Im confused on what it means by insulting. it needs to go into more detail because posting an open insult on your own talk page is not coverd? what should i do if i find one?Hawkey131 (talk) 05:18, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Editing other author's links
In the list of acceptable edits to other's comments, there is no mention about editing external links that they have posted. Specifically, if they link to a page that has since been removed, I think it should be acceptable to alter the link to the relevant historical page on archive.org - either the actual page that is closest to the time of the original post, or the overview of the page's history. Wogone (talk) 17:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Try just replying, with a note to the changed link. About the only time it's good to edit other people's messages is when the content must be deleted due to bad content, like a blatant attack or spam, or when it should be edited for technical reasons, such as broken wiki-markup or broken HTML. When you make technical fixes, it's usually polite to put "<small>updated by ~~~ to fix whatever at ~~~~~</small>" so everyone knows it's been updated, who did it, and when. If you feel you absolutely must edit a link in place, put an "updated by/reason/time" note at the end of the original edit. By the way, ~~~ signs just your name, ~~~~~ puts just the date. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
My edits
I have been warned about my edits, because I have abused some of the Talk Page guidelines on some talk pages,and I have been warned I might be blocked if I carry on, I have read the guidelines, but I'm worried that some of my edits my offend people If there not relavent and that I might be reported or blocked and I don't want that to happen, I'm trying my best to keep my edits in talk pages relavent and I'm not sure what Is nonence at what Is'nt. Anyone got any help? Thankyou, mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Placing unsigned images that appear to be placed by another editor
I recently had a problem with two instances of editors placing unsigned images alongside my messages. It has been corrected, but it would have been corrected more easily and with greater certainty if there was a guideline to refer to. Thus, I would suggest the following change in the Talk page guidelines:
From: "Never edit someone's words to change their meaning, even on your own talk page."
To: "Never edit someone's words to change their meaning, or place an unsigned image in a way that might be attributed to another editor, even on your own talk page.
The following is an example taken from an actual case.
Here's what it looked like on the talk page (except for nowiki for the section title to avoid confusion):
== Damaged telephone service in roof knocking section ==
Palestinian discusses when would be a convenient time for his house to be bombed. PAL:"How about Friday ? We'll be out for a while" IDF:"No, we don't do Fridays mate"
Both cellular and land line telephone services were severely damaged at the onset of the Israeli campaign. It was estimated that 90 percent of both services were nonoperational, because of "frequent power cuts and the inability of technicians to reach work sites." Gaza telecommunications officials stated the territory "was close to losing contact with the rest of the world."[1][2]
Since Roof knocking uses both cellular and land line telephone services, I can see how an editor might have thought that this was relevant, but on closer inspection it is misleading. It seems that the predominant interpretation would be that the Israelis most likely didn't warn residents in advance of an attack, because 90% of the phones were down. This doesn't seem to be the case and thus the statement is a false implication.
I would suggest moving this statement out of the Roof knocking section and into another part of the article where it isn't a false implication. Any thoughts on where to move it? Thanks. -- Bob K31416 (talk) 03:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Just read source from the AZ and no where does it verify the above paragraph. Surprised no one saw that. Both articles reiterate the fact that they were "losing contact" after the conflict, not before. Hard to believe considering the amount of propaganda they've been able to ship to the UN and the world. Also, this is from both articles: "Palestinians said the Israeli military broke into broadcasts on the Hamas TV channel, Al Aqsa, appealing to Palestinians not to agree to serve as human shields for the militants. The message read, “Israel is acting only against Hamas and has no interest in harming you.” Urging Palestinians to not agree to be human shields for Hamas? ZOMG PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE!!!! : ) Wikifan12345 (talk) 03:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
And here's what it looked like on the edit page (irrelevant parts abridged to save space):
== Damaged telephone service in roof knocking section ==
[[Image:ManonPayTelephone.jpg|thumb|350px|Palestinian discusses when would be a '''convenient time''' for his house to be bombed. <br>PAL:"How about Friday ? We'll be out for a while" <br>IDF:"No, we don't do Fridays mate"]]
The following excerpt is from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict#.22Roof_Knocking.22 Roof knocking section] of the article.
