Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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[සංස්කරණය] TV/film articles and original research

On the Dancing With The Stars Season Five article, a couple of contributors have stated that reporting anything that occurs on the show's broadcast is considered "original research" unless it's been reported in the press, because we can't reference copyrighted online videos and can't cite a broadcast. In other words, a plot summary of a TV broadcast or film, or even a statement of fact - such as "Jennie Garth did a tango in episode three" - is considered original research unless you cite someone else's formal article (which, natch, cites the original broadcast or film). The trouble, IMO, is that this rule would reduce entertainment articles to irrelevance; you can't write about films and TV shows unless you can cite them directly. One contributor writes that he has no problem with this. Is that desired?3Tigers (talk) 03:37, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

For clarity, she is referring to this removal by me. I (talk) 03:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the added ref, I, although I'm also referring to overarching complaints about original research which have been at the top of the article for weeks before the story section was added. BTW, I'm a she. ;-) 3Tigers (talk) 04:02, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Amended accordingly. The original research is just one of the few problems with that section. Mainly, it is not relevant to the article to have notes like that. I (talk) 04:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
A televised broadcast is a published source. So long as the editor merely describes the events in the broadcast and does not make any analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the events without additional secondary source, it is not original research. --Farix (Talk) 12:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
That's what I thought. I did a university thesis citing live theater performances and TV broadcasts using standard academic footnoting; I was surprised to hear Wiki's policies were substantially different, and now I know they're not. I think the real complaint was the drama/twists section, which listed the major plot twists over the course of the show. Some contributors regarded it as not factual. We discussed this on the talk page when debating whether to add a section about what distinguishes this show from a regular dance competition; I pointed out that excessive gushing could be edited out later, but the entire section got deleted.3Tigers (talk) 14:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, "drama and twists" for a reality TV show can be taken as highly OR, because what defines a significant drama or twist? Does the show come out and say it? -- if so, great, it can be added, but the bulk of the time, abd based on the edit pointed out above, pretty much all of that was OR. Furthermore, remember that WP is supposed to describe every plot detail; for most reality TV shows, going into the "drama" of an episode is generally not needed. --MASEM 14:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Masem, I'm pretty sure you missed out a very important not in the above, just before the link.  —SMALLJIM  17:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I definitely understand this; how much plot to reveal is the editorial bugaboo of TV/film articles. Of course, reality TV producers describe everything as a significant twist to try to generate interest ("Here's a dozen replays of Marie Osmond fainting!"), so that's a judgment call. The "no original research" thing struck me as being a little odd, which is why I queried.3Tigers (talk) 14:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
There should be no "Plot/Twist" sections in Dancing with the Stars (US season 5) without secondary sources. Suggestion that there are plots or twists to what is affectively a televised dance competition is original research because you are making an evaluative claim and would need secondary sources. In fact, no one should describe something as a "plot twist" without secondary sources as that would be an analytic, interpretive, and evaluative claim. --Farix (Talk) 16:38, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay. The section was an attempt to gather together the various comments and plot observations that contributors had scattered all over the board, due to the fact that the "personal dramas" angle is what makes this a big TV reality show, different from regular dance competitions. Based on other Wiki TV series templates, if this material were to remain, I think it would be better to pull it together in an episode table with brief synopses. And this thread should probably go back to the discussion page from the original article.3Tigers (talk) 23:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] License plate numbers in images?

Do we have any guidelines here for whether licence plate numbers can appear in images? This recently uploaded image [[1]] is of an unmarked (or personally-owned) police car in Slovakia. It's a beautiful shot but the plate number is clearly visible and I don't know if that's cool or not. Do we have any precedent about whether plate numbers need to be airbrushed out in this situation? Squidfryerchef 22:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I can't think of any specific policy on it, though one could argue that it should be airbrushed or otherwise obfuscated in compliance for privacy and in keeping with the living persons guideline (since the license plate is only slightly less personal info than posting someone's DL number, at least in the US), especially for a personally-owned car. The license plate could trace back to a living person. So my off the cuff 2 cents is that a readable plate shouldn't be seen in an image. Collectonian 02:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Collectonian. Unless this person is ok with their license plate being shown, and has said as much, a courtesy blurring or blotting of the number would probably by the best option. I can't imagine such a modification would cause any problems in regards to attribution or license used. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
In general, I disagree. A license plate on image of a car (absent any other context) is not significantly identifying information. I can walk down any street and get dozens of license plates without knowing anything significant about their owners. Now if the caption said, this is Bill Person's BMW and it had an identified license plate, that would be entirely different. But I don't see any need to remove isolated pieces of information taken out of context, any more than I feel the need to blur out all of the potentially identifiable faces in photographs of a crowd.
All of that said, in this specific case of a license plate on an undercover police car, it is the kind of specific context where removing the plate is probably a good idea. Dragons flight 02:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
The police in this case could if they wanted have arrested the photographer if they didn't want the picture taken so why are we worrying about it .Garda40 19:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I would say that in this particular case the courtesy blurring of an in service undercover vehicles plate would be an option. I would hazard a guess that the blurring of all non-relevant plates to halt possible identity theft is not within Wikipedia's remit. If some governments are silly enough to sell their licence databases to anyone who wants them (such as the US DMV), and those buyers charge one-off fees on the internet to anyone who wants all the information related to that plate isn't our problem. 86.21.74.40 03:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Dragon's Flight. It's not exactly private when you slap it on your car and go for a drive (unlike your DL number or SSN, which presumably you keep to yourself). As for this image, it's not exactly undercover with that red light on the roof. Not sure I see a privacy problem with it. --Kbdank71 03:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd just like to clarify. I don't think it's an unmarked in the sense that it's used for undercover detective work, i think it's for traffic enforcement. The notes with the pic said it was taken at such-and-such highway in Slovakia. Squidfryerchef 03:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There may also be a law in that country that prohibits the disclosure and publication of police and other government vehicles for security purposes. Otherwise we could all produce a database on such vehicles which would pose a national security threat. Better to obscure the undercover vehicle's plate. --Andmark 15:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Beg pardon, but "While I don't have anything definite, there might well be a law against (blank) somewhere!" is not and has never been a justification for removing anything on Wikipedia, nor should it be; our standing orders are to report any legitimate legal concerns to WP:AN and the Foundation's full-time legal counsel) who will then bump it up the ladder to Jimbo as necessary. Any more than that is WikiLawyering and beyond our individual mandate to act.
For the record, and in keeping with the Project's status as a "neutral source of encyclopedic information", I oppose any material alteration of an image unless it's WP:OFFICE ordered or manifestly designed to improve the image in some inoffensive way. Bullzeye (Ring for Service) 21:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with showing this information. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

IMHO : Since we can get a name and address for a few bucks (and a SSN from there if you pay enough), the general rule should be to avoid showing a license plate. To state “Not our problem if DMV sells the info” is a bit short sighted. There is a difference between a single guy walking on the street, me placing the plate on my car for all to see (an obligation by law) and showing it to millions. Modern character recognitions also makes it a “big brother” issue. This being said, in this specific case, it’s a civil servant and I have liberal views on obtaining information on any government activity. They should have nothing to hide, be it a blue collar sleeping on the job in a city truck, a cop giving a ticket, or the mayor’s aid in a red light district. Finally I bow to Bullzeye’s opinion, if the picture is considered Art by the author he should have the last word on a case by case basis. YegLi (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] How to deal with users of questionable mental stability

This issue is an important question for Wikipedia policy. How should administrators and the average user deal with other users who are mentally ill? What qualifies as mental illness? Where should the line be drawn? In terms of this matter, my view may be seen as rather strict. I believe that the contributions of an editor do not factor in their judgment if they have shown to be irrational and abusive towards other users. This is similar to how I think abusive editors (even if they are not mentally ill) should be treated. Currently, the administration seems to take a very laissez-faire approach. This is causing a great deal of harm here at Wikipedia as a whole and to individual users. - Cyborg Ninja 06:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It is difficult to address this problem with any kind of guideline or policy, because it is a difficult problem even for mental health professionals in face-to-face situations. It will probably have to be dealt with on a case-to-case basis. Wikipedia assumes rationality and good faith, but as an activity it is vulnerable to intrusion by the corrupt, the malicious, and the deranged. The barbarians are always at the gates, and it only takes a few to destroy a civilization or a Wikipedia. We also have to recognize that Wikipedia has become an arena for contests for power. The high ranking :of its articles in the search engines is also an incentive for invasion, at first by subtle and skilled efforts that can seem to be "civilized" in this context but which if not repelled will eventually destroy the project. Jon Roland 07:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia, in general, takes a very laissez-faire approach -- it's one of the fundamental precepts of our philosophy, in general, both a great strength and a source of many problems. For my part, I'd rather we avoided throwing around a bunch of unqualified, amateur guesses as to whether so-and-so has such-and-such illness, and just focused on the issue of a person's participation in the project. Are they contributing? Is their behavior disruptive or productive? Is there anything we as a community might do to help them become a better editor? What chance of improvement is there? Again, as I mentioned in your other thread, it's very difficult to have these sorts of conversations in a general sense, and I'm not sure how productive it might be. Problematic users can be reported to the appropriate admin noticeboards for discussion and possible administrative response, if need be; I'd also encourage you to make use of the dispute resolution process, whenever possible. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment - Cyborg; While I can understand your concern at dealing with users who, as you say, are of "questionable mental stability", may I ask one small thing? If they don't give you any indication (by userbox, etc...) - what puts you in a position to be able to judge who is mentally stable or unstable? That's not meant as an argumentative statement, simply an idea for me to understand, say, do you have some experience of dealing with mentally unstable people by reason of work or something? No one on here has ever questioned my mental stability, but I suffer from Paranoia. If I hadn't said anything about that, would you have had some way of knowing that that was the case? Thor Malmjursson 13:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
There's a "This Wikipedian is off their meds" userbox? In all seriousness, having a bipolar userbox on a user page hardly qualifies as a legitimate means of diagnosis. Personally, I don't think we can make any special exceptions for disruptive editors because they're mentally ill, otherwise every malicious editor will try to use that as an excuse. Caknuck 15:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment - Caknuck, I quite agree. We don't make any exceptions for anyone based on their state of mind, that is true. But as I have said, How do you know they are mentally ill in the first place??? Thor Malmjursson 15:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Example?: I would like to offer Valery Fabrikant, a school shooting killer with chronic access to the Internet. When no access is available to him he asks his son to post on message boards, newsgroups and to update an 'official' web page. Perhaps even change his own WP page? Or worst change pages related to research of his victims (he claims said research is his and that was his motivation for the killings). This being said, current state of things shows that WP is pretty good at defending itself of abuses, and I offer Fabrikant only as a good example of 'questionable mental stability'.YegLi (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Thor and Luna. There's just no way to tell for sure if someone does or does not have a mental illness, even if we had qualified professionals who were editors here. Also, even if there was a way to tell if an editor has a mental illness, they shouldn't be treated any differently unless their behavior is somehow disruptive to the community. GlassCobra 16:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm only referring to users who are disruptive. Paranoia doesn't count as something that would be very disruptive, IMO. In no way am I suggesting I be the person to decide who is mentally ill or not; neither is there an easy way to do this. There are some users on this site who do show their true colors, even after much productivity. I suggest dealing with it privately and to be very gentle, and only in cases that are obvious. At the same time, I don't think it would work for administrators to do that. It seems like a line is being crossed if they do. I've seen mental illness in online friends of mine who have later come clean about it to me (one was extremely paranoid). I tried to help him on a personal basis, but as you probably expect, it didn't work. So what we should focus on is to not ignore any obvious policy violations. We cannot use "Oh he was just angry and got over it" or "He's ill, let him be" as an excuse. I know a lot of you just take the "report it to AN/I" approach, but I've seen administrators turn the other way even in the most extreme of cases because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings, or deal with it any further. The problem is, with many of these people, they'll get upset again and the same thing will happen again. We need to be stronger than this. Thank you all for the replies. Sorry that came off as a bit of a rambling — I don't have all the answers. - Cyborg Ninja 20:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
There are some editors who are clearly disturbed, and it's sometimes helpful to conceive of their bizarre or abusive editing as the product of some personal issues. But mental illness isn't a yes or no thing. We're all a little sick in the head at times. And schizophrenics, obsessive compulsives, neurotics, bipolars, and even sociopaths are human beings too and may have something to contribute here. It would be sad and unfair to say that you're disqualified from Wikipedia for having an organic brain disorder. Judge the edits, not the editor, and don't punish people for being honest about their mental state. We shouldn't deny the obvious - our bipolar colleagues can be a total pain at times. But they can also be wickedly smart and productive, and deserve a seat at the table like everyone else provided they can get along.Wikidemo 21:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Some users do 'lose it' a bit very easily and appear unstable. We all know of those that when one of their articles is tagged even by a bot, say it's ruined their experience on Wikipedia. Or they go on massive WP:POINT campaigns, tagging numerous articles, solely because they feel one of theirs was tagged unfairly. It's not disparaging to those with mental health problems, most of whom can still contribute sanely to Wikipedia. But some people even if they haven't been diagnosed with any illness easily flip out, and go on a rampage. They may even say 'now I'm going to turn evil- ruhaha' or some such. Thhen go back to normal briefly and apologise slightly so they get away with it. Then a few days later something sets them off again. Hopefully they get blocked if they continue in such a pattern. As an individual editor, the best way to deal with them is probably to avoid much contact with them. As a community, to notice their history when they invite their latest block, and if the pattern has occurred several times, long-term block. 91.110.169.154 16:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
This is exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm glad that you noticed it too. "Unstable" is the keyword here. There are multiple editors who have this problem, and I think it's a part of their lifestyle, but I believe the laissez-faire approach at this site and others on the Web allows them to keep being disruptive. To add to your characterization, these editors take minor setbacks (tags, warnings, bots, etc) very personally and threaten other users for something that is quite minor. This, to me, shows that they are not trying to make Wikipedia a better place and that they are acting in poor faith. I'm sorry, but assuming good faith in evidence of obvious bad faith is absurd, and some administrators and many regular editors need to realize that and stop using that as an excuse. This is a serious problem on Wikipedia. I realize that some of these editors contribute plenty to Wikipedia, and therefore many people don't want to ban them, but if this is a pattern and if they are harming other users: it needs to stop. I try to be sensitive to unstable people like this both online and in real life. I have a grandmother who behaves like this, and the best my family can do is try to alleviate her stress to avoid setting her off. However, I recognize that she does have some ability to control herself and we do not accept every emotional outburst. We do love and forgive her, of course. But please realize, administrators, that if an unstable user has a pattern of this behavior and is harming other users, you absolutely should not accept it. I imagine that a lot of you are thinking "We don't," but I've seen this from other admins and users. The twisting of the WP:AGF policy is partly to blame. - Cyborg Ninja 19:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I should add that I have one person in mind right now (though he is not the only one to act like this). A quick glance of his Contributions page shows me that he makes 300+ edits a day and frequently spends over half of the day, every minute, editing Wikipedia. Every day. Now, I think I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, but that's mostly to read articles to expand my knowledge. But that person's amount of time here... can we really call that normal, or healthy? He does everything the user above cited as conduct that an unstable editor does here. I'm not suggesting that we warn someone just because they spend vast amounts of time here obviously, but I think it's something to think about. - Cyborg Ninja 20:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we can be overly suspicious just due to 'spends too much time here.' What we are basically talking about is conduct that would lead to an RfC, but because the user spreads the conduct over different areas and his/her WP:POINT sprees target many different articles and people, it's hard to have an RfC that truly covers what they get upto, because RfCs have to be about 'the same dispute', so it's harder to raise the two people needed that have the boldness to stand up. If RfCs were allowed to address the user's behavior in general when they're having one of their 'episodes', then they would be a more accurate representation of the user. Because while it runs the risk of being seen as ganging up on someone, sometimes that kind of RfC would be useful/necessary.91.110.230.131 21:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Two RFCs have been done of one person I have considered as unstable. Even if a tagging spree spans over dozens of articles that are unrelated, a question comes into one's head: is it acceptable to do mass-tagging of articles that one has not spent more than 5 seconds with? I know we have bots that handle other operations, but most of what they do makes sense to me and is useful. Marking every article with a big citations tag at the top isn't really going to encourage people to improve the article. I mean, come on people, get real. Still, some admins think it's helpful. But on this issue; it's nowhere near the worst example and even I wouldn't consider anything more than an informal warning for it if I were an admin, unless they ignore the warning. As you hinted at, RfCs are dedicated to one episode or event. If a user's behavior over several months needed to be reviewed, where should it be done? - Cyborg Ninja 08:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
As an editor with a mental illness (although I don't think you would be able to guess that based on my contributions) I appreciate your concern, but I don't think that any special consideration should apply except for the application of the WP:CIVIL policy. If we just remember that this applies to comments made to all editors, even abusive ones, then there should be no problem. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I think we need to distinguish two things; (1) Having a mental illness, which isn't necessarily the project's business; (2) behaving disruptively, which is the project's business, but which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a mental illness. I'm not saying there's never a relationship between the two, but it does seem to me the project's proper business is the second only. I don't see how Wikipedia volunteers could be trained or equipped to understand when (1) does and does not affect (2). One reason for a gentler approach with established editors is the belief that ordinary people sometimes get overheated and affected by emotions in conflicts and similar situations, in other words, a belief that variation and "instability" is a characteristic of ordinary people and not the exclusive province of the mentally ill. It's very important to avoid stereotyping here, to avoid a discriminatory prejudice that having a psychological diagnosis implies an editor or admin is going to be disruptive. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 06:56, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Since when are the vast majority of Wikipedia users qualified to diagnose anything over the internet? Oh right, we arn't.

