Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shortcut
 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies.

Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).

Please add new topics at the bottom of the page.


Policy archive

Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Expansion of CSD A7

I've started a discussion some time ago at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Expansion of A7 but I suppose the proper procedure would be to add it here to make a it formal policy proposal.

In short, my proposal is to expand CSD A7 to include non-notable groups of people as well as individuals. This would apply to bands, clubs, organizations, couples, families, and any other collections of individuals that do not assert their importance or significance. Discussion has been taking place on the talk page so please add your comments there, but I'll start the voting here. howcheng [ t • c • w • e ] 22:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support
  1. howcheng [ t • c • w • e ] 22:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Turnstep 22:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Groups of non-notable individuals are inhenently non-notable. Titoxd(?!?) 23:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Although I don't know how much load it will take off AfD, it's a good idea.--Sean|Black 23:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. That would simply be common sense. In particular bands appear very often on AFD. Radiant_>|< 00:02, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Sounds good as long as it's clear that this still only applies to groups with no remotely plausible assertion of notability (not simply non-notable ones, even if they fall somewhat below, e.g., WP:MUSIC). Also, for the polls are evil crowd, there's been lots of discussion. Now what's wrong with an informal poll to gauge the general consensus among many users? -- SCZenz 00:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support as per previous discussion. --Carnildo 00:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support. It's a very sensible proposal. PJM 17:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support. I'm not sure how useful this will really be — what vanity band article doesn't assert notability of one form or another? — but that's also why I don't think this extension would do any harm. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:34, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I've seen a few band articles go by that don't even assert existance, much less any sort of notability. --Carnildo 00:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support. This has such widespread community support that I find it odd that some people are insisting on a vote, when merely reading the discussion would show which way the wind blows. But if you insist on counting heads, count mine. Nandesuka 00:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support. Protects Wikipedia from abuse. Susvolans ⇔ 16:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  12. A no-brainer. -Splashtalk 19:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support. -- Kjkolb 19:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support per Titoxd and Carnildo and because it might mean fewer articles in AfD.--Alhutch 00:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support; logical extension of A7, which has been very successful. Though, I think consensus for this is clear enough that we don't really need a poll... --Aquillion 09:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Strong support, I nominate 5-6 bands per day for AFD and virtually none are kept. Stifle 00:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Obviously needed. Martin 00:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Strongest Support Ever In The Universe Heck, I already use CSD A7 for groups. karmafist 01:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Please! Ashibaka tock 04:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support. Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 03:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support Jamie 05:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Support - common sense abakharev 05:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support. My support does not include politcal groups, not for profit organisations, and similar organisations. I think those types of groups should through the AfD process. Movementarian 04:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support. If breadth is a concern, I'd also support the inclusion of non-notable bands, of which there are approximately umpteen thousand added every day. But I support the broader proposal as well. | Klaw ¡digame! 05:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support - There's so much bandcruft and fangroupcruft these days that this makes perfect sense to me. --Cyde Weys talkcontribs 16:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Strong support This seems like a logical extension of A7; why shouldn't groups and individuals be treated alike? Mike5904 23:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support obviously. --Victim of signature fascism 15:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Support. It's always been a glaring gap in my opinion. Enochlau 00:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Support - Obvious extension of A7. → Ξxtreme Unction {yakłblah} 19:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support. Admins will be smart enough to show discretion when a band or group has become notable. I'd recommend mentioning WP:MUSIC in the wording of the expansion. Harro5 22:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support —Locke Cole 02:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support - Saberwyn - The Zoids Expansion Project 21:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Poll is now closed.
Oppose
  1. Oppose. This proposal was rejected by the community originally, and is open to substantial abuse with no oversight. Trollderella 22:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose. This is too ad-hoc a way to go about changing such a major page Be cautious - SoM 00:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • How do you want it done? There's been discussion forever, and now a broader consensus is being requested on a very public page. Can you suggest something that would be less ad hoc, please? -- SCZenz 01:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose and I actually would rather CSD A7 was not a criterion. I have rescued the odd article from there, Roddy Llewellyn springs to mind, and lost the odd one to before I could rescue it. I wish people would spend more time just sourcing articles and bringing them to an encyclopedic quality rather than willy nilly deleting them because they can't even take the time to google the subject. Surely we haven't got half the articles we should have, and that should be a concern more pressing than worrying about articles we may not need. Steve block talk 20:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose - Poorly thought out, and overly broad. This seems like an attempt to delete many things that would surivive an AFD. --Rob 17:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    How so? Ashibaka tock 04:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    The word "groups" of people can mean pretty much anything. I think there's probably consensus for small musical bands, that have been saved by technical rules, and are guarenteed deletion via WP:MUSIC. But, the word "group" of individuals is awfully broad, and could been any organization of any size, of any time, of any degree of formal or legal status. Speedy deletion is only supposed to be designed to handle a subset of articles where's there's a well established consensus to delete. Also, if an article on an individual makes no notable claim, its unlikely there's such a claim to make, but its quite possible a larger well known group of people could be be famous, but the author fails to state they're famous explcitly, as some groups are so famous, one might think it goes without saying (e.g. a famous big city orchestra, a professional sports team, or an article about a famous charity that's attempt to be non-promotional is deemed as not making a notable claim). Oddly, this proposal favors ad-copy (which typically makes claims of notability) over NPOV works (which sticks to the facts, and doesn't boast). --Rob 03:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose. Existing speedies are sufficient. -- JJay 04:09, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Please look at the talk page linked to above. There are a lot of useless articles (such as obvious band vanity) that have to suffer through AfD right now. Ashibaka tock 04:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm tired of the complete misinterpretation and misuse of existing speedies. We should be talking about rolling those back, not expansion. -- JJay 19:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose as stated -- too broad. I would support a criteria for speedy deletion that: (1) had a new entry (rather than expanding A7) (2) applied only to bands, and (3) had specific objective criteria. For instance: "band has no records and otherwise obviously and clearly meets none of the criteria of WP:MUSIC." Reasons: Bands are 50%+ of the prolbem. On the talk page, most of the discussion is about bands. But your proposal includes all groups. Including just bands would alleviate half or more of the problem, and clear criteria could be used. Other groups are more problematical. This would be a more conservative and incremental approach. If it works, it could be expanded later to include all groups. Herostratus 05:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose as stated. This proposal is too broad. A proposal that was limited to non-notable bands, or non-notable groups were all individuals are members of the same nuclear family, then I would be likely to support the proposal. --Allen3 talk 16:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose as stated - Overly broadly phrased expansion to the most problematic CSD criterion (cf. Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#CSD A7 and collateral damage). I would support an expansion of A7 to cover bands, which comprise almost all of the potential to fast track obviously problematic speedies. But generally, A7 is really in need of more tightening up, not more expansion. --- Charles Stewart 17:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose, I too think this is overly broad. More relevant than the failed 3-C band vanity proposal is proposal 5 about unremarkable clubs. Very often an article about a group of people not asserting notability can be merged. Sometimes it cannot and needs to be deleted, but a speedy rule here is in danger of causing collateral damage. I don't want a rule allowing an article to be speedied if there is a chance that AFD would let it be merged. I would support a separate rule for the narrower category of music bands, those groups alone take up a lot of space on AFD. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose. Much too broad. I think A7 is already being misapplied to the serious detriment of the encyclopedia. Allowing one editor to apply his or her own definition of notability to groups without detailed guidance (i.e., instruction creep) is an extremely bad idea. -- DS1953 talk 17:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Poll is now closed.
Polls are evil! (And can't we discuss this instead?)
  1. Kim Bruning 00:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Hey, I started the Polls are Evil page. Stop polling and start healthy discussion. -User:Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 00:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Funny, because I see a link to a discsussion in the first post in this thread.--Sean|Black 00:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent, so you can continue doing that then. Kim Bruning 01:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion has been going on since November 3. It seemed there was enough consensus on approving this. If you disagree, you could contribute to the discussion there. howcheng [ t &#149; c &#149; w &#149; e ] 16:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Then it is approved. Go forth and implement! Kim Bruning 16:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    You got reverted, so apparently there was still opposition. Try discuss some more! Kim Bruning 05:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's 76% support after three weeks, in a high-visibility place and advertised in many others. Also, several of the oppose-voters object to the wording rather than the spirit. The proposal has obviously met consensus. I'll add it to WP:CSD now; if people have concerns about the wording, please discuss on the CSD talk page. Radiant_>|< 22:02, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Finally! Able to delete non-notable bands! But what about their non-notable recordings or CDs? Can we speedy them too? Banana04131 01:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Posting emailed content disputes

Hi all, I have a policy/guideline/principle question.

In attempting to settle a content dispute (which included charges of Libel), I rewrote an article to what I still feel is quite close to NPOV. In response, one of the disputants (a primary source) emailed me directly, criticizing my technical errors, attacking my presumptions from lack of detail, and other semantic issues.

Seeing as how WP is an open and collaborative project, and as they say "democracies die behind closed doors", I posted the content of this email, full of content complaints as well as a threat of negative publicity, with my responses to the Talk page for the article (currently under protection).

The disputant then responded, upset that I'd posted his email, primarily because his opponents in the matter saw the email and lambasted it on their own web site.

In your opinions... Did I violate policy, guideline, or principle? Or did I do right in upholding the open and collaborative nature of Wikipedia and its content?

Regards, Keith D. Tyler 19:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Technically you should've had the author's permission before publishing it anywhere in wikipedia (including publication on a talk page), so I'd advise you to remove (in fact it should be permanently removed with an admin's revert, so that it even doesn't show up when browsing the "history" of that page).
If you'd have summarized the objections sent to you in your own words, it would've been less a problem.
If there are publications on the topic, look for the reliable ones, and use them for references.
Since the author is a wikipedian, he can decide for himself what he writes on that talk page, and what he doesn't. You can always invite him to participate in that talk under his wiki-identity.
This has nothing to do with wikipedia's openness, only with the degree of openness with which that author wishes to participate in wikipedia (or not). That's his choice, you can't force him. There might be all sorts of reasons why he didn't publish some of the content of that e-mail in wikipedia himself, it's not for you to judge on such reasons. --Francis Schonken 21:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assume by the "technically" you refer to the copyright issues. Personally I generally feel that posting an email adressed to me to a public forum, with detailed commentary (pont by point responses) is in all probability Fair use, which disposes of the legal issues. If the email did not explicitly request confidentially, (particualrly if it was sent in response to a public discussion) and if there were no obviously confidential matters included (as there do not seem to have been in the matter quoted in the links above) I do not feel it is unethical to do so in proper cases. DES (talk) 21:26, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • On dear old venerable Usenet, it is considered RUDE to post private emails. Paraphrase yes, quote no. I suggest that the reasons behind that policy apply here, and that the policy should be observed here. Zora 21:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I know that, having been a regular USENET poster long before i came here. I disagereed with that, or at lest with the absolute way soem people took the convention. There are reasons for thinkign twice before postign other people's email, but there are IMO well defiend cases where they don't apply. Specifically I feel that email which is 1) in response to a public discussion; 2) a commentary on that discussion; 3) does not contain any plausibly confidential matter; and 4) does not explicitly ask for confidentiallity ought to be fair game. But that is a matter of civility, not of policy, in any case. DES (talk) 21:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, one of the other issues was that the author of the mail was reporting on original research (apparently not published elswhere), which was not usable for wikipedia anyway. So I'd still recommend the "hard revert", but I'm not a sysop. If the author now decides it wasn't meant for publication in this way, it would be best for wikipedia to withdraw it. Permanently. Just politeness - the author of that mail is a wikipedian too. All this: As far as I can see. And no more than: In My Opinion. I'm not a sysop. --Francis Schonken 21:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The WP:NOR policy does not apply nearly as strictly to talk pages (where the email was posted) as it does to article pages, IMO. As I understand it, the author of the email conducted research, a report of which ahs been publsihed. The email was givign additional detail clarifing and expandign on the publsihed report, not reporting on new and upublished research. If that is correct (and i may well be mistaken I only read the relevant talk page once) then the content of the email would IMO be a proepr source to use in clarifing what the research did and did not do. In any case, lots of stuff that is not a good basis for adjusting articel content is psoted to talk pages, and it is rarely if ever deleted from the history for that reason. DES (talk) 21:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • No DES, you are mistaken. I was providing Keith Tyler with original information not previously published. I was trying to bring his attention to the many errors of fact and interpretation that he added to the article, but I didn't want to publicly embarrass him. That wish obviously is now moot. Some of the information that he published in Wiki was information that I was and am considering for a future article. That fact that he did this won't prevent me from doing so, but nevertheless, that conduct was clearly wrong. I'm going against my decision not to contribute anymore to Wikipedia by writing this, but I wanted to correct the record as to why I complained to Keith about his publishing my email without even asking me. I am not at all troubled that he made public my opinion of what I think is very bad editing. But I am troubled that a Wiki editor would violate rules of netiquette as well as copyright law by publishing email without permission. By U.S. law, the copyright of letters, including those sent through the Internet, belongs to the author.Askolnick 22:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, anyway, it's no longer my problem. I notified of the issue on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Posting emailed content disputes I think the people reading that will be wiser in knowing what to do next than I am. --Francis Schonken 22:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that if there was somehting said in email, it is a private conversation, and both parties should agree to having it taken to the Wiki. However, this is just my opinion, so I make sure to explicitly state that all emails to and from me should remain confidential. It seems to have worked so far. --LV (Dark Mark) 22:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

