Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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ornithology note

The five golden rings listed in the 12 Days of Christmas carol are not jewelry. They are ring-necked pheasants, phasianus colchicus-- which is why tghey are included in a list of birds. Please get this cleared up beforre the next carolling sseaason.

A source for this pheasant would be useful to see; certainly 99.99% (plus) of people understand it to refer to jewelery. --Vamp:Willow 23:29, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I decided to look around and see what I could find on the 'net:

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is what most people take it to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with imagery of gifts and dancing and music. Some misinterpretations have crept into the English version over the years, though. For example, the fourth day's gift is four "colly birds," not four "calling birds." (The word "colly" literally means "black as coal," and thus "colly birds" would be blackbirds.) The "five golden rings" refers not to five pieces of jewelry, but to five ring-necked birds (such as pheasants). When these errors are corrected, the pattern of the first seven gifts' all being types of birds is re-established.[1] —Mike 02:05, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Defining "political party" on lists of such

Should every List of political parties in X article begin with a definition of "political party"? User:Wilfried Derksen seems to think so, and has added the following section to the top of many such lists (e.g. Norway, Spain, and Mexico):

A political party is a political organization subscribing to a certain ideology or formed around very special issues with the aim to participate in power, usually by participating in elections.

See political party for a more comprehensive discussion.

I find this to be an unnecessary repetition of information, and also somewhat disorienting (I was confused when I first saw one of these articles - I thought I accindently arrived at the political party article instead of the list I was looking for). I believe that a link to political party in the title would suffice (as is currently in Thailand).

What do other people think? -- uriber 18:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think it's unnecessary: the term is in common enough use that a link should suffice. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:31, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Uriber, for putting this question at this page. Yes, I think it is useful to start a article on political parties in a country with a short definition of a party in general. It can help users and I do not consider it a unnecessary repetition of information. Why it is disorienting I do not know, since the title of the article is clear.

Gangulf 19:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel, I don't think it is necessary. But if it remains there, then I don't think that "political party" should be bolded. That tends to imply, to me at least, that this is the "political party" article. That's probably part of the reason that it is "disorienting" Paul August ☎ 22:16, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel as well; it's needless repetition. Jayjg | (Talk) 03:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think if there was only one list, say List of political parties, than adding the definition would be a good idea, since it will greatly reduce amount of arguing on adding list items. But when there are many lists this is redundant. ilya 11:06, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Grid and Electronic Economies of Scale

I read the following on wikitech: Why is the site so slow?

Re: More servers, separate pipes [info]keturner 2005-01-14 00:11 (link) Yes, but LJ is a profit-making company and can afford hardware :) While the WMF continues to make money only from donations, we're unlikely to ever have enough money to run the site properly. It's probably time to start looking at grants/hardware donations ASAP - I keep hearing about these but nothing seems to materialise.

I was wondering if Wiki's could/would be able to utilize Grid software and resources to defray the costs and improve the performance during peak demand. Also with technology and bandwidth prices continuing to drop as speeds increase; won't that mean in a few years it will cost less to do more, making Wikipedia perform reliably with its current budget sooner rather than later. Or is it safe to assume that Wikipedia will continue to expand/experiment as it has; pushing its capabilities as they improve for the near term?

BTW I tried to put the quote in a box by starting it with a space, it didn't wrap... so I bolded instead. - RoyBoy [∞] 07:13, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fixed it for you. Good question BTW ;-) --Phil | Talk 09:08, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, Wikipedia will always require lots of money for hardware. Text is easy, but we have multi-megabyte pictures, and some day we will probably have video. Perhaps we should consider banner advertising. Something tasteful like Google AdSense at the very bottom below the GNU licence link. See https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats for an example. pstudier 02:49, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)

Interesting idea, makes me think that perhaps since Google and Wiki share a bit in common from a philosophical POV; if there has been any contact or consideration of partnering with Google to make use of their server capacity. Although of course there is no such thing as a free lunch; but ads might be a necessary evil. - RoyBoy [∞] 17:14, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