Accusing or labeling another user of a mental illness can never be anything but a violation of WP:CIVIL. Jtrainor (talk) 17:43, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] New mental illness in established admins and editors

  • I'm starting this as a new section because I believe it is worthy of its own category. - Cyborg Ninja 09:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The question seems loaded. Most abusive editors do not have any recognised mental illness. The interesting borderline case to consider here is: if there's a person who makes useful contributions, or even achieves adminship, while in a good mental state, and then their mental integrity degrades as a result of a illness-induced mood change, acquiring a new illness, or a change of medication, should they be de-adminned or banned, or should we wait for them to seek assistance and recover? If they do recover, do they have a means of requesting re-evaluation on this basis? Dcoetzee 14:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Depending on their behavior, if they are an admin and they behave poorly, then they should have their privileges taken away. You can't put power into the hands of someone who isn't mentally healthy. Of course, the admin would have to come out as having mental illness or it would have to be clearly discernible from normal behavior. Most cases won't be so easy. As for editors, it's a bit more difficult. I would not want to upset the user and taking away their ability to edit could have a drastic effect on them. But, as I've stated above, if there is a pattern of this behavior, it cannot be tolerated. If they decide to come back and state that they are now healthy and be open about their past, then I would welcome them. - Cyborg Ninja 09:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
An example that may help here is how this issue is handled in the professional world. If you fire someone for mental illness or addiction, you are not generally permitted to cite the illness or addiction; only the way the mental illness or addiction affected job performance. For instance, a friend once fired an employee and was called before a hearing board, where he explained "I fired the employee because he was chronically late, picked fights, etc." Only after asked, "Do you have any explanation for his poor performance?" could my friend add, "Yes, he was using meth." Mental illness on this board should be treated in the same manner; it's the pattern of behavior that needs to be addressed.3Tigers (talk) 04:00, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] I am really at odds with the NNOTABILITY/Trivia policy right now.

Sirs:

I am really at odds with the NOTABILITY/Trivia policy.

This policy has alienated a large number of WebComic advocates, and certainally cost WP some creadibility and good will, and some donation money too.

As I stated on my former user page, ( I will provbibly not log in again ):

"This is upsetting me, a lot. Articles are set for speedy deletion based upon the concept of Notability, i.e. popularization which to me has a connotation of sensationalizm. Since the most of the web is sensationalism and esoteric, and polarized in that way. ( Some eMusic sites I have been to only have 25~30 page views.)

Why would you want a encyclopedia, that only has popular topics? I really wound't want that. Id read 'People' Magazine if I wanted that. Encyclopedias should EMBRACE THE ESOTERIC. There is an article here on wikipedia for every pokemon character, and I %*&3 hate pokemon, but I respect its reverence amoung five year olds, and especially five year olds who use wikipedia as their reference. Can you imagine the effect of children growing up as knowing wikipedia as something that was usefull to them, and they would enjoy comtributing to?

By this criteria alone ( Notability ), we should delete ALL HISTORY before WWII for its irelevence. Is Joan D'Arc relevent? Practically no. But she has extrodinary significance to the history of religion, spirituality and philosophy." You can easily rewrite history, by only looking at the "popular" aspects of it.

I have an eye for detail and consistancy, and am about to actually work on my first complete rewrite, ( although, no one has stepped forward to guide me, or adopt me). Is it actually become sport to destory what others are passionate about? ( Feel free, of course, to delete this message if you feel that is not notable enough. )

What is being done policy wise about this?

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Comments:Wikimedia_fundraiser_highlights_webcomic_community%27s_frustration_with_Wikipedia_guidelines#The_tip_of_an_iceberg.

end of soapbox

You're clearly upset about the notability requirement, but I'm sorry to say that I don't understand much more than that. I'll take just a couple of your points: Why would you want a encyclopedia, that only has popular topics? Why indeed? But en:WP isn't that. (Brutalist architecture isn't a popular topic or a popular kind of architecture.) Again: By this criteria alone ( Notability ), we should delete ALL HISTORY before WWII for its irelevence. Is Joan D'Arc relevent? Practically no. But she has extrodinary significance to the history of religion, spirituality and philosophy. If she indeed has extraordinary significance to these three histories, then surely she's notable. Where's the (potential) problem with here? Perhaps you could rephrase your complaint. -- Hoary 09:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
It is no longer essentially nessessary. Wikipedia will be the only product of 'Group thought' and 'Mass popularizm' If its "interesting" to the admins It stays, I am taking Jim Bo's suggestion that I find something else significant to do with my life other than swim upstream. I have created other accounts on other wiki's and am developing my SPAM bot to help a few others using wiki-software that do not have the benefit of a few million dollars in resources. See ya. (i.e. dont waste your time ) Stupidly I didnt sign my very last, and final post. G'day mate! Artoftransformation 12:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The notability guideline sets some easy to follow and fairly objective standards, with a relatively low bar to inclusion. However, I do see uneven application of the standards at AfD, mostly by uninformed nominators and less informed evaluators. This is more of a problem than the guidelines. --Kevin Murray 13:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
For example? Editors being too strict about WP:N, or too lenient? I'm a relative newcomer that spends a bit of time at AfD, and in the wake of your comment, am now looking for guidance. --- tqbf 19:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
  • A lot of people tried to abuse the rules by including webcomics that were just starting hadn't gotten any outside coverage (reliable or otherwise). I'm sure there are multiple webcomics that satisfy the current criteria. We just can't include ALL of them. - Mgm|(talk) 13:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Internet pharmacy may be copying user pages and representing them as members

I’m fully aware that posts on Wikipedia go into the public domain. Nevertheless, I’ve just discovered that http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com, a site I have never visited before finding my information there in a Google search for another purpose, has taken my user page, in its entirety, and represents me as a member of their site. If it’s happened to me, it has probably happened to others, especially people that have posted on pharmacology. Is there any policy on the large-scale use of Wiki userpages?

http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com/drug_information_online.asp?title=User:Hcberkowitz

Thanks

Howard (user hcberkowitz)

  • Userpages are necessarily licensed under the GFDL. So they can be reprinted. Best is to add සැකිල්ල:Userpage to the page if it bugs you. WilyD 19:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Just FYI they have rather indiscriminately ported all articles and userpages from wikipedia. Here I am. —Cronholm144 19:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
At the bottom of every page on the pharmacy's website it states "This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License)". So they are abiding by all terms.
It annoys me because it messes up wiki mark up, but it is perfectly legal. However, enabling copying is one of the most prominent features of GFDL, and while it has some disadvantages, the free nature of Wikipedia is one of my primary motives for contributing. Puchiko (Talk-email) 20:11, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh I know GFDL, and I noticed the disclaimer; it's just rather strange, that's all. I wonder what their motivation is. —Cronholm144 20:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Laziness. It's easier to copy everything than parse the database dump. WilyD 20:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Probably done in the hope to get higher Google ranking. It is frustrating if they end up selling cheap drugs, or related to some scam.YegLi (talk) 21:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Hehe, I hope they like my list of insults.[2] :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm on there, weird. Maybe I should make a subpage on why their website sucks. SashaCall 21:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Let's be clear about one thing. The GFDL is NOT Public domain. There are similarities, but the two are quite different. - Mgm|(talk) 13:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The site is a known live mirror, i.e. it mirrors anything and everything on Wikipedia, fetching the current version of each page when it is requested. It even "mirrors" special pages, such as Recent Changes. -- AJR | Talk 22:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
And that update it fetches is instant, and current. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 03:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • If I would add something like "Prescription Drug Info is a scam website trying to steal your money and murder your children. Don't buy from them, buy from <some competitor>." to my userpage, could they sue me? Olaus (talk) 22:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Unless the allegation is true, yes, it'd be libel. WilyD 22:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I am not really interested in waging a private war against some sleazy Viagra spammer, or whatever they are, but it seems like websites doing stuff like this leave themselves vulnerable to subversive campaigns from the users whose pages they copy. Olaus (talk) 00:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Overuse of "retrieved on" in citations?

Hi all. Is it just me or is anyone else annoyed by the "retrieved on" dates some editors keep adding to their citations. More specifically, I know there's a reason we have that option in the cite templates, because something on the web can change at any time. But I see that more for use with, say, an organization's web page as a primary source. On the other hand, if the article being cited is a newspaper or journal that's published in a serialized format, and it's available on paper, who cares what day the editor read it on? Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

An organization might change its web site so the old information has moved or is no longer there. The date can help find the original info, and sometimes helps find the new location. (SEWilco (talk) 05:37, 17 November 2007 (UTC))
Even newspapers that have a print edition have been known to edit their web version of articles post publication. Dsmdgold (talk) 11:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Many news org websites such as BBC News and CNN update their pages regularly to fix errors or review an already covered story for instance original page with headline - current page with headline. Also there are hundreds of thousands of broken links in article references, the cite date helps up replace these with copies from the wayback machine and other archive stores.
I agree that the usage of 'retrieved on' is not relevant for journals and print media, as the issue number or publishing date is more important, but if the citation includes a link to a web edition of the source then we would still like to know which web version you were looking at to get the info. 86.21.74.40 (talk) 14:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
However, I'm pretty sure news sites with articles that expire also prevent sites like archive.org from archiving... I've tried to find archive.org copies of stories purged from news sites and archive.org says archiving wasn't allowed. --W.marsh 14:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The retrieve date is still useful - assuming good faith and all, I can reconcile that the original article may be gone forever, or may be behind a pay window, but that the difference between the article publication date and the retrieve date is certainly within that window and thus likely a good source.--MASEM 14:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I am slightly annoyed by the wikilinking of the retrieved date though. Seems weird to wikilink that, as the date retrieved hold little relevance for the article. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
It allows for the date to be rendered per user preferences (see here). --MASEM 14:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I have to admit, I'm a little dim in setting my preferences, but I changed nothing so this is default behaviour for the template. It seems to go against the MOS, that says: Wikipedia has articles on days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia. Link to one of these pages only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic. I don't think it will deepen the readers understanding of how I retrieved a link, or the articles subject. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The wikilinking is done automatically via the various citation templates - you enter the raw date into the template and the template does the rest. Wikilinking it seems to be the only way to achieve the date conversion even if it goes against MOS. --MASEM 14:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The very section you are quoting from MOS:DATE starts with the preference issue and supports it: "Full dates, and days and months, are normally autoformatted...This instructs the MediaWiki software to format the item according to the date preferences...". The language concerning "days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia", in the same section of that page, does not concern full dates: "days of the year"= [[January 1]]; "years"= [[1968]], [[1974]] etc.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:17, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Some more points: For wire services that update stories continuously, wouldn't it be more appropriate to cite the time of their update rather than the time we looked at it? For the case where a media organization moves its WWW archives, wouldn't it be more useful to have the date and page number so we can look it up in their archive search? Also, if we do need to look up a dead URL with no date in the Internet Archive, is it that much of a bother to look through the few times it might have been updated? ( And if the "retrieved on" date is for our benefit, isn't the edit history enough? ) Finally, I've only seen "retrieved on" used with things that are on the WWW for free. I never see people put "retrieved from paid-journal-subscription-service" in their articles; is there any reason why we only datestamp free URLs? Squidfryerchef (talk) 17:12, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
According to the rules of academic citation, it's needed for everything. I agree that this can look a little excessive. Unfortunately, i think we're stuck with it. If there's a source where time of day matters, yes the time should go in also as well as the date. And yes, for any media organization, the actual internal page number and other citation information for the formal edition is necessary.
In most cases it adds clutter to the reference list, and I'm often tempted to delete it. When we read a journal article, we're supposed to cite the journal article with ISSN, issue date or volume, and page number. The link is just there for convenience. For wire service stories we'd use their timestamp as part of the date. The only time this "downloaded on" business is necessary is for a web site that's only a web site and doesn't publish in a serialized format. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Why don't we put this in the category "Editors do the oddest things" and move on? As long as editors include a date of a news or magazine article, separate from the retrieved on date, Wikipedia has what it needs. The retrieved on date is, arguably, unnecessary then, but a (re)education campaign for editors, on this subject, is not in any way a good use of time; nor is getting into fights with editors about their adding a field that is unnecessary but is an acceptable parameter. Yes, the extra date "clutters up" footnotes; when Wikipedia is so squeaky clean that this is the worst of our problems, then let's take it on. (Me, personally, I'm happy whenever an editor puts a footnote that has more than just a URL.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that the "retrieved on" citations are redundant because the page history lists when that reference was added; so if an editor added a reference to the Wall Street Journal, for instance, on July 11, 2007, we automatically know that the "retrieved on" date was July 11 or earlier. But if the page subsequently changes, then where is the verifiability of that reference? Sarsaparilla (talk) 19:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

  • For a contrary opinion, I have edited pages with more than a little controversy, or political pages, and the "retrieved on" information is useful for figuring out how old a dead link might be, and how useful the source is for citation. It took the "retrieved on" to understand that all yahoo.com Associated Press articles are no good after a week or so. This information is not clutter, and on an actively edited page, it is a lot of work to to track down a lot of references and when they were put in. Tracking down one reference is already a bit of work.
    -- Yellowdesk (talk) 03:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] How obvious is OBVIOUS?

WP:OBVIOUS: "State facts which may be obvious to you, but are not necessarily obvious to the reader."

Based on this I started doing a bit of wikignoming by adding USA after Virginia to articles in Category:Registered Historic Places in Virginia (for instance this edit). I've done some 30 articles and have had a query about whether it is necessary. Now doing this seems to me to perfectly fit the example in WP:OBVIOUS and I do wonder if the average reader in, say India, knows where Virginia is. But I don't want to cause conflict, so before continuing I'm asking here for some more opinions. Thanks, Smalljim (talk) 11:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

On a tangent don't use [[USA]] use either [[United States|US]] or [[United States|U.S.]] depending on the result of the "dotting" discussion at WP:MoS or use United States. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03 18 November 2007 (GMT).
Noted, but I don't understand your objection to [[USA]]. It's short, commonly understood, and redirects to exactly the right place. --Smalljim (talk) 22:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not "my objection to" it's simply an "arbitrary but well informed" choice. Rich Farmbrough, 10:06 28 November 2007 (GMT).
That seems like a very sensible bit of wikignoming. Context and clarity are important. Adrian M. H. 21:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Please don't do that. If someone is looking up "Berry Hill Plantation" they're going to know which country it's in. I'd ask the same for people editing articles local to India. The state name should be enough. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that argument stands up. Many readers will not be looking up an article directly. What if our reader was researching agriculture, and came across the article from Category:Plantations? --Smalljim (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I always put the nation in an article; not everyone knows the state or county of a geographical area, so may use the country as a search parameter - i.e. London/United States (does anyone outside of the State know where London is in the USA). Primarily we are assisting search engines by including all relevant information. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I looked through your contributions. The specification of the country was, in my opinion, justified in all cases but one ("U.S. Route 17 in Virginia, USA" is overdoing it in my opinion). I'll remove it from the article soon, unless objections are raised.
Otherwise I agree that the country name should always be in an article about a place. Puchiko (Talk-email) 02:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Embarrassed grin. Of course that one's wrong! I'll remove it myself. Thanks for the comments. --Smalljim (talk) 09:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the original policy is a bit overboard. That Ford Thunderbird is a link to an article that fully describes it seems sufficient to fill in the user. Isn't that the beauty of hyperlinks? Virginia also is but one click away from telling you that it is in the US. The extreme end of this is pasting the entire article in place of the hyperlink... why even begin down that road? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heptazane (talk • contribs) 00:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Let me add my query that sparked this discussion and elaborate on it:
QUERY: I just wonder if it is really necessary to add USA to every article relating to Virginia and other American states. I don't know that this is what WP:OBVIOUS is supposed to deal with. Most articles on Devon and other counties in England don't tell us that the place is in the UK. Should they? I can understand people outside the USA not understanding the postal abbreviations for state names. Many Americans don't even understand them all. I admit that using MA instead of Massachusetts in the name of an article is more common than it should be. That is something that really needs to be corrected. clariosophic (talk) 02:27, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Postal abbreviations for state names are deprecated. Rich Farmbrough, 10:06 28 November 2007 (GMT).
Elaboration:
  • If USA or the proper variant thereof should be added to every geographic place article in the US, then UK or the proper variant thereof should be added to every geographic place article in the UK. The main articles on England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland may state that they are in the UK, but very few if any subordinate articles do so. It seems to be assumed that everyone knows that England etc are in the UK and it's not necessary to tell the reader for instance that Devon is in the UK, only that it is in England.
  • Time spent adding USA to place articles in the US could much better be spent eliminating the use of postal abbreviations for the states from article titles as well as the texts of articles. See Education in Framingham, MA and Government of Framingham, MA for examples. clariosophic (talk) 02:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the elaboration, clariosophic. Your first point addresses a separate question of "how obvious is obvious": would people who are likely to use WP know what and where England is without the clarifying UK? I think that they would - certainly more would than would know what and where Virginia is without the clarifying USA - but this is a different issue and I don't want to get sidetracked. // Your second point is a related issue that really reinforces my concern, which, in case I haven't made it clear, is about setting context and writing better articles generally, per WP:BETTER. I think these thought experiments in that guide are very useful, and with them in mind Government of Framingham, MA as it stands today is an awful article, isn't it? What would our reader from India make of that first para! // So, I think we agree that there are a lot of articles that need better context, though I still don't understand why you think I shouldn't be clarifying those Virginia articles. I'm sure you're not trying to tell me to spend my time here doing what you think is more important :) --Smalljim (talk) 11:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. I was speaking rhetorically. I would never dream of telling another editor how to spend his or her time. Cheers. clariosophic (talk) 13:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh I knew that, hence the smiley. Are we in broad agreement? Will you object if I continue? --Smalljim (talk) 13:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
No objection. I would agree that adding United States is better than US or USA. clariosophic (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Merging RS and V

