "other" ways or somehow "mixed" ways should be permitted and even encouraged, as long they do not themselves begin to distract too much from the core task.
As to policy, WP:NOTMYSPACE, in both actual content and original intent, is to prevent Wikipedia being abused for purposes entirely unrelated to it. Secret Page games by active contributors do not fall into that category. Rd232 talk 14:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
God, and Jiong I'm totally tired of these long and endless discussions now. What about that, we just leave things as they are, stop having these pointless discussions, and leave them to MfD, and judge secret pages on case-by-case basis etc. Please. Just stop this unwanted drama. Kayau Voting IS evil 01:37, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Myspacing activities on Wikipedia are a waste of time, but so is enforcing WP:MYSPACE under most circumstances. If it's not harming article content or causing some sort of disruption to the community (and given how fast RC here flows, it's not like myspacing tends to flood it a lot), it's really not that important. We should find some policies actually worth enforcing. Like these right here! Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
I will provide an example to illustrate why it is harmful to hold double standards. Let's say that Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Some Person/The Real Secret Page and Secret Barnstar is closed as "keep" because Some Person ( talk · contribs) is considered an "productive editor", whereas Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Fiddlekid's secret pages is closed as "delete" because Fiddlekid ( talk · contribs) is an "unproductive editor".
Fiddlekid returns to Wikipedia after a lengthy hiatus. He notices the "new messages" banner, clicks on it, and is surprised to discovers that his secret pages have been deleted. Fiddlekid clicks on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Fiddlekid's secret pages and discovers links to WP:NOTMYSPACE and WP:UP#GAMES which explain why the page has been deleted.
Then, Fiddleclick starts contributing to articles more and less to games and Myspacing. One day, he finds a secret page from a "productive editor" that has not been deleted. Believing that all editors are treated equally when they violate policy, Fiddleclick nominates the secret page for deletion whereupon users flood the MfD page saying "Keep. This editor is productive and is here to build the encyclopedia so the page should be kept."
How would Fiddleclick react to that? Perhaps he would think: people support keeping this user's page because he is better and more popular than I. Why else would people delete my page and not his?" Would Fiddleclick wish to contribute to this project anymore? I think not.
Is this the message we want to be giving new users? That tenure, content contributions, and a high number of edits to the mainspace "buys" them the right to host secret pages on Wikipedia's servers? I hope not, which is why I am strongly against deleting secret pages for some editors and then keeping them for a "clique" of "productive editors". I concur with Becksguy ( talk · contribs) that editors matter. As such all editors should be treated fairly and equally—all secret pages should be accorded the same treatment. Cunard ( talk) 05:19, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Some people seem to interpret WP:MEMORIAL to mean that any mention of a dead person, even as part of a notable accident article, violates this policy. There is currently an RfC for a featured aviation accident article, where the list of victims and their ages is included in hidden format, requiring the reader to click on 'show' to view. Assuming there are reliable sources for the names, does this violate WP:MEMORIAL? Crum375 ( talk) 11:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not at all sure I want to achieve any change here. My primary objective on this page is to understand the current WP:MEMORIAL policy. As you can see in the RfC, there are other issues there, such as style, but here I'd like to focus specifically on whether WP:MEMORIAL means more than it currently says. Crum375 ( talk) 16:20, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
If we have a reliable secondary source mentioning a fact related to the article topic, we may include it in the article. Notability only comes into play for articles dedicated to the specific fact. So WP:MEMORIAL tells us not to create articles for deceased persons unless they are notable independent of their death, but it doesn't tell us not to mention their name in relation to an article topic which is otherwise notable. This applies to any cause of death: accident, crime or natural. If WP:MEMORIAL is intended to prohibit mentioning deceased people's names in general, unless they are very notable in their own right, it should say so, but that would be absurd, and fly in the face of many of our articles. Imagine an article about a famous painter, with some reliable secondary source telling us that the painter was influenced by some person he met when he was young, who is now deceased. Are we not allowed to mention that name, unless that person is notable enough to merit his own article? Clearly we may mention anything that a reliable source mentions in relation to the article topic, and notability (in the wiki WP:N sense) only comes into play as justification for creating an article for someone or something, not for adding facts about otherwise notable subjects. Crum375 ( talk) 19:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean by being "bold", since WP:MEMORIAL seems very clear to me as it stands. WP:MEMORIAL does not prohibit the name and age of a non-notable crime or accident victim to be included in an article about a notable subject, as published by a reliable secondary source in connection with that subject. What it does prohibit is to create an article about a person who died, unless that person meets Wikipedia's notability requirements. This is the current policy, and it is logical. If you think it needs to be changed, try to get consensus for your version. Crum375 ( talk) 00:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
