Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

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How does the "All significant viewpoints" concept pertain to biographies?

There are various kinds of articles on Wikipedia, if an article is a biography about someone and part of this biography outlines their thoughts but isn't about the "Philosophy of" this individual - there are in fact other articles specifically about their philosophy, where is it stated in Wikipedia policy that "all significant viewpoints" means it's considered appropriate to cite criticisms of their work and thoughts in the biography. As opposed to meaning that facts about their lives and the fact that they authored certain works should be accurately presented - or if there's dispute about certain details that viewpoints regarding those factual disputes are represented?TheDarkOneLives (talk) 22:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To which article are you referring? Dlabtot (talk) 22:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should it make a difference?TheDarkOneLives (talk) 23:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It probably shouldn't, but a lot of people find it easier to talk about things with a specific example in mind. John Carter (talk) 23:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it makes a difference. By looking at the actual article and article history we can form our own judgments about the facts, rather than relying on the characterizations of involved editors. Dlabtot (talk) 23:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to understand your question... are you asking whether the Ayn Rand article should have a Literary criticism section? Dlabtot (talk) 23:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm asking if the "all significant viewpoints" means it's considered standard practice that an article that's supposed to be a biography should include criticism regarding the person's works - and if so where specifically this is addressed in policy? The Ayn Rand article is one I'm looking at. I've noticed people will cite "policy" in ways that don't seem supported by what the policy actually says.TheDarkOneLives (talk) 02:19, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to say that an author's WP article should include coverage of their works and significant viewpoints about those works, yes. For example, in the Leo Tolstoy article, you can see criticism of Tolstoy's works from Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Woolf, Joyce, Mann and others... of course the criticism of Tolstoy is a bit more positive than that bestowed on Ms. Rand... Dlabtot (talk) 02:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But my question is where is this addressed specifically in policy that "all significant viewpoints should be represented" means critiques of an author belong in their biography?TheDarkOneLives (talk) 03:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I just said that. Dlabtot (talk) 04:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where it specifically says that is at WP:NPOV. Dlabtot (talk) 04:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We are trying to inform our readers. Dlabtot (talk) 04:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of examples. A person is a philosopher, and their biography is mostly about their philosophy. Examples: John Rawls, Alonso Church, Saul Kripke, Donald Davidson. Seems to be the standard. Sometimes, someone else's viewpoints are included, but often, not all significant viewpoints. What I wonder about is just how much trivia is to be tolerated in articles like this when there are no citations for it (like, if someone started talking about what Ayn Rand likes to eat or what music she liked, but there are no sources. It's easy to find sources for the philosophical content and for disagreements about the philosophical content, not so easy for personal details, but still the details often remain. There are many philosopher-bios that contain absolutely no viewpoints besides the one of the person who is the subject (and some of those are self-edited). Makes writing those bios really challenging, but interesting. People should be encouraged to put up the various significant viewpoints that disagree with the person's viewpoint, in question.CDart (talk) 23:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to clarify further. There are two aspects regarding someone's biography. The historical facts of their life - born on this date, went to this school, married to this person, etc. There can also be their thoughts, their works. Is it specified anywhere that the "all significant points of view" is supposed to apply to both historical and intellectual aspects?TheDarkOneLives (talk) 10:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rand is notable for her books and her philosophy (which are of course closely related). Considering how incredibly controversial both were (and are) it absolutely makes sense for criticism to be included in the article about them. TallNapoleon (talk) 07:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't answer the question. Cite where it's specifically stated that "all significant viewpoints" is applicable to the thoughts of the subject of an article, rather than just historical facts.TheDarkOneLives (talk) 06:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest you read Wikipedia:The rules are principles, an excellent essay that encourages people to focus on the intent of our policies and guidelines and not on the "specific" language. We should always express all significant points of view in all of our articles... biographies included.

That said, I would agree that Rand's work is complex enough that we should probably not get into details on her works and thoughts in the Bio article... and should have a seperate sub-article devoted to discussing that work (an article which would include in depth discussion of that work... including criticisms). The Bio article itself would focus primarily on the events of her life, and less on her works. While a short paragraph on her works should be included, it should be in summary style... and point the reader to the article that discusses her works in more detail. In short... note the criticism in passing in the bio article, and point the reader to a seperate article where more in depth discussion is found. Blueboar (talk) 01:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Italic title

Ok I had a look through WP:MOSTITLE and couldn't find what I wanted so thought I'd ask here. I know you're supposed to use italics for books, magazines, species etc. but until today I had never seen an article (like this) which had it's page name altered into italics. It comes about through a sub-template of the infobox, but I was just questioning if it is allowed. If it is allowed shouldn't thousands more articles be italicised. (e.g. this).

