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Latest comment: 14 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion
I'd welcome some advice: after what period of time would it be appropriate to re-nominate an image for deletion when the first run threw up a result of "no consensus" – in particular, the only participants in the discussion were the nominator and the uploader. (In another case, there were also other participants.) Thanks, ╟─TreasuryTag►CANUKUS─╢11:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I personally wouldn't have closed such a discussion if I was the closing admin and would have relisted it immediately for more discussion. For whatever that is worth. But for someone who wasn't the closing admin, I am not sure. -DJSasso (talk) 11:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm guessing you're referring to this one, which previously turned up at DRV [[1]]. I think Mkativerata's comment is about right here: "re-nominating a "no consensus" is not generally considered disruptive although doing so immediately after the FFD's closure might be seen as bad form". The discussion closed over a week ago, so renominating now shouldn't be a problem (although I'll be !voting keep if you do)... Alzarian16 (talk) 14:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
@ TreasuryTag: An observation on the argument you were making in the FFD linked to above: per NFCC#8, the standard is not that the non-free content be "100% essential to a reader's understanding," as you phrased it. Instead, its inclusion must "significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." Far less absolute language than what you were insisting upon. So I'd think about that before participating in another FFD. postdlf (talk) 16:10, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
@Postdlf + Alzarian – as my message above made clear, I was not seeking discussion of any specific images, nor of other editors' views on my deletion arguments. ╟─TreasuryTag►belonger─╢16:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Looks like I misinterpreted your initial comment. I thought that since you mentioned specific cases, linking to them in my answer would be a good idea (force of habit I suppose!), especially as I wanted to reference another user's comment from a previous discussion related to that specific case. Sorry if this wasn't your intention. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
To answer TT's generic question, I'd say less than 30 days would generally be too soon and more than 90 is plenty. If it's already been kept or NC once before I'd say 3-6 months, and 6-24 months if its made it through XfD more than that. The range would depend on a number of things, but as the same nominator I'd go toward the upper end. As For someone who wasn't involved at all in the last discussion, I'd say the lower end would be about right. But that's just my sense of what's good and right and is generic to XfD, not just images (which I have less experience with). Hobit (talk) 03:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Edit warring?
Latest comment: 14 years ago20 comments9 people in discussion
I'd just like some input from someone who is more familiar with the guidelines on edit warring...
Editor A goes through and changes one style of infobox across a few hundred articles to a different style of infobox. The articles do not appear to be actively edited. Editor B reverts due to "no consensus". In this scenario, would it be better for Editor B to discuss first before reverting across a few hundred articles? Would this be considered edit warring? --Rschen775416:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Not normally considered edit-warring, no. But... I'd ask the reverting editor to show me the discussion that resulted in no consensus. Reverting due to no consensus is usually a bullshit dishonest reason that just means Reverting because I don't like this but want to dress it up in a bit of wiki-jargon and a big-fat-red-flag for disruptive editing. There's a pretty good essay in project-space about it somewhere but I can't seem to find it. CIreland (talk) 16:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
WP:BRD discusses this and is a decent read which pretty much sums up that he was acting correctly. First the person making the changes was Bold. The person who who didn't like it Reverted. And now its up to the two of them and any others to Discuss. -DJSasso (talk) 16:58, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think it would be best to discuss first for reviewer B before changing 100s of articles, but that goes for editor A too in the first place. Changing 100s of pages without any kind of discussion on those pages can be rather annoying.
While I do agree with CIreland that noconsensus is weak, changing 100s of pages without any discussion, or reference to a discussion is WP:Bold and thus if B were to revert all of those in my view the whole procedure would grind down to a multiple case of the cycle Bold (editor A) - Revert (editor B) - Discuss (editor A on each page) per WP:BRD.
In general I think the approach by B would be most disruptive here, but if B were to change only one (or a few) articles on his watchlist tere is no issue in my view as it is just a normal case of A being bold and being reverted by B per WP:BRD; and A would have to discuss on these few articles before redoing the original change. Arnoutf (talk) 17:10, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Concensus is always with the current, unless you can show it has changed. Its called consensus by acceptance. Because it had been a certain way for a long time, it is considered to have concensus. Then you were bold, and someone objected. Now its up to you and anyone interested to determine if there is a new concensus. -DJSasso (talk) 18:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
transculsion and re-caching can eat up a lot of processor cycles, so it's best not to go back and forth too much. ask editor B for a more explicit reason, and if he doesn't give one, gather ye some editors and try to get a real consensus about the change. --Ludwigs217:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Consensus is not always with the current. What is current could be incorrect, stale, or just never had consensus to start with and never had eyeballs looking at it. It's a wiki, there is no preference for the status quo. Consensus by acceptance is bogus as well; that encourages people to write and discuss in backwater areas of the project so nobody sees what they are doing then claiming consensus because nobody objected. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Incorrect and stale will be captured by wp:bold editing.
No consensus and no eyeballs looking - If someone changes that and nobody comments the first non-consensus version goes to the next non-consensus version. If there is objection than revert-discuss is in place, where A has as much, if not more obligation to discuss as B in the example. Indeed there is neither preference for status quo; nor for changing it. Arnoutf (talk) 19:27, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually that is where WP:BOLD comes in. If there was truely no consensus or it was outdated, the bold change will go through without objection. If there is an objection then there is old consensus or atleast lack of consensus which defaults to "stay the same". There is actually preference for the status-quo, which is why in any Afd a close of no-consensus defaults to keep. -DJSasso (talk) 19:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
True but status quo will need some decent arguments to keep otherwise we would never get anywhere. In the case where there is an old version without arguments replaced by a new one without arguments (bold) and someone objects this would be the moment to engage in mutual cooperation to come to a version that is better than either. Arnoutf (talk) 19:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh definitely. I was just pointing out that generally until a new version is worked out things stay on the old version. So editor B in the above scenerio wasn't incorrect in reverting to the original so a discussion could take place. -DJSasso (talk) 20:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
No offense, but the principles involved here are quite simple, and this discussion seems to be just overcomplicating things. If you believe you have found a problem that effects a broad category of articles, it is best to attempt to find out why things are done that way, and hold a discussion of the problem in an appropriate community venue, but it is acceptable to just fix it yourself, especially if you cannot find a reason and already attempted discussion but nobody else seemed to care. If you find someone who has attempted to fix a perceived problem on a broad category of articles and you disagree with their change, it is necessary to discuss the matter in an appropriate community venue, and it is unacceptable to go mass revert them. (An exception would be if the person's attempted fix actually made the pages unreadable to our audience, by accidentally <nowiki>ing the whole page or something.) To put it more succinctly, mass-reversion is uncivil, unproductive, and violates the spirit of not edit warring that WP:BRD was created to encourage despite the fact that it follows the letter of the process. --erachimatalk20:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree. Unless the changes were quite clearly detrimental in some way, there's no hurry to revert them, as long as your opposition is recorded. But the other editor also ought to stop making any more changes once you communicate your opposition. (Unless, of course, the issue has already been decided by a reasonable consensus.) --Kotniski (talk) 07:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the input. So, another question: what if editor B continues reverting even after being asked to stop and discuss? --Rschen775407:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
In both cases, that's obviously a bad thing. But, again, reverting them would be a worse thing. The bottom line here is that making contended changes to masses of articles is not acceptable behavior, and cooldown blocks will be handed out if it happens and the parties refuse to stop and talk. --erachimatalk07:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
As someone wo has sat more to the side on this particular incident (though I am involved with the topic that these editors work on, except in my own region of the world, I have only commented once and not openly participated). The actions of editor B in this case is often not even a case of I don't like it. This has nothing to do with the changes made, it has to do with the sweeping nature of the changes and a prejudice against the editors (collectively, editor A) that are making that change. Though I support editor B's intention to stand up for the little guys that may not want this sweeping globalization of things, I do not support them doing so when nobody else has spoken up beforehand against the changes. This is the case in this issue. Editor B is following Editor A around the globe and resisting change and ordering discussion when there are no active editors for that region of the globe (or when those editors have ignored the changes without any reversion or without saying "what's going on". In many cases, these lone wolf editors were contacted ahead of time). Overall, the change was discussed well ahead of time. The region that editor B is a part of has opted out of the globalization, but other regions have not. Editor B still insists on resisting change in those other regions that they were not previously actively involved in. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲτ¢17:46, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I follow your argument, but of course the problem is that nobody has spoken up beforehand to change is impossible if the change was never announced beforehand. For example, how could you have commented to my current post before I typed it? Arnoutf (talk) 18:05, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't, but now that I see you have typed it (it showed up in my watchlist), I can come reply. I can agree or I can object. I can raise new points not heard before. This has not happened, except with Editor B who just like Editor A, was never involved in this area before. The objection is not "I don't like the way this looks, the original worked better". The objection is "I don't like that you're imposing this on other regions that don't have active editors to defend it". As I mentioned, attempts to contact editors (the ones that haven't been inactive since 2007) are met with silence. Silence is not a form of objection. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲτ¢18:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Paid Editing
Latest comment: 14 years ago11 comments11 people in discussion
I am interested in what you think will happen if paid editors teamed up in a union of sorts in order to help each other out (as in keeping paid articles in deletion discussions) and to advocate for the acceptance of paid editing. I would also like to poll whether you all support paid editing or are against it, and why. Melanesian obsession (talk) 20:56, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
On the other hand, Wikipedia's coverage of corporations is notoriously incomplete and imbalanced, due to the fact that companies that are notable, but not household names, usually get their articles by virtue of a scandal and end up giving undue weight to the scandal as a result. So it is also important for us not to completely discount an article subject merely because the original author was hired to write the article. An illustrative example of how this can be problematic is Arch Coal, a Fortune 500 company whose article got deleted as spam, or the numerous cases where a company page has been created using press releases and then deleted as copyvio with no investigation of whether the company was notable or not. --erachimatalk21:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
The basic point is that it 'should' be treated as, every editor is (or should be) equal no matter their motivation. Many so-called fanboys will try a lot harder to go against NPOV and not keep things encyclopedic, and run afoul of WP:OWN issues, than any paid editor would. As long as the rules are followed, that they get paid to make an article shouldn't be a factor. (N.B.: This is my opinion, and many disagree as showed in the Wikipedia:Paid editing talk page.) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I have, in fact, seen paid editors align as meatpuppets in AfDs, and I have seen editors try to pay others to participate in AfD discussions. But I think we should keep our mouths shut regarding strategies for getting paid articles accepted, per WP:BEANS. My personal opinion is that this is an abuse of our process and principles and paid editors should be shown the door ASAP. ThemFromSpace22:15, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
"It is not ok with me that anyone ever set up a service selling their services as a Wikipedia editor, administrator, bureaucrat, etc. I will personally block any cases that I am shown.... the idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia is not ever going to be ok. Consider this to be policy as of right now.... Just imagine the disaster for our reputation. Are we free and independent scribes doing our best to record all human knowledge? Or are we paid shills. I know what I choose.
— Jimbo Wales"
I must say I agree with Jimbo on this point. If paid editors did resort to pooling their efforts at AFD and elsewhere, the most likely result would be a severe backlash against them and lots of blocks being handed out. The fact is, however, that we will never know how many users engage in paid editing without anyone ever knowing it. As long as they aren't just spamming they mostly get away with it. If they persistently violate policies on spamming/point of view/conflict of interest they will likely be blocked whether they are being paid or not. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:21, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
My understanding, both from here and the local media, is that Wikipedia is pushing to get paid editors, or at least folks whose jobs involve editing Wikipedia. My understanding is that at least one of our better known editors is being paid (by the Foundation?) to edit. [2] would indicate there are active attempts to recruit paid editors. "His talk on Sunday about how Wikipedia contributors and curators worked together..." I assume the curators at least were paid. "In the United States, the Wikimedia Foundation has sponsored an academy to teach experts at the National Institutes of Health how to contribute to the site and monitor what appears there." would indicate the NIH people are editing as part of their jobs. It seems to to me we are changing directions here.Hobit (talk) 00:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I personally think paid editing is a non-issue, for two simple reasons 1)What counts is the edits, not the motivations behind them. If, say, a charity decides to pay skilled graduate students to do serious and policy-compliant Wikipedia work on articles of academic interest, should we show them the door? Conversely, don't we show the door already to anyone who violates NPOV etc. regardless of their motivations? I don't care if who edits WP does it because he/she's being paid, because he/she likes it, because he/she hears voices in the night that tell him/her to do it, or because it is a bot. What I care is what comes out here, on site. 2)Even if we choose to take into account motivations, this would not shut up paid editing, it would only make it more anonymous and more difficult to detect, which is hardly a good result. That Jimbo cares more about the project reputation than about the project result (as, alas, seems to always happen these days) says more about the short-sightedness of Jimbo above anything else. That said, of course a cabal of paid editors helping each other together would be a real issue, just like any POV team of editors trying to bias consensus. It would anyway almost always violate blatantly WP:CANVASS (otherwise how could they coordinate?) and it would result in a collective block/ban. But I agree with Themfromspace: someone please remove this discussion fast per WP:BEANS, please. --Cyclopiatalk23:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I'd agree that for me, paid editing is also a non-issue for the reasons you give and more. The license to contribute nor the terms of service prohibit paid contributors, and if for example a blatant policy came down the pike from the WMF to explicitly permanently block all users, their IP addresses, and associated sock puppets from people who get paid to edit.... it would be an administrative nightmare in terms of actual implementation to get that to be enforced other than by self-admission. Banning it as a policy is something that would also drive such a practice underground.
For myself, it is far and away better for an editor to disclose their biases as they may be (and I've done on talk pages for controversial subjects that I've been involved with). If this includes somebody openly admitting that they are getting paid by XYZ Corp or the PDQ Foundation (chariable, non-profit.... shouldn't make a difference) for their participation on Wikipedia or even if they are doing it as a full-time job, I really don't see any real problem. The only reason they should be blocked is not due to their getting paid, but rather if they are being disruptive, owning articles (not letting other users to participate or systematically putting in a bias for the article or removing a certain point of view), or generally causing problems for the community as a whole.
I also don't see that getting paid is necessarily any different than "True Believers" in whatever it is that you are talking about (religion, sports teams, or even fans of television shows). Both kinds of users can cause disruptions and do as much damage.... or be as beneficial to the project as a whole. At the very least, if a productive user is making useful contributions and generally the quality of Wikipedia is improving as a result of their contributions.... what is the problem? --Robert Horning (talk) 00:39, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
"don't we show the door already to anyone who violates NPOV etc. regardless of their motivations?" Well, no, only occasionally. Hadn't you noticed WP is full of biased editors? I suppose it depends what sorts of articles you tend to hang around. Peter jackson (talk) 10:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
To both Robert Horning and Peter Jackson. You are both right. In principle we kick out editors who are consistently disrupting the process. In practice a lot of editors get away with it.
My view is that Wikipedia is biased towards computer technology and weapons; which is not strange as we can assume the editors have more than their fair share of young males. This specific bias is not that of the individual editor, who always will have some topics of more than average interest, but of the composition of all editors on Wikipedia (i.e. emergent bias). Perhaps paid editors may actually help to balance that to some extent ;-)
But no kidding, I would not object to paid editors if they do work within the rules (even if they are not to their advantage) and do not exhibit behaviour like this incident, where a paid editor was complaining to another editor that the deletion of non notable topics was costing him money [[3]] and that continued removal of his insertions would lead to financial claims [[4]]Arnoutf (talk) 11:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
One is strict policy, the other being an essay, that's not going to be easy to merge (consensus isn't there on the essay to make it policy so making it part of the policy isn't going to be easy and I wouldn't touch that policy in a million years). Wikipedia:Child protection is more about protecting younger editors from pedophiles while [[Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy] is more about removing things like the userpage of editors who listed themselves as being minors. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
There's a individual who is unreliable. He is known to be from a certain city. There is an article which is about a subject that is closely related to this individual. There is an editor, whose IP is from that city. The editor is unreliable, adding content supposedly from reliable sources, but when double-checked the claims are not supported. This editor quotes a Myspace page that he claims he is the author of all the text. Many parts of the text are from older websites of the said individual. The Myspace page is all about the claims of the individual. The editor speaks of the said individual in the third-person. The editor refuses to say if he is indeed the individual, when asked once. The editor uploads images of this individual's heraldry, and links to this individual's dubious photos to make make a point in a discussion.
Googling the editor's username with the subject shows that he appears in off-wiki message boards arguing in support of the individual. This username's email address is viewable. Googling this username and address turns up one message where he appears to confirm that he is the individual. The email address also corresponds with the Myspace page when searching for it on the site. Googling the email address and location of the IP/individual turns up an Ebay auction, this link shoots through to another username from the same location. This username is identical to one on a message board, where the username introduces himself by talking of the said individual in the third-person when discussing the individual's claims. In further posts, he posts family history and heraldry claiming it as his, and later reveals that he is actually that individual.
Can I mention how these things mysteriously link up, in a talkpage discussing the article, or in a discussion concerning the unreliable individual? It seems to me that the editor is editing in bad faith, and this confirms my suspicions. It seems like the individual is secretly editing Wikipedia to further his own aims (which are not supported by reliable sources).--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 09:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I would avoid bringing it up unless the incident further escalates. Even accurate allegations of WP:COI tend to distract from the real issue: we don't discipline users for editing subjects relating to themselves, we discipline users for making bad edits. Proof that an editor is using Wikipedia as a vanity press or whatever can be relevant in WP:BAN discussions, where they support the idea that the editor is unlikely to learn their lesson, but prior to that point, it has little practical relevance. --erachimatalk09:39, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't entirely buy that. An editor's background is relevant to his choice of sources and the weight he gives them; participants in the discussion are likely to be misled if they think the editor is disinterested when he isn't. To be honest I think WP:OUTING is misguided and ought to be phased out (in some way that doesn't violate promises made to existing editors). --Trovatore (talk) 09:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I think you should fairly easily be able to argue that myspace is not a reliable source and therefor not admissable. Arnoutf (talk) 10:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Company names as usernames
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I would like to draw your attention to a discussion at WT:U about whether the current wording of the username policy reflects actual administrative practice, and indeed whether it is even practically feasible to obey it.
The policy currently imposes a blanket prohibition on the use of a "company, group or product" as a username. It is argued that users may innocently and unknowingly chose a name which matches an obscure company somewhere on Earth, and should not be sanctioned for this if it is later noticed. It is also argued that the wording of the policy is out of line with practice at WP:UAA where more weight is given to the user's apparent intentions (based on their contributions) than to the wording of WP:U.
Latest comment: 14 years ago13 comments6 people in discussion
Let's go for something radical. Following the craziness here, I think we should delete all of Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets. I honestly don't see the point of it. Confirmed sockpuppets are useful to tag but what exactly does tagging suspected sockpuppets gain. I'll ask here before I start the chaos at WP:SOCK or a real fun CFD.
We already have some deleted per WP:DENY so it's not completely out there.
I'm not sure how WP:SPI uses these but I don't see what purpose it would gain. Again, confirmed exists for a reason.
At User:VLB Pocketspup, for example, it was tagged this way, removed (obviously), the checkuser wasn't conclusive as to who it was, but it was nevertheless tagged with someone else afterwards. Edit warring ensued with people demanding that the person claiming he wasn't that person's sock provide proof.[5][6]. That seems like a bizarre set-up, demanding that editors (either themselves or others) prove negatives.
User:Vigilant was edited warred over as sockpuppeter and he hasn't done an edit since 2006. Now, he's indefinitely blocked and not coming back but what if an editor in good standing just got accused. Is this a fair way to treat people?
Ignoring this situation, I've already seen this become an idiotic tool in edit warring and gamesmanship and ways to play around (particularly dealing with Eastern European articles where there probably are a bunch of these).
If admins are using WP:DUCK tests to block people, then they need to say who they think it is in the block log. Otherwise, it doesn't help.
Honestly, other than an WP:SPI report, what need is there for people to have lists of who they think someone is a sockpuppet of? It doesn't encourage the encyclopedia, it's just piling up, and it can be destructive.
Consider this: if an individual editor were to go around claiming that a bunch of accounts were all sockpuppets without evidence, we'd tell them to knock it off, filed proper SPI reports and eventually blocked them for harassment if they kept going. However, we don't have a standard for when we can tag a bunch of people as suspected sockpuppets. I really don't think we should have the standard of "if any user" thinks this guy is a sock of someone, that's good enough. We would never allow people to claim that elsewhere. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Just looking now (and I'm not looking to blame anyone, it's just an example), User talk:174.91.247.34 was just tagged following one edit as being a sock of an editor who isn't even blocked. It's an admin and I'm sure it's all in good faith because that's normal within policy, but would it be fair to start a category of suspected sockpuppets, tag a bunch of them, demand they prove that they aren't those socks and never file an SPI report? All of that is in line with policy but is that right? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it's right. I use this tag when I know an IP or account is being used to sock, but that doesn't mean anyone else recognizes it. However, it explains my actions to that account (using rollback to cleanup their crap, instead of edit summarizing). Finding a sympathetic admin to block the account might take a few hours, and opening and closing SPI takes days or weeks. In the meantime, I'm using a mop and telling people why with that template. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
But in your opinion, should be it any user who knows it's a sock? And instead, if asked, couldn't you just explain yourself? That at least keeps a current records of the issue and possibly lets people defend themselves? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I think the real problem here is not the category itself but rather people misusing it. It's perfectly normal to use it if there is sufficient behavioral evidence that a full SPI or CU is not needed. It's not ok to use it if you have only a vague suspicion and no real evidence. The category is intended to be a tool to help admins or other involved in combatting disruptive sockpuppets keep things organized. It's not meant to be used a s a tool to gain the moral high ground in the never ending poisonous feud perpetuated by regular editors of global warming articles. Seeing as it was the toxic editing environment at GW articles that led to the current mess, I suggest we kick this up to WP:AE. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not getting into that specific situation; someone else can bring it at the ARBCOM discussion right now if one of the parties want since the ANI thread seems to have ended without a solution. There's similar misuses elsewhere. But again, what use is it? Why not tagged them confirmed and move on? It's not like confirmed is only CU checked socks, there's plenty in there that's based on WP:DUCK. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I think I kind of regard it as like speedy delete versus AfD. Serious established accounts which look socky go through a much longer process. A couple of edits looking very socky under WP:Duck gets a suspected sock tag from one editor and a block from an admin if they agree. --BozMotalk08:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Support Probably not a bad idea, but I'd go even farther. Personally, I would also vote for blocking 'everyone' from both sides of this climate change fight but then I'd have both sides claiming I was a sock of GoRight or Hipocrite or someone I've never even heard of. I do know that when other people are being dragged into this war, even if they blundered in like Kindz did, it's affecting the site as a whole. I dunno if deleting that category would resolve the underlying problems but it may alleviate some of the symptoms and injuries by friendly fire. I would overwhelmingly support deleting the entire named sockpuppet category as well, plus the list of banned users, and eliminating named sockpuppet tags in favor of something like "This account is a sockpuppet of a blocked user and has been blocked indefinitely". A lot of our serial sockmasters get off on building these categories to show off to their silly friends. Let's toss the lot, I say. We have SPI and if administrators need to keep track of someone they can do it at LTA. Burpelson AFB (talk) 23:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Support -- it seems like it is being misused and the potential for abuse outweighs any usefulness of the category by a longshot. If a sock is confirmed, that's a different matter -- have a category of confirmed socks, but get rid of this category of suspected socks which is meaningless since there is no threshold or minimum criteria for including an editor as a suspected sock. The only meaningful use for this type of category I can think of would be as a temporary resting place for users who are in the process of being investigated in an SPI. Minor4th• talk05:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Comment - what about accounts blocked as socks based on behavioral evidence when checkuser data is either inconclusive or not available? I would say to purge the category from any account not blocked as a sock, but it does serve a purpose for accounts blocked as socks without confirmation from a checkuser. nableezy - 05:32, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Comment - It should be up to the blocking admin to tag the blocked user if they blocked for socking based on behavioral evidence. As it is, any editor can tag a blocked user for suspected sockpuppetry, without given any reasons whatsoever, even if that was not the reason for the block. Minor4th• talk05:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Sure, fine, but if the categories are deleted it isnt up to the blocking admin anymore. The template {{sock|username|blocked}} will place the page in a "suspected sockpuppet of" category. I think it would be better if this category were restricted to users that are blocked as socks and not something that is thrown about by users who "suspect" another user is a sock. If a user "suspects" that, there is a place for them to voice that suspicion. I dont know if it technically feasible to restrict that template to use by admins only, but the {{sock|username}} could be removed so that it would only be used for accounts already blocked. nableezy - 06:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure someone could write up a bot that just lists the edit that puts them into the category and cross-reference that with a whitelist of the admins (current and former or whatever) and we could prune it out or something. Or admins could call them confirmed for all I care, because they personally confirmed it. If someone else tries to claim they've confirmed that someone is a sock, that's a lot less acceptable. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Redirect casing
Latest comment: 14 years ago14 comments9 people in discussion
I just want to be clear... do we need all these types of redirects?
Rickey henderson -> Rickey Henderson
Barack obama -> Barack Obama
Someone famous -> Someone Famous
You get the idea. Why do we need that lowercase redirect page? I wonder this especially in the case of new pages (which I patrol), when there is nothing linking to the incorrect title. In this case, does RFD apply to the lowercase title? — Timneu22 ·talk13:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
We don't need them per se, because the search box is case insensitive*. There may be a case for deleting them - in that if I happen to link Barack obama while typing some prose, I won't be alerted to my grammatical error by a redlink. –xenotalk13:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC) *Comments made in re: the monobook skin, I have no idea if Vector has screwed this up too
Yes, I would gladly see them deleted if anyone wanted to make the effort (and if they're not linked to anywhere, of course). I believe the software used to work differently, and the search box was not fully case-insensitive, which is why many of these were created.--Kotniski (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
It would certainly reduce clutter, and more importantly would reduce hard-to-spot page-forking and vandalism, if we could get rid of lowercase redirects on biographies. I suspect there might be practical difficulties in catching and fixing lots of redlinks from typos, and probably other things as if I think about it long enough... Empty Buffer (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't it just cause a potential mess to delete these? They're obvious vandalism targets if the redirects are cleared. Maybe they should be deleted and salted to prevent that, but really I don't see why we'd go out of our way to do that. Browsing through recent new page creation, I still see the odd new bio article here and there posted in lower case, so it isn't like it's impossible for someone to try and create those titles now. postdlf (talk) 15:09, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
While the search box is case insensitive, the url is not. Removing these links means that visiting Rickey henderson will lead to a redlink page. Is this desirable behavior? —Ost (talk) 15:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm mostly talking about new articles. Often, Some person is created and immediately redirected to Some Person, where the article exists. I don't want to go through all the old articles and delete stuff, but in the case of a new page, I think redirect deletion is the way to go. Thoughts on that ?15:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Well my first attempt at deleting this type of redirect was speedily declined. I guess some people prefer to keep junk around, per policy. — Timneu22 ·talk22:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Because it's not junk. I make these all the time, because I end up at them all the time. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
The idea that this would "reduce clutter" is nonsense and is never a reason to delete a page. What exactly is being cluttered up by it? Are you tripping over a discarded redirect every time you go to get a cup of coffee? Beeblebrox (talk) 04:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
No it isn't. The search suggestions only display the upper-cased versions (in Monobook). There's no harm in keeping redirects, and no massively important reason to delete them. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 15:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, we should remember that what you write as "Barack obama" equates to "barack obama", i.e. a fully lowercase rendering, which is useful in some contexts. - Jarry1250[Humorous? Discuss.]16:03, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
For this diff, I found a couple of English language sources which contradicted what was already on Wikipedia, and nothing other than Wikipedia and its mirror sites to confirm what was on Wikipedia. Only a Dutch source appeared to clearly state that what was on Wikipedia was incorrect, based on an online translator I used and the similarity of Dutch to English. I should find those other sources to back up what the Dutch one said, I guess.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·17:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Hi I guess you are referring to the following quote from the Dutch website
“
De ENKA-fabriek anno 1925
Rond 1920 vestigt de Nederlandse Kunstzijdefabriek ENKA zich in Ede en verreist een groot industriecomplex. ..... De naam ENKA is de fonetische uitspraak van de 'N' en de 'K', de afkorting van de volledige fabrieksnaam. De verklaring dat 'ENKA' zou staan voor de 'Eerste Nederlandse Kunstzijdefabriek Arnhem' is niet correct.
