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New suggested policy: Disclaimer notices for conflicts of interests
The main purpose of this proposal is to discuss the idea of ethics in editing. The answer is very difficult, otherwise there would have already been a policy or guideline. As such, do not attack the one who proposes this but discuss the idea of conflicts of interest and how to reduce them. One way is as follows:
All pages will have another tab at the top (like edit this page and history) which will say "Disclaimers".
There, all editors will have a space to list any potential conflict of interest. Now, too often we attack companies if an employee, even on their own time and initiative, write about a company. Yet other editors fail to disclose a conflict of interest. Such conflicts could include a Canadian NDP supporter writing about a NDP politician or an engineer writing about a patented chemical made by his company. The political supporter or engineer may, if questioned, say they are objective, but undisclosed conflicts of interest remain.
An example for the Matti Vanhanen article would be a new tab at the top saying "Disclaimers". When you click, it may say:
Disclaimers
The following editors note their conflict of interest or lack thereof.
Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC) I am an employee of the Finnish government and a member of the Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue (SDP).
or
Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC) I have lived in Espoo, the same city as Matti, and personally know him.
The reason for this suggestion is that a person saying they are a company vice president wrote to the help desk to request a factual correction and he was told he has a conflict of interest. Yet he was honest. Many of us have some conflict of interests that we almost routinely fail to disclose. This is bad. We are being dishonest. We can fix this easily with a disclaimer tab at the top.Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Respectfully, Oppose. Unenforceable, so really unworkable. Editors are free to post such disclaimers in their userspace, and many do, but a prompt for editors to take this extra step when editing articles will either be ignored, or discourage editing altogether. bd2412T 15:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
What this means is that Wikipedia says it is ok to have a hidden conflict of interest. True, it is extra work but bare URL are much easier than non-bare URL references, yet bare URLs seem to be not allowed for DYK. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
What bd2412 said. → ROUX₪ 17:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Complete misunderstanding of the proposal. Nobody is asking for disclaimers. The proposal is to have disclosures. There is no such thing as WP:NODISCLOSURES. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:03, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
If this proposal isn't about disclaimers, why does it use the word "disclaimers" four times, including once in the section heading, to describe what it's about? Uncle G (talk) 04:58, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
From WP:NODISCLAIMERS, "For the purpose of this guideline, disclaimers are templates or text inserted into an article that duplicate the information at one of the five standard disclaimer pages". So the application is a bit of a stretch, note that we do use disclaimers in several cases. Taemyr (talk) 19:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose even within talk pages, for most of the above reasons. If somebody feels compelled to disclose potential conflicts of interest, it would be useful to put them on user pages. It is also completely unenforceable in terms of policy unless self-disclosure has already happened. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Comment I dont "oppose" the proposal but I agree that it is unworkable. Perhaps it should however be greatly encouraged to do so; as in a policy or guideline somewhere (WP:NPOV perhaps?) that editors are expected to disclose any COI they may have either on the talk page of an article or if it is a whole category then on their user/user talk page. I think using the word expected to do something may be taken by some that you MUST do it and by others that you don't and let the arguments unfold as they will, but I think this is in fact needed to be put in policy that COI's are expected to be disclosed. When I wrote Warinus de la Strode I believe I put out on the talk page that I am a direct descendant and thereby disclosed my COI in case my pride in my family at any way influenced any fluffy language to inflate the article, I didnt have to and no expectation was there that I should, but I did because I wanted to be honest and open. There are more pressing matters of COI in Wikipedia than that though, but this is probably the most common; not everything is about POV pushers and warriors. I'd like a caveat to be put in though restricting the expectation of disclosure to protect editors from having to ever release information on gender, sexual orrientation, race, or religion. It doesnt matter if you are Hindu writing about Hindu topics no one should ever be expected for a second to disclose their religion or ethnicity, or race.Camelbinky (talk) 19:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Really? A paid, professional advocate for a religion (e.g., any rabbi or priest) should not have to disclose his or her association to the topic, but a person who worked for a non-religious organization, even briefly or in a low-level job, should? And how would you avoid disclosing some of these things? For example, how do you disclose that you are descended from a notable person, without simultaneously disclosing that you have the same race as this notable person? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
When we start making people have to declare that they are of African descent when editing an article related to Africa or people descended from there or we make Jews declare they are Jewish that opens them to harrassment and other problems. In my particular example I was able to disclose I am descended from Warin, an Norman-English noble and yet I am Jewish and that did not need to be disclosed (I have openly declared I am Jewish, I feel no need to hide it, but some may. It can be a sore subject for some of the older ones to be open about that, depending on where they grew up).Camelbinky (talk) 23:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose: Even if it were possible, it would be impossible (?!). No one even knows all of their own conflict-of-interests, nor can we determine what effects our opinions on matters, nor is any one neutral on any subject. For example, I've recently been editing the Dog meat article. Do I need to disclose that I'm allergic to dogs, and thus not a big fan of them? What about on politics articles--do I need to list my entire voting history and political affiliations, which have changed significantly over my life? What about someone editing, say, rape--do they need to disclose his/her history on the subject? Or, if I do some work to edit some obscure poet that I've never actually heard of, but I just found through Recent Changes, what do I disclose then? Again, I repeat my above assertion--everybody has a point of view. We cannot even know how our various point of views effect our own actions. Even if people wanted to "disclose" their point of view (and people above correctly point out that most won't), they can't. And, finally, what would you even do with this information, anyway? When you read a newspaper article, do you think "I wish I knew what the POVs of the reporter and editor were, so I could better evaluate this information?" Qwyrxian (talk) 21:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Scientific article have disclosures all the time. A disclosure might be "Jose Fernandez receives financial support from Dow Chemical and the American Chemical Society" even if the article is on a chemical that Dow does not make. To say that onebody knows all their conflicts of interest so they should mention none is complete denial. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Those are disclosure of financial interest. And those are already covered by WP:COI. The OP is suggesting other types of disclosures, like residence, political affiliation, etc. I have no idea how far proposer was recommending we extend COI (i.e., in the original example, do I have to declare that, while I don't vote in Finland, my brother does? Or that one of my grad school professors was a Finnish nationalist? Or that I have the same last first name as the article subject, so I like him?), but no matter how far it is, it will never be far enough and always too far. We all serve many masters; in general, we don't even know who/what they are. Declaring any COI other than financial is both unreasonable and ultimately untenable. Personally, I'd argue that even financial COI doesn't have to be exposed, because I couldn't care less if someone's getting paid to edit, so long as the end product meets our standards; however, I'm well aware that consensus doesn't support such a position. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:13, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Even financial interests are not disclosed in Wikipedia. Too often, people will write about work related topics. That is a financial conflict. If I work for a bank, then this should be disclosed in a banking article. As one editor told me, he didn't think this proposal would pass but that getting people to think about an ethical issue is good. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Outing is now ethical? Should we also list home addresses, blood types and shoe sizes? (disclaimer: my grand-grand-gradmother was Greek, this makes me highly involved in Greco-Turkish affairs, and Zeus save me from editing Sophocles...) Should we all hire psychoanalysts to dig up those irrational creepy influences from the past that force us to write about dinosaurs and dandelions? Should we continue writing in public, at all, after this? Rant over. Editors declare their interests by writing the encyclopedia. You want disclaimers? Look no further than "contributions" button. East of Borschov 19:52, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose User talk page COI statements are more than enough, that way if an issue arises the user can point to the issue.Sadads (talk) 00:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. This is like asking children to tell you before they steal some of your apples. Dmcq (talk) 08:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Not all COI edits are bad faith. An editor with a potential COI can have a genuine desire for an encyclopedic article, furthermore he is often in position of valuable insight. There is a reason that WP:COI is written the way it is. Taemyr (talk) 19:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. The current policy is already calling for disclosure of potential COI. Editors with a potential COI needs to seek broader scrutiny for non-trivial edits, and if such scrutiny is in place a disclaimer should be superflous. If the scrutiny is not present then disclaimers will not remove the problem. Also editos who currently fails to seek such scrutiny does so for one of three reasons, because they are unaware of the current policy, because they are unaware of their potential COI, or because they are editing in bad faith. No stronger requirements for disclaimers will fix these problems. Taemyr (talk) 19:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Removing sourced content
I'm looking some general guidance on which policy or guideline prohibits the removal of source content, as I have been recently warned for doing so in good faith. In researching this topic I've found that this is something that people are regularly warned for, but I haven't been able to identify what the policy basis for those warnings is.
Of course I understand that in many cases people will be removing content in bad faith, or to advance a particular POV, and of course that should be unacceptable, but in this case I was attempting to improve the readability of the article by removing some content that added no extra information at all. This is something I've done quite often in many articles, trimming sections down to increase the signal-to-noise ratio by removing redundant text. After all, I'm an editor, and this is something that real-world editors do.
Is it really the case that no content can be removed from an article if it is sourced, no matter how redundant or trivial or outdated or just-plain-boring it is? I hope that is not the case because it would be a great disservice to the readers of our encyclopedia.
I don't think there's any policy about whether you can or cannot remove text that is sourced. We do have WP:V that allows removal of unsourced text, but the contrary position is not affirmed. It is courtesy that if you are removing an inline source that is used elsewhere in the article to move the sourcing info there, but that's not a requirement and we have at least one bot that patrols those types of changes and fixes them.
I would, however, engage a bit more to explain carefully why you are removing something that is sourced, since this does often look like vandalism. If you are running into pages where editors revert such changes, explain what you are doing on the talk page, and why you think the text is bad for the s/n ratio. You may better convince those that are reverting you now that your changes are beneficial. --MASEM (t) 14:19, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Is this a good time to re-visit One shot (music_video) then Masem? In that case you looked for citable references to support the removal to be listed in the Talk Page. The problem I have with that is that the text may fail WP:Burden if the cited source is later revealed to be unreliable or it may fail WP:NTEMP if the notability of the information in relation to the subject of the article has waned over time. The Burden should then fall on whomsoever wishes to replace the information to provide up to date citations which consensus declares to be reliable and not temporary. Recently I have been on the receiving of a Good Faith Edit akin to those being carried out by Thparkth and found myself agreeing with it because my sourced edit from years previous had turned from notable into trivial and did not deserve to remain in the article. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 18:09, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
The policy is a bit fuzzy here because writing encyclopedia articles isn't an exact science. The closest you get is WP:PRESERVE, which asks editors to preserve appropriate content. However, what is "appropriate", and what is WP:NOT, is open to interpretation where reasonable minds may differ. I agree with Masem above that in some cases the issue is clear, e.g. unverifiable content, and that you should explain carefully in the cases which are not so clear. In general, I would say that any edit to an article should not remove relevant and basic information on the topic unless you are moving the coverage to another more appropriate article. On the other hand, no particular aspect of the article's subject should take up more than its fair share (I know, "fair share" is fuzzy) of the article. Sjakkalle(Check!) 14:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
The "trivial" and "just-plain-boring" remarks should probably be clarified here. In a lot of technical topics, sometimes details may not interest the general public, but may be important for comprehensiveness (for FA). For example, I write about lemurs, some of which are extinct and known only from their remains. I would not want someone coming through and deleting details such as "skull length" or fine details about craniodental features because they were "trivial" or "just-plain-boring". But otherwise, I know what you mean and I know where you're coming from. – VisionHolder « talk » 14:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree with you. I would personally never remove the kind of information you're discussing from an article. "Trivial" and "boring" can only be judged in context. All the same, if any of those articles note that Trachypithecus is an anagram of "pussy architect" then I'm probably heading for the edit button, no matter how well-sourced that fact is :) Thparkth (talk) 15:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Now I'm confused .. does Godwin apply or not? TB (talk) 17:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC) :)
Of course. No matter how well sourced, the obvious fact is that Trachypithecus is actually an anagram of "pushy architect", not "pussy architect". ;) Anomie⚔ 02:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information; the bare fact that something appears in a source doesn't mean we have to mention it too. Ucucha 17:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Information should be sourced to be maintained, but not all sourced information should be kept. Non neutral point of view WP:NPOV, undue detail WP:UNDUE and other reasons are perfectly sound reasons to remove sourced information. Arnoutf (talk) 18:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Bear in mind that a non-neutral point of view typically means "my opponents proved something, and my side can't disprove it, so it is non-NPOV to print only their version of events". WP:UNDUE works much the same way. Wnt (talk) 18:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
But at the same time is it appropriate to remove factual, verifiable, and sourced information about a topic merely because it doesn't fit the current narrative of the article as espoused by the latest editor? To me, move the sources, the article text, and other related content to the talk page with a plea for somebody, anybody, to try and work the information in some form back into the article in that kind of situation. It is just plain wrong to indiscriminately remove information and a host of other Wikipedia policies apply when it is removed, including WP:NPOV, WP:OWN and a great many others. Generally when factual and sourced information is being removed the article is a much weaker article as a result.
Including information put forward by another user is to me a sign that an editor is realistically trying to maintain a neutral point of view and is willing to admit from time to time that they don't know everything about a topic. You can debate the notability of the information or its applicability to the topic at hand, or perhaps that the content added should be moved to another project (like Wikisource if it is a substantial inclusion of original source material), but you should generally assume good faith when content is added to an article to work with that content. Such discussions about the quality of a source can and should be done on the article talk page instead of forcing it to an edit war.
If something appears in a source, is relevant to the topic at hand, and perhaps even more significant if it contradicts something mentioned in another source.... it not only can be added to an article I would suggest that it must be added in terms of being a responsible editor on Wikipedia. Question the quality of the source or something else related to the source, but if you can agree that the source is reliable then removing that tidbit of information is wrong and corrupting to the process of writing an encyclopedic article. There is some wiggle room here to argue about what can be removed (a poor quality source, mis-interpreting what the source said, etc.) but the basic principle is one that I think should be maintained. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:PRESERVE and WP:HANDLE used to be two separate sections at the editing policy. HANDLE was the explicit permission to remove bad information (e.g., contentious claims that could only be sourced to someone's personal blog), rambling details, etc., if the problem couldn't be fixed. It may be less clear now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
All said NPOV and UNDUE can be abused (for reasons of WP:OWN and the opposite POV), but sometimes they are clearly of relevance. For example insisting on a (well sourced) children saving plan of a local bank in Little Rock Arkansas in the main banking article would place undue attention to such a minor issue and should be removed even if well sourced. Ok, the example is a bit over the top, but not as much as you might thinks as we see people adding their local favorite regularly to all kinds of articles. Arnoutf (talk) 17:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Where on a college campus is longitude and latitude?
I've noticed the infobox has a place for coordinates, and I got a map from following advice here, but don't know where to place the marker to get the coordinates. Unfortunately, there is some sort of glitch with using the physical address, which puts the marker several miles away.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions· 20:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
This page is for discussing Wikipedia policies, not a general forum for any random question you may have about editing. I suggest you use {{helpme}} on your talk page instead. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I disagree. Vchimp is trying to determine what should be used as the latitude and longitude for a location (presumably using a specific example that has brought the problem to light because the location isn't automatically found by the address). This seems like a valid policy question because one can conceivable list the coordinates for anywhere on campus. For instance, should the school's main office be used, some place in the center of campus, or some other location? Does it even matter and are their guidelines in place that dictate use of coordinates. Perhaps a more specific group like WP:COORDS could be consulted, but I don't think it's unreasonable to consult policy folks who may know exactly where to find rules on using latitude and longitude. —Ost (talk) 20:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. I found an archived discussion on this very topic here, though it wasn't as specific as a college campus and it didn't quite resolve the question. There is a link I forgot to try; maybe I can post this there.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions· 20:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
We can discuss it here if you want. While I havent worked on college campuses I have worked on other large scale places of similar size (such as W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus and Port of Albany-Rensselaer). I would say to try and center it on the main campus (as many colleges have multiple campuses, University at Albany, SUNY for example has an uptown, downtown, and a suburban biotech campus several miles apart. For cities, towns, villages and such (which is what I normally work on) I always try to center it on the municipality as the city hall usually has a place for its coordinates in the infobox and therefore to put the same coords for the town itself is redundant. I hope this bit of experience helps, though it isnt any official policy, it works for me.Camelbinky (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Someone else put the coordinates in the article after seeing my request here. I don't know whether it's kosher to put them in the text (now that IS a policy question), but the person gave the locations of the three campuses.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions· 17:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Capitalization of common names of species
I think the rules of the English language state that a common name is a proper name, and thus should be capitalized.
Conventions for capitalization of species' common names seem to differ.
There are massive inconsistencies between article names, between the article name compared to its content, as well as mention of the common name within a given article.
Some examples:
Black Rhinoceros: All upper case article name, and all upper case occurences within article
Brown Bear: All upper case article name, and almost all lower case occurences within article
Kangaroo rat: Second word lower case in article name, and all lower case within article
(Most articles are a mixed bag.)
I think this problem has arisen because the policy is likey wrong. Editors don't know which to pick, and the outcome is split. There are constant page moves from one convention to another, and back again. If this gets sorted out either way, MOST animalia articles will be flawed or inconsistent. This is a serious problem, and a very visible blight upon Wikipedia. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:09, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
A worse problem is the naming of plants, where the project seems to have flown in the face of Wikipedia convention by adopting (mainly) Latin names, whereas all the books I have ever seen sources use the common name as the primary title, unless there is none, when the Latin name must be used. --Bermicourt (talk) 05:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I see what you mean. I don't have too much of an issue with naming articles by species or common name. I have done both. But the capitalization issue is nuts. If one article name is different from another, it's not the end of the world. But when the name is different from the content, that's a problem. Even worse is when the case keeps changing several times within the article. That should be resolved at once. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not advocating removal of the material from the article, I mean, it is sourced, but it's one claim flying in the face of 75 years of accepted medical conclusion and it seems we may be jumping the gun in giving the possibility so much weight. Lou Gehrig's Disease is a very well understood condition whose presentation is well documented (even in Gehrig's case). While CTE may be similar with regard to a couple symptoms, lending credence to such specious claims on the main page seems intellectually irresponsible. --K10wnsta (talk) 02:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't know. I think the hook does exactly what it's meant to do: hook the reader into reading the article. It's an interesting "what if"? that's relevant to the DYK article. — Coren(talk) 02:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree that it works as a hook, but analogously, so would something like Did you know the World Trade Center may not have been destroyed by planes alone, but may also have been blown up by controlled demolition? Sure, it's going to grab a readers attention, but do the ends justify the means? --K10wnsta (talk) 02:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
It is not just the NY Times that has reported this very interesting speculation, which I would say is more than speculation; I do believe it was either Scientific American or Discover (or both) that recently had quite an article on the new findings. Verifiable, not truth I do believe is the motto? If doctors/scientists/professionals who are published in reliable third-party peer-reviewed journals and newspapers say something who are we to say it isnt good enough for us? As far as the WTC hypothetical hook- find a professional with some sort of relevant background giving him/her an authority on the subject and who is published in a reliable third party peer-reviewed journal who has that hypothesis and then sure it could be a hook. Good luck. And that is the difference.Camelbinky (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Verifiable not truth. Dont care to read Wikipedian's views and discussions regarding NYT or any of the multitude of other magazines, newspapers, etc that have covered this (including I believe National Geographic) because Wikipedian's views arent relevant. Give me medical peer reviewed journals that state for a fact that this is not legitimate research and speculation and then it is fine. Otherwise we have a conflict of sources and we present both. This thread isnt about the facts, it is about whether it was appropriate to put the "fact" as a DYK hook. The answer to that question is unquestionably YES, it was in fact appropriate. This is NOT the place to discuss whether NYT got it wrong.Camelbinky (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, that's the rub, there's no medical, peer-reviewed article (or journal) stating that Lou Gehrig died of anything other than Lou Gehrig's Disease. We have medical researchers who have impressed upon the similarities between a disease they researched and Lou Gehrig's Disease, which is certainly verifiable and, as I stated before, worthy of mention in the article. I just wonder if we should be trumpeting specious possibilities in an effort to call attention to an article. --K10wnsta (talk) 20:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Importantly, "no peer-reviewed article" includes the article that the NYT is supposedly basing this claim on. The actual article doesn't mention Lou Gehrig or baseball anywhere in it. It talks about the potential for misdiagnosis only in the context of players of American football and hockey (both sports with dramatically higher rates of head injuries than baseball). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I objected at TDYK but it moved on... Anyway, Gehrig doesn't care. ALS is a kind of shit that forces people to seek any possible clues - why? why me? Look at it from the other side - no one can help them. But simply reproducing a hypothesis wouldn't hurt either. False hopes? Yes. But maybe ten minutes of hope, even if false, mean a lot to a dying human. East of Borschov 21:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
To go back to the original question—I would say yes, this hook would have been better stated, "that some journalists have speculated that. . ." Chick Bowen 01:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
FA Pending Revisions proposal
My new proposal is this (credits to Golbez (talk)):
to put all featured content as Pending Revisions.Us441(talk) (contribs) 19:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Support
Yes, but only while it is on the front page. Once it is replaced the next day it should go back to normal. -kslays (talk • contribs) 23:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
In practice, a lot of featured articles are closely monitored. Anonymous editors are especially reverted. We would save a lot of time and may even increase the chances of productive revisions if we forced users to log in to edit a FA. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:32, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Featured Articles are community-chosen examples of our very best work. They have also attained a good level of completeness and polish, per the FA standards at the time of promotion and the level of participation in the FAC process. Thus 1) there is less of a need to edit the articles in the first place, 2) any random edit has a greater chance of bringing down the quality of the article than a random edit to an average or below average quality article and 3) we should avoid showing our best work to readers while it is vandalized. Therefore, edits to FAs by un-established editors should go through some level of review before going live to readers. There will still be many hundreds of thousands of average to below average articles that will be wide open. --mav (reviews needed) 12:55, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
If pending revs have any meaning behind them (apart from being a PR campaign), then their scope must expand. East of Borschov 08:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
All those people who say "FAs are usually heavily watchlisted" need to realize this is far from the case. On most of mine (and not just random video games, but things like Bone Wars), I'm the only major contributor still active or on Wikipedia enough to watch for vandalism. If pending revs is accepted by the community, I'm applying it to the FAs I've worked on regardless of whatever people say here. Its utility has far outweighed any "but poor anon who wants to add poop jokes can't" complaints. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 13:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the trial run is showing clearly that this feature brings desirable stability to articles. The time delay factor is actually minimal: just enough to make scribbling unrewarding.--Wetman (talk) 18:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose
Because a. I don't like pending changes in general, and neither does a large portion of the community, so adding more pages for no real reason isn't effective, and b. why does it matter? if there's heavy vandalism, it'll need semi protection anyway. Otherwise, it can be easily reverted. Oh, and c. Protection is not a preventative measure, so just protecting all the FAs isn't helping, just slowing things down, especially as pending changes is really slow. —fetch·comms 23:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
The point is that since featured articles are reviewed anyway, the FA review process, that has caused so much comment in the pending changes trial, can incorporate pending changes review. Uncle G (talk) 01:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
But there's no need to have an extra slow layer of relatively ineffective "protection" for articles that are already monitored. Half of our FAs are rather obscure topics that are not vandalism targets; the other ones can be semi'd when needed. I'm not opposed to using PC for a TfA (today's featured article) when needed over semi-protection for that day, but not for all FAs without need. —fetch·comms 19:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Per Fetchcomms. — Tanvir 05:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose because it violates the basic spirit of Wikipedia, and is unnecessary because FAs are typically heavily watchlisted. Thparkth (talk) 12:58, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Per Fetchcomms; the idea of pending changes seems antagonistic to a founding principal of wikis in general. We should especially encourage editing of FAs, since they're our most prominent works (of course we ensure that they're not vandalised, but that can be done with careful use of watchlists), and telling those whose edits aren't automatically accepted that their edits aren't yet visible really doesn't seem a way to encourage the understanding that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Nyttend (talk) 03:10, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
per above (esp. Nyttend). Hobit (talk) 11:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Dreadful idea. Almost all of the people doing the reviewing will have no idea about the subject, and many of those who do will have to have their edits accepted, and perhaps lost in the confused muddle that is pending changes. MalleusFatuorum 14:10, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Pending changes only hides things from people not logged in; it makes no difference to the tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) who are, so it introduces complexity for little benefit. And reviewers are anyway supposed to accept anything that isn't obvious vandalism or similar, but those edits can be kept out without this additional layer of bureaucracy. SlimVirgintalk|contribs 14:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. We should use our best content to encourage editing, not discourage it. PowersT 12:18, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Pending changes protection works best for articles with a low edit frequency on a small number of watchlists. This proposal could easily tie things in knots. That said, some articles may end up not being watched by many people before or after their time in the limelight, so maybe it could be used selectively for featured content not on the main page. Yaris678 (talk) 07:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a very bad idea. For FAs that don't get a lot of edits anyway, this just fixes what isn't broken. For FAs that get a lot of anon IP vandalism, this confuses anons and new editors. It gives them some sense that poorly worded and uncited changes are somehow legitimate, it makes editors who watch these FAs work harder to overturn poorly written passages cited to unreliable sources, and worst of all, pending changes on main page day FAs makes it very difficult to revert vandalism. Not all FAs should be partially protected, but some very certainly should be. Assuming all FAs automatically deserve pending changes does not help anon IPs and it does not help the articles. --Moni3 (talk) 00:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose We deal with featured content vandalism just fine, and in doing so, we demonstrate a) how open Wikipedia is, b) how 'on the ball' we are. PC adds complexity; also, it is not yet ready, and likely to be removed in the near future. Chzz ► 06:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose that this be blanket-applied to all FAs. Many of the ones I maintain don't get a lot of edits; those that receive a lot of vandalism are already semi-protected. A lot of people know a little bit about many of my article subjects (the Texas Revolution, particularly), but what they "know" usually doesn't reflect recent research - I have seen people revert changes because they think its vandalism when it's really factual information. I'd rather keep these articles off the pending changes list and let editors who know the subject take a look. Karanacs (talk) 17:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
That doesn't quite make sense. Anyone registered can still made edits to semi-protected articles no matter how knowledgeable they are. Having FCs won't change a thing in that respect. Saying "keep it off the list so only experts will see it" smacks of anti-Wikiism or something. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
What I'm trying to say is that most FA-class articles deal with fairly specialized material, and it's likely there are only a handful of editors here who know the sources well enough to identify whether some changes are vandalism or good-faith misinformation or valid information. Adding pending changes to these articles means we'll be duplicating effort - a PC reviewer may be the first one to look at a change and make a decision, then a content expert will need to look at the same change and figure out whether it's valid or not. Why add the extra step, burdening another reviewer? I'm not speaking for all FAs, but there are a large number that are adequately watchlisted and/or experience little or no problem with vandalism, so why add complexity? Karanacs (talk) 17:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Neutral
Comments
Venus Car
Hello, and thank you for your patience with me. I hope I am posting to the correct place; my apologies if I am not.
My question deals with an entry that has already been made by someone else, and the subject is about an old car made in 1953.
My father was the one who designed the car, and quite frankly, there is NO ONE more qualified to write about the history of this car
than I am. I tried writing something about the Venus Car a year or so ago, however, was booted off as being opportunistic, or
someone who had something to gain by writing about this car, which I guess falls within the "conflict of interest" policy.
But I assure you, my only goal is to have the history of this interesting car available on Wiki, even if I have to hire a 2nd person write it for me.
You I guess my question is why can't I write this story?
The current entry about the Venus Car is totally wrong and inaccurate.
Thank you
Patrick McLoad —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcload (talk • contribs) 03:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
And please, start by uploading some pictures! Wnt (talk) 04:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Restaurant Notability
As this seems to be a recurring phenomenon, I believe we need to create a separate, distinguished criteria for passing notability for restaurants. I would like this to go before a large audience and eventually have a proper vote on it. I stand on a more conservative side of this issue, leaning towards excluding restaurants that may meet general notability guidelines. I think that this is what has caused such a large divergence in opinion, simply because no specific set of rules exist for restaurants. It is my opinion that by following current rules for notability, we are allowing the insertion of unencyclopedic restaurants to pass through, and adherents to the general rules have something to lean on during a debate for deletion.
A large supporting source is the New York Times, an obviously reputable source, which constantly reviews restaurants in its dining section. What this gives writers is a safe source for maintaining notability; one could potentially write an article for a restaurant on a weekly basis citing this source. There are certainly other highly used sources which weekly feature restaurants which can be used. It is my opinion that even though these are used countless times (by myself in many articles I've written), they do not give notability. Every restaurant has a history, and some may be certainly very interesting, but that does not make it remarkable. To quote myself from a related discussion:
"I worked at a restaurant as a cook for 8 years that was featured every year by the local news (nj news12) and the owner has gotten a ton of good reviews for it simply because he has connections and wanted the exposure. It is utterly unremarkable and does not belong in an encyclopedia, but if this is a trend, maybe I will someday write a fluffy article about the hardships he faced climbing up the ladder, sacrificing whatever it was he did."
That is an empty threat, but my point is that if the owner had any interest in Wikipedia (yet he luckily doesn't even have an interest in the internet), he could probably meet general notability guidelines and have a very well referenced article. I do not wish for this to happen.
I have a general set of rules which I would like to propose to determine eligibility for notability for restaurants which I will list.
"A restaurant may be notable if it is independently sourced for something other than the fact that it's a restaurant that got good reviews, and has some sort of history."
The owner is notable.
The workers are notable, like a notable chef.
Notable regulars, like if a celebrity frequents and supports the restaurant.
Historical significance, like an old restaurant or site which has been or is currently a restaurant (a fictional example being... George Washington's house has been converted into a diner).
If something notable happened there, maybe even one time event as the host article.
Extraordinarily remarkable cuisine, like serving extremely exotic or unique food which no other, at least regionally, restaurants serve which is well sourced and noted just for that.
Social significance for the community.
I would like to start a discussion, cause I grow tired of the back and forth regarding restaurants and notability, and I want any supporting contributors to revise or add rules. Thank you very much - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
As someone who isn't familiar with restaurant reviews as a journalistic practice, could you explain why reviews of a restaurant in multiple reliable sources shouldn't satisfy general notability requirements? Not every restaurant that exists will get reviewed, so how is it different from a film or a book getting reviewed? If it's purely just a matter of how localized the coverage is, I'm sure there are ways to distinguish between a review in The Cowtown Enquirer and The New York Times without resorting to an insistence on the restaurant's significance. postdlf (talk) 22:30, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think this is necessary. What makes such restaurants "unencyclopedic"? If there are multiple independent sources, then there should be enough to write a neutral, verifiable article on the subject. Note that per Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), purely local coverage is generally not enough to meet notability standards. Many of the proposed guidelines are also looser than the normal notability rules, in particular, several run afoul of "notability is not inherited". Mr.Z-man 22:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Theornamentalist, can you explain why you think that the usual rules for businesses (which are slightly stricter than WP:GNG's "presumed notable" level) aren't normally good enough?
Also, I agree with Mr. Z-man that many of your suggested criteria are actually banned under current rules, for being far too loose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
to Postdlf - The New York Times writes reviews all the time because they have to, not because it's news or notable. Therefore, it seems that a restaurant in the tri-state area will likely get a review simply because that's typically the extant of the NYT's coverage.
to Z-man - My main concern is that businesses can pay for this type of coverage, the fact that a restaurant serves food and it's cited to a reliable source, should not make it notable. I know some of these conflict with inheritance issues right now, but I would like to revise them (with the help of those who agree and even those who do not fully); I am trying to come up with a way to orderly separate an unremarkable restaurant from one with some actual encyclopedic value. - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
to WhatamIdoing - Simply put, they allow for articles like this to exist, which I oppose. - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
My goal is to avoid lengthy discussions like this, it seems like there are definitely issues with a given restaurants' notability, and instead of going through the motions every time, I think it would be good if both sides could agree on a set of rules. - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
This subsection of WP:N seems relevant: "The evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition, and that this was not a mere "flash in the pan", nor a result of promotional activity or indiscriminate publicity, nor is the topic unsuitable for any other reason. Sources of evidence include recognized peer reviewed publications, credible and authoritative books, reputable media sources, and other reliable sources generally." I don't think that a single restaurant review, even in The New York Times, is generally going to be enough to meet the bar. I don't think the problem is that we don't have a guideline, it's that it's not being followed in all cases. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
to Beeblebrox - Then maybe instead of rewriting policy, an official guideline regarding Restaurants needs to be created (pending further input for support..); something like WP:HAMMER, to name one regularly in use and subject specific. - Theornamentalist (talk) 01:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Teaneck Kebab House, I've argued for keep on the grounds that, while only one restaurant review in a major newspaper's dining section isn't enough to establish a restaurant's notability, this particular restaurant has had two such reviews in two different major newspapers. In an area like New York City where restaurants exist by the tens of thousands, this is no small feat, even when one of the reviews is bad. The reason why WP:GNG calls for multiple reliable sources is that we don't want a subject to be considered notable on the basis of just one lucky break with the media. If there are at least two, from mutually independent sources, that would indicate that the subject is at least interesting enough to get these two sources involved.