On further investigation there was a discussion about this here, but it didn't seem to come to any conclusion. I personally think it looks awful and should be removed, but thought it should be discussed. Also I can't WP:BOLDly remove it and start a discussion that way becasue {{Taxobox name}} is protected.

Thanks, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks awful because the obliques of sans-serif fonts usually look awful, especially in larger sizes. But it is accepted practice for scientific names, and should be used more widely now that there is a way to achieve it.--Curtis Clark (talk) 20:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it also accepted practice for titles? I find it jarringly awful (though that may be just not being used to it). Rd232 ^talk 21:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it could use a serif font? Dlabtot (talk) 21:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arguably, "Puijila" is hard to look at even unitalicized.--Curtis Clark (talk) 21:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I kind of like it for Latin scientific names that are conventionally italicised, even though it seems a bit unnecessary.

But I would dislike it if it was used for book and film titles and similar.

So I would like a rule that article titles are not italicised, with possibly some exception like Latin scientific names. --83.253.251.213 (talk) 21:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay so it seems there is no existing policy about this. Where is the best place to try and gauge if there is consensus for or against it (I suspect this isn't the best place). Rambo's Revenge (talk) 22:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:17, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Italic titles. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The manual of style - and indeed scientific practise - states that binomial names should be italicised wherever they appear. What does it have to say about references to film titles in articles? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I linked above the MoS also states that film titles, books etc. should also be italicised. However this convention is not adhered to for the actual article titles. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, okay. Well, titles are a stylistic issue, so I guess that comes down to personal preference. I just wanted to make the distinction that it is bad practise to present scientific names in non-italic font in any context. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hate the idea of italicizing the titles of articles, if for no other reason than any disambiguating suffix (such as "(film)" for Serenity (film)) would also be italicized. I don't think the MoS should apply to the titles anyway; the title is the name of the page, not an actual reference to the work in question (it's just an identifier). EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On Serenity (disambiguation), the WP:MOSDAB guidelines would render it Serenity (film). -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but that's different from the actual title of an article (as in, what's in an h1 tag). EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:41, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, I was mistaking what we were talking about. Now that I know, though, can they not using piping to format just part of an H1 tag? (I don't know -- out of my expertise here.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{Taxobox name}}
Template talk:Taxobox name#Auto-italicisation of page name
archive WP:Village pump (technical)/Archive 56#Italic titles for names
archive WP:Village pump (technical)/Archive 58#Italics in article name
→ Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Italic titles
--83.253.251.229 (talk) 10:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lead images

Every wikiproject seems to have a different policy on the size of lead images. Typical values are around 250px. I use a thumbnail size of 300px, so generally lead images appear smaller than the images that come after. Surely there should be a well defined lead image size in the MOS? Ideally the lead image size would be specified by user preference. Noodle snacks (talk) 02:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree; unless there's a reason not to use it, the default thumb size is a user preference for a reason. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Over time, an article's layout can become a bit of a mess when explicit pixel widths are used for images. This might be because of the variety of resolutions and font sizes on different contributors' screens, so what looks perfect on one system is a bit of a dog's dinner on another. It's best not to specify thumbnail sizes, not least because another editor may come along and remove them all. Of course, images in tables like the Boat Race course and List of female Nobel laureates are special cases. BTW there's a useful parameter called "upright" for use when an image is taller than it is wide. Adding |upright to an image seems to reduce the thumbnail width by approx 76% (rounded to the nearest multiple of 10 pixels), e.g.

User's preferred width	If upright	Ratio
180	140	77.77%
200	150	75.00%
250	190	76.00%
300	230	76.67%

This means if a page contains uploaded images whose sides have lengths in the ratio 180:140, and the user has thumbnails set to 180 pixels, then landscape thumbnails will be 180 pixels wide and 140 high, and "upright" (i.e. portrait) thumbnails will be 140 pixels wide and 180 high so the areas will be the same. - Pointillist (talk) 22:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wish we could specify the image size relative to the default. I.e. 50% means have the default. --Apoc2400 (talk) 14:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mmmm, that could be useful. You could propose it on the technical village pump page. - Pointillist (talk) 14:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The original reason why forced image sizes were verboten, and large default image sizes were disdained, was to accommodate readers/editors with dial-up connections that made it difficult for our pages to load. In 2009, I think we could start to eschew this idea in favor of larger sizes. Just some background and 2 cents. -->David Shankbone 14:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised how many people either read or even edit Wikipedia using cell phones. With the rise of small-screened netbooks overly large images could be a problem again. I agree with Apoc2400's suggestion that relative sizes would be a good compromise soultion. Will Beback talk 18:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic removal of admin bit from inactive users

