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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Erich Mendacio (talk | contribs) at 06:24, 21 June 2009 (→Paid Editing proposal: Wikipedia "tax" on paid editors?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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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.


Right to vanish

crosslinked from here

Hi, there's a debate going on in id: concerning a person (id:Gusdi Sastra, an Indonesian linguist) who wished that his article should be deleted. It was deleted once, but a sysop, id:User:Borgx decided to rewrite the article anew, and thus the linguist is crying foul. Is there exists such right as to not having an article about oneself published in Wikipedia? Bennylin (talk) 11:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. However, the article must observe relevant laws on what it may say about living people. See WP:BLP. Peter jackson (talk) 14:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The "right to vanish" refers to wikipedia editors who wish to have their editing account disappear. It is not related in any way to non-editors who do not wish wikipedia to have an article about them. The latter issue has been debated for a long time, and all that can be said is there is no general system by which a person can get his or her biography deleted from wikipedia. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The question of whether there should / could be an article on person X is really determined by that person's notability. If X is clearly notable then there is no reason not to have a policy-compliant article about him or her - and the more prominent and notable the person, the stronger becomes the argument that there should be such an article. For example, the President of the United States and the former Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand are both clearly notable for English Wikipedia and each of them should have an article, but not having an article on the former would be a much bigger omission that not having one on the latter. (Sorry New Zealand, but it is true.) If X is clearly not notable then any article on X should be deleted, and a nomination at AfD should produce a clear consensus for a delete close. The circumstance in which the X's view might carry some weight is when notability is borderline - basically, when a reasonable argument can be made for deleting the article and a similarly reasonable argument can be made for retaining it. In such circumstances, some editors are swayed by the preferences of the article's subject in deciding their !vote on retention or deletion of a BLP article. So, if X is actually wiki-notable she or he really has no choice but to accept the existence of the article - but has every right to use the talk page to discuss content and to ensure the article is compliant with all relevant policies. OTRS can help deal with material that is libelous / slanderous, etc., so X has recourse against untrue / unverifiable negative article content. If X is borderline- or non-notable then the approach available is to nominate the article for deletion, and make a policy-based case for a lack of notability. Adding to that case the person's preference for no article is fine, but "I don't want it" is not recommended as an argument for deletion, as it carries little weight. The decision on whether to keep or delete will be made at the close of the discussion based on the consensus of the participants and the policy-suppported issues raised. The article's subject needs to understand that the broad consensus of the community is binding on questions of content, within the limits of policy. EdChem (talk) 04:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So becoming "notable" and thus "Wikipedia-worthy" is like the direct result of writing so many books and papers. From my observation, there is a hint that the subject misunderstood what Wikipedia is and is not. The motive for the request still need to be clarified further. Thanks for all the comments (further comments are still welcomed). Bennylin (talk) 08:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strictly speaking, the number of books and papers you've written does not determine notability, at least on the English wikipedia. This is accordance to our own Wikipedia:Notability (people) and Wikipedia:Notability (academics) and other policies. The only thing that establishes notability is significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. It is generally presumed that if one has significant literary output then coverage is a given and for this reason evidence of a significant literary output will usually be taken as sufficient evidence for notability but if there is really no significant coverage in reliable secondary sources then the person is not notable no matter how much they've written. Nil Einne (talk) 03:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because there is no such precedent in id.wiki (this would be the first time someone asked an article about himself to be removed), I would like to ask if there is any precedent here in en.wiki regarding someone who wishes the article about him/herself removed from English Wikipedia? Bennylin (talk) 09:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would refer you to WP:AB. If the person in notable enough, the article should remain where it is. Imagine if former US president George W. Bush asked his article to be removed. There is no question that the article would remain in place because he is way too notable. As per WP:BLP the article shouldn't contain any contentious material that is poorly sourced but other than that this person has no right to ask for his article to be removed. --– sampi (talk•contrib•email) 06:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for all the comments. A small note: I found this (If the community agrees you are in fact very minimally "notable", or of transitory (brief, non-lasting) notability, you may be able to request your article's deletion.) Bennylin (talk) 10:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I always assumed the standard around here was the same as in most print media: there is no requirement for newspapers and book authors to seek permission, and there is no violation if permission is actively denied, whether it's asked for or not. There is no "right not to be talked about"... although it's always good to remember libel laws and common courtesy. Hairhorn (talk) 20:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IAR/SNOW => Admin involvement?

This is a problem I was pondering about application and policies and I'd like some opinions. I raised it at ANI on a specific case (see here) but as people like to take the case into account, I'd like to ask here for a general opinion.

Imagine the following situation: An admin closes an AFD as SNOW delete. Usually admins wait 7 days and then judge consensus, which is a neutral action, not requiring an admin's personal views. But is this the same with SNOW? SNOW is defined as ignoring the 7 days waiting period because the admin judges that it's extremely unlikely that the current consensus can possibly change at all. So SNOW requires two admin actions: 1.) Judging the current consensus and 2.) judging that there is not a snowball's chance in hell that this will change in the next 7 days. The question I pondered was this: If an admin decides to IAR/SNOW, they are making a statement not only about consensus but about the future development, don't they? But doesn't that mean that the admin becomes involved and now has a stance on the article's fate. Further, assuming this is the case, are they be allowed to close a second AFD about the same (recreated and expanded) article or do we have to assume that they are too involved to be able to judge consensus on the second AFD? Again, ignoring the specifics about the David Boothroyd article that made me ponder this question, I'd like to hear some opinions about whether any admin in such a situation as described should be considered involved because of their decision to SNOW. Regards SoWhy 18:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends. Some articles are an obvious SNOW and should be closed repeatedly. Imagine a vandal constantly recreating a page about themselves which isn't obviously unnotable but some investigation proves that the sources don't amount to anything. Everyone's in agreement that it should be deleted per SNOW, and that happens. On recreation, AfD gets landed with it again and, of course, it goes to SNOW delete (and probably SALT, in this situation). In this case, the closing admin is perfectly at rights to close it twice, as nothing's changed.
Any other situation, however, I completely agree with you. By SNOW closing something which isn't obvious vandalism and is borderline CSD, the admin is indeed involved. I would say that, as a general rule, admins shouldn't ever snowball close the same article's deletion discussion; just to make sure. We have enough active admins for this to be feasible.
I'm aware that's not a great explanation but, nutshell'd, I agree that an admin shouldn't SNOW close the same topic twice, though it's probably acceptable in extreme cases. I hope that makes sense. Greg Tyler (t • c) 19:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Closing a deletion discussion, even a WP:SNOW closure, does not make an admin involved. Being involved generally means having a stake in the situation, for example the admin was a significant contributor to the article, OR the admin contributed to the deletion discussion and gave an opinion. The use of admin tools does not instantly make an admin involved in a situation; under that logic no admin could ever block a disruptive user more than once or protect an article more than once. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The question I pondered was whether the prediction that the consensus will not change anymore (which SNOW means) implies that the SNOWing admin actually does take a stance, not regarding the content but regarding the possibility of discussion. They make a decision not only about the current consensus but about future development which they decide to cut off with the close (i.e. that it can and will only develop in this way). But if they have decided that consensus can and will only develop towards the SNOW-created result, are they not naturally biased in a new discussion where consensus might or might not be the same? Blocking users is not a relevant comparision as my question is regarding applying IAR, not following policy. Regards SoWhy 10:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
SNOW by its nature is an opinion, and no matter what it is improper for the same person to close a discussion on the same topic twice. See also: trial de novo. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 12:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with Jayron. I would also add that if the second article is a totally new version, then any judgment about the development that may have been made about the old article would be mostly irrelevant to the second discussion, as it would no longer apply. (And if the article isn't substantially different then it would be a G4 case.) Mr.Z-man 04:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
a totally new version ? perhaps only if it is also a completely new subject, i.e. yesterday's college footballer elected to Senate or some other radical change in real life. NVO (talk) 11:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone name a useful purpose that SNOW serves other than to cut conversation short? Keep or delete, SNOW should not be used to close XfDs. We have WP:CSD and WP:SK. To quote WP:SK, "the criteria for speedy deletion cover the circumstances under which pages may be deleted immediately." and "WP:SNOW is not a valid speedy keep criterion. SNOW may be cited for an early close, but its use is discouraged." Just because 7 people say "delete" or "keep" in the first hour, does not mean a true consensus won't form. There is no way for an admin to know if email canvassing has happened, or it was some fluke that a bunch of fan-boys with no understanding of policy showed up before everyone else. Can anyone show any actual instance where SNOW actually helped WP? I'm not saying that SNOW isn't used often in good faith, I'm just saying that it does absolutely nothing towards helping to form consensus. I'd nominate it for MfD, but I'm sure a flippantly clever admin would close it as SNOW (again), and that would just be hilarious. "Take it to DRV", they'd say (as they do), and we'd all have a good chuckle at the nominator's expense. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 12:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SNOW is an essay, but is a shorthand way of expressing that no other outcome is possible whether or not WP:CSD or WP:SK apply. WP:SK is not cited as often as it should for WP:SNOW closes that end in keep, and SK keeps evolving so it may or may not apply even if there is no withdrawal and everyone was acting in good faith: Someone nominates an article for a athlete who has yet to play professionally - during the course of the AFD, the athlete plays professionally and garners lots of coverage, yadda yadda. Perhaps the nominator never goes back to the AFD s/he started but everyone now recognizes that the reason for nomination no longer applies. These get WP:SNOWed but they are really some application of WP:SK, whether or not by the book depends on what version you read or who you ask. On deletions, it gets more interesting, as SK implies that an AFD has begun, whereas CSD has no such pre-condition. For example, WP:CSD does not apply to pet dogs, so if a newbie user writes an article on his pet dog, someone nominates it for deletion, and a bunch of people !vote delete that it's not notable and the debate becomes acrimonous but no one but the author expresses a reason to keep it (that he likes Fido and Fido is really special, ahhhh), it seems wise to close the debate early before things get too out of hand and the newbie gets more bitten than needed. Whether the admin cites WP:SNOW or WP:IAR or whatever, it's just a shorthand for "enough already, move on". Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CSD for WP:MADEUP