Plans are afoot to merge Wikipedia:Reliable sources back into Wikipedia:Verifiability. Relevant discussion here and in surrounding threads. Also see WT:V. About seven people have commented and it's 7-0 in favour. The basics:

  • The content of RS generally sucks and has since it began; it's unstable and hasn't ever produced canonical, lasting language. Even the people who edit it heavily agree on that. At present, the page has little useful content that isn't redundant with V. What is of use is being shuffled out.
  • Why on V? Because you can't define verifiability without defining reliable sources. What is verifiability but the state of being confirmed by reliable sources? as one editor put it. So why not have it in both places? The descriptions will be either a) redundant, which is pointless, or b) divergent, which is dangerous as it can create differing policy interpretations. There was divergence as of this morning: compare "If all the sources for a given statement or topic are of low reliability, the material may not be suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia" (RS) to the much more emphatic and memorable "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" (V).
  • RS was not started because of prompting from Jimbo or OFFICE but dumped in place as a kind of rambling essay. It's never been official policy.
  • Is this Wikipedia:Attribution redux? Are we next going to merge in NOR? No. This is a separate issue. We've arrived organically at the point where there is no use to the page. The concept of reliable sources is, of course, here to stay; a rich description of it will remain on V. Marskell (talk) 14:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
This seems well-thought out, and I see WP:RS has already been somewhat depopulated. As a suggestion to ease the transition, may I say that it would be convenient if someone set up a subpage which took what RS looked like a few months ago and indicated to which policy/guideline everything has been shifted and what has been deleted, to assist people in updating their mental bookmarks. Relata refero (talk) 18:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I gather the intent is to leave the detailed content of RS nowhere. If there are problems about getting agreed language on a guideline page, it will be even worse on a policy page. As mentioned, ATT was rejected. 19:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
DGG, I think you may be mistaken here: it seems to be claimed on the talkpage that most of the content has been moved elsewhere. In any case, it would be nice to have things absolutely clear as to what is moved, and what is no longer valid. Relata refero (talk) 21:18, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I will list where everything has gone. Basically, there were two descriptions of reliable sources, a weak one on RS and a strong one on V; the former is now gone. We don't need two. As I say, it's either redundant or divergent.
Most emphatically, this is not a redoing of ATT. The central feature of that was the V + NOR merger, which isn't happening. RS is a different beast. Because it was not created by Jimbo or OFFICE and has never been an official policy I think editors can organically merge it. Redirect it, more precisely. Marskell (talk) 12:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and re the "detailed content of RS", I must ask: what detailed content? It hasn't had any for some time and when it did, in '05 and '06, it was a bloated. Marskell (talk) 12:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Some history may be in order for those who don't know. WP:RS was originally split off from WP:V... for both negative and positive reasons. Negatively, it amounted to a POV fork. Positively, it was offered as a guidleline to explain what was meant by the term "reliable sources" (as used in three of our core policies). Unfortunately, It quickly became a sort of pseudo-policy, outlining what was reliable and what was not. Because of this, WP:RS has never been stable. I have personally been invovled in at least two complete re-write attempts, and there have been others. None have been satisfactory. One major problem has been that the Wikipedia community has never really reached consensus on what constitutes a reliable source and more importantly, what constitutes an unreliable source. Those who work on hard science topics have very different criteria than those who work on social science topics, and those who write articles on pop culture have yet a third concept of reliability. The guideline has been a constant debate... and what it said has swung between being seen as too strict and being seen as too loose like a pendulum.
For those who are fans of WP:RS, and are worried that this proposal means that the flood gates will open and we will get all sorts of unreliable sources being allowed in Wikipedia, fear not... It is very clear that the concept of requiring our editors to cite reliable sources to back what they say in our articles will remain sound. It is a concept that remains at the core of WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. That concept is not going away. If anything, the proposal to merge promotes the concept. Things that had guideline status will now be part of Policy. In other words... while guideline page WP:RS will go, the concept of Reliable Sources is being stengthened. Blueboar (talk) 18:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I see nobody here has yet mentioned Wikipedia:Reliable sources/examples. I imagine the intention is to keep it renamed somewhere. It's an odd page, being neither policy nor guideline, and probably nonetheless containing the actual real meaning. there are also the RS-like sections Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Sources and Wikipedia:No original research and others, which also contain a good deal of the material. Personally, I would like to see this all consolidated properly and consistently, and the place to do so would appear to be as a page called directly Wikipedia:Reliable sources--instead of trying to de-fuse the issue by diffusing the content.
But perhaps that's unrealistic--we seem to be dealing with the disagreements by deciding to not discuss them. Ignoring the need for consistent general statements will make discussions more difficult and results more variable. maybe that's the intent--everyone will try to interpret things as conducive to the favored result for their favored articles. I realized early on here that this is what is meant by discussing "policy"--that is why I stick to AfD by and large, where at least it's explicitly over the specific articles.DGG (talk) 02:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
It is consolidated at Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources. That's our main RS wording. It's stable, tight, and has been gone over by a lot of our best editors. To repeat: Why on V? Because you can't define verifiability without defining reliable sources. The examples page is all the bloat that was left over from '05 and '06. I remember the first time I read RS (summer '05): it advised me to go to my local library, which I'd surely enjoy; I remember because I thought it so stupid. It was just a page to drop off mini-essays. V, of course, has changed over time but in a way that's made it steadily better. Marskell (talk) 12:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
well, that makes it an essay. i will be BOLD and rename and remark it accordingly. It is now Wikipedia:Reliable source examples At a quick reading, i see only one or two places where it does not in fact represent accurately what the consensus is in discussions of sources, but of course you or anyone is welcome to edit it. If you want to revert the move though, I would appreciate it if we discuss it first there. DGG (talk) 00:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
The essay tag is fine. It's the meandering that bothers me more than points made themselves. Just from the TOC, I don't like it. Put one way, just because you can think of an example doesn't mean we have to talk about it. Brevity is the soul of policy. I think we should start again with a short and simple Verifiability/FAQ. Marskell (talk) 07:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Copyright vs. Trademark

There seems to be a big issue here on both Wikipedia and Commons, where users are confusing copyright versus trademark. This has been an issue with many logos, which cannot be copyrighted due to their simplicity, but are subject to trademark laws. For example, Image:Mbta-logo.svg cannot be copyrighted because it merely consists of the letter "T" inside a circle. An editor has been confusing copyright with trademark, and has since added a copyright image tag (in addition to the public domain tag), and now the image is listed for deletion. I don't want to start an edit war over this, or any other image, but it is certain that editors need to establish the difference between copyright and trademark, and know when to use {{Trademark}} and {{PD-ineligible}} on image pages. There is no detailed explanation about this at WP:LOGOS, and I think that a statement should be instated somewhere. I also think that a {{PD-logo}} should be created to help users understand this concept a little bit better. NOTE: This message was previously posted at Wikipedia talk:Logos on 2007-11-07 with no replies. –Dream out loud (talk) 16:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea to me. -- Ned Scott (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
As an additional note to the above, there is no legal regime that prevents Wikipedia from using a non-copyrightable trademark in any manner, except that we can not confuse the public into thinking that we are in fact produced by the company that is the owner of the mark (see Likelihood of confusion). bd2412 T 05:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Use of NFC in BLP articles - Please weigh in.

Note - for those, like me, not yet fully conversant with all the acronyms in use on Wikipedia, NFC stands for Non-free content and BLP is Biographies of living persons. Hope this helps,  —SMALLJIM  09:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you people please weigh in here here. The issue at hand has to do with use of fair-use/non-free images on wikipedia and particularly on BLPs. I removed three fair use images from the Cillian Murphy article and it has set off a storm. Both sides are arguing their POVs with equal conviction and it seems to be raising tempers. Could somebody here please step in and settle this once and for all.

If memory serves me right, I have been prevented from using such screenshots from movies in the same manner as Cillian Murphy in the past. I cant find the diffs now, but I believe, I was told that such used didnt constitute fair use.. especially when the subject was alive.

So please address the core issues.

1) Are the fair use rationales used on for the three images (of which one got deleted and i believe is now in del review) on Cillian Murphy valid? 2) Is there a limit to how many fair-use/non-free images can be used on an article? Or is it simply, 'more the merrier'?

Please settle this once and for all and etch it into our policy. Because, if use of non-free content in the manner being used on Cillian Murphy or Preity Zinta is valid, there are hundreds of articles that are waiting to be 'improved' with such images. Really, how difficult is it to create screenshots from movies. If otoh, such use is not allowed, please let people know and stop them from attacking me. Thanks. Sarvagnya 22:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, for being frank about your involvement, and for laying this out neutrally for the most part. The counterargument is that there is no image use policy against using screen shots of an actor's performances in their bio article, no BLP problem or concern, it already passed muster in featured article review, and unilaterally deleting approved images from featured articles without so much as a speedy deletion notice is disruptive to the project.Wikidemo (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikidemo, we've already heard your views over there. What is the point in repeating it here? My note was only an invitation to folks here to weigh in on the issue. The idea wasnt to repeat all our arguments here. Peace. Sarvagnya 01:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Did you want a discussion here or there? If you want to start a discussion here, great, and I'm entitled to contribute here just like anyone else. If you want everyone to go over there, perhaps that could be more clear and without advocacy of what people should say over there. Cheerio. Wikidemo (talk) 01:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I would say that BLP is irrelevant. The question hinges on the fair use of the pictures. If there is a concern, then the best option is to nominate the pictures for deletion and see what consensus is reached. Personally, I see no problem here and no reason to (a) remove the pictures and (b) take any further steps. --Kevin Murray (talk) 01:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I concur with Kevin-- I do not see any reason why BLP has the least to do with it; it goes under the same copyright practices as anything else. DGG (talk) 01:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I pretty much agree with Kevin and DGG, although, do you really need 3 fair-use pictures depicting him in roles? That just seems to me to be a bit much, possibly breaking fair-use policy. If so, I'd make them some of the more prominent ones, such as his role as Scarecrow in Batman Begins. Anakinjmt (talk) 05:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
From the guideline Wikipedia:Non-free content:
  • Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.
  • Film and television screen shots: For critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
The question however is, what constitutes critical commentary? Is there a good example of one? Does the manner in which it is used in Cillian Murphy constitute "critical commentary"? Sarvagnya 21:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, are you working on your Wiki-law-degree? --Kevin Murray (talk) 01:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Come on, that's not civil, especially as he made a perfectly relevant remark. It's a long-established principle that "Here is X in role Y" does not count as critical commentary for FU purposes. Relata refero (talk) 07:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Relata refero here, that comment was out of line, and Sarvagnya did give a very good summary of the key points. The issue with fair use images of living people is their replaceability--that it that anyone could take another picture and use it, rather than make fair use of an existing one. It is a copyright issue that has nothing to do with slander or libel that is the basis of BLP. The exception for fair use images of living people is when a new image would be out-of-date and therefore the older image is no longer replaceable. For an actor who played a roll (and where the role is a defining characteristic) an image of them in that role would be irreplaceable, and could qualify for fair use. My suggestion would be to simply add some sourced commentary on them in that roll to support the fair use of the image. As for how many images to include, use good judgment on text content to avoid undue weight, and add images to support the text. Dhaluza (talk) 11:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
My comment was meant to be humorous not to give offense, but after reading the section on wikilawyering, I see the error as it is considered pejorative and uncivil. I do think that there is a lot of hairsplitting here and on the related various discussion pages. This discussion is spread over multiple pages. I don't dispute that Sarvagnya makes some good academic points here and elsewhere, but practically speaking it's a no harm no foul in my mind. The holders of the copyright are the indirect beneficiaries of the extra exposure for their product. As is frequent, Dhaluza offers a good solution. --Kevin Murray (talk) 01:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I read an interesting passage at the WP article on Fair use:
The four factors of analysis for fair use set forth above derive from the classic opinion of Joseph Story in Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F.Cas. 342 (1841), in which the defendant had copied 353 pages from the plaintiff's 12-volume biography of George Washington in order to produce a separate two-volume work of his own. The court rejected the defendant's fair use defense with the following explanation:
[A] reviewer may fairly cite largely from the original work, if his design be really and truly to use the passages for the purposes of fair and reasonable criticism. On the other hand, it is as clear, that if he thus cites the most important parts of the work, with a view, not to criticize, but to supersede the use of the original work, and substitute the review for it, such a use will be deemed in law a piracy....
In short, we must often... look to the nature and objects of the selections made, the quantity and value of the materials used, and the degree in which the use may prejudice the sale, or diminish the profits, or supersede the objects, of the original work.
I see the bolded phrase to be most critical in our assessment. These images while loosely defined as criticism, certainly do not supersede the use of the original work, nor do they: prejudice the sale, diminish the profits, or supersede the objects of the original work. To the contrary these uses probably enhance the sales and profits for the original works -- free advertising! --Kevin Murray (talk) 03:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Guidelines for protecting pages

I asked for a partial protection of the sodomy page. As you can probably guess, it's a big magnet for vandals. I was surprised that the proposal was rejected. At first a false reason was given (no vandalism?), and then later it was said by another admin or editor that it was not vandalized often enough. That article is a clear example of a page that needs protection. It could not be any clearer. There are very few anonymous IP users who have ever contributed anything that doesn't constitute vandalism on the page, if any. This is yet another example of being lenient to a fault on Wikipedia. - Cyborg Ninja (talk) 05:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

By my count, it has been vandalized twice in the past two weeks, and both times were reverted within a minute or two. That's hardly serious enough to justify protecting the page. If you want a page that's being vandalized enough to justify protection, look at the edit history of George W. Bush. --Carnildo (talk) 06:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. "Not enough recent vandalism to justify protection". Protecting pages that do not need protection is just against what Wikipedia is. - Rjd0060 (talk) 06:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
As a recent changes patroller and AIV-active admin, I can fully appreciate the frustration that stems from having certain articles that are vandalized on a regular basis, essentially in perpetuity. But the general community consensus is that we are willing to accept a limited amount of such vandalism in order to keep the open nature of the Wiki. It's obviously a tradeoff, but one that most of us are comfortable with.
There's also the honeypot theory: Some people are intent on vandalizing Wikipedia, and if the first article they come to is protected, they simply find another. Leaving those heavily vandalized articles unprotected and listed on numerous editor's watchlists actually allows us to detect and block IP vandals faster. (If anyone ever saw my watchlist, they'd think I was some kind of raging pervert who's really into politicians and celebrities!) — Satori Son 15:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Blocking large IP ranges on request owner IP

Hi, a large Dutch government agency (Ministry of Justice) blocked all access to Wikipedia. 30,000 government officials are unable to see any content. The Ministry did this because of some vandalism from their IP adresses which was noticed by journalists. The Ministry is probably (from inside sources) going to ask us to block their entire range from editing so that they can restore access to Wikipedia. My question: is their a policy on the English Wikipedia about this kind of requests and/or do these kinds of requests occur often? I would appreciate your help. Thanks! .Koen (talk) 10:06, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

this over-reaction of theirs was presumably because the event involved a member of the royal family. I think it is very strongly against the spirit of WP to help any government or anyone else censor our content or participation. We block ip ranges according to our own independent standards. That vandalism once occurred from an ip address is not cause to block a large range like that. DGG (talk) 12:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
This is actualy a different situation then the royalty scandal. For as far as I can tell, it is just about plain pure vandalism. Anyway, if the Dutch Ministry of Justice wants to block access to Wikipedia for their employees, that is their problem. If Wikipedia sees the range as a blockable range, we should block it, but not by request. It might be a good idea to keep them on the list of organisations to send abuse reports to if annons are behaving badly. As long as they disallow access to Wikipedia, it's not a problem, but when they do start to allow it again, at least they will be listed. Maybe some wiki bigwig could contact them, seeing if a proper solution can be worked out together? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 13:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
My employer briefly blocked the ability to edit wikipedia. We could read the content, but not edit. (This was done, I think, on the theory that reading WPs content may be have a useful business purpose, but editing is just playing on company time, get back to work dammit.) The Dutch, I assume can do the same. Dsmdgold (talk) 15:15, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
This occasionally comes up with schools as well.[3] I agree that we should leave this up to their IT staff and not block preemptively if so requested. — Satori Son 15:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it's perfectly legitimate to block a range at the request of the owner of the range, if we can clearly establish the bonafides of the request. (I strongly suggest that the request be sent to OTRS and tracked that way, with a ticket number given to reference it) We have done this for school districts in the past. There is no way to block editing at the other end that doesn't also block some other useful non editing things, as far as I currently understand things. ++Lar: t/c 16:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. Would the same argument apply to such a request from a totalitarian government, rather than the Dutch government or a school? Raymond Arritt (talk) 00:03, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Good counterexample. I'd say that if the People's Republic of China government asked for a ban of the IPs that the PRC themselves owned, to prevent their employees from posting, it should be taken under advisement, but if the PRC asked for a ban of all IPs that were assigned to, for instance, an IP in the PRC, we should say no. But ya, maybe your counter shows why bans might not be good, as doing them for the Podunk School District starts you on a slippery slope. If so, maybe we have some bans we ought to consider lifting? ++Lar: t/c 01:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I think that we should never block on demand. We should only block in cases of vandalism or other misbehavior. Sarsaparilla (talk) 23:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
If it's anything like here (Canada) this smells like political ass covering. Some journalist write a quick paper on 'bad government employee behavior' and every political enemy jumps in to create a scandal to make to government look bad. WP should not get involved. What if a month later some totalitarian regime ask the same thing just days before a purge?YegLi (talk) 22:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Our Blocking policy provides for blocking for damage to Wikipedia. There is no other policy basis for blocking users. I believe we would need to change the policy to authorize administrators to perform their functions in the interests of anyone other than Wikipedia. And I wouldn't support such a change. The general thrust of Wikipedia is to encourage and support open access to information as a general public good. Our rules of veracity and civil conduct that are the basis of the blocking policy are intended to be in support of this thrust. The fact that other people may have different interests and views does not require us to change this thrust. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 04:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Romanization of Russian