<abridged part>
I would suggest moving this statement out of the Roof knocking section and into another part of the article where it isn't a false implication. Any thoughts on where to move it? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
<abridged part>
Please note that the unsigned image was alongside my message on the talk page and because it was unsigned it might be attributed to me. Also note that the editor of the message after mine, did not put the image on the Talk page. Furthermore, if someone checked on the edit page to see whose message the image was in, the image markup would have incorrectly appeared to have been from me, because it was unsigned. An editor who was offended by the image and caption would think that I put it in. Furthermore, the offended editor may not confront me, so that I could explain it, and the editor could carry hard feelings towards me, and that could affect our editing relationship. Of course, the editor could try to find the diff on the History page, and that would have cleared things up. But that could be difficult, and there wouldn't be much motivation to do that since it appeared clear, albeit incorrectly, that the image contribution on the edit page was mine.
Bob, I have no particular objection to your rule change, but I should point out again that it was completely unintentional to make it look as though you had posted it. As far as I can remember, it was posted just below the title, in order that the picture would go at the top of the section.Jandrews23jandrews23 (talk) 20:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your support. I didn't mention you in the above so as not to stir up that pot again. As far as I'm concerned, that head bumping between us is behind us, and the slate has been washed clean. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:26, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Furthermore, this proposal doesn't prevent an editor from putting this image anywhere on a talk page if it is signed, for example like this for an editor with the username 5ample
This is entirely consistent with the important principle behind the practice of signing messages on talk pages, i.e. that it should be clear who has posted a message on a talk page.
I know, very CREEPy. You want it signed use {{unsigned}}. BTW, please remove the mis-attribution of the placement of the image. I didn't place it, and it seems like I did (I didn't place it in the article talk page either).--Cerejota (talk) 05:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Please re-read what I wrote. I am quite clear that I disagree: I called it "very CREEPy". To be clear: I disagree completely, with the spirit and the letter of the proposal. I also pointed out that there is a method available to you, that doesn't require a change of the rules, and that you are free to utilize. I suggest that before you make sweeping assertions and assumptions about what other's think, you take into account what they actually said. And of course, that you do not misrepresent them. --Cerejota (talk) 13:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Just to make it clear, the guideline currently provides for this:
Unsigned comments: You are allowed to append {{unsigned}} or one of its variants to the end of someone's comment if they have failed to sign it.
I tried your suggestion in the above example. See the above. Note that it doesn't clearly identify who put the picture in. That's why this proposal is needed. OK? --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
It is not needed. All you have to do is got to the history, find who put it in, and add {{unsigned}}. We already have a rule in place that takes care of this scenario. Could someone uninvolved please close this needless waste of time? Thank you.--Cerejota (talk) 17:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Ah, that sounds encouraging. You seem to feel that the proposal is already in the guidelines, in your opinion. Correct? Actually, it does more than the present guidelines. It would clarify what is on the talk page.
The proposal says that one shouldn't "place an unsigned image in a way that might be attributed to another editor". I just showed in my previous message that just putting a signature after the image markup on the edit page isn't sufficient, didn't I?
Also, please note that readers of the talk page shouldn't have to go searching the history to find out who posted an image, any more than they should have to go searching the history to find out who posted a text message. And readers shouldn't have to go searching the edit page for that info either. It should be clearly on the talk page itself. Right? --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
No, and I won't repeat myself. You obviously misunderstand both how much wikipedia hates rules over common sense and doing something about it rather than whining about it. It is generally frowned upon to leave text unsigned, so we do it. It is not generally frowned upon to leave images unsigned. I think thats okay. You want to create more rules for a non-problem for which there are already solutions and -gasp- rules! --Cerejota (talk) 06:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Please note that making derogatory remarks about another editor is not useful, and may be interpreted by some as a sign of not having a good response to that editor's points. I note that you did not respond to any of the specific points that I made in my last message, except possibly to say "no", which isn't a satisfactory response for useful discussion. How about trying again and responding specifically to my points?
And as far as repeating yourself, you haven't responded to the following specific points from my last message,
1) "I just showed in my previous message that just putting a signature after the image markup on the edit page isn't sufficient."
2) "Also, please note that readers of the talk page shouldn't have to go searching the history to find out who posted an image, any more than they should have to go searching the history to find out who posted a text message. And readers shouldn't have to go searching the edit page for that info either. It should be clearly on the talk page itself."