However, I have just one caveat with regarding multiple restaurant reviews as being enough to establish notability: the Montreal Gazette has stated time and again in its dining section that its restaurant reviewing team does not accept invitations from a restaurant's owner. That should be the case for every review used to establish a restaurant's notability. -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 01:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Why just restaurants? Why do reviews count for notability for any product, service or company at all? Reviews are routine coverage of routine things. Everything gets reviewed. Magazine racks are full of dedicated product review magazines with hundreds of reviews and then even more reviews in every special interest magazine too. I mean, get real, out of 121,000 Google hits I am sure I could extract two reliable source reviews for the muffler on my car, but that doesn't mean it is notable! Reviews prove existence but not notability. We want to document the notable things, not the ordinary things. A review can demonstrate notability by documenting claims of out-of-the-ordinary things but the existence of a review merely proves the existence of the product. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Good point, but for some reason there tends to be disputes about restaurants, I support your opinion, but I was hoping to crack this egg first, not the whole basket.. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I also have to concur that reviews should not constitute reliable sources for anything other than verifying a restaurant's (or other product's) existence, which is not enough to establish notability. One counter-intuitive problem with allowing reviews to establish notability is that it necessarily means that restaurants in smaller cities will be more likely to be notable, on the grounds that a local newspaper has fewer restaurants to cover, and thus any given restaurant is more likely to be reviewed, compared to a restaurant of similar size, stature, income, etc., in a larger city.
Another way to tackle this is to deal with the issue in WP:COMPANY, which requires that "Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability. On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, national, or international source is necessary." The key here that needs to be resolved, of course, is papers like the New York Times, which serve a dual national/local purpose. One of the big issues at a recent high profile AfD was that some editors (including myself) believed that while the NYT is a national paper, the restaurant reviews are a part of their local coverage (found in what I believe is called the Metro Section), and thus don't qualify. If a restaurant were featured in the Business section, that would be notable coverage, but the reviews by themselves are not. Others, however, argue that such an analysis is a type of POV/OR on our part, and there's no way to clearly state that the reviews are only intended for a local audience. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
*sigh* Yes, it's obvious the Metro section of the NYT is regional coverage, sometimes people take policy a little too literally. whose AFD
Personally, I am less interested in whether the coverage is regional or national versus whether the review documents an extraordinary claim. For example, Sunset (magazine) has articles every month reviewing "5 Crab Shacks on the Maryland Coast" which are great food porn, but say nothing indicating the five crab shacks are extraordinary other than the travel writer decided to stop in that town. For the broader product category, national coverage is a given, again, in national magazines on every magazine rack. Again, the review needs to document an extraordinary claim beyond mere existence. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
But such a write up could indicate (but not necessarily guarantee) notability. It does not need to say it is notable. Local (which is typically regional for large cities) should not be disregarded.Cptnono (talk) 03:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I think one option is to expand WP:ORG to introduce a "new" criteria: Notable businesses have normally received noticeably more media attention than similar businesses.
My primary concern is that while I think some editors are thinking this at AfDs, nobody seems to actually come right out and say it, and ORG has a general goal of reflecting the actual practice as seen at WP:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Organizations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Please see Mzoli's - an article of this sort whose AFD was well-attended by the community and which was kept. The proposition is that restaurants, as a general class, are not notable, even though it is agreed that they commonly attract independent detailed coverage in reliable sources. Because this class of topics passes our general notability guide, this proposition rests upon the personal opinion of the nay-sayers. It is their POV or judgement that such topics should not be covered here. By objecting to such coverage, they wish to censor the project contrary to core policy. The nay-sayers do not seem to have any special status which would set them above other editors, the founder of this project nor the independent professional editors and publishers who decide that such topics do merit notice. Having worked themself in a restaurant does not qualify an editor for a special, expert opinion as such work is commonly menial labour and familiarity breeds contempt. Colonel Warden (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I wish you'd stop Mzoling us: that article is of little help for a number of reasons, namely:
1 - Mzoli is not a restaurant, but a sort of wholesale butchery, around which a number of restaurants opened; in other words, if anything, it is a restaurant cluster
2 - The concept described in point 1 is rather unique; most restaurants that would be affected by this proposal are something like, uh, a run-of-the-mill kebab house in Albany.
3 - The majority for keeping Mzoli was not clear-cut, and the article was written by Jimbo Wales; many of those who voted to keep the article explicitly did so out of respect for such a venerable editor.
4 - The whole AfD discussion for Mzoli, which is far too personal and acrimonious to be a template for how things ought to be discussed on wikipedia, was obscured. Editors with a certain expertise can still dig it out, but the fact that it is, at least in the intention, hidden from view is, in my opinion, a clear sign that wikipedia doesn't wish for it to be a precedent.
And, incidentally, deletionism (which I do not myself support, until ridicolously irrelevant things like prize dogs' sleeping habits start popping up on DYK) is a legitimate and widespread point of view on wikipedia. Calling its supporters menial, censoring nay-sayers is not particularly mature, and doesn't really help the mood of the discussion. Complainer (talk) 10:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Just as a comment, what tends to happen with restaurants, local businesses, local bands, local sports teams, etc. is that while there are multiple secondary sources to cover these, they tend to be from local sources that question their independence to some degree. No, this is not to say that a newspaper has a vested interest in the well-being of a restaurant, but instead they do have one to the local community. The smaller the community the source servers, the less independent that work becomes, and thus begs the question of notability of anything strictly sourced to these types of works. Note that a source normally considered to be a work on a large scale (like the NYTimes) often will still have a local section, and while all the rest of the newspaper will generally be independent, this part will not be.
In other words, it is not that we need a new guideline for restaurants - they should already be covered by WP:CORP if not the GNG. Instead, it is recognizing that local sources cannot be considered independent of the restaurant, and while usable as general sources, do not do a good job to establish the restaurant notability. --MASEM (t) 06:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
@Colonel Warden--I just want to say that it's not me being POV, at least not in the sense that you mean. It's my POV that interpreting either WP:GNG or WP:COMPANY to imply that reviews establish notability is an improper interpretation that is counter to the goal of the encyclopedia. I'm also not saying that restaurants are, as a class, non-notable--that would be unacceptable POV. I'm saying very specifically that specific restaurants to not meet WP:GNG, which states that there must be "significant coverage," and that a review does not meet the definition of significant; and also that it must be "independent of the subject", and not all reviews meet that criteria, either. I don't mind you disagreeing with my/our position, but you are wrong to claim that we're POV pushing in a way counter to core policy. Rather, we simply have differing interpretations of what core policy means. Yes, interpretation of policy is a point of view (just like being an eventualist or an immediatist is a point of view), but neither of them is a POV in the sense of WP:NPOV.Qwyrxian (talk) 06:33, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:N helpfully defines what is meant by significant coverage: "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Detailed reviews therefore satisfy this requirement. Furthermore, reviews in journals such as the NYT are commonly thought to be satisfactory for other topics such as plays or other attractions which may be of interest to their readership. Your ideas about significance seem constructed in an ad hoc or ex post facto way to produce the result that you desire - the elimination of articles about restaurants. There seems to be no objective reason to discriminate against restaurants and so doing so would be an overt bias or prejudice which would be contrary to core policy and other policies such as WP:CENSOR. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't we be more interested in building an encyclopedia with articles of encyclopedic value, not blindly obeying core policy? We make the rules... - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:59, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
An encyclopedia, by definition, includes everything worthy of note. Different people have different ideas as to what is worthy of note. We have no special status which entitles us to use our own POV for this purpose, as if we were the snooty maitre d' of an exclusive establishment. Instead, we rely upon the independent judgement of the professionals who write upon such things. For example, consider your first contribution to Wikipedia - Dance for the Sun. This seems to be a collection of children's music which some might think trivial and unworthy. In evaluating this, we look to see what independent authors have said about it. This doesn't seem to be much but I shan't be leading the charge to delete your work as it seems to have some possible value and good sources may yet be found. It is our explicit policy to be tolerant of such weak contributions in the expectation that they will mature and improve over the years. This is our essential method as we are not paid for our work and so cannot be held to deadlines or specific demands. Our volunteer nature requires tolerance and patience and it is our explicit policy that we are not here to make rules which do not assist us. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not questioning whether or not we are in a position to decide what is noteworthy and encyclopedic, I am questioning our ability to discern advertisements under the guise of news articles. Common sense tells me that the Kebab House does not belong in an encyclopedia, just as it generally does so in keeping Schmuckythecat's muffler from having its own article.
And for the record, I am slightly embarrassed by that being my first article.. :) - Theornamentalist (talk) 14:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Ha, I reverted to a version that still had vandalism by the same IP, I need rollback. - Theornamentalist (talk) 17:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I think for purposes of AGF, unless the article specifically says "paid advertisement" we cannot presume a restaurant review was made purposely as a commercial advertisement. I still argue that one can apply the concept of local coverage of local events losing independence as a reason to avoid such reviews however. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
We also need to put Wikipedia:SPAM into the mix. I'm just putting out a hypothetical situation, but one could "bribe" local reviewers and whatnot into giving a restaurant rave reviews, and via this, "create" a legitimate article according to the rule and regulations of Wikipedia.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 07:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
This is definitely a possibility. Although, as noted above, there are newspapers that boast that they won't do that, we can't be sure that it is the case. Ironically, should that happen to be the case, the restaurant that bribed the newspaper reviewer into being reviewed (regardless of whether the review itself says) and the deception is uncovered, the restaurant becomes notable for another reason when the newspaper's competition jump all over the bribed reviewer. -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 14:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
There are some strange claims above, such as that we can unilaterally decide to disclaim restaurant reviews based on our own unsupported notion that they may not be truly independent of the subject, or that a critical review of a product or service should somehow not count as a reliable source in determining its notability. There's obviously a difference between a review that describes the history of an establishment, its founder, etc., and one that just tersely says "Good decor. Short wait. Pizza is a must." A review does not necessarily have significant coverage of a subject, so the question always remains as to whether it can actually be helpful in writing an article. Re: the hyperbolic muffler review claim above, a review that lists members of a category of products in a table with numerical scores of efficiency, cost, whatever, would not count as significant coverage in anyone's view. If someone actually bothered to write a few paragraphs about a particular model of muffler, however, then there may be something to the topic. At least based on the discussion so far, I'm just not seeing any workable general principles here that would exclude any or all reviews from consideration towards WP:GNG. postdlf (talk) 14:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Support, at least something along these lines, or some amendment to GNG and CORP to tighten them up. At the moment it's simply too easy for people to say "cited in NYT, must be notable, per guidelines." However, restaurants - and hotels and shops among other things - surely need some substantive notability above and beyond being featured once or twice in the lifestyle, travel or regional supplements, even of major newspapers. There is a massive difference between those sections and the main news section. It's not about reliability as such, but about the nature and the purpose of the coverage. There are hundreds of thousands of papers around the world, and among them, hundreds of what might be termed top flight, national or semi-national ones. Most have at least one restaurant critic, who is invited to or sent to at least one restaurant on a weekly basis, usually in the city where that newspaper has its offices, to tell their readers what the food is like there. Similarly, travel journalists will be packed off to hotels and resorts (often as part of a PR jolly, which I don't think is quite such a problem when it comes to local restaurant reviewing), to provide readers with guidance/ideas as to which holiday they might wish to buy. Those visits will usually result in quite a detailed review or even fuller feature. Are we saying that every restaurant featured here, here or here gets a WP page, at least if we can find a corroborating cite in a second publication? What function would that serve other than to provide a directory that tells the reader "you can get a meal in this place, and here's what a couple of reviewers thought of it, to help you along"? N-HHtalk/edits 17:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Vote
At this point, with a fair amount of variety in opinions and suggestions, a formal vote is in order. Please note that this is intentionally non-definitive in either support or opposition of the inclusion or exclusion of specific ideas, just a chance to define what we will accept in the future to avoid lengthy arguments which involve referring to contrasting rules, essays, guidelines, policies, laws, or examples.
I would like to see a clarification in the rules or a new guideline regarding the legitimacy of any restaurants' notability.
- N-HHtalk/edits 13:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC) Definitely need at least clarification of existing general guidelines - "trivial" coverage should be explicitly taken to include simply featuring in regular review spots or columns, even in major newspapers. The problem is, as noted, that there is enough wiggle room there currently to allow articles on every two-bit local restaurant - whether created as spam or in good faith - to survive AfD, just because a couple of papers did their weekly review spot on the place. Two editors cite that interpretation of policy, and suddenly there's no consensus to delete.
Herostratus (talk) Some comments: 1) There is a restaurant wiki here, and that is where most of these articles belong. We have transwikied vast numbers of articles to wikia.com sites and we could do it again. 2) While it might be OK if we had neutral articles on every restaurant (although see point 1), it's practically impossible to have balanced coverage because 2A) it's a crapshoot which restaurants will be in and which not, and 2B) most of these articles are basically puff pieces. If there was a Wikiproject:Restaurant Neutrality dedicated to ensuring that restaurant articles gave fair place to negative information and removing puffery, then maybe that would be OK instead.
I support this, in the context that all products, services, and companies should disregard routine reviews as evidence of notability. I note that most, or at least many of those that have commented so far, in the oppose camp seem to agree with this broader scope and seem to be opposing a specific guideline for restaurants and the WP:GNG should be enough. To them I say, well, the GNG isn't working, so let's modify the GNG. Maybe the next discussion needs to be on the WP:N talk page. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Largely for the reasons the above two users have given, but partially because restaurants are something of a unique category unto themselves that don't really fit anywhere else. Each one is unique, and most newspapers have sections reviewing them. It's not the same as something like law firms, because there are daily reviews of different ones; with law firms, only the notable ones get any attention, and the non-notable ones struggle in obscurity. Quite frankly, I think this same issue exists with books, but I don't want to go there now. With the exception of huge chains and places like Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, which are undeniably notable on multiple levels, it's difficult to determine what constitutes enough variety in sources to establish notability, leading to discussions about obscure, ordinary kebab houses in the boondocks out in Albany. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:12, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Support. I am late to the discussion, but what is missing is any consideration of published restaurant guides. Many of these - for example the Zagat guides in the United States - deal with regions or cities but are national, indeed international publications: they are for tourists. And many of them are published by reputable publishers. It is a slam dunk that they pass WP criteria as reliable sources offering national coverage. But, whatever the editorial content, many of these guides are basically directories, listing as many restaurants as they practically can, the good, the bad, the fly-by-night. Inclusion even in a national guide from a respectable publish does not mean that a restaurant is notable; it means that the guide is trying to be a fairly comprehensive directory of restaurants which simply exist. Now look back at the newspaper reviews on which these discussions are always focused. As Theornamentalist cogently argues, these mandatory weekly and bi-weekly reviews have similar status; their function is to sell papers and ad space. WP:RS is simply too blunt a tool to deal with absolutely every type of content we have to evaluate. The point is not to exclude some restaurants or to include more or less all restaurants, but to make up our minds which it is. That restaurant guides and newspaper reviews can be left to do the job is out-of-touch with reality, because by their very nature - they don't care about notability - they try to cover just about everything. My perspective is that of a restaurant critic and author of a dining guide (and no of course that doesn't make me an authority here).KD Tries Again (talk) 04:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Neutral
The arguments have some merit, in that restaurants are a hotbed of irrelevant articles--the source of this very proposal is some incredibly irrelevant kebab house in Albany that I proposed for deletion. However, Wikipedia has already so many policies that nobody can remember them all and all too often the one that's forgotten first is the one about common sense. As a matter of fact, I was a fierce opponent of special policies for BLP, and derided the ones for notable pets; supporting special ones for restaurants would be inconsistent. I just wish WP:MILL were made into an official policy, which might make this proposal redundant. Complainer (talk) 10:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to treat restaurants in a different fashion from other organizations that are commonly written about. The problems that exist with restaurants apply with equal or greater force to schools, television stations, radio stations, small newspapers, and so forth. There are ways to make WP:ORG better, but a special, restaurants-only rule probably isn't it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I say, let each article be judged on it's own merits on a case by case basis, but with a caveat. It's pretty hard as it is to control Wikipedia's rapid growth as of late, where anyone or anything with a few verifiable blurbs can automatically have an article. I can also point to several specific subjects (certain TV shows for example and there myriad of articles about each of their episodes) where it seems that no matter what policies you can point out, people will vehemently support the articles in a Afd queue from being deleted. Yes, we do need some reining in of redundant and nonsense articles, but when do we implement a/or start to actively tackle them? We can't even agree with the current policies!! There is a problem, but it's not at the point where we need a massive overhaul of the rules. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 10:38, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose
Unnecessary, likely requires refinement of selection of sources at WP:N than a new highly-specalized guideline. --MASEM (t) 05:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:CREEP: I don't think that there is any problem here serious enough to require a new guideline. --Arxiloxos (talk) 05:26, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
We already require that coverage must be nontrivial. Routine reviews, local paper blurbs, etc., are trivial coverage. We don't need more subguidelines, we just need to follow the rules we've already got. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 06:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
A systemic bias against restaurants would be contrary to core policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:ORG is good enough. No need for a new one. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
General notability guideline is fine. Davewild (talk) 18:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
The existing rules seem to cover the main issues here. If they aren't being enforced fully, new rules won't help. Mr.Z-man 23:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
There is enough in the existing guidelines laid out at WP:CORP that can be applied to restaurants just as well as to any other business or product. Reviews in major publications is certainly not something exclusive to restaurants. -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 05:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose this entire process as nothing specific is even being proposed. We're having a vote to decide whether we should even try to write a policy? No thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Another stillborn attempt to regulate ... one of the least contentious area on wikipedia. No firm proposal indeed (the first criterion, that of being owned by a notable person is a deal-breaker: no inherited notability). Use general guideline. East of Borschov 08:36, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Although I do somewhat sympathize with the proposal, this is instruction creep aimed at a specific type of commercial establishment, and does nothing to address similar dubiously notable subjects as local music bands, buildings, local businesses and charities, and other factors. Maintaining the current policies, and in time perhaps merging some of the smaller, less developed articles into another article, is an idea which can still be used. John Carter (talk) 18:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I echo the sympathy, but we've got far too many specific guidelines already. GNG is the cover-all; 'keep it simple'. Chzz ► 06:23, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Nasty comment if special guidelines e.g. WP:ORG are used to prohibit things allowed by WP:GNG, then we should stuff like WP:Notability (Pokemon characters) to squeeze out even lower-importance categories of articles. But I think that deleting one another's types of articles as unimportant rapidly turns into a library-shredding competition. Any article about any subject should always be notable if it meets the basic WP:GNG criterion. And I don't see anything obvious in WP:ORG to contradict that.Wnt (talk) 22:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
If the establishment meets general notability with in depth coverage in multiple reliable sources I think its inclusion in wikipedia is appropriate. Solid State Survivor (talk) 23:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Per above, I don't see a need for this. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:32, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Question: Is a listing in a restaurant guide "in depth coverage"?KD Tries Again (talk) 21:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Unrealized ideas
I seem to recall some policy or guideline or essay or something in the Wikipedia: namespace about not including in a biographical article the things that a person is thinking about doing or would like to do, because those are just unrealized ideas. However, I can't find that now. Does anyone know what page this might be? Thanks. --Metropolitan90(talk) 17:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure this is not the way it's supposed to be done.
For those who accuse me of asking about one article, I'm saying this may be an example of what Wikipedia is not.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions· 20:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
It definitely fails notability, but ignoring that, its plot fails WP:WAF and WP:NOT#PLOT and overuses NFC images. --MASEM (t) 20:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
This is something of a recurring problem. We have over 3,000 articles in Category:Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention, with the oldest dating back to January 2007 as I write this. Perhaps we should target them next when we've finally sorted the unreferenced BLPs! Alzarian16 (talk) 21:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Eeeehhh, unreferenced BLP actually have a potential legal hazard to Wikipedia; bad plot summaries (or articles on fiction without sources) aren't an issue that needs expediency. That said, I certainly see a possible task force to help get appropriate WProjects involved to understand what articles are tagged, suggest other articles for merger (possibly deletion) due to lack of notability, and so forth, but without the gusto of the BLP one. --MASEM (t) 21:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we should be deleting plot summaries because that is all there is, instead it needs expanding to add the context, refs etc. We could expand the notability criteria to say that an episode of a notable series is also notable. Wikipedia typically has great coverage on TV shows. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Do we really want every episode of a notable series being declared notable and therefore have every single episode of Bonanza or Law & Order or the Simpsons? Those three series alone would cause for so many episodes that it becomes ridiculously unmanageable to make sure all episode articles are taken care of in a decent amount of time. We should limit articles to tv episodes to actually notable tv episodes that were reported about in third-party sources. Just because it exists and people are fans doesnt mean we need every single episode as a stand-alone article. The episode where the Fonz jumps a shark waterskiing would be a notable episode since it led to the phrase Jumping the shark. Unless an episode is relevant such as that, then why keep it? Because we are an indiscriminate collection of knowledge? Oh wait, we arent...Camelbinky (talk) 22:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I been trying to wrangle WP:FICT long enough to know that there is no precedent or consensus to assert every TV episode notable; each episode needs to meet the GNG like any other topic. Which is why I suggest that if we wanted to make a task force to handle these plots, we would be informing projects about it, giving them time to work it out and expand if possible, and at worst merging as a redirect to a list-of-episodes articles. Do also note that not every entry on the list noted above is a TV episode. --MASEM (t) 22:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd echo what Graeme Bartlett said: this is an area in which Wikipedia generally has excellent coverage, and this should be appreciated and enhanced, not diminished.--Arxiloxos (talk) 04:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
While that may be, a lot of that enhancement has been in consolidation. We don't, generally speaking, need a full article for one more episode of any given show. Now, of course, some episodes (the jumping the shark episode was mentioned above) are notable on their own merits, and most certainly should have a separate article. But most are not, and are notable only in context of the show they're part of. Given that, the proper presentation is also to keep them with the show they're part of (or as a list of episodes emphasizing the whole), not as a standalone article that largely consists of an over-detailed plot summary and perhaps some trivia. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 04:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
It's been well established that tv episode articles that lack any coverage outside of being a TV episode are generally merged and not kept. This is consistent with established policy (specifically WP:V regarding lack of 3rd party sources, and WP:NOT#PLOT on articles comprised mostly about plot, in addition to WP:WAF and WP:N. That said, I would certainly not want to delete/merge existing articles on TV episodes without editors being given the reasonable chance to expand plot-only articles to include things like reception. If they can't be expanded, they can always be merged into a larger episode list with a shortened summary. --MASEM (t) 04:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Plot summaries and "reception" (viewership? or do you mean something more?) is not enough! You need actual third-party (not TV guide!) coverage that shows the EPISODE was in fact somehow notable in its own right for some reason. Just because you can write an article about something does not make it notable. Please, if an episode exists with nothing more than a plot summary and some numbers on viewership and nothing substantial that shows it is notable for some sort of cultural reason then DELETE DELETE DELETE and let it be part of a list of episodes on the tv show's article page or some sort of spin off page but it does not deserve its own article. It makes a mockery of Wikipedia and makes us something we are not. I am sorry there are lots of editors who love to make these types of articles because they love the show and are a fan. We are not a fan site. There are other places for your hard work, just not here. Yes, you are large in numbers, but this isnt a democracy, those articles simply factually do not meet our standards at all.Camelbinky (talk) 23:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I haven't found anything yet, but with the show's 50th anniversary there will surely be mention of the show's most popular episodes, and I have heard or read that this is one of those. If I find this information I'll certainly add it to (hopefully) establish notability. I was really surprised Opie the Birdman doesn't have an article, because it is often listed as a fan favorite.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions· 18:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia and public domain for upcoming edits.
Not going to happen, and if it were to happen it would have to be discussed at Meta (not here) and have a foundation resolution and a community-wide vote like we did for the Licensing update. Let's move along now.
Sir,
I am Rishikeshan. I like Wikipedia. Will you please convert Wikipedia to public domain? Please do it, sir. I know you can't convert wikipedia completely to public domain, but you can make upcoming edits of Wikipedia and other projects under public domain
The reasons why release in public domain are:
1.In public domain Authors can get use of it and it will be the most open content.
This helps book writers, Other writers of digital method and they can adopt according to their needs. PLEASE! HELP AUTHORS AND PROPRIETARY CONTENT WRITERS. COPY-LEFT IS USEFUL TO SOFTWARES BUT CONTENT MUST NOT BE IN COPY-LEFT. PROPRIETARY IS NEEDED TO THE WORLD. Eg:- Linux grow because of competition with Microsoft and BSD.
2.No one can be competitor of Wikipedia, even if you make Wikipedia public domain, because Wikipedia is the largest and the most trusted.
3.Please remember no one is going to write derivatives of Wikipedia because it is too large. But, authors are going to make derivatives of pages of Wikipedia.
4.Even If you make new content of Wikipedia under public domain, Wikipedia will not loose People's trust.
5.Please understand no one can compete Wikipedia even if Wikipedia is not copy-left.
Wikipedia can live MORE USEFULLY if it is under public domain. Please remember BSD as an example. BSD criticizes GPL and GNU but it is favorite OS of many users. Google chrome and chromium project live--better than copy-left-ed Mozilla Firefox and the server giants APACHE and ISC BIND live better than others.
Please make new edits under public domain.
Let's make Wikipedia more useful.
I asked info-en of Wikipedia about this. They said to start a village pump thread.
I hope you will accept upcoming edits under Public Domain.
Please change 'You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL.' to 'You accept to give this edit and your previous edits under Public Domain'.
If you are unsure, Please make a poll with describing these reasons.
Rishikeshan (talk) 03:50, 2 September 2010 (UTC)Rishikeshan
We seem to have done just fine under copyleft, and honestly I don't see the problem. We've already decided that authors don't need to provide a list of every editor, just a link to the article, so authors really can use Wikipedia material without too much hassle in attribution. You've just got to say where you got it. I've no problem with that—you should be doing that even with public-domain material, if it's not your own work.
As to the sharealike provisions, I'm just fine with that. If you're going to use my work for free, I'm not really alright with you turning it around and locking it up in something proprietary. (That's different from commercial use—commercial use is just fine under CC-BY-SA, just not locking it down). The only charge I ask for my work, and the only charge to use any or all work on Wikipedia, is that you share free content just as you benefited from it. I've no desire to "help" those making proprietary, locked up stuff of any type. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 03:58, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Making Wikipedia Public Domain Will not affect Wikipedia. Please make Wikipedia Public domain. Public Domain is Helpful to all. I think wikipedians are good-hearted and not selfish. Wikipedians are not <removed> to behave rude at licenses like the sucking GPL and LGPL. I don't even use GPL'd software. Please make Wikipedia under Non-Copy left license by accepting new content under a permissive license or public domain. What about making a modified BSD license with advertising clause?
Please help authors.
Stop sucking <removed> copy-left.
Let's make community useful to all developers to make both open and proprietary things.
I don't want to do anything in fear of stupid selfish <removed>-ish copy-left licences.
If this writing is bad, Please report me--This is what on my and some other peoples' mind.
Administrators, Please consider this as serious. There are no problems of accepting new and changing old content by adding 'You accept to give this edit and your previous edits under Public Domain' to the edit page. I think wikipedians are not as selfish a$ <removed>. Please understand copyleft is only useful to softwares.
Please retract your disparaging statements about a living person. –xenotalk 13:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
FYI, this user appears to indiscriminately canvassing administrators on their talk pages. ATraintalk 13:06, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
The notices are sufficiently neutral... Though I think they will find most administrators would favour retaining the current system of attribution. This is probably a Meta or Foundation-level decision in any case... –xenotalk 13:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree with Seraphimblade. Our current license is working just fine, and it provides a greater service to the public by preventing unscrupulous vendors from falsely representing Wikipedia materials as their own original work, and thereby charging a premium for what we offer at no charge. bd2412T 13:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Seraphimblade's analysis of the situation is correct. It should also be noted that the copyright of Wikipedia's material is owned by that project's various contributors and not by the Foundation or any other centralized organization. This makes it practically impossible to gain a release of rights for the millions of articles just on the English Wikipedia, even if you have the financial resources needed to make the required purchases. If you have some need that makes public domain access an absolute requirement, timestamps for all Wikipedia contributions are available from page histories and copyrights of material published in the United States expires after 95 years. --Allen3talk 13:31, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Even if we set aside the issue of whether we want attribution, switching the licensing scheme to one not compatible with cc-by-sa will make things hopelessly complicated. It will also greatly reduce the numbers of sources with compatible licenses that we can import. –xenotalk 13:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Oppose movement to public domain. By licensing our content for copy-left rather than public domain, we ensure that those who build upon it elsewhere to create derivative works must also (to remain with the law) release their derivative works under copy-left. This is a better fit to the Wikimedia Foundation's mission of empowering people around the world to collect, develop and disseminate educational content freely. --Moonriddengirl(talk) 13:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Because frankly, I like getting credited for the work I do for Wikipedia. If it was entirely in the public domain, then I would get any credit whatsoever. —Farix (t | c) 18:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
(@Rishikeshan per your request on my talk page) I agree with each of the dissenting replies above. Essentially -- the current copy-left licensing better protects the hard work of the millions of individuals who contribute to Wikipedia -- and, at the same time, ensures the accurate dissemination of Wikipedia content while promoting its easy distribution. Public domain does not fulfill those conditions. — CactusWriter (talk) 18:32, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Stop voting and legitimizing this rant. --Golbez (talk) 21:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Fully Support Completely in harmony with the open spirit of Wikipedia. Clearly protectionism should have no home on Wikipedia. Saying that, as user:xeno points out, this is likely a Meta or Foundation-level decision and not without some implementation issues to overcome. Regards, SunCreator(talk) 19:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
It's in harmony with the open spirit of Wikipedia to allow others to take our content and make their derivative works proprietary? How so? I understand that the proposer may feel that "PROPRIETARY IS NEEDED TO THE WORLD", but I'm not quite sure how this constitutes an open spirit. :/ --Moonriddengirl(talk) 19:06, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
The issue that comes up if someone can copy Wikipedia and make it proprietary, is that we might find out that this resource is soon owned by whoever can pay lawyers to attack and defend. In other words, someone sends around some private investigators to spook celebrities by asking them about stuff on Wikipedia, and has some sleazy lawyers try to enlist a whole crew of them in some huge class-action lawsuit, and with much effort and legal maneuvering manages to get such a judgment as to knock out Wikipedia. Then they make their own proprietary version available, and use the fees people pay to access it to pay their own lawyers and judgments, and (maybe) make a profit and stay in business. Before long anyone caught slipping a "pirate disk" of Wikipedia files to a friend in a back alley is getting sued for contributory libel, and the whole world just accepts that Wikipedians were idiots who deserved to become the unwitting servants of the overlord who has taken over the restriction and censorship of their work. The copyleft is a way to stop us from paying our future oppressors in content. It is a poor substitute for the final, long overdue, and sorely needed repeal of all copyright law. Wnt (talk) 20:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Why in god would we release it in the public domain? So things like this can happen indiscriminatly? The current liscensing gives our work some protection, without harming open-ness of contributions. Next person to vote in the poll I will personally smack with a melon :) ResMar 03:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't we have to start over again from scratch? I mean, each editor released their edits under CC-BY-SA. Don't we need their permission to further release them into public domain? And what happens if one person refuses--how do you take out just their edits? Especially since I would be willing to bet that we couldn't get such permission, since so much of the content is added by IP editors, whom we couldn't reliably contact to get the new permission. Or perhaps I misunderstand about copyright law.... Qwyrxian (talk) 03:21, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I have an idea. Just do what is above mentioned. After a successful implementation, the Wikipedia will be punblic domain after 95 years :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rishikeshan (talk • contribs)
Accept. I propose my thread is good:D
Living a competition-less life is waste. Did proprietary contents do BAD to Wikipedia? Proprietary is needed to the world, because copy-left may affect future of IT industry and derivative. This includes there will be economic loss in some countries. BSD IS THE RESCUER TO OSS, BUT WHO WILL RESCUE WIKIPEDIA? PROPRIETARY INFLUENCE SOME COUNTRIES' ECONOMY! PROPRIETARY IS NEEDED TO TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT. You may think this is irrelevant, please think a moment. THIS IS THE TRUTH! Rishikeshan (talk) 05:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)Rishikeshan
Please don't be selfish: no one is going to credit authors, if the contents derive. I thought most of the wikipedians are good, now I realized most are selfish, always trying to 'copy-left' articles.
If anyone want credit, Please modify BSD documentation license and add an advertising clause.
COPY-LEFT IS ALWAYS RUDE.
PLEASE USE MODIFIED BSD Documentation License INSTEAD.
LET'S BE GOOD PEOPLE BY ALLOWING DERIVATIVES OF BOTH OPEN AND PROPRIETARY CONTENT! PLEASE! Be good people.
DON'T REPLY HERE WITHOUT READING ABOVE THREAD (MAINLY REASONS PART). PLEASE READ THE THREAD COMPLETELY BEFORE WRITING A REPLY.
--Rishikeshan (talk) 09:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)Rishikeshan
Can we close this thread? Rishikeshan is clearly trolling now. —Farix (t | c) 11:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree, and so I am going to be WP:BOLD and close it. We'll see if anyone reverts. Anomie⚔ 14:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Where to report it?
4-clause bsd style license retains attribution while stopping copy-left.