”
I think you mistranslated to some extend.
A rough translation would be "Around 1920 the Nederlandse Kunstzijdefabriek (Dutch artificial silk factory) is established in Ede and a large industrial complex is built. The name ENKA is the fonetic representation of 'N' 'K' [which letters in the Dutch alphabet are pronounced as En and Ka], the abbreviation [i.e. NK] of the full name. The explanation that ENKA would refer to 'Eerste Nederlandse Kunstzijdefabriek Arnhem' (First Dutch Artificalsilkfactory Arnhem) is incorrect.
In general the procedure would be to ask a native speaker of Dutch to check translation, for the rest a Dutch source is just as good as an English source; although English sources are more easily checked. You could try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Netherlands although the answer may take some time Arnoutf (talk) 17:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Right, thanks. I was looking for the answer in the second paragraph. Your translation of what I used as my source is exactly what I believed it was, and that's how I intend (for now) to justify my change.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·17:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I see you changed it, thanks for that. I was hesitating, so the article did not reflect my interpretation of what the source said. And what you changed was from the source, so it actually went before the reference.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·17:40, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago47 comments10 people in discussion
Another editor at Wikipedia talk:Child protection#Content control says the WP:NOTCENSORED policy would stop Wikipedia supporting user self censoring preferences or helping content control software, e.g. so a person could have a good chance of avoiding coming across pictures of nudes or articles about sex acts. This would not involve any banners or markers on the pages themselves or special work putting tags on them. Do you think NOTCENSORED means that the content of Wikipedia is not censored so one can have articles about sex positions for instance on it? Or do you think it means a principled stand that any link with censorship is a contaminating influence like helping the communists in China and must be resisted, even if it means a parent can't have a good chance of stopping their child seeing sex positions on it except by blocking the whole site or using some text filtering that stops articles with things like 'he made a clean breast of it' and 'Horniman Museum'? Dmcq (talk) 18:12, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Sounds great, as a pacifist atheist I think the souls of children do require protection of weaponry and military related articles, as well as religious articles. On the other hand as a humanist I think the human body is not something to be ashamed of, so I would not put any censorship tags on articles talking about that.
But no kidding, this opens the door for the pushing of value induced point of views. As the values of not all persons are equal (see my example above) this would create huge subjectivity. Arnoutf (talk) 19:16, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Pretty much unworkable, and definitely a violation of a range of WP policies. Suppose Wikipedia had a button which said "I find evolution offensive, please do not show me anything about it." This would clearly violate WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. There are many pieces of commercially available software that will filter content. Here, without advertising, are two of them: [8][9]. People are free to buy and use this type of software, but it is beyond the scope of Wikipedia policy to get involved in this area.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)19:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh yeah in that case I would like a button which says "I find creationism offensive, please do not show me anything about it.". Unworkable indeed. Arnoutf (talk) 19:49, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
There is wide support for self-censorship using third-party filtering tools external to the WMF websites, which can be configured to meet individual needs. I'm in the process of working on such a set of tools, in the form of browser plug-ins. There is no need for the WMF sites or their editors to get involved. Dcoetzee19:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Obviously we can't stop people from using their own text-filtering software. NOTCENSORED comes into play when it gets to the stage of adding tags to articles and images to assist such software or proposing that the WMF develop their own filtering software. Mr.Z-man19:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Well it certainly looks like those so far are on the contamination side. It's not something I fully understand - I'd be quite happy wearing a serial rapists sweater but I know a lot of people would not be able to bear doing such a thing. And obviously here it is stronger than any desire to help protect children from nude pictures or sex so it is pretty strong.
Anyway for Dcoetzee what I was thinking of was allowing lists of categories to be associated with a censorship name so images or articles could be removed on that basis. It could have been applied in a better and more fine grained way in Wikipedia, but you could probably do quite good filtering based on recognizing the categories at he end of pages, I think it would be worth doing special work for Wikipedia so the whole domain doesn't get blocked. Categories like Nudism for instance can be used as a primary filter and then the filtering on words could be lightened so it didn't stop things like Horniman Museum above. Unfortunately this wouldn't catch the categories of images though some extra work on images when you know they are from Wikipedia could probably fix it. Dmcq (talk) 20:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
And here is the problem: Why would nudism, a rather harmless expression of the human body be singled out while weaponry or even genocide is apparently not a problem for children to look at. This is a value loaded POV that you (Dmcq) try to push onto the whole project. Arnoutf (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Quite. In an earlier rehash of this, Dmcq (who is of course entitled to censor his own viewing) suggested setting Wikipedia up so creationists wouldn't have to read anything that espoused evolution. Where will it all stop. WP:NOIMAGE is quite sufficient - you don't want pictures, you got it. For anything else, get the NetNanny in. I can't see why Wikipedia would want to (let alone agree how to) censor its content. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:17, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
You seem to be assuming that we deeply care whether some overly-conservative ISP blocks Wikipedia. While we would like editors and readers stuck on that ISP to be able to continue editing and reading, I don't think it's something most of us would lose sleep over any more that we worry about the blocking of Wikipedia by the People's Republic of China for political reasons. See also Internet Watch Foundation and Wikipedia for an example involving a block related to nudity. Anomie⚔20:33, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Ah, me... As I have said before, NOTCENSORED has only one reasonable interpretation on wikipedia: to prevent material that has encyclopedic value from being exclude on purely puritanical grounds. If editors would recognize that NOTCENSORED is not carte blanche for defending any old thing they pruriently want to add to wikipedia, and would instead use it to defend sober, restrained, and informative material needed on difficult articles, then we wouldn't need to worry about content control (or this issue) ever again. --Ludwigs221:12, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually, we would. In an earlier round of this discussion, Dmcq came up with quite a list of things that might be censored [10] - allow the type of content to be adjusted according to local custom of what is anaethma, e.g. naked children, sex, violence, science conflicting with religion, local politics, leaked information about scientology or whatever. One example was creationists who might not want to see information about evolution. While I agree that if people edited sensibly we would have less problems, this isn't that argument. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
No, Elen, conflicts on issues like this only arise when editors decide to promote/oppose material without considering what encyclopedic value of that material. you have some editor who try to remove useful, instructive material because it offends them, and you have other editors trying to add/retain gratuitously offensive material because it tickles them to do so, and you have a certain amount of gray area where the only reasonable behavior is to weight the encyclopedic merits of material against the offense it might cause. I suspect that you will ind that the vast majority of the applications of NOTCENSORED on wikipedia are designed to forestall that reasonable behavior, and that's just wrong. --Ludwigs223:21, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Given my previous interactions with you in this article, if it "forestalls that reasonable behaviour", then the policy is working exactly just fine. The offense it might cause is not our concern, that's the gist of NOTCENSORED. --Cyclopiatalk21:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
oh, that discussion. I still think I'm right about that (mostly because I am). are you bringing that up because you want to restart the debate? --Ludwigs218:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be an assumption in some posts here that I want to censor the information people receive. I do not. I wish to extend the reach of Wikipedia to people who would not now use it. Also it would make it obvious to them when they were trying to see something they said they didn't want to see. If you really want to propagate straightforward NPOV views of things the best way is to let people with views like creationism access it and yet feel safe. This is a softly softly approach rather than forcing them towards things like Conservapedia or some extreme Muslim sects safe site where they get extreme views and never see the light as it were. It would also protect the content in case fashions change in what is prohibited in the states or elsewhere, being able to say it had mechanisms in place to support such stuff would defuse much such silliness. Dmcq (talk) 21:36, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
While your motives maybe good, I think this would open the door to true censorship. And to be honest, I think the conservatives will see this as a victory over Wikipedia (in which they would be right), while I am pretty sure they will still not use the project and will still flock to conservapedia (in which case we sacrifice a lot, for nothing). More generally; talking to people convinced about their own Truth is a mission impossible, so we should direct our effort elsewhere, i.e. making the project as good as possible. If conservatives don't read it, I couldn't care less, their loss. Arnoutf (talk) 21:44, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
I think that Wikipedia could do a bit more to facilitate such uses (see strategy:Proposal:Provide services to facilitate "child-safe" and selective mirror sites). But if a group wants to do content tagging, it needs to be able to control who applies the content tags, to ensure that only their own definitions are used for notoriously vague distinctions between e.g. art and pornography, to apply their own screening and their own sanctions. It has to be a third party site. Wikipedia could provide much of the computing power for such a site, issuing selected historical versions of the articles to appear in the other site's frames by their choice. We might even allow such organizations to alter an article to meet their particular ideas, storing it as a historical version with a "self-reverting edit" designed to ensure that generally Wikipedians see only the uncensored version. That's a lot of heavy lifting we could do for them, but allowing them to edit-war over their tags and definitions in our article spaces and disrupt our production of the content? That's just not reasonable. At some point we have to assume that if they have so much support that they could put up at least the outer shell if not a full mirror of a Wikipedia site. Wnt (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
All that "heavy lifting" done by Wikipedia has two serious problems that need to be solved outside Wikipedia. First of all Wikipedia resources needs to be compensated for resources spent if foundation time and server capacity is used for this. Second, Wikipedia should not under any circumstance be deemed responsible for upholding such "censored" articles, even if the server with the 'historical' version crashes and reverts to full versions.
I think both are unfeasible. My suggestion would be that the people wanting such 'censored' Wikipedia just found their own foundation, buy and maintain their own servers, create the "censored" versions of the unfit articles on those servers and link the rest through to Wikipedia proper. I think such an outside Wiki option would be the only solutions that is not unreasonably taxing for Wikipedia itself. (Of course I expect that the target group for this service are much more likely to adopt the rambling on conservapedia as truth than founding such a thing, but as I said above, that is their loss.) Arnoutf (talk) 21:58, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
You can see an example of the sort of thing that can be produced at 2008/9 Wikipedia Selection for schools. This was co-produced with the Foundation. It is totally closed and desn't have anything in it saying you're trying to access forbidden material which is what I'd like to see but then again it is very well vetted and safe for small children. Dmcq (talk) 22:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure the pictures here and here are "completely safe for small children". Additionally for example this article treats sexuality as something related to psychology of humans not biology; which in my view sounds a lot like synthesis driven by the urge to make sexuality 'harmless' . Indeed, all these articles lack references, and therefore do not conform to core policies like WP:V. I would not want the whole project going that way, ever. Of course, as Wikipedia allows reuse of materials under creative commons someone setting up a "Safipedia" or "Censoripedia" they are free to do so but, just like the Wiki for schools that should be outside the main project, and thus should not be discussed here. Arnoutf (talk) 07:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm happy with junior schools just using a bowdlerized version, but I would like secondary schools to be able to access it more completely. The proposals I had been making would not affect normal users so there's nothing about 'the whole project going that way'. Exactly why should things like reaching out to schools and Conservapedia rednecks not be discussed here when the first statement of wmf:Mission_statement is "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." Wikipedia is collecting one type of material very effectively and far as I can see it the main question should be how best to disseminate it. Dmcq (talk) 07:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Let's try to disentangle this.
1)"Wikipedia is collecting one type of materials very effectively." I agree, that is what we do best (although I am not sure what you exactly mean with "one type" but I guess that refers to verifiably sourced information on a large range of topics)
2)"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the wolrd to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain". Of course I do agree, educational content is however not necessarily aimed at any age group, and should therefore in extremis cover all possible topics. Wikipedia, the flagship project of Wikimedia is exactly doing that, providing an extremely broad and uncensored coverage of almost everything you can think of (even those things you do not want to think of).
3) "and to desseminatie it effectively and globally" Since adults are the majority of people the noncensored version of Wikipedia is doing nicely. On the other hand there is a possible contradiction with globally if states put in place content filters there is a problem; however to solve that you have to violate the empowerment of people in creating content. Not easily solved, and it was agreed that state blocking of Wikipedia should not reflect on Wikipedia policy.
Your argument is that Wikipedia is not meeting all the aims of the Wikimedia foundation (note the subtle difference in naming) in detail. I do agree, you are unlikely to reach certain groups of people with the open uncensored Wikipedia. Your solution would be to build in certain restrictions into Wikipedia. I disagree there. My solution would be to create sistersites (not unlike your school-wikipedia example). That would fullfill the aims of Wikimedia while leaving the core ideas of Wikipedia in tact.
My conclusion after disentangling the argument is that we do not much differ in the analysis of the problem (some people avoid Wikipedia) but we differ in the solution (Wikipedia should allow them to customise (you); Specific sister projects outside Wikipedia should serve them (me)). My solution places this discussion outside the Village pump domain and into Wikimedia foundation discussions. Arnoutf (talk) 09:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Please can I repeat again. I do not want to put any restrictions into Wikipedia. I want to enable people to restrict themselves. And the problem I see with your solution is that like the schools project it hides the restricted content rather than making it obvious they have bumped against a barrier. I'm in favor of the schools project but I'd like a much easier but less secure way for people to do the same sort of thing which wouldn't let them hide the barriers easily. Dmcq (talk) 09:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
As to the one type I meant as oppose to Wikibooks, commons wikiversity and suchlike things or all the educational stuff places like MIT are releasing. Dmcq (talk) 09:59, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
It would be essentially technically equivalent to perform content filtering based on user account preferences. However, implementing opt-in filtering directly by the WMF would be a very unpopular move - it raises slippery slope concerns. I also strongly prefer the use of browser plug-ins to the use of "sister sites", as I think fine-grained filtering based on individual preferences is essential, and I don't want users to be unable to edit, whether they are children or adults engaging in self-censorship. Dcoetzee19:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
I do not want to put any restrictions into Wikipedia. I want to enable people to restrict themselves. - But people can already restrict themselves a lot better using third-party software, so why should we bother? --Cyclopiatalk21:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Well I've suggested a wikipedia specific browser plug-in above which would act in a more fine grained manner than most filters. It would put an additional burden on Wikipedia bandwidth and processing if it was used widely compared to being internally supported but as I said I think Wikipedia use is widespread enough to support a special plug-in filter. Supporting such a thing directly would give better visibility and control, it would tick various tick boxes about child protection and NSFW sites is concerned, and it would help defend the content if Florida starts thinking table legs are porno and suchlike silliness that societies periodically pass through. Dmcq (talk) 12:05, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
I disagree, not Wikipedia's task. If a reader wants to "defend" themselves or their children against whatever they think is unacceptable they are free to install net content monitoring software on their computer.
If Wikipedia wants to facilitate such protection and we want to offer such "plug ins" then we will end up in an endless debate what falls under child protection. Who determines what should be limited; some obscure US Christian fundamentalist sect? Acceptability to all Christians (unlikely as that is - I know of at least some Christian churches that believe nudity is important part of life, and who bless same-sex marriage in their churches)? A separate setting for each of the dozens (if not more) Christian churches? Why not offer neutral content from the POV of Muslim fundamentalist? Or extreme pacifists or atheists? Or Scientologists? Or hollow earthists? By adopting a plugin for one specific group of people only Wikipedia implicitly agrees that their take on life is worth protecting more than that of others. The alternative: creating plug ins for all possible kinds of beliefs is plain impossible.
If you would just read what I proposed you would see that there is no need for agreement on Wikipedia anything like 'what constitutes nudity' as far as this is concerned. That is already done by the categories. It would be up to whoever wants this to decide what categories they are interested in. An argument about nudity as far as censorship is concerned as opposed to simply a category of article or image would be irrelevant. If somebody has some classification that doesn't fit in cleanly then it would have to figure out a category to go through the standard rationale for categories and which supported what they wanted. If somebody sets up a browser plug-in as I pointed out the exact same thing will happen. If their new category doesn't fit in with wikipedia it will be deleted by CfD, if it does it is saying something useful about what it categorizes. Dmcq (talk) 13:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
Which is back to the argument that nudity is something that needs to be singled out; which is exactly the reason why I object (per above). Either you provide such filters for each and any group of people that want "something" to be singled out (be it taboo foodstuffs, be it violence or weapons, be it nudity, be it whatever their sect thinks should be blocked) OR you place the needs of one sect over those of another throwing away any claim to neutrality Wikipedia may have. Arnoutf (talk) 16:02, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
It wouldn't be singled out. There already is a Category:Nudity because it is a reasonable categorization criterion. Whether somebody used that category or some combination of others would be up to them. There already are criteria for reasonable categories. Nothing new that way is needed. It would not be up to anyone to provide filters. Some people might set up their own filters and share them with others of a similar mindset but that's it. It's not up to you or me to decide what they want. There is no requirement to place the needs of one sect above another. I do believe that what a sect thinks is important probably will correspond with some boolean condition satisfied by the categories but if it is meaningless as far as any reasonable criterion is concerned Wikipedia will not be required to support it. What it would mean though is that some people will be more careful to categorize things properly because the categories will have more exposure. I see no problem with the categories receiving more attention and mistakes being fixed quicker though. Dmcq (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
If you want to write such a browser plugin (or pay someone to write it for you), feel free. But please do so off-wiki, as it seems obvious the community will not "officially" support such a thing. Anomie⚔16:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Dcoetzee above seems to be engaged in such type stuff and I had come to the conclusion fairly early if you will read the beginning that there was some gut reaction against it in Wikipedia and people kept misinterpreting what it was about. I felt that such a thing would be very useful in a number of ways to Wikipedias mission and was just responding to queries in case somebody could get past the misty haze of 'no censoring' to see what it was about. There obviously is some support for censorship as the foundation itself is helping implement it for schools and another person here has outlined their alternate plans for such support. Dmcq (talk) 16:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Note that the school project is OUTSIDE/BESIDES the main Wikipedia project. EVERYONE (including me) here agrees to such filters if they are OUTSIDE the main project, but not INSIDE it. Please accept from all comment above that you will not get consensus to set up filters within the main Wikipedia project. Arnoutf (talk) 18:51, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I have read your opinions. I see no need for your SHOUTING especially if you had read my previous contributiuon that you were supposedly replying to. And by the way I am one of the EVERYONE. thank you. Dmcq (talk) 19:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes I was shouting as you have not shown any serious considerations of the many points I and others made. You have basically two responses: Your own and reframing comments by others to reflect your own points. That is not helpful at all in consensus finding, and in fact does not show you have tried to see/understand the overwhelmingly worried/negative reponses of others to your proposal. (PS I should have used "everyone else") Arnoutf (talk) 19:42, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I will pose my questions to you again (and you may notice that these do not even relate to the question whether Wikipedia should do such a thing, but how we can make sure it works in a balanced way). Until I have answer on this questions (and not some evasive thing I got so far) I will assume you have no true interest in making this balanced
1) Who is going to maintain this?
2) Who is going to decide on what parameters the filters can be set, and who will guarantee a neutral point of view in that serving all possible sects equally?
3) Why is Nudity singled out? This is not the only clearly defined category (I would even say that our Military History project is very good at categorising all weapons and war articles) So sticking to this example gives at least the suggestion of a bias towards US fundamentalist Christians. Arnoutf (talk) 19:51, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
For part 2 how I envisaged it was that it would simply be someone or a groups choice for each filter. Since it would require some wiki software support it might be that there was a restriction that was needed from that or bit of talk might decide something different. If someone disagreed they could set up another one. That answers part 1, it would be whoever wanted to and whether they agreed or disagreed, if they disagreed too much they could always fork. For part 1 a bit of wiki software would be required to set it p in the first place and after that it would purely be up to people who were interested and wouldn't affect the articles. As to part 3 I was not singling out nudity. I was showing an example. There is a category nudity but filters that used it might for instance be called Filter:Prude which just used that or Filter:ReligiousNut that combined it with lots of religious ones, Filter:Peace might exclude everything categorized as military. There would be no requirement for a neutral point of view. I don't know what this fundamentalist christian business is about, I was just giving examples that people tend to worry about as far as children are concerned. I know in America people are more worried about sex than violence so filtering guns wouldn't mean much whereas in France for instance it might be the other way round (though I think they're changing a bit).
Anyway as I pointed out to you before "I had come to the conclusion fairly early if you will read the beginning that there was some gut reaction against it in Wikipedia". This is simply to explain in response to your query. I believe there is enough of a market to do it via a browser plugin and it can be done fairly easily just that it would put an additional burden on WIkipedia with the way it would go around checking images and it would not contribute so directly to improving or supporting Wikipedia in extending its reach to other groups and to provide protection for children or to defend the content against changes in the law never mind all the Fox media type troublemakers and all those fundamentalists that run around the place in America. Dmcq (talk) 20:31, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I would not object to such a plugin being developed, but I would still not see why it should be within Wikipedia, even if it were under the auspices of the Wikimedia. My suggestion would be to develop such a plugin/filter either indepdently from Wikipedia or through a sister project under the umbrella of the foundation. In either case, I think it should not be part of the main Wikipedia. But after all arguments that we have exchanged I think we can agree that we disagree on that point. Arnoutf (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I mentioned this before, but perhaps I should be more explicit: rating content within Wikipedia would require a disciplinary structure for those who mis-rate material. Right now, one of our local comedians might end up before AN/I eventually for putting pictures of sea slugs and cypress trees in Category:Nudity, or taking out pictures because they're also in Commons:Category:Women wearing necklaces... but there's no quick and certain punishment for inadvertent mis-rating, nor a strict way to arbitrate philosophical questions like whether lingerie and nakedness are mutually exclusive. Any effort to do rating here would make all the arguments, all the policy debates, and ultimately all of the disciplinary action needed to uphold the scheme into burdens for Wikipedia. We don't want this.
But I do think that Wikipedia could stand the burden of distributing particular historical versions of article on request, even to facilitate the operation of a censored site. Any one of us can call up a revision from the History for any reason we like, without explanation. We should not condemn an individual or outside site for doing the same, whatever their motivation; and it is only a courtesy for us to consider ways to trim down that content to a narrower frame rather than leaving an external site to do the processing. It is within the purview of WMF to help distribute the resources generated here. Wnt (talk) 22:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
It wouldn't be anybody's responsibility to ensure categories are accurate any more than it is now, and no categories would be specially marked as for such purposes. Wikipedia would not know that Category:Nudism was used for self censoring any more than Category:Articles to be split. Anyway you'll be glad to hear the foundation agress with you too for schools, my problem with such extracts is that they completely hide the links to censored information rather than make it obvious that they have come against a wall. I know they're entitled to do that but I'm still unhappy that we're forcing them along a line where that becomes the obvious thing to do. Dmcq (talk) 22:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
No wikipedia but amusing, well I hadn't expected that - I see someone is now selling a filter especially to filter out religious propaganda!, see GodBlock, I was expecting ones tuned towards a particular religious slant. Dmcq (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
New template needed for hidden comments, or does it exist?
Latest comment: 14 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
I looked at an article's history and saw that an IP had made a valid criticism of one sentence, but put it right there for all to see (this was reverted). Now such a comment could go in a form that can only be seen when editing. Is there a template that can tell newcomers to do that?Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·16:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) No you should not put content remarks in article space at all. There are 3 options for such cases, none of which include hidden comments.
The comment should be made on the talk page, after which a discussion starts and the change is made.
The (new) editor has to be bold and make the necessary changes to the text him/herself. After all Wikipedia is the encyclopedia everyone can edit.
In extreme cases a headnote can be added to the section alerting editors something needs to be done
BTW there is indeed code for hidden comments <!-- Everything in between will be hidden --> but that should be used extremely sparingly, and only to be used for reoccurring issues (e.g. I used it in the infobox of the Dutch articles after a dozen or so people added Frisian as an official language of the Netherlands (which it is not); or in the article on the Way of St James where about everyone in the world wanted to add the name of their own local language). However, in your case that does not seem to be the problem. Arnoutf (talk) 16:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
You can add comments within any in-line template. For example:
{{verify source|date=July 2010|The cited source does not support this statement}}
That template doesn't seem to exist, but it's fairly easy to make if anyone thinks there's a use for it. let me know. --Ludwigs217:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Let's not opt for template cruft. This is a relatively simple case. I would advice the anon editor to be bold and change it, if the editor is confident to do so (nobody will mind and the editor will actually have improved Wikipedia, instead of notifying others that it should be improved). Alternatively, if the editor is not confident in writing good enough English, the talk place is the spot to notify regulars that the sentence is not well written. Arnoutf (talk) 17:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion
Hi, not sure if I'm asking this in the right place, so I'll just be bold and come out with it!
At Hugh Paddick there is a long list of film, TV, theatre and radio listings. When I first added these back in 2007 I provided an inline citation for every individual listing however this was removed as it made the references section at the bottom too large and unwieldy (see this former version of the page). I am concerned that at some point someone is going to remove this list because it is now largely unreferenced using the preferred inline method. Is there a way of providing a reference for every entry in a list without having them lined up "a thru aq" at the bottom, and am I being paranoid that at some point a great deal of hard work researching that list is going to be removed? -- roleplayer16:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
You could try to solve this by adding a line like "Unless otherwise specified, entries in the list below are based on Times [2] or IMDB [4]" on top of each section. Arnoutf (talk) 16:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
You could also add an invisible comment referring to the history, so anyone trying to delete would see that there had been refs. Peter jackson (talk) 10:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
See WP:SCROLL. If you collapse the References section, the in-text citation links don't work. The number of backlinks are not as bad as I have seen; one article recently had 1043 backlinks on one reference. See T25455. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk22:46, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (sports) has been marked as a guideline
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
First of all, the user must have taken the photo him/herself. But checking their userpage this seems to be the case.
