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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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How about: Sectioning off of/possible banning of Fictional Universe articles

Information is, in general, good. But not all of it is really valuable.

And I, like many people, enjoy some computer/video games/science fiction/fantasy stories/worlds. But think about this: How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

I propose that there should be a separate "Fictional Universes" wiki. We know that games/movies like Star Wars, Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings have influenced world pop culture, and that they often have huge amounts of detail, but with the goal of Wikipedia being useful knowledge, too much information about those things begins to seem frivolous.

Put another way, I don't think Wikipedia needs to be a competitor to Gamefaqs, or starwars.com, or battle.net.

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things.

Please criticize/respond. --Zaorish 21:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I am strongly opposed to this idea. First of all, we are an encyclopedia- and, as such, we need to contain encyclopediac information. Time and the Rani is perfectly encyclopediac. Second, anything that factions Wikipedia, as a community or an encylcopedia is a very, very, bad thing. So, again, I'm strongly opposed to this idea.--Sean|Black 22:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I support the idea to move this to a separate wiki. The information should not be lost, but it would be excellent to move it elsewhere. --Improv 22:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Ummm no. Mememory alpha is worrying enough. The articles are not doing any harm and tend to be fairly accuret. As long as thier minor characters lists don't suddenly tern into lots of stubs I don't see a problem.Geni 23:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I tend to adopt a mergist approach to these -- fewer larger articels are better than more smaller articles, particualrly stubs. I especially oppose the creation of stubs for minor fictional characters, adn will merge these with the appropriate article on the larger work. But fictional works are often of significant cultural importance and there is no simple way to draw the line between thsoe that are and those that are not. I do wish WP:FICT was more rigourously followed, however. DES (talk) 23:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Where would Sherlock Holmes, Horatio Hornblower, Elizabeth Bennet, Tarzan, and Sam Spade go? Dsmdgold 23:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I hate to discount you so lightly, but this is a perennial proposal and the subject of endless contention. See Wikipedia:Fancruft for example. This isn't changing overnight, and I personally favour the status quo. My policy is, if I see a topic about a fictional entity that is too obscure, I merge it with related entities into a summary/list article such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time characters. For what it's worth, I think Sarah Kerrigan is an excellent article consolidating plot information from diverse primary sources across many games (perhaps overdoing it a bit on the links). She may not be as notable as Link or Mario, but I hate to see good content obliterated. Deco 23:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no problem with covering the subject matter of fictional characters on Wikipedia. The problem is instead how they are covered. It is mostly done with very little context—no attempt to firmly tie everything that is said to be true about the character to the works of fiction in which they are depicted. See Radioactive_Man_(Marvel_Comics) for an example of this flaw; excepting the word "fictional" in the intro sentence and the infobox details, the article is written as if the subject were real. No reference is made in the article text to a single writer, artist, or even comic book issue or title. See also the "character history" of Spider-Man, which starts with summarizing a plot about his parents having been spies that was not written until after over thirty years of publication history. These articles merely paraphrase fiction rather than describe it, and appear to be written from a fan perspective rather than a cultural historian.

Compare those with Captain Marvel, a recent featured article, or Superman. Both summarize the history of the characters in the real world, revealing the "facts" of fiction according to that framework. We need a very clear set of guidelines to make sure all articles about fictional characters are written in this manner. Postdlf 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that's a problem, but that's what {{sofixit}} is for.--Sean|Black 23:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I think both fiction-oriented and real-world-oriented presentation orders are each appropriate in different circumstances, sometimes both in one article. Summarization of the plot of a fictional work in chronological order is an integral part of many articles on books, movies, and other fictional works. On the other hand, an article should never exclusively summarize the fiction, but should also talk about the entity's history, practical aspects of its creation (e.g. influence on gameplay), and cultural impact. Deco 23:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things. Someone better tell Brittanica that their article on Hamlet ain't encyclopedic. And I can't wait for the deletion wheel war on Jesus. android79 23:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: the interest in "fiction-oriented" presentation, I think the chronology we should be most concerned with is real-world. A story written later but "taking place" earlier should be described as such, but the publication order should dictate the structure of the article; fictional canons are not our concern, but instead how the character has been used at different times. A true history of the character will only get obscured if the present bleeds into the past. Why should a recent story lead the info given about a character that has a much older body of work depicting him? Summarizing the plot in an article about a book is necessary and appropriate. But in an article about a murder mystery novel, for example, you wouldn't start the summary by describing who done it and how even though the murder is what happens first in fictional chronology, if the book reveals the murderer's identity last. The order in which things are revealed to the audience, whether within one work or across a series, is of utmost importance.
But the lack of real-world context is not only a problem of academic integrity, but an issue of copyright infringement. Both of the major comic book companies, as well as the Star Wars, Star Trek, and other sci-fi franchises have officially published numerous encyclopedia-style books about their characters and associated fictional universes. I suspect that many of the cruftiest, context-less articles are mere paraphrases of these (or of video game manuals, role-playing games, etc.). Even those that aren't are still doing more than merely reporting facts—they are simply summarizing fiction without transforming it or adding new information to it. This arguably makes these articles mere derivative works of the original fiction.
This is a systemic problem probably because the ones most driven to write about certain fictional characters are fans who are mostly concerned with "knowing" the complete and "true" story of the fictional universe. We need a guideline page (something like Wikipedia:Writing about fictional characters) that sets out the principles I've described above, with an accompanying template that will label and categorize an article about fictional characters as lacking that context (the trick is finding the right concise language). We have Template:Fiction, but it needs to be made clear that inserting a "this character is fictional" disclaimer in the introductory sentence of a ten paragraph article is not enough. I lack the time to solve this problem on my own, but I will definitely assist anyone else who wishes to contribute to solving it. Postdlf 00:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I would favor soemthing of the sort Postdif suggests here. DES (talk) 00:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
User:Uncle G/Describe this universe might be a worthwhile starting point. —Charles P. (Mirv) 14:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, the examples of good and bad writing that Uncle G used make it clear that he's getting at the same point that I am. Postdlf 15:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
We do have the ability to create interwiki links to many, many other wiki projects, like those over at Wikicities (I'd like to see these become more transparent, but excepting MΑ and Wookiepedia, there's not much completeness over there). I'd like to see some of the cruft trimmed, true (and am working on it with The Wheel of Time series), but if it helps our regular editors to do a [Star Wars]] article or three before jumping back into quantum physics, it does little harm. -- nae'blis (talk) 00:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed that this 'perennial proposal' caused so much controversy. Looking over the responses, it seems that Consolidation of those articles might be best--ie, an article about "Star Wars," then maybe an article on "Minor Star Wars Characters" and not an article about every single Jedi and their favorite ice cream flavor. In the future I'll try to generally put this into practice, by suggesting merges.

It's true, assuming Wikipedia has unlimited space, then articles about fictional universes could/should indeed be unlimited, because there is no harm in posting them. I was just taking into account the fact that Wikipedia is nonprofit and that more space/server power costs significant amounts of money.

And obviously Jesus and Sherlock Holmes are more important than something like Star Forge. Your argument, friends android and Dsmdgold, is something called reductio ad absurdum.

Postdlf: Your idea on a new fictional character template could be valuable, to put fictional concepts/characters in their cultural context before delving into obscure details.

And thank you all for your (generally) well-reasoned responses. ; 3 --Zaorish 14:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm checking back. I found this article: StarCraft Secret Missions. It's literally a /verbatim/ transcript of a few levels from a computer game. I personally would move to delete it. Any objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.216.217.174 (talk • contribs)
What an awful article. The text forgets that it's describing a video game and instead tells a story. I can't even tell who the player is supposed to be, what the player controls, what events are mere contingencies, or what events are actually experienced in game play versus read about or seen in movies. This is not an article. Postdlf 15:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose such an idea. Fictional universes are an important part of our culture. I would possibly support the merge/removal of fictional stubs, but content which can make a decent article should be kept. -- Astrokey44|talk 15:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree. Wikipedia is not paper and to make restrictions of this sort on content would, IMO, open the door for further content restrictions to the point where Wikipedia will become nothing but a bunch of articles on nuclear physics and Shakespeare (and even then, banning an article on, say Mr. Spock means you'd have to ban articles on Shakespeare's characters, right?) and that's not what this place is about. I've already seen some people grumbling about banning articles based on film and TV shows, for example. I've nothing against guidelines, but creating a separate wiki for this would be a mistake. The priority should be on improving articles if substandard ones arise. 23skidoo 15:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Two points:
    1. Wikipedia is not infinite, but we are specifically advised by WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia not to worry about space limitations. Our concern should always be only on the encyclopedic nature of the topic and the quality of the article.
    2. I think the real problem is not so much that there are all these fictional-universe articles, it's that so many Wikipedia editors lavish so much attention on them rather than the more mundane topics like "Gary, Indiana" or "Container Security Initiative". But there are many dimensions of perceived imbalance in Wikipedia, like "not enough people articles" or "too many stubs" or "not enough cleanup being done" or "too much focus on the manual of style". We must remember that the whole project operates on the assumption that a worldwide community of freelance editors will eventually get around to working on any perceived deficiencies — and do them justice as well. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
      • As a sub-point to this one, I thought I should mention that although Wikipedia's space is unlimited a lot of people still think that the effort spent on editing stuff is zero-sum - ie, that if someone spends an hour working on a Star Trek article, then that's an hour they didn't spend working on something of "real importance." I think this is not the case, personally, and eliminating the "unimportant" articles would have the opposite effect; people who come here to tinker around with Star Trek articles and every once in a while toss something useful into one of the real science articles would just leave altogether. They almost certainly wouldn't turn all the energy they spend refining articles on their favourite fictions toward topics they aren't interested in, these are all volunteers here. Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose this idea, but also empathise. I think a compromise is good. A lot of Fictional Universe articles and all their linked sub-articles have too many sub-articles. For instance, you probably don't need a sub-article for a character that appeared once on a show. Or in Stargate Atlantis, for instance, you probably don't need an article for the minor few-episodes character Bob (Wraith). So scrap the stubs and unneeded articles, but certainly keep the main bulk. Fiction like Stargate, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and so on are massive cultural influences and have shaped both our history and television/cinema's history. And to be honest, I feel that most of the articles under these are concise whilst being detailed, informative, without POV or fancruft, and ultimately also useful. -- Alfakim --  talk  16:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
This proposal is hopelessly bad, IMO. But if it does make any progress towards being implemented, by some chance, I insist that we also include sports-related articles under its umbrella. There are thousands of articles in Wikipedia about trivial unimportant sportsmen who play trivial unimportant games that have nothing to do with curing cancer or military battles or whatever it is that're supposed to be "serious" subjects. Since I have no interest in sport, there's obviously no value in having articles about it and it's just a waste of everyone's time writing them. (The preceeding opinion is only a semi-parody :) Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. Templates are always a good idea, though. --Happylobster 18:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, deja vu all over again.  :) I well remember the contretemps at Talk:Mithril, lo these over three years ago.  :) User:Zoe|(talk) 19:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Ultra-extreme oppose This is an incredably bad idea. Here is why:
    • Some articles provide practical information, like where to watch TV shows, or backround info to unconfuse new fans. An example of this is: List of Stargate SG-1 episodes
    • Many fictional articles are about classics and are naturaly part of history.
    • Many are so largely know, like Harry Potter that it would be stupid not to have an article on them.
    • Fictional articles on video games act as a guide for players to do better in the game.
    • The whole reason I contribute to wikipedia is that wikipedias vision is having all of humankinds knowlage in one place is an achiveable goal, which I try to work towards. If we start exporting info, this goal will be lost, and many users who follow this vision will stop contributing. Tobyk777 01:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I disagree with the idea that we should delete articles on fictional places / concepts / characters &c. I do however agree that it should be clear in the opening paragraph that the subject is fictional and what particular fictional universe it relates to. As for having lots of stub articles, surely this was why the Wikipedia:Fiction guideline was written? -- Lochaber 15:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I generally agree with what User:Sean Black said above. Articles on fiction need to be presented in that context. They exist in a fictional universe but were created by someone real and the article needs to convey that connection to reality. These fiction articles on popular culture draw in a lot of potential editors who can (theoretically) practice their wiki-skills on these and satisfy their fanboy urges before moving on to real-world articles. Also, as User:Nae'blis mentioned above there are wikis dedicated to each show, like http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page Wookieepedia and StargateWiki. --maclean25 05:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

As part of this (perennial) discussion, I'd just like to briefly discuss a retort to the classic Wikipedia is Not Paper argument. It is true that we have an unlimited capacity for topics, and I frankly don't buy the "articles use resources" argument (the total sum of all articles ever deleted is unlikely to exceed a few megabytes in disk space and network bandwidth). However, topics on obscure fictional entities can be disruptive for several reasons:

  • Each article must independently establish the context of the universe, leading to a great deal of redundant content which is difficult to maintain.
  • These articles can be very difficult to expand. In the real world we can always derive new information about real people, places, and things. In fiction, we know only what the creator tells us; if a character appears in only one chapter of a book, it's quite unlikely that after proper summarization we'll be able to say more than a paragraph about the character, ever. Articles this short are not particularly useful, spending more time establishing context than describing the subject.
  • Attempting to learn about the universe as a whole involves a difficult, unorganized navigation between many small articles, each different in its style and assumptions, that can frustrate readers.

This is why I recommend that groups of related articles about obscure fictional entities be merged into a single summary or list article, or into a "parent" article: the context need only be established once, all together they have enough detail to fill out an article, relationships can be established between entities by direct reference instead of cumbersome links, and the order of presentation can be controlled for maximum brevity and clarity. In fact, I recommend this approach for any group of strongly related small articles - if one of them later outgrows the list article, it can easily be moved back out, as occurred for example with Agahnim. Deco 05:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of using sub-pages, e.g., Stargate/Daniel Jackson instead of Daniel Jackson, and having big colorful templates at the top of all the fiction-based articles clearly indicating that they are fiction-based with the name of the source work (book, show, etc.) and genre, to aid the many clueless wikisurfers out there. James S. 10:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Subpages in the main namespace were deprecated long ago, and with good cause. Should Daniel Jackson be a subpage of Stargate, or a subpage of Fictional character, or a subpage of Michael Shanks? As a subpage it can only be under one of these, and I hate to imagine the many pointless and time-consuming arguments all over Wikipedia about which articles should be subpages of which other articles. This is the sort of thing that categories are for instead. Bryan 20:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose: I've heard this argument many times and I always have a few unanswered questions.
    • I never understand why people want to move this information to other wikis. Why not have it here? It still uses 'resources' if it is hosted on a separate wiki. Considering how articles should have their sources cited, most of the information that is available on Wikipedia is indeed available elsewhere. Instead of having a (mostly) pointless article about Still Sick... Urine Trouble (which was the first article forthcoming from the Random Article link), why not just tell our browsers to go to another site? Is that not what hosting on another wiki would do? I thought that one of the goals of Wikipedia was to consolidate knowledge so that people do not have to search around on multiple websites.
    • If you do move such information to another wiki, what's to stop users from recreating the articles? Would a "crime" that be treated as innocent ignorance (we do, after all, encourage new users to try the wiki out) or as something more serious, like vandalism? I'm sure those editors will want to return after they receive a friendly warning not to edit "like that" again.
    • As well, I've never understood why fictional information is targeted. Why not also move everything that is mathematical to another math-related wiki, as Bryan has said? Or sports? Where do we stop? Where do we draw the line? Before we can decide exactly what constitutes "irrelevant and over-obsessive fancruft" and what is "actual fact belonging in an encyclopedia", we should not remove anything.
    • I’m also worried about estranging users by moving/removing information. Certainly there are those who only contribute to fiction-based articles such as these, but others help out in other areas as well. I'm proof of that, for I've touched up a Jedi article or two while also restructuring the ringette article at the same time (not yet done, btw). What message are we sending to potential editors if the "global encyclopedia" does not allow information of one of their many preferred subjects?
    • However, I do have to agree with what others have said before me about quality. There are certainly articles that are unwikied, unclear and unintelligent. Every article that fits that description should be deleted. Some articles do not have enough information to justify their existence and that is the nature of fiction: we can only document what the creator gives us. I still would like to see articles of high quality created and maintained, and some of these fiction-based stubs have merit. While a few/some/most articles should definitely be merged and combined, others have potential and should be expanded upon, not banned. Maybe we cansystematically check every What Links Here section as potential critera for what can be merged? Take the HoloNet article, for example (a Star Wars one; I followed links for a stub, trolling for an example to use here). I initially thought that it could be merged into a larger article, but with twelve "real" (i.e. non-user) articles citing it, I don't think that moving it/removing it would be a simple task, especially if you consider all the articles that a major sweep would entail.
    • In short, I don't see the point of moving/removing articles resulting from fictional universes. Moving them still uses resources, while removing them detracts from Wikipedia's main goals. Both need clear and precise guidelines; else, everything will eventually be sectioned off into other wikis or even deleted entirely. And both moving to another wiki or deletion will alienate editors who bear knowledge; a precious commodity. I vote that we keep all articles derived from fictional universes. –Aeolien 04:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Seriously Very Strongly Absolutely Agree and am Willing to Killl People to Make it Happen. I say we get rid of all the fictitious crap in Wikipedia. Dumb fictitious stories and twerps who write nothing but crap they make up, based only some-what on the truth. Who needs any of it? I know I could've done without it during my life-time... *ahem* Sorry, the urge to comment was overwhelming. Heavy dose of sarcasm. 203.173.22.63 08:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose: Many have rebutted the motion in general terms, Let me answer the direct question asked by the original poster of this topic.
How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?
    • When I hear or read one of these terms and I have no idea what it is, so I look them up in wikipedia. It tells me first off that they are Fictional devices or characters. The some basics about them so I can understand the reference to the character location or item without having read the original fiction. If I am then interested in this particular fiction it then gives me the reference (i.e. the original books/games/movies/etc) where I can see/learn experinece more about this fictional item/character and/or location.
    • It is true that anyone particular article on a fictional thing is not likely to be relevent to any particular person. But by the same token almost all articles on fictional things will be relevant to some person at some point when they come across something which they may or may not realise is a reference to a fictional thing.
Waza 04:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This is the worst idea ever strongly oppose -- Truth is, we don't even know if Moses is real -- should we get rid of the article? After all, he's probably just a character in some really old book. What about god? Just because these ideas may be fictional doesn't mean they shouldn't be included. Same goes for all of these other notable works of fiction as well -- I love that Wikipedia has an article on chewbacca and pikachu. -Quasipalm 04:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY OPPOSE for reasons stated above. The Wookieepedian 01:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY AGREE I have seen poets, authors, socially relevant people, events and historical articles, all deleted in this Wikipedia, all while Pokemon and other such articles survive? No doubt Pokemon (and Star Wars) are of interest to people, but you have to wonder what their roll is here. Take Star Wars for example, Star Wars was socially significant in the 70’s, 80’s and made a comeback in the 90’s. But in the big picture of humanity (and Wikipedia), it merits recognition in its proper context. It does not merit having every bit of its minutia trivia recorded here, and there has to be some limit. A separate Wikipedia (with reasonable policies) for subjects like this would enable those interested in recording the minutia of perhaps socially interesting but not socially significant things would have that forum. When Pokemon is displacing real life people and events, our priorities have become skewed. (Incidentally, I LOVE LOTR, however would count it in the same category as Star Wars. Interesting, worthy of note perhaps, but should not consume, monopolize or displace more relevant articles. LinuxDude 08:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY GROK like I get really tired of seeing the fictional stuff when I plunk Random Article, and I would LOVE to have a choice, a check box, where I could tune my Randoms (this idea could be expanded further) ... And would anybody really mind having a different color background on ALL of the fictional stuff? (let's argue about the color for a few weeks, but would you believe "#CCFFFF" light cyan? ;Bear 02:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I agree in principle with the concept of readily identifying articles about fictional things, this is a slippery slope because there will then be lots of argument over what is fictional. This will include almost all religious articles. And where does a technical article about, say, a fictional film film go? (BTW1, I think the fictional artciles should be in the main wiki, but fewer larger ones is best.) -- SGBailey 08:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Wait a minute, I sort of get what you're saying, Bear, but what's that grok word mean? I know, I'll look it up on the Wikipedia. Hmmm, "...was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is part of the fictional Martian language..." Oops, it's about fiction. I better go and nominate it for deletion now. Anville 15:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
A word can be sourced from fiction and yet become part of real-life usage. Grok is one such, muggle another. (If you don't consider muggle to be a valid word as you consider wizrads to be fictional, then try Geo-muggle which relates to Geocaching. -- SGBailey 08:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Conditionally Oppose: I see Zaorish's point, however the hundreds of hours already put into such articles would seriously discourage those people to come back and contribute elsewhere. I agree however that these articles need to be tightened. Stubs should be avoided and, when found, quickly merged with the appropriate main or more substansive article. Lady Aleena | Talk 09:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Meh-style conditional support. Yes, the argument to compile all human knowledge at Wikipedia is a good one, but a list of every television episode of shows like Dilbert and Stargate SG-1 isn't helpful to achieving this goal. Maybe start another Wiki, call it something like "WikiSeries," and transwiki all of those articles there. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule (Memory Alpha being a good example) where the wiki's contents make it near manditory to keep lists of that sort of thing, and synopses and all that, but Wikipedia should not be TV Guide. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 04:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


Oppose The effects fiction has on reality has been well documented such as Star Trek communicators, making way for the cell phones. --Masssiveego 18:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree A project such as Wikiseries exists. It focus only on TV series. I think it's a good idea to have a short article on Wikipedia, and an interwiki link on a more specialized Wiki such as http://www.wikiseries.org (build by a TV series fan, only a french speaking version). This TV wiki needs some help yet. Anonymous guy 14:00 GMT+1 2 February 2006.

Oppose According to the sister wiki Wiktionary, an encyclopedia is supposed to be comprehensive[[1]]. That means everything is fair game. Part of the allure of Wikipedia is that you can theoretically enter just about anything and find something on the topic...and if not, you can write about it! Applejuicefool 22:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Many people spent hours of work only to create articles about ficitonal people, technology, episodes of a series, etc. If we would get rid of them, many people would be angry for doing so much work for nothing. Also I think as an encyclopedia Wikipedia doesn't have any borders about which should be added or not. And as mentioned above what is fictional and what not. The borders are too fuzzy. Diabound00 16:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongly oppose this idea. Fictional universes doesn't mean that they're unencyclopedic. If one is against the creation of an article, a compromise definitely could be reached. As of writing there's nothing wrong with the inclusion of the above mentioned universes. --Andylkl [ talk! | c ] 10:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongly oppose again for reasons that have already been cited. Wikipedia is unique as an encyclopedia that can truly be kept completely updated through collaboration from users worldwide. There is now harm in having fictional characters listed here because most people will be searching for specific articles anyway and so will not ordinarily encounter them unless they are looking for them. I agree however that there needs to be proper NPOV maintained to avoid fans from changing these articles into little more than resounding endorsements of their favourite shows/books etc.! Chrisblore 23:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. While I largely detest articles that treat fictional characters or objects as real, and while some of these articles are often subject to a lot of POV by fans, many are still of good quality and are well-researched. Perhaps the articles in question could do with a quick NPOV lookover from time to time from neutral editors, as long as those doing the checking are aware that they are likely to get quite knocked around by the fanboys doing regular edits on these articles and who won't take any criticism of their favorite character :-) Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs Germany 09:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongest possible oppose. Wikipedia is not paper. There's no reason to fork our content or delete articles about fictional things as long as those fictional things are named as such early in the article. The best reason I've seen for putting the brakes on fiction is that someone clicking on "random article" may get the wrong idea when all they get are articles on Pokemon. But that's not a compelling argument in my opinion. Let the fans have their fun, too. — BrianSmithson 18:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles on fictional subjects seem to make up about 2.5% of Wikipedia, with the articles split about evenly between biographies of fictional characters, and articles about other fictional subjects. --Carnildo 06:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Per all the above reasons, although we do need more uniform rules about what constitutes cruft. JoshuaZ 22:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

OPPOSE: This is a bad idea. Wikipedia is a great resource for "fictonal universes" and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be. We would lose thousands of editors if we banned such articles. I think Wikipedia should cover the full spectrum of human knowledge because that's one of Wikipedia's strengths! You can find information about virtually everything here. SpNeo 14:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, but I completely understand and have major concerns with the present order. I do believe that we should include as much (accurate and sourced) information on the WP as possible, and I don't believe it hurts anything to include these articles. My concern is that, first, we promote bias by covering certain issues in a deeper, better way than others. I think it's great that The Secret of NIMH has a good, long article; I just find it difficult to believe that it is more worthy than the National Institute of Mental Health (the real NIMH) itself. Second, I think that deleting articles because of concerns with notability is one of the really unfair aspects of the way Wikipedia is handled. It's baffling to me to see real people's articles deleted because of notability issues when, say, Greedo gets to keep his article. So I don't like some of the issues surrounding this, but I do think the articles should stay, so oppose. Freddie deBoer 05:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Eliminating these entries would make sense only if they were crowding out more serious articles, but that would only be the case if Wikipedia's resources and file space were strictly limited. Effectively, they are not. RGTraynor 19:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Add them to the notability guideline I agree with Postdlf who said articles in question" appear to be written from a fan perspective rather than a cultural historian." (BTW- Why doesn't this make them POV?) In any case, why not just make a guideline that individual details and characters are non-notable unless there is a body of knowledge about them (similarly to bands). Then they would be on-topic for discussion on a notable game's page, but not on their own. Of course, you'd have to cash out body of knowledge, but it works for bands, why not for game characters and bit parts in TV shows? Even if it wasn't perfect it would improve the current state of affairs.

Gaming the system?? - Vandalism by registered users

I am not able to find the exact links right now, but admins are advised against blocking registered users if some of the edits are vandalism and some are genuine. However, I believe that some people are gaming the system. In the last 2 days, I have come across a couple of users whose first edits are genuine. Later, one of them started adding fake porn pics of Indian actresses to several articles and was blocked temporarily. Another user has been re-creating articles that have been speedily deleted and has been committing large scale vandalism to unrelated articles by attacking Tony Blair. I believe that such users should be blocked after being warned, despite their previous edits being genuine, especially since they seem to know the system and hence, game it. --Gurubrahma 17:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I have seen this too. Another technique I have noticed of late is registered users who "sandwich" vandalism edits in-between legitimate edits to the same article, often minor ones. For instance, they will fix some wording in one section of the article, add a vandalism to another, then fix a punctuation error back in the first place. If you're just watching diffs and not using the complete edit history, you will miss the vandalism completely. I'd recommend that anyone who's in the habit of checking last-edit in their watchlist start checking history instead. --TreyHarris 17:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Some people treat really good editors who get into edit wars worse than that. My policy is that I will warn and if you're not listening then you're banned. — Ilyanep (Talk) 21:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


User's 'personal vision' regarding Wikipedia

I am concerned about the intention of User:Azamat_Abdoullaev to contribute to Wikipedia in the spirt of its principles, particularly NPOV and no original research and wonder whether policies should be discussed with the user. On the user's page, among other things, the following is stated:

  • Being a comprehensive directory of world things, the USECS may serve as the skeleton construction for all sorts of general encyclopedias as Wikipedia or Britannica.
  • My vision of Wikipedia is a rationally (ontologically) structured open eclectic system of world knowledge proportionally presenting all significant ideas, perspectives and systems of human learning.

USECS is claimed as the user's creation. Pages about the user Azamat_Abdoullaev and USECS have been nominated as AfD (as well as original research in the case of the latter). The user has made changes to quantity and cites 2. Quantity Classification, USECS (Universal Standard Entity Classification Systems), which is a system the user claims to have created (see user page), with a link [2] to what is apparently the user's commercial page. Besides whether it is commercially motivated, the link has no clear relevance. User:Azamat_Abdoullaev has also attempted to make sweeping changes to ontology which were reverted. In attempting to make these changes, the same link [3] was again included. Some of the changes to quantity have value in my view, don't get me wrong. However, that the user claims: "USECS may serve as the skeleton construction for all sorts of general encyclopedias as Wikipedia or Britannica" sets alarm bells ringing for me. Should this be referred for proper discussion in the context of Wikipedia official policies? Cheers. Holon 06:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

They might just be speaking figuratively, but Wikipedia is not an ontology. No original research is the main policy that applies here. Other than that, just keep an eye on them - I don't think we should be blocking anybody as long as they have a chance of turning themselves around. Deco 06:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Data and tables

At the moment I am looking for the specific sizes of standard structural steel, there are many handbooks on the subject but I don't have one at the moment.

It occurs to me that there are many such standard raw sizes, math formulas, traditional medicinal formulas, and I suppose endless other sets of facts that it would be very useful to have a single source regardless of the nature of the facts.

I am aware that some published tables have copyright issues, but many are identacle data so the copyright holding is shaky at best. Many tables etc are math or historical basis that time has not changed.

I cannot think that I am the first to think of this, but cannot find anything in steel that fits what I am looking for, so perhaps a more general tables and data search term might be a path to such info.

Also much of the copyrighted info in such tables is more for protection of outright copy by competitors, and the donation of the tables to Wiki would cite them as the source so be a kind of advertizing as the place for standards, and incourage them to publish their tables. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragonwlkr (talk • contribs)

I don't think tables e.g., from AISC Manual of Steel Construction, ISBN 1564240002, belong in Wikipedia, but WP:NOT seems unclear on this matter. "Complete copies of primary sources (but not mathematical tables, astronomical tables, or source code) should go into Wikisource." It would seem to not be in the spirit of Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources. Abramowitz and Stegun is public domain but not incorporated into Wikipedia. Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Marina District, San Francisco, California and WP:3RR

In reverting a clearly POV, unencylopedia essay on stereotypes associated with this neighborhood [4], I find myself flirting with the 3RR threshold on this article. My question is this; I know that 3RR does not apply to vandalism reverts. Does it still apply to reverts of obvious violations of POV, etc? There have already been several different anon IPs that have reverted the decidedly unencyclopedia/attack section of the aformentioned article, and I predict that it will soon be reverted again. So what can I do the next time this needs to be reverted? Would I need to file an RfC to avoid the 3RR rule? OhNoitsJamieTalk 22:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

There's no exception for "obvious violations of POV, etc." because that is a loophole through which one could drive a truck cargo plane. A big cargo plane. If you find yourself in this sort of situation it's best to call for reinforcements (the admin noticeboard is a popular place to do this). If the material is really that bad, as the stuff you've been reverting is, then help—additional people to revert, an administrator to protect, or (hah!) a cool-headed editor who can discuss things calmly and/or edit the material into respectable shape—will usually be forthcoming. —Charles P._(Mirv) 00:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Great suggestions (and points)....I wasn't sure if this sort of thing was appropriate for the admin noticeboard, but now I know. Regarding the last point about editing the material into respectable shape...I'm not sure if there is anything salvageable from the essay (while it's reasonably well-written and probably entertaining to some folks who live in that area, it's not much more than a scathing critique). OhNoitsJamieTalk 01:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if there is anything salvageable from the essay—neither am I, hence the "hah!". :) Covering stereotypes in proper encyclopedic fashion is difficult, especially in the case of highly-localized stereotypes like this one. (Reliable sources for widespread and pervasive stereotypes, OTOH, are a bit easier to find [5].) —Charles P._(Mirv) 01:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Reverting anonymous users with changing IP addresses

I believe I read somewhere that it is acceptable to revert an edit mmore than 3 times if the user is evading a block. Is that true? We have a problem with a persistant vandal/troll at Gorilla who's IP address changes every few minutes, so even though his previous IP address was blocked for 24 hours he can continue to cause trouble. --Martyman-(talk) 23:56, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

In this case, there may well be more than one (anonymous) individuals reverting the article. It's likely that someone recently posted a message on a blog or webforum saying, "those jerks are trying to remove that funny Marina Girl section from Wikipedia!" The "Marina Girl" section certainly has it's fans, but those fans don't seem to care that it's entirely unencyclopedic. OhNoitsJamieTalk 00:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, according to Wikipedia:Three-revert rule this does not apply to reverting simple vandalism or "banned users" (no mention of blocked users). I am still not sure if it is valid in this case where many of the edits the user is making are personal attacks (leading to them being blocked) but the ones on the aritcle page are not overtly outright vandalism. Any suggestions. --Martyman-(talk) 00:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Maybe just ask to sprotect the article for a while? abakharev 01:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Relax

My theory is that it's never necessary for me to revert an article more than once. If the article is vandalized, skewed, or biased; or bad content is otherwise restored then somebody else will fix it -- if I'm the only editor who thinks it's a problem, maybe it's not. John Reid 23:08, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

new policy Wikipedia:Censorship

I have proposed a new policy at Wikipedia:Censorship. I want to get this solved once and for all. Gerard Foley 16:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


Admins yanking {{afd}} tags before discussion begins; is this legit?