Rishikeshan (talk) 06:37, 4 September 2010 (UTC)Rishikeshan
Logged-in editors' IPs
If I wish to follow up a (good faith) IP edit believed to be by registered user who may simply have forgetten to log-in eg. this, are there any routes to finding the IP that a logged-in editor used to performed an edit in a (recent) document history – so it can be compared with the range of IP edits to the same article? If so, is access to the info a technical issue or a policy one: ie. is the investigator required to have a particular user status? Thanks, Trev M ~ 16:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Only Wikipedia:CheckUsers have this access, mainly for detecting sock-puppets. If you suspect sock-puppetry you can post at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. This information is sensitive and confidential and not usually available. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Jez! That answers that! Trev M ~ 20:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Atheism is one of the condition for rationality and moral science. Can you make Wikipedia rationalist (inclusively atheist) ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iohana4 (talk • contribs) 22:27, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia tends to respect all viewpoints, religious orientations and personal beliefs. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
If anything Wikipedia is agnostic. The very fact that we are not chauvenistic (the real meaning, not to be mistaken with male chauvinism) and we are not overtly religious is why Conservapedia hates Wikipedia so much. We dont put the US first, we dont put the Christian religion first, we dont put ANYTHING first other than our collective belief on creating an accurate encyclopedia of knowledge.Camelbinky (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I would also challenge the idea that being "rationalist" and or "scientific" is somehow better than our current point of view--essentially (in my opinion), that we attempt to match up our writing to the properly weighted and attributed points of view of people writing on the topic in the "real world. What do we gain by moving to a point of view that favors a certain group of voices over others? Wouldn't this also push our systemic bias even farther towards the western, privileged classes? Qwyrxian (talk) 00:26, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is entirely rational. It speaks facts on all matters; in religion, a figure is X; Religion Y is the belief of Z; etc. etc... I know no instance on Wikipedia where a purely religious aspect is described as objective fact. So your request comes across as odd, without making any statement on where Wikipedia lacks rationalism. --Golbez (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
It's not just religion, Wikipedia does not side with anyone's beliefs about what is good or bad, but only describes objectively confirmed events neutrally. 61.7.120.132 (talk) 04:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
How to indicate a source is in pd
Moved from VPT
Is it appropriate to indicate if a source is in public domain with a in the reference such as in the references section at Ringed_Seal#References? If so, is there a templated method of indicating a source is pd?Smallman12q (talk) 14:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Seems purely decorative to me, and should probably be removed. I can't think of any reason there would be a need for us to indicate in the references that a source is PD. As opposed to what is done for example at Apollo#References, but even there IMO the icon is superfluous and seems to have been added quite recently, and I can't find the discussion that led to it. Anomie⚔ 15:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Well I'm looking for a consensus to either keep them or remove them...is there any guide to the usage of icons in sources in the MoS?Smallman12q (talk) 00:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it's called MOS:ICON. IMHO they should definitely be removed as they serve no useful function. (Btw, this discussion is really more suited for Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)). — Blue-Haired Lawyert 00:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
I've looked at MOS:ICON but it doesn't explicitly mention the use of icons in references/citations. Could the MoS be amended to reference their usage in references?Smallman12q (talk) 02:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Is there really a need to note that a reference is from a source in the public domain? Is this practice even standard among any of the citation styles? —Farix (t | c) 14:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Why not allow Wikipedia editors to share in revenue for their efforts?
The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that a prominent user-content-generated website was planning on implementing a method of paying its contributors a share of its advertising revenues. Weber, "YouTubers to get ad money share." (BBC). I posit that Wikipedia, also a prominent user-content-generated website, should explore implementing the same policy.
Of course, some revenue stream has to be tapped to make it worthwhile. More importantly however, if wikipedia users could share in the revenue generated by the website, more individuals would contribute higher-quality content, as opposed to now where editing wikipedia is akin to giving to charity. What's stopping us from implementing this? Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 15:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
The point is, once users look at advertising not in the abstract, but as a way the users themselves can directly monetarily benefit, perhaps advertising will be seen as more beneficial. Anyway, I didn't know there was a "complete ban" on advertising. Where is that written? Furthermore, I'm not proposing anything old-hat, what I'd like to discuss is the revenue-sharing idea that other websites are advocating. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 15:24, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Among the many other problems with this... how do you determine who gets the money? The people with the most edits? The people with the best edits? Only people credited with creating a featured work? --Golbez (talk) 15:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
I say the people with the most edits. ;-) Seriously, though, Wikipedia has no "revenue" to share. bd2412T 15:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Plus, would such a move potentially jeopardize the Foundation's 501(c)(3) status? SchuminWeb (Talk) 05:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
There'd be no way to filter out vandals and non-constructive edits. Bots would be among the highest paid if it were just by number of edits, and if it were by kb added, then people who contribute by pruning crap out of articles would get nothing, and people who revert blanking vandalism would get a lot. postdlf (talk) 16:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, I dont know if there would be "no way" to organize this in order to be fair to all editors. That's why I brought it up here . . . so that we can hash out the guidelines for paying editors dividends like other user-content websites. Perhaps we should allow advertising for the purposes of having revenue to share. Just a thought huh. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 21:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Just a thought, but I think in order to make revenue-sharing fair we'd actually have to have a real-life human being (or a panel) actually reviewing user's edit histories. I dont think payment would be automatic -- a user probably would have to apply for remuneration and be evaluated for such. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
And then there would be disputes - why did the panel only award me x? And then an appeals process. And then litigation. And increasing greed for more advertising to earn more money. And then some becoming professional Wikipedians... And then we will have lost the original spirit behind Wikipedia. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Followed by "And after I spent six weeks' insisting that I deserve 16% of revenue from this obscure article rather than 14%, I discovered that the total revenue from the entire article was only twenty cents, and they never pay less than US $10 at a time, because of the cost of bookkeeping involved."
In short, it's not worth it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
NOOOOOOOO Wikipedia is not supposed to be based on financial gain, this proposal runs against the very core ideas of what it is we are doing here. There should never be a profit motive involved, I can only imagine the terrible mess this would make of this entire project. Wikipedia is not even remotely the same thing as YouTube, thankfully. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:32, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think the core ideas have anything against making money per se. Jimbo's a fan of Ayn Rand, who was always in favor of making an honest dollar. But not when it compromises the integrity of the project. And it's hard to think of any way of keeping that from happening (even if there were any revenue to share, which of course there's not). --Trovatore (talk) 02:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
"Why not?" Because there's no money; there's no process for allocating the money; there's no system for dispensing the money; and a lot of people would object to the philosophy. I cannot believe you meant this as a serious query. Propaniac (talk) 20:38, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, I did mean it as a serious query. Sorry if I offended you sir. Please AGF and all that . . . Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 02:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
On a more serious note, I would really appreciate if the Wikimedia Foundation would provide me with a tablet computer of some kind. My edit history will show that I am a constant editor when free to edit, but I have hour+ commutes in the morning and afternoon that I would be using to edit madly if I had the tool for it. If any sort of "revenue sharing" was to go on, that's the kind that should. Cheers! bd2412T 15:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not based on financial gain. It is a free encyclopaedia in every sense of the word - speech as well as beer.
Advertising is something that has been repeatedly discussed and repeatedly thrown out due to the inherent problems of having advertising.
Suggesting that people would look at the debate differently once they know they could benefit from ads is tantamount to bribery. It implies that Wikipedia users are easily-swayed imbeciles who will change their stance on a principle because they have some gain out of it.
Linked to the above point, nobody here got in it for cash.
It would be impossible to determine who gets money for what; do we say that only content writers get money? what about anti-vandalism? should it be by raw editcount? what about people making bad edits? So on, so forth.
None of us got in it for cash, and the principles behind refusing to allow ads are not likely to change because there's money in it for us. Wikipedia does not need advertising or to pay its users to stay afloat.
We currently have a complete ban on paid editing; I'd love to see how this idea would interplay with that. Ironholds (talk) 14:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
We do not have a complete ban on paid editing. See WP:PAID for links to the two (currently unapproved) proposals, both of which would permit some kinds of paid editing. See WP:WikiProject Medicine/Google Project for one example of paid editors that the community is—far from "completely banning them"—grateful to have helping us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that the issue of ad revenue for Wikipedia should be distinct from the question of rewarding editors, since this could come from outside grants or donations, and advertising might be done simply to cover server and employee costs.
I think that rewarding editors can be done, but it must be done cautiously. An example of an incautious reward would be that a certain computer game manufacturer looks over the edits about its articles, picks out some key fans, and sends them generous care packages of games and computer equipment (or at least, tickets to claim them sent via Wikipedia e-mail). Note that the lack of transparency and clear strain on WP:NPOV are what make this objectionable.
But a different philanthropist might set up another way to reward Wikipedia editors. All editors are put through a primary screen for number of edits and byte count. Text that is new versus old is marked, and an effort is made to create easy links to contemporaneous discussion pages. A statistically guided "random" set of 50 edits is chosen from these and sent to a group of volunteers. Each volunteer runs through 50-100 edits from 50 different people, rating the quality on a few characteristics. (Volunteering might also be required for people to have a chance to win? A handful of standard edits, especially those meant to sense certain biases in judgment, might also be used to discount some ratings) By summing up the quality ratings, and multiplying by the number of edits per each person, a group of winners can be generated in nearly neutral fashion. The winners would then receive a modest sum - not really enough to be worth the time on an occupational level, at least not at first - and the recognition of having been selected as a quality editor. Wnt (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Given the vast success of Wikipedia as a purely volunteer project, it doesn't look like financial incentives are necessary or even desirable. If you don't want to edit without getting paid, don't edit. SDY (talk) 21:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I gladly volunteer time for this project because it is a beneficial, worthwhile project. It is also a non-profit project—no one makes money from running Wikipedia, not even WMF or Jimbo Wales. I'd much rather see money go toward paying for servers, hosting, and the few paid staff we do need in terms of WMF and developers. If we should ever have a surplus of cash, I would really like to see that going toward purchasing the rights to different types of media and releasing them under a free license.
If this were a for-profit product, you bet I'd demand a share of the profits (or, more likely, I would never have worked on it at all). But it's not, so there is no profit to share. For WMF to attempt to retain profits for personal enrichment would be a gross violation of federal law. That's what 501(c)(3) means. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 00:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Money is the root of all evil. 96.255.178.76 (talk) 19:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Not only are you wrong, but you quoted it wrong. Read your Bible. --Golbez (talk) 20:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay, let's hear what you've got in Greek translation and we can discuss. Carrite (talk) 03:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I picked up two quarters and a penny on the beach today. I feel that I have already been overpaid. pietopper (talk) 21:31, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
With all the cultural pull to be dishonest already coming from outside Wikipedia, adding financial temptations for skewing text and spewing credible scribble, for minute pay, seems to miss the Zen of Wikipedia, which is that you do get no credit, do receive no reward. --Wetman (talk) 18:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
While Wikipedia and the other sister projects may not have advertising, there is money being made by people who are selling books and using material gleaned from Wikimedia projects. Some of this is overt and being used to support the Wikimedia Foundation, and some of it is for blatant commercial projects that are enriching... well some very "well connected" individuals who are associated to some degree or another with the WMF. I've considered in the past setting up some sort of publishing organization that might be able to help bring some of these profits back to the authors and contributors of Wikimedia projects, but such efforts have gone in vain in the past when I've brought it up on some of the various mailing lists.
There is a market for dead tree (and other) content derived from the contributions made to these websites. Profit is being made, but not by those who have written and contributed to these projects. Yes, I know that is also the nature of a copy-left license just as people who have contributed to Linux over the years aren't necessarily making money from the sales by Red Hat and other companies who make commercial distributions. More significantly, the use of Wikimedia trademarks in secondary and tertiary products that are derived from the wikis and the editing going on here is not really well defined and is not something which anybody can necessarily use. This is something that hasn't really been dealt with very well by the WMF. Yes.... I've brought this up in the past too, usually with very unsatisfying results that have gone very sour when I've tried to formally offer stuff for sale for a very modest profit (usually loss for myself or at best barely enough profit to buy a single pizza). --Robert Horning (talk) 08:07, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Proposed change to RfA pass/fail percentages
I am intending to propose a small but significant change to the wording at WP:RFA. In the "About RfA" section, in the "Decision process" subsection, the current wording of the first paragraph is
Any user may nominate another user with an account. Nominations remain posted for seven days from the time the nomination is posted on this page, during which time users give their opinions, ask questions, and make comments. This discussion process is not a vote (it is sometimes referred to as a !vote, using the computer science negation symbol). At the end of that period, a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion. This is sometimes difficult to ascertain and is not a numerical measurement, but as a general descriptive rule of thumb most of those above ~80% approval pass; most of those below ~70% fail, and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion.
I am proposing to change it to read (my changes are shown in bold, but won't be bold in the actual text):
Any user may nominate another user with an account. Nominations remain posted for seven days from the time the nomination is posted on this page, during which time users give their opinions, ask questions, and make comments. This discussion process is not a vote (it is sometimes referred to as a !vote, using the computer science negation symbol). At the end of that period, a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion. This is sometimes difficult to ascertain and is not a numerical measurement, but as a general descriptive rule of thumb most of those above ~70% approval should pass; most of those below ~60% should fail, and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion. (Historically, the likely-pass level was ~80% and the likely-fail level was ~70%, but these were lowered in the fall of 2010.)
That is it. The only real change is the lowering of the likely-pass percentage from 80% to 70% and the likely-fail percentage from 70% to 60%. That is, the instruction to the closing bureaucrats is changed. (The addition of the word "should" is only to prevent the sentence from being descriptive (and therefore technically false) rather than prescriptive; it is not important. The last sentence ("Historically..." is also not important.
I see this as the simplest way to address the problem that not enough admins are being created, partly because too many are failing, and presumably others thus despair of trying. I think this is because of some commentors applying too-high standards ("Oppose, would make a great admin, but does not meet my criteria of 25 GAs and 25 DYKs") or are too niggly ("Oppose, would make a great admin, but his userpage shows awful design skills"). We could go round-and-round with other solutions but just changing the percentage is far simpler and should do the job of reducing the weight of these kinds of comments.
I'm not asking so much for discussion on the merits of this proposal here, as a large forum is needed for this (see question 3), although maybe I'm missing something. But I have three questions:
Has this been discussed recently anywhere?
Any suggestions on changes to the wording? In my opinion, simpler is better, and less change is better.
Would it be OK to offer this as a stand-alone proposal, that is, as a stand-alone article with the "Proposed Policy" template at the top? I know its not usual to do this when just proposing to change the text of a page (and WP:RfA is not even labeled as a policy), but this is a pretty radical change, I guess, and an RfC won't do, I don't think. Or would there be a better way? Thanks, Herostratus (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
The classical argument against that is that people will just increase their personal standards when the pass percentage is lowered. I doubt that is true; I think people in general simply ask "Can I trust this person to be a good admin?", and will continue to do so with a lowered percentage. Ucucha 23:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
If the reason really is people opposing for stupid reasons, why not just remind everyone that RfA is not a vote and the percentages are a rough guideline for onlookers? This is already stated in WP:RFA#Decision process, but could be made somewhat clearer by removing "and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion" to remove the implication that the area not between is not subject to discretion. Anomie⚔ 00:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that could be done instead. It would give more discretion to bureacrats, and to a certain extent take it away from the regular editors. This could be controversial, and RfA has been considered closer to being a vote than anything else here. Note that the support/oppose/neutral numbers are given when the result it posted, and "votes" are not mixed in with general discussion as happens in other venues. I think this would be difficult to get adopted. Herostratus (talk) 00:46, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Here's an experimental AFD style RFA from 2007. Interesting concept but considering how long RFAs become, closing something like this would be one hell of a headache for the crats. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Interesting. It would be a lot of work unless the 'crat basically ignored the numbers and focused on the cogency of arguments. Which means someone could pass with minority support (or fail if there was one truly damning argument against). You could do this if you replaced the reference to "consensus" with something like "best judgment of the bureaucrat". I don't have an opinion on that, but it might be a good thing. But I don't want to propose it because I don't want to go that far, and it would probably never fly anyway. Herostratus (talk) 02:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
As someone who recently failed an RfA but would have passed under this proposed amendment, I oppose the change. I cannot see myself working as an admin without the community's confidence. -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 17:56, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree with what was said above; it is important that all admins are trusted by the community. A bare pass doesn't cut it, in my opinion. Also, I see the word "promotion" in there, which I think should be removed. I realize that you weren't proposing anything to do that, but still; adminship isn't a promotion. Ajraddatz (Talk) 03:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Suggested improvement to WP:OR advisory in many articles
Many articles, such as List of sovereign states, include an advisory with wording similar to the following:
This article's sorting and inclusion criteria may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2010)
My suggestion for improve is a simple one: change "adding references" to "citing sources". This both says the same thing and avoids the redirect that currently takes place.
Note: I found that "WP:..." in the double brackets does the same thing as "Wikipedia:..." does. However, if "Wikipedia:..." is better to use, then, as a famous Star Trek: The Next Generation starship captain would say: "Make it so." — Glenn L (talk) 05:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
This isn't really a proposal to change a policy, just the wording of a template. I suggest you re-post this on the template's talk page. However, I would also note that changing something solely to avoid a redirect is not needed or desirable. Click here for more information on this. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Request to use information in our website
Respective Sir,
We have developed a business directory for the country of Pakistan. In which we provide details about all kinds of businesses in all cities. To create more interest for users, we also want to provide brief introduction of that city in which the user is interested. For this purpose, We want your authorization to use contents of your site, so that we can prevent any legal violation. We hope positive response by you people as contents of your site are already an open source of information. Please reply us at (email removed)
--116.71.173.73 (talk) 08:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
All wikipedia content is usable with attribution, see the relevant section of the FAQ. I removed your email address to save you some spam. --Nuujinn (talk) 09:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Photos of Executed Persons
There may be other cases besides nazis, but in the case of virtually every nazi executed by hanging we have included in the article a photo of the body, sometimes with the rope still around the victim's neck.
I personally find this shocking and unnecessary. Should this be allowed? Should there be warnings? A user-configurable preference that blocks or allows such images?--Jrm2007 (talk) 12:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Suggest you post at the relevant article talk pages for discussion there. Wikipedia is not censored and I see nothing wrong in these images being used. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
For the (unasked) content question: I have no opinion on whether the photos are encyclopedically necessary; it might be best to discuss that particular issue at WT:FASC, WT:MILHIST, and/or WT:MILBIO rather than here. At the very least you should post on all three of those pages to invite interested editors here, although I personally would suggest moving the content aspect of this discussion to WT:FASC and posting invitations at WT:MILHIST and WT:MILBIO to discuss it there. Anomie⚔ 15:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
I think you will find that the vast majority of people, not just on Wikipedia but everywhere, feel that a nazi with a rope around his neck is the very best kind of nazi. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Speak for yourself. Nazis are people too. Generally bad people, but still people. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm with OD on this one. Taking pleasure at the suffering and death of others is incompatible with morality. The question, not necessarily censorship, is whether the pictures in the articles are purely there for shock value or to please the crowds. Not censored does not equal "as crass and disrespectful as possible." SDY (talk) 02:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
The original question actually was censorship, specifically "Should this be allowed?" rather than "Is this necessary or desirable?". The latter is a good question and deserves asking, but it's a content rather than a policy question and IMO is better asked elsewhere. Anomie⚔ 04:00, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Gory, or scary stuff (like a distorted face) is one thing, but a small picture of someone hanging with a hood over their head doesn't have to be shocking. It is what it is. An execution is one of the biggest events in a persons life! If we've got a photo of that event, and it's not disgustingly gory, I think we ought to use it. Perfectly encyclopaedic. What OrangeDog, and SDY, said above makes sense to me, and I think Beeblebrox's comment is pretty close to the truth. I kinda think Nazis, and others despised by people today, get harsher treatment in their bios because of the lives they lived; and that kind of bias doesn't seem right to me, it seems like something editors should be on guard against.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 07:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
If you look at the photos in question, it is not a body with a hood over the victim's head. Hanging is a terrible thing to do to anyone, nazi or not (and some of those hanged were not even really guilty of capital crimes by today's standards) and I think the reason for showing such photos should be considered. Having said that, if the over-arching idea is that Wikipedia should not be censored, my question is answered and I will accept that terrible photos can occur anyplace within the site.--Jrm2007 (talk) 04:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
The article in question, I think, is Julius Streicher. This particular image is gruesome and adds little information to the article that isn't easily conveyed in text. If there was something highly unusual about the way the execution was carried out, that visual information would help with, that might be a good reason to include it. Including an image of their corpse because they were a bad person is a terrible reason. The WordsmithCommunicate 06:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
What's so gruesome about it? If the knot weren't tied in traditional hangman's noose style, you wouldn't even know he was dead. Besides, if a person supports capital punishment for anyone, then Nazis should top the list; and if one opposes it, what better way to raise awareness and promote public disgust than to make gruesome images widely visible?
The merit to the article should be clear: it demonstrates the public nature of the execution (thus, indirectly, the attitude of the populace), and even more to the point, it shows that there is some proof (maybe not in this example) that the person is actually dead. Given the tendency of Nazi history to become subject to revisionism and conspiracy theory, there's merit to keeping the factual data plainly visible.
Now concentration camp photos are gruesome, and alas!, no less unusual for the time; still the merit of keeping them is clear. Wnt (talk) 13:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I am also shocked/saddened/made uncomfortable by photos of concentration camp victims or images that fall into several other categories. Perhaps what got me initially about the nazi hanging photos was the unexpectedness. Were it up to me, I would simply, like the "spoiler alerts" for movie plot descriptions, have similar alerts for photos that fall into certain categories -- I think the determination of such categories should not be too controversial since we are not censoring anything, just alerting.--Jrm2007 (talk) 17:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Early on Resolute said it very succinctly. There are policies in place and if you're offended, there are mechanisms to deal with it. No additional alerts are needed. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 17:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is also not a shock site. If an image shocks and doesn't add information to the article, it goes. We may not be censored, but we aren't offensive just for the sake of being offensive. This is a matter of editorial discretion, as was made clear during the Goatse deletion incident. The WordsmithCommunicate 18:01, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
You lost me at "Hanging is a terrible thing to do to anyone, nazi or not. " Hanging is pretty mild compared to what the nazis did to their victims in the camps. It's important that we document the truth, and the truth is not always pretty, often it is in fact disturbing and it is a good thing if we have accurate historical images that make people uncomfortable. History is full of uncomfortable, ugly moments, if we had photographs of these battles where the Mongols used their prisoners as shields, or the Battle of Adrianople, where upwards of 20,000 Romans were hacked up by the Goths and the Romans had trouble escaping because they kept slipping and falling due to all the blood on the ground, then you would see some seriously disturbing imagery. Photography is now an important tool in documenting history, and we should not restrict what photographs we use just because history tends to be ugly. There is a reason that the Allies chose to record what they found when they reached the death camps, it's important that the reality of what happened there be known and not sugar coated, and it's also important that the reality of what happened to those who perpetrated atrocities and genocide be known as well. It's not pretty, and it shouldn't be, it was an exceptionally ugly time in the history of the human race. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
The logic of the comparative mildness of hanging vs what nazis did in camps making it okay to show a shocking image escapes me. And, btw, some of these nazis never murdered anyone. Documenting the truth is valuable -- repetitive gruesome photographs, perhaps less so. But if policies are in place already, fine.--Jrm2007 (talk) 18:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Words can barely express how offended I am at the Wordsmith's above suggestion that somehow accurate historical photographs of real events are somehow in the same category as a close up photo of some guys gaping distended butthole. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I envy people who live in a world where nothing ever makes them uncomfortable. Or maybe not. I suspect such people don't care about others. This world is filled with things that annoy me, make me uncomfortable, and shock me. Many of them are fiction coming out of Holywood. If I had my way, there'd never be another slasher/zombie/suspense film ever. But I just avoid going to see them and accept that there are strange people in this world who aren't satisfied with the existing non-fictional gruesomeness available in unexpurgated history books, and have to make up more of it. This issue here is a case of looking in real history books. And I agree that hanging was too good for Nasis, and I'd go further that "lethal injection" isn't nearly as nice as some would have it seem. - Denimadept (talk) 19:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
A micro question on claim of notability and a macro question on notability of religious figureheads
Micro question
Two days ago, I had speedied this article on the A7. Beeblebrox declined the speedy with the comment, "I would say that being a saint is a claim of notability...". The confusion that arose -- which I discussed consequently on Beebelbrox's talk page -- was that Beeblebrox was considering the claim of being a Hindu saint as (perhaps) being equivalent to the claim of being a Saint. I perceived that the claim of being a Hindu saint which the article made was not in any way a claim of notability (as opposed to the claim of being a Saint, which is a clear claim of notability). One reason for such a perception in me is because in my understanding of the Indian culture, India has a huge and significant majority of Swamis, Hindu saints and sadhus(all used synonymously) present who haven't undergone any formal test by fire, in the manner of speaking. Some references in context are provided:[1][2][3]. I might be comparing apples to oranges, but for me, the claim of being a Hindu saint is equivalent to being a claim of being a sports person. There're very many notable sports persons, in the same way as there're very many notable Hindu saints.
Given all this, it'll be wonderful if editors here can clarify whether a claim of being a Hindu saint should be always considered a claim of notability (in the context of a csd A7 tag).
Macro question
Given that we have notability criteria for many categories of individuals (from pornographic actors to academicians), is it a good time to re-propose that we have a separate section that defines the notability criteria for religious figureheads?
Thanks and warm regards. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ ―Œ ♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣ 19:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
I readily admit that my knowledge of Hinduism is limited at best,but I did not intend to suggest that any Hindu saint was "automatically notable™" and in fact I strongly dislike the idea that anything is automatically notable. The point here is that for purposes of speedy deletion, a claim of being a saint is an implied claim of notability, not that any article on a Hindu saint must be kept in the long term. All that is required to avoid WP:CSD#A7 is any reasonable claim of some notability. Of course actual proof is required to survive AFD and retain the article in the long term. (by the way if you are trying to clarify a CSD issue WT:CSD may be a better venue) Beeblebrox (talk) 19:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
(commenting based on a note on my talk page) I agree with Beeblebrox entirely. This (being called a saint) isn't a case of notability, rather an assertion of importance as required by CSD#A7, a standard that is purposely lower than notability. As for notability criteria, I don't think there's a need for something different for religious people, WP:BIO and WP:GNG pretty much cover it. —SpacemanSpiff 19:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Figurehead is a rather insulting term to apply to who is being discussed here, namely, importance assigned to persons by religion or specifically religious communities. patsw (talk) 22:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Check your grammar, because that makes no sense, but I wish someone would insult me by calling me a figurehead.KD Tries Again (talk) 02:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Thanks for the comments. Even Xeno on his talk page communicated that Beeblebrox is right and that someone similarly unfamiliar with the subject would likely make the same decision coming across an article that where the claim was that of being a "Hindu saint". Thanks again and warm regards. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ ―Œ ♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣ 03:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Remember that A7 is meant to get rid of articles that don't say why their subjects are important. Being named a saint means that other people think that you've been important in some religious way, so whether or not you're notable, an article on you shouldn't be speedy deleted under that criterion. Nyttend (talk) 00:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Logo size concern
I have a concern that a proprietary product logo is being used on a page in such a way that it constitutes "an endorsement" of the product in question. The logo is the most striking object on the page, unnecessarily large for clear viewing, larger than the article title which has the same lettering, and draws immediate attention. I have twice reduced the size of the logo and a discussion at the project talk page is not being responded to since my last intervention. After my second intervention, the logo was replaced even larger than when I initially replaced it. The page is that for the IPad, an Apple Inc.Tablet computer. While I actually use Apple products, I feel this example has become a POV statement.
I've checked out several similar products, and other products by Apple, which have no such logo issues and this mis(?)use appears to be one other editor's. Other Apple Inc. products: iPod,iPhone,MacBook; comparable products: HP Slate PC,Samsung_Galaxy_Tab. Wider input to this matter? Thanks, Trev M ~ 12:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes) seems to be about all we have on infobox design. It recomments such boxen should be 300px or 25em. The infobox in question is 22em, well within limits. The image is 250px wide - a standard image size. It is narrower than the HP Slate (albeit this is a landscape image) but wider than the Samsung, which like the iPad is a portrait image. Oh, and the image will be deleted on the 13th September anyway, as non-free and replacable. Given all of this, I'm not that concerned about the image size. We could survive with it smaller, but it's doing no great harm as it is. (Oh, and it's an image of the product, not a logo. --Tagishsimon(talk) 16:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I've removed the "logo" on iPad, which is just a standard rendering in Arial font, and replaced it with actual text. I've also replaced the non-free use image in the infobox with a free use image that was already available on Commons. That should take care of any issues with the WP:NFCC criterion #1, which both of the previous images failed. —Farix (t | c) 17:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Tagishsimon, I was talking specifically about the logo above the image, that TheFarix|c has since replaced with text. Best, Trev M ~ 17:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I see it now. Apologies. --Tagishsimon(talk) 18:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
As for logo versus plain text, I personally would prefer having the logo, but not enough to get involved. Anomie⚔ 20:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
It fails criterion #1 because it can be completely replicated by using text in an Arial font. Thus a free alternative is available. Let me also point out that there is an accessibility issue here. We shouldn't be using images to replace plain text. —Farix (t | c) 12:26, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
NFCC #1 is entirely irrelevant because the image is not non-free, it is in the public domain. There may be salient editorial and accessibility concerns, but NFCC ain't one of them. –xenotalk 13:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
You're seriously arguing here about whether to include an image of the word "iPad" in the article about the iPad? If you don't solve this quickly and without resort to AN/I, I'm nominating it for Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars. Wnt (talk) 14:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Your indent level makes it unclear to whom your comments are addressed. See WP:INDENT. –xenotalk 14:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Lamest edit war is by necessity a joint award. But apart from that I'll say that making a word in Arial font into an image is pointless... but taking it out as a "non-free image" tops that. Wnt (talk) 17:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I looked into it, and it's most likely Myriad, not Arial. Unlike Arial, Myriad seems to not be commonly available. Anomie⚔ 17:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
If there is no design and in the "public domain", then it is not a logo or a workmark and shouldn't be on the article in the first place. —Farix (t | c) 14:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
There are plenty of logos that are public domain but are still considered logos. Note also that your "replacement" with text won't render correctly if the visitor's browser isn't configured to use Myriad for generic sans-serif. For example, Arial and Verdana both have a square dot on the lowercase "i". Anomie⚔ 15:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Re Wnt and Lamest edit wars - on a simple information level, the issue is trivial and was dealt with before you posted: people realised that you don't need to have the name of the subject of the page as a heading 3 times within the top few cm of a page. So we quickly got rid of one. It's not, however, a lame edit war to challenge whether someone can come along and emblazon the commercial logo (or even the name in text) of the product the page is about, at whatever size they feel like, without getting called about it. If it were text, there'd be strict style guidlines imposed on it. So in a sense, the substitution of the image for the text raised the issue. The image was accepted as a compromise. The WP:Wikipedia page itself uses an image for the infobox name field but I've not checked to see whther this has been challenged. I, personally, who raised the issue, have little preference either way. That's why I came to Policy. Accessibility-wise, it can have an alt tag. Appearance-wise, it's a similar font to that used anyway on many renderings of the page: no concern. Size-wise, I'd just like it to be stylistically in-keeping with the page and not overtly or even covertly promotional. And I'm trying to get to a place of clarity about this so it can be cited next time this comes up. And deal with it according to WP behaviour guidlines, without reverting the image/text so fast the page flickers.... Trev M ~ 17:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
There is certainly a possible discussion to have over whether a logo that is a minimally stylized version of the "title" of the infobox should just replace the plain-text title, and what might be an appropriate guideline for the maximum height for a single-line-of-text logo like File:IPad wordmark.svg. But in my opinion your claims that including the logo is somehow "promotion" rather than "identification" are BS and continuing to use that argument just confuses the issue. I also disagree with you that the default font being "similar" is no concern, both because "similar" isn't good enough and because the default font is not globally shared and can be easily changed in the reader's browser. Anomie⚔ 20:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
did you know ...
that Wikimédia France, Wikimedia Foundation's french chapter, was paying some random users, up to 150 euros ? Do you know of any other chapter having done such a thing in the past, or still doing it ? Freewol (talk) 13:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Any more details? Paying for what? Source? --Tagishsimon(talk) 13:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
For having contributed to articles probably. I don't know the details, as they have not been revealed today (maybe before, but no link was provided). Source is french Wikipedia's today's bistro. Freewol (talk) 13:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
This is a problem...... why? While I may think it to be a waste of money, I don't see any particular problem with any group or individual paying a Wikipedia contributor in some manner for contributions. If it can be a good incentive to allow some people to contribute more, good for them. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Looks to me like the most significant change is that the sub-heading that just repeats which section of the Pump we are looking at – with the additions of the word "discussion" and a link to post – has been moved to above the links bar that is immediately above it in the existing layout. Why do we need to repeat the title anyway? Apart from that, seems bit more logical flow. Keep those bars as shallow (top–bottom) as possible, get the "Lead" information into as compact a space as practical, stylistically. Difficult to evaluate this in the template without all the sub-templates rendered in full. Could we see that, or a lash-up?Trev M ~ 18:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
re the double title mentioning: Indeed, the second row repeats the "VP policy" from the title, also bolded when on that page. But the 2nd is in a list of similar VP pages. IMO, the box is (also) a page-navigation box. Navigation is: "1. Where am I" and "2. Where do I go from here". Only savvy users can skip 1. So a navigation box should also lead the irregular visitor to their destiny. That is why the sequence "Page title (you are here) -- related page titles -- places to go on this page" looks like a very useful guidance. Is where I would look when arriving first. Repeating the title here is a harmless small feature, which is compensated by being very usefull in navigation. Compare: almost every biography has the name of the person in the title, the intro and in tho of the infobox. Then, if we agree using the page title in the box at all, it should be in the top row, not row 4, first step in navigation. Which is what I changed.
re shallow subtitle lines (three currently, two in the proposal): indeed, shallow (=less, I read). The proposed two rows are two different groups: directly related VP pages, and places & actions on the current page. I think these are useful. Anyway, I did not want to remove any link. Just reordering.
re Demo of sub-templates: well, adding these to the demo is possible, but a bit complicated. Would this remark do: All changes are within the brown box. There is no behaviour change, and no outside change.. There should and will be no different placement, behavior or content outside of the box. All links work just the same. (Of course, the brown box takes one row less, but the other templates "don't know" that. They just move up one row). Also: if there were different behavior with the changed brown box, we must consider the proposed change as unfit, and it will be reverted. You know, these people from VP technical are using the same template. I can't fool them with bad stuff. -DePiep (talk) 07:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Changing a page from "proposed guideline" to "historical"?