We are currently in negotiation with Google about using some of their servers to host squid cached requests. This should be able to divert a great deal of anonymous reads from the Wikimedia servers. At first Google wanted us to host Google Ads, but Jimmy and the other board member have told them that this is not an option since it would fork the project. --mav 23:12, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Edit war over www.wikipedia.org

The fact that www.wikipedia.org no longer redirects to en.wikipedia.org was mentioned above, but nobody pointed out that everyone can now edit it at m:www.wikipedia.org portal. It's a very visible page and so I hope it will be carefully checked and reviewed. The debate over what should be there has degenerated into a rather silly argument/edit war between Eloquence and Node ue. Now Eloquence says he's giving up for a week. I don't really trust Node's graphic design skills, so I'm hoping a few other people will get involved. Any takers? -- Tim Starling 07:38, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, I can't believe no one is working on this. That page gets SOOO much traffic... I threw something together - it sucks - it's just templates taken from the main page. English is the lingua franca nowadays, and if someone speaks another language their eyes are going to be drawn towards that text. Probably, we should have, written out in that language, every language we have...but anyway, wikipedia.org is really ugly right now. If ten people take a stab at this page it will be looking good. m:Www.wikipedia.org_portal/test --Alterego 19:31, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Another proposal for www.wikipedia.org portal. Noisy | Talk 23:00, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Tsunami Aid: A C

I was wondering if anyone else is watching the Tsunami Aid concert and would contribute to the article since we've been providing so much coverage of the tsunami. ;) --Saint-Paddy 02:31, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Country names in titles

There's a discussion on standardization of country names in titles (at least for categories) on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion which may be of interest. -- Beland 02:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Help!

Help! This is the Georgia guy, presenting very bad news:

Tonight, while I edit Wikipedia, while I am in Wikipedia, without doing anything, something causes me to log out. Can anyone do whatever is available to keep this from happening?? Georgia guy 02:37, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This has happened to me a few times. It doesn't seem to happen that frequently, no more than once a month on average. When it happens I just log back in, no big deal. Thue | talk 12:04, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you are finding yourself totally unable to stay logged in, here are some things you might try (in general, on any site):

Clear your cache (delete your Temporary Internet Files if you have Internet Explorer)—a really full cache can cause some odd effects.
Delete your Wikipedia cookie. (So you can start fresh with a new one.)
Make sure the date on your system isn't totally incorrect. (My Wikipedia cookie does seem to have an expiration date. If my computer thought it was 2040, that might be problematic.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 01:22, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Back

Hey guys, I'm back, in case you haven't noticed. I've recently been doing just 'grunt work' -- that is reverting vandalism and stuff, because I found a life now (lol). I see wikipedia has changed in a few months. Cool. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:31, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

How could a non-registered user object?

Why people hurt by Wikipedia content, cannot object without registration? I know there is a Content disclaimer but still some articles I found recently spread on Internet contain insulting facts of the kind "home-made science". The particular item I found in a foreign-language forum is http://www.fact-index.com/l/li/list_of_country_name_etymologies.html Unfortunatelly, ethimology is very risky to home-made suggestions and here is one more question from me: who checks the facts on Wikipedia? As you can see from the link above the quotators /and what a name they got!/ do not give links to the Content Disclaimer! %/

All articles have talk pages, where questions or comments can be asked. You will need to go to the actual article at the Wikipedia: List of country name etymologies. Any page can also be edited by non-logged in users, although there are many benefits to registering. Facts can be—and are—checked by all editors. Again, the talk page of the article is the logical place to question statements in the article. User:Anárion/sig 10:20, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank You. Just to clear - shouldn't Wikipedia quotators mention the Content disclaimer too?