Earlier this evening, Werdna648 attempted to nominate Criticism of Wikipedia for an AfD. This article has been nominated four times before, and Werdna648 apparently was unaware that as a result, he needed to use the {{afdx}} tag instead of {{afd1}}. As a result, the tag linked to this closed two-month-old AfD, and it was this closed debate that he mistakenly added to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_February_20. I went in and rm'ed that, but when I went over to the Criticism of Wikipedia article to see who'd made this mistake (with the intention of helping to set it up as a proper fifth nomination), I discovered that SlimVirgin had simply yanked the {{afd1}} tag less than ten minutes after Werdna648 had added it, and proceeded to edit the page as if it had never been nominated. So I have three questions: Is this legit? And if so, what policy am I unaware of here? And regardless, shouldn't SlimVirgin, as an admin, at least have gone over to today's AfD log and dealt with the AfD discussion accordingly? --Aaron 07:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Well I think a fifth nomination in just over two months is highly disruptive behaviour, so yes, SlimVirgin was quite within her rights to remove the afd tag. In any case, she was perfectly entitled to edit the article whether it was on AfD or not. Physchim62 (talk) 08:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
I did not question her right to edit an article that is currently the subject of an AfD debate. --Aaron 08:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
These two old policy discussions show the strength of feeling that repeated nomination of articles in a short time period is generally a Bad Thing [6], [7]. Physchim62 (talk) 08:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, those make sense. Thanks, Physchim62. --Aaron 17:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Primary, secondary and partisan sources and anarchism

At Talk:Anarchism there is a discussion regarding whether the Anarchist FAQ hosted by infoshop.org is a primary or secondary source, is a partisan source and is a reliable source to support the argument [that opponents of anarcho-capitalism think] "that the relationship between workers and employers is a form of authority" and "that such relationships are not fully consensual, but coercive in nature (for example wage slavery) and that it is essential to anarchism for them to be abolished."

People with a good grasp of sourcing are especially welcome to help pick a path through this issue, but all comments are warmly welcomed to build consensus on the application of WP:V and WP:RS. Steve block talk 22:35, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally speaking, sources don't have to be either correct, reliable, or even unbiased, as long as they are cited in a way that does not present them as possessing these qualities. For example: "The National Enquirer, a periodical known for its outrageous fabricated articles, claimed that the baby was a space alien." Reliable sources are usually more useful though. Deco 00:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Users outside the USA will not realize what American supermarket tabloids are like, so it would be highly misleading to cite one of these as a relaible source. Rjensen 01:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
My point exactly. If a source is unreliable, cite is as an unreliable source, such as in my example above (assuming of course that it's still somehow useful). Deco 02:37, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Dab citations

IDB is a long list of many terms that share this acronym. Most are redlinked (which I suppose is another topic). One of these is perhaps a bit too tasteless to share here; those who want to can go look. (That's also another topic; it doesn't affect my point).

This particular elaboration of the acronym gave credit, if you will, to Tweak3d. I rm that credit as it seemed self-serving and perhaps simply untrue -- who can say? Lo, the credit has returned, along with the citation I demanded. The wiki markup is defective but if you copy it out it does point to a fair source.

My question has nothing to do with the question of whether the term should be included in the list, whether Tweak3d is truly responsible for it, or if the source is reliable. Let's assume all that.

Question: Where should such credits -- and the citations that back them up -- go? I don't think the list is the right place for it. John Reid 09:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

If it is not a neologism, it's still no more than a dicdef, and belongs in Wiktionary, if any where at all. I would say remove it from Wikipedia and let the Wiktionary people decide if they want it. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk)
If it isn't even mentioned on the page to which it is supposedly disambiguating, how exactly is it helping the user? If this is important information it should be on the target page, not just on the disambiguation page. In this case it might even make more sense to disambiguate to the Tweak3d. (And all those redlinks should be tossed.) Ewlyahoocom 13:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
If there isn't an article on the term, it probably isn't necessary to include it on the disambig page (with some exceptions). If there is an article, put the citation there. Superm401 - Talk 03:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Userspace templates

Is there a policy about articles in the main namespace using templates from userspace? Specifically I'm looking at User:Thelb4/doctor-serials-cat. --Pascal666 08:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about any policy, but it's obvious they shouldn't. Simply move the template to the Template namespace and edit the places where it's transcluded to point to the new location. --cesarb 14:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
It's a cross-namespace link, and therefore unacceptable. Superm401 - Talk 03:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Succession Boxes

Question: Is it Wikipedia policy for seccession boxes to be at the bottom of a page. Every one I've ever seen was at the bottom. However, I have recently encounted a user [8] who insists on putting them in the middle of the article. I disagree with this practice, since it breaks up the article and is inconsistent with 99% of other articles. Comments on this would be appreciated. --JW1805 (Talk) 03:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one thinking "What the hell is a seccession box?" Deco 04:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
It's the thing at the bottom of articles about office-holders that has "Preceded by", "Succeeded by". They can be simple, like at Simon Snyder, or monstrously complex, like at Neville Chamberlain --JW1805 (Talk) 04:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Ohh, a succession box. Gotcha. Well, by convention they're at the bottom, yes. I'd be quite surprised to see them at the top. Deco 04:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
    • It's generally spelled "succession box." I am the "user" referenced above and I try to place them at the end of the verbal portion of the article, where it it breaks up nothing, but before other references, tables, and templates. It is there because that is near the portion of the article which it is intended to illustrate, and because it would be completely lost at the bottom of the page where it would not help the reader at all. This is no different visually and organizationally than placing an image at a particular place. Graphics should go where they make the most sense to understanding the content of the article and where they work the best visually. Doing anything "because its always been done that way," is the worst possible reason. stilltim 04:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
      • This doesn't seem like a terrible idea, but I would seek consensus for it. If you do end up doing it, make sure you do it everywhere - inconsistency is worse than either approach by itself. You might start at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Deco 04:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't think the reason is "because its always been done that way". Some articles have several templates and extremely long succession boxes. Putting them all in the middle is just not practical. Putting some in the middle and some at the bottom is just not consistent. Having succession boxes at the bottom of every office holder article except for those from Delaware makes the least sense of all. Templates are not part of the text of an article. References and See Also sections are. The article shouldn't be broken up by potentially large templates. --JW1805 (Talk) 21:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think the boxes don't fit in the regular flow of the article -- our tradition of putting them at the end facilitates easy movement from one person to their predecessor/successor. I would not recommend putting them in the middle of content. --Improv 13:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
IMO since they contain, in effect, very little information about the subject of the article they belong at the verymost bottom, where they offer the least disruption (and when the reader has gotten there, perhaps the most interest). I find them very helpful, at the bottom of a page. Wyss 03:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:GURU

Another new one. Figure i'd put a link here. Karmafist 06:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


WP:ENJOY

--Sean Black (talk) 05:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyrights

Regarding Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works (and, indirectly, WP:EL#Maybe OK to add), would a site with one alleged copyright infringing download (out of hundreds of other seemingly legitimate/legal downloads) disqualify a site from being linked to? (Note that the link would be to the main page of the site; the page with the allegedly copyright infringing download is a subpage out of hundreds of other subpages). —Locke Cole • t • c 01:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Publication and Visual Art

I have read in WP:PD#Published_vs._unpublished_works that “It is unclear how to interpret the Berne Convention's phrasing on art exhibitions and building construction. How else could one "publish" such works if not by exhibiting or building them?” Dose this mean that users at Wikipedia can assume such a work to be published on completion?

I have recently noticed this image tag:

Is this tag only applicable when an image has been made available in some mass format (such as a book or magazine) before 1923? Justin Foote 21:47, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Here is my understanding under U.S. law:
  1. Architecture. Photographs of buildings may be taken without permission; the architect's copyright only prevents people from copying the building plans themselves, or building another building like it from those plans. So publication is irrelevant unless you're looking to make your own building...
  2. Art. Public exhibition alone is not enough to count as a "publication," but paintings are rarely exhibited without also being reproduced in photographs in accompanying catalogs, press reports, etc. Even 19th century paintings were typically reproduced for a consumer market in engravings. If copies have been distributed to the public, or an offer has been made to the public to make copies (as in a photographer soliciting sales of prints made on demand), it has been "published." If it stayed in the painter's studio his whole life, it wasn't published.
  3. Unpublished works. Any unpublished work by an artist who died more than 70 years ago is in the public domain. If the artist was anonymous, the work was done for hire (corporate authorship), or the date of death of the artist is unknown, then it is in the public domain if created prior to 1886.
I don't know how the Berne Convention differs from these provisions, if at all. Postdlf 23:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
In any case, the Berne Convention is not directly enforceable in the United States (Section 2, Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988). Physchim62 (talk) 08:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

AOL range blocks of almost 2 hours?

applied to anyone who complains about their ip range being blindly blocked for 75 minutes?--205.188.117.10 19:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:3D Illustrations

Subject proposed guideline has been under discussion for some time (with wide notice having been given here, and on many related articles and editor talk pages in late January) and seems to have general consensus as being suitable among almost all editors involved. The recommendations discussed on the talk page have been carried out with respect to the images in question. Therefore, in accordance with Wikipedia:How to create policy, I have moved it from a proposed guideline to a guideline. Comments of course are still welcome. ++Lar: t/c 22:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


Blind reverting of I.P. address edits

I have recently come across a couple of cases where a non-registered user made some useful edits, and was immediately reverted because he shared the same I.P. as a user who has caused trouble in the past. The two specific cases were by User:70.231.178.156 and User:68.122.119.128. User:70.231.178.156 correctly categorized some uncotegorized categories, but was reverted, I then restored the categorizations. User:68.122.119.128 also attempted to do some categorizing, but was reverted. In this case the categories in question were categorized under Category:Wikipedians by stuff which is being emptied, but I still believe User:68.122.119.128 acted in good faith.

We need to stop blindly reverting these edits. Check what they changed first. If it's vandalism, then revert, but keep the good edits. CG janitor 06:45, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps Template:Sharedip or Template:ISP would help? --Pascal666 09:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
If the person reverting the edits can't be bothered to check what changes were made, I don't think they'll look at the user page to see those templates. CG janitor 16:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

How is categorizing wikipedians by sexuality helpful?

How does "Category:Wikipedians by sexuality" make any sense as a positive thing rather than a net negative thing in terms of writing an encyclopedia. Sexuality is positive. But we are here to create an encyclopedia. Provide a link to anywhere else and deal with nonencyclopedic good stuff there. WAS 4.250 04:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Secret of Wikipedia #4: Half of all Wikipedia users want it to be a blog. Their blog. Wyss 04:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Look and listen. That's why.  ;-) Just stay out of any namespace that you dislike. Use the WP for your own enjoyment and don't let the rest bother you. You can't control nearly one million registered users so, if you want to sleep at night then carve your own comfortable place here and enjoy! hydnjo talk 04:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not an anarchy. If you don't like that, don't come here. --Improv 06:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
As surprizing as you might find it, complex analysis of wikipedia - it's philosophy, and in practice, wikipedia is a sort of anarchy. I am not saying I support it or condemn it but it's just the way it is. --UVnet 15:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed wheel warring policy

The Proposed wheel warring policy is currently undergoing a straw poll, please read over the proposals and leave comments there, not here. The poll will last one week. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Verifiable Resources for Unsigned Artists

I need some help when it comes to reliable resources for writing about unsigned musicians. I an in the process of collecting info about local musicians here in Jackson, Wyoming, so that they can be posted here.

In the Jackson area, not enough verifiable resources exists. We only have a few newspapers, and maybee a few websites that we are on. Please tell me if these are reliable resources for writing Wikipedia articles:

  • The DJ List
  • Myspace
  • Soundpost
  • Jackson Hole News and Guide
  • Planet Jackson Hole

Thank you so much.

What are all of these sources? I know what Myspace is – it's definitely not a reliable source – but I have no clue about the others. Unsigned musicians are going to have a tough time meeting any of the generally-accepted criteria for inclusion for musicians. android79 23:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


As mentioned above, WP:MUSIC is the stick we use to measure bands, and the ones that usually apply to indie bands are
  1. Has released two or more albums on a major label or one of the more important indie labels (i.e. an independent label with a history of more than a few years and a roster of performers, many of which are notable).
  2. Has been prominently featured in any major music media.
  3. Contains at least one member who was once a part of or later joined a band that is otherwise extremely notable; note that it is often most appropriate to use redirects in place of articles on side projects, early bands and such.
Besides that, there's also the criterion of "national tour." If you went on an interstate tour (usually about 4 or more, but that's open to interpretation) in the US, that (to most) constitutes notability. A lot of bands wind up as speedy deletes and on Articles for Deletion, so be sure to reference the important points when you create articles. RasputinAXP talk contribs 23:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The key for any non noteable wishing to become noteable is do whatever it takes to get press coverage. Once you are infamous, your otherwise not noteworthy events (band playing) become noteworthy (by newspapers, etc.) That's one reason why stars get in so many scandles. It pays. This general principle of doing anything to get noticed, then selling yourself once everyone is looking, is older than mankind. Once considered noteable by the press, getting in Wikipedia is trivial. WAS 4.250 00:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

So what does one do when no "verifiable" statement of the obvious exists?

Just reading over Talk:Jonathan_Sarfati, in which a few I assume well-meaning editors are embroiled in a dispute with somebody who is allegedly Sarfati's spouse, and a couple of IP addresses that are suspiciously similar.

The core of the dispute is that the article says that "some critics" dismiss Safarti's self-description of "scientist" as his field of study has nothing to do with Young Earth Creationism, the area in which he is best known.

The standing and oft-recurring complaint is that "some critics" and "supporters" are weasel words, as (I assume) nobody in any noted scientific journals has actually summarized this view of Safati in print.

I have nothing to do with Safati, or the debate. Frankly, I just like to read heavily-disputed Talk pages because you often find interesting contortions of logic and some compelling arguments for or against subjects I don't think much about. But this brings up an interesting problem: what if something that should be general knowledge is disputed as general knowledge, and isn't directly 'verifiable?'

This is a good case in point, but it's not hard to come up with others or compelling hypotheticals. If nobody has ever actually decried a crank or a charlatan in print because it's "too easy" or not worth the time, how can one establish that this person really is (as is obvious) a crank or charlatan according to Wikipedia regulations?

Please note that I'm not saying Sarfati is necessarily a crank or charlatan, just extrapolating this to negative conclusions. If nobody has ever taken the time to disprove a particular scientific theory (say, Flat-Earth theory) in a reputable journal, can it be "understood" by Wikipedia that the earth is not in fact flat? Or is Wikipedia bound to insist the earth is flat until somebody can source an authoritative reference that says otherwise?

More or less idle speculation on a slow Friday, but it does seem to be a soft point in the system. The Sarfati chat illustrates the problem more aptly than I ever could. MattShepherd 18:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if this applies to Sarfati (who is this guy?) but to find counter-arguments there is no need to find someone in the press that actually calls Sarfati or whoever a charlatan. Instead you find respected "round-earthists" such as Gallileo for example and include their POV mentioning their relative respectablity to the charlatan in question. And the charlatanism becomes obvious. -- Michalis Famelis 18:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Badly phrased above -- it's not broad-strokes stuff I'm worried about, that was a bad example. Again, the Sarfati page is a fascinating illustration of what I'm getting at. MattShepherd 18:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth, we did find an authorative reference that called the Earth an oblate spheroid... Shimgray | talk | 18:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh, no doubt. I was just pulling an example out of my butt. MattShepherd 18:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm stating the obvious here, but no side of a POV dispute can include text that is not verifiable, as you say. As long as there is no authorative reference, a person can not claim: (a) someone is a scientist, (b) the Earth is flat, or (c) anything else. Although, we are currently handling "obvious facts" rather permissively, the policies we have are pretty clear. Awolf002 18:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

You can assert something untl it is questioned; then you have to back it up (logic, refer to sources in a related article where the issue is dealt with more thouroughly, or supply a source for this article) or delete it. Nothing, not the meanings of words or "the sky is blue" is beyond questioning ("how about at night?"). Too many false beliefs have passed for "obviously true" in the history of man. That's obviously true, right?  ;) WAS 4.250 20:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't delete something until it is disproven, or at least a consensus exists to remove it. StuRat 20:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
My take is, "I wouldn't include something until it is verified." Wyss 21:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Even if the statement in question is violating WP:V? That does not sound like good judgement to me. Awolf002 21:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
In my experience people sometimes assert something until it is questioned, and then legally mandate it as a way of making the awkward questions go away :-) Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 20:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

If an assertion does not meet Wikipedia:Verifiability, it should not be asserted in a Wikipedia article. Full stop. If the assertion in question is "obvious", then it doesn't need to be stated. If you mean it's obvious from context to those who have researched the issue, distill enough of the research into the article to make it obvious to readers too. In the example given, state that Sarfatti is a self-described scientist, point out whether or not he has any academic degrees to back that up, and leave the inferences to the reader. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Assertions must be verifiable. Published assertions which are not verifiable (for example, not supported by the documented historical record or peer reviewed publication) should not be inserted in an article. Wyss 21:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

This whole debate raises an interesting question in general. Another related case is in Electric Universe concept, where there is a debate over what constitutes obvious and verifiable information. In that case, advocates of a fringe theory made specific predictions about the behavior of a comet when impacted by a spacecraft. At least two of those predictions seem to be so direct and transparent that they are verifiable simply by looking at the publicity images released by NASA. The advocates in question assert that it is wrong to include any conclusion based on the pictures, until it has been published in the scientific literature -- even though the predictions in question are so fringe-y that they are not likely to be addressed directly by any scientific publication. (Disclaimer: I wrote the disputed section, and I'm not defending either point of view here -- just drawing attention to the debate). That is a peculiar edge case -- what constitutes verifiability? zowie 21:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Wow! What actually is verifiable in this article?? Was any source checked to be reliable? This looks like a problem article (as Aetherometry was) to me. Awolf002 22:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
This seems to be Wikipedia's way of dealing with unverifiable or non-peer reviewed stuff: Give it a separate article and let the cranks fiddle where they do least harm. In principle I don't support this unwritten policy, in practice I wontedly ignore such articles altogether. These articles could be justified as debunking platforms, though. Wyss 22:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
All I can say is, you should'a seen it before... As a sort of exercise in roots of the scientific method, I let myself get embroiled in helping to change the article from a byzantine mess of advocacy to a more or less even-handed exposition and debunking, and even wrote the first draft of the Tempel-1 section; but that was my first such experience and I now realize that feeding the cranks is an endless proposition. That in itself is sort of a problem (but maybe off topic for verifiability...) zowie 23:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


Should "Trivia" be a valid sub heading for Wikipedia Articles?

This section copied to Wikipedia talk:Trivia 16:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

In the course of my browsing today, I chanced upon the Moonlight Sonata article, about Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C#m, which contains (inter alia) the following pieces of information, under the sub heading "Trivia":

  • Brazilian heavy metal band Viper made a version of the "Moonlight" Sonata with lyrics in their 1989 album Theatre of Fate.
  • The first movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata figures in the first Resident Evil video game
  • The videogame "Earthworm Jim 2" uses the complete first movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata as background music
  • The videogame Jet Set Willy plays a small portion of the "Moonlight" Sonata during the introduction sequence
  • A rendition of the Sonata, performed by Alan Wilder, is included as a B-side on Depeche Mode's single Little 15.
  • A variation of this song is also on the first track of Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Beethoven's Last Night album.
  • Yannis Ritsos has written a poem called Moonlight Sonata.
  • The musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown features a song that uses the tune to Moonlight Sonata
  • Bass player Stuart Hamm made a version of the "Moonlight" Sonata in his album Radio Free Albemuth using a two-hand tapping technique. He performed his rendition of the Sonata at a live concert with guitarist Joe Satriani in 2002 ("Joe Satriani - Live In San Francisco").

This is utter dreck which I have deleted with satisfaction, but it raises in my mind a bigger question: why does Wikipedia tolerate a "Trivia" subheading in articles at all? By definition, trivia is unimportant, non notable material. Is there not be a guideline saying "please don't include pointless trivia"? If there isn't, shouldn't there be? ElectricRay 00:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I see "Trivia" or "Other information" sections as a group of small but interesting pieces of information that have not yet been expanded into complete sections. I don't think "completed" articles should necessarily have them, but they're a handy mechanism for corraling away little bits of info that need future expansion. Deco 00:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
...or just make a new page Moonlight Sonata in market-driven culture, pack plastic recycling bags with the content and eject it into deep space, retaining a subheading Main article: Moonlight Sonata in market-driven culture and the wording "The Moonlight Sonata's familiarity has generated many trivial references in market-driven culture." --Wetman 00:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I can't tell, Ray, whether your objection is to the content, or just the heading. If the latter, I agree; just change it to something more suitable, such as Quotations in popular culture. If it's the content, address it on that article's talk page (or boldly remove it); our policies already address such things. Still, the fact that the theme is recognizable enough (even in our post-musically-literate society) to be so often used in pop culture is a significant piece of information about this composition, even if the entire list is overkill. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Eww Eww Eww. Incorporate the info into the article somehow or I will come after you with a vengeance for making such headings. Even a different heading such as Uses... or Mentions in Popular Culture as is said above. If they're not all related to each other, then find a way to incorporate the info into the article. (Have you noticed yet that I hate these trivia sections?) — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Similar things were discussed at wikipedia talk:trivia - I'll move this discussion there too, when it's finished. --Francis Schonken 07:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I hate these. I hate them. I HATE THEM. Look at the last 50 edits to Marduk (as of this post): almost all of them are additions of such valuable gems as "In Namco's PS2 game Tekken 4, one of the playable characters is named Craig Marduk" and "In the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Evangelion pilots are chosen by a mysterious organization called the "Marduk Institute." The Institute is actually a front for SEELE, who are in possession of secret dead sea scrolls that fortell the fate of humanity and the end of the world.". Drivel, written by teenage boys, which has only the slightest tangential relevance to the topic of the article.

Look at the article right now. The crap now fills half of it—in spite of User:A Man In Black's valiant (but doomed) excision of the previous junk not three months ago—and it's only going to grow.

Okay, finished ranting. User:Wetman's suggested solution is the right one; the kiddies can scribble to their heart's content, and people who want to read about classical music or Mesopotamian mythology aren't distracted by poorly-written irrelevancies. —Charles P._(Mirv) 08:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Wetman's suggested solution is an excellent one, but for the fact that those opposed to "elitism" (etc.) would object to it. Yes, this trivia is dreary, as are "References in popular culture", which I've seen somewhere. How about the solution of a link from the (very shaky) article on Citizen Kane to "List of references to Citizen Kane in other work"? Failing that, a "Trivia" section is a good idea, given that WP is editable by all, and that thousands of earnest teenagers (of all ages) take this stuff seriously and will insist on sticking it somewhere. Better that it's labeled "trivia" than for it to muck up substantive sections of an article. And of course if some item within it is not trivial, people are free to move this item elsewhere, while leaving all the "Simpsons" references (etc etc etc) as they are. -- Hoary 08:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

All very good suggestions. Wetman, I have done as you suggested on the Marduk article - see now References to Marduk in Popular Culture and when I get a moment I will do the same for LVB. Hoary, I sort of see your point, but think there's a fine distinction between elitism and plain irrelevance - it would be equally irrelevant to the topic of Mesopotamian mythological figure - and deserving of jettison to the black expanses of deep space - that there was a character named Marduk in the Book of Kells.ElectricRay 09:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with Deco ElectricRay; I can't really go along with Wetman's idea, though. It would solve part of the problem, but another part of the problem is that trivia sections trivialise Wikipedia; making separate articles for them will do pretty much the same. Just delete them all. If something's trivial, then it doesn't belong in the article; if it belongs in the article, then it can't be trivial, and should fit into the appropriate place in the main text.
How about starting up "Trivipedia" for all the teenagers out there who add this rubbish? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Funny that you say you couldn't agree more with me, yet I disagree very strongly with you. I think it's fine to have these sections around and that they will, in time, develop into more integrated and expanded content. I might remove them from a published or stable version, but not from any working article. Your generalization about teenagers and proposed project are also offensive to the well-meaning contributors who add this content. Deco 22:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I was too hasty in tracing the writer of the original comment (aided by the absence of a space between comments). I've corrected it. Oh, and it wasn't my generalisation, though I repeated it, and pretty well stand by it. There are too many train-spotters here, and people who know (and care) about nothing other than the trivia of celebrities and popular culture. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
and its comments like that which keep wikipedia as the pile of shit it currently is (and is generally perceived as). those "well-meaning contributors" are dumb-ass schoolboys who play videogames all day, indulging them simply creates more cruft articles about Klingon etc that makes wikipedia = trivipedia already. gotta be harsh. KILL ALL CRUFT.
Although these trivia sections should be thoroughly cleaned of cruft (and wontedly have far too many references to cover songs and other knock-offs generally unrelated to the topic), they provide a helpful way to give the reader bits of additional, characterizing information which might otherwise bog down the article's main narrative. I'm strongly in favour of trivia sections in biographical, film and music articles. I mean, what better way to fluidly let the reader know Frances Farmer let the studio shave her eyebrows off in 1936 but had rebelliously grown them back... and untrimmed... by 1937. This would seem, uhm, trivial to mention in the main text but adds context, depth and interest to the subject. Wyss 23:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Cruft should be stamped out. If something has had a genuine impact on popular culture, a sub-article should be created if not a sub-section (see, i.e. Nuclear weapons in popular culture, which grew out of just such a crufty-subsection). --Fastfission 20:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been having the same sorts of problems all over the place. Lilith, Chimera, Dragon, Dracula, Behemoth, Jack the Ripper, Werewolf, etc. etc. keep getting filled up with all sorts of trivial references to video games, anime, roleplaying game supplements, one off mentions in tv shows, incidental one off lyriucs in songs, etc. I remove this dreck constantly every day. One of the major problems is that it's difficult to have real consensus to remove them because so many kiddies all get together to try to claim that info is vitally important. "Castlevania is the most well known and important video game series of them all, so I am going to list all the details here." etc. About the only way I've been able to have any lasting sanity is to create Werewolves in fiction, Jack the Ripper fiction, liberally move the crap to disambiguation pages and then just give up on trying to keep the cruft out of that offshoot article. It's like segregation or something. Whenever someone puts crap in the main one I suggest the offshoot, and then the offshoot is total crap but oh well. I personally think Trivia headings should just not be used, and that it's very, very clear that trivial mentions... some character named after some mythical character, one off appearances in comic books, D&D or other RPG adapting something, Magic the Gathering card, Pokemon character, etc... do not belong in the main articles unless those articles are specifically about that fictioncruft and not the main topic. We desperately need stronger policy on this, and maybe, I don't know, something to make it more clear that this is supposed to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA and not just long fanlists of every silly trivial fictional reference you can think of. DreamGuy 22:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I think that trivia helps pique the reader's interest. As for relevance, the word encyclopedia comes from the Greek words enkyklios paideia, meaning "general education," or "well-rounded education." Thus, in Wikipedia--the largest encyclopedia ever created--any knowledge can be included. Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged defines an encyclopedia as "a work that treats comprehensively all the various branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles arranged alphabetically". Stroll by a library reference section and you will find encyclopedias of agriculture, of computing, of slang, and so on. The inclusion of trivia shows just how much encyclopedic Wikipedia is. Besides, deleting trivia will turn off many contributors from adding other information to Wikipedia and possibly turn to vandalism. Further, many of the users who add trivia are younger. If we alienate them, we destroy our future.
    --Primetime 22:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

There are plenty of young people adding real encyclopedic content here. Alienating the bad contributors to keep the good contributors is a GOOD thing. Some people just are not cut out to write encyclopedias. This shouldn't be controversial, it just is. If their only contributions are to say that some pokemon character kind of looks like Pazuzu if you squint real hard, let the alienation proceed unfettered so we don't destroy our future by having the clueless kiddies running the show while knowledgable editors get alienated. I know I don't like having to play janitor to a bunch of people whose only experience in the world is videogames and anime who think articles on other topics can be improved with the latest kewl thing they saw. I'm here to write an encyclopedia. DreamGuy 17:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • If you want a trivia encyclopaedia, there's a far bigger one than Wikipedia - it's called Google. If some method of differentiation between trivia and useful information can't be imposed, we may as well give up on wikipedia and just use Google. It's a line call whether that's a better idea already. Now it's a sociological fact that anime heads will keep adding this stuff - it's not irrelevant to them - so the answer is to give them their outlet - a "references in popular culture" page which is referenced by, but doesn't form part of, a main article achieves that very neatly. Xbox nuts are not alienated, the page isn't disrupted - that sounds to me like a workable compromise. That's certainly the approach I'm going to take from now on. ElectricRay 23:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like it would make them very difficult to find. I don't think trivia authors would be too keen on that idea. I admit, though, that it is better than just deleting the information. --Primetime 08:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
maybe i didn't explain it properly: there would be a link on the page from the main article - very easy to find. see, for example, Marduk. ElectricRay 09:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't we distinguish between trivia that actually relate to the subject of the article, and trivia connected with persons or entities that just happen to have the same name? Many of the points in Marduk in popular culture don't relate to Marduk (that is the subject of the Marduk article) at all, they relate to fictional characters that just happen to have the same name, so they should surely go to a disambiguation page? --rossb 15:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Many are expressing views I agree with, in effect, trivia's fine if it relates directly and helpfully to the subject, but the trivia sections are often used for content which is no better than link spam. Perhaps references in popular culture "see also" pages would give the cruft (cartoon characters who play Beethoven and so on) a home. Wyss 15:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • rossb, that was exactly what I was coming here to say. There is a distinction between material that really is important enough to a topic and just hasn't been integrated yet and that which isn't important to the topic. For example the WWII article doesn't need a trivia section remarking that it was referenced in X anime show. That's an extreme example, but not far off what is going on. Pop culture trivia or other things that aren't demonstrably important to the given topic should not be on the page, they should instead be in that pop culture topic's specific page. That makes it really easy to include important information in the right place. - Taxman Talk 16:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's my take, illustrated with two examples (though these are not editing suggestions for the LvB article):

"Helpful trivia":

  • During the advanced stages of his deafness, while composing Beethoven aided his hearing by placing the end of a wooden pencil directly on the soundboard of his piano, then pressed his forehead directly on the other end and struck the keys. Sympathetic vibration transmitted the sounds of the notes through the bones of his skull directly to his inner hear.