It seems that often obviously WP:MADEUP articles are going all the way to AfD. I've thought about it myself, and seen it mentioned a few times; maybe we should make obviously made up stuff specifically speedy deletable. Some of them are falling into A7, but A7 has very specific class restrictions that often prevent it from being applied. Also simply saying "This is the best thing ever" could be an assertion of notability. A1 can be used on really short articles, but still often misses. What do you all think? Does a CSD for WP:MADEUP sound plausible? Gigs (talk) 15:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It should go to AfD, there is no way to tell if some crap topic like beer pong is notable without researching it a little. That sort of thing is better to put through AfD, which gives people time to find sources or relevance, but also gives a record of why it shouldn't be recreated. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If it's madeup and clearly disruptive, it's covered under G3 as a blatant hoax. If it's not, JohnnyMrNinja is correct, sometimes things that sound made up are actually not made up at all and PROD and AFD can cover those few articles as well. WT:CSD has a set of requirements for new criteria - one is that the proposed criterion should arise often. I'm one of the more active CSD admins and I see maybe one of those in every 200-300 pages. Not nearly enough to warrant a new criterion. Regards SoWhy 21:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the different perspective. From the AfD side it looked like a lot, but I guess it isn't that much in the big scheme of things. Gigs (talk) 00:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I rarely nominate articles for deletion. (I prefer to close them) but when I do, it's usually articles in the hoax/madeup class such as this one (afd). Such articles are completely unverifiable but not necessarily hoaxes so they don't qualify for CSD G3. These need to go to AFD just to make sure that nobody else can verify them either. However, I see no problem with snow closing such AFDs once enough people chime in and say they found zilch. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, because all swans are white. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 08:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Occasionally I'll speedy an article as WP:NFT if it doesn't fit any of the criteria but it's patent crap, eg "Snookerdiddle is a nickname for my friend Sarah, after she said this in her sleep at a slumber party last night" etc. Some articles like this don't fit the CSD criteria but nobody would contest deleting them. The problem with adding WP:NFT (or anything like it) to the CSD policy is that the CSD policy is interpreted bureaucratically, so you have to have strict scrutiny about anything you add to it. As such I'm inclined to say no, leave it out, and let admins like me take risks for ourselves by invoking IAR to speedy delete this kind of stuff. ⟳ausa کui × 17:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think simply making WP:MADEUP a speedy delete category is far too broad a proposal. I do think (and this seems to be the intention) that there should be a CSD for things that are unambiguously non-notable neologisms. Many entries of this type affirm their own lack of notability in the entry ("me and my mates made this up at the bar last week"). G3 rarely applies in these cases, G3 is for "blatant and obvious misinformation" and "blatant hoaxes": if it really is an invented phrase used by 2 or 3 people, then it's neither a hoax nor misinformation. And WP:NFT isn't a speedy delete category. These types of entries either sit around for a week, or get shoehorned into non-applicable speedy delete categories, both less than ideal solutions. Hairhorn (talk) 17:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I suggested above, sometimes the best thing to do in these cases is speedy the article out of process. I try to make clear in the summary that it's an out of process/IAR deletion, and it's better than claiming the article fits some other CSD criteria that it obviously doesn't. ⟳ausa کui × 20:16, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation policy

I intend no offense in saying this, but I would really like to see some type of Wikipedia policy saying that, wherever feasible, pronunciation guides should be placed in the article's main infobox rather than being inserted the lead. The pronunciation entries are usually placed in the first sentence, where, to me at least, they significantly disrupt the flow of the text and appear to dominate the description. In addition, long pronunciation entries can impact the layout of the lead section when they collide with the infobox. Finally, as I hardly know how to interpret the pronunciation information, to me they appears as a violation of WP:Jargon. In addition, they are also frequently unreferenced and (in spirit) may conflict with WP:NOTDIC. Thus I believe that pronunciation guides belong in the infobox (where a reader can investigate further if they have an interest) and not in the critical first sentence of the article. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 16:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

  1. infoboxes frequently violate NPOV by giving undue weight to 1 POV
  2. articles sometimes, perhaps often, give only American pronunciation

Peter jackson (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that IPA gobbledygook has no place in an encyclopedia for the general public, but there is a large contingent of linguist editors that will defend it to the death. Gigs (talk) 18:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The IPA versus anglicized pronunciations is a simple specificity versus accessibility argument that I won't rehash. As for location of the pronunciation, that's currently more just based on tradition and consistency than anything. It certainly disrupts the flow. I created a task force to try and expand audio pronunciations, which I believe are more important than textual pronunciations of either sort, but this has a long way to go with so few audio contributors. Dcoetzee 22:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As for IPA vs. other descriptions of pronunciation, as a non-English mother tongue non-linguist, I find IPA transcriptions both more specific and more accessible (than an approximate transcription to be decoded as it would be read by an anglophone). If I don't know some IPA symbol, its explanation is one click away. [[::User:Goochelaar|Goochelaar]] ([[::User talk:Goochelaar|talk]]) 14:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It might be helpful if there were a general pronunciation template suitable for slotting into an Infobox. That way those projects that decide to relocate pronunciation to the infobox can have a standard template that is maintained in one location (which can also support various translations, &c). Mostly it's a concern about ease of maintenance and possible conflicts with variables used in templates. The {{pron-en}} template inserts a "pronounced" in the line, which can be handled by the infobox parameter column instead.—RJH (talk) 21:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should Wikipedia list every settlement as if it were a travel guide?

Policy would suggest that Wikipedia is not a travel guide, but there is some debate as to whether settlements are entitled to their own standalone article, even if there isn't veriable evidence that they are notable, or sometimes that there is any coverage of them at all. There is a debate along these lines at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theba, Arizona.

Is now the time to recognise that Wikipedia should have its own geographic Wiki along the lines of Wikitravel, in the same way that Wikispecies has to resolve the conflict between policy and practice?

Or should be uphold WP:NOTTRAVEL and dismiss the arguement that all lcoations are entitled to a standalone article by default? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTTRAVEL is not about not having articles on places, but rather what the articles should contain (i.e. not telephone numbers etc.). For the most part, I think, is the important part. The problem separating places from Wikipedia, in my opinion, is it is what you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia. I don't think WP:NOTTRAVEL contradicts the idea of 'inherent notablility for places' as it were. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 16:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, it should list them as if it were a gazetteer. --NE2 16:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Should Wikipedia have articles on celebrities as if it was People magazine? The title of this discussion seems unfairly loaded. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 00:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many people are under the assumption that there is consensus that any place listed in a geographic database is inherently notable and merits a stand-alone article. As far as I know, there is no formal guideline regarding that and previous attempts at trying to formally codify it have all failed. The only reason some of the place articles survive AFD is because it only takes one person to create and a consensus to delete. The fact that many survive AFD does not indicate there is a consensus to have individual articles about each and every named locality. The vast majority of these are better presented in gazetteer form as a suitably grouped table rather than as individual articles. --Polaron | Talk 17:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above referenced AfD should provide ample evidence of my position on the matter; a place, just because it exists, should not automatically be entitled to a standalone article. Polaron is right in my opinion in his statement that a large majority of these "locations" would be a better fit for an appearance in a list-type article rather than by themselves. Many of these places will never exist beyond a sub-stub, and much of the sourced information they contain are rather contrived efforts at satisfying WP:V. Take the listed example : the best we could come up with is that it exists, there is a mine nearby, and once upon a time there was a train stop there. This clearly would fail our general notability guidelines but these types of articles manage to survive because of a nebulous "precedent" that they are notable in and of themselves. I personally do not find this a satisfactory solution, and would love to see some kind of formal solution take its place. Shereth 17:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the above: every settlement should be listed in WP as to allow them to be valid search terms with geodata in a table, but only should have an article when there's more than "this place exists" information is available. --MASEM (t) 18:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What you are proposing is an exemption from verifiability for human settlements, since verifiable evidence would no longer be required to demonstrate that a such topics meet the inclusion criteria for a standalone article. No other subject matter has been granted such an exemption. In any case, you can't write an article about a topic if there is no coverage available, so what would be the point? You are basically saying that human settlements should automatically get their own articles using the argument WP:IKNOWIT, which is not censensus. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gavin, the question you are using in the heading is loaded and misleading. Everyone knows that policy is that Wikipedia is not a travel guide, and that articles recommending and evaluating hotels, restaurants, and giving advice on how to "get in" and how to "stay safe" are inappropriate for Wikipedia. So please don't insinuate that. The fact that virtually all all AFDs on verifiable settlements wind up being overwhelmingly kept has nothing to do with the community being ignorant of policy or wanting to turn Wikipedia into Wikitravel. It has to do with that people think that real and verifiable settlements belong in an encyclopedia, most likely because human and political geography is a staple of any traditional encyclopedia. This has been discussed several times over, so please stop beating the dead horse. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The previous two attempts to sort this out are here. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 08:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:OUTCOMES#Places. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