We have very limited control over what someone who reuses our content does or does not say, as long as they follow GFDL. Your issue should be with them, not with Wikipedia, just like if a site quotes a politician out of context, your issue is with the site, not the politician. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:26, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I agree. Unfortunatelly, could not find any feedback link on "fact"-index.com and wondered if they are a Wikipedia "child" - see - they are not. So my issue is with them but they'll not know. :-/

Copyright: Company claims that a picture is violating their licence rights

The image commons:Image:Barlach Magdeburger Ehrenmal.jpg shows a sculpture by Barlach from 1929. The picture was taken by me, after purchasing a photo permit at the Cathedral of Magdeburg where the sculpture is on public display. An anonymous user on the commons listed the image for deletion, claiming that the "Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Company claims that this picture is violating their licence rights on Barlach's works". (see also: commons:Commons:Deletion requests). The company's homepage is here (english), stating that All kinds of use and exploitation are strictly subject to our permission and licence charge and are to be marked with © Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Ratzeburg.. I am not that familiar with copyright law, but I thought that a photo of a copyrighted object can be taken and published legally. Otherwise pretty much all modern art, architecture, or objects would be copyrighted. I am also not sure about the ownership of the sculpture, i.e. if it belongs to the company. I am also not sure how these requests are based on german law, or if german law applies here at all. Any comments are very welcome -- Chris 73 Talk 01:30, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

What are the terms of your photo permit? —Mike 04:14, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

I don't remember. I paid 2 euro for a small slip of paper, which I have thrown out long ago. This was advertised at the entrance of the church, and also priced so that tourists can take pics. -- Chris 73 Talk 05:07, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

Whether German copyright law applies, I do not know, but I suspect that this may well be the case, given that the image was (a) taken in Germany, (b) the creator of the sculpture was a German, and (c) the photographer, too. (?) If the sculpture had been standing outside, there'd be no question at all: §59 of the German Urheberrecht explicitly allows taking pictures from public squares and roads and publishing these images. However, since the sculpture is inside the cathedral, this doesn't apply. It appears that with your photo permit you just got a license to take the picture for personal use, but did not get a license for general public redistribution of the picture—such redistribution apparently is only allowed for non-profit use and maybe for use (as a quote or illustrative example) for the purposes of criticism or research §51(1). See also this pretty good discussion (in German). For better info, I'd try asking on this mailing list of German lawyers, they have many discussions regarding copyright concerning photographs in their archives. (By the way, Ernst Barlach, the creator of the sculpture, died on Oct 24, 1938. Hence on January 1, 2009, the copyright on his works expires §64, and from then on, one can indeed use this photo for any purpose. The photo itself is a Lichtbildwerk (cf. Template_talk:PD-Germany) and copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the photographer, too.) Final note: the same problem may also exist for de:Bild:Güstrow Barlachs-Mutter-Erde.jpg: this garden is not a public square or road but private property... :-( Lupo 09:34, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a million for the excellent links and infos! I will try to contact the Church again to see if the permit included commercial use, and also who owns the Barlach sculpture. If not, thn we'll have to move the pics from the commons to Wikipedia, where I think the use may be feasible again, as non-commercial or fair use. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:14, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

As a follow-up comment, I don't know the details of German copyright law, but from what I can tell, UK copyright law doesn't cover sculptures, whilst recent US copyright law cover's both sculptures and buildings, with exceptions for what can be seen from public spaces. -- Solipsist 19:59, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Read the Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ - James and I wrote it to avoid these questions. In the US: Statues can be copyrighted, and pictures of them are derivative works (pictures of 2D works with "slavish efforts" made to ensure accuracy are copies and *not* derivative works). In this case, if the statue is not in the public domain, a picture of it would be a derivative works and therefore could not be distributed without consent of the copyright holder. →Raul654 21:03, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

I have reached the secretary of the church in magdeburg by phone, and she thinks the sculpture is the property of the church. The person in charge who knows more about it, however, is right now on holiday and will be back on February 2nd. I will call again at that time. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:32, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately the copyright isn't usually transfered with the ownership of item, so that may not help. I'm not able to follow the German texts that User:Lupo helpfully linked. Is it clear that 3D objects are covered by German copyright law? -- Solipsist 20:43, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely, and 100% clear: §2(1), item #4. Lupo 14:00, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

An anecdote

Only loosely related to the above, but in order to show that also "outdoor" photographs of "buildings" can be copyright-infringing in (some) droit d'auteur countries.

The case is famous, it concerns the EU parliament building in Brussels: presently the architect of the building, advocating "droit d'auteur", prohibits any use of images of that building (photographs, logos based on it,...), e.g. by the EU administration on their letterheads.