"Unhelpful trivia"

Trivia as a category does not belong. It means "unimportant" and suggests a waste of time. If soemthing is important then say so. Rjensen 16:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I do disagree with your interpretation of the working definition of trivia, however I continue to assert that there is a difference between informative trivia and spam-like cruft. Wyss 17:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that trivia sections should be blamed on teenage boys. For example, the Richard Stallman article has a sizeable trivia section, and I doubt that many teenagers are really into him, as the oldest current teenagers were only born in the late 1980s (the youngest about 1992-1993). Also, most teenagers have probably never heard of Amiga. Adding trivia is probably more related to interest in the topic than age or sex. -- Kjkolb 17:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


One quarter of Gorilla article is taken by "popular culture" references, most of them bellow even trivial value. I suggest to always create leaf article when the amount of trivias reaches certain level. Since it is practically impossible to get rid of trivia at least they can be moved away from more serious encyclopedic stuff. Pavel Vozenilek 03:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Call the section Other notable facts and include only "helpful trivia". Delete the 'cruft and "useless trivia" or splice it out into a side article referenced by the main one. MPS 04:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that it may be hard to distinguish notable from cruft: most of the trivias come from very current American pop culture/games but some established memes or references from other cultures may be valuable. Having leaf page would be Second Best solution - main articles will stay clean, kids will have safe place to play and possible edit wars over trivia won't pollute the main article (this is real pain). Trivial pages may be linked together so checking them all at once would be easy. Pavel Vozenilek 14:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this sort of thing really so bad? I'm glad to see evidence that Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata still has an influence on popular culture. Plenty of Wikipedia editors heard their first notes of Wagner by watching Apocalypse Now. Popular references to Joan of Arc didn't get dumped from the page. They inspired me to translate lists of sculptures and paintings from French. The video games, manga, and television shows now have their own section at the bottom of a branching page about artistic representations of Joan of Arc. If this gets young people interested in history, if it leads them to George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare, then I'm all for it. Durova 23:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article

I came to the problem with national alphabet letters in article name. They are commonly used but I have found no mention about them in naming coventions (WP:NAME). The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people. National alphabet is widely used in wikipedia. Examples are Luís de Camões Auguste and Louis Lumière or Karel Čapek. There are redirects from english spelling (Camoes, Lumiere, Capek).

On the other hand, wikiproject ice hockey WP:HOCKEY states rule for ice hockey players that their names should be written in English spelling. Currently some articles are being moved from Czech spelling to the english spelling (for example Patrik Eliáš to Patrick Elias). I object to this as I do not see genaral consensus and it will only lead to moving back and forth. WP:HOCKEY is not wikipedia policy nor guideline. In addition I do not see any reason why ice hockey players should be treated differently than other people.

There is a mention about using the most recognized name in the naming conventions policy. But this does not help in the case of many ice hockey players. It is very likely that for American and Canadian NHL fans the most recognised versions are Jagr, Hasek or Patrick ELias. But these people also played for the Czech republic in the Olympics and there they are known like Jágr, Hašek or Patrik Eliáš.

I would like to find out what is the current consensus about this. -- Jan Smolik 18:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people - incorrect. "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" - Wikipedia:Naming :conventions (common names). Raul654 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I mentioned this in the third article but it does not solve the problem. Americans are familiar with different spelling than Czechs. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, since this is the English Wikipedia, really we should use the name most familiar to English speakers. The policy doesn't say this explicitly, but I believe this is how it's usually interpreted. This is the form that English speakers will recognize most easily. Deco 19:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Well it is wikipedia in English but it is read and edited by people from the whole world. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

There was a straw poll about this with regard to place names: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 3#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks. The proposal was that "whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used". It was close, but those who supported the proposal had more votes. Since, articles like Yaoundé have remained in place with no uproar. I would support a similar convention with regard to personal names. — BrianSmithson 19:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user who initiated the WP:HOCKEY-based renaming with Alf. The project Player Pages Format Talk page has the discussion we had along with my reasoning, pasted below:

OK, team, it's simple. This is en-wiki. We don't have non-English characters on our keyboards, and people likely to come to en-wiki are mostly going to have ISO-EN keyboards, whether they're US, UK, or Aussie (to name a few) it doesn't matter. I set up a page at User:RasputinAXP/DMRwT for double move redirects with twist and started in on the Czech players that need to be reanglicized.

Myself and others interpret the policy just the same as Deco and BrianSmithson do: the familiar form in English is Jaromir Jagr, not Jaromír Jágr; we can't even type that. Attempting to avoid redirects is pretty tough as well. Is there a better way to build consensus regarding this? RasputinAXP talk contribs 19:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you misread my statement above. My stance is that if the native spelling of the name varies from the English spelling only in the use of diacritics, use the native spelling. Thus, the article title should be Yaoundé and not Yaounde. Likewise, use Jōchō, not Jocho. Redirection makes any arguments about accessibility moot, and not using the diacritics makes us look lazy or ignorant. — BrianSmithson 16:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Tentative overview (no cut-and-paste solutions, however):
  • Article names for names of people: wikipedia:naming conventions (people) - there's nothing specific about diacritics there (just mentioning this guideline because it is a naming conventions guideline, while there are no "hockey" naming conventions mentioned at wikipedia:naming conventions).
  • wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) is about royal & noble people: this is guideline, and *explicitly* mentions that wikipedia:naming conventions (common names) does NOT apply for these kind of people. But makes no difference: doesn't mention anything about diacritics.
  • Wikipedia talk:naming conventions (Polish rulers): here we're trying to solve the issue for Polish monarchs (some of which have diacritics in their Polish name): but don't expect to find answers there yet, talks are still going on. Anyway we need to come to a conclusion there too, hopefully soon (but not rushing).
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), early stages of a guideline proposal, I started this on a "blue monday" about a week ago. No guideline yet: the page contains merely a "scope" definition, and a tentative "rationale" section. What the basic principles of the guideline proposal will become I don't know yet (sort of waiting till after the "Polish rulers" issue gets sorted out I suppose...). But if any of you feel like being able to contribute, ultimately it will answer Jan Smolik's question (but I'd definitely advise not to hold your breath on it yet).
  • Other:
    • Some people articles with and without diacritics are mentioned at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (use English)#Diacritics, South Slavic languages - some of these after undergoing a WP:RM, but note that isolated examples are *not* the same as a guideline... (if I'd know a formulation of a guideline proposal that could be agreeable to the large majority of Wikipedians, I'd have written it down already...)
    • Talking about Lumiere/Lumière: there's a planet with that name: at a certain moment a few months ago it seemed as if the issue was settled to use the name with accent, but I don't know how that ended, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects, Andrewa said she was going to take the issue there. Didn't check whether they have a final conclusion yet.
Well, that's all I know about (unless you also want to involve non-standard characters, then there's still the wikipedia:naming conventions (þ) guideline proposal) --Francis Schonken 19:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Note that I do not believe no En article should contain diacritics in its title. There are topics for which most English speakers are used to names containing diacritics, such as El Niño. Then there are topics for which the name without diacritics is widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world, like Celine Dion (most English speakers would be confused or surprised to see the proper "Céline Dion"). (Ironically enough, the articles for these don't support my point very well.) Deco 20:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Sticking diacritics, particularly the Polish Ł is highly annoying, esp. when applied to Polish monarchs. It just gives editors much more work, and unless you're in Poland or know the code, you will be unable to type the name in the article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 20:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Redirects make the issue of difficulty in visiting or linking to the article immaterial (I know we like to skip redirects, but as long as you watch out for double redirects you're fine). The limitations of our keyboards are not, by themselves, a good reason to exclude any article title. Deco 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Deco, I should rephrase what I said. I agree with you that some English articles do require diacritics, like El Niño. Articles like Jaromir Jagr that are lacking diacritics in their English spellings should remain without diacritics because you're only going to find the name printed in any English-speaking paper without diacritics. RasputinAXP talk contribs 21:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I checked articles about Czech people and in 90 % of cases (rough guess) they are with diacritics in the name of the article. This includes soccer players playing in England (like Vladimír Šmicer, Petr Čech, Milan Baroš). And no one actualy complains. So this seems to be a consensus. The only exception are extremely short stubs that did not receive much input. Articles with Czech diacritics are readable in English, you only need a redirect becouse of problems with typing. This is an international project written in English. It should not fulfill only needs of native English speakers but of all people of the world. --Jan Smolik 22:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Very many names need diacritics to make sense. Petr Cech instead of Petr Čech makes a different impression as a name, does not look half as Czech and is much more likely to be totally mispronounced when you see it. Names with diacritics are also not IMHO such a big problem to use for editors because you can usually go through the redirect in an extra tab and cut and paste the correct title. I also don't see a problem at all in linking through redirects (that's part of what they are there for). Leaving out diacritics only where they are "not particularly useful" would be rather inconsequent. Kusma (討論) 22:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, "Petr Sykora" and "Jaromir Jagr" are not alternate spellings; they are incorrect ones which are only used for technical reasons. Since all other articles about Czech people use proper Czech diacritics, I don't know of any justification for making an exception in case of hockey players. - Mike Rosoft 01:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Man, I feel like the bottom man in a dogpile. Reviewing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), there'sWhat word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Making the name of the article include diacritics goes against the Use English guideline. The most common input into the search box over here onthe left, for en-wiki, is going to be Jaromir Jagr. Yes, we're supposed to avoid redirects. Yes, in Czech it's not correct. In English, it is correct. I guess I'm done with the discussion. There's no consensus in either direction, but it's going to be pushed back to the diacritic version anyhow. Go ahead and switch them back. I'mnot dead-set against it, but I was trying to follow guidelines. RasputinAXP talk contribs 15:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
There are many names, and even words, in dominant English usage that use diacritics. Whether or not these will ever be typed in a search engine, they're still the proper title. However, if English language media presentations of a topic overwhelmingly omit diacritics, then clearly English speakers would be most familiar with the form without diacritics and it should be used as the title on this Wikipedia. This is just common sense, even if it goes against the ad hoc conventions that have arisen. Deco 18:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Czech names: almost all names with diacritics use it also in the title (and all of them have redirect). Adding missing diacritics is automatic behavior of Czech editors when they spot it. So for all practical purposes the policy is set de-facto (for Cz names) and you can't change it. Pavel Vozenilek 03:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech) --Francis Schonken 11:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

and: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) --Francis Schonken 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are those among us trying to pull the ignorant North American card. I mentioned the following over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format...
Here's the Czech hockey team in English compliments of the Torino Italy Olympic Committee [9] Here they are in Italian: [10], French: [11]. Here are the rosters from the IIHF (INTERNATIONAL Ice Hockey Federation) based in Switzerland: [12].'
Those examples are straight from 2 international organizations (one based in Italy, one in Switzerland). I'm hard pressed to find any english publication that uses diacritics in hockey player names. I don't see why en.wiki should be setting a precedent otherwise. ccwaters 02:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Over at WP:HOCKEY we have/had 3 forces promoting non-English characters in en.wiki hockey articles: native Finns demanding native spellings of Finnish players, native Czechs demanding native spellings of Czech players, and American stalkers of certain Finnish goaltenders. I did a little research and here are my findings:
Here's a Finnish site profiling NHL players. Here's an "incorrectly" spelt Jagr, but the Finnish and German alphabets both happen to have umlauts so here's a "correct" Olaf Kölzig. Who is Aleksei Jashin?
Here's a Czech article about the recent Montreal-Philadelphia game [13] Good luck finding any Finnish players names spelt "correctly"... here's a snippet from the MON-PHI article:
Flyers však do utkání nastoupili značně oslabeni. K zraněným oporám Peteru Forsbergovi, Keithu Primeauovi, Ericu Desjardinsovi a Kimu Johnssonovi totiž po posledním zápase přibyli také Petr Nedvěd a zadák Chris Therrien.
Well...I recognize Petr Nedvěd, he was born in Czechoslovakia. Who did the Flyers have in goal??? Oh its the Finnish guy, "Antero Niitymakiho".
My point? Different languages spell name differently. I found those sites just by searching yahoo in the respective languages. I admit I don't speak either and therefore I couldn't search thoroughly. If someone with backgrounds in either language can demonstrate patterns of Finnish publications acknowledging Czech characters and visa versa than I may change my stance. ccwaters 03:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I support every word Ccwater said, albeit with not as much conviction. There is a reason why we have Wikipedia in different languages, and although there are few instances in the English uses some sort of extra-curricular lettering (i.e. café), most English speaking people do not use those. Croat Canuck 04:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I must make a strong point that seems to be over-looked: this is not the international English language wikipedia. It is the English language wikipedia. It just so happens that the international communty contributes. There is a reason that there are other language sections to wikipedia, and this is one of them. The finnish section of wikipedia should spell names the Finnish way and the English wikipedia should spell names the English way. The vast majority of english publications drop the foreign characters and diacritics. Why? because they aren't part of the English language, hence the term "foreign characters". Masterhatch 04:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree in every particular with Masterhatch. The NHL's own website and publications do not use diacriticals, nor does any other known English-language source. The absurdity of the racist card is breathtaking: in the same fashion as the Finnish and Czech language Wikipedias follow their own national conventions for nomenclature (the name of the country in which I live is called the "United States" on neither ... should I feel insulted?), the English language Wikipedia reflects the conventions of the various English-speaking nations. In none are diacriticals commonly used. I imagine the natives of the Finnish or Czech language Wikipedias would go berserk if some peeved Anglos barge in and demand they change their customary linguistic usages. I see no reason to change the English language to suit in a similar situation. RGTraynor 06:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized. I intentionaly wrote the names without diacritics. I accept the fact that foreigners do that because they cannot write those letters properly and use them correctly. There are also technical restrictions. I also accepted fact that my US social security card bears name Jan Smolik instead of Jan Smolík. I do not have problem with this. I even sign my posts Jan Smolik. But Wikipedia does not have technical restrictions. I can even type wierd letters as Æ. And it has plenty of editors who are able to write names with diacritics correctly. The name without diacritics is sufficient for normal information but I still think it is wrong. I think that removing diacritics is a step back. Anyway it is true that I am not able to use diacritics in Finish names. But somebody can fix that for me.
I do not care which version will win. But I just felt there was not a clear consensus for the non-diacritics side and this discussion has proven me to be right. As for the notice of Czechs writing names incorectly. We use Inflection of names so that makes writing even more dificult (my name is Smolík but when you want to say we gave it to Smolík you will use form we gave it Smolíkovi). One last argument for diacritics, before I retire from this discussion as I think I said all I wanted to say. Without diacritics you cannot distinguish some names. For example Czech surnames Čapek and Cápek are both Capek. Anyway we also have language purists in the Czech republic. I am not one of them. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized -Fine we'll use the spellings used by the IIHF, IOC, NHLPA, AHL, OHL, WHL, ESPN, TSN, The Hockey News, Sports Illustrated, etc, etc, etc.
This isn't about laziness. Its about using the alphabet afforded to the respective language. We don't refer to Алексей Яшин because the English language doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet. So why should we subject language A to the version of the Latin alphabet used by language B? Especially when B modifies proper names from languages C & D.
My main beef here is that that the use of such characters in en.wiki is a precedent, and not a common practice. If you think the English hockey world should start spelling Czech names natively, than start a campaign amongst Czech hockey players demanding so. It may work: languages constantly infiltrate and influence each other. Wikipedia should take a passive role in such things, and not be an active forum for them. ccwaters 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized Great, in which case for Czech Olympic pages, especially on the Czech Wikipedia, spell them as they are done in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, in the NHL-related articles, we'll spell them as per customary English-language usage. RGTraynor 08:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I wish I understood why User:ccwaters has to be rude in his posts on this subject. "Stalkers of Finnish goaltenders" isn't the way I'd describe a Wikipedia contributor. Also, since you asked, Aleksei Jashin is the Finnish translitteration of Alexei Yashin. Russian transliterates differently into Finnish than into English. Of course you must know this, since you have such a habit of lecturing to us on languages. As for diacritics, I object to the idea of dumbing down Wikipedia. There are no technical limitations that stop us from writing Antero Niittymäki instead of Antero Niittymaki. The reason so many hockey publications all over the world don't use Finnish-Scandinavian letters or diacritics is simple laziness, and Wikipedia can do much better. Besides, it isn't accepted translation practice to change the spelling of proper names if they can be easily reproduced and understood, so in my opinion it's simply wrong to do so. Since it seems to be obvious there isn't a consensus on this matter, I think a vote would be in order. Elrith 16:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Alas, a Finnish guy lecturing native English speakers on how they have to write Czech names in English (not to mention the lecturing regarding the laziness) is but a variation on the same theme of rudishness.
So, Elrith, or whomever reads this, if the lecturing is finished, could you maybe devote some attention to the Dvořák/Dvorak problem I mentioned below? I mean, whomever one asks this would not be problematic - but nobody volunteered thus far to get it solved. Am I the only one who experiences this as problematic inconsistency? --Francis Schonken 21:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
So is "Jagr" the Finnish transliteration of "Jágr"??? On that note, the Finnish "Ä" is not an "A" with "funny things" on top (that's an umlaut), its a completely separate letter nonexistent in the English language and is translated to "Æ". "Niittymaki" would be the English transliteration. "Nittymeki" or (more traditionally "Nittymӕki") would be the English transcription.
In the past I've said our friend's contributions were "thorough." I'll leave it at that. There will be nothing else about it from me unless asked. ccwaters 21:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
My opinion on the Dvořák/Dvorak issue is that his name is spelled Dvořák, and that's how the articles should be titled, along with redirects from Dvorak. Similarly, the article on Antero Niittymäki should be called just that, with a redirect from Niittymaki. You're right that it is a problematic inconsistency, and it needs to be fixed.
The only reason I may sound like I'm lecturing is that there are several people contributing to these discussions who don't understand the subject at all. Ccwaters's remarks on transliteration are

one example. It isn't customary or even acceptable to transliterate or transcribe Finnish letters into English; the accepted translation practice is to reproduce them, which is perfectly possible, for example, in Wikipedia. Niittymaki or anything else that isn't Niittymäki isn't a technically correct "translation". The reason North American, or for that matter, Finnish, hockey publications write Jagr instead of Jágr is ignorance and/or laziness. Wikipedia can do better that that.

However, since this discussion has, at least to me, established that there is no consensus on Wikipedia on diacritics and national letters, apart from a previous vote on diacritics, I'm going to continue my hockey edits and use Finnish/Scandinavian letters unless the matter is otherwise resolved. Elrith 04:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi Elrith, your new batch of patronising declarations simply doesn't work. Your insights in language (and how language works) seem very limited, resuming all what you don't like about a language to "laziness" and "ignorance".
Seems like we might need an RfC on you, if you continue to oracle like this, especially when your technique seems to consist in calling anyone who doesn't agree with you incompetent.
Re. consensus, I think you would be surprised to see how much things have evolved since the archived poll you speak about. --Francis Schonken 23:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
My 2 cents:
1) This should NOT be setteld as a local consensus for hockey players, this is about how we name persons in the english wikipedia. It is wrong to have a local consensus for hockey players only.
2) I have tried to do some findings on how names are represented, it is wrong to say that since these names are spelled like this normally they should be spelled like this, many wrongs does not make it right. So I did a few checks,
If I look at the online version of Encyclopædia Britannica I get a hit on both Björn Borg and Bjorn Borg, but in the article it is spelled with swedish characters, same for Selma Lagerlöf and Dag Hammarskjöld, I could not find any more swedes in EB :-) (I did not check all..)
I also check for as many swedes as I could think of in wikipedia to see how it is done for none hockey swedes, I found the following swedes by looking at list of swedish ... and adding a few more that I could think of, ALL had their articles spelled with the swedish characters (I'm sure you can find a few that is spelled without the swedish characters but the majority for sure seams to be spelled the same way as in their births certificates). So IF you are proposing that we should 'rename' the swedish hockey players I think we must rename all other swedes also. Do we really think that is correct? I can not check this as easily for other countries but I would guess that it is the same.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Björn Borg, Annika Sörenstam, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Selma Lagerlöf, Stellan Skarsgård,Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Håkan Nesser, Bruno K. Öijer, Björn Ranelid, Fredrik Ström, Edith Södergran, Hjalmar Söderberg, Per Wahlöö, Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wästberg, Isaac Hirsche Grünewald, Tage Åsén, Gösta Bohman, Göran Persson, Björn von Sydow, Lasse Åberg, Helena Bergström, Victor Sjöström, Gunder Hägg, Sigfrid Edström, Anders Gärderud, Henrik Sjöberg, Patrik Sjöberg, Tore Sjöstrand, Arne Åhman, so there seams to be a consensus for non hockey playing swedes? Stefan 13:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I also checked encarta for Björn Borg and Dag Hammarskjöld both have the Swedish characters as the main name of the articles, Selma Lagerlöf is not avaliable unless you pay so I can not check. I'm sure you can find example of the 'wrong' way also, but we can not say that there is consensus in the encyclopedic area of respelling foreign names the 'correct' english way. Stefan 14:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
This seems like a very constructive step to me. So I'll do the same as I did for Czech, i.e.:
  1. start Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish) as a proposal, starting off with the content you bring in here.
  2. list that page in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration
  3. also list it on wikipedia:current surveys#Discussions
  4. list it in the guideline proposal Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)#Specifics_according_to_language_of_origin
OK to work from there? --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Works for me :-) Stefan 00:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Tx for finetuning Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish). I also contributed to further finetuning, but add a small note here to clarify what I did: page names in English wikipedia are in English per WP:UE. Making a Swedish name like Björn Borg English, means that the ö ("character" in Swedish language) is turned into an "o" character with a precombined diacritic mark (unicode: U+00F6, which is the same character used to write the last name of Johann Friedrich Böttger – note that böttger ware, named after this person, uses the same ö according to Webster's, and in that dictionary is sorted between "bottery tree" and "bottine"). Of course (in English!) the discussion whether it is a separate character or an "o" with a diacritic is rather futile *except* for alphabetical ordering: for alphabetical ordering in English wikipedia the ö is treated as if it were an o, hence the remark about the "category sort key" I added to the intro of the "Swedish NC" guideline proposal. In other words, you can't expect English wikipedians who try to find something in an alphabetic list to know in advance (a) what is the language or origin of a word, and (b) if any "special rules" for alphabetical ordering are applicable in that language. That would be putting things on their head. "Bö..." will always be sorted in the same way, whatever the language of origin.
What I mean is that "Björn Borg" (in Swedish) is transcribed/translated/transliterated to "Björn Borg" in English, the only (invisible!) difference being that in Swedish ö is a character, and in English ö is a letter o with a diacritic.
Or (still the same in other words): Ö is always treated the same as "O" in alphabetical ordering, whether it's a letter of Ötzi or of Öijer--Francis Schonken 10:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For consistency with the rest of Wikipedia, hockey player articles should use non-English alphabet characters if the native spelling uses a Latin-based alphabet (with the exception of naturalized players like Petr Nedved). Why should Dominik Hasek be treated differently than Jaroslav Hašek? Olessi 20:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If we are using other encyclopedias as litmus tests, we don't we look at a few hockey players: Dominik Hasek at Encarta Dominik Hasek at Britannica Jaromir Jagr at Encarta Teemu Selanne in Encarta list of top scorers

Last argument: We use the names that these players are overwhelming known as in the English language. We speak of Bobby Orr, not Robert Orr. Scotty Bowman, not William Scott Bowman. Ken Dryden not Kenneth Dryden. Tony Esposito, not Anthony Esposito. Gordie Howe not Gordon Howe... etc etc, etc. The NHL/NHLPA/media call these players by what they request to be called. Vyacheslav Kozlov used to go by Slava Kozlov. Evgeni Nabokov "americanized" himself for a season as "John Nabokov" but changed his mind again.

ccwaters 22:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


Dvořák

Could someone clean this up:

Article/category name without diacritics
Category:Compositions by Antonin Dvorak
Category:Operas by Antonin Dvorak
Cello Concerto (Dvorak)
String Quartet No. 11 (Dvorak)
String Quartet No. 12 (Dvorak)
Symphony No. 6 (Dvorak)
Symphony No. 8 (Dvorak)
Symphony No. 9 (Dvorak)
Violin Concerto (Dvorak)
Page name with diacritics
Antonín Dvořák
List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 7 (Dvořák)

I'd do it myself if I only knew which way the wikipedia community wants it... --Francis Schonken 10:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and renamed the articles to use diacritics in the title, since they already use them in the text. I've also slapped {{categoryredirect}} tags on the two categories: a bot should be along shortly to complete the job. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Tx!!! - I'll remove Dvořák as an exception from Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech)#Exceptions --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"date" facts

(MoS of today)

Wiki-Linking

Main article: Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is the equivalent of a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by '(see:)'. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.

Not every year listed in an article needs to be wikilinked. Ask yourself: will clicking on the year bring any useful information to the reader?

Do, however, wikilink years, using the As of XXXX form, when they refer to information that was current at the time of writing; this allows other editors to ensure that articles are kept up to date as time passes. Dates including a month and day should also be linked, in order for user preferences on date formatting to work properly. See also: Wikipedia:As of and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) …


as of today and since 18 Oct 2005

Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

Only make links that are relevant to the context.

It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is analogous to a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by '(see:)'. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.

It's not always an easy call. Linking to the number three from triangle is helpful, while linking to the number six from Six O'Clock News would be quite wrong. This page is in dynamic tension with the general rule to build the web. See the talk page for additional considerations.

Rules of thumb for linking

What should not be linked .Plain English words. .Months, years, decades or centuries, unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic. (This is in contrast to full dates—see below.) …

What should be linked Full dates; i.e., those that include the day and month. This allows the auto-formatting function for individual users' date preferences to work. Editors are not required to do this, but some readers prefer it.

Major connections with the subject of another article that will help readers to understand the current article more fully (see the example below). This can include people, events and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question. …


on 13 Apr 2005 Bobblewik made the following change to MoS (dates and numbers

In the specific case of dates containing the three components day, month and year e.g. 25 March 2004 , links permit the date preferences of the reader to operate. Both day-month and year must be linked for the preference to work correctly. Other date forms such as year only (e.g. 1981) should be treated like any other words and linked only if there is some particular relevance.


MoS (dates and numbers) as of today

Date Formatting

Adding square brackets "DATE" to full dates allows date preferences to work. Editors are not required to link full dates, but most full dates in Wikipedia are linked so that each user's date-formatting preference appears in the text. For this to work, at least the day and the month must be included; some date preferences won't work unless a year is also linked. …:

Avoid overlinking dates If the date does not contain a day and a month, date preferences will not work, and square brackets will not respond to your readers' auto-formatting preferences. So unless there is a special relevance of the date link, there is no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context for the reasons that it's usually undesirable to insert low-value chronological links; see also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links.


correspondence with User talk:Bobblewik as of today

"date" changes

what exactly are you changing? are you changing dates formated as:

mmm dd yyyy

dd mmm yyyy

dd mmm

mmm dd

yyyy

decades (2000)

centuries (21st century)

or what?

I would appreciate knowing exactly what this issue is about? Thanks Hmains 19:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


I am not sure if I understand the question. I am not changing dates. I am (or was) removing *square brackets* from:

ddd Tuesday

mmm February

yyyy 2006

decades 1990s

centuries 21st century

I did not remove square brackets from:

dd mmm, yyyy 12 January, 2006

dd mmm 12 January

ISO 8601 dates 2001-01-15

These are used for the date preference mechanism. Part of this whole problem is because square brackets are used for two entirely different functions: 1. Reformating the date to a user preference 2. Hyperlinking to an article Many editors see square brackets on 'date preference' formats and falsely conclude that *all* dates must have square brackets.

I hope that is the answer you need. bobblewik 19:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


HMAINS comments

Given the above facts, what is the problem with removing unnecessary ‘date’ links, no matter how many are removed and no matter what method is used? Using the MoS guidelines means just that: using them, implementing them, having articles follow them--all by the editor who wants to. It does not mean editing articles to violate the MoS guidelines.

There are enough problems with articles and their writing that we could be working on, we should be thankful of any and every editor and method that implements the MoS easily.

Thanks Hmains 03:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, it's not good form to paste large sections of text like this. Find the history links that document what you're pointing attention to, and link to the diff URLs instead.

If Ambi is saying that there's no consensus against linking each and every occurrence of years, days, day-of-weeks, months, etc., in isolation when not part of the month-day-year combinations that cause the user preferences to kick in, I think I have to disagree. It looks to me like there's been a fairly long-standing consensus that one should not link, for example, "February" in "the following February, Smith moved to Venice". This is not just editor's choice, but an editor actually is justified in specifically unlinking February if it was previously linked, as this is not a link of any "particular relevance". However, and I can't stress this enough, a link would be allowed and should not be unlinked in the case of, "Smith's favorite month was February, and he wrote a 1862 book, Six Weeks Till Spring, about his love for that month." Unlinking February in this case would be a damaging edit.

I can't see how a bot could be made to differentiate between the two. So if bobblewik was in fact using a bot to make these edits, I think others were fully justified in asking him to stop; even if he had not yet made a damaging edit, in general I think we'd prefer that irrelevant links stay than that useful links go. --TreyHarris 04:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not yet convinced that Bobblewik is using a bot, which is Ambi's stated reason for blocking him (and an entirely correct reason). I was under the impression that he approved every edit manually, so I'd assumed he was using something like AWB, which is not a bot. Now AWB does also say that you shouldn't use it for anything controversial, but Ambi and I will have to disagree about whether it's controversial or not: I see it as implementing long-standing and well-established style guidance. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Your impression is correct. I have been characterised as a janitorial editor. I do thousands of minor edits (e.g. fixing minor inconsistencies). I make use of Firefox tabs and can easily get up to 5 or 6 *manual* edits per minute. If you look at my talk page, you will see that people sometimes mistook my manual edits for bot edits. I started using AWB after it was created and I continue to use a similar mechanism. Each edit is approved manually. Ambi and Talrias complained about the speed so I now only click 'Save page' approximately 2 times per minute. If there is still a problem with *how* the MoS is implemented, please let me know. I will try to work within constraints that apply to all editors. If there is a problem with *the MoS guidance* itself, then it should be revised and I will implement the new revision. bobblewik 23:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
So I think we've established: (i) Bobblewik is implementing guidance in the Manual of Style; (ii) the guidance is long-standing, not some new innovation; (iii) he's not using a bot. Given this, I really don't see any basis for him to be blocked. (An administrator doesn't like the guidance is not a sufficient reason). Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
The guidance is not long-standing. Do a random pages test, and see just how many pages (which haven't been hit by Bobblewik) have date links. It's been massive longstanding practice to link dates, and this was never an issue until Bobblewik fired up a bot and started making changes en masse. Bots do not make disputed edits. I'm all ears if Bobblewik wishes to talk, but if he doesn't, I will (and am proceeding to) shoot said disputed bot edits on sight. Ambi 04:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think your argument here is entirely correct. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors. But (rarely) policy does go against common practice current at the time in the Wikipedia, and that does not make the policy unenforceable or even lacking in consensus. If it did, we would never have been able to switch from having introductory paragraphs with [[Title]] rather than '''Title''', since, at the time of the change, nearly every article used the form now considered incorrect. --TreyHarris 04:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The difference there is that there was consensus support for that change. There isn't here - there was no widely publicised vote expressing support for that, and most people are still linking years in their own articles today. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors, you're right. Occasionally, due to the size of the place, a handful of editors who agree on something can try to slip it in by the back door. When that happens, it still doesn't override four years of common practice. Ambi 05:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Interesting—this is an important enough point that I will take it into a new thread momentarily. --TreyHarris 05:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The MoS on not over-linking dates makes perfectly good sense to me, and is the way I've always edited in creating articles, even before I was aware of the MoS. It fits right in with the more general principal of adding only links that are pertinent to the article. And I see very few years in articles that require a link (other than linking full dates for preference formatting). -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 11:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
He's making 120 edits an hour to random articles all over the encyclopedia. If it looks like a bot, smells like a bot and acts like a bot, it is a bot. That you agree with that bot's edits is another dispute. Ambi 09:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Bot policy addresses bots, not humans. If you don't like someone's editing rate, that is unfortunate and I suggest you discuss it with Angela, who has considerable experience in this area. Jamesday 06:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
On my Bobblewik talk page, SeanBlack quotes Ambi:
  • As you've been told several times, you cannot make edits as fast as you are without a bot flag. If you're not running a bot, you look, act, and smell like one, so you need a flag. Please stop, or you will be blocked again.--Sean Black (talk)
  • I've had enough of this. As of now, I will rollback each and every single edit of yours unlinking dates. How much of your and my time you choose to waste in continuing to do so is up to you. Ambi
SeanBlack's block threat is sweeping and includes edits with detailed changes to copy text. In response to Ambi's previous complaints about speed, I asked for a statement of the speed limit. In the absence of a response, I reduced my speed to 120 per hour hoping that it would end the complaining. If that is too fast, I will reduce it to 60 per hour, 30 per hour, 10 per hour, 10 per week or whatever. I cannot comply with a speed limit if they will not tell me what it is.
If *how* the MoS and other edits are implemented is the problem, then all editors need to know the constraints. If there is a problem with *the MoS guidance* itself, then it should be revised and I will implement the new revision. I know Ambi is unhappy and I really would like to get this resolved. We all want the best for Wikipedia. Can we turn the negative energy of the complaints and block powers into positive proposals?