I call to everyone's attention Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#4chan hacked admin account. I have also made a similar opinion at WT:RFA but before the above-linked ANI incident. I think we should consider, as already done with the CheckUser privilege (see WP:CHECKUSER, as mandated by WMF policy), that any user account with admin privileges that has been inactive for an arbitrary length—my recommendation is more than 1 year—should have the admin bit automatically removed; those desysopped in this fashion (i.e. not desysopped due to misuse, abuse, etc.) may simply ask someone, i.e. a Bureaucrat, to restore admin privileges if the user wishes to become active again. I think the likelihood of stuff like the above happening (that is, admin accounts becoming compromised) would be greatly reduced if something like this were to be in place. Any thoughts? MuZemike 16:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The probability of any given admin account's password being hacked via brute force is dependent on the strength of the password, and nothing else. Therefore the probability of someone hacking an admin account is dependent solely on the ratio of the number admin accounts with strong passwords to the number of admin accounts with weak passwords. (It only takes one admin account with a weak password for you to be successful, and your chances of finding such a password is only dependent on the ratio of strong to weak passwords.) Unless a convincing argument can be made that a disproportionate number of admin accounts with weak passwords are inactive, the probability of someone successfully hacking an admin account would not be changed by reducing the total number of admin accounts. In fact, by far the easiest way to hack an admin account would be to gain access to a computer with the account already signed in or to intercept the password of someone signing in with a hardware or software keystroke logger, both of which are only possible with an active account. Therefore a reduction in inactive admin accounts would in all likelihood have virtually no effect on security whatsoever.--Dycedarg ж 17:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Unless a convincing argument can be made that a disproportionate number of admin accounts with weak passwords are inactive..." If there are any inactive admin accounts with weak passwords, then deactivating inactive admin accounts has a security benefit. Rd232 ^talk 02:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No it does not. I'll try to explain my logic more carefully: If one is going to brute force hack an admin account, all one needs is to find one admin account with a weak password. Lacking the password hashes that should only exist inaccessibly on the servers, the hackers have no better means of finding accounts with weak passwords than to pick passwords at random, try to hack them until they have determined that the passwords are strong, and then try again. The chances of their obtaining a weak password in their random searches are not determined by the total number of weak passwords in the available pool of passwords, but by the number of weak passwords when compared to the number of strong passwords. If deactivating the inactive admin accounts does not affect this ratio (and there is absolutely no reason I can see that it would), then it will have no effect on the effectiveness of such a search, and therefore have no effect on the security of the site. The chances of their getting an account with a strong password in any give search remain the same. If anything, decreasing the total pool of admin accounts reduces the number of searches that are likely to be necessary before an account with a weak password is found. Note further that the preceding method of password hacking is the least efficient method of gaining access to an admin account in existence, and if one wanted a password to an admin's accounts there are numerous easier methods of getting one, and all of said methods that I can think of would require the admin account to be active in order to have any chance of success.--Dycedarg ж 02:41, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to recall someone said that the devs routinely run brute force attacks on administrator passwords to make sure they're adequately complex. –xeno ^talk 03:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which of course raises the point that the devs have undoubtedly considered the possibility of brute force attacks on admin accounts, and have taken appropriate precautions. I simply find the whole concept of "inactive admin account=security risk" to be rather silly; there is quite simply no demonstrable, tangible, provable risk to having them. Any security gains would be ridiculously minuscule, and utterly not worth the effort of even holding another adminship removal discussion, let alone the effort of implementing such a policy in the unlikely event that someone finally rams it through.--Dycedarg ж 03:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like this gets proposed and turned down every so often; past incidents involving compromised admin accounts have not swayed consensus on the matter, to my knowledge. Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Demote inactive admins might be helpful reading. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to remember reading about a past incident of a compromised admin account where one of the stewards/developers/higher-ups/whatever ran some sort of password strength checker on all admin accounts, and those who were found to have weak passwords had to change them. If people are worried about admin passwords perhaps this could be done again--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I mentioned this above... cf. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive155#Hello The developers have already run a password cracker on all admin accounts and changed those that were easily hacked... Thatcher 16:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC) –xeno ^talk 21:07, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, sorry must have missed that bit, and that's the thread I meant. But yes, is this something they do often? and if not perhaps we should ask them to do it again--Jac16888 ^Talk 22:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, it should be done routinely if it's not already. As new admins get the bit they may keep their old password of "secret" "sex" or "god" =) –xeno ^talk 22:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey!!! How did you find out my password?--Jac16888 ^Talk 23:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh good, it looks like my password of "secretsexgod" isn't as guessable as the individual components. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it was only done once. Mr.Z-man 23:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the only route by which an inactive admins account could be hacked was by cracking the password then I agree that deactivating the account wouldn't have a security advantage. But as there are also other ways then yes there would be a security gain to autodesysopping accounts that haven't edited in 12 months. I think we could have a fairly light touch system on this, auto desysop any admin account that hasn't edited in 12 months but with the proviso that any crat can restore tools after a months return to activity - that should be enough both for the returning admin to get up to speed with changes on the wiki and for a crat to be able to tell that the user is if not the same editor at least a competent one. Ϣere SpielChequers 11:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of curiosity, what "other ways" are you referring to? Any other method I can think of would only work on an active account.--Dycedarg ж 18:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The only other thing I can think of would be to hack the Wikimedia servers and change the password in the database, which is probably a lot harder and a lot more illegal than a brute force attack on the password. Mr.Z-man 18:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd argue that for anything above "admin" level privileges, ("sysop", "oversight", etc.) 3 months without a login should deactivate those privileges. Admin actions are visible and can be easily undone. Above that level, the visible auditing isn't as good. So a higher level of protection is needed. --John Nagle (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) The comment by Dycedarg at the top of the thread was well-said. Selecting a secure password is what protects an account; edit counts, last login date etc., do not effect account security—at best they confuse discussion of the issue. –Whitehorse1 19:11, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I don't think it appropriate to discuss security loopholes in public, I will email one of the developers with what I believe to be a couple of loopholes that could compromise old accounts. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compromises of unused accounts are less likely to be detected. Their intended user isn't watching them. Again, use of the higher level privileges ("sysop", "oversight", etc.) can result in invisible changes, so accounts with those need to be more tightly controlled. --John Nagle (talk) 03:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, there's no such thing as an account that can perform "invisible" changes. There are logs for virtually everything, and absolutely everything of consequence. For checkuser and oversighters, the only userrights whose logs are not commonly avaiable, there is a specific audit subcommittee in place to ensure their power is not misused, as well as the ombudsman commission.--Dycedarg ж 04:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if there is a log of times when admins have looked at deleted contributions, or if there is a log who is monitoring, it but as far as I'm aware it is an invisible action though not an invisible change. However I have heard that the power to look at deleted contributions is one of the admin tools that justifies having such a stiff test at RFA.