This is a formal announcement to inform the community that a proposal to redefine the criteria of conventionality in the Russian language romanization guideline has been submitted and to solicit the community to review the said proposal and vote on it. The proposal is available at Wikipedia talk:Romanization of Russian#Proposal to re-define the criteria of conventionality. Thank you for your attention.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Celebrities myspace accounts

I keep seeing these when I read articles about various celebrities. Most of the accounts look very fake and I don't know whether I should remove them or not. Many of them claim to be the "official myspace page of X", but their offical website has no mention about the myspace page. For example the page on Leila K contains an "official Myspace page" that seems to not be official and the artist herself is completely broke and lives on the streets. -Lapinmies 19:18, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why we would use Myspace as a source for anything, not to mention that it is not reliable in the slightest. You're right, a lot of them are hoaxes (the "Official page of X" garbage). Myspace pages are like blogs, not reliable. - Rjd0060 (talk) 19:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
  • At best I can see these in a See Also section, but have mixed feelings about including even a link to something where the info is not verifiable. The term "official site" has always seemed odd to me. What does official mean? It seems to be an over used ambiguity. --Kevin Murray (talk) 19:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. It all boils down to verifiability. Anybody can make a myspace page, and claim it is X's "Official" page (I guess it is supposed to mean that it actually is X's page, although I don't buy it). - 05:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC) Rjd0060 (talk) 05:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Possible major re-interpretatation of the use of fair use images

There is a discussion here which has implications for major re-interpretatation of the use of fair use images. Please provide input. Corvus cornixtalk 00:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

This is already being discussed above. -- 68.156.149.62 (talk) 03:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to some forks it's being discussed in about four places at once now. The most extensive, and central (in my opinion), discussion is at WT:NFC, via the link above.Wikidemo (talk) 09:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] ANI and AN

So I just read the history of the "Community Sanction Noticeboard" that was deleted earlier this month. That made me wonder exactly what is the distinction between the "administrator's noticeboard and the administrator's noticeboard/incidents" ? Don't the two overlap entirely? Shouldn't they be merged or one deleted? What actions or remedies should we seek? Belicia (talk) 04:05, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The way I've always thought of the two: AN for basic "FYI" stuff, while ANI is for things that need administrator attention, somewhat urgent. By the looks of things right now, things on the AN, IMO, should be on ANI instead. I guess some people don't make any distinction between the two though. - Rjd0060 (talk) 05:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Lack of Consistency in Sanctions

Shortly after I first registered on Wikipedia I was blocked indefinately with no warning (and with no complaints against me from any users) for being a sock puppet because I had engaged in a (civil on my part) argument with User Porcupine. (I was eventually unblocked after a more reasonable Administrator reviewed the case). Today another newbie engaged in an argument with User Porcupine - and at one point began a message with "Listen pig" (albeit written in Romanian). That user has received a gentle warning for the offence. I realise that these decisions were taken by different Admins and so there are bound to be differences in the sanctions that each feels is appropriate but quite frankly in this instance the disparity is a joke. There needs to be some guidance given to ensure more consistency in these cases. For the record I actually believe both Admins were wrong - the one who blocked me was wrong to do so - blocks should not be handed down when no one has complained about a users behaviour, and someone who calls another user a "pig" should at the very least get a 24 hour block. Kelpin (talk) 18:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

What does being a sockpuppet have to do with a dispute? If you were a sockpuppet, then the block was completely justified, and the cases would be extremely different. Lex T/C Guest Book 06:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't a sockpuppet though. The fact that I had had an arguement with an experienced user was used as evidence that I was a sockpuppet by some twisted logic. (Even the user who I was arguing with - said he knew I wasn't a sock). Kelpin (talk) 08:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
The argument that "blocks should not be handed down when no one has complained about a users behaviour" is utterly specious. For example, if I encounter a user in the midst of a vandalism spree or campaign of racist harassment I'm going to block him to prevent further damage rather than waiting to see if anyone complains. Note that I'm commenting on a general principle here; I haven't looked into the particulars of your case. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:58, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Fair point - in that instance I'd agree but this case was different. User Porcupine had complained about another user who was using socks, my name wasn't on the complaint, but I got blocked because I was arguing with Porcupine - even though Porcupine later said he knew I wasn't a sock. Kelpin (talk) 08:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. That problem was the same in the criminal justice system before sentencing guidelines, with judges giving totally disparate punishments for the same offenses. Belicia (talk) 05:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

but what was the result: rigid guidelines prohibiting the use of discretion and enshrining harsh standardized punishments--equal justice, by rejecting mercy. DGG (talk) 10:12, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

If he was not a sockpuppet, and only had a dispute, he shouldn't have been blocked, and less indefinetly. He should've been requested at WP:RFCC &/or the ArbCom and the consensus would have brought a definite solution. Lex T/C Guest Book 06:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC) I think its high time to go back to the days where you could not be banned by the "community," only by ArbCom after a full hearing. (like 2 years ago). Belicia (talk) 06:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I know who you are talking about - that other user was a newcomer who is obviously new to things like WP:CIVIL. The other user, on the other hand, had been blocked for a similar offence before (and see his/her block log). The newcomer has the equivalent of a level 4 warning on his/her talk page now, anyway - and I happen to think the punishments are justified. (Non-admin) x42bn6 Talk Mess 13:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Deletion amendment

I am so tired of individual users, often the most uncivil ones or the ones with agendas, putting up articles for deletion with no previous discussion or involvement. I am not talking about speedy deletions.

My proposal: An established article (i.e. an article that has been present for a long time and with numerous editors) may not be put up for deletion without first discussing it on the article's talk page. If after discussion on the talk page there is no consensus (to keep or delete it), then the nominator may open an AFD.

To me this seems like nothing more than common courtesy, though in all the AFD's I've witnessed I've never actually seen it done. What do others think of the proposal? Dovi (talk) 12:41, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm in support of this. Tcaudilllg (talk) 14:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
What you are saying amounts to WP:PROD, a very useful method. But I've not seen that may article put up for AfD where a discussion would have made much of a difference. Maybe 10% would be improved, and another 10% agreed on deletion or merge. Of course, even that 20% might be worthwhile. DGG (talk) 08:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
No, doesn't look like WP:PROD, which is for "uncontroversially a deletion candidate." Rather, I am talking about things which are not self-evident, like where a user questions an article's quality, neutrality, notability, etc. and then simply goes ahead and slaps on an AFD template. I also mean it especially for established articles (that have been around for months or years and been edited by numerous respected contributors).
I am not saying that articles should be given automatic "tenure" or that established editors should be given a veto regarding AFD. But I am saying that these two factors should at least be taken into account by discussing questions about the article's suitability to Wikipedia on the talk page before actually doing an AFD. That is a reasonable courtesy to expect, and it does not prevent the individual AFD nominator from going ahead with the nomination if he isn't convinced on the talk page. It does, however, obligate him to consult with others first, making AFD less of a haphazard and annoying experience for others. Dovi (talk) 08:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the point in this. You are just turning it into two discussions instead of one. AfD should not be an annoying experience, if the article is good enough then the AfD will soon be snowed and the only one who has had an annoying experience will be the nominator. If there are serious problems with an article, despite it being "established", then the editors should rethink why those problems were there in the first place. An established article with numerous editors which is unverifiable, original research, a POV fork, or (the most probable) fancruft, is the problem of those editors, not of the nominator, and making it a lot harder to put up an AfD for such articles will not be a net benefit for Wikipedia. If editors want to discuss it before nominating, that's obviously fine, but it should in no way become a requirement. Fram (talk) 09:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
"Harder"? It is not hard at all, anyone can do it at any time for any reason, including people with agendas (and there are lots of those). They can also do this as many times as they want! It is simply far too easy to be a pain in the neck with an immediate, undiscussed AFD. "If the article is good enough then the AfD will soon be snowed..." -- why should that happen at AFD with an annoying notice on the page and an immediate deadline for deletion discussion to finish? Why not make an initial good faith effort on the talk page?
Rather, put an least a bit of onus on the nominator, not just those who oppose it. Let him raise the problem on the talk page, and see how discussion goes for a limited time. Perhaps 2 days? If he is still unconvinced, and still determined to delete the article, then let him file an AFD. What's the big rush to add a disturbing template and open an immediate AFD page? Yes indeed, two stages: first a "local" discussion at the talk page and then only if necessary an AFD. Yes, require (or at least very strongly suggest within the policy page) a basic courtesy on the part of the nominator. Have a good weekend all, Dovi (talk) 11:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
We do need to give some deference to established articles that are either clearly notable or well-written. Deletion of established articles can be awfully contentious and disruptive, and when articles keep getting attacked on second, third, and fourth deletion nominations because somebody did not like the result of the last one, even when the proposal gets turned down yet again it ends up wasting a lot of time. If the goal is a better encyclopedia, that effort would be better spent working on truly pointless new articles, or else improving what we have. I'm not sure whether requiring a discussion before a deletion proposal is best, or a higher standard, or a longer period, or giving some weight for prior consensus to keep. We ought to do something. Wikidemo (talk) 22:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree - it's just too easy to slap an AfD template on a perfectly good article (ugly, sits there misinforming readers) without any real consequences (if you expect WP:SNOW, that's hardly a disincentive). On the other hand, it's difficult to come up with rules about AfDs, to solve the problem, that don't get into significant instruction creep.
So, an alternative: Either a separate section on the AfD page (e.g., "Established articles") for articles over X months age and/or Y edits, or some other way for editors to find these easily (template that generates searchable text?). That way, if there really is going to be WP:SNOW, it will happen a lot quicker, since a lot of folks interested in AfDs might head directly for such easy pickings. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry guys, I just don't think this is necessary. I'm seeing more and more "bad faith" AfD nominations being rapidly closed per WP:SNOW lately. Obviously some people will feel that an article should be nominated, and some people do not. It would be like a pre-AfD discussion? Seems pointless. Why have 2 of the same discussions? First, we'll talk about it on the talk page, which will be just like an AfD discussion, and then, we'll do it all over again on the official AfD discusssion? No need, in my opinion. - Rjd0060 (talk) 01:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, there's no way a policy change like this will work. You can't segregate discussion about the encylopedic merits about an article to that article's talk page, since the whole point of the AFD process is to get a broad community consensus about the topic. All that's going to happen is two discussions; one of which will be totally pointless, because no matter what the "losing" side will say that consensus was broad enough, and take it to AfD instead. It's not going to work — I also frankly don't much care for the idea of segregating articles based on "age" or "number of edits to them". A two minute old article can be vastly superior to a months ago article and deserves the same respect and consideration. --Haemo (talk) 03:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
What's the point of soliciting a biased debate? Usually, the people paying attention to the Talk page for an article are the "keep" votes. --- tqbf 19:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
AfD can be a biased vote for "deletion". Not always, but sometimes. What sort of people are likely to be attracted to a set of process pages with "deletion" in the title? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 02:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Chick ?

Why is one of the skins called "chick" ? I see nothing relating to baby birds of girls in it. Jackaranga (talk) 16:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe because the Chick skin was made for mobile devices. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] please let the world know about wikipedia!

Dear Friends Wikipedia is a philosophy, so don't let people to just silently donate and go away, give something back to them to show that they are part of this philosophy, something like a logo for their personal web logs saying " I love giving to wiki" or some badge to put on their bag or t-shirt some thing to be like a motivation for them and others who see them. Some thing to spread this beautiful way of thinking and living. Please let wiki philosophy became a way of living for us in this new age. I feel it's much much more than a great encyclopedia , I feel it can be the meaning of humanity in the future century . Please don't miss this great chance. We don't have any credit card here in Iran, if we had donating wikipedia would became one of my hobbies.

Best regards J.Anvar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.146.46.164 (talk) 18:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Pet names

  • On a number of pet related articles I've seen, (Cat for instance) I've noticed that many have images have captions with the names of the actual pets. Does WP have any policy about this or relating to this? I just think it's a bit unencyclopedic to have actual names of pets in their images. Jedibob5 (talk) 23:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I've just looked through Cat and did not see any names in the captions. Anyways, while I don't think there are any policies of guidelines specifically prohibiting this, but it just makes sense to omit those from encyclopedic articles. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
The only names I found were names of breeds and they belong there. Can you give an example of what you call a pet name in cat? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:23, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Jedibob may be referring to some of the image names in http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Felis_silvestris_catus. Corvus cornixtalk 21:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, it wasn't Cat I was talking about. I don't know why I put that. It was some sort of Cat-related article, though. Jedibob5 (talk) 21:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
It was Bicolor cat, that's right. Don't know why I put just "Cat." Jedibob5 (talk) 21:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Traditional Knowledge Disclaimer

A user has raised an interesting point regarding the "traditional ownership" of knowledge, with the particular case of Aboriginal Australian place names, lore, and the like, and how it relates to the licence and general disclaimer of the site. I was hoping some Wikipedians with a better knowledge of legal matters would be able to have a look at [[4]], and offer a learned opinion on the matter. Lankiveil (talk) 02:40, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Please, it would also be appreciated if any Wikipedians with better knowledge of intellectual property matters might also look at the most recent discussion surrounding an edit request made to see 'traditional knowledge' inserted into the General Disclaimers current list of pre-existing intellectual property (somewhere between 'collective marks', 'design rights & 'personality rights'), here: Wikipedia_talk:General_disclaimer#Traditional Knowledge.
The edit request appears to have been declined because 2X Wikipedia administrators are uncertain and doubt that 'traditional knowledge' is a sufficiently, legally enforcible form of pre-existing intellectual property against which GFDL users need to be forewarned. I believe the 2X administrators are mistaken (particularly on a world-wide scale), but I think I need, and would greatly appreciate some assistance from greater authority or any other/alternative suggestions/ advice from fellow Wikipedians?
As a final 'policy' proposal/ proposition arising from the above .. I for one can see no harm in increasing the coverage of the General Disclaimer, and therefore wish to propose a broader "when in doubt, include edit" policy for administrators editing disclaimers, so preventing admistrators from adopting overly narrow, overly conservative "when in doubt, decline edit" block on forewarning users of the possible liabilities and vulnerabilities of relying on GFDL without addition checking?? Bruceanthro (talk) 03:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect it looks a nonsense. There's already too much mess with copyright paranoia and, for good or bad, hardly any legal frame supports this kind of "knowledge ownership". In my humble opinion, knowledge can't be owned, at most kept secret. Once it's not secret anymore... it's public domain.
Anyhow, I'd like if you who support this kind of "traditional copyright/patent" would illustrate what the heck are you talking about with examples. You really seem to be talking about some very interesting secret knowledge, I would love to know more about. --Sugaar (talk) 06:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty humorous - is it supposed to be? The notion of knowledge being owned in a legal sense by people as a birthright on account of their cultural heritage is diametrically opposed to American ideals of equality, free speech, freedom of information, scholarship, pursuit of truth, etc. However, as a matter of cultural sensitivity it is often best not to pry into deeply cherished secret knowledge simply for entertainment or curiosity value, personal fame, book sales, scholarship, etc. We have taboos in majority western culture too, just different things perhaps. There's no legal prohibition in the US and Wikipedia is uncensored, so it has to be a matter of discretion and good taste. Why repeat something if you know it is offensive to the people involved? I think there should be a higher standard for inclusion - it has to be really important. But that's up to each editor, nothing we can really put into policy. Wikidemo (talk) 13:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
When I read this I thought it was related to the Maroi/Lego incident described here: [5]. (Of course it involves a completely separate culture, even though the Maori live in approximately the same part of the world). It's easy to make fun of this, but I think there is some valid concern here. Just imagine a world in the process of globalisation, in which the dominent culture has been developed in Australia and New Zealand. Now an Australian company gets hold of an old book (Ovid) of the European culture that has been in decline ever since the first colonizers arrived from the East Islands, and they trademark most of the words in it for their products: "Jupiter", "Venus", "Hercules", "Perseus", "Icarus", ... I would certainly want to stop them. The reason why this hasn't happened with western culture is that our laws have grown in our culture. – Whether this kind of thing can be stopped with a legal disclaimer on Wikipedia is, of course, a matter for legal experts. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I've looked into the discussion, & I'm unclear exactly what these "native intellectual property rights" are that extend beyond what is covered by such concepts as "trade secrets", "trademark", & so forth. Is there something in Australian law that explains this concept? If not, then why do we need this statement? -- llywrch (talk) 19:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I've now done a little homework!. Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration_on_the_Rights_of_Indigenous_Peoples proclaims the following regarding indigenous intellectual property-
"Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions"
Countries likely to us the english Wikipedia, with statues/legislation protecting indigenous intellectual property of this kind include (but is not limited to): Nigeria (Copyright Act 1990), Central African Republic (Ordinance No. 85-002 on Copyright (Central African Republic)) and Ghana (Copy Right Act 2005 )
Relevant court law in Australia include
Milpurrurru v Indofurn Pty Ltd (1995), with courts recognising the 'cultural harm' indigenous plaintiff's suffered as a consequence of misuse of their designs on carpets, awarding damages, and implying communal ownership of indigenous designs;
Foster v Mountford (1976), where the court granted indigenous plaintiffs an injunction to prevent the sale of a book written by an anthropologist (Mountford) containing confidential information given to the author in confidence.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation maintains a database of existing codes, guides, policies, protocols and standard agreements relating to the recording, digitization and dissemination of intangible cultural heritage, with an emphasis on intellectual property .. [6].
In the end, though, all that was asked for of Wikipedia administrators, was to insert the words 'traditional knowledge' into an existing list comprised of things like "collective marks" and, yes, "personality rights" (still not sure what these are?). I have since suggested there is sufficient rationale for such a small edit of the general disclaimer, of the kind requested, and because there can be no harm (?) and there is no real reason not to make this edit .. then let Wikipedia community be more encompassing, and less narrow.
Hans Adler (talk) comments were understanding and useful. Perhaps there may be one or more administrators who may be similarly understanding and perhaps agreeable to (re)editing the disclaimer, or alternative measure (perhaps a notice regarding indigenous content on relevant articles?) Bruceanthro (talk) 21:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Wikipedians by contact information