If there is a difference between a crime and an accident in this respect, I don't see it. The point is simple: WP requires that people be notable to have a dedicated article about them. It does not require that they be notable to be merely mentioned in another article, not about them, so long as there is a reliable secondary source connecting them to that article. So in the case of a non-notable accident or crime victim, there is nothing to prohibit mentioning their name and age in an article about the crime or accident, if a reliable secondary source mentions them in that connection. If there is any doubt about this issue, it should be clarified via an RfC here, and it has to be generic, about WP:MEMORIAL in general, as it applies to any crime or accident article, and in fact any article. Crum375 ( talk) 21:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Clearly wikipedia is not a political system, but equally clearly wikipedia has a political system (we have policies, rules of conduct, systems for problem solving and enforcement, etc). That's just a no-brainer: even anarchy is a political system, after all. is this worth clarifying? -- Ludwigs2 23:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
There will be situations where this page wont give the editor a definite answer, and if their edit is in the interests of improving Wikipedia then surely WP:IAR applies?-- Topperfalkon ( talk) 13:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia, and it means that it not belongs to any country or nation at all. But this principal proposition is not stated in this policy. I think this thesis is necessary to protect Wikipedia. Wertuose ( talk) 22:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I have frequently heard people saying things along the lines of "My business needs to get a Wikipedia." Or, as was the case of this user: "People keep asking me why I am not on Wikipedia.... How do I get on Wikipedia?. I've also seen stuff like, "Please could you help me find an editor to help edit my manuscript and handle my publishing deals?" ( here). So I'm proposing two more WP:NOT guidelines: 1. Wikipedia is not a business profile site (Maybe that would go under the heading of WP:PROMOTION or WP:NOTDIR?), and 2. Wikipedia is not Craigslist. (Maybe that would go under WP:NOTDIR?) --- cymru lass (hit me up)⁄ (background check) 22:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
The trick here is notability of a business. There are many businesses that haven't had articles written about them which would fit notability guidelines, but a whole bunch more that don't. Bob's Used Cars in Podunk, Nebraska isn't really a notable business and shouldn't expect to get a Wikipedia entry... unless there is something notable about this place and reliable sources to verify that notability. The sort spot comes when a business sees that their "competitor" has a Wikipedia entry... and for whatever reason it happened that the entry for their business has been deleted. Yes, you can point out things like having a neutral point of view and working on keeping the language of the article toned down in terms of self-promotion (something very hard to do if you are used to writing promotional advertising). All that business sees is that their competitor is getting a higher Google rank due to the Wikipedia article and they want a piece of that action too.
Articles about businesses are on Wikipedia, and I personally don't see a problem with somebody starting a good-faith effort to create a stub of an article they are involved with (and marking it as such). Indeed I've had far too many problems lately where I start writing an article about a business and before I can get the second edit on the article (a minute or two later at that) it has already been proded for deletion due to a lack of sources listed on the article. That kind of hostility to business articles is something that I think is also counter-productive to Wikipedia. While Wikipedia may not be a "Craig's List", it is a site that has... and I've used to find more information about a business or organization that I may want to become more involved with. In this regard, Wikipedia is a business profile site with the note that the information on those business profiles are only for notable organizations that fit NPOV standards and will contain both positive and negative information about that organization. It will also exist on Wikipedia regardless of if the company or organization wants that information on Wikipedia in the first place or not. -- Robert Horning ( talk) 01:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Facebook seems to be fully integrated with Wikipeda and it is a forum. Can we declare it to be the official Wikiipedia forum, at least until something better comes along? Would anyone object to links to Facebook pages in articles?
Here is an example on a Facebook page about Nanotechnology - http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Nanotechnology/109438169076102?ref=ts
Why can't this work? 173.58.64.64 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC).
"Wikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be primary sources." - unless we're employing journalists in the field, this strikes me as incorrect. Shouldn't it be "Wikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be using primary sources."? Casliber ( talk · contribs) 18:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I read the current version of WP:LINKFARM only today, but I don't understand the rationale behind it. Can anyone explain why Index of Korea-related articles is not a linkfarm? Intuitively, I think there is something wrong here. I don't think this list of links can be characterised else other than non-encyclopaedic, because it is a set of barebone links that provides no context to the reader, and no verifiable evidence for inclusion in Wikipedia. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 22:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Maybe you should list it for deletion and see what happens. That may clarify whether the community agrees with you that an index of encyclopedia articles and categories is not encyclopedic, and that whether an article is related to Korea is not verifiable. postdlf ( talk) 18:06, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Categories must also be verifiable, NPOV, and encyclopedic. No one asks the nonsensical question of whether a category is notable, but it's not a free-for-all. postdlf ( talk) 14:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree with "mainspace is reserved for content, whilst navigation pages should be treated as categories". There are navigational templates living in Template: space but seen by readers in article space. Disambiguation pages are navigation-like (which is why I can accept the argument that indexes are disambiguation-like). Categories aren't just for navigation between articles, but also for machine-reading, higher level organization of articles (bear in mind that an index organizes links, while a category actually organizes the articles) and to some extent, "eyeball search" (not just moving between related articles, but as a means of finding an article in the first place). The real value to an index is that it can be far more highly structured than a category, and does not need to be ordered alphabetically but can be done e.g. thematically and divided into sections; it escapes the flaw of the "200 viewable article limit" but that's probably a secondary concern (an index containing hundreds of articles may be hard to use and probably should be broken up). My personal preference - though not a strong one, and based entirely on the supposition that an index or outline may be far more complex than a disambiguation page - would be to use Portal: space if possible (bearing in mind search problems), perhaps as subpages or sections (collapsed by default?) of the topical portal page. An alternative would be an Index: space. That's not unreasonable, since an index does serve a distinct function and indexes and outlines are a feature found in conventional encyclopedias. Also, including the Index: namespace in searches seems more likely to bring good results than including Portal: since portals contain fragments of articles. (Other projects seem to have been more radical about new namespaces. Wiktionary has now added Thesaurus:, Appendix: and Concordance:, while the French Wikipedia has namespaces for reference material.)
Some historic context may help: 5-6 years ago, before the "category" feature, but after exponential growth, there were loads of primarily navigational lists to keep track of the sudden bulk of articles, and then lists of lists to navigate between them! (This in turn was a big improvement on using nested subarticles to organize information - "/"s in pagenames to break general topics down to specific articles.) Most of this infrastructure was deleted as redundant when categories were instituted; I felt this was a shame as it contained structured navigational information, and wasn't surprised when a similar idea emerged for navigational "portals". The math crowd fought hard to preserve their (unusually well-developed) article index system - I don't think they liked categories and they didn't implement quite the same categorization schema as the rest of the site for some time! There has been a rebirth of "outlines of knowledge" and "index" articles in the past year or two, and our treatment of them doesn't seem standardized - similar material previously made up a substantial proportion of mainspace, but in my opinion many of the new "outlines of knowledge" and "index" articles are actually far better than the old equivalents. Had their forebears been as good 5 years ago, I suspect more would have survived alongside the math index. But even the math one has been controversial over the years - I seem to recall some editors arguing for deletion while part of it was up for FLC! This is not a new debate, but rather an old one stoked up again. In terms of WP:NOT, I can't see why developing a suitable index and navigation system is "unencyclopedic" - it's a natural aspect of any encyclopedia. There is also no harm developing more than one navigation system; in wilder flights of fancy, we might someday develop a Micropedia: as another way. Citizendium is pretty close to that with its articles all possessing a short paragraph definition field that is used to automatically fill in disambiguation pages, and they have a much richer kind of "Related Articles" subpage - also utilizing the definitions - that's more informative than our "See also" sections and massively superior to a bloated navbox. I am open to treating indexes here like disambiguation pages, like special kinds or subpages of portals, or in their own space, but most of all I urge anyone discussing this to be prepared to see things in historical context (and context in terms of what other publications do, not just our current ruleset), bear the readers' needs in mind, and think radically! A focus on WP:NOT may be misplaced; an index or navigation system isn't meant to be "part of" the encyclopedia. A rule primarily related to what content the encyclopedia should contain, isn't there to demolish navigation systems around it. But it might affect namespace considerations. TheGrappler ( talk) 05:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a bit of a thought experiment, because I think there might be something missing from NOT. (it's related to WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:DIRECTORY and several other places). If a Topic X is notable, consensus [acknowledging that there are dissenters] seems to be that a List of instances of X would also be notable. But taking the argument to the absurd, that could mean an article listing every Headstone (edit+) found in some RS in the world would pass muster (lets assume with a description and photo for each) UNLESS there was something to over-ride WP:N in WP:NOT - and currently I don't think there is. I think this relates closely to the debate above re Linkfarm, and that the focus on linking may be overstated. There needs to be something stating that lists should be discriminate - such as of 'notable' or 'significant' instances (allowing that there are cases where EVERY potential member is significant).