Secondly, there maybe exemptions to copyright. For example Dutch (German, French and Portuguese a.o.) have exceptions to copyright when it concerns recognisable portraits of people. This is call portrait right [11]. The pictured person can stop publication of such images simply requesting this. Something similar in anglosaxon law may be the reason for deletion. Arnoutf (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
She is looking straight into the camera, she obviously knew her picture was being taken. If she finds this picture unflattering or whatever she can feel free to take a better one and upload it. I don't know about the legal end of it but clearly the photographer did not take this surreptitiously, and the only law that matters for our purposes is the law in Florida where the servers are located. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
There is no concept of personality rights in US and British law, as far as I am aware, and in this case US law is what is relevant. The uploader owns the rights to the image, so there is no copyvio issues; the image is not disparaging of the subject so there is no BLP issue. I have restored the image back to the article. – ukexpat (talk) 21:17, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
The only personality rights in U.S. law would prevent unauthorized commercial exploitation of someone's image, i.e., putting her face on a candy bar wrapper. It wouldn't even necessarily stop someone from making money off of many uses of an image. Cf. Nussenzweig v. DiCorcia. And those personality rights couldn't possibly restrict the use of that photo in an article on that subject. postdlf (talk) 22:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Well it seems to ME that if this were text content, everyone would say it's irrelevant if she wanted it there or not, so long as it was keeping with the BLP policy and relevant to the article. Why should a picture be any different? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm a volunteer editor at Wikipedia. Recently, someone deleted your picture from your article with the comment "removed photo at request of artist". Another editor has replaced it.
Oops! Paul Grosso has just deleted it. I'm writing to ask if you have a photo you would like to appear in the article. Photos that appear in Wikipedia have to be released on a Creative Commons license - which means once they're on the site, anyone can reproduce them. If you'd like to supply an image, email me or
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I was the last contributor to the article before this diff. I often go back and look at pages I added to in order to see if my edit "took", but that also makes me a part of the recent changes patrol. Given the article's length, I really think it was too much and I put a note n the talk page, stating that perhaps some of the information could be used since at least some of it was sourced (there was no question about what was unsourced), but it would surely have to be formatted differently. I wasn't saying it could never be there, but it just seemed too much to me.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·17:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
You were absolutely right to remove it. I would probably have been far less charitable; the content added appears to be bordering on personal attacks, and the edit summary ("2010 update") was pretty much a lie. This problem turns up on a lot of articles about companies or people who some editors don't like, and isn't really acceptable unless it's neutrally written and fully sourced, which this lot wasn't. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:17, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Before listing a review request
Prior to make a deletion review request, please make an attempt to discuss the matter with the admin who closed the discussion. There could have been a mistake, miscommunication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation, and thus a full review may not be warranted. Such discussion also gives the admin the opportunity to clarify their reasoning behind a decision. If the matter cannot be resolved with the closing admin, or the admin does not respond, please note in the DRV listing that you did indeed first try to discuss the matter with the closing admin.
The above box is now listed at WP:DRV. I would like to know if this is the correct clarification of current policy in that we should first attempt to discuss changes with closing admins prior to listing at WP:DRV for all deletions or merely non-controversial deletions?Smallman12q (talk) 19:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I believe that this is a good-faith effort to reduce the volume of unnecessary work at DRV, not an absolute requirement. When the community creates an absolute requirement, it tends to look at lot more like the WP:ORANGEBOX at ANI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Going to DRV takes 7 days and uses up a lot of time for other editors reviewing the close, reading the deleted article and writing a response. Speaking to the closing admin is quicker and more effective in cases of simple error or misunderstanding about our inclusion standards. SpartazHumbug!06:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Editor/Administrators, a la Roman Tribunes
Latest comment: 14 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
What about a special position within the administrator corps of administrators that work on articles and adding content? This would ensure that the interests of the article-writers were protected. Thus the disconnect between the article contributors and the bureaucratic functionaries will be bridged a bit, much like the tribunes of ancient rome, who were elected from the ranks of the common people. DeepAgentBorrasco (talk) 08:11, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
As far as I know most admins are first and foremost editors like anyone else (and they usually even make sure not to use their admin powers in articles they are involved with). So I don't get what would be new in your proposal. Arnoutf (talk) 10:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago27 comments13 people in discussion
Alternative article names are described by Wikipedia's policy on Neutral point of view as being a "means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors...examples of such names are: Derry/Londonderry, Aluminium/Aluminum, and Flat Earth (Round Earth)". These type of articles usually exist where the article contributors are unable to agree on straight forward title for the topic because of, say, ethnic or political rivalry, e.g. Biel/Bienne.
There has been some debate at Wikipedia talk:Article titles regarding the scope of the term "Alternative article names" as to whether this includes article titles that are "segmented", i.e. they describe an article topic whose subject matter is allegedly a synthesis of two topics that are the subject of pre-existing standalone articles. Well sourced examples of such topics are Joseph Stalin in World War II and Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin, whose subject matter is covered directly and in detail in other articles.
Segmented titles are not infrequent in Wikipedia, and are frequently used as proper names e.g. Sex and the City. However, a segmented article title is used to describe a synthesis of two topics, this has several effects:
The scope of coverage is restricted by the article title to a narrow subset of the total coverage available to the point where undue weight is being given to one segment of the title or the other.
Undue weight in this context is not just whether the coverage of one segment is biased or not, but also in the sense that a greater volume of coverage is given to one topic that is already the subject of pre-existing article. This may occur where there is, say, a large body of sources exist about Stalin which have a common theme, but there is disagreement as to whether those sources should be presented chronologically or thematically, e.g. Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin.
The proposal is whether the scope Wikipedia's article naming guidelines should be broadened to include not only those instances where a article title is segmented because editors cannot agree on a proper name, but also to include article titles that conflict with WP:NPOV because they used to justify the existence of articles whose content gives undue weight to a particular theme or analysis of events that cannot be accommodated within existing articles about their subject matter. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)13:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
This strays from article title considerations into article topic/inclusion considerations. This blurring is unhelpful. The issue you have with Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin is not an issue of "alternative article names", but one of its whole existence. If you believe that an individual topic is improper synthesis, then it is not the title that matters, it is the scope of the article. Citing WP:MADEUP is inappropriate, that essay guideline (who knew?) is about things someone just invented themselves; please don't misquote essays guidelines like that. WP:UNDUE is a content policy for how to write articles neutrally, not an inclusion policy; again, please don't misquote policy. Of course article titles restrict the scope, articles have to have a limited scope, and POV forks are already not allowed. If it is judged by consensus that an article "combine[s] material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources", then we should edit it to comply with policy or else delete it under our existing policy, WP:SYNTH. Fences&Windows14:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I generally share many of the concerns Gavin expresses, about what I usually call "essay topics". But I also concur that it's more an issue of article content and our whole notion of encyclopedicity, than about article naming as such. Fut.Perf.☼14:34, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, but surely having a crosslinked debate somewhere is a good thing, as one could otherwise envisage proponents of a particular article name arguing their name is not about contents as such and not debatable under NPOV. I also agree naming is of concern. The blurring is not unhelpful if the issue as such spans both content and name, and hence needs to be address as a whole. The main issue then is to ensure there is one place of discussion on the matter. Casliber (talk·contribs) 14:47, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I think this is a fair point to reintroduce the proposed Wikipedia:Supporting Articles essay I wrote that has been a result of several various issues over many different pages of the last six months. It doesn't specifically address naming, but instead understanding when we use articles that may not be titles like most other articles, akin to many of Gavin's examples, but emphasizing that by necessity, there is a place for these on WP. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I concur with Calisber, and perhaps this should have been a point from the start. The proponents of such essay type articles are likey to argue that they are well sourced, and hence notable, while at the same time saying they are not content forks because their title hides POV related duplication.
This is an instance of a problematical article whose issues are stradle both article titles and content; the title restricts the content to a particular theme, while the title reflects thematically selected content that does not address the topic directly or in detail. They are the Wikipedia equivalent of a Devil’s Bridge: its a problem that has to be discussed from both sides, so to speak, in terms of article content and topic incluison, despite these being entirely seperate policy issues. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)15:42, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
The way this is written screams bad faith assumptions of editors' intentions. Some editors may be out there trying to write POV articles which we need to avoid, but I suspect most are written legitimately to include factual information that is necessary for articles but cannot fit into a larger topic. Their inclusion is agreed by consensus but otherwise no other written policy or guideline which is why some people find them problematic. --MASEM (t) 16:20, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I also think Gavin is wrong about his specific example: Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin is maybe a clumsy title, but the issue of whether Stalin was antisemitic is not one invented by Wikipedia editors and that article is not a personal essay, despite Gavin's assertions that it is. The topic is not improper synthesis of Antisemitism and Stalin, regardless of its title. There have been whole books written on the topic. If all the detail that is available on evidence and accusations that Stalin was antisemitic becomes too much for Stalin, then we absolutely should spin out an article on the topic. Here's some more sources specifically on this topic:[12][13][14][15]. If Gavin's example is a poor illustration of his point, what merit is there in his argument?
I'm not married to a "supporting article" name but I haven't been able to find a concise name for these type of articles that come up as questioning notability but yet consensus finds reasons to keep them. In most cases, they are supporting a larger topic, in the case of Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin, it could be a subtopic of one or more articles. (and no, I would not consider US "supporting" Earth because the article on US is presented as a standalone topic and is clearly notable on its own). --MASEM (t) 17:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
This is a topic that has been frequently brought up in the past, and with "segmented" article titles it also brings up the "Criticism of" articles that have similar kinds of POV essays under the guise of neutrality. Since the article is about the criticism, it is often very easy to get caught up into the actual criticism itself or even become a vehicle for the extreme critics to voice their opinion within Wikipedia. The "and" and "of" articles can be similar kinds of vehicles for expressing a strong point of view that is difficult to counter. Where this becomes a problem is when the greater topic(s) (such as Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin mentioned earlier) are already by themselves controversial and have several individuals with very strong points of view involved in the editorial process. Due to the balkanization of the editorial community when the topic is split up into sub-articles in this process, it also tends to introduce article ownership where somebody trying to restore NPOV balance is simply overwhelmed by "the opposition" who consists of primarily of the critics or those who have strong opinions on the topic. At the extreme, it turns into a protracted edit war that can go on for months or even years.
I don't know of any easy way to resolve this issue, but I do think it is noteworthy that the title of the article itself can have a POV bias even for topics that are less controversial. The only real solution, as such as it is when these issues come up, is to try and get more eyeballs on the article and bring it to the attention of a larger group (usually a Wikiproject but other groups work too). Sometimes that seems to simply add gasoline to the fire which in turn adds more problem and introduces new combatants into the fray. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:09, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
There has been a lot of discussion about titles so if there is a proposal then lets see the proposal. 'The proposal is whether the scope' is not specific enough after all this time. If the 'proposal' still can't be stated in a straightforward reasonable way then I for one Oppose. Dmcq (talk) 17:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Significant coverage here must refer to the article title since topics need significant coverage anyway. If the article topic is notable then it is reasonable to start an article about it. This is saying that there must be a name for the topic which is also notable and if not the topic can't be written about. So for instance if some books on ABC spend a chapter on XYZ we can't set up an article on "XYZ in ABC" because they don't say "XYZ in ABC". In particular we'd ban most splits of articles using summary style. Dmcq (talk) 18:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
OpposeWP:Article titles is a naming convention policy, pure and simple. It is not, nor should it be an inclusion/exclusion or content policy. Alternative titles in WP:NPOV compliments the naming convention in Article Titles. The current wording of Deciding a title is sufficient to ensure the choice of a specific article title is governed by usage in reliable sources when such a consensus decision is necessary. Don't muck around with our naming convention policy.--Mike Cline (talk) 18:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose 'Segmented titles' should be used whenever they accurately and neutrally convey the contents of the page. Whether any page should have such contents is a completely different subject (specifically, a notability debate that Gavin lost), and not one that should be addressed at WP:Article titles. WP:AT does not exist to provide backdoor opportunities to limit article notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Whatever the language to describe titles that are not 100% backed by sources, they are completely appropriate as long as a consensus of editors has agreed that the title is the best name for an article. Gavin's proposition starts with the false assumption that a segmented title (or whatever they are called) is immediately indicative of a non-encyclopedic article. It is certainly a possible symptom of a poor article or poor choice of subject matter, but by far is not universally true. Looking at just the article name and says "it's bad" is not constructive towards the building of a encyclopedia that is built by consensus and has taken certain measures to limit article size. --MASEM (t) 19:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. This proposal ignores the necessarily ad hoc nature of titling debates, and also completely flies in the face of summary style writing, due to the proposer's personal and universally rejected opinion that no subject should take more than one article to describe. --erachimatalk19:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Wikipedia aims to be more comprehensive than paper encyclopedias, such as Britannica, but we have a well-reasoned preference for avoiding really long (100+ page) articles such as those featured in Britannica's Macropædia. This organizational choice means that we need to split some very large and broad topics into separate articles covering different aspects, and the MOS's page on summary style supports that way of writing. Often, there is no absolutely obvious title for these more specialized articles, but a title which clearly indicates that the article contains information on a particular aspect is useful to the reader, as well as editors who want to expand and improve the coverage. The argument presented in support of changing current policy and practice seems to be an objection to having such articles at all, not merely the title of these articles. But if we are to attain or surpass the comprehensiveness of Macropædia, without having way-too-long articles, then these specialized articles are unavoidable, and a descriptive, or "segmented" title may be the best option we have. Such titles are of course not perfect, for example most of them are unlikely search terms, and some effort is therefore needed to ensure that there are adequate pointers to them in the main overview articles. Sjakkalle(Check!)12:01, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Support as proposer. The main reason why we don't have segmented article titles is because they are used to define essay topics, and are prohibited by WP:NOT#ESSAY. Articles titles such as Adolf Hitler in World War II, Lenin in the Russian Revolution and Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War make titles for great topics, but they also have the effect of dragging out the coverage a particular person ad nauseum. They also go well beyond the limits set by WP:UNDUE in relation to the balancing the coverage of historical events and the role of their participants, as illustrated by George W. Bush and the Iraq War. Perhaps some editors have forgotten that Wikipedia is not a complete exposition of all possible detail, and that an article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a jumping off point for multiple content forks using segment article titles as a justification. If this proposal fails, I look forward to reading articles such as "Mary Quant in Mini Skirts" and "Jimmy Choo in High-Heel Shoes". --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)21:06, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I fail to see why an article on "Mary Quant in Mini Skirts" should suddenly appear because your proposal is rejected. If it wasn't set up before your proposal I don't see the logic that means it suddenly would be okay afterwards because nothing happened to the policies or guidelines. The logic of titles like these are often used for made up topics therefore titles like these should not be used is also rather flawed. It looks to me rather like All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore all men are Socrates. Dmcq (talk) 22:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Support — a title is related to sources because a title is reflective of a scope of an article. A scope of an article must be supported in its overarching theme by sources. Points of view are pushed by the deliberate choosing of an odd scope for an article. In my use of the word, I am defining "odd" as "not supported by sources." The proposal is a good one. Material is not being prevented from inclusion in Wikipedia by only relying on strictly sourced scopes for articles. Rather the unique Wikipedia organizing principle is supported by organizing material around supported themes. That organizing principle only has articles on topics, the scope of which, already exists outside of Wikipedia. I am in agreement that titles should be scrutinized and rejected if they are not reflective of a scope of material that exists prior to the creation of a Wikipedia article with that title. Bus stop (talk) 03:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Exactly how does what you say differ from the notability requirement for articles? As far as I can see all your last statement says is that you want article titles to describe the topic. The proposal as far as I can see is that the article title must be verifiable as a title for the topic. You say also that made up article names might be chosen for POV reasons, but we already have a section in POV in article titles in WP:NPOV#Article namingDmcq (talk) 10:07, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I think article titles should be subject to the same sourcing requirements that are applicable to content. I think if no one objects to a title that doesn't conform precisely to a given delineation of a topic's scope, there should be little fuss made about it. But in the instance where controversy arises, sourcing should be scrutinized — even in regards to titles. Why should article titles be exempt from demonstrating that they indeed describe a topic that is found in sources? In the midst of controversy I don't think these concepts of special types of titles (descriptive, segmented) should carry much weight. Titles should ultimately be required to justify their existence in sources if challenged by other editors to do so. Bus stop (talk) 18:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Would you support an AfD on Derry/Londonderry name dispute based on the title and not being able to find a better sourced one? There's quite enough people around ready to remove articles like that if they could find a justification in policy. Dmcq (talk) 19:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Remember, WP's sourcing requirements for content are verifyability, not verified. That is, we should be able to provide enough resources to the reader for them to go, find given sources, and make the same obvious conclusions (eg no OR) that we came to in writing articles. If the conclusion is not obvious from some sources, we need to provide a source that makes that conclusion to avoid the OR/POV issue. The naming of an article should be fairly obvious as a result of the sources - otherwise it can be a contested name. A glance at the sources for Derry/Londonderry name dispute certainly asserts that there has been a dispute over the name of Derry/Londonderry, an obvious conclusion from such sources, even if the exact phrase "Derry/Londonderry name dispute" doesn't appear in them. So it is verifyable, and meets WP:V. --MASEM (t) 12:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Warning anon. whose IP changes constantly?
Latest comment: 14 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
Hello, on List of Warriors characters outside Clans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), an anonymous user has repeatedly changed a section about a character called "Jake". The novel series describes him as being "fat", however, the user repeatedly changes it back to "muscular". Even after leaving a hidden comment explaining to the user where to find the mention of "Jake" being "fat", the user has continued to change it to "fat", in addition to blanking the hidden comment. I am not aware of how else I can notify/discuss this with the anon. user, since my guess is that if I warned the editing IP, their IP will have changed already, and they will not see the message. Is there anything I can do in order to contact this user? Brambleclawx23:02, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I think that's kind of irrelevant to Brambleclawx's question. You can always look through the history if you want to know.
The answer to the question, as far as I'm aware, is "no, there is really nothing you can do to contact the contributor in that case". If he's interested in being contacted, he has the necessary info to contact you. If he's only interested in edit warring, it's possible you may ultimately have to ask for semi-protection on the article. --Trovatore (talk) 23:23, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Looks like it's been semi-protected. Luckily, the article won't lose out too much, since not many non-autoconfirmed users edit there anyways. Brambleclawx23:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
For a determined editor at a single article, I've occasionally left <!-- hidden text comments --> in the affected section. (Make a note to remove the text after you think s/he's seen it, of course.)
In another instance, I just chased the IPs: it was a person who edited from a new IP, but basically the same time every day, and whose patterns weren't too hard to spot. I spammed the same text to IP after IP for a while, and eventually I (apparently) managed to get a message to him/her at the right time, because the (clearly good-faith) disruption stopped. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
If you read Brambleclawx's original post, he did leave hidden comments. The IP is blanking them as well. I would simply suggest a request at WP:RPP if attempts at communication via the talk page(s) of the single purpose accounts are failing. Airplaneman ✈02:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes: My point is that sometimes they work. In other instances, we've used it as a weird sort of talk page, and in one case, the uncommunicative newbie changed the comments to say the opposite (basically like changing Template:No more links to say that lots more external links were needed). So it's not perfect, but it does get information in front of the editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
More permissive licenses?
Latest comment: 14 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
I have a number of websites at which I release all content under the Creative Commons Zero Waiver (CC0). My intuition is that this material really ought to be available for use on Wikipedia, but this page doesn't mention anything about more permissive licenses. So my questions are:
Is CC0 an acceptable license (or waiver statement, rather) for text to be used by Wikipedia?
Is CC-BY (without multilicensing under GFDL) an acceptable license for text to be used by Wikipedia?
What other licenses might qualify?
Should these be listed as alternative options on this page?
Think of it this way: anything more permissive than cc-by-sa is fine. I can't remember where I saw it, but Creative Commons has produced a chart showing which licenses can be merged with which licenses. Consider the four possible provisions (by, sa, nc, nd) of CC licenses: as long as work Y has all the provisions of work X, you can merge work X into work Y. Obviously the nc and nd works aren't allowed here, but this means that anything with no provisions other than by and sa can be put into by-sa text such as ours. Since cc-0 lacks all four terms, you can merge it into anything. It's the same as US government text or PD-old text, which is never prohibited on copyright grounds. Nyttend (talk) 00:58, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Hong Kong
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
We used to run many of our maintenance areas in project space like that. A page would be tagged, and listed on one of the project space pages associated with the problem. This didn't scale well. In some cases, such as the transwikification areas, we refactored the listings pages and switched to categories. Wikipedia:Cleanup still runs this way. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion outgrew the capacity of such a system somewhere around 2003–2004 (I'd have to check the edit history for the exact date.) and switched to a system of sub-pages. I, personally, would do to that page what I boldly did to Wikipedia:Things to be moved to Wiktionary, which was to process the list, eliminating stale entries and handling others until the size reached zero and leaving just the instructions, refactored as necessary to mention that the list to consult is the category (Category:Accuracy disputes) and that the content noticeboard exists. Uncle G (talk) 02:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
OK. I've boldly revamped it, moving the list of disputes to an archive - they all appear to be stale.
If you read the text immediately below any window, you'll see that everything is dual-licensed: Wikipedia is both GFDL and CC-by-sa. Nyttend (talk) 00:48, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia text is entirely CC-BY-SA. In addition, most but not all Wikipedia text is also GFDL. Editors are required to dual license their original contributions, but they are also permitted to import third party text that is CC-BY-SA only (and not GFDL). Any content derived from such imports would then be CC-BY-SA alone. Dragons flight (talk) 02:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
True, but OrangeDog's comments made it sound as if you weren't allowed to use anything on Wikipedia under GFDL terms anymore. Nyttend (talk) 02:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Another nitpick is that the fair-use doctrine certainly applies to WP content; a re-user who doesn't want to accept the license could instead, in jurisdictions where the doctrine applies, rely on a fair-use claim instead. The claim might or might not hold up. For example, you might want to quote a paragraph from WP in a book that you published and sold without free-licensing it. In my non-lawyer opinion you'd probably be OK. Quote a whole article, and again in my non-professional understanding, you'd be at a lot more risk. --Trovatore (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Not really correct on a technical level. Editors aren't "required" to dual license "their original contributions" except as it currently allows and only applies to current contributions, not stuff in the past. The Wikimedia Foundation pulled off a really cool hat trick on the licensing front by re-writing the GFDL to become the CC-by-SA 3.0 license and getting the Free Software Foundation to go along with the deal. Still, as it currently stands, GFDL-only content does have to be included on Wikipedia only under terms of fair use and not under the much more free license of the GFDL itself (unless you can prove it dates from before the WMF did the hat trick or during the "grace" period of the transition). In that regard this is a relevant topic, and something to be very much concerned about even though it doesn't apply to any content on the other language Wikipedia projects or any of the sister projects (or Wikia for that matter which also switched from GFDL to CC-by-SA). Concerns about treating GFDL'd content as something to worry about in terms of copyright violations are legitimate, and the GFDL isn't compatible with the CC-by-SA license or the current dual-licensing arrangement. On the other hand, somebody who is creating GFDL'd content and incorporates major sections from Wikipedia can do so legally under the current dual-licensing arrangement... other than those parts explicitly CC-by-SA alone. Hopefully those exceptions are clearly marked. I'm not really sure how "legal" including CC-by-SA-only content into a Wikipedia entry might be if the licenses technically are required to be dual-licensed. That seems a bit weird to me. It can be used in CC-by-SA content by simply selecting that license. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Indef blocking of socks of non-indef-banned editors
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Occasionally we'll see someone who's banned for a specific period of time who socks before the expiration of that ban; the sock is generally caught and indef blocked. It seems that these socks aren't unblocked, even after the expiration of the ban, and even if the formerly-banned editor isn't restricted to a single account. Why do we keep these socks blocked, if their owners are allowed to edit? I don't see why these accounts can't be useful; for example, if I'd once been banned (which I've not) but decided to behave properly after the expiration, I could quite properly use the sock when I was on public computers. Nyttend (talk) 01:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
If someone really and truly wants to use one of their blocked socks for activity described in WP:SOCK#LEGIT, they can always request an unblock. Whether the request will be granted is (of course) a separate question. Anomie⚔15:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago18 comments11 people in discussion
Wikimedia Commons has a well developed system for precluding the upload of copyrighted materials. But what about materials that are "classified"? Someone has claimed that the War Logs leaked to Wikileaks are "public domain" because they originate with the US government but that is surely debatable. The New York Times says ""We have not linked to the archives of raw material" in this case yet Wikipedia does. I suggest Wikipedia should not be directly linking to or publishing material designated confidential or classified since public knowledge needs could be served by a source with editorial control repeating the content, which Wikipedia could then link to. The general philosophy of a lot of Wiki philosophy is to follow stories, as opposed to trail blazing on its own. If there is no policy here, then the standards of Wikipedia and Wikileaks are indistinguishable and will that always be appropriate?Bdell555 (talk) 20:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
They probably shouldn't be used as WP:PRIMARY sources, but I'm not sure that we want to head in the direction of banning WP:External links that might interest some of our readers 'for their own good'. On those paternalistic grounds, we might remove all sorts of factually verifiable information. There are, for example, doubtless a few fools in the world who, if they learned that a single act of unprotected anal intercourse with an HIV+ person has a >99% chance of not transmitting HIV, would actually manage to die as a result. But I still don't see any particular need to remove that information from HIV#Transmission.