There is one minor argument for expiry of passwords that is safe to discuss publicly because it is an opportunistic one rather than a loophole available to anyone reading this. Old harddrives especially personal ones are rarely destroyed or erased in a secure manner. I still have all the PCs I've bought in the last ten years, any credit card numbers on the old ones have long had their expiry dates changed, but yes there could be passwords remembered on them for sites and accounts that I haven't used in years.

Personally I regard 30 day and 45 day expiry of passwords as counterproductive because they encourage people to use post it notes and other aides memoire to keep track of them, but a 6 or 12 month expiry on passwords does sound sensible to me. Ϣere SpielChequers 11:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(re last part of your comment) This is something very different from what was originally raised early on. I believe your suggestion has definite merit. –Whitehorse1 12:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct about the lack of logging for viewing deleted contribs; that's why I said "almost everything". I do not feel that the ability to view deleted contribs is of particular consequence at this point. Back when personal information was merely deleted typically instead of oversighted, it might have been a bigger deal, but these days virtually anything that's been deleted can be requested by an interested third party anyway; the only exception I can think of off-hand would be copyright infringements. It certainly doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd hack an account over; hackers seem more interested in the excitement of ruining something than trollng through thousands of deleted revisisons on the off chance that something interesting will come up.

You do have a point with that old hard drive thing, but that case presents a particularly minor danger in my view. The person who happens upon that password will be doing so via sheer luck. The probability of that person being someone who both wants to harm Wikipedia and knows how to do so in more than a superficial fashion is so utterly remote that it's not even really worth mentioning in my opinion. I'm worried about ways that a vandal can actively employ to get a password, not how some random vandal out there might by some miracle happen upon a computer previously owned by an admin who forgot to delete his password. Besides, in the absence of password rotation it is if anything more likely to happen to an active account than an inactive one.