NE2's response was short but IMHO it is right on point.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The real question is why don't we have a separate Wikigazetteer project? It could focus the geographers and cartographers from all the projects so the tools interoperate smoothly.LeadSongDog come howl 20:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything wrong with having a page on a verifiable location. I often look up a location by checking out the WP page on it. Sure, a small place like Mahomet, Illinois may not be as notable as Chicago, Illinois, but what if I *wanted* to know about the place/location? What is then wrong with listing the place's location, and other bits and pieces of info about the place? This is not the same as vanity biographies ... --Ragib (talk) 20:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because Wikipedia is not a directory of random stuff. If there is no evidence that a topic is notable, it is just random. Why stop at human settlements? If you believe settlements on a map are notable, surely then every street on a map is notable? Everyhouse in the street etc, etc. What is the boundry if there is no evidence to demarkate it? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:51, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It may not be a directory or travel guide, but Wikipedia is (among other things) a gazetteer. Anomie⚔ 20:58, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The question here is why not have the "less notable" places be grouped together appropriately into a table, for example "List of unincorporated communities in X". People can still find the information they need while being much neater in terms of presentation. If there is no hope of getting a fleshed out article, why have a stand-alone article? What's wrong with a merged article? --Polaron | Talk 22:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since one editor asked the question regarding that if we accept every single settlement as notable, where does the cutoff happen, does that open the way for "every street, every house"; I am asking: where does this new proposal end? Just with unincorporated settlements? What about incorporated villages and cities? In some places a township is just a survey township with no legality, in others it is not more than a voting district in a county, in others it is a civil township (or town) with full legal incorporated rights. Does EVERY city get to be be notable by virtue of being a city? If so how is that any different than giving an exemption to every SETTLEMENT other than the cutoff has been shifted. What about census designated places in the US and their equivalents in other nations? A CDP of poor hillbillies in Alabama gets an article but an affluent hamlet that is not a CDP and is 10X larger on Long Island doesnt get an article because it isnt "notable"? Does this notablity requirement then extend to counties in the US, if a county is not notable can it get AfD? I bet I can find PLENTY of counties across the US that arent notable and have stub articles such as Camas County, Idaho, can I AfD that article now? What about even higher to sub-national entities, can I AfD Nebraska or Saskatchewan for not being notable? (no offense Sask.) For the English version of Wikipedia the subjective judging of notability of a settlement becomes even harder when considering settlements outside the English-speaking world (or even IN the English-speaking world but outside the "big" countries of the UK, Canada, US, and Australia, no offence other countries). What about whole nations, no offence to Palau or Nauru but what are they notable for?Camelbinky (talk) 22:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One of the beauties of Wiki is its universality, which allows places to be included if someone is prepared to add some basic info (even a stub tag for a country, maybe). I would also include localities within a larger entity. CDPs I have a problem with since they often involve duplication & the info could be included elsewhere, advantageously (but I won't argue about it). Streets can be significant localities (eg, Oxford St, Champs Elysee, Broadway, etc), but otherwise I think they need significance. Folks at 137 (talk) 23:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An argument that has been raised in the past is that any settlement - in particular towns - will have had independent coverage. Yes that paper trail might elude us computer nerds and bypass Google totally, but it is presumed to exist when there is a name next to a dot on a map and a listing in a national statistical work giving population and other vital statistics. Agathoclea (talk) 23:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's a stupid argument -- it's easy to prove that software exists when you can go and download it, but not all software is notable. Why is the fact that 20 people decided to call themselves a special place any more notable either when there's nothing different about it than the 30 person town twenty miles away? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
software != town - and the paper trail for the town twenty miles away is different - the point is the paper trail does exist which can't be said about the software. Agathoclea (talk) 06:33, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the paper trail may not provide evidence of notability. Like the humans that live in towns, its easy to find tertiary sources like telephone directories, census surveys and travel guides, but that is not evidence of notability. Even where a town is the subject of extensive coverage, an article might be little more than a content fork from more notable events (such as being the location a schools shooting or place of birth of a famous actor), such that the coverage does not address the topic directly or in detail. Settlements are definetly subject to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, just like computer software, otherwise they would be exempted from any quality standards. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are usually enough non-internet coverage focusing on those type places. IE I can hardly find any RS online for the town I live in - the library got a whole shelf full. That is the presumption on places in general. Agathoclea (talk) 11:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working a village in Illinois up to FA status. It does not have significant media coverage, is not a capital (or even a city, for that matter), and is only truly notable for its school which most out-of-staters have not heard of. Does this mean that this article, which is currently an FAC, should be removed, its name filed away into a gazetteer, or deleted entirely? Do we want to backtrack? Other cities like Chetwynd are already FA. Should the Chetwynd article be removed, its name filed away into a long list? Sure, I don't have any WP:'s to back me up, but it just seems a little counterproductive to me. --Starstriker7(Talk) 01:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noone is saying that such places can't be notable, just that they aren't automatically notable just because they exist. There's a big difference there. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia should list every settlement as if it were a encyclopedia. Basic information about towns (small or otherwise) are easy enough to reference and give a reader a starting point. RxS (talk) 01:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The issue here is if all settlements should have their own articles. Your use of 'list' is apt since many such settlements are only notable enough for inclusion in a list or table here. --mav (talk) 01:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I used the word list because that was the term used in the section heading. The first sentence in this section mentions "standalone article" which in most cases is easily justified and referenced. No need to collapse them into a list, that'll just inhibit expansion. RxS (talk) 01:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We have lists of places, probably one for each US State, and most countries, and links (redlinks and bluelinks) for people to create articles for those places. If someone has come to conclusion that no article could ever be written about certain places, it is incumbent upon them to remove those invitations to created the never acceptable. Of course, one of the main contributions of newbies is a (usually unsourced) article about their little town or village wherever that may be (many lately in India and Malaysia from my short page patrolling) - so the same someone should be prepared to WP:BITE them by deleting their articles on their home towns because it doesn't fit in with that someone's conception of what WP should be. WP is great in that it can include many things that would be included only in specialist encyclopedias because we're not paper, don't lose this unique feature in a rush to make a notability guideline into holy writ. Consensus (per WP:CONSENSUS) is not determined by who shows up here or at XFD, it is the combined wisdom of the community over numerous precedents. And our precedents are pretty clear that inhabited places (and other geographic features, like mountains, hot springs, waterfalls, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, airports, high schools, train stations, etc.) are notable per se. I find it odd that a high school or airport may be notable, but the place in which it is located may not be. Ironic. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, since my post was pretty much ignored I again pose this question to those who want to who want to make settlements have to live up to notability requirements- Where do you put the line? Just unincorporated settlements or do incorporated villages fall too? What makes an incorporated place notable? Being incorporated? If that is all then any company in the world is incorporated and therefore now I can make an article for every tiny little company that is incorporated under the laws of its country. For those that think that incorporated doesnt mean the same I suggest they do some reading on the history of what "incorporated" means related to municipalities, it the same exact thing as incorporated as related to a company at least before the Supreme Court got involved later on.Camelbinky (talk) 02:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rethinking stand-alone article requirements

The above comments, the issue with fiction, and the current bilateral relationship cases all seem to point to possible way to resolve a lot of issues w.r.t to notability and standalone articles.

Would it be worthwhile to say that what most editors are looking for in the criteria for a stand-alone article is the potential to be able to describe the article's topic in a manner that

  • Does not require deep knowledge of the parent area - though may rely on explanations of related terms via wikilinks
  • Establishes the context of the topic for the general reader before descending into details that would be of more interest to readers familiar with the topic
  • Provides appropriate sourcing to avoid OR and POV issues and to support the above - that is, for the general reader to seek out if they wish to learn more

In other words, if we were to define this mystical "encycolopedic" article quality along the liens of the above, then we'd have a bit more to work with to resolve some of these issues. For example, notability and its subguidelines would be one or other possible qualifications for when something should get a standalone articles, as the presence of secondary sources will meet the last two points above. In the parent discussion, talk of putting lists of settlements with minimal sourcing would help to meet making the list more accessible to the general reader (as a gazetteer) though itself may not be notable.

(I'm simply tossing this out as a suggestion, I have no idea how well it will take). --MASEM (t) 21:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your proposal includes inclusion critieria based on "appropriate sourcing", yet excludes the basic prerequisite of WP:V that if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. Without this requirement, stubs on settlements are just random stuff, with no encyclopedic content. As one editor wrote in the AfD named above, "Without such sources, article writing becomes either an exercise in synthesis, or you end up with a collection of somewhat related facts with no context or interpretation to hold them together." It seems to me that reliable, third-party sources are needed not just for content, but also as a check on self-promotion, as has been the trend for schools for quite some time. With these sources, stubs on settlements just become a battle to "get on the map" for every town with an ice-cream stand or grocery store looking for business. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the growing consensus above that named settlements should not automatically be considered notable enough for separate articles and aggregated list/tables are a better location for many less notable places. A related discussion is at WT:CITIES#Systematic inclusion of GNIS unincorporated communities. --mav (talk) 00:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Named settlements are inherently notable as demonstrated by the fact that there has been no consensus to delete them. When there is no consensus to delete things, the default is keep. This has been shown time and again. Not only with Theba, Arizona, but numerous other precedents. I agree that WP:V is required, but once an inhabited has been verified - not a hoax - then it merits inclusion. WP:NOT#PAPER. Usually, without much effort and using on-line sources, one can come up with multiple sources for most places within a relative short time (during the period of an AFD debate, e.g.) What causes disruption is the nomination of geographic articles by editors failing WP:BEFORE. It is this disruption that causes drama and the willy-nilly default to what passes as WP:GNG that applies to the minorly notable people would sweep its inclusion for all geographic articles. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No consensus to delete is not the same as a consensus to keep. The primary reason these articles are kept at AFD is because of the way article creation and deletion work on Wikipedia. What do you think would happen if a consensus was required to create an article? Because settlement notability is not formalized in any policy or guideline, there will continue to be AFDs on minor places. You should propose a subject-specific guideline that basically says "every named settlement found in a geographic database is notable and merits a stand-alone article" and see if it truly has consensus as you say it does. --Polaron | Talk 01:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Geographic notability criteria have been proposed but nothing ever gelled. I participated for a while until it basically became more of a bureaucracy than a group of people trying to improve the Wikipedia. There are inclusionists and deletionists and some vary by subject. I even recall the debacle on schools notability, which failed to attain consensus but good luck getting a secondary school deleted even if we cannot get consensus that they're inherently notable either. I would be willing to go back to what was working at that group and try again with others, and perhaps we can get consensus around some items (we were close on roads, as I recall), and perhaps leave others as weaselly worded as WP:GNG: "may be notable", etc. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument when no clear policy or guideline backs that up. We are trying to formulate such a guideline. --mav (talk) 01:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Straw man. Can you address my point without citing WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, which is an essay not holy writ. It is fully entitled Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, and it is specifically addressing that context, not policy making context, unless you also don't think our policies should not be WP:USEFUL either? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You mentioned that some similar articles survived AFD and that fact demonstrates inherent notability. Perhaps for those particular examples. Perhaps the lack of a policy or guideline in this area lead to deadlocks. It might be due to the mix of people commenting or the type of people that frequent AFD. But it is a stretch to use examples that survived AFD as proof that the whole class of articles on settlements are inherently notable. Other criteria, such as the existence of significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources (the criteria for articles in general), is needed. Why should settlements be an exception to our normal criteria for having separate articles? Calling that out is not a straw man. --mav (talk) 02:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you have to point to AFD's to see that towns/villages are considered notable (all though you certainly could). Most policy is descriptive anyway, notability for small towns/villages etc has been pretty firmly established over the years. I think you'll need significantly more (and widely broadcast) discussion before that would change. I think it's a uphill battle...not sure it's a good idea myself. RxS (talk) 03:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