IANAL, but I thought it was established that, like the writer of a letter, the writer of an email retains copyright in it. You don't get to publish someone else'e work just because they emailed it to you, unless they include a GFDL licence (with a c). I believe that, somewhere, User:Angela has a copyrights page in which she explicitly releases her emails to Wikien-l into the public domian, the implication being that hers is the right so to do. If this is the case, then one should not post them on Wiki without the authors' licensing (with an s) under the GFDL. -Splashtalk 23:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Emails are indeed copyrighted by their authors, but posting one with a point by point resposne is at least arguiably "critical commentary" sufficient to satisfy a claim of Fair use, as i mentioned above. There can also be claims about implicit permisison in particular cirumstances, but those will not survive an explicit request form the author, in general. Of course, given that an email msg gernally has zero commercial value, a copyright infrigment suit would probably never be filed, and might be dismissed as frivilous if it were, but that does not decrease the theoretical and moral rights of the author, it merely means they are unlikely to be legally enforced. DES (talk) 23:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, as I said above, I'd rather solve this with politeness than with slapping semi-amateurish legal advise on each other's head. Askolnik is a wikipedia contributor, and I see no reason in scaring him away. Keith is a contributor, and I see no reason to scare him away either. If Askolnik asks to remove, and if Keith sees that permanently delete the contested e-mail's content from that talk page is no threat to the openness of the Wikipedia community (well, do you, Keith?), there's only an admin to be found prepared to do the job. Are there still any other problems I overlooked? --Francis Schonken 23:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • With all due respect Francis, you missed the boat. Removing the email would in no way be a remedy. This is part of the problem many members of the Wiki community don't seen ti grasp: You cannot unring a bell. That email has now been copied in toto to Museum of Hoaxes and other web sites. And I had hoped to make my point clear: I was not objecting to the release of any information in the email. I was objecting to the editor's violation of my rights and his awful netiquette in publishing my copyrighted material without consent or even warning me. And scare me away it certainly does, because I think this is symptomatic of Wiki's worsening problems. Editing is being done by people who don't have a clue what their doing. And the belief that that shouldn't matter, because the Wiki community will eventually unring misrung bells, is clearly nonsense. Rung bells can never be unrung.Askolnick 17:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, I don't object to permanent removal. Although, it is worth noting the sender has not actually ever asked that it be removed. I may be in violation of rarely-exercised netiquette, but at the same time, the sender was in violation of multiple sensible requests to use the talk page as the most appropriate route to getting the article improved. - Keith D. Tyler 21:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm concerned if you send an email the polite thing to do is to at least ask you before posting unless of course it's a personal attack or a legal threat or something then there are exceptions to that but etiquette is the only thing that I can see holding people back from posting emails sent regarding Wikipedia issues. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 02:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. If the person wanted everyone to see the content, he could have posted it to a talk page instead. I don't think there's a need to explicitly ask that it not be posted to prevent the receiver from doing so (a need as far as etiquette is concerned, not necessarily legally). However, if the editor is using email improperly, like threatening or harassing another editor, it might warrant the disclosure of the contents. -- Kjkolb 04:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, there was a threat of media action. Not quite the same thing as legal action, perhaps, but fairly intimidating in light of recent WP media coverage. The contributor never explained why he chose private email for a matter that was specifically being dealt with publicly. - Keith D. Tyler 21:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
O.K. That does it. I gave Keith Tyler the benefit of the doubt about his intentions and wrote to him privately with a heads up about the errors in his disasterous editing before I publicly critized his many errors and misleading statements. But now he has the chutzpah to claim, "The contributor never explained why he chose private email for a matter that was specifically being dealt with publicly." First of all, I clearly did. I told him that I was no longer going try to correct the false and misleading content of the Natasha Demkina article because I realized it was hopeless. He simply ignored most of the information I provided and rewrote Julio Siqueira's disinformation to make it sound more NPOV (to Siqueira's great delight - you should hear him squealing with delight on the Museum of Hoaxes board about how the Wiki editor sees things his way). Second, there's no reason that I had to explain. Publishing someone's private email online is a clear violation of netiquette -- and if it involves publishing the email in an "encylopedia," then it's also a violation of copyright. What is so outrageous is that this Wiki editor has yet to apologize to me or the the Wiki community. Instead, he keeps trying to justify his actions with weasel words -- such as stating above that he "may have violated rarely-recognized netiquett" (Never mind that most of th people in this thread recognize it quite well!). And then he offers the insanely lame excuse that I had "violated" his "multiple sensible requests to use the talk page as the most appropriate route to getting the article improved," and somehow that justifies his violation of netiquette and copyright law.
I had given up trying to use the talk page to get the article improved because of his incompetence, as well as his failure to do anything to stop Siqueira from using it to repeatedly libel me. In my opinion, Keith Tyler should be the poster child for everything that is wrong with Wikipedia: Refusal to recognize that there should be standards of accuracy; arrogance; an obsession with including all views at the expense of truthfullness, and what many people are most complaining about, gross and reckless disregard for the rights and feelings of others. Just think, he STILL hasn't apologized to the Wiki community or to me. The way he's defending himself, I think he wants an apology from us. Askolnick 01:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, if you had the feeling I was missing the boat. I was trying to make you both talk on a normal level again. In all what you say I see only one *practical* point (I mean, in the sense of what wikipedians can do to unblock the situation), that is that you suggest it would be best that Keith apologises. I second that. That would be the best next step, as far as I can see - not continue the high-strung legal talk.
I want to modify my statement about not wanting to lose neither Keith nor Askolnick as contributor to the wikipedia encyclopedia. That modification is inspired by the recent publication in Nature, about which I read yesterday [1]. In a side-box Jimbo Wales comments on attracting scientists to contribute to Wikipedia. William Connolley (a climate researcher at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge) is mentioned. Jimbo's comment ends with

"Connolley has done such amazing work and has had to deal with a fair amount of nonsense."

I want to apologise if I contributed in similar nonsense. Anyway, my modified statement would be something in the sense of not wanting to lose neither Keith nor Askolnick as wikipedia contributors, *especially* not the more scientifically orientated one of the two (which would be Askolnick, as far as I can see) - as researchers on peckish topics already often have to deal with a "fair amount of nonsense" in this encyclopedia, which doesn't help it forward.
Further, still a suggestion to Askolnick: going to e-mail was probably not the best course of action in this case (I know, it's easy to tell afterwards) - in the end we're all "condemned" to this kind of talk and negotiation pages to find stable solutions for improvements of the encyclopedia. So, no, I don't think the Natasha Demkina article is an "irreparable" case. This mentioning of the problems on a Village pump page (and on WP:AN/I) maybe drew the attention of some more people interested in the topic (alas, I'm not), so that there's maybe a possibility of getting out of the two-against-one situation on the Natasha Demkina talk page. --Francis Schonken 08:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Francis, I appreciate your opinion and statements, even if I don't completely agree with some of them. First, your concluding sentence shows a fundamental difference in the current Wiki philosophy and in the philosophy of most scientists. The closest approximation of truth is not achieved through democratic process. Science is not democratic. All people may be created equal, but ideas are not. Some kinds of information are more valuable than others, some more truthful, (and some even more unlawful, such as false statements that damage the reputation of others, especially when spoken, published, or broadcast with reckless disregard for the truth). In science, truths are not tentatively arrived at by taking a vote. They're arrived at by choosing the best current explanation that is supported with the greatest weight of evidence. The Nature article aside, if Wikipedia becomes known as a fertile place for pseudoscientists and other anti-science kooks to take their "Schoolboard" battles to, you can forget about scientists diverting time needed to write grant applications in order to contribute here. It adds nothing to their CV and will not advance their careers. And they have enough trouble fighting post-modernist faculty in their own institution. Most scientists realize that they cannot and perhaps should not participate in debates with people who intentionally mislead and deceive in front of an audience that doesn't seem to mind being deceived. First, you usually won't win, and second, it gives the appearance that the theory of evolution and Intelligent Design are scientific theories that need to be taught. Next up to be challenged? The germ theory by "experts" who believe in demon posession (a growing number). Neuroscience-trashing by Scientologist researchers like Tom Cruise? Everybody getting the picture?
Francis, I went to email after I decided no longer to contribute to Wiki as an editor, or to take part in the discussion where I continue to be defamed. I didn't want to contribute any more, but out of appreciation for his efforts (which I thought were at least honest - not so sure about that now), I wrote to thank him and give him a heads up about some very serious mistakes that I plan to come down on in other forums. Had I known what a mess that act of charity would cause I, you know, I would still do it.
As for Keith apologizing, it would have been a pound of cure even yesterday, but forcing one out of him now would be meaningless. He clearly sees no reason to apologize -- and that is an offense far greater than his lapse of netiquette (and disrespect for my copyright).
As for avoiding high strung legal talk, sorry. You may not see it, but there is a big, ugly, smelly, elephant in the Wiki room and not talking about him won't make go away. His name is Defamation and he's not just sniffing for peanuts. By continuing to ignore the problem, Wiki is creating a compelling case that its policies include a "reckless disregard for the truth" -- which is one of the necessary "legs" that must be established in any successful U.S. defamation suit against public figures. Now do we all see the elephant?Askolnick 14:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to see the relevance of bringing up the topic of defamation to a discussion about my posting of your email about a public topic. If you want to bring me to Mediation over it, please feel free to do so, I am willing; one of the other AMA members can guide you through the process just as I attempted to guide you through the proper channels of Wikipedia dispute resolution. But this is about my posting your email, not about someone defaming you. I presume, since this is a discussion involving you and me, that you are considering my rewrite to have been to far in the favor of your opponents than you would have desired. To go anywhere with this, you'd have to show that I deliberately attempted to defame you. You are arguably a public figure -- prominent member of a research institution, journalist ("nationally renowned science journalist", your words), winner of numerous journalism awards, former associate editor of JAMA, etc., etc. and even appeared on television. So, as a public figure, to win a libel defamation suit, you would have to prove "actual malice" or "reckless negligence" where there was none. Meanwhile, on a regular basis, you yourself refer to your detractors as "quacks", "crackpots", and "liars", yet you consider my neutral-position rewrite to be defamatory? I'm afraid I don't accept that. - Keith D. Tyler 19:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'll second the comments that taking private email and posting it to a public forum is, in general, a bad idea. People say things differently in private email than they would in public forums, and they have a legitimate complaint when their choice in that matter is usurped. If you're in a dispute with someone, you want to always take the moral high road, so you don't want to give your opponent any legitimate grounds to criticize your actions. Thus, the private email must remain private. Steve Summit (talk) 04:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think the person who posted the e-mail did so in good faith. However, the very fact that the e-mail was used instead of the talk page in the first place should have been taken as an indication that privacy was an issue (whether for the sender or receiver). For this reason it would be prudent to seek permission. However, I simultaneously agree with the notion that all detailed discussion regarding a page should be contained to that article's talk page whenever possible, for the sake of organization and history, and so a concerted effort should be made to obtain this permission. Deco 04:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that it both breaks copyright and policy in Wikipedia:Civility. If you were already having a discussion on a talk page and somebody emails you, it's safe to assume the contents of the email are not for the talk page. I think DES is wrong in claiming fair use, since I don't believe a response to the email counts as critical commentary. Could one reprint the complete text of a novel and justify it as fair use by interspersing commentary on the text throughout? Steve block talk 22:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I feel that it serves a public good to keep these discussions out in the open. It would be too easy for private intimidation to become the norm if people did not feel free to do this. I am not a lawyer, and cannot comment on the legal issues involved in posting the email, but I would similarly post an email without a thought. I suppose I might imagine saying something about fair use or similar if the person sued, but I seriously doubt someone could successfully sue over such a thing (although again IANAL). --Improv 16:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I wasn't expecting such a seeming consensus on my actions as negative. I don't really think that consensus takes the underlying matter into consideration. The whole point of my involvement was to attempt to settle a dispute between two other people. Emailing me privately turned me into a disputant. While I could repeatedly beg for permission to repost emails that shouldn't be sent to a closed party, I think from now on I simply will not respond to an email that attempts to turn an open matter into a closed one. WP article content disputes belong in WP's deliberative spaces, because it is a community project, not a one-on-one project. The email sent to me did not discuss personal matters, but WP ones.

Other than that, I am unthrilled by comments as to who is the more worthwhile editor -- the upset party only started editing on Dec 9 to edit the article in question, and had done so on an anon basis before that; aside from a sprinkling of other edits their contributions have been by and large related to that article. I guess I've learned a lesson here. - Keith D. Tyler 20:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I put a question about WP:3RR on the talk page there, but it hasn't gotten much notice so I'm bringing the issue here.

Copyvio policy says to revert copyrighted text in an article to a version without it, but three revert policy excludes only vandalism and vandalism policy doesn't classify copyright violations as vandalism. So it seems like, as the policy currently stands, you should revert copyright violations on sight... but if you do so to the same text four times in 24 hours you should be blocked.

Should we classify copyright violations as vandalism or otherwise exclude them from three revert? This isn't just an idle question - an admin was blocked in relation to this sort of reversion and the situation has now blossomed into an RfC, in part fueled by different opinions of whether reversions of copyright violations should be exempt from 3RR. --CBD ☎ ✉ 23:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It seems logical to exempt reversion of copyright violations from the 3RR policy as a good revision to policy if it is clearly a matter of consensus that the material in question is in violation of copyright. Gray-zone material which status with respect to copyright is not well established or in dispute should not be exempted. I'm not sure how large that gray-zone is but I think it would be best to err on the side of openness and inclusion rather than exclusion and fear of legal retaliation. Courtland 01:47, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO restorators of copyvio materials (in the clear cut cases), should be blocked on the spot abakharev 05:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be what got User:RickK blocked -- reverting repeated insertion of a copyvio. And due to that block, he left the project. Zoe (216.234.130.130 17:26, 23 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]

Bayesian filtering - maybe an option?

The Bayesian filters on the Thunderbird email client are amazingly good at sorting out spam from good posts. Is it possible that Wiki could use a similar technique to decide whether a page modification is vandalism or valid content adjustment?

If changes that bona-fide admins delete or revert were flagged as 'spam' and changes that remain in place for days or weeks without being touched were flagged as 'good' - then the filter would theoretically learn the kinds of things that vandals say when they trash a page. Because this is content-based, it does not require that we know who the vandals are - or how they got here - only that the content they contributed was in the 'style' of a typical vandal. Even if a new vandal with a different writing style came along, he/she would rapidly and inadvertently train the filter to recognise subsequent changes in similar style.

This sounds like it would come up with a lot of dangerous 'false positives' - but practical experience with Thunderbird and spam suggest that this is not the case.

Perhaps this kind of control could be mixed in with other measures of vandalism probability (age of account, number of other accounts created from the same IP, number of accepted edits, etc) to push the probability of vandalism way down. --Steve Baker 17:41, 17 December 2005 (CST)

while I can think of a number of posible filters I suspect it would require a fair bit of processing power.Geni 23:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that's a resonable concern. I wonder how many vandalisms are reverted each day? (According to the stats page, Wiki is getting 1.7 million edits per month - which is about 0.6 edits per second. It would probably only take a couple of PC's to run a filter on all of them...but I'd only propose running it on larger edits and new pages - that ought to keep the workload down to something a single PC could manage. SteveBaker 03:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It wouldn't work, because there's no similiarity. An email spammer must get their message delivered to millions in order for it to be read by thousands, and "sucker" a few, in order to make much money; and its hard for software to make each of the individual emails look different from the rest. It's not worth the spammers time to customize a single email (after all, if they wrote individual emails, they wouldn't be spammers). However, with vandalism/link-spam its not necessary to make huge numbers of bad edits, but just a few, in places where huge numbers of readers will see them. If one vandal/spam article is deleted, the creator can examine the reasons for the deletion, and re-adjust their strategy accordingly. Each and every article they make is a new unique creation, that's (potentially) "better" then the last. Finally, this approach ignores the fact the worst types of vandalism involve articles that look superficially like legitimate articles, sound entirely plausible, but are in fact hoaxes. As long as artificial intelligence remains artificial, I wouldn't bother. --Rob 00:05, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just because it wouldn't work against a dedicated expert doesn't mean it won't work against bored kids and typical lazy spammers. 00:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
You would mostly be looking to hit background vandalism rather than our more skilled vandles.Geni 01:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand the distinction between how spammers construct their email versus how vandals attack Wiki pages. A Spammer doesn't customise messages to each recipient - but the vandal doesn't rewrite the page everytime someone reads it either! In reality; in each case the bad guy sits down, writes something and then posts it - whether it's then sent into a million mailboxes or pasted into a Wiki page is neither here nor there. The Bayesian filter doesn't see hundreds of identical postings - it only sees one copy of each Spam. What it actually does is to learns the writing style of 'bad' posts by looking for combinations of words that are statistically more likely in Spam than in useful posts. In order to write something that the filter won't spot, the author has to come closer and closer to realistic content. I suspect that most vandals would quickly lose interest in trying to outwit the filter. SteveBaker 03:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dangerous precedent at ArbCom