Wikipedia:Notability (streets, roads, and highways) was last edited in June, and major edits were last performed in February; as well, there hasn't been much discussion since April. Is it appropriate to tag this as a historical page, or do we need to wait longer? Nyttend (talk) 00:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I concur, and have been bold. I'm strangely decisive tonight. SDY (talk) 02:26, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
As it was never adopted, it shouldn't be tagged 'historical', since that indicates that the community used it previously, but no longer does. Proposals that fail to gain consensus should be tagged as {{failed}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia's racism
Resolved
– Nothing to see here, move along. Fences&Windows 00:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
WP:RFCAUTO
{{rfctag|category1|category2}
Dr._Leigh-Davis
RE: Dr. Leigh-Davis-White Professor O.K.; Black Professor: No Way!
I just read the press release and I easily found numerous instances where people were blocked from presenting third-party links as references, on Dr. Leigh-Davis. How do I complain to Wikipedia's legal department about this racist attack? Where do I challenge the deletion decision?
http://www.prlog.org/10920757-wikipedia-may-face-criminal-charges-for-its-racial-attacks.html67.102.213.115 (talk) 21:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)Kim
This would be a Wikipedia:Help desk question, I believe. Your answer: Wikipedia:Contact us. Please review Wikipedia:No legal threats. If you intend to take legal action, you will need to stay away from Wikipedia in the meantime. As for challenging deletion decisions, should you choose not to pursue legal action, see Wikipedia:Deletion. The policy contains an overview of our approach to deletions and your options for challening deletion of content. --Moonriddengirl(talk) 21:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone have any idea what this IP is talking about? Just curious, because the linked blog entry is none too clear. --Ludwigs2 22:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah. so in other words, someone's pulling a Ken Starr (trump up a non-existent problem just to stir up the waters, and then bust our chops over whatever crapcruft they see floating in the wake). charming. --Ludwigs2 22:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
It looks like a real person (see their YouTube videos and Blogtalkradio program) trying to make a name for themselves, and running up against our notability and verifiability requirements. Not a hoax as such, but also not someone we're going to have an article about, no matter how many sockpuppets scream blue murder, threaten to sue, and accuse us all of being racist. Fences&Windows 00:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I have a suggestion: For example, in the article on John Rhys Meyers (read "Jonathan Rhys Meyers (actor)") == it says
that he used the "n-word" - (what a namby pamby thing to say, by the way) - and as for the whole shebang, what is the suggestion, that it is acceptable to use such a word, - now come on, - I think aggressive action should be taken to correct these kinds of allegations on wikipedia, and remove from public scrutiny these kinds of yellow journalism.
D.s., Jed E. (no) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.234.183 (talk) 01:44, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Are background sources to be labeled "anonymous"?
When a newspaper or other reliable source writes:
An administration official said X.
or
A company spokesman said Y.
Is there a requirement in adding this to Wikipedia to change it to?
An anonymous administration official said X.
An anonymous company spokesman said Y.
This style is used because either the speaker is providing the statement with the provision that while the reporter knows his or her identity, it is agreed that the report will not use their name in the reporting, or that the reporter doesn't believe that it adds to the story to identify the speaker by name. The point is the speaker is not anonymous to the reliable secondary source we are incorporating into the article. Such reasons for naming a source are routine, and it is inaccurate to label each appearance of this as "anonymous". patsw (talk) 13:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't think there'd be a requirement to edit to this given that it's possibly wrong. There is a big difference between "An unspecified X" and "An anonymous X". — Coren(talk) 17:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Dr. Leigh-Davis - victim of racist attack on Wikipedia
”” RE: White Professor, O.K.; Black Professor: No Way! –Dr. Leigh-Davis - Why won’t you let anyone post any information about a black professor, but you have all of these white professors with no credentials on Wikipedia? I have been trying to post in support of Dr. Leigh-Davis: a notation in OK! Magazine, a quote in The Washington Post, and a report in the Wall Street Journal. As all the news is stating, I was completely barred from posting anything. I wish to initiate arbitration. Please direct me to the link to start arbitration.
I think you've pretty much exhausted the arbitration process in respect of this article. The article was deleted after discussion. A deletion review was held, which was packed by sock-puppets supporting the article, but nevertheless found against the article not for issues of race, but for lack of notability. In the meantime you've been crying racism from the rooftops ... not the most effective way of making friends and influencing people, but there we go.
You may, of course, redo the article and provide the references which you claim show the notability of this person. However, waving a bunch of white profs at us is proof of little. I looked at just one, who by his honours was obviously of sufficient notability. I've helped to delete lots of, how to say, crap academics, from wikipedia. I have not a clue what colour any of them was, nor do I care. They were not notable and they had to go. You prove to the community that your academic is notable and he or she can stay. Fail to do so and he or she will get the chop.
In closing: I find your approach most distasteful and ugly. Please make no mistake that you insult us all with your strident and repeated stupidity. I suggest, for the sake of expedition, that you provide the three references you have mentioned here and now so that we can give you an opinion on them. --Tagishsimon(talk) 23:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists no longer marked as a guideline
This appears to have been due to a attempted helpful change to the header that broke SAL as a guideline. I've fixed. --MASEM (t) 02:07, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia and public domain for upcoming edits.
Extended content
Sir,
I am Rishikeshan, the guy who requested to convert wikimedia projects to public
domain.
I know you can't convert your projects to public domain completely because gfdl
is copyleft and your projects are stuck on this license.
Gfdl and gpl are selfish. They are not suitable for non-profit organisations.
Non-profit organizations are not usually selfish.
Wikipedia users prefer attribution rather than selfish copyleft. Copyleft is
only useful to software developers who want to be selfish and who want to
blackmail other programmers.
I have 2 useful ideas.
Idea 1
start from scratch on domain names: [lang].pd.[project name].org
allow only content that do not have copyleft restrictions there.
Copyleft and permissive lives at same time in this method.
It is also good to force light attribution there like providing a link to
project website.
Idea 2
force upcoming edits under public domain.
Only distributed or downloaded content is under gfdl there.
Gfdl don't make restrictions on storing data. All will be public domain within
95 years. This method is slow but useful.
It is also good to force light attribution like providing the link of the page.
Idea 3
ask stallman to make the license permissive. This will most probably won't work.
User Kirill Said
Wikipedia cannot be released into the public domain for legal reasons; even if all future edits were released into the public domain, any edited version of an article currently in existence would be a derivative work of that article, and would therefore still be released only under the CC-BY-SA license.
But Wikipedia can be public domain. ONLY saved OR downloaded content by visitors will be GFDL. GFDL does say about the redistribution, but it doesn't say about storing and no licenses can enforce laws on storage of mixed-license content.
Again, I want to say copyleft is ONLY for developers who are selfish like M*SQL. People don't think of problems in GPL and GFDL.
I think Wikipedia is not selfish.
Thank you for reading this post.
I think you will accept my request.
Expecting a good reply,
Yours sincerely,
L.Rishikeshan
Rishikeshan (talk) 07:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)Rishikeshan
General Discussion Topic
Hello all,
I was just curious of your opinion on what makes an "active" user on Wikipedia. It seems like it's somewhere around 100 non-automated edits a month minimum, but I wanted to start a discussion about it. Doc Quintana (talk) 19:04, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't believe there is any "official" designation of Active User™, and I don't think there should be. Users who haven't edited at all in several months or who have posted {{retired}} on their talk pages are considered inactive, anyone else is an active user. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Drawing the line between "active" and "inactive" should depend on what the consequences would be of designating someone one or the other. I don't think the words have any utility in the abstract. What's the context for your question? postdlf (talk) 20:13, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
For statistical purposes, an "active" user is counted as one who makes five edits in a calendar month (35-40k people on enwiki), and a "very active" user is one who made over a hundred in that time (~10% of the active users). I believe these thresholds are relatively arbitrary, and I don't believe we use them for anything specific to an individual user - just for general statistical purposes. Shimgray | talk | 01:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
an ambitious proposal
At one point I suggested that the conversion between metric and english measurement be automated in some fashion. Perhaps users could set preferences to show one system or the other -- the repetitive conversions present in some articles are sort of annoying inho.
Here is a much harder to implement idea but one that I think would be valuable: Often I see mention of currency in an article and I instantly wonder, what does this amount mean? It is obviously a very difficult issue that is beyond simply converting, say, lire to dollars since the value of the dollar has varied over time.
Would some sort of automated process that took into account time/place/currency be possible? I hope the value of such functionality is clear -- why mention monetary figures at all if the conversion is unknown?
I see these conversion functions as a powerful feature for Wikipedia (currency, measurement of various physical qualities and also date conversion and perhaps things I am overlooking) and a fascinating project. I would be willing to contribute if others would help--Jrm2007 (talk) 12:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
It would technically be possible to create a template similar to {{convert}} to convert monetary units. Since currency rates fluctuate, the conversion units would need to be variable stores in subtemplates that get updated on a regular basis. Then you have to deal with historical money, such as $10 (1910) is equivalent to $244 (2010).
Actually, this discussion seems familiar. I suggest you search the archive to see if someone started such a template. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk 12:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
They did, and it's a real pain to deal with, sometimes. Comparing the value of money is hard; for something like the price of a cup of coffee or a day's wages, a simple "oh, six times as much since 19--" works fine, but it breaks down rapidly for very large figures. The cost of building a dam or running a war can't be converted by the same multiplier; there's a good essay here demonstrating why, with worked examples.
Unfortunately, the template (whose name I have temporarily forgotten) can't handle the nuance - it just takes an amount and a date and mangles something out of it, so we end up with articles that confidently state things like the Alaska purchase was the "equivalent" of $100m - half the cost of a modern fighter jet - which really doesn't help give anyone more of an idea of the cost than the bare 1870s figure would. Shimgray | talk | 13:00, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Currency conversion is a real minefield as rates between different currencies vary all the time. For other conversions we have the Convert template which is fine. I don't agree that all values should be automatically converted - it would make a real mess of a lot of articles. --Bermicourt (talk) 13:18, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
We do have {{INRConvert}}, which converts between rupees and dollars. Before using it as a model, the pros and cons need to be evaluated. It depends on a volunteer to update the values every week. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk 14:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Leave redirects after renaming images?
Suppose I stumble across an image named something like File:2Oa8ifmKrCeIMO6Jpq3WXPy3bmT2Tx.png and rename it so that it has a more descriptive file name. By default this will make a redirect from the old file name to the new one. If I update all of the links to the image in articles that use it, is there any reason to keep the redirect from the old name? I've been deleting redirects like that (or just not creating them in the first place), but then I thought maybe I should ask about it in case there's something I haven't thought about. —Bkell (talk) 20:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
If the image is only used in articles, that is reasonable. If it's linked to talk pages, tracking lists, or olf I/FfD, I leave the redirect befind so that the image can still be found if those pages are reviewed. - J Greb (talk) 01:07, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Subtitles on Wikipedia
Would Wikipedia benefit from the introduction of (optional) subtitles for articles e.g. something like:
Henry IV
King of France
Georgetown
Guyana
Jade
(river)
This might take some of the heat out of the naming debates and also simplify titles. It could be used in various ways e.g. just as a disambiguator instead of brackets (as shown above). It could certainly tidy up a lot of titles. Views? --Bermicourt (talk) 21:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
It would be a nice formatting option for all the disambiguated kind of titles like the ones listed into Scarface (random example coming to my mind). It would require some kind of Mediawiki extension, I guess -any comment on this? --Cyclopiatalk 23:02, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I like it. Before we take it any further though, we need to find out if it is technically possible to do that with a page title. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:26, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
This is a good idea. This would require a MediaWiki schema change (devs don't particularly like this). One way it can be done is by having a title and subtitle field but the internal page name (for the purposes of looking up the contents of the page) would be a concatenation of the two and some separator string. MER-C 06:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
This is definitely a good idea and would help make it a more professional encyclopedia. At the moment article titles are being determined by conflicting criteria that cannot all be satisfied at the same time - we want them to reflect the common name of the subject, but need them to be unique, and also like them to be concise and consistent - we can't have all of these things. By introducing subtitles we could ensure that the main title is always what we consider to be the "common name" (no need to worry about uniqueness), while the subtitle performs the separate function of disambiguator. Of course you could say that we could do this already by using bracketed disambiguators, but these, being written in large type along with the actual title, offend against taste and clarity if they are made too long or used when unnecessary (causing conflicts between consistency, precision and conciseness, and sometimes leading to the rejection of most common names in order to avoid the ugliness of a bracketed disambiguator). Other encyclopedias don't subject themselves to these kind of constraints and mental exercises - neither need we. Of course, this would be quite a revolutionary change, but one worth pursuing.--Kotniski (talk) 09:12, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm skeptical. What would be the syntax for linking to these things? Pipes are already used in highly problematic ways (I consider them a last resort, like the goto statement); I wouldn't want to see further distance introduced between what a reader sees with and without links. --Trovatore (talk) 09:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean about pipes, but in principle, this wouldn't have to mean any change in the way we make links - however, editors would need to get used to not assuming that they could link to an article using its (large-type) title. Presumably there would need to be some kind of linking hints: e.g. a discreet line in the top right corner saying "To link to this page, use [[Georgetown, Guyana]]". Or even a drop-down list of all available redirects?? Anyway, as usual, we must give higher priority to what we present to readers than to minor convenience for editors.--Kotniski (talk) 09:54, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
This is just a guess, but if this does go anywhere it will probably be something like {{DISPLAYTITLE:Title|Subtitle}}, with no changes to the page title in the URL, the page title used in wikilinks, and so on. Although if we really wanted to, we could more or less do that right now without developer involvement. Anomie⚔ 14:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I totally agree with Anomie. Your example code looks very nice, maybe can it be developed into a template? (I would make font size 75% and colour black, however) --Cyclopiatalk 15:09, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that looks good (subject to possible graphical modifications). I still think there's going to have to be linking hints for editors at some point, though - the point of doing this would be largely to enable more verbose and redundant disambiguation (at least, according to the conception that's forming in my mind), and editors are going to want to know how they can link to the articles without doing that extra typing. --Kotniski (talk) 15:19, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I went ahead and put together a template at User:Anomie/Template:Subtitle; theoretically it and its subpages could be moved to the Template namespace without need for modification. Anomie⚔ 17:32, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
That's really good: but won't it clash with the current subtitles like "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" or "A B-class article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (if you have that gadget installed)? Fences&Windows 18:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't do anything to "break out" of the title <h1>, so it shouldn't cause that sort of problem any more than does an article with an extremely long title. Anomie⚔ 21:30, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I like it a lot, but see it a bit differently. Speaking as something of a techie, I'd say that it is not only doable but easy to do. Syntax-wise (and this shows the difference in the way I see it), for e.g. Treaty of Paris (1898), instead of displaying the article title as
Treaty of Paris (1898)
it would instead be displayed as
Treaty of Paris
1898
That would be no big deal to implement.
However — and this is a big thing — this is not a Wikipedia issue. It is a Mediawiki issue. It should be addressed procedurally via WP:Bugzilla. I've tried that route myself on a few occasions and have to report that based on my experience I don't have much confidence in it, but that is the prescribed procedure. Wtmitchell(talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:06, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, getting the devs to do anything useful is a frustrating and usually fruitless task (as even Jimbo has been known to find). If we want to do this and if we can do this without their involvement, then that's probably the way to go. I would say get rid of the "from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" anyway - what's the point, when we have the exact same slogan on the logo just to the left?--Kotniski (talk) 11:57, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't see the need to get devs involved. I think everything could be simply dealt with the beautiful Anomie template and a bot who takes care of putting the template parsing the parenthesis correctly. Seems a reasonably easy task. What do you think of putting up a proper RfC to get consensus on this and have it implemented? I'd like to do that. --Cyclopiatalk 13:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Note that a bot may initially be quite controversial, you may want to get consensus first for this to be manually applied by editors before trying to automate the process. Anomie⚔ 14:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
There's something in this idea for sure, but there's a couple thoughts here. First, I think we'd want to consider if the straight disambiguation resolution is the most we can do with this. For example, the "Jade (river)" example above, why not make the subtitle a tad more descriptive (eg Jade / German river). Similar logic could also suggest this could be a possible addition for nearly any article where it is not immediately obvious what the topic is about, a two-three word phase, of the type "<adjective> <noun>". Second, I'm sure that there are official names of people or something of the form "John Smith, X of Y" as opposed to a necessary disambig title "John Smith (X of Y)", so a question becomes if a split of the proper name is appropriate. Finally, we still want to make sure that editors can quickly copy and paste the proper title of an article for building interwiki disambi links (I do this all the time); I dunno where this can go but it can be small and the like to do that. --MASEM (t) 13:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Do note that, given the limitations of {{Help:DISPLAYTITLE}}, the article would have to be moved to "Jade (German river)" for the subtitle to be "German river". As for copying, this example copies correctly in Firefox here, while this one misses the closing paren (because there is nothing after for the browser to realize the hidden paren should be selected). Further testing would be needed. Anomie⚔ 14:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Huh? On my Firefox both subtitles render correctly (without parenthesis). 3.6.8, Ubuntu 10.04 here. --Cyclopiatalk 15:42, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
It renders fine here too. The comment is about selecting the whole title (both lines) and copy-pasting, in Firefox 3.5.12 here it misses copying the closing paren in the second example. Anomie⚔ 16:50, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I think we could think about trying this out on a limited set of articles first, to see how it goes (say the European monarchs, where there are constant naming battles). Re the linking, I guess it's possible for the template (outside of the DISPLAYTITLE bit) to add a line somewhere up near where some articles have coordinates, saying (as I suggested before) "link here using [PAGENAME]" or something like that. This is the main technical issue with this proposal, I think.--Kotniski (talk) 17:06, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh no, it wouldn't necessarily always be pagename, I'm thinking of the possibility of using quite long subtitles to solve naming problems, like "George VI, King of Great Britain, Ireland and other dominions" - a pity this technique would require that to be the actual article title, though the link hint could at least be a redirect that's a shorter title.--Kotniski (talk) 17:11, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Seems a bit 19th century IMO. A book title was vague then, so they would give it a clearer "second" title underneath for people who needed clearer reasons to read the book! If we name a subsection poorly or obscurely, then yes, we might need a subtitle for our subtitle. To avoid this (looks peculiar BTW), we should be forced to name it clearly in the first place. If the article is "Henry XL," the subtitle should read "King of Navarre" and explain how he became King of Navarre. If that is too obscure, then it should read "War in France 988-999". A clear subtitle can avoid the need for multiple subtitles. Double subtitles is cute, a clever idea. But one other encyclopedias have managed to avoid.
If we do this, we will have "subtitle adjusters" who do nothing but alter or add subtitles throughout Wikipedia. Even when we don't need them! Or worse (IMO) when we are trying to get an article to GA/FA. A lot of second guessers. Student7 (talk) 13:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure you've understood - this isn't about sections - it's about the whole article (i.e. each article gets a maximum of one subtitle, at the top just below - or next to - the main title). The motivation is that article titles have to be unique, but making them unique sometimes means adding words and phrases that don't really belong in the title as such. Other encyclopedias avoid this by being printed on paper, with no software to impose uniqueness requirements. I believe online Britannica does use something like these proposed subtitles.--Kotniski (talk) 13:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Linking to illegal contents in articles
What is the policy regarding this? What about linking to pages with entire sections with links to child porn, but with no actual child porn on the page linked to?
This is just a direct split of the "clean start" material from Wikipedia:Sock puppetry, which is already considered policy. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
List of students in a high school
I've been RCPing and came across a high school page that lists all of the current students: San Lorenzo High School. I assume I should remove such a list from its article on general non-notability and privacy grounds, but I wanted to solicit a second opinion first. Thanks, 28bytes (talk) 01:36, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Go right ahead; its doubtful any of the students are notable, so it is exactly what you said. --MASEM (t) 01:44, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Done. 28bytes (talk) 01:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Even if they are notable we probably shouldn't list the current schools of minors. Will Bebacktalk 08:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I've revdeleted the list, we absolutely should not have such content. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
BLP question
I noticed that the page Robin Wills has just been created, with no sources, by a user with no other edits. I've tagged the article with the "BLP unsourced" template... is there anything else I ought to do? Thanks, 28bytes (talk) 02:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
This page is asserting that the person in question is a convicted criminal without sources. At the very least it should be tagged with {{subst:prodblp}} and it might even qualify for immediate deletion under criterion G10. I can't seem to find any sources to back this article's assertion (edit: User:Xeno has found a source, [4]), without which Mr Wills could be the author's disliked neighbour, former employer, or practically anyone whom it might please the author to slander, for all we know (not necessarily implying malice on the side of the author, I am only giving possibilities). Intelligentsium 02:27, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I deleted it. RxS (talk) 02:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
"This page is not meant to be viewed directly"
What is the purpose of the italicized text on some lists that reads "This page is not meant to be viewed directly" and why are there duplicate lists without that heading both within the article namespace? It kind of seems redundant and I don't quite get the point. --173.58.234.86 (talk) 02:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Interesting. Example: Meanings of minor planet names: 100001–101000. Basically, those pages are being treated like templates, yet are in the main namespace. Not only are they being used as single-use templates, they are utterly unnecessary. You might want to ask the Solar System Wikiproject or related about this, as lacking a good explanation for why this has been done this way, these child articles should be merged and redirected to their parent. Resolute 02:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I have, a long time ago, started merging these pages back to the "real" articlees, to get rid of this templates masquerading as articles. But I stopped t-doing this because it is a rather large task which wsn't as rewarding as I like my edits to be... Anyone willing to cintinue these mergers has my full support! Fram (talk) 07:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
And how about the other wat around
In this field: what when it's the other way around, "this template may also be viewed directly"? Is it OK to :link to a template from an article? e.g. In the {{Unicode navigation}}: {{Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs}} is used directly (via pipe (CJK ideographs list)), and there is a direct list-by-template-cat Category:Unicode chart templates. I also can remember (not point to) a text that read: "The character is in the table Template:xyz." -DePiep (talk) 08:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I've seen some of the larger navbox templates explicitly given as see-also links, though this is unusual (and a bit silly, in many ways); it's more common to link directly to a category, which is also unusual but makes a degree of sense, especially if it's there as the alternative to a list. Shimgray | talk | 22:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Notability of cities, towns, and neighborhoods
I'm looking at a couple of articles about neighborhoods within a good sized city. Some of them are no brainers as the areas are frequently referred to in reliable sources and some even have national historic status, others are more vague. Is there a guideline or policy (beyond WP:N) I can use to help determine which of these are notable and which need to be discussed deletion?--RadioFan (talk) 11:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
basically, if they meet WP:N they are obviously notable. Otherwise, if not much can't be found, but theer is evidence that they used to be a separate village (town, hamlet, whatever) before becoming a neighborhood of a larger community, then they shuold be treated like every other location-based article, i.e. inherently notable, and probably not deletable through AfD. However, merging them one level up may be the best solution in many cases (as here). Fram (talk) 11:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
All cities and towns are notable, period MBelgrano (talk) 11:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I was looking for a policy page on cities and towns, it sounds like one does not exist. I'm considering starting a deletion discussion on a neighborhood article. Which I dont think is automatically notable. Is there nothing beyond WP:N for these kinds of articles?--RadioFan (talk) 11:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I am not usre where MBelgrano gets his ideas from, but not from any policy or guideline that I know of. The inclusion criteria for all settlements is Wikipedia:Notability. It is a large guideline, so focus on WP:GNG for the key inclusion criteria. MBelgrano ideas fall foul of WP:ITSLOCAL. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
As far as towns and cities are concerned, there were some 'bots that created a whole bunch of articles in the past on en.wikipedia and some of the other languages too, and much of the debate is old news in terms of the notability of these places. Much of this came from government databases and many of these locality based articles have been updated and refined to move them beyond stubs too, even if some of the more obscure towns still are largely just the raw census/government data and not much more. For most of North America, the UK, and some parts of Europe there were so many articles of this nature created that the driving need to even raise this issue hasn't even been an issue. The few additional town articles that didn't already exist were rare, or found in places that typically don't have native English speakers.
For myself, I don't see any special or unique guidelines for neighborhoods other than simply verifiability, at least a couple of 3rd party sources (aka no "original research"), and other standard notability guidelines that apply to all articles. Census defined places already have this with multiple sources, but neighborhoods not explicitly labeled or defined with government statistical reports are less likely to meet these standards. Articles about neighborhoods in New York City like SoHo and Greenwich Village certainly deserve Wikipedia articles and these are in fact quite well developed articles too. Generally I would think that smaller towns would be less likely to meet notability guidelines at least in terms of published articles, books or other sources that would confirm the existence of these kind of neighborhoods. If the neighborhood is commonly used in local news media, I think notability could be easily determined from references to it, and perhaps even a definition of the neighborhood from those sources. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
As someone who has made/expanded probably over three dozen town, village, city, hamlet, and neighborhood articles (all in NY so I am using those terms as legal definitions by NY standards) I would like to point out that- if you can actually write something more than a sentence or two stub about a place, then it is notable and you probably wont get enough !votes to delete the article. Anyone feeling up to the task is more than welcome to go to my user page and nominate for deletion any of the neighborhood articles I have listed there that I created, good luck! I really don't get why people get all bent out of shape about geographic places having articles... Kingdom City, Missouri has around 125 people and it has its own article, should it? Yes, it is a legally defined village incorporated under state law. Anything more required? No. For unincorporated places/city neighborhoods notability I say should go by the old rule of thumb- if you can actually write something meaningful then its notable. (Which is a better rule of thumb than I see most of the time- "I dont know what notability is, but I know it when I see it"). So in a nutshell- if its more than a stub and has a history section, demographics, geography, etc then leave it alone and dont bother to nominate it for deletion.Camelbinky (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
My ideas come from here: all cities and towns have a history, demographics, economy, political life, relations with all the rest of the cities of the country, etc; and all such things can be found very easily at typical sources. Therefore, they are all notable. I may turn the question backwards: is there any city or town that is not notable? And if there is, how did that happen? MBelgrano (talk) 18:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I would extend MBelgrano's question to inclued the so-called ghost towns which by definition wouldnt have demographics, economy, or political life would still have a history (if it can be found) and therefore would be notable for their distinction of being a ghost town, often notable for whatever event led to the depopulation. (Was a reservoir formed that flooded the town? A gold mine dried up? A nuclear reactor meltdown? Interstate bypassed it leading to the town just drying up on the old two lane highway?)Camelbinky (talk) 19:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Just stopping by to state that I agree with Camelbinky here. Killiondude (talk) 19:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
That makes little difference. Ghost towns do not have such stadistics now, but they had them in the past, and what is not known for sure is speculated by historians based on other evidence anyway (meaning, we still have something to write on the matter, still following WP:V and WP:NOR). If someone nominates Ur for deletion, the reactions would be surely fun to see MBelgrano (talk) 19:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Ha! A trick question. If a city or town was not notable we would not have heard of it. –xenotalk 19:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
True for towns and cities, but not for neighborhoods. Every slightly largish new groups of houses gets a fancy name, but that doesn't mean that this "neighborhood" is notable. Obviously, things like the Bronx and so on are very notable, but this can't be generalized. Fram (talk) 19:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I would argue that, though I disagree these towns should have automatic notability based on past argues, that as long as WP is part gazetteer, and that we don't yet have WikiAtlas or comparable sister project, such pages on towns do meet the goals of Wikipedia, notable or not. That said, we really need to memorialize this common consensus somewhere. --MASEM (t) 19:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
There have been many attempts to put this in a guideline, but there was never consensus. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (geography) is one attempt to capture our practice and it looks quite reasonable; I don't think it was ever proposed as a guideline. Also see Wikipedia:Notability (Geographic locations) for previous debate. What we should be trying to do is document current practice, not imposing our own views (e.g. Gavin Collin's insistent on the GNG when the GNG is almost universally agreed to not be required to be met for populated places or geographic features). Fences&Windows 00:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I had proposed to codify existing practice into a guideline for Wikipedia gazetteer content for WP:NOT (not WP:N) but it gets murky because of several long-approved bots which auto-create articles based on government-provided data. Very simply, existing practice is any geographic entity which can be cited from a government source can be created as a stub article.patsw (talk) 13:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I think we have to absolutely clear that the creation of new articles is dependent on the topic's notability, not WP:ITSLOCAL. There are no polices or guidelines that suggest otherwise. What is practise is purely a matter of conjecture. What you are liable to hear from the babble ain't necessarily so. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Our policy and guidelines are based on what practice is. It is practice these are kept even if they aren't "notable" per the GNG, thus we should codify that somehow, the best route seeming to be as part of the gazetteer function of wikipedia. --MASEM (t) 15:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Practice becomes policy, policy should never dictate and create new practice EVER. If you attempt to say that places must be notable, what is the criteria for notability?! Would Wyoming be notable? Would Tonga be notable? What is so notable about Cape Girardeau, Missouri or Berlin, New York? We would start having arguments with people saying one hand "I've never heard of it, it isnt notable worldwide" and others saying "its notable in our region of this state". This basically boils down to some people around Wikipedia who think if they havent heard of it then it isnt notable. Why does it matter to "you" whether these articles exist or not? NOTPAPER. We are a gazetteer. We probably always will be. Just give up and work on whatever articles you like and let others work on articles they like.Camelbinky (talk) 16:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Stating that only a notable topic should become a stand-alone article is a definition, not an illuminating statement. Significant coverage of the topic in a third-party reliable source is what we call WP:GNG, and that should not be conflated with notability. It should be obvious to editors by this point that passing WP:GNG is neither necessary nor sufficient to create an article, however common it is to be found in articles and AFD discussions. patsw (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Question is there a limit to how small something can be without further reason for notability? The Town I grew up in has an article - which is all fair and good because it's reasonably notable but the neighbourhood within that does not. At first I couldn't think of much notable about that neighbourhood Antonshill but an internet search returned [5] which defines it as a village, another hit defines details of the farm on which land the neighbourhood was built as well as a hit to Wikipedia itself A88_road - So there's enough material there to generate a stub but how useful is it, does it really deserve an article when there is so little of note? The other option is to include the information within Stenhousemuir but it doesn't really fit within the article there and as soon as you start to add lots of neighbourhoods because they're not notable enough to stand alone it looks untidy. Of course even smaller locations like Mojave_phone_booth exist with further reasons to justify their notability. Even a gazetteer has to draw a limit somewhere - My garden is not noteable but it is a sizeable geographic location. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 17:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
On these location articles, it is generally that it is or was a national government-recognized settlement which was used to generate the stubs, which seems like a fairly good limit. The point is that we seem to be including these not that these are are necessary notable, but that they are needed to "complete" Wikipedia's aspect of being a gazetteer. I would argue that one can make a similar comparison between words and their definitions, and that that isn't a function of Wikipedia but is a function of Wikitionary. But while we can easily draw lines between a dictionary entry and a encyclopedia entry, it's a lot harder to draw the same lines for gazetteer and encyclopedia entries. --MASEM (t) 17:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree with the need to "complete" Wikipedia's aspect of being a gazetteer (though I believe there is a significant amount of Data that may warrant a separate project as commons and wiktionary are) but it's the level of resolution I'm questioning. For the example I give above, various other gazetteers will either resolve down directly onto the neighbourhood (regarding it a village) or will only drill down onto the town there seems to be a 50/50 split of each type. The Government is not much better. Certain arms of the government (such as Surveyor general or Equivalent) may regard it as an identifiable settlement, yet another arm (such as the Census Bureau) may regard it's inhabitants as inhabiting the larger town or conurbation essentially regarding it as non-existent. Then again other arms like the Postmaster don't care either way whether or not it exists they just care what the street or house name is. Then again you have Unorganised Townships which arent government recognised but are large enough they should be covered in a Gazetteer. All in all it's a very thorny issue. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 18:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Don't forget the rest of the world. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
There is no reason not to include an article on a populated place for which we have a verifiable location and statistics, no matter how small the place and even if we can't foresee a way to expand the article at present, no reason that is other than some kind of misguidedly dogmatic adherence to notability guidelines. But notability guidelines are a means to an end; they help us ensure that only topics are included in the encyclopedia for which there is a minimum of verifiable and NPOV information from reliable sources. We certainly don't have any such concerns with including articles on any populated place for which there is an official record, such as a census, government map, etc., so excluding such articles might satisfy the letter of notability guidelines without furthering any legitimate purpose or policy. Unless we pretend that reducing the number of articles and limiting our coverage of the real, verifiable world is somehow a legitimate goal.