← It seems to me that GNIS already exists. It does not need to be duplicated. I mean articles could be created by a script using data at sites such as GNIS or the census. Is that what we want now. I'm an inclusionist but articles need to be of interest. Some of the early articles that were based on census data where good if increasing article count was the objective. Such articles are dry. I have noted several instances where GNIS classifies a location as a populated place when in fact the population is zero. (forgot to sign, sorry) --droll [chat] 14:50, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Masem: I would subscribe to your opening statement of what should, minimally, be considered encyclopedic, but these are, really, signs of basic editing skills, that cannot be expressed in strict legalese delete/keep guideline. Perhaps they belong to Start/B-class grading scheme, but not inclusion/deletion. The gray area between DB:NOCONTEXT and passing FAR is too wide to be described in a formal way. Our understanding of what a "nice article" is should not influence inclusion/deletion policies - no article deserves deletion simply because the lead is written in substandard prose, and no proposed deletion should be judged to keep simply because its lead looks nice. After all, prose can change rapidly while the subject (usually) stays the same. NVO (talk) 04:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IP's comments/votes being disregarded

I was surprised to hear at this (end of the section) discussion that IP comments/votes are being disregarded in discussions. It apparently is the practice at Wikipedia:Featured pictures. Is that common nowadays on Wikipedia? I always thought requests for adminship was the sole exception. Except in cases of sock puppetry of course. Garion96 (talk) 08:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is 4,046.8564224 an acceptable number format?

Should the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) recognize 4,046.8564224 as an acceptable number format, and not accept 4046.8564224? Notice the former uses commas and gaps as digit separators in the same number, while the latter only uses gaps. The consensus formed will influence how number formatting templates will be coded. Please discuss at WT:MOSNUM#RfC: Acceptable number format?

Dead Linkage

How about a policy of when linkage is dead, linking to http://www.archive.org/web/web.php when a page is available to link to? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.30.217 (talk) 14:15, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No policy, but WP:LINKROT. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's also User:WebCiteBOT which should hopefully limit the linkrot. Anomie⚔ 15:15, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We link to archives for dead links on references (though per our rules on copyvios probably shouldn't), but dead links in External links sections that cannot find an authorized live replacement are simply removed. DreamGuy (talk) 17:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If archive.org and WebCite were really copyvios, wouldn't they have been sued out of existence by now? Anomie⚔ 17:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The courts have decided archiving services aren't copyright violations (with certain restrictions) and such services have existed long before the internet was even invented. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Proper archiving services, yes. Sites that make copies of other sites without permission and keep the content online forever? No. And just because they haven't been sued out of existence yet doesn't mean we should allow blatant copyvios. But the external links to archives issue has been brought up at WP:EL talk page and this was decided by consensus, so if you have a problem with it, take it up there, don't just pretend you don't have to follow it. DreamGuy (talk) 18:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My comment was in response to you saying that you didn't think we should link to archives in references, implying you think they are copyright violations. They are, in fact, not violations as long as the service respects the original website's wishes as both archive.org and webcitation.org do. I was, of course, only referring to actual "authorized" archives not just random copies people had made. I agree that external links can often be just deleted, but one should also consider that often something marked "external link" is really a misnamed reference. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To my knowledge there have been no court decisions dealing with this sort of archiving service. It is at least arguably a copyright violation - opt-out isn't sure to cure the copying. (What if I decided, I'm going to make copies of every CD my friends own, unless I hear from the record company in advance specifically I can't copy that one? Probably not going to cut it with the RIAA.) Nothing really makes these services "authorized" - yes, they respect robots.txt but that may not be the end of it. Since it's at least arguably a fair use, though, and it's quite useful, I think we should continue to use them. If the courts weigh in later we can stop. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Authorized was in quotes for a reason. :) There has been at least one court case specifically about internet archiving, although I don't recall the details off hand. The ruling was basically if a site doesn't use any method to say they don't want their content archived they are implicitly allowing it. They key for archive.org/webcitation.org is that they are acting as a "library" of sorts - this grants them leeway that wouldn't be granted to a for-profit company. This isn't really a new issue as regular libraries have been archiving resources for decades without explicit permission, and have occasionally had to defend the practice in court. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Field vs Google, US District Court, District of Nevada, CV-S-04-0413-RCJ-LRL may be the case you're thinking of (see [1]). Anomie⚔ 21:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As an offshoot of my more general business of fixing red links, I've been looking at links from the main namespace to the user and user talk namespaces. While most are obviously wrong and easily fixable, a small number could be argued to be correct. I could find no policy on these, but my gut feeling is that in each case the should either be de-linked, or an article created in the main namespace for the user if they meet the usual notability criteria.

Some examples to hopefully make clear my query:

Any ideas please? - TB (talk) 21:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the first is a link to a userfied page. This is probably not a good idea, since it removes the whole point of deleting.
The second is simply bad sourcing. A certificate in the possession of a private person fails the availiability criteria of WP:RS
The third is a result of Kingkewell typying ~~~~ instead of ~~~~~ producing his signature rather than the date. I have fixed this.
The only reason for linking to the user namespace I can think of would be if we provide a source that identifies a person or event to a wikipedia editor.
Taemyr (talk) 23:00, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jimmy Wales and similar have links to their user pages. Dragons flight (talk) 23:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Such links should be fixed, per Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. They don't work, as either internal links or interwiki links, on Wikipedia mirrors. They either link to the wrong place or don't link to anywhere at all. So they should always be external links. I've fixed Nicholson Baker as an example.

      That fact is why we don't have internal links from the article namespace to the user or project namespaces. They don't work on mirrors or in off-line copies, because such mirrors and copies don't include the contents of our project and user namespaces.

      Of course, if the link is not actually an explicit encyclopaedic reference to someone's page on the English Wikipedia, then there should not be a link at all. Such was the case with the "Dylan Borg" internal link to our user namespace in List of programmers, for example. Uncle G (talk) 12:14, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Okay ta, that's pretty much what I expected - thanks all for the advice and Uncle G in particular for identiftying Wikipedia:Avoid self-references as the relevant policy. - TB (talk) 11:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Database reports/Articles containing links to the user space and Wikipedia:Database reports/Cross-namespace redirects. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"African American" → "black"?