Having said that, you might consider what WP:EL says about the importance of links being "justifiable" (according to common sense as well as the guideline). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
The guideline does say that we generally try not to link to materials that are illegal. As far as I know, only the actual publishing (leaking) of the classified material is illegal. Now that the material is out there, it de-facto is no longer a state secret. The material itself is not illegal and due to it being federal works, there is also no copyright concern as far as I can see. I think the journalistic value outweighs the cautionary principle here. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
TheDJ is right. Per the Pentagon Papers case, it is indeed not illegal for a private entity located in the US (as the WMF servers are) to disseminate or republish leaked US Government material that happens to be classified; it's only illegal for the original leaker (some person who has gained access to the material by agreeing not to disseminate it) to perform the original leak. Having said that, it's perfectly true that these are primary sources, and even then we have only the word of Wikileaks that the material is accurate. Uncritical promotion of this material might not be warranted. — Gavia immer (talk)01:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Removing the EL would only inconvenience our readers, and TheDJ's arguments of legality and copyright seem to be correct. The link is not presented "uncritically", it is within the context of an article that discusses this leak using reliable sources and presenting the responses of various governments. Fences&Windows17:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
If Wikipedia followed every asinine law every country in the world has, it would be censored worse than your typical de-classified document. Being "maximally legal worldwide" is a noble objective, but also one that is logically impossible. As Wikimedia is not obligated to follow Australian law, the obvious value of the EL supercedes that nation's wishes, IMNSHO. And, as noted by Geni, Wikimedia has in the past ignored publication bans placed by Canadian courts on some of our more infamous cases as they are not enforceable outside of Canada's borders. As such, I would be obligated not to break that ban, but there is no issue if someone not limited by it does. Resolute23:41, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. Censorship is bad, m'kay? We should comply with censorship laws to the minimum extent we can get away with, not the maximum we can imagine. --Trovatore (talk) 00:24, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I'd say that's a non-neutral value judgment. Wikipedia should not be crusading for an agenda. The New York Times can act reflectively and decline to link but Wikipedia just barrels ahead? Wikipedia could be a lot more challenging on copyright than it is so why so aggressive on this particular issue? It strikes me as partiality to the Wikileaks project vis-à-vis the indicated wishes of democratic governments.Bdell555 (talk) 02:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
That's exactly what I don't mean. The Australian government's position here is morally reprehensible. Our moral imperative is to oppose it. --Trovatore (talk) 02:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I have to disagree with you. We (as an organization) don't have any moral imperative to resist censorship. We only have a moral imperative to produce the best encyclopedia that can be produced. So far as attempted censorship gets in the way of that goal, we should resist censorship. Where it does not, we as an organization should not. It does work out to the same thing in this particular case, but we should choose being the best possible encyclopedia over being the encyclopedia that resists censorship the most. — Gavia immer (talk)02:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I basically agree with that. I'm not suggesting we should gratuitously go looking for fights, just to tweak governments. But when there's a good reason to do it, the fact that at the same time we get to tweak a government is if anything a bonus, not a detriment. --Trovatore (talk) 02:37, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Er, I was agreeing with Resolute's comment. Note the threading. Although I agree with your comments, just instead from the approach of "we're not here to enforce Australia's laws/morality". --Cybercobra(talk)03:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Australia prohibits nude photos of small-breasted women in their late twenties as "child pornography",[16] has prohibited access to anti-abortion sites (see Internet censorship in Australia), and enforces prior restraint of various films and video games under an official Refused Classification scheme (taking up to five years to decide whether to allow them). It is obvious that a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit is utterly inconsistent with a country that believes in prior restraint and extensive censorship of communications.
I think we would substantially benefit by templating every last page of Wikipedia to contain some URL banned in Australia, because if their national censorware prevents any Australian from opening the page, it would be damned hard for libel tourists to attack Wikipedia from that direction.
Whether media sources link directly to Wikileaks' page or not, the mere word "Wikileaks" leads anyone doing a Google search, or who can find the site URL here or elsewhere, directly to those documents. Since newspapers routinely fail to provide useful links let alone inline references to anything (e.g. primary scientific papers for breaking medical news) I don't think their actions can possibly guide us. Wnt (talk) 13:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
RFC: victim list on an aircrash article
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
(In this recent example, Ferdinand Gomis was the article title.) Why do pages get created like this? Is the wizard not working? User error? Something else? Note: I don't much about the wizard.— Timneu22 ·talk15:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The latest draft of the proposed update to the Arbitration policy is here with discussion of the draft here. All editors are cordially invited to participate. Roger Daviestalk03:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Lack of big-media reference on security matters
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I made some points regarding media, references-to, secrecy and security in Talk:7_July_2005_London_bombings. The gist of it is that BBC is regarded as reliable media, but this cannot be so when (state) security is the subject at hand. The point is, that BBC/big-media silence or downplaying of security issues is taken too literally here and that contrary opinions -- even those that make sense and are pure fact -- are maligned as conspiracy theories dismissed wholesale without a whimper. Conspiracy Theories are a) not a heresy per se and b) need to be equally treated as any other topic otherwise a NPOV (the highest wikipedia moral) is violated. An adjustment of NPOV is necessary because currently the word conspiracy theory alone is often used to dismiss a subject without discussion and subsequently moderators still have negative attitudes (violating NPOV). The perfect example happened to me 4 days ago at Peter_Power_(crisis_management_specialist) when I just wanted to insert a one-line (pure fact) that the moderator first dismissed as a conspiracy theory (without even perfunctory grounds), then deemed it not notable, and now has taken over the wording himself, omitting the crux of the matter and the essential references (to youtube recordings, the only source, but indirectly corroborated by BBC article and Peter Power's own statements.) 85.197.19.228 (talk) 16:44, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
A small commentary. There is no moderator, but I think he is talking about my changes or possibly about the admin who gave him a final warning for vandalism. I put in a summary of the one reliable source (not multiple transcripts per this editors request) in part as a compromise. I was tempted simply to revert to the stable state. The editor started to make general statements about how wikipedia should take conspiracy ideas not referenced in the main media. I advised him that such a discussion could not take place on the talk page of an article, that if he really wanted to raise he then he could start here, that I did not expect him to get very far. Hope that helps --SnowdedTALK16:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I request arbitration for moderator Snowed is still displaying bias against a factual sentence. Please see Talk:7_July_2005_London_bombings .. ta. Furthermore I would like to ask for commentary on my points above. 85.197.19.228 (talk) 15:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
This is not the place to discuss content disputes. Go to the article talk page, or ask for mediation. If you have general arguments about policy, you're welcome to discuss them in another section. --Cyclopiatalk15:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Latest comment: 14 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
Like it or not, there are many, many people using Wikipedia as their primary, or even sole source for medical information. In this light of this Signpost article, which documents a study that casts a somewhat negative light on our coverage of medical topics, calling the article on osteosarcoma "good but inferior to the patient information provided by the NCI [ National Cancer Institute ]." However, that same study does note that our ease of use is superior. (interestingly, an earlier study says the opposite, but considering the dynamic quality of Wikipedia, the latest could be assumed most accurate.) Clearly, if individuals are going to be using Wikipedia as a personal health reference (though we have a disclaimer for just this) our medical articles need to be up to par. Therefore, I would make the following recommendations, which are essentially a variation on the successful BLP policies:
Wikipedia's sourcing policy, Verifiability, says that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation; material not complying with this may be removed. This policy would extend that principle, adding that contentious material about medical topics that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion. Unproven claims may be included in medical articles, but they must be written as such, informing the reader of their unproven status.
Avoid repeating gossip/medical myths. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to a disinterested article about the topic. Be wary of sources that use weasel words and that attribute material to anonymous sources.
When citing academic studies, ensure that the journal is peer reviewed (i.e. The New E#ngland Journal of Medicine, JAMA, JBMAThe Lancet etc. Also, ensure that the authors are reputable. All primary sources should be peer reviewed, though news articles/stories are generally acceptable, they should be verifiable by at least one peer reviewed study.
Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, magazines, websites, blogs, or tweets—as sources of material about medical topics, unless written or published by the subject (see below). "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs.
Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if—
External links about medical topics, whether in medical articles or elsewhere, should be held to a higher standard than for other topics. Questionable or self-published sources should not be included in the "Further reading" or "External links" sections of medical articles, and when including such links in other articles make sure the material linked to does not violate this policy.
Essentially, this is a strengthening of the verifiability requirement of WP:MEDMOS.
Yes, that is a guideline which users can ignore at their convenience, a policy is needed to enforce the common sense principles that are often ignored. Ronk01talk, 23:52, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
In reality, I would like the entire encyclopedia to follow guidelines similar to this, medicine articles are often used as the primary or sole medical resource of many individuals(even though we don't technically dispense medical advice), which means that we need to hold these articles to a higher standard. Ronk01talk, 01:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
This looks like A7, {{db-band}}. Am I missing something? No importance is asserted, no sources given, no third-party coverage. I use A7 on bands with this type of MySpace/YouTube/Fb links all the time, it is always honored. — Timneu22 ·talk09:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
The single received very favorable reviews in the music press and gained airplay on various radio stations including BBC Radio 1 indicates significance. decltype (talk) 10:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm no expert on bands, albums and so forth and tend to leave them to others at CSD, but they aren't Biographies so the existing BLP-Prod doesn't apply. However this is a page to discuss policy changes and I think it might be useful to create a Band-prod - similar to the sticky prod in that new unreferenced band articles would have to get a reliable source to avoid deletion. However I think we should first change the article creation process to prompt people for a source. If article creation had a source box that had to have something in it for any article other than a dab page or redirect then many of our new page patrol problems would go away. ϢereSpielChequers14:06, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Bantu) has been marked as a guideline
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I wouldn't worry that much about OR if it can be shown that the code solves the problem as advertized. But I seriously doubt the encyclopedic value of source code in articles in general. In fact, the whole article may have significant WP:NOTHOWTO issues. --Latebird (talk) 08:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
The mathematics and the computer science manual of style both say that at most a single clear example should be given and pseudocode is often preferable as it can be clearer. In practice they aren't all that welcome in maths articles except where there is an obvious computer science use. Multiple examples should only be used where relevant to the topic, e.g. a comparison of constructs. Plus I think really we shouldn't be displaying peoples own code unless it has been in some free code example elsewhere which can then be cited. Dmcq (talk) 13:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Displaying code in these things is not really appropriate for Wikipedia; Wikibooks, maybe. Pseudocode should be provided at most. --Golbez (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Source code at related articles (languages, common situations or elements, common problems, etc) is almost unavoidable. The point would be to avoid the focus "to make a action be repeated X number of times do this and this..." (which is a "how to") but use instead a descriptive focus, like "a FOR cycle allow for an action to be repeated a defined number of times, having this and that as parameters...". To explain how does source code works without providing examples of it would only be understable by those who already know such technical things. MBelgrano (talk) 14:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I also doubt there's any need to bring the original research policy in this. Source code and how it works is common knowledge (very technical, but still common, meaning that it's something public and doesn't require personal interpretation). Consider instead a human language instead: what if I made up a sentence like "The cat is under the chair" and point the subject, the action and the other elements of the structure of the sentence? Would there be any original research in it? MBelgrano (talk) 14:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Probably most (or all) of those solutions in this article are by the editor. None are referenced. And there is no point to comparing languages in this article. Bubba73(You talkin' to me?), 16:44, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
If being able to solve the problem were a problem frequently encountered when programming in a given field (and not just as a challenge or an assignment in a university course), there might be some merit to having a list of good solutions available online, but Wikipedia is in my opinion not the place. As far as I can see, this is a case of WP:NOTHOWTO, and maybe also WP:NOTTEXTBOOK. At most, a mathematical or pseudocode description of the algorithm(s) used would be suitable, and then probably only as a part of the main article on the problem. Since there is already a description of an algorithm in that article, I don't see that much of this article belongs on Wikipedia at all.Dontnod (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree. There is the main article about the problem, but I don't see that an article where editors post their own code in various languages is encyclopedic. Bubba73(You talkin' to me?), 20:59, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I think articles should be free to use code that is under a free license, or "fair use" sized snippets of code from commercial source code, provided it is reliably sourced. But including code written up by a random editor is another story: everyone knows how easy it is for code to appear perfectly valid but to contain some subtle flaw. Now to be sure we should always consider IAR type arguments when including a bit of homemade code clearly makes a more informative article. I doubt that is the case in this one though. Wnt (talk) 04:41, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Community bans
Latest comment: 14 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion
Before the "community ban" became a popular thing, I know of some users that were indefinitely blocked, and thus defacto "banned" because no administrator was willing to unblock them. This was at least a year ago. Is there any value in converting these indefinite blocks into bans? --Rschen775405:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:BAN used to say this explicitly; Jehochman removed it in February in the belief that it was redundant. I think there might be good reasons to restore it. (For example, as an explicit way of addressing sockmasters who claim "But I'm not really banned, because my original account was only blocked by a single admin.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
The relevent pages used to state explicitly that indeffed users that no reasonable admin would ever unblock were de facto banned. Unfortunately, this langauged has been obfuscated to make it seem as though a formal "ban" can only be enacted via formal discussion at WP:AN or similar places. It's ultimately moot; whatever you call it when someone cant edit Wikipedia anymore. You can give it any name you want. --Jayron3207:01, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
One of these actually happens to be a user who you've declined an unblock for in the past, though I'll decline to say who. Thanks! --Rschen775407:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
The distinction is a bit of wikilawyering that some de facto banned/indef-blocked editors attempt to exploit. I've personally heard the argument several times from one persistent sock. It may be more common among people indef'd back in the day, before AN bans were the usual style. Ultimately, it amounts to "Back in 2005, you didn't ban me according to the 2009 procedure, so I'm not really banned any longer..." -- which is an annoying waste of our time, on par with "My name isn't enshrined at WP:LOBU, so I'm not really banned...". IMO it could be reduced by the restoration of a suitably direct statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I was reverted on the banning policy and the admin said that an indefinite block is not a ban. However, there certainly must have some users who have only an indefinite block but were banned without going through the proper banning procedures. Wikipedia have applied ignore all rules policy on such users that did not go through the proper banning procedures if I am correct in my assumption. I think the banning policy has always been like this since the early years of Wikipedia but it just wasn't clarified then. Today they make the banning policy clearer which is good. Inexperienced users sometimes don't understand how banning policies work and to make it really clear, I think that's good. I get the feeling of why they make the distinction of a block and a ban in the banning policy is probably because there were admins that refer all indefinitely blocked users as banned. I don't think we should give petty sockpuppeteers or vandals more recognition and that seems pretty logical. We would have petty arguments on who should be on the banned list and that certainly would be a waste of everyone's time! Assyle (talk) 18:23, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Trademark
Latest comment: 14 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
Wikipedia is certainly under no obligation to indicate the trademark status of a company's products, and it is poor editorial style. bd2412T16:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
We do not use ™ or ® in articles. See WP:TRADEMARK, specifically: "Do not use the ™ and ® symbols, or similar, in either article text or citations, unless unavoidably necessary for context (for instance, to distinguish between generic and brand names for drugs)." -- Quiddity (talk) 20:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I haven't looked at this particular situation, but if it is used in quotes, then we should keep it there as well. Quotes should not be altered to match our guidelines (e.g. American spelling in a quote is kept even in an article that uses British spelling: AD and BC are kept in quotes inside articles that CE and BCE for dates). Fram (talk) 08:00, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I believe an editor has a conflict of interest
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I posted on the conflict of interest noticeboard, but I'd like to send someone the evidence. Somehow I don't think it's proper to put that where everyone can see.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·21:08, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Having looked at the COIN item, I don't think that the evidence needs to be reviewed by anyone. You might want to let the other editor know about your complaint at COIN, so that s/he can respond.
Editors are permitted to delete messages from their user talk pages. The deletion is taken as proof that the editor has read it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
When reusing, you may select the license of your choosing. But when combining works, you have to make sure the licenses are compatible. Since your second image uses a CC-BY-SA license only, you have to choose the compatible license from the first image as well. Since both images are CC-BY-SA, the derivative work will be licensed as CC-BY-SA. Reach Out to the Truth03:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah right, CC-BY. Sorry. Reading those Creative Commons license codes can be tricky. But derivatives of CC-BY works may be licensed as CC-BY-SA, as CC-BY is not a copyleft license. So there is not a problem in this case. Reach Out to the Truth21:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Nation specific MOS requirements
Latest comment: 14 years ago74 comments17 people in discussion
Can someone explain to me why Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles) should trump what a source calls a town, especially in an article that is not directly related to Ireland itself. If the source calls a town by a name that is not the name commonly used by the political correct in Wikipedia today, but was the correct name back in the time period the source was written or the source is writing about then in my opinion the source should have precedence in a non-Ireland related article. Specifically I am referring to McKownville, New York, a suburban hamlet in upstate NY outside Albany, its founder is from what the source calls Londonderry, but the Wikipedia article is Derry (which also violates normal MOS conventions regarding what cities can have just the city name, but I guess Ireland/N. Ireland gets to be an exception due to international dispute). I would like to be loyal to the source since Wikipedia can only state what the source itself says, otherwise a slippery slope towards OR and SYNTH.Camelbinky (talk) 13:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry Arnoutf, but I think your answer has little to do with the original poster's question. He's not questioning the use of the term "hamlet", nor even the naming of that particular hamlet the article is about, but a totally unrelated naming issue that just happened to come up in that article. Fut.Perf.☼13:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I thought it was about the first line where it is called hamlet within a town (which did strike me as odd), and I did not continued reading the question in detail. Never mind my remark. Arnoutf (talk) 13:54, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
(ec) You seem to be making the common mistake of mixing up the sourcing of facts with the sourcing of names. We use individual sources (such as the one saying where a certain person came from) in order to back up an individual factual claim. This has nothing to do with our editorial decision in what terms we re-state that factual claim, when we speak about it in our own, Wikipedia's, editorial voice. That decision has to be made on the basis of Wikipedia's general naming policies, and on the basis of observing general practice across the English speech community. "X came from Londonderry" and "X came from Derry" are synonymous sentences; they have the same truth value, and exchanging the one for the other is no more "OR" or "SYNTH" than translating a text from one language to the other. It's our editorial decision, and it cannot be dictated by the coincidence of what naming convention was used in whatever source it was that happened to be used for a given factbite in a given article. (Besides, what would you do if you had two alternative sources, both supporting the same factual claim but using different naming?) Fut.Perf.☼13:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I see your point and it is very convincing and makes logical sense, but I still have some questions- if at the time that the founder of McKownville came to the USA from Londonderry/Derry the community actually called itself Londonderry (officially) then shouldnt we too call it Londonderry when referring to it in non-Irish related articles? I have no problem with the Irish MOS when it comes to Irish related articles, but this article has NOTHING to do with Ireland. For example- The city of New York was called New Amsterdam prior to the English takeover, if in an article about a person or another place NYC prior to the take over (1664 I believe) then the name New Amsterdam is the correct name and NYC would be anachronistic; how is this case different other than both the Ireland and British/N. Ireland lobby is quite vocal due to a serious real-world dispute regarding boundaries in which Wikipedia strives to be as neutral and politically correct as possible. Real-world political disputes shouldnt cause undue bureaucracy regarding how we write articles that have nothing to do with Ireland.Camelbinky (talk) 13:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
The historical argument, about preferring names current at a given historical period, certainly makes more sense than that of sticking to the accidental preferences of a given source. But the current naming convention is clearly intended to cover such cases too, and as it no doubt has been the result of much discussion, it's probably unwise to call it into question here. In any case, the historical argument hardly seems strong enough to force a divergent naming preference in this case, because "Derry" doubtless was an existing and common name even back at the time (so "he was from Derry" is in no way factually wrong). In any case, independently of the specific Wikipedia convention, the crucial criterion for deciding (in an ideal wiki world where everybody just followed WP:UE) would not be what the official English name of the place was back at the time, but what the majority of reliable sources use today when speaking of the place back in that historical context. But that would probably be all but impossible to find a clear solution for. Fut.Perf.☼14:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Same solution as Gdansk/Danzig. What a place was called at the time is what matters. If this Northern Irish town was called Londonderry at the time and was referred to as such by the founder of McKownville, then we should write Londonderry, possibly bracketing "now known as Derry" as we would do with any other place that has had its name change over time. Fences&Windows17:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree the name should be Londonderry in the reference in this context, though even then most people actually referred to it as Derry so the (now known as Derry) has a point. Are you sure they came from the city rather than the county which is still officially Londonderry? Actually I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage in the area calling the city Londonderry has gone up since it became a point of contention! Dmcq (talk) 18:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
To Fences- I would say it is not odd to have only one source stating this considering the size of McKownville and considering that there isnt much that would be published on this hamlet given it is only recently that this hamlet has become notable enough to merit anything written about it, most development has occurred since 1950 and it has been home to the third largest enclosed mall in the state of NY since 1994 (Crossgates Mall). So, basically we still dont have a consensus on what should be done...Camelbinky (talk) 05:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Derry and Londonderry are the same place, it is not OR or SYNTH to use the accepted alternate name. If you start the slippery slope of using the name used by the source, there are two problems. Firstly we lose consistency across articles, which is the opposite what the manual of style is there for in the first place. Secondly using the name in a source would just encourage edit warring using duelling source, someone would change the name and use a source saying "Londonderry", then someone would change it back and use a source saying "Derry". O Fenian (talk) 10:25, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I've changed the link to go to the county, therefore actually the correct name IS Londonderry. This discussion is now purely academic and Dmcq and Fences have given perfectly valid responses regarding the IMOS guidelines. It is a guideline, not a law, IAR and common sense apply and a consensus on a guideline is not an absolute that all must apply across all of Wikipedia for all time. The Derry/Londonderry dispute regards consistency across Irish related articles, this is not an Irish related article in any way. The common sense rule of thumb to go by what the place in mention was called at the historical time being referred to trumps a guideline that was set up primarily to end edit warring on the title of the article of the Derry/Londonderry city article and secondarily main Irish/N. Ireland articles that would link to it, it was not intended to ripple through to such a periphery article such as this.
Fences gave a prime example with Danzing/Gdansk in Poland (and at one time Germany, and as a Free State). If every nation got a MOS and treated it fundamentalist style like this then whenever I refer to Strasbourg, France in any time period I would have to say its in France even if it was in Germany at the time. St. Petersburg would be that name whether it was really Petrograd or Leningrad at the time period. It isnt McKownville that we are giving special treatment to, it is you that is giving special treatment to Irish naming conventions. POLICY is to use English naming conventions by the way, English meaning the national version of English predominant in the article's topic- in this case American English, it is not policy to use Irish naming convention anywhere. Using the guideline in this manner on McKownville violates policy.Camelbinky (talk) 13:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Whilst i agree with Camelbinky there is little point i argueing as the anti-Londonderry brigade that has appeared here will pursue preventing the usage of Londonderry for the city. If you want to get Londonderry mentioned your better going for the county.
On the name - the city has been officially and legally called Londonderry since 1613. Before it was built there was once a settlement called Derry however it was situated across the other side of the river Foyle and was destroyed by the Irish hence the need for the new city to be built. This Derry and the city of Londonderry are NOT one and the same, they are two different settlements that just happen to exist now on the same site (due to Londonderry expanding across both sides of the Foyle). Mabuska(talk)16:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Lol if only it was that simple this issue would never have had to have been brought up. You'd need to get the consent of nationalist editors to say its acceptable for the city before you could use it. I find it funny though that Irish nationalists are a minority (albiet a large one) in terms of population in Northern Ireland and the UK but we have to go against legal and official UK names on Wikipedia to cater their POV. Mabuska(talk)15:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
I think that some effort to recognize historical names makes sense. We'd hardly want to say that "In the fifth century, the Roman capitol was located at Istanbul, and named in honor of Constantine the Great"; it makes far more sense to say that the city was named Constantinople during the fifth century. Additionally, if the sources are using the then-accurate names, and we follow the sources, it makes it easier for future editors to verify that the facts in the article match the facts presented by the sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Todd, since more and more people, including a well-respected authority on Wikipedia policy User:Kotniski, have joined this discussion I would say it isnt lame. Your continued attempts to stifle discussion, and this unnecessary snide comment shows you have no intention of contributing to this discussion other than to be a disruption. Please just dont follow the discussion if it bothers you so much and let those of us (on both sides) who find this important to improving Wikipedia discuss this issue in peace; and for the record I do believe those who disagree with me passionately do believe they are working in the best interest of Wikipedia, I just think they are wrong, and there is nothing wrong with that. Acknowledging there are two sides to a debate doesnt make someone a "battleground"er, debate and various positions and discussions like this lead to a better Wikipedia. Being on the losing side is not a bad thing, it can lead to good compromises and a minority idea that may be useful in certain special cases in the future.Camelbinky (talk) 20:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
I think Toddst1 is wrong about this: the MOS agreement for this is implicitly about the current name, not historical names. If we ignore historical names, we'll get anachronisms like calling Leningrad under the Soviets "Saint Petersburg". How we deal with historical names is straightforward with other places - we use what they were called at the time - so why should Derry/Londonderry get special treatment? Fences&Windows17:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
WP:PLACE says 'Use of one name for a town in 2000 does not determine what name we should give the same town in 1900 or in 1400, nor the other way around'. I believe this give the go ahead to use Londonderry especially since the sources use that name. Dmcq (talk) 19:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
If you want to change the guideline, you do it at the guideline's talk page. Until it is changed, we refer to the city as Derry. O Fenian (talk) 19:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Guidelines are applied much more flexibly than that (as I believe you will find written in the banner at the top of the guideline page itself). If there's a good reason to deviate from what the guideline says, then no problem, we do so. Particularly when another guideline implies the reverse (as Dmcq has noted).--Kotniski (talk) 20:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I see nothing in the Ireland Manual of Style overriding the general handling of historical names. Have you really considered the implications of such an extension to historical articles about Ireland? I don't think many people would agree with you! In this context the city should be referred to as something like Londonderry (now Derry). Dmcq (talk) 20:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Not the last part (it hasn't stopped being Londonderry and started being Derry). But I do think this guideline needs more sophistication than it currently seems to have - more like the Gdańsk/Danzig guidance, where the name you choose depends on the historical context - and indeed who you're writing about. For example, I would expect that, broadly speaking, if you were talking about a Unionist or Unionists then you would want to say Londonderry and County Londonderry, but if you were talking about a Republican or Republicans you'd want to say Derry and County Derry. Has that sort of thing never been suggested?--Kotniski (talk) 20:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
So you propose lumping people from Derry into Unionist or Republican and then decide when to use Derry or LDerry. That will never work. Mo ainm~Talk21:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Works all right with Gdańsk. (Obviously not everyone falls into one of the two categories, and not every article concerns just people from one of the two categories; in that case the general rule - the present rule - would apply.)--Kotniski (talk) 21:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Obviously the editors who wrote the Ireland related manual of style know nothing about Ireland, any historical implications. Perhaps as you seem so informed, you could tell me exactly when the name of the city was changed from Londonderry to Derry? Your entire suggestion would appear to hinge on you knowing the answer to that question. O Fenian (talk) 20:51, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I would put the de facto change to 1984 when the council changed its name. I really can't see the British government trying to override them. And whoever controls something determines it as far as I'm concerned. However I can see the problem though so perhaps (see Derry) might be better. Dmcq (talk) 21:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth, perpetual nationalist disputes over placenames may be tiresome, but they aren't lame; in the sense that the world outside of Wikipedia very much does take them seriously. What they are is reflections. You want a lame dispute? Try the year-and-a-bit-long edit war at Gregory Watson between Gregory Watson (talk·contribs) and … well … everyone else over whether a direct comparison should be made by Wikipedia between the United States Constitution and M. Watson's school grades (example edit). Uncle G (talk) 01:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think any dispute is lame because of what it concerns (it's worth trying to get every detail right, including the apparently trivial ones), but they become tiresome when people don't work them towards a conclusion, or when individuals ignore the conclusion reached by the majority and keep on fighting.--Kotniski (talk) 07:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Londonderry isn't a historical name, Derry is. Only one has official and legal status in the country that the city belongs to and that is the name Londonderry. Derry is unofficial. The name change from Londonderry City Council to Derry City Council isn't a legal or official change of the citys name in any respects, only the name used by the council. In a recent judicial statement it doesn't have any official status in regards to what the city is actually called.