I was surprised that there wasn't any categories that showed Wikipedians that could be contacted via means like IRC or AIM, so I decided to hunt down some userboxes and populate some. My thinking was that this is useful for collaboration. There are many times where I jump on #wikipedia to ask a quick silly question, like a naming convention, or to see if anyone remembered where a template was that could be used for format some external link. I've listed my own AIM screen name on my userpage and user talk page also as a method of collaboration. I created three categories at this point, Category:Wikipedians by contact information, Category:Wikipedians available through AIM, and Category:Wikipedians available through Jabber, using only templates that actually listed a contactable ID. I got to a template for MSN and saw that a similar category had been removed via CfD here, where it was deleted under the argument that Wikipedia wasn't a social networking site. While I agree with that general idea, I don't think this considered the categories as helping with collaboration in relation to Wikipedia. Before I continue I figured I should get more feedback about this (especially given only five editors were involved in the CfD). -- Ned Scott 06:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The argument that we're not a social networking site is spurious if applied to categorizing information already here. I'm not entirely sure what purpose the category would have but offhand I see no reason why it's inappropriate to gather information people have chosen to include about themselves.Wikidemo (talk) 09:39, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
This is a good place to put a link to a discussion at CfD, encouraging other editors to go there. It's a bad place to have a discussion that really should occur at CFD, particularly since discussions there are archived (by the date started) while discussions here are not permanently archived at all. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Per the above suggestion, please continue discussion on WT:CFD#Wikipedians by contact information. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Proper units?

If you go have a look at the Saffron article, you'll find some interesting information about the number of flowers you need to produce some amount of ready-to-use saffron. For some strange reason though, weights are given mostly in pounds. SI units are used, but only in parenthesis after the non-SI units. This phenomenon is not limited to the saffron article. It's actually somewhat common to see non-SI units being the first, or sometimes only, units used. Considering that this is the English language Wikipedia, not the US Wikipedia, and considering that SI Units are more widely used, I see no good reason to give numbers in pounds, or other non-SI units first. If the article deals with 1) a phenomenon closely related to a "non-SI culture" or 2) something that is defined in terms of non-SI units, I think it's justified to use non-SI units first, but not otherwise. So, for example, the article on Baseball is a good example of a place where non-SI units are justified. Is there any official Wikipedia policy on the subject?
On a similar note, there appears to be several tons in somewhat widespread use across the globe. Whenever I come across a measurement given in tons, I feel unsure as to which ton the article author was refering to. I think that any Wikipedia policy on the subject of which units to use, should also deal with the tons. 85.224.198.207 (talk) 10:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Just like British English vs American English, both are acceptable and shouldn't be changed to a different standard without discussion. It's a case-by-case basis. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 10:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Standard procedure is to give the original measure first, followed by any conversions. So, if the source cited says "x threads per pound", we write "x threads per pound (y threads per gram)". --Carnildo (talk) 11:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I do support the standarization in SI units. Sadly the English Wikipedia has a strong US-centric bias instead of he global perspective (lack of localist/ethnocentric bias) it should have. --Sugaar (talk) 12:01, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Standardization on SI units is an appropriate policy, but let's not go overboard on the notion that use of non-SI units is US-centric. In fact a large fraction of English-speakers grew up with miles and pounds in other countries where there was later a policy to convert to metric measure. The old units still survive in use to some extent. British roads are measured in miles with speed limits in mph. In the Canadian supermarket where I shop, I reguarly see meat prices posted with dollars per pound in large print and then a smaller translation into dollars per kilogram -- this may be partly to be able to quote a smaller number, but I also think that's what they expect a lot of their customers to understand more easily. I don't see things marked in gallons any more, but when I hear the word I still think first of an Imperial gallon and not the undersized :-) US gallon. --208.76.104.133 (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
There is no issue in giving measurements in SI-units. However, given the large US readership of the English Wikipedia, it is beneficial to provide the US Standard Units as well. Doing so is not a systemic bias either, but is accommodating the readers by using units they already know and understand. --Farix (Talk) 22:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Veropedia Watchlist Advertising

There is an advertisment in our watchlists for a contest to improve certain articles. This seems to be the creation of Veropedia contributors who wish to improve the article on Wikipedia (and will pay people to do so) so they can have a Veropedia article on the subject. I have noting against the contest itself, but I am wondering why it is advertised in this way. Surely a message in the watchlist is for big events that could affect the whole community (such as ArbCom elections), not for advertising a project set up by a small group of editors. It'd be similar to advertising a WikiProject in a watchlist message. I'm assuming they have some sort of official permission, though, as this page doesn't seem able to be edited by ordinary users. I think allowing this space to be used for advertising a project sets a bad precedent. Lurker (said · done) 15:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is "advertising" at all. We're all here to improve the Encyclopedia, and this is simply an incentive. - Rjd0060 (talk) 15:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
There are some pretty popular user names dropped for this contest (Danny, Alison, and Walkerma), and off-linking this to veropedia. I'm all for contests, but perhaps we should move the "list" over to a project page here to be less adverty? (Full disclosure:I edited the watchlist message related to this, but only to adjust the formating, I don't have a strong opinion on to if it should be included). — xaosflux Talk 15:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Rjd0060- Plenty of projects etc. are here to inprove the encyclopedia. What makes this so different that it is promoted in such a prominent place? Surely only something along the lines of the upcoming ArbCom election should be promoted here, not a project created by a small group of people. Next, thing, WikiProjects will be wanting to use this space for promotion. Lurker (said · done) 16:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I've already "dismissed" the info, but weren't those names just to inform people as to who will be judging this little contest? - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:01, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Veropedia is scarcely relevant. All that matters is that Wikipedia articles get improved, and that's a matter that concerns the whole of the Wikipedia community - I want them all to participate. Sure, if you want to move the list of eligible articles over to a project page here, though, go ahead. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 16:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

  • I've moved the list across and changed the link. The new list is here. ELIMINATORJR 16:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Worth mentioning there's related discussion at Wikipedia talk:The Core Contest -Halo (talk) 11:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is not the location of the list, but the fact that this contest is advertised in a space generally used for official announcements, such as software changes or elections. This creates a false impression that this is some kind of official Wikimedia Foundation event. Lurker (said · done) 14:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Geographical question

Where in the world does one need to have an address to be eligible for the 100$ award? I remember a little contest at the Dilbert blog that needed quite some text to explain what the conditions of the contest were, including "being a US resident", "legally"(!) and "physically"(!!!) I know that Wikimedia coworkers are of course much smarter than Scott Adams when it comes down to overcoming all sorts of practical problems when running a business, but does it really make no difference at all where one lives when participating in this competition? Or can one be disqualified for all sorts of reasons post factum? --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Payment can be made either by check or Paypal to the winners, so it does not really matter where they live. Danny (talk) 19:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Scott Adams clearly had a lawyer help with his contest rules/disclaimer, so the question is, was his work excessive, is our work deficient, or is this contest sufficiently informal/different that it doesn't need legalese? --Golbez (talk) 23:44, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Prizes???

Hey, I just saw a "100 dollars prize" for winners of a "contest to improve key articles". What's going on here. Monetary incentives are against the spirit of Wikipedia. Amit@Talk 16:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, not technically. See Wikipedia:Five pillars and also the foundation's mission statement. You can pay someone to create free content and it's no less free for other people to distribute and modify. --W.marsh 17:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
You may want to take part in the discussion here Lurker (said · done) 16:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] WP:PIPE

What do other editors think are the pros and cons of changing existing simple links of the form [[article title here]] to piped links of the form [[Article title here|article title here]]? A recent example is this edit. It doesn't break any links or change anything from the point of view of passing readers, but it makes the wiki markup harder to read while editing, particularly for visually impaired editors, and more complicated to edit, especially for newbies, and is more verbose. Is it an improvement? I'd like to hear other editors' opinions, and see if there is a consensus. I can't find any policy, guideline, or previous discussion that discusses whether it is or is not appropriate to use piped links like that. I think it would be useful to have clear guidance on this issue. I originally posted this question here (please continue the conversation here for ease-of-reference). Thanks, - Neparis (talk) 20:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

If all you're doing is capping the first letter just to have it capped, it's a silly edit. It doesn't need to be capped in the brackets; article still goes to Article (leave the cursor over it and you'll see it in the hover text, as well as in the activity area of your browser window). EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. By the way, the example edit was by another editor, not by me! Thanks for your comments. - Neparis (talk) 22:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It's an extremely trivial edit and completely unnecessary, so it should be avoided. I suggest that you contact the editor in question if he or she does this regularly. --Farix (Talk) 21:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's how I felt about it. I've seen a lot of the same sort of edits recently by other editors. If the consensus here is against such usage of piped links, I think it ought to be covered in a policy or guideline such as WP:PIPE. Neparis (talk) 22:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Thought I'd seen this stated directly, at the same place where it talks about not doing [[noun|nouns]], because [[noun]]s does the same thing. Can't find either. In any case, I can't imagine why an editor would defend a practice that (a) takes longer to create/type and (b) is likely to confuse most editors, who don't - for obvious reasons - follow it. Particularly since there is absolutely no advantages whatsoever. (I hope someone isn't saying "Well, I'm going to keep doing that because I'm used to it", since that would be disruptive editing.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, it seems there is a consensus developing against abusing piped links in this way. It would be useful to be able to refer editors to a specific part of a policy or guideline against the practice. Would anybody object if I were to propose wording to this effect to go in WP:PIPE? Neparis (talk) 23:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Relatedly, is there a consensus view on editors changing piped links that go to redirects, such as DMSA, to piped links that go directly to an article? such as DMSA A recent example is [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mercury_poisoning&diff=prev&oldid=173396284#Acrodynia_epidemic here]. Neparis (talk) 23:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, bad example; the article exists only with lower-case first letter. I'll dig out another one. Neparis (talk) 23:40, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Recent examples of this sort of editing of links: [7]][8][9][10] - Neparis (talk) 15:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
There is already a guideline on this. Tra (Talk) 00:34, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for that. It seems very clear that editors should not change links to redirects that are not broken, save for the two exceptions of (1) links to redirects in series templates, and (2) hints that are misleading. However, after a quick search, I just found an edit that doesn't appear at first glance to fit either of these exceptions. Any thoughts on why this edit that changed a link to a redirect that is not broken is not against WP:R? - Neparis (talk) 15:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

(undent) I'm guessing that popups is set to "Automatically fix links to bypass redirects and disambiguation pages" (an optional parameter). But I suggest asking the editor, BrownHairedGirl, directly; we can speculate endlessly, otherwise. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I had moved the relevant article from Spanish Congress of Deputies to Congress of Deputies (Spain), because its title is "Congress of Deputies" (or more precisely "Congress of the Deputies"), and had fixed a bundle of double redirects which that caused. Maybe I canonicalised more of the links than was essential, but I don't see any harm done, and unlike the examples which kicked off this discussion, the link was piped both before and after.
There is one situation where I will try to never bypass a redirect, and that's where the redirect indicates a possible new articles (e.g. if "battle of the big toe" redirected to "war of the bodily extremities"). Otherwise, when tidying up after a page move (as I was doing in this case) I try to standardise the links on one page. Possibly a waste of my time, but no harm in this case to either readers or other editors. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Descriptive plot summaries and primary sources

There has been a debate on Talk:Million Dollar Baby about whether the film can be used as a primary source in writing a descriptive plot summary of the film so long as the summary does not make any analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. One editor is suggesting that because there are no reliable secondary sources cited in the plot summary, it is entirely original research, and we cannot trust that the editor who wrote the summary actually saw the film. He even went so far as to remove the citation to the movie that I placed from the plot summary because I didn't write the summary. Your comments are welcomed. --Farix (Talk) 21:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Summery? Let's not get all wintry here. :-) (I've corrected the spellings). Primary sources can be used to verify simple facts. Secondary sources are needed for anything with a hint of interpretation or opinion. Mostly, it depends on the example. In this case, a short plot summary can indeed be verified by watching the film. Summarising is what encyclopedias are all about. When done properly, there shouldn't be a problem. A balance needs to be struck between editors parroting what others wrote, and editors having some freedom to summarise in their own words. Carcharoth (talk) 02:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with assuming that a raw plot summary being assumed to be cited to the work itself. However, that doesn't mean that there are a lot of good plot summaries in Wikipedia articles (many are longer than the work itself :) ... ), however in principle this seems fine by me. Any analysis, opinion, explanation, etc. needs sources, but to say "Person X did Action Y..." etc etc does not need to have secondary sources, IMHO. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
My comment? I am increasingly frustrated with these extremist interpretations of "No original research" -- one editor's strawman argument far too often is shown to be another editor's received truth. Sometimes I wonder if WP:DISRUPT could be used against them -- or would I then be shooting myself in the foot? -- llywrch (talk) 19:45, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Why is the link to 'block log for all users shown in blue?

It is, regardless of whether they've ever been blocked or not. This is confusing as if you have clicked in 'user contribs' the block log link's always blue, you have to click on it to see if any blocks are listed there. For most users, there's not any. If it was a red link like if a talk or user page is empty, it could be seen at a glance.Merkinsmum (talk) 21:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a link to a log (a special page), not a link to an actual page. Or, to put it differently, it's to a page that is created on the fly, and can't be watched/monitored. Yes, it would be nice if the MediaWiki software were changed - for example, to have a "block bit" (on/off) to indicate whether or not someone has any entries in the log; then, when the bit is "off", the link to the log page could be turned red. Getting something like that implemented would be a feature request (requiring a database change, as well as updating the bit when a new block is added to the log).
Though thinking about this, I suppose that someone could write some JavaScript to do a "look ahead" at the log, and, if empty, to change the color of the link, or even hide it. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I, personally, don't think that this is a big deal. Also, this probably should be discussed someplace else, as I don't see anything relevent to a policy. Maybe WP:VP/T or WP:VP/M. - Rjd0060 (talk) 01:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Special:Log (the page being linked to) always exists, it's more a question of whether any entries will match the given search parameters. Doesn't seem like a big deal, to me, but if you want to submit a feature request, there's always Bugzilla. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I meant to post in the 'Miscellaneous' section but the top of the page said you should try and post anywhere else but there if possible.:) I just thought it would be a good idea, might get round to the 'Bugzilla' thing, thanks.:)Merkinsmum (talk) 13:44, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Policy for discussion of policy policy

As part of the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings arbitration case it has been noted that the sockpuppetry policy had "diverged from established norms at some points". It is not alone. Other policies have been rewritten by parties in dispute in order to enable their behaviour.

I would like to suggest that all policies marked as such (with {{policy}}) be protected indefinitely, and any edits made solely on the basis of consensus on the discussion page and an {{editprotected}} request handled by an independent admin not part of the discussion.