A lot of this is covered at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lead and selection criteria but I think there needs to be something short here to justify some of the stuff there. (And also that some of the stuff there is problematic, but that debate continues elsewhere). Can we (please) keep the issue in this section to whether there is a need to add to WP:INDISCRIMINATE a list related item that says Wikipedia is not a place for editors to indiscriminately assemble a listing of all the instances of anything, and if so, how should it be said.
(That's a lot of text for what is actually a fairly minor matter) ‒ Jaymax✍ 03:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I want to extend this to consider the potential VOLATILITY of lists - a list built upon a property of an instance that is unstable can't be good for us, and I think that probably also falls under the heading of 'indiscriminate' ‒ Jaymax✍ 03:59, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I believe the NOT#STATS should be deleted as it is just a way of saying "I don't find this list useful" with a bluelink to an apparent policy. Why is the list of presidential pollings not indiscriminate stats, but this is? I think it should either be re-worded to make clear that wikipedia does indeed accept stats-pages (but we have to like them) or deleted. Sandman888 ( talk) 11:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
I think a lot of people look at the shortcuts (like WP:NOT#STATS or WP:NOT#DIR) and presume that "WP is not a bunch of statistics" or "WP is not a directory". That's not true; NOT calls out "excessive" statistics, and "directories" in association with program guides or the like. Exactly where the line is drawn is of course likely impossible to actually write down, but that's why consensus is used to judge which side of the line we should be on. Much of NOT is difficult to "enforce" as rules, but only as evaluation of content and quality of coverage. -- MASEM ( t) 19:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Right now, we have NOTNEWS stating:
Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews. See also: Wikipedia:Notability (events)
NOTNEWS is frequently cited in deletion discussions in which some users, perhaps without actually reading the policy, vigourously state that an article fails NOTNEWS simply because it is ¨news¨. We need to strengthen the diction of this policy so that even a cursory glance gives the clear impression that a notable news story covered by several independent reliable sources usually should not be subjected to a deletion discussion. (If the people involved are not individually notable, their names should simply redirect to the article.) It gives a bad impression of Wikipedia when an internet user specifically comes here to read an article about a newsworthy event and sees a big deletion tag at the top of the page. Heroeswithmetaphors ( talk) 21:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Brainstorm: What about an article tag that says, right across the top, something to the effect of "This article depicts a currently evolving news story. Once the coverage of this event slows or after 30 days, a discussion on whether or how this event should be permanently and encyclopedically recorded will be started". Idea being, it gives a new article an automatic grace period, as well as fair warning that after that grace period, it might well be merged or deleted. Thoughts? Jclemens ( talk) 01:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
A few things:
HTH. -- Quiddity ( talk) 05:45, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I noticed to day that some of the points in this policy are oddly placed - wp:NOTDIR and wp:IINFO, for instance, seems to be a bit mix-and-match. I'm going to restructure a bit, just for increased clarity: please feel free to revert if you feel changes are inappropriate. -- Ludwigs2 18:55, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Does exactly what it says on the tin. See Wikipedia:Notability (fatal hull loss civil aviation accidents) for details. MickMacNee ( talk) 16:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
This page, where it says, "Wikipedia will report about your work once it is published and becomes part of accepted knowledge", appears to contradict Wikipedia:Verifiability, which clearly states:
“ | The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. | ” |
We ought not to try to determine whether an article is "accepted knowledge" for the purposes of deciding whether it should be included in Wikipedia, because that necessarily involves determining whether it is true. Something can only be knowledge if it's true - that's part of the generally accepted ordinary English meaning of the word knowledge.