Londonderry is relevant from 1613 onwards, whilst Derry is only relevant in terms of the actual settlement prior to 1613. But oh wait thats right, ancient Derry prior to 1613 and the city of Londonderry built in 1613 were both initially different settlements on different sides of the Foyle. Mabuska(talk)12:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Because Londonderry is still the official name does not mean it is not also the historic name at some time in the past. Dmcq (talk) 13:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for another history lesson Mabuska, but tell me do you honestly think that if we scrap the IMOS on this naming issue that it is good for the encyclopedia? It will create tons of edit wars from drive by editors adding their preferred name as it stands now this stops that. Mo ainm~Talk13:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I'll quote 'Use of one name for a town in 2000 does not determine what name we should give the same town in 1900 or in 1400'. That is irrespective of whether it is the same name or different or what has happened to it in the meanwhile. Dmcq (talk) 13:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I will repeat this discussion is in the wrong place. The guideline is to use Derry for the name of the city generally without exception. Should editors wish to change that to only use Derry for 1984 onwards, then consensus on the guideline talk page would be needed. O Fenian (talk) 15:26, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I just had a look at the archives of IMoS and the question has been raised before. There was no firm consensus but it looks like people agreed they should just use Londonderry in historical articles if citing a document that refers to Londonderry. You can always start up a new discussion but for the moment referring to Londonderry and just linking to Derry looks fine. Dmcq (talk) 15:52, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
That discussion has nothing to do with the current guideline, I suggest looking at the history to see how it was worded at a time. O Fenian (talk) 23:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
The lead to IMOS states quite clearly this is for Ireland-related articles. McKownville, New York is not an Ireland-related article and does not fall under IMOS at all for any reason. Plus there is IAR and the fact that local consensus on an issue in any particular article trumps general consensus on a guideline. Perhaps what is required at this point is for an RfC to be set up where the Community-at-large should decide the scope and extent of IMOS and perhaps if it even still deserves to be a guideline. IMOS apparently was constructed by compromise between Republican and Unionist editors who had a great interest in Irish/Northern Ireland politics and some had agendas. We open this up to ALL of Wikipedia and perhaps the majority will see IMOS as unneeded nationalism that gets completely rewritten and/or demoted.Camelbinky (talk) 23:23, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I believe you are the one shouting to everyone that if they want Londonderry then they should go and change the IMOS! I'm doing as you suggested. What you are upset about is that we all refuse to play on your home turf at the talk page of IMOS where COI editors who spend all their time there will possibly outnumber and badger us into leaving. Sucks when you cant play in a playground where all your friends have your back, you decided to leave the small pond of Irish-related articles to bring this IMOS decision to Wikipedia-at-large, well you fell into the small pond where I play and now we're in the big ocean and the big fish have told you repeatedly you are wrong. Your last resort apparently is to tarnish my reputation with repeated accusations that you didnt even come up with yourself. Yes, call me names and repeat false accusations about me here and at the article talk page... yes, that's a good tactic.Camelbinky (talk) 00:01, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Even in the context of Ireland related articles it doesn't determine historical cases. The discussion in the IMoS archive was after the decision on the Derry talk page referenced in the IMoS. If required a decision can be made here with a larger consensus but I really don't see it as necessary. The reading by O Fenian is simply wrong and not the generally agreed one even for Ireland related articles. Dmcq (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Funny how those who attempt to stiffle the issue keep returning to statements such as "no concensus for change" and "lets go on a break" in the hope people don't return to the topic and let it fizzle out once again. The calls to take it to the Ireland MOS also seems like an attempt to keep the issue primarily with Ireland editors and keep outsider opinions out especially as most may disagree with the system in place.
Seeing as many things here don't seem to need a unilateral concensus but an overall concensus it doesn't matter if a few irredentists object if a vast majority agree. There is only one official use of Derry in the British Isles and thats in the neighbouring foreign state, the Republic of Ireland. Should we call all places in Northern Ireland primarily what a minor foreign state does just because its nationalist supporters demand so? Mabuska(talk)15:24, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The ANI recommendation was from the closing admin who has nothing to do with Irish pages Mabuska. WP:COMMONNAME legitimizes the use of Derry even before we take into account that its elected council has chosen to use that name. The actual standard, Derry for the City & Londonderry for the county has been stable for some time and avoids conflict. Phrases like "minor foreign state" are unnecessarily provocative, especially when Derry is used by a substantial proportion of the people of Northern Ireland. --SnowdedTALK15:33, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
I see Dmcq is now resorting to outright fabrications. At the time of the discussion he falsely alleges means there is consensus for historical names, the manual of style looked like this, the text saying "Use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county for article titles", with no mention of in-article use. The manual of style currently reads "Use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county in articles". A four year old discussion from when the guideline had an entirely different wording is of no relevance to the current wording of the guideline, or its current implementation. I would really, really enjoy an explanation as to how my stance of "we use Derry for the city" is possibly wrong when the guideline says "Use Derry for the city . . . in articles", it would require a basic failing of understanding English to argue that. O Fenian (talk) 17:29, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
The notice at the top of the guideline that says "it will have occasional exceptions" is also written in clear English. Anyway, I see no evidence that this rule ever had consensus; as far as I can see it was introduced by this edit without any discussion, and although we can assume (since it has stood since then) that it has the agreement of those with a particular interest in Ireland-related articles, it can hardly be claimed to have been accepted by the community as a whole for all articles (not particularly Ireland-related) where these places might happen to be mentioned. --Kotniski (talk) 18:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I just trawled the archives that supposedly establish this consensus (which are at Talk:Derry/Archive 1), and I'd say "weak and disputed" pretty much characterizes it. Applying a decision made by a handful of editors at Derry to three million articles in Wikipedia would be a serious stretch, and this claim that consensus can't change (that a decision made at Derry is permanently binding on editors at another article, no matter what is best for the other article) is silly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Great input WhatamIdoing, can you go and change the MOS to say that it's silly and doesn't apply to 3m articles. When you are at it maybe you could list the articles where it does apply. Bjmullan (talk) 20:42, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I would completely agree and support if What did explicitly change the IMOS to say that, but What does not need to do that because IAR already says it for him plus WP:policies and guidelines. I'm sorry Bj but you are putting IMOS in a vacuum and saying it alone decides the manner in which we edit. It does not. Nor is it infalliable. What, Kotniski, Dmcq, myself we all have argued and fought (in fact on separate sides at one point) to define exactly the role that guidelines and policies should have over each other and over editors in disputes exactly like this. Many uninvolved editors whom I have never heard of have even come here and to the article to tell you that you are wrong about the IMOS being preeminent over everything and everyone else. It really is looking like an RfC on the status and scope of the IMOS is the next step, since you have decided that we must change the IMOS in order to do anything please dont complain that we are now going to change the IMOS. It just wont be on your turf, the decision to have IMOS as a guideline is decided by the community, not by those interested in Irish turf wars, and given what What discovered and the WP:snowball going on in this discussion that there isnt a snowball's chance in hell that IMOS will remain a guideline with its current scope intact. You can always drop this and walk away and keep the IMOS intact for Irish-related articlesm, instead of gambling it on a community-wide decision, however.Camelbinky (talk) 21:29, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Concur with the above concensus that there is no such binding agreement in relation to the use of the name. In any event canvassing by users to attract artificial support on this issue is contrary to WP policy. --87.115.163.55 (talk) 01:50, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Let me address this 'I see Dmcq is now resorting to outright fabrications' by O Fenian. First of all may I draw your attention to WP:CIVIL. Next yes the wording was changed to remove the word titles, but that was to the the understood meaning anyway and had been used that way since the section was put in. There is no point in having a manual of style which simply confirms a decision already made by consensus in a couple of articles about the titles of those articles themselves. Fixing the wording in a guideline is not some major event which scrubs all previous decisions. Dmcq (talk) 17:09, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Let me say first that don't care whether the town calls itself Derry or Londonderry, what its inhabitants call it, or what the titles of the Wikipedia articles on the town, the district or the county are. I don't wish to express any opinion on the naming of the town when it comes to articles about the town or related matters, or articles that indisputably come under the purview of the IMoS, I am also of the opinion that:
1. Historical references to the town during periods when the official name was Londonderry (and dissenters had no say) is preferable, both for historical accuracy and easy checking of sources. I am in favour of adding (now Derry) or something similar for the first such use in each article;
2. The article under discussion does not come under the purview of the IMoS.
This is becoming a long and at times heated discussion, in effect an extension of the interminable debate on the issue elsewhere.
There is also considerable precedent for using the historical name. The cases of Gdansk/Danzig and Istanbul/Constantinopel have been presented. In the case of Oslo - which went under the name of Christiania (later spelled Kristiania) from the reign of Christian IV until sometime after Norway achieved complete independence - is referred to as Christiania in the articles on Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson among others, as that was the name of the city during their lives. In some cases, the phrase (now called Oslo) has been added; in other cases it hasnt.
It seemed to me that there was some discussion of whether a consensus has been reached. From reading the discussion here (ignoring the same discussion elsewhere) there are by my count seven contributors (Camelbinky, Fences&Windows, Dmeq, Mabuska, WhatamIdoing, Kotinski, and myself) who are of the opinion that the name Londonderry is the appropriate name for historical references to the town during periods when that was the only official name (whatever your definition of official). There are by my count two contributors (Bjmullan, O Fenian), who are of the dissenting opinion that the town should always be referred to as Derry (presumably except for cases like: "From year X to year Y the town was called Londonderry by such-and-such authority"). I suspect Fut.Perf. and Snowded may share this opinion, but their statements aren't clear enough on this point that I feel comfortable attributing this view to them. Whether this constitutes a consensus, I leave up to the judgements of more experiences editors.Dontnod (talk) 12:54, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd leave out the (now Derry) to stop arguments as it is still officially Londonderry whatever about what it is commonly called - which is what determines article titles, the readers can figure it out if/when they click on it. Dmcq (talk) 13:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I think its up to an admin to decide that Bjmullan.
@ Snowded: "WP:COMMONNAME legitimizes the use of Derry even before we take into account that its elected council has chosen to use that name." - so what if it does? A judicial review this year stated that the council can name itself whatever it wants it still has no official bearing on the citys actual official name.
And the current "standard" hardly avoids conflict. In my watchlist i see constant reverts of changes to Londonderry and Derry, and its hardly provocative to state the Republic of Ireland as a minor foreign state as that is what it is. Its like saying Montenegro or Denmark are major players on the world stage when they aren't.
Derry might be used by a substantial proportion of people in Northern Ireland but you fail to address the blatant fact that its only a substantial proportion. What about the majority or should we bend to a substantial minority backed up by a foreign state? And me emboldening the foreign bit right now is not provocative as i'm just making it clear that the Republic of Ireland is a foreign state as Londonderry city is in the United Kingdom an entirely different country to the Republic of Ireland so it shouldn't be subject to a foreign state's naming standards.
This issue is far from over as the demands for this thread to be closed or marked as resolved by nationalist supporters of the current standard i feel are attempts to close it off to prevent a possible overall concensus for a changing of the agreed standard which is to their detriment. Mabuska(talk)22:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
@ Dontnod - there is no plausible or acceptable reason for the usage of now Derry as Derry is not the official name of the city and never has been. The council might have adopted the name but its only in reference to the council. the city is still officially and has been since its creation in 1613 known as Londonderry. The only Derry there that has ever existed was destroyed by the Irish years before that. Stating now Derry gives the impression thats it now officially known as Derry when that is as true as stating that Queen Elizabeth II is president of the Republic of Ireland and that the Falklands Island are a part of Argentina - and we know that neither is and neither will ever be true. Mabuska(talk)22:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I can see you are annoyed but Derry is what the majority there like it to be called as they made quite evident. The main choice of name on Wikipedia is common name, not British government name. Dmcq (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Mabuska, please drop the stick on what Derry (the city) is called now. The compromise is Derry for the city, Londonderry for the county, and that ain't going to change any time soon. That argument is wholly irrelevant to what we label it as in historical contexts: you're just muddying the waters now. Fences&Windows23:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
@ Mabuska, you may indeed be right that the wording "now Derry" is factually accurate (I claim no particular knowledge of this issue), and that precise wording has been discussed in the talk page for the article itself. However, the precise wording was not the point I was making. I was merely pointing out that some acknowledgment of the naming debate might have gone someway towards easing the contention and ending endless editing. However, I have since come to the conclusion that it is best simply to leave it as Londonderry.Dontnod (talk) 07:34, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Well all i will say is boo and hiss ;-)
There is no point in debating historical contexts anyways in regards to Londonderry's name as its quite clear that Londonderry being used in a historical sense is prohibited and highly problematic for a select few (never mind the reverse). Mabuska(talk)13:57, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Historical context is not covered by that manual of style as is obvious both from this discussion and the discussion in its archives. Dmcq (talk) 22:19, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Autobiography
Latest comment: 14 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
It's all spam, yes a warning was given. It's the same as if a company was spamming, only this is a user spamming for himself. — Timneu22 ·talk14:59, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
I've encountered this problem many times with articles on fictional locations or things. It's a bit like forum shopping; if you lose one deletion, you nominate again and again until you find a favourable audience who agree to delete. The odds are stacked against the article- to paraphrase the IRA, it has to be lucky every time, the deleter only has to be lucky once. I think a rule similar to 3RR might be useful for deletions: an article can only be listed for deletion once or twice in a single year. This rule would not apply to speedy deletions. Serendipodous07:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Swift renominations after a "keep" closure are generally frowned upon, and editors who routinely try this often get into trouble eventually. Renominations after "no consensus" closures are less contentious. Can you provide some examples of articles that were deleted in this manner? Fram (talk) 07:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Three deletion requests, first no consensus, second keep, and the third one seems more like a hammering for the nominator because he renominated it way too soon. If someone would attempt a swift fourth nomination, they would almost certainly get into trouble for it. So the system seems to work quite well in this case. Sadly, despite these three AfD's, the article still is extremely underreferenced. Anyway, any examples where the AfD system did work like you initially described it? Fram (talk) 08:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I was looking for something to tell an IP who was reverted for expressing opinions in article space. The existing templates seem inadequate. There's one for POV which thanks the person for contributing, but the IP's only contribution was this rant. I don't really want to construct a message myself.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·15:53, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I despise those automatic warning templates. At best, they create an incivil relationship where someone is directly or indirectly threatening to ban somebody with Wikipedia, but can't be bothered to type a few honest sentences on his own to explain the problem. Under other conditions, people start off with level 2 or above templates that, according to WP:WARN, do notwp:assume good faith, which policy requires any editor to do. Then we have people, as here, who don't even realize that there are different levels but trust some robo-caller like Twinkle to speak on their behalf anyway. They rely on the template to quote some policy for them, instead of knowing the name of the policy and what it actually says. And at worst there's the Huggle program which apparently offers an automatic escalate function, "assuming bad faith" for the editor. I think quite a bit of incivility escalates not from human emotion, but from the canned emotion that comes out of these bots. Wnt (talk) 16:48, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) That one's even better. I'll change what I did the first time.
Responding to the new comment, I find that the warning templates are more polite than I would be if I wrote something original, and they state the specific policies.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·16:51, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
People either love or hate the user template messages. I tend to like them. WP:WikiProject user warnings is also a good place to find further info about the uw messages. I use Huggle too, and I'm not sure which feature that Wnt was refering to, as Huggle doesn't assume bad faith. However, it does show how many times an editor has been recently reverted or blocked, which would add to the probability that their current edit should be reviewed, just in case. --Funandtrvl (talk) 05:55, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Wnt for pointing out the prior discussion. In using Huggle, if the editor being warned is vandalising one after another (in a row), then Huggle assigns the template levels as 1, 2, 3, etc., increasing right away. However, if the editor has been warned before, but time has passed by since the last edit, then Huggle starts out with level 1 again, even though there may be level 4 or blocks on the editor's talk page. --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:55, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) no longer marked as a guideline
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This is a semantic issue. There's no need to source a list, but there's definitely a need to source the list. While Wikipedia has a strict rule about "original research", it doesn't prohibit such a straightforward operation as listing a few different examples. Wnt (talk) 14:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
All lists need sources, but in practice, that isn't strictly enforced with lists whose contents are uncontroversial and that are not particularly susceptible to original research, hoaxes, and vandalism. Furthermore, as Wnt notes, some lists are mostly sourced to similar lists published elsewhere. However, there are some lists that absolutely need to have a source for every item. For example, consider List of HIV-positive people. --Orlady (talk) 15:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Firstly, please don't misinterpret my word. The dispute is not escalated, however, I am unable to stay in what I feel is my boundaries to meet on neutral grounds with some other involved editors, and I believe it is the same thing on both sides. I am not edit warring, but I feel that there is likely to be a misunderstanding on one or both sides. Please kindly visit this link to view the discussion over there. If you need me to summarize, I proposed this revision to state the important key facts on the subject, which are backed by evidence and reliable references, yet my proposal is still being criticized for being incompliant with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, particularly neutral point of view. All in all, it looks to me like one of those borderline cases, where it is more difficult than average to find neutral grounds where we can all meet. Please kindly reply for any advice or assistance, and please make any criticism (for any party) constructive and polite in order to help prevent things from escalating. Thanks. -- IRP☎17:43, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
My only complaint with this debate so far is that IRP used rather uncivil language in one of his responses to User:Jim62sch. Until that point I thought we were making progress. I would have no problem mentioning the issues he raises but a) not in the lead- in the opening paragraph to the "doomsday theories" section and b) preferably backed up by some hard evidence of deliberate hoaxing. Serendipodous17:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Excuse me? Uncivil language? I (always) try to remain as civilized as possible, and I never intend to offend anybody. This apparently has to do with the way my message was interpreted, and I apologize. I'll continue the discussion at the location mentioned below. -- IRP☎18:39, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago13 comments9 people in discussion
On an encyclopedia and website which promotes, essentially as one of the main binding points of our system, civility and collaborative spirit, I find it kind of brings things to a standstill when you run into a naturally incivil editor. While generally this is not a problem (most uncivil editors also make a mistake and wind up blocked), some editors manage to stick around for years and develop a niche or become common part of a topic. Sometimes these editors' technical expertise allows them to get away with pushing the envelope.
There is one behaviour which I personally believe needs to be prohibited from Wikipedia in the spirit of civility and collaboration, and that is the right to unscrupulously change your talk page to your desires. To ignore polite users by either deleting/ignoring comments, or making a blatantly rude response is, in my mind, an equivalent to a personal attack. This becomes particularly irksome for editors who also ignore WP:BRD, and gladly revert at whim.
Though I'm not sure how any sort of policy could be crafted around this, I don't believe users should be able to blank their talk pages at whim and erase comments unanswered, especially when they pertain to edits or reversions by that editor. This goes against the very fabric of the encyclopedia.
And though I won't point fingers (they know very well who they are), some are glad to then add "advice" pertaining to the discussion they ignored, further imploring their self-expertise and degrading the people that have been very friendly towards them. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲτ¢15:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Interesting point, and I am certainly aware of a few cases where the community has somehow decided that some users are above being civil because of their content contributions or other skills, but I don't agree with your conclusions. I ignore comments on my talk page sometimes if they relate to an issue I am no longer involved with, if they are just a repeat of questions I have already answered, or if I just flat out don't care about the subject they pertain to. I have also removed comments from users who have come by my talk page to pick a fight. The right to control one's own talk page is pretty a pretty firmly entrenched concept here, and I don't think we should let the few users who take it to extremes cause everyone else to lose that right. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I remove comments that I find trollish or meaningless from my talk page, and I don't see any sane reason why shouldn't I be able to. I don't find it uncivil, I simply keep clean my board. --Cyclopiatalk16:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed that users who persist in disputed edits (reverts, slow edit wars etc), and who persistently remove comments or blank their talk pages rather than engage in discussion, can be reported to ANI, and administrators will in some circumstances issue blocks. This seems to be a new phenomenon - perhaps we are moving to be able to document it as part of WP:BRD or some other such. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
It's this last case that I refer to. Obviously trollish or uncivil comments can be deleted, and I'd never be in favour of removing the right. However, when the editor is participating in a given article and you come to post a polite question regarding their actions, it's undoubtedly being a dick to delete it without a response, more so to respond in a purely demeaning way (after all, they are the expert). Almost an obsessive compulsive desire to keep ones talk page blank. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲτ¢18:12, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree it is annoying, but it is not an attack nor it is disruptive per se. If an editor is not collaborative, he/she will be in trouble soon without invoking a "don't-delete-my-comments" policy on talk pages. Asking for that is like asking that I do not throw away unwanted mail. --Cyclopiatalk18:33, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I think if you don't want your comments blanked, you shouldn't make edits like this. The user has expressed a pretty clear lack of interest in a talk page conversation, and it's not like your comments are truly gone if anyone feels like looking up the history. I do think that the greatest plague on Wikipedia is when editors make all-out reversions every time they take the slightest issue with something, without any effort to find so much as one word that they can leave alone in the interest of converging toward a consensus draft, but those things really should be discussed on an article talk page to allow recruitment of a third opinion. Wnt (talk) 04:58, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Meh, I wasn't going to point the finger, but I certainly stand by that edit. It's far less insulting than this (In the spirit of collaboration, I've reverted your edit) and this (Degrading "advice" on the heel of my question), both of which proceeded my warning. Other users should be warned that they will get nowhere with this editor, and to ignore their presence since they edit by bullying. Frankly this user should be warned for his completely inappropriate attitude. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲτ¢14:18, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Or we can simply punish the EDITING that causes problems and ignore his anti-social behaviors. Yes, editors, just like the general public, will have personal issues, problems, and disorders. I myself have MANY including aspberger's. I dont play well with others in CERTAIN circumstances, and those circumstances totally depend on how the person presents themselves to me. There is a burdern on the initiator. This is all about me in particular, but I'm sure this applies to many- if you come to my page and say "your in a dispute and your getting uncivil, you will be blocked if you continue", I'm going to blank your post and get PISSED and really not like you and hold a grudge! If you come to my page and say "I see the discussion at XYZ is getting heated, would you like me to try and find a compromise between you and the George?" I would probably then respond "Thank you! I just want the discussion over and welcome a compromise". AGF is not given enough to those who, yes are a little rough on the edges. Who says to contribute to Wikipedia you have to be able to get along with others and work collaboratively all the time?! I cant stand people in general, I cant be around them in real life! I work on Wikipedia in a small corner where (yes I am an expert!) and dont get much contact from other editors, when I do and they come at me with what appears to me to be an attitude then I'm going to multiply that attitude back, not on purpose but because that's actually human nature (those with disorders like me actually do what human nature is, its the "normal" people who hold back their normal human tendencies, so actually you all are the freaks! No insult intended.) I hope this sheds some light on the inner workings of a "uncivil" talk-page-post-blanking editor who doesnt work well with others. I understand there are some who simply are dicks, but some of us have reasons and just need a little extra leeway, understanding, and some effort on the part of the "civil" editors to help us out. Please.Camelbinky (talk) 15:13, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I didn't start this discussion, but as I see it, this isn't about you, Camelbinky. I know that you can be "touchy", but that's a normal emotional reaction (even if you don't think of yourself as emotionally normal). You aren't devious. :-) I have never seen you engage in elaborate self-serving manipulations of your talk page -- for example, to make it appear that a warning was actually a compliment (something that I have another user do recently -- and repeatedly). Thanks, though, for eloquently reminding the rest of us not to jump to conclusions about the motives for other people's behavior. --Orlady (talk) 15:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
(responding to Floydian) There are forums to request wp:third opinions, wp:mediation, and other ways to mediate wp:disputes. I haven't examined what you've gotten into with this editor, but it's best for either editor to try to prevent a dispute from escalating by keeping the tone more professional. I'm not saying a dispute should never escalate - sometimes it has to, in the interest of Wikipedia - but when it does you want people to be able to look back at your comments on your side of the issue and see that you were the reasonable one. While user talk page blanking can be annoying, it doesn't stop you from discussing the question elsewhere. The fact is, the user who blanks his talk page has received your comments - he doesn't owe you an answer you find satisfactory. I think that a policy against it would only put editors more at each other's throats, as people would be burdened with reams of annoying comments that they would only be able to get rid of by pushing the dispute all the way to ANI or something. Meanwhile, read wp:harassment and make sure you don't end up there yourself. Wnt (talk) 15:26, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I think we have to allow broad leeway on user's talk pages as people get a feeling of ownership about them. Ownership is a fairly basic need to many and Wikipedia tries to remove it from article pages, but letting users exercise it a bit in their user pages isn't harmful. There are a number of editors around who have a bit missing emotionally just the same as some people are completely innumerate and unable to compare things rationally and training can't help all that much. I think the best one can expect is a fairly bare minimum of civility in that people follow the rules as written in that policy. Personally I find WP:Civil POV pushing far more of a problem. Someone who is persistently uncivil can and will be banned but editors who go on for month after month opposing a consensus but being civil drain the life out of editors and drive them away from wikipedia. I believe some of them engage in this behavior deliberately to give themselves some sort of half life by wasting the effort of others. Dmcq (talk) 08:12, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
User Talk is basically email and each page is more or less one's in-basket. I'd rather use real email, frankly, and invite people to get in touch with me that way. I don't blank the page to keep it clean, but damned straight I'll post a smartass retort in response to a rude comment if I feel it necessary — since that space is publicly viewable. People should have a feeling of ownership over their user pages, there's nothing wrong with that. It's the mainspace where that sort of attitude is unacceptable. Carrite (talk) 21:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
RFC on Microformats
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Are admin displays of block/delete statistics appropriate?
Latest comment: 14 years ago12 comments8 people in discussion
Is it appropriate for an administrator to prominently post article deletion and user block statistics on his or her user page? The spirit of Wikipedia is friendly, inclusive and supportive. An administrator’s intent is presumably to support that spirit and set a constructive example. Yet block/deletion statistics appear on the user pages of some administrators. Showing off those statistics may be in conflict with Wikipedia spirit and set an inappropriate example, potentially dissuading the participation of other editors. Should Wikipedia guidelines or policy disincentivize such displays?