This is not proposed in order to create bureaucracy, but in order to maintain a stable policy base so that people have a realistic chance of keeping wihtin policy, and to avoid the absurdity of arbitrators and administrators fishing through past versions of policy to find out whether a given act violated the policy as written on that day. Guy (Help!) 23:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I came here prepared to mock a policy proposal about policies as being needless bureaucracy and plain silly. But this is a sensible and workable proposal. The only potential downfall seems to be the transition from a proposed to an accepted policy. That doesn't seem to be a very fixed-in-stone or formal process but immediately protecting a new policy would seem to give more weight to those who accept the proposed policy as non-admins would then be in a poor position to challenge the policy's status as easily as they can right now. But that's not a show-stopper, IMHO, just an issue to keep in mind and try to avoid. --ElKevbo (talk) 00:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
(ec)It's a good concept. I've been hoping for the introduction of 'stable versions' to allow a similar system wherein only revisions marked with the highest approval level (not available to most users) would be accepted policy... again requiring consensus before any updates are 'official'. Obstacles to be overcome would be how to handle policies which are currently subject to dispute and the long term possibility of ossification if people find the process to get updates made too difficult. I'd suggest holding off on declaring any version of the disputed pages 'official' until the dispute is settled and having some sort of standard where if a change suggested on the talk page isn't disputed for a set period (e.g. 7 days) it goes in automatically. --CBD 00:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Guy, there aren't a lot of times I agree with you completely, but this is one of them. This proposal addresses a long-time concern of mine; anyone can edit policy right now and half the edits to policy aren't even noticed, or people are chased away when making queries. Certainly if this practice had been in place we would not have seen six months of edit-warring, serial protection and "disputed" tags on WP:NPA. I concur with CBD that there are some fine points to be worked out (in addition to his examples, also looking at the links within policies to ensure they are going to "approved" rather than "proposed" pages), but I think this is quite workable. Risker (talk) 00:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I suggest that, in my opinion, if the above framework of article and policy hierarchy could be adopted as a standard for the entire project, you have the makings of a brilliant transition into the "new and much improved WP." Very... Nice (talk) 01:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I fully support this. Mackensen (talk) 02:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Guy, could you give us some specific examples of cases where parties to a dispute have rewritten policies to their advantage, and not been reverted or sanctioned for it? (In the Privatemusings case you mention, did PM make changes to the sockpuppet policy? Was the document changed in a way that violated consensus, or is the divergence of the policy from practice simply the result of a lack of timely updating?) At first blush, I like your suggestion, but I also get the but that's un-wiki vibe.
I'm concerned that protection of policy pages will exacerbate the problem by making maintenance of policy documents more difficult. Finally – and I may well regret opening this can of WP:BEANS – will this change just move edit wars and wikilawyering off the policy (and policy talk) pages and on to ancillary guideline pages? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Guidelines being more general, is that necessarily a problem? (Not to say it's not an important side-effect to consider.) One other problem here might be the introduction of new policy -- at what point do we protect the page? We could let "new" policies lay unprotected for a bit, to gather some momentum and build consistency/stability, before protecting them. Some policies are still developing, even if they do have wide support; others, WP:3RR comes to mind, are far more stable. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I've one minor quibble. This tends to make policy pages into something more akin to legislation, which gets changed only when an amendment is 'passed'. I've always understood policy pages to describe rather than proscribe. Policy changes not when the page changes, but when we start doing something a little different (which is normally gradual). Thus policy pages will often not reflect current policy anyway - they are designed to be dynamic.--Docg 02:26, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Possibly not a bad idea... policy pages, if not watched very carefully, can become a hodgepodge of random editors pet peeves and personal quirks writ large... everyone wants to add their own little thing, and most of these people mean well... but the end result is often a few core ideas with 50 minor things tacked on here and there, it's not very coherent. One problem with this plan is that it could make it hard to change the current state of policies... which evidently isn't very good in some places. --W.marsh 02:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly worth trying for awhile. If we find the policies are getting too stagnant, then we can put them on a schedule for review maybe. FloNight♥♥♥ —Preceding comment was added at 02:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's be real - the people accused (no comment on the validity of the accusations; haven't looked at the case) of editing policy to enable their administrative actions are (of course) admins. If they were A) already knowingly going against current policy [if they didn't know, why change it] and B) changing policy against consensus; why would they not just edit the page anyway? What on earth does this accomplish?—Random832 03:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This has been proposed before for the exact same reason. For what it's worth, I agree with the idea. It should be difficult for people to change policies to support their own agenda. Graham87 06:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Guy, I came here to laugh at you but instead find myself praising your brilliance. I'm astounded that a solution so elegant and simple has not been proposed before. east.718 at 11:39, November 25, 2007

I don't like it, but it does seem necessary unfortunately, so I also support this. Garion96 (talk) 11:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

"The absurdity of arbitrators and administrators fishing through past versions of policy to find out whether a given act violated the policy as written on that day." As far as I am aware, Wikipedia:Disruptive editing hasn't change. Just because an editor who specializes in throwing out red herrings for admins to follow doesn't mean they should be followed. And yes, I agree that policies susceptible to being rewritten by parties to enable questionable behavior may be protected as you suggest. -- Jreferee t/c 16:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Won't this encourage wikilawyering? If the ArbCom is actually fishing through policy page history to determine if an editors' actions are in line with nominal policies on particular days in the past, then frankly they're doing it wrong. Full protection of policy pages isn't the answer in that case; the ArbCom – and all Wikipedians who are trying to enforce policy – ought to be aware that the absolute letter of any policy or guideline is not the be-all and end-all. We are much more interested in maintaining the spirit of our rules—and even then, we enforce the rules only as a means to maintaining and improving the encyclopedia.

If an editor is doing something that is harmful to the encyclopedia, we ask them to stop. If an editor persists in deliberately doing things a reasonable person would think disruptive, we sanction. If there is disagreement about whether or not an action is harmful, we have a discussion. We don't hew to the bright line of the nitpicky wording of policies—that leads to the refrain that all of us (including Guy) have seen on AN/I in defense of one obnoxious act or another: "Show me the exact policy that says what I'm doing isn't allowed!". Permanent protection of policy pages will exacerbate those cries: "If there's no consensus to disallow my behaviour in policy, you can't block me for it and ArbCom can't sanction me for it!" While such arguments will get short shrift from individuals exercising common sense, there will nevertheless be cries of 'admin abuse!' and endless wikidrama from individuals who need letter-perfect adherence to these etched-in-stone policies.

Under the present system, such wikilawyering occasionally leads us to update the policy to close the loophole. More often, we acknowledge that there will be edge and pathological cases that our policy doesn't contemplate, and opt to use our best, collective judgement in the future. We realize that modifying policy to fit every odd case or specific situation is an exercise in futility (not to mention a risk of WP:BEANS) and that rewriting policy over single, rare occurrences can have unintended consequences.

Wikipedia policies evolve because it is sometimes useful to codify the practices and standards we refer to on a regular basis rather than having to reinvent the wheel each time we face a situation; they're specific expressions of commonly-used interpretations of the five pillars and the policy trifecta. (Indeed, I could see the value of permanently protecting short, sweet versions of those policies and those policies alone, and pushing everything that's interpretation of them off into regular, editable policy pages.) Wikipedia is not a legal system or an experiment in government; we don't attempt to control behaviour through a complex set of preestablished laws. Making the change to full protection of all policy pages will, I'm afraid, encourage the misconception that Wikipedia is a nomic and that policy pages are to be interpreted in a most lawyerly fashion. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

We can speculate all we want to about the various misfortunes that would fall on Wikipedia should policy pages be locked down; that way lies (in my opinion) simply inertia, since there isn't any way to get a 100% guarantee that any change will be positive. We're talking, what, forty-some pages? Why not just do a trial (say, three months) and see if problems arise? And the way to measure success would be simple: have reasonable proposals for changes (for example, copyediting) on the policy talk pages been ignored or implemented?
There certainly is no reason why, for locked-down policy pages, we can't put a big banner at the top telling editors how, and where, to suggest changes. Policy pages aren't articles; any editor coming to the page to get information isn't going to be put off by a clear notice about how to change the policy. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I oppose this on principle, per my earlier comments and TenOfAllTrades. Gives a wrong impression of how wikipedia works - and that is more dangerous than anything.--Docg 01:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Disagree per DocG and TenOfAllTrades. The people I've seen editing policy pages during a dispute to make them look better have the technical ability to edit protected pages. Better to leave them unprotected so that such edits during dispute can be reverted by anyone. Without a much stronger method of gathering input and testing consensus the suggestion is not viable. GRBerry 14:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about this suggestion -- although willing to live with the outcome, at least for a while. On one hand, it does appear to be a good idea -- at least for some of the policies; this will silence the argument "but how do I know the rules won't change?" And it will be one area where we need not worry about edit wars. On the other hand, this weakens one of the reasons for ignore all rules: by locking these pages down, instead of encouraging people to follow the spirit of the policies, it encourages them to follow the letter. -- llywrch (talk) 19:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC) On second thought, after seeing this thread below, which is about the related discussion on Wikipedia talk:No original research, I am against this proposal. Right now, there is no worry that some crank might successfully weasel something into one policy or another that prevents us from writing useful content, so Wikipedians like me can leave these discussions to the policy wonks, cranks & so forth & concentrate on writing & improving articles. The possibility that one of these policies might actually be locked in a bad version (which is not the wrong version) would mean that the rest of us would have to regularly police these timesinks, & not have the time to write. I'll admit it: when I post here, or at WP:AN, or at WP:AN/I, & at similar places I'm slacking. However, if spending time in these fora were a requirement to write the articles I have been doing -- I'll leave. -- llywrch (talk) 20:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a bad idea, as long as the {{editprotected}} is not used - that's not what it's for. The protection would, IMO, be to prevent changes without consensus to be made, and general shifting of policy on a day-to-day basis. It would be to make changes to policy pages a "special occasion". Thus, a discussion should simply be initiated, with no need for a template... but obviously we could continue using the template for simple spelling corrections and so on. The protection would also reduce vandalism to high-profile policy pages such as WP:3RR, WP:CIV and... it's got to be said, WP:VAND. All in all, it's a good idea... and I'm not an admin, so I'm signing away my birthright, here! --Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 18:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Alternative idea: Post on talk page first, then implement

Random832 said it well above: Administors are people, too. (I can attest to that, I'm one myself). I don't think the distinction should be between admins and ordinary editors, but between discussed changes and undiscussed changes. Moreover, there are plenty of changes by non-admins or even IP accounts, such as interwiki links, for which we should not create an unnecessary hurdle. Therefore, I propose the following:

  • Changes that affect the meaning of a policy need to be posted on the talk page first. If no objection is raised after 3*24 hours, they can be implemented on the page. Any meaning changes that are implemented in violation of this rule should be reverted by any editor. If that reversion is again reverted, it will be treated as revert warring.

A similar system is currently working very well on WT:SLR. — Sebastian 23:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Images to the Commons?

I've encountered an editor who has been tagging contentless image description pages, thus "creating" them ([11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18]), even for Commons media that are not even used on WP (1,2,3,4).

I was under the impression that we were attempting to move all free images to the Commons, and CSD:I8 "includes empty (i.e., no content) image description pages for Commons images", yet the logical conclusion of creating duplicate image description pages and image categories is an unwieldy mirror of the Commons, which would simply increase the amount of pages needing to be maintained on En WP. What do you all think? TewfikTalk 01:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Commons was created exactly so image-related stuff should move there, and all this work being done to categorize images on en should be diverted to help commons (and by this help all Wikimedia projects rather than just the English Wikipedia). I've talked to the editor before and it seems that he isn't satisfied with the current multilingual category support on commons (and neither am i) but lack of a software solution isn't a reason to waste time on something. Either way, the categories on commons are in English so en.wp users should have no problems using them (and WP categories are supposed to be linked to commons categories for the benefit of wikipedia users). Yonatan talk 01:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
en copies should be deleted. βcommand 01:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
If you create a local image description of a image hosted on Commons then both the local page and the Commons page are displayed. This is entirely appropriate for tags like {{FeaturedPicture}}, where there is en-specific information in addition to the Commons description. Whether en images should also have categories and other less en-specific info, has been a source of contention. Personally, I think we should categorize images locally, since Commons categories are not visible at all here, and being well-organized contributes to making the best possible encyclopedia. (Not to mention that we have many images that don't appear on Commons, and Commons has a variety of images that aren't encyclopedic in character.) However, I understand why some people dislike such duplication of effort. Last time I saw a discussion like this (and unfortunately I don't remember where), I think the best "consensus" was that such categorization wasn't harmful enough to actively delete, but also not useful enough to actively encourage. Dragons flight (talk) 02:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


I am somehwat concerned by the indiscriminate moving of maps and graphs to commons. Many of my maps have suffered that fate, even if they are not (most of them) mute maps but have significative text in English. Additionally in few cases, creator attribution has been altered in the process (and in a couple of cases the deletion of history may have been perjudicial for the current version, after some excessive edition).

Some people is not aware that material at Commons should be language-neutral and I'm bored of finding maps (my speciality) in many different languages sitting there as if they would be usable in any Wikipedia, independent of language. Worse: many of these maps in other languages actually illustrate many en.Wikipedia articles.

The logical thing is to make a linguistically adptated map or even a mute version (with legend off-image) for commons, not to move every single Wikipedia image to commons indiscriminately. --Sugaar (talk) 08:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Please show me the commons guideline that says that material there "should be language-neutral". --Golbez (talk) 23:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Content at commons needn't be language-neutral. There are many Wikimedia projects besides Wikipedias, the English Wiktionary should be able to use these maps you made (in English) if they can, and in order to do that, the maps need to be on commons. Commons has many maps in Hebrew, for example, so there should be no problem with English. Regarding attribution, you should let the users who transferred the images to commons what they did wrong so they can do it better next time. Just because some users aren't copying pictures properly doesn't mean they shouldn't be (and that's besides the point being raised here anyway, you can't prevent your images from being copied to commons although you can prevent them from being deleted on here once copied to commons, even though that's pointless). The point being discussed here is whether commons images should be categorized on en and the answer to that, is no (with the exception of the en featured pics). Yonatan talk 12:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Historical maps??? A dictionary describes things like "sardine", "yellowish" or "innaction". I am not involved with Wikitionary but I doubt it talks about Chalcolithic Europe, Bronze Age Iberia or the Kingdom of Pamplona under Sancho the Great. It doesn't because it's a dictionary, not a encyclopedia, hence these maps are irrelevant.
What should be in commons are neutral images such as a photos but most maps and graphs are better re-created for each project, according to its language. It's absurd to reach out for commons for a map in Hebrew that most people can't read: logically it should be in the Hebrew language Wikipedia. --Sugaar (talk) 17:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I disagree strongly, Commons is for all free images, not just language-neutral ones. My maps are all on commons and I'm very happy with that arrangement. Also, Sugaar, there's more to Wikimedia than Wiktionary. What if someone created a history Wikibook? Please calm down. --Golbez (talk) 23:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I think that Sugaar's ultimate point/problem is that images are being transwikied, which is fine, but they are free to be modified on commons without Sugaar really seeing it or being a part of discussion. This is a part of the licensing agreement that is legal and valid BUT the user would rather have local hosting. In other words if a user would prefer an image to remain on en.wiki as well as commons, would there be a problem with that? Keegantalk 07:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
No, there is no problem with that but that's not what this discussion is about anyway. Okay, fine, not Wiktionary then but Wikiversity, Wikibooks or Wikisource, there are many projects other than the English Wikipedia that can use things such as maps in English. Yonatan talk 13:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] The majority of fiction is non-notable