I am looking at the edits of an IP user who was changing "African American" → "black" in some articles. I couldn't find a policy for preferred usage ... is there one? Thanks. Enki H. (talk) 22:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that if the particular line is discussing their ethnicity or lineage, it should say "African American", if it's discussing the color of their skin, it should say "black". eg. [2] [3] –xenotalk 22:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
[ec] Depends on the usage; what's the IP? EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Neither term is preferred. It should just remain consistent within an article. --Moni3 (talk) 22:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here is an example [4]. There's a pattern of borderline POV/disruptive edits but I can't find good policy or guidelines to apply. -- Enki H. (talk) 22:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In that instance, I would have to agree with the edit. No point couching it in political correctness, he is notable for being the first black baseball player in the MLB since the baseball color line started. –xenotalk 23:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there is any evidence that this is a case of 'political correctness', as there clearly is no consensus, on WP or off, as to which is the more politically correct term. It is worth noting the the Barack Obama article describes him as "the first African American to hold the office" of POTUS. Dlabtot (talk) 23:43, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok the question of PC aside, I think it is clearer to state it plainly. –xenotalk 23:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I'm not sure that 'black states it more plainly than 'African American'. Certainly 'black' seems less formal, and I suppose you could call it plain in that sense, but it also seems more subjective and open to interpretation than 'African Amercan'. Dlabtot (talk) 23:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it might best to state that he was the first player to cross the baseball color line? Since that is what the "black/African American" thing is driving at. My point is, if the reason for saying something it is to describe their citizenship and lineage then African American is fine, but if it is to point out that they are notable for being a "black-something" (first black baseball player, first black president), I don't think we should water the statement down by expanding it to a lineage-citizenship statement. –xenotalk 23:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In what way is it 'watered down'? I don't get it. This seems just a different way to say politically correct. Dlabtot (talk)
See my below comments on it being used unnecessarily as a euphimism. There is nothing wrong with pointing out that someone is black, nor that they are notable for being the first black-something. There is no need to shy away from the fact that racism exists. –xenotalk 00:10, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, your comments below don't explain in what way the term 'waters down' anything. Your bizarre comment about shy(ing) away from the fact that racism exists seems particularly off-topic - would you care to actually try to elucidate why you feel the way you do? Dlabtot (talk) 00:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess because I'm Canadian and we rarely use lineage-citizenship constructions to describe each other's skin colour. –xenotalk 00:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is the Barack Obama article shy(ing) away from the fact that racism exists by stating that he is "the first African American to hold the office" ? Dlabtot (talk) 00:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just find the construction peculiar and unnecessary in most instances. Your Obama example isn't a good comparison, though it does touch more directly upon the black president issue later on in the article. It seems we don't see eye-to-eye on this, but if you'd like to continue the discussion we should remove ourselves from the village pump, I think this issue is resolved (in that there's no clear answer). –xenotalk 00:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Continually repeating that you hold a certain viewpoint is not the same as explaining your rationale for holding that viewpoint. Since you have declined to pursue the latter course, I don't know whether we 'see eye-to-eye' or not. I respectfully decline your invitation to continue this unproductive dialogue elsewhere. Dlabtot (talk) 01:04, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My rationale is that it is entirely unnecessary, in most instances, to expand "black" [American] to "African American" if the statement being made is referring to the color of their skin and not their lineage-citizenship. –xenotalk 01:14, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Beware of nationality issues as well. I had problems with The Hazel Scott Show during the DYK process, when someone wanted to change "black" to "African American", apparently unaware that she was actually from Trinidad (and not "American" in the "from USA" sense). Firsfron of Ronchester 00:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. This was an issue in the examples I linked above. Some people, for whatever reason, use "African American" as a euphemism for "black" when there are many other types of black people than African Americans. –xenotalk 00:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right. It's one thing to be politically correct, quite another to be so "PC" that you're making articles incorrect by stating an American nationality for non-Americans (or, in the examples you gave, blindly referring to African black people as African Americans, or as Africans. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:29, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The other example was this [5] ... I'm basically wary about terms that get changed for no good reason (literally). But I see how proper use lies so much in the nuances of context that it would be hard to cast this into a guideline. Here's my bottom line: a term that has been in an article for some time has implicitly been vetted by the article's editors and readers. If it get's changed without reason in the edit summary, it's probably better to revert the change. Enki H. (talk) 00:24, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with virtually everything said above. There is no one always better term and there is no reason to be "politically correct." I also agree that you'd be perfectly justified in reverted any change of long standing text done with no explanation whatsoever. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As Moni said these issues aren't set in stone. My personal belief is that "black" is a better term in that example as well, per my comments above. But if you want to revert, you are free to. –xenotalk 00:33, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, other than maybe Wesley Snipes, how many people out there actually have BLACK skin color. Why are some thinking this term is somehow just as accurate as African-American. I'm disregarding the whole "well, some articles are using African-American for those that are not Americans in the first place" because that has nothing to do with this topic- whether or not to use Black or African-American for those American citizens of African descent. I'm also going to ignore the whole matter of what is used in Barack Obama's article because first- not a descendant of slaves like most African-Americans/Blacks in the US, second- his father really was AFRICAN and was not an African-American therefore you cant call Pres. Obama "half African-American" but you can call him "half African" or "half Black", third- Barack Obama is half-white which seems to get forgotten with all this talk of "first Black POTUS", he's also a Scots-Irish president and there's been more than 20 of those but is that notable? Which brings the question: O.K. those who prefer "Black" over African-American- what do you propose to use for "White" people, should we throw out Irish-American, Italian-American, and other terms and just use White from now on? Let's go and call Latinos "Brown" and Chinese as "Yellow" while we are at it, see how now the comment by the user that using Black is not being shy about racism now looks racist. How about we use terms used by the individual themselves. If Barack Obama were to call himself a "Purple-American" then we should use that term for him, and I believe Tiger Woods uses Blasian or something like that. Let's not label people or call them "black" "white" or whatever AT ALL unless heritage is notable in which case mention directly that "grandpa is from x country" or whatever. A Black person's article doesnt HAVE to mention at all that they are Black and in my opinion SHOULDNT because in 90% of the articles on African-Americans it is not notable that they are Black. Mike Tyson being African-American is not notable so why should it be mentioned in his article? Does Dick Cheney's article mention that he's White?Camelbinky (talk) 01:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you partly. One thing I've been wondering is: how many generations back does a black person need to have American before they become "black American" (or, better "American") rather than "African American". It just seems peculiar to me. Canada is so multicultural we rarely see on strict lineage bases like this. We're just all Canadian. Different viewpoints north of the 49th. –xenotalk 01:19, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I personally would use simply "American" unless the being black (or African if you prefer) [or white, or Asian, or Irish, or Russian, or whatever] was somehow important to that person's accomplishments. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First off, Xeno, I dont understand your comment about "how far back before they are American", if someone is born in the United States or if one or both parents was an American citizen then they are an American citizen, if they are black then they would be an African-American, if that is the term they prefer. Second- really you need to quit the ultra-nationalistic Canada crap. Your country doesnt have a great record on race relations like you are making it seem, read some history on how your country treated Asian immigrants. It is alot easier to have good "race relations" in a country that historically didnt let many into it in the first place. Your nation is 80% of European descent and has only 2.5% of African descent (Black) with no minority group over 4% of the population, compared to the United States of with 13% Black, 4.4% Asian as the two largest RACIAL groups and Hispanics of any race at 15.1% the largest ETHNIC group. So exactly how is Canada "so multicultural" as you put it, when you have only one culture? It's like saying the Japanese are multicultural and have no racism because everyone in Japan is Japanese. Americans are all Americans regardless of race or ethnic status and you seem to be saying we dont see people as Americans because we do recognize race or ethnicity. Recognizing race is not the same as racism and it has no bearing on nationality.Camelbinky (talk) 01:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, not disputing anything you said per say, but when was the last time you heard someone called a "European-American"? --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that if a person's notability is partly derived from the fact that they are not-white, we shouldn't then use a lineage-citizenship construction (can't there be white African Americans?) to tiptoe around the fact that they are, in fact, black. Why not just come out and say it? Why beat around the bush? Racism and racial lines exist, let's not pretend that they don't and remember that this is the English Wikipedia. We should present a world-centric view. P.S. I haven't fact checked your percentages but they seem off to me. Though, I am in a major urban centre, I'm sure the melting pot tapers off as you go further from the cities. –xenotalk 02:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The percentages are from Canada, and while using Wikipedia as a reference is not acceptable for articles I see no reason not use our own article as a reference for a discusion page. Trust me, your country is not much a melting pot compared to the US, even on a city to city comparision check Toronto versus New York City or not even on such a primary city to primary city comparision check Toronto 8% Black versus tiny Albany, New York with over 30% Black, so saying Canada is race-equal and the US isnt is ridiculous its comparing apples and oranges, there isnt a part of Canada with as high of a concentration of minorities mixed with whites (we arent counting natives to North America, even then Canada has a bad history dealing with those), and to make the US seem a racist country and Canada not is equally ignorant. The US has its problems, you throw so many different groups that are equally proud of their heritage together in tight quarters and that will happen. If the people of California could be spread out over the size of Canada then sure crime and incidences of racism would go down to the level of Canada's and vice versa if the people of Canada were to be crammed into the area of California then racism and violence would go up to the level of California's. And for the record California has slightly more people as of 2009 than all of Canada.Camelbinky (talk) 02:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't trying to make it seem like racism doesn't exist in Canada. It does. Racisms is everywhere. And as a result, certain events like the electing of a black president become particularly noteworthy. I just don't think that, as an encyclopedia, we should tiptoe around that fact by using a lineage-citizenship construction. I don't think I can be more clear than this, so I'm going to leave it at that. –xenotalk 02:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I STILL dont understand how using "African-American" instead of "Black" is in your words "tip-toe(ing) around that fact" of the US electing a Black president. Does using the word African-American in your opinion tiptoe around his skin color? And again for clarification- he is half black and half white so NO the US still hasnt elected a Black president or even elected a president decended from a slave so he's not the first "Black President", and even if he were 100% African-American descended from the very first two slaves on American soil, so what? He was elected due to his merits, ideas, ideals, beliefs, proposals, hard-work, dedicated service to the American people, his compassion, and his ability to connect with the voters. Are you saying that being Black is somehow relevant to how he got elected, relevant to how he performs his duties as POTUS, or relevant in any way other than he has darker skin? He is the President of the United States, I dont see how mentioning his skin color is relevant to the article. Being half-black shouldnt matter. Those who find it necessary to point out race in things like "the first black X" are those that are holding back racial equality more than those who just say "um, ok, so?" and couldnt care less about mentioning race or ethnicity. I guess the questions I have for you are the following- "what in your opinion is the difference between saying Black or African-American?, what do those words mean to you? and most importantly- isnt what those words mean to Barack Obama (or whomever the article is about) matter MOST and the term that person uses about themselves matter more than your attempt at political correctness?"Camelbinky (talk) 08:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am of the "um, ok, so?" camp you speak of - but that doesn't change the fact that a great number of people stood up and said "hey - look, the Americans finally elected a black president!" (and the operative word was "black", not "African-American" - even though that is one way to say black). Anyways, Moon made a good point below. There's no good answer and we should rely on the sources to inform our word choice. If you'd like to discuss further how and why I see things this way, my talk page would be a better venue. I think we've overstayed our welcome at the VP =] –xenotalk 13:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

←Respectfully, I don't think village pump can solve this one. :) See, for why, [6], "The results of available survey research indicate no strong consensus among the American black community for how their racial group should be described." (2007) Further interesting reading [7], where Ethiopian-born American Abdulaziz Kamus learned he was not African-American because he is not the descendant of slaves, while here black American John McWhorter indicates he is not African-American because he is the descendant of slaves. There's a good way to go before connotations of the term "African American" are settled and some clear language emerges. I think we should default to whatever term is being used in the majority of reliable sources and go with the "don't change what's there without good reason" approach proposed above. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as a US citizen who has little experience with racism, this has been an enlightening discussion. I especially appreciated Mooriddengirl's concise summary. To this I can only add the comment that racism appears to be an issue with a wide disparity of interests. One is either immensely interested in it, or easily bored with it. I'm usually bored with it, but Mooriddengirl's contribution was enlightening. If there were ever a wikipolicy drafted, it would certainly be distracting and require much attention from administrators, draining their valuable time. The less said, the better, I think. Danglingdiagnosis (talk) 16:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We do have some policy in this area. Also we have essays such as Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality and one in an equally contentious area. Perhaps in some far distant future WP:MOS could settle such things as clearly as it already does for fictional races. ϢereSpielChequers 16:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The person who did it had this to say:

I really do not see the harm in changing "African American" to "black." It is more concise and certainly fairer, unless we change all instances of the term "white" to "Caucasian American."

