Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new other than a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

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Tor nodes

An ongoing discussion is in progress regarding adjusting the blocking policy in reference to TOR nodes. The discussion is here. Regards, M-ercury at 13:18, January 8, 2008

WP:RFC/U - time to get rid of it?

Moved from archive as it's premature to close this - future datestamp applied to make sure it isn't archived again - Will ^(talk) 17:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC) Moving from WT:RFC...

About two months ago, I listed Requests for user comment for deletion under the premise that it did not work, and it's basically a quagmire of personal attacks and a stepping stone to ArbCom. The consensus in the MFD, including the creator of the process and the MfD's closer, is that it doesn't really work 99.9% of the time, and only exists because there is no other process existent. Just get rid of it and reinstate the Community Sanction Noticeboard, as that actually did do some good. Will ^(talk) 17:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. I personally preferred CSN better than RFC/U. D.M.N. (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I would support CSN provided there was a minimum time for comments (about 7 days). There should also be a maximum time for banning (1 year, same as ArbCom). R. Baley (talk) 18:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

CSN had teeth, RFC/U hardly any. CSN saw discussion and nuance, RFC/U sees ganging up and party-lines half the time. With the same provisos as R. Baley, except I'd prefer six months, it would be good to have it back. Relata refero (talk) 18:20, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you could merge the two... CSN to me always seemed to arbitrary. Consensus could be declared in an hour or never... that kind of gives power to people who can generate a mob of "me too"s on demand. RFC is very structured but seldom goes anywhere. Is there any realistic way to have CSN but with a more normalized process, to give the accused a change to reply, slow down the mob mentality, and reasonably assess consensus? --W.marsh 18:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Would it need a new name possibly? Also please note than CSN only closed three and a half months ago and consensus might not of changed much since then. Also, a lot of things that "could" of gone there are instead now sent to WP:AN or WP:ANI, meaning they get a lot more traffic and stress put on them. D.M.N. (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

W.marsh, don't you think a minimum one-week period for each sanction discussion would help with the mob of "me-too"s? (Too much evidence has emerged lately of off-wiki co-ordination for us to discount that as a factor.) Relata refero (talk) 18:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

A week sounds reasonable. If it's truly an emergency WP:BLOCK should apply, and if someone's transgressions don't seem blockworthy a week after the fact, then a ban was a bad idea to begin with. I'd also like to look at a waiting period before people start bolding words (ban, don't ban, etc.) maybe 48 hours of pure discussion without people taking definitive stands like in a vote. I think that would lead to better discussion, people tend to feel psychologically committed to a stance once they're locked in to it. --W.marsh 18:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

At Arbcom they've decided to take the ambitious step of waiting (I believe 48 hours, but I can't remember) before voting on the proposed decision page. We could do something similar, discussion can take place for 2 days, but no proposed "remedies" (ban, topic ban, etc.) could be offered until 48 hours after a new complaint had been certified (maybe not "certified," just following the initial complaint --basically enforce 2 days of discussion before any talk of "banning"). R. Baley (talk) 18:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

RFC works when it's used for asking for comments, it does not work when sanctions are sought, but that is not its purpose. The CSN should be brought back and RFC kept and used for its intended purpose. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The Community Sanction Noticeboard had its own problems, though I'm not sure that it needed to be eliminated. Part of the problem is that dispute resolution mechanisms seem to come and go - Mediation went away, and now it's back under a new name, the CSN came and went, ANI seems to alter its mission every so often. I see three main problems with RFC/U: it is not empowered to sanction, it's intended to keep reduce the burden on ANI, and it's a mandatory step before going to ArbCom, which can sanction. The solution I see is to 1) bounce more stuff, both from RFC/U and ANI, to Mediation (wherever it's living right now), 2) have some level of sanction available at RFC/U, which would probably require administrator patrolling, and 3) allow admins to move complicated cases off ANI to RFC/U. Perhaps a name change would be in order - instead of "Request for Comment/User Conduct", it could become "Administrators' Noticeboard: Ongoing Problems" (to distinguish it from AN:Incidents). Making it part of the Administrators' Noticeboard would mean that sanctions would be available and it would be an appropriate preliminary step to ArbCom. It would also reduce the load at ANI, where probably half the volume of discussion is on complicated, drawn-out issues, even though those are fewer than 10% of the actual incidents reported. Community Sanctions would all get moved to AN/OP, also. As part of the AN cluster, AN/OP would be fairly highly visible. Argyriou (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm Opposed to this. Many of our processes suffer from a lynching mentality and RFC is as bad as some of them but it does serve a purpose. I really do not see a return to the votes for lynching that CSN turned into as a viable alternative. If we are replace this process we need some other way to garner community feedback into problematical or disputed editor behaviour and a noticeboard doesn't seem the way forward. Spartaz ^Humbug! 22:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Rlevse's and Spartaz's comments. --Iamunknown 00:39, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Both W.marsh and Spartaz voice important concerns. The CSN was split off from ANI, and then was merged back into ANI after only 8 months. I think ANI, with its high visibility and traffic, is the proper place for most such discussions. The deletion discussion is very instructive as to the potential problems that must be kept in mind. I oppose any page dedicated exclusively to "sanctions," as well as any form of voting for a ban.

Getting back to RFC/U, I think its purpose and its place within the DR process should be better defined. The list of DR options here is rather bewildering, and does not indicate (what I see as) RFC/U's status as a second-tier DR forum for problems that have proven intractable in the first-tier forums. The third tier, of course, is Arbcom.

There is a grave problem when people see DR as a list of hoops that must be jumped through before you can ban someone. Emphasis should be placed on restoring relationships and on helping problematic editors to become better ones. Note that I am not talking about obvious trolls, who should be dealt with easily enough in the first-tier DR forums. To me, the purpose of the first-tier forums is to have one or two experienced editors tell a problematic editor that he/she is behaving problematically and should change. At this point, the case may be obvious enough that a block or ban would be appropriate. The purpose of RFC/U is then for the larger community to communicate that same message. If the problematic behavior continues, then an admin can enact a community ban, and the tougher cases can go to Arbcom. If I am out in left field on this, then tell me so or ignore me. If not, then the DR guidelines should be a lot more clear that this is the case. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 05:09, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It would be good if it worked that way, but the practice is less harmonious. The process seems to escalate conflict rather than diminish it. I don't however know how to substitute it. CSN was seen as a kangaroo court, so that too had problems. DGG (talk) 09:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Practice does not need to be harmonious. I'm not so naive as to think that a large fraction of people are actually focused on "restoring relationships" etc. But I'd settle for orderly. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem I have seen in the few RFC/U's I've seen (as an outsider) is that there is very little in the way of objective evidence. It usually ends up in IDONTLIKEHIM comments, or sometimes people siding with the nominator they like or the defendant they like, or even lining up with the POV they like.

Any complaint, whether it is in an RFC/U or an AN/I or a proposed AN/OP, should have specific charges based on policy or guidelines and specific diffs to support the charge, and diffs to demonstrate attempts to resolve the problem. A user who behaves badly should be warned every time the problem is noticed. Just as we warn against vandalism, we should warn about NPA, incivility, etc. (If we had more warning templates, users might issue warnings more often.) If we warned users more often we might see fewer problems. If problems persist, then the warnings will provide the evidence to justify blocks.

AIV is not contentious because there is a visible history of escalating warnings to demonstrate the problem, to demonstrate attempts to resolve the problem, and to justify the length of a block. 3RR is not contentious because diffs provide objective evidence of bad behavior. RFC/U, AN/I, CSN almost always are (were) contentious because there is usually no objective evidence to demonstrate the problem and attempts to resolve the problem. I think that RFC/U would be more effective if it required specific charges of violated guidelines, specific diffs to support the charges, and specific diffs to demonstrate attempts to resolve the problem.

I was just about to make these suggestions about specificity over at WT:RFC when I saw the link to this discussion. I might still suggest it over there to try to improve the process while waiting to see if a consensus develops over here to eliminate or replace the process. I'm also thinking of starting a new section over here to suggest that we should issue warnings for bad behavior much more often. I have seen a lot of incivility go unwarned. If we had escalating templates for warnings, editors might use them more often. Sbowers3 (talk) 02:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, RfC on User Conduct should be used to elicit a wider community involvement in the background of the situation instead of the superficial cat-calling that we stumble acrost in article-talk and user-space. I frequently accidentally wander into a vicious debate, simply because I visit a lot of pages. The RfC/U posted to the article-talk, and user-talk of both the RfC presenter and the subject would allow for impartial input. Which should continue for a minimum of three days there. Then, as above mentioned, the subject can be given some breathing room in which to evaluate improvement or at least detachment. After sufficient time, if an editor feels that anti-project editing still exists, then it would be appropriate to escalate to CSN and allow at least 3 further days for responses to be gathered. So my nutshell, RfC/U as a precursor to CSN and a necessary part of DR.Wjhonson (talk) 02:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with ANY system of open community comment on another editors actions, regardless of which Wiki-acronym you attach to it, is that it is always open to sniping and abuse (once someones name shows up there, everyone they ever have pissed off gangs up on them). The question is whether such abuse is willing to be tolerated in order to have a system whereby the community can comment on user behavior. You can't have a system in place that is immune to this kind of abuse, but neither should you throw out the baby with the bathwater... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I am strongly in favor of the WP:RFC/U system. It isn't good at seeking punishments for past bad behavior, but that's partly because sanctions are preventive, not punitive -- the point is, sanctions should be applied when bad behavior continues, rather than because it existed. RFCs are good for that -- if a user pushes POV, for instance, and it becomes well-established that this is the case in an RFC, and they continue to do it, sanctions can be safely applied. RFCs sometimes get out of control, but that's actually a good thing -- think of it as water in the mountains, it needs to come downhill somewhere. WP:RFC/U is a good way of handling that release of tensions because of the way its rules keep editors from commenting back and forth, which tends to build tension. Plus, they have a good way of adding lots of uninvolved editors to the mix, which distributes the energy. Mangojuice^talk 15:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't really know what to think. The Wikipedia community hasn't shown itself to be anymore trustworthy than the Wikipedia admins. Both increasing and decreasing admin accountability or things like RFC/U seem counterintuitive. Making it more strict allows people to witch-hunt users and admins they don't like. Making it more lax allows trolls and corrupt admins to do whatever they want. The problem is that so many Wikipedia editors have zero regard for reason. That needs to be addressed first, I think. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 11:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

RFC works (as stated above) when it's used for asking for comments on behavioral issues of a user or users, it does not work when used for witch-hunts, lynchings, Public floggings, personal attacks, bitterness, and character assassinations. Since this process does seem to escalate some conflicts rather than diminish them, perhaps modifying the guidelines within the process is needed as opposed to removal. Without RfC/U, the only formal steps in dispute resolution that focuses on editors are AN/I and ArbCom. Conversly AN/I could serve as an appropriate venue and does provide wide community involvement on issues (Apropriatly a modified format would be needed on AN/I to replace RfC/U). Processes exist to have a purpose, I belive this does, but some reform may be needed to improve it.--Hu12 (talk) 13:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If you thought RFC is terrible, CSN was horrendous. I don't ever want to see anything like that back on wikipedia ever again. But if I do, I shall certainly crucify the inventor using their own process. ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I like Argyriou's suggestion of making it AN/Ongoing problems. From the very little experience I have with RFC/U, my impression is that it's essentially a temporary repealing of the NPA policy on both sides. There are votes but no conclusions. After lambasting each other for days, both sides claim victory, and use the archived RfC as a method of ongoing bypassing of NPA by simply providing a convenient link to the RfC.

On second thought, don't call it "Ongoing problems". Self-fulfilling prophecy. Call it AN/Problems. A header at the top of the page can specify what types of problems are postable there. --Coppertwig (talk) 22:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

How to guide

I think RFC is a good way to gather evidence and gauge community sentiments. If an RFC/U convinces an editor to cease causing problems, that is a good result. If they continue, a note can be posted at ANI requesting a community remedy, such as an editing restriction or ban, with a link to the RFC/U. If there is no consensus at ANI, the case can go to ArbCom, and again, a link to the RFC/U provides much of the necessary evidence. The processes work when people use them correctly. Jehochman ^Talk 14:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, if we ever want RFCU to ever work, we need more admin intervention - Anittas was indefed a second time in October. The attack he was blocked for was on RFCU for twelve days, but nothing happened until ANI got wind of it. Will ^(talk) 00:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

BLP-Lock: A way to deal with contentious BLP articles

After reviewing the Don Murphy DRV, it's obvious that the community has some differences with regards to BLP articles, Notability, and how to handle things. I tried to come up with a compromise that would ease some folks mind with BLP. I actually brought this up with one of the folks whose article would be covered under this policy, and they were pretty positive with it. It alleviated one of his major problems about having a Wikipedia article about them.