Please note that I am biased, which is why I am posing the issue in Village pump, as opposed to an RFC. I would like deletion/block statistics removed from administrator user pages, as they strike me as authoritarian boasts (in contrast to article contribution statistics, which show healthy pride in community building). The user page of an administrator who inappropriately hard-blocked my account includes block/deletion statistics. Having been blocked without the assumption of good faith and without prior notice, I surely found the conspicuous display of user block statistics far more acrid than the average editor. I have raised issues of Wikipedia policy directly with the administrator. I take his lack of civility in those dealings as persistent offense taken with my user name. That’s understandable and not a problem. Still, I am interested in feedback from disinterested parties on one of the questions raised for me by the incident.
Appropriate blocks and deletions are necessary in a self-policing community. I appreciate editors (including, believe it or not, the one who blocked me) who take the time to provide that helpful service. In addition, a user page is not an article--much more leeway should be given for its allowable content. On the other hand, boasts of article deletions and user blocks are destructive of the Wikipedia spirit and may dissuade editors like myself from contributing. Shouldn’t enforcement of Wikipedia policies occur without administrators having to behave like power-hungry police? I welcome comments regarding how, and whether, the issue should be addressed. -- Catsquisher (talk) 19:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Just so everyone's clear, this is a comment about the use of Template:Adminstats on admin user pages, which automatically generates the statistics and displays them in a table. It looks like hundreds of admins have this transcluded on their user pages. postdlf (talk) 19:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm... I happen to be one of the admins that displays Template:Adminstats on my userpage and if is seen as "authoritarian boasting", I assure you that it is an unintended consequence. My thinking is that the community has trusted me with certain tools and now I am disclosing how I am using these tools. However, I am interested in seeing how this thread goes, if enough non-admins find the display offensive I'll remove it from my userpage but I would not be in favor of eliminating the template. Other than personal attacks, there are very few things that I would require anyone to remove from their userpage. J04n(talk page)20:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I like the idea. It might even help to flag up overzealous admins, i.e. those guys and gals who use it for boasting how many others they has bloced ;-) Arnoutf (talk) 20:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I don’t know whether it’s feasible, but perhaps the adminstats bot could create a similar table with the administrator’s edit, protect and create data, and include a link to a table showing the other statistics as well. That would address my concern about the conspicuousness of some information. Reasonable compromise? Difficult to implement? --Catsquisher (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
The table that Postdlf and I were referring to do keep a tally of edits and protections, not page creations. Are you referring to something else? J04n(talk page)21:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't see an issue with it, really. Some admins do a lot of work in AfD, CSD, AIV, etc, and their block and deletion stats will reflect that. It is simply an objective stat and there is as much danger in reading too much into it as there is reading too much into someone's edit count.. Resolute21:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
An admin may be interested in showing such data to show he's an active admin, instead of one who got the buttons and then forget about them. And not all admin actions are by default conflicting actions, such as controversial blocks of steady editors or deletion of pages someone likes. Even ruling those out, there would still be work to do for the admins: copyright violations, test pages, hoaxes, attack pages, users who come here only to attack topics they don't like, history merges, deletions to make way for page moves, etc. MBelgrano (talk) 11:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Given that people can (and do) write on their userpages anything they please to describe themselves, their goals and their beliefs, it is often quicker and almost always more accurate to examine their contributions to the encyclopedia if one wants to find out about them. Adminstats provides an easily accessible summary of admin actions taken that can not otherwise trivially be found. In essence, it's inclusion on someone's userpage is invitation to judge them by their actions rather than any personal statement or collection of self-selected userboxen. Quite appropriate, I'd say. - TB (talk) 23:32, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Conflicts between BLP1E and N and R: articles on people known for one event, possibly not that major an event
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
A discussion here. Too often, there are AFD fights about these kinds of people. The problem is not the editors more than the Wikipedia rules conflict. Let's have clarity. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Integrity of this Wikipedia
Latest comment: 14 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
A specific problem has been discussed and solved. Eg. (the example isn't real) "Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe". Now editors who aren't happy with the solution use other articles to present their POV, eg. claiming that "Lithuania is situated in Eastern Europe". This way any POV can be presented infinitely.
Is this Wikipedia one project or any article is autonomous, so one has to prove separately for any article that "Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe"?Xx236 (talk) 07:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Taking things back a step also can help make a consensus. You can just say Lithuania is a country in Europe. It's not POV to say it's in Europe. Doc Quintana (talk) 01:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't see how the difference between "Eastern Europe" and "Northern Europe" is much more informative than "Europe", particularly since Scandanavia is a far more appropriate and informative phrase than "Northern Europe" and there isn't an equivalent term for "Eastern Europe" since the loss of the Iron Curtain. Doc Quintana (talk) 14:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Ban on uploading films?
Latest comment: 14 years ago24 comments7 people in discussion
We have articles on a large number of films that are in the public domain (a famous example being Night of the Living Dead)- basically, I was wondering if there was any reason we don't host the whole films on Commons and imbed them in our articles. I'm assuming there is a reason, but I just can't see it. Any thoughts on the issue? J Milburn (talk) 14:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Probably the same reasons that WP doesn't hold full sources of public domain works on its pages (though we can included them at something like WikiSource) - we're an encyclopedia, not the end-all-be-all of information for a specific work. We can certainly point uses where a free copy can be found, but we shouldn't include the full work just because we can. --MASEM (t) 15:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Further, the point is that we already include films. Say, for instance, this film, recently promoted to FP status, became notable. The idea that we wouldn't include our file in the article about the film is almost laughable. Basically, I'm asking if there is any explicit policy or technical reason that we don't make a habit of this? J Milburn (talk) 16:10, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Completely by chance, I've just come across this article, in which the entire film is included (currently at FAC). I'm assuming there is no barrier to this being done; it just often isn't. J Milburn (talk) 16:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, that's a 30-second film. At the rate Commons uploads often go, I wouldn't be surprised if someone uploaded Night of the Living Dead sometime last year... and they're still at it. :( Wnt (talk) 17:21, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Short clips of films are allowable - and in the case of public domain movies that are very short (30 seconds or less), that seasons to be the best reasonable inclusion. But full hour long films are something that, even if free, are completely outside the goals of WP, much less the foundation. I think the idea is listed in WP:NOTREPOSITORY --MASEM (t) 17:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Masem, J Milburn said in the original post that the repository should be Commons not WP, but that WP should link to the repository as it already does for images. I don't have an issue with this, even if the 100MB limit is retained with a mobile video codec used for encoding to keep the file below this limit. For full res copy a link to the archive.org copy of the file can be provided. There may also be an argument for key clips to be stored separately either to highlight sections of an article or sub-articles. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 18:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
If it were on commons and only linked to (not embedded) that's fine; it is the embedding part that is a problem here.--MASEM (t) 18:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Why is embedding a video (which isn't downloaded or played until the reader chooses to do so) any more of an issue than embedding a static image? Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 18:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Because on WP we are summarizing the work (eg not a technical reason). We provide excerpts that are useful to understanding the work from an encyclopedia, and if public domain, where they can view them in full, but not the full work itself. It's understanding that like text, we "edit" to the most important details to a general reader. --MASEM (t) 19:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Yet if we discuss a work of art we display a reduced version of the work of art, we don't only provide images of key features within that work of art; and embedding is simply a form of linking to the work one which allows playing within the current browser page rather than having to move to a separate browser page to view it. Until the user clicks that play button, the video is no more than a static image representing that excerpt. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:20, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
No, we provide a reduced version of the image -the thumbail -with the full image over on Commons. And I will point out that we still have Accessibility issues with multimedia content; that will never go away. --MASEM (t) 19:27, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Its mostly technical limitations. The ogg version of Night of the Living Dead on Internet Archive is 389 MB; uploads are currently limited to 100 MB, so you'd have to upload it in 4 separate files, or reduce the size/quality by 75%. Mr.Z-man17:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
The upload limits are a clear barrier- that's the sort of thing I was wondering about. Adding four videos to an article with a "part1, part2..." mentality clearly would be inappropriate (unless there genuinely was an encyclopedic reason to split it up). However, I don't think the "shouldn't be included" argument holds any water. We include free paintings in the articles about the painting- equally, we should be (and, in some cases, are) adding free films to articles about said films where it is practical to do so. This is an electronic encyclopedia; we should be using media other than text and static images where it is appropriate to do so. J Milburn (talk) 19:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
We are adding "thumbnails" of paintings, with the full image on commons, as necessary to put the picture in context. We offer limited verbatim text sections of public domain works, with links to WikiSource as necessary, to put the source document in context. The same with movies in the public domain; we should only have limited sections of the film to help put that in context for the viewer. --MASEM (t) 19:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Then we, equally, offer thumbnail videos, and link to larger versions if necessary, as we did with the shuttle video I linked earlier. J Milburn (talk) 20:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
The equivalent of thumbnail images or portions of full text is a segment of a full video, not the full video at a reduced size. --MASEM (t) 20:09, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Even with images, the reason is still somewhat technical. We don't put huge versions of paintings and such in articles because we need to keep the site usable for people with dialup connections or small monitors/mobile devices. If everyone had broadband internet and hi-res displays, there would be little reason to limit ourselves to thumbnails. Mr.Z-man22:54, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Anything larger than a thumbnail wouldn't fit properly into an article's layout, so it's more than just a technical limitation. postdlf (talk) 23:22, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Our current layout is based on the assumption that articles need to fit onto an 800x600 screen and that the majority of an article will be text. If we could change those assumptions, then we could use a different layout for articles with important images. Mr.Z-man23:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
The first paragraph of that page should be a policy. That 1st paragraph says
The Wikipedia reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis or prognosis. Any reader may and should remove questions that appear to be soliciting medical, legal or other professional advice, or answers that give the impression of providing such.
The policy should be that all article talk pages note that the article is not medically or legally peer reviewed.
A handful of people have been discussing it at Portal talk:Contents, and no consensus has emerged to remove the entry or the links. Yet these keep getting removed by a single defiant editor. I'm not so concerned about that, since administrators are expected to step in and correct that. (Right?)
The thing that worries me is the possibility of a discussion between a small number of people on a low-traffic page, in an obscurely titled thread deciding the fate of the navigation system that is linked to from the Main Page and from the main menu on the sidebar that is displayed from every page on Wikipedia. It effects everybody.
I'm interested in the policy related to this. My questions are:
Is an off-topic discussion under an unrelated thread title adequate for delinking a branch of Wikipedia's navigation system from the main navigation page?
In what venue should the issue of delinking a subpage of Portal:Contents (which is linked to from the sidebar, right under "Main page") be proposed and discussed?
The subpage Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge lists over 500 outline articles, which together present tens of thousands of links to Wikipedia articles. How widely announced would a proposal/discussion have to be for a consensus to be valid to remove the links to that list?
In short, what is the appropriate procedure for delinking or diverting traffic from a branch of the navigation system?
Interesting question. There was never a consensus for inclusion of Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge, so the same argument could be made about the inclusion. I would have to say that Portal talk:Contents is the appropriate location for discussion of what should be in Portal:Contents, regardless of the importance of the links. Significant changes (both the inclusion and exclusion of Outlines) should have been noted on an appropriate VP (probably not this one), but the question of which status should be considered the "status quo" requiring consensus for change, is open. — Arthur Rubin(talk)22:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
To clarify that page, although named something else at the time ("basic topics"), it was an original subpage of the portal. It was included by consensus of the collaboration that built the portal (and via teamwork/interactive editing). So were the subpages for glossaries, portals, categories, etc. It was a big undertaking that went on for weeks. The project itself was developed under the thread Portal talk:Contents/Archive 5#Topics-based contents pages project in preparation for presenting Wikipedia's main contents page to the community for possible inclusion on the Main page and sidebar menu. Subsequently, a link to the entire portal was placed by consensus on the Main page and the main menu. The Transhumanist23:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
"Basic topics" was included on the page that became Portal:Contents years before the portal was built (see the portal's edit history). Long before a link to the portal was placed on the Main Page and Wikipedia's main menu, when it (as Wikipedia:Contents) was a relatively minor page. Now that it is Portal:Contents, and one of the most visible and trafficked pages on Wikipedia, is the procedure for making major changes to it different now than before it was so prominent?
What are appropriate titles for discussion threads for deciding such changes. "Four days of protection" doesn't indicate that a discussion about removing links is even taking place.
There's really nothing special about this dispute. You follow the same dispute resolution processes that you would use for any other dispute, no matter how "big" it seems to you or how "small" it seems to someone else.
You start on the associated talk page. If that doesn't work -- and by "work", I mean "produce a result that all the involved editors can basically live with, even if they're not really thrilled about it" -- then you move on to other approaches. If the problem is primarily one of communication, you might ask for mediation. If you think that comments from additional people are likely to be useful, then file an RFC. If you have edit warring, you ask for page protection or file the usual complaints -- again, there's nothing special here, and you should treat it like any other dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Talk page templates has been marked as a guideline
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 14 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion
Background: The AFD category of Science and technology comprises multiple streams. Two distinct streams that are contained in this category are apparently "medical sciences" and "non-medicine related science and technology". This differentiation is being made to bring out a fact that medical sciences are atypically different from other sciences; and keeping these sciences abound in one category along with technology and operational sciences, although being contemporary in the past, does not seem appropriate now.
The Proposal: Divide the current AFD category of Science and technology into two categories. One AFD category could be named Medical sciences. Another could be named Non-medical sciences and technology.
The Benefits: This would allow/encourage users interested in pure medicine, rather than (say) engineering equipment to focus specifically on their AFD debates. Vice versa too.
No need. Medical topics are rare at XFD. There's some freak stuff and articles on living freaks that could be classified as medical specimens if it were not for BLP... this assortment would (quite likely) discourage "users interested in pure medicine"? It was East of Borschov. Forgot to sign. Bad me.
Could someone explain how "medical sciences are atypically different"? I really don't see any distinction between how to handle a medical article vs. a physics article, with the exception that a few editors try to use WP:MEDRS in an overbearing way. I say this because the last time Wikipedia picked out a category for special treatment, BLP's, we ended up with articles that have different names and scopes depending on whether the person involved has since died, articles heavily biased toward the subject or deleted because people think that if we don't have something nice to say we better not say it at all, constant arguments about make-believe legal issues, weird abuses of ArbCom's power... it's questionable whether it's worth it to edit them at all. Articles about medical topics are more crucial than BLPs, and I won't support anything that's might single them out for "special treatment". Wnt (talk) 14:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Disagree: as pointed out above no compelling reason for this. All sorts cases might be made out for complete recategorization and splitting or combining existing categories. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Encouragement of delsort would be better. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:07, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Base 'policies' - Verifiabilty and Sources on non EN wiki's
Latest comment: 14 years ago15 comments10 people in discussion
Is every xx.wikipedia free to choose it's own rules regarding the basic principles on sources and verifiability and the other pillars? Or is there a base that applies to all wiki's?
Some moderator on nl-wiki - and it seems many editors take this view - is of the opinion that "But what we _can_ do is check whether or not it actually has been published in reputable journals or by reputable publishers." (J.Wales in [WikiEN-l Original research]) does not apply to them, or to the dutch wiki, or maybe only to physics theories.
Is there a basic principle, policy or guideline that applies cross-wiki? Fenke (talk) 22:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
They are of course a lie, though - they can't possibly be "founding principles" as any normal person would understand the term, when they are just something someone made up one day and have been constantly edited by various editors since.--Kotniski (talk) 14:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
More seriously: abstract notions of English language and Anglosaxon culture cannot be translated into all languages and all cultures of the world. So even the basic declarations aren't necessarily identical, not to mention policies and their practical implementation. East of Borschov16:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
The Wikimedia foundation does not attempt to "change the world" or create a whole new system of values, just to write an encyclopedia. The scope of those principles is not "for the world", merely for the wikimedia projects. The core idea of verifiability (that something should be already said at reliable sources, and not invened by us or taken from the blog of the guy next door) should be the same at any academic system, regardless of culture. MBelgrano (talk) 18:37, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd stick to the five pillars, those "founding principles" are just some editors making up stuff on meta. If editors on a Wikipedia start going too far away from verifiability and NPOV, the WMF will take their ball away. Fenke, do you have any actual evidence you can point us to about what is occurring at nl.wikipedia? Fences&Windows02:54, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Interesting, but again, just your views (for example, I'm far from convinced by your argument that the Foundation must enforce a neutral point of view policy because of its legal requirement to be non-political). Except for things on which the Foundation has explicitly ruled (through its bylaws, board resolutions or other authoritative statements), any claims that there are principles with which all WMF projects must comply need to be taken with a large grain of salt.--Kotniski (talk) 08:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Regarding the "Five Pillars"... compare the text beside the pretty red pillar to the various declarations in the discussion of WP:Child protection. I don't think that WP:IAR is being treated like a real policy; it has suffered the same fate as its cousin, the enumerated powers provision of the American constitution. Wnt (talk) 13:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
To be perfectly honest, it was only written because the rules were god-awful back then and they just needed a way to fudge (that's more or less what Larry Sanger says in a lecture on youtube). Problem was it tended to be too anarchistic and apparently it has caused loads of problems.- Wolfkeeper02:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Nothing compared with the problems we would have had if we hadn't had it. (And by "it" I don't just mean the page stating the WP:IAR is a policy, but the awareness among at least many Wikipedians that we have a higher purpose here than enforcing rules.) --Kotniski (talk) 06:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Can I cite an abstract?
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I didn't think to ask this when I was at the college. I'll be at a college where I can do this tomorrow. What I have is a list of magazine articles, but not all have full text available; what they have is an abstract. And you have to be at a library to subscribe to the service. Supposedly I could find the information elsewhere but it's really hard.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions·18:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
You wouldn't really be citing to the abstract, you'd just be using the abstract as a means of accessing the article's information/conclusions. So you'd really still be citing to the article itself. So long as the abstract was actually written by an authoritative source (i.e., the article's authors or the journal's editors) rather than some third party who may or may not know what they were talking about. postdlf (talk) 18:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Genealogy in bios
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Where can I find policy, if any exists, on the inclusion of an entire roster of a person's descendants in a biographic article? For example: is it appropriate that the article on Lennart Bernadotte include all that? Are grandchildren and great-grandchildren born long after Count Bernadotte's death the slightest bit relevant to his biography? SergeWoodzing (talk) 03:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
BLP contains information about immediate, important or other family members being named. I'd suppose that people interested in nobility have a distinct interest in genealogy of nobles, moreso than your average biography. This seems like a good place to discuss it: Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Latest comment: 14 years ago13 comments10 people in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
I believe there should be a new policy that all featured articles must be protected upon promotion, so that any admin promoting an article to FA must protect it, and any non-admin must request it for protection, with acceptance mandatory. That way no FAs will drop down and have to be demoted. Us441 (talk) 21:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Nope. Things degrade in many cases due to changes in standards, but if the article is actively getting worse all someone has to do is revert. Hobit (talk) 22:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely not. Featured may be high quality but there's ALWAYS a possibility to improve things, always a possibility that new info should be added, and certainly always a possibility that everyone may have missed a minor error. Unless a FA needs to be protected for normal reasons, there's no reason to. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
This is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. This proposal would just result in featured articles being demoted from going stale (either in terms of being outdated or in terms of no longer meeting updated FA guidelines) than from degrading in quality. "Featured" should never mean "set in stone". FAs require maintenance and improvement just like any other article. SeraphimbladeTalk to me06:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. It breaks the whole Wiki idea. Even featured articles at the time they become featured often have huge potential for improvement. Over time, this becomes worse, since new sources will become available and new events may happen. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I would support the Main Page Featured Article being locked for the period it is mentioned there, but no reason to lock all featured articles, some of them are in a complete mess anyway. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:41, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
That's an interesting idea. There has been some concern expressed that the review work in the pending changes trial was by nature cursory and thus unsatisfactory. Perhaps you should suggest the idea of such review, in the cases of featured articles, being incorporated into the FA review process at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Closure. Uncle G (talk) 16:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Neutral
Comments
I see everybody is opposing. Hobit, they do not always revert. That is why we have demoted FAs. Melodia, the side effect is that only admins can add new info. Us441(talk) (contribs) 23:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. Just because something is an FA -- which we're supposed to have ALL articles striving for -- doesn't mean it should be protected so that the majority of editors have to go through the annoying "ask on talk page" process, which a lot of people simply won't bother with. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Regarding off-Wiki posts: do they exist?
Latest comment: 14 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion
I would like to discover what the community consensus is regarding the applicability of off-Wiki posting to the world of Wikipedia. (This has probably been discussed in the past, if so, any pointers to such discussions would be welcome.)
For example, let's suppose there is a user XYZ. This user has proclaimed on his userpage "I also post at Uncle Dave's Funhouse under this name", so there's no question (in this example) of mistaken identity. To what extent (if any) would/could/should XYZ's posts at Uncle Dave's Funhous be considered to exist, for Wikipedia purposes?
If it would help the reader to focus, suppose that ten different editors made edits at Uncle Dave's Funhouse, each making one. These were:
"I would like to have sex with a dead person."
"I think that Obama's an idiot."
"I pray for the day when the Aryan race rises up to destroy the subhumans."
"Wikipedia editor ABC is a troublesome editor."
"Wikipedia editor ABC is a bad person."
"Wikipedia editor ABC is guilty of felony securities fraud, and I can prove it."
"If someone were to kill Wikipedia editor ABC, that would be a good thing."
"I (as a Wikipedia admin) blocked Wikipedia editor ABC, but for no good reason, just for fun."
"The real name and address and phone number of Wikipedia editor ABC is (such-and-such)."
"I edit Wikipedia, but only to gain credibility so I can ultimately help destroy it."
Should any of these posts be actionable on Wikipedia? All of them? Some of them? By "actionable", I mean it would be OK to say (for instance):
"At Uncle Dave's Funhouse, XYZ said such-and-such, so he's clearly biased on this issue."
"At Uncle Dave's Funhouse, XYZ said such-and-such, so I therefore propose he face such-and-such sanction here on Wikipedia."
or whatever.
My real question is that (since this is part of a larger issue), would it be reasonable to run a WP:RFC on this? I don't know if I can get a big enough sample siza here. Or how else could I discover the sense of the community on this issue, with the minimum of fuss? What do you think - either about the issue itself, or about the best way to get a gauge of community opinion? Thanks, Herostratus (talk) 05:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that when an editor discloses a relationship between his Wikipedia account and an offwiki account, whether this be done onwiki or on another site, most of the protection that WP:OUTING affords is lost since the user's identity is "out there". That isn't to say that an editor should be sanctioned here due to offwiki behaviour, but it would be valid to bring the offwiki information to light when evaluating an editor's behaviour and impact onwiki. So it would be improper to bring up an editor's offwiki incivility and personal opinions, but evidence of a COI relationship or an admittance of onwiki abuse would be privy to investigation. ThemFromSpace05:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Agree if a user here says they have another identity elsewhere then the external behaviour can be considered in blocking the editor. Even if it is proved they are the same but don't admit it I would consider that enough in some cases. The community has to allow for quite a bit of weirdness but there's no point standing up for people who act against Wikipedia or its editors in a major way like outing and endangering editors, corrupting articles to promote crime or organizing mass attacks on Wikipedia's integrity. Dmcq (talk) 19:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
There was recently a similar discussion on Jimbo's talk page regarding what to do if someone on Wikipedia were to admit he/she was a pedophile. Does off-wiki actions or beliefs disqualify one from editing on Wikipedia? In the ten examples above I would say one through three are pretty stupid beliefs but still fall under freedom of speech that we on Wikipedia allow and have nothing to do with Wikipedia and therefore would be unactionable here on Wikipedia. 4, 5, and 10 are kinda funny and I would say still fall under free speech off-wiki and unactionable here since if I am talking to a friend and getting things off my chest then I dont want it to be used against me here on Wikipedia and I have the right to blow off steam to other people. Six, if they cant back it up is libel and actionable in a better more legal setting than Wikipedia, even if backed up... still done off-wiki and I would say non-actionable. 7 and 9 block the SOB. 8 automatic desysop. Admins must be held to higher standard.Camelbinky (talk) 20:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
And people wonder why I use a different username on every website... partly because my tastes change, and my usernames reflect that, but largely because I don't really want someone from one website to know what I'm doing elsewhere. Even though I'm not a disruptive person, here or on any other website, I still don't want someone to figure out who I am in real life. I'm lucky enough to have an unusually good memory, so I can remember different usernames, but I'm meticulous about what I disclose. Anyways, I think that Camelbinky basically nailed it above, and I'd agree with his view on every single one. This, however, raises one last question; say someone accused another user of committing a crime (that had nothing to do with children; let's say it was an armed robbery), and was able to back it up. How would that be acted on? On the one hand, the accuser has provided irrefutable proof; on the other hand, the information is most likely irrelevant to Wikipedia editing, and effectively amounts to an ad hominem attempt to discredit someone. Also, what if it was something like fraud, which involves deception? I think that off-wiki posts should carry some weight, but that's a slight gray area that would need to be filled in. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい)21:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that there is quite enough drama on Wikipedia without foreign imports. People take on very different personae for different kinds of Web sites with very different rules. If a person says "I wrote X on site Y" on his Wikipedia user page, we should regard it as absolutely indistinguishable from writing "I support comment X on site Y" on his Wikipedia user page. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has not been adhering to a policy of perfect free speech regarding the latter, but certainly we should not give any further ground by legitimizing ad hominem attacks. Wnt (talk) 15:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
To put that a different way — you just posted all ten comments, without fear of reprisal. Why is that? Because the context of the quote changes its meaning. There's no reason to assume that "Uncle Dave's Funhouse" doesn't encourage someone to say they did things they didn't really do, or to greatly exaggerate baser motives.
Even in the case of the leaked checkuser information, our analysis should not be based on what a person said on another site. After all, we don't know that site - we don't know their security against hacking or spoofing comments. With sensitive information, its appearance elsewhere should not be ignored, but its authorship should not be assumed. The question then becomes: this sensitive information got out, and only a handful of people had access to it, so who could have leaked it? Wnt (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
This is true, and would be something that had to be taken into account. Sometimes (as with off-wiki canvassing), it is patently obvious that only someone very familiar with Wikipedia policies and politics could have done it, so those tend to be pretty easy to deal with. However, you also raise a valid point about things; I've found a couple instances where users here got joe-jobbed (Kaiwhakahaere for instance, stumbled across the ANI thread looking for something totally unrelated), so I can certainly see it happening elsewhere. I think it'd have to be on a case-by-case basis. And as for things like sensitive information getting leaked, I think that'd also have to be a case-by-case type situation. Just my thoughts, though. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい)15:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you all very much for taking time from your article work to help me work through this. I appreciate all of your cogent and interesting comments. Next, I'm going to ask Jimbo a similar question (not this exact question); since sometimes a few people comment on posts on Jimbo's talk page, this seems a good way to get a little more input without making a big fuss (I'm also interested in what Jimbo has to say, granted that he's just one person). Again, thanks. Herostratus (talk) 23:16, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Pending changes/Vote comment
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Very large discussions with dozens of subheaders are not suitable for a village pump, please continue this at the above subpage. –xenotalk12:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
While we're talking about lists...