Your claim that you would be repeating yourself if you responded to those specific points is only true if you choose to repeat something you wrote prior to these points that doesn't properly address these specific points. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Placing an image in someone's text is in effect editing their words by incorporating an additional element, which certainly changes their meaning, so I think it would be covered by "Never edit someone's words to change their meaning, even on your own talk page." Ty22:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Ty, Thank you for your response. Do you feel that the above example would be such a case that you mentioned, i.e. "Placing an image in someone's text is in effect editing their words by incorporating an additional element..."? Thank you. --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Editor X should not put an image into editor Y's post, as it makes it look as editor Y has put it there. A response to a post should be made below it. The image is a response to the post. In this case the image and caption seems highly inappropriate anyway, and not conducive to constructive and collegiate discourse. There seem to be some rather odd images and captions on Talk:2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. Ty00:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Ty. I had previously taken a similar case to administrators here and they found that the placing of the picture was OK. That's why I came here. I don't think it's OK at all and the Talk page guidelines should make that clear. Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Specifically, the editing of comments by another editor. I asked the behavior to stop, and pointed to this guideline. That didn't work, and we ended up in an edit war over the reversion of my comments by the other editor, which eventually resulted in an as yet unresolved WP:ANEW report. Seems like there should be a better way... comments? Dlabtot (talk) 23:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
If the editor has received the full, escalating series of tpv warnings (({{uw-tpv1}}, {{uw-tpv2}}, {{uw-tpv3}}, and {{uw-tpv4}}) and continues to refactor others' comments, the editor can be reported to WP:AIV or WP:ANI. However I would strongly recommend that you include diffs that clearly show the other editor refactoring comments, as this will make it a lot easier for an administrator to investigate the situation. --Kralizec! (talk) 02:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I didn't know about those templates... but because of WP:DTTR I don't really like using templates anyway... I don't see how templating someone like that is really any different from politely asking them not to refactor your comments, other than being more impersonal. I especially don't like leaving a template that says effectively "follow policy or you will be blocked" as my experience is that it is an idle threat. Dlabtot (talk) 02:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Personal messages are always better. That said however, the standardized templates are often good for new people who do not know that our rules prohibit the editing of others' comments. I should also add that if WP:DTTR is applicable, then you are obviously dealing with a regular, which means it is likely to be a complicated situation ... and complex issues should be reported to WP:ANI rather than WP:AIV. --Kralizec! (talk) 02:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Without knowing the specifics of your situation, I cannot say either how. However from past experience, I can say that highly complex issues are often more easily handled from WP:ANI. --Kralizec! (talk) 04:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps the information that would answer this question in general, should be put on the project page? Or maybe a link to this discussion? --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Additions to policy page for "Editing comments"
Please add the following to the policy page for section "Editing comments":
That it is allowed to provide section headers for comment/comments that do not have a header. Policy mentions about allowing to fix "formatting errors", but is leaving out a section header considered a formatting error? This is not clear on reading the policy.
If it is allowed to edit a comment to provide wiki links, then it can be added as a policy guideline. Again, providing a link to an article is not fixing a formatting error. It's not very clear if we're allowed to do that.
Copying other user's comments into secondary discussions
I'm continually finding talk comments that I make being copied and pasted into discussions on other pages, giving the impression that I had participated in the discussion on the secondary talk page (e.g. from here and to here). What is the WP policy on selectively copying (dare I say editing) other user's comments in this way in order to form or support an argument elsewhere? Thanks Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
I want to ask for outside input. I was in a discussion on my talk page with another user (see here). We were in a disagreement as to whether or not WP:REDACT disallows us from editing our own comments if someone has replied even though it is just a simple typo correction. Is it okay to correct typos in our comments even though someone has already replied? —Mythdon (talk) 04:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
That page clearly says, "Altering a comment after it has been replied to robs the reply of its original context." Correcting "their" to "there" does not change context of what I was saying. But, what you will also not find on that page you pointed to is the comment, "If someone changes their comments, revert their edits." Typos are typos, and have no bearing on the context of what it is saying. Please understand that we should follow the spirit, not the letter of the guideline. BIGNOLE (Contact me)04:56, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Anyway, it's a guideline. Asking people to obligatorily follow it to the letter is just stupid counterproductive. I redact my comments all the time (and considering the number of spelling mistakes I do, you should be glad =)). As long as the meaning doesn't change, it shouldn't be a problem. -- lucasbfrtalk07:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
User Talk pages Redirecting to User pages.