I would like to call your attention to a development at an ongoing ArbCom case, that will set a precedent which could affect all Wikipedians. Fred Bauder has proposed that I be penalized for criticizing the fairness of the proposed decision as it applies to other affected parties [2]. Please note that there were no findings of fact against me; this is a case involving numerous parties, and my involvement was peripheral. I could have kept my mouth shut, and gone on editing with no penalty. However, I found the conduct of the ArbCom in this case to be outrageous, and felt that I should say so in the manner of J'accuse. Others felt the same (see Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Proposed_decision and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others/Workshop.) If you are uncomfortable with a precedent being set, that Wikipedians can be penalized merely for criticizing a decision of the ArbCom, the time to speak out would be now.--HK 15:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • That is, indeed, quite horrifying. I've commented there and asked for an explanation. rspeer 21:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • note the passaGE and the apparent lack of insight into any role his own behavior played in the creation and aggravation of the problems which gave rise to this case which makes it sound rather less draconic. Check the background and justification of this (I haven't) before you cry tyrranny. dab (ᛏ) 22:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • That makes it sound more draconian to me - "it's not because you disagreed with us, it's because you disagreed with us and you were wrong, as determined by us". It still seems that he wouldn't be put on probation if he had stayed silent instead of criticizing the ArbCom, because there were no findings of fact against him. rspeer 22:45, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • HK, I note that you are listed as a 'party' (actually 'Nominal Defendant') on the arbitration and there is text on the evidence page purporting to cite 'misdeeds' on your part. As I understand the situation it seems like the ArbCom was basically giving you a pass until your subsequent actions suggested to them that you (along with others who received identically worded probation notices) intended to continue behaviour that they considered disruptive. I have no idea as to the merits of any of this evidence or such an impression of your actions, but those seem to be the ArbCom's grounds for their action... as opposed to 'merely because you criticized their decision'. Your position seems to be the equivalent of saying, 'that judge only ruled against me because I yelled at him and called his conduct outrageous'... hostile behaviour towards the ArbCom certainly could result in biasing them against you, but is also in and of itself evidence of disruption and lack of good judgement. --CBD ☎ ✉ 22:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that I was listed as a party. There was quite a conglomeration of editors similarly listed, and the only thing they had in common was that at one time or another they had been involved in edit conflicts with User:Cberlet. In my case, the complaint was limited to three article content disputes from June and December of 2004 [3]; I pointed out that this was a rather flimsy basis for a complaint, and evidently the ArbCom agreed, because there was no finding of fact that referenced me. Regarding the proposed decision, I submit that the strenuous complaints by myself, User:Sam Spade, and User:Rangerdude are well-founded and deserving of scrutiny by the community (the case is fairly complex, as there are may editors and types of alleged misconduct involved.) However, I wouldn't think it appropriate to bring those complaints to the Village pump policy section -- it is the precedent being set, in effect a new policy, that I believe should be discussed on this page: that editors may be sanctioned for speaking out against what they perceive as outrageous conduct by the ArbCom. --HK 03:18, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Fred Bauder also wanted me to shut up and has been abusing ArbCom powers against me also, in a farce of a case where policy and evidence are blithely ignored. "He quits making a big fuss and so do we." [4] I urge fairness and restraint through Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights. (SEWilco 06:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]
I have taken a look at Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights and I strongly support it. I would urge members of the community to take a look at what has been going on at ArbCom and find appropriate ways of bringing it to the attention of other Wikipedians -- I don't think that this kind of behavior will continue if there is sufficient public scrutiny and discussion. --HK 15:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


  • Anybody listed as a party in an arbitration matter is subject to sanction by the ArbCom. This is how things have always worked and how they worked while I was an ArbCom member. --mav 17:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I'm worried about is the precedent that "expressing discontent" with ArbCom is a reason for sanction. HK and Sam Spade should be sanctioned for something they did, not for their opinion of ArbCom. I don't care if the outcome of the case is the same, if the remedies get better reasons behind them. rspeer 19:09, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have not read the case. However, "expressing discontent" with ArbCom should, in my view, be an absolutely protected right. Now, one can be perhaps penalized for the manner of that expression ... sabotaging user pages, vandalism, etc. should not be protected under the rubric of "expressing discontent". However, the content of the such sentiments must be an absolutely protected right regardless of whether the editor is under review by ArbCom or not. Again, I don't know the details of this specific case; but the general principle should be absolute. Derex 19:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • From what I can gather, the ArbCom was ruling that certain behaviour was dirsuptive. Parties to the arbitration then argued that this was unjustified and that they had every right to engage in the 'disruptive' behaviour - and did so on the talk page for the proposed decision. I'd be with you 100% that just disagreeing with an ArbCom decision should be protected - a couple weeks back the ArbCom found that a user had been driven off Wikipedia by harassment. I didn't agree with that finding given that the user was, in fact, still here, and did not seem to me to have been particularly harassed. Disagreement is fine. However, claims of bias, claims of 'outrageous conduct', and continuation of the arguments and attitudes the ArbCom was ruling against is more than just disagreement. I'm not a big fan of this whole concept of 'punishment' on Wikipedia in general, but a distinction needs to be made between responses of; 'I respectfully disagree', 'Your decision is outrageous and I will continue to fight for my right to violate it', and 'You #@#%#$% idjits cannot stop me'. --CBD ☎ ✉ 19:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that the ArbCom was ruling that certain behavior was disruptive. However, that behavior was someone else's, not mine. The proposed ruling penalizes me solely for expressing dissatisfaction with how others were penalized (or not penalized, in the case of User:Cberlet. One of the main bones of contention was a double standard in the ArbCom's treatment of similar misdeeds by different personalities.) --HK 21:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The case was originaly brought as "Nobs01 and others acting in concert", alleging a conspiracy led by nobs who "work as team regarding LaRouche". Nobs01 opening statement alleged this 'conspiracy' was a "provably false", made in bad faith to affect Committee action, and may be an applicable abuse of dispute resolution processes [5]. Nobs01 made no less than three motions to separate the cases, [6][7][8], or publish a finding of fact regarding User:Cberlet's charge regarding a 'conspiracy'. The name of the case has been changed [9], however (a) no finding of fact has been made (b) the abuse of using baseless allegations by User:Cberlet to affect Committee action has proved extremely effective to obscure facts, issues, and evidence presented in the case. On 26 November, Mr. Bauder declared regarding a finding, "The fact that with the exception of Hershelkrustofsky and Cognition, discrete remedies are proposed for each user..." [10]. Now wholesale guilt by association is proposed as a remedy [11], despite the fact Nobs01 did not participate in any recusal requests, and openly declared [12] he AGF with the Committee while awaiting findings.
Nobs01 has not expressed any personal dissatisfaction regarding decisions reached in the case toward himself. Nobs pleaded guilty to a breaching experiment [13], and may harbor misgivings about the entire process, but nobs doesn't have the final say on any of that. Still somewhat of a newbie after 10 months, nobs only comment now is, User:Sam Spade is a candidate against User:Fred Bauder in an election. Fred Bauder has opted to tag Sam Spade with a guilt by association smear User:Cberlet affected through a blatant abuse of proceess. Let the voters decide. nobs 17:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I'm just an idiot and I don't know how the wikigods work.

HK's closing statement

(from Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others)

This ArbCom decision sets a precedent that will have a lasting and highly destructive impact on the entire Wikipedia project. For the first time, to my knowledge, the ArbCom has taken it upon itself to administer penalties against Wikipedia editors with no finding of fact and no explanation.

Since presumably this page will be archived, I will spell it out. In this case, I was the sole respondent that was not mentioned in the Findings of Fact[14]. There was no discussion of any misconduct by myself. I roused the ire of the ArbCom simply by declaring, on the workshop and talk pages, that I felt that the penalties being proposed for the other editors involved were inequitable.

The original wording of the penalty against me tells the story:

  • "15) In view of the dissatisfaction expressed by Herschelkrustofsky with the decisions reached in this case, and the apparent lack of insight into any role his own behavior played in the creation and aggravation of the problems which gave rise to this case, he is placed indefinitely on Wikipedia:Probation."

Then, in an act of cowardly CYA, arbitrator Raul654 simply removed the explanation (edit summary: "removed controversial part" [15]), leaving a penalty with no explanation whatsoever:

Lacking a better explanation, I must conclude one of two things:

  • That I am being penalized for questioning the fairness of the ArbCom. Wikipedians must not countenance an ArbCom that will dole out penalties for the crime of lese majesty.
  • That this and other penalties in this case are simply a malicious expression of disapproval of the POV of the affected parties, in complete defiance of the the NPOV policy, which is heralded by Jimbo Wales as "absolute and non-negotiable". If so, then the ArbCom has abandoned its mandate and simply become just another clique, but one with the power to enforce an institutional POV -- and to stop Wikipedia from becoming a soapbox for propaganda, Wikipedians must prevail upon Jimbo to appoint an ArbCom that will adhere to a much higher ethical standard. --HK 16:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is at least the third ArbCom case that HK has been involved in resulted in restictions on his editing. He was the principle subject of the first two. It is reasonable to believe that the ArbCom is already familiar enough with his editing to evaluate the current behavior without needing a new finding of fact. Ample evidence was presented for their review. This appears to be a legalistic complaint. -Willmcw 08:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One would think a presumption of innocence would be operative being that (1) the case was brought as "acting in concert" (2) Mr. Bauder declared no less than four times there was no finding of "conspiracy" [16][17][18][19]; (3) that remedy appears to be HK's reward for the honor of being named in the case; (4) Cberlet's opening statment, where [20] false assertions were made (which he admitted too [21]), to affect Committee action through an abuse of process, now becomes an active precedent in the absence of a finding of fact regarding the original veracity of Cberlet's claims. nobs 18:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Don't stuff beans up your nose

I'm interested in getting WP:BEANS raised to guideline status. What level of consensus would be needed for this? Firebug 05:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't want to be a guideline. It's just sage advice written in a humourous, memorable way. We don't need it as a guideline, and it won't work as one. Imagine the ArbCom trying to determine if an editor should be on BEANS-parole. -Splashtalk 05:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, this shouldn't be graduated to being a guideline, despite its being a good read and reasonable advice :) Courtland 03:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. We don't need the instruction creep. WP:BEANS is just as effective and useful in its present form as it would be if labelled an official guideline. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Notability

What is the status of notability on Wikipedia? Does something or someone have to be notable in order to be included here? Wikipedia:Notability says "[t]here is currently no official policy on notability". However, WP:CSD permits the deletion of "non-notable biography". Isn't this contradictory? What is the official position? JoaoRicardotalk 02:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • WP:CSD is correct. Precedent on our deletion pages gives a strong indication that articles on unremarkable subjects can be and are deleted. Of course what exactly constitutes notability is the subject on much debate (which is what Wikipedia:Notability refers to). See Template:IncGuide for details. Radiant_>|< 02:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, JoaoRicardo, it is contradictory. Some biographies get deleted, but it is not because an objective definition of notability is mechanically applied. Rather, it works backwards: you infer a definition of what's not notable and what is by taking note of what's been deleted and what's not been deleted. patsw 05:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken this up at wikipedia talk:trivia#Categorisation in "Wikipedia notability criteria"? --Francis Schonken 13:28, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Delete BJAODN?

Since WP:MFD is something of an isolated backwater, I wanted to let a larger audience know that someone has proposed deleting the current incarnation of WP:BJAODN and presumably would like to see the other pages deleted as well. Dragons flight 17:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Policy on notability within an article.

This question is probably discussed somewhere (or in several different areas) but I have not been able to find it. Plus, I am not exactly sure this is the best place to ask, so please excuse me for both. My question is based on the Festivus article. There is a growing list of references in the real world to this holiday and they are being added to the Festivus#Other_references section. Some seem notable enough to keep (the Festivus Maximus=Super Bowl note), others seem somewhat notable (the Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor) and some just seem entirely non-notable and practically unrelated (the Australian non-Christian group seeking to rename Christmas "festive"). I was wondering what constitutes notablitity within an article? What information is pertinent? Obviously this list can and will go on indefinitely if every celebration of Festivus is listed. - Ektar 04:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is clearly getting into the realms of trivia. Of course, a case could be made that the entire article is in the realm of trivia, which makes it hard to draw the line. I'd suggest that rather than a raw listing like this, it would be more useful to try to find a citable source or two that discusses the propagation of this holiday into the "real world", and deal with that propagation as a phenomenon, using specific examples only where they serve that narrative. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Trivia distinguishes relevance/notability of an entire article from relevance/notability of separate statements in an article. There's no "chiseled in stone" solution to be found on that page about trivia, however:
  1. Like other Notability-related guidelines it is in a sort of "perrennial proposed" status. Compare above #Notability.
  2. This proposed guideline regarding "Trivia" doesn't give a hard definition of trivia topics in a text: it rather uses analogies, e.g. the "Guinnes Book of World Records" analogy: not all world records contained in that book are also mentioned in wikipedia: only those that are as well interesting and important. Such definition tries to give rather an "intuitive" insight of where to draw the line. Whether that's a viable approach, I don't know.
--Francis Schonken 16:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Should semi-protection of George W. Bush be permament?