Formal request for help

I am hereby making a formal request for help from people with influence over these blocking editors. As a start, perhaps somebody might ask Ambi and SeanBlack to

  • State the editing speed limit that will incur a block from them. I can then do what they want and stay under it. It cannot be acceptable to block for speeding if the speed limit is not stated.
  • Stop reverting my edits. bobblewik 21:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


For your first point, WP:BOT states:
For your second point, once you either stop looking exactly like a bot (i.e., make less than 2 edits/minute) or get a bot flag (which should be possible) I'd agree that you should no longer be reverted. -- grm_wnr Esc 13:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for a clear answer. So my self-imposed speed limit was about right (120/h = 2/min). I will keep under that speed limit for repeat MoS consistency edits such as this. I will not even monitor speed if I am thinking and amending copy.
Ambi wrote on my talk page:
  • Did you think I was kidding? Every unlinking you made today is gone. The same will happen every day until you actually start to talk and work towards some sort of compromise, rather than sticking up your middle finger at anyone who disagrees with you. Ambi
I wish Ambi would stop reverting all my edits and propose the revision she wants in the MoS talk page. Can anyone with influence help?
bobblewik 20:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I tried to get you to the discussion table to work out some sort of amicable compromise, as did many other people. As a sign of good faith, I didn't revert your bot edits during that period. And during that time, you thumbed your nose at your critics - you wouldn't respond to the talk page discussions at all except to the extent of "when can I start my bot again?". You're running a bot that reverses four years of standard Wikipedia practice, and doing edits of which even most of the fans admit doesn't have consensus support (even if it was managed to be slipped into the MOS). You yourself briefly took to including in your edit summaries that they were welcome to be reverted. Now, seeing no other alternative, I'm taking you up on that. If you would like to discuss a compromise, then I'm all ears. If you wish to continue thumbing your nose at me, Talrias, and everyone else who has asked you to come to the negotiating table, I'll just have to keep reverting all your mass-unlinkings. Ambi 04:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Please somebody explain why we need to put double square brackets around absolutely *every* year. I understand why we do so around full dates (allows user to view dates according to his or her preferences) but why for separate years, months, days EVERY TIME THEY OCCUR? Arguments like "it's what we always do" or "there's no consensus to delink them" (which are the only arguments I can find which have been advanced by Ambi) are not arguments in favour of adding those pesky square brackets. It's a bore having to filter out the blue every time I read an article. That's a good reaon for delinking en masse. Please Talrias, Ambi, whoever, please explain what benefit it brings to have 1998 instead of 1998, every time. If you can't then leave bobblewik in peace. Stroika 13:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
The manual of style should, in general, not be enforced by a bot. It's not an incontravenable policy, and the change clearly does not have overwhelming consensus. The way to change this is to change the minds of people who make the links, not to go through on a mass change yourself. That said, I fully disagree with blocking Bobblewik over this. Nevertheless, I ask him to refrain until the general question has been addressed. Sam Korn (smoddy) 13:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
So Bobblewik is in the right but needs to sit on his hands? Why? Nobody that I can see has raised a serious objection to the Manual of Style. Can anybody give a single good reason for adding double square brackets to each and every occurrence of a year or day or month? Forgive dim question but I thought bots were computer programmes. Bobblewik seems to be a human being to me albeit rather nimble fingered so what have rules against the use of bots got to do with him? More generally I want to ask: What harm can his edits cause? Stroika 14:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Some people like linking dates etc every time because it gives a consistent feel. You are mistaking what Wikipedia's process is. You think we should make these non-necessary (but not thereby "bad") changes. So do I, in the long run. But this isn't the way to do it. It isn't right just because you and I think it is. Bobblewik should have seen that he has encountered opposition. At this point, he should have stopped and got a reasonable consensus before continuing.
As for the bot point: yes, if decided to be done, this should use a bot account. I am pretty sure that "bot" doesn't mean it has to be fully automated. Sam Korn (smoddy) 15:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
SO what if editors like linking dates? Bully for them. The Manual of Style says editors should not overlink dates.
Bobblewik is simply acting in accordance with the Manual of Style. Why does Bobblewik have to sit around waiting for people to get used to it? He doesn't need a consensus. What's the point of having a manual of style unless we act on it? What little wikistyle I know I mostly picked up from reading articles. Unless editors act on the MoS new editors will learn the bad habits. I sure did.
Bots in fact are closely defined at the beginning of the bots page, they "are automatic processes interacting with Wikipedia over the World Wide Web." Bobblewik is not a bot just a fast editor. Bot rules don't apply. QED?
So. Unless someone can present a compelling reason for ignoring the MoS and wikilinking every occurrence of a day month or year, or unless someone can show why every wikilinked date should be preserved bobblewik should be unblocked, pronto.
Could someone not involved in this discussion please clean up this section as it is getting complicated to read, create a new section perhaps? Stroika 16:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
The manual of style is a guideline, not policy. Bobblewik is running a bot script to implement the manual of style and has frequently declared it is policy - which is a misconception. He needs consensus to run his bot script, and needs it approved on WP:BOT. If it looks, smells and acts like a bot, it is a bot. Bobblewik is making edits too fast to individually check each one, and he often makes mistakes - just see his talk page. Bot rules most certainly do apply. Your second-last paragraph is a false dichotomy. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
The Manual of Style is not incontravenable policy. If people want to break it, that's fine, as long as they're consistent. Its role is to settle disputes, not to advocate large scale changes.
Because Wikipedia is a community, and it's not unreasonable to expect that changes like this have consensus behind them.
That's a really bad definition. Of the first four bots on the page, three of them have human interaction. Bobblewik is using an automated tool with human interaction, which has always fallen under the remit of being a bot.
He's still blocked? I shall undo that, if he undertakes that he stop doing this until consensus is reached. Making these edits is not against Wikipedia rules. Ignoring legitimate concerns is.
Encyclopaedia > consensus > policy. That's not to say that there aren't interactions, but this is one occasion where the benefit to the first is not clear and the second is clearly being broken. Sam Korn (smoddy) 16:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I discussed this with Ambi here, saying I thought (and still think) she is acting inappropriately towards Bobblewik. She replied here, politely, but saying she thought her vigilanteeism was appropriate. I've looked over the subject carefully, and I firmly believe (a) BobbleWik is doing nothing wrong by delinking dates, and (b) Ambi is acting inappropriately in reverting these changes, and should cease. It looks like Wikistalking and attempting to revert war. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 14:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think people are missing part of the point here. The point is not that removing links around years is bad, just that using a automated script to improve an article by doing it is not justified. Articles are organic things which grow over time and using a inflexible bot script to "improve" an article - despite it frequently removing dates in useful places, as shown by the number of messages on his talk page - is just not on. Yes, remove dates around links when they are overlinked. But do it when it fits, not with a bot - especially a bot which was never approved in the first place. Talrias (t | e | c) 15:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I have seen no evidence that a bot is used. I've heard the "if it smells like a bot, it's a bot" line, but I disagree. Changes made with AWB look like a bot's doing, but they are not. I frequently make repetitive manual changes so quickly, people have asked if I was using a bot, but I'm not. Bobblewik has said he looks at every change before he clicks "save", and I see no reason to think he's lying. AGF and all that. So it looks like you blocked Bobblewik for using a bot, when you have no evidence he has done so. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 17:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
An afterthought: many of Ambi's reversions of Bobblewik have been done more than twice per minute, and have been repetitive as well. And yet no one seems to want to accuse Ambi of using a bot, and she has not been block for using an alleged bot. And she should not be. It seems to me that accusing someone of being a bot without evidence is akin to accusing someone of being a sockpuppet without evidence. And blocking someone for that reason is inappropriate. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 17:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
It's not a mindless bot, he says he approves every edit. When people point out valid concerns—like that delinking [911]] doesn't make sense— bobblewik takes it into account. When people revert his edits he doesn't revert back. When someone asks him to lay off particular pages, he does. A lot of us think he's doing really useful janitorial work. Years are currently massively overlinked. Look at Rambo for example, where Ambi reverted his changes. Which version do you think is better?
Now, I understand that people have valid concerns on whether bobblewik's method is the best way to achieve the goal of reducing overlinking. But please suggest some alternative method if you dislike this one. The overlinking of years is a self-perpetuating problem, the current overlinking is so massive that new users take it for an accepted norm. Drastic action is needed if we are to tackle this effectively. Haukur 17:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Several bots have human approval on every edit.
If there is a demonstrable (and that doesn't mean a vote) consensus for making the changes, I would agree to their being made provided a bot flag was in place and the edits were not under Bobblwik's main account. The place to decide this is Wikipedia talk:Bots. Once a bot flag is approved there and the bot task is approved there, then there can be no complaints. Sam Korn (smoddy) 18:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I'll repeat what I said in the section above, I don't think years (or other parts of dates) should be linked unless they especially relevant to the article, and I have yet to work on an article where I thought that was the case. I remove year linking whenever I edit an article, and I see nothing wrong with what Bobblewik has been doing. (I do link full dates for preference formatting, but that is somehting different). -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 19:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Please see my new bot application. Thanks. bobblewik 19:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi, Admins should remember that the page on using rollbacks limits them to simple vandalism. Rich Farmbrough 01:06 26 February 2006 (UTC).

Star Ratings on Album pages

I had started a bot request for Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Stars_to_text however after starting the job I was notified that some editors had some unaddressed objections and I have stoppped the bot in the interm.

The request is for a bot to replace the "star images" in ratings into text for album pages (for example would be replaced by (4/5)). The reason for the changes were listed as

  1. For some people, it's hard to distinguish between 1 and .5 stars (eye, monitor, etc.)
  2. Without the captions, it's virtually unreadable for visually impaired.
  3. Image bandwidth. It's much faster and uses less bandwidth without the unnecessary stars.
  4. Generally, it's easier without them.

Some editors had concerns that consensus was not reached on the previous page, As this is a large amount of pages (2500+) I think it's necessary to have a proper consensus either before the bot could possibly get restarted. Some star ratings have already have been converted to text (not my myself) - so a consensus might want to change those back to stars. Tawker 14:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

In regard to point 1, the stars image has poor contrast and is a bit small. If it was just simply black stars, a bit further apart, and maybe with the half-marks as grey stars rather than half-black ones, it should be as legible as the surrounding text. I'll make up image(s) if someone wants. For those who are significantly visually impared what's there is okay (the alt text isn't bad) but we can improve it with regular wikimarkup: 4/5. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's my simple test case for 4.5 stars, with appropriate alt text: 4.5/5. Hmmm, the half-tone thing doesn't work nicely - hang on while I make a chopped one... -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's one with the half denoted by a star chopped in half: 4.5/5. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
How about a "star outline" with a white center? Tawker 15:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean that the half star should be an outline? Here's one like that - 4.5/5 -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
It's a good idea to give a contrasted color outline, even if it's only useful to silly people that've customized their CSS. So a black star should have a thing white outline, a white star should have a black one, for example. ¦ Reisio 22:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
One issue with the stars is that it doesn't work for out-of-ten reviews, so I've knocked up a couple of ideas to get around this, based on Finlay's design above. 9.5/10 and 9.5/10. They look a bit crappy because they're only gifs, but I think they'd work if done properly. - MightyMoose22 02:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't see this alternative as a viable solution. A large clump of black stars doesn't effectively present information; non-geniuses like me need to count each star to figure out what the rating is (compared to the nanosecond it takes to read "9.5"). This solution also does not seem to take into account less friendly decimals like 9.4 or 2.1 or 7.7, and I don't see how it could without resorting to either approximation, or the ridiculous, microscopic division of stars. Text is both effectient and accurate. --jiy (talk) 07:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think anyone's suggesting that we convert all ratings to stars regardless of how they're presented, rather that we do (or don't) convert stars to text. My personal feeling is that we display the ratings as they are displayed at the original source - if it's reviewed in stars we use stars, if it's 9.5 as text we use 9.5 as text, if it's a thumbs up/down we use a little thumbs up/down icon. - MightyMoose22 23:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
In regard to point 2, see my alt text above. In regard to point three, this really isn't an issue. Bandwidth is never our chokepoint, these image files are tiny, and will be efficiently cached in the webservers, the squids, and in the visitor's browsers. In regard to ease, I think we can have a simple substable template (e.g. {{subst:starsFromFive|3.5}}) to make human-handling of the stars straightforward. I do think the stars are a good idea, and I think we can intelligently handle fallback for visually impared visitors without resorting to text-only. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Many of the albums are not templates, they're images. I'm starting to think both an image and text eg (4/5) would work best. Tawker 15:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Whatever we do, it's clear that the ALT text on the current images needs improving, so at the very least that's a nasty task your bot could help with. Once we have a consensus as to what the markup should be for such stars, I figure it'd be nice to have a subst-template which would make life easy for humans to follow the standard. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I personally would support having a template instead of image, so that it would be possible to redesign stars whenever we feel like it. So I propose substing Image:4 of 5.png by any template {{whatever | 4/5}}. For now the template can be processed with showing current image, later it can be switched to text or new picture with text. --Jan Smolik 15:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Is there any particular reason why we need images in the first place? It's somewhat visually pleasing, but not much more. Template idea was already suggested and implemented, then taken away sometime ago. I'll see if I can find the relevant disussion. -- WB 23:54, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Found it, and the consensus was deleted then. -- WB 00:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
As what Water Bottle just said, the image template was deleted because it was a meta-template and using these stars would reverse this decision. Also if images are to be used what is there to guarentee that ALT text will be added? Nooby_god | Talk 23:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
That might be acceptable. WP:AUM doesn't seem to be as popular now as it was then. Ehheh 14:49, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The Choice - please vote on which option you prefer?

Option 1: Replace image to something similar to above (alternative image)

(possibly the "black stars"

  • I think that makes sense. I don't see why it has to be text-only, as long as proper ALT text is used. *Dan T.* 19:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support 2nd. If we have to abandon the current system (which seems to me to be unobjectionable). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support 2nd as well The current image system is just hard to see and etc. If we are not going text, at least we need to get rid of the current images. Which, ironically, were created by me in the first place... -- WB 22:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support 1st - MightyMoose22 02:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • This choice isn't exactly very clear - "Replace image to something similar to above" - well, all alternatives are discussed above. I'm guessing you mean this choice to be "Use Alternative Image", in which case, I Support. With numbers only e.g. (4/5), it is not necessarily clear that it is a rating. I agree that they could be visually better, higher contrast, and yes if we're using images for ratings out of 5, ideally we also need images for ratings out of 10. Gram 12:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support 2nd While I like the black stars (very slick), they take up more space than the current ones, resulting in two lines for one review link more often. --FlorianB 20:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Option 2: Image and Text (images either original or improved) using a subst'able template.

Option 3: Text only (remove images)

  • Support There's not much of a reason to use images. -- WB 19:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - Nooby god 16:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support It is arbitrary that rating systems that are conveniently represented through visuals merit star images (the 5 star scale), while those that do not translate well visually must default to plain text (like the 10 point decimal scale Pitchfork uses, or the A-F grading system Robert Christgau uses, or the Favorable or Unfavorable derived from reviews that do not use any point scale). I see no purpose in mixing images and plain text arbitrarily, especially when using plain text all the time is the simplest and most painless route. - jiy (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Option 4: Leave the current system in place (but with better "ALT" usage)

Option 5: Other (please specify)

In the interest of fairness, I have added the votes of 3 users who had already made their fellings clear regarding this matter on the previous page of discussion. - MightyMoose22 03:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears we're in a bit of a stalemare here with votes being 3 a peice, how do we propose to solve this stalemate. Tawker 04:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we've got 5 votes for option 1 and 3 each for options 3 & 4, but it's not enough for a majority consensus in my opinion. Is there any way we can bring this to the attention of a wider audience, other than just the people who read these boards? Any way to modify a TfD template (or something similar) to go along with the star pics currently being used? - MightyMoose22 23:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, as it stands, its eight to three in favour of using graphics; perhaps we could now ask people, given that we're using stars, which of the two they prefer?
It would be better to have more people involved, though. Perhaps we could just start informing editors whom we know to be involved in relevant articles? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Not sure how we could easily notify but its something we should do Tawker 08:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The option I like the most is the one MightyMoose mentioned above: My personal feeling is that we display the ratings as they are displayed at the original source. That's the most logical approach, star ratings at the source are represented as stars on WP, if the source uses a (X/5) scale without stars, we use the same (without stars) etc. I don't know of any music review site that uses stars for a 10-point system, so this is a non-issue. --FlorianB 20:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Angry over the Wikipedia policy towards indecent language

I have been on conflict with Monicasdude over the article Self Portrait. I insisted on rewritting swearwords with asterisks and noticed that they kept on being changed back. When I looked through the pages history, I found that Monicasdude was "reverting censored language." I asked him about this and called my sensibilites "excessively tender". In the country I'm from (Australia), and the social class I of (equivelent the middle-to-upper classes in the UK), these morals are quite normal, and a local Melbourne Newspaper, The Age refuses to print these words, and insists on censoring them. A considerable amount of printed media, including (I beleive), Encyclopedia Britanica and most other printed Encyclopedias. There are many online websites like this too. So why didn't wikipedia agree in this policy. It seems that its current policy was created in America by someone who didn't know of this policy elsewhere. I would appreciate any user who agrees on this view, and that we should at least have right (as opposed to authority) to censor language, if they send my a message on this. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian) Febuary 2006

I'm afraid you're wrong on this one; it's policy, and has been explicit policy for years, that Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. One reason for the policy being the way it is is that the stability of Wikipedia articles depends on editors' agreement, and it is very hard to agree on where to draw the line were we to agree to draw a line. You may or may not agree with this policy, but it is Wikipedia's policy and it currently has very strong support by Wikipedians. Inconsistent as it may seem, there is a feeling that we can't have overly-erotic images, but with respect to written language, the feeling is that "sticks and stones can break my bones but [words] can never hurt me." As far as I know Australians have uncensored access to the Internet so your statement about Australian mores is apparently not carried over into official Australian policy. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I know of no modern printed encyclopedia that would censor a word like "shit", especially not in quoted text. BTW, I know some Australians, and also some Americans, and, on average, the Americans are rather more prude about language. "Rest room", indeed... --Stephan Schulz 11:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Mrs. Digby told me that when she lived in London with her sister, Mrs. Brooke, they were every now and then honoured by the visits of Dr. Johnson. He called on them one day soon after the publication of his immortal dictionary. The two ladies paid him due compliments on the occasion. Amongst other topics of praise they very much commended the omission of all naughty words. "What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?" said the moralist. - H.D. Best. Shimgray | talk | 21:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Concur with Dpbsmith. I don't see our language standards changing significantly because of concerns for polite diction. --Improv 16:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Why did people decide that adding an asterisk makes it okay? Anyone who can read will know what sh*t is and most of will know what s*** is, too. -- Kjkolb 07:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"...it currently has very strong support by Wikipedians" Do you really mean *all* wikipedians. As you probably know, stereotypes over such a large group are never 100% accurate. "As far as I know Australians have uncensored access to the Internet so your statement about Australian mores is apparently not carried over into official Australian policy" I didn't despute the former, I *have* come across websites the would censor a word like the "s word," and this has nothing to do with what country I'm "surfing" from (I don't even know where all these websites are located). I don't know exactly what you mean by "official Australian policy," but whatever it is, the "educated middle class" don't have much control, and may statement about morals was (mostly) about that social class. "I know some Australians, and also some Americans, and, on average, the Americans are rather more prude about language..." What social class(es)? I did not dispute this about, a "lower class" Australian that "grows up in the suburbs," "shops in the mall," and "watches commercial TV [Australia has many noncommercial radio stations but no noncommercial terrestrial TV]." But the "educated middle class" can, especially among older generations be more prude about words like the f word and the s word, and sometimes even blasphemy, given that so many of them were educated (prior to Universiy entry) by hardcore christians, than the "archetypal" lower class. I personally dislike using the gramaticalised s word in this way on the grounds of its concrete meaning. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian) (talk) Febuary 2006

What are you talking about? Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors, as was said above- it's not censored for the protection of prude adults, either.--Sean Black (talk) 21:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
If you can build a consensus to censor Wikipedia then current plicy may change. But thankfully that will never happen. It is as simple as that. Martin 21:49, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
It's true that not 100% of Wikipedians support this policy; with such a large and diverse group, I doubt that 100% supports any proposition, including that the Earth is round. However, there is a broad consensus for it. *Dan T.* 22:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I find the original posters comment about it not being acceptable in Australia a joke. I was just watching a show last night where Harrison Ford was being interviewed and was so impressed at being allowed ot swear on broadcast television that he did, quite a bit. This seems to happen a fair bit with american guests on Australian talk shows. It seems Australia has a much more relaxed attitude to searing in the media than the US. --Martyman-(talk) 22:07, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"I find the original posters comment about it not being acceptable in Australia a joke." No, many middle class Australians really do perceive these as "lower class words," I was talking about this particular class. "It seems Australia has a much more relaxed attitude to searing in the media than the US." This is not my expierience, one of the conditions of a radio or TV broadcast license is that stations may not transmit indecent language between certain times the day, if swearwords appear, they must edit them out, usually with an electronic bleep. Channel Ten even did this with Big Brother when broadcasting it between these times.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian) (talk) Febuary 2006

I find the idea that "middle class" tastes are inherently preferable to "lower class" tastes to be far more offensive than Myrtone finds profanity. This was, after all, the stated central point in the old (old, old) argument that Pat Boone's music was superior to Little Richard's. Monicasdude 03:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Then we should be proud that Wikipedia uses language that does not alienate the "lower classes." Really, I don't see why this fight persists. Wikipedia is not censored, end of argument. --Golbez 03:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
What's with the classist comments? Are you actually saying the words of the "lower class" (as you have designated them) are beneath us to reference? How do you know that many of us are not "lower class?" I find your references to class offensive and would like you to remove them from my eyes. Postdlf 04:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  1. The use of "shit" on the entry Self Portrait is a quotation. It's there for accuracy.
  2. Wikipedia cannot be censored for minors or prudes.
  3. Leaving aside the political correctness or not of User:Myrtone's assessment of Australian standards, in my view, and with respect, it is wrong. Educated Australians (a group in which I hope I might include myself, having three Bachelor's degrees and a Master's degree from the University of Melbourne) are not as sensitive as he suggests. Avalon 10:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Almost agreed, educated Australians aren't neccessarily "middle class," their familes havn't neccessarily been that way for more than a generation, I did state that this was particularly the case among older generations (the statement refering to geanology is not intended to alienate the younger genrations). And I did not state specifically that (all) "middle class" tastes are *inherently* superior to "lower class." The wikipedia policy assumes that adults who are prude about a word like the s-word, which is not my experiance. I thought, maybe they are in America but not here in Australia, aware that some might think of Americans, on average, as more prude about language, "Rest room..." indeed. I stated that this may my the case with the "lower class," but not the "educated middle class" (as opposed to any other "educated" Australians), especially among the aformentioned generations.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk)

Are we allowed to use swear languages? --Masssiveego 08:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistence in our notability policies -- Digipedia

I am just stunned with inconsistencies in our notability policies. If you are university professor you must be much more important than average to be involved in Wikipedia. Bands must have published record with major label. Record itself is not sufficient. Sportspeople must have played “in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in an individual professional sport, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States.” This suddenly includes more people but is still rather strict.

On the other hand, software can be included if it has more than 5,000 users or a forum or mailing list with a significant (5000) number of members. That can also mean that at least 5000 people have heart about it. While a record for a band is not sufficient (to publish a band you must have made concerts for more that 5000 people in total). Cities (at least American) can be included anytime. Today I clicked on the Random Page and I saw article about “city” with 211 people. Highschools of the world are included just becouse they are highschools (I have been to few discussions and I gave up AFDing them).

But the best is when you are a Digimon (whatever that is). Then you MUST be included without any doubts. I AFDed article about Solarmon whose whole content was: “Solarmon is a Rookie Level Machine Digimon that looks like Hagurumon, but is all yellow. He is a rare form of the Machine Digimon. Abilities Attacks Shiny Ring Sol Carol Little Burn”. And actualy everyone votes keep even with comment that there is some project that wants to make these articles realy useful.

I know that articles with various subjects are written by different groups of people. But generaly those groups should compare their criteria with those of the other groups. People please be reasonable. We need more consistence troughout those categories. Otherwhise this will be Digipedia with some high school articles and very very little of somethink else. Jan Smolik 21:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:DIGI is working on improving Digimon articles. Might I also point that all Pokémons without exceptions have received articles? I think that is a powerful precedent. Circeus 00:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I do not distinguish between Pokémon and Digimon. I only say, we have quite a strict rules for scientists, relatively strict rules for bands and sportpeople, but no rules for comics characters. I am not against including 10 or 20 most important characters. But not 200+. The serie only runs for 9 years so all of them cannot be realy notable. Not even fans of the comics would be able to name them all. Favorite author of my childhood is Jules Verne. But I do not include articles about all characters from his books. I believe it is the same thing as having separate article about each of Ali Baba's thieves. We can have article about Ali Baba though.
However my comment is not only about Digimon. It is a general problem I see that different categories have diferent notability criteria.
The biggest problem I see is that Wikipedia gives too much importance to things that are happening right now. If Jaromír Jágr scores a goal, his article is updated before he gets to the shower. When new Digimon appears he has article of his own within a week. On the other hand really important people from the history have one-liner stubs. The other day I randomly came upon article about some US politician John R. Lynch who had realy unclear one-liner. Later I found out, he was one of the first black politicians, and firt black speaker of the Mississippi house. I am not able to improve the article much, as I am not American and do not have access to the resources about Americans, but I think he deserves much more work than Solarmon, who is basicly (according to his article) looks like the other Digimon whose name I forgot but is all yellow. --Jan Smolik 10:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
One more thing. There is a Notability (fiction) guideline you Pikimon and Digémon guys are clearly breaking by having separate articles for minor characters. --Jan Smolik 10:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
They don't care. This is a real problem in deletion discussions. On your other comments, yes, there is way too much emphasis on what's happened in the last year, week, hour. It's so easy to grab something off the Internet, or just add something you heard on the news. There is also way too much emphsis on "pop culture". I mean, do we really need a list of List of Thrashcore bands, most of which are not notable enough to have an article? -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 12:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with this notion on a fundamental level. According to Google, most Pokémon (even the obscure ones like Masquerain), get almost 50,000 hits. Also, since the PCP came about, many of the articles are now very well referenced and have brilliant prose. Bulbasaur for example is nearly an FA. I'm sorry, I thionk this is just a case of {{sofixit}} - we're fixing the Pokemon articles - you fix the ones about old politicians, okay? --Celestianpower háblame 16:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Jan, I definently see and understand the point you are making about the inconsistent policy. The de facto standard for notability is hugely different whether you are talking about a scientist or a Pokeman. I would be happiest if we could make the standard more consistent by raising the bar for fictional characters and lowering it somewhat for biographies of real people. I wouldn't support dropping the standard for biographies of real people to the level that they are at for Pokemans. I just don't think Wikipedia would be better than it is now if we tried to include all professors. ike9898 18:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Regarding Celestianpowers notion of number of hits: If I run a merchandising company, I would made sure that my products have 50 000 Google hits. It does not say anything about importance, it just says that somebody spent huge amount of money for advertising campaign. Anyway, people living before the Internet time have huge disadvantage, because articles about them, fanzines etc. were in paper and are not searchable via Google.
Considering quality of articles is another thing. If an article has excelent quality I support that it is incuded in Wikipedia. But most Digimon / Pokemon articles just cannot reach excelent quality because there is not enough information. They will just remain stubs. You can have article about Hamlet but you surely would be suprised to see a separate article about each soldier that caried Hamlets body in the final scene. There is no Soldier 4 Carrying Hamlet's body article. --Jan Smolik 15:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes Subst

Beliefs userboxes substitution

Purpose: Getting rid of the capability for factionalists to use "Whatlinkshere" to recruit people for the purposes of vote-stuffing. Also to remove unencyclopedic templates without disrupting user's pages.

What do you need done: Substitution of all templates listed at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs. You can start with {{user No Smoking}}, {{user Drug-free}}, {{user not stoned}}, and {{user not-Drug-free}}, and proceed from there.

Consensus of community for operation (wikilink showing support): Is Jimbo himself good enough for you?  :-P (edit: this is controversial, Andy 17:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC))

Cyde Weys 06:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a yes/no vote as to if you want me to start a bot run to subst those userboxes. Tawker 07:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Most discussion is to be found here: Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Userbox_debates No-one should run any subst bots based on this page.