— IP user
Hmm, so we should be politically correct? ViperSnake151  Talk  00:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The quote above illustrates the issue rather well, because it is exactly POV editing. It reveals that the edit was not made to make the article better, but to express an opinion on an issue that is not directly related ("white" vs. "African American" in this case). Political correctness has no relevance for encyclopaedic editing. There's a principle that can be derived: if the edit wasn't made to directly improve the article, it should be undone. Quite obvious actually. Enki H. (talk) 01:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, WP does seem to follow PC sometimes. Eg, last I looked, holocaust denial used the PC (some might say McCarthyite) definition as including people who agree there was a holocaust, but dispute some details in dishonest ways. Peter jackson (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphenated Americans

Sometimes being overly PC can get you into trouble. When my brother joined the US Navy back in the early 80s, they had a question on the application form that was obviously designed to ask about race and ethnic background... but the Navy could not be so blunt, so they used the term "Ancestry". After thinking about this a bit, my brother put down "American". He got a call from the Navy a few weeks later, to the effect that: "Yes, yes, we are all Americans... we want to know where do you come from?"
"New York", said my brother.
"OK, where did your Parents come from?"
"New York"
"OK what about your Grand Parents?"
"New York... Sigh, look I don't mean to be difficult, but I have ancestors on both sides of my family that have been in America since the 1600s...on my Mother's side they go back to when New York was named New Amsterdam, and my Father's family moved here from England shortly after Plymoth Rock. How many generations do you have to live in this country before you can drop the hyphenation?"
"OK we'll put down 'English'"
My brother didn't bother arguing... although he could have pointed out that he had just as much, if not more Dutch, French, Irish and Scottish ancestry as English. It was obvious that what they really wanted to ask was: "Are you a minority? (thus qualifying for special programs)" but they felt that this would be too insensitive. Blueboar (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why WP's obsession with race/ethnicity/religion?

I wonder, wonder, wonder. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 06:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is WP's obsession... Most editors are fairly reasonable about these things... it only becomes a problem when you get POV pushing from various "groups with a grudge"... which can come from any and all sides of racial/ethnic/religious debates. Misguided zealots come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Blueboar (talk) 18:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Licensing update live on en.wp

I've gone ahead and updated MediaWiki:Copyright, MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning and MediaWiki:Edittools with the new licensing information as per the recently approved Wikimedia Foundation licensing update. The English Wikipedia is acting as a reference implementation right now; other sites will be switched over in coming days. Please see m:Licensing update/Implementation and linked to pages for further background.

Please note that Wikipedia:Copyrights should be considered deprecated now; the Terms of Use page replaces it, though it's fine for community pages to elaborate upon it. I've linked to the copy on the Wikimedia Foundation website. m:Licensing update/Implementation specifies how community-created project-local pages can be created. They aren't allowed to be completely free-form -- there are some required sections, and some optional ones. When a community-created page exists to replace the Wikimedia Foundation site copy, the links in the relevant system messages can be updated accordingly.

Note that the site-embedded metadata still needs to be updated to properly reflect the change. --Eloquence* 01:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the user-interface aspect, there is a thread here. For the links to the two official license sites, can we change them to project pages when created, as we did with the text of the GFDL, or are they to remain in this form ? Cenarium (talk) 01:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's absolutely fine to point to project-local copies. Let's apply the same admin-level protection as for the GFDL copy.---Eloquence* 01:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For background, we also have Wikipedia:Licensing update and I would note that the image migration system (e.g. {{license migration}}) is now live, with every GFDL image having an announcement saying it may be available under CC-BY-SA-3.0 if it meets the eligibility criteria. Dragons flight (talk) 03:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Incorporating text from Citizendium

Eager to take advantage of the change, at least one editor has used text from Citizendium now that our licenses are compatible. I'm not sure what the attribution requirements are for CC-BY-SA. I created Template:Citizendium parallel to other attribution templates. Is there anything else that must be done to satisfy the CC license? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd expect we use the same for crediting others as we'd expect to be credited ourselves.  — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 23:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Updating WP:C for licensing transition

I think I have brought it up to date. I have incorporated quite a bit of text directly from Wikimedia:Terms of Use (all noted in edit summary, for attribution). Please review and help fix any problems at that talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've listed what seems to remain for updating at WikiProject Copyright Cleanup. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CAT:TEMP bot deletion

I have a BRFA open for the mass deletion of old user pages in CAT:TEMP. Apparently there are some concerns about removing articles in this category, although I personally can't see any issues with cleaning out useless pages. It was requested at the BRFA to bring it here for discussion. There are currently over 25 thousand pages that will require deletion at some point in the near future. If there is a valid reason to not delete these pages, then either the pages should not have been placed in the category or the whole category should be removed as it is useless. Nakon 15:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that I was seriously opposed over the deletion of user page subpages of a banned user (Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Guido den Broeder subpages), I can hardly imagine that automatic deletion of such pages will be supported. I have no problem with it, they can always be undeleted when needed, but I don't think everyone agrees. Fram (talk) 12:09, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines for inappropriate info boxes

There are no guidelines for deleting information and navigation boxes where they might be inappropriate.

This issue came up for me for the one at the bottom of Guinness World Records where the info box does not as one might expect provide navigation links to similar references books but the diverse products owned by the Jim Pattison Group. It does not seem encyclopedic appropriate information since the ownership of such groups is temporary - Jim Pattison Group bought the Guinness world records brand in early 2008, before then had been owned by several different companies. I have put a discussion on the talk page.

But what is appropriate and not here? Looking around there are a number of so and so company group info boxes that group articles by who owns what products-- it strikes me as backdoor company promotion by their PR agents but I cannot find any particularly relevant guidance over this issue.--LittleHow (talk) 17:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why that navbox is inappropriate - Guinness World Records is owned by the Jim Pattison Group. See other corporate/product articles such as DuPont which has the {{DuPont}} navbox as do articles about its products and directors etc. There are many other examples. – ukexpat (talk) 20:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a promotional website for companies. Encyclopedia content is stable--what appears on an article should be always reasonably expected to have some kind of future link to that article. This is not the case with this info box. While it is now a fact about Guinness World Records that it is owned by the Jim Pattison Group and this will always be part of its article even after that ownership changes (as much as its former owners, Guinness Brewery, Diageo ), this is not the case, to give some example, with Pattison Outdoor Advertising, The Overwaitea Food Group or CKWV. Can anyone provide a good reason why such transitory links should exist anywhere on this article when they are none to the articles with a permanent association such that deal with reference books of similar nature?
DuPont is not a good counter-example. Where DuPont has an info box on a product article for example Kevlar it is more than owner but also key in the history of developing this product; the products moreover in the info box are similar in all being chemicals. There is no reason to assume the contents of this info box will be transitory. Further, another info box exists upon fibers. This is not the case with Jim Pattison Group where the article links can reasonably be expected to be transitory, and there is no additional info boxes.
Wikipedia needs a policy on this to guide deletion-- at present I cannot see one.--LittleHow (talk) 03:59, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Infoboxes that carry POV content (like the several paranormal creature/cryptid/etc. being placed on folkloric creatures) or that add no particularly useful information (the Jim Pattisan Group one for the example above) should be removed just on standard rules of notability/NOV etc. The Jim Pattisan Group can make a fine category, but as an infobox it's not helpful. DreamGuy (talk) 13:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The navigational template is for navigation, one of the main advantages of using it is that it appears on every page it contains so you can go through the articles without having go back and forth via a list or category page. I don't see how this is a NPOV issue:Guinness World Records is owned by the Jim Pattison Group is the only thing that the presence of the template suggests - this is already mentioned (or should be) in every single article involved. It seems reasonable that someone using the encyclopaedia to research the Jim Pattison Group would want to look at the articles included in the template, I don't see why we should take away a potentially useful navigational device on the basis that a company might somehow be benefiting from it. As I said the article on the Jim Pattison Group will mention all its properties and all the articles on its properties will mention that they are owned by the Jim Pattinson group, what advantage is it to the company to have it repeated in the navbox? The only conceivable advantage I could see would that it allows people to more easily research the topic area - this is something we want to encourage not deter. You may well have been looking for other similar reference books, another user might have been looking for other companies owned by group. Further, we do not know when or if the group will offload its properties and such speculation should be irrelevant to how we write an up to date, verifiable encyclopaedia. Disney could well sell ESPN, any company could fall off the FTSE100 but we maintain the templates Template:Disney and Template:FTSE 100 Index constituents because they remain useful navigational aids whether or not their contents might change in the future. In cases where inclusion in a topic area might be some what dynamic a template is easier to maintain than a category as everything is located in one place. How can something be helpful as a category and not as a navigational template when they both serve essentially the same purpose? Guest9999 (talk) 13:15, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There needs to be contributions from other wikipedians: is content stability an issue for article and its information boxes? Should an article be neutral in regard to commercial promotion? What are the guidelines?
  • Broadly any information I suggest added to an encyclopedia article can be expected potentially to be always part of that article. Present associations may shift to historical ones and so in a different form be retained. The Guinness World Records was owned by Diageo then Gullane Entertainment then HiT Entertainment then Apax Partners and now Jim Pattison Group. But we would not expect a continued association with the Guinness World Records article of the companies that were also owned by Diageo and so on. They are associations that exist via the incidental fact they are owned by same company that also happened at one time to own the Guinness World Records. Why should present companies be different? Useful of such information is argued by Guest9999 but there are may types of useful information that might be added to an article but which wikipedia bars. For example, how to do things, a repository of links, images, or media files. "Merely being true or useful does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia."
  • "It seems reasonable that someone using the encyclopaedia to research the Jim Pattison Group would want to look at the articles included in the template". No--one would reasonably expect them to look at the Jim Pattison Group article.
  • The Jim Pattison Group information box is not even correct. Guinness World Records is owned by Ripley Entertainment that is then owned by the Jim Pattison Group. This is not evident in the information box--so it is not even providing useful information for the reader of the article. An information box for Ripley Entertainment might be useful since this would put together companies that are in some respects similar. But Jim Pattison Group info box only links the holdings of a big conglomerate. Is that what wikipedia is about?
  • Another issue is proportionateness. The contents of articles can be of commercial benefit so likely to be added (by PR etc) which risks that they will predominate over noncommercal ones (for which there is no such commercial motivation to add).
  • Guest9999 mentions the Template:Disney --this broadly brings together companies that have the Disney brand. There are exceptions such as ESPN but here the Disney template on the article sits besides five others. It is therefore is not disproportionate. The Jim Pattison Group is the sole one on the Guinness World Records article. No info box exists for similar reference products --information which I suspect most would consider of far greater relevance. Even its categories are disproportionate: only one of its ten categories concerns a reference category and that is to the category of "Guinness World Records (book)"!--LittleHow (talk) 17:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In response:
  • There are many types of information that Wikipedia bars, the use of navigational devices is not one of them. The actual information - that GWR is owned by the Jim Pattison Group - is included in the article and nobody is arguing it shouldn't be. How is the inclusion of the information any less "advertising" than the inclusion of the navbox? Being useful might not be a good reason to include certain types off information but in my opinion being useful is the aim of any navigational device.
  • No one is preventing anyone from creating and adding a different navigational template to the the article and there is no rule limiting how many should be present. I don't see why the fact that no one has got around to creating one you would find preferable is a reason to remove a potentially useful one which is on the page.
  • Why do you think no one would be interested in the Jim Pattison group? People were interested enough to write the article about it, create categories etc, there have been many news reports about it and it owns several well known properties including Ripleys and GWR.
  • I do not imagine that User:RingtailedFox (over 11,000 edits) who created the template or User:Azumanga1 (over 57,000 edits) who added it to the article are agents of the Jim Pattison group, whether PR, marketing or other.
  • I do think Wikipedia is about big conglomerates, it's also about small cottage industries and innumerable other things. In general I think it's about providing people with information in the form of a high quality, free content encyclopaedia. Making a moral judgement that associating something with the conglomerate that owns it is bad would seem to be a bigger violation of NPOV than anything you are suggesting is currently occurring.
  • The Guinness World Record website states that "Guinness World Records is part of the Jim Pattison Group".
  • To me the bottom line is that someone who navigated to the article using the template - which seems perfectly possible, the Jim Pattison group article gets viewed almost 2000 time each month - would probably then be hindered by not finding the same template on the target page should they wish to move on.
  • I can understand the worry of giving undue weight to a commercial entity within an article but people researching companies are likely to want to find out about their various properties. Furthermore the current association - even if it is temporary - is still an important one and should be represented in the article. Guest9999 (talk) 21:45, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outlines of countries