Or at least, on going? Or should it be turned off soon? And if soon, when? (In case you've not heard, the code implementing Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy has been turned on and George has been so-protected.) Dan100 (Talk) 14:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should see how things pan out. Tweak the figure on how long an account has to be active to edit semi-protected pages. See how much vandalism is cut by semi-protection... whether it shoots right back up when the flag is removed... et cetera. How long semi-protection should stay on a page and how long a user has to be around to bypass it should both be partially dependant on how many pages are going to get tagged with this. For instance, if half the encyclopedia winds up semi-protected then it should usually be for very short duration (stopping current vandalism) and have a waiting period of only hours after becoming a user. Or if it is only going to be on the three most vandalized pages then it can stay on for long periods and require a few days of activity to bypass. Et cetera. It'll take some time to sort out how this is going to be used. --CBD ☎ ✉ 14:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've answered this in 4 places now. :) For now, it's just as a test. I'm going to unprotect it tomorrow. Same with Kerry. Right now it's just to see how much vandalism will go down after semi protection. There's still a major bug in it (all users regardless of newness are able to edit), so I think we need to wait a bit before making it permanent or even discussing it, honestly. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 14:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well obviously, there's going to be much less/no vandalism while they're sprotected and lots more when they're unprotected (although note that many schools are going on holiday every day now, so vandalism is dropping anyway). I'm not sure what this test is going to demonstrate beyond the obvious... Dan100 (Talk) 16:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with CBD's reasoning. We'll need some time to sort out how this policy affects the articles that are semi-protected. I also think that the Bush article is a unique case, being the most vandalized article on Wikipedia. Quite frankly, I don't see much harm in keeping this one article semi-protected for an extended period of time. As long as the waiting period isn't unreasonable (a few days or so), I don't see much of a problem with the restrictions on editing. Carbonite | Talk 15:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protection is not a means to banish anonymous editors from Wikipedia, and it should not be used as such. If you can handle a couple of reverts a day, there's no reason at all to semi-protect. If it's a passing dynamic IP bored schoolkid, then unprotect in the usual 24 hours. If it's a static school kid, then block them and don't restrict editing at all. Semi-protect should be used for the shortest available length of time: if that is 0 minutes, then that's what's appropriate. I've little feelings about George W. Bush, but I did object to sprotecting United States where the bulk of the anon edits are not reverted and thus they should not be locked out. -Splashtalk 15:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, semi-protection should be used on very few article and for limited periods of time...except for George W Bush. For the other 99.9999% of our articles, reverting the vandalism isn't a huge task. On this one article, I think we need to concede that it's an exception and should be treated as such. Carbonite | Talk 15:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. We can *not* be preemptive. That's why I added that text to WP:SEMI. Just like full protection, semi is a last resort and I don't think we can assume anything. Will GWB be semi protected longer than it was full protected? Yes. But I don't like this assuming we'll need it to be permanent. We don't know that. For awhile, I like the idea of semi protecting it for 2-3 days, unprotect it and see if the vandalism levels decrease. If we need to then increase the semi protection period further, great. But I don't want to assume the worst. The thing is, we've never had this. 2-3 days might frustrate anons enough so that they will stop vandalising the article as well. We won't know until we try. Let's not assume we'll need it permanently. We don't know that we will. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I agree that we need to have a testing period where we get an idea of how much the vandalism decreases (see my comment above). Of course we shouldn't just semi-protect it and leave it that was forever. I also don't want to assume the worst, but we have many months of data that shows the vandalism level when the page isn't semi-protected. The point of my comment (which may not have been as clear as it should have been) was that the Bush article is the only article where permanent semi-protection may be warranted. On any other article, it should only be used for limited periods of time. Carbonite | Talk 16:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The George W. Bush article should be semi-protected until he is no longer in office. Seems obvious to me. Until he's gone, that article is a lightning rod for vandalism. Kaldari 16:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it was agreed on at the policy page that semi-protection would not be used for long periods of time or indefinitely? This is exactly what I was afraid of: once the feature is set up, people will clammor to semi-protect this article virtually forever, and I strongly oppose doing that. Semi-protection should only be used as a last resort and probably shouldn't ever be used for longer than 24 hours (unless there's something special going on, like a presidential election involving him, which is impossible). The policy states that semi-protection is not meant to "prohibit anonymous editing in general", and by applying semi-protection for long periods of time, that's exactly what it is doing. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see what the fuss is about. Yes, let's first see whether semi-protection is effective against vandals. But if it is, I wouldn't be surprised if there were few dozen pages on Wikipedia that are subject to several vandalisms a day. Why not semi-protect all of them? And why not permanently, or until the motivation for vandalism stops (e.g. when GWB is long out of office)? Why should we tolerate this or burden editors with hourly monitoring and reversion? Wikipedia has almost a million articles — restricting anons and new users to editing 99.999% of them is hardly a draconian policy. If it ever gets to the point where a significant fraction of Wikipedia is semi-protected then it warrants discussion. But now? Pff. —Steven G. Johnson 16:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Steven who puts it very well. It's a right royal PITA for RC patrollers (myself included) to have to RV the same ol' dozen or so articles all the time. These should be semi-protected long-term. Dan100 (Talk) 16:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No. The policy page states explicitly that this should not be used long-term or permanently, and semi-protecting such pages is essentially driving out the IP editors and new editors. If you want to stop vandalism, we should just protect all pages and not make this a wiki. A line must be drawn somewhere - how are people to improve those articles if we restrict editing? Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's pointless to even discuss the matter if you're going to fall back on the "it should be policy because that's what the policy says" line of reasoning. Nor have you addressed the point that new editors can still edit > 99.99% of Wikipedia, and that a line has been drawn somewhere—users can improve those pages after having an account for a few days. The sky isn't falling. —Steven G. Johnson 16:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Re "not make this a wiki..." This is not "a wiki," it is a project that has the serious intention of producing a free encyclopedia.
Re "How are people going to improve these articles if we restrict editing?" How am I going to get from home to work if I'm restricted to driving on the right side of the road? The answer in both cases is "by accepting these restrictions." Dpbsmith (talk) 17:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
(after three edit conflicts) Of course this is a wiki. True, our goal here is to produce an encyclopedia, but the means we chose to produce it was to make this a wiki, where anyone can edit. If we wanted to use the proven ways of making an encyclopedia, we could have become EB or Nupedia by hiring experts to write articles. Instead, Wikipedia was founded. Are we to bite the very hand that feeds us?
I disagree with that analogy, but I'm going to extend it a bit further. How are we to get to work? If we restrict all driving, I guess that leaves most of us with walking or biking. True, we'll get there eventually, but at a much slower pace. Is that what we want? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In the U.S. we do restrict all driving to the right side of the road. This restriction does not force anyone to walk or bike. Similarly, "semi-protection" still allows anyone to edit. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To extend the analogy even more, in the US we also require that all drivers have a license and auto insurance. These restrictions are much tougher than our semi-protection policy, yet the vast majority of drivers accept them without any problem. Carbonite | Talk 20:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I note in particular Dan100 and Steven G. Johnson insisting that the policy says other than it does, and/or that the policy is wrong because they want it to be. Neither of them participated in the discussion, and only Dan100 in the straw poll. Very many people did, we discussed it, we iterated the proposal and it eventually received wide support. Please do not dismiss those discussoins and the concerns of other editors with a simple-minded "oh well, if I think it's wrong then it must be wrong, and so I shall ignore it". Because that's not how playing nicely works. -Splashtalk 17:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Whoa, exuse me - I note in particular Dan100... insisting that the policy says other than it does - I've said no such thing. BTW, policy is not set in stone - it can always change. And of course, if it's in the best interests of the encyclopedia, you can ignore the rules... Dan100 (Talk) 09:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Splash is right. This was a very-widely supported proposal, and was discussed over and over and in great detail on the same talk page where the straw poll occurred. Now, how much of that support "counts" if we start changing the rules agreed to? That's right, the support isn't worth a can of stale beans at that point, and we're back to square one. Last I saw, it was crystal-clear that we weren't going to leave GWB or any normal page permanently semi-protected (though we might protect 'em for a week at a time, say), and a lot of the support for the proposal actually was contingent on that. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Splash and BOGrapes, I would argue that the policy's internal logic is flawed. To wit:
Administrators note that semi-protection should only be considered if it is the only option left available to solve the problem of vandalism of the page. In other words, just like full protection, it is a last resort not a pre-emptive measure.
One, it will never ever be the only option left available; two, if "like full protection" it is a last resort, then why do we have it at all if we have full protection? So there must be a reason it exists short of putting in full protection. As such, I feel it is reasonble to interpret it as - if there is historical evidence that an article is the object of consistent, unrelenting vandalism due to the either short term or long term attractiveness of the article for vandalism, then it should be semi-protected, and it can be semi-protected indefinitely. To wit, George W. Bush and penis come to mind. Take a look at WP:MVP for a good compendium of these type of articles. Not all should be semi-protected. But the existence of that page shows there are pages that are consistently targets and the RC patrollers who use that shared watchlist know well what I'm talking about. Fuzheado | Talk 17:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If that was the intent of the policy, it would say so and people would have been quite clear about that in their comments in the straw poll. It doesn't, adn they weren't. You misunderstand semi-protection's relation to full protection. It can be used instead of full-protection when an article has a hard to stop vandal. At present, we have to lock everyone out because of a bored teenager. Now, we don't have to. That's the point. I'll leave others to thrash out GWB, but there is no reliance in the policy for a permanent protection. It will have to be by consensus and agreement. -Splashtalk 17:41, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I get what you're saying. Smart people can differ on how long we should keep it, and perhaps when we have more data after this week, we can bring that up again. For me - I'm glad that with George W. Bush, Adolph Hitler, Wikipedia and Penis semi-protected, more useful RC patrol time can be spent on other vandalism that is tricker to track down. You mentioned on my talk page "If an article needs protecting, it's because of a current vandalism problem, not an historic one." But what if the historical pattern is that the article is the subject of ongoing (ie. current) vandalism? I've been doing RC patrol going on three years now, and these articles are always hit, and consistently. Fuzheado | Talk 18:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, Wikipedia's first responsibility is to its readers, its second to its established editors, and lastly to its newest editors. Permanently emi-protecting pages such as GWB perfectly balances those responsibilities - readers will see much less vandalism, its editors will have a lower workload, and only the newest editors will be inconvenienced. Stevage 20:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course protection of George W. Bush be permament, if it's left unprotected, people could come along and add new information to it, since information usually makes George Bush look like a bumbling idiot, the only solution is to leave it protected until the end of his term to insure proper NPOV--1 use 17:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why not just say that a page may not be semi-protected for more than one week, after that the protection is to be removed or extended a maximum of one week, etc. ad infinitum. →AzaToth 20:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it should be permanently semi-protected, since it has a frequently reoccurring vandalism problem, but we should also make it abundantly clear to readers that they can leave any suggested changes on the talk page to be implemented by other editors. Consider it a sort of lightweight informal review process. Deco 20:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd first like to childishly say "I told you so" to Splash about the lack of addressing protection creep, which has lead us to this discussion. Time limits with increasing amounts of admin concensus implemented in policy would have sorted this out. As for now, it's just a test, and if we're not going to address this in policy, at the very least, it should be an unspoken rule that no matter what the article is, it should be un-sp'ed on a weekly basis. Semi-protection should not just be slapped on a page and left on indefinetely, there needs to be regular tests that it still needs to be implemented on pages such as GWB. --kizzle 21:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any particular stance on whether pages should be permanently semi-protected or not, as there are good arguments for both sides. However, I feel very strongly that if pages are to be permanently semi-protected, then the current template needs to die. If we're to have a big ugly template up the top of an article (which really doesn't do wonders for our credibility), then there had better be a damned good short-term reason. Ambi 00:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat agree. I like the template's wording but it's much too big and scary. Let's tone it down. I think it would actually help our credibility - in the position of a Wikipedia naysayer, I'd be pleased to see some action being taken to protect obvious target articles. Deco 01:06, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Input from you two (and anyone else of course) would be welcomed at Template talk:Sprotected, where debates about just this have been taking place Dan100 (Talk) 10:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
<sticks out tongue>I'd also like childishly to point out that I did say that admins usually managed to self-police by yelling at each other. Well, here you go. It'll work itself out: there will be consensus to have GWB et. al perma-semi-protected or there won't be. If one admin in 740+ thinks "now is enough", then it gets unprotected. -Splashtalk 02:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to offer Japanese media as a proper example of the use of sprotection. A dynamic (thus unblockable) vandal has been hitting it hard. It was vprotected; noone could edit it (apart from admins), but now just about all editors can — apart from the vandal. And since the bug-fix, the vandal really can't. This is what semi is really good for. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Splash (talk • contribs)


I suspect that George W. Bush will probably need some kind of long-term protection. Many articles (like Japanese media mentioned above) are targeted by a single vandal who might get bored or discouraged and move on; George W. Bush however attracts new random vandals all the time. Semiprotecting it yesterday and un-semiprotecting it today will do nothing to discourage the brand-new vandal who will come to the article for the first time tomorrow. Most of these brand-new vandals are precisely the opportunistic instant-gratification vandals (as opposed to sleeper-account vandals) that semi-protection is designed to discourage.

As someone has already pointed out above, Wikipedia edits are made by human beings, not by anon IPs or monikers. And long-term semi-protection, unlike long-term "full" protection, does not actually prevent any human being in the world from editing the article if they really wish to. That's an important distinction.

And by the way, lack of semi-protection can have a high cost too, because reverting is an imperfect process. Sometimes vandals alter a legitimate sentence into nonsense or obscenity, the next editor fails to catch it, and then some time later a (possibly inexperienced or careless user) comes along and deletes the whole nonsensical or obscene sentence instead of restoring the good version that is now buried several revisions deep. I've seen it happen far too many times. Or sometimes a revert will accidentally revert legitimate edits along with the vandalism (this is the flipside of a revert that fails to fully revert old vandalism). Constant vandalism creates a state of entropy that hinders legitimate edits or causes them to be lost. It's like a house full of children and pets running around and making a mess and breaking things... things, well, get broken, and good user contributions are sometimes for naught.

The best way to judge success is to see whether legitimate edits get made to George W. Bush. In recent times, those nearly came to a standstill: substantially all the edits were vandalism and reverts of vandalism. "Anyone can edit" isn't supposed to produce the paradoxical result that the article gets frozen, but that's what was happening in practice. It's still early, but there are encouraging signs that under semi-protection the article is now actually being edited, for the first time in a long while.

PS, To really make semi-protection effective, though, we need a way to discourage throwaway registered accounts. Make users go through some 30–60 second non-automatable enter-the-right-answers-to-the-questions procedure to register, which is a one-time very minor inconvenience for legitimate users (they won't mind, if we clearly explain upfront the reason why), but a repetitive hassle for multiple-sockpuppet vandals who have to repeat it over and over again each time they burn a sock with a vandalism edit. -- Curps 08:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the effectiveness of long-term semiprotection, you don't mention the point that a registered user can be blocked out of their account (or if they can't, they should be able to). When someone has to create an account and wait 4 days, just to have it blocked the first time they vandalized, the cost of vandalism gets to be just too high. They can get around this by creating and slowly using large numbers of accounts, but this would take some sophistication and could also be protected against with other measures. It's not perfect but I think it could make a big difference, even in the long term. Deco 22:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PPS, see this Slashdot comment which describes an example of what I mentioned above: a high amount of vandalism/revert entropy churn can often be quite harmful. Preventing existing good content from being trashed is just as important as allowing new good content to be created. Semi-protection reduces the former and does not really prevent the latter. -- Curps 19:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-speedy new unsourced articles

Sorry if this has already been discussed (if so please point me there). I would like to propose the deletion of new unsourced articles, as follows:

  • Create a new speedy delete tag/category, as {{no article source}}
  • This tag would have a narrower scope than {{Not verified}}
  • Use the tag only for new articles created after a set date (e.g. after date of policy implementation).
  • Only use tag if there is not one single external source in article. Disputed/insufficient sources should be dealt with by other existing means
  • The tag specifies the placement date as a paramater
  • The creator of the article must be notified of the issue on their talk page
  • If after 5(?) days of tag placement *and* creator notice, if there's no source given, the article is to be speedy deleted.
  • Such deletes can be undone at anybody's individual request *if* they include in their request a source