That said, I agree that making admins rotate their password every six months to a year makes sense. It's not that onerous a requirement and it would improve security.--Dycedarg ж 04:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RTED

A new noticeboard is awaiting creation. See User:IRP/ArticlesForCreation/Wikipedia:Requests for talk page editing disablement. -- IRP ☎ 20:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we need this? WP:RFPP does the job just fine.--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for page protection is for requesting protection of pages, not for requests to change a user's block settings. -- IRP ☎ 21:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Its basically the same thing, both prevent people from editing a page we don't want to. Having a separate board for this is just excessive bureaucracy--Jac16888 ^Talk 21:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, requests for page protection is not meant for that purpose, as you can see from this RFPP request. -- IRP ☎ 21:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to show that it worked correctly. The user didn't request a change to the block settings, they requested semiprotection and the block settings were changed instead. I agree that such a board is unnecessary. These cases don't happen very often and most of the times this needs to be done, its either {{unblock}} abuse, which is usually found by an admin before someone could report it to a board, or its in the context of an existing AN/ANI discussion in which case there would be no reason to make the request on a different page. Mr.Z-man 22:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Ec - and I agree with z-man)It doesn't show that at all, the desired result was achieved, and I imagine the decline tag was used for archival purposes, or else because there was no appropriate tag, I've just added one. There are a lot of boards already for different purposes, something as small as this doesn't require its own when we have RFPP, and this has never come up before despite the disable talk editing being around for a fairly long time, so clearly nobody else thinks its a good idea--Jac16888 ^Talk 22:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The only reason why the user posted there is because that was the closest noticeboard that the user could find, not that it was the place where such a request belongs. -- IRP ☎ 22:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In future, please make such posts at WP:Requests for noticeboard creation. Hang on, that's a redlink - could someone create that page? :P SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 22:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could probably be redirected to Wikipedia:Requests for process. Mr.Z-man 22:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need a noticeboard for every possible thing. Its not the end of the world if someone posts a request on a board that it doesn't exactly fit, Jac has already added {{RFPP|tb}} to the options for RFPP reviewing. Mr.Z-man 22:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We need fewer noticeboards, not more. This is a solution desperately seeking a problem. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the very clear consensus here: this is adequately dealt with elsewhere, and there is no need for a new noticeboard just for this limited purpose. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Orange Wikimedia partnership

See:

Learn more about the Orange Wikimedia partnership on video at

www.orange-innovation.tv/wikimedia.

How does all this fit in with concerns about advertising? Various viewpoints and past discussions have been compiled and archived here:

I would like to hear various viewpoints on what people think about how this partnership fits in with all our policies, guidelines, and goals.

It fits perfectly because no ads will be placed here, all this means is that our content will be accessible by orange portals/channels (which of course they can slap as many ads on as they like). Orange could actually do this now without ponying up any money at all. --Cameron Scott (talk) 00:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to figure this all out, and my initial impression is that I like it. I am not sure about it all though. Here is some more info:

Searches:

Google: Orange+Wikimedia and Orange+Wikipedia
Google News: Orange+Wikimedia and Orange+Wikipedia --Timeshifter (talk) 00:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm with Cameron. I think this is exactly the kind of commercial use of Wikipedia content we want to actively encourage. The only thing they get by feeding us money is cooperation from us for live feeds of new content, as opposed to reading it from old stale database dumps. Fears of attracting vandals are ill-founded - we'll continue to get far more traffic from Google, and to assume the mobile phone users are more immature in general is simple prejudice. Dcoetzee 01:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're wrong, the WMF is reducing our donation and voulunteers base , Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#France_Telecom.E2.80.99s_Orange_has_partnered_with_Wikimedia. This is going to cost us a lot of donations. Mion (talk) 01:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Donations will continue to make up the vast majority of WMF's revenue, this is simply an additional revenue stream. In fact, as part of our relationship with Orange, we hope we'll find opportunities to make people more aware of the fact that Wikimedia is a charity supported by donations (and that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia supported by volunteers). We've had much smaller business partnerships before, such as the live feed we've provided to answers.com, but now that we actually have some capacity to think strategically about these kinds of business relationships, we can develop them at a scale and in a way that makes sense.--Eloquence * 23:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would be very interested to see some more specific information about the consideration in this partnership, partly out of curiosity and partly as a way to judge the philosophical position of the Foundation on the issue of being paid for content use. There is, and has long been, tension between the ideal of the maximum free use of our content and the utility of additional revenue for the Foundation. Some would say that we should, as part of our overall goal, give unfettered content access to organizations (including for-profit corporations) while accepting only reimbursement for costs incurred in facilitating that access. Others would argue that if we are to allow profit-making organizations to use Wikimedia marks and content, some of that profit should redound to the Foundation. I'm curious to know where the Foundation has officially come down on this issue.

If the idea is that the Foundation ought to receive revenue from content reuse but not content use (i.e. revenue from repackaging by other services, but not from our own direct service), I'd be curious to know what control the Foundation has in this case over how the revenue is generated. If we were hosting our own ads, as an example, we would have complete control over the nature of our advertisements. With ads placed by Orange, in this instance, what is to say that someone viewing the Fox News article through an Orange service won't see an embedded ad for Bill O'Reilly? (Lastly, should be noted that User:Eloquence is the Foundation's deputy executive director). Nathan^T ^{(formerly Avruch)} 23:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See: http://www.answers.com/Fox_News - we currently have no control over how commercial enterprises use Wikipedia, and I do not have a problem with that. The whole point of Wikipedia in my opinion is to put out free WP:NPOV info, audio, and imagery as widely as possible.