I have a doubt about Outlines of countries, the term countries involve a lot of things and I would like to do an outline of Catalonia and I don't know if Outline of countries is about states or all type of countries. --Vilar 21:23, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is best to ask for advice on this at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge project. The people there know more about the outlines than most here. Good luck. Arnoutf (talk) 21:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) It wouldn't be considered an outline of a country (country in this context means sovereign state, possibly with some exceptions but the autonomous communities aren't among them), but you shouldn't let that keep you from creating it. There are outlines about all of the U.S. states, for instance, as well as for a lot of other geographical and non-geographical concepts. See Wikipedia:Outlines for more context and pointers—especially the How to create an outline page section. —JAO • T • C 21:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thanks. --Vilar 21:49, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of article titles etc. should be changed

The Wikipedia style manual favors capitalizing the first word of article titles, along with section heads and other occurences when it is the first word. I think the style should be changed so that, as in a standard dictionary (eg, Merriam-Webster Collegiate), the article title is only capitalized if the word is generally capitalized.

This is guidance for the user, and the prevalence of capitalization in Wiki articles can be misleading.

A good example is the article on brucellosis. The word occurs nine times in the title, first paragraph, table of contents, and illustration box, and because it is the first word in those heads or sentences, it is capitalized all nine times--a strong visual hint to the user that the word is properly capitalized. But brucellosis should not be capitalized, and there is some lowercasing even of the genus name, Brucella.

It used to be that computers sort alphabetically by ASCII so that lower case words were listed before capitalized ones. But I'm sure Wikipedia's software now can handle a mixture of titles in lc or uc.

Cheers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alma Gary (talk • contribs) 22:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • MediaWiki can, and on other Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wiktionary it does. Wiktionary is the dictionary, not us, and it has "brucellosis" at the correct capitalization. Please look to Wiktionary if you are looking for a dictionary. Uncle G (talk) 04:09, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • If a word is incorrectly capitalised in the prose of an article, then it should be changed, obviously. I couldn't really say about moving hundreds of thousands of article around. - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 12:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't personally support this change in policy but just to play devil's advocate here, I'd like to point out that other encyclopedias such as Britannica online don't capitalize the names of their articles (so its not just dictionaries). --– sampi (talk•contrib•email) 08:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of people within articles

I am writing specifically with regard to lists of notable people from [insert location] that are part of a broader article. I feel strongly that someone's birth having occurred in a particular location (generally a city or regional hospital) is not only non-notable, but the birth location likely did not have as profound an influence on one's life as the municipalities in which one grew up / achieved notability / currently resides. This is not to say that this information doesn't belong in the article about the individual, but that it does not belong in an article about the municipality (or in some cases schools, as in so-and-so went to this high school). Certain individuals were born in one place, grew up in another, and went on to live in several other places only to be buried somewhere else. That's a lot of articles they could be included in. Such sections are generally more prevalent in less populous areas. For example, one doesn't see an article about Hollywood CA listing all the celebs that work/live there, nor is there such a section for notables born in New York City.

Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Lists_of_people doesn't appear to provide guidelines as to what qualifies an individual to be notable in association with a particular location, only whether the individual is notable enough for general list inclusion. Someone who spent no more than 2-3 days as a baby in a delivery ward of a city's hospital is just as eligible for inclusion as someone who lived there all his/her life.

Additionally, lists of people seem to contribute very little to an article about a municipality, in that it doesn't describe the municipality (the article's topic). For example, to list Martin Luther King Jr as being born somewhere provides very little content and context, whereas writing a paragraph about how Martin Luther King Jr impacted a community that he was active in provides a lot more context not only about the individual, but also about the place.

In summary, I'm seeking a guideline/policy enhancement for lists of people that more stringently defines just who can be included in the context of a municipal article (or the like), and what qualifies them to be notable in association with said municipality.
--JBC3 (talk) 00:06, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Example of the sort of thing? Stravinsky was successively a Russian, French & American citizen, lived for years in Switzerland, & asked to be buried in venice. Peter jackson (talk) 11:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Five Six examples:

--JBC3 (talk) 08:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)--JBC3 (talk) 08:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actor/actress

Not sure if this subject has been covered before: apologies if it has, but I can't find it anywhere. Is there a WP policy on referring to female theatre and film performers as actresses, rather than actors? The WP page on actors is fairly vague on it, but I'm aware of several professionals, such as Miriam Margolyes, who are fairly vociferous about calling themselves actors, and it seems a bit contrary for WP editors to describe them as actresses. I shan't write out the whole debate which underpins it as I'm pretty sure we're all familiar with it, but I do think it would be useful to have some guidance on these pages Dom Kaos (talk) 21:35, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure there's no guideline about it, but it's merely one of those balances which are so commonplace around here (like US/Brit Eng): no change without consensus or a compelling reason. Margolyes may well fall into that latter category. - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 11:49, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for responding. I've put a proposal on Margolyes' talk page - we'll see what happens... ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 17:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From memory it has been discussed (I can't remember where) and the conclusion was that if there is a source for the subject having a preference (and I know people who are insistent on being called 'actress') then we respect the subject's preference. For someone active prior to 1960 I would probably default to actress, as that was the dominant usage of the period. Other than that, don't mess with what the first significant author wrote so long as the article is consistent (much the same as similar policies on language variants). dramatic (talk) 09:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Should we respect that though, just because they prefer it? I mean, if other sources do, then yes, but consider a similar case like Claude Debussy who is pretty much universally considered an impressionist composer, but he hated the term. It seems to me that, especially since it's a very /normal/ term, then what the subject calls themselves is kind of irrelevant. An actress is what she is, so why not call her that? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:13, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rfc:Self electing groups

Why is it...

That if someone writes bad English, you can correct it, but if somebody posts a photograph of poor technical quality which fails to illustrate anything, users won't let it be removed? Often the author of the photograph, who really needs some photography lessons takes offence. Is there a policy on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.245.167 (talk) 19:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the answer is in the question. If someone writes bad English, you correct it; you don't just delete it straight off. If someone posts a photo which is of bad technical quality, no-one stops you improving it. Though, admitted, photographs should illustrate something; that's probably at WP:PHOTO somewhere. - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 19:33, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BLP and privacy

Steve Jobs of Apple recently had a liver transplant. He doesn't want people to know about it. Several sources report it. http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090620/ap_on_hi_te/us_apple_ceo_transplant is one.