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
This is a tangent to the list-notability discussion:
If you leave blank lines between bulleted lists, apparently the wiki software declares each and every isolated item to be its own list. This means that people using screen readers do not hear, "One, Two, Three"; they hear, "A list of one item: One. A list of one item: Two. A list of one item: Three." It seems to me that this would be really annoying. So whenever you see a page with needless blank lines between bullets, please fix it to comply with WP:ACCESS#Lists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Do not leave blank lines between list items.
+1, good reminder.
(Although, wouldn't screenreaders actually ouput "A list of one item: One.... A list of one item: One.... A list of one item: One...." ? My installed program seems to have stopped functioning, so I cannot test.) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this up. They sound like this: "list of 1 items, 1, list end; list of 1 items, 2, list end", which is incredibly annoying! Yes, JAWS even says "1 items". Graham8703:31, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Get rid of "involved administrator" rule.
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Generally discussion should be held at the talk page of the relevant policy or guideline. Pointers from here are fine. –xenotalk15:30, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Footnote density
Latest comment: 14 years ago51 comments16 people in discussion
How close should citations be to the material they reference? The style guide is not really rigid, saying only that a paragraph or sentence that may potentially be challenged must have an inline reference. I have two questions concerning the application of this policy.
First, does it mean that a paragraph that leads to other (explanatory) paragraphs that have citations must also have the citations? Second, what happens if later editors alter the paragraph structure so that sentences formerly cited now appear unadorned? I have had both problems with some of my edits. In the first case, for one article I wrote a section with a brief introductory paragraph of a topic with several aspects, to be followed by several paragraphs, each dealing with one aspect and each properly cited. The introductory paragraph was not cited, as I thought that anyone who read the whole section would see what it was all about. Apparently that is not satisfactory to all, however, as it has recently been awarded a [citation needed] tag. The question seemingly comes down to this: Does the Wikipedia style then literally insist that every paragraph with content must be cited, or is it permissible to have footnotes that refer to more than one paragraph?
The second problem is an extension of the first. Sometimes I have written extensive paragraphs (not extensive in the sense of authors like Faulkner or Joyce, but containing three or four sentences); the entire piece is a single topic, and it is derived from a single source. Generally, I have supplied the citation by just putting it at the end of the paragraph, which is quite all right according to my reading of the guidelines. But then some other editors seem not to like my writing style, and break up my paragraphs into single sentences. I don't complain about that; I don't agree, but it's a matter only of style, and if I want to insist that my deathless prose be preserved intact, then I won't write for Wikipedia. The problem is that the statements of fact that were formerly properly cited when in a long paragraph are now sitting out there in the wind and rain, inviting every later editor to supply a {{fact}} tag. One cure for this would be to insist that editors who rearrange articles to suit their tastes must be sure that the footnotes remain associated with whatever they refer to, but I don't know how such a policy could be enforced. An alternative would be to suggest that persons applying the {{fact}} tag, who are likely to be more familiar with Wikipedia policies, should be sure that it is really needed. PKKloeppel (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
As a practical matter, I think it is best to have a citation per paragraph even if they're all the same. The <ref name=XXX> format lets you avoid having multiple instances of the same reference appearing at the end. Within a paragraph, I think both of your precautions should apply: editors should try to preserve inline references while chopping up and reassorting the text - and those questioning facts should try to find a relevant reference from adjacent text or by scanning the reference section at the end. Even so, there will inevitably be some facts that lose their citations, and when that happens a fact tag offers a path forward. Wnt (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I think the only required reference placement is that a direct quote must have the reference it came from immediately follow. It's strongly recommended for contentious statements to have a nearby reference as well. But yea, if people are breaking up a long para with a single cite, they should be responsible for making sure that the cite is duplicated for the child paragraphs. (That said, WP really really discourages single sentence paragraphs.) --MASEM (t) 17:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Due to the nature of the Wikipedia project there are multiple editors working on each page over time. It seems important to use very dense footnoting, since paragraphs will often have other material inserted. A three sentence paragraph with a statement of fact in the first sentence, a segue line, and a statement of fact in the third sentence — all coming from the same source — might be comfortably given a single footnote at the end of the paragraph if one is writing alone, but on Wikipedia I would advocate footnoting each statement of fact. That 3 line paragraph might just as easily become 3 long paragraphs tomorrow... It's important to keep the individual facts hooked up with the original sources, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 17:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I concur with Carrite and try to source every sentence, much to the chagrin of some GA and FA reviewers. Occasionally, I will cite one whole paragraph to a source, but it's rare for the reasons cited above. This is a topic that definitely needs some resolution and clearer guidelines. I'd be in favor of giving readers the option to hide or display footnotes as they prefer, then making every-sentence citation policy. Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)19:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I think over citing can be harmful sometimes as it can make an article bitty and disconnected. In particular I've been thinking about setting up some guideline on 'summary statements' which summarize information in the same article and which are not directly supported by source - only the statements being summarized are. Most statements in the lead of an article and headings for a series of subsections would be better this way. Currently people often change these without looking at the text they refer to. Dmcq (talk) 07:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Carrite is right. One reference per paragraph (if, indeed, it is based on a single page of a given source) is fine if the article is a frozen snapshot. But then another editor inserts something else in the middle, and the preceding sentences are now linked to a wrong reference... and if a third editor rearranges paragraphs without checking each source, it's all messed up. As a minimum, one phrase - one footnote. East of Borschov09:26, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
"One phrase[1] - one footnote[1]"[1] is[2] far too much[2] don't you[1] think?[3] Perhaps[3] you[1] aren't clear about[2] what a phrase[1] is.[4][5]OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[6]
I'd like to support the sentence per footnote standard. The problem is, if you footnote that densely, sooner or later some ditz is going to come along and "clean out the excess sources", leaving some duplicates of the same note while deleting links to unique and useful sources. For this reason I think that quoting the same source once per paragraph is the better way to go. Wnt (talk) 13:51, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I've never seen this happen, but I'm not saying it doesn't. Still, if we make footnote-per-sentence a policy, then we can warn/block said "ditzes" for such behavior. Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)14:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Precisely! But why did you have to enclose "phrases" from two different "sources" within one pair of quotation marks? It's a SYN. East of Borschov14:27, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I really really think we need to consider the one-footnote-per-sentence aspect. Articles that approach this are already approaching seas-of-blue and can make both normal reading and editing difficult. I understand the rationale behind keeping sources with sentences in case multiple editors move a lot around, but at the same time, we need to consider, "does every sentence need to be sourced?" We have only two exact cases where we require an immediate inline reference: after a quote, and after a contentious statement. A non-contentious statement need not have a source though we should be able to provide one if necessary. We should remember that WP's goal is verifyability, not verification, so we can group common sources that are used as background material for an article, like a biography or a textbook, as general uncited but used references if we present no contestable facts from them, and avoid the use of inline cites here. Obviously, some types of text sections, like Legacy or Reception are going to require more sources (higher source density) than other sections that are more straightforward like a History or Background section. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
This is exactly the problem and is precisely why I cite every sentence. I'd rather annoy the reader a little with a footnote than have something questioned in a GA or FA review and go scurrying through all the sources trying to find a citation after the fact, especially when I may have already returned one or more of the sources to the library (or a distant library via interlibrary loan). Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)16:55, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that any statement can be considered contentious; I agree there is a likelihood that a good number of statements can be read as contentious or not depending on the reader, but this is not true for every statement. If someone is marking a statement like "Washington D.C. is the capital city of the United States" with fact tags, that's being disruptive, not helpful. Remember, just because someone added a {{cn}} tag does not mean you need to provide a reference; if you feel it is already sourced by a nearby reference or a general source for the article, you are well within your abilities as an editor to remove it. (Of course, the situation becomes more difficult if they re-add it, which is where WP:BRD and not edit warring comes into play.) Again, I stress one of our jobs is verifiability, but not verification; we do not have to hold the hands of any reader to help them find the exact references used for any statement, only those which could be taken as original research or point-of-view considerations. That means we can include sourced, but don't have to cite them over and over again if they are providing fundamental, non-controversial facts about the topic at hand. --MASEM (t) 17:19, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
"I'd rather annoy the reader..." - An alarming comment that shows there is something seriously wrong with the approach at GA/FA review. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 08:44, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not a matter of GA/FA, rather of the overall hostile environment of wikipedia, rabid nationalism etc. Most troublesome, contentious topics never reach GA discussion - too many {{disputed tags, etc.}}. East of Borschov11:39, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Every single piece of information needs a source. If it doesn't have one, it really shouldn't be in the article. If a sentence is made up of info from a couple sources, then you ought to make that clear and use footnotes. This just seems like common sense to me. It helps the reader, since he/she can go to that specific source and check it out. If the writer forgets what source he used, then there's no way the reader or reviewer is gonna know where it came from! I think that's what Acdixon was kinda getting at. Anyway, that's how i see it too. Carrite's got the right idea as well and made a good point. If our stuff isn't referenced properly it just gets worse over time. If its unclear what we are basing our statements on, then our credibility suffers.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 09:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Annoying the reader has an easy solution... give the reader the option to turn off footnotes. The alternative problem – annoying someone who wants to know where a piece of information came from – does not. Why not fix the problem we can and stop having to worry about the one we can't? Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)17:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
A lot of this over-citation sounds to me like boiler-plating and flim-flam to deter other editors trying to change the articles and setting them in concrete so the text can't be improved. It obscures the important references by sticking in less relevant ones and makes the statements independent from each other and the whole article bitty. My feeling is that the more noise that is put in the harder it is to maintain and the easier it is for it to degrade into rubbish. Dmcq (talk) 12:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
It is hardly an assumption of good faith to assert that proponents of so-called "over-citation" are seeking to somehow discourage contributions to articles (which smacks of WP:OWN). What we're trying to do is balance all the interests at play – the casual reader, the reader seeking verification, the GA/FA reviewer, and the primary content author(s). Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)17:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
(←) The solution that I think makes the most sense is to consider how the sources break down for the topic. If there are a handful of sources that basically supply 25% or more of the information for the article by themselves due to their comprehensiveness and expertise (a biography of a person, a textbook on a subject, a historical documentary, etc.) and would otherwise be cited tens to hundreds of times, it likely should be considered a general reference and only cited when direct language or a highly contentious statement is pulled from it. One- or two-time sources should still be sourced next to sentences they support. In all other cases - at least as I logically would infer - any unsourced statement within a body would be information that I should find either in the next immediately following source, or in one of the general references. In such cases, yes, the citation density will be lower.
On the other hand, articles where there is no single expertise source, often the case for contemporary films or the like, and are made up of dozens of individually reliable sources, it is more likely that citations per sentence will be more common. I would still use the common sense facet that if a sentence is not sources and there are no general sources, I should expect to find that source in the next immediate footnote. That still helps to keep the footnote density down to a fair level. --MASEM (t) 17:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Editors must use their best judgment, considering all the facts and circumstances. The actual requirements for inline citations are really quite low:
direct quotations (which most articles don't contain)
contentious or derogatory claims about a living person (which most articles don't contain)
anything you think is likely to be challenged (to save someone the bother of finding your source later)
statistics and published opinion, if you're aiming for Good article status
Even Featured articles don't require an inline citation for every sentence, or even that every single fact be supported by any source named in the article. Editors here may want to see WP:When to cite for examples of material that requires no citation -- and material that does not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Certainly the standard should not be one footnote per phrase or per sentence. What need to be footnoted are specific facts. And we should be alert to the idea that if you have a specific fact, followed by one or more sentences of generalized filler, followed by another sentence asserting a specific fact — then you'd better be footnoting each of those specific facts, not the whole paragraph, because surer than snot somebody is going to split your paragraph someday... Carrite (talk) 21:39, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
If it comes down the fact that someone may split a paragraph later, move things around, and the like and thus lose the implicit connection with the original reference, this is easily remedied with a trip to the article's history and finding when the source was connected. The other option is to put in html comment-wrapped named ref tags, so that the ref can be restored easily. --MASEM (t) 22:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Or annotate the footnotes so it's perfectly clear what is cited to which reference, which would be the most helpful option for both readers and editors. This would also allow multiple sources for a single sentence to be combined within one footnote, rather than having nonsense like this at the end of sentences.[15][16][17][19][3][20] postdlf (talk) 23:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
It is completely possible to group sources, including using named refs in sources, see User:Masem/longref. That doesn't solve all problems, but can help if there are 3 (?) or more refs for a statement. --MASEM (t) 15:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I wonder if it could be possible to have an option where we could hide all footnotes and citations that are coded. Then certain readers wouldn't get all ticked off. A little 'show citations' button or something.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 09:22, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Accessibility - not every person reading WP has the ability to use javascript or the like. It is possible (I believe) to "hide" footnotes via CSS modifications, but there's no built-in trigger for this. --MASEM (t) 15:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Who said it had to be a JavaScript solution? Just allow the user to set a preference on whether or not to display footnotes and if they don't want to see them, have the server send back a page with no footnotes. We could even provide a link at the top of each page to display/hide footnotes, with that link triggering a new server request for a page with/without footnotes as appropriate. Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)16:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd prefer to keep the citations but just have the right number which is the number needed to substantiate the article. Some people seem to have the idea that if one citation is good then more is better, whereas I see multiple citations as a red flag for synthesis or that the editor is trying to patch up uncertainty. And this business of sticking in citations on every sentence when one citation for a whole paragraph says everything that needs be said just annoys me and makes it more difficult to see the important bits. Dmcq (talk) 17:24, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Dmcq. We need to avoid over-citation in English Wikipedia: it detracts from readability and is a disincentive to editors. That, in turn, does not contribute to the aim of adding to the sum of human knowledge.
Even a citation per paragraph may be overkill. What is needed is enough reference information to be able to go to the sources and verify the article is valid. That just requires listing a source or sources that genuinely back up the article and inline citations for contentious statements or where different sections / lines of argument come from different source. That is standard literary practice. Any more is wasted effort.
Rather than insisting on a sea of references, our time would be better spent ensuring that the sources and references supplied actually back up the material presented; and are authoritative. In other words, let's go for quality not quantity. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
That may be how it would work in an ideal world, but that's not how it happens at GAC/FAC. I submitted an article for GA once that had every sentence except 2 or 3 cited. Guess what? The reviewer asked for a cite for one of those 2 or 3. And I'm fine with that. I think in most cases every sentence should be cited. I still think the readability issue could be addressed pretty easily with a view/hide footnotes toggle. As for that being a disincentive for editors, we should remember that the WP:BURDEN is on the person adding the material. As the primary author of several FAs and GAs, I've never found every-sentence citation to be troublesome; on the contrary, I often find it helpful when I've been away from an article for a while and then a question comes up about it. I can find out exactly which source I took the fact from rather than searching back through them all. When I begin working on an article that someone has already done substantial work to, I also appreciate it if they've used every-sentence citation so I can determine whether this is a fact added by an editor concerned about the article, or some undetected random nonsense thrown in by a drive-by editor. I really fail to see why this is problematic for editors. Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)18:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Far from complaining about this faux requirement, I am an advocate of making it an actual requirement. In addition to the reasons I list above, I consider such an objective, hard and fast rule preferable to the the subjective language regarding "material that is likely to be challenged." Given some of the things I've seen challenged, this covers almost everything. We've had several protracted and sometimes heated discussions at Talk:Kentucky over the statement "Kentucky is a southern state". Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)19:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Really? Every single sentence? Even "The human hand normally has four fingers and one thumb"? WP:When to cite takes a different view -- that inline citations should be provided where they are appropriate, not merely where they are possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
And who bothers to check that all the references really support the statements and aren't just window dressing? Just sticking refs after every sentence may satisfy some GA/FAC article reviewers, but it actually proves nothing unless someone checks them all out. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. But who am I to know which one(s) someone will want to check out? Hence, I supply them all to facilitate the work of someone who wants to check out any of them. I'm not just trying to make things easier for myself at GAC/FAC; that's just a happy consequence of something I think we should already be doing. Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)20:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
One could argue to one extreme that we are better serving some portions of our readers by "hand-holding", providing references after every sentence so that it is absolutely clear where information can be found. This also seems better from the Wiki editor approach for when text gets moved around. I cannot say this is necessarily wrong, but it is very unprofessional looking despite the benefits it gives to some readers and editors. My impression - simply by considering GA/FA, reading articles myself, and ultimately useful, is that a ref-per-sentence density is consider an eyesore and unprofessional by a significant fraction of readers and editors - those that don't benefit from the hand-holding approach. Now, I can't tell who is the larger group to consider, but within those that participate on WP, it is certain a "fewer is better" concept. I think there is room for some ratio of references-to-text that is closer to the 1-per-paragraph side when the information is common knowledge about that topic, that is, if you are given any random book or the like on that topic, that will contain supporting information for all the otherwise unsourced statements in the article; as such providing a list of common references is going to meet WP:V's goals just as well as sourcing each sentence. It is only when you get to unique resources that provide quotes and contentious ideas (including any statements of opinion) where sourcing is very important. --MASEM (t) 21:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
@Masem. I'm with you. Wikipedia is primarily for the reader, not the editor. And the reader just wants to know that what he is reading is reliable i.e. based on authoritative sources. For a short, non-contentious subject e.g. on a river or a locomotive, a reliable source that backs up the article may be enough. No need for a single reference - it's all in the source. On the other hand, for a long article on the history of a country or a biography, based on several sources, it makes sense to attribute key sections or significant claims individually, using a reference, as any respectable book would do. But no books reference every single paragraph or sentence. --Bermicourt (talk) 15:35, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
What I'm saying (and have been saying) is that, if the footnotes are such an "eyesore" and "unprofessional looking", give the user the option to turn them off. This doesn't have to be an either/or proposition (i.e. we do what's best for the reader or what's best for the editor.) We can and should do both! Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)14:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
It is not technically impossible to do this, but it puts ourselves in a bad situation: What about printed/fixed-media versions of pages? With references they'll still be eyesores you can do nothing about, and if you take them off before printing, you have no way to connect things. Of course, one option is to change the superscript to non-link, non-superscripted lists such as "This is a piece of information that needs a source.[1]", understanding that with our MOS on putting refs after punctation, may led to some interesting formatting.
However, a lesson learned from the data delinking/formatting problem is that we should avoid creating a situation where registered editors see something different from anon readers. An editor may set to use this inline style, and not realize they have overused references to make the page unreadable for the anon.
But I still argue it comes down to professionalism, not outright appearance. Very few professional works source every single point. I know WP is far from being a bastion of professional editing, but we should at least consider moving closer to this. --MASEM (t) 16:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm more persuaded by your first argument (print/fixed-media, anon users) than by your last (professionalism), although not enough to be swayed from my support of footnote-per-sentence. I really think if we're not going to go with footnote-per-sentence, we need something more concrete than "material likely to be challenged". I hope discussion will continue around this point until we can arrive at some kind of solution that works for everyone. Thanks for a well-reasoned and respectful debate; I regret that we seem to have reached an impasse this time. Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)21:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I think heavy referencing is good. Scholarly articles do this too, because it is essential to acknowledge sources and provide backing for statements, and emulating that standard is no bad thing. Journalism and books might be better if they used footnotes to show their sources. Because we are user generated, any text that is without an immediate inline citation is suspect, so complaining about the appearance is really secondary to our primary obligation to our readers to provide verified content. Fences&Windows22:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I absolutely agree, also WP:CLUTTER has a variety of techniques to reduce the visual impact of a large number of citations. Retaining citations is forward looking and supports WP:NOTFINISHED. un☯mi22:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
The ease of identifying subtle vandalism is an issue that needs to be considered, too. I do a certain amount of fact checking when I am out and about on recent changes patrol. It's far easier to identify and correct subtle vandalism in the heavily referenced articles. Any statement, contentious or not, can be modified by a vandal to change its meaning. It may be enough for the reader to see that a single reliable source has been provided for the whole article, but that single reliable source may well render timely fact-checking impossible, besides giving a naive reader an unwarranted sense of security. Susfele (talk) 00:38, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but do you actually need an inline citation per grammatical unit to be able to do this? Do you need, for example, an inline citation attached to "The human hand normally has four fingers and one thumb"? What if all the information in a paragraph obviously comes from the same source, e.g., "Smith identifies three groups. The first group is..."? Do you need an inline citation repeated at the end of each and every one of those sentences, or do you think you could figure out what the source is, if it's named at the end of the first or last sentence in a paragraph? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Regarding paragraph-level citation, I try to use it if possible, but I have had an editor question it. Sometimes it can be obvious, but other times it isn't. Also, I find that I seldom write something as obvious as "The human hand normally has four fingers and one thumb". Not saying it isn't going to happen, but it's so rare that I'd be OK with it being an exception. Exceptions would almost have to be determined on a case-by-case basis, though, because it would be difficult to write a general guideline about exceptions that is less ambiguous than the citation rule we already have. Acdixon(talk • contribs • count)20:00, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Would it be useful to have a template that permits the editor to indicate that a reference applies to more or less than one sentence (like the "Reference necessary" template that can be used to indicate the absence of a reference for a section of text). --Boson (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC).
Disputed links should be excluded by default until there is a consensus to include them.
This on the face of it sounds plausible. But you can interpret this as any link can be removed at any time, for any reason, unless you hold an RFC and there is almost complete agreement to keep it.
And this is actually how it's being interpreted at WP:ELN.
This is extremely troubling because the chances of getting complete agreement in the RFC to keep any particular link given there's going to be at least one person (and often more as some types of editors hang out at noticeboards) that disagrees with it staying, so the odds of more than one person disagreeing is very high, and so probably most RFCs end with no consensus and so it will get removed. And this is true even if there was prior agreement that it should be kept, or even if everyone that frequently edits that particular article thinks it's completely fine.
Essentially this is inverting the normal WP:CONSENSUS policy that says that any change to an article must be made by consensus. These guys are pretty much saying stuff can be removed at any time by anyone, and it should stay gone.
Does anyone else think that they're full of shit on this, or am I out to lunch? I'd like this sentence removed, it seems to have been deliberately written like that for forcing deletion of links that they can't get consensus to remove.- Wolfkeeper01:27, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
My two cents - The idea that a disputed external link should be removed until there is consensus actually seems reasonable. EL sections are frequently used to introduce things into an article that really don't belong, so it's a good area to be extra careful. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 01:50, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
So you're saying I or anyone can go along to any link, and say the magic words 'I dispute the link' presto it's disputed and then it should be gone? So there's no point in external links at all, because they can all be removed at any time.- Wolfkeeper02:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I have to confess that I'm very partial on this, as I routinely go around deleting links. Having said that, I wholeheartedly agree with the policy as written now. The burden of including an external link has to be on those who want to include it. The truth is that the vast majority of external links (except for those used as references) should be removed. As an encyclopedia, we should provide all of the necessary information for people to understand the subject. As the policy points out, EL should be used for things like the subjects official homepage, information that we would include but can't for copyright reasons, or comprehensive information that's too long for us to include. Most of the time, those EL are used as advertisements, as links to support or advocacy groups, to opinion pieces and/or blogs, etc. The encyclopedia benefits from fewer links, and thus putting the burden on those who wish to include improves the encyclopedia. Of course, it's more complicated than that--a link with longstanding consensus should on average be kept first and debated on the talk page, but most links that I delete don't have such a long history, and should be removed first and discussed later.Qwyrxian (talk) 02:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
No, this says that even if it was consensus previously, and even if most people still want it kept if the discussion didn't technically reach complete consensus to not remove it, it's still gone.- Wolfkeeper02:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
You could be looking at up to 70-80% of people giving sound policy based reasons for keeping a link, and it's still gone.- Wolfkeeper02:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
It really really depends on the type of article I think. I can't begin to list all the very helpful ELs I've followed, many of which would be scorned by some here. Not "opinion pieces and/or blogs" or adverts or advocacy, but comprehensive info sites that just have plenty of actual information that isn't on here because it'd be considered "cruft" (not a bad thing, mind you), or in general extra detail that wouldn't work on WP. I find the often wholr raging against some sites to be quite odd -- look at it this way. People go to an article for info, there's absolutely nothing wrong with providing a source for MORE info, especially when said info can't be here. And I don't mean because of copyright. Obviously care needs to be made that a site IS helpful, but I hardly see at ALL how "The encyclopedia benefits from fewer links". There's a good balance to be had, but it's not always just one or two or none as some people seem to want. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
+1 to Melodia's comments. The EL inclusionists and exclusionists have to work with each other daily, and we all need to tolerate and grok each other's viewpoints. There are large numbers of editors (and probably readers) belonging to both camps. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, sure, but EL exclusionists are literally saying in this guideline that they don't have to tolerate anything, they're claiming the ability to remove links even when there is a majority in a discussion don't want the link removed, and that this is a guideline that should be followed.- Wolfkeeper04:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
And the EL exclusionists are just as determinedly stubborn about their opinion, as you are that linguistic information should be excised from certain aspects of Wikipedia... Really! Exactly as stubborn. They want the majority of links gone from here.