This led to court proceedings, which until now have been won by the architect. And EU officials complaining themselves for having been insufficiently cauteous at time when they drew up the contract with the architect.

Nobody that hasn't been there really knows what the building looks like. Television (in Belgium at least), resorts to an areal photograph of a large part of Brussels, where the building is more or less visible in a corner. Sometimes interviews with EU politicians are taken so close to the mirror-glass facades of the building, that it could appear as any other modern building.

For explanation of "droit d'auteur", see e.g. Intellectual rights and Moral rights.

--Francis Schonken 14:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Formal Greeting

Hello My name is Zoe Batham and I joined the Smalltalk community a few years back with the Open University. I have been learning the basics and interacting on entertainment boards. I still have much to learn as I am more familiar with the grammer and sytnax of C++.

This comes at Wikipedia:New user log. utcursch 12:19, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Mediation committee

The MC is currently without a chair. User:Jwrosenzweig offered to step into the breach. See also the WikiEN-l mailing list and in particular Wikipedia:Mediation Committee#Candidate_for_being_chair.

Please comment. (Original posted by SweetLittleFluffyThing 12:26, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC), refactored to make it clear that JWR was not trying to power grab !:) by me Pcb21| Pete 16:13, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In addition to that, it seems like a good idea to get a few of the current candidates to beef up the Committees numbers. If you have any objections to me doing that over the next day or two please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Mediation Committee. Pcb21| Pete 16:13, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia mentioned in article of large-circulation magazine

Hi. I'm pleased to divulge that Wikipedia has (finally) been the object of a story in Veja, the largest and most prestigious weekly magazine in Brazil (over 1 million subscribers) and one of the 5 largest in the world in terms of numbers of copies printed (every week). Not everything was great though. We took heavy criticism: the reporter inserted a wrong information in our article on the Brazilian president, to test how fast the mistake would be corrected by the community. It wasn't! The reporter himself changed it back to the original version two days later (check the page history  edit by anon user, IP address 200.196.241.1 on the 17th and the 19th of this month). That led the story to question the credibility of our encyclopedia. If people would be interested, I can provide a full translation into English (I would do it myself) and post it on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure as to where I could post it (maybe I could create a subpage in my user page, or maybe I could do it in the Sandbox, since it's temporary anyways?). I am however considering a letter of criticism to the magazine, since I found the story to have been somewhat superficial, given the reporter's ignorance of the particularities of our community. Personally, I think the story could have been much better if they had contacted a user (maybe even a Brazilian one) to assist them. They didn't even care to take a statement from Jimbo! I hope this is of some interest. Regards, Redux 17:45, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. For the benefit of those of us who read Portuguese, is the article on line anywhere? Also, if you do write them back, you might mention Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia, which I believe is our best discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia as a research tool. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:32, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

The article is online at the magazine's website, but they restrict the contents to subscribers. Since I am one, I do have access to the electronic version of the story. If you'd like to read it, as an option, I could copy and paste it in your talk page. From there, you can copy it to some other file you prefer or just read it and delete it. I would need your ok on this before though, since it would be a relatively long text being "crammed" in your talk page. Or, if there's a broader interest, I could post the original Portuguese version together with my translation (remembering this would, of course, be a temporary post, subject to posterior deletion). Regards, Redux 01:47, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You could also cite it on Wikipedia:Press coverage (although without a link due to the subscription only limit). The 2004 archive was sorted by language, so maybe you can start a portugese section for this years page. -- Chris 73 Talk 01:57, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Uups, already is listed. "Unsigned article (January 23, 2005) "Written by whoever wants to". Revista VEJA. [01], [23], 2005." Sorry. -- Chris 73 Talk 01:58, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Πώς μπορώ να ξεκινήσω νέο άρθρο; / How can I begin a new article?

Δε βρίσκω το λίνκ στη κεντρική σελίδα. Στις άλλες γλώσσες, όπως στην Αγγλική, το λίνκ για δημιουργία νέου άρθρου είναι στην κεντρική σελίδα. Στην Ελληνική Βικιπαιδεία δε το βρίσκω πουθενά.

Πως μπορώ να ξεκινήσω νέο άρθρο;

Δεν θα έπρεπε να είναι τόσο δύσκολο.