So, without further ado..

User:SirFozzie/BLP-Lock

The basics:

A) The article can be placed under BLP-LOCK by any uninvolved administrator. When an administrator places an article under this policy, they must either refer to an existing OTRS ticket, or submit one, and detail why such action is necessary in that OTRS ticket.

B) If an OTRS volunteer agrees that the article should be placed under BLP-LOCK, the article will be stubbed down to a bare-bones situation (just bare facts, no controversial information), and fully-protected for a period of a MININUM of six months (this can be permanent).

C) During this BLP-LOCK status, the only edits that should be made are those via {{editprotected}} requests that have full-consensus on the talk page. Any information that not reliably sourced should not be added to the article, even with consensus. While a subject of the article does not get an automatic veto over information being added to the page, administrators who handle BLP-LOCK editprotected requests should be fully aware of the BLP policy and judge accordingly.

This is actually fairly close to the Stable Versions idea we've been promised for eons going forward.. It reduces a major part of the reason that folks (here and elsewhere) are upset about BLP: That any "child with a computer" can vandalize it, and then these vandalizations are available in the history forever.. and for folks that don't have people watching/OWNing the article, these vandalizations can persist for a period of time until caught. Instead, the article grows in a more controlled manner.

The reason for thinking that the OTRS ticket is necessary.. I'm not sure this is necessary or a good idea for ALL BLP articles, but if an article needs BLP-LOCK, then it should have above-normal levels of attention paid to it, and OTRS is one way to do that. I know that the problem is that OTRS can be overwhelmed at times, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is on it, and work OTRS/BLP-LOCK if it goes through.

Also, on a strictly personal level of thought.. if a subject complains to WP via OTRS, this should be a standard option (to BLP-LOCK their article) going forward. It's bad enough if a subject needs to email us once if there's problems with their article. We shouldn't have to make then continually monitor their article. 21:14, 21 March 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by SirFozzie (talk • contribs)

Image:User.gif: unintended bias?

Extended discussion moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Image:User.gif: unintended bias?. Mr.Z-man 22:04, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Sprotect all articles!

Unless somebody can explain to me why we tolerate IP edits at all? If a person can't figure out how to generate a username and a password, why would we want them to be editing here? What am I missing? Semi-protection obviously works to stop vandalism, or it wouldn't be used. What possible argument is there, that admits sprotection works in some heavily vandal-targetted places, BUT somehow would not work even better, if used automatically everyplace? If we did this, anybody anyplace could still edit. They'd just need a password and some personal responsibility. SBHarris 07:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Prohibit anonymous users from editing, Wikipedia:Editors should be logged in users, Wikipedia:Disabling edits by unregistered users and stricter registration requirement, and meta:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles. This is not likely to happen. Algebraist 13:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

There are other proposals to address the problem of vandalism, which are not as restrictive regarding anonymous edits; see e.g. Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions. --B. Wolterding (talk) 13:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Tonnes of our best content is written by someone who writes half an article by themselves, submits it from an IP address, and then never edits again. These are people who don't want to be regulars in the project, but are knowledgeable about one topic, so they help us out autonomously. There are other IPs that will make a minor fix now and then and don't want to be bothered making an account. We defiantly don't want to scare away this support by making them set up an account when they don't want to, even if it means putting up with more vandalism. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 21:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Look, if I really believed you, then there's be no reason ever to sprotect any article, because we'd be protecting them from the addition of "tonnes of best content" just waiting to be contributed by all those IP editors out there.

Or do these editors only start articles, and never improve articles which are well on the way to featured status? How do you know? I'm trying to keep myself from slapping a tag on your statement. Got examples? Got examples where you can show that some IP user contributed massive amounts of work, but would have been too lazy to pick out a username and password, if they had been required to? I just do not believe it and I'm pretty sure you can't can't prove it, or even support it. If it ever happens, I do not believe it happens enough to be worth noticing.

Look, I'm a scientist. This is a question which is answerable by a simple experiment, since we all have strong opinons, but no data. We simply sprotect all the articles that start with "A" and then the compare the created content and vandalism as compared with a similar number of articles that start with "B", which we leave as is. Now, no doubt somebody's going to come hopping up and say that "We don't even have the monitoring tools to tell if this is working or not." Okay. Then that means YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER, EITHER. But you think you do. You're writing a lot of policy and you're sprotecting some articles and not others, by the seat of your pants. Well, the seat of my pants says something else. The reason this suggestion is "perennial" is that I'm far from alone in that judgement.

Addendum: I went to the perennial proposals page above and looked at the cites, and found exactly what I expected: epidemiology. Epidemiology proves nothing. For example, we have a cite from somebody's blog (It's amazing what becomes WP:V when it supports the conclusions of the Foundation [1]) that most of the content (by number of letters) of the average article comes from users whose total contribution to the entire encyclopedia is relatively minor. Which is not supprising. And many of them are IP users. Again not surprising. But we don't know the key thing which is being assumed from this data, which is that if we required all these IP editors to register a username, they'd all go away and wouldn't do what they did. WE JUST DON'T KNOW THAT without doing the experiment. We do know that most vandalism is done by IP editors. Do we need to have an experiment to see what would happen if we made them all create usernames? The one class of people (good IP editors) wants to add content to a small area they know a lot about. They are presumably more motivated than the other type of person (bad IP editors) who wants no more than to erase a page and add an obsenity. Anyway, the bottom line is that this entire foundation policy is not really supported by any good data. The people who make it, just think it is. SBHarris 22:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I can back up the statement that IPs do a lot of good work, /me digs around for the IP. there was one point where we actually tried make one Annon a admin. (10,000+ contribs on a static IP). β^{_{command 2}} 23:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/68.39.174.238 β^{_{command 2}} 23:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but to be fair this guy is famous for refusing to take a username, and by now it's part of his identity not to. The average IP editor who was told they had to, would do it. Afterall, that's true of most blogs and websites on the web, so we know it happens. The idea that the average motivated contributer to Wikipedia is motivated very highly to contribute to the encyclopedia, but would balk have having to create a username if asked or required to, is perverse. And untennable. And, despite what some may think, actually has no data behind it. Because nobody's ever tried it, here. We don't even have any prospective epidemiology to see what happens to content addition to pages after they are sprotected. And we certainly have no data on what happens to them if they are randomly assigned to sprotection or not (or randomly assiged to be un-sprotected or not). What is what we need, to have an answer. SBHarris 00:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, IPs are not all vandals, but all vandals are IPs. I support semi-protection for all articles. Emmanuelm (talk) 01:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Wrong; I know of quite a few vandal-only registered accounts, and I also know it takes a while to block them if they don't appear that often. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Detarder)} 01:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I've seen tons of registered vandals. They're just IP vandals in registered clothing, which really just makes them harder to spot.--Father Goose (talk) 02:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

In answer to Sbharris's question about why we semi-protect articles at all if IPs are so great: it is because in some cases the rule-of-thumb of helpful IPs does not apply. For a controversial article like George W. Bush, the amount of IP vandalism far outweighs the amount of useful IP edits. Likewise, for any featured article, there is little prose left to write, and few spelling changes to make. Most of the edits that need to be done are edits to make the article keep up with changing times and with changing Wikipedia policy, and we don't need IPs for those kind of tasks.

I agree that a scientific view of this would be best, and some people have tried. There is at least evidence for the idea that IPs are writing much of the content (unlike the Foundation's line that a small community is writing most). Somewhere I read a lengthy article in which the author looked through the histories of a large sample of random and featured articles to see who was adding most of the content. His conclusion was that while the vast majority of edits were done by registered users, much of this was either wikignoming or making the encyclopedia uniform in appearance. He wrote that much or most of the prose was from IPs or accounts with only a few edits. I'm sorry that can't remember who published this article, but hopefully another user will read this post and remember. In any case, when I looked through some random articles on my own, I found that his conclusion looked very plausible; there are many places where an IP wrote a paragraph and then never edited again.

You're right that we don't have hard data on how many people would avoid contributing if they had to make an account, but I'm not sure how we could get good data on that. If we were to semiprotect all of the articles that started with A, it almost goes without saying that vandalism would go down, but the key thing that we would have to see is whether useful contributions went down. Until we have a good way to test this, I think we may as well default to our "you can edit this now" policy, as it is one of the projects founding principles.

The other thing that we would have to test is how many new regular users we would loose by IPs not being able to edit. If I had not been able to experiment with some edits as an IP, I don't know if I ever would have found contribution appealing enough to bother making an account. If to make an edit I had to make an account and wait for it to be auto confirmed, I mightn't have bothered. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 01:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Commenting generally on this: I would never have become a Wikipedia editor if I had had to register first. Having zero barriers to editing is a curse, as SBHarris points out, but also a blessing, as he fails to point out. And just as he points out that there's no data to support the "benefits" of allowing IPs to edit, there's no data to support the benefits of not allowing them to edit. Will we get less vandalism as a result? Probably, though it's not clear how much less. Will we get fewer good contributions (and contributors) as well? Also probably.

A certain amount of messiness is inherent in making Wikipedia "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". The messiness is minimally damaging and easy to repair (although if you're a vandal-patroller, it is easy for one's view of this to get distorted). But the benefit of the openness is what made the encyclopedia. Barriers to entry are barriers to entry. We can and do ban serial vandals, after the fact. Toward everybody else, we want to offer no barriers to entry. Go ahead, click that button. [edit]. Right there. Welcome.--Father Goose (talk) 02:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to have a stable of articles for newbies who just cannot wait to edit to experiment with for a few days, that's fine. But I see no reason why we even want to make somebody who can't wait a certain time to edit, an editor at all. They probably have no frontal lobes. It is 6 year-olds who can't wait, not the kinds of people we want here. And finally, the point of the wait is that it works differentially against vandals vs. good-faith editors, which is why Jimbo's own bio is sprotected, even as he says there are reasons to want vandals to be IP-users (obviously he doesn't mean vandals of his own bio-- just the rest of the encyclopedia). The fact of the matter is that the barrier to good-faith entry is just ONE waiting period (however long we decide it should be), whereas the barrier to vandalism is one of these periods after another (a new one for each new account created after an old one is banned for vandalism). This gets old; vandals get tired. I have no doubt, though it will take a decent randomized prospective study to be sure, that vandals will get tired of multiple waits, sooner than good-faith users will get tired in ONE wait. See [2] for more discussion. SBHarris 02:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I doubt this place would have grown nearly as fast without the "no barriers to entry" motto. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 02:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that it is also worth noting that Flagged Revisions has the potential to completely change the way that we use semi-protection and change the way that vandals interact with the site. If Flagged Revisions is a success, it might make almost all protection irrelevant. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 02:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Woah! I'd missed the flagged revisions thing completely. A lot of ideas are in here which I've been pushing on my own for a long time, having arrived at them on my own. Looks like others are working on it, too. This is definitely the way to go. I've got to go there and see what I can add. Thanks for the direct! SBHarris 23:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sbharris, as a scientist, I imagine that you wish policies to be based on evidence. Here is the scientific evidence on anonymous editors:

• "The researchers were most surprised to find that the reliability of [anon ip's] contributions were at least as high as that of the more reputable registered users' contributions."[3]
• "Surprisingly, however, we find the highest quality from the vast numbers of anonymous "Good Samaritans" who contribute only once."[4] Unit56 (talk) 03:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. The full text is worth a look, as the meat is in the graph at figure 1: [5]. Turns out that newbie IP editors start out contributing better content than logged-in (named) new users (as judged by simple time-retension of edits, it's about 75% vs. 66%). Then as user edit-count increases, the mean quality of contribs by IP-users goes DOWN, while it goes UP for nameusers, the two curves crossing at about 100 edits, then the trends continuing so that IP users with more than 100 edits are worse than nameusers with the same numbers!

How to explain this? I dunno. It's French and Dutch contributors being looked at, and it's possible that it's not the same in the US. It's also possible that we're merely seeing some kind of selection pressure on both nameusers and IP users over "time". I would expect that vandal-killing makes the surviving nameusers into a better group over time (vandal nameusers being eliminated), and this is seen. While a more lenient policy on blocking IPs allows vandals there to continue vandalizing, while the good IP users leave over time to become productive nameusers. Thus, overall quality for IP users tends to DROP with edit-count, as this group retains its vandals better, and its subgroup of committed good editors leave to register.

The article really doesn't look at any longitudinal patterns, tho, and it's always dangerous to infer them (If you do that with Florida, you infer from cross sections that the average person there learns Spanish in childhood, then later English, and then finally at the end of their lives, Yiddish..).

