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Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid/Archive 1

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< Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style | Self-references to avoid

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Eloquence (talk | contribs) at 06:14, 20 July 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

So, by self-reference, you mean the word "Wikipedia"? That does seem like a good policy. What about links to Wikipedia subjects? Seems like those would break under forking, too.

Otherwise, this is just commonsense that nobody ever thought of. B-)

-- ESP 05:55 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What kind of links do you mean? Links into the Wikipedia namespace? Yes, many of our policies are "common sense", but you wouldn't believe how useful it can be to point to common sense rule X and say "Look, this is one of our policies/guidelines. Please don't do that." --Eloquence 05:58 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I mean links into the Wikipedia namespace. Wikipedia:This is what I mean.
As for the common sense point: I was just being jokey. The idea is so good, it seems like common sense after it was proposed. But before you proposed it, I never would have thought of it. That's the best kind of idea -- original, but seems right on first reading. Kudos! -- ESP 06:08 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

So I assume this policy does not apply to disambiguation and the disambiguation pages boilerplate text?

Also how does it apply to stub boilerplate text? Are they still allowed because eventually the reference to Wikipedia will be removed? -- Popsracer 05:59 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

These kind of boilerplate texts will hopefully be transcluded dynamically when an article is assigned to one of the relevant categories. A category system is already in the works, where you will be able to say in an article, and it would only be natural to insert the respective notice when certain categories are selected. That would also make it much easier to update the texts.
In the meantime, we should change the existing boilerplate text to avoid at least using the Wikipedia name, although links into the Wikipedia: namespace should be OK. --Eloquence 06:02 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

So, just because I'm a big booster, I want to give a devil's advocate question. To wit: the stated reason for avoiding self-references is to make it easier to fork Wikipedia. I ask: how important is it to make it _easy_ to fork Wikipedia? The Wikipedia:Wikipedia namespace links, standard boilerplate, etc., makes our work on the project easier. How much pain do we have to go to to make downstream modifiers' lives easier? -- ESP 06:11 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

While it is true that forks are not always desirable, these kind of self-references are problematic for all types of redistribution. Say you print out an article about Apocalypse Now for your school class -- now what exactly are your students supposed to do with a notice like "Wikipedia contains spoilers"? Of course we like to stick our name onto our work, but requiring credit, linking to the FDL etc. should be enough to accomplish this.
I do agree that we should not make our work more difficult, though. That's why I think links into the Wikipedia namespace in boilerplace text are OK. --Eloquence 06:14 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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