Babelfish-assisted translation of above anonymous comment:

How I can begin a new article? I do not find a link on the main page. In the other languages, as in English, a link for creation of a new article is on the main page. In the Greek Wikipedia, I can't find it anywhere. So how can I begin a new article? It it unexpectedly difficult.

You may want to look at Wikipedia:Tutorial and Wikipedia:Your first article for information on how to create new articles. Mgm|^(talk) 13:00, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

In the English version of Wikipedia if you type a non-existent article name into the search engine and click "go" instead of "search" it tells you the article doesn't exist and offers you the option of starting an article with that name. This feature might also appear in the Greek Wikipedia. MK2 20:34, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- A quick test seems to indicate the Greek Wikipedia doesn't have this feature. But if I'm understanding the translation correctly, it appears the search feature is asking people for a fee. MK2 20:44, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The easiest and most encouraged way to create a new article on any wiki is to create a link to it in one or more existing articles, and then follow that link. This helps avoid the creation of "orphan" pages, which nothing else links to, and which can easily be forgotten and overlooked. If you really really can't think of anything that should link to the new article, then add one at the "sandbox" (el:Wikipedia:Αμμοδοχείο), or your "user page" (sorry, I don't know what the Greek equivalent for that help page is). - IMSoP 23:15, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Encylopedic? Presidential trivia lists (listed on List of U.S. Presidents by longevity of life, and probably others

Is this level of trivia coverage really suitable for Wikipedia? Niteowlneils 01:13, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fascinating material, totally encyclopaedic, and the sort of info that WP contributors enjoy compiling (in my humble opinion, of course) - Adrian Pingstone 08:43, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

horrible title, though (English-wise). "longevity of life"? sounds like someone wanted to sound a bit too encyclopedic. dab (ᛏ) 18:09, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Can't say that I like all of them very much, but there's not really a particularly good reason to delete it. violet/riga (t) 18:52, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well - I wrote the article to fill a need - there was a great big nasty old red link on the page for the President of the United States ; so there must be someone who was requesting it. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 22:13, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is the kind of info encyclopediæ should have. How else could arguments on the longest living president be settled? 12:31, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The list at the end needs to be deleted and all the articles placed in Category:United States Presidential trivia or some such. Proteus (Talk) 12:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

m:Wiki is not paper. If we can get them, sure! And then meta-lists cross-referencing these 200+ * 10+ lists. What exactly is the problem? The mere knowledge that they're there? The fear that this makes us look unprofessional? The fear that we're violating the Charter of Wikipedia? It can't be problems with NPOV or accuracy. Is this level of trivia "really suitable" for Wikipedia? Well, can you give me arguments as to how it definitely isn't, or is it just your personal opinion? In that case, it was certainly other people's opinion that these lists were suitable, as evidenced by their contributions. And speaking from a reader POV, I can easily see uses for these lists, so what's wrong? A case of "what Wikipedia shouldn't be"?
Um. Here endeth my little inclusionist rant. :-) JRM 12:26, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

"Its ZIP Code is 44444, and so it celebrates April 4 as Zip day"?

From Newton Falls, Ohio. Can someone from near there confirm this? Because all google gets is Wikipedia mirrors. Niteowlneils 17:31, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a hoax, or at the very least unverifiable. This should probably go on the reference desk or peer review though. --fvw * 01:59, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

For what little it's worth, a friend of mine who's lived in Cleveland for the past dozen years was aware of the place, but not the holiday. —Korath (Talk) 03:36, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Racism against Tsunami victims

A radio station in New York, specifically HOT97, played a very offensive song against Tsunami victims. You can read it about it here:

A full disclosure of the lyrics can be found on this forum post (warning, very offensive content):

http://www.clubzen.com/forum/forum_thread.php?id=2164

-- AllyUnion (talk) 10:31, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

We should get them to GFDL the lyrics and put them on Wikisource. --SPUI 11:07, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A radio station in New York, specifically HOT97, played a very offensive song against Tsunami victims

... and ???? 204.87.171.4 19:47, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Knowingly created duplicate article