As with many disagreements at Wikipedia, it all comes down to (for a generalising reductionist) a lot of saying "yes yes! this is interesting and good!" and "no no! this is broken and wrong!" past each other. So it goes. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:22, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
That's not quite.. I'm just saying you shouldn't have a whole article just on a word itself. Anyway the big difference is, I respect RFCs and AFDs (even if they don't follow policies), I don't come back immediately after a specific RFC that said the opposite or failed to achieve consensus to do a removal and do it anyway. And I definitely don't game a guideline to say that I can do stuff like that all I like.- Wolfkeeper06:18, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
This is just forum shoppping by Wolfkeeper. See concurrent discussions 1 and 2 that he is not happy with. And yes, for the record, I strongly believe that all external links have to be accounted for (ie: their encyclopedic benefit must be reasonably explained). I think this is on par with the rest of what is in our articles. For example, we can have 5 perfectly good pages of material on George Washington on an article about Thomas Jefferson, but if it adds no encyclopedic understanding about Jefferson than it doesn't belong in that article. Likewise there are many external links that could possibly be added to every article on here, but until it is shown that they increase an encyclopedic understanding of the article's subject they shouldn't be allowed in. I also strongly agree with Qwyrxian's comments above. Bravo Qwyrxian. ThemFromSpace05:03, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
This is simply a personal attack by ThemFromSpace. This is not forum shopping; this is the only thread on this (I simply mentioned it in one other on the WP:EL talk page). There is a transparent WP:GAMING of the guidelines to try to justify link deletionists removing anything the hell they want.- Wolfkeeper06:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Themfromspace, and most of the other editors posting here. The overall goal is to have a consensus to include/remove each and every proposed external link. When (and only when) that consensus does not exist, we default towards removing spam/potentially inappropriate external links -- just like when no consensus exists at AFD, we default towards keeping pages. This is not a violation of consensus: this is a practical recognition that consensus cannot always be achieved, that edit warring (which is evil) results if we don't provide a default resolution, and that you cannot simultaneously include and not-include an external link in a given article. And, yes, this is a sad case of forum-shopping in an effort to preserve an external link to a single-panel comic strip in a physics-related article. Other discussions include the article's talk page, WT:POLICY, and at least one editor's user talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
The problem is whose opinion counts for saying that a link increases the understanding sufficiently for inclusion? My understanding of this guideline is that it claims that minority opinions should be permitted to force their removal. That's completely unacceptable. Minority opinions do not force anything, the Wikipedia works by consensus. If you remove a link and it's gone, that's fine, it's consensus. But if people disagreed with its removal, and reintroduced it, you shouldn't be permitted to force its removal when an RFC to delete it fails to achieve consensus to do that.- Wolfkeeper06:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Read the whole of WP:EL. Everything about it points to the idea that we should keep external links under control as much as possible. Heck, just read the in a nutshell summary: "External links in an article can be helpful to the reader, but they should be kept minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article." Note also this in the second paragraph: "No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link." The specific line Wolfkeeper raised a problem with is entirely consistent with the idea that the default goal is to minimize external links and place the burden of defense on those who wish to keep them. Someone mentioned "consensus," which is actually great, as long as we're talking about the right consensus. That is, local consensus (the primary editors who oversee any given article) cannot and should not override the more general consensus which we call "policy" and "guidelines". If a group of local editors want to keep OR in an article because it's "useful" or "helpful" or "the truth," their opinion cannot override WP:OR; this is exactly the same situation as a group of local editors being in favor of keeping a certain set of links even when those links violate WP:EL. And if you re-read "What to link" is, you can see that there are actually very few types of links that we consider acceptable. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:57, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
@Qwyrxian. I'm sorry I completely disagree with your statement that "The truth is that the vast majority of external links (except for those used as references) should be removed. As an encyclopedia, we should provide all of the necessary information for people to understand the subject." That is not truth; it's opinion. An encyclopedia, by its nature, is a summary of information on given subjects. It is not comprehensive and we should waypoint readers to additional information e.g. on the internet. This is particularly important for images or diagrams which may be copyrighted and therefore not displayable on Wikipedia. I also think it's entirely reasonable to include e.g. the official websites of the subject being discussed. In sum external links are valuable; what we need is to ensure they are relevant. I am not in favour of a default either way; I am in favour of a consensus where a link becomes disputed. That's the normal Wikipedia approach. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
The examples you give are explicitly accepted in "What to Link," and I wholeheartedly agree they should be kept. Anyone deleting those would very much be deleting against policy. But I run into people all the time saying "we should keep this because it's useful" or "we need to get the truth out" or "it's an important part of the story." Those are the links for which it is very convenient to have an explicit policy to point to and say "No, and if you think otherwise, you're going to have to show a consensus to keep it, a consensus support by WP:EL." Qwyrxian (talk) 08:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I see that. Actually I don't think we're that far apart. What I think you're saying is that if I see a dubious link then there has to be a discussion and the consensus wins. If consensus (I assume that's a reasonable majority) can't be reached, the link gets deleted anyway. Sounds reasonable. But one or two objectors shouldn't be enough. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but that's the big problem, it sounds perfectly reasonable until you realise that even if the majority want a perfectly legitimate link kept, the vote is still going to get essentially stuffed by people from WP:EL attack page noticeboard and (in some cases) a bunch of sockpuppets as well, not all of which, in practice, you will be able to prove aren't legitimate. The best you can hope for in those kinds of situations is 'no consensus' but then the link gets deleted.- Wolfkeeper16:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately Wolfkeepers objections center around an assumption of bad faith, which isn't the path policies and guidelines should take. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 21:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
No, the WP:EL guideline is coming from an assumption of bad faith as it assumes that even if a majority of people are voting to keep a link then they are doing it irrespective of harm to the encyclopedic nature of the Wikipedia, and that therefore the material should be removed anyway.- Wolfkeeper22:03, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the most common situation is that only two editors are involved: the person who added the link and the person who removed it. This means that there's no majority as well as no consensus.
This hinges on what Wikipedia means by "consensus". If consensus means "general agreement" i.e. a clear majority, then one or two objectors cannot overrule the rest. However if "consensus" is taken to mean "unanimous agreement" (not it's dictionary definition) then a minority can spoil the outcome, which seems very un-Wiki like. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Nobody is suggesting that "consensus"="unanimous agreement". (at least, they shouldn't be. WP:CON clearly explains itself (or did last time I looked)).
Rather, Wolfkeeper is concerned that some other people believe this statement: "In the absence of consensus to keep an EL, the default decision is to delete the EL".
Unfortunately, "Consensus is not unanimity" was lost in a re-write. A couple of editors decided that "negative definitions" (e.g., "consensus is not unanimity", "outer space is that portion of the universe that is not a celestial body", "inedible substances are not food") were ugly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
<outdent
So as I say I'm proposing that this anti-consensus be removed from WP:EL. It's clearly not even in the same spirit as consensus, and there can be no good outcomes from applying it in the absence of consensus.- Wolfkeeper05:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Could you clarify what exactly you think the new policy should say? Because after all of the discussion, I'm not actually clear what specifically you want the final wording to be. Thanks. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
It should be deleted entirely, or reworded to simply point to consensus. The external link deletionists are saying they're above consensus, that it doesn't apply to them or external links.- Wolfkeeper14:44, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
There are some things that should default to not including them unless there is a consensus. BLPs are one and external links are another, just because of the damage and biases they can lead to. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
So if I set up a bot to remove all of the external links? Very, very, very, very, very few of them have been through an RFC to keep them. So we can remove all of them, and only reinclude the ones that people really want.- Wolfkeeper22:49, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
True, but hardly any of them have been discussed, so they can almost all be removed. This is self-evidently an explicitly deletionist guideline, and this is deliberately how you wrote it.- Wolfkeeper17:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
External links, like anything else, should be kept or added with via consensus. There is no good reason to default to keeping or deleting them. Hobit (talk) 15:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Hobit, I think you've missed the point. When there is no consensus -- when you have two editors determined to keep the link, and two editors screaming that it must be removed, and they've already been through every step of WP:DR short of WP:Arbcom with zero change except to become further entrenched in their firmly held positions, what do you do? Let the side with the most effective edit warriors win? Alternate back and forth?
It's not like a regular content dispute, in which there are myriad possibilities for presenting contested information (e.g., presenting it as a minority view, or in less detail). Either the external link is included, or it's not. The community has provided a default at WP:ELBURDEN that mirrors the default at WP:BURDEN: If you can't source your content, it can be removed; if there's really, truly no consensus for your link, it can be removed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
No, that's not the case, you're misrepresenting it, WP:Burden works by consensus, this is anti-consensus, excluding any link by default, even if there's no consensus for removal, it still gets removed. It's a total failure to assume good faith.- Wolfkeeper17:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Maintenance tags on stub articles
Latest comment: 14 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
It seems to me that there is little point in adding "unreferenced" or "expand" tags, etc, to a stub article - the need to improve it is self-evident from the stub tag. Is there a policy on this? I know this has been raised before, but I haven't seen a concrete outcome. If there is no policy, how do Wikipedians feel about adding a guideline or policy such as "Articles tagged as stubs should not normally be marked with maintenance tags (such as "unreferenced" or "expand") as this is taken to be self-evident from the stub tag." --Bermicourt (talk) 19:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Pages like Template:Unreferenced/doc have long encouraged sensible behavior, and certain New Page Patrollers get lectures about this issue fairly frequently. WP:STUB prohibits tagging an article with both {{Expand}} and any stub template.
IMO editors can and should use judgment when placing such tags, and may remove them whenever they seem unhelpful or inappropriate. I wouldn't object to a general statement to that effect, but I'm not sure that it's really useful. The energy might be more effectively spent removing spurious and outdated tags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Agree completely that expand has no place whatever in stubs. Completely disagree that unreferenced does not belong—can't think of a better place for the tag actually. Informing users about sourcing requirements as early as possible has great effects. Stubs are often created by new users who don't have a clue that we source articles but are willing to do so once they know, and this is how they first learn and that sometimes leads to a sourced article that would have been written completely without in the tag's absence. That early sourcing germ leads the way for sourcing to occur contemporaneously by others as the article is expanded later. It's many time easier to write an article with sources as you go than to back in sources later, after the text has already been written, and that sourced text from the start is 100% of the time far more accurate than the content that we would have had from the unverified road-not-taken. Lack of sourcing is our number one problem on Wikipedia, which so many other problems have as their wellspring, i.e., we have a problem with reliability—but sourcing is the biggest answer to that—NPOV? Weight? Original research? The generic answer is not just "sourcing", but proper application of sourcing is. Anyway, see Template talk:Unreferenced#RFC: should this tag be allowed on stubs? for past discussion.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree entirely that sourcing is important, but slapping "unreferenced" tags on every stub article seems overkill and detracts from overall readability. For the benefit of new editors we could sow the seed by enhancing the stub tag text e.g.
The relevent policy is WP:UCS. There are times when a maintenance tag is appropriate even for a stub; its quite possible that a stub violates a policy or guideline in a way that a maintenance tag can call attention to. There are also times when the use of maintenance tags can be overkill. We don't need a policy or guideline to deal with this. Each stub should be judged on its own merits, and tags should be applied in a manner which is useful, but not superfluous or contentious. --Jayron3206:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Even the smallest stub should have at least one reference. If you can find one in a quick search, you should add it, but otherwise not just the unreferenced tag but also in time the prod tag may be appropriate. Wnt (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Since commenting above, I ran across picoplankton which I linked to to answer a RefDesk question. I was only checking to make sure my source's figure matched what an article said, and I don't think I would have noticed that the article was unsourced except for the tag. Since I had a source open in the browser, I was able to add it with little trouble. I don't know how many other tags are really worth using on a stub, but at least that one seems worth having. Wnt (talk) 19:40, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Exactly — there's never a good reason not to have an article without any sources whatsoever. Expand templates are pointless, since a stub, by its nature, is a page that needs to be expanded; however, sourcing is necessary for articles of any length. Nyttend (talk) 03:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
While I'd be sorry to have anyone actually create unsourced stubs just because it's allowed, technically, Wikipedia does not require editors to name sources except to support direct quotations and contentious matter about living people. The policy is that information must be verifiable, not already verified (=cited). That is, the sources must exist, somewhere in the world, but they do not have to be named unless/until there is a WP:BURDEN challenge.
This is only tangentially related, but I personally still support removing most (if not all) "maintenance tags". Keeping the number of tags limited to the most important tag, or possibly two tags in extreme situations, not only seems reasonable but should be something that we all adhere to. The number of articles that are permanently tagged with some sort of maintenance tag is just ridiculous. It's no ones fault really, it's just that the "tag it and forget it" mentality is too seductive, since it apparently affords some editors with a misplaced sense of accomplishment. Yes, tagging articles does categorize them into maintenance cats, but there are not nearly enough people working to reduce the number of articles with such tags. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)16:31, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Deleting a requested photo category
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
After a recent picture-taking visit to Oxford, Ohio, I've had reason to empty Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Oxford, Ohio. Should I tag it for speedy deletion under C1, or are reqphoto categories to be considered a "project categor[y] that by [its] nature may become empty on occasion"? We have articles on Oxford-related topics that don't have images currently, so it's possible that someone might want to place one or more talk pages into this category. Nyttend (talk) 03:24, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
I would say that we should leave it up. Seems like this is one of those situations where the category might be empty on occasion, but it would be silly to delete and recreate it repeatedly. Killiondude (talk) 03:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Is it common for WikiProjects to create categories for photograph requests? If so, then consider this a "project category"... if not, delete it. Blueboar (talk) 14:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Members as living breathing "Reliable/ Verifiable " Sources
Latest comment: 14 years ago15 comments13 people in discussion
I think W'pedia needs to alter its recent more stringently applied policy of crossly whisking away information that members have direct personal experience of, and it should create a new category of reference for this neglected, valuable and disrespected knowledge. It could easily be indicated in the footnotes that the writer was the source for that fact alone . All members are anthropologists visiting the great game of life ? What do you think ?Tumadoireacht (talk) 22:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
How has WP:OR been applied more stringently recently? Are you saying there was a time we tolerated assertions of fact sourced only to a member's purported witness account? postdlf (talk) 22:45, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
What I said may not be exactly fair, Citizendium has certified "experts" who can override non-experts. Therein lies the problem. What if my personal experience contradicts yours? What if we had the same experience but interpreted it in different ways? Beeblebrox (talk) 22:47, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Let's ask the more obvious question: what if one of us just plain old lies? People already falsify sources or lie about what's in them; at least those can be checked. →ROUX₪01:19, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia based on previously published sources. It is not the place to record original observations or personal knowledge and I cannot see this changing. The problem is: 1. How do we know whether an individual user is correct in what they write? and 2. Why would we be interested in this information? We're trying to write an encyclopedia, not an anthropological record. However, personal knowledge can be handy to guide editors towards reliable sources. At WP:BLPN recently, an editor made comments about an actress based on their personal knowledge (they went to college with them). This helped us to hunt down sources to verify this info and improve the article. Fences&Windows00:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Fences, however WP:V does cause unintended problems when personal observations conflict with reliable sources. At W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus an editor changed some information regarding the demolition of a certain building on campus. Reliable sources say demolition happened... however the editor was correct that the building does indeed still stand. However, because there is no source that states the building was only gutted and the demolition was halted at the last minute I was forced to remove changes... Was there a solution I am missing or is this a case where WP:V unfortunately causes us to have a less-than-perfect encyclopedia? Or can IAR be applied to override WP:V and allow the "truth" to be inserted.Camelbinky (talk) 02:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Probably it's just a matter of waiting until a reliable source does give that info. Please take this entirely with good faith, but why should we necessarily believe your account, Camelbinky? I mean, I assume you're telling the truth, but I have no way to verify that you are. And, if we extend the hypothetical idea to something slightly controversial, then we start to get a real headache; say, for example, someone who lives in the West Bank wanting to add the "truth" about the events that happened there during the Gaza War...followed by an Israeli soldier who wants to correct that "truth..." I think it's just the nature of an encyclopedia that we're always going to be missing some "facts on the ground," so to speak; it's a systemic bias, but one that's necessary to make the vast majority of the project function. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
(after ec)I generally agree also, but to second Camelbinky's observation, I recall a covered bridge that reliable sources described as being closed to vehicular traffic. One Wikipedian visited the bridge and took a photo of a car driving through the bridge (which was not in any way a staged event). I'm not sure of the particulars concerning the outcome of that case, though I seem to recall that after some time, other editors were able to prevail upon whomever maintained the bridge or some other reliable source connected with the bridge to issue an updated statement that the bridge was in fact open to traffic. Point is that even ostensibly reliable sources are not always completely reliable or current with their information. older ≠ wiser02:54, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Bkonrad: Looks like a tempest in a teacup. The source says it was closed on such and such date, or as of the date of publication. Humans die only once, but a closed bridge can be reopened. A bridge may be closed to general traffic but used by emergency or maintenance vehicles, or simply trespassed... I suspect that taking the act of closing the bridge to the level of perennial truth is OR, is it not? WP:V stands regardless of these small disagreements. East of Borschov08:19, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps so, but a corollary of "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" is that "Verifiable is not necessarily the same as true". older ≠ wiser00:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
User:Qwyrxian asks how he can be sure User:Camelbinky is telling the truth. Well, you could go along to Albany and have a look at the building. For me that would mean crossing the Atlantic but then I might have to do that to refer to some published source only to be found in a library in the U.S. WP absolutely allows citation to works that are difficult to access. Despite all that, I rather agree with requiring published sources though in non contentious cases you can generally slip in a personal observation without anyone knowing or caring. Taking a photo is a great trick! Thincat (talk) 08:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
We normally accept editor-made photographs to the extent that they don't contradict the reliable sources that the article relies upon. If there's a conflict, we have to start worrying about things like photoshopping, outdated images, and just plain confusion. For example, "The Flatiron Building was destroyed in the earthquake" can't really be disproven by the production of a snapshot of a building that happens to have the same name/same location/same appearance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Many articles were laid down as unsourced early versions, and then people go back and either source or remove statements. Note that a fact has to be challenged to be removed for being unsourced - you shouldn't remove something you think is true just because it lacks a source (at least outside of BLP-land) though the "citation needed" template may be in order. Note also that we have WP:IAR for a reason. Yes, under the rules you can take a picture of your campus building and caption it "The XXXX building two weeks after its demolition", but that would be silly, wouldn't it? So just do what is right, when you know it's right.
Show substituted fair-use images be deleted
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Hello folks,
I have a question. If a fair-used image is replaced by an image of the same name, than the old image is no more used in our project. Should it be delelted? The rationale is, a no more used non-free image is no more fair-used in our project. Keep it could be considered a copyright violation. Any opinions?
Hi, yes, this is also my idea. There is a slight twist here: The image has a name, let's say example.jpg. There are actually two images behind this same name. The newer version of the image is still used, the older no more, but can be seen in the history of the image. My idea is, that the older image should be deleted, since no more fair-used.--Wing (talk) 08:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
That's probably best practice. I've deleted earlier versions of NFU images that have been reduced in size, for example, because those earlier versions remain hosted and available to the public if not deleted. postdlf (talk) 17:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (British Isles) has been marked as a guideline
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Can someone explain something for me please, i have added some links to Wikipedia and its all above me most of what to do on here. According to spambot my links have been removed. They are only links to certain artists bios and nothing is for sale on this website. I am thinking just dont know what i am doing is wrong, can someone please help me as it is saying it will block me next time as i really dont get it. Thanks Jason —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rouens (talk • contribs) 05:24, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Bravehost.com is one of those websites that is almost never appropriate, so when a new editor adds them, then XLinkBot assumes it was a mistake. The bot isn't threatening you, by the way; that final note was from some human editor who wasn't logged in. If you think that these really are appropriate, encyclopedic links (and not, e.g., fansites), then you might ask for help at the External links noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
WebCiteBOT is down - Dead links at record high
Latest comment: 14 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion
BTW, does anyone know of a semi-automated tool for webciting individual articles? In other words, doing the same thing as WebCiteBOT but under user control. That'd be a big help for older articles. Will Bebacktalk07:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) has been marked as a guideline
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 14 years ago15 comments10 people in discussion
I have had an idea that was inspired by the discussion of list articles (above)... but is enough of a departure that I think it should be raised in its own section. I question whether lists belong in an encyclopedia in the first place. To me, lists are more appropriate in an almanac. At the moment Wikipedia is really a mix of an encyclopedia and an almanac... and this may be the reason why we find lists so problematic. As a solution... what if we started a sister project (like we did for WikiNews... perhaps call it WikiAlmanac) designed explicitly for organizing information in an almanacic format. Blueboar (talk) 17:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Too many lists also have substantial article content, in the form of annotations or prefatory paragraphs, so there is not a workable division between "articles" and "pure lists". As lists are already well integrated into the article environment, and used in aid of writing and organizing articles, this would also just make that whole process harder to work with, if lists are shuttled off to some other land. All of these objections were also raised in response to the similar proposal above that lists be moved into another namespace in Wikipedia. Nothing would be solved, and nothing would be accomplished except new opportunities to argue about what goes in which arbitrarily constructed grouping of content. postdlf (talk) 18:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, almanacs are more than just lists.... they often include annotations and prefatory paragraphs. So I don't think the division is as clear cut as "articles" go in wikipedia and "pure lists" go in Wikialmanac... its more a question of whether the topic is better covered in an encyclopedic forum or an almanatic forum. Of course there will be topics that are best covered in both. and I am definitely not saying that this would be an easy or quick fix to anything. This is just the germ of an idea after all. Blueboar (talk) 18:40, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Scope: There are currently 1852 WP:Featured lists. There are currently over 60,000 pages that begin with the word "List" (and numerous pages that don't, but that are essentially lists).
Philosophy: WP:5P: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." It's said almost the same thing for 5 years.
Conclusion: I don't think this is a good idea, because it would cause more conflict (over where every "list" belongs), and make the majority of this "encyclopedic information" harder to access (ie, less likely that our readers/editors will find it).
New namespace: As it is tangentially related (and will surely come up again), I'll point to the list of prior new-namespace proposals at the end of the Draft RfC on navigational pages. (The draft RfC is full of insights, for anyone willing to invest some time to grok it all. I swear!)
I am not really suggesting or proposing anything... I am merely sharing the germ of an idea. If people like the idea, we go from there... I am not pretending to have all the answers or a plan of action. I simply think lists are more properly the subject of an almanac... so I suggested that we consider an almanac style sister project. Blueboar (talk) 01:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
There's is ListWikia, one of the many backwater wikia sites with very few users, but it is a collection of lists, mostly copied from Wikipedia. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
(e-c)I am with Blueboar on investigating and fleshing out this idea even though I do not believe it is an idea that I would ever support. But here is my question anyways to help flesh it out- how would WikiAlmanac (or whatever title you choose) affect the numerous geographical/settlement articles we have today? Would those articles that some people try to get rid of because they are "gazetteer-like" be switched over to the almanac? I do agree that topics like Tallest buildings in the United States are not ones you would find in an encyclopedia but would find in an almanac. There just is alot of overlap when it comes to entries on countries and states and looking at the tabs on an encyclopedia in front of me now also overlaps with sports, economy, business, health, people, history, elections, and science. How easy would it be to draw a rough line between the two wiki's and decide what is acceptable to stay in Wikipedia?Camelbinky (talk) 20:39, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it will work. Wikipedians will fuss about being told to move content to "Wikialmanac", and the almaniacs will reject certain kinds of lists as being inappropriate for an almanac. Although many modern publications include trivia (because it sells), an almanac is really about calender events (e.g., when to plant the crops, what weather to expect, what phase the moon will be in, when the elections are, that kind of thing). List of chemistry topics is not really a suitable subject for an almanac.
Consequently, I think we'd end up with the same problems, only with adding "Transwiki to Wikialmanac, and let them choose to delete it if they want" as an alternative to "Keep" and "Delete" in discussions here. Relocating the problem isn't the same as solving it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not keen on this idea. I'm with the first pillar when it says. "Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." Perhaps the "incorporates elements of almanacs" aspect needs to be emphasised to people when they are getting worried about lists. Yaris678 (talk) 07:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi all! I just wanted to alert you to a discussion (link) we're having at PUF regarding Florida Sunshine Laws, and whether that means that items created by the state are in the public domain just as if it were the US Federal government. The user makes a compelling case that it is public domain indeed, but my knowledge of it is simply not extensive enough to be able to proceed. So two things:
1) Can we get some expert opinions on this to post on that page?
2) If the expert opinions are such that the law allows for public domain documents, we should create {{PD-Florida}}.
It depends on the use, in my opinion. It's not a reliable source for "there are millions of geotagged images", but I would treat it as reliable for statements about microformatting standards. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:56, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
As explained in the edit summary, Gregor J. Rothfuss does not confirm in that email that the problem exists. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
a) That's generally what happens when you reply to an email. b) Given that this email is from three years ago, and the article claims that it is still broken, it would seem unlikely that he did. If it is now fixed, then it's not worth mentioning in the article. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
As has been explained before, saying "it's not true" is not a refutation. Perhaps you would also care to provide a reliable, third-party source that establishes that the problem was worked on and is still broken. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 23:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Then demonstrate that your claim is true (hint: you cannot). If and when I insert a claim that "the problem was worked on and is still broken" into an article, I will be sure to reference it. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits23:09, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Few thoughts - No, open Wiki's are not reliable sources for the exact same reason why Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Also, the use of a three year old posting to claim a currently existing issue is effectively OR by synthesis as it is implying a conclusion that the reference does not support. As of 2007, whatever issue it is you two are arguing about was broken and was promised to be fixed. There is no source indicating what the status is as of 2010. Resolute23:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Precisely. Pigsonthewing, if you are going to claim that it still exists and has not been fixed, please provide a current citation. →ROUX₪07:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree strongly with the "OR by synthesis" argument as Pigsonthewing is an editor on that wiki. I think it's relatively clear that we should not consider as a reliable source something where an editor might write something and then immediately refer back to it. I would entertain a few exceptions where the external source is refereed (before "publication"), but an open wiki is far from refereed.
This appears to be one of those annoying cases where an editor is more-or-less expert in their field and expects to be able to treat primary material as secondary material. Andy, take a step back. The argument so far—as I understand it—is that your source is not reliable, that it is unreliable because it is primary material, synthesis, and/or editable. Your argument needs to show that some content is in fact reliable, not a synthesis, and not open to anyone's changes, that is, refereed. It also is beneficial to examine whether any content is or has been included based on sources that are not reliable, syntheses, or that are editable, so that we can avoid using them, because as far as I can tell there is a consensus—not merely here but engrained in various long-held policies—that such sources are unsatisfactory to Wikipedia's standards.
Also, regardless of whether you are wrong or right, you should try to compromise or at least adopt a different tone. The tone that you are currently using comes across as argumentative and aggressive, even if you do not intend it to be so. Try to find common ground in the discussion and work from there. To start, make a positive argument rather than merely contesting the arguments of others. Why should we consider microformats.org reliable? What factors make it legitimate? Should we consider certain directories of microformats.org reliable but not others? For example, it appears that the wiki is only one directory of several. Which, if any, are reliable? {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}}16:42, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I believe an open Wiki can be a reliable source, provided two conditions are met:
The Wiki is referenced as a stable URL from the "History" page, not simply with a link to the current version.
This precise version from the History was evaluated from beginning to end by one or more acknowledged experts or professionals in the field, people such as would be accepted as a publisher or as a reliable self-published source under current guidelines.
Note that simply finding the name of an expert on a history revision does not nearly meet this burden of proof, because many experts fix only one detail they care about. Someone actually has to put reputation at risk for the content to be other than self-published by anonymous sources.
Now having said this, the fact that microformats.org is a Wiki is something of a distraction. The link [27] (though as I say something solid like [28] should be used) is a self-published source by one person, who has not merely signed off on it but authored it. So the only question is whether Tantek Çelik is an expert whose self-published writings are taken as reliable. (That article looks like it has received a significant excess of Wikilove, by the way, at least where the citation needed's are concerned) Wnt (talk) 19:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Resolved
This noticeboard is for discussing Wikipedia policies, not content disputes. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard is more what you seem to be looking for. If there is edit warring going on you can request page protection to stop it. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
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