For subst'ing the userboxes:

Against subst'ing the userboxes:

  • Oppose — Factions are bad, but substituting userbox templates is worse. What links here is a very valuable tool that shouldn't be mangled for political reasons. Fix political problems with political solutions. — Omegatron 04:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Female infoboxes with body "statistics"

I removed Template:Infobox Female Model Bio from Zöe Salmon and tfded the template as I suspected that it was going to be used on any female celebrity who was vaguely attractive. I was then reprimanded for suggesting the template was sexist on tfd and assured that it should only be used for models. However the user who originally created the model template then created a very similar Template:Infobox_Female_Media_Bio which still lists hair and eye colour, height, weight, and Dress size. Personally I don't think we should be using infoboxes that treat women like some piece of meat but I'd appreciate other peoples views on this. Arniep 11:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Female body statistics, in and of themselves, are not encyclopedic. When a particular woman's statistics have been a 'news item' in reliable sources, the coverage can be included in the article. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 12:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


Perhaps one way to redress balance might be to incorporate into male celebrity infoboxes a field to hold the size of the gentleman's...wallet? --Tony Sidaway 13:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Is that a joke!? Seriously, it is going to make Wikipedia look really stupid if we have these things on every biography page. Arniep 13:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, of course it's a joke. I assumed that using "wallet" as a euphemism would send a pretty strong signal, but this may be a matter of my personal cultural expectations. wikipedia-en is big. --Tony Sidaway 04:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please add such a box for Tarja Halonen - we're dying to know her stats. BD2412 T 16:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

We have them for porn star articles. I don't even think they should exist on there (not to mention it would fluctuate constantly, methinks). Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 16:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

With models sizes are extremely relevant and important. Not so much for female celebrities, but for models there is no reason not to list them. Seraphim 00:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

How about female cartoon characters? --Moby Dick 11:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I think having statistics strictly for models would be appropriate, given that their fashion repertoire makes it relevent. But I wouldn't see a relevenace in having them available for, say, users, being as this is an encyclopedia and not a dating service. Eluchil 11:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is a lot of celebrities may have modelled at some point in their lives but modelling is no longer considered to be their job. I don't think we should use these stat boxes unless these people are known only as models. Arniep 15:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned above, physical stats fluctutate too much to be declared in the abstract. Even if such information is relevant, it should be removed unless a reliable and notable source is cited that indicates when the measurements were taken. Postdlf 16:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This is the best argument against having these stats. How are they going to be kept constantly accurate? They will, without a doubt, change very frequently. Chairman S. Talk 20:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I do like being able to see some of the gossipy stats for some the people in the entertainment business. Not only for women, but for men also. Every one says Tom Cruise is short; well, if it seems people care about his height so that it is ofetn discussed, then it should go in the article. People whose lives -professional at least- revolve around certain data they have, should have that data listed; for professional athletes it would be their records, well for models it would be their measurements. IMO any data that tends to deviate from the general range should also go there: be somebody's IQ, or John Holmes' penis size, or Pamela Anderson's breasts or Michael Crichton's height Not sure of spelling of the writer's last name). Anagnorisis 06:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for new sister projects

After having dispute concerning Digimon (above), after seeing development of WikiProject Schools and after participating in few AFD discussions about bands and after watching development of new stubs about semi-important people I would like to propose creation of following Wikipedia sister projects:

  • WikiSchools – for school articles
  • WikiWhoIsWho – for very short articles about semi-important people – wikipedia should take only best articles developed here (I already see problem with duplicating work, but this can be solved by some kind of replication).
  • WikiFiction – for detailed articles about fictional universes (Digimon, Pokémon, Starwars, …). Wikipedia should only contain short summary of those.

The reason for this is that detailed articles about these things overflow recent changes are prone to vandalism and therefore add work that could be otherwise given to development of more important articles. These articles are a mirror of contemporary world and are therefore interesting but in my opinion do not belong to an encyclopedia.

I also think that WikiMusic might be also useful. Again to provide information mainly about contemporary music, which can create great resource for studying our time. But most of this information should not belong to the encyclopedia.

Can anybody help me, to present this proposal more formally (I do not know where and how)? --Jan Smolik 13:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

If you wish to leave Wikipedia, and make your own Wiki(s), then, best wishes and good luck to you. You can make a wiki that only has the things you are personally interested in. You needn't get any permission or backing, as all the software is freely available. But, don't expect anybody in your "target groups" to leave Wikipedia. --Rob 13:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I do not want them to leave Wikipedia. I want to create space for more articles that would otherwise be considered for deletion. Many current articles are on the border of our current notability guidelines. We can either change those guidelines, so that these articles could be included or follow precedens with Wictionary and Wikispecies and create sister projects. --Jan Smolik 14:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Look, you'll have to learn to live with not getting your way on some AFDs. Its a fact of life. Crying off, and trying to send others to other projects isn't the solution. So, once again, if you wish to set up another wiki, go and do so. It really has nothing to do with anybody here. --Rob 14:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I can live with this. But for example if I used WP:FICTION as a guideline I could go and merge 90 % of Digimon articles into List of Digimon minor characters per point 2 of this guideline. It would be easy: Name, level, color, attacks, next line. I do not want to do that as I would damage hard work of people who wrote those articles. I actualy do not want to delete those articles. But it is against the rules to have them here. Nobody went ahead to change the rulse and I think that would be strongly oposed. So that I propose creating a sister project for this kind of articles. It is not crying. It is only a logical conclusion. Would you rather wish me to go ahead and propose all Digimon aricles for deletion? Very simmilar think applies to schools. Many of them break current policies. By whoiswho and music I also want to include articles about people and bands that are otherwise deleted from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia should contain information about all these things (Digimon, Bands, People, Schools) but only to the level specified in notability guidelines. --Jan Smolik 14:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
What's absurd about your supposed "precedent" Wikispecies, is we still have articles on species. Nobody is thinking of getting rid of them, because of the "sister" project. Not now, not ever. There's Wikitravel (not a sister project, but similiar concept), yet real places remain the most heavily covered component of Wikipedia, where virtually nobody suggests we should delete "non-notable" cities, towns, villages, or even tiny townships (in fact, we probably keep stuff to small for wikitravel). Since *you* have a problem with Wikipedia, and how inclusive it is, it is up to you to deal with it. If you wish to deal with your problem, by making wiki forks, so be it. That's to bad. But, I still fail to see how *your* problem with Wikipedia, is anybody elses. You know as well as I do, that if the rules supported you, and you could delete the content you don't like, you would. Your just making your proposal, because of your frustration at total and complete failure to convince others that the rules of inclusion should be what you want. --Rob 15:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Why the hostility? The user proposing these ideas is being perfectly reasonable. ike9898 16:34, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, in each of the categories, the user is seeking the removal of a majority of content from Wikipedia. The removal of thousands of articles, is not slightly reasonable. When stuff is kept on AFD, people need to move on, and let it go. There is nothing in the proposal that would make Wikipedia better. Yet, tremendous value from Wikipedia would be removed. This user wishes to see not only large classes of articles leave Wikipedia, but classes of users go with them. I think when people make such suggestions, they should contemplate the consequences. --Rob 18:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
You seem very emotionally invested in this issue, but you need to remember to be civil. Not only is it a rule of Wikipedia, but it is easier to convince others to take your side if you're not being visibly nasty to the other side. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Not really a useful proposal. I don't see how splitting all of Wikipedia up into different pieces would either reduce vandalism or focus our efforts on "more important" articles. It seems to me that it would just make things inconvenient. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
It's also worth noting that the other sister projects exist because they have separate, incompatible content policies: e.g. on language, original research, NPOV, etc. There's no such clear distinction for the new projects you suggest. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:48, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it is also the case of Sister projects I proposed. For example schools will keep having problems with verifiability. Many "redundant" fiction space articles do not have sufficient context to become featured articles one day. With every Digimon/Star Wars/Star Trek character or vehicle you have to include information what Digimon/Star Wars/Star Trek is. Sister project can receive different organization of articles so there will not be urgent need for having context in any article. As with WhoIsWho it is a problem that basic notability criterion (as I feel it) in Wikipedia is that the article can grow to the featured quality one day (can but not necessarily will). With many people, their article will probably never grow from stub, because there will never be enough information. Also WhoIsWho might receive different policy regarding original research (for example actualy asking person we are writing about).
As for splitting into pieces. I think Wiki model can only work in communies of certain size. It does not work in too small (the case of Czech Wikipedia) but also in too large. I think that Wikipedia is slowly approaching this border and community is getting too large. So I think splitting is only a question of time. I think it is not a qustion If we will split but When. Anyway, individual WikiProjects already have policies incompatible with the rest of Wikipedia (example is diacritics policy of WikiProject Ice-Hockey)
Currently there is a backclog in many tasks. I think those backclogs can be cleared much more easily if splitted into more of them. The option to Sister projects is mandatory categorization of every article to let's say 10 basic categories and possibility to filter articles in Recent Changes and in those backclogs. But in current state this category filtering (or filtering in more categories) is not implemented yet, and most new articles are started uncategorized. --Jan Smolik 15:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What is WP policy on torrent links being added to articles? BorisFromStockdale has added links to torrentspy to a few Star Trek Deep Space Nine articles. Currently there is one linked on the bottom of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This may be clearly against policy and will be removed by a more knowledgeable editor - but I just thought I would ask for clarification anyway, as technically it isn't illegal, but it is putting WP into a grey area of the web.SFC9394 20:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Well, direct links to places you can BUY DVD's or videos are generally frowned upon. So it seems that direct link to places you can steal them would probably be at best, viewed with the same level of suspicion. His links add nothing in the way of information, so I have removed them. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • It's not illegal, but it's still dirty, and we shouldn't be doing it. Raul654 21:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • That is roughly what I expected, but I didn't want to remove them all in case it was ok. I shall rv any edits containing torrent links if any more are edited in.SFC9394 22:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • There's no reason for them whatsoever. Torrents are notoriously fleeting, what is a good torrent today will probably be dead in a fortnight. Also, um, no. --Golbez 22:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This user has some other odd contributions; see e.g. the images at User:66.122.0.126. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw that when checking out his contribs. It looks like he is part of some sort of homework answer sharing ring or something. The static IP that he posts to appears to be his high school IP. Don't know whether this contravenes rules and regs, but it certainly isn't encyclopedic. He added to the IP talk page:
"I decided to start uploading old homework to this website. I do not advocate plagirism, but you are free to use it for any purpose!"
Firstly, not the place to be doing that (even if it was enclyclopedic), and secondly user pages aren't supposed to be unofficial notice boards for institutions.SFC9394 23:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
IFD the lot, Wikipedia is not a file repository. --Golbez 23:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


I am just going to go through the whole lot now - I will add a summary piece to his talk page outlining what is wrong.SFC9394 23:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I think torrent like to something "free" such as NASA documents, Linux OS's would be acceptable, as long as they were clearly marked as torrent links (a torrent icon perhaps?) Tawker 17:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

non notable

Can someone reassure me that the fact that someone slams a door on a film set is not notable. If people agree with that can someone please block User:Monkey68 who keeps trying to add it to Cameron Diaz despite my warnings? Thanks Arniep 23:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

We don't block people for persistently adding info, even trivial info, unless they violate the three-revert rule. If the user knows about the rule (warn him!), and reverts more than 3 times in 24 hours, then you can report it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. Just remember that the 3RR applies to you as well. Admins aren't in the business of blocks based on our personal judgement of how trivial a fact is. -- SCZenz 02:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I think you are probably wrong on that as I think we aim not to include non notable information. We just can't allow people to add every tiny detail of what a person has done in their lives. Arniep 15:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
No, you're wrong. We don't block edits made in good faith, and evidently this user thinks this fact should be included - this should be resolved by discussion on the article's talk page. Deco 19:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I think you're wrong. If I added often slams car doors, often wears shoes to articles would this be a notable fact for a celebrity? There comes a point when info is such stupidly trivial normal behaviour that adding it can be seen as vandalism. Arniep 22:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Internal linking proper names

I wasn't able to find a policy or guideline on this: I ususally create an internal link for a proper name of a person, first in the hope that when I preview the current article, I will see the link in blue and know that the linked article exists and the spelling is correct. The person whose name appears in square brackets would merit an article according to our rules for the creation of a biographical article on him or her. Of course, not everyone whose name appears now in the Wikipedia will have their own article, but many will.

When the link is red, and the spelling is correct, I know that an article doesn't exist for this person and I can either create the article now, or when I reread the current article in a few weeks and the link is in red then that's a reminder (to me or to anyone) to write the article.

Is there a reason for anyone to manually or robotically remove these internal links? patsw 05:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

"A" reason? Sure, at least two: Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context and Wikipedia:Notability. The relevancy criterion is easily hurdled for almost all uses of proper names. But the notability question is legitimate. For instance, in an article about a historic figure, if you say, "she had three sons, Ewan, Gregor, and Seamus", linking any of the names would be incorrect unless the linked son was notable in his own right.
Simply removing redlinks on sight would be improper editing behavior, though I have noticed it happen during article cleanup (for instance, sometimes people have objected to Featured Article candidates on the basis of too many redlinks). No bot can determine notability, so an autonomous (not human-driven) bot should not be employed to remove redlinks.
By the way: the previewing behavior you describe, while laudable, isn't quite sufficient. We often end up with rather humorous linkages based on proper name collision—say, you click on the link of the name of the current mayor of a town and get an article about a 16th-century poet. You should click through these links before saving to be sure they are the correct articles and not disambiguation pages or another person with the same name (or a misspelling thereof). --TreyHarris 07:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

There isn't a Wikipedia:Notability guideline. It's an essay in the Wikipedia project space. However, for the former link, I am grateful since it includes this text:

  • Major connections with the subject of another article that will help readers to understand the current article more fully (see the example below). This can include people, events and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question.

If, for example, there's an article about an author, and it mentions another author, both of similiar prominence and importance, you'd put in the link -- in the expectation that you or someone else will eventually write the article. And it doesn't improve the article to remove such a link. patsw 05:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Right, I'm aware that notability isn't a guideline. But linking to a non-notable name seems like a bad idea by concatenation of other policies. If someone clicks a redlinked name, tries to stub it out, and can't find any references to the individual except in reference to the other article's topic, going back to the redlink and removing the link seems legitimate to me. --TreyHarris 20:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Permission received from TIME MAGAZINE for covers and text

We asked Time Magazine if it was okay to use the cover photos. Subject: RE: AskArchivist Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:51:30 -0500 From: Bonnie_Kroll at timeinc.com Thanks for submitting your question to Ask the Archivist. Fair use doctrine allows you to use a reasonable text excerpt with a link back to the entire article at time.com. You may also use a thumbnail of our cover images, as long as you link back to a page on time.com. Best regards, Bonnie Kroll Ask the Archivist http://www.timearchives.com Rjensen 11:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe this fair use applies to all magazines already. feydey 02:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The 3RR and "...in whole or in part..."

In this edit, SlimVirgin altered the 3RR rule. In this edit, she altered the nutshell synopsis. I have no reason to think that SV was not attempting to clarify policy in good faith. I have every reason to believe, however, that this change slipped in largely unnoticed and unconsidered by the community. As these edits have problematic— and unconsidered— consequences, I am challenging them.

  • This change marks a dramatic expansion of the scope of the 3RR rule, but I see no evidence that "consensus was reached", or that "changes [made] to this policy reflect consensus before [they were made]", as required by {{policy}}. It appears that it was simply changed, without establishing that such practice either did not in fact violate official policy, or that it wasn't an oversimplification of official policy.
  • As to the danger of opening this particular door, many benign edits would constitute partial reverts, but this overbroad change makes them all subject to 3RR, bypassing the criteria elaborated below for careful exceptions. This is not supported by any discussion in evidence that I know of. Note that WP:REVERT only acknowledged whole reverts, until it was hastily changed when I raised this challenge.
  • Because of the broad spectrum of benign edits which would fall under the rule, this would make 3RR less like an electric fence as originally intended, and more like a minefield. One would often be unaware one had violated the rule.
  • In particular, this change makes most good faith edits in compromise 3RR-countable, which especially undermines the 1RR principle.
  • There is no evidence that the change actually advances the objectives of 3RR, though it does make it far easier for admins to block users. The issue of dealing with those who would game the system when edit warring has been raised repeatedly, but without any explanation of why the in whole or in part language is necessary to do so.
  • Not entirely without reason, 3RR violators are highly stigmatized. This makes challenges to any unjust application of the rule virtually impossible. By dramatically increasing the scope of edits subject to 3RR, this gives admins the perogative to so brand virtually any contributor who resists an edit as a 3RR violator, with little hope of just review. This has consequences for both NPOV and anyone can edit, both core Foundation principles.

Thus far, discussion on the talk page has been dominated by a small handfull of admins outraged at the suggestion that in whole or in part is problematic. Particularly worrying is their repeated refusal to allow the {{activediscussion}} flag on the WP:3RR page, effectively hiding the discussion from other community members referencing the rule.

I would like to test community concern by posting this here at the pump. Even if you concur with the change, I would ask you to address your concerns in the discussion, so as to have some record of community feeling on the matter.

StrangerInParadise 02:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Using a '/' denotes a subpage?

Does using a slash in an article that doesn't require a '/' automatically mean that page is a subpage, and subsequently against WP:SP. For example, would List of United Kingdom locations/A be against policy but List of United Kingdom locations - A or List of United Kingdom locations:A not be? Pepsidrinka 17:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd say "use common sense" - replacing a backslash with some other character doesn't really make it any less a subpage in practice, even if it's not technically a subpage. And we're not about to delete CP/M or other such articles. I think it's fine like it is. Deco 17:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
If CP/M is the actual title for something, which it seems to be, then it is fine. If you took the moment to glance at WP:SP, it has a section that allows titles that have a slash within their names. Pepsidrinka 22:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The issue is described at wikipedia:naming conventions (common names)#Subpages - the "automatic subpage" is disabled for main ("article") namespace, but still works in other namespaces. In main namespace, subpages have no specific "software" characteristics (but they do have naming conventions, as explained in the guideline linked above) --Francis Schonken 19:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Re. examples used by Pepsi, see also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists) (historical guideline, maybe time to reactivate it?) --Francis Schonken 19:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
This should probably be reactivated, for consistency's sake. Pepsidrinka 22:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists) now again under "proposed" flag, please proceed.
I'd also recommend listing this (again) as proposal at wikipedia:current surveys and/or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies
Also, best to insert again in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration
The thing is, if nobody is prepared to follow this up until a consensual type of naming conventions guideline results (possibly with more than one accepted format), the page will probably sooner or later be re-classified historical. --Francis Schonken 17:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes to policy

From the earlier #HMAINS comments thread about the date-linking change to the MoS. I call it out here because it's caused me to consider the differing expectations people have about how guidelines (and to a lesser extent all policies) can change over time:

The guidance is not long-standing. Do a random pages test, and see just how many pages (which haven't been hit by Bobblewik) have date links. It's been massive longstanding practice to link dates, and this was never an issue until Bobblewik fired up a bot and started making changes en masse. Bots do not make disputed edits. I'm all ears if Bobblewik wishes to talk, but if he doesn't, I will (and am proceeding to) shoot said disputed bot edits on sight. Ambi 04:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think your argument here is entirely correct. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors. But (rarely) policy does go against common practice current at the time in the Wikipedia, and that does not make the policy unenforceable or even lacking in consensus. If it did, we would never have been able to switch from having introductory paragraphs with [[Title]] rather than '''Title''', since, at the time of the change, nearly every article used the form now considered incorrect. --TreyHarris 04:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The difference there is that there was consensus support for that change. There isn't here - there was no widely publicised vote expressing support for that, and most people are still linking years in their own articles today. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors, you're right. Occasionally, due to the size of the place, a handful of editors who agree on something can try to slip it in by the back door. When that happens, it still doesn't override four years of common practice. Ambi 05:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Over the past three years observing Wikipedia policy, I think I've observed two major but very divergent points of view with regards to policy and guideline changes, which I'd summarize as:

  1. Be bold in making policies better. Editors who think a point of policy is incorrect, or see a way to make a guideline better, first simply edit the policy page to change it. They assume that those who care will be watching the policy page, and will revert it, dispute it, or use the other mechanisms we're all accustomed to in the article space. If the change remains undisputed for some period of time, then the changed text is every bit as actionable as any text previously in the guideline.
  2. Get consensus first, then edit. Editors who have a problem with language in a guideline should first comment on the policy's talk page asking for consensus to change it. If no one responds, some editors will go ahead and make the change, but this does not appear to be universal. Any change made without following this process does not have consensus and is hence inactionable. A policy page that has been riddled with unreverted edits made without prior consensus can be considered "rotten" and the whole may become less actionable because of the bad edits.

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines is silent on which of these views is correct, except for noting, "Amendments to a guideline should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page - although it's generally acceptable to edit a guideline to improve it." "Generally acceptable" is, as someone said recently, a hole large enough to fly a large cargo plane through. Wikipedia:No binding decisions reaffirms that policies are subject to change by consensus, but does not prescribe a mechanism for doing so—though it does seem to affirm the idea that voting or a formalized amendment process is not necessary for change.

The problem with the lack of clarity on which change philosophy is right should be clear. The consequences of this lack of clarity show up on this page nearly every day.

Those who adhere to the "be bold" philosophy will participate in consensus discussions started by those adhering to the "get consensus first" philosophy, though they may complain about the overuse of process ("{{sofixit}}" or the like) or boldly incorporate the text suggested while people are still discussing it. They will generally perceive any text that has been stable in a guideline as actionable, and will behave accordingly, even to creating bots or running high-velocity, semi-automated edits to enforce the guidance. The idea that a statement that has persisted in a policy for a long time may not actually represent current policy is incomprehensible to them. They are liable to treat those in the other camp as whiners ("{{sofixit}}"), opportunists ("you're only complaining because you don't like the guidance"), or worse.

Those who follow the "get consensus first" philosophy are generally (it appears to me) less attentive to changes in policy until one surprises them. They point out that they're busy writing an encyclopedia, and the velocity of changes across policy pages is too great for them to audit each one to see if they disagree with it. They will assume that any important change would be brought to their attention one way or another (either at the village pump, or via a new section on a policy talk page). Any change that occurs without being brought to their attention is illegitimate, and a policy that has been extensively edited without prior consensus to do so is, at best, suspect ("a big ball of mud") and at worst has become completely inactionable from the weight of illegitimate edits.

Both sides accuse the other of wikilawyering from time to time. And in fact, the disputes that erupt tend to generate much heat but little light, with both sides at least insinuating that the others are not acting in good faith. Sometimes the result is a movement to ratify or reject the disputed policy change via a new consensus discussion or vote—which the "be bold" adherents will usually submit to, with some grumbling, because in their world view, the discussion should have already taken place following a quick revert of the original change. The new discussion does not address the legitimacy of the original edit, and so the question remains unanswered. Other times, the "get consensus first" adherents will simply walk away, dismissing the policy as no longer actionable. By their very (in)action, they reduce the value of the policy as a dispute resolution aid.

Not everyone falls into these two camps, naturally. My intuition is that it's something of a bimodal distribution. Even the boldest policy editor would think twice before making a major change to WP:NPOV without discussing it first, and even the strongest advocate of getting prior consensus would likely think nothing of updating a minor guideline in a straightforward way to account for a new software feature.

This suggests an avenue of compromise, one that most editors would probably already agree with me on: that sweeping changes that affect a large number of pages or editors or should be discussed prior to editing, and that minor changes that affect very little can be made without prior discussion. But what about all the other cases? When should prior consensus be expected? And is a change made without prior consensus illegitimate? If so, shouldn't all such changes be reverted as soon as they are discovered?

I think a policy change policy is called for here. I'm willing to write up a proposal, but I'd like to get some feedback first, in case I've misjudged the issues. (Please don't take that as evidence that I'm hostile to the "be bold" camp. ;-) --TreyHarris 09:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer to write a proposal. IMHO it is however not needed. The thing is, the Policy & guideline templates already take care of that. They're already on every policy/guideline page (or should be), and contain short formulations of when and under what conditions changes can take place:
So for policy: consensus is needed, the word consensus linking to Wikipedia:Consensus. That page is supposed to make clear how consensus works in wikipedia context. If it doesn't, please update that page.
For guidelines, minor changes are distinguished from major changes. What distinguishes a "minor" from a "major" change is not defined. Can it be defined? My shortest definition would be: a major change is a change that is likely to be disputed. A minor change is a change that is not likely to be disputed. If you perform a change you thought to be minor, and it is disputed nonetheless, well, then it is a major change isn't it? In that case: use the talk page and sort it out (like you would do with any other major change). I don't see a need to give a more elaborate philosphical definition of this minor vs. major distinction (what would that add?) --Francis Schonken 16:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I was preparing a response to the points you raise when I saw this edit. What in the world? I point out what I think is a problem, you respond essentially that no, it is not a problem, a third party responds that it is a problem in a different case from the one I used as an exemplar (thus backing up my argument that it is a widespread problem)—and you move the other editor's comment into the discussion about that particular problem? And you mark that edit minor? I'm just stunned. --TreyHarris 17:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Oops, sorry, didn't mean no harm. I thought SIP had meant it to be a repeat of his/her previous piece, so I moved these pieces together. (S)he had separated from your topic by a pagewide line, hadn't (s)he? If that was not SIP's intention, please move back here. --Francis Schonken 17:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
To respond to Francis Schonken's original points:
You cite {{policy}} and {{guideline}} as evidence that there's no confusion here, but those templates themselves have had stable language for only about four months now, and I don't see any evidence of any consensus votes for them. Surely a template that has the weight of policy should be considered policy in and of themselves, shouldn't they?
In any case, even if those templates do represent policy, I don't think the situation is nearly so clear-cut. For one thing, there's no definition of what "feel free to edit the page as needed" or "major changes" means. "Feel free" in these two templates links to WP:BOLD. The discussion in the WP:BOLD guideline is definitely article-oriented; it does not even mention updates to policy. It talks about using care when updating "controversial" pages, but in the policy space it would seem like the least controversial policies, such as WP:NPOV, are the ones we'd want extra care exercised with. It also links to Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, which appears to be exactly what the "be bold" camp I described above is following.
As for "major change", it is neither defined nor linked. One might take "major change" to mean "non-minor change", in which case we could link to Wikipedia:Minor edit (whose disposition seems amorphous to me; it's marked as neither policy nor guideline). This seems patently wrong to me, however, as there seems to be wide acceptance of making straightforward edits to guidelines, even if they could not be marked minor because they actually change content.
You point out that Wikipedia:Consensus is linked, and I agree that this helps to clarify the situation with regards to policies. But this says nothing about how to handle unreverted changes that are later claimed to have lacked consensus, which seems to be the issue in the 3RR dispute. It also does not help us with the guidelines situation that arose in the Bobblewik dispute.
The real problem is that, regardless of how one defines the line between changes that should be discussed prior to editing, there seems to be no consensus whatsoever for what to do after such edits are made without prior discussion. Should they be reverted on sight, even if they seem to make the policy better? Should an editor who does this repeatedly be subject to sanction? If the change is not reverted, what represents policy: the revision people actually see in article space, or some mishmash of past versions that does not actually exist on any page, current or historical?
I still believe that there is actually a problem here. Policies and guidelines are dispute resolution aids. If the policy is, as you seem to think, clear, you should be able to make an easy ruling on any of the disputes arising recently: the date-linking issue, the 3RR edit, the change to editor's choice on curly quotation marks. Are you willing to do so? If not, there's a problem, and it needs to be addressed. --TreyHarris 03:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Moved back here, sorry for the inconvenience, my fault:

Page-wide lines are to demarcate successive multi-paragraph posts to a discussion where indenting is less practical. Had you read my entry— or even the title — you'd have seen it was a supportive response to TreyHarris' post. Why would I just repeat what I said above? StrangerInParadise 21:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

A case in point: 3RR and in whole or in part

The characterization of those less attentive to changes in policy until one surprises them[, as] they're busy writing an encyclopedia, and the velocity of changes across policy pages is too great for them to audit each one to see if they disagree with it, certainly applies to me and my concern over in whole or in part. The challenges I has encountered in raising the matter are a case in point as to how policy changes or is preserved.

When I saw the change, I asked myself how recent it was and weighed that against that so broad a change went in with no apparent discussion. This in my mind overrode the sense that by sitting unchallenged for a few months, it had gained legitimacy. For raising the concern, I found myself immediately the brunt of cries of wikilawyering and gaming the system, which tended to obscur my actual concern: the dynamics of a policy change which undermined core foundation principles of neutral point of view and anyone can edit by rendering a broad spectrum of edits, especially edits in compromise, 3RR-countable.

This took what was to be an electric fence, a bright line not to be crossed, and rendered it a minefield, where one might not even realize one had violated the rule, spirit or letter. One could find oneself in a harmonious editing session with a collaborator, exchanging edits in compromise and tacitly accepting corrections of fact, only to find edits in that session counted towards 3RR when reverting an outsider once.

The deeper and more general paradox is that policy changes affect most disproportionately those editors who are unlikely to read policy pages.

How does one raise such a concern? First I reverted the changes (once), explaining the challenge and informing interested parties. A call went out to admins to prevent an edit war on the 3RR page— one can see here the genesis of what followed. Although I have never in the several years at Wikipedia been blocked for 3RR, I was immediately accused of edit warring, gaming the system, etc. An element to any policy discussion is the deeply biased outlook admins have about non-admins, particularly those concerned about 3RR issues. Towards anyone actually stigmatized by a 3RR block, the bias is considerably worse.

Although the matter is clearly in dispute, the {{activediscussion}} flag was repeated removed from WP:3RR, with admin threats of blocking and disruption. This brings us to another point: admins watch policy pages (good), but often act like they own policy pages (bad). Removing the flag would appear to be an attempt to starve the discussion of new participants. It is certainly against policy to forcibly remove the flag, but threats of blocking for disruption keep it off.

In principle, WP:CIVIL, WP:OWN, etc, should suffice to allow a reasoned consideration of the matter. Clearly, policy has to resist random attacks by the merely disgruntled in order to maintain coherence. However, with the manner of unsanctioned force and incivility now propping the policy up, how can it claim to be the result of legitimate consensus?

StrangerInParadise 16:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Support: I support to create a policy about policy changes. TreyHarris covered some really good points. Although there are template tags, they do not discribe or prescribe methods to resolve dispute resolution or further consensus with a policy already in place or with minor changes over time. There is a page that describes how to create policy, so there should be one on how to maintain and change policy or guidelines. — Dzonatas 18:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Community assent

A process for the community to give assent to specific versions of policy or guidelines may help achieve the goal expressed above to allow those that want to be bold while those that want consensus first to work together. The basic idea is to mark a specific version of a page for nomination, and someone else must seconded the nomination. Once their is a second, a copy of the specified version is placed on a new subpage, and discussion continues on the new talk page for consensus about that specified version. The process is based on a piece of parliamentary procedure combined with ideas from Wikipedia:Stable version. There is more detail to this, and I'll move this dicussion to Wikipedia:Community assent. — Dzonatas 23:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Internal linking years and decades

What opinions have you on passing through articles adding internal links to each of the unique year and decade references? Is that helping the reader or just increasing someone's edit count? patsw 05:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Dates and numbers is correct. Years and decades should be linked only when they are particularly relevant to the article. Personally, I have yet to work on an article where I thought any year was particularly relevant to the article. I do link full dates to enable preference formatting. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 13:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Suggested name change for Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks

I've started a discussion about changing the name of WP:RPA here; rationale can be found there. In short, it ought to be changed to "Refactor personal attacks" given what the guideline actually says to do with personal attacks. android79 22:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

American Idol semifinalists

This may be a rather trivial subject, but it is nonetheless relevant to fancruft and notability concerns. I've redirected any current American Idol semifinalist to the American Idol (Season 5) page who does not have other accomplishments meriting an article (such as Lisa Tucker, who was also a Star Search finalist and a cast member in a production of the Lion King musical); if they make the finals, they can get an article back. This is not only sensible in my view, but based on previous discussions on Wikipedia on this issue. However, there have been a couple complaints raised about this on the season article's talk page, in which the opinion has been expressed that even many of those cut prior to the semifinals are notable enough for an article, simply by virtue of having appeared on the show, however briefly.

There is simply a severe drop-off in coverage and fan awareness between even the least notable of finalists[14] and the average semifinalist[15]. These articles, if not redirected, would be nothing but lists of the one or two songs they sung on Idol before being cut, and maybe what town they are from (consider the pre-redirect version of one current semifinalist's article). To the extent that it's necessary to include that scant information at all, the season articles are quite capable of incorporating it.