Now, how can use the data from this? It's hard to know. This study suggests that most new IP users generate as good content as new name users. I don't know how to fit that with my own perception, and that found by other papers, that most vandalism comes from IP accounts with few edits. It's a bit contradictory. By contrast, both this paper and my own experience suggests that IP users with a lot of edits are likely contributing poor quality, and need to be got rid of somehow, either by forcing them to register (the paper says this is actually a policy in the French and Dutch Wikipedias?) or else by stopping the coddling of IP vandal accounts (which now happens due to the possibility of them being shared educational institution IPs).

Lastly, there's the question of what would happen to the good-newbie IP users (what the paper calls Good Samaritans), if we require them to register. To what extent would they simply not participate and never register or contribute? We don't know. This paper doesn't help us find out. Perhaps, given the extremely low edit-counts this paper deals with (mean is about 10), the change in policy might be that newbie IP users are allowed 10 or 20 edits as an IP before they must register. That gets all those supposedly good edits, but at least kills the vandal IPs with the TALK pages that have 100 warnings. I think that would satisfy many objections here. It would also tend to discourage present coddling of vandal IP accounts, due to the knowledge that that users there are supposed to register eventually anyway. You can't both simultaneously hold that our best content comes from IP accounts with few edits, and also hold that we should continue to coddle sharred school IP accounts with many edits, most of which are vandal-edits. Nobody beleives we're talking about the same thing, there. Agree? SBHarris 23:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It is a foundation issue that users be allowed to edit without logging in. This is one of the very few firm rules around here. I think the wisdom of that is debatable, but Wikipedia is very successful due in part to the fact that we all had the chance to edit Wikipedia without even logging in. For better or for worse that's the way all Wikimedia projects work and it isn't going to change. Mangojuice^talk 17:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Want to kill the project? Easy, just stop people from editing. This proposal would do that. If people never start editing, they never become Wikipedians. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Why would a company give out free samples? If we only consider the cost it's loony. Yet lots of people who get a free sample will end up buying the product. Editing without the hassle of registering is like a free sample. It may be a generation thing, but the myspace generation has apparently not yet grown up enough to contribute the majority of edits. Us older folks, for the most part, don't like to register at every site we visit. But we still have a couple of decades more accumulated nuggets of knowledge. As to why IPS edit at rather high quality. Here's a highly unreferenced theory. You come to a wiki page to find information. If what you find is well written you look at a page in your particular field of interest. Since you know quite a bit about that subject there's the "That's not quite right." and the "That's not even the half of it." effect. Somehow that nags. After a while you look at the edit page and write some text and copy out the "decorations" from another part. (Then someone's going to complain it's not referenced and you'll have to look into it or s.o. else fixes that.) Someone who registers on the other hand does that either because they like editing (and at some point the fountain of their knowledge runneth dry.) Or they are forced to because they want to create a page or do something else that requires registration. Anyway, keep the free samples coming or your "customers" won't buy. Lisa4edit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.23.111 (talk) 11:40, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I see this proposal being raised time and time again over the future years until one day, I think it will be enacted -- when Wikipedia stabilises and within striking distance of acceptability as an encyclopedia. JeanLatore (talk) 21:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Television schedules in network articles

I removed a primetime schedule table from Seven Network, upon finding opposition to its presence on the article's talk page. But an examination of other television network articles indicates that their use is quite widespread.

Am I missing something here? How is this week's television schedule encyclopedic? WP:NOT suggests that Wikipedia is not an electronic program guide. Whilst it may be useful for people to be able to find the current TV schedule in the article, that is not the point. Five or 10 years down the track, how is what was on TV today going to be important to our treatment of the article's subject, i.e. the television network? - Mark 11:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I campaigned against these schedules about a year ago. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Archive 5#Current primetime television schedules. I didn't see any consensus to remove the schedules, so I dropped the matter. You could raise the matter again at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television to see if consensus has changed.-gadfium 18:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is they're outside the scope of WP, as per WP:NOT cited above. Secondly, they're not going to be right so their use shouldn't be encouraged. Simply listing the headline shows would avoid this problem completely. --AtD (talk) 07:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I've made the bold move of removing all the schedules from Nine Network, Ten Network, ABC1, ABC2 and SBS TV as Mark has protected Seven Network from IP edits. Even if the decision is reversed, at least it'll stimulate discussion. --AtD (talk) 09:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Support such a move, and I agree fully with AtD. Daniel (talk) 09:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Since the edits have been reverted a few times without any discussion, I thought I'd just highlight that WP:NOT really leaves no room for interpretation on this issue.
"Wikipedia articles are not: Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business. For example, an article on a radio station generally should not list upcoming events, current promotions, phone numbers, current schedules, etc., although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant programme lists and schedules (such as the annual United States network television schedules) may be acceptable." --AtD (talk) 12:36, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

• Pile on support for enforcing WP:NOT. Guides such as these in WP are plain ridiculous. —Moondyne click! 13:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Just removed current schedule from the Nine HD article. I support for the current schedules to be removed. Same should be done to Radio Stations as well?. -- Bidgee (talk) 17:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Under WP:NOT, yes.--AtD (talk) 00:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

If were doing this, I demand all schedules taken off, including those of other countries like NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX...

AND also the season schedule changes and program returns.

What if Wikipedia were to only allow web sites to be used as sources?

I'm not sure that I endorse this proposal, but if it were to go into effect it could prevent users from adding false citations to articles without them being detected, as an internet source can be quickly verified, while a book or magazine source can be harder to actually locate. Again, I'm not sure that I endorse this, as it would mean that many citations would have to be removed from articles, and also I doubt that users purposely inserting false sources into articles is very common.--Urban Rose 20:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia already has a strong bias towards the sort of information that can be found on websites (i.e. more recent, "popular" information). This would make it much, much worse. Besides that, there are still relatively few reliable sources on the web relative to offline, since self-publication is far easier with websites. In summary: no. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with SarcIdeal...if it came down to choosing (with a gun to my head), I would rather the sourcing was limited to offline, hardcopy sourcing only. Book/mag/print publishers have to pay money to have things put in print. They have fact checkers. Cyberspace is dirt cheap or free, and Easy to Edit. I pick books every time. Good thing we don't hafta choose, as many online sources are fact checked/reliable as well. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Doing so would mean eliminated the still huge portion of human knowledge that is only available in print as reliable sources. I am concerned that in this stage of the evolution towards a purely digital world, that the end result would be to do more harm than good. - Gwguffey (talk) 21:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree. Web publication has virtually nothing to do with reliability, and there are still many fields where most of the history of scholarship is still off-line. There's no instant pudding here. --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:58, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The majority of the worlds reliable scholarly information is in print form. Textbooks, reference manuals, historical documents, and much more are only available in print. Online sources are convenient, but they are just a small portion of the world's knowledge. _(1 == 2)^Until 22:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Plus there's the fact that you can, in fact, read citations, brief excerpts, etc. of various books online even when the whole book is not available online. Yet, do we really want our citation to source to the online quotation, or to the offline source that it originally came from? I say the latter (although it wouldn't hurt to also give the former, perhaps commented out or put in an edit summary). Sarah Lynne Nashif (talk) 22:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't really think it was a good idea. Just throwing it out there. :)--Urban Rose 23:29, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Published books and periodicals have been the solid basis of storing human knowledge since before the time of Johannes Gutenberg and that 500+ year history versus the 20- years of the Internet... for the time being books win. Let's wait a century or so before we seriously consider purging an encyclopedia of dead tree references. On the plus side, things like Google Books and Project Gutenberg mean that more and more of these sources are available for 'easy online verification, and it wouldn't hurt to have robots updating book citations with no links to point to reliable scanned or transcribed versions by respected projects. --Marcinjeske (talk) 19:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Another issue with web-references is that if the other site has a re-org the link gets messed up. I've already encountered a quite a few "links to nowhere" and those references have only been in there for a couple of years at the most. This problem is getting worse. I don't have a good solution, but it might help if there were some automatic thingamyjig that would display the name of the page that serves as a reference. Than if the link breaks one could at least go search for it. Lisa4edit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.23.111 (talk) 12:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

One point this anon overlooked is that many newspapers & magazines that maintain an online presence archives their electronic articles after 90 days or less. I don't know why: storage & retrieval costs for such material have to be minimal, the content has been paid for long ago, so the cost of providing these older pages has to be far less than the ad revenue they would provide. In any case, this is not link-rot, it's link-mold at the speed of a bruised banana or forgotten tomato! A simple link to the print version of the periodical would prove useful far longer. -- llywrch (talk) 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all those who have said this proposal is a very bad idea. Far too much of the world's knowledge is contained in print-only sources to eliminate them as viable sources. Wikipedia would lose much of its utility as an encyclopedia were we to limit ourselves to online references. We do already have a bias that way - to mandate it would be terrible. No, no, no! Aleta ^Sing 20:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

NUDE - No Undo on Dead Editors

Support, Oppose, Note, Comment? - Doug Youvan (talk) 07:28, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Huh? --Carnildo (talk) 07:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
• Kudos on the creative acronym, but I join Carnildo in the "huh?"
• Strongly oppose. Not even being dead does not guarantee a concrete edit, no matter what the circumstances. I can see this being abused quite heavily.--WaltCip (talk) 13:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Assume "Editors" is plural: Is it currently feasible to see all of WP as it stood on a previous date with all hyperlinks in place? - Doug Youvan (talk) 14:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It's feasible in the sense that someone who starts with a complete dump of the English Wikipedia (the last was in September 2007?) could write software that would let a person specify a date and time to "view" Wikipedia. But the wikilinks would have to work very differently - clicking on a link would require the software to check the history of the page being requested to determine which version to show.

And I'd guess that no one is going to bother - if someone really wants to know what a (few) articles looked like at a certain time and date, they can do that manually. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, don't try that with Microsoft WebExpressions' Import Wizard with the pages from home and hyperlinks set to xxx layers deep! A new domain, frozen once a month, en.wikinude.org , might make a good fund-raising project for WP in general. - Doug Youvan (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Hope you're all older than 18 and no one's logging in from the office. There are very few places that aren't your home and wouldn't block that. Remember back when "Starhustler" was changed to "Stargazer" because it kept getting blocked?? Lisa4edit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.23.111 (talk) 12:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The data is there; it's just a job of mining. So, even if this doesn't happen for ten years or more, nothing is lost. That gives us plenty of time to think of a better URL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nukeh (talk • contribs) 17:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Support editing Wikipedia nude... wait, that is what this is about right? _(1 == 2)^Until 18:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose, unless it can be made quite clear what the proposal actually is. User:Pedant (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose unless provisions can be added permitting the beating of dead horses, which I much prefer over dead editors. *Dan T.* (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment – I suppose Dead editors includes murdered editors as well? Then I know just the way to make this proposal stick. (takes out revolver and aims it at Doug Youvan) Waltham, The Duke of 00:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Are users not supposed to write about companies where they work?

Does this violate WP:COI?--Urban Rose 00:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It's only a problem if they can't write about it neutrally. EVula // talk // ☯ // 00:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, most folks can't. It's extremely difficult to write a neutral article about your workplace. However, it's possible to come close. Basically, it's suggested that you write an article in your user space (something like User:Urban Rose/Myworkplacename ) and then ask folks on the Help desk to look over it. If no one objects, then moving it to the proper article name would be fine. Just leave a note on the new article's Talk page (after it's moved) to explain your COI, and your willingness to work with other editors to make the article neutral and factual. -- Kesh (talk) 02:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Nah, just write in the main namespace, and maybe' put a disclaimer on the talk page like "I might not be entirely neutral here... just FYI, please NPOVize".

Rule 1 of the wiki is: Use the fine wiki. :-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 11:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I have another idea: work in pairs. The collaboration between a person who loves working in a company and a person who hates being there should produce a relatively neutral result. Waltham, The Duke of 03:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The collaboration between a person who loves working at a company and a person who hates being there will produce more drama and flamewars than you can shake a stick at, culminating in an ArbCom case or three. --Carnildo (talk) 04:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Not if they are friends. I was thinking of two colleagues, working in the same office.