This would work much like {{no license}}, {{no source}} does with images. It wouldn't apply to older articles, as we simply have far to many large articles on major topics, with no sources (sadly). But, we can do a better job on a go-forward basis. This proposal requires just one source to be safe. However, articles with indequate/unreliable sources would still be subject to deletion under WP:Verifiability through AFD, as they already are (and in many cases under other existing speedy criteria). This would reduce the work load of AFD participants, as articles would only go to AFD *after* they have a at least one source added. --Rob 19:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • While this is a reasonable idea in theory, it would be a bad idea in practice since at least 25% of the articles on Wikipedia do not mention a source. Also, five days of tag placement goes against the very idea of speedy deletion - if you find an unsourced article for which you believe a source couldn't be found, drop it on WP:AFD with the comment "unsourced/unverifiable" or thereabouts, and in five days it will be either sourced or gone. Radiant_>|< 22:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note, the old unsourced articles wouldn't be effected, just new ones. Adding 25%+ of new articles to AFD would be impossible (but tagging them would be possible). Also, AFD induced cleanup does nothing to encourage the article's creator to provide sources. Currently, somebody makes an unsourced article, somebody else nominates it for deletion, soembody else sources it, it's kept, and the original creator makes a slew more, just like it. But, if you tell the creator of every unsourced article they're creation will be deleted without a source, you'll find the percentage of such articles drop signficantly. On our edittools window, we're told we must not violate copyright, and must cite sources. So why do we delete copyvios without a vote, but not unsourced articles? --Rob 00:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong disagree. We are a community of people with different roles. If the original person wrote the article "out of their head" based on internalized knowledge that they really don't want to be bothered to find and cite, should we delete their work? They're a volunteer and it's useful raw material. Instead, someone who's more into finding and citing sources should do that. Roles.
To be fair, I don't object to placing a template on a page without sources warning that the information has not yet been verified, etc. Just don't eliminate the content altogether. Deco 01:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm reasonably sure we already have that template. Radiant_>|< 01:14, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely not—I can't think of a better way to discourage new articles and topics and needlessly destroy information. Many people, including myself, have initially written articles based on personal education or a quick read of sources that we've summarized on the fly. If the topic is an appropriate one for Wikipedia, the lack of sources (as well as any unverifiable information) will get corrected over time by the original author or other contributors, and the unsourced template is the appropriate way to draw attention to the article. If the information or the topic itself proves unverifiable, AfD is the appropriate way to delete the article after discussion. The proposed speedy deletion criteria is a solution in search of a problem. Postdlf 01:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I interpret the "Save page" message "Content ... must be based on verifiable sources..." to exclude basing something simply on one's personal education (although such education is a great basis for finding verifiable sources, which in turn serve as the basis of an article). I do admit my proposal could "destroy" information. Of course, WP:NOR and WP:V also result in the destruction of information. That's the price of verifiability. Also, I suggest what I'm proposing is consistent specifically with Wikipedia:Verifiability#When to cite sources which says "...if you add any information to an article, you must cite the source of your information.". I don't see where it says you can leave it till later. --Rob 04:44, 23 December 2005 (UTC) Apparently, the policy I'm citing has been changing multiple times a day, and there's no agreed text. So, I honestly don't know what the heck our policy is on verifiability. I thought it (and therefore sources) was a requirement, but maybe not. --Rob 04:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rob, don't worry, it is! Wikipedia:Citing sources is rather schizophrenic though - SlimVirgin says it is only a style guide, yet it contained the bulk of the "why you should add sources" text. So I moved that stuff to it's logical home, Wikipedia:Verifiability. That probably set the cat among the pigeons somewhat :-) Dan100 (Talk) 09:06, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

[22] "NPOV was drafted originally for Nupedia by a philosopher". -- Has anyone seen this version or know who this philosopher was?Bensaccount 19:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably it was Larry Sanger.
But it is Larry Sanger who is saying it... Bensaccount 03:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
He could be referring to himself anonymously, or simply saying "it was drafted by a philosopher", as opposed to some other profession. Deco 22:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yep you are right, thanks. Bensaccount 17:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed guideline: Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary

This proposal is intended to be a centralized location for guidelines and suggestions for avoiding reverts. There's been a few "rules" created regarding reverts and this is an attempt to bring them all under one roof. The one line summary of this proposal is "Before you revert an edit, try to find an alternative. Reverts should only be made to maintain the quality of an article." After more editors have reviewed this proposal and it becomes a lot more polished, it hopefully could become a guideline. Please take a look at this proposal and help to edit it into shape. Carbonite | Talk 19:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Notability for games clubs

hi, there is a growing trend for games clubs (a.k.a clans or electronic sports teams) to get their own vanity articles on wikipedia. these can rarely be deleted because of organized campaigns by members of a club to keep "their" article. i would like to suggest that not every games club should get an article, and that they must have e.g. won a major tournament to be considered notable. (next question: what defines a major tournament?). whats the best way to go about this, without vested interest club members jumping in to "save" their precious pages? i see this trickle of articles becoming a major flood very soon. i know there is nn-band and nn-club but how to define exactly what *is* and *isnt* notable with regard to games clubs? Zzzzz 09:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot imagine how a gaming clan could possibly be notable enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Notable enough for a magazine or newspaper, perhaps, but not an encyclopedia. I hesitate to make criteria for them because the criteria would have to be set so that a fair number of gaming clans could meet the criteria. Until AfD is flooded with them, we might be able to keep more of them out on an individual AfD basis. -- Kjkolb 11:47, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think an organization should be regarded as inherently either notable or non-notable just because it happens to be made up of game players; is the United States Chess Federation to be judged on this basis? Rather, the notability should be judged just like it would be for a non-gaming organization. A gaming club that has a large number of members or is highly influential within its particular game genre would probably be notable; a small group that's merely local in scope or consists of a handful of friends getting together of little interest to anybody else wouldn't be. *Dan T.* 13:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Urapopstar. Zoe (216.234.130.130 17:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]
IMHO as long as there are projects to catalogue every asteroid, every river and even every French commune, it is a matter of prejudice whether we catalogue every clan or not. Short of defining a policy for clan notability (eg, membership fees, number of members, mentioned in paper), there's nothing you can do. Stevage 00:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed; I think that User:Stevage is spot-on with his comment. User:Ceyockey 23:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Language-specific facts? Or language-specific relevancy?

Having started editing on the English Wikipedia, I eventually found that the German Wikipedia contained more "omissions", and concentrated my editing there. The article here Gay bathhouse, for example, exists there only as part of an article de:Kontaktsauna, and sysops there have repeatedly threatened the article with deletion for covering a "trivial" topic. Similarly, the category for LGBT people has been deleted there, as well as a list, and a currently raging debate over whether such lists can be permitted in a wikiportal workspace instead of as a regular article. Truman Capote gets regularly deleted from such lists, and those who replace him are termed "vandals". Mentioning that a television moderator is gay results in the sentence being removed and the article being indefinitely protected to prevent such mention. (This is not a case of "outing", as the moderator has discussed his partner in the media and corrected journalists who called him single.) Criticizing the freezing of the article leads to threats by the sysop that the critical account will be banned, and complaints about such behavior get regularly deleted. Is this something unusual about the German Wikipedia or does that happen here, too?--Bhuck 14:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don´t think theres anything wrong with a wiki applying its own cultural standards along with linguistic ones. If in Germany its inappropriate to say someone is gay then so be it. I suspect thats not the case (coincidentally I am in Ulm at the moment :)) but there are very few cross-wiki standards, so its really up to the admins there. Stevage 00:37, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are also right that it is not the case that it is inappropriate in Germany to say someone is gay. It is, however, inappropriate in the German wiki to say that because the admins there seem to have different standards than the culture as a whole. I don't think it is appropriate to get too much into the specific details here (it's not like there is a hierarchy of wikipedias and that one can "appeal" to another language that has decided things differently), but it does raise some interesting questions on a more general level. Suppose, for example, that while it were acceptable in Germany to say someone was gay, and that it was not acceptable in Austria, and that all the admins at the German-language wikipedia were (by some coincidence) Austrian. Or once could imagine some other situation where in the English wikipedia all the admins were Canadian and refused to allow English-language articles which did not have an interwiki link to the French wikipedia. Because of the user-banning and the suppression of criticism of the admins' policies, there does not seem to be an easy way to change such structures. (Indeed, the question is more a question of power than of content, because the same admins get criticized for completely unrelated reasons (as far as subject matter goes), because they repeatedly use similar (heavy-handed) tactics.) How does one deal with a situation in which the cultural standards applied in the wikipedia (enforced by admins) differ from the cultural standards among the language-users as a whole? Indeed, even if German culture did have this or that standard which were being enforced in the German-language wikipedia, what about German-speakers elsewhere (immigrants in the US, or Swiss Germans)? Language and culture do not always overlap completely; the problem is more how power is applied within a certain wikipedian community.--Bhuck 16:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What is Policy on Portals in Definition

I am a very new' Wikipedian, so forgive me if I seem to ask obvious questions or questions that have been answered before. (I am also a Platonist, so I always ask obvious questions.)ous questions.)

Is there a stated/written policy and/or guidelines for Portals in Definitions? What is the intended function/purpose of Portals in Definitions? And what about overlapping and redundant information?

normxxx 16:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure he didn't mean to blank the page. Don't bite the newbies. Dan100 (Talk) 11:01, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Abrahamic religions

I'm wondering what should be the order used in citing the three Abrahamic religions to achieve NPOV. Should it be in an alphabetical order or by popularity (Christianity, Islam, Judaism), or chronogically (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)? I noticed this issue when my edit in Human has been reverted. Is there a policy related to this issue? Has this idea been discussed before? CG 21:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is no policy, and anyone who claims it's not neutral because of the ordering is a fool. (In other words, use your best judgement) Raul654 21:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Remove user data and talk pages from database dumps!

(I posted the following on the mailing list earlier today, but have had no reply yet.)

I once registered as a user of Wikipedia, and I know that anything I write there may be copied and re-used according to the GFDL. However, I did not sign up for the Pornopedia, Nazipedia or Spamopedia.

What is written on user pages and user talkpages is also released under the GFDL, and if somebody wants to copy it or quote it, fine (as long as it is attributed)! But there is no reason to automate this process or make it easy for webspammers and other creeps to do so. I do not want my user page to be copied to various Wikipedia mirrors, as happened a while ago with the Nazi copy of Wikipedia. I would be even less happy if I had signed up under my real name. The appearance of a name in such a context may actually be harmful to somebody's reputation.

  1. My first suggestion: just make sure that when the database is copied, user information does not come along with it, including userpages, user talkpages and even the history of a page. I notice from some of the mirrors out there, that the only contributor visible in the history of an article is the last one before the dump, somebody who may just have corrected a typo. As it doesn't give proper attribution in any case, we may just as well get rid of that too. Just make sure the history page of every downloaded article refers back to Wikipedia, where the full history can be found.
  2. Second suggestion: is there any reason why *any* discussion pages need to come with the normal database dump? The nazi 'pedia (which is down now) took these and search-and-replaced "Wikipedia" with its own name everywhere, giving the misleading impression that a lot of Wikipedia users had been active in discussions on a Nazi website. This may be seriously harmful to somebody's reputation if found through a Google search by somebody not familiar with the GFDL and how Wikipedia works. It is probably illegal in some way to do what they did (as Wikipedia will no longer be properly credited) but I just don't see anybody going to court to stop it, and we certainly don't need to facilitate abuse of mirrored discussion pages with consequences for the reputation or privacy of individual users. Again, please replace all discussion pages in the database dump with a very clear and visible link back to Wikipedia, not just the miniscule one down at the bottom of every page. Most downloaders are not going to bother removing that link, as all they want Wikipedia content for is to get Google hits and drive traffic to their websites.
  3. Remove the user namespace from the reach of Google's indexing bots. It should be available to our internal search, but there is no reason it should get hits from Google. Userspace contains all kinds of semi-private conversations and unfinished drafts which are really only of internal use and interest.

I question whether some other type of free but non-commercial license wouldn't be more suitable for user pages, but that may not be realistic for various reasons. But the removal of these pages from the dump really shouldn't require a change in license. It will just force somebody who wants to copy the content to do so manually. The webspammers obviously won't bother with that. Tupsharru 22:32, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's what {{userpage}} is for. Conscious 18:07, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't help against the search-and-replace of the former Nazipedia, as it will change "wikipedia" to its own name in the {{userpage}} box as well. Tupsharru 18:38, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it does help, at least since I last hacked it. I made some very special anti-search-and-replace changes to it. It doesn't work against some mirrors which ignore templates, but you just have to {{subst:userpage}} to work around it (notice that, if you do it, you should watchlist the template to catch any future hacks to it). --cesarb 19:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's good to know. Tupsharru 07:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sure there's some utility to separating them, but providing userpages also might make sense, for example, if people want to provide links to more information, or want to feel more tied to the pages they created. I'm not sure, but there may concievably be reasons to keep user pages in the dumps that are in the spirit of GFDL. Personally, I'd like my user page to be in most dumps of the pedia. I suppose offering separate dumps with and without userpages may not be a bad comprimise, although it still doesn't deal with the spirit of the GFDL thing. --Improv 18:14, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For most re-users, a dump without userpages and so on is probably preferable, as it will be more lightweight. And, as I mentioned above, it seems that the whole history of contributions to an article is only available on Wikipedia anyway. Backup for the purpose of setting up a new Wikipedia with all data intact, in case the Wikimedia Foundation would go bankrupt, can probably be worked out somehow anyway, but it doesn't have to be in the standard database dump spammed all over the web by Wikipedia mirrors. Tupsharru 18:38, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A number of users (for instance, offline reports generators and some bots) need all pages from all namespaces. If you want yours gone from the dumps, ask for it to be deleted (you can do it unless you've been a vandal or something very important has been discussed on it). --cesarb 19:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The whole history of articles is availible for download its just in a seperate archive for size reasons and many mirrors don't carry it (presumablly for those same size reasons its HUGE). Plugwash 00:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SFD scope - why does it include redirects?

Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion was started because stub types were being listed on both TFD and CFD, as a stub type has both a template and a category. This is a rather admirable goal. However, somewhere along the way, a third type of page got included - redirects. Redirects like {{us-rail-stub}} to {{US-rail-stub}} and {{NYCS stub}} to {{NYCS-stub}}. Redirects that would be overwhelmingly if not speedily kept in their proper place, RFD. However, since SFD is an out-of-the-way page, which most non-stub sorters avoid, these useful redirects are typically deleted because they do not follow naming conventions. See also Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion and Wikipedia:Deletion review#Various stub template redirects. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 03:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agreed. Merge into TFD; no need to list the categories separately. — Dan | talk 03:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concur. Nuke SFD. I don't care which it goes to. --Improv 03:18, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This isn't a problem with SFD, it's a problem with people who list redirects on SFD when they clearly shouldn't. There should be something that says that it's not meant for redirects. - ulayiti (talk) 03:22, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I tried that, and was swiftly reverted (by Grutness, I believe, who said it had always handled redirects and always will handle redirects). --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 03:29, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, he was wrong then. I completely agree with you in that something's not going quite right here, but deleting SFD is not the right way to go here. It's a useful tool in deleting the templates and categories at the same time, but it should under no circumstances be used for redirects because that's what RFD is there for. I apologise for over-reacting slightly with all the 'bad-faith' stuff earlier though, and I hope you don't consider me a vandal from now on. :) This is the right place to discuss policy, not MFD (and nevermind what Ed Poor did, I disagreed with that too). - ulayiti (talk) 03:40, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • If you're going to quote me, SPUI, then tell people what I actually said rather than making things up. Deliberate misrepresentation of a person simply makes you look like the WP:DICK that you keep accusing others of being. For the record, SFD has handled redirects for the last two months or so. RFD was approached about it, and were asked whether there were any objections to SFD encompassing the redirects relating to stub templates as well. There were no objections from RFD for us to handle redirects, so we've been handling redirects. if you don't believe me, check Wikipedia talk:Redirects for deletion. As to remerging with TFD and CFD, please note that the SFD page was split out from those two pages so as to ease the load on those pages (with the blessing of people at TFD and CFD), and to make the process of deleting and/or changing stubs much easier and to avoid the possibility of having, say, a category deleted but the template which feeds into it kept. To do it any other way would be ridiculous. Grutness...wha? 04:08, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • You fail to see the difference between "... Grutness... said it had always handled redirects" and me saying they had been handled that way since RFD raised no objections two months ago? You fail to see the difference between a notice on RFD talk seeking confirmation of SFD handlng redirects in October and SFD's scope expanding "without warning"? It's either deliberate misrepresentation or deliberate obtuseness on your part. As for okaying it with RFD "not really meaning anything", that is a wonderful example of goalpost-moving. Grutness...wha? 12:50, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • I had named this section "SFD is broken"; someone else changed it to be more NPOV or something. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 18:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • I changed the title based on input that has since been re-evaluated (see below and Wikipedia talk:Redirects for deletion#Stub-redirects for deletion, redux.), and the title is now in its third form - which is the best of the three so far. Grutness, I think you are too close to the problem, taking a look at your tone here in saying something like "It's either deliberate misrepresentation or deliberate obtuseness on your part" in an incorrect attribution of activity. If you are going to call someone obtuse, send that call my way. User:Ceyockey 00:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
            • Spui misquoted me and then said that my correction of what I said didn't change his statement. The misquoting was misrepresentation; the claim that it changed nothing was obtuseness. I stand by that. Grutness...wha? 01:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly disagree. SFD was created for three reasons: First, reduce CFD/TFD load (which it performs admirably). Second, to prevent discrepancies such as a stub template being deleted and its category being kept (which it also performs admirably). And third, to keep out votes such as "keep unless the WP:WSS comments on it" (which it also performs admirably, and note that those votes were prevalent before the creation of SFD). SPUI has begun a crusade against this page because it occasionally ends up with a conclusion he disagrees with. But every process makes the occasional mistake, and that's no grounds for removing it. Radiant_>|< 03:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The characterization of WP:SFD being "broken" is not accurate; I've altered the heading to be more accurate and informative.
This should NOT become referendum on the existence of WP:SFD, which it appears to be shaping up to be. This should be a discussion of how to handle the scope creep, not how to kill an activity and assistive page set that many dozens of people contribute to daily in good faith. User:Ceyockey 03:26, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Disagree. See my reasons on the MFD debate page. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:29, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the issue of whether WP:SFD should handle redirects - well, we can't just say "all redirects belong on RFD", because by the same reasoning all templates and categories belong on TFD and CFD, respectively. Personally I do not consider it unreasonable to put everything related to stub templates on SFD, including redirects. However, if SFD has some notions about redirects that RFD disagrees with (and I'm not sure as to the specifics), it may be worthwhile to get RFD people involved there for a wider opinion. Radiant_>|< 03:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I must say, I don't see and have never seen the point of deleting slightly-misnamed - or better still, merely miscapitalised - redirects as happens on SFD all the time. In the articlespace, creating slightly-misnamed redirects to avoid confusion is encouraged fer crying out loud! - SoM 04:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree. Redirects are cheap.--Sean|Black 04:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The main difference between an article redirect and a template redirect is that you will never be notified that you're using a redirect, and probably will continue to use the redirect since it works so well. People will see the redirected templates when editing articles and start using them, further proliferating their use, and maybe making more misnamed templates based on their experience (and yes, it's a very good thing to be quite anal about the naming of stub templates, I'd much rather memorize 50 classes of stubs than the 1000+ stub types). Also, I am in favour of SFD handling stub redirects, but I also think that SFD is too overeager to delete redirects at the moment. It's just not that simple. I propose the following compromise: SFD should ease up on getting rid of stub redirects (basically keep everything that isn't ambiguous or just plain wrong), but some kind soul(s) should run a bot that replaces the redirects with the proper templates in the articles, as fast as possible. -- grm_wnr Esc 04:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • FWIW, when this issue came up a couple months ago, it got mentioned at RFD if there were any objections to redirects being taken care of at SFD, where it got no responses one way or another. Also, 3 redirects were nominated for deletion (and later deleted) on the second day of SFD (log of deletion discussions). So considering redirects at SFD is hardly a new development. --Mairi 04:58, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It is worth noting — and I say this without any trace of accusation or recrimination, as there is no reason why any of this would have been obvious to the casual observer — that RFD was mostly inactive at the time that notification in question was posted on the RFD talk page. The date of the comment from the SFD folks asking if they were stepping on any toes by taking over stub redirects was October 22nd. The last edit to the RFD talk page prior to October 22nd was September 15. The next edit following October 22nd was November 21. During this time, RFD accumulated a rather substantial backlog.
On December 1st, Woohookitty started working on clearing out the backlog. If you look at the state of the page on December 1st, you will see that the backlog dates to October 20th, two days prior to the SFD notification being placed on the RFD talk page. Which meant that RFD hadn't been under any sort of regular admin scrutiny since before the SFD notification was posted to the RFD talk page.
My understanding is that the RFD process was administered for a long time largely by one person, User:Jnc. And then he left sometime in early October, leaving RFD without a hand upon the tiller. The SFD notification was posted sometime after he left. Since RFD was generally ignored at this point in time, the SFD notification received no response.
However, a few admins (myself included) have taken RFD under our wing and have attempted to revive it back into full health and bring it into some sort of cohesion. It is no longer languishing in a state of disrepair. Admins are once again paying active attention to it, and had the SFD notification been posted today, rather than two months ago, I suspect the notification would have generated some actual discussion as to the pros and cons of moving stub redirects out of RFD and into SFD.
I would like to suggest that this issue needs to be revisited. I understand that the stub-sorting folks have very valid concerns about the proliferation of stub names and the difficulty this brings to the task of sorting stubs. But I also see many stub redirects that are 100% in accordance with the redirect policy at Wikipedia:Redirect (particularly in the "Other spellings, other punctuation" category) being deleted or otherwise deprecated.
I do think that, given the circumstances under which stub redirects were subsumed under the aegis of SFD rather than RFD, that the process of handling stub redirects should revert back to RFD until such time as a decision has been made to do otherwise.
All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 13:54, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It has been brought to my attention that my understanding of the situation is mildly in error. RFD did not handle stub-redirects prior to October, when the post was made. Apparently SFD began handling them in June, when SFD first opened its virtual doors. My apologies for the error. Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 18:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking as a fairly long-time anonymous article editor that "came in from the cold" and is trying to be more proactive in using templates and categories, redirects of those are Terribly Confusing! I'd say vigorously delete such redirects (after correcting the uses). Please! --William Allen Simpson 09:55, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think there are two more or less indepenent points to be decided:
  1. whether stub redirect should be nominated for deletion at RFD or SFD
  2. what are the guidelines for keeping or deleting a stub redirect

If a consensus is reached on the second matter, it won't be too important what's decided on the first. When redirects are nominated at SFD, SFD regulars tend to vote delete, and such a vote is either a full consensus of stub-sorters or a "WSS vs. non-WSS" issue (that's how I see what regularly happens). On RFD the audience (if any :) and outcome would probably be different.

So we should probably discuss the deletion criteria for stub redirects. Conscious 12:54, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Profanity on MFD

Please note that this page, currently marked as a policy page, has been brought to MFD, as MFD is not highly read, I thaught a link here would be approriate. xaosflux Talk/CVU 05:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Closed early; invalid listing Dan100 (Talk) 11:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to Redirects

Is there any policy regarding articles linking to redirect pages? I seem to remember being told that it is preferable to link to the article that is redirected to, and bypass the redirect, but when this was recently questioned, I was unable to find anything official on it. I’m sure I’ve over looked some obvious page, but can anyone link me to the answer, either here or on my talk page? Thanks in advance. --Falcorian 06:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There's no page discouraging the use of redirect links per se (what would be the rationale for it?) - I suppose it's some invention of people liking bot operations.
When is it advisable a redirect be replaced by a straight link? There are some cases:
--Francis Schonken 07:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's preferred to link directly to the article because a redirect forces you to load both the redirect and target pages. It's not a big deal, however.--Sean|Black 07:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sean, that was the conclusion we reached, but is there anything official on it that you know of? --Falcorian 08:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Neither Wikipedia:Redirect or m:Help:Redirect say anything, so, er, no :).--Sean|Black 08:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, then we're back to square one! :) --Falcorian 08:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly are you talking about, why is this a problem? Common sense indicates that in most cases we shouldn't link to a redirect. But there's little harm in doing so. Note that many users work with a "Wiki plugin" that automatically fixes links to redirects. Radiant_>|< 10:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'm talking about official polivy. The question came up, and I wanted to know if there was policy on it, that's what. I never implied there was a problem. --Falcorian 18:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One problem encountered with auto-bypassing of redirects, is redirects to sections/parts of an article. Often there's to little material for a topic to have its own article initially, and is merged in, for the time being, into a much larger article, but later spun-off into its own article later. Example: JoBlough is merged/redirected into BandX, as he's just a minor unfamous short-term member of the famous band. Various links point to JoBlough, and are specifically about him, not the band. Another user goes and bypasses all those redirects. Then, JoBlough after leaving BandX, becomes hugely famous in his own right (nobody remembers BandX anymore), and yet another user spins-off the JoBlough into its own article again (undoing the redirect). All the links related to JoBlough *still* point to BandX, even though they're not about BandX. Somebody clicks on a link about JoBlough and they go to BandX, and are confused as to why (more confused than a normal redirect, as there's no redirect message). This is a minor issue if JoBlough and BandX are tightly linked (e.g. if you know of one, you know of both). However, sometimes we merge articles into huge lists of loosely related things (we shouldn't but we do). --Rob 15:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So it seems there is no policy then, guess that answers my question. --Falcorian 18:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect fixing should not be top priority, but bots that scan pages for links to disambiguation pages also have the ability to check redirects, so hey, why not? I know because I've written a bot. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 18:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think (I haven't checked it...) that if you end up wityh a chain of multiple redirects, then the system only does the first redirect and subsequent ones don't take effect. Therefore a link to the article is "cleaner". One reason to link to a redirect is if there is a likehood that that the redirect page will get itself converted into an article at some time. -- SGBailey 22:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Does this article belong here?

The article Tennessee voting example seems to be unique in the sense that it's about an example that was specifically constructed for multiple Wikipedia articles and isn't itself about something that "exists" for encyclopedic description. Should this article be allowed or not? What about in another namespace? -- Dissident (Talk) 13:44, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I once remarked the elaboration of the Tenessee example is a bit quirky for approval voting, see Talk:Approval voting#Elaboration of Tenessee example - the one person replying to that remark (after several weeks, I just saw the reply), didn't even seem to understand my remark. --Francis Schonken 17:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This article seems to be a good illustration of voting systems, and is too large to be merged in to Voting_system. I think it should be renamed to a more generic name, but kept in the main namespace. xaosflux Talk/CVU 17:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. How about effects of different voting systems under similar circumstances? -- Dissident (Talk) 20:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Following process on Templates for deletion

moved from talk page on December 26. Should be archived a week after 15:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC) (ie, in three days) if no more replies are added. —Cryptic

Who are we? Why are we here? I'm not speaking of the entire project or our grand mission, only of the small group of regulars who work within TfD. What are we doing here?

Each one of us will have a different answer to that question; so to guide us in our efforts, we have a written process. Process should not act as a straitjacket, but as a way for us to agree to respect each other's differing views.

If all of us had the same exact opinion on each template, there would be no need for the Wikipedia:Templates for deletion page -- not in its present form, at any rate. We would each individually mow down templates we found insupportable, and log the deletions. No need for debate, no need for discussion. And since we would all be in perfect agreement, we would have strong justification for refusing to hear appeals from other members of WP.

But it is not so. I think {{widget}} should stay and {{blivet}} should go; El Supremo thinks {widget} should go and {blivet} stay. Sometimes, we can discuss these issues and find a meeting ground. Maybe I can accept some changes to {widget}, with which El Supremo can tolerate its continued presence. But what do we do when after a week of wrangling, I still say "Widgets forever!" and El Supremo grunts, "Blivets or death!" -- what then?

Our process specifies that after seven days on TfD, if consensus is not reached, the nominated template is free to go -- the matter is over. We also say that a template should not be renominated for a month, if then. No good purpose is served by chewing old bones.

Recently, the nominated template {{divbox}} came to the end of its seven-day roasting. There was considerable controversy, a more or less even split of opinions (4 delete to 3 keep), and certainly nothing approaching consensus, or even overwhelming majority. Our process says {divbox} goes free, and that's the end of the matter -- at least, the end for this month. Those determined to keep a dog in the fight may do so on the nominated template's Talk page.

Shortly after I removed the offending listing and carefully began to archive all its debate -- not merely the debate within the TfD workflow, but wherever I could find a scrap of it -- a certain user, without discussion of any kind so far as I know, restored {divbox} to the TfD page and simultaneously juggled the entire contents of the page, including our written process guidelines. Am I the only one in this project who finds this a bit questionable?

"It is also possible that no concensus has been reached. Action: Remove template from this page entirely. Copy the entire discussion to template's Talk page. Remove {{tfd}} tag from template's main page. ("Disputed" subsection deprecated.) Absent concensus, the disputed template is kept."
I have to disclose that it was I who wrote the text of this section, as part of a complete cleanup of the page, including explicit workflow process. The cleanup stood unchallenged througout the recent heated debate over {divbox} -- nobody found it offensive or even felt a need to correct my misspelling of "consensus" -- but now that it permits {divbox} release from jail, it must all be destroyed. (!?)
This process, too, is subject to change -- but have we come to the point where we are permitted to change our guidelines for how we work at the same time as we cite our changes to process as justification for what we do?

If we have come to the point where everything is up for grabs, please let me know, and I will start work on Jimbo's home page, VfD, CfD, RfC, RfA, and all the other pages which manage the way we manage the work we do. If I don't need to discuss any of my changes before making them, then why should I? And if someone disagrees with me, why should I not alter existing process to make his disagreement illegal?

If we have not come to that point, and we still cling to shreds of social fabric, then I ask you to take whatever action you think necessary to hold those shreds together, and allow me to return to the work I do best -- making things that work for us all. Thank you. — Xiongtalk 10:54, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

Apr 7??? Something wonky with this page? Dan100 (Talk) 11:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I see, I've revealed the hidden comment to clarify Dan100 (Talk) 11:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User IDs: How many can one person have?

moved from talk page on December 26. Should be archived a week after 15:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC) (ie, in three days) if no more replies are added. —Cryptic

Is it acceptable for someone to log in and edit under more than one user name? Paul Klenk

This is discouraged. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppets Sam Vimes 20:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As for how many a person can have, ask User:Iasson -- as I recall, he's got several hundered. --Carnildo 20:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically, using multiple accounts to vote multiple times or to try to appear as multiple, different people in any context is very strongly discouraged. There might be benign reasons to maintain multiple accounts (for example, to keep separate edit histories for separate wikipedia related tasks), and so long as the owner made no effort to hide single ownership of all such accounts I don't really think anyone would mind. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:47, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
When operating bots, making another username is the norm. See Wikipedia:Bots. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 00:23, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

There are reasons for the slow collapse of Wikipedia's reputation

moved from talk page on December 26. Should be archived a week after 15:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC) (ie, in three days) if no more replies are added. —Cryptic

On what was already my last day of checking my talk page on Wikipedia, I spotted this article in today's New York Times:

Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar

Wyss 20:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All they let me read before taking upon myself the tedious login procedure is

The question of Wikipedia, as of so much of what you find online, is: Can you trust it?