Please leave comments on the talk page so we can be saved the trouble of an AFD for every last one of these; currently all semifinalists from prior seasons are also redirected to the appropriate season article if they have no other accomplishments, and I'd hate to see these springing back into substubs. And I'm sure everyone else would also hate to see "articles" for everyone who's never even managed to endure 15 minutes of fame on TV. Postdlf 00:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Pop Idol run in at least 35 countries, so that what we realy need is to have articles about all the finalists and preferably all the semifinalists. Look only on the many inviting red links in the Czech version of the Pop Idol.--Jan Smolik 22:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Template self-linking question

I'd like to canvass some opinions on this question. A user (not me!) is seeking to include a link to a template's talk page within the template itself, so that every page that shows the template will also provide a link to the template's talk page. His justification is that it will enable people to "see what is going on" with the template in question.

While it's certainly technically possible to include a link to a template talk page within a template, is it a good idea? I personally have strong reservations; I'm not aware of this being common practice (or even done at all, as I've never seen any examples of it) but I don't see anything in Wikipedia:Template namespace that would rule it out. What do the rest of you think? -- ChrisO 01:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally no, since we should be trying hard to keep non-article content out of articles. Which template in particular? Is it a content-related template template? -Splashtalk 01:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I am the editor. I pointed the link to the template page, Template:ScientologySeries and not to the talk page. I used the word "article", appearing in the first sentence on the template which says: "This article forms part of the series on" and I linked. At no time did I ever link to the talk page. ChrisO has misstated my action. Terryeo 07:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
(via EC) I guess this would depend on the template. If it's one that is only used on back-channel pages (User:, Wikipedia:, Talk:, etc.), then I don't see any pressing reason not to place such a link. If, on the other hand, it's an article-space template, and not one like {{npov}} or a stub tag, then it probably shouldn't include links to any page outside the namespaces that are actually part of the encyclopedia (i.e. articles, templates, and categories are okay; anything else is not). Wikipedia:Avoid self-references is the relevant guideline.
Many templates include {{ed}} or some variation thereon; maybe you could encourage this person to use that instead? —Charles P._(Mirv) 01:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
The template is Template:ScientologySeries. The user in question seems to be unhappy with the way the template is laid out and apparently wants to publicise its talk page as widely as possible. Personally I don't think this is appropriate, but I wanted to know if there's any sort of general formulation on self-references within templates. I think WP:ASR probably covers it - thanks. -- ChrisO 01:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I appriciate that you're able to view so deeply into my motivations for raising the question, but actually my motivations were as you first presented them, ChrisO. It would allow a user to view the template by itself and engage in its discussion page. ty. Terryeo 02:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
(editconflict)Wikipedia:Avoid self-references is pretty much global in scope. A talkpage link on an article space template is clearly inappropriate. The editor in question should request comments or something. But not in a way that so directly impacts article work with behind-the-scenes work — people take our content and redistribute it and such self-references make it rather poor material for them. -Splashtalk 01:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

removing {prod}

Is it proper for someone to remove a { { prod } } (proposal for deletion) from an article? This just happened on Conspiracy factualist. Will that removal keep it from being condidered for deletion? Bubba73 (talk), 02:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is proper to remove a prod tag; you can take that as a sign that the proposed deletion is not unopposed. No, it will not keep it from being considered for deletion; if the tag's been removed without the problems that the prod tag identified actually being fixed, by all means just list the article directly for deletion on AFD. Postdlf 02:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I believe the purpose of the prod tag is for non-contentious articles. If someone feels that the article should stay, they can remove the tag. If you still feel it needs to be deleted, just follow the AfD route. Pepsidrinka 02:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I don't think I've seen 'prod' before. It is a new article, someone put up 'prod', and on the talk page I agreed with the deletion, but then the original author removed the 'prod', so I take that as meaning that he disagrees with the deletion. Bubba73 (talk), 03:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
It's actually a recreation; it was prodded before, deleted, and then reposted. I've listed it on AFD, so we can go ahead and kill it good now. The prod template is rather new; see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion for an explanation of this experimental policy. Postdlf 03:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Are admins permitted to revert my comments to other users?

Ambi has been reverting my edits using the rollback function.

  • I've had enough of this. As of now, I will rollback each and every single edit of yours unlinking dates. How much of your and my time you choose to waste in continuing to do so is up to you. Ambi 01:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Did you think I was kidding? Every unlinking you made today is gone. The same will happen every day until you actually start to talk and work towards some sort of compromise, rather than sticking up your middle finger at anyone who disagrees with you. Ambi 09:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
  • ...and again. Ambi 05:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators says Do not use one-click rollback on edits that are not simple vandalism, not even to reverse a mistake of your own making. Please use manual rollback with an appropriate edit summary.

Now she has started using rollback to remove my comments for user talk pages. Am I now forbidden from talking to other users? Please help me. bobblewik 10:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The approach which both Ambi and Bobblewick seem to be adopting results in a winner/loser outcome on this issue. I fail to see why Bobblewick feels so absolutely confident that this "style" is appropriate on every page, just as I fail to see why this style is absolutely wrong on every page (at least, I assume that Ambi reverts this style on every page no matter who has adopted it, because any other course of action would be simple victimisation, would it not?) David91 11:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this is not the place to discuss this. Why don't you try dispute resolution? -- Michalis Famelis 12:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I would be happy too, if I knew where. Can you suggest the place? bobblewik 13:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Start here: Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. --Michalis Famelis 14:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Um, just out of simple curiosity, why the <censored> is bobblewick unlinking dates in the first place? Kim Bruning 15:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Not dates - years and months, ie. January 2006. violet/riga (t) 15:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
To conform with the MoS. And it looks better. Sam Korn (smoddy) 15:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Because there is not reason to link years. Date preferences only work if month is included and link to number of year is not relevant in most cases. See WP:MOS. Anyway if a user thinks that linking a year is helpful they should choose the list for appropriate category. For example 1966 in sport. Not just blindly link year. Today I clicked on the year in the table of Ice Hockey World Championships and foolishly thought it is a link to the page of World Championships of that year. Then I was realy surprised to find out that political page opened. --Jan Smolik 15:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Ambi reverted the rollbacks of those edits to user talk pages, it looks like it was a simple slip quickly corrected. Rich Farmbrough 11:27 27 February 2006 (UTC).
You could be right. It does look like an error followed by a self-revert. bobblewik 18:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Answer to Michalis Famelis: thank you. I have raised the question at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Use_of_rollback_in_format_dispute. It is not a complaint, merely a request for clarification of policy. It is not a question about the format dispute itself. It is about the tool. bobblewik 19:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject sub-jurisdictions

Several Wikiprojects are known to place templates on talkpages categorizing article. Nothing to be said against that. But what about Wikiprojects or portals introducing their own article quality assessments, either on talk or even on the article page itself? Is this a desireable method of scaling with the growth of WP, or is it an undesireable "inner fork" with sub-communities undermining community-wide processes? Case à point, {{Indian featured}} (for talkpages), {{Indian featured article}} (for article namespace, on tfd). dab (ᛏ) 14:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

List articles - WP:NOT or not?

There are a large amount of articles that comprise solely of lists. To me that seems to be clearly against WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information item 2, especially since the same function is already there by categories. For example, there is Category:Mathematicians but there is also an article List of mathematicians. To me, the latter is redundant, and a clear example of a "List of loosely associated persons" - (abridged quote from WP:NOT). Could someone explain if simple lists of people like the above (and many others) are in keeping with the official policy or not? Tougher question, if the articles are against official policy, which should be changed, the policy, or the articles? MartinRe 20:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy also says that Wikipedia is not only an encyclopedia but an almanac, and almanacs contain these sort of list and other category information. I don't think NOT currently forbids this sort of thing, and it's generally well-accepted, but NOT could use clarification. Deco 01:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
That's the first I've heard of a policy describing Wikipedia as being an almanac, could you point me to the appropiate sections, please? MartinRe 10:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I could be mistaken, but I could've sworn that at one point WP:NOT actually specified that Wikipedia was not an almanac, although it sometimes has the features of one. In any case, I would certainly support that addition if anyone else would. --Aquillion 12:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
The same policy also says "Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic." This seems to describe List of mathematicians pretty well. Lists and categories are not mutually exclusive. Categories cannot be organized in any way except alphabetically, cannot be annotated and cannot include members for which there are not yet articles, all of which Lists can do. Dsmdgold 13:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Define "solely of lists". Have you seen the Wikipedia:Featured lists for examples of how good our lists can be? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, we have a guideline for lists (WP:LIST), which describes the purposes of lists, and IMO makes pretty much sense. - Liberatore(T) 15:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for that link, I followed it to Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) which covers many of the issues I was looking for. The featured lists are excellent, (I like the London underground one) on the other side, articles like the List of musical topics don't seem to add much more than the category does (with the additional problem of hard to keep up to date) MartinRe 16:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Many of the List of X topics articles are holdovers from the pre-category days, when the only way to keep an eye on a largish body of articles was to use "related changes" from such a topic list. This was manageable when there were only 300,000 articles in the 'pedia, but even then they were rarely up to date because newer editors creating articles didn't know the lists existed. See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes for ideas on when a list should be converted to a category and when it should be left alone. — Catherine\talk 13:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


You may want to consult also Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Reducing anglo-saxon focus and emphasis

I am not sure this is the right place to discuss this. But if the intention is to have a global and universal encyplopedia, shouldn't the articles really try having a greater global view rather than one so western and anglo-saxon? I say this just coming from taking a look at the article 2005 in music. This is only one example. But there are many articles like that. Of course the reasons for this are understandable but .... I think an effort should be made. I do not have any specific suggestion on how to address the issue. Thus, for now I only want to bring this up for discussion. Cheers. Anagnorisis 20:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's the obvious reasons. Getting more editors into the project who are familiar with non-English speaking parts of the world would help, but there is also the call of the other language Wikipedias for such editors. I have seen a sensitivity to this issue in some AfD discussion, sort of "let's cut a little slack for this article because it's on a subject unfamiliar to most English-speakers, and the editor(s) may not have access to all the resources we have." I have waded in a couple of times to save articles that weren't well supported by Google hits, or whose authors did not have a very firm grasp of English. Unfortunately, if I can't find sources myself, I can't help edit an article that needs sources. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 22:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
There's a project to address this issue: Countering Systemic Bias. So, many editors are aware of the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any easy solutions. — BrianSmithson 22:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes. I think it is easy to see where the problem comes from. Of course editors can only comment and contribute about the things they know. And most editors whose mother tongue is English (and also have the means to access wikipedia) will certainly come from english-speaking countries. My frustration in this case was because I was looking for information of musical hits from other places of the world, different from the usual things I get to hear on english-language radio. I was hoping articles like 2005 in music would help but they didn't. Well, I guess we just have to wait for more editors with knowleadge about different matters .... and things will take care of themselves with time. Cheers. Anagnorisis 22:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
It might help if people from other language wikipedia were able to indicate what people and issues we should write about. It would be best, if our page "Sugested topics for English Wikipedia" was linked from their community portal. Many of us are able to read (at least basic information) in other languages. It is easier than writing or speaking in foreign language. Myself I can read name and date of birth (and death) in most european languages :). Thus we should be able to extract at least a decent stub from the foreign language Wikipedias if we knew what locals consider important. It is somethink different than pages for translation. The page does not have to exist in an other language Wikipedia and I am not proposing word-by-word translation. Just getting basic info. --Jan Smolik 10:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Template for Template For Deletion

The Template used to designate a Template for Deletion has always befuddled me, for nominess for AFD you have a big huge template clearly anouncing what's happening same for Miscellany for Deletion (or whatever it's called) but the TFD template is quite the opisit it is a small string of text that one wouldn't otherwise notice except for the fact that it's on top of the article, I feel that someone should design a new template as it's important for new editors (who may not be quite as observant as I was) to know what's going on.-Deathawk 00:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

  • The template has been that way since it was first created. My understanding is that because templates on Wikipedia come in all shapes and sizes, and they can be placed at many different locations on a page, a large TFD template could essentially disrupt an entire layout of a page, especially for those with 800x600 monitor resolution. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Solicitation of "keep" or "delete" votes on AfDs: proper or not?

Just one very simple question: Is it acceptable for an editor to go around to user talk pages and the talk pages of other articles openly soliciting votes in the hopes of swinging an AfD discussion one way or the other? (I know it violates WP:SPAM, but WP:SPAM is only a guideline, not policy, and I'm more interested in whether or not it can be considered an infraction worthy of invalidating any AfD "consensus" which was only reached due to such a campaign by an individual editor.) Thanks, --Aaron 00:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This is internal SPAM. I'd say give them one. More than that is getting into SPAM territory. If they are doing it in a serial manner, then that is definitely SPAM and they need to get a warning to stop. This is just my opinion, because if this idea catches on, a lot of message space will be taken up with internal spam adds. Also the people who are lured in will likely be strongly on the side of the person that messaged them, and that could add bias. It's also roude, as it makes the person receiving the message feel obliged to vote to make the other guy happy.
I'd say no, it's not a good idea. But at this point, the way Wikipedia is set up, there wouldn't be much anyone could do about it other than ask them politely to stop. But I haven't read the policy, perhaps there is something in there that would give grounds for a block or something. --DanielCD 01:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Generally it's looked down upon pretty heavily, but I personally don't see why it has to be such an issue. In my mind, getting more people involved in a discussion is not a bad thing. If users from side A of a debate want to go and let other users of their opinion know about the debate, so be it. If users of side B then go and find supporters for there side too, so be it. If there's 300 people on Wikipedia on side A and only 15 on side B, but all 15 of the B's happen to watch AfD/RfA/RfC/RfWhatever regularly, then the vote will be skewed. What's not good is incivility and flamewars. What is good is rational discussion and trying to figure out if there is or is not consensus. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 01:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
There's a fine line really. Inviting more people who are genuinely interested into the discussion is a positive thing, but sucking in meatpuppets just to sway the vote is dishonest. A rule of thumb is, don't focus solely on inviting people expected to vote the same way as you - invite some opposers too. Advertising a vote in a general forum like here though is not at all a good idea, as it's a very rare AfD which concerns Wikipedia at large (there have been such AfDs, such as votes that have a strong influence on imminent policy decisions or ongoing ForestFires, but very rare). Deco 01:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, let me be clear: This is about sucking in meatpuppets. I'll substitute a sillier subject in order to relate what's really going on: If a given user is utterly obsessed with Pokemoncruft, and he only posts his "friendly reminders" about Pokemoncruft AfDs on the talk pages of other Pokemoncruft articles and the user talk pages of those who have reliably voted keep on other Pokemoncruft AfDs in the past, then that user is not interested in stimulating discussion; he's trying to stuff the ballot box. And he's at least occasionally successful. I don't think that's good for Wikipedia. --Aaron 06:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I would say that using the "foocruft" terminology is an indication one "is not interested in". People should not be sending masses of message on one side. On that I agree. But, it seems the larger problem is the trench war mentality, that often develops in AFD. Broad insults of the work of others is not helping to address that. If somebody sees their work insulted out-of-hand, by somebody who obviously has a personal dislike of the broader topic in general (and not just the topic of single article), then they won't pursue a conversation about the article, and just play the numbers game. --Rob 17:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd say it varies from case to case. Bringing something up with one person you know has a strong interest in it is probably alright; contacting several people you know is frowned upon, but there's not much we can do about it. People who do things like spam every single user in a specific category because they think it means they'll be sympathetic to their view should, IMHO, be blocked on sight, preferably before they get too far. Spamming users by category is not ok. --Aquillion 12:25, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
The best option is to clearly state what has gone on at the AfD page, so that the closing admin will be aware the discussion was skewed and can take that information into consideration when closing it. - SimonP 16:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure that's enough. Saying "I've gone and alerted (everyone I know who I think will support my side/every self-identified member of my political party on the Wiki/some Wikiproject with 500 members), who I'm sure will be interested in these discussions (and vote for X)" is all well and good, but how exactly is the closing admin supposed to account for that? Voting is already problematic enough; most AFDs have only a handful or so of people voting on them. We assume that that sample is randomly selected and representative, or at least not totally biased to one side or the other, and that they therefore represent both a form of consensus; if someone has successfully canvassed for votes, though, then you're just getting the consensus of whatever group they canvassed in. That's not a meaningful result, and the only way an admin can take that information into consideration when closing is to nullify the vote completely (which is often what happens when large-scale canvassing works.) It's all well and good to take the "vote" out of votes for deletion, but, look, it's still run like a vote, and the people canvassing for votes know this; if they can get the tally below 60% or over 80%, they've won regardless of method, and result generally is a given, except, in rare cases, when a result over 80% might be cancelled because circumstances (thousands of socks, really really heavy canvasing in favor of deletion) make consensus unclear. For people who just want to stop a deletion, though, getting the votes to delete down to anywhere near 60% is enough, since even a close of no clear consensus due to disruption would be a 'victory' for them; I've never heard of an article getting deleted with such results, no matter what other issues were involved. Given the low number of people who vote on typical AFDs, the only reason why canvassing isn't as successful as it is is because Wikipedians tend to react poorly to it, but that, if anything, makes it important to condemn it as strongly as possible. --Aquillion 16:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I've done it for articles that were repeatedly put on AfD. I've gone to the old debate and asked previous voters to chime in again. I don't think that's spam. There is no way of being notified if an article you're interested in is put on AfD. You MIGHT notice on your watch list if the nominator actually uses an edit summary, but probably not. Personally, if an article I'd spent time editing showed up on AfD I'd want alarm bells going off. SchmuckyTheCat 17:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Is spam selling something, or is it a repeated arguement?--Masssiveego 08:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been using Harvard Referencing extensively for a few months. What if the author has a WP article - where should the link to his article go - in the text or down in the references? That is, ... bla bla bla (Joe Smith 1970) or in the reference list? I've been putting the link down in the reference list and listing last name only (without a link) in the text, as per Harvard Referencing on paper. Bubba73 (talk), 04:25, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are correct to only place a link to the author in the full citation. Doing this appears to better comply with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) in that it minimizes links irrelevant to the context and it also avoids possible confusion about where the links buried inside the text should point, to an article on the author or to the full citation. --Allen3 talk 17:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thank you, I'm going to keep on doing it that way then. Bubba73 (talk), 17:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
By the way, if Smith's book is reasonably significant, it may be worth redlinking the title... Shimgray | talk | 23:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I do that if I know the book has an article about it. (Oh, by redlinking, you mean linking to a article that doesn't exist yet, right?) Bubba73 (talk), 00:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah; creating-a-link-which-is-red. If you think it'd be worthy of an article - and, I guess, pretty much anything which is standard in a field should get at least a redirect - then it may as well be redlinked for when one turns up. Shimgray | talk | 00:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Some editors insist that Wiki should ONLY link to totally free and open sites (like Gutenberg), and should never link to sites that require some sort of registration. Taken to an extreme that says we should not list books because you have to buy them before you read them. In fact tens of millions of Wiki users--I think the great majority--have access to many subscription services through their libraries. In the US that includes over 15 million college students for example, and about 25 million high/middle school students. Add public libraries most of which have subscriptions. So these 40-100 million users have access but usually do not know they can download free articles and books from digital libraries. Wiki can really help them by providing links to sources that involve subscription services. I might add that people who work at home, like me, are probably paying about $40 a month to a cable provider to get access to WWW and Wiki. Everyone can get free access to books at their local library and of course there they can free get access to subscription services like EBSCO. Rjensen 14:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you're being a bit too American-centric here, or at least Western-centric. Wikipedia is supposed to be open to anyone anywhere that can read English; EBSCO-type databases are generally only freely available to those in the U.S. and Canada (and probably in some other Western nations, but to what extent I can't say). And even then it depends; if you're not currently enrolled in college, your access to these databases is completely dependent on whether or not your local library has signed contracts with the companies that own the various databases. And those contract deals vary wildly. Using myself as an example, I have two library cards, one for the New York Public Library, one for my dinky little hometown library. I have access to more than 300 databases via the NYPL; my hometown library, by comparison, offers one low-end general EBSCO database, a few intended purely for schoolchildren, and free access to archives of the local newspaper. That's it. Beyond that, we have to face the simple reality that most people that do qualify for access have never signed up for it. I would estimate that nine out of ten people with access who came upon an EBSCO-like external link in a Wikipedia article would throw up their hands as soon as they clicked the link and were asked to log in, because they'd have no idea what they'd just encountered. Even more problematic is that those sorts of databases tend to use URLs that aren't exactly static. The given library or university's ID is often coded into each URL the database sends out; if I were to access some obscure abstract from a database using my New York Public Library account, and then put that URL into a Wikipedia article as an external link, what will end up happening is that everyone that clicks on it will suddenly be asked to enter their NYPL library card number, whether they live in Brooklyn or Los Angeles or Tahiti or Australia. So the link would be completely useless to probably 99%+ of everyne that would ever click on the link. Given all these problems, I have to say I agree that such links shouldn't be part of Wikipedia articles at all. --Aaron 18:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
The question is whether it is a link for providing further information or reference you quoted. If for example I cite Journal of ATM (important in computer Science) I need to link to payed service. And even more. Right now I am using newspaper articles (from 1990s) to support my information. I obtain them via internet archive (similar to Proquest). First I provide link to the archive so that people are able to obtain the article in other way than go to the Czech National Library in Prague (it is the very likely the only institution with complete collection of Czech newspaper). And second I cannot say whether the article was realy printed in the newspaper. The archive can be incorect. So when quoting you should say where the information was orriginaly printed plus where you obtained it (orriginal newspaper, microfish, computer archive, ...).--Jan Smolik 21:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I think subscription service links are okay in some circumstances, if the linked content is used as a reference. If you're referencing an article on the NY Times website (and they require free registration), the link to the article is okay. Though, if the story was printed in the newspaper, a more complete citation with date, page number, author should also be included. If you are referencing a scholarly journal that's accessed through EBSCO, I say no link. But please include the full citation, (journal title, article, authors, volume, page #, etc.), so that people can look them up (either online, if they have access, or can make a trip to a local university library and view a hardcopy). As for online services such as EBSCO, I'm aware of some journals that are available through more than one service (e.g. http://heinonline.org/, and http://www.ebsco.com/). We shouldn't give preference to one service over another. --Aude (talk | contribs) 21:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I generaly agree, but how can I say that EBSCO or Proquest did not clasify the article improperly. For example it says New York Times 2005/10/28 and it was actually published on 2005/10/27. Or the newspaper have several versions for geographic areas. For example in Czech republic newspaper for Prague are printed later than newspaper for the rest of the country (shorter transport time) so they contain newer information. Sometimes the same article is on Thursday in Pragues edition and on Friday in the rest of the coutry. Most online resources do not account for this. So if you actually open the original copy of newspaper you might not be able to find the article as it was published the other day or (in your version) was not finally published at all. This is why I think that quotation should include on-line database I took it from. I can only say that Proquest says it was in New York Times. I cannot actualy be sure it was there unless I open the paper. Although New York Times articles can be accessed from various resources those resources can contain different articles (due to errors) --Jan Smolik 13:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
If you use EBSCO or any other online source to read an article, you should absolutely provide a link -- that is the whole point of referencing, to tell the reader precisely where you found the information. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

What is Policy on Repeat Vandals at Public sites?

There is a repeat vandal at 158.123.154.2 which is apparently a site registered to the State of RI. There have been repeated warnings. ⇒ normxxx| talk ⇒ email 15:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


I was working on a few glossary pages and I was checking around and some of these entries could be found word for wordd on other sites (not Wikipedia mirrors but actual sites) I was wondering if definitions are considered fair use and if not then how should we work around this? Deathawk 22:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"Ethnic groups in" categories

what are the guidelines for these? Today, there are fragments on pretty much every ethnic group in pretty much every country (as tiny minorities). What does it take to be listed in an "Ethnic groups of" category? Take Greeks:

Categories: Ethnic groups in Albania | Ethnic groups in Australasia | Ethnic groups in Brazil | Ethnic groups in Bulgaria | Ethnic groups in Hungary | Ethnic groups in Macedonia | Ethnic groups in Russia | Ethnic groups in South Africa | Ethnic groups in Turkey | Ethnic groups in Ukraine | Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom | Ethnic groups in the United States | Ethnic groups in Uzbekistan

Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria etc., fine, but Brazil (0.01%), UK (0.3%), USA (0.5%), UK (1.5%)? What percentage is sufficient? Arguably 1.5%, but certainly not 0.01%? This renders the categories useless, since every ethnic group will be listed virtually everywhere. Maybe a limit of one or two percent either of the host country's population, or of the total population of the group would be appropriate? In the case of the Greeks, this would include USA, Canada, Germany, Australia, UK (borderline) but not Hungary or Brazil or South Africa. dab (ᛏ) 06:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality gives some recommendations (not in percentages, which IMHO are quite irrelevant, the recommendation rather ties with verifiability in the sense of needing quotable literature that the group for some way or another is recognised as being significant for a particular reason, the mere existence of the identifiable group does not suffise - even if it would be 20%). --Francis Schonken 10:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

High Schools in disambig pages

I'd like some clarification on policy/guidelines with respect to (e.g.) adding "Newmarket High School" to the disambig page. My understanding of disambig pages (from reading the guidelines) was that they were always a means to an end, a trade-off between usability and inclusivity; and that they are supposed to be a navigation aid, not a complete list.

Whilst I'm aware that high schools in North America are frequently referred to by initials (e.g. NHS), I'm really not convinced that the majority of schools are famous enough outside their immediate area to warrant inclusion in a disambig page.

Or to put it another way, if one average high school should go in, they all should; and I don't see how a long homogenous list of schools is useful if the person doesn't know what they're looking for. If they do, then they don't need the disambig page.

I made a compromise suggestion here, as it seems that some people do want high schools included.

Fourohfour 11:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Why concealing user contributions to deleted pages?

What's the reasoning behind disallowing non-admins to see any user's contributions to pages that later got deleted? --tyomitch 22:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Quite often, pages (or individual edits to existing pages) were deleted because they contained libellous material, or blatant copyright violations; material we would on the whole prefer not to publish to the world. Letting people see the edit history wasn't really a problem, because they couldn't see the actual deleted material. However, then people started gaming the system - instead of writing "Joe Smith rapes baby donkeys" in the article, they started putting it in the edit summary... or putting in people's home addresses, phone numbers, you get the idea. So we blocked the ability to see the edit summaries, and I believe the simplest way to do this was to block seeing the dit history for deleted pages.
(OTOH, If you mean "why doesn't Special:Contributions show deleted edits", I don't believe it ever did.) Shimgray | talk | 23:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I mean Special:Contributions. Are the reasons for it not showing deleted edits technical or political? At the very least, can you let an user see his own deleted contributions? --tyomitch 06:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
In the case of Special:Contributions, it's technical. By remarkable coincidence, someone posted this link to wikien-l this morning... summary: it's technical - it seems to be due to our database structure - but there's a fix in the pipeline. If you want to speed it up, send Brion bribes ;-) Shimgray | talk | 19:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Simgray; I am Joe Smith's lawyer and in response to the horrific allegations printed above, I demand you block the village pump immediately, or I will sue you in a court of law in Trenton, New Jersey.
I think there's a serious point in there somewhere, I'm just not sure where.... :-/
Fourohfour 10:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
While Special:Contributions never did show deleted edits, Kate's tool used to. The reason it was disabled was that it had no authentication mechanism, so the deleted edits could only be shown to either everyone or no-one. The feature really ought to be made a part of MediaWiki, so that we could enable it for admins and for users viewing their own contributions. Or, of course, we could just have the external tool ask for our password... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
So, if it's a technical limitation inherent to MediaWiki, rather than policy, should I post it as a feature request to http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/ ? --tyomitch 15:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It's kind of hard to remember what I shouldn't write about after awhile. This feature disabled leaves me no guideline what is an unsuitable article. --Masssiveego 08:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


On a related note: if I go ahead and register User:Joe Smith rapes baby donkeys, won't it dangle forever on the block log? Or will you deny everyone access to the block log from now on? --tyomitch 19:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Avoid using meta-templates straw poll

Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates has a straw poll running to decide whether to accept or reject the proposed policy. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask on the talk page there. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review subpages

Currently there are no archives for past deletion review decisions. The only way you could find them is going through the history of the Deletion Review page which takes a long time. There is currently a template which is put on talk pages which links to Deletion Review#Pagename, however as the pages are removed from deletion review after the matter has been concluded, this template is almost useless for decisions older than a few weeks.

Instead of removing deletion review discussions from the page, I propose that you move them to a subpage, for instance Wikipedia:Deletion Review/Universism (now a subpage of my user page). If you look at the current afd for this article, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universism (4th nomination), it shows a link to the deletion history page, and would be much more convenient if it linked to Wikipedia:Deletion Review/Universism. There could even be (2nd nomination) etc. added if an article went to deletion review more than once.

Another example at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew Allaby (2nd nomination) which would be convenient if it linked to the DRV discussion since it had been deleted, then voted to be undeleted at deletion review and relisted. There are many other afds where it would be useful to have this, and also on talk pages -- Astrokey44|talk 02:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Category:Living people

Could someone point me to an actual Wikipedia policy page mandating the inclusion of this category in the articles of living people? It has come up that this is not an official policy, and at least on person is actively working against it: The wikipedian User:Rcc105 is removing these category designations from articles and claims on his talk page that he will continue to do so until he sees an actual Wikipedia policy page mandating this category. If we could convince him to not do so, it would save some work of reverting his edits, and save him the effort of making them, too... -- Mareklug talk 14:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo himself "decreed" that the category should be kept; it's all mentioned/linked to from the category talk page. Postdlf 14:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
He's agreed stop removing the category now. -- SCZenz 17:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Any policies on this? For example BEA WebLogic#WebLogic History has a link to User:Rbpasker, one of its creators. There are also quite a few "picture credits", where images are photos are taken by such and such user. Tim | meep in my general direction 21:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

1) is self references, so I have deleted it. 2) can also go. Sam Korn (smoddy) 22:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Censorship

I just want to advertise this, comments welcome on the talk page.Gerard Foley 22:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Changing policies and guidelines

Earlier, Dzonatas advertised Wikipedia:Community assent in response to my comments about the lack of clarity in how policies change over time. While I applaud the effort, I think it's a very radical departure from how policy changes have been managed in the past. So I've written a competing proposal, in which I've tried to take the conservative approach of describing what I think is already the common (unstated) practice among many editors in changing policy. The policy in a nutshell is: "Do not change a policy or guideline in a way that would change the results of current or past disputes without prior discussion. Be bold in making policies and guidelines clearer or in updating them for new situations." I would welcome your comments and edits. --TreyHarris 09:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair use policy amendment

I just realised that we should be announcing policy amendments here. I am proposing Wikipedia:Fair use criteria/Amendment. Anyway, this is my first policy amendment, but an important one. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Election articles and AfD (or even speedy deletion)

Should we have some sort of throttle on the creation of election articles? Right now, there are stub articles created for United States presidential election, 2012, United States presidential election, 2016, and United States presidential election, 2020. As I write this, the 2020 article is an orphan and the 2016 article is only linked from from 2020. It seems a little ridiculous and unencyclopedic to have articles for elections that far out. Moreover, I'm concerned that somebody will decide that they need a 2024 article, and then somebody else thinks that we need a 2028 article, and, next thing you know, we've got an article for the 3000 presidential election. I'm being a bit hyperbolic here, but the point is that we should have some sensible cutoff (say, the next election that an incumbent could fight for re-election).