...Yes, it can happen. Waltham, The Duke of 18:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Works of fiction

I'm a relative n00b to this place, I've only been editing for two months, and I seem to be confused about something. Policy states that plot summaries of films do not normally need to be cited (unless you are providing an original interpretation of the plot), and that information about video games can be cited from the manual or the game itself. I take this to mean that all works of fiction such as tv, movies, novels, and games, may serve as primary sources for basic information about the works such as plot elements, game mechanics, and so on. Yet time and time again, I see editors screaming "OR! OR! OR!" whenever they see unsourced information about works of fiction in articles. Time and again, I see articles nominated for deletion becuase they contain unsourced lists of trivia taken from works of fiction because the nominator considers it original research. My question is, when writing about works of fiction, when is it necessary to cite the primary source? Almost every film article I've seen has plot summaries with absolutely no citations, yet trivial articles about video games and television seem to be held to a higher standard simply because they are viewed as cruft. Can someone explain to me why "In episode 42 John trips over a rock" is decried as OR while "In Halloween Horror IV Jason stabs a girl in the neck" is perfectly OK? I know I'm treading into the waters of "inclusionism vs. deletionism" but I'm sick of reading the hypocrisy taking place on AfD discussions. TRIVIA is not the same thing as OR. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 05:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

"Wikilawering" is the short answer. When you want to have something deleted, you have to find a rule that plausibly backs up your dislike of the article. WP:N, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:DIRECTORY, WP:IINFO are all questionably applied in service of this goal. I've even seen the five pillars wikilawyered for this purpose.

AfD can be abused for some very unencyclopedic purposes sometimes.--Father Goose (talk) 11:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Reading WP:NOR gives the information that primary sources (such as books, TV shows, etc) can be used as long as you don't draw analytical etc conclusions. Bland statements of fact without attributing motive, making comparison, etc, are not OR when drawn from a primary source. Doing anything more requires a secondary source. SamBC(talk) 10:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Dummies in Wikipedia

I am new to Wikipedia as an editor and want some assistance in understanding how it works. I have been browsing through Wikipedia for a long time and have been observing that Wikipedia editors use dummy names or pseudonyms in order to hide their identitities. Now it is theoretically possible for one person to register with several dummy names. Similarly, a group of ideolgues bent upon spreading a particluar ideology can joun together, hiding their identities and act in unison to create a false impression. Now I have some questions- (i) Are multiple dummies by the same person allowed? (ii) Does Wikipedia record the PC ID number of editors who chek in as registered users as they do for anonymous editors? (iii) Does Wikipedia make any effort to identify dummy editors? Please enlighten me on these points. - Shyamal Gupta (talk) 13:05, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

no, only where there is evidence that multiple accounts are being used. --Fredrick Dayton (talk) 13:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The point is not clear. Please expalin a liitle more in details. - Shyamal Gupta (talk) 13:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Sock puppetry and also WP:MEAT. Sockpuppetry is expressly forbidden and will end up with the user being indefinitely blocked. Every time a user logs on, their IP address is recorded in the logs. Only Wikipedia:Checkusers can access this information and only then within the foundations privacy policy. Woody (talk) 13:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Correction: abusive sockpuppetry is forbidden. Having multiple accounts is allowed, but using them to create a false impression isn't. Things that you aren't allowed to use socks for include (a) posting multiple comments to a discussion, especially to create a false sense of consensus, (b) having a "good hand" and a "bad hand" account, so that you can "let off some steam" with one and work towards adminship with the other, (c) get around things like the 3 revert rule by reverting twice with sock A and twice with sock B. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 06:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations and links. - Shyamal Gupta (talk) 06:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Album Cover non-free media useage

I recently entered a debate with a few fellow editors about the use of album covers in pages not specifically about that particular album, such as in the discography sections of the respective artists... an administrator directed me here to suggest proposals for our thoughts on the subject as a whole.

My suggestions are simple and follow below:

allow album cover images (non-free media) to occur in pages not specifically devoted to that particular album.

i can't think of a single band that would sue because wikipedia used its album covers to display their discography. not even metallica would go that low. hell, if anything, it's publicity.

just the thoughts of a logical man.

AeturnalNarcosis (talk) 21:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• The past discussion referred to above is the first section at this talk page (this is the last version before archiving).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not a lawyer. That being said, I can't quite follow your logic. You (or we) don't own the copyright of those images. So we can't just decide at will where or where not to use them. We must adhere to Fair Use, or otherwise obtain permission by the copyright holder (regardless whether you think someone might sue Wikipedia or not). So as long as you don't say why displaying album covers in discographies constitutes Fair Use, I can't follow your argument. --B. Wolterding (talk) 13:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• I don't see what's so unfair about using album cover images in discography sections... it displays the history of the band's releases and gives the reader an illustrated portrayal of the artwork the band employs for their work, which also has alot to do with the respective band's philosophy/themes and styles, which often change between albums; consider In Flames. their style has changed dramatically over the years, and consequently, so has the artwork they use on their album covers. allowing the editors to use the album cover images in the discography will help illustrate the evolution of the band's style. AeturnalNarcosis (talk) 23:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• We shouldn't have to rely on the goodwill of bands and other copyright holders to be able to do what we do. The aim is to produce a freely-distributable encyclopedia. The more we throw in non-free content for decorative purposes, the further we get from that goal. - Mark 14:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• It isn't up to the "band" to sue us, the album cover doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the record company. Corvus cornix_talk 20:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• ...and to think i had assumed this was strictly a rake and shovel conversation... either way, i don't think any record company is going to sue an information centre because they use their album covers; if nothing else, it's publicity. AeturnalNarcosis (talk) 23:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• If you're convinced that the record company would agree, why don't you ask them for permission? --B. Wolterding (talk) 10:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

• i don't want you to take this the wrong way or anything... i'm not trying to be a dick, just trying to create some important dialogue... but if you're convinced that i'm wrong on this one, why not spend the time to create a constructive response to my point above (beginning, "I don't see what's..."). ...my point that record companies wouldn't sue because we use their album cover images isn't nearly as important. AeturnalNarcosis (talk) 22:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I think this discussion is moot. We don't own the rights to the images, so we can't decide where to use them. The only way to use them without explicit permission is claiming Fair Use. That's not "fair use" as opposed to "unfair use"; Fair Use is a term from U.S. law, and we'd have to comply with those rules. That's a tricky business, but Wikipedia's interpretation (approved by the Wikimedia foundation, without much option to change it) is WP:NFCC. I think the key term here is 3a, "Minimal Usage". Multiple non-free images should not be used in an article when one will suffice. So, unless you write a detailed text about each album (or even about each album's cover), so that the actual cover image would be required for illustration, there's not much option to include multiple album images in a discography. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

As B.Wolterding indicated Fair Use is a US legal term with a specific legal meaning. (Wikipedia is based in the US, so US law applies.) Most people don't know anything about copyright law, most people don't need to know anything about copyright law, but Wikipedia needs to. Using an album cover in the way you suggest would be a great idea but that does not make it legal. The fact that you or I think the copyright holder on the artwork is not likely to sue over it does not make it legal. This is a matter of law, Wikipedia has to to follow the law, there just isn't any possibility that Wikipedia debate or Wikipedia policy can go anywhere about this. Sorry, but that's the situation we are all stuck with. If Wikipedia permitted copied text or copied images where copyright holder was not likely to sue, well sooner or later someone will sue, and they would win. The images cannot be used unless you can legally back up Fair Use or you manage to get explicit permission from the copyright holder. Alsee (talk) 00:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hockey articles

I've decided to make an attempt to end this nonsense, I am referring to usage of diacritics on articles related to Ice hockey, a while ago, the ice hockey project has come up with this: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Archive13#Diacritics on non-team and non-player pages, now I find this ridiculous, we choose to misspell people's names and we do so only on some articles? Why, I wonder, do people oppose uh, swiggles? and what people have against correct spelling, example the player's name is Jaromír Jágr it isn't Jaromir Jagr, no matter how simpler that is to type or how better that looks to some North American editors. That's why I propose we create a serious guideline, or even policy that allows us to spell names correctly. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 04:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). That's the guideline page for this, so it'd be best taken up on that Talk page. -- Kesh (talk) 06:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I see you're aware of the guideline page, but linked it as an external link. Ah well. Anyway, the reason for opposing "squiggles" is that most folks can't easily find a way to enter them on an English keyboard. You either have to know an arcane Alt code or pull up some kind of character map for them. And, like other names, we use the most common name given in English media. If it's printed without the diacriticals in most English sources, then we name the article without them. -- Kesh (talk) 06:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Can't easily enter them is not a valid reason, it's difficult to enter IPA pronunciation, but that's not a reason for not using it. Also, diacritics are used every well else on Wikipedia, only a few selective individuals from the hockey WikiProject have decided to launch a campaign of adding misspellings, as 'a' is not the same thing as 'á', 'â' or 'ä' so simply omitting them is not in any way correct. Furthermore, reliability defeats the language the source is in, in this case, the person's birth certificate - with diacritics - is a far more reliable source than any English sources, most of which omit diacritics for the sake of convenience and none of them are reliable sources for spelling of names, while some sources might be reliable for information on Hockey statistics this does not make them reliable for spelling. Think about this example: if a reliable newspaper article is written about overcrowded prisons, then we can cite this in the Prison article, but let's say that supposedly, in this article a metaphor would be made "graceful as a pigeon" (bad example, sorry), would this be considered conclusive material that pigeons are graceful, therefore a reliable addition to the pigeon or bird articles? Probably not, because it is not an article about pigeons, in the same way, an article about hockey can't be considered a reliable source for a person's name, but on the other hand, their birth certificate is about the person's name therefore a reliable source for the name, with the diacritics. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 06:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

All the necessary characters with diacritics are located below the edit window in the section titled "Characters," and the user simply has to move the cursor to where they want to put the character, and then click on the character, and it will appear where the cursor was at previously. So any sort of difficulty of entering in these characters is unfounded and it is a completely illegitimate excuse. Wikipedia is about providing correct and useful information, and we shouldn't be taking shortcuts and providing misleading information, as it detracts from that goal. Thank You. --Sukh17 ^{T • C • E} 07:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

If you really want this, then see about getting consensus for the change on that guideline's Talk page. I'm indifferent on the matter. -- Kesh (talk) 09:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Well as you've seen, we have not been able to gain consensus that way, otherwise we wouldn't be here. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 14:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should accept that consensus is against you in this case, then. This is not intended to be snarky; my apologies if it comes across as such. Horologium (talk) 15:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Consensus? Where? I don't see the slightest indication of consensus anywhere. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 16:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

People keep pointing to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), but where does it say in there to misspell foreign names? It says to use English, and Jaromir Jagr is not English or a translation of the proper Jaromír Jágr in fact, if that was translated into English it would look more something like Yahroumeer Yagger obviously that's original research though, not to mention the fact that diacritics are far from being foreign characters. Also, there is no consensus anywhere, just because a few North American editors from a WikiProject who are baffled by correct spelling decide to use it sometimes, but misspell the words on other occasions, doesn't indicate consensus, and even if it did consensus can change.The Dominator^Talk_Edits 16:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The very first paragraph has several examples, including three names in which the English version differs from the original language. The most relevant would be the first one (Franz Josef Strauss), not Franz Josef Strauß. (Yes, that character is also down in the table below the editing box, just like all the diacritics that are not used in English, except in loanwords from other languages). It's not misspelling to omit the diacritics, just English usage. Please throttle back your rhetoric about those with whom you have a disagreement, as it's rude and borders upon personal attacks. Horologium (talk) 17:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Personal attacks? The worst thing I have said is that the people are North American (that's an insult?) and that they are baffled by them which is 100% and I could provide diffs, see my first post "swiggles, swirls and dots" is that not being baffled? I'd like you to note that the example you've provided is quite different as it is a common translation not just omitting the diacritics. Is it not the person who decides his name? My name contains diacritical marks and personally I'd be highly insulted if somebody wrote an encyclopedia article about me with the diacritics missing, and yes I would consider it a misspelling. Also, what's the point really? Jaromir Jagr redirects to Jaromír Jágr anyway. I've seen editors (not going to name) say that the diacritics are "overkill" on the Ľubomír Višňovský, this I view as highly offensive both to that person and to the language, objecting to the way a person's name is spelled? Not going to make any insults, but it took me a while to calm myself after I saw that highly offensive comment. And I'm sorry if I sound like I'm making personal attacks, but the way I feel is that this offends me, that's the fact of it, and frankly your definition of a personal attack is strange, a personal attack is "You are an idiot" or "Person X is a jackass", but this is not a personal attack: "The person's opinion is bullshit" (though pretty rude) and I don't really see how my saying that "consensus" was created by a few members of a WikiProject is a personal attack, I was stating fact, it's as if I said that you made a personal attack on me when you said that my comments border on personal attacks, and I don't take this accusation lightly. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 17:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Your current method doesn't seem to be working. Really, just try doing this gently, and over the long term. See how far that gets you. My own opinion: I can't understand why people don't want to use diacritics. I have two questions: 1) does "Jaromír Jágr" redirect to "Jaromír Jagr"? 2)How do you answer people how say that Jaromír Jágr's hockey shirt will not have the diacritic? Dan Beale-Cocks 17:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