I fully endorse this, I would even replace "so much" with "all" (including NYT). Using Wikipedia teaches you to be alert and discerning about what you read. That's a good thing. dab (ᛏ) 21:21, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go farther and replace "Wikipedia, as of so much of what you find online," with "everything you read". Superm401 | Talk 22:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I hope I'm not being too one-note here, but when reporters contact us about this, we should always mention Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia, which Dan Keshet and I largely wrote and which I believe remains the best explanation of the differences between Wikipedia and a conventional reference work, and how one can approach determining whether a particular Wikipedia article is to be trusted. Because that's what it comes down to: particular articles. Some parts of Wikipedia as eminently reliable, other parts are not, and I doubt that will change in the foreseeable future. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, I don't remember seeing that before. Bookmarked, and I'll be sure to spread it around more widely. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 05:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If I were to look at the academia's view of Wikipedia, they started off looking at it curiosly, then with amazement & wonder at its accomplishments, and, of late, mostly as a source that cannot be trusted. I was just forwarded a mail from a forum of the well-known Academy of Management - interested people can have a look at it here. May be we shd popularise the Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia page a lot. --Gurubrahma 06:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I did my part Tomer<sup style="font-variant: small-caps; color: #129dbc!important;">talk 06:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:UWAYOR This template sums it up, after reading this all research should be more productive and newbies will not get any nasty surprises. Wikipedia is NOT a substitute for the britannica. However, it is a fantastic resource for anyone starting to research a new area. The context of each article is generally fantastic and one can make many connections with topics that are not always obvious from traditional text books or encylopedias. This context far outweighs the errors that exist in the content. David D. (Talk) 05:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This template and/or the researching page should be linked from Wikipedia:About. Kit 06:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've just linked it, right up there in the WP:About intro. Comments and improvements to WP:ABOUT are probably better left on that articles's talk page though. FT2 13:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Update - I've redrafted WP:ABOUT to try and take account of the many criticisms Wikipedia gets and address them up front. Comments on that page's talk page please? Thanks... FT2 16:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's great, except one can't trust a word of its content without cross verification elsewhere and don't bother saying that's true of any encyclopedia because it's not. People pick their authority and then rely on it for basic reference. Plainly, those doing serious, indepth research on any topic wouldn't cite an encyclopedia to begin with. Either way, Wikipedia is not authoritative and therefore not an encyclopedia. It could be, though. Wyss 22:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
yeah yeah -- let's concentrate on making WP a little bit better than it is already instead of speculating how grand it would be if it was only ever edited by geniuses. dab (ᛏ) 23:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You forgot the warning about reading wikipedia on your laptop while driving. Readers should be given no waring at all.--Gbleem 19:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The letter that Gurubrahma received

At User:Gurubrahma/Archive02

It's fascinating to read. The dean's position seems to be that a given student essay with a given set of references would be made worse if Wikipedia was added as a source! --- Charles Stewart 23:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting. To be fair, the Dean is probably right in general, and you wouldn't catch me citing Wiki anywhere near my Uni work. However, some articles (and not necessarily only the FAs) are citeable by virtue of the use of a permalink to a known-good revision. We should make more of that, and of the Special:Cite feature that makes those permalinks easier to come by. Oh, and we should switch on article validation. I wonder does that acknowledge (admin) reverts, so that the good ranking for a suddenly-vandalised article isn't forever lost? -Splashtalk 23:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
so Ken Friedman doesn't like Wikipedia. That's fine, I don't like Ken Friedman either. That said, I wouldn't cite Wikipedia myself. I would use it to get to the primary references, and cite those. That still means that Wikipedia was useful to me for writing my paper. dab (ᛏ) 23:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Rather inconsistent of him. Throughout the last decade, I'm sure there have been plenty of less-researched Web sites and online resources used as references in papers. At one point, use of online resources was highly encouraged. - Keith D. Tyler 23:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For a contrasting view, you might read this Nature editorial, which says that Wikipedia's science coverage is "surprisingly good". If an author chases references from a WP article shows that the paper WP cites is poorly written and makes naive claims, and WP provides good, critical exposition of the issues, I would say that author had a moral obligation to cite WP. --- Charles Stewart 23:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC) Postscript Thanks to User:Jitse Niesen for bringing this to my attention. --- Charles Stewart 23:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The editorial makes good reading indeed. It would have been great had the editorial given the break-up of factual errors, omissions, misleading statements and misinterpretations of concepts per encyclopedia. That would have helped us in assessing how serious the issues such as WP:V problems (factual errors), systemic bias (omissions) and POV problems (misleading statements + misinterpretations) are. Any thoughts? --Gurubrahma 14:23, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In articles that have received a fair number of edits, and don't have unreverted vandalism, I haven't seen much more errors than I've found in textbooks. I mostly edit and read certain types of articles, science and technology, so this may not be representative of Wikipedia as a whole. -- Kjkolb 00:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's an entirely appropriate warning from the professor. I cited Wikipedia in a paper for one fact. I assumed that, as it was not basic knowledge, I should cite where I got it from, but as it also seemed correct to me, I didn't need to verify it with another source, so I just cited Wikipedia. My professor took me to task on it. It turns out that the article was misleadingly incomplete, so the point I made while citing Wikipedia was not correct. That was fairly embarrasing.

I should have realized not to cite Wikipedia in the first place, of course. The point is: even though there's an alluring link in the sidebar, don't cite Wikipedia. Cite the source you use to check Wikipedia's facts instead. Don't disrupt your grades to make a point. rspeer 02:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think this situation is permanent? Wikipedia is far less useful for research if it cannot be cited, and if people are warned not to cite it, by us or by teachers, the public will see it as very untrustworthy and will hesitate to use or edit the site. Actually, I don't know if I would get involved with such a project. -- Kjkolb 03:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling on this is that an encyclopedia, no matter which one, is not something to cite as a primary source because by its very nature the content is a distillation of primary sources. There are, of course, exceptions, particularly when the primary source is not accessible to the person looking for fact X and there is clear attribution in the encyclopedia (secondary source); even in that case, though, I think the primary and secondary source should both be cited as it is not clear what might have been "lost in translation" between the two. By the same token, I'd not recommend citing scientific review articles either unless one is citing an aggregate statement about a bin of information ... go back to the primary source and cite it rather than the distillate. Courtland 03:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Using no secondary sources at all seems extreme and I would expect someone to do that only when writing an article for publication or a book, not just a regular school paper. In fact, I think I've seen books with secondary sources as well. Some primary sources are so hard to find, or no longer exist, that it is unreasonable to expect someone to find a copy to read and cite. You wouldn't be counting referencing primary sources by using footnotes in a secondary source, would you? That seems even worse than citing the secondary source. No secondary sources would probably exclude almost all websites, except newspapers and magazines. Quotes will always be a secondary source, unless you interview the person yourself. -- Kjkolb 04:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, quotes are always secondary ... that's why they tend to mutate over time. I didn't say "don't use secondary sources at all." I said something closer to "justify the use of secondary sources and avoid them like the plague." Courtland 05:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This simply isn't common practice. The seminal computer science textbook Introduction to Algorithms has nearly 3800 recorded citations on Citeseer in published on-line research papers.[23] It is not a primary source for any of the information it contains. Many other secondary sources are regularly cited, although you're right that most citations are of primary sources. Deco 04:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Let me put this into context .. it infuriates me (yes, "infuriates" is the right word) when I read a peer reviewed publication that has review articles or textbooks (or even reviews of reviews of reviews ... yes that happens) listed among the citations where specific points of fact are purported to be supported. It is almost impossible to trace facts back through those sources. In fact, several times I have found that such facts do not exist at all in either the cited source or ANY of the sources cited by that source. It is an unfortunate fact of peer review that reviewers do not verify the particulars of citations (speaking from observation and experience) because "it just doesn't matter" with respect to the main point being reported. If you want to accept that in papers you submit and accept for review (be they for peer review or merely as school papers), so be it. I personally try to hold to a higher and not unrealistic standard of verifiability AND traceability because without the ability to trace, it is impossible to verify. In other words, the farther away we can push the need to suspend our disbelief about a fact's veracity, the better. Courtland 05:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
When you're talking about a peer-reviewed article, no secondary sources might be the way to go. However, if I'm not mistaken, we're talking about everyday, standard school papers. For some classes, we turned in more than one paper a week. It would be very difficult to track down the often obscure sources used by a secondary source in such a timeframe. For one topic I researched, something about wind turbines I think, no research on that particular topic had been done since the original publication and finding an article from an obscure 1800s publication was beyond my abilities. -- Kjkolb 05:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Slow collapse?

I question the premise of a "slow collapse of Wikipedia's reputation". We are a group of amateurs, five years into a project, and have reached the point where Encyclopedia Britannica is now almost everyone's point of comparison. They stand on over a century of work by paid experts.

Appropriately used, Wikipedia is now an excellent resource. Just this month, Nature reported a comparison of 42 science articles from Wikipedia against the corresponding articles in Britannica, with the judges blind as to which were the Wikipedia articles and which the Britannica articles. "The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three." [24] (I imagine that we would do worse in more subjective areas, like history or politics.)

If anything, Wikipedia has, over the last year or two, seen its reputation soar beyond what almost any of us who know it intimately consider its actual merits. You know that saying about looking too closely at how laws or sausages are made?

Yes, we need to work out how to make Wikipedia even better, but when we talk to people about Wikipedia, we have to be careful not to oversell it or paper over its weaknesses. I don't see a "collapse" of reputation. I see a slight deflation of some excessive hype that we'd been getting, and that we've sometimes been a bit too ready to embrace. And it's very bad to start believing your own hype, or to listen too attentively to your flatterers.

That said, it's not terribly healthy either to develop enormous self-doubt every time someone accurately points out that we aren't perfect. The one is the obverse of the other. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder how often the NY Times is inaccurate (or other media for that matter). :) Now that I think about it, the difference between finding info in Wikipedia and media is that in one, bias is discouraged.
People look at me funny when I tell them I don't watch the news. My reponse is "if something important happens, I'll hear about it from others." And that is exactly what happens. If I hear it from one person, I assume it's probably mostly true (but I am careful to not repeat it as fact to others). If several people tell me the same thing, I'll take it on their word that is what happened (as reported, anyway).
Wikipedia needs to have/verify sources when it can, but I would argue this isn't as important as people think it is. Personal experience counts for a lot, and posting info that people just "know" is very valuable. Everyone keeps everyone else in check. Does the info cite a source? No. Is it verfiable? Absolutely. Actually, that is exactly what drew me to this site... the collaboration. It's like the entire web is this one spot, but without the b.s. of aggresive ads and crappy midis playing in the background.
Would I use wikipedia for research? Yes, I do, all the time (mostly personal). Would I quote it? No. But the reason is not because the content is questionable. Any good researcher finds multiple sources on a fact, and only then reports the finding as fact - i.e. I would have another source to quote anyways. --Kat 17:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is a common but dangerous misunderstanding of the verifiability policy. It opens "One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by a reputable publisher."
It is not the facts that must be verifiable, it is the source citations that must be verifiable.
It does no good for a contributor to say "I've personally verified this fact" because not only are our contributors not authorities, we do not even know their real identities. On the other hand, if I say "According to Clarice Stasz[25], the Jack London Credo 'has many marks of London's style.'", that's verifiable. It may or may not be true that Jack London actually wrote the Credo, and it may or may not be true that it shows London's style. However, other editors, even if they disagree, can click on the link and agree that Clarice Stasz really said so. Readers are not left to the judgement of an anonymous editor, but to the judgement of the author of several books on Jack London. They have no way of evaluating "Dpbsmith's" credibility. But it is easy for them to judge Clarice Stasz's. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone with any doubts about my real identity, or Cberlet's, or Jimbo's, or Mindspillage's, is pretty darn skeptical. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, I am slowly losing faith in wikipedia, though I still use it very often with quite some grains of salt. I believe it is an old and losing point to claim that we need the editing of anonymous users. If anyone has worthy editing to do, they should and probably do feel in their conscience their responsibility to make those changes, even if they must register themselves and create a user name. This is no more difficult than typing in the squiggly writing some websites have on registration pages, so as to deter spammers and abusers. I believe, though I don't doubt there are facts available on this point, that such minor "inconveniences" do deter abusers. This is a necessary step, in my opinion. Consider the donation page of wikipedia, only registered users can edit that page. Looks to me like someone is using precisely this principle to deter abusers. Moreover, if scholars are to be involved, and I believe it would be in the best interest of everyone, then there is surely a possibility to use their expertise and make some stamp of approval, or a seal that limits editing (though I do not prefer such limits and I doubt many users would like this option), or some verifiability that makes articles trustworthy. Considering the sheer numbers of potential users, I doubt the current system of reviewing every edit for abuse is sustainable, especially as more users make edits. BeyondBeyond 23:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed policy change on Featured Article Candicate reasoning

I am proposing a change to FAC reasoning, eliminating the rule that suggestions that an article should never be frontpaged be ignored. Please come discuss it at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candicates/never_proposal --Improv 19:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed policy regarding inactive administrators

Please see Wikipedia:Inactive administrators and indicate whether you support this proposal on the talk page. Thank you. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia English

This will probably go over like a lead balloon, but it's a great idea -- in theory, at least -- so I'm throwing it out there as a suggestion. What if we had a "Wikipedia English", which would be a compromise between British/American spellings; for example, practise as a verb and practice as a noun (which is logical to avoid confusion), organize but analyse (which is actually what Oxford recommends), etc... The biggest sticking point would probably be the -our/-or endings, but it might work and would end a lot of petty disputes. Then again, it might end up being like that joke that was circulating about a new "European English" with "simplified" spellings... Opinions? Jibbajabba 04:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Laik þis? Cəd bē much ēziər to rēd. If yū happən not tū bē literət in Ingliş. -- Sometimes I can't help myself Jmabel | Talk 08:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the idea - after all, we've already set the punctuation rules for Wikipedia English in the Manual of Style, and they seem to work pretty well. I think a reasonable standard for words is that if one has a Wikipedia article and the other doesn't, choose the one with the article. That way we can build on previous decisions. So Wikipedia English says color, not colour, and yoghurt, not yogurt. And this rule is already applied in other ways, like for specialized terms within WikiProjects. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I tried purging use of "tabled" a while back; I really should get back to it. It's something that can always be phrased differently, outside direct quotes, and can cause confusion even when the lingustic context is clear - I always forget which one is the British use! There really isn't anything to be gained by using it, I feel. Shimgray | talk | 19:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I strongly oppose this proposal because I feel it will lead to linguistic favouritism. The existing policy works. The reason people are not responding here is, I suspect, an indication that almost nobody else is interested. --Improv 04:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I also oppose this ridiculous proposal. That would result in even more of a mess than we have now. I believe PizzaMargherita's proposed solution of special dialect-switching markup (which has been repeatedly debated on the MoS talk page) is the better solution.
      • I oppose it, mainly because I don't think we need to - I strongly suspect my grandchildren will be confused by the idea of American and British English as visibly different concepts. Give it time... ;-) Shimgray | talk | 19:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the proposal would help. However, maybe we should adopt the policy on language my firm has adopted. Namely: "We recommend that British English be used..." (only comment on this if you've spotted the error!) jguk 20:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

GOD OF WAR

THE GOD OF WAR IS DISALLUSIONED TO SEE YOUR CULUTURE FAIL AND FALTER TO CHOOSE A LANGUAGE - NO MATTER - YE ENIMIES SHALL SOON RIDE FORTH AND CONQUER YOUR PITIABLE LANDS--God_of War 08:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I gather from your user page and such that you're a wee bit on the anti-American side. Well, that and the fact that your message was so incoherent and off topic that I'm tempted to erase it, except someone else might find it humorous. :) Jibbajabba 08:34, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Question

I am korean user. I use kowiki more. In korea, fair-use idea is not exist. so, I think...why don't use we non-commercial image in kowiki?

question! kowiki user can't use non-commercial image? it is worldwide wiki project rule? korean can make a policy for allowing non-commercial image? in kowiki only?? -- WonYong 11:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure, but I think the laws of the United States apply to all versions of Wikipedia because it is hosted in Florida. Jibbajabba 18:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's up to every individual wikipedia, but I think the non-com rule might apply to all of them. For an example of how different pediae have different rules, the Japanese wikipedia doesn't allow fair use, as Japan's laws are stricter than America's, and they want to conform both to Japanese and American law. --Golbez 18:35, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In connection with the discussion here [26], I'm impelled to point out that too many users are willing to defend cut-and-pasted text with only cosmetic changes as neither constituting copyright violations nor being plagiarism. A large part of the problem, I suspect, comes from the copyright violation policy page, which is intended to address only a particular, unmistakable sort of violation, but is framed in a way which suggests Wikipedia is not concerned with less overt violations. It should be clear in Wikipedia policy that simply lifting text from another source (or sources) and making cosmetic changes is generally unacceptable Monicasdude 15:36, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV II

Does anyone know where Jimbo originally posted this? It seems to have been added to Wikipedia:NPOV when the policy was moved to here from meta. Bensaccount 18:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A general purpose encyclopedia is a collection of synthesized knowledge presented from a neutral point of view. To whatever extent possible, encyclopedic writing should steer clear of taking any particular stance other than the stance of the neutral point of view.