An article has beeen created at Alexander George Thynne, 7th Marquess of Bath. The creator noted, both in the text of the article and in the edit summary, that he already has a biography! Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just redirected it. If the creator wants to write about the guy, he should do so on the existing page instead of inexplicably creating a new page that says it should be merged. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:51, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have raised it on Wikipedia:Requested moves. Noisy | Talk 19:09, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

TradeWars 2002 - article improvement

Hello, Any TradeWars 2002 buffs who would like to help with the article? It is in need of more/better screenshots, and some of the content, which is spread over several articles, could also be consolidated. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 14:47, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia and lies

I have come across the following reasoning several times while editing here and would like to inquire as to how widespread it is. "A Wikipedia article, in theory, doesn't care about about truth. Its purpose is only to report what the various factions report as the truth." Bensaccount 20:04, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is only 1 truth and that's what Wikipedia articles are about. The articles may describe different interpretations of the truth by different groups though. — J3ff 01:59, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

At the risk of getting into a philosophical discussion, exactly the same thing can be said about almost all forms of reportage. History, for example, is the past as reported by historians, none of whom can possibly hope to be entirely unbiased. No encyclopaedia is totally unbiased. Even dictionaries can be biased - the reason American English is different to that in the rest of the English-speaking world is largely due to Webster's biases. Where Wikipedia has a distinct advantage over other encyclopaedias is that there are thousands of editors, each of whom can amend articles that are biased by others. You can stick an NPOV template on an Encyclopaedia Britannica, but no-one will come along and amend it! Grutness|^hello?

04:06, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is more of an epistemological question than a methodological one. The methodological effect is that only what is uncontroversial among experts should be in the narrative voice of the article. Anything that is disputed among experts should be clearly attributed to who says it. It is not our job to take sides in disagreements between experts. The biggest difficulty that arises from this is the question of who is a credible source. We do not have clear consensus on that throughout Wikipedia, but in most subject-matter areas we seem to have enough of a consensus to write articles accordingly. Every so often it breaks down, and those are some of the more bitter arguments we get. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:39, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

I think the point of the statement might be to distinguish between truth and verifiability. Maurreen 06:24, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about truth; it is about verifiability, as Jimbo has said. We're not in a position to investigate the status of each claim we make. We can report that the tsunami caused massive devastation but we can't send aircraft to the area to check. All we can do is find good sources, howsoever defined (reputable, authoritative, credible, reliable, recognized; and peer-reviewed if it's a scholarly subject), and then paraphrase and quote them accurately, saying where we got the information from. That's why I believe Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability are our most important guidelines (and should be policy in my view) because they're the guardians of the two core polices — Wikipedia:NPOV and Wikipedia:No original research — and together these four standards create a philosophy that is pretty well impregnable. SlimVirgin 06:51, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

I intend to broaden the wikipedia:verifiability with some falsifiability concepts, see wikipedia talk:verifiability, I added a new comment there yesterday. Let's say this is about introducing "falsifiability light" in wikipedia, not the heavy philosophical concept - just the parts that are useful in clarifying "degrees of verifiability" & in clarifying where this can be helpful in enhancing (scientific) reliability of wikipedia, but keeping clear of the "truth" issue, as well as of the "no original research" issue. Well, not all that easy to write, I suppose. Anybody sharing ideas would be welcome of course! Please share them on Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Falsifiability.3F (too), I don't come all that often on this here page in Village Pump --Francis Schonken 14:42, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Image copyright in the London Natural History Museum

I noted that the article on the Japanese spider crab is a stub. I know that the London Natural History Museum has a splendid stuffed crab on display, and I thought to go and photograph it for the article. I wrote to the museum and eventually got this reply:

"Our copyright agreement covers both photos taken in opening hours or after-hours. Images taken in the museum are specifically for personal use only. If you wanted to sell or otherwise distribute images taken in or of the museum you would have to sign a copyright form and pay a fee based on the museum licensing you to sell or distribute the images in an agreed way. I would not permit images to be released under 'copyleft'."