{After EC)Some languages treat letters with diacritics as separate letters (see Diacritic#Languages with letters containing diacritics) and some do not. Czech appears to be one of the few Slavic languages which does not differentiate between letters with diacritics and those without. For Polish and Croatian, it's simple transliteration, since you wish to classify the German ß and the Polish/Croatian č as separate letters rather than diacritic variants. In fact, looking through the article I linked, almost all of the non-Latin European languages (and some of those too, such as Spanish with ñ) consider diacritic letters as separate letters. As to the "overkill" comment left by another editor, that is insensitive and a very poor choice of words, but does not negate the fact that few (if any) English sources will include all (or any) of the many diacritics in that name. As to the "personal attacks", identifying a group of editors as being baffled by diacritics is an insult. Horologium (talk) 18:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As someone who has argued for the usage of diacritics for a number of years now, you will not win in getting concensus to use them on all articles. The reason that guideline is there is that we had to find a way to stop the constant edit wars that were going on with people reverting each others edits. So in order to stop the waring a compromise was developed to try and make things simmer down. But there are enough strong opinions on both sides to never reach true concensus. What we currently have is not a consensus but a compromise to stop the constand reverting that was happening on hockey pages. As for your question on why North American pages don't have them and player pages do. It is because teams don't put diacritics on the jersey's of players. So it was an obvious place to make a compromise. If the league doesn't recognize them then pages refering to things about the league should not either. (Atleast thats what we compromised. As I stated I think they should be on all articles.) -Djsasso (talk) 18:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Djsasso, but what I'm trying to do, is take this to a whole new level, currently the status quo is to have them on player pages but not NHL pages, while this does make some sense (i.e. it isn't just a completely arbitrary way to have them sometimes, and sometimes not), but I still find it strange. I mean, we agree that obviously the person's name includes the diacritics, that's why we use them on player articles and world cup articles etc., but it's not like the person's name is different when they're playing in the NHL, so we just comply with what the jerseys say, and the jerseys are wrong, we can see that, or perhaps wrong isn't the correct word, they're not wrong in the sense that it's an error, just wrong in the sense that what appears on the jersey is not the player's name. So what I want to do is enhance consensus, moving away from a compromise to an actual solution and I want to hear more anti-diacritic arguments, so far I believe we've addressed them better than you've addressed our views. English sources don't use diacritics; counter argument to that is that the English sources aren't reliable for names. Jerseys use them, counter argument is that the jerseys are incorrect and simply omit the diacritics as a stylistic approach, same with some of the English sources. I'm sorry, but I believe that anti-diacritic arguments are just rather weak. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 18:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem, is that people DON'T agree that their names include them when in English usage. Remember this is an English wikipedia so depending what side of the fence you are on, english sources are reliable for spellings of names. I say they aren't but a good majority say they do. This isn't just a hockey debate, its been going on through all of wikipedia for years. And yes every so often someone comes along and tries again for a solution. And tempers flair up huge wars go on. And then people get upset and leave wikipedia permanently. This compromise was created in an attempt to stop losing good editors. In fact I think we are closer to a solution than the rest of wikipedia when it comes to these things. -Djsasso (talk) 18:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I've seen editors leave over more minor things, but sometimes a compromise is a good solution, and sometimes it compromises Wikipedia's quality. Also, think about this, 'ä' for example is completely different from 'a' and it isn't correct to add just the 'a'. That's like substituting 'B' for 'ß' because they look similar, it's just not correct, so the reason I'm trying to reopen this is because it introduces factual inaccuracies, no diacritics is not a translation and with diacritics seems "foreign" to some people, but policy says to use the native name if a direct English translation doesn't exist, which I believe is the case here. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 18:29, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Good luck. I hope you do succeed but I know there are enough editors out there who will never listen and always oppose this so you aren't likely to get far. I was just making sure you understood why the compromise was in place. Only reason I think we got as far as we did towards having diactritics at the hockey project was that we have alot of european editors. Otherwise the current concensus would most likely be no diacritics as almost all North Americans opposed them. -Djsasso (talk) 18:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Arguments

Here I'd like anybody to list arguments both for and against diacritics and anybody else to try and make direct counter arguments, focusing only on the exact argument made, no history, nos suggestions of compromises just simple arguments. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 19:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

You have stated that your issue with diacritucs is on articles relating to hockey. Please move discussion over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey, which is a more relevant forum for a focus on a single issue. Horologium (talk) 19:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think this is a hockey issue (whatever the motivation may be for its being raised). In many areas of WP you get people arguing about whether foreign words should appear with diacritics, and we ought to have some uniform principles to refer to. I don't know where the best place to discuss it is, but it's certainly not the Ice Hockey project.--Kotniski (talk) 19:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

That's the whole reason I started this, because a few people deciding something at 1 of many WikiProjects which it could effect doesn't solve anything. I am at the correct place, I am asking people to review a guideline and I wish to establish a seperate guideine regarding diacritics and especially diacritics in people's names. Plus I kind of started this subsection just for arguments relating to diacritics. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 19:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As others pointed out to you, this is a perennial proposal. Current consensus is that we go by the guidelines you've already seen. It's unlikely to change. If you really want to establish a separate guideline, write one. See if you can get it accepted. VP is good for feeling the waters, and I think you've seen that the waters on this subject are very rough indeed. The next step would be writing your proposed guideline, so we actually have something to give feedback on. -- Kesh (talk) 15:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Point taken, I'll write one when I have more time, should I try one that focuses on diacritics on Wikipedia in general or one that bases itself solely on hockey articles? The Dominator^Talk_Edits 22:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:HOCKEY has already reached a compromise, which Dominik92 disagrees with, thus the debate was brought to a more diverse forum. As far as arguments go, I'll simply echo what's been said many times in the past. This is the English Wikipedia, and diacritics are not part of the English language in most cases. As examples, the predominant spelling of players such as Dominik Hasek and Jaromir Jagr in English do not use diacritics. Frankly, I'd rather go the opposite direction of Djsasso, and remove all diacritics, except as a note in each individual's bio, but the compromise we've worked out at WP:HOCKEY is workable: North American articles don't use them, international articles do. Resolute 22:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, diacritics are much a part of the English language when it uses foreign words, the players' names are different, they're foreign and use diacritics therefore we should use the normal spelling with diacritics. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 02:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no. One only has to pick up any newspaper, magazine or book written in the English language to see that foreign language names are spelled using English translations. Or, as an example, A google search for "Dominik Hasek", restricted to English language websites yields 59,600 results. A search for "Dominik Hašek" yields 993 results. "š" is not a letter in the English language. Resolute 05:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't matter, 'š' might not be a letter, but it's part of his name, and translating it into 's' is incorrect, 'š' is not the same thing as 's', in fact it would be more properly translated as 'sh' though that is of course original research. And the English sources used are not reliable for names, if a source is reliable for something that doesn't mean you can consider it reliable for everything else. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 14:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

So, the NHL, NHLPA, ESPN, New York Times, TSN.ca, Globe and Mail, Rogers Sportsnet, etc., etc., etc. are all unreliable sources then? "Hašek" is the spelling of his name in Czech, not English. Your argument is akin to demanding that all instances of Alexei Yashin in the English Wikipedia be changed to "Алексей Яшин" Resolute 15:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

What is the policy on diacritics?

A case came up recently when the article 'Mihai Şuba' was moved to Mihai Suba. That cases is not interesting to be honest as the person in question is now British but would like to know the policy as sometimes occurs with chess players with diacritics in the name. SunCreator (talk) 14:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

RE to Resolute: Yes, those are all unreliable sources for names. 2. there is no spelling of Hašek in English, that's my whole point! And the example you used is rather weak, I think you know why, there's a difference between the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, the simple diacritics I'm advocating are part of the same alphabet as English. RE to Suncreator: The policy on diacritics is what we're discussing, there's no real policy, there's a lot of dispute over it, I don't know anything about the person you linked, but I guess it depends on whether he actually changed his name after he became British, if there's no evidence that he did so, I think it's more appropriate to have the original diacritical version. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 22:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind explaining why the New York Times (eg) isn't a reliable source for names? shoy 20:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Why would you consider it a reliable source for names? Where does it say in those articles "Dominik Hašek changed his name to Dominik Hasek"? The article is related to hockey, not naming, see my example above (rather bad one) for a lengthier reasoning. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 21:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the English language version of Wikipedia. The English alphabet contains 26 character, and includes no characters with diacritical marks, no pictograms, no ideograms. As much as you may wish it, English writers in general usage will transliterate words written in a foreign character set. Would you demand that writers of Arabic, Kanji, and other scripts use English characters for English names? How should articles on the Hindi Wikipedia refer to Dominik Hašek in the midst of their script?

We certainly have a convenience that the additional characters in a lot of European languages are easily depict-able and understandable to readers of the English WIkipedia. That means that on the pages for place and people names, we have the opportunity to legibly depict the name in its native language. But in general usage throughout the rest of the encyclopedia. it is perfectly appropriate that the common English spelling be used. (This is the same reasoning why there are entries for Tonys and entries for Anthonys even though they are the same name. The common usage prevails.) In English you saute, send your resume, and visit Zaire (even though the words are borrowed). Again, try to apply your reasoning to any non-Latin encyclopedia and see what kind of a mess we would have. Can we no longer refer to India, but must use भारत? --Marcinjeske (talk) 00:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The Dominator, Reliable Source does not mean a source you like, it does not mean a source you agree with, it does not even mean the source is right. One of the most common problems on Wikipedia is arguments over "truth" and "right". Wikipedia's general solution for preventing such arguments is to just dump the entire arguments over "truth" and "right", instead relying on Verifiable outside Reliable Sources. shoy's attempt at solution here is that, instead of engaging in a personal debate over the "right" or "true" way that names with diacritical marks should be treated in English, we look to third-party Reliable Sources. We instead look at how major mainstream reputable sources actually *do* use the English language and how they actually *do* handle such names. By absolutely any reasonable standard the New York Times is a top tier Reliable Source on the English Language, and in particular a top source on how foreign names are handled in English. The Google search was another prime example - a Google search on "Dominik Hasek" on English language websites yields 59,600 results, "Dominik Hašek" yields 993 results. It doesn't matter who is "right", it doesn't matter what we "should" do, it doesn't matter if we like it or not, the one thing we can agree on is the fact is that Verifiable Reliable Sources show that "Dominik Hasek" is the actual in-practice English rule, and that "Dominik Hašek" is at best a fringe occurence in English. Maybe that is wrong, maybe it is bad, maybe it is rude, but that is the Verifiable Reliable Source information out there. And as a rule Wikipedia bypasses "truth" and operates in a Verifiable Reliable Source universe, even if those Verifiable Reliable Sources are wrong. Sometimes that sucks, but it is a very effective way to resolve most HolyWars. Alsee (talk) 01:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Is signing required?

One user has suggested that signing (four tilde business) is totally voluntary. Surely this isn't true? —TreasuryTag—t—c 14:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is required, though it is needed for proper communications. If the user made a habit of not signing then they would likely get escalating complaints. Never really seen what happens when someone takes it to far. _(1 == 2)^Until 14:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

One really wouldn't gain much from not signing; people can still tell who said what if they trawl through the history. Bots will also sign for you in many places. SamBC(talk) 14:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Previous editor left out the fact that I do normally sign my posts and this was about second or third time I haven't and the very important fact that on on this occasion I did use 3 tidles and pointed out already to him I had made a mistake .Garda40 (talk) 14:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

That's nothing to do with it! You said that it is voluntary to sign posts. I said it wasn't... what more information is required? Anyway, did you know that under British law, it's legal to go up to someone in the street and say, "Would you like a slice of pizza?", and when they say yes, reply, "So would I!" but it's simply courteous not to do it... it's the same with signing. It's voluntary, but it's not voluntary. —TreasuryTag—t—c 14:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The very fact that it is possible to leave comments without even being logged in (or even having an account for that matter) makes it quite clear that signatures are not required, only requested as a courtesy for clarity of discussion. When many people are talking it is nice to be clear who said what so you can "connect the dots". -- Low Sea (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

After edit conflict

There is no such thing as voluntary but not voluntary .It may be rude not to sign ,you may keep saying to the user "sign your posts" but in the end it is not a rule ,guideline or whatever of wikipedia to sign it is simply being courteous to other editors .Garda40 (talk) 15:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

"There is no such thing as voluntary but not voluntary"... yes there is, and if you don't understand it, I've not got the energy to explain it to you. —TreasuryTag—t—c 15:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we can all agree that a signature helps people tell whose comment is whose and that not leaving a signature confounds this distinction. WP:SIG says it "is good etiquette and facilitates discussion by helping other users to identify the author of a particular comment", and that when someone does not sign that it is "a good idea to notify users, especially new users, that they should sign their comments". So take what you will from that, I would say the you should sign, but that we don't have a policy requiring it. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

People usually take the hint after getting {{unsigned}} appended to their comments a few times, anyway. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:37, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I've actually run into a few users who refuse to sign their comments, as a WP:POINT to try and force their idea that comments should automatically be signed by the Wikipedia software. Anyway, no, signing is not required but it's frustrating to other users who want to follow the conversation. IMO, not signing your comments goes against the spirit of improving the encyclopedia that Wikipedia was founded on. Collaboration is key to making this work, and making it more difficult for others to follow discussions/debates is disruptive. -- Kesh (talk) 15:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Not signing one's post also creates the impression that one is not assuming responsibility for what one has said, or that one is not fully supporting one's own words. This is not constructive in a discussion. Waltham, The Duke of 04:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It can also cause confusion, if for some reason an unsigned comment appears above a signed comment and both have the same level of indentation, then it will look like both were written by the same person (this has happened to me, where someone inserted a comment above mine and didn't sign it). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

To play devil's advocate... not signing could be beneficial if it helps people forget that they are arguing with other people and instead helps them focus on the content of the discussion. (You can imagine it for the brief period it takes the robots to catch this comment.) (Note to Admin: WP:POINT shouldn't apply here because I am not disrupting... I fully expect my comment to get signed.)