The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree. Of course, 100% agreement is not possible; there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view. We can only seek a type of writing that is agreeable to essentially rational people who may differ on particular points.

Some examples may help to drive home the point I am trying to make:

1. An encyclopedic article should not argue that corporations are criminals, even if the author believes it to be so. It should instead present the fact that some people believe it, and what their reasons are, and then as well it should present what the other side says.

2. An encyclopedia article should not argue that laissez-faire capitalism is the best social system. [...] It should instead present the arguments of the advocates of that point of view, and the arguments of the people who disagree with that point of view.

Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so. If this strikes you as somehow subjectivist or collectivist or imperialist, then ask me about it, because I think that you are just mistaken. What people believe is a matter of objective fact, and we can present that quite easily from the neutral point of view.

--Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia founder

Have you asked him?  :) User:Zoe|(talk) 19:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Uncategorized

What is the general opinion in using Template:Uncategorized to show articles without a category? My own opinion is that a template is a bad idea as it makes the article look messy, and many articles already have too many templates, but that a category for articles that need to be properly categorised is a good idea, as then people who want to categorise articles can sift through that category.

The reason I ask is that I think it would be a good idea to add the category Category:Category needed to articles that are reasonably big (not all articles, as there are too many at the moment) using a bot or semi-bot like my User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. thanks Martin 20:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ah, I mistakenly believed that page had stopped being updated altogether, still, it would be great if it was updates more often. Martin 00:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be useful if a modification could be added that would allow the inclusion of article that only have stub-related categories along with a filter that would allow those to be excluded to obtain a "no categories at all" listing. (this follows from my comment below). User:Ceyockey 02:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the guideline that states "every article should have a category". I use this template occasionally when I can't fathom what category something should be in and it lacks a category. However, I do think that the template could go away without a lot of impact considering the existence of Special:Uncategorized pages. Note that about 50% of the pages I find without categories altogether and 50% only have a stub-template-associated-category; in the latter case a "normal" category is needed as well (which is a generally agreed guideline within the Stub-sorting community) but those pages will not appear on the Special:Uncategorized pages. Also, I think that the main question was about "under categorized pages" rather than "uncategorized" ones. That's another matter altogether. User:Ceyockey 20:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Templates for Writing Articles

I think it would be quite productive if there was an effort to make templates for topics of various types. Obviously, this exists to some degree, in that *most* topics of shared subject matter *usually* have the same headings. However, not only am I suggesting an actual implementation of this process via templates, I'd further argue that the templates could/should include consistent placement of concepts, ideas, links, etc. Groups of stubs/categories could even be templated so that each shares set words except for certain parameters: i.e. [*name* *option:aka* (born *bname* on *date*) is a...] could be the start of a template for a living person.

With the correct amount of set text, this could not only be an extremely useful preventative measure against vandalism et al, but also an excellent way of keeping articles consistent.

Forgive me if this is the wrong section to suggest this, or if this has already been suggested. --mwazzap 21:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these already exist as part of WikiProject efforts. For instance, see Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states and Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography as two examples where this has been attempted. User:Ceyockey 03:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

re-proposing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)

This has been mentioned on this page and wikipedia:current surveys before. In the mean while several suggestions were incorporated, and others answered at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (numbers and dates).

So, proposing the updated Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates), to be accepted as guideline in a week or so - unless there are still fundamental alterations required.

Note that this guideline proposal absorbs wikipedia:naming conventions (years in titles) (which would become a redirect). Also this is about the last wikipedia:naming conventions topic that doesn't have a "naming conventions" guideline yet, separate from the more general MoS, which doesn't discuss many "page naming" specifics. --Francis Schonken 21:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removing warnings from user talk pages = vandalism.

Is this policy? If yes, is it codified anyplace other than {{vblock}}? Garfield226 05:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

Just a few weeks ago, I seem to remember that clicking on a red link would take me to a page with a blank white text box, and a freindly message saying something like "There is currently no article called [name] but you can start writing this article now", and would allow me to create the article. Now I'm taken to a page that bluntly says "Article not found" (I actually thought it was a 404 at first) and insists that I create an account. Why?

I'm sorry, but this goes against everything Wikipedia supposedly stands for. Why shouldn't I be able to create an article? I always used to, what's changed since then?

I don't mean to come across as rude, but I have no idea where this came from, and it just seems so blatantly against what this site usually does that I had to ask about it. --82.7.125.142 15:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You will also note that the blurb at the top of every page now says:
From Wikipedia, the free encylcopedia
it used to read:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
The change happened a few weeks ago, but I saw no news about it. Maybe I'm just out of the loop --BostonMA 15:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, that change is just some sysops edit warring over the site notice. The appropriate place is MediaWiki:Tagline. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 16:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is new, put in place to help reduce the high rate of vandalism. Anyone can still edit, just not necessarily immediately. Anons can still create new articles, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-05/Page creation restrictions and Wikipedia:Articles for creation. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Anons can, just not directly. Wikipedia:Articles for creation, if they do not wish to create an account. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikipedia is a project to build a free encyclopedia. "Anyone can edit" is not part of what Wikipedia "stands for," it is a method that Wikipedia uses to achieve that goal. It can be adjusted and modified as necessary in pursuit of that goal. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well said, in my opinion, Dpbsmith. User:Ceyockey 23:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand about the Seigenthaler controversy, but someone edited that page and added the false information, they didn't create a new article. Hopefully now we'll see a drop in joke articles, although registering an account actually increases anonymity, since it hides your IP address. Why not just IP ban anons that vandalise like that? --82.7.125.142 19:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, they created with the junk in it. I still agee with you that we should lift the page creation restriction, however.--Sean|Black 23:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

anyone can make an account, even a throwaway account, and then create articles. So yes, anyone can still edit (editing implies something was there before), and even, anyone can still create articles [presuming they have an internet connection, and can figure out how to click on links]. Jimbo's line of argument was that if RC patrollers are less busy with throwing out junk-articles, they will be more likely to detect vandalism to existing articles, too. dab (ᛏ) 23:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Non-admins closing delete AfDs?

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anathemacious. Renata3, a well-meaning user closed this AfD as Delete and put it up for a speedy. My latest perusal indicates that non-admins can only close AfDs that do not result in delete (such as keep or merge). Is this still true, or is putting up a delete consensus AfD to CSD the latest way for a non-admin to close a delete AfD? --Deathphoenix 16:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I congratulate Renata3 on finding a clever way to (technically) allow a non-admin to close consensus-delete AfDs. However, it's really no more work for an admin to just close it himself, since any admin who actually enacts the deletion has to go back and verify the AfD result anyway. Encourage Renata3 to participate in non-delete closes, and to pursue adminship at some point. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Closing obvious no consensus AFD discussions almost kept me from passing my recent RFA. Closing deletes, no matter how obvious, will come back to bite this user if he/she opts to pursue adminship in the future. Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 17:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I used to close no consensus VfDs when I was a non-admin, but then again, that was before they implemented that rule (and when the backlog of unclosed discussions was huge). --Deathphoenix 18:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Any admin acting on such a closure has to do all the legwork themselves anyway, since the person pressing the delete button is the one taking that responsibility. It's fairly well established that admins are the ones to close anything other than clear-cut keep/merge/redirect/transwiki/similar debates because they have received approval from the community that their judgement in such situations is generally pretty good. Since there is no benefit to the system at large by the use of speedy in these circumstances and since speedy has never been approved for use in these circumstances and given the meaning in part of an RfA, I'm still of the opinion that non-admins should steer clear of those things that Wikipedia:Deletion process tells them to steer clear of. -Splashtalk 18:29, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sept 11 Wikipedia - appropriate use of name?

While looking for something completely unrelated I ran across this → http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. The text on this page states "This wiki was started in 2001 in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. The aim was to allow a more detailed report of the event than was allowed in Wikipedia." This is all fine and good, quite OK, but the site uses the Wikipedia name both in its URL and as part of the site itself (the logo and page titles, for instance). It is "powered by MediaWiki" and this page on meta suggests that the project is completely separate from Wikipedia, not even having the status of a sister project (such as Wiktionary, for instance). I do support people having a Sept. 11 memorial site that picks up where Wikipedia needs to leave off, but considering the high profile that Wikipedia has come to have, is it time to revisit the notion of removing the Wikipedia logo/name from this non-affiliated site, as was suggested in the meta-discussion thread? Thanks for commenting on this. User:Ceyockey 00:11, 30 December 2005 (UTC) (talk to me)

  • Possibly, but you really should discuss this on Meta instead, as it has no bearing on the English Wikipedia. Radiant_>|< 00:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I briefly beg to differ .. it has impact on English Wikipedia in that this is essentially synonymous with "Wikipedia" in the media. User:Ceyockey 05:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Prophet redux

We had a discussion here several months ago, in which the question of whether or not the word "prophet" could be used to describe Muhammad. One editor (Babajobu was removing all instances of "prophet" in articles relating to Muhammad; I was arguing that an uncapitalized "prophet" was simply descriptive of his role and implied no acceptance of Muhammad as a divinely inspired prophet. As I recall -- and this is not archived, unfortunately -- the consensus was that the use of "prophet" was OK.

The controversy has arisen in another form. One editor, Pepsidrinka looked at the Wikipedia Manual of Style and discovered a rule saying that it was acceptable to refer to Muhammad as "Prophet Muhammad" or "the Prophet". He feels that this should be the new standard in any Islam-related articles.

I have been extremely active in editing Islam-related articles. However, I am not a Muslim. I would feel extremely uncomfortable typing "Prophet Muhammad". He is not my prophet and I do not honor him as such. I try very hard to be neutral, but I do not want to adopt language that, to me, sounds Muslim. I would like to hear what other, non-involved, Wikipedians think about this matter. If the consensus is against capitalization, then I'd like to know how to change the Manual of Style so that this situation does not arise again. Zora 00:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I took a look at the manual of style. The "the Prophet" distinction seems pretty clear, but how did he derive "the Prophet Muhammad"? We can indirectly refer to Muhammad using "the Prophet," but is the capitalization necessary (or desirable) when Muhammad is explicitly stated? (I realize this is sidestepping the issue). — Ambush Commander(Talk) 00:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The Manual of Style permits this, and only uses it as an example in any case; it does not require it. This is a special case of the more general debate over use of honorifics. Current policy is at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Honorific_prefixes, while the proposed interim policy is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)/Proposed interim policy for Honorific prefixes. Deco 00:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Quick definition of prophet would be; A prophet is a person who is believed to communicate with God, or with a deity. Since Muhammad is believed to have been a messenger of God, we can safely say prophet but not Prophet, IMO. «LordViD» 00:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely you should use capitalized prophet Prophet because in this place it is referring to one specific person not to just a prophet. --Snakes 07:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently an ongoing discussion of this at Talk:Muhammad as well. Pepsidrinka 07:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Newsworthy = Encyclopedic?

Question- are newsworthy people also encyclopediaworthy? Someone that contributed to advancement of mankind such as Enrico Fermi or Thomas Edison etc. are encyclopedia material. People who are newsworthy are people who are insignificant to the masses such as a convicted killer or a man executed at an advanced age. These articles are expediting the dwindling reputation of this cite. Perhaps moving insignificant biographies off this cite to another cite or brown filing them.... chaz171

Persistent spelling errors also affect our reputation. ;-0 —Wahoofive (talk) 05:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Use different software for the mediation of wiki policy, administration, government, etc.

Avoid monoculture. Use a different peice of software to handle all the discussion of meta-wikipedia affairs. Perhaps something that is not (gasp) a wiki, but something designed for goverment of a wiki. Let us not get caught up in a cycle of blind faith. Let's build some software. Kurt Gödel says what? Let's take a look at this thing from the outside. Lilhinx 09:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't think your proposal is concrete enough to go any further. Why would we want to use a different piece of software for meta? What kind of software are you talking about? Why would it be more suited? --Improv 09:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to remove the dictum prohibiting the linking of individual years from Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

The issue of whether to wiki-link individual years (and year-related items, e.g. "18th century", "1980s," etc) has recently come to a head.

On the one hand, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) specifically prohibits linking individual years except in cases of "relevance."

On the other hand, it is nonetheless an enormously common practice which seems to have widespread support among editors.

Bobblewik (talk · contribs) has mass de-linked wikilinked years in literally thousands of articles over the past week or so [27], to the point where he has been blocked by an admin for running an unauthorized bot. [28]

Proponents of this effort claim that these efforts have consensus support. However, it seems plausible that "consensus support" in this case means consensus among the people who regularly read Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and related pages, which may or may not overlap significantly with the number of people who would otherwise have an opinion on this topic.

Thus I bring the question here, where it might be seen with more eyes.

I see no harm whatsoever in wikilinking individual years (and year-related items), regardless of their specific relevance to the article at hand. Quite the contrary, I feel that such links provide great exploratory benefit for those (like myself) who routinely click on them. I find such links edifying and educational, which seems to be a reasonable goal for an encyclopedia. Since the removal of such linking is being justified by a specific dictum in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) which prohibits such linking, I hereby propose that this prohibition be removed.

All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 13:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hear hear. About time someone dealt with this (now, if only someone could mass rollback Bobblewik's contributions for the last month). Ambi 13:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think everyone agrees that linking dates when relevant or for date preference reasons is absolutely fine. So the issue is linking all dates. I believe that this is bad for a few reasons
  1. Excessive amounts of blue links make the text more difficult to read.
  2. The links are misleading. I know experienced editors don't think they are misleading, but people new to wikipedia often do, I know I did when I was new, and I have seen new users (normally IPs) remove date links and leave an edit summary along the lines of "Links were to wrong page" or similar.
  3. Excessive links to largely irrelevent pages dilutes the overall quality of links in general, making it difficult to know when a link is to a directly relevant article
Thanks. (p.s. Bobblewiki was not using a bot) Martin 13:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I quite agree with Martin's comments. The year links are mostly irrelevant. If you want to explore Wikipedia, use the Random article link in the navigation box -- that allows you to wander through articles with about the same degree of relevance from one to the next as the year links. older≠wiser 14:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&oldid=33251829"