Can we just delete everything to do with fiction, period? It seems kind of subjective that we're deleting virtually every article on video games characters, often with very little warning (two articles that I frequently contributed to were deleted before I was even aware they had been nominated for deletion). And really, what fiction is important? I suppose Shakespeare can stay, and Dickens, and Austin, and "classic" literature, stuff like that. And I suppose some people would get quite upset if the Harry Potter or Foundation stuff went as well, but I don't see why we need an article on Pokémon, or CardCaptor Sakura, or Red Dwarf, or The Edge Chronicles. I mean let's face it - who cares? RobbieG (talk) 13:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to take them to deletion review, but in general fictional concepts that have been around for over a century and are still actively studied and read, such as Dickens and Shakespeare characters, have sufficient independent scholarly sources as to allow a realistic assessment of their historic cultural importance. The character you have to kill to get to level 3 in Sonic is less unambiguously significant. Guy (Help!) 13:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I made that distinction. The works of Shakespeare are probably suitable material for an encyclopaedia, as is most classic literature. Apart from that, though, surely all fiction is irrelevant to Wikipedia's goals, right? RobbieG (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what you're trying to say. The notion of "classic" literature is extraordinarily flexible, at least if we concede that "modern classic" is more than a marketing gimmick, and especially if somebody claims that the term "instant classic" isn't mere hyperbole.
Putting aside the matter of what "classic" means and what it covers, there's a great amount of fiction that interests a substantial number of thinking people, although perhaps not you or me, and about which people may write intelligible and informative articles according to WP's precepts of "no original research" etc. As long as they follow the rules and also don't risk confusion of fiction and reality, I don't see what's problematic.
You introduce your question about fiction with something about video game characters. I don't see why video game characters merit articles (though I'm open to persuasion); and I also don't see why fictional characters merit articles, unless those characters are known (perhaps only faintly, and perhaps only has doubly fictional caricatures) to people who haven't read the fiction. The fiction might be fairly well read in this century (Lolita and Humbert in Lolita) and it might not (Svengali and perhaps Trilby in du Maurier's Trilby).
If you're unhappy about some deletion, you can take up the matter in "Deletion Review". -- Hoary (talk) 14:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
To be perfectly frank, I am unhappy with several specific deletions, but I really haven't the time or the energy to spend arguing my point, when I have very little confidence that the people at deletion review would take my complaints seriously anyway. But that's got little to do with the point I'm making here now, which is: do we need multiple pages listing every Pokémon from #1 to #however many there are by now? Compare the article on Wyatt's rebellion with the article on Dagger of the Mind, for example. A reader of Wikipedia would probably find out more information about the fictional history of Star Trek than the real world history of England. Doesn't this bother anyone else? RobbieG (talk) 14:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Deleting good articles on pop culture topics doesn't make articles on "important" topics any better... it's not like the guy carefully formatting Naruto infoboxes is going to just start working on articles about the French Revolution because you deleted his fiction articles. More likely he leaves and the "serious" articles still suck. --W.marsh 14:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
(ec) The solution to that problem isn't to delete Dagger of the Mind, but to improve Wyatt's rebellion. You say you haven't the time or energy to spend arguing your point, but what exactly is your point? Anomie⚔ 14:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
This is why notability for articles on fiction is present. It defines what level of external information for a fictional work should be present to allow for articles on it (this itself is the reason why many fictional articles are being put for deletion - its to help stop fancruft). Now, we may be overly strong on modern "fiction" and weak on older ones but that is primarily because of the makeup of the editors, with a larger fraction interested in these newer works than those of the older ones, but there's no reason why there can't be more coverage of classical works that met the same requirements for notability - we just need to find the editors to help out on those. --MASEM 14:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know, man. Lady Macbeth (Shakespeare) cites no references showing real-world importance. Maybe I should speedy delete it just to be safe. --W.marsh 14:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Never mind, it was only a suggestion. I wasn't trying to disrupt anything, but if the cruft is here to stay, then so be it. RobbieG (talk) 14:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
You ask: do we need multiple pages listing every Pokémon from #1 to #however many there are by now? Answer: No. ¶ You ask: A reader of Wikipedia would probably find out more information about the fictional history of Star Trek than the real world history of England. Doesn't this bother anyone else? Answer: It bothers me. It bothers me that the real history of England (or anywhere else) is poorly covered; it alternately bothers me and hugely amuses me that great numbers of people would spend large chunks of their life writing up Star Warstrek. Well, WP is promoted as the encyclopedia anyone can edit, so its editors are likely to approach a cross-section of people capable of using a computer and writing in English. Now, if you look at what the anglophone masses read about, you'll find junk and trivia hugely represented. Hardly surprising that the Wikipedia-editing masses then choose to write about junk and trivia. -- Hoary (talk) 15:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
RobbieG brings a valueble point, especially with the Pokemon. I just checked and there are currently 493 pokemon. All that plus the articles on the characters from the show, the regions, the games, the movies, the manga, etc. You must have 500-600 articles just for Pokemon (which most of them are stubs). Are they really necessary? Should they be tolerated? My answer is no. Just by having 1 pokemon article is fine. Everything else belongs in a Pokemon Wikia. Lex T/C Guest Book 16:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Most Pokemon characters are in lists such as List of Pokémon (1-20) (which has been pwned by the fair use guidelines/policies meaning we can't even have pics of most pokemon here). Notable ones such as Pikachu do however have their own articles. And if we come to the point that all Pokemon knowledge must either be transwikied or be simply deleted, I think Bulbapedia would be more suitable then Pokemon Wikia. FunPika 20:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
W. marsh has a good point. There are no references at all in that article. I hate inline citations, but a nice reference at the end is not too much to ask. Not so tongue in cheek. Keegantalk 07:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Disagree. A very large amount of fiction is undoubtedly notable according to Wikipedia policies, including all the examples that you give. Indeed, it would be difficult to include all the relevant information on Pokemon into a single article; it would be incredibly unwieldy. However, where Wikipedia falls down is the amount of articles on certain types of fiction. To give an example; there are currently over 600 articles on Gundam. Most of these articles could be happily deleted or merged without any loss of encyclopedic content, but it doesn't happen. Why? Because Wikipedia content, especially on fiction, is not based on actual notability, but how many Wikipedia editors think that content is notable. If you don't believe me, find a non-notable, unsourced, in-universe article on this topic (there are hundreds - here's a good starting point) and AfD it. Unless it's indefensibly NN, you will get a slew of WP:ILIKEIT keep votes (thus), and even if the closing admin correctly closes as Delete, the eventual outcome, after weeks of stress, will be that the information is merged somewhere else, resulting in an article with a long list of NN, unsourced information instead of individual articles (example). Sometimes they do get deleted; but it doesn't happen often. If you PROD an article, it'll probably be removed, and someone will claim to be writing a merged article; then nothing will happen ((example). No wonder that most people can't be bothered. ELIMINATORJR 16:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I find it telling that the only examples you provide are unwieldy mass-noms. Invariably, when someone shows up to mass-nom Gundam articles, it turns out they havn't examined them closely. Even more invariably, people who have problems with Gundam articles never post on WP:GUNDAM about it.

Current consensus is to merge minor stuff into list of articles and only make or keep articles about major things. That's policy and that's how we at WP:GUNDAM do things. Your claim about 'nothing being done' is in fact a blatant lie-- a lot of work is being done at the moment, but it mostly is focusing on mecha from a specific series at the moment. There are not many people working on WP:GUNDAM, and not all of them know everything about every series. Jtrainor (talk) 17:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Partly agree. I would not say Pokémon is not notable but I really think that many details of this phenomenon are non-notable and yet they are widely covered in Wikipedia. Like other fan stuff (Star Trek and so on) it has a coverage that goes well beyond what is logical: there is absolutely no reason to cover each epysode for instance; this doesn't happen with Pokémon, it seems (only a handful of epysodes in the list have active links, what is excessive), but it happens with Star Trek, what is absolutely ridiculous. The notability of other fiction stuff should as well be adressed properly, specially when it comes to have loads of articles about the most nimious related detail, be it characters, toys, epysodes... --Sugaar (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
OK, be aware that I've thought about it and toned down my views a little since my last comment here. The thing is, I am in many ways an inclusionist (despite the impression I probably gave above). I don't see why we shouldn't have more detail on fiction than a print encyclopaedia because, well, Wikipedia is not paper. On the other hand, Gundam Wing is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. Wikia is full of specialist wikis for various works of fiction, the majority of them awful, due partly to a lack of material and partly to a lack of decent rules like the ones we have here. The result is that if someone wants to add their knowledge of Gundam Wing (for example) to a wiki, they won't go to Wikia, they'll come here. I don't think it helps that when something is declared non-notable, it is rarely transwikied to a Wikia site; in this deletion debate, I proposed that the content of a page be transwikied to a relevant wiki and deleted from Wikipedia. The material was not transwikied, as far as I can tell; it was promptly deleted. Consequently, we have this vicious circle where newcomers add information about their favourite work of fiction to Wikipedia, it gets deleted (quite rightly so), newbies leave in a huff, and more newcomers arrive, eager to add their own info. The Gundam wiki[19], meanwhile, is a bit pathetic, full of red links. To sum up my current view, I don't think modern fiction should be out of bounds for Wikipedia, but I do see that we seem to be the lead authority on a number of unencyclopaedic topics that ought to be other wikis' business, and I think we should do something to change that. RobbieG (talk) 17:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
With various discussions at WP:N, WP:WAF and WP:FICT, we're trying to address the problem of proliferation of fancruft articles that exist due to the previous definition of notability (which lacked the demonstration of coverage in secondary sources). That includes how to handle fancruft information and moving it to wikias. The problem is is that this process is not well defined yet, and you also have groups of editors that feel their work should not be removed because, primarily, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. It's a learning process, it's not going to change overnight. However, we need to education as many editors as to what is appropriate and what isn't, and yet not discourage editors from participating. --MASEM 17:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought. WP is a long-term project, right? So having lots of articles on stuff that young people find interesting draws them in and gives them the editing skills that they will remember when they come back in 5 or 10 or 40(!) years time and want to contribute to the subjects that they are interested in as older people. Rome wasn't built in a day.  —SMALLJIM  11:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment As it takes only 30 seconds to copy and paste an entire volume of game instructions into an article, it will probably only take 20 years before most of WP will comprise of nothing but Rome: Total War. Rome wasn't built in a day, but endless fancruft will flood into WP like barbarians very quickly unless admins make a greater effort to enforce the notability guidelines. --Gavin Collins (talk) 20:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I think Gavin Collins may have misunderstood my comment. I'm most certainly not advocating that we ignore the "endless fancruft that will flood into WP…". Exactly the opposite in fact - it's essential that we keep a firm hand on it, or else the young editors who are adding it will not have the chance to learn how things are done here. Reverting or amending any of their faulty contributions and explaining to them why we have done so is very important. We can't stop this addition of what to many editors is seen as trivia, so we should turn it to our (long-term) advantage as best as we can.  —SMALLJIM  15:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment Conversely it takes only 30 seconds to insert an AFD tag on an article, which seems to be done sometimes with no effort to improve an article on an otherwise notable subject. I think part of the difficulty is that many editors seem to rely solely on Google hits to "prove" that an article is notable or not. In any case, Rome: Total War is notable, just merely by having received awards from so many different magazines, but the article clearly needs to be sourced better than it is (like the vast majority of articles here). (I also can't think of another computer game, the main engine of which was used as the basis of a TV series on the BBC or any other television network, namely Time Commanders. I just wish they'd bring it back and let me on there to show everyone else how to win a battle properly.  ;) But then I'm a gamer/wargamer and that's not the candidates they'd like to have on their show.) In any event, this is starting to take us far afield from the original poster's concerns. As an aside I've cut way back on my editing essentially because it all got very tiresome even trying to convince editors that things that are notable are really notable (as the sources/refs I provided were even questioned). As a question of interest, when exactly does fiction pass from non-"classical" to "classical"? To take just one general genre, is Poe classical? Is Lovecraft (relatively unknown and unappreciated for his work while alive)? Is Stephen King? Is Poppy Z. Brite? Who "decides" these things anyway?  :) --Craw-daddy | T | 21:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment - My guess would be that if there is sufficient, non-trivial, discussion (such as review) of any work of fiction in what is generally counted as a reliable source, like newspapers, books, etc., that qualifies the fiction as notable. Lovecraft and Poe have both had several works published regarding their fiction, although, at least in Lovecraft's case, not all that fiction is necessarily reviewed, so not all of it is necessarily notable. King has also had several books of criticism published regarding his work, so I tend to think the material discussed at length there qualifies as notable. Don't know much about Brite (in the interests of objectivity, don't really like the stuff I know either), but any work of hers which has been subject of multiple significant, notable pieces of commentary probably qualifies as notable as well. John Carter (talk) 21:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment Well, I suppose my question might have been more rhetorical than not. The main distinction I was trying to make is between the notability criteria of Wikipedia and the more nebulous quality of being "classical literature". I haven't taken a survey of college or university literature courses, but I have the impression that, despite the critical analysis of his work, Lovecraft's writings aren't generally considered "classical literature". To me it's sort of like the words "encyclopedic" and "unencyclopedic" that editors throw around on various AFDs and other pages here. Those are words that have no real meaning as one man's "encyclopedic" article is another man's "cruft" (even if the subject under consideration could indeed be notable, Star Trek being an obvious example, there being loads of material (critical and otherwise) written about the original TV series and its derivatives, even, I'd wager a few PhD theses, but to other people it's all "cruft"). <shrug> --Craw-daddy | T | 22:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment And don't forget... Bulbasaur (of Pokémon fame) was, at one point, a featured article.  :) --Craw-daddy | T | 22:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer also has a lot of material written about it including academic studies.I believe there has been at least one PhD as well .Garda40 (talk) 22:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

We should be careful with terminology here. There is a difference here between 'classical' and 'classic' (compare the difference between 'historical' and 'historic'). Classical often refers to the period of classical antiquity, though as the disambiguation page shows, there are other periods called classical as well. Classic literature, on the other hand, is what we are talking about here (and what, to be fair, everyone was talking about before I pedantically pointed out the terminology snafu). That article doesn't do a good job of explaining what a classic is, though it does note that the origin of the phrase is from the word classical. Anyway, not all classics are literature and not all literature is classic. The standard of secondary literature on the topic is a good one. Tolkien Studies is a journal on the subject of Tolkien studies, and there is a fairly large body of secondary literature on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Not all of it good, but then you can't have everything. Carcharoth (talk) 22:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment Apologies for not using the correct terminology. If you agree with that (unsourced) article, then anything written less than a hundred years ago (or, more specifically after 1900) can't be "classic literature" unless it has particular "modern significance" or "perceived future significance". <shrug (again)> As I said, it's like that "encyclopedic/unencyclopedic" difference in some cases. To me Lovecraft's work is "classic literature" (going along with the "modern significance" argument if you like). To others he's still a hack, even though much critical work has been written about his writing. --Craw-daddy | T | 23:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment: Perhaps we're beating a dead horse at this juncture, but for what it's worth, in response to the original editor's proposition, "I care." MalikCarr (talk) 23:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I have moderated my view considerably since I wrote that. I am perfectly aware that "I don't care about it" is not, in itself, grounds to delete anything. Actually, it looks as though my proposal was nothing new; the rules are in place, they're just not consistently enforced. RobbieG (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • A simple question: How long before we start targetting articles about published novels? Probably 98% of our novel articles are 'simple info + plot summary' stubs.--Nydas(Talk) 21:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Template suppression

Since this has to do with the guideline WP:SPOILER and its recent rewrite, I have posted this here. I have left a comment (diff) on the guideline WP:SPOILER (timestamp 13:12, 26 November 2007) about template suppression that I think the entire Wikipedia community needs to be aware of. Thanks. --Pixelface (talk) 13:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Keep money awards out of Wikipedia

I would like to propose a policy that bans real money financial award constests and campaigns (such as Wikipedia:The Core Contest) to Wikipedians. It offends me greatly that money is being brought into the mix - AND that such a contest is being advertised on my watchlist! We have plenty of ways to thank users for their work here. We have 1000s of editors working hard, not for money, but for the hope to create something useful and dynamic.

Real money creates a very different incentive. Real money means a mega-millionaire could reward a particular POV. Keep real money incentives out of Wikipedia. Kingturtle (talk) 15:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

  • If you don't like it, you don't have to participate in it.--WaltCip (talk) 15:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
As a FYI, the same user has also opened up a discussion (thankfully with fewer capital letters) on the contest page at Wikipedia_talk:The_Core_Contest#This_contest_offends_me. Whether it be here or there it would probably be more beneficial to have the discussion in one place AgneCheese/Wine 15:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Money rewards are fine, I just wish they did not advertise it at the top of every page. 1 != 2 16:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Should probably try and keep this on the talk page for the contest, but it isn't at the top of every page. It is only on your watchlist, unless you click "Dismiss", then it isn't even there. You may be confusing it with the fundraising bar for Wikimedia, but thats entirely separate. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I don't think the existence of any contest is going to ever trump policies that govern article content such as WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR etc. The existence of these policies refutes KingTurtle's assertion that: Real money means a mega-millionaire could reward a particular POV. There is nothing stopping mega-millionaires from doing this without the existence of contests, but our policies that govern content are equipped to handle the possibility in my opinion. IvoShandor (talk) 17:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I see nothing wrong with it. Any "mega-millionaire" can pay people to push any pov he likes, even now. Our defense against this isn't by existing somehow outside of the real world, our defense is policy combined with block buttons. There is no difference between paid pov-pushers and unpaid pov-pushers. Obviously, we shouldn't allow contests on Wikipedia that reward policy violations. Offering money for writing good articles within policy is a Good Thing. People are still free to write good articles without being paid. This is precisely analogous to the Free Software movement. Companies can pay programmers to develop Linux kernel patches. They cannot force Torvalds to accept them into the codebase. It's the same here. Microsoft can pay Seamus Heaney to submit brilliant prose in praise of their products if they like. They cannot prevent us from deleting it again if we judge it to violate npov policy. dab (&#55304;&#56435;) 17:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The most serious threat of POV-pushing is not someone with deep pockets. After all, even highly-motivated salaried employees take the occasional day off. It is the people with a Message (aka "The Truth") who are the most serious threat, & they often work for less money than Wikipedia pays its Admins. (Yes, I mean they'll pay money to further their Message.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with dab. In the world of Open Source Software, you often see companies sponsoring bounties (rewards) for programmers to add specific functionality to free software projects that, if added, would benefit everyone using the software. I see nothing wrong with that. In addition, if Wikipedia were to set up a committee to vet any award proposals first, then that would go a long way to keeping the special interests out. Besides, what could possibly be wrong with sponsoring an award for an article like Squamata? --Jwinius (talk) 18:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

If a title is screamed, you know it's a bad suggestion :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 18:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Proposed notability guideline for schools

FYI - Discussion taking place for a proposed notability guideline relating to schools. See Wikipedia:School and discuss it on the associated talk page. Thanks, Rjd0060 (talk) 17:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Transwiki to Wiktionary - when is it appropriate?

I have had a number of articles listed as candidates for transwiki to wiktionary (e.g. cattiness, tattling, face saving). I wonder, when is it appropriate to transwiki and when is it OK to leave here? I was thinking of articles such as yo which give a definition but also some background. Often when an article is transwiki'd, the background is removed. I am aware of the existence of Help:Transwiki but thought more detail might be in order. Sarsaparilla (talk) 18:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

In case you haven't found them yet, Use–mention distinction, Wikipedia:Stub and Encyclopedic dictionary provide some information. HTH  —SMALLJIM  15:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Index Lists

We have a growing collection of index-like "lists of articles" and "lists of lists" (which I'll collectively call "Index lists", as specifically differentiated from "encyclopedic-lists" such as List of Polish flags), and we need to revisit some past discussions about how to handle them, and what namespace they belong in. I'll start off with the examples (4 of our best sets are those covering mathematics, geography, philosophy, and film, so I'll use those), and then give the points for consideration.