I was just checking up on some old pages when I found some edits by a user I wished to discuss further. When I went to talk to him I was baffled momentarily by ending up at his user page until I realised that he had made it redirect from User Talk:JCraw to User:JCraw. This I found out of kilter with the rest of Wikipedia as he wants queries directed to his email. I realise he didn't want personal comments directed to him but wouldn't this put veils over the normal transparency that Wikipedia has as to find any discussions that have been had with JCraw you would need to look through all of his edits to find where he has discussed and then look through the archives of everywhere to see the other side of any discussions that other users may have had (Through his edits you can only see one side) and I can't even tell if there are edits by users that he hasn't responded to. Taking it outside of Wikipedia by emailing him completely cuts off any posibility of discussions being able to be seen later which, in my opinion, just isn't right. The last edit by another user was MZMcBride who said "User talk pages enable communication among users. As such, they shouldn't redirect to user pages. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:38, 6 January 2008 (UTC)". Which means there has been no transparent discussion since early 2008; what is the agreed policy on users redirecting talk pages to user pages? I Grave Rob§talk♥stalk§03:15, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Suggested policy for not allowing user talk pages to redirect to user pages.
I believe that most users already follow this; having a talk page allows for transparent (from an outside perspective) discussion between users. Unless anyone can think of a reason that a user should be able to direct discussions with him personally over many (possibly hundreds) articles or even direct peoples queries to a completely opaque medium of discussion, Emails. I Grave Rob§talk♥stalk§06:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
I think if anyone redirects their talk to their userpage, they are requesting that the talk take place on the userpage. I can't see WHY anybody would want that, but it's a pretty clear request. Treedel (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Given the percentage of edits that are vandalism and reverts, shouldn't the guidelines be semi-protected? I assumed that the guideline pages would be semi-protected. Treedel (talk) 09:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
That 'per-user' indenting is the first time I've ever seen that style suggested for a forum or discussion group. The only antecedent I could come up with is the manuscript for a play, where it would help clarify the dialog between two characters. It isn't clear it scales well with wikipedia, where the stated goal of a talk page would be to have more than one editor. That being said, I wouldn't take anyone to task for using it, but I can see it quickly breaking down after the 3rd or 4th editor joined in. Cander0000 (talk) 03:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the response, Cander. I just find it so much easier to keep track of the discussion when the same person has the same indent all the way through, like this one. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
If someone uploads an image of pronography to the talk page asking if the image is irrelvant, and if it is, can the talk page be edited to remove the image? Thanks. Ottawa4ever (talk) 20:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
I would replace the image with a link to the image along with a note that it is potentially pornographic, so people (especially children) don't accidentally look at it. ExoKiller4 (talk) 22:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Editing archives
A recent 3RR report of Fhue (talk·contribs) led me to realize this page and Help:Archiving a talk page have no explicit guidelines about how you shouldn't edit an archive. Long story short, this user was changing the content of a thread that had already been archived from ANI, and got into a revert war over it because he believed that "there is no rule against editing archives". (Also, the ANI archives don't have the usual {{archive}} tag at the top.) Granted, anyone with half a brain should understand that you're not supposed to edit the archives, but it made me think, should a bullet point or something be added here (or at Help:Archiving a talk page) being more explicit about the fact that archives should not be edited? rʨanaɢtalk/contribs05:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Question 2
If I'm tagged "Possible scibaby sockpuppet" for some reason, does it automatically entitle other editors to delete my thread from a discussion panel? I'm writing about Climate change denial article. My thread's title is "this article could become neutral". User:KimDabelsteinPetersen and User:William M. Connolley keep deleting this comment even though I tried to make things clear on talk pages. I don't know why I'm tagged. Maybe it's because I used colons for subparagraphs to make better layout. Or maybe it's because the person above me was also tagged. Anyways, do they have the right to delete my thread? And Is it possibe for me to ever become untagged? 78.131.137.50 (talk) 23:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Whats the Deal?
It hardly seems appropriate to characterize my most recent post at vandalism. A good acrostic poem is certainly a lost art and it is understandable how a savage like you would lack the class and sophistication required to fully appreciate all of its virtues. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.122.250 (talk) 10:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