Looking for others to reduce unnecessary conflict and drama at source

• I'm looking for others that are interested in improving wikipedia policy, guidelines and other documents to increase harmony among editors and reduce or remove unnecessary conflict.
• It occurred to me there might already be such a team or wikiproject already.
• If your interested please let me know, if there is already something like this, let me know that also. :) SunCreator (talk) 14:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

You may have a look at Wikipedia:Mediation, at least for an effort to defuse conflicts. Arnoutf (talk) 16:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking to remove drama at source, not get involved in any conflict that happen. SunCreator (talk) 17:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Didn't look through your contribs so I don't know if you posted there already but to propose a WikiProject go to WP:WikiProject Council/Proposals. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 17:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, will check that out. SunCreator (talk) 17:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Harmonious editing club? Doesn't seem very active, though.--Father Goose (talk) 05:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Selfreferencing questions

1. If a selfreference has been deleted by another user, and then reinserted by a third, is it still a selfreference? Does WP:COI still apply and if so, in what way? What if the reference is again removed by a fourth user? And then reinserted by the original selfreferencer?
2. I've had it confirmed several times that there is no difference to Wikipedia between a reference and a selfreference when it comes to relevancy etc. However, some users keep insisting that selfreferences are by definition less relevant, or even by definition self-promotion (see my talk page). Has there been a change in policy since I went on Wiki-break?

Thanks, Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

By "selfreference" do you mean things published first-person (ie. by the subject)? If so, they are less reliable than independent sources, which does make them less relevant to the article. However, they are not totally disallowed. The rule is: any controversial facts must be backed up by independent, third-party sources. First-party sources can be used for non-controversial facts, but are not considered reliable if at all questionable.

As an example, I had cited Stephen King's own book On Writing as a source for the (oft stated) fact that his first novel, Carrie, was fished out of the trash by his wife. That fact had made its rounds in various magazines and books, but always as "it is said that…". In this case, the author himself confirmed it as a fact.

We have to be careful with doing that, as often primary sources are used for simple self-promotion. A statement by John Doe that he killed a dozen ninjas when he was 5 should be considered dubious, and only included in the article if it can be verified (or at least is referenced as legend) in the subject's article. -- Kesh (talk) 16:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kesh. What about my questions under (1)? Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright questions

If a source is used but not mentioned, does that constitute a copyright (or related) violation if there is no exact citation but:

1. the article contains a news fact (taken from the source);
2. the article contains a news report (reworded, but taken from the source);
3. the article contains a theory (reworded, but taken from the source);
4. the article contains a research result (reworded, but taken from the source)?

Thanks, Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The case is that Guido is trying to promote his own (unknown) books to articles. After that he calls eventual removal copyright violation and abuses every procedure he can find, to get his books mentioned in the articles, see here. In this case he didn't even add text to the article, he just added his books. At NL.wiki the arbcom took severe measures against him for this behaviour. We also determined the unimportance of his books. Now he discovered EN.wiki and continued his behaviour here. GijsvdL (talk) 06:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hence the questions. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violations could only conceivably occur in the first of the four situations you describe above. Copyright law protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. Hence, if it's reworded, it's usually not a copyright violation. - Mark 08:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that already helps some. I'm not talking about ideas though. I know that ideas aren't protected, two people can get the same idea. I'm asking about failure to mention a source. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Citing sources has little to do with copyright (except for moral rights). Perhaps you are thinking of plagiarism, which is an entirely different thing. - Mark 08:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm taking about the moral rights, which are quite a big issue in The Netherlands. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about European laws relating to moral rights. Sorry. In any event, European copyright laws are irrelevant here. The Berne Convention means that if you were to bring legal action against Wikipedia, it would be under US copyright law, regardless of where the copyright work was published (assuming it's a Berne country), due to the concept of national treatment. - Mark 08:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That's why I'm asking, I'd like to know what counts under US law regarding sources, whether listed under copyright or otherwise. Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyways at en.wikipedia the approach would be more or less along these lines:

Guido is "founder and owner" of Magnana Mu Publishing & Research, the publisher of his Chess books [6] [7] - at en.wikipedia this is "self-publication";

Most relevant policy at en.wikipedia would be WP:V, notably WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper), aka WP:SPS.

Which can be summarized along these lines, for the case at hand: if Guido is the only source on Amber tournaments 2, 3, 4 and 5: then this is below "notability" radar at en.wikipedia. If there are other sources (i.e. WP:RS sources), use these other sources for the content you want to see included in en.wikipedia. In that case, and if there is consensus, Guido's self-published sources maybe could be mentioned as "additional resources" or something along these lines in the tournament article. Note the "if there is consensus", I don't see that sort of consensus emerging yet (apart from the current lack of other RSes).

Yeah, indeed, the "copyright" approach would probably be a "red herring" here at en.wikipedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

With regard to the books mentioned, the need for other sources does not apply, since these are the official publications on behalf of the organization. (Before the books, there were round bulletins (also in part by me), but these only exist during the tournament.) So if the tournament itself is notable (which it is: it has an article), then so are the books. That said, this is not the place to discuss the books, I've already put the question on [Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard], patiently waiting for someone to show up. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Nope, notability is not inherited. If I write a book about the Eiffel tower, it does not get a Wikipedia page (well, not unless my book's kickass excellency has led to it being widely recognized by other reliable sources). As to the core question: Using an unacknowledged source is bad style and my be plagiarism. Unless substantial concepts (not facts - facts have no copyright protection) are lifted from the source, its not copyright violation, though. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If the owners of the Eiffel tower had asked you to write the official book about it, containing lots of information unavailable elsewhere, like its exact measurements, would it not be referenced in the Wikipedia article?

News facts are protected under Dutch law, with a special paragraph, that says that the source must be mentioned. Is that not the case under US law? (Also, under Wikipedia rules, how else are you going to verify the facts?) Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That is not a question of copyright. I understand your desire to have your books included, but please do not mix up the different arguments. No, "official" status is not automatically sufficient to include a source - in fact, often this may be a reason to not include the source. See WP:SPS. Often sources published by an entity or with the official blessing represent a particular point of view, not WP:NPOV. WP:V requires verifiability via reliable sources. If your book is the only such, then its doubtful that the event is notable (we usually require multiple independent reliable sources). Moreover, are you certain that your book is the only source for these facts? There is e.g. the website of the event, and I find about 250 hits on Google News and nearly 40000 on Google. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what a "News fact" is. But under US copyright doctrine, what is protected is the creative expression, not the facts expressed. See Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service for the important supreme court case establishing this. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah. I found the proper term. It's called Attribution (copyright). The article is quite clear, and seems to indicate that it is in fact part of US law. Guido den Broeder (talk) 10:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but it does not help your case. Attribution can make otherwise infringing use legal (e.g. for quotations, critical discussion, or parody). But reuse of facts is not infringing to begin with. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming that it is part of US law. I am not asking about 'my case' here, however. Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that Guido vandalized my comment above, I just restored it. GijsvdL (talk) 08:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia "Essays"

I am stunned on how much energy and time is spent by users creating "essays" on every concievable permutation of every topic relating to wikipedia and its policies. How many new essays are created every month and does anyone read them? I think all this time would be better spent writing articles and doing research rather than espousing political or policy views that don't really matter. I bet some people spend upwards of 90% of their time on here discussing policy and the percentage seems to be growing! JeanLatore (talk) 01:52, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, Jean, making this kind of post on the policy board is pretty likely to give people the impression that you're trying to wind them up. Just as a heads up, because everyone is a volunteer on this website, people can get annoyed if you tell them that the way they are spending their time is useless. It isn't useless to them/us. Darkspots (talk) 03:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Weirdly, many essays tell people that they're wasting their time and the edits they make are useless and they should be doing 'this' instead. Dan Beale-Cocks 12:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

You could write an essay about it! :D – Luna Santin (talk) 10:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

These essays and policies are what give Wikipedia a uniform look and set of standards. Without them, this place would be random mess. There are still enough people working in the mainspace, and the people spending time outside of it serve a purpose. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

There is much effort going into research, too. My biggest problem with essays is their poor categorization.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

In J. Latore's defence, I should like to remind Arctic Gnome that no mention of policies was made. The only complaint was about the essays, and, frankly, some of them are useless. However, I agree with Prokonsul Piotrus: the categorisation is the basic problem. Some people are trying to take care of this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Essay Categorization and/or Classification, for whomever is interested (although it doesn't look very active right now). Waltham, The Duke of 05:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

A fair number of essays help to document how Wikipedia's conventions and social dynamics work. The trick is picking the good ones out from the rants.--Father Goose (talk) 05:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

A WP Essay is like a white paper or a position paper. They help to provide insight into the thinking behind the policies and the debates which lead to policies. They are incredibly valuable to posterity and even to the current community. -- Low Sea (talk) 17:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Cooperation with fiction dedicated wiki encyclopedias

Many fiction articles are being created and deleted due to violation of our notability policies. That's a fact, whether one likes it or not. There is however some inefficiency here: there are quite a few wikis out there dedicated to creating encyclopedias on a given fictional series/verse/whatever. Yet while many of them could accept direct cut and paste copies of articles deleted on our project, we don't have an efficient way of finding out that they exist, notifying them that article of interest to them is about to be deleted, and transwikifying the content. This should be remedied somehow. Perhaps we should create a list of such fiction pedias by topic, each linked to a relevant category or main article on Wikipedia, and have some bot process that would update that list with 'this recently AfD/deleted article may be relevant to this project' (this could be possible with a little tweaking of User:AlexNewArtBot, for example). Thoughts? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but I think there is already a sytem for that in place. Check out Template:Move to gaming wiki. There is also a wiki dedicated to archiving all the articles that get deleted from Wikipedia, called Deletionpedia. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 21:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If we really wanted to solve the problem we should make our own wikiquote style site for it. en.wikifiction.org or something. I like to edit fiction articles, but I also like to edit non fiction articles. I'm not going to spread my work into other (add supported) wikis, but I do like to edit wikiquote and commons and wouldn't mind doing the same if it was part of the non profict wikimedia foundation. There must be some major reason this isn't done but don't know what it is. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 22:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I never really got it off the ground, or properly formatted the page, but this idea might fit nicely into WikiProject Transwiki. -- Ned Scott 04:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I've never used it, but I think transwiki is a great idea and wish it were implemented more prominently. It would be so much easier to simply move inappropriate fiction content to another wiki than to keep reverting or deleting extraneous text that some editors are attached to. Fritter (talk) 15:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think another aspect of this is that many of these fiction wikis are better positioned to provide full information on specific topics than Wikipedia is... for example, Plots. Currently, plots in Wikipedia are like a tug of war between brevity and completeness. A lot of the desire that drives this battle could be sated if our plot guidelines allowed or suggested that the Plot section begin with a hatnote:

"For a more complete description of the plot, see XXXXX at the XXXXXpedia."

The current guidelines for external links would frown on such usage. As long as this was limited to wikis with compatible approaches to Wikipedia, this might be a good result. I have in mind sources like Memory Alpha, Wookiepedia, and similar projects that aim to organize in encyclopedic fashion their area of fiction.--Marcinjeske (talk) 01:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

New article creation message

It was discussed once before in the Village pump but never actioned due to admin being on break. I'd like to raise this again and make some small amendments if consensus approves.