Which rules out one of the world's great collections for wikipedia. That seems a poor show, given that they state

"We are the UK's national museum of nature, and a centre of scientific excellence in taxonomy and biodiversity. We maintain and develop the collections and use them to promote discovery, understanding, responsible use and enjoyment of the natural world." - Emrys2 16:10, 26 Jan 2005

IANAL, but I would doubt that there are many objects in the Natural History Museum that are covered by UK copyright law. Many museums and art galleries disallow the taking of photographs without a permit (with paintings there is a copyright problem). The British Museum appears to be comfortable with people taking photographs, but I didn't explicitly explore any licensing questions. -- Solipsist 20:57, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Its also a reproduction fees problem. Pretty well all libraries and archives will not allow internet use of images, even when they are out of copyright. Apwoolrich 22:01, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Surely reproduction fees would apply to images made available by the museum (from their web site for example - and in that case the photographs would probably be copyright too). However I wouldn't have thought they would apply to photographs taken by users visiting the museum. -- Solipsist 23:07, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Could Wikipedia get in trouble for having an out-of-copyright image from one of those archives, or would the sole weak link be the person that obtains and uploads it not following some sort of implied contract (or real contract if you actually have to sign one to make a copy/take a photo)? --SPUI 22:16, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Under (most interpretations of) US law reproduction fees and restrictions on out-of-copyright works are strictly a matter of contract law. There is case law to state that if an artwork is out of copyright, an accurate photograph of it does not establish a new copyright. Thus, copyright law is out of the equation. Implicit contracts are on very shaky legal ground, no matter what an owner might tell you. If you didn't have to indicate your agreement to a contract in order to view the copy, you're not bound by one. Click-through agreements are shakier than written contracts, of course, and if there are any technical ways to see the image without agreeing to the click-through, they are especially hard to enforce.

The other impediment to trying to enforce restrictions on out-of-copyright works with contract law alone is that those contract obligations do not default to being passed along to other people who might get their hands on the work. In other words, if your friend downloads something that required a click-through license but leaves it on his disk and you find that file, you are not breaking any contract. (HE might be; many contracts specify that agreement means you agree not to share the work with others).

Thus, in actuality, if you upload an out of copyright image to Wikipedia, no matter where you got it from, only YOU might be breaking any laws. Wikipedia itself, and other re-users, are in the clear.

This situation may differ in other legal jurisdictions, of course. —Morven 23:26, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Wiki-ethics: Editing a page in self-interest

I'm at a point in my career where I have to do take some drastic measures, or risk being kicked out of my program. One of the measures I decided I need to take is to inform my two supervisors that I suffer from social anxiety. I figured I'd write them an e-mail (easiest for me) and include a link to an article on the web about the condition. But many articles on the web don't present it quite how I would want it presented, e.g. they talk about fears of public speaking, which might confuse people who know I'm an excellent public speaker.

So my thought was to edit the Wikipedia article to describe social anxiety accurately and not in a way that would confuse people who know me, and send them a link to that. But that seems somehow wrong. On the one hand, I've researched the disorder pretty thoroughly and know quite a bit about it, and had planned to improve the article anyway. On the other hand, Wikipedia is not my personal site, to be used to further my own career, and its possible that, at least in the time between me sending the link to my supervisors and being pretty sure they've read it, I'd get a tad protective of some elements of the article.

I was just wondering if there's any feeling out there on this. I know the policies on not writing autobiographies or advertising cover some aspects of editing in self-interest, but this is a little different.

Thanks. moink 00:10, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Of course it's different, and you're worrying in the wrong direction. Wikipedia can only benefit from your edits — if they're POV or inaccurate, they will get sorted out; if you're overprotective, then, my friend, you will get sorted out. (We promise we'll be gentle. :-) Such are the ways of Wikipedia. What, do you think I restrict myself to editing articles I do not hold a personal interest in? If everyone did that, our encyclopedia would grow very slowly indeed — if at all. Go ahead and make those edits. Don't worry about damaging us.
No, the question is whether you can benefit from those edits. If you are worried your edits may not be appropriate for the article, should you be sending people links to it as if it were a good representation of a neutral encyclopedia? At the very least should you feel obligated to mention you've contributed to the article, unless others have already modified it in such a way that it can again truly be called a collaborative effort.
That's my take on things. JRM 00:43, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

I'd say just (1) make sure your citations are good and clear, (2) don't edit out any well-cited material just because it happens to be inconvenient to you, and (3) don't add material for which you don't have proper citations. Oh, and (4), as anywhere else, expect to be edited mercilessly, and if that's not something you are willing to put up with on a topic near and dear to you, then you shouldn't be working on that topic. And, of course, don't conceal being a contributor to the material when you are presenting it at work. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:59, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Wikitex

Holy flurking schnitt.