Please let me know if I'm totally nuts or if there is some better solution to this problem.

— DLJessup (talk) 23:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

There has been nothing yet written about such future elections. Slippery slope arguments often aren't valid, but this one is, and I fully support deleting them post haste. Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I've seen a lot of silly speculative articles, but these are by far the silliest. android79 23:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
IMO, you're not totally nuts :) I don't think there should be an article about which nothing specific is known and about which nothing is currently planned. For comparasion, the olympics happen every four years as well, but the cut off for that is 2016 - which lists some countries that are planning for a bid for that year. For Pres elections, I don't see any reason to have an article (currently) for any time after 2008, as what can you say bar saying "there will be an election"? Articles about future election that contain only rephrasing of the title "there will be an election in this year, etc", might be valid for a speedy delete under A3. MartinRe 23:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

We have AFD precedent at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/U.S. presidential election, 2012, decided in 2004. I'd support deleting all but the article for the next election. Postdlf 23:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to me that, in 2009, we could have articles for both 2012 and 2016, since potential candidates of the same political party as the sitting president usually do not make primary runs against the sitting president, and so there will be things to say about who's jockeying to succeed the next president following a hypothetical second term. But today no such situation exists, so there's nothing useful to say beyond 2008 that wouldn't be pure speculation. --TreyHarris 00:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


MySpace now filtered?

While I was filtering RC I noticed that MySpace is now a "matched word". Is there a particular reason for this? Should MySpace be on the spam blacklist instead? Alphax τεχ 02:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I wouldnt blacklist it... no need to stop users from linking to their own myspace page (which would happen with a blacklisting) we just dont want it used for vanity articles/article link spamming.  ALKIVAR™ 02:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a short while ago, the "Beatles" music page was put up as the feature article. I was reading a bit of it and then accidently refreshed my browser. The page reloaded and all the old text was deleted and replaced with one sentence and numerous pornographic pictures. After seeing this, it occured to me that Featured Articles should be temporarily unalterable...as long as they are featured on the front page. By placing an article in the featured section, you're making it easily accesible to many different people including visitors to the site. --marioluigi123 05:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Good thought, but please take a look at this: User:Raul654/protection.--Alhutch 05:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

New guidelines

On 2 March 2006 three new proposed guidelines were altered to guidelines with what seems to me very little Wikipedia community participation. Please have a look at the proposed guidelines and contribute to a consensus on whether these proposed guidelines in their present from should become guidelines. See:

--Philip Baird Shearer 10:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


Also please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) for which there seems not to have been a proposed guideline status before it becames a guideline. now altered to a proposed guideline --Philip Baird Shearer 11:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#New guidelines which may impact on this and other guidelines for further comments on this. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thumbnails without sizes

When inserting thumbnails, sizes should not be used (unless there is a special reason for using them), because otherwise the preferences for them have no effect. The Adept 13:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Category:Drugs cheats in sport

I have a problem with the word "cheats" in the name of this category Category:Drugs cheats in sport and its subcategories. Some people who have been disqualified for doping (and are listed under this category or its subcategory, such as Olga Pyleva) were not cheats at all but alledgedly accidental victims of ingestion of a banned chemical.

At the top of the category page it is stated that such people may be listed in this category ("and/or 2. Publicly admitted such use.") -- note the "or": they may have *not* admitted such use.

Also, if anything, it should be "Drug cheats" not "Drugs cheats".

Could we change the category name(s) to something more NPOV like Category:Doping cases in sport? If so, could someone carry out this renaming? -- Mareklug talk 15:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

This was previously discussed at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Drugs cheats in athletics in 2004, where it was inexplicably left as "unresolved" despite what appears to be a consensus in favor of deleting the category outright. I'm still perplexed by the phrase "drugs cheats." Because of the inability to frame a concise category title that functions as an objective and clear classification, this is the kind of grouping that's better maintained as an annotated list. It should be listed again on CFD. Postdlf 15:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, in the current form the cat name may even be subject to libel. You should renominate it on CFD for renaming the section. --Gurubrahma 16:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I put it on WP:CFD#Category:Drugs cheats in sport, proposing to rename it to "Doping cases in sport", mentioning this discussion and the fact that it was considered for deletion. -- Mareklug talk 20:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


Daily premier anonymity

I'm sure if this feature described here ever gets implemented that this section title won't be used for it. The idea sparked above with the suggestions to divert or prevent edit wars and the users' desire to stay anonymous.

  • When you see any entry for a change made, the user's name or IP address is not shown in that entry. After you make an edit to the page that was changed, you then get to see who edited it in the entry, but that view is only available for a day from your last change.

This would encourage people to focus on quality of content rather than who made the content. The would also apply for administrators. Only stewards and bureaucrats can see who made the change at anytime.

For example, if you have not edited a page and you view its history, you would see something like:

  • (cur) (last) 13:31, 4 March 2006 (good q!)
  • (cur) (last) 13:12, 4 March 2006 (→1RR instead of 3RR for not logged users ?)
  • (cur) (last) 13:12, 4 March 2006 (→1RR instead of 3RR for not logged users ?)
  • (cur) (last) 13:08, 4 March 2006 (→1RR instead of 3RR for not logged users ?)
  • (cur) (last) 13:07, 4 March 2006 (Hmm, everyone should do it anyway :))

The watchlist would look something like:

  • (diff) (hist) . . Computer system; 06:31 . . (→See also)
  • (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia talk:Stable versions; 03:39 . . (→Semi-automation - recent stable version detector)
  • (diff) (hist) . . m Computer programming; 02:04 . . (→Software development - bypass disambig)
  • (diff) (hist) . . Computer security audit; 01:01 . .

Recent changes would look something like:

  • (diff) (hist) . . Fiscal conservatism; 14:33 . . (→Notable Fiscal Conservatives)
  • (diff) (hist) . . End of the Spear; 14:33 . . (replacing deprecated {{web reference}} with {{cite web}} using AWB)
  • (User creation log); 14:33 . . Lettaylor (Talk) (New user (Talk | contribs | block))
  • (diff) (hist) . . Talk:Dogon people; 14:33 . . (→Completely by Robert Temple? - Re)

As you see, there is no significance to who made the changes in the above views. This does not prevent somebody that reverts vandalism to track down who made the vandalism, as, once the vandalism is reverted the users name is then seen as we common know. Anything further vandalism by that user can be tracked down as usual.

Of course, if anybody signs their name, who made the entry is always revealed. If we want a feature to doublecheck if the tildes were used to sign (in case somebody forges a name), an extra flag on the change entries could be made to denote that.

Some worry that I don't spend enough time in article space, but I also am a developer of a wiki.

Can I get some feedback for this kind of policy that is really more technological? — Dzonatas 14:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The method I use for spotting vandalism is to look down recent changes for a change which (a) has no change log and (b) comes from an IP address. Obviously, that combination does not in any way imply that vandalism has taken place, but it does correlate. So, I guess what I'm sugegsting is that anonymised reports should state whether the user was logged on or an IP address. Nick Levine 14:53, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm concerned that such a flag might cause differences between edits of those logged in and not. If the flag showed only on the Recent changes report, it might not be much of a concern. — Dzonatas 16:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not really sure I understand all that your proposal entails. But I very much rely upon seeing WHO made a change in determining whether I want to take a closer look at it. I've come to trust many users and don't bother to scrutinize their edits (unless it is to see whether they've added something of interest). But when an anon IP or a user I don't recongnize (especially red-linked names) make an edit to a page on my watchlist, I usually examine these more carefully. If this user information were no longer available, it would make my watchlist virtually useless. I guess I don't even really understand why you might even consider something like this a good idea. older≠wiser 17:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
If this were implemented, how would attribution of edits be maintained? Some editors edit under multiple copyright schemes, e.g. if someone releases all of their edits to PD, how would you know what 'their' edits are? xaosflux Talk/CVU 17:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict edit) I was asked to expand on this, This proposal seems to go against the GFDL requirements for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work and other sections related to histories. GFDL applies to all works on here, but some contributors also edit under multiple licenses such as Public Domain, but in order for these contributions to be usable under these licenses, they must be identifiable. A hybrid of both of these solutions could be that users would have to choose to be identified when they want to, and have attribution accordingly.
In another view, having the ability to find a users contributions is highly useful when dealing with vandals, rfc's, arbcom cases etc, although you suggest having this info available to 'crats, 'crats don't generalyl open arbcom cases, and not being able to identify a problematic contirbutor could lease to other issues. xaosflux Talk/CVU 20:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
As for the GFDL, I did research it and found that attribution does not need to be directly linked to each modification. The current histort page indirectly creates such attribution. The GFDL actually just wants a list of authors, so a link at the bottom of the web page, "Authors," that brings up that list complies to the GFDL. That hybrid option is a good solution for multiple licenses. — Dzonatas 20:42, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I strongly oppose any scheme to anonymize edits, as fundamentally bad for the Wikipedia editing process. Those who choose to edit under an account should be able to be held accountable to those edits - and also should be able to take pride of creation in saying "hey, look at all my contributions to this Featured Article." FCYTravis 20:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
It's not meant to keep everybody completely anonymous. There are still ways to reveal identities, but they become not so obvious to the casual reader. As for implementation, the first step would be to provide such anonymity as an user preference. The user would be able to set if they see or do not see identities. This doesn't force anonymous edits. I doubt the "User contributions" link on the user pages need any anonymity. — Dzonatas 20:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


Ultimate authority for other language wikis?

I just read with interest about the controversy, the wheel warring, the suspensions, and the eventual actions of the ArbCom that took place in early February over the matter of some userboxes Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-06/Userbox warring, Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war. I do not want to discuss those events. I want to discuss the matter of the ultimate authority for other wikis.

The ArbCom when ruling on that dispute, mentioned among the principles that it had agreed on and that it considered when coming up with its "findings of fact," that "Jimbo Wales has ultimate authority on Wikimedia projects, as a foundation issue that is beyond debate." I am fine and I agree with this. However here is my question: what about the other wikis? Who is the ultimate authority on the projects in French, Spanish, Thai, Korean, etc, etc.? Are those wikis left to fend for themselves and sort out things alone? Suppose a situation similar to that of the userbox above happens in another wiki, and the end result is very diffeent than the one here; say they end up allowing that kind of userbox to stay and they don't delete it. Is there a way to escalate the issue from one of those wikis to this one, the english one -which by virtue of being the mother wiki, the first one ever, I assume would also have ultimate authority over the other ones. If this is correct, how are things escalated? BTW, I do not know of any issue that would warrant such action. I ask just as the result of intellectual curiosity. Thanks. Anagnorisis 05:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo is also the ultimate authority on them. Since to be created, they had to interact with the English-speaking staff of Wikimedia and Meta, there is very likely an English-speaking ombudsman to translate for him in the rare case this is needed. However, since every Wikipedia is different and has different rules, this may not be an issue on them. The German, Polish, etc. Wikipediae administrations may not have a problem with userboxes, or have certainly not had the nasty fight over them. --Golbez 06:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I am using the userboxes was only an example. Not an example to be considered specifically: like discussing they having userboxes or not. When and how it is appropriate to escalate issues and bring them here? Say there is a serious dispute, in one of those wikis, can I bring it to the ArbCom here? Under what conditions? --Anagnorisis 06:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
So far as I know, the ArbCom only has jurisdiction over the English Wikipedia. Other Wikipediae large enough have their own ArbComs, created as needed, I think. --Golbez 06:49, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Does that mean that the buck stops at those other languages ArbCom? Then that would mean the english Wiki cannot overturn a decission at another Wiki if it is found extreme by the members of this one? Intersting. --Anagnorisis 07:29, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia has no jurisdiction over other language Wikipediae, period. Only Wikimedia does, and so far as I know, the only universal guideline is to maintain NPOV. --Golbez 07:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok. Understood. So I guess it would then be to Wikimedia to resolve very extreme things. Yes, I have noticed that different wikies have different policies. Some things, like copyright issues (what is allowed in one is not on another), differ a lot from one wiki to another which can be annoying at times -but that is another topic. Thanks for the info. Cheers. --Anagnorisis 08:02, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
The only requirement for copyrights is, I believe, that they conform to US/Florida law, since that is where the servers and foundation are located. However, some (particularly the Japanese Wikipedia) have chosen a stricter standard, in ja's case, to conform to Japanese copyright law, just to protect those who work on the pedia. Fair use, for example, is not allowed on ja, I don't believe. --Golbez 18:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Why concealing user contributions to deleted pages? (2)

This new question got archived, so I'll repost it:

You say you've forbidden us to see deleted edits in articles' histrories, because users write foul stuff in the edit summaries.

But, if I go ahead and register User:Joe Smith rapes baby donkeys, won't it dangle forever on the block log? Or will you deny everyone access to the block log from now on? --tyomitch 15:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Aside from this concern, the concealing policy has one very, very damaging effect: it takes the deletion notices, especially speedy deletions, off user watchlists. There are overaggressive editors and admins whacking valid articles with speedy and prod tags, and editors who are interested in the subjects and could easily improve the articles given a chance -- but not everybody makes daily visits to Wikipedia. For speedy tagging, it's even worse; an article can vanish almost tracelessly in 15 minutes. Monicasdude 15:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that user contributions for deleted pages should not be concealed. Perhaps non-admin user edit comments can be auto-deleted? I think concealing this does more harm than good. -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 21:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


Okay, so out of those who chose to express their opinion above, there is a clear consensus.

Admins! Please give us back our deleted histories! Their concealment won't stop calumniators, but it does bring us confusion and fret. --tyomitch 19:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the nomic is over

All those playing nomic with wikipedia guidelines are hereby informed that they have won. All those playing calvinball, you too, you've won. Congratulations. Now get the heck out of here so we can get back to writing an encyclopedia.

The current wikipedia process is so darn acidic that even experienced mediators who have seen it all have left. This includes people like Nicholas Turnbull and Redwolf24. Only experienced usenetters hold on for longer periods of time, and now even they are getting quesy.

People with established wikireputations get pounded on and driven off by people who are CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY not here to write an encyclopedia.

I've seen featured article writers quit, I have seen them walk out of wikimeets.

And I am telling you now. This has gone too far. The buck stops here.

Who's with me?

Kim Bruning 13:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

When Wikipedia was a few people, the people were mostly quality. Large groups of people with easy access will invariably have a small group creating a lot of trouble. It seems to be the nature of mankind. Requiring registration would help (my opinion) but would not reduce Wikipedia quality. As Wikipedia grows larger and more popular, the problem will grow worse because beanbrains will disrupt and disperse honest efforts. In societies, police are established, on Wikipedia, (my opinion) we are going to need registration and dedicated policing-type people because there are people who know with certainty that knowledge should be destroyed. Terryeo 15:41, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
This is neither support nor opposition; I'm sick of the terms. This is to state, here and now; that those who are here to write a free content encyclopaedia will always have my firm support. And that's the short and tall of it. Rob Church (talk) 13:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Relax a little :) Forget about the policy pages for a while. Forget about all the litigation and silly arguing going on and go back to editing articles for a while. Last month mainspace edits were 2% of your contributions - make Wikipedia space edits 2% of your contributions and your wiki-health will improve! :) Haukur 14:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
There's no point if I'm going to have to fight every step of the way anyway. It's gotten trickier and trickier to even get people to recognise that maybe there's such a thing as an encyclopedia out there. "Policy" trumps encyclopedia every time, and good editors leave in disgust. Note how "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" is considered funny by some people around here. Fine, laugh, but then apply it, dang you! :-) Kim Bruning 14:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
It's kind of hard to ignore the policy pages with so many editors, on the one hand, trying to change the rules so they can insert their POV edits, and other editors, on the other hand, wanting to tie WP up in increasingly complex rules. And then there are the trolls filling up the talk pages. I try to ignore them, but I still feel I have to stay aware and not let them slip in changes that no one else has agreed to. I try to support anything that advances WP in conformance with the three content-guiding policies. I try to oppose anything that detracts from that. I agree with Robchurch that we are here to write an encyclopedia, and I get impatient with the obstacles. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 14:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
There's something to that - while you look away someone changes the rules :) Instruction creep is rampant. Just yesterday the following proposals were upgraded to guidelines (since downgraded again):
This is a well-intentioned effort to split up a thorny problem but it's awfully complicated. Basically: "Use diacritics in names if some complicated criteria are fullfilled. Unless it's a Czech or Swedish person in which case you should definitely use diacritics. Unless it's a hockey player in which case you definitely shouldn't." Haukur 15:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Nothing that a little editing won't fix! Let's apply the well-practised rule from poetry that removing the last line of the poem improves the poem. Indeed, applying this rule recursively is essential to producing good poetry. Having said that, I propose the following improvement: "Use diacritics." Hope this helps. -- Mareklug talk 17:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Speaking as a member of WP:HOCKEY, we didn't push Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) as anything but an internal project guideline. It was elevated (not by a project member) because we were finding articles we'd started all of a sudden winding up as redirects with diacritic markings and generally impinging on our carefully-tread order. Naming conventions for Czech, Swedish, Finnish etc were all created by the same user who created WP:Naming (hockey) as an attempt to make us all use diacritics when we create articles about people from those countries, and as a statement that "it's going to happen anyway despite your wishes, so deal with it."  RasputinAXP  c 17:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Err, I think I'm with you, Kim, but I'm not really sure what you're talking about... android79 14:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the nomic is over. However, there is still a focus. I also wanted to leave, but I do continue to have a focus on article validation for accreditation purposes and how to implement the ideas. That focus does infringe upon matters that affect mainstream articles. Further, in the words that started article validation: 07:45, 6 June 2004 "Some potential expert editors refuse to edit, because they think their content will be damaged by vandals or non-experts. Providing a checking service might help them feeling more confident with the process." I've put a lot of time in on work within a small range of articles. I hate to see valid contributions by any editor lost so easily, and for those editors to be discouraged that they would leave or be banned. I hate to see Wikipedia become "the encyclopedia of the sum of human knowledge minus one". — Dzonatas 15:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to propose a new rule that Wikipedia editors not be allowed to give up on the project out of frustration unless there is a clear consensus for that editor being allowed to leave. Also, I would like to nominate the Wikipedia: namespace for deletion on the grounds that it is disruptive. -Silence 15:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm am sorry, but if you want to nominate that for deletion, you have to do so in triplicate and notify all one million contributors of the change on their talk page. You also need to hold a discussion, an unofficial poll, an official poll, a vote, and a tea party before the motion can be carried. Don't forget to notify the village pump, the announcements page, the community portal, Wikizine, The Signpost, all 28 IRC channels, the Arbitration Committee, the Mediation Committee, the Mediation Cabal, Esperanza and BJAODN before starting any discussion. Thanks -- sannse (talk) 17:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Ooh, for the tea party, can we invite everyone over for a Boston tea party?, everyone can come dressed as indians! Kim Bruning 18:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't that be dressed as indigenous peoples of North America of the Eastern Woodlands culture?
I think I will just stick a feather in my cap and call it macaroni. But I will point out that the easiest way around all those rules and regulations is simply to perform a military coup. Do you think a bunch of computer geeks are going to protest if you bust into the Wikipedia server room with a machine gun? —Mike 03:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I am with you, Kim. But do you have any plan to "stop the buck", as it were? DanielDemaret 21:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

It seems to me that Wikipedia policies or guidelines should include a discussion of how criticisms of topics fits into the Wikipedia articles about those topics. For exmaple Igor Stravinsky contain's a "Criticism" section while the criticisms of Country music where removed from that article and, presumably, some articles have criticism in each appropriate section (hypothetically, criticisms of Stravinsky's rhythmic prodedures could go in the "Rhythmic procedures" section of his article). Anyone else feel this need? Anythoughts on a guideline?

There is Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Article structures which can imply a view - maybe, after all the transformations that section underwent, it's no longer at the best place, which is now at the end of an elaborate guideline that was supposed to be about "words", not about "structures" - and it is about how to present criticism in a wikipedia article. --Francis Schonken 12:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


Citing Wikipedia as a method of searching

Hello, I was wondering of someone could help me. I am involved in publishing a book and Wikipedia has been listed as a method of searching not as a source per se. To make it very easy to understand, basically all that was mentioned is the website URL. That's it.

Is this worthy of being listed somewhere on Wikipedia in terms of listing it as a source that was used? I'm just curious. Davidpdx 08:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you may consider listing your book at Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a book source and possibly at Wikipedia:Wikipedia as an academic source. AxelBoldt 17:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Censorship poll

Express your opinion about Wikipedia:Censorship at Wikipedia_talk:Censorship#Poll. Gerard Foley 02:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Putting redirects in categories

Is there a policy on putting redirect pages into categories?

Looking at Category:Invasive species, I was surprised that Cane Toad wasn't there. The article is there but under Giant Neotropical Toad which is the redirect from Cane Toad. I've added the category to the redirect but wondered if this is generally thought to be a good thing.

I can see some advantages (users are more likely to find the article they are looking for or spot one that is of interest) but also problems (big categories will become even bigger if the same article appears multiple times with different titles). --Cavrdg 17:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I like the idea of having redirects in categories (only where appropriate, though). For example, (sorry I can't recall the specifics off hand), some townships in Michigan have incorporated as cities (sometimes with a completely different name from the city). The old township name generally would not merit an article of its own, but merely redirect to the city. But I think it would make sense to categorize the redirect as Category:Defunct townships in Michigan. It certainly would not be appropriate to apply that category to the city article. older≠wiser 18:30, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
This seems a bit like deliberately not avoiding a redirect. -Splashtalk 22:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, in the particular case above with the toad names, I think it probably should not be categorized -- Cane Toad appears to be only one of several alternative names. Since Giant Neotropical Toad is already in Category:Invasive species, I don't think it is appropriate for the alternative names to be in the same category as well. Now, *IF* there were subcategories like "Invasive species in X" *AND* this creature were known exclusively by an alternative name in that place, then it *MIGHT* make sense to include the alternative name redirect in the subcat -- but that doesn't appear to apply in this case. older ≠ wiser 16:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Revolution within the form

For a long time at Wikipedia, I have been trying to restore "the old meanings" of words. I understand this concept (of "revolution within the form") and how it affects knowledge and learning. This concept is very important for understanding modern culture and society and how we got here. (This is very connected to Antonio Gramsci's Transformation of culture)

This is a danger to all knowledge and encyclopaediests who categorize and set down knowledge. Is what passes for knowledge really "revolutionized" meaning? And yet where is the congnization of this concept and an understanding of this? What is the response of Wikipedia to this? Do they even have one or do they actually participate in this "Revolution within the form"?

Let us look at some examples: Effeminacy and the Classical definition of effeminacy. That the word "effeminate" has undergone a change in meaning From something to be avoided as it is a *****character trait or vice**** to where it is an approved character trait of the gay community and "defined" as something as a "gender role" and tied to homosexual behavior. I consider this a "reading back" into history, modern understandings that was not at all the case for the ancients. For 1800 years the Christian Church in use of the word "malakos" has always translated and understood the word to be "effeminate" with NO sexual conotations. Now, all of a sudden, the word has now been translated as "boy prostitute" and is simply not right. The word "malakos" has undergone a "Revolution within the form".

Another example is the term Republic and the Classical Republic. Here the word has been transformed from it's original meaning to something else. And yet, Wikipedia teaches the "revolutionized" definition. Where is the Old meaning??? And then a seperate article on "mixed government" and "classical republic", shouldn't they be combined? And where is the old meaning in the Wikipedian "Classical republic"? Where is the discussion of governments as such. As of now all the articles pertaining to Republic all slant toward the modern "revolutionized" meaning on Wikipedia.

Is this the purpose of an encyclopaedia??? Do you not acknowledge the fact that people do purposely change the old things to bring about a revolution in society? What is the response to Revolution within the form?WHEELER 16:07, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem here is that the concept (which exists, and appears to be very much what Orwell was talking about with Newspeak) is bieng conflated with the term, which appears to be a neologism with strictly limited currency. I am sure that if you ask the closing admin (whoever it might be) to userfy it, you could wth some thought fix that problem, possibly within newspeak, but as it stands there is little evidence that this term has been used outside of the single cited source, and that is what is likely to get the article deleted. If it is deleted and not userfied drop by my talk page and I'll rescue it to your user space for you. Just zis Guy you know? 17:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment but I think Orwell's "double speak" is not the same level as "Revolution within the form". "Double speak" is an element of propaganda. It is similar to disimultude; for example, it talks about adjectives of war to be used as a means of peace. Double speak doesn't seek to redefine and reorder whole forms of government or the meaning of concepts. "Revolution within the form" existed well before "Double speak", it has greater historical provenance, and it is the great thinkers Aristotle and Machiavelli, one who exposes it and the other who uses the technique, that give it an impact and greater use. "Double speak" was created by one author, "Revolution within the form" is a technique observed in classical Greece and used by Machiavelli and Fabians and Gramsci democractic socialists. Revolution within the form is much more insidious because it seeks to fundamentally change one object for another.
It is how humanism advanced its agenda under the cover of old words. "Double Speak" is not a revolutionary strategy but a tool of propaganda. "Double Speak" is a sleight of hand technique. "Revolution within the form" is much more evil and corrupting. Furthermore it speaks to the human character of tradition and how this human character is manipulated for revolutionary purposes.
Well, it has been pointed out and it has received attention. It is there and now you are aware of the situation irregardless if it succeeds or fails as an article. In this post here, I want to bring it to the attention of Wikipedians because you are in the business of building an encyclopaedia---You need to be aware how information is manipulated to further revolution. I think it a very important subject for encyclopaedia builders, editors and contributors to be aware of. Anyway, It is on Wikinfo. I have it there and will probably transfer it to the talk pages of Joe Sobran Garet Garrett, republic and the JBS page.WHEELER 20:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Policy on copying and pasting non-copyrighted information

I know that using copyrighted text, like copyrighted anything, is against the rules- but what if you find a website that isn't copyrighted, and it has the info you need: can you copy the text and paste it here unchanged? Andrewdt85 09:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

It would have to be explicitly non-copyrighted/public domain - all material in American law is considered copyrighted when published, it needs no notice. --Golbez 09:21, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Products of the United States government generally are not copyrighted, however, and I have copied from U.S. Coast Guard sites a couple of times with only minimal editing. And, of course, anything on which copywrite has expired, such as the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, is fair game. But, these are well defined and very explicit exceptions, and you cannot assume something is in the public domain simply because no copyright notice is visible. And even some material produced by the U.S. government is copyrighted, so always check the status. Oh, and if you do copy public domain material, make it clear in the References section that you have done so (see {{1911}}, for example). -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 12:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, unless it's common knowledge or you yourself are the source of the information, add a footnote to the site/book/etc. you got the information from, even if you changed the wording and all that. Amina 01:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) - Should Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) become a naming conventions guideline? --Francis Schonken 17:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

No. And neither should any other existing proposed guidelines concerning the use of diacritics. Diacritics should be used, period. Just as words should be correctly spelled, etc. There is no need for such guidelines. -- Mareklug talk 17:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Diacritics should be used, period. That sounds a lot like a guideline to me. android79 18:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
A guideline? The formulation proposed by Mareklug is policy stuff. No problem: Wikipedia:Naming policy (diacritics) --Francis Schonken 20:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I hope you're just being silly. android79 20:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
If Mareklug is convinced that is the rule we should abide by, I'm convinced (s)he'll show us it is based on consensus. No unwritten rules, please! --Francis Schonken 20:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Err... okay... let's not make our points in this manner, eh? android79 20:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I maybe did (the point thing I mean), for which I apologise. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) was the seriously meant proposal. But it started to attract "point" people. So here's my proposal: why don't you have a look at that proposal, and see for yourself whether it's any better than Mareklug's rule. Anyway, the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) RfC has been concluded. --Francis Schonken 00:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether we have consensus to always use diacritics or not, but I'm certain we can establish the consensus for hockey player biographies to follow the same naming convention as other biographies. Zocky | picture popups 03:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I researched a bit, and this is truly preposterous. We have Jaroslav Hašek and Dominik Hasek although both of them have the same last name. The fact that somebody plays hockey has nothing to do with their name. Zocky | picture popups 03:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Mareklug says Diacritics should be used, period, and I say "Diacritics should not be used, full stop." (just semi-joking). This topic has been done to death at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English) with two views on the subject almost as polarised as that in the first sentence I just wrote. Francis Schonken's attempt is to try to solve the problem is to salami slice it, and although I give him credit for trying, I think the whole approach is floored. The reason for this is that we will end up with dozens and dozens of small guidelines for specific areas and they will be in conflict with each other (as does the proposed guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Czech) (another of Francis's new proposed guidelines)). We would need to maintain a matrix of guidelines with weightings just to work out what the Wikipedia guideline for naming a particular page was.