I can see a possible reconciliation here, which is to interpret it as meaning "Wikipedia will report on your work if it becomes accepted knowledge - however, it might be reported on by us even if it isn't part of accepted knowledge, as e.g. in the case of string theory, which is not accepted by all relevant experts and indeed has never been proven experimentally". However, I strongly believe that the present wording is apt to be interpreted in a way totally inconsistent with the quotation from WP:V above. So, I move that the policy be tweaked somehow to make it more clear that it does not contradict WP:V.
Additionally, I note that this wording also appears to contradict WP:OR. To say that something is not "accepted knowledge" is not to say that it is necessarily Original Research in the Wikipedia sense of the term - again, see string theory.
Not only could this bad wording contribute to unfortunate requests for deletions [and here I must declare an interest, for one of the articles I created looks like it is about to be proposed for AfD, perhaps on these grounds but I'm not sure], it could even lead to enthusiastic, good potential editors being discouraged from contributing appropriate content to Wikipedia. A negative outcome, I'm sure you'll all agree.-- greenrd ( talk) 08:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Since no-one else has made a concrete proposal, and I'm the one who brought this up in the first place, I propose to replace this sentence:
“ | Wikipedia will report about your work once it is published and becomes part of accepted knowledge; however, citations of such reliable sources are needed to demonstrate that material is verifiable, and not merely the editor's opinion. | ” |
(which reads very poorly anyway, as if someone has changed the first half and neglected to change the second half) with this sentence:
"Wikipedia might (or might not) eventually report on your work once it has been published in a reliable source; however, articles about your work must fulfill the notability criteria, and novel or fringe theories must not be given undue weight, or implied to be uncontroversially accepted by reliable sources or subject-matter experts when that is not the case."
I have tried to phrase this so that it only summarises other policies and guidelines, without adding any new conditions - and without using the word "knowledge", which replies to me above seemed to agree is problematic. Also, I have tried not to be misleading, which I think is important. Is this all we need, or do we want to say more?-- greenrd ( talk) 19:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
“ | Wikipedia will report about your work once it has been notably mentioned in reliable sources; then it will be included in proportion to the amount of such attention that it has received. | ” |
Ocaasi 10:06, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I've tracked down an edit to the WP:NOTAFORUM policy to February 24, 2008. [5] It added the text "If you wish to ask a specific question on a topic, Wikipedia has a Reference Desk, and questions should be asked there rather than on talk pages.". This was not discussed in the talk page archive for that time [6] which includes only a mild gripe about "forum-only posters".
As such, I would say that the reversion of this edit in fact represents the status quo, to be preferred unless discussion goes against it.
Furthermore, I am finding this intemperately worded rule to be used harshly to remove perfectly valid questions about a topic from the talk pages of articles. For example, I just ran afoul of an editor [7] who seems to make a routine out of this, deleting things like [8] and [9]. Now asking questions like whether oil affects a hurricane is a perfectly reasonable, even essential aspect of creating a comprehensive encyclopedia article, because the whole idea of comprehensiveness is, in essence, to try to out-think the reader about what topics need to be covered. Factual questions should be especially welcome considering how much... other stuff... fills the talk pages of articles! While the Reference Desk serves an invaluable role, questions that simply point out the need for further information in a specific article belong on the Talk page for that article. The whole reason why people are asking at that article rather than the reference desk is that it is information that can enhance the article.
For these reasons, I propose to partially revert the above edit. I don't want to remove mention of the Reference Desk, but I want to make it clear that at least general questions (as opposed to, say, requests for technical advice) should be posed at the article that they concern.
Please, let's fix this problem. Wnt ( talk) 22:00, 12 September 2010 (UTC)