Neighborhoods, however, may be more difficult to verify than populated places (i.e., standalone cities, towns, villages, however termed or sized). Neighborhoods may have some official recognition, as through designated historical districts or community boards, but not always. So we don't always have as clear a guide as we do with populated places to separate the substantive ones from what may simply be a real estate developer or a group of college kids trying to characterize a few blocks as a distinctive community. You could also have one guy claiming his house and general store in the middle of an open plain constitute a "town," but I think that's much less common than private individuals trying to generate a neighborhood out of nothing, and its absence from any official records would just shift the question to general notability criteria. postdlf (talk) 18:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a reason not to include an article about a populated place for which we have a verifiable location and statistics: lack of notability. If a topic is not notable, then it lacks significant coverage, so there is no point in creating a stub that is just a set of co-ordinates. Such information is just not encyclopedic, because it provides the reader with even less information than a map. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Notability guidelines are only a means to an end, and not the only means to that end. Requiring that articles on populated places satisfy GNG, even if they are verifiable, would not only eliminate the very short articles that you don't like, but also eliminate longer, substantial articles that have been compiled solely out of census data (unless we just call census data "significant coverage"), such as Blacklick Estates, Ohio, for example. All of this would undermine Wikipedia's function as a gazetteer, and for no benefit that I can see. I probably would not bother to create a stub that just has coordinates (note my comment above was supporting articles with verifiable locations and statistics, such as population), but I also would not delete it either because even a bare "X is a village in Y" statement still took time to write and post, has a kernel of verifiable information, and provides the start of article infrastructure that can be at least theoretically expanded eventually. At a bare minimum, we could hope that any named populated place could be expanded to give an explanation of the name and population figures, and this is a valuable part of a gazetteer even if we can never write a full history, culture, etc. for those places. postdlf (talk) 14:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
The basic reason for keeping all populated place articles is that they've almost all had enough coverage to justify it, but many aren't very good at showing it. Random example: this was a one-line stub of exactly the type that could easily have be deleted. But after a month's worth of improvements by two or three of us, it now looks like this, and had a DYK appearance. It's just an ordinary small village with 100 people and one road, but it has that much coverage available! The current system seems to work, so why change it? Alzarian16 (talk) 14:58, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
This is a reasonable rule of thumb, but it is also a sweeping generalisation. A town or a settlement is notable only if it has been the subject of verifiable evidence to that effect. Simply assuming all settlements to be notable is too broad an approach to follow, since it is a rule of thumb that will not apply in every case. We can't assume that it is an absolute truth that every settlement is notable - there has to be verifiable evidence so support the presumption on an individual case basis. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:21, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
In my opinion, any city, town or village recognized as a govermental entity should by definition have an article in an encyclopedia that also strives to be a gazatteer. WP:FIVE. Neighborhoods, being more subjective, should be held to a higher standard of notability. I've researched neighborhood "boundaries" in San Francisco, and there are no commonly accepted boundaries. However, issues pertaining to neighborhoods are very important in understanding San Francisco history and politics. Reliable sources are essential when writing about neighborhoods. Cullen328 (talk) 23:02, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Email from email provider
Can anything be done to make the following, received Feb. 19 of this year, a valid source? I can't find anything online to document the change in the Lycos article; maybe there are other sources that have the information but I just haven't found them. I know from looking at forums that this has been a traumatic experience for Lycos mail users, myself included. Lycos has some qualities that I like for certain purposes, as mentioned on the Computing Reference Desk.
Dear Lycos Mail user,
We're renovating! Lycos Mail is upgrading all users to a new
platform, powered by Zimbra. Many of our users have reported that the
new Lycos Mail is easier to use, loads more quickly on modern
browsers, and supports more languages and features than the existing
one. We hope you will enjoy the changes.
Your account is scheduled to be moved
within the next several weeks. We will send you another notification
when the transition is complete.
In conjunction with the upgrades, we are offering a discount on Lycos
Mail Plus to our long-standing free members. As one of those members,
your qualify for a discounted membership rate of $5.95 per year (a
savings of 70%). This rate is only available to a limited time and may
only be accessed by clicking here: [ http://registration.lycos.com/signup.php?m_PR=27&m_DL_USA_LycosMail_XPlus_Promo595=1 ].
Taking this promotion does not affect your move to the new Lycos Mail in any way.
Not from the e-mail itself, no. There's no way to verify to Wikipedia policy satisfaction that you received it or that Lycos sent it. You need a source that everyone has access to; no one but you can access your e-mail inbox. A press release verifiably attributable to the company itself would be something, and if these changes are generating as much discussion as you think, eventually a reliable source is going to comment on them outside of an unreliable forum. postdlf (talk) 20:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
This is really not germane to the purpose of this noticeboard. We have a dedicated forum for this type of discussion at WP:RSN. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
The SCOTUS recently ruled that promotion of illegal material is not a guaranteed right; however, someone keeps adding links to illegal material to the Tor article.
Someone keeps re-adding the 'Hidden Wiki'. I told them to discuss it with me on the talk page; however, they ignore my request and revert. Where do I take this issue? I am not experienced with the bureaucracy of Wikipedia, and mainly do minor edits and such. Any help will be great. Ismouton (talk) 09:37, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
It is true that WP:EL rules out "sites containing... content that is illegal to access in the state of Florida". However, doing a Google search for "The Hidden Wiki" I am immediately presented with a page that appears to be the exact same URL as the one subject to the current edit war, except with .tor2web.com in the place of .onion. This page does contain a link to one site that it describes as containing a compilation of "underage" links.
However, I am not persuaded that that is against WP:EL or anything else. The Google search I link above is ruled out by WP:EL because it's a Google search, but is it ruled out as a site that links to hidden material? How about plain www.google.com and the words "The Hidden Wiki" (which are the same thing). And since most people, on reading the name, go straight to Google.com, that's also pretty much the same thing as just saying the words "The Hidden Wiki". And what about links to pages about The Hidden Wiki? And pages that link to those?
Are we down to that — to declaring "Unpersons" that can't be named or mentioned in any way on Wikipedia? Because if we aren't, then we should draw a line before we get there.
The most obvious line to draw is to dismiss all censorship. But if you can't do that, then only censor links to pages that in and of themselves contain content illegal in Florida - not pages that link to pages that link to pages that might contain some kind of illegal content, if you dared to read them to find out. Wnt (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
The SCOTUS decision was not an unconditional ban. I think the best policy is to link to the most useful sites we can to describe the topic of the article, while making it clear that we don't encourage illegal behavior. Obviously merely omitting a link does not actually make the site significantly more difficult to locate - sometimes it's better to follow the spirit of the law than the letter. Dcoetzee 18:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Need Button: "This Article Needs a Practical Example"
I am continuing to run into a trend on Wikipedia: lots of data with no practical application.
This entire article is filled with scientific and technical facts, data, and jargon.
However, it does not say anywhere : What a Wide-Angle Lens is Used For
There is no practical application of the data at all or real-world physical examples.
If a beginning photography student wants to know what lens to use for what application, they would not be able to use this page even though it is EXACTLY the page to be going to in order to learn about a Wide-angle lens.
This entry is not the only one. There are many such entries; all theory with no real examples of usage: all science, no practical.
I am suggesting that editors be able to click on a "This article needs a Practical Application or Real-World Example" button to flag such articles.
'Theory only' learning without real examples is one of the things that turns people off of continuing a path of study.
It would be nice to see examples of a building shot with a normal lens and a Wide-Angle lens so that a student could see the practicality and differences of the lens. THEN all of the technical data about focal distances and angles, etc., would start to make sense.
Perhaps this really is asking for a policy for technical subjects to also have a Practical Examples Section.
My thoughts.
--MahLeon (talk) 10:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
My thoughts. Wide-angle lens#Characteristics and the image I've posted to the left would seem to tell anyone who has eyes to see, what a wide-angle lens does in comparison to a normal lens. I'm not clear on what practical application you lack, but perhaps you could give us an example. Of course, if you do not understand terms such as depth of field or angle of view, and are not prepared to check out their definitions, then you may come away from the article with an inadequate understanding. I think it reasonable that the wide-angle lens article does not itself provide definitions and explanations of these terms. Wikipedia is not a how to guide; do not expect it to be a photographers manual. And that's not to say that the article is not capable of being very much improved. But it is to say that I don't find evidence of need for your suggested button in your example article. In the first instance, I advise that you're probably as well dropping a note on a talk page of an article which you think needs practical examples, since many articles are watched by people familiar with the article and the subject matter. I don't think - personally - that more spammy nag boxes at the top of articles is a good way to go, not least for this not-proven issue. --Tagishsimon(talk) 11:12, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
While I don't think more infoboxes is the way to go, I think the wide angle article could do with some discussion of use. Wide-angle lens#Characteristics gives an overview of what using a wide-angle does for an image. But this tells me, a non-photographer, very little about when a wide-angle can and should be used. Taemyr (talk) 18:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
If a beginning photography student wants to know what lens to use for what application, they would not be able to use this page even though it is EXACTLY the page to be going to in order to learn about a Wide-angle lens. - No, they should consult a photography manual. I think you are misunderstanding what an encyclopaedia is, it is a collection of facts. Wikipedia is not an instruction manual, see WP:NOTAMANUAL for more details. I agree with Tagishsimon the article could be greatly improved, like the unexplained jargon, but that the current images and links/navbox sufficiently explain the context of the lens type without going beyond the scope of an encyclopaedia. ChiZeroOne (talk) 05:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
comment The balance between a dry technical presentation and a hands-on, how-to tutorial is very delicate. Wikipedia rules tend to downplay the how-to part (it's not a tutorial, not a how-to, not a directory, not an encyclopedia). Worse, it's not a personal recollection. As if it wasn't enough, we're talking about an artistic tool - an area where personal tastes and hardly quantifiable skills rule... but these are "unencyclopedic". You're looking for the perfect editor, someone who excels in painting with the brush, teaching his art, and referencing his first-hand khowledge with citations extracted from elsewhere... bad luck. These people are rare.
That said, any "how-to" or "what-for" will be incomplete and make someone unhappy. Every photography 101 says "wide angle is not for portraits". And yet here and there professionals use it for portrait, on purpose. And if someone accepts the facts and writes "wide angle is used for everything" the reader will be just as unhappy as he is today. It's photography, not changing oil. East of Borschov 15:49, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Talking about wide-angle lenses in a straight-forward and informative manner is the purpose of Wikipedia. Talking about when to use (and when to not use) wide-angle lenses is the purpose of Wikibooks (or Wikiversity, if someone made a general photography "lesson"). EVula// talk // ☯ // 16:06, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia image policy?
Alas none of us is a mind reader, so we can not know why images get added. But suppose that an up and coming motor manufacturer, say Chery Automobile wants to get its name in front of the public in the US. Can they get a few of their marketing people to add images of Cherry products all over Wikipedia? Is there a policy regarding that? Can the images of a compact SUV be a Chery Tiggo, the image of a station wagon be a Chery V5 the image of a transmission that of a Cherry transmission and the image of a Disc brake a Cherry disc brake? (By the way, any Cherry executives reading this, please do send me a generous wire transfer for mentioning your name here.) And of course Etro can replace all images of gloves, scarves and shirts by distinctively colorful Etro designs. But this will tun Wikipedia into a marketplace, not an encyclopedia. I do not see a Wikipedia policy on this issue. And that can be the source of debates. I would therefore suggest a coherent policy suggestion for how images are to be handled. But given the fragmentation issue humans will not be able to see the image distributions easily enough, and the best (and not difficult) way will be to have a bot that produces a report of "vendor presence" within Wikipedia. But the bot will need a policy. So I would suggest a policy discussion in the suitable place, then a bot design to provide such reports. Suggestions will be appreciated. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 13:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I think two policies work to discourage this:
First, is our standard image policy, specifically, WP:NFC. If the company uploads images of their cars but not in the public domain, they will be removed because cars can be photographed freely and thus a free replacement is possible. Of course, this could mean the company uploads a bunch of free content photos of their cars, which is great because likely every car model by a notable manufacture is notable, we'll have a good picture to use for that car.
But in this latter case, if they're pushing their images of the cars the defacto images for general car models (like coupe and SUV), that becomes a conflict of interest issue, particularly if they insist on doing this after being reverted. Consensus needs to decide what images to use for these broader articles, and if they happen to chose one from the manufacture, hey great. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant that they add public domain images. If so, how do you know it was the company doing it and not their PR agents from home, or from a Starbucks WIFI type place? How can you show the company did that? Do you know who added the images to Compact SUV? Did any of them work for a car company? I have no idea. History2007 (talk) 14:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I don't think it matters if a company is providing us free-use imagery of their cars (especially since they could do so under a more restrictive, but still open, license than public domain). The only issue is when a company (of any type) tries to make their product the de facto example of a concept, but WP:COI is the relevant policy, as pointed out by Masem. Not sure what the point of this is. If you're curious about who added the images to Compact SUV, just look at the article's history; it's open to absolutely everyone, so it's not like the information is obscured in any way. EVula// talk // ☯ // 15:19, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I used SUV as an example. But I also think there is no image policy in place for WP:COI is too broad. As is, Wikipedia seems like a good way to promote a name for free - it is just a question of time before that happens at a larger scale and gets used by marketing people. And that can not be a great thing for an encyclopedia. It is not a burning question, but in time such a policy may be needed. At times I wonder if the section on the benefits of a specific type of health supplements (say Resveratrol) have been contributed by manufacturers of such products as well, although that is another story. History2007 (talk) 16:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
There is Wikipedia:COI#Photographs and media files. Is this a hypothetical situation or is there an actual incident of an editor inappropriately pushing certain images? –xenotalk 16:30, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Policies flexible enough and we may enforce the spirit of the rule even if the specific case is so original that it wasn't ever written down anywhere. Wikilawyering is not welcome, real law may have room for legal vacuums or technicisms, but wikipedia does not. If someone tries to make spam through images, videos or sounds, it's the same as if was done with mere external links.
By the way, there's no need to discuss image licences in here: when History2007 said "public domain", surely he was trying to say "with a commons-compatible licence". Whenever the owner releases the spam image into public domain, under a creative commons licence or some other variant has no importance for this discussion
As for the usage in many articles at once, the real important thing is whenever the image is ilustrative of the article topic in general or the specific point adressed in the section. to illustrate the article about a car motor it has little importance whose trademark does the motor have, as long as the main components that make it work can be seen and described as needed. An image added to articles without adding anything to it may be removed simply because of that; an image of a topic added to articles that lacked an image on such topic (because it was too technical or hard to take a photo of it) is welcome. MBelgrano (talk) 12:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
To be honest, I think this is exactly the same as trying to keep people from putting pictures of their beloved Fluffy as the lead image on cat; there's no "legal" reason not to add them, but we all agree it's not a beneficial thing to do, and we remove them when spotted - which is most of the time. Making an explicit rule against this sort of thing would, in some ways, be worse - we'd create a hard line of what wasn't acceptable, encouraging people to push close to it and complain if their "legitimate" edits were removed. Shimgray | talk | 23:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Loading vs use policies and technologies to harmonize them
Since Xeno asked about hypothetical vs actual cases, I should answer both.
There is a general (you may say hypothetical) background, as well as several cases
where I have wished for an "image use policy" to point to.
The general background is my general lack of satisfaction with "image management"
within both Wikimedia and Wikipedia. My general ongoing improvement list includes the comment that the simple website www.WGA.hu works so much more smoothly than Wikimedia. I have actually sketched a better design that I will write up sooner or later, but I am not sure where to post that. Now, for specific examples, although again not being a mind reader I can not speculate on motives.
Leopold hoarding art that he can not manage. It is ok to hoard art, but one needs a system to manage them and clear policies on how to use them.
There are two issues:
Loading images. There are simple policies and simple bots here that check things. But a long way to go.
Using images: I can not see clear policies here, except that Wikipedia is not a gallery, and fewer images should be used. Are there policies about "image relevance", "image domination" or use of images as "semi-advertising"?
Loading images: I would really, really like to see a simple bot built into Wikimedia that stops people from adding any images without clear information about author, source, date, etc. as well as "image content tags" that relate to categories, e.g. this is an image of a car, not a piece of fruit. As is the Wikimedia mentality seems to be that of 5 years ago: "let us get as many images as we can load up". That was good a few years ago, but now too much has been hoarded, without suitable policies on management and use. As is Wikimedia policies are an invitation to chaos. And I think MOST users would just fill in the relevant information if the bot prompts them before they can save the imkage. A simple set of policies (plus enforcing bots) will go a long way here.
Using Images: Some time ago, I noticed that User:Vertistar kept adding the same image (which was probably from near his own location) to several pages, e.g. see: Talk:Mary_(mother_of_Jesus)#Solid_wood.3F. I left him a brief message and that was handled smoothly: User_talk:Vertistar. But thereafter I saw that users keep adding images (possibly from near their own locations) somewhat freely, and often multiple images. A recent example from the same page was this edit where I had to ask
if 4 images of the same item were needed. But did I have a policy to point to? No. As is,
the user added back 2 of them to the middle of the page and it still messes up the text. If I
start a discussion on that, do I have a policy to point to? No. Is there a policy that relates
placement of images to the text? I can not see one. I would like to find a policy
for image placement. My suggestion here would be something like:
If a section is less than 7% to 10% of an article, images related to that section should not be larger than 10% of the total images, etc.
On the page Our Lady of Mount Carmel an IP in Spain kept adding an image from Span (a few miles from his own geolocation). It took a lot of discussion via a 3rd opinion to deal with that. Have you had that problem with someone's favorite cat? On the page Leo XIII there was, and still is an ongoing discussion as to whether a new coat of arms (originally added with the artist's name on the page in the caption) might have been a promotional item. Same image was deleted from German Wikipedia as spam. The issue remains undecided since there is no policy to point to on English Wikipedia. And actually the list goes on. And these are some examples. There are other pages where I have seen these types of things but I can not be on all pages at all times. I have tried to "reduce the chaos" by building specific image galleries within Wikimedia such as this one that avoid 3 copies of the same painting. But really there needs to be a better way and better policies.
Two tiered system: Eventually I would like to see a two tiered system:
Leopold's Wikimedia: Better known as "Wikimedia Commons" is where images are hoarded to no end, just like today, but with more control over image tags. The motto here is: Grab and run, get whatever you can, after all it is free.
Quality Wikimedia: Also known as "Wikimedia Uncommons" as a system that will be data-based rather than file-based. A simple, really simple, system like www.WGA.hu already does that and "Quality Wikimedia" should do even better.
There is no need for technical inventions here. Just a desire for improvement beyond let us get as many things as we can. And goals must be set to improve usage policies. The "let us grab it all" approach and "we will police it via common sense" method were good 4 years ago, but their days are numbered, I think. History2007 (talk) 23:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that huge numbers of images are a problem, in and of itself. The system used in Commons is to use the categories for all the images about something, and galleries for "the best" images, or with order, explanations or whatever is needed. If you are concerned that some topic has too many images, make a gallery and fix the link to the category into a link to the gallery.
By the way, Commons does not allow anything, there is a Project scope. Personal images without educative purpose, or duplicated images (such as multiple renditions of a same portrait) may be nominated for deletion, or even speedily deleted in obvious cases MBelgrano (talk) 22:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
It will be easier for me to write a proposal on how to improve the technology of Commons. It will be fun to write. As is Commons technology is based on Google-like text search, not Oracle-like queries. Both are needed. Please use that WGA link above to see how nice it is. And I think therre are just 2-3 people running that part time. I will write a design doc for "Wikimedia Uncommons" as something above Commons. But where do I post that? However, your comment addressed only loading, not usage. Ideas on that? History2007 (talk) 22:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
MBelgrano, I started writing A design for Wikimedia Uncommons. I will need 7-10 days or so to get a first draft together. Please check back in a week or so. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
University "reputation" sections
I am concerned about the evel of activity on Wikipedia regarding university "reputation" sections. This is particularly in reference to British universities (esp. upper-middle status ones like Bristol, Durham, St Andrews, Warwick, etc) for whom there are a plethora of newspaper "guides" which more often than not tell virtually nothing about the university but direct parents to choose one over the other for their children. Inclusion of this information often involves cherry-picking some high rankings from a number of recent years or composing huge unwieldy collages of guides (see this as an example). The encyclopedic value is nil, but the incentive for editing is high as Wikipedia articles are often the main source of public information. This is why a lot of anonymous activity is behind it. I'm personally in favour of banning all such rankings for university articles, as this is the only realistic way of safeguarding the 'Pedia against this pressure and comes really at no loss ... but something does need to be done. It's making lots of these university articles look ridiculous. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd agree, but this is a fairly mundane content issue and way too specific to make policy. You might take it up with the relevant project as something to watch for, but I don't think you'd be able to make a meaningful general rule other than enforcing WP:PROMOTION, one of the sub-bits of WP:SOAP, part of one of our very important rules that people can't lightly ignore. SDY (talk) 02:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm inclined to think it is a more serious matter than this. It seems to be acceptable to a lot of people to abuse Wikipedia for promotional purposes here, while few are interested in stopping it. I'm happy to take the lead in cutting this out, but I want to know people will be with me. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I personally would totally agree with this stance. As someone who in a previous life did some work to these I included at most things like RAE scores because they are official and relevant to funding, and even then only when appropriate like on prominent research universities. Newspaper league tables are simply not encyclopaedic and are seemingly constantly used for promotion, including selective use of figures. I would agree though regulating this through specific policy is difficult past WP:PROMOTION. ChiZeroOne (talk) 07:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Interwiki links vs. red links
I recently worked with User:SpinningSpark on the article Mechanical filter. At one point, the article mentioned Ernest Mercadier, whose article did not exist in English but did exist in French. SpinningSpark was of the opinion that linking to the French article was more useful than a redlink because many of our readers do speak both French and English. I was of the opinion that a redlink was more useful because it indicates an avenue of expansion and because if the English article were created, the former redlink would immediately change to reflect this, whereas the French link would mislead readers. We eventually settled on having a redlink in the article along with a footnote that mentioned the French article. This was a reasonable solution for this one instance, but I am interested in finding a more general solution for this sort of issue. I didn't find any hints in our web of policy pages indicating whether SpinningSpark's original idea was acceptable, nor any explicit statements that the redlink is preferred. Thoughts? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I think the Manual of Style on linking is quite clear in preferring red links to remain rather than any inadequate substitute, past creating a stub of the article yourself. Indeed with the stub you can always link to the wiki with a more detailed page through the language links normally placed at the bottom of the page, and it encourages people to translate the page too. ChiZeroOne (talk) 16:34, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The MOS comes down for red links in favour of no link at all, but I don't see anything favouring redlinks over foreign-language Wikipedia article links. It appears not to have been previously considered. Maybe I have missed something, would you mind quoting the passage you think supports this. SpinningSpark 19:08, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Certainly whenever I've seen this discussed in the past there's been a general understanding that cross-language links are generally disliked unless essential for some reason. My interpretation would be that a link to another language project is treated the same as a "general" external link - which are, of course, discouraged in the text of an article. Shimgray | talk | 19:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
You don't want to surprise a reader like that. As this is the English Wikipedia, it is expected and understood that links will go to English articles. A redlink is preferable to any foreign language link. Not only to avoid confusion with readers, but also to encourage editors to create articles on notable topics that are redlinked. Resolute 19:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
A sad strawman pointy comment - pity, up to now the discussion had been intelligent. SpinningSpark 00:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
And an ad hominem in response. Brilliant. Resolute 01:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I've found a more relevant piece of policy, Inline interlanguage links, which I think shows that if the subject is notable for the purposes of English Wikipedia then the red link should remain. I would agree with this as I have recent experience of a case where only interlanguage links were present. An Italian engineer notable for their contribution to spaceflight only had interlanguage link to the Italian article, as there was no red link where his name had been mentioned in other articles and he had a common name, it was a pain trying to find all the cases and link them to the article I created. I also agree that really you should not require an understanding of any other language to find information about a topic on English Wikipedia. There is a case for doing as the above says and linking to both, but personally I would create the stub instead and interlanguage it. If it is not notable enough to have its own page it should not be redlinked anyway. ChiZeroOne (talk) 00:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Ernest Mercadier is actually a poor example, even the French article is a hopeless stub, so I was not really sorry to lose that one from the article. Some better examples of where I have used this tactic are in the Paul Boucherot article. fr:Méthode de Boucherot is undestandable with a bit of effort even to a non-French speaker since the treatment is mathematical. This snippet of electrical transformer theory due to Boucherot cannot be found anywhere on the English Wikipedia as far as I can tell, but again is understandable to a non-French speaker from the circuit diagrams. Another example was in the Wilhelm Cauer article where de:Mix & Genest, a company with which Cauer was once associated, is mentioned. At the time, I judged that Mix & Genest was an obscure enough German company not to get a Wikipedia article any time soon. However, the mere existence of this foreign Wikipedia link seems to have provoked an editor into creating Mix & Genest here which I am quite sure would not have happened with a blank redlink. SpinningSpark 20:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I generally agree that a red link is preferable to a foreign language link and that there may be rare circumstances where it is useful e.g. where the interwiki is perhaps a list, say, of the Dukes of XXXX, which is more or less readable. I usually remove red links where the topic is foreign and even the relevant foreign language wiki doesn't yet have an article. --Bermicourt (talk) 22:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Isn't there a procedure where an editor of the English language Wikipedia can request a translation of a Wikipedia article in another language? I haven't yet tried this but am curious whether it works well. I write and edit mountaineering related articles and there are articles on the French and German Wikipedias that are lacking here. I would like to learn how to collaborate with translators to help make that happen. Cullen328 (talk) 05:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
That is an excellent suggestion which is probably acceptable to both sides here (when I say both sides, it is beginning to look very much like me as the lone Beserker standing on Stamford Bridge holding up the rest of Wikipedia trying to cross). The procedure is at WP:Translation and basically requires adding the template {{Expand <language>|<article>}} to the stub article page. The translation process seems to work well on the few occasions I have seen it in operation, but I have no idea how long it takes before an interested translator picks up a request. Probably very variable depending on what the volunteer translators are interested in. SpinningSpark 09:31, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I have translated nearly 2,000 articles (from German Wikipedia), but not via the request process as translation is very time-consuming and so I usually like to have an interest in what I am translating. However, there may be good news for Cullen328 because I am quite interested in German and Austrian mountains and have already created many articles in that sphere including the List of the highest mountains in Germany and its Austrian counterpart! --Bermicourt (talk) 14:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
RfC on wording of poll relating to Pending Changes
A request for comment on an under construction poll related to the never-ending debate on pending changes.... I think I'll skip that. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I would like some advice. I have suggested the move of Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions to Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in discussions but have only just noticed that someone has created the second page. My reason for the move is based on the fact that numerous discussions outside of deletion link to the shortcuts on the page as general arguments to avoid. Instead should i suggest a merger? Although probably a history merge would be needed as well. Simply south (talk) 00:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
That's not really a policy issue. It looks like the two pages cover the same material and could just be merged though. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh dear. We'll have find another way to drive away women, young people, and people with a shred of taste. Herostratus (talk) 02:05, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Don't worry hero, I'm sure someone will think of something... --Ludwigs2 20:26, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Could the title of this section, "WMF study opens door to censorship", be any more provocative? Both Wnt and Herostratus are taking extreme views. A lack of censorship is important to the site, but the study so far emphasizes the need to minimize the negative consequences of avoiding censorship. These negative consequences are not trivial. I oppose censorship, but there are measures that we can take within our principles that will avoid some of the consequences of our current blunt approach to the issue. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 20:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Thanks for the heads up, Wnt. Very worrying. I didn't know about the study. 1)How binding is it supposed to be? 2)What can be done to limit damages? --Cyclopiatalk 20:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
All I can say is, this "study" is doomed to failure. Trying to accommodate various viewpoints without being "controversial" is a formula for disaster. And their statements of principle are so vague as to be useless. Another tempest in a teapot... — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:42, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Proposed split of the WP:MEAT section of WP:SOCK as a separate policy page
Although this relates to an article I've been tending; I want to post it in a more General way in hopes for a clearer interpretation of policy. Recently in a debate on the content of an article, another editor (and administrator) made the statement "Yes, a person and pretty much self-identify by any criteria, assuming they're not doing so facetiously or rhetorically." in response to examples of individuals self-identifying blatantly false facts about themselves.
Reading through WP:BLP identifies only two situations where self-identification appears to be appropriate Sexual Orientation and Religion, every other situation looks for a consensus of reliable secondary sources and reading through the archives of this page Self Identification finds the following nnunchallenged statement "If reliable sources identify them as something other than (or in addition to) what they self-identify as, then it is not a WP:BLP violation to identify them as such." The Self Identification took place in a list which generally appears to follow the same rules as categorisation requiring a consensus of reliable secondary sources for any inclusion, so my belief is that in such cases we should rule with the consensus rather than any self-identification.
Furthermore the self identification occurs within a statement that may have 1 or more of three possible meanings for instance a quote from an individual with citable heterosexual orientation saying "I'm Gay" could either mean he's happy or it could mean the he's really homosexual. Again I would consider the identification to be unreliable for this reason and the other secondary sources should take preference but the other editor believes it to be unequivocal statement that both cases are true (he's a happy homosexual) where does policy stand in this case?
I'm not sure exactly what point you're trying to clarify here. The idea behind wp:BLP policy is that we do not want to make potentially defamatory statements about living people, for moral reasons as much as for legal reasons. Wikipedia isn't a scandal rag. If someone self-identifies as X and sources identify him as Y, then the burden lies on the sources to show that Y is the correct designation, otherwise we ought to use X. Sometimes this is clear-cut, sometimes not, but we should generally err on the side of caution if there are doubts.
If someone makes the public statement "I'm gay", it is fairly evident that s/he means that s/he's homosexual, and there will probably be multiple sources that verify it. If someone makes an ambiguous statement, like "I'm feeling gay this evening", then we should not take it as a statement that s/he is homosexual without some more clearcut statement (since assertions of homosexuality have a far greater potential for defamation than assertions that s/he means s/he's happy).
You will occasionally run across editors with an urge (or occasionally feel the urge yourself) to edit in some potentially scandalous material about some person. IMO, that urge should always be resisted. Potentially scandalous material should not be added to an article unless it can be clearly attributed to reliable sources. Potentially scandalous material should not be entered into Wikipedia at all until it is so well-accepted that it's almost boring; stick with the 'Wikipedia does not enter into disputes' model of editing. --Ludwigs2 18:25, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
The material isn't scandalous in nature but WP:BPL is being used quite bluntly to remove many entries from the list. In this case X could refer to the person's ethnicity, or it could refer to the person's cultural upbringing, or it could refer to a religion the person follows. There are sources that identify the person as X by ethnicity through their father. However in the quote they say roughly "I am not X, but my father is." The context certainly seems to be referring to the cultural aspect but would also rule out the religious aspect - what it can't rule out is the ethnicity and the second half of the quote backs up the other sources that place them as ethnically X. Ultimately I'm not too bothered about whether the entry stays or not but would rather clarify the policy in this regard as there may be further similar quotes within cites for other list entries. I'm also concerned by the idea that sourceable criteria such as ethnicity (someone's ancestry), nationality, gender can be overridden by a self-identification without a consensus of sources. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
If all we have on an issue is a two word public statement by the subject with no context and no secondary source commentary interpreting it, I don't see how that would merit inclusion in an article anyway. But even if we assume it is substantial and encyclopedic for a particular subject, sexual orientation is not a binary or static thing; even proof of a same-sex liaison does not establish an individual is straight, gay, or bisexual. Nor do we always need to make a judgment who is "right," so an article could state with no contradiction "Numerous news sources reported that Mayor Schmoe had a long-term sexual relationship with a male advisor, though Schmoe insisted in numerous public statements that he is strictly heterosexual." postdlf (talk) 18:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
In the article it's being used to justify the removal of material, which can be justified for inclusion using other references . I've taken a position that I won't re-insert this material but have a concern that the same argument may be used to remove further material that I may have a stronger concern about retaining and wish to be clear on policy. As I say above, I'm also concerned by the idea that sourceable criteria such as ethnicity (someone's ancestry), nationality, gender can be overridden by a self-identification without a consensus of sources. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
You pretty much need to tell us where this is happening, otherwise we're stuck talking in generalities (which may or may not apply). For instance, a case like Tiger Woods (who has been repeatedly referred to as black by sportscasters - rather innocently - though he self identifies as asian) would be handled differently than a case like Obama (who has had numerous sources trying to alter perceptions of his nationality, ethnicity and religion for political gain). can you provide a link? --Ludwigs2 20:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
O.K. the Person in question is Lake Bell and the article in question is the List of Jewish actors though her own page has seen some editing in regard to this debate. Most references to her ethnicity stop at her father being Jewish and her mother being a WASP but some like [6] declare her Jewish because of her ethnicity on her father's side. However the contentious self-identification occurs on [7] Where she says "I wanted her to be far more Jewish and have the last name of Cohen or Rosenberg because I'm not Jewish and I wanted the opportunity to play Jewish, make the father's side of my family proud." The Context can be seen to be about culturally connecting with her father's side of the family (and in other articles she identifies with her mother's WASP culture) but it's being used as an unequivocal denial of any Jewishness. Without knowing more about the questions asked in the interview it can't be taken as an unequivocal denial especially when citable evidence confirms a definition that can't be denied only disproven. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 22:25, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Longstanding practice in Judaism is that Jewish identity is matrilineal. Children of a Jewish mother are always accepted as Jews. Children of a non Jewish mother and a Jewish father are only accepted as Jewish if they convert (traditional denominations) or publically and openly self identify as Jewish (Reform Judaism). No Jewish movement accepts an unconverted child of a non Jewish mother as Jewish, especially if that person does not assert a Jewish self identity. By the way, I am a convert to Judaism. Cullen328 (talk) 00:13, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
The above is entirely correct, the standard definition of a Jew is based on Matrilineage. In fact I'm surprised you haven't looked at the conspicuous link at the top of that page. Her mother being a WASP precludes her from being considered a Jew by the large majority of Jewish society. Remember Judaism is a religion, not directly an ethnicity, and Jewish law has historically decided who is and is not a Jew. Because that law is effectively hereditary to be "Jewish" has become synonymous with an ethnicity in common usage, but that is a bit inaccurate because it's a "legal" definiton. The sources are merely confirming that she would not be considered Jewish by her peers. Indeed it seems clear to me the quote of hers isn't a self-identification but a recognition that she wishes she could be considered Jewish to please her father.