New article creation message currently in use:

• Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article, or search for an existing article to which you can redirect this title..
• To experiment, please use the sandbox.
• As you create the article, provide references to reliable published sources. Without references, the article may be deleted.

Proposed:

Before making your Wikipedia article: Read Wikipedia:Starting a new article. Provide references with reliable sources to show notability.

Reason that message needs to change and be clear and simple is due to the high number of documents created without either references or notability which later need to be speedy deleted or sent to Afd. Not small numbers apparently in 2007 over 1000 articles a day were deleted, two per minute. That's 39% of all articles created were subsequently deleted.

Rational for wording:

• Read 'Wikipedia:Starting a new article'. because wording cleaner then 'Your first articles' which implies ownership.
• Provide references with reliable sources to show notability. This sentence ticks all the boxes on references and notability without being complex.

I hope you support this, Please let me know your views. Anything to reduce the creation of two articles a minute which are later deleted has to be a step in the right direction. Regards SunCreator (talk) 18:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I oppose this new template -- it's condescending and authoritarian at the same time. JeanLatore (talk) 22:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it the stop image that makes it like that? Or is the reason a conflict of interest because you don't like to add notabilty to an article you create here and created today here? SunCreator (talk) 22:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Some comments about the current message: For technical reasons, an image does not work well in MediaWiki message boxes. The current message box is the result of discussions here, then at the MediaWiki Talk page. There was a delay because the admin who was involved early on went on break, but other admins did act later on so it's not quite accurate to say that it was "never actioned". Sbowers3 (talk) 22:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

What technical reasons please? I see only two comments by User:xaosflux in 'Newarticletext' and VPP' saying 'It is typically preferable not to use images in the interface messages.'

I see some changes where made to Newarticletext but not those from WP:VPP as given in the VP archives from December 2007. SunCreator (talk) 23:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I still think we would be better off giving lots of valuable, targeted information. Some people actually do read, and I think those who don't, wouldn't, regardless of size. Plus, it's much easier to say, after an article is deleted, "but didn't you read some of our requirements before posting the article? They were provided to you right on the create article page", when the page actually says something substantive. With or without the symbol (and I have never heard anyone detail exactly what is problematic about the symbol), below is my revision of the suggested language when last this was discussed and petered out (hidden to avoid clutter)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC):

Before creating an article, please read the notes below.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which means all information added: 1) must be verifiable through existing, published, reliable sources; 2) must be written from a neutral point of view; and 3) must not add any original research, in the form unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories.

In addition to complying with these three core content policies:

• Please read our introduction, our guide to first articles and take a tour through our tutorial.
• Understand that Wikipedia is not for advertising.
• Please do not write about non-notable people, bands, or websites.
• Please provide reliable sources—this is especially important if the article is about a living person. Any negative or contentious unsourced content in such an article will be removed. As a corollary, please note that attack pages are not tolerated.
• Please do not add copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material.
• If you are experimenting, please use the sandbox.
• Please look over the criteria for speedy deletion to make sure your article will not be speedily deleted.
• If you are re-creating an article, please see Why was my page deleted?.
• Questions about using Wikipedia can be asked at the help desk.

The shorter a message is, the more people will read it. Would you rather have a message with ten lines of information that maybe 1% of the editors will read, or a message giving the three most important points that 10% of the editors will read? --Carnildo (talk) 00:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth Fuhghettaboutit, I agree(BTW a different background colour would help greatly as white shows nicely in this talk page but not on the create page). Problem is getting consensus, as there seems to be a history of inaction to made the template look outstanding and clear. SunCreator (talk) 01:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd oppose this big scary red warning. Give the newbies a try. We have admins and patrol to handle the bad stuff. Voice-of-All 03:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It is precisely to give the newbies an opportunity that it is incumbent on the wiki community to convey clearly what is required. As I said above around 39% of articles created during 2007 where later deleted. It this something you feel is sensible? How many more newbies would you like to have bad experience because an article they started was deleted. Some get to show confusion Wikipedia:Help_desk#Soho_Housing_Association_speedy_deletion, while others will either attempt to cause drama on the site or walk away to be another person with a 'bad wiki experience' SunCreator (talk) 10:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I support this fully. To tell you the truth ive never even read all 10 lines of that text. Frankly its quite boring and most new editors would eaisly skip over just to get to article creation. The image is also quite a good idea for the reason is its flashy and it would draw your eyes to the new message banner(which being short people might read actualy). БοņёŠɓɤĭĠ₳₯є 21:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd also oppose, I agree with Voice-of-All. I'm not against making the message a bit clearer, the current one could be improved on, but I don't like the aggressive looking nature of this. (The big red warning sign isn't exactly encouraging). Couldn't it be made more friendly looking? I'm worried it will just scare of good editors, and it won't stop anyone from making articles without references or notability. If it were more friendly I'd be happy to support it :) Apis 23:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

• I support the change from "Wikipedia:Your first article" to "Wikipedia:Starting a new article". I think the Your first article page itself should be renamed and rewritten to eliminate language which implies ownership. Also, the message always appears, even when it is not the person's first article, right? That should be changed too. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 06:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the new simplicity, but one thing I would add... check if the article has been previously deleted. If so, include something along the lines of:

An article with the same name was previously deleted. Confirm that the reasons for deletion no longer apply.

I also noticed recently, when an IP editor complained to me that "their" article was deleted without explanation, that the page IP editors see when they hit a name for which no article exists ("go ask for it to be created") is different than what a signed in editor sees ("create it, but you should know it has been deleted before"). Fixing this difference could also help some with reducing the number of new article creations which are just going to get speedy deleted or otherwise. 18:18, 19 April 2008 Marcinjeske (Talk | contribs) Oops, unintentionally forgot to sign that --Marcinjeske (talk) 04:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG! has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG! (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Just noting that it is no longer a guideline. Captain panda 23:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Editorial tags should be restricted to the talk page

I know this subject has come up before but I would like to bring it up again because I think the editorial tags that clutter up the wikipedia detract from its readability and usefulness.

Editorial comments belong on the talk page. They are not content. Furthermore, I think putting these tags on pages violates the essential spirit of the wikipedia which is to contribute. If an editor thinks a page needs "cleanup" they should clean it up, not whine about it with a tag that just clutters up the page even more.

In all honesty you could put "needs references" on practically every single page in the wikipedia. There is always somebody who thinks information is not documented thoroughly enough (you should meet some of my university professors). If an editor thinks an article needs some additional documentation they should spend the 5 hours in the library satisfying their lust for authority instead of click-criticizing other people's articles with inadequacy tags.

There will always be whiners who are never satisfied with an article please make them put their blarny on the talk page and leave the content page for content. John Chamberlain (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I hate trying to sift through all the "citation needed"s and "this page may not be neutral" tags just to try and read an article. I think it would be better to simply discuss issues on the discussion pages since any of these tags are likely to be discussed anyway. However, I do think they serve a purpose to the reader, altering them to the issues a page may be having at the moment, such as neutrality issues and undocumented facts. But there has to be a better, less intrusive way. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 22:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I have some sympathy for that idea. Unfortunately many editors would rather just mark it article for deletion rather then put appropriate tags on it. 'Needs references' that you give as an example is one of the better tags, some others that are almost impossible to disprove are {{Original research}} or {{Unencyclopedic}}.

It seems the best we can hope for at present time is tags that clearly identify the reason and section involved so that the tag can be later removed with some assurance that the article meets the intention of the editor who added the tag. SunCreator (talk) 22:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

What is poor about the tag system is that new or inconsiderate editors ignore the guidelines and remove tags to clean up articles even when the tag still applies while considerate editors who abide by the guidelines leave them, only to have articles they are involved in look messy. SunCreator (talk) 22:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I like to see the tags, because I like to know when I am reading something that isn't a consensus. They're a reminder to readers that Wikipedia is an ongoing process, and no article is ever really finished. I think that's important. Also, I started editing Wikipedia after reading it for a long time, because I thought I could address the problems in the warning tags. If you're just a reader and you see a tag for something you can fix, you think "Hey, I know about this; I can fix it" and you are prompted to become an editor. I can't say my editing is going well at the moment, but I still think the tags are a part of the "anyone can edit" spirit. Life.temp (talk) 22:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well let's say it again: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Unreferenced, unverified content (which if written in any detail is always chock full of errors when actually examined to source) should not be foisted on anyone as proper content. It must not give the appearance of proper content. I think tags should be made bigger and louder: THIS ARTICLE CITES NO SOURCES AND IPSO FACTO SHOULDN'T BE RELIED ON AT ALL! I'm exxaggerating a little but it is crucial we keep these flags flying.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

As an editor is it not better to remove unreferenced or unverified material example here, rather then put in tags that don't identify which bit is unreferenced or unverified anyway. SunCreator (talk) 23:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the circumstance. If an entire article or section looks like it's probably pretty factual but includes no references, it should be tagged with {{unreferenced}}. If a section is unreferenced and looks suspect or otherwise unhelpful, it should be deleted. If an article is reasonably-cited but there are specific assertions that are uncited and not self-evident, they should be tagged with {{fact}}. Regardless, though, I agree with Fuhgettaboutit that these tags are valuable to the reader (as distinct from the sort of tag that is currently confined to talk pages, which are valuable primarily to editors). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

(to SunCreator) Indeed it is. But you must have done a where's waldo search to find that article. By contrast, I hit the random article button a few times and find Buffalo (drinking game). This is what we are drowning in, not featured articles hit by a drive by editor.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

No search required, high on my watchlist :) I accept your point however, there is a far more rubbish about. Sometimes I wonder if tagging is part of the solution or part of the problem, if the tag doesn't make it clear what is required to fix the article, how is adding the tag actually contributed to it's fixing? Some tags are useful while others in my view are wasteful and counterproductive. SunCreator (talk) 00:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I think the use of tagging is less to draw the attention of editors to what needs fixing, and more to draw the attention of the reader to what assertions he/she should or shouldn't be trusting. If they were designed primarily to draw editors' attention to things that needed fixing, then the talk page would be a perfectly appropriate place for them. Since most of them are for the benefit of readers (although that's not true of {{uncategorized}}, {{orphan}}, {{deadend}}, and their ilk), they should stay in the article. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 01:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I should say that tags are useful in both capacities (notifying readers and editors). Even though talk pages are naturally better for describing problems in detail, editors must be somehow drawn to these descriptions first; people generally cruise through articles, not talk pages. Waltham, The Duke of 04:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not disputing the usefulness of the tags. I am saying (1) the usefulness of the tags is outweighed by the negative clutter value they have to the majority of readers, and (2) the talk page is a more logical place to put the tag.

FOLLOWUP: I just saw the new "Page Under Construction" tag. Unbelievable. This is exactly what is wrong with the Wikipedia tag system. "Under Construction" notices are a classic example of bad page design and all HTML editing guides emphatically warn amateur web page creators from using "Under Construction" notices, yet here we are putting this clutter on thousands of Wikipedia pages despite years of professional editors warning against it. I realize that the Wikipedia policy board does not have professional editors on it, but seriously they should at least read Strunk & White so they have some clue about good practices. Wikipedia editorial policy seems to be turning into amateur hour. Too many cooks? John Chamberlain (talk) 21:10, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

If you're referring to {{underconstruction}}, it's used in about 150 of Wikipedia's 6,828,345 articles, most of which are undergoing active editing. It's not something I'd worry about. --Carnildo (talk) 02:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

If the matter is of the various quality, references, wikify, notability tags that get put on articles and sections, I would argue they are definitely useful. For readers, they mark the content as incomplete and by contrast imply the higher quality of articles which do not feature any tags. They encourage readers to become editors by saying "yeah, you can fix it". For editors, I think it would be safe to say that an editor does not check the talk page unless they already plan to edit the page or are involved in a discussion on that page. The tags serve as flags to grab editors attention. As to the motivation of editors placing the tags - while an editor may notice lack of references or other issues, not every editor is in a position to correct the problem... they use these tags to communicate with other editors, particularly in the early stages of an article where the creators may be active, and to serve as very obvious reminders of where the problem are in the article. They are a vital and useful tool for shuffling through all this information. --Marcinjeske (talk) 01:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Flagged Revisions

Above at another discussion (sprotect all articles) a user talked about Flagged Revisions. On its page there is very little explication (in lay terms) what that policy or programme will do. Can anyone explain it to me? And is this in use already (the art. was from 07)? And where can we discuss it moreJeanLatore (talk) 22:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Flagged revisions, it is not in use, but you can test it at test.wikipedia.org. Prodego ^talk 01:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Intelligent Design equated to Creationism - point of view or Wiki-principle?