The lists are generally one of 3 types:

  1. An alphabetical index
  2. A list of "basic topics" in a reference-card/cheatsheet format
  3. A listing of lists

[සංස්කරණය] The problems and options

Scope
(there are a lot more than 40 lists of lists - they number in the hundreds. See [20], [21], and [22]    -TT) —Preceding comment was added at 20:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Unsourced
  • Most of these are unsourced, and represent only what is currently written about within Wikipedia. A few of these can be sourced from academic and professional course lists (eg. The Transhumanist is trying to find appropriate sourcing for List of basic geography topics), but most of type #1 and #3 are inherently unsourcable, by their nature.
Wiki-project-like
Disambiguation-like
  • e.g. Lists of languages was recently tagged as being a disambig page. Is this what we should do with all the "Lists of lists" (type #3)?
Portal-like


Background
Notes
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 suggestions added by Francis Schonken

[සංස්කරණය] Discussion

Slowly-considered feedback would be very much appreciated. I've tried to summarize all the current suggestions, but read the links given above for further background. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Summarizing my thoughts:
  1. Indeed most of these pages do not belong in Main namespace (full agreement with Quiddity on this first point I suppose);
  2. The problem is in most cases structural, meaning: by their very intent and content many of these pages don't belong in that namespace;
  3. Portal namespace is a suitable venue for most of these pages, including the use of these pages as a coherent navigation utility, with an already largely standardised access from main namespace;
    • Note also that there are several links to portal namespace from Wikipedia's Main Page (by far the most visible page of the entire encyclopedia). From the 13 links highest on top of that page no less than 9 lead to portal namespace.
  4. Other existing namespaces seem less suitable in most cases, although, arguably, some of these pages could be kept in Project ("Wikipedia:") namespace (linking to project namespace is less restricted from Portal namespace too while links to WikiProjects in project namespace are expressly foreseen to be placed in portal namespace, but largely discouraged from main namespace per WP:ASR) and a few others (like disambig pages, and WP:V/WP:NOR/WP:NPOV conforming lists) can be kept in main namespace (where they can link to portal namespace as described above); the possible overlap with category namespace is no part of the discussion here;
  5. Creating a new namespace for these pages would probably have more downsides than advantages (e.g. decreasing visibility rather than increasing it on the short term, and needing to go through a lot of hoops before we even have the first page in such new namespace started, etc);
  6. We can disagree on whether the "Portal" solution is the "least bad" or the "very best" solution we currently have available. But it is currently the best known immediately available solution and I propose to start implementing it without delay. I'm not interested in a "least bad" vs "very best" debate (which would be largely loss of time), and I can only encourage those who see better solutions to persue them, but that shouldn't keep us from proceeding with the best we can *with the available namespaces* (and their rules) we currently have. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a simplistic comment. I like the idea of putting navigation lists in the applicable portals. If there were some way to develop a simple convention to put them on their own pages somewhere, like to-do lists, then they could be transcluded for more than one purpose, if desired, without the headaches of maintaining redundant pages. RichardF (talk) 17:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

...and a simplistic answer: "Template:" namespace is more than any other namespace intended for transcluded content, especially if you want to standardise layout (like {{Navbox}}). But that's not the topic here (like a discussion of how this relates to "Category:" namespace isn't). The discussion regards which of the "Index"-type pages (as described in the intro) are displayed in which namespace (and under what page name). If you have a template (or use another page in whatever namespace as transcluded content), there still needs to be a page where one displays (transcludes) that content: well in what namespace should that content be? The only tangent regards the "search" function, that won't find transcluded content from another namespace than the one(s) one is searching. In other words, trancluding such content from "portal" or "template" namespace in main namespace would not yield any search results based on that transcluded content with "default" settings for the search. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


I think this is looking better than it used to. {{Contents pages (footer box)}} now lives mostly in Portal: namespace and doesn't raise my hairs for {{self-reference}}. To my mind, type (3) lists of lists are fine, and we don't need to do anything about them just as long as they are strictly treated as WP:DAB. The problem is the "list of [basic] $TOPIC [topics|articles]" articles. I cannot for the life of me find any usefulness in type (1), List of geography topics or List of mathematics articles or (sob) List of mathematics categories (they must be compiled by people who haven't yet noticed that Wikipedia is searchable and categorized). But type (2) "cheatsheet formats" like List of mathematics topics can actually be useful as long as they are intelligently arranged and not alphabetized. So, my solution would be: {{move}} the type (1) "$TOPIC articles" pages to "$TOPIC topics" and convert them into something useful where possible ({{merge}} the "basic topics" into "topics": "basic" vs. "non-basic" is not a distinction we should be making). Where such an approach doesn't work or meets opposition, {{move}} the list articles out of article namespace, either to Portal:, or to a newly defined Index: or Contents: namespace. dab (𒁳) 19:31, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Re. "move", see Portal talk:Mathematics#Stalled move request... thus far 2 (as in "two") people expressed an opinion in Talk:Lists_of_mathematics_topics#Requested_move, a fortnight after the start - a third one asking a question. Seems very hard to get people interested in such move proposals. Not even a third party could be found to close the move request, for reasons explained here (5th bullet). --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
update: Talk:Lists_of_mathematics_topics#Requested_move somehow managed to get in a wrestle, after an admin had closed it yesterday. Feel free to weigh in - I primarily want the page move procedure closed (with no discrepancy between the comment on top of the closed poll and the actual name of the page, even if that means ammending the closing comment without further moving the page). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Linking directly to portal-subpages from mainspace is (I think) the main concern that TT was raising. I agree that it should be (or become) acceptable practice.
    • Anyway, I don't think any guideline (or policy) page would need to be changed for this to become an acceptable practice (for instance with the template, observing "This template is meant to be placed at the bottom of the article in the "See also" section", from the {{Portal}} guidance). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Type #1 pages are primarily useful to editors, partly for the "relatedchanges" function, and partly for collecting suitable redlinks. More obsessive readers will also find them useful, for reading through our coverage of entire topics. (They exist mostly because our category system is still so rudimentary, e.g. can't display subcat contents all on one page. But also because it's weblike and not finite.)
  • Also, I've now removed a thread concerning a new namespace, as it served only to distract from more realistic options.

Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

above copied from Wikipedia:Lists/Index lists, where I'd asked for preliminary feedback to get the questions clearer.
  • Comment - To split lists up over multiple namespaces could get confusing - it may not be immediately clear to editors that some lists go in the main namespace but others do not. Lists of lists are in essence lists that couldn't fit on one page and had to be expanded. Lists are subject to expansion and splitting just like other articles. Many lists are expanded without renaming them to "Lists of" - they remain "List of" even though they are lists of lists. This reflects the standard article expansion protocol. For an example of list expansion, see List of dog breeds. The Transhumanist    21:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment - The list of lists of dog breeds by category may remain an article since these are defined by an international organization which may be cited. The lists of subjects, on the other hand, were compiled from various conflicting and overlapping sources, and perhaps the editors' own opinions. They may be useful as finding aids, but they are not the work of an authority or organization outside Wikipedia. GUllman (talk) 02:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - If redirects aren't allowed to the portal namespace from the main namespace, you may find editors re-creating the missing lists. See Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects. The Transhumanist    20:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - Default-setting searches would no longer find lists that have been moved out of the main namespace. The default setting of the search box should be changed to include the portal namespace. Portals need more exposure anyways, and it makes no sense that they are not included in search results by default. Moving lists to portal space would effectively bury them with respect to users who rely primarily upon searches to navigate Wikipedia. The Transhumanist    20:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree with The Transhumanist here. I would like to see the portal namespace included in the default search, or at least a debate started about this. Where would be the right place to talk about getting the default search behaviour changed? Carcharoth (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
      • WP:VPR. What happens next depends on what is required to change the settings. The power users at WP:VPT would know what must be done. The Transhumanist (talk) 21:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - most of the lists of lists do not have corresponding portals. The Transhumanist    20:43, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Maybe they could be used as the starting point for new portals? Is there an approval process for portals, or can anyone start one? Carcharoth (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia pages do not require pre-approval. That's the essence of Wikipedia, and it applies to all page types. The Transhumanist (talk) 21:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
      • As far as content pages and portals go, I agree with you, but I thought WikiProjects at least had an approval process of sorts? Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals is what I'm thinking of, and the accompanying Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide. Some of the points about scope there seem to apply to portals as well. Too narrow a portal won't have enough material for a good portal. Too wide a scope and the portal could get overloaded. Of course, Wikipedia itself, as a whole, is the ultimate portal! (This could be said for the sister projects as well). Something we would do well to remember. Carcharoth (talk) 21:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment It is disturbing to see the maginificent Lists of mathematics topics (a featured list) mentioned in the same breath with List of timelines, since the latter seems like merely a navigational aid to Wikipedia's content, whereas the former was irresponsibly characterized that way when it was up for feature list status, and those who called it that needed to be told they didn't understand what they were talking about. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment - What happens to the featured list status of Lists of mathematics topics if it becomes a portal subpage? The Transhumanist    20:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
    • To be fair, timelines are a more open-ended subject than a list of mathematical topics. I agree, though, Lists of mathematics topics is interesting. It is more a bullet-pointed overview of the subject, or a reading list, than an article written in prose. The word "list" is so inadequate to describe the reading and learning process going on there. I wonder if we can come up with a better name than "list"? It is still a navigational aid though, but designed more for browsing than for looking up an entry in an index. Carcharoth (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - many mirrors and forks of Wikipedia do not include the Portal namespace. Removing lists from the main namespace effectively removes them from those mirrors and forks, partially crippling them. For this reason, Lists of lists (all the types mentioned in the proposal above), like other lists, should remain in the main namespace where they will prove to be the most useful for browsing the encyclopedia. The Transhumanist    21:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment - Well, then they should be using the original site! Most search engines place the Wikipedia article near the top of the list of results, and any mirror site should include a link to the original article. If they're using a mirror site for a quick lookup of a fact, they're not interested in browsing the broad subject field anyway. GUllman (talk) 00:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment re sourcing in particular. I think that for the most part the organization of content in index lists is uncontentious, and occasional inclusion disputes can be resolved through reasonable talk page discussion (as they have been from time to time). Another difference is that index lists invariably link to more specific articles on whatever material -- so if two people are in disagreement about, say, whether Zizek can be considered a postmodernist, it can effectively be treated as a dispute on the Zizek page and evaluated based on the sources there. Imagine if we didn't use sources directly in articles, but only in talk page discussions -- it could work in theory, but it would be inefficient and unorganized where controversial subject matter is involved. In this case I think it's feasible since disputes are uncommon, and although sources normally aren't explicitly referenced in the index list, they're usually just a few clicks away. As long as no one abuses their right to challenge (which I haven't seen with any index lists), I don't think it's a major issue. — xDanielx T/C\R 02:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Another potentially relevant difference between main namespace and portal namespace: the ability to include fair-use images. I'm not sure it affects many lists (since a list is less likely to have the in-depth discussion of the image's subject needed to justify fair use) but it's another sign that portalspace is still in some ways a second-class citizen here. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: There is no way that there is going to be consensus to move type #1 lists to portalspace. Type #2 and #3 - sure. But #1 can involve lists like List of wild mammal species in Florida, a featured list with lots of images and over 100 footnotes, which belongs in mainspace. Also, lots of lists are starting to be multi-column sortable tables - see List of social networking websites, for example, which is much more article-like than portal-like. In short, "List of" pages that don't hold themselves out as high-level indexes are prime examples of what should not be in portalspace. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Many of these lists are redundant to categories, so they could serve as index pages in the Category namespace. Or, in some cases, they could just be replaced with categories themselves. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 05:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Is there a way to disable MediaWiki's Category-space member listing without developer intervention? As far as I know there isn't, which would mean that putting a list in category namespace => weird formatting. Either we'd have a bunch of lists with "This category has no members" at the bottom, or we'd have hybrid list-categories... sounds pretty neat, but how would we get see also/external link sections to the bottom? — xDanielx T/C\R 10:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Categoryspace pages are very, very different from regular pages; I suggest dropping the idea and focusing on portalspace issues. Also see the guideline Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes, which discusses why these three things should co-exist, rather than dismantling one in favor of another. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. How about leaving the final decision to the various wikiprojects? This allows for some continued experimentation in style and presentation, and if someone hits on a particularly charming and well-designed way of doing this, the meme will spread, and others will copy. I see no great need to overly formalize this at this stage. linas (talk) 14:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • An objection to moving lists of mathematics topics to the portal space is that then it would be available ONLY in the portal space. Other things available in the mathematics portal are available in the article space. The move would come at a high price: this Featured item would no longer be available in the article space. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] What would happen if tomorrow, you were barred from directly citing peer-reviewed journals?

The controversy over at WP:NOR is continuing, and it is coming to somewhat of a head, with the anti-primary-source lobby threatening to end discussion by decree. The issues up for discussion have been summarized on the talk page for those who have not been following the discussion. Basically, the issues are as follows:

  1. Do Wikipedia editors have a right to cite peer-reviewed journals directly, or do we need to cite to them via the mediation of some possibly biased secondary source?
  2. Should NOR impose a "super-verifiability" requirement over and above WP:V that requires cited conclusions in peer-reviewed journals, books, novels, and interviews not only to be verifiable, but also to be corroborated and filtered through second-hand literature?
  3. Should editors be allowed to cite raw data from peer-reviewed journals, but not the conclusions by the original author?

Any comments for or against these proposals are welcome on the NOR talk page. COGDEN 00:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a distortion of the actual issues under discussion, as there is no "anti-primary-source lobby". Primary sources can be used, but they must be used carefully to avoid editorial bias and interpretation. Secondary sources may be used in addition to primary sources to avoid this problem. There is nothing stopping anyone from attributing a scientific study or conclusion to the published author. The problem begins when an editor wishes to interpret a primary source, cherry picking primary source data to support a POV without secondary sources to support it. The questions you raise above aren't even relevant to the problem. —Viriditas | Talk 00:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
COGDEN seems to be suffering from an inability to grasp clear statements about the use of primary and secondary sources. The policy doesn't hold that primary (close to the subject being written about) sources are unacceptable, it holds that they should be treated with particular care to avoid going beyond the source and introducing synthesis or unsupported value judgements. Note that primary sources also includes self published sources which meet WP:RS in the context of an article about themselves, but which are generally unreliable. ... dave souza, talk 01:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I am a bit confused here. Aren't peer reviewed journal articles, by definition, secondary sources. In my field of interest, history, they certainly are. Dsmdgold (talk) 14:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
In my field, astronomy, most contain some quality of secondary sources, but are primarily primary sources, apart from review papers. WilyD 14:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, for the purposes of WP the parts of peer-reviewed papers that draw conclusions, give arguments, interpret data, or otherwise act like secondary sources are considered secondary sources. The only part that would be a primary source is actual experimental data or field notes. There is significant confusion about this point, since the dispute at NOR is about primary sources, which most peer-reviewed publications are not. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Nahh, I had a personal enoucnter with this issue: I got in a nasty argument with an editor who thought that vitamins were a waste of time and money and didn't do anything, and were crank medicine. To support his argument, he provided links to all sorts of literature, some of it possibley peer-reiewed. I donno. It was POV pushing. However, the the problem, as I see it, is not his use of citations, but his POV pushing. Eliminating this kind of use of citations will not eliminate POV-pushing. Don't treat the symptoms (citation use) treat the disease (POV pushing). linas (talk) 14:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The confusion over the difference between a primary source and a secondary source will not go away until we rename these terms as they are used here to something different from their use in the real world and then tighten up their definitions. I !vote for Wiki Type A sources and Wiki Type B sources (usage: "an eyewitness account is a WTA source"). This will have the additional benefit that editors could not assume that they know what the terms mean when they first come across them and therefore not bother looking them up - as doubtless happens now.  —SMALLJIM  16:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

You cannot eliminate the confusion because a primary source can sometimes be used as a secondary and the converse is true. The definition depends on two things: what type of source is being used and how it is being used. Furthermore, the definitions may be different depending on the field.—Viriditas | Talk 23:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Reliable sources guideline proposal

There has been discussion on Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources regarding what to do with the page. One group of editors wanted to redirect the page to WP:V#Sources. But sentiment has been expressed by some on the talk page that it's not a good idea to eliminate the guideline page. That would also leave Wikipedia:Reliable source examples and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard out there without a parent page. Reliable sources is such a critical concept for Wikipedia, that it is important to have a guideline page for it. Instead of redirecting the page or making it a disambiguation page, I propose revamping the WP:RS guideline page.

  • Some concerns regarding WP:RS include having "Duplicate descriptions" of what reliable sources are. That could be handled by transcluding the exact wording from WP:V#Reliable sources. No divergent wording.
  • The WP:RS guideline use to be more useful when it had some examples and guidance on specific types of sources (e.g. blogs, wikis, YouTube). There is a section on Wikipedia:Reliable source examples that has "Questions about the reliability of specific sources", which provide that very useful guidance. I suggest merging those questions (but not the rest of the examples page) back onto the guideline page. The rest of the examples page is poorly written and not that useful, and perhaps not needed anymore.
  • Include "aspects of reliability" (scholarship, extremist sources, self-published sources, claims of consensus) that is currently on the reliable sources guideline page.
  • Lastly, the guideline page can provide a link to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard where people can ask more questions. That page has fairly high volume of traffic.

To see how this suggestion could work, see User:Aude/Reliable_sources. Discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Guideline_page_-_proposal. --Aude (talk) 16:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[සංස්කරණය] Destroying consensus

There is a discussion started about addressing those who would take entrenched positions and act in ways to block consensus. Notices have also been posted on related behavioral policies and guidelines soliciting participation. Wikipedia talk:Disruptive editing#Blocking consensus. Input and opinions welcomed. Vassyana (talk) 21:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

"http://si.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)" වෙතින් නැවත ලබාගන්නා ලදි
මෙවලම්