At Answers.com though it does not seem that they are using Wikipedia logos and icons. I don't understand the co-branding concept with Orange Telecom. Will they use Wikipedia's logos and icons? I guess this is OK with a non-political portal company. But if they do anything remotely questionable it could come back to Wikipedia? I think we should go ahead anyway, though. No FUD! :)

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I presume they would be allowed to use the Wikipedia logo, otherwise, they'd mostly be wasting their money, paying for free content. Mr.Z-man 17:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Maybe it is something like how some web pages on one site are piped into "frames" on another domain. With the logos, icons, and everything of both sites and domains.

Otherwise, Orange Telecom could just pay for a daily data dump to their own servers or something. But that would require some investments in servers and staff, I would think. And especially an investment in time setting it all up. Piping it directly from Wikipedia servers probably requires much less in the way of skilled staff and setup time. Wikipedia already has the highly skilled server staff, and everything is already set up.

Answers.com already had a lot of servers and staff, I believe. Do they get some kind of regular data dump from Wikipedia? Is that how they are doing it?

Is Orange Telecom basically wrapping Wikipedia-served pages into Orange Telecom pages on their own channels and devices? I guess since they are nonpolitical (I assume) this doesn't bother too many people. It doesn't bother me.

I don't see why we don't add some relatively safe, nonpolitical, noncontroversial, opt-out ads directly on Wikipedia pages served piping hot. :) ... and not just piped through places like Answers.com and Orange Telecom.

See: Wikipedia:Advertisements#Arguments for optional adverts. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed Addition to Wikipedia:Username policy

WP:REALNAME states the following:

"You should not register under any name that would lead others to assume your account is associated with any person other than yourself."

However, now that online personalities (ie YouTube "stars" and moot) are increasingly becoming well-known in the media and Wikipedia itself, this policy seems to require some broadening. It is no longer only real names but also usernames that are in need of protection. Of course, such a policy would be required to adhere to notability guidelines (so sxephil would be protected, but, say, "darkchaosknight" wouldn't). Thus, I am proposing the addition of new policy concerning using not only notable real names, but also notable usernames. If this has already been propsed, 죄송. Aar ► 21:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This already falls under the "misleading usernames" clause of the policy. At least that's how I would interpret this case. This proposed addition is 1) redundant and unneeded, and 2) belongs on WT:U, not here. —kur ykh 23:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of criticisms

I come across writing like this all the time. Pro-skubs scanning through an anti-skub section/article can't resist answering the criticisms with "supporters would argue..." constructs at the end of every paragraph. Have there been tomes of debate about this? What's the line between NPOV and hosting the transcript of two editors arguing? .froth. (talk) 04:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ouch, that's painful to read - lol. how many weasel words can one fit into a single section? does that page even satisfy basic inclusion guidelines? for one, it should be 'Critiques of capitalism' ('Critique of capitalisim' is an invitation to engage in OR, which seems to be what happened). for another, it feels entirely like a POV-fork (though I'd have to go through the Capitalism page to be sure). sorry, just venting... --Ludwigs2 05:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article itself is all invective of course but I was specifically referring to the "on the other hand"s in ~~almost~~ every paragraph. I'm not sure if you were just commenting on the article generally. .froth. (talk) 06:06, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes, and no, but I suppose I should keep it on the bigger picture.

I do see this all the time myself. The problem, I think, is function of limitations in self-expression: expressing a thought clearly is something that takes a lot of practice. what I imagine happens (psychologically speaking) is that Editor A reads something that s/he finds unbalanced and decides to correct it by introducing a contrasting viewpoint. all well and good to that point, but it starts to suffer because:

most people don't know how to integrate opposing viewpoints in a sophisticated way. juxtapositional contrast is the easiest form, because it relies on the interpretive powers of others (put X next to Y and wave your hands suggestively, and in most cases other people will figure out what you mean), so that gets used a lot.
most people are aware of the classes of viewpoints in a given argument, but don't really have a good sense for the interrelation or weight of those classes. so, Editor A knows that what s/he has read represents a particular viewpoint, and knows that there is another viewpoint out there that contrasts, and can even identify that other viewpoint. but s/he doesn't have a good sense for who holds that viewpoint, or how the viewpoints developed with respect to each other, or where they locate in the universe of ideas. and so you get more hand-waving via weasel words ('some scholars say...', 'advocates hold...', 'it has been suggested that...', etc.) because the editor is trying to get the idea out there, and leaving it up to the rest of us to work out the details.
most people reason semi-emotionally, rather than intellectually, about topics that concern them. it is more important to them to get a word in edgewise that defuses something they don't like than to make sure that the bigger picture is balanced and neutral.