So really the problem here is simply that the removing of only people who state they are not Jewish is inconsistent because it misunderstands the statement is probably based on the Halaka. The chances are the people who only have Jewish fathers and state they are not Jews are doing so simply because that is the standard interpretation based on Jewish law, not actually a self-identification at all. If they are going to be removed then all those unconverted with non-Jewish mothers should be removed also, which IMO is the correct solution. It is not Wikipedia's position to tell Judaism who is and is not a Jew! ChiZeroOne (talk) 03:52, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, there are plenty of entries in that list at present that have a Jewish father but non-Jewish mother according to the list's "Jewish lineage" column. Are those included only because they self-identify as a Jew or have not disclaimed self-identification as a Jew? Or should all of those be removed too? postdlf (talk) 05:45, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
In general entries should use Who is a Jew? as a rule of thumb. Although the Halaka states matriarchal lineage confirming Judaism, liberal and Reform Jews accept either parent as lineage - though they tend to also require the individual is raised in the Jewish faith . This would be consistent with ethnological or genealogical (also considered within the Jewish identity article) approach to descent being taken from either parent which does not require culture or religion . There are several entries of actors with Jewish Father playing roles to identify with their Jewish side - Adam Goldberg is a better known example of this kind of person (Jewish Father, Christian Mother, Raised Christian, But regularly identifies with Jewishness by playing Jewish Roles) and Lake Bell would appear to be wanting to do the same. However it should be noted that in the way that WP:BLP is being used in the article - showing matriarchal lineage as regards the Halaka would still not be enough to identify Jewishness, it would be deemed to be WP:OR through WP:Synthesis.
However focusing on particularly Jewishness, distances the debate from the wider idea of Self-identification challenging verifiable fact. For example there are a number of right wing videos on the web which show Barak Obama saying "I'm not American" - these are edited to remove context so it may have been made facetiously or rhetorically and there are no alternate versions of the video but if it was decided they were reliable, could they be used to outweigh all the reliable verifiable information we have that that proves his American nationality? Similarly Megan Fox made the claim "I'm a Man with a Vagina" (if used in context it would be about the way she identifies to masculine characteristics) does this suddenly outweigh all the reliable verifiable evidence that she is in fact female? Logic seems to say not, but with an admin stating that a person can self-identify by any criteria then we could see other claims (particularly in smaller articles) slipping in. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Having had the opportunity now to read the talk page on that article I see now you probably already know most of the above. Overall I must say that articles of this variety never seem to turn out to be of much encyclopaedic worth. Indeed there have been a number of times this has been brought up including, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession
Anyway, for some suggestions about how lists could be handled here's an essay on lists, WP:LISTV, note particularly the part on membership criteria. This is one of the big problems for me with this situation, simply that there is no set definition of what is accepted. The administrator you were debating with is correct that the source must state in so many words the person is Jewish for this list to have any encyclopaedic worth, but the problem is they are not defining any criteria that the source must confirm and hence you get the problem with "conflicting" sources. They only conflict because the sources are using different definitions, in most cases this is trivial as the definitions are universally accepted but in cases of identity they often aren't.
It is perfectly possible for a list to require membership criteria that may not be universally accepted, in fact it seems the standard. I know this particularly from the Spaceflight lists I've dealt with where for certain reasons the lists use criteria for inclusion that appear somewhat odd, but this is usually just to make the list "work" as an encyclopaedic article. Btw it wouldn't be a problem using Matrilineage as a criteria so long as the sources used state "X" is "Y" because "Z". Of course this would be rather difficult to find sources for, but as I said it's one of the more widely accepted criteria.
Having said all this, as I said before the separation between "Jewish" and "Jewish ethnicity" is very tenuous indeed. I suggest both uses of the word be treated as "religion" under the BLP guidelines requiring that additionally the person should identify as Jewish themselves, for a number of reasons including some made in that "lists by professions" link above.
As for the "I'm not American" thing and related points, this is where Wikipedia's demand for reliable evidence comes in. A reliable source should provide context, if it does not it is not a reliable source! If it's about a notable subject then there should be reliable sources, if it's not a notable subject it shouldn't be on Wikipedia........ChiZeroOne (talk) 10:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the link to Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession that was quite insightful in regard to this issue. I do believe that this list does have encyclopaedic value (outside of my personal use for it which is detailed in the article's talk place) in that many (though not all) are often notable for playing Jewish characters and their own Jewishness is often a notable factor in that choice particularly where like Lake Bell or Adam Goldberg they wish to play the role to try and connect with their Jewish Roots. The problem I see with treating Jewish to mean Religion in the case of this list means moving away from that notability (and encyclopedic value) and over-populating the list with Actors and actresses who can be cited as followers of Judaism perhaps through Kabbalah like Madonna, Mick Jagger or Britney Spears (I know they're all primarily Singers who *also* Act but it was the first three examples I came across) but it is not a notable part of their Acting. I have in the past advocated a split of the article to List of Actors of Jewish Descent and List of Actors of Jewish Faith which would solve this problem by defining clear criteria and allow a far wider scope of who could be included - citing becomes easier as it is less debatable which definition of Jewishness you are including them by and you only need to cite descent not a self-identification of that descent; but there has been little follow up on it by other editors and question could still remain as to whether Lake Bell's self-identification is a denial of Jewish descent despite sources to the contrary - including at least one that calls her "Jewish on her fathers side".
In the more general case I'm trying to take it from the context that it is reliable and that person genuinely believes they are not X despite a consensus of other sources (and possibly common sense) agreeing that they are X. The reason may not be rhetorical or facetious it may be that the individual has a misunderstanding of what X is, or does not want to be associated with X despite no negative connotations to be formed from being associated with X (if Nicholas Cage were to turn round and claim not to be a Coppola for instance) would the self-identification outweigh the consensus? Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 14:07, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I went to the list, picked one actor (Rachel Stevens) at random, and checked the reference. It's an interview of her by a Jewish website in the UK. The interview says NOTHING about Judaism or her religious identity. Is being interviewed by a Jewish website proof an actor is Jewish? Hint - Jewish publications often interview non-Jews. I don't have time to do further research because my wife needs her feet massaged. Cullen328 (talk) 06:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Rachel Stevens is included because she has Jewish Lineage through both parents. I haven't checked that particular citation but there are other cites out there about her Jewishness through descent. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
You may be right, but the current source is inadequate. I hope that this is not common throughout the list. Cullen328 (talk) 14:47, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
The cite is included because it identifies her as "Jewish pop princess Rachel Stevens" which is a title not challenged by anything Rachel says. There are other sources, such as her Jewish Court Case Against Dick and Dom because they attempted to force her to be Gunged with non-kosher ingredients[8]; but there are rarely any sources on the page that are self-identifications of any criteria of Jewishness. I don't have the time to check all 641 references to make sure they are adequate. If another editor raises an issue with a reference, I will do my best to find a replacement as I have recently done for Jesse Eisenberg and Ben Feldman . Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 15:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I would love for someone to explain how someone's Jewishness, outside of a instances where such a thing is immediately relevant (religion, Zionist history, Holocaust history, etc... in other words, not an actor), is even relevant enough and encyclopedic enough to have this kind of argument over. --Golbez (talk) 20:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree, that article probably shouldn't even exist anyway. But to be fair this discussion isn't directly about the article, the first editor simply was using it as an example to question the current policy on identity, sourcing and BLP. We only asked for clarification on what the example was to provide better context.
And regarding whether these sorts of articles should exist, policy as currently written on lists is rather ambiguous as has been said many times before as per the link I gave above. The BLP policy regarding religion and sexual orientation {i.e "Identity") about categories is applied to lists as well in one of the articles above. Whereas WP:EGRS essentially allows a wide range of categories that many would argue aren't relevant either. To quote,
Category:African American musicians is valid, but Category:African American economists is not.
Why? I wasn't aware your ethnicity was directly related to your music either, Eminem anyone? So it seems clear to me here a definition different to just "directly related" is being used, one that uses a highly subjective definition of "culturally relevant". IMO that's nonsense.
But the point the original editor was getting at remains that an encyclopedia will include peoples identity (religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity etc) but policy as given would appear deficient in explaining the standard way identity should be treated. For example when the first person to reply said,
If someone self-identifies as X and sources identify him as Y, then the burden lies on the sources to show that Y is the correct designation [emphasis added], otherwise we ought to use X. Sometimes this is clear-cut, sometimes not, but we should generally err on the side of caution if there are doubts.
Which while nice in theory is not possible in reality, because all identity is not clear-cut. This doesn't just relate to BLP either, for example Karl Marx is tagged with plenty of Jewish categories but it is clear that these are done only by using the Halachic definition. Some sources will say he is a Jew because of that, others will say he's not because of his religion etc. Both are technically correct. ChiZeroOne (talk) 21:33, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Karl Marx is considered a Jew by all denominations of Judaism because declaring oneself an atheist does not make a person not-Jewish. It makes them apikoros - a heretic - but they remain Jewish in the eyes of organized Judaism. Cullen328 (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
But there are probably communist/socialist who will state he was not Jewish because they don't accept the Halachic definition. Marx also took an Anti-Semetic position that could be seen as a self-identification of "Not Jewish", indeed history records that any attempt to get an identification of Jewish usually resorted in an angry response from Marx. Marx is probably a better example of this kind of thing (at least in relation to Judaism, though the general case still exists) because some of his statements are clearly denials of any definition of Jewishness including the verifiable ethnicity Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 07:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
What kind of twisted reasoning is that? Are you saying that an internal principle of a group, Jews, claims the right to define who belongs to the group, Karl Marx, despite the explicit rejection of belonging. So, if the Jewish community decides to define somebody as one of them, they're trapped? What's to prevent me from defining X:ianism, setting up the rule that anybody with 'e' as the second letter of their name to be a member, and required to preach my word to the world. If somebody was to reject me, I'd say that no, you are not a non-X:ian, you're a self-hating heretic X-ian, and I will label you as that whenever I get the opportunity. My point: Judaism's internal rules can not apply to those who reject them, and Wikipedia shouldn't blindly follow! /Coffeeshivers (talk) 19:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Coffeeshivers—you say, "What's to prevent me from defining X:ianism, setting up the rule that anybody with 'e' as the second letter of their name to be a member, and required to preach my word to the world." I just would like to clarify one thing. Judaism and Jews do not "preach" to the "world." Judaism is a non-proselytizing religion (with exceptions), and Christianity is a proselytizing religion (with exceptions). There are parallels between the religions but there are also disconnects. Bus stop (talk) 19:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I know, and I guess that was a bad choice for the example. Proselytizing or not, my point is about the undefendable and unrejectable labelling of belonging./Coffeeshivers (talk) 20:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Strongly agree with Coffeeshivers' sentiments. Judiac law is entirely irrelevant in definining who is a Jew on WP. Policy on WP quite clearly gives great weight to "self-identification". If Lake Bell has made an unambiguous statement that she is Jewish, then she is Jewish. Lacking "self-identification" you've got to produce a large amount of high quality RS to assign a religon/ethnicity to someone. NickCT (talk) 19:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia should just be reporting what reliable sources says. Whatever reliable sources says is what should be included in our article. If two sources are at odds with one another—so be it. This is not a problem. We simply report what each source says. We are just compilers of the assertions of reliable sources. The reader does not need to receive predigested information. The reader can do the digesting themselves. Contradictory indications of religious affinity is something I think our articles can comfortably contain. We shouldn't attempt to resolve such apparent contradictions. Bus stop (talk) 20:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I take a similar position that Judaic law is not an issue here, but I do see two positions: as a religion WP accepts self-identification without problem and had the issue been an individual stating they were Jewish we would have to accept that. The problem is that ethnicity (A shared descent - in the case of Jewish descent back to the Tribes of Israel) is something that is fixed and can be proven by RS, whatever the individual states to the contrary. In both the cases of Karl Marx and Lake Bell we have sources identifying their parent's ethnicity and have sources identifying the individual as Jewish because of the extension of that ethnicity (even in Lake Bell's case where Jewish Law may consider her not Jewish.) If a notable individual says "I'm not Italian American" despite many reliable sources showing one parent to be Italian and the other American and further other reliable sources calling them Italian American should they be called Italian American? In the general case we can talk about other criteria such as Gender, Nationality (something I've dealt with in the case of Isla Fisher whose nationality cannot be proven to be Australian despite it regularly being added to her article), and other criteria that cannot be self-defined.
Whilst a conflict can sit comfortably within an article - resolving whether a categorisation or listing is appropriate based on conflicting sources requires a guideline as to how resolve the conflict. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
(ec) Categorization shouldn't be a problem either: put them in both categories even if the two categories contradict one another. (I can't think of an example where categories contradict one another.) The alternative is worse, in my opinion: to put them in neither category. In other words we don't have to resolve discrepancies. The discrepancies exist outside of Wikipedia therefore Wikipedia should reflect them.
I think we should always err on the side of putting someone in a category. A boilerplate disclaimer should accompany all category pages stating that categorization has to be considered tentative and in many instances a simplification of actual facts which can only be determined with reference to the actual article. Bus stop (talk) 22:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
That's contrary to categorization guidelines and practice, which hold that categorization should be left for uncontroversial statements of fact, and must be supportable by verifiable statements within an article. (I can't think of any explicitly contradictory categories either, unless we were to put one person in two different year of birth categories or something like that; otherwise, it isn't like we have Category:JewsandCategory:Not Jews.) Lists can be looser because we can annotate reasons for inclusion when those may differ, and add qualifiers directly to the entry if there is disagreement. postdlf (talk) 22:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I've heard (Bus Stop's) opinion expressed before (it's the "categories are for navigation" idea) but I really don't agree. Categories are prominently displayed at the bottom of the page, and often appear to be factual claims about the subject matter (worse, ones for which there is no mechanism to attribute them to a source).
If all categories are applied for which some argument can be made, casual readers will come away with the idea that Wikipedia is asserting authoritatively that Georg Cantor was Jewish, that Michael Moore is an anti-American activist, that string theory is pseudoscience, and on and on. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok. The gut of the issue is that "Jew" has both ethnic and religious meaning. While I think we all agree self-identification is primal to religious association, I think we still question whether self-identification is primal to ethnic association.
The only way to solve this is to decide whether "Jew" is primarily a religious term or primarily an ethnic one. Per most reliable dictionary's definition of the term, I'd say it's primarily religious, and hence I'd conclude that "self-identification" is primal in determining whether someone is a "jew". NickCT (talk) 22:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
We go by what sources say. We don't have to "decide whether 'Jew' is primarily a religious term or primarily an ethnic one." Sorry but I disagree. Our job is not to make decisions. We refer to sources. We have to gather together those sources that address a topic. The important thing is that every jot and tittle be supported by reliable sources. The reader should not be understood to have come to Wikipedia to find predigested information. The reader should be understood to have come to Wikipedia to be given the relevant and reliable facts as sources lay them out—even if they are contradictory—even if they present different perspectives and contain different implications about other topics. Bus stop (talk) 22:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
We don't even have to decide for such a list as the List of Jewish actors, because we can include people for religious and/or ethnic reasons and annotate which applies, and add qualifiers to that annotation such as "has Jewish father, does not self-identify as Jewish" or whatever. We could specify narrower inclusion criteria for the list, like "this is a list of Jewish actors who have expressly said they practice Judaism", but then we're (needlessly) leaning towards POV and OR hairsplitting of a classification that is broader in real world practice. In either case, however, the inclusion criteria needs to be made explicit, whether loose and varying or narrow and specific. postdlf (talk) 22:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
postdlf - Tell me this, if you were an actor of Jewish lineage/ethnicity, but for some reason abhorred the Jewish faith, do you think you might object to being categorized as a Jewish actor? Seems like a WP:BLP violation. People who don't want to be identified as Jews should not be identified as Jews. NickCT (talk) 23:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't think personal feelings of the subject is a relevant question here. But I also don't have a final judgment on the value of self-identification on this issue. For any list, the relevance of self-identification to inclusion needs to be discussed and justified, and any inclusion criteria for any list must be made explicit. That doesn't appear to have been done here, even if self-identification is ultimately a valid factor to consider. postdlf (talk) 07:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Self identification is one factor of many. Also, we can't resolve for all possible situations in one pithy rule. We should not assume that we have the wisdom to account for all possible permutations concerning a notable subject's identity. It is a reasonable question raised—what do we do in the instance where there is conflict between a notable subject's articulated identity and known facts that are at odds with that individual's assertions? But I don't think there is one answer. It depends on the particular example. The bottom line though I think is going to be the quality of sources. Good sources can't be suppressed. If good sources exist in contradiction to an articulated self-identity, I think we include both (in article space). "Lists" and "Categories" require disclaimers. Bus stop (talk) 10:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
When I first edited the article and converted it to a WikiTable there was no inclusion criteria, although there was some slight debate about inclusion and the need for citable sources. I added the Who is a Jew? boilerplate found on other similar articles to set the inclusion criteria - which covers most cases (Culture, Religion, Matriarchal Lineage, and in some cases Patriarchal Lineage). At the start of this year a number of new editors began work on the article with significant argument around the concepts of WP:BLP and WP:V one camp of the editors takes the strong position that WP:BLP for Jewishness requires Self-identification - which is fine if Jewishness is taken to be a religious choice. However the other view is that WP:BLP for Jewishness requires we look at the consensus of Secondary sources, because Jewishness as an ethnicity is not something that can be self-identified (unless the self-identifier is a notable ethnologist). This has led to some lively debate which I wasn't involved in in the early stages, but still no consensus was reached - although a balance was reached where sources which made an explicit identification of an individual as being Jewish were preferred.
The Lake Bell case is a unique one because in the space of one quote she claims 1) Not to be Jewish, 2) To have Jewish Parentage, and 3) To be attempting to connect with the Jewish culture of her Parentage through her performance. It's a very specific example but I believe shows up a more General problem for inclusion criteria. 1) is the opposite of any definition made due to a combination of 2) and/or 3) and we have further secondary sources that back up that combination of 2) and 3) and explicitly identify her as Jewish because of 2). We then reach the question of how good each source is, most sources that identify her as Jewish are Jewish Newspapers (though some Anti-Semitic Press groups like Stormfront also make this claim about her)The quotation of "Not Jewish" comes from "Star News" and isn't found anywhere else and context of the identification seems to be lacking - Is it a Halachic definition of being a Jew because her mother isn't, is it a disassociation with Jewish Culture because her upbringing was more influenced by her mother, Is it because she doesn't practise Judaism - I don't know and guessing would be WP:OR so either we can leave the quote as unreliable (and unverifiable) and give precedence to other secondary sources or take it as equivocal and give precedence to the self-identification. The other editor in this case has implied that WP:BLP suggests we should do the latter, having reread WP:BLP back to front, I don't see that there except where a personal choice in the matter can be made.
I do agree entirely that inclusion with a note explaining the complexity of the inclusion is a good approach but all editors need to be singing from the same hymnsheeet (Zemiros sheet?) so a clear policy explaining how to proceed should be available somewhere. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Everyone: Can we pick a less emotionally charged example? I assume no one here thinks it's bad to be a Jew, and I further assume that we're all similarly assuming that, but a casual reader could potentially misunderstand. The question is whether some sort of group identity should be attributed to a person who rejects it, and if so on what basis?
I definitely agree that such group identity should not be attributed merely on the basis of rules accepted by the group in question. However it might be attributed if it can be demonstrated that our sources in general consider the person to belong to the group. --Trovatore (talk) 00:43, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
In article space there should be no issue. Does everyone agree with that? There should be no issue in article space because all applicable factors can be laid out. It doesn't matter if they disagree with one another. I believe the only problem arises with placement in categories, because categorization in some circumstances requires us to digest a variety of factors that may be at odds with one another. I suggested a solution above but I see it is rejected. My solution was to place in all categories. Part of my solution was to have boilerplate disclaimers displayed prominently wherever the reader will encounter Wikipedia's use of "Categories." That should even include the article page itself. Bus stop (talk) 02:01, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
@Trovatore - Re "Can we pick a less emotionally charged example?" - I'm not sure there is another example of a term that can infer both religious belief and ethnicity like "Jew" does. Can you? If so, I'd be happy to use it.
The question is, can somebody be labelled "Jewish" because there parents are, even if that person no longer subscribes to the faith.
To answer my own question, I think if you think "Jewish" is primarily a religious term the answer is no. If you think it is primarily an ethnic term the answer is yes. I'd say no. NickCT (talk) 02:10, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
NickCT—you are applying to Judaism what is only applicable to Christianity. As I said above, these two religions have parallels but these two religions also have disconnects. In Christianity, for instance, one must accept Jesus as one's Savior, in order to be a Christian. But no such counterpart to that exists in Judaism. You speak of subscribing to a faith. One does not become a Jew by subscribing to a faith and one does not cease to be a Jew as a consequence of a failure to subscribe to a faith. This is one of the disconnects between Judaism and Christianity. Many Jews—perhaps the majority of Jews—are nonobservant. In fact most Jews are semi-observant. There happens to be a spectrum of Jewish observance—from utterly nonobservant to very observant. But this is somewhat off-topic. A Wikipedia article should be faithful to sources. We need not categorize people—certainly not in article space. The placement or non-placement into Categories is a more difficult problem. But in article space I think our task, as concerns the question of this thread, is to report what impeccable sources say. Sources are the most important thing. How would we know if someone "self-identified"? Answer: only because a source told us so. How would we know if someone denied an identity? Answer: only if a source said so. We should also endeavor to provide surrounding information to put any such assertions into context. We need not say someone is or is not Jewish. We should convey the information that addresses that general question in the form that we receive it. The reader should be assumed to be capable of accepting the ambiguous, if that is the case. And we would be doing the intelligent reader a disservice if we left out all of the complicating factors. Bus stop (talk) 04:33, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Both of you are getting way too specific. This has nothing to do with the nature of Judaism or Christianity. It's a very general question -- under what circumstances should a group identity be attributed to someone who rejects it? If the answer is specific to Judaism or Christianity, or even specific to "religion" versus "ethnicity", well, that's bad. We need a general principle, simple to state and understand, that works for them all. --Trovatore (talk) 07:03, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
The only question is whether we "digest" information before giving it to the reader or not. "Lists" are not so simple and "Categories" are not so simple. Boilerplate but clear disclaimers should be placed on "Lists" and "Categories". But articles on individuals can easily convey the information that is particular to that person regarding their identity. We don't have to decide whether someone has any particular identity or not. To do so is to process, or digest, the information we have to reach a conclusion. Of course if the information is unambiguous we simply state it in the starkest terms. But that doesn't seem to be what this question is about. This question seems to be about that instance in which, for whatever reason, we are not sure. Under such a circumstance we simply state our reasons for being unsure (backed by sources, of course). There may not be any easy answer. The reader will just have to accept that factor A points to one conclusion, while factor B points to a different conclusion. Bus stop (talk) 09:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
@Trovatore - Problem is ethinicity and religious persuasion are inherently different. Ethnicity is mostly objective (i.e. if your mom is hispanic and your dad is hispanic you are pretty much hispanic). Religious belief is mostly subjective. WP:BLP recognises this when it calls out that "self-identification" is primal in determining religon and sexual oreintation. NickCT (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
@NickCT but Judaism can encompass further issues without being limited to just these two opposites. According to Who is a Jew? it can be a cultural thing or it can be a nationality (Israeli) thing that encourages an individual to believe they are or are not Jewish. Cultural can be Subjective, Nationality is Objective. There are also parallels in other areas which are just as emotionally charged I've already touched on the word "Gay" so "I'm Gay" could be a statement of Sexual Orientation or it could be a statement of merriness or more recently it has come to be a derisory statement against ones-self. Another could be "I'm Black" could be a statement of ones skin colour (which would be objective) or it could could be a statement referring to one's personality (subjective) or it could (in some dialects - particularly Scots) be a statement of one's cleanliness (objective). I'm sure there are other examples of the same thing. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 16:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
@Stuart.Jamieson - Well now we're playing with semantics. The question is what is primal/first/formal definition of Jewish/Gay/Black.
Note that Gay/Black have in a sense been made disambiguous by creating "homosexual" and "African American" categories. In the same sense, I think "Jewish" really needs to be made "disambiguous" by creating "Jewish decent/ethnicity" categories. NickCT (talk) 16:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
@NickCT we're only playing with semantics in the same way that the semantics are already ambiguous. When Lake Bell says "I'm not Jewish" it's probably not a denial of Jewish Ethnicity as she accepts her family are Jewish, however when Karl Marx says "I'm not Jewish" it probably is a denial of ethnicity despite evidence to the contrary. Equally further up I questioned denial of Nationality (By Barack Obama) and denial of Gender (By Megan Fox) again these statements probably weren't made in order to deny these things but they were made none the less.
I agree with the Jewish Descent Category route and have suggested it 3 or 4 times since this became an issue, simply because it's far easier to cite references. I dislike the idea of increasing the number of categories but it may be the only choice, the biggest problem with it is that the same issue still exists - Do we still include Karl Marx in our list of people of Jewish Descent when he would have denied that label himself? Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Agree with "only choice". Re "same issue still exists"; as I said before, I don't think "self-identification" is as much an issue when talking about ethnicity. There is less subjectivity to it. If your mom is chinese and your dad is chinese, you are of "Chinese Descent" period. It doesn't matter what you think about it. NickCT (talk) 17:28, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
That's why I questioned it here in the first place, an Editor (and Admin) was removing content which was citable as Jewish Ethnicity because the individual had Self-identified as "Not Jewish" believing that WP:BLP took the position that self-identification outweighed a consensus of reliable secondary sources even on criteria such as descent. In fact to quote him exactly "Yes, a person and pretty much self-identify by any criteria, assuming they're not doing so facetiously or rhetorically." (I guess the "and" is supposed to be a "can") I couldn't see that as even common sense so raised the issue of whether the Self-Identification trumps the citable descent on here. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for coming back to the real reason why you have started this discussion: Because you are insisting to broadcast to the world as Jewish a person who explicitly self-identifies as not Jewish, and some evil co-editors are trying to prevent this "truth" from coming out. That's about as clear a violation of the spirit of WP:BLP as it gets while not quite being covered by that policy's words. HansAdler 19:02, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
That's an Ad hominem attack, remember WP:PERSONAL and keep thing Civil, the question is and still stands that if a larger number of Reliable secondary sources which constitute a verifiable position are they over-ruled by an individuals's self-identification. I don't care whether Lake Bell remains within the article or not - but I do care that an assertion has been made that a notable individual can claim their Ethnicity, Gender, Race, Eye Colour, Height, Nationality, etc, etc is something different from what we can verify through reliable second sourcing and we have to accept the self-identification over the verifiable position. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:28, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
What was the exact category you were trying to put on her? If it was something like "Jewish decent/ancestory" that is fine (by virtue of the fact that no one denies her father is jewish). If it is "Jewish ethnicity" that is different, b/c she is "of mixed ethnicity". NickCT (talk) 20:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I've reread through the comments. My opinion is that Lake Belldoes not belong on List of Jewish Actors, b/c calling her a "Jewish Actor" confers on her a religious belief that she may or may not hold. There is no "ethnic" argument to be made here because, 1) only actors of the "Jewish faith" belong on this list, & 2) Bell is of "mixed" ethnicity anyway. If there was a List of Actors of Jewish Ancestory or List of Actors of Jewish Descent she might belong there. NickCT (talk) 20:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
@NickCT While that may be your opinion it is WP:OR. 1) as mentioned by other editors above; Judaism is not based on what you believe, it is based on who you are (by descent) or who you have converted to be. Extending a christian inclusion criteria over Judaism is not helpful. 2) The number of individuals in the U.S. with one Jewish Parent is comparable to the number with two Jewish parents, suggesting that up to half of those that can be identified as Jewish by sources may be mixed ethnicity. 3) We have at least one citable source of Jewish Origin that declares Lake Bell Jewish because of her paternity [9] and citable sources are what we base or articles on, rather than an opinion of who is or isn't Jewish. If we followed 1) and 2) for every reference there would be a significant number of individuals - as I've previously mentioned (Adam Goldberg for instance) who would have to be removed despite identifying with and playing Jewish Roles to connect with their heritage - and it's that connection that makes the article encyclopaedic, removal of them all is a path to AFD. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
@Stuart.Jamieson - Re "Judaism is not based on what you believe," This assumes that Jewish is primarily an ethnic definition. I contend it is not, and I believe most RS back me up on this. I have here one RS that would agree with me. What do you have to back you?
Re "comparable to the number with two Jewish parents" - Not the point. The point is that if Lake Bell was of "obvious ethnicity" (i.e. similar to someone who descended from two purely African American parents), it might be justifiable to label her with that ethnicity. Given that this is not the case, I think "self identification" is again the standard.
Re "that declares Lake Bell Jewish" - I don't think jweekly is a reliable source in determining who is or is not Jewish. NickCT (talk) 01:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
@NickCT No, that is the inclusion criteria set out by the Jewish Religious law; the Halakha. It doesn't matter what you believe - the law states God's promise extends to all descendants of the Tribes of Israel. Orthodox Judaism looks at this only Matriarchal Lineage - You are a part of the Jewish Religion if your mother was descended from the Tribe of Israel. Reform Judaism also looks at Patriarchal Lineage - So you are part of the Religion if your father was descended from the Tribe of Israel. This definition is Objective - unlike Christianity, you can't suddenly state "I'm Jewish" and become part of the religion you have to undergo a conversion process which is legalistic like a change of nationality or adoption. Look at the article Who is a Jew? which sets out religious, cultural and nationalistic interpretations that allow an individual to be classed as a Jew - Then feel free to take any of the RS from the bottom of that article that support this definition. Especially pay attention to sources 37-41 which are all about Jewish Groups trying to bring Atheistic or Agnostic Jews back to Religious affiliation. Those sources all relate to the section on "Ethnic Jews" which includes the definition of someone who clearly attempts to connect with their Jewish heritage which Lake Bell has done both through her acting in "Good Old Fashioned Orgy" and her writing in "Not Our Class Dear" and is citable as doing so.
Also Like Hispanic, or African American someone who is descended from one Jewish Parent may still be identified as Jewish because these are fairly loose ethnologies. A far more specific ethnology may exist in relation to which part of the world their family has come from in the recent history so they could be Half-Polish or Half-Russian and still be Jewish or they could just be Jewish with no familial ties to another nation just like an African American could be Half-Nigerian or Half-Ghanaian or could just be African American. Importantly we use Sources to identify which is the appropriate categorisation; there are other sources for Lake Bell but they may use other terms rather that an explicit identification "the child of a Jewish Intermarriage" is one example. Yet the quote if taken as it stands would rule out any ethnology half or otherwise - which is why I see the "Wilmington Star News" as equally reliable as the "Northern California Weekly Jewish News" and with no consensus of sources to support the Star News (unlike the NCW Jewish News) we can't tell if it accurately represents her actual self-identity - or is a smaller part of a lengthier personal identification. However, the question of this thread is presuming both sources to be reliable and asking how we resolve such a situation.