The question then becomes what is privacy and what is encyclopedic. What if someone doesn't want certain material placed. Some things are clearer, some things not. What are some guidelines or is it just consensus? User F203 (talk) 19:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a philosophical discussion, not a specific question about this article. User F203 (talk) 19:31, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it's sourced in RSes then it's not private any more, is it? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:12, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is no official policy about this sort of thing as far as I know, and per WP:Not censored there is no reason it couldn't be included. However, the kind of things people want private usually aren't notable to their careers/lives, even if reported in RS, and thus should be excluded on those grounds. For example, the fact that Jobs had a liver transplant is not relevant to his article. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. His health has a great deal of bearing on the value of his company. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:55, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia isn't a news site. If added information to famous people's articles every time they had a health problem, their articles would become overwhelmed with such information. Unless RS end up saying the transplant was a significant event in his life (doubtful), then there is no reason to have it in the article. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:13, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Jobs article currently stands as an excellent example of why this info shouldn't be allowed in such detail. Currently half of the "personal life" section is devoted to his health problems of the last ~5 years. This is very much undue weight. The relevant information (that his health has caused concern about the campany's future) can be covered without the excessive detail of listing each hospital visit/new concern separately. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:19, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest this discussion be moved to WP:BLPN. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, there is currently too much emphasis on the details of his health that aren't required. The emphasis should be on the significance of these health problems (primarily their effect on the company) with just a brief summary of the problems themselves. --Tango (talk) 03:21, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have been following and contributing to the long discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Paid_editing. Since that page is pretty much saturated and coming to an end, I decided to post this one proposal here to gague the community's views on it. Pardon me if this is out of place, but like I said, the RFC is gargantuan and an idea like this would likely get drowned out in all the cross posting.

If paid editing is allowed on Wikipedia, a "tax" on the money changing hands would serve to 1) decrease the likelihood of abuse of the system by discouraging the payment of large amounts of money to editors, 2) make it more expensive for those seeking to use paid editors, and of course, 3) generate money for the Wikimedia foundation. Individuals accepting money in exhange for their "services" in editing wikipedia will be required to pay a percentage of their fees to the Wikipedia foundation, akin to a tax. In order to make things fair and to discourage the abuse inherent in companies paying large amounts of money to certain influential editors, a progressive tax system is necessary. A proposed "tax" table on paid editors might be something like:

  • For the first $1-$250 in fees, the user pays 15% to the Wikimedia foundation,
  • For the amount between $251-500, the user must pay 18%,
  • For the amount between $501-1,000, the user must pay 20%,
  • For the amount between $1001-2,500, the user must pay 25%,
  • For the amount between $2501-5,000, the user must pay 32%,
  • For the amount between $5001-10,000, the user must pay 50%,
  • For the amount between $10,001 and above, the user must pay 75%.

This system would generate substantial revenues for Wikipedia and also would make editors a little more hestitant to engage in paid editing. Please give me some feedback as I think this idea might go somewhere. Erich Mendacio (talk) 02:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds unenforceable to me. We only know when people are being paid if they tell us. If they would be charged a "tax", they would not be inclined to be honest. That would prevent us from monitoring their edits to ensure they don't introduce a bias to articles. You also have problems with calculating the fees - what do you do with people who edit Wikipedia as part of the their job, but not exclusively? (Your proposed tax rates are also far too high. See Laffer curve - if you have too high a tax rate you get less revenue.) --Tango (talk) 02:41, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you can't get 'em for paid editing, get 'em for tax evasion --NE2 03:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it would be violation of the terms of service, but you could try! You've gottta catch 'em first, though! --Tango (talk) 03:06, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Laffer Curve is only infalliable to the likes of Alex Keaton from Family Ties. Furthermore, part of the intent of this tax system is to discourage large amounts of money being injected into the editorial process, not just to raise revenue. Erich Mendacio (talk) 02:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea who Alex Keaton is, but the basic principle behind the Laffer Curve is generally accepted. There is disagreement on where the peak is, but a 75% tax rate on anything over $10,001 (and that is on top of regular taxes) is almost certainly going to be on the right hand side of the curve. Revenues don't only reduce due to reduced productivity, they also reduce due to workers going underground, as I mentioned. --Tango (talk) 03:05, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c)A few comments. 1) I agree with Tango, this would likely have the opposite effect. Any social incentive to reveal the fact that you're editing for pay is going to be canceled out by the monetary incentive to hide the fact. 2) I also agree that its unenforceable. Real taxes work because if you don't pay them you have pay even more in fines and interest and/or go to prison. The foundation might be able to change the terms of use for the site, but IANAL, I don't know if that would hold up in court. 3) This, intentionally or not, gives the impression that people can just pay off the foundation to look the other way. Lots of people, including the media sometimes, don't know how Wikipedia really works; they see people paying money to the WMF for the ability to pay people to edit for them, it won't look good. Mr.Z-man 03:10, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't thought of (3), that's an excellent point. --Tango (talk) 03:16, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Enforcement: Enforcement of this tax system is easier that you all think, and it would still respect the anonymity and privacy of the editors who choose to accept payment for edits. This is how: All entities who wish to pay Wikipedians to edit would be required to register with the Foundation. These "payors" would be required to report how much they are paying to each Wikipedian username, and for what edits. The payors (not the editors/payees) would be required to deposit the requisite "tax" sums to the Foundation. Any entity found to be untruthful concerning their payments, not registering with the Foundation in the first place, or paying editors "under the table" would be barred from Foundation projects forever.

Placing the burden on the payors rather than the paid editors vastly simplifies enforcement of the tax, and makes it easy for Wikipedia to track which edits were "paid edits," so that the community can double check those edits for bias and non-compliance with policies. Erich Mendacio (talk) 03:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • An example: The XYZABC Corporation has an agreement with User:Tango for the user to create a stub article on "Whale Chips" for $5500 USD. The XYZABC Corporation registers its name, corporate agent, and some other minor contact information with the Wikipedia Foundation. Then the XYZABC Inc reports the terms of its agreement with User:Tango on a new page created for such public announcements, such as WP:Paid Editing Agreements/Current. The corporation, after the editor had completed his task, would forward payment of $1607.50 to the wikimedia foundation (the tax as calculated pursuant to the table above), and then pay $3892.50 ($5500-1607.50) to User:Tango in whatever manner they agree. This system keeps the editor anonymous, collects the tax cleanly, and this whole procees is open to scrutiny by the wikipedia community. Erich Mendacio (talk) 03:46, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, since no one ever allows working under the table to avoid paying taxes and such, and they would be even less likely to do so when there is no penalty of law to enforce it. Anomie⚔ 04:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Placing the burden on the payors makes it even less enforceable. If the burden is on the payee, there could be changes to the site's terms of use that would require people to pay the tax (how legally enforceable it would be is questionable, it would certainly be hard to prove cheaply, we'd have to file a lawsuit and subpoena financial records) but the terms of use are not binding on people who aren't actually using the site. Being banned from Wikipedia is hardly a punishment. If I had a choice between being banned and paying several thousand dollars, I think I'd chose the former. Especially as I know how difficult a ban is to enforce. Mr.Z-man 05:07, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The payors who didn't report their activities or pay the right amount of tax will have their registered accounts blocked. Erich Mendacio (talk) 05:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The challenge with paid editing is that by its nature, it creates a conflict of interest. While that is not automatically a bar against editing, to tax a paid editor would be tantamount to Wikipedia endorsing that conflict of interest. As a project we could hardly call ourselves neutral if we adopted such a plan. Resolute 04:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sir, I agree! Thats probably why we should keep paid editing prohibited! But my plan is a realistic way to make paid editing less prevalent and costlier IF and WHEN paid editing is allowed. A substantial number of editors and admins seem to think its right around the corner. Wikipedia would be seen as ratifying the COI even by allowing the previously-banned paid editing. But if Wikipedia reverses course and allows it, why not make it a bit more onerous and costly to engage in it while making money for the foundation at the same time? Erich Mendacio (talk) 04:54, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Legitimizing paid editing as a means of defeating it seems likely to become an idealistic failure. A tax is unenforceable, so while you propose this with good intentions, it is not likely to have a material impact. While the recent controversy has spurred a lot of discussion which I have duly ignored, I would bet it is only the tip of the iceberg. Rather than create new policies and taxes, we should trust in the existing policies. As a matter of routine, we clean up promotional edits and articles. Most people looking for a glowing Wikipedia article will discover one of two things: either there is very little interest in them, or there is enough interest that the community won't let the promotional editing stand. Either way, they are wasting their money. Let the system as it stands sort this kind of editing out. Resolute 05:07, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The tax is enforceable....just look up a few paragraphs to where it says "Enforcement." Putting the onus on the payors rather than those getting paid will eliminate most of the incentive to obfuscate the amount of payment. Erich Mendacio (talk) 05:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, you gave requirements and a punishment for not following them. The method of proving violations and actually enforcing the requirements are absent. Mr.Z-man 05:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. The only means of dealing with an editor who doesn't pay his tax is to block him. As a block will not lead to payment, a tax is unenforceable. Or do you propose the foundation sic Mike Godwin after non-payors? Resolute 05:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the editor is blocked that means his future profitability from selling his services is destroyed. An editor's weight on Wikipedia has a lot to do with reputation and past history, so an editor with a good reputation would have an incentive to play by the rules and declare his earnings accurately to avoid being blocked, and thus to continue to make money selling his edits.

However, my proposal is to make the payors have to declare the payments and pay the tax on them. This would make evasion less of an issue, since the payors would be paying the same total outlay by playing by the rules (see my example above). Erich Mendacio (talk) 05:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. This really isn't going to go anywhere. If folks would like to donate they certainly can but even editing here in the first place is a classist opportunity so those needing to work should not be compelled in any way to donate more than anyone else. Just send folks to Wikimediafoundation.org who may be interested. -- Banjeboi 06:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response. If these editors are going to use our encyclopedia to make a fast buck, they certainly be compelled to give a little back to the Wikipedia community. Editing wikpedia is certainly not a right, its a privilege, and one that can have some conditions attached. Erich Mendacio (talk) 06:24, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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