At the moment the consensus (or lack of it) for naming pages with or without diacritics is kept in one place WP:UE, (There are a couple of exceptions to no agreed rule about diacritics, but they are both academic areas where a good case has been argued for having a rule and they are not going to overlap into other areas). If there is a dispute over a page name then as often as not it ends up on WP:RM and can be considered on a case by case basis. It is not perfect but given the size Wikipedia, it seems to work reasonably well as a compromise between the two views over names with diacritics.--Philip Baird Shearer 18:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You wrote There are a couple of exceptions to no agreed rule about diacritics, but they are both academic areas where a good case has been argued for having a rule and they are not going to overlap into other areas - would you mind mentioning which areas/conventions you're referring to? I'd be interested. I found Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles): I take it that you don't define every Ireland-related article with an Irish title to be by definition about an academic topic, so probably you alluded to something else (which I missed thus far). --Francis Schonken 11:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Policy on quoting sources in articles

Is there any particular way that you usually quote someone in an article? I just said

According to author ---- ----: "-------"

Is this right? Andrewdt85 09:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyone? Andrewdt85 18:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

What you are doing is as correct as most other possibilities such as X said "---", and the one selected is primarily a matter of style. The things to keep in mind when quoting someone is to provide an appropriate citation to satisfy the requirements of Wikipedia:Verifiability, and to avoid implying some type of bias with the words chosen as per Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Words which can advance a point of view. --Allen3 talk 18:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


Infoboxes as Corporate Branding

Aaron suggested that I raise my concern about Infoboxes here. The original discussion can be found here. I believe Infoboxes have the effect of corporate advertising. They look like magazine ads, especially when the corporate logo is placed at the top. Also placing a box around particular facts privileges them by drawing attention of the eye: the current Infobox template does not include facts that would be of interest to labor (OSHA violations) or small investors (SEC violations, class action suits, etc.). These infoboxes currently cannot be removed without risk of Admin blocking because the people who place them (in the case I'm involved with, a corporate employee) can appeal to "policy" and "precedent". Does the Encyclopedia Britannica feature corporate logos? Using infoboxes to extend a corporation's brand campaign amounts to using Wikipedia for free advertising. I think the promotional aspect would be instantly recognized if a person posted their picture on an article with a list that highlighted laudatory facts. If infoboxes cannot be outright discouraged, it should at least be legal for a dissenting editor to remove them. --Pansophia 23:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that infoboxes look like advertising, for one thing all company infoboxes contain the same basic factual information. Items like OSHA, SEC violations, if relevent, can be added in the company specific article, but I don't see any valid reason for a dissenting editor to remove verifible, factual information. There is no field in the infobox for "laudatory facts". Facts are facts. However, if the fields are filled in with more than just the information (e.g. "Revenue $xm, (best in the industy") then the field info should be corrected, but the infobox should remain. MartinRe 00:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with MartinRe. -- Kjkolb 02:05, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Let's not withhold information from readers out of fear that we "look like" something we're not. Clearly our infoboxes are not ads, as long as they present the same information for each company in the same way. As I've said before, I believe your real complaint is that our infoboxes are promoting capitalism. This isn't true, unless you think our movie articles are promoting moviegoing and our sports articles are promoting sports events. Rhobite 22:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify my position, I'm not against capitalism. I'm against various abuses fostered by capitalism and very much for ethical capitalism. I am against corporate propaganda - especially when businesses exploit free media. Infoboxes propogate brands because the information is a) highlighted in a special, prominent box, and b) conveyed through a visual cue. The top right placement of the Infobox is the most desirable position and displaces any other image that could be placed there. I also disagree that "facts are facts" as far as Infoboxes are concerned: the selection of facts favors corporate interests. --Pansophia 01:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Is this the most appropriate place for this? If the purpose is general discussion about "Infoboxes as Corporate Branding", then probably. But if the purpose is the specific removal or addition of fields to the Template:Infobox Company, then proposals for such removal/additions belong at Template talk:Infobox Company. Furthermore, the use of logos on Wikipedia, such as in Wikipedia:Templates, is guidelined by the contents of Wikipedia:Logos. If the purpose is to change policy guidelines regarding the use of logos on Wikipedia, then such a proposal belongs at Wikipedia talk:Logos. Kurieeto 19:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it belongs here at least in part, since an admin threatened to block me for editing out an infobox. The justification is that these infoboxes are "policy", and they therefore can't be challenged by editors. This is a really disturbing position since it basically puts permanent protection on something that looks like an ad. --Pansophia 19:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair use (yet again)

The image illustrating Hobart Freeman was uploaded as a fair use image, but wouldn't the fair use only apply if the image were illustrating an article about the book whose cover art the image came from? Illustrating the article about the person would seem to be a violation of the fair use doctrine. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hm. The image description page says it's the author image from the back of the book cover, so I'd say it's an okay fair use image, but {{bookcover}} is the wrong image tag (since a book front cover is a graphical design and not just a photograph in most cases). It should use {{fairusein}} plus a good rationale. IANAL-- grm_wnr Esc 19:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
if the same image is really on all his books you could probably fairly tag it promo (or explain that it is a promo image using fairusein). Arniep 01:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to jump on this train and ask a similar/related question. Stills from films and other footage - fair use allows us to use a still frame to illustrate the film/character it shows, but what about the actor? Is this pushing it too far? Example - whilst thinking about getting a new lead image for Eric Clapton's page, I thought it might be an idea to use a screen capture from Tommy, but thought it wouldn't be covered by fair use as the page has very little to do with the film. Any thoughts? - MightyMoose22 00:42, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

A film still would be appropriate if it is placed close to some halfway detailed discussion of the role or film in question - e.g., just a mention in a list of appearances wouldn't cut it, in my opinion, and neither would using it somewhere else in the article. Since the lead of the Clapton article does not mention Tommy (and probably shouldn't, since it's hardly one of the things Clapton's most famous for), I'd not use a film still there - in fact, a fair use/promotional (as is used now - I can't see what's wrong with it, by the way, except that the image information is somewhat lacking) or even free image of a person of Clapton's caliber shouldn't be too hard to come by. -- grm_wnr Esc 23:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's what I thought. That's why I didn't suggest it, I was just curious in retrospect. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a plethora of free/promo Clapton images out there, I just have no idea how to identify them myself. I tried Googling Clapton promotional and various similar image searches, but didn't find anything particularly good that wasn't too similar to Image:Eclapton_cardiff.jpg. (see here for what we were/are looking for). - MightyMoose22 18:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I removed these two images Image:Claptonprofile.jpg, Image:Claptonsixties.jpg as we have two similar free images so we don't really have a good fair use argument, plus the fact that the images don't have info on the copyright holder or original source. Arniep 01:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

is there a word for this?

is there an accepted wikipedia word or term for when someone (whether it be a corporation, an employee or the person himself) who watches over their own article and immediately deleted any derrogatory or negative things about them on. what has been done to combat this, which will only get worse in the future.

also, same thing, only and interested party writes the bulk of the article.

thanks

Sparsefarce 23:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:AUTO. -Splashtalk 23:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

that helps, but what about if it's a peon at a major corporation that changes the article? would it still be referred to as autobiography?

Sparsefarce 23:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

found one... POV-pushing? but is this an official term?

Sparsefarce 23:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

See also WP:OWN. FreplySpang (talk) 23:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I guess you're referring to MC Hammer? I'd say it's more likely that there's a rabid fan out there somewhere removing anything critical rather than MC Hammer himself or one of his employees. Lots of fans feel a lot of ownership over their beloved's pages. · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 23:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I just replaced a bunch of unflattering text in that article that had been removed, and blocked the IP that had been doing it for a week. Its only edits were to the Hammer article. Postdlf 23:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


Is restoring my own comments on discussion page a violation of 3RR

If somebody is deleting my own comments from discussion page, will I break 3RR for restoring them more then 3times ? --Molobo 20:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Based on the reasoning I'm seeing, yes, since you initially deleted someone else's comments. The general rule is: If you have to ASK if something violates 3RR, it does, and seek other resolution methods now. 3RR is not an allowance, it is a guideline. --Golbez 20:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Putting tags without explanation and refusing to discuss them

What is the policy if some user puts a disputed tag on regular basis yet refuses to state reasons for doing and refuses discussion ? Is removal of such a tag after a time considered vandalism ? --Molobo 13:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

If it's one of those like {{NPOV}} which say "Please see the discussion on the talk page", and there's no discussion on the talk page about it (the discussion does not need to be started by the same user, so be careful), the tag is bogus and can be removed. On other cases, it's less clear (the tag might be or not bogus); however, the removal would probably be considered a content dispute, and not vandalism. --cesarb 16:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I have experience of the converse problem. Fairly recently, I put up two tags together with explanations of the reasons on the talk pages, only to find both tags removed immediately by "guardians" of the page, outraged that anyone should criticise "their" page with one stating, "You're coming across very confrontational and arrogant, some consider that to be uncivil. I will try to assume good faith, but you'll have to stop acting like you hold a monopoly on what is or isn't. I'm removing the clean up tag, I think it's unwarranted." simply because I listed some of what I thought was wrong with the page. With some people, you just cannot win. David91 16:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

What is Wikipedia's policy on double links besides "don't use them?" If there is an image linking to an internal page on Wikipedia, and the same internal page is linked to within the image, what is the policy? Delete one link, and not the other? Keep both links? Thanks for your time. — Ian Manka Talk to me‼ 03:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Solved on #wikipedia. Thanks anyway! — Ian Manka Talk to me‼ 03:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

List of (religion) (profession)

Is there a policy on articles titled "List of (religion) (profession)"? List of Muslim athletes was previously deleted by AfD, the main reason being that those who contributed to the AfD discussion agreed that "the faith of none of those people had an influence on their chosen profession". However, this article has recently gone through a few cycles of recreation/deletion and I feel that it is kind of unfair to delete this for the above reason when we have articles like List of Jewish American athletes and List of Catholic American entertainers (amongst many others). If there is no policy, is it worthwhile having a discussion as to whether to keep/delete all such articles rather than subjecting them to AfD on a piecemeal basis? (note that I write this as the admin who deleted List of Muslim athletes following its AfD rather than as a contributor to any of the above articles) JeremyA 02:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, [[List of Catholic American entertainers]] has been up for AfD in the past, and kept. As yoy imply, you can't look to Afd for any consistency on application of policy or precedent. As for clarufying the policy, Isuspect it will be impossible to get a consensus. Too many editors vote for what they like, rather than for consistency and the best interests of Wikipedia. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 12:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that any article featured on the main page is an immediate target for vandalism. Why don't we have a policy to semi-protect the articles before they are featured on the main page. it would save editors a lot of time from reverting the continual stream of vandalism from random IP anons. David D. (Talk) 20:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Amongst other reasons, because quite a few of these makes substantial corrections of typos and grammar stuff that Wikiepdians themselves wouldn't spot, as they wouldn't read through a Featured aArticle just because it's being featured on the Main page. Circeus 20:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, now I can see how the benefits might out weigh the random vandalism, thanks for the input. David D. (Talk) 20:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
How did an article get to be featured if it is so obviously littered with typos and grammar stuff. If a page is being held up as the best that Wiki can produce, how come no-one with a brain has proof read it? David91 03:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia policy on Nazism

All vandalism is serious, but I may consider nazi-type vanadism super serious. If I came across it *anywhere* on wikipedia, I would get a consensus to block the relevant user(s) for up to three years. Nazism is racist and should not be tolerated on wikipedia. This includes adding any Nazi type greating or images to articles (or even discussions and user pages) where they do not make it more informative.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk)

What makes Nazi-type vandalism any different from any other sort of personal/collective attack? --Carnildo 20:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) I disagree with that. Nazi-type vandalism isn't in general done by nazis, but by bored teenagers, etc. The actual content of the vandalism is irrelevant. The seriousness of vandalism is related to the frequency of it, and the amount of removed or added text. The length of blocks should reflect that; not the content. So I would support long blocks for vandal bots; and standard policy should apply to nazi vandals. Eugene van der Pijll 20:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
There are far too many categories of offensive edits to single out "Nazi" vandalism for special treatment. I can think of many utterances more objectionable than the display of a swastika or declaration of the superiority of the so-called Aryan. I agree in spirit that vandalism containing inflammatory content is theoretically a greater offense than that consisting merely of "woot woot"; but a much greater danger is calculated vandalism in which, say, dates and names are subtly altered.
All vandalism is wrong; I would be happy if any vandal were blocked forever from further editing. But anon IP editors are, truly, anonymous; blocking the IP may block legitimate users. And -- for those who believe in the potential for redemption in the human heart -- it is always possible that a registered vandal may reform, given patience and understanding as well as a firm hand. Given these considerations, the current policy on vandal blocking is about the best. John Reid 21:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
"If I came across it *anywhere* on wikipedia, I would get a consensus to block the relevant user(s) for up to three years." - Strange and arbitrary timelimit. Might as well just permaban someone if you're going to go for such an excessive length of time, as it's easy enough to dodge bans for most users; computer cafes and libraries are everywhere these days. Permabans don't force admins to keep track of an ISP for years, either.
"Nazism is racist and should not be tolerated on wikipedia." - Faulty logic. You seem to be basing this logic more on kneejerk reaction to buzzwords like "nazism" and "racism" and thus on appeals to emotion than on solid reasoning; if nazism only needs to be blocked because it's racism, why not just block all racism? What makes nazi imagery more tolerable than KKK imagery, for example? The problem here is that outlawing a single random thing puts Wikipedia into a bad position where it's clearly guilty of hypocrisy for arbitrarily singling out one group while ignoring countless other groups that share a near-identical ideology and are in many cases even more influential and significant in today's world than some ridiculous gang that reached its peak over 50 years ago. It can also lead to a slippery slope where more and more other groups are also outlawed from Wikipedia and vandalism using their imagery is made especially intolerable (as though we tolerated any form of vandalism to begin with?), leading to a climate of fear and oppression on Wikipedia where people are scared to say what they think in case they'll be banned for it by admins who judge them to be too similar to one of the arbitrarily-banned groups. All vandalism is vandalism and should be dealt with as such, without trying to turn Wikipedia into an instrument for morality or for judging the wicked and rewarding the good. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a nazi-fighting social reform machine; the reason arbitrary insertion of Nazi propaganda is bad for Wikipedia is the same reason arbitrary insertion of any type of propaganda is bad for Wikipedia: it dilutes Wikipedia's encyclopedic value, accuracy, and reliability. Not because a certain type of propaganda is more or less "evil" than any other; whether it is or not is of no concern to us. It is of concern to every individual human being on the planet, not to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia.
"This includes adding any Nazi type greating or images to articles (or even discussions and user pages) where they do not make it more informative." - Looks like I'd have to be the first person you banned, then, for being wicked and hateful enough to make a philosophical statement about the nature of images and of humans ascribing good or evil to them. Fire away. After all, everyone knows that the best way to fight intolerance is to be intolerant! (Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.) -Silence 22:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I just ran a db query on stuff that is reported to be Nazi vandalism and looking at the times I think 90% of it is done by high school kids who get a cheap thrill out of it, stupid but most of it is pretty easy to clean up, heck, its even automated cleanup as my bot catches most of it. I'm going to add a report in the system to report Nazi vandalism for block considerations. -- Tawker 22:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Please clarify what you mean when you consider nazism? Again we approach this from a neutral point of view, if it's vandalism it's still vandalism. The person will be banned regardless of content for vandalism. From what I reading you seem to intent that we should punish vandals that use nazi or race hate phrases harder. If so I must disagree in that a 3 year block for a racism is too much, and is Wikipedia forcing a point of view of non-racism. For instance, if a person is writing a article on Adolf Hitler, and think his view of white purity is a good thing, we merely delete the article under the NPOV guidelines already in place. Any additional changes just for racism would be too overreaching, as well as value imposing, which is counter to Wikipedia belief in good faith guideline. --Masssiveego 23:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that standard policies should apply. It is inappropriate to single out particular types of vandalism for special opprobrium as it would be the first step towards Wikipedia adopting an editorial political stance. Nathcer 23:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

"If so I must disagree in that a 3 year block for a racism is too much, and is Wikipedia forcing a point of view of non-racism." Isn't a non-racism POV a good thing, such a POV is fair and just. This is what I was bought up with (here in Australia). It seems to me that American scociety (Wikipedia statred in the USA and its policies seem to have originarted there) does have a general non-racist POV in comparison to say, Australia (Australia is not the racist country it was in the 1950s, the "white Australia" era, today Australia is multicultural and very tollerant). I would also be interested to know how, say, Canada compares to the US on the matter.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk)


Cory Doctorow and the 'Autobiography' Guideline

I find it a bit disturbing that blogger Cory Doctorow's sole contributions to Wikipedia are to edit the hell out of his own biography and that of his blog. Is the fact that the Wikipedia:Auto-biography guideline is a guideline and not policy mean that this is acceptable? — WCityMike (T | C) 19:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm a fan of Cory's work (both his blog and his novels) so I'm a bit biased. Take this with a grain of salt, I suppose.
His edits to Boing Boing are pretty much above-the-board, with a detailed explanation either in edit summaries or on the talk page.
His edits to Cory Doctorow seem to be okay, though there may be a little bit of original research in there, regarding the meaning of an Amazon sales rank. There's also one meaningless personal detail about his hair (that he clarified, but did not add originally) that probably ought to go. He seems to be conscientiously editing the article on himself. I don't think it'll be a problem as long as there are neutral third parties keeping an eye on things. android79 19:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
The issue is not of "conscientiously editing the article". The issue is that editing one's article is strongly discouraged:
Avoid writing or editing articles about yourself, since we all find objectivity especially difficult when we ourselves are concerned. Such articles frequently violate neutrality, verifiability, and notability guidelines. Contribute on the talk page instead. Feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself.
... for very obvious reasons. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @
Yes, strongly discouraged. Not verboten. Did you even examine his edits? They're mostly of the "feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself" variety. android79 20:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we need to flat out prohibit subjects from editing articles about themselves. We should (and do) strongly encourage people to avoid it if there's even a hint that they're doing so improperly, but we don't need to be absolute about it. — Matt Crypto 00:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Admin 0RR proposal

A proposed policy limiting the authority of administrators to reverse one another is currently under discussion. Please take a moment to review and discuss the proposed policy. Kelly Martin (talk) 12:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The use of English in Wikipaedia

Why is there not a clear provision (that is to say a named moderator or a moderating committee) in The Wikipaedia organisation to ensure that all material published as the agreed substance of this encyclopaedia is written grammatically (at the least) and also - if possible - in a respectable style?

One good reason for having this safeguard is that technical advice simply cannot be trusted if the writer or speaker is not completely literate.

Someone who cannot in any event write grammatically surely cannot be relied upon to communicate accurately and economically the specifics of the topic in which he claims knowledge. Well-educated people know this and disregard professional or technical advice and comment from people who can only convey it in dubious or defective language.

Literacy - or the lack of it - is a direct and immediate indicator of the quality of the communication.

For example: we have seen in these pages the adjective "NOMIC" used as if it were a noun; we have seen "LAY" used where "LIE" was obviously intended; we have seen the noun "QUALITY" used as if it were an adjective of praise, and meaning "superior" or "excellent quality".

People whose knowledge of English does not enable them to distinguish between the two separate verbs "TO LAY" and "TO LIE" are not yet ready to edit directly Wikipaedia pages and should submit their words to a suitably-educated moderator.

Solecisms that may pass in informal conversation are not acceptable in an encyclopaedia.

Kirkby Stephen, e-mail: pedantryrules@hotmail.com

I'm sorry to hear that you have difficulty comprehending the language on this discussion page. We will try to do better. Additionally, can I refer you to the page Prescription and description? Cheers, Ziggurat 08:22, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Why not? Oh, for various reasons. Just one of them is that most potential suitably-educated moderators would find the designated job of ensuring what you term "grammaticality" to be extremely onerous. I'd like to think that I for one am suitably educated and am literate in English, but I wouldn't take that job unless I were paid -- and paid a lot.
Incidentally, I find your comment rather odd in various ways. First, if "lay" is used where "lie" is obviously intended, this is not a grammatical but a lexical error; secondly, if this mistake is obvious then it is hard to see how it could be misleading; thirdly, no matter how little you may like to see "quality" used as a prenominal adjective (and I don't like it much myself), this use is well established; and fourthly, the good pedant would note that "Wikipedia" is so spelled. Anyway, you are very welcome to switch "lay" to "lie" where appropriate, and so forth. Before you start, however, you may consider obtaining a username.
In the meantime, while I too am irritated by poor English, I'm much more worried about errors of fact and bias -- Hoary 08:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
You say, "Literacy - or the lack of it - is a direct and immediate indicator of the quality of the communication". Not always. A counterexample is your highly literate post. Please don't troll. — Matt Crypto 13:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, mostly literate, anyway. You failed to spell "Wikipedia" correctly, for example. — Matt Crypto 13:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Nomic is a noun when it is used to describe the rule-changing game that is so named. *Dan T.* 13:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
We have large numbers of editors for whom English is not their first language. Although they are in general well able to make themselves understood, their edits are, at times, less than grammatical. It doesn't mean their contributions are invalid, we just clean up after them as we can. And I've seen posts from lots of people from outside of North America who claim that American English is ungrammatical. Do you propose to ban us from editing in our native language? User:Zoe|(talk) 17:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at "Kirkby Stephens"'s email address, and then decide for yourself if you want to continue feeding the troll. android79 17:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia works because it has low barriers to entry. We then have to deal with the consequence that some edits are low quality. That can't be reversed without impeding Wikipedia's growth massively. Nathcer 23:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

against any deletion / erasing policy

I'm stunned on how far we can forget the primary goals when we get immersed into a good project. I've done this several times myself, caught myself going too far into a way because it sounds and look right, but I'm just forgetting what I was supposed to do in that project at first.

I feel like all wikimedia foundation projects are going that way today, specially when considering how difficult it might be to realize that deleting an article is just totally against any of the primary goals. And it happens for obvious reasons: there's no space for every single little thing.

Is that true?

The way wikipedia is done comes to avoid ambiguity in a very logical and simple way: there's a limit of characters, so all that's needed to do to keep it within the limits is calculating how much hardware space is needed to a certain number of total characters for any article. That will bring the theoretically infinite number to a real amount that we can deal with.

The vote for deletion attacks me so deeply in what I believe it's better for this community that I get even disturbed, so I might say things I don't want to, but the idea is just proposing to change the way articles get deleted. There are several things that could be done.

Please, refer to my user page to read the rest. I'm not sure where to put this suggestion, and getting tired of rewriting it. :D

Thanks.

--Cacumer 01:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. See also User:Simetrical#Notability. Of course, we still need to delete stuff that's totally worthless to our goals, like patent nonsense or unverifiable info, but more than the very slightest notability requirements specifically are completely unnecessary and nothing but destructive. Unfortunately, the two of us are in a distinct minority. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Policy proposal: Main Page on April Fool's Day

Please read the following proposal: Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page

With the approach of April Fool's Day, I'd like to propose how we present the Main Page to readers on this day. To sum up, I'd like us to make the Main Page as factual as possible, but with unusual facts and articles to convince readers that we are pulling their leg on April Fool's Day. However, the joke's on them: we are actually presenting the truth, not a bunch of jokes! I'd appreciate any comments you would have at Wikipedia talk:April Fool's Main Page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 22:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I love the idea, and fully support it. It will send an undeniable message out there: there are articles in WP that you cannot find anywhere else. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I like the absurd silliness, too, but this is a great idea. — Omegatron 22:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Great idea! android79 22:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh this is a delicious idea! KillerChihuahua?!? 23:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a fine idea to me. -- DS1953 talk 23:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I am against this (on that day). April Fool's Day is limited to only a few countries. However, Wikipedia is (supposed) to be universal, regardless of the language in which it is written. I think the only reason we see this proposal in this wikipedia -as opposed to wikis in other languages- is due to the ǀSystemic bias of Wikipedia. And this being something for which there is an ongoing project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks. If we are to do something for April Fool's Day on that day, then something similar should/could be done for similar days in non Anglo-Saxon cultures, like December 28, which is the day many Spanish speaking countries have a day similar to April Fool's. And I am sure a similar day exists in other cultures. Anagnorisis 23:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
But it won't be Systemic Bias, because the proposal is not to put any jokes on the main page (which would be in keeping with April Fool's day), but simply to put some lesser-known facts than usual on the main page. Only the people familiar with April Fool's day will be the people who make make the unfactual inferences. --Rebroad 17:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
The solution to systematic bias is not to stop doing things that from one culture or region but to do more from others. If there is another holiday/event that we could do somthing for then we should organize that as well. BrokenSegue 23:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
A little of both. If you keep doing mostly one (just because) that is the one you know about, you end up sending a certain message. Sometimes, then it helps to tone it down. Helping reenforce that bias helps some "different" people stay away and feel shy about proposing other things. Now, given that you propose to include things about other cultures, what about also having April Fool's day share honors with Republic Day from Iran which is also celebrated on April 1st, and also with Cyprus that celebrates its National Day? But before we get to that day, as you suggest we may do something for other dates. Say we do something in honor of "World Day for Water" which is an international celebration on March 22. We have also the "International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination" [16] which is celebrated every March 21st (but it will compete with Ostara-Spring Equinox (which is a very important day for Druids, pagans and the like). March 20 is also "World Frog Day" which I am sure is very important to frog lovers. I am sure there are plenty more we can find. Yes, this thing of systemic bias is a bitch, and no easy solution without one having to start going back on things one likes -which is no solution at all. Yes, yo do have a valid point. However .... :-) Anagnorisis 23:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Good ideas. Sounds like someone needs to start the "The Special Occasions Wikiproject" or somthing to organize special main page displays (Get Water featured, etc.). BrokenSegue 23:53, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Is there a general proposal to modify the Main Page on every day which is special, e.g. for the major religious and national holidays, when items relevant to Hindus, Moslems, Buddists, etc. and to Independence Day can be highlighted. Or are we only going to honour the silly season when it becomes more socially acceptable to try to deceive people. David91 03:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
No, my proposal is only for April Fool's. Wikipedia has historically undergone a lot of vandalism in a variety of pages, all under the title of "pranks". This proposal is meant to address that one specific case. I'd rather not see Wikipedia face even more vandalism than normal on that day. I'd say that's more important than honouring the silly season when it becomes more socially acceptable to try to deceive people. --Deathphoenix ʕ 05:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
But why would this holiday (if it can be called so) get a special treatment over the others? I am fine then if we also do something special in the sane cover page on "World Day for Water," "International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination," "World Frog Day" and also for the upcoming spring equinox. Anagnorisis 05:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
At a time when the issue of vandalism is of increasing significance, it seems in poor taste to try to outprank the pranksters. All the inclusion of silly but true information on the main page will achieve is to offer some degree of legitimacy to those who wish to place non-notable information in other articles and/or provoke more determined reponses from the pranksters. Although I acknowledge that serious media institutions do engage in this nonsensical activity, modifying the main page seems an extreme act and sets a precedent for modifying the main page to relect other internationally significant events. I therefore propose to use this proposal as a precedent to make relevant modifications to the main page to highlight Labour Day/May Day to honour all those who are employed around the world (including those of us who work on Wiki). Unless, of course, you think that is not justified? David91 06:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. Let's just put Wet blanket (I can't believe this page doesn't exist!) up on the main page and be done with it. Ewlyahoocom 06:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for agreeing that the main page should set the tone of Wikipedia as a serious attempt to provide reliable information to users. If editors wish to introduce more frivolous information elsewhere, we can deal with that on its merits as and when it appears. David91 08:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Response in Wikipedia talk:April Fool's Main Page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 12:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
also responded to there, in depth, but I think it's important to point out here that I feel David91 is presenting a false dichotomy here. The alternative is not between THIS proposal and no pranking at all (unenforcable... I mean, think about it) Rather, it is between this proposal and uncontrolled/unchanneled pranking. In my view David91 has not adequately addressed that point. Further discussion perhaps should be taken to the page. ++Lar: t/c 13:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Ironically, David91 has presented no false dichotomy whatsoever (he didn't say "between THIS proposal and no pranking at all", all he said was that Wikipedia shouldn't endorse the spread of frivolous information or April Fool's Day pranking just for the hell of it), whereas you, Lar, have created a false dichotomy: "it is between this proposal and uncontrolled/unchanneled pranking". This dichotomy is false because (1) it assumes that if we don't use this proposal, pranking will be "uncontrolled/unchanneled", when in fact there will be plenty of pranking and disorder either way, and in fact it's incredibly likely (I'd say close to 100%) that using a proposal like this would cause many times more pranking than it would prevent, because it would remind so many more readers about April Fool's Day and that this is the day for mischief-making, and implicitly endorse such mischief by playfully fucking up the main page and including technically true, but highly misleading (see the example given on this policy's main page utilizing an out-of-context photograph and poorly-explained event), information, and (2) it assumes that if we do use this proposal, pranking won't be "uncontrolled/unchanneled", which doesn't make any sense whatsoever: having a joke on the main page doesn't make pranking "controlled" or "channeled" (and I don't see how it would be a good thing to "channel" pranking anyway, even were it possible), it just references pranking and is itself a "prank" of sorts, designed to mislead and confuse our readers (which will lead to a lot of complaints and bad press for Wikipedia, and will probably give Wikipedia vandalism a huge boost while upsetting a lot of Wikipedia's hard-working and dedicated editors in that it makes Wikipedia itself look like a big, dumb joke, little better than Uncyclopedia). If you really want to "control" pranking, toughen up and enlarge the counter-vandalism groups on Wikipedia so they can more effectively and speedily combat it. If you really want to "channel" vandalism (and channel it somewhere it won't cause harm, rather than doing the exact opposite and channeling obscure and trivial vandalism into a main-page fiasco), provide users with better ways to express their jokes, like their Userpages and Uncyclopedia. Rather than countering David91's worries with an even-handed, accurate assessment of the available options here, you've just fabricated a more inaccurate analysis. The option is between having misleading and obscure information on the website in order to trick our foolish readers into thinking Wikipedia is making nonsense up when it's really just taking information out of context and presenting it in a misinforming way (rather than letting our foolish readers continue thinking Wikipedia is a reliable source of significant information on April 1st), and between just leaving it the same as any other day, and it's just that simple; it is not a choice of whether or not to "channel" or "control" April Fool's Day pranking by having the main-page endorse and satirize it. (Also, I do wonder at what you'll do if this proposal goes through and something important happens in the news on April 1st. I'd find it amusing if we had the entire main page covered with ridiculous noninformation and then had to include info in the upper-left corner about some terrorist bombing or rockslide that killed a bunch of people. Yeah, the main page is a great place for an April Fool's Joke... simply perfect...)
But the real reason it's a bad idea, besides that it probably wouldn't be very funny at all, is that we should have crazy and inexplicable facts on the main page every day, not just one day out of the year. We shouldn't have to save up weird-ass "did you know"s or FAs for a single day; if it's interesting and noteworthy, put it up there on August 7th or February 22nd! It doesn't matter! -Silence 13:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
So what do you think we should do for April 1, 2006? The same as for April 1, 2005, where the featured article was something like Nintendo 64 and we had a news article about Encyclopedia Britannica taking over Wikipedia linked from the Main Page? (I thought the article was pretty funny, just not sure if it was appropriate to link from the Main Page) --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why we have to do anything on April 1st. How will it benefit Wikipedia or improve its reputation to turn the main-page into an elaborate joke for one day of the year? How will it benefit our readers or better inform them to try to trick them, just because we can? There's a whole wide world out there to play pranks in; why does Wikipedia's main page have to participate as well? There are very few potential benefits and significant potential risks, and every joke we could make with the main page would be better-made elsewhere, such as on Uncyclopedia or at least a Wikipedia:-space page (so we'd at least only be pranking Wikipeida's editors, not its readers). Why this bizarre compulsion to make the entire universe adhere to a specific holiday of a specific culture? We don't put Christmas decorations on Wikipedia on December 25th, change the default background color to a festive green for St. Patrick's Day, or put fireworks in the "Wikipedia" logo on random countries' independence days; we're an encyclopedia. -Silence 15:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Well said! I agree. I tried to drive the same point, with my other silly suggestions. However, I am not as eloquent as brother Silence. I certainly find disturbing that 'compulsion' (as Silence calls it) many have here trying make the whole world adhere and follow one culture, theirs. Anagnorisis 23:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
If we're an encyclopedia, what's wrong with showcasing some of our unusual, but good articles? Like it or not, unusual articles are a part of Wikipedia. Take a look at exploding whale. It's a featured article. --Deathphoenix ʕ 02:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
As a separate issue, I draw attention to the timezone problem. Arbitrarily picking any one set of twenty-four hours from around the world means that the main page will be displayed before the day or after the day depending on where the viewer is located. Thus, the screen will be read by those not expecting an April Fool because it is not the 1st April where they are. The alternative would be running the main page for a sufficient period to cover the 24 hours constituting the 1st April in everyone's timezones. I hope that this proposal will be rejected. If those who control Wikipedia wish to risk the Wiki's reputation and allow it, then I hope that this foolishness will only be on display for the 24 hours in whichever timezone is selected and that there is some mechanism to show how that time is elapsing, e.g. by having a clock show date and time in a prominent position on the page. David91 15:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

(There seems to be a lot of conversation on policy here. Would there be any objections if I moved this to the talk page for the policy, or would you prefer to continue the conversation here, and I'll move it later?) Please read my response in Wikipedia talk:April Fool's Main Page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Since it directly affects Wiki's reputation, this would seem to be the obvious place but, as a mere footsoldier here, I have had my say on the issue and will leave it to my Wiki elders and betters to ruminate further wherever they wish. David91 02:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Why not just try to get April Fool's Day featured by April 1, and put it on the main page? We could do that for other holidays, too. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

That's been proposed before, and I don't know if it's a good enough showcase.

Limit proposal to just a featured article

Okay, now I'm hearing from the people who are pretty extreme on the other side, that Wikipedia should be completely formal and do nothing for April Fool's at all. I seriously doubt that's going to happen, but how about a bit of a compromise. How about we can the whole proposal and just bring up an unusual article to featured article status? THere;s nothing "against policy" with that. smurray had a good suggestion: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. That is a normal article, except for the name. --Deathphoenix ʕ 13:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

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