Bus Stop wrote a lengthy riposte to you at 2AM this morning, and I agreed with much of what he wrote - but I guess he wasn't happy with the way he expressed it so deleted it shortly afterwords. But if you wish to continue to discuss what it means to be Jewish then I'd prefer we discuss that aspect elsewhere away from this more general policy discussionStuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Trying to get this back on track and away from the Special Case that is Jewishness (or not) does anyone have anything to add to the general discussion? I'm particularly drawn towards postdlf's suggestion that as long as we define the inclusion criteria, we can include with an annotation and any further qualifiers such as "does not self-identify". I also believe that specifying narrower inclusion criteria for a list is (needlessly) leaning towards POV and OR hairsplitting of a classification that is broader in real world practice and should be avoided unless essential (such as the list being unmanageably large). Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
@Stuart.Jamieson - I'm confused. We've already establish that "Jewish law" is entirely irrelevant in determining who WP designates as Jewish, and yet you go back to "Jewish Law" & biblical explination to justify your positiion.
Look, I'm going to make this really clear. In my mind there are three criteria by which WP can designate someone as Jewish. 1) As person can be called "Jewish" if the individual in question self-identifies as an adherent of the Jewish faith, or in lieu of explicit self-identification a considerable amount of RS exists identifying the individual as a member of the Jewish faith 2) A person can be called "Jewish" if the individual in question self-identies as being of Jewish ethnicity, or 3) A person can be said to have "Jewish heritage"/"Jewish descendency" etc, if the person's parents are unambigiously Jewish. Lake Bell only really meets the third criteria. Saying she has "Jewish heritage" might be acceptable, but putting her on a "List of Jewish Actors" is completely wrong. NickCT (talk) 15:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I've already said I don't want to have this discussion here as it is detracting from the General Question I set out to ask. If you want to continue it on the Article Talk Page or on either of our user-spaces go ahead and I'll answer these points. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 16:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
One piece of data on the "General Question"... we have here an apparently reliable source, one which is used in various capacities in Wikipedia 114 times as of this moment. In this article, I am identified as being Jewish. Now, we happen to be fortunate in this case, because I'm here to ask about it, and it simply isn't true. But I think this example should serve as cautionary. Not every reliable source is, well, always reliable. Because matters of personal faith can be quite emotional for many people, all of the human dignity reasons for taking great care with BLPs apply very strongly here.
I haven't read all of the above, so I'll not comment on the specifics of the thread, other than to pass along a general complaint that came to me from a famous businessman. His view was that Wikipedia has a problem in this area, in that Jewishness is identified far more often than other religious/ethnic identities. He felt that someone was going around Wikipedia looking to create an impression of Jewish businesspeople. His take on it was that this was someone being antisemitic. I'm not so sure, it just might be proud supporters of the Jewish faith wanting to take credit for success in the world. (The case would be more clearly antisemitic if we had a strong tendency to identify Jewish criminals as Jewish, while ignoring the religious/ethnic identities of others.) Still, whatever the goal or motive or cause of the bias, if it exists, it is a problem. I tried to evaluate his claim, but I didn't make much progress in terms of figuring out appropriate metrics and testing them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
(moved from above to correct hierarchy)
Trying to get this back on track and away from the Special Case that is Jewishness (or not) does anyone have anything to add to the general discussion? I'm particularly drawn towards postdlf's suggestion that as long as we define the inclusion criteria, we can include with an annotation and any further qualifiers such as "does not self-identify". I also believe that specifying narrower inclusion criteria for a list is (needlessly) leaning towards POV and OR hairsplitting of a classification that is broader in real world practice and should be avoided unless essential (such as the list being unmanageably large). Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 16:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
British Library
What is the copyright status of images uploaded from the website of the British Library? Simply south (talk) 23:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
They are British Library copyright and cannot be used without permission, which is not usually forthcoming. However, the BL has been very cooperative with Wikipedia taking our own photographs of the exhibits, and are even willing to take them off display for a short period by arrangement. SpinningSpark 00:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Does that include paintings\posters\pictures from 100 years ago? Simply south (talk) 14:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Foundation policy does not recognize separate copyright in accurate photographs of two-dimensional subjects. A photograph of a public domain painting is itself public domain.
“
To put it plainly, WMF's position has always been that faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain, and that claims to the contrary represent an assault on the very concept of a public domain. If museums and galleries not only claim copyright on reproductions, but also control the access to the ability to reproduce pictures (by prohibiting photos, etc.), important historical works that are legally in the public domain can be made inaccessible to the public except through gatekeepers.
WMF has made it clear that in the absence of even a strong legal complaint, we don't think it's a good idea to dignify such claims of copyright on public domain works. And, if we ever were seriously legally challenged, we would have a good internal debate about whether we'd fight such a case, and build publicity around it. This is neither a policy change (at least from WMF's point of view), nor is it a change that has implications for other Commons policies.
”
(From Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag.) Photographs of 3-D public domain objects (i.e., sculptures, buildings) can be independently copyrighted, however. postdlf (talk) 15:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I';m not sure if it is a photo. This is going back to a couple of images i uploaded, both of which would be very useful to an article i have still to get round to writing. Simply south (talk) 16:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Photo = scan = ...what are the other possibilities? Doesn't matter what technology was used; if it is an accurate, unoriginal reproduction, then it does not merit an independent copyright and is therefore just a copy of a public domain image. This would certainly apply to the images you just posted. If the original image is in the public domain, then so are these copies. postdlf (talk) 16:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Just to clarify "When a photograph demonstrates originality (typically, through the choice of framing, lighting, point of view and so on), it qualifies for copyright even if the photographed subject is itself uncopyrighted." If the photograph is not an accurate reproduction of the 2D work of art - it may include a section of Frame or Wall or be lit in a particular way affecting the appearance of the work then it may merit an independent copyright and caution should be used before uploading to WP.
@Simply south regarding your earlier question an item that is 100 years old may still be under EU Copyright if the creator died less than 75 years ago. For example the Symphonic PoemFinlandia by Jean Sibelius will remain in EU copyright for a further 22 years despite being written in 1899. This is because Sibelius only died in 1957. Whilst WP is based in the U.S. and the work may be P.D. there, you may be breaching copyright several times within the U.K. in uploading or copying the image to WP and should be aware of your own liabilities in this regard. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree with your clarification, though that's more related to why a photo of a 3-D public domain sculpture is copyrightable. It's rarely going to be an issue with museum photos of 2-D art; you're not going to find a novel point of view, or novel framing, in a head-on shot of a flat painting. Basically the photograph's creativity would be inversely related to its informational value. Sometimes though a picture frame might be included, which should simply be cropped out, so it is something to be mindful of. postdlf (talk) 12:57, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Although it won't be an issue for a long time, my thoughts in clarification was of the work of Thomas Kinkade which can appear differently depending on the strength and direction of any illumination. The photographer may have chosen a specific time of day or light direction just to get that particular shot and it may not be particularly obvious in a photograph. As it say it probably won't be an issue for a long time but the works of Albert Bierstadt are quite similar and may suffer from a similar issue of a 2D work where the choice of the photographers timing, represents an Original work in terms of copyright. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 14:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Meat puppetry has been marked as a policy
An editor has boldly split WP:SOCK and WP:MEAT into two separate policies.
I'm still thinking about whether this is a good approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Hmmmmph. This feels like wp:CREEP to me. Socking and 'meating' are the same problem - trying to manipulate or circumvent consensus decisions by giving the appearance of uninvolved support - and I can't really see that they require separate articles. plus, the language in the new page is problematic. I'm going to remove the policy tag and mark it as proposed, and then we can discuss the issue a bit. --Ludwigs2 02:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Assuming that the split didn't change the text, then it isn't a proposal: it's the same policy that we've had for years, just written on two pages instead of one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi,
Our current Copyright policy currently states that copyrighted material will be removed but also specifies that it will remain in article history. This is also reflected in current practice, although the admins working on WP:CP have used wp:Selective deletion in the past as a means to remove revisions from public view when practical.
Another attempt at this was for example the {{copyvio-histpurge}} template, devised for articles started as copyvios but rewritten from scratch. But the practice in general was to just revert, excise and leave things as they were. There was a very concrete and practical reason not to do anything about past revisions: assuming a copy / pasted sentence, paragraph or section was inserted at any point of time, and the rest of the article edited legitimately by others in the meantime, if all revisions containing the copy / pasted text were deleted, we would at the same time risk breaking the attribution requirement of our licenses, in other words, fix one wrong while wronging other good faith editors. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, so just leaving things in history was, in general, the more pragmatical choice.
But revision deletion actually offers both a practical and elegant solution. By hiding revision text by leaving contributor name and edit summaries intact, we keep the attribution history while hiding text copied without permission from public view.
To cut to the chase, here's the proposed evolution copyright policy and practice:
Text identified as third party content added without evidence of permission will be removed from the article's text. Upon notification, administrators will strive, on a best effort basis, to remove revisions containing the text in question from view using revision deletion.
In addition, it may also be worthwile to create a maintenance tag requesting revision deletion for any editors who just excised such text. MLauba(Talk) 13:39, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Why not just repurpose {{Copyvio-histpurge}} to specifically request revision deletion? VernoWhitney (talk) 13:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Because I believe it's also a good opportunity to ensure policy catches up with best practice. MLauba(Talk) 14:04, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear with my short comment before: I completely agree with your proposed change to policy, I just think it's a little silly to delete one template only to create another one. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
As one of the admins who works CP, I'd support this. Having copyright violations in the article's history has led to difficulties on more than one occasion when for some other reason an article is rolled back, restoring copyrighted content to publication. This practice protects us against inadvertent (or advertent!) reintroduction. It may also help make others feel more confident in reusing our content, including those Wikipedia projects who have stricter handling of copyright concerns themselves (see this). I do not advocate using revdeletion lightly, since there can be many reasons to need to easily access who added what when, but this solution allows us to meet the requirements of attribution while at the same time protecting us from infringing. --Moonriddengirl(talk) 17:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I was afraid that the availability of this "tool" would lead to a vast increase in the amount of material censored from article histories, and so far it has been proceeding apace. While I understand that there are foundation-level contacts demanding removal of copyrighted information (e.g. "You can also contact our designated agent to have it permanently removed (but it may take up to a week for the page to be deleted that way).") there is a huge difference between such formal actions, and keeping RevDelete on tap for every article where someone spots a couple of cribbed paragraphs. Such "copyright violation" might risk the free license of a current article, and it's unwanted plagiarism, but taken as part of the work as a whole - the entire article history - it is still well within "fair use" in the legal sense. A handful of inadvertent restorations by rollback don't represent a serious problem. The serious problem is when you look back at an article full of grayed-out revisions and you don't what's being concealed... only that you don't believe whatever explanation is given. Wnt (talk) 20:08, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
It's a lot easier to see that something has been concealed then when we use our existing method of Wikipedia:Selective deletion, which hides the history altogether (and requires that we either jettison clean content later added or painstakingly attribute it). If you don't believe the explanation, you can ask whoever deleted it, or one of the hundreds of other admins who can still see the content. Revision deletion is a much more transparent process. --Moonriddengirl(talk) 12:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Unmarked violations may be restored because they tend to precede large removals (of the infringing text). Better to REVDEL them once. My understanding is that REVDEL is much easier to use – and more difficult to accidentally undo – than selective deletion. Flatscan (talk) 04:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't always work with copyvio text, but I believe this is an option in the dropdown menu for RevDel as it stands. I've used it for a few diffs a week or two ago. I support this proposal. Killiondude (talk) 05:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Sounds like a sensible proposal.--SPhilbrickT 16:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, now that I see that, it makes sense. Since there was a "References" section added later, I didn't know what to do there. Thanks.Vchimpanzee· talk·contributions· 20:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Apparently the uploader is the nephew of his notable uncle, who made this painting. How should we go about handling the permission on this image? It's likely the uploader doesn't hold the copyright to the underlying image, but how do we determine what he/she does own? And gaining OTRS permission? I already deleted a few of this contributor's uploads before coming across this file where uploader explained he/she is the nephew/niece of the original author. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
If the person is the executor of the artist's estate, then that person has the authority to license that artist's work as he/she sees fit. Cullen328 (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
So we should simply take this claim at face value? Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
If someone uploads a photo to a Wikimedia project and asserts that he/she took the photo and is thereby authorized to license it appropriately, we take that at face value unless there is evidence to the contrary, don't we? Why shouldn't the legitimate rights of the executor of an estate be respected in the same way? 05:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cullen328 (talk • contribs)
No, we don't require evidence to the contrary. If there is reasonable doubt that the person is telling the truth, we may decide to remove it. In this case, it shouldn't be difficult for the original uploader to supply documentation to WP:OTRS proving his claim. Anomie⚔ 19:51, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Whether we call it evidence or reasonable doubt, what is the basis for the doubt that this person is truthful about being his/her uncle's executor and authorized to license the image? Would it be necessary to produce a will? Cullen328 (talk) 21:19, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
First, let's assume good faith on the part of the uploader. Second, by law we don't have to do anything unless and until someone claiming to be the "real" copyright owner makes a formal takedown demand. bd2412T 03:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
WP:NFCC is more strict than that. We still WP:AGF but, if there's questionable copyright, we err on the side of removal. In this case, there probably wouldn't have been a problem if the uploader had claimed the painting was his/her own (without something to contradict it). Now, by showing they did not create the work, we're between a rock and a hard place. Legally, we have to be cautious and remove the image until proof of ownership is established (via OTRS, most likely) to protect the Wikimedia Project from lawsuits if it isn't true. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Again I ask, what is the reasonable basis or evidence for assuming the assertion of the rights of an executor are invalid? I've uploaded many of my own photos to Wikimedia without question. I've also serve as the executor of an estate, and handled property as did the original owner. The executor has 100% of the rights of the artist, after the artist has died. There is absolutely no basis, in my opinion, for imposing a higher threshold of proof on the executor than on the original artist. Cullen328 (talk) 06:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Uh, the problem is that we don't know he is the executor. We only have his claim. OTRS is the right folks to go through to establish ownership of copyright. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Back to my earlier point. I've uploaded many photos I've taken to illustrate articles, under appropriate licenses. How do you know I really took them other than what I asserted? I don't see why the executor's assertion is more dubious - only more unusual. Is it more likely that this editor is lying than that anyone who uploads a photo they claim as their own is lying? If so, why? Cullen328 (talk) 22:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
WP:NFCC doesn't apply because this isn't a claim of fair use of non-free content. The editor uploaded under a free license, and asserts he/she has the legal authority to do so. Exactly as I assert when I upload my photos under a free license. Cullen328 (talk) 22:13, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Do we really need to wow! users when informing them that their article is up for deletion?
Do we have to have this graphic come up when notifying someone that their article has been proposed for deletion?
I understand that we want to get their attention, but other posts are important too, and they don't have a big wow sign. The person does get a "you have new messages" notice after all, and presumably they read all their messages (or if not, that's their prerogative). The only only time we use signs like this is when we are warning people that they are in big trouble. Even if you commit out-and-out vandalism (and if its not too egregious) you only get a little "i" information icon.
It's not friendly. Sure, sometimes the person has contributed a really bad article, but lots of times not. My questions are:
Would it be OK to either remove this graphic, or replace it with something friendlier? How about ? Or the "i" information icon? Or something else.
Since these notices are generated by Twinkle, how to I get to them to edit them? Are they templates, or just bits of code somewhere? If they are templates, I can take this up on the appropriate talk pages. Any hints on where to find them? Herostratus (talk) 15:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I understand the idea behind the proposal, but I would frankly prefer a big warning sign telling me that something I spent my time on is at risk of being trashed, than a nice flower that doesn't give me the idea of what's going on. I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of the sign -it's not a "hey, you did it wrong!" finger pointing, it's more a "warning! what you wrote is at risk of being deleted! your input would be welcome!" --Cyclopiatalk 15:35, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree fully with Cyclopedia and would prefer an obvious alerting sign, although whether it needs to be quite so big I'm not sure! --Bermicourt (talk) 17:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Isn't this something you should be asking the people at WP:TWINKLE? It's not a policy decision, it's just how twinkle is setup. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 17:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Template talk:AfD-notice is probably not the best place to discuss this idea. It is also used on Template:Proposed deletion notify (different color) for notifying users about Prods and on Template:Nn-warn for notifying users about A7 speedy deletions. It is probably used on other notices about speedy deletions, I didn't look. Wouldn't this or one of the ther village pumps be the best place to consolidate the discussion? ~~ GB fan ~~ 17:47, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
It could be discussed here, but generally the pumps should mostly contain threads pointing to relevant discussions at the proper locations, not the discussions themselves. In practice of course, this isn't always the case. The rationale for this is that the discussion will be archived in a relevant contextual location, rather than in the massive pump archives. WT:Deletion process maybe? or WT:UW. –xenotalk 17:49, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks xeno and GB Fan (and all who took the time to reply). The points about wanting an attention-getter above are well-taken. In my opinion it couldn't hurt to think about a different graphic; maybe I'll ask them at Wikipedia talk:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop if anybody wants to futz around with that (with notifications at the places GB Fan was kind enough to point me to). Or maybe... isn't there a place somewhere where you can request something like this for a price? Herostratus (talk) 23:40, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
When I was a new editor, I was shocked that an AfD popped up within minutes of posting a new article I was working on. I made the newbie mistake of posting the article to main space without references, even though I had the references on my desk in front of me, ready to add to the article over the course of half an hour or so. How many newbies have been scared away forever by being hit so hard immediately after uploading a first attempt? I urge new page patrollers to be sensitive and diplomatic, especially when the article appears to be a good faith effort. If reworking a graphic makes new and inexperienced editor acting in good faith feel less "attacked" by a Wikibureaucracy, then I am all in favor of such a change. Cullen328 (talk) 00:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Cullen, that's a big problem, and there's one reliable solution: People like you need to do some of the new page patrolling. Click here and then click on your choice of the time delays in the info box at the top of the page. Everything in yellow wants your attention. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I am willing to do a bit of that from time to time, but my main interest is creating new articles on subjects I consider interesting, as well as improving articles in areas where I have knowledge. Thanks for the suggestion. Cullen328 (talk) 02:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Every little bit helps. Every page reviewed by you is a page that isn't going to be attacked by an overzealous "editor" who's never written a single article. Please keep it in mind whenever you have a few minutes free, even if that means only one or two articles a week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps a smaller version of the image or something less edgy, but a flower? Are you kidding me? –MuZemike 01:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
It is never required to use any template - you can type a message by hand on the user's page. Without any image. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:50, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes but Twinkle places the templates automatically. Herostratus (talk) 04:39, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
For myself, I think this image needs to stay and perhaps be even more shocking and annoying. No, this isn't to scare the new users, but to remind those who are putting these kind of templates onto new user pages of the seriousness of what it is that they are doing, and that putting such templates on is a last resort... something that should be done only if you really think there is no way to salvage the article. It shouldn't be put onto articles that fail to have references... those are called stubs for a reason. The problem here isn't the template being such a shock, but its apparent overuse.
If an article fails to meet Wikipedia guidelines for one reason or another, it is important to let those new users know that they aren't following policy and why. For myself, I think a more human approach would help, which is part of the problem. Those who are involved with the new page patrol are trying to scan each and every article and have decided to dehumanize the process. I don't mind treating blatant trolls with contempt and automating the process of removing troll pages (test pages, and other patent nonsense) but for what is obviously a good faith effort to create an article, a knee jerk deletion nomination shouldn't be the first thing to come to mind. I've covered this in another discussion listed above too, but in this case I think that this is the wrong approach in terms of dealing with this icon. There is obviously a problem or else this issue wouldn't have come up in the first place. Don't try to tone down and make nice the fact that some editors are trying to delete content that might possibly meet Wikipedia guidelines. --Robert Horning (talk) 04:01, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't really agree. For AfD, no one is "trying to delete content". They are simply opening the floor for a fruitful discussion. For speedies, it might be true. But I don't think that that someone about to improperly nominate a speedy is going to be put off by they thought that this might make the article creator feel that they have done something wrong.
Anyway, I have created the discussion at Template talk:AfD-notice#CENTRALIZED DISCUSSION - Replacing icon (File:Ambox warning pn.svg) as a location for a discussion that will be more accessible (and not soon be archived as this one will be), as discussed above, and will post links to that discussion in various places. Further discussion would best be taken up there. Thanks to all for your input! Herostratus (talk) 04:39, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
On this point I strongly disagree. When PROD happens alone (it hasn't even made it to the AfD stage), I certainly feel that I have screwed up and don't feel welcome on the project. These templates are thrown on in a very impersonal and automated way where often the patrolers involved don't really want to explain their actions.
The AfD process is a meat grinder and to me an absolutely horrible introduction to Wikipedia. It involves Wikilawyering and often some chest thumping for who knows the project policies better or how long somebody has been editing. Yes, there are some people who participate in the AfD process that try to give new contributors the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes perfectly good articles do slip through the cracks. There certainly are more than a few new contributors who see a PROD and then simply leave without even protesting... as they presume that nobody is going to really let them edit here even if they try. Even for experienced Wikipedians the process of an AfD gives an awful aftertaste, but at least you've seen what can happen and that a nomination for deletion doesn't always have to imply deletion is certain. Most new contributors are making enough mistakes that deletion is more probable than having the article kept. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Stuff like that is inevitable in an environment in which we de facto require new users to create a brand new article before doing anything else. On the other hand, I don't know if it can be helped. I mean, how exactly would one guide a brand new users towards a more relevant topic or one of our hundreds of thousands of stubs we have? –MuZemike 14:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Rather delete the lot before I waste more of my and your time
I was under the impression that new contributions to Wikipedia are being encouraged. Contribute your work and knowledge. Submit your pictures. Share your knowledge – unshared knowledge is useless and soon to be lost. Start an article, even if it’s just a base for others to expand on later. Make mistakes, it can be fixed.
I’m a rail nut, and one of my hobbies is photographing locomotives and rolling stock. Here in South Africa where I live. So I have pictures taken all around the country, a lot of them. And I know a little about the trains I’ve photographed even though my career was in the Air Force. But when I needed to know more and searched the web, I found very little and virtually nothing on Wikipedia. A couple of articles on two SA narrow gauge steam locomotives and the Red Devil, one on a SA narrow gauge diesel locomotive, and not a single one on SA electric locomotives.
So, exactly a month ago today I started by uploading some pictures of the new SA Class 15E and writing basic articles on the various SA electric locomotives since 1928. They are at Category:Electric Locomotives of South Africa[Sept 25, 2010 1] and Category:Electric/Diesel Electric Locomotives of South Africa, [Sept 25, 2010 2] 48 of them so far after 31 sixteen hour days with very little time to spend on my other interests. Plus some editing on the Hex River Tunnels. It was encouraging to already have received some positive feedback from other South African rail enthusiasts here and abroad.
Mistakes I made, and some rules I didn’t know, so along the way I was advised by some editors and reprimanded by others. The big issue so far has been watermarks on photographs. Over the years I’ve applied information about the subject on my photographs – loco type and number, picture location, my name and date. So now, after being reprimanded, before I upload a picture, I crop that info off the picture beforehand wherever I can. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes impossible without cutting into the subject, so occasionally I still uploaded some “watermarked” pictures. At least I could use them to illustrate the articles I wrote and supplement the descriptions. A picture is worth and all that….
I’ve had some very welcome assistance and tips from a few editors. One even went so far as to repair several of the “watermarked” pictures by removing all the script without leaving a trace – well done, that, sir, you’re performing miracles. Thank you very much, it’s highly appreciated!
Another editor, however, is placing huge strain on his keyboard’s delete button.
My priority is to get the articles written. When that’s done, I plan to go back and clean up behind me and replace watermarked pictures wherever I can still find the originals – some are still buried in my computer’s innards somewhere. Besides, the “watermarked” pictures are being judiciously tagged for me by an editor.
I’m all done with the SA electric locomotives, bar two, and ready to start on the horde of SA diesels. I’m leaving the steam and rolling stock for last since those will be the toughest jobs, so hopefully by the time I get to them “experience” will make it easier.
Last night, however, I discovered that several of the articles have had their pictures, in two cases the only picture, and the accompanying descriptions deleted, just like that, and in all but one case there’s not even a trace of those changes in the revision histories. Deleting “watermarked” pictures on Wikimedia Commons is one thing. But deleting pictures that are already being used in an article to illustrate the description is hardly encouraging.
So please, before I spend the next month also wasting my time on writing articles on SA diesel locomotives and more, rather delete all I’ve done so far and be done with it. I have other things in my life that demand my attention too.
Would you please provide links to specific examples? It would be far more helpful to have that so we can see what you're referring to. Thanks! SchuminWeb (Talk) 15:45, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I have grouped the refs in case someone else uses referencing. – allen四names 15:52, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Please keep in mind, I'm not asking for exception from policy, I'm asking for time - I'll get around to the fixing upping.
André Kritzinger 16:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
In the case of the first article, I've restored the images, and indicated in the edit summary to remove the watermarks or refer it to the Graphic Lab folks to remove it. In the images presented, this is not hard at all.
In the second article, I don't believe any images were ever added in the first place. I looked at all the revisions, and never found any images, nor was there any evidence of deleted material in the logs. So I don't know what to tell you there. Feel free to be bold and add some images, however, preferably without the watermark (saves the trouble of removing it later if it's not there to begin with). SchuminWeb (Talk) 17:10, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
My bad on the second one, it did never have a picture. I forgot in my upsetness that it's the one in service loco type that I've never managed to capture. (Yet.) As to the other deletions, they are recorded in the revision histories, but I'll restore those myself tomorrow.
Thank you.
André Kritzinger 23:05, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok this is probably more appropriate for a Commons Policy debate, but we regularly allow historical images that contain factual watermarks about the subject. In fact I would go further to say it is extremely common to find this kind of water mark and we do not go to any lengths to remove these marks as they are respected as part of the artist's rationale or as part of a categorisation for an image collection. In this case I find that the Anti-Watermark policy is going much further than the project remit of trying to remove any watermark of ownership or distracting timedate stamp. It might be worth considering an alteration to policy where any Watermark that forms part of a genuine categorisation system or artistic rationale should be kept - this of course does not prevent other editors uploading watermark free versions but these shouldn't be used to take precedence from the original. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:20, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
The Audit Subcommittee is a subcommittee of the Arbitration Committee, tasked to review and act upon concerns and complaints about checkuser and oversight activities received from the community. Membership consists of three community representatives elected by the community, who serve one-year terms; and three arbitrators, who rotate through this assignment for approximately six months.
In advance of the scheduled election/appointment of community representatives to the Audit Subcommittee, a summary of activity has been posted on the subcommittee's report page.
The community is invited to discuss this report, as well as preferred methods and terms for the selection of community representatives to participate in the audit process. The result of the discussion will inform the Arbitration Committee on how best to proceed before progressing to another election cycle.
For the Arbitration Committee, Risker (talk) Cross-posted by NW(Talk) 20:43, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Currently the Arbitration Committee functions as the governing body of the English Wikipedia. I believe that ArbCom and MedCom were set up by Jimbo to aid in the process of dispute resolution, MedCom has stayed true to that but ArbCom has evolved into the governing body of Wikipedia, it has become a case of "What we say is final". The Committee itself has too much power. I am proposing the following changes:
Decentralisation and removal of the power currently vested upon the Committee.
Creation of a new committee that will be responsible for looking after Policy and putting forward the remedies proposed by ArbCom to the greater community in order to gain consensus on these remedies, the final decision then lies with the Stewards who will determine the consensus established and make the final decision.
Removal of Jimbo's authority, he should not be the person to make the final decision. He should be allowed a say in discussion but should have no part in enacting these decisions, such decisions are for the community and the community alone.
Allowing the community a greater say, the community should be allowed to have a greater say in decisions. The Arbitration Committee should then evaluate the opinions of the community and take them to heart. They should not override community consensus and should not have the final say, the final say always lies with the community.
User rights, sanctions and editing restrictions should be decided by the community through a simple Request for Comment, the Arbitration Committee should not be the ones to decide who does what, the community are capable of deciding for themselves. Whether or not a user should keep their admin/crat bits and whether or not a user should be made a Checkuser and given Oversight permissions should be decided by the community in the same manner as a request for admin/bureaucratship, with a requirement of 80% Support for promotion.
In setting up a new hierarchy we can eliminate the gap of power and give the community greater say. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 07:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
There's a draft new arbitration policy available for discussion - Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Draft - you might consider making suggestions there. I tend to agree that power should rest more with the community, but there needs to be a body that has the power to determine what the community's view is (given that individuals within the community have widely differing views, and usually each side considers that their view is that of the community). I do believe, though, that the arbitration process is a symptom of mudddled thinking - everything ArbCom does (except things requiring access to confidential information) should really be done by the community or rather by admins - then ArbCom could simply act as a body to review (and overturn, if necessary) the decisions of admins. (I keep suggesting this and no-one ever answers, which could mean one of two things.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I copied the suggestion there. Which is why consensus needs to be evaluated, everyone should be allowed to participate in ArbCom cases without having their say overrided. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 07:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
"Decentralisation and removal of the power currently vested upon the Committee" and "Allowing the community a greater say": that would be a disaster. Most of the service ArbCom provides is a hard daily grind and would bore us silly. ArbCom is part of the cost of doing business on a free wiki: unfettered freedom would be chaos.
Policy committee: is just won't work. While ArbCom involves itself in content and policy only insofar it is absolutely necessary to sort out behavioural issues in a case, the idea of a WP government has been tried and failed miserably. We, the people, are the government, and consensus is the mechanism.
"Removal of Jimbo's authority"—I used to be strongly against his authority as the ultimate appeal, but I've softened. He never uses it, and frankly, there's a bunch of reasons for not bothering to change this symbolic status. However, I believe Jimbo should not interfere in the democratic process of ArbCom elections. Tony(talk) 09:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
See WP:PEREN. Tony is pretty much spot on. There is large participation in the annual elections for arbcom, showing the majority of the community realizes we need it. Cases get to arbcom because the community is incapable of solving a situation. Not to mention such a proposal would destroy the ability of the community to handle highly personal matters that pretty much anyone except arbs and ex-arbs is totally unaware that we handle. When I first got on arbcom and became aware of all the intensely personal stuff arbcom deals with, I was stunned. And that was after having been an arbclerk. Believe me, this is stuff I'd prefer not to know but someone on wiki has to deal with it. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Ouch, my proposal was based off an old proposal I saw. So some of my statements may not apply in this time. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 11:06, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Right now, the question isn't whether ArbCom's power will be restricted, but whether it would be expanded by proposals such as Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Draft. I think what's crucial here is to keep ArbCom restricted to a judicial role, entirely subordinate to community discussions of policy. As I've commented there, I think that expansion of their executive power puts Wikipedia at risk of being subverted by political manipulations, and runs contrary to the basic idea of community consensus that people have been using. I don't want to be entirely thankless for the ArbCom's role in settling issues, but I think that they've sometimes been heavy-handed against editors, and their role in issues like WP:BLPBAN and WP:Child protection has turned issues on which consensus might easily have been achieved into burning points of contention. I don't believe we can trust ArbCom to redefine and expand its own scope, because there would be a huge careerist benefit for people who can say that "the dozen of us ran Wikipedia...", at the expense of the rest of the community. Wnt (talk) 17:14, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm all for it, ArbCom doesn't need so many powers and if we can separate these powers into a 3 level system, Judiciary (ArbCom), Legislative and Executive (PolCom?). This is based off the systems used in many democratic countries, it worked there so why can't it work here? —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 20:51, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Because we don't need the extra bureaucracy. ArbCom only generates real policy when its relevant to a case. The last thing we need is a group who just sits around and makes up policy, whether we need it or not. A policy committee would either be a bureaucracy factory or a useless group that does nothing. And in many cases, the judiciary does create laws. As for "Allowing the community a greater say", ArbCom does listen to the community; they certainly don't go through long, drawn-out cases for fun. The community does have the final say. ArbCom is for when the community can't agree on what that should be. Nothing happens without community support. ArbCom is 14 users, there are probably about 10,000 or so regular editors. If the majority of the community opposes something, it will be overturned. People seem to forget this sometimes; a handful of users can't actually run Wikipedia on their own. Mr.Z-man 04:24, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
It seems about 90% of all MedCom requests get rejected due to either parties not agreeing or to draconian standards needed to accept cases. Moreover, most cases eventually end up in front of ArbCom, anyways, and it is they whom people send their problems to (as the other oft-ignored and underused areas of dispute resolution). It is also no doubt that the community in general pay more attention to what happens on the Arbitration side, so the community at large is also complicit in ArbCom's status as some "high and mighty power". I don't know if the community is capable of resolving some issues by themselves, frankly, and IMO they depend on ArbCom to do all that work for them instead of doing the collective "legwork" themselves. –MuZemike 01:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
It should be noted that ArbCom turns down more cases than it accepts, in nearly all cases I have seen, this is to send an issue back to the community, or to ask the disputants to try other dispute resolution methods. ArbCom really does consider itself the court of last resort. Since it only deals with stuff the community finds itself unable to deal with, its cases tend to be contentious and messy, so by definition their decisions piss off roughly half (or more) of the community. That's because if most of the community could agree in the first place on how to handle a situation, it would have never gotten to ArbCom! Without ArbCom to do the hard and unpopular work of cleaning up after the community's inability to solve certain problems, we'd be in a much worse situation. --Jayron32 04:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Or, in particularly polarised cases, when trying to deal with both sides evenly, 100% of the community :) Roger Daviestalk 09:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I understand the arguments presented, I would like to ask if it would be plausible for ArbCom to separate its sanction imposing etc. powers into a separate sub-committee. With the main body of ArbCom itself dealing with WP:DR and the propsed sub-committee looking after DR remedies. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 09:07, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, that's tricky because the DR aspect is closely interlinked with the sanctions aspect. By the time a case comes to us, it usually way beyond the stage where suggesting the parties go off and have a cup of tea together will have any actual impact. There is incidentally already a division of sorts: only a small sub-set of arbitrators generally draft cases but the whole committee (who have usually been following developments from the wings) votes on it. Roger Daviestalk 09:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I understand, could this system not be trialled first, surely if it works then Arbitrators themselves will have a lighter workload. Also I still oppose the idea of CU/OS candidates requiring internal discussion before deciding if they are fit to run. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 05:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Fridae'sDoom, it turns out that we already have most of what you say you want. It's called Requests for Comment, and it is a fully decentralized system that allows absolutely any editor to have the greatest possible say on both content and behavior, and it is a formative step in most community-imposed sanctions.