I know this properly belongs at Meta, but here it's likely to get more eyeballs, and I want to propagate this as far and wide as possible. This is blatant advertising, and I'm not ashamed of it. Go to [2] and look at all the incredibly neat stuff they've got there. I'm salivating at the mouth right here, I kid you not.

If there's not something there you wish you had on Wikipedia, you must truly be a text-only editor.

Update: it is on Meta. See m:Talk:MediaWiki roadmap#When will PPCHTeX etc be included?. There is some understandable developer anxiety. I still feel you need to know about it here, too. JRM 01:49, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Issue in article: impending edit war

Hi. I guess I’ll need some help to avert an edit war on this one. In the article at hand, there are some peak heights given in meters for a National Park in Brazil. The numbers came from the official Brazilian government body in charge of those kinds of information in the country. Now, apparently this user has decided that those numbers are actually approximations, and thus the conversion to feet should also be approximated. I had originally given the exact conversion, since I thought that, as an encyclopedia, we should give the precise information, not what one user or another might think is a “suitable number” to appear on the article. Still, I was prepared to accept Nygaard’s round up, but since he adjusted 4,921 to 5,000, instead of going for 4,920, which is a round enough number, and closer to the original, I made such alteration. But he took exception to it, reverted the numbers back with a long explanation about how the official numbers (and I emphasize that) are not actually correct and thus his roundup would be accurate. He than closed it up suggesting that I should go back to the math books and learn how to calculate. The rudeness notwithstanding, isn’t it our obligation to go with official numbers in those situations (no original research) ? If I just go back and change the numbers again, this will almost certainly turn into an edit war. It is my impression that this user has a certain notion of being infallible in terms of geographical calculations (pardon me if that sounds a bit rude). And shouldn’t we stick to a precise conversion from meters into feet (although this point isn’t the main reason of the potential conflict)? Can I get some help on this one? Regards, Redux 13:36, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Redux, maybe you should just look at de:Serra dos Órgãos, they give the heights of some of these mountains. I must say I agree with Gene, and his numbers are fine. Lupo 13:49, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If there is serious concern that the official numbers are quoted to a precision that exaggerates their accuracy (a.k.a. "wrong") than such should definitely be stated in the article: "The peaks are officially listed at abcd.efg m in height (hijkl.mno ft) but independent measurements list them at approximately pq00 m (rs000 ft)". "No original research" means we don't want to be the first place someone publishes what their gps unit read when they climbed the peak, it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to synthesize from multiple sources. --Sharkford 14:43, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Let's take one step at a time: Lupo, I'm not saying that the numbers aren't acceptable (in fact, I actually believe that Nygaard's technical point should go into the article, as I've stated in one of my comments in the talk page), just that it may not be ideal to plainly replace what was there. Part of this answer goes in the second part: Sharkford, the issue there does involve original research, since Nygaard calculated the numbers himself (mine was a direct calculation from meters into feet, expressing the exact same value in two different scales - it was done mainly so that people from the US would know exactly how high 2.5 thousand meters (v.g.) is, I didn't make any inovative calculations). Finally, the situation has now escalated passed the technical details. Nygaard has been extremely rude in every one of his comments, and since he has posted responses to every one of my comments within minutes, I assume he added the article to his watch list just so he could inforce his view of what should be in the article. The only reason why this hasn't already turned into an edit war is because I've not sunked to his level. In my last comment (actually I've just posted a new one, so one-before-last) I even proposed a half way, not only did he ignore it but also he repeated that I should go study math before I edit the article. I don't know if this user has a history of altercations in the website, but it's been extremely difficult to keep it civil with him, he's just interested in seeing his idea prevail. Regards, Redux 16:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)