the best hope is that these issues will get played out on the talk page (where people with more practice at self-expression can help people with less practice figure out how to express things), but if you look at the page you cited, well... it's been around since 2006 but the talk page only has one archive, which either means that there hasn't been a lot of discussion about the article at all, or the discussion has all been in edit summaries on the main page. I'm not sure what can be done policy-wise, unless you want to make failure to read MOS a blockable offense. --Ludwigs2 14:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking something along the lines of an essay/policy specifically reminding editors to avoid "getting a word in edgewise" and turning an article into a back-and-forth debate. Even if people do read MOS and the NPOV pages, it's helpful to have a WP: link that can be referred to instead of editors having to repeatedly synthesize a point out of all that text. I'm just looking for assurance that my interpretation is widely held enough to be accepted as a stipulation and that an essay would be appropriate at all and that there's not already a good (talk?) page to link to for this purpose. .froth. (talk) 00:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Admin id policy

Hi. I'm a user of wp:es. Recently somebody suggested that admins could have some kind of signal in their signatures in order to identify them as administrators (bibliotecarios, in wp:es). This topic is beeing discused here, but I'd like to know what is the position of wp:en policies about this (if any). Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong page. Thanks in advance. --Oszalał (talk) 16:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant guideline is here but it doesn't say anything about identifying admins in their signatures. Admins here generally don't have anything like that in their signatures. Tra (Talk) 17:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information. Seemingly, spanish sysops are strongly opposed to implement a new policy about this. I was curious about the state of the discussion in our "older brother". --Oszalał (talk) 17:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is very rare for someone to say they are an admin in discussions, and I have never seen it in a signature. The reason is that it is not important in most discussions whether someone is an admin or not. And if it was important for some reason, the admin would choose to mention why. Using it in discussions on talk pages would imply an authority, which in theory at least, admins do not generally have. There is also a script here which can highlight who is an admin on talk pages, for those who are interested. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of this suggestion is more aimed to let the users know who they are talking with. Its character, of course, it's simply informative: Nobody is interested in the whole index of sysops, but perhaps it could be useful in certain context. --Oszalał (talk) 17:58, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think we have a philosophy here that it doesn't generally matter who you're talking with - all users are expected to act like admins, and all admins like users. What matters more is what is being said. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. --Oszalał (talk) 18:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's the philosophy. But there are other other views... Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's generally accepted here (I think) that admins shouldn't mention that they are admins unless its actually relevant and isn't obvious from context. Putting it in a signature would go against that. Of course, English WP admins qua admins are broadly considered "janitors", not "super editors", while the Spanish term bibliotecario ("librarian") suggests editing authority. Maybe it's just a word, but that seems a quite different conceptualisation and if Spanish WP is happy to go with that, then flagging this status in the signature may be appropriate. Otherwise, maybe the name should be changed! Rd232 ^talk 19:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the term librarian was chosen to avoid misunderstanding as sysop (system operator) or administrator (managing) implied authority, whereas a librarian just helps you find information. And consensus on eswp about flagging sysops on signatures is that is a bad idea. -- m:drini 19:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, but "librarian" sounds to me like it implies authority to do with knowledge, whereas "admin" doesn't imply authority (to me), or insofar as it does, it's in relation to technical matters. But if that's what Spanish WP has settled on without meaning any difference in status or function from English "admin", fine. Rd232 ^talk 19:38, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I expect that librarians will be knowledgeable about how and where to find information, not that they will know the information themselves. In the Information technology world, admins generally have rights and access greater than the average user. Just look at the default "admin" accounts on most OSs. If admins actually want to be seen as janitors instead of superusers, they should change the name to "janitor". I won't hold me breath. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:38, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps wp:en admins should put janitor in their .sigs. — Kralizec! (talk) 13:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please reference that "consensus"... ;) --Oszalał (talk) 19:29, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus: all the historical discussions on the pump (your proposal isn't the first time, the overwhleming oppose on the current thread). A person disagreeing doesn't break consensus (as consensus is not unanimity) -- m:drini 20:13, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have some CSS that highlights links to admins' user and user talk pages in cyan (you'll have to look through my monobook.css to find it, though. Dendodge _T\^C 19:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ais523/adminrights.js--Jac16888 ^Talk 22:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, there's a gadget on the Simple English Wikipedia that does the same thing. Kinda handy. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The only user I've ever seen put "admin" in their signature (that I can remember) is Pathoschild. Though I think he did more because of his work on a lot of different projects. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, the "☯" in my signature is how I distinguish my signature on projects where I'm an admin and on projects where I'm not. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer admins not to publicise their status in their signatures. Wikiwoohoo (talk) 00:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we should put little icons next to admins and such in edit history and such, like a little gold star. ViperSnake151 Talk 02:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ooooo my turn, how about a mop? Or just use Popups, that shows all Rollbacker and Sysop rights when hovering over a user name. – ukexpat (talk) 02:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't you just love it ? :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As an admin, I refuse to identify myself as such in my signature. I would rather present myself as just a person. That being said, I am sure a javascript applet could be made to identify the signatures of admins, I am fine with this. Chillum 05:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(I'm not an administrator.) Generally, administrators are meant to refrain from administrative actions on pages they've edited. So when on the talk page of a page they're editing, administrative status should be irrelevant, while indicating it might be seen as "pulling rank" on newcomers and might provoke a few older editors who are averse to bureaucracy. In technical and policy discussions, an administrator usually has no more say than any other editor even though the administrator might at some point in the future have to implement or enforce any consensus that's reached. Administrators have often mentioned their status when recalling relevant experience or the way they've reached decisions when they've felt it relevant to the discussion. —— Shakescene (talk) 09:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would change "edited" to "interested party". An admin shouldn't have to refrain from taking administrative action on a page if he once reverted some vandalism there or corrected a typo. Same with discussions such as XFDs. He can still close it if his edits to the discussion are relistings or deletion sorting but he hasn't taken a position. (keep, delete, etc.) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Policy as a whole