It's also a process that is sadly neglected, because most uninvolved people (e.g., you) never bother to show up and have their say. There are currently six RFC/U cases open. The list is right here, and you are invited to help resolve these disputes. And if you personally can't, or won't -- then what makes you think that "the community" will magically have more time and energy to do this work if we blow up ArbCom? They're (and you're) not doing it now; why would they do it then?
I suggest that you become more familiar with the existing procedures -- and the critical resource limitations affecting them -- before you try to reform the only dispute resolution process on Wikipedia that can be relied upon to provide some sort of response to disputants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I am aware of RFC, my primary concern is that ArbCom currently has too much power. Some of which could be diverted and given to sub-committees or new committes altogether, ArbCom is for dispute resolution and I understand sanctions etc. are part of dealing with disputes these responsibilities can be given to other committees without causing site-wide disruption. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 8:30pm • 10:30, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm still not entirely sure what you're proposing here. From what I can understand, though, your proposals wouldn't actually solve your concerns. What, exactly, gives ArbCom "too much power"? How in the world would those responsibilities be "given to other committees" without adding more layers of bureaucracy that will slow things even more? — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
ArbCom has the ability to go to Stewards and ask for the revocation of certain user rights, imposing sanctions, dealing with blocks etc. While I understand this is often necesary for WP:DR I see no reason why a Policy Committee couldn't be setup to deal with this. A one-month trial of this system wouldn't hurt would it, dispute resolution is just that. The remedies should be managed by a separate committee made up of people who WP:AGF and exercise common sense. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 7:04pm • 09:04, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't see what the point of setting up a separate committee for imposing these remedies would be. Also, your comment about AGF and "common sense" is dangerously close to a personal attack against the Arb members. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:22, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I think that the logical choice is not between giving ArbCom new policy-making power, or creating some "PolCom". The best choice is to leave policy making power in the hands of the community as a whole and existing processes of consensus building. Wnt (talk) 00:53, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Fridae,
The community can (and does) handle disputes separately from ArbCom all the time. See, e.g., this RfC and this topic ban that resulted from it. There's no sign of any all-powerful ArbCom anywhere in this. Why should we create a new bureaucracy to do something that the existing systems can do just fine right now?
Think of it this way: Your "policy committee" already exists. Its pages are WP:RFC, WP:CENT, and WP:AN. Its members are whoever shows up. If you (and all of us) actually show up and do our jobs on these pages, then nothing will ever reach ArbCom in the first place. The only viable solution to ArbCom having "too much power" is for you (and all of us) to resolve all the disputes before people beg ArbCom to do it for them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Article cleanup templates
I'm not sure whether this is the right place to discuss this... if not, please redirect me. As far as I can tell we neither have a policy nor a guideline to plaster articles with myriads of cleanup templates. Please, where is the consensus that these templates do any good to an article? Take Authentication for example. Does it help the reader? It has been argued that the reader can be "warned" about the article's lack of quality... heck, by that argument we'd have to tag every article that is not featured or at least good by our standards. Does it help editors? Certainly not editors working on the article... they know the issues very well. Does it attract other editors? I highly doubt that... it usually doesn't even help asking on wikiproject pages for help! Do we have any statistics that such templates really do any good? Nageh (talk) 17:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I think some are useful as they alert readers that there may be severe problems with the article. However, templates like Template:Orphan that only refer to editorial issues are clutter, and should be placed on the talk page instead. Fences&Windows 19:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Would it be possible to display some of these templates via editnotice rather than on the main article (for example, the BLP editnotice)? This would allow editors to view issues with the article while editing it, without having to view the talk page, and at the same time prevent casual readers from being distracted by them. Some of these templates could still remain on the main page to warn readers of sub-par content. Intelligentsium 19:51, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't surprise me that this issue has come up before. Yet, the arguments given at WP:PEREN are surprisingly inaccurate. A reader doesn't get ideas on how to improve an article simply because somebody has attached a one-liner to it saying how bad the article is. But the main problem I see is that if we are consistent in tagging all articles with issues we must do so for every single article that is not featured. That some users (or drive-by taggers) really are tagging for pedantic reasons can be seen in Authentication as an example. So either we set up stricter guidelines on when to tag an article, or we may (and will) end up with an ever growing list of articles with a pitoresque banner in the lead section. Nageh (talk) 20:46, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The reasons make some sense, and I've seen plenty of articles with tags improved by users new and old as a result of them. But I agree with F&W that {{orphan}} isn't relevant to readers in general, so i would support moving that one to the talk page. Alzarian16 (talk) 21:07, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
As I said, the problem is that if we don't differentiate what and when issues must be so dominantly pointed out on the article page we may just as well end up with all articles tagged (subtract the featured ones). Currently we can't do anything about overzealous drive-by tagging – and some people (often those not adding content at all) enjoy this extensively! (Take Authentication for example: Lack of references is obvious, yet this won't change a thing by merely pointing this out. Instructions or how-to? I cannot even find this in the article. General cleanup? Of course, it's a C-class article!) Nageh (talk) 21:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more about drive-by tagging, a completely useless pastime. There really is no need for a copyediting tag as a banner. What is a reader supposed to make of that - oh, maybe I should not read this article, the English is going to be bad? Is it supposed that readers will not notice the article has poor English without a banner headline informing them of it? Likewise wikilinking, likewise categories, likewise MOS issues. There may be a case for content problems like POV, OR, fringe, US-centricism etc but often it still too "in your face". I am not even convinced of the need for banners for inline citations, I have noticed several editors moving these to the references section. So often the issue is merely a mechanical task of reading/finding the references and creating appropriate inlines. In cases where the content is truly thought to be suspect, that is different, but that is not usually the case, usually the tagging is a purely mechanical process with no consideration of the actual article content. SpinningSpark 22:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree that these are overused. I think that most of the time this problem results because the templates don't make it clear exactly what needs to be fixed, so nobody is sure whether to take them out. I would suggest, as a rule of thumb, that if a regular editor of an article doesn't understand what a banner template is asking for, he should take it out. Wnt (talk) 22:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I do tend to do that, but often it makes the tagger angry who then restores it with a fire-breathing edit summary for daring to remove their template. If only they would put half that effort into a couple of sentences on the talk page, their actions would be so much more effective. SpinningSpark 23:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
My point is, banners should be only used to point out important issues. POV, OR, and fringe are certainly important issues. Kinds of cleanup that you'd expect to be done for an article to become featured are not important issues. (A cleanup tag may be warranted for articles such as Block code or Linear code though.)
Please have a look at Authentication again: Additional referencing required? Debatable whether this should be placed so dominantly in the heading, or better moved to the References section for example, or even pointed out at all (after all it is obvious!). How-to content? Certainly not – I cannot even find evidence for that! General cleanup? Now that's probably the favorite term for drive-by taggers... can you be a bit more specific? Yet, when say I'd remove these tags (probably move the first to References) this sure would escalate into an edit war with the tagger (who as far as I can see virtually never contributes by adding content to an article).
Is it possible to get consensus that banners should only be used to point out important issues? (otherwise inflational meaning, may tag all non-featured articles in the end, etc.) Nageh (talk) 11:51, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
There is one more reason to tag the articles: readers (potential writers) might wish to use the articles they read as examples for the articles they are going to write. Thus, when the reader sees a tag "Additional referencing required", it also says "Don't forget the references when you write your own article!". It is useful even if the reader doesn't try to find references for the article he's reading. By the way, it looks like this "phenomenon" has also been noted in User:Uncle G/Cargo cult encyclopaedia article writing ([11]).
As for the "Template:Cleanup" ([12]) tag... Maybe we could try what I did with the deletion tag (lt:Šablonas:Trinti, [13]) in Lithuanian Wikipedia? If the reason hasn't been provided as parameter, it would show "The reason hasn't been specified, but it might have been given in the talk page or in article history". Thus it would gently hint to the tagger that giving the reason would be nice, and the reader would know where to look for it. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 13:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Potential writers should always be pointed to featured articles, only! As I said before, you may thus just as well add a tag to any article that is non-featured. (Anyway, pointing out a major lack of references in the lead may be argued for, so I don't complain about that specifically. There are other more minor issues that taggers like to point out but that certainly do not require that kind of dominant reader attention.)
The problem I see here is that most taggers, especially drive-by taggers, will not provide a reason unless they are forced to (and in which case that most likely wouldn't have more meaning than "this page needs clean-up".) Nageh (talk) 14:13, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
(I collected both your statements to the same place, if you don't mind) It's easy to say that potential writers (in other words - "almost everyone") should look to featured articles for examples (and, maybe, that we should only choose the featured articles as good examples), but, unfortunately, it doesn't happen that way... The readers are not going to read the featured articles just because they are "the examples". They came to Wikipedia to read what interests them, not what is "the best".
Side thought: Hm, maybe it is a good suggestion then to point a newcomer to featured articles when attempting to edit an article (above the edit box)?
It is also wrong to imply that all articles that are not featured are somehow "bad". Many of them are good examples - they tell you that an article should start from a definition, have at least one category etc.
Probably true. At the same time they do have issues, otherwise they were already in featured state. Yet there is no point in pointing out these issues within a lead section banner.
As for the "drive-by taggers" - may I remind you that assuming good faith is good for your (and not only your) health..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 14:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Don't worry, I do AGF. :) Nonetheless it doesn't improve the article. It is distracting, often doesn't help either reader or writer, and drive-by taggers are demotivating real contributors. Just trying to improve this situation. ;) Nageh (talk) 14:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
(ec)Still, that's not an argument for banner tagging at the top of the article. A lot of this could go on the talk page or elsewhere. As for a link pointing to the talk page, some templates already do this, but if you follows the link, guess what, 9 times out of 10 there is nothing there, it was just drive-by tagging. This is especially annoying with "merge" templates. If I want to oppose the merge it is hard to present arguments against the rationale of the proposer when they fail to reveal what they were. In my view, a talk page post or embedded comment should be compulsory when posting banner templates except in the most obvious cases, and failure to provide them should warrant escalating templated warnings. It is actually disruptive to have all this unexplained litter and it wastes the time of content contributers trying to figure out what it means. SpinningSpark 14:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
"Still, that's not an argument for banner tagging at the top of the article. A lot of this could go on the talk page or elsewhere." - Once again, maybe it would work if the readers would be known to read the talk pages habitually. But, as the things go, the talk page is the place for tags that are useful to "almost no one" - for example, wikiproject tags (they are useful to the members of those wikiprojects, but that is a small minority of all readers and editors).
As for the absence of the reason in the talk page - that is exactly why I also added a link to the article history. Hopefully, someone who doesn't add anything to the talk page doesn't forget the edit summary..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 14:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
maybe it would work if the readers would be known to read the talk pages If it is essential information for the reader then the talk page is no good, but the discussion here is on editorial tags like copyedit. These need to attract the attention of editors, not readers. SpinningSpark 21:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Some articles have To-do lists on their talk pages (e.g., Talk:Digital signature). IMO these are much more useful. — So maybe what could be done is add a small, non-intrusive tag to an article (maybe somewhere on the right side), pointing to the To-do list on the talk page when it is non-empty. Nageh (talk) 14:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Would they inform the reader that the article should not be used as an example in some respect? I doubt that... But, given your comment about something "small, non-intrusive"... What exactly is wrong with the tags? I have seen many discussions where some user claimed that the tags are ugly, but how comes that such statements generally support something like "The tags must be abolished!" or "The tags must be moved somewhere where no one would see them!", and not "We should make the tags beautiful!"..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 15:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
What I'm trying to suggest is, issues that are mostly relevant to editors moved to the To-do list on the talk page. Issues that we think are important enough to be pointed out to the reader stay as a shiny banner in the lead section. But I strongly think that we should not point out each and every minor issue within a banner (again, featured articles and such). Nageh (talk) 15:13, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The idea of a small, non-intrusive box would be that an interested reader could be pointed to issues collected for an article but primarily of interest to an editor, written out in prose rather than a "helpful" "this article needs cleanup". (It is a separate suggestion from pointing out minor issues via banners.) Nageh (talk) 15:17, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
There is already a template for this, {{Multiple issues}}, that allows to tag multiple problems without adding several templates, and the resulting template is shorter. Besides, if an article has two or more problem templates that point basically to the same general problem, it's simply a matter of choosing the most apropiate one and removing the others. For example, the templates {{Hoax}} and {{Disputed}}, an article wouldn't need both. MBelgrano (talk) 14:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
That doesn't address the issue of potentially tagging each and every article for some issue. I would like to see some minimum requirements for when tagging is an appropriate solution, i.e. an article contains issues that are important to be pointed out to a reader. Nageh (talk) 14:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I think most of the useful arguments have been outlined above, but I would like to add a few more I couldn't see. First is the "Yes, we know this article is a bit rubbish. We're going to do something about it (eventually)" argument. In other words, "we don't like this particular facet of the article either", which shows at least a modicum of solidarity with the reader. Secondly, whilst I dislike drive-by tagging by people who really ought to just get on and fix the article, it's important that a wiki is a two-way process even for readers who do not have sufficient capacity to fix the articles themsleves. And thirdly, templates like unreferenced are useful for highlighting the "maybe you shouldn't take this as gospel truth" element of Wikipedia. A lot of criticism of the site in the mainstream press is about inaccuracy, and it's useful to highlight particularly flawed articles -- even if we ourselves think it's obvious you shouldn't trust us. - Jarry1250[Who?Discuss.] 14:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Just to clarify. I'm only attempting to discuss (head level) banner templates, not inline templates like {{unreferenced}} (which would be a separate discussion). Nageh (talk) 14:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Are you sure you aren't talking about unreferenced? It's not an inline template like Citation needed. - Jarry1250[Who?Discuss.] 15:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Oops, sorry, my bad. But I said before that highlighting strong lack of references could be useful. It's mostly purely editorial tags and other minor issues I'm complaining about being placed/complained about so prominently. Nageh (talk) 17:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Tagging "each and every article" shouldn't be a problem in itself. The important thing is if each article, considered on its own, deserves or not the template. If I wrote articles with the plots of all the episodes of a given TV comedy and they are all tagged with "In-Universe" (if that was the case), then who cares if they were all tagged at once or in different occasions? The problem may be if all the articles of a series had a problem, except a few that are better, and those are labeled as well. Even so, that would be simply a mistake, easy and uncontroversial to fix. It would be too trivial to concern ourselves with it. MBelgrano (talk) 15:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I do consider it a distraction if every article starts with a banner pointing out minor standard-template issues, and not helpful at all. Banners for major issues. Good. Banners for every minor issue. Not good. Nageh (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what to make out of all these comments. In general I think that all issues should be pointed out as detailed as possible on the talk page, possibly within a To-do list. Only major issues that really should be pointed out to a reader should go the article page. This includes POV, OR, fringe, etc., and may include references when there is a clear lack, but does not include minor copy editing and similar cleanup tasks. Currently there is nothing to prevent an editor tagging each article for any issue he likes as long as the article is not featured. "Oh, there is still 'lead too long/short', 'too many see-alsos', 'lead missing', 'MOS'," but generally he will just tag with a simple 'cleanup'.
If you still disagree, I'll want to ask why you think the issues pointed out so dominantly at Authentication (as an example) are justified (and need to be raised in a header banner). I'll accept a "useful" vote for the lack of references argument, but how-to and "general" cleanup? Nageh (talk) 17:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The ones added in edit [14]? Well, it is not exactly an exemplary edit... No edit summary (not even "Tags added."), no other explanation in some obvious place... "Cleanup"... Well, there was one unnecessary empty line (subsequently corrected by a bot), statements like "Efforts to control the supply chain and educate consumers to evaluate the packaging and labeling help ensure that authentic products are sold and used." also do not look too well... But I wouldn't say that "cleanup" is a suitable tag for those... Maybe "Template:Essay-like", "Template:Inappropriate tone", even "Template:POV" or "Template:Original research"..? On the other hand, maybe "Unreferenced" would cover it..? As for "how to"... No, I failed to find anything. So, why don't you ask the tagger, what did he have in mind? I see that you have already complained to him ([15]; by the way, would it have been a good idea for you to show this diff to us?), but you didn't seem to ask (like "Sorry, but I do not seem to understand what exactly did you mean by your tag 'how to' in [article, maybe diff]... Could you, please, elaborate on that? Thank you in advance.")... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:26, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The issue is bigger than this single editor. (And he made it clear that I would not be able to convince him.) As long as such actions are permitted there will always be someone tagging articles at will. Nageh (talk) 20:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The issue might be "bigger than this single editor", but it could be that the solution to almost all instances of it is more or less the same. Let's look at the "incident" again. First someone tagged an article without indicating what some of the tags mean and without using an edit summary. That was a mistake. Then you went to complain about it (about tagging, not about leaving no explanation). That was your mistake. The tagger got defensive (what else could one expect?).
Oh, it is my mistake? I've talked to the editors just a few days before, and he just made it similarly clear that I won't be able to convince him. Period. No further arguments from his side. And I was being more polite back then. Of course my reaction the next time was a bit more chilly (what else could one expect?).
Also, the tagger still hasn't explained what did he mean by the tags (well, no one actually asked him about that).
He has been informed about this discussion two days ago.
So, you shouldn't have complained, you should have asked. Given that the tagger reacted rather politely, I see no reason to assume that such approach wouldn't have worked.
Oh, and great! So the burden is on someone else than the tagger to get an explanation? (And obviously you misunderstand what I'm trying to do here... I'm not complaining about the tagger, I'm complaining about the behavior, which more than just a single wikipedian shows. [Edit: Nageh (talk) 10:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)])
And "As long as such actions are permitted there will always be someone tagging articles at will."... Let's try this one: as long as editing the articles will be permitted to "almost anyone", there will always be someone vandalizing. So, we should forbid anyone but professional editors to edit the articles, right? I hope we all know the answer.
So, in short, try to avoid getting upset because of some tags. It just isn't worth it. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 17:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
It just isn't worth trying to fix something, which I perceive to be flawed. Is that what you're saying? Nageh (talk) 09:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
No, I'm saying that (according to my oppinion) the correct way to fix this is educating the users - probably one at a time. And it is going to work better if whoever does the "educating" stays focused on the problem at hand: it is not tagging as such, but insufficient explanations. Oh, and may I ask you to consider not adding your replies in the middle of my posts, or at least in the middle of my paragraphs (like [16])? Thank you in advance. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I understand what you are saying. But I have not come here to complain about a specific editor. Thoughtless tagging is a behavior excited by more than a few wikipedians. Sorry for the inline response. Nageh (talk) 19:37, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh, ok, well, it may work arguing with each user separately. But then it may not. It would be much simpler pointing them to a relevant page that clearly says when to use such templates instead of getting a reply in the form of "you won't be able to convince me, period". Hence my below suggestion (you're welcome to comment on). Nageh (talk) 19:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
This is really more of a problem with a certain group of users than a problem with the tags themselves. Drive-by tagging is indeed annoying and often completely pointless. However, I have long been a supporter of not putting tags such as {{orphan}} or {{uncategorized}} on articles. They do not alert the reader to any pressing issue with the article. I find the uncategorized tag particularly pointless because it takes just as much time and effort to go ahead and add a category as it does to add the tag. I could see putting these tags on the talk page, or maybe turning them into categories, but there is no need to alert a casual reader to the fact that the article they are reading is not in any categories. They don't care. We often lose sight of the fact that this project is for everyone, the articles are written to share knowledge with the world, and any edits to the article itself should be made in the interest of advancing that goal. Tagging something as an uncategorized orphan does not do that. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:43, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree re: drive-by-mass-taggers, as being annoying and often less-than-helpful. However: Re: {{Cleanup}}, it has clear documentation saying that a more specific banner should be added it at all possible (or the cleanup banner removed if the problem is unclear) – it's like the generic {{stub}} tag, the specific problem should be clarified, and preferably soon. Re: {{uncategorized}}, that template is often added by editors (like me) who aren't familiar with a topic or aren't comfortable making a judgment call. It's usually on new-articles, so it reminds the creator to add some categories. (the creator is often the most likely person to know which categories belong, and will have it watchlisted). Re: {{orphan}} and {{copyedit}} and others, these are the types of tag that recruit new editors. (a {{wikify}} tag was the bait that first hooked me as an anon. I thought "I know html markup, maybe I can add links to articles easily...") They also let readers get a sense of our processes (getting a look at the people behind the curtain). One core reason behind putting style banners on articles, instead of on talkpages, is it provides a large impetus for editors to fix the problem soon, rather than postponing until later - out of sight, out of mind. Another reason is radical transparency - people appreciate it, and trust us more because of it. There is good documentation at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (article message boxes), and the full lists of templates can be found at Wikipedia:Template messages. Most of the yellow style-class templates can be found at the specific subpages: Wikipedia:Template messages/Maintenance and Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup and there are good instructions at the top of that second listing regarding when not to template. See also WP:Overtagging, WP:Tag bombing, and WP:Responsible tagging. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the links, they are helpful at least in part. What is interesting though is that WP:Overtagging advocates the general {cleanup} tag, stating that "{cleanup} is a good general-purpose tag", while WP:Responsible tagging contradicts this by saying that some more specific cleanup tag should be selected.
I would consider {wikify} a major copy editing issue, as such article could be really inconsistent with common article layout. But I don't see tagging for minor issues (especially without explanations) as something useful for reader or editor. So I would really vote for some form of guidelines saying that banners (especially for cleanup) should be added to point out issues that need particular attention by either reader or editor, and not to criticize minor issues. And furthermore that for banners that are unspecific about the issues explanatory text must be added either inline as in Block code or on the talk page. Nageh (talk) 20:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Sure {{wikify}} is helpful to our readers but it is hardly a disaster if it is not done. It is a minor editorial issue and would be better on the talk page. Major issues which really need to be brought to the readers attention are things which are potentially misleading (or downright wrong information) such as POV. SpinningSpark 21:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I should point out that the Cleanup template documentation does ask people to use the 'reason' parameter, though the parameter was added fairly recently and may not be generally known. I've spent some time trying to clean up some of the articles so tagged and found a large percentage with no discernible issue to correct. One problem seems to be that once a tag is added it tends to stay if the reason for its being there is vague. No one wants to remove the tag since it's hard to tell if the issue has been fixed.--RDBury (talk) 23:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I think a point that's been missed in this discussion is that the point of adding a tag is not to have a tagged article but to tickle someone into fixing the issue. There wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have articles that had tags that remained unaddressed, even when they point out serious issues, for years sometimes. I think I've done my share of clean-up duty in this respect, including keeping all the articles I've created tag-free, but have found task rather thankless and unrewarding. One problem with the all-volunteer model of effort is that the division of labor tends to get a bit skewed. If a newspaper was run this way then everyone would get to be star reporter or editor-in-chief and important but unglamorous tasks such as fact checking would go undone. For Wikipedia, I think the solution lies in understanding why people donate their time and effort and then figuring out how to channel this energy in a way that does the most good. One thing we need to do better is prioritize which tags in which articles should be addressed first, for example there are 310,000 articles with no references, an issue that will take years to address even assuming that we can get a reasonable number of people to work on it regularly, but there is nothing that says "This article is seen by thousands of people per day and should be addressed as quickly as possible."
Another reason to have these tags is to point out that the article in question is not a model to be followed by future editors. Most people who edit or create articles are going to imitate the articles they've seen, the de facto standard, whatever policies or guidelines we write. If people commonly see articles with no references then they will go ahead and create more of the same. At least when an article is tagged it says to a potential editor "This article wasn't done correctly, don't use it as an example." Unfortunately, with tags becoming more and more common and insufficient effort being made to address the issues, the de facto standard is becoming problematic articles with tags rather than articles with no issues.--RDBury (talk) 23:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Your observation about the all-volunteer model and division of labor is very keen, and I wish more people would read your post.
Regarding tagging, I believe it is way overdone. Many times a tag represents someone's opinion -- they come to an article and think it needs something, leave a gigantic banner at the top, without explanation, and walk away. No attempt to fix the problem; just a spray-painted tag that something needs to be fixed. Instead of picking up the hitchhiker in the desert, they hang a sign around his neck, "hey! someone pick this person up!" and drive off. Since it's a wiki, anyone can add a tag, and anyone can remove one. If a tagger lacks the rudimentary courtesy to explain on the talk page why that banner is going on the top of the article, they do need a corresponding courtesy explaining why you summarily remove it. Be bold; take them out when they are unwarranted. I do it all the time.
I suggested once a third Wiki space besides "article" and "talk" -- "meta article" which contains all the tags and notes on what needs improvement. Didn't get any traction.
The rate at which people are adding tags greatly exceeds the rate at which they are being removed. Removal by finding citations, sources, doing copyeding, de-orphanning, wikifying, takes effort and time; tagging takes none. If there are any taggers reading this -- do the honorable thing and fix some of the problems you have helpfully pointed out rather than just walking away from them.
Thanks for listening, Antandrus (talk) 00:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay in responding. Let me try to summarize; most people seem to agree that:
Banner tagging is overused.
Banner tagging should be used to point out important issues that require attention by either editor or reader.
Unspecific tagging should always be accompanied with providing an explanation for the tag.
So how about setting up some sort of guidelines or additional text to pages like Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup, WP:Overtagging, and WP:Responsible tagging that says "Use banner templates to point out issues in articles and sections that require particular attention by a reader or editor. When tagging try to be as specific as possible; particularly, when using more general templates, provide your reason for tagging either inline (using the reason parameter of templates) or on the talk page. Do not use banner templates for minor editorial issues, to point out single issues that could be better addressed using inline templates (e.g., {citation needed}), and for general comments that may be better placed on the article talk page. Finally, consider if you may be able to fix issues found yourself instead of merely pointing them out."
In very rough form, but you get the idea. Thoughts? Nageh (talk) 10:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
The following template messages may be added to articles that need a cleanup. The purpose of such templates is to inform other editors and readers at a quick glance what potential problems there are with article content and to spur improvement in the spirit of Wikipedia. In obscure articles with few editors, the templates can serve to attract attention to problems that have not been addressed. In articles that are heavily edited or discussed, templates can be used to indicate ongoing problems or disputes in order to attract outside help and caution readers that the content may be shortly subject to change. Unless otherwise noted, they should be placed at the top of the article—before other templates, images, or infoboxes (for the short notes placed at the top of an article before the primary topic, see WP:Hatnote#Placement). Templates placed at the top should be used to point out issues that need particular attention by a reader or editor. Do not use them to highlight minor editorial issues, problems with specific sections, and single issues that could be better addressed using inline templates or on the talk page. When adding such tags, try to be as specific as possible. When using general templates such as {{Cleanup}} add an explanatory remark via the reason parameter or on the talk page. Please do not insert tags that are too similar or redundant with each other. For example, all articles that read like essays have an inappropriate tone, and in fact they end up in the same category, so it is unnecessary to tag with {{Inappropriate tone}} in addition to {{Essay-like}}. Similarly, if an article has many problems, please consider tagging only the most important problems. A very lengthy list is often less helpful than a shorter one. Remember that tags are not intended as a badge of shame (see also: tag bombing).
Yes, I know, it is a small step for what hopefully is an improvement. Still, it would ease the current issues of thoughtless tagging a lot! Thank you for your consideration and feedback, Nageh (talk) 17:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
That text you wrote above sounds pretty good. Now just frame it up in a big banner template... ;)
Seriously though, there's almost as much of a joke in these current templates. They all have a link to "improve this article" which dumps you into the "edit" mode. Not even section-specific. But I dare say that anyone who can figure out "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards." must know where the edit button is. This must be some kind of throwback to the days when everyone was a new editor, but it seems awfully anachronistic by now. Wnt (talk) 20:20, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I regularly remove banner tags too. The main problem with them is that they are too intrusive. This is uncivil because it actively discourages editors from using the talk page. Why use the talk page when you can jump to the head of the line and dominate the discussion with a shrieking box around your complaint at the head of the article? One simple way of toning down this rudeness would be to move the banner tags to the foot of the article or to the appropriate section. For example, the {{Unreferenced}} template belongs in the References section. If this was done cleverly, the template macro might actually create the references section and put some search links there, to assist the process. Or a bot might be constructed to seek out these tags and turn them into References sections. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Creating an empty references section is of marginal benefit, but easy enough. If you can get consensus to do it, then we could add it to AWB, but I have my doubts.
Placement - again that has been thrashed out many times, consensus seems to be: unref in the ref section or at the top, uncat at the bottom, everything else at the top, except of course section and in-line tags. If you can get consensus to move them around, or to the talk page, it can be done easily enough.
I'm not howling in protest, but pointing out that all it does is add, "Please do not use the findsources template in articles" to the notice in very large, red letters. I can't believe this was the desired result. --Ronz (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
It's been removed. --Ronz (talk) 16:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Once upon a time if the talk page tag was blue you flipped to the talk page to see why the article was broken, or pick up useful information. Now with WP0/7/1.0 BLP they are almost all blue...
But some general points on the subject:
Don't forget that tags also categorise - most of them are hidden categories to avoid pollution. These allow us to see how long stuff has bee tagged for- get a feeling for the backlog, handle it and and make decisions about what to do. This works exceedingly well for Uncat - one of the the most successful of tags if you don't count "Stub" as a tag.
Orphan - the Orphanage was very successful in its heyday , but I have always had reservations about worrying about orphans. Yes most articles probably shouldn't be, but it's not a function of the article.
Hidden tags. There is no reason that tags shouldn't be hidden either individually, by type, from unregistered users etc. We did that with "Unreferenced stub" - gave it the option to be invisible, and that functionality is migrated into "Unreferenced". Similarly it would be possible for Multiple Issues to be made collapsible.
The other cleanup projects do a lot , and they do rely on tagging (GOCE, for example and the Referencing team).
In the end it's up to the project to form consensus. How long should we give an article tagged for notability, before it gets automatically AfD'd? I have been considering AfD-ing some of the really old ones. What about un-sourced BLPs? And "sofixit" isn't a good argument - I spent a lot of time on Punjabi cinema - attracted by the fact that it was one of the oldest tagged articles, I got half way though before my brain started to leak out of my ears. A few days later someone form the clean-up team came and finished it. Without the tag, neither of us would have been there.
Ok guys, you all had something to say in the discussion. Now I'm asking you for a simple vote on whether above suggestion (with the added text in red letters) for Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup seems acceptable, and you think it's ok to add it, or whether you don't want to see that change.
Thanks, Nageh (talk) 17:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
You don't need a !vote, just add it. RichFarmbrough, 03:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC).
I added a variant " A balance should be struck between using article, section specific and in-line templates. When adding such tags, try to be as specific as possible. Where the problem is not obvious add an explanatory remark via the reason parameter or on the talk page." RichFarmbrough, 03:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC).
Well, thanks. You never know when you'd get reverted for not having consensus. Nageh (talk) 08:12, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Readers vs. Editors
Wnt's comment brought up a point, so I thought I'd create a section break to emphasize it.
Part of the reason for these large notices is to encourage people who are just readers to become editors. If someone is looking up an article, they may already be familiar with the subject and just looking for more information. Those folks, coming upon an article that needs more citations, could be encouraged to add their own sources because of these templates. There's always folks who are just coming to Wikipedia, or just coming to that particular article. Perhaps the templates need some updating to be more pertinent to modern Wikipedia's audience? — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 21:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that an encouraging tone might be appropriate. One thing I've thought about (and I don't know if it's technically feasible) is having the text change on some of these tags as they get old. For example, {{unref}} could acquire a sentence after it's been in the article for a year to say, "This notice may be out of date. If sources have been added to this page, any volunteer can remove this template by clicking 'Edit this page'." WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
What about making the templates smaller, as a partial help? Just a smaller font would help a lot, I think. This should be easy to propose (at each template's talk page) and implement, I would think. Would not apply to all templates. Herostratus (talk) 23:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
So that some people can't read them? I suspect that WP:ACCESS would complain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
in the reference such as in the references section at Ringed_Seal#References? If so, is there a templated method of indicating a source is pd?Smallman12q (talk) 14:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Resolved
--Ludwigs2 20:26, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
? Or the "i" information icon? Or something else.
){kind=link}