I would like to propose that Wikipedia looks at the policies it has in place, as a whole, and begins a system of reform. In my opinion, there is too much in the way of regulation and unneccesary policy here, that could be cut back. The policy of retaining pages for historical purposes is one such policy I have called for discussion on, since not all subpages are really needed. I feel that regulations can be streamlined though whilst maintaining the quality that Wikipedia should be known for. Wikiwoohoo (talk) 00:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at WP:5P and WP:TRI. .froth. (talk) 03:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Consider WP:PROJPOL - a new wikiproject that might help you develop specific ideas. Rd232 ^talk 05:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You should write an essay about this! ;) - — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need a policy to deal with the problem of there being too many policies... Reso lute 21:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We do. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:04, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We even have an essayabout ignoring IAR! Isn't this grand? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:12, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Making Wikipedia a more reliable source.

Currently I am undertaking a research project and I am using Wikipedia articles as reference. Public perception of Wikipedia as a cited source is very low because of the reliability of the information. People understand that there can be erroneous information posted by people that can compromise the integrity of the work that has cited it. I feel that Wikipedia needs to stand behind the articles that are complete and properly referenced with a Certified Seal. This means that the article and the information contained there-in is complete and up-to-date. Obviously leaving room for changes and updates to be made but pages that have been certified would be more heavily scrutinized when any edits are made. I feel this is one positive step in Wikipedia establishing itself as a trusted source. Obviously stubs and incomplete articles or improperly referenced articles would not be certified. I hope that you will consider my suggestion. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.238.78.50 (talk) 05:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tertiary sources, such as encyclopedias, have never been good sources for, say, college-level writings. Wikipedia should be the stepping stone in any serious research effort, not the final destination.
However, your "certified seal" concept is already being discussed, in the form of flagged revisions. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is a FAQ a Policy?

There is a dispute on the status of a "Frequently Asked Questions" page for a Policy: should the FAQ of a Policy be a Policy itself, or a Guideline to the relevant Policy. I've set up an RFC to discuss the issue on the disputed FAQ. The Policy is WP:NPOV and its FAQ is Wikipedia:NPOV/FAQ. All input is definitely welcome! Dreadstar † 23:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

History Quaility Indicator

In most instances, a scholarly organization will not allow students to cite Wikipedia articles, while they may or may not allow users to cite articles from other, less open, encyclopedias.

In my own personal experience, the most common complaint seems to be that "anyone can edit it".

As no one can edit history pages, as they are backup pages, perhaps we can look to the history logs to solve this issue.

We can start by making the history easier to use and more readable, but more importantly, a new banner which would declare whether or not the edit was made because the article had spam or misinformation, and perhaps a quote of the reason for editing the article. 8bit (talk) 01:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, so long as we're discussing ways to make Wikipedia seem more reliable, the plugin which displays the quality rating of the article, and changes the color of the title accordingly could make Wikipedia seem more reliable if turned on by defualt, for all users with or without an account. This would make it much easier to assess the reliability of the article. 8bit (talk) 01:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]