I'm not interested in opening the debate, just to understand if it has been closed. I have been told that equating intelligent design with creationism is not a point of view but a principle of the Wikipedia somehow related to the WP:NPOV policy. Was this ever declared as a principle. And if so, where?

Who or what on the Wikipedia has the power to declare such applications of policy as principle? patsw (talk) 01:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

What you were told is not that equating intelligent design with creationism was a principle of Wikipedia, but that reflecting "overwhelming support" by the scientific community in articles was a principle of Wikipedia, which indeed it is (per Wikipedia:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 01:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I think I've found the source of your confusion: when Filll referred to "overwhelming support", he didn't mean the overwhelming support of Wikipedia editors, but rather of the scientific community. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 01:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience does not mention either, its application to intelligent design and creationism would need to argued not merely asserted as well as assigned into one of those four categories for a start. The size of the scientific community not dismissing intelligent design as pseudoscience is another topic.

Sarcasticidealist, are you agreeing with me that it is not a Wikipedia principle to equate intelligent design with creationism? For the sake of argument, both may be fringe science, but are they identical fringes? patsw (talk) 01:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're creating a false dichotomy: it is a policy that substantial deference should be given should be given to academic consensus. It is alleged (and appears to me to be well-supported, although I'm outside my area of expertise, here) that scientific consensus holds that intelligent design is creationism. Therefore, it is an application of policy that Wikipedia should treat one as the other, while allowing for an explanation of dissenting views. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

That holding is a rhetorical position made in op-ed and other works of advocacy for Darwinism. I would grant the scientific consensus rejects intelligent design, but not that the consensus holds it is identical in a scientific sense to creationism. I think you are creating a false conflation: intelligent design is false, creationism is false, therefore intelligent design is identical to creationism. Even its critics refute intelligent design and creationism differently. patsw (talk) 02:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Go argue that elsewhere. All I'm saying is that if scientific consensus holds this (and Filll's explanation on this appears quite credible to me, although again, I'm outside my area of expertise), then Wikipedia should treat the subjects as being identical, while acknowledging and explaining minority POV. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

By far the overwhelming majority of the experts in this area acknowledge that intelligent design=creationism. This covers a wide range of experts, from both the creationist and the mainstream scientific and academic communities, and is well supported by multiple peer-reviewed publications, as well as the opinion of a US federal court. It is also supported by multiple primary sources from the intelligent design community itself, including the Wedge document and public pronouncements of Philip E. Johnson and others. So in those cases, NPOV states that we represent the views in proportion to their prominence. The only significant group that claims intelligent design is not creationism is a small lobbying group that does so for reasons to try to trick the US legal system, and attempt to deceive the US judiciary, but only when they make statements for public consumption, not when they are trying to appeal to their base and to raise money. So far this strategy has not worked, and appears to be getting abandoned. The Expelled movie is an example of this strategy being partly abandoned because they have been associating intelligent design with the existence of God.--Filll (talk) 02:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Is the short version that anyone making a distinction between intelligent design and creationism attempting to deceive and misrepresenting either intelligent design or creationism? Is your evaluation of their intent part of the science of which you speak as well? patsw (talk) 02:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I have no idea what you are talking about. It is Wikipedia policy to go with the views in proportion to their prominence. It is clear that intelligent design is creationism in reference after reference, source after source, in the scientific literature, in the academic literature, in peer-reviewed publications, in assorted intelligent design documents, in the decisions of a US federal court and in the creationism literature. You want me to bury you with references? This is beyond silly. If you want to argue the contrary, get yourself a few million dollars together and win a lawsuit stating the contrary. Then, Wikipedia will change how they represent this. But this argument is not one for Wikipedia until that point. We report what is found in the most reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each view, and in the most reliable sources, without a doubt, intelligent design is creationism.

The only people that claim the opposite are those who claim intelligent design is not creationism for legal and political purposes on Monday, and then claim the opposite Tuesday when they are talking to a religious body or trying to raise money. All their arguments and positions are indistinguishable from those of creationists. And then on Wednesday, an internal document from these same people appears that shows that privately, intelligent design is not distinguished from creationism. And then they lose a court fight where one of the conclusions of the court is that they are lying when they claim intelligent design is not creationism. So they are not particularly credible on this issue. So, by Wikipedia policy, it is very clear what should be done.

You can either try to change Wikipedia policy, or you can try to win a court battle and get the next court to reverse the previous court decision. Or you can just accept the status quo.--Filll (talk) 15:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I basically agree with this, but I think one issue is a tendency to almost pounce on this issue, without adequately explaining why it matters (which is as Filll suggests almost entirely for political and legal reasons, not having to do with science). That much, I think, is pretty well accepted. However, it doesn't make a lot of sense to simply state as fact that they're the same, if only because the average reader won't know what that means. If we're raising the issue, I think the right approach is to explain that this is generally regarded as a religious theory, even though its proponents sometimes suggest otherwise, or to explain whatever other issues with the comparison may arise. Mackan79 (talk) 02:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, we should be clear that ID is not equal to creationism in the strict sense, but rather is one instance of it. Thus, "ID is (a form of) creationsim" is true, but "creationism is ID" is not. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

No, ID is not a form of creationism. Creationism is shorthand for Biblical Creationism, the belief that the Genesis account of creation is how it really happened. ID says nothing about that at all. ID simply says that the universe (or some of the things in it) show signs of having been designed. ID is compatible with creationism (at least old earth creationism), but it is not creationism. ID is also compatible with evolution, but it is not evolution. NCdave (talk) 03:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience is not applicable, because ID is not pseudoscience, according to Wikipedia's definition. Here's the relevant section from Wikipedia's official policy:

The ArbCom ruled that the following should generally not be characterized as pseudoscience:

• Questionable science: "Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized."
• Alternative theoretical formulations: "Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process."

It is thus incorrect to characterize ID as pseudoscience in Wikipedia articles, and incorrect to apply policies that are based on such a characterization. We all know that ID has a following[8][9] within the scientific community. It matters not whether that following is tiny or large, for the purpose of Wikipedia's definition of "pseudoscience." The fact that ID has a following in the scientific community means that means it is not pseudoscience. NCdave (talk) 03:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Ronald Numbers is an agnostic, a very prominent critic of ID, a past president of the History of Science Society, and the author of the most widely cited history of creationism (which Salon magazine calls "probably the most definitive history of anti-evolutionism"). But he says that the claim that ID is creationism "doesn't hold a lot of water." Here's what he told Salon:

Salon: More recently, we've had the intelligent design movement. I know some people just see this as a new version of creationism, stripping away all the talk about God and religion so you can teach it in the schools. Is that true?

Dr. Numbers: There's a little bit of evidence to support that. But I think that both demographically and intellectually, it doesn't hold a lot of water. The intelligent design leaders are people, by and large, who do not believe in young earth creationism.[10] NCdave (talk) 04:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I intended this to be a meta-discussion that equating intelligent design with creationism is not a point of view but a principle of the Wikipedia somehow related to the WP:NPOV policy. I'm ready to conclude that for some editors big science is a non-arguable force majure that gets deployed at the discretion of editors. I disagree with it, of course, but I see the design behind it as clever means of promoting a point of view to the exclusion of others. I concede. patsw (talk) 04:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment. The village pump is not really the place for this kind of discourse. Anyone is welcome to discuss their issues on the article's talk page. If people cannot peacefully reach an agreement, there are people who can help. If anyone intends to stump in favor of one POV or another, there are other places for that. Vassyana (talk) 04:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiNovel

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:TimAlderson/2019

Am I missing something here? - jc37 02:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

An explanation why you posted to the VP about this? -- Kesh (talk) 02:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Free publicity, what else?... Waltham, The Duke of 04:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

How does an essay become elevated to a guideline ?

This is a procedural/how-to question related to establishing policy ... I have found a WP essay written by another I feel has great potential to make an excellent guideline (or even policy) and I would like to know the correct process for doing that. I am certain there is a need for consensus building but where does that discussion take place and how are people made aware of the discussion at all? -- Low Sea (talk) 06:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Simply start a discussion on that essay's Talk page. Usually a brief notice here on the VP that you're starting the discussion, with a link to the Talk page, will be enough to get some people talking about it to reach a consensus. -- Kesh (talk) 21:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How to create policy is a helpful read. Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 03:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

How can you give Nazi's a page?

I am offended by them having a page, this is not due to personal disagreements but rather due to the fact that many of my ancestors were killed by them. This is an honest question please answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.87.216 (talk • contribs)

• Encyclopedias contain articles on bad people. Encyclopedia articles do not exist in order to promote, or demote, someone's standing in history. They exist to provide information on historical figures, good or bad, honorable or evil. If you look into any general-purpose encyclopedia, you will find an article on Adolf Hitler, because there is no denying his impact on world history, even though his actions, ideas, and policies are and were thoroughly despicable. Trying to remove information about such people is like trying to rewrite history, pretending it didn't happen, and that does not in any way further Wikipedia's aim to be a source of information. Nor does it further the cause against anti-semitism, nazism, and tyranny. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Wikipedia is not censored, and it would be a very poor encyclopedia that would omit a major period of history. Resolute 15:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Perhaps the best argument: George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --David Shankbone 16:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Also, incidentally related, information I brought home from the US Holocaust Museum says very clearly: talk about what you've seen. One of the best ways to talk about it is to document it. Having a page here isn't intended to be an honor, but a record. Some records are good, some are bad, and some are - let's face it - both bad and good (that's obviously not the case here, but I can think of certain pop stars...) - Philippe 16:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Frankly removing anything in the encyclopedia that anyone is "offended" by... doesn't really make much of an encyclopedia. Humanity, for instance, would be the first article to be deleted.--WaltCip (talk) 16:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• I wonder if the reader is asking about an encyclopedia article (which will be kept) or a user page (which will probably be BALEETED and the user blocked). It's probably the former, but there's a small chance it's the latter. Dan Beale-Cocks 16:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• To be honest, I'm not convinced this is a good-faith request. See this edit just four minutes before this section was started and also see the account's previous edits. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• It makes sense; only an Evil Army could stand against the mighty Nazis. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 05:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with all the points raised above. If one should be stricken off Wikipedia, that would probably be Herostratus. But we are not bound by 2,000-year-old legal rulings here, are we? (evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 17:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• I imagine you are opposed to the practice of Holocaust denial; in order for us to document what the Holocaust was, we need to document, among other things, who the Nazis were and what they did.--Father Goose (talk) 04:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright laws for text

I recently made a series of edits in the Second Chechen War article. my edits. A user ended up reverting all of my edits because he said I was breaking copyright laws. I'm almost positive that I have not. I copy/pasted a couple very small sentences/half sentences that present statistical facts, and the one large paragraph I added wasn't a copy paste at all, but a collection of factual information completely reworded from the referenced article. You can see the user "warned" me on my talk page after I reinserted and re-re-worded the larger paragraph. Is he wrong or should I start getting ready for a 6-12 month vacation? LokiiT (talk) 17:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The other user should not have reverted all of your edits, just the ones (s)he deemed problematic. However, (s)he was right that at least one sentence, "Russian Interior Ministry statistics showed that up to 1,300 people had been kidnapped in Chechnya between 1996 and 1999" is directly taken from the source that you listed. This is plagiarism (you can't take someone else words in whole or part unless that work is in the public domain). You can either find a way to reword the paragraph and paraphrase the information or quote it. Karanacs (talk) 18:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I went back and looked at your talk page conversation about this, and I think I see where you got confused. It looks like you were referring to the guideline's phrase: " limited use of copyrighted material can be done without requiring permission from the rights holders for such things as scholarship and review". Yes, you can use copyrighted text, BUT it must be quoted and sourced so that there is never any question whose work it is. Without the caveat in the guideline, we'd never be allowed to quote from anything. I hope this helps! Karanacs (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Well, I did source it so anyone can click the citation and view the original, are you saying I need to quote it as well? Will this suffice instead? LokiiT (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

If the article uses someone else's actual words, and not just the idea, then you do have to use quotation marks. Your reword is better, but I'd paraphrase it a little more, maybe along the lines of "Betwen 19916 and 1998, approximately 1,300 people were kidnapped in Chechnya, according to figures provided by the Russian Interior Ministry." Karanacs (talk) 18:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

False citations

What does one do if there is concern that an editor had made false citations in a potential Featured Article, and has then prevaricated more blatantly in his defense of the citation. (In other words, if there is evidence of both.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Bring the citation concerns up on the talk page or at the FAC nomination. If the information cannot be verified, it should be removed from the article. (In order to verify it, you may have to order books through inter library loan or gain copies of journal articles, depending on what type of source it is.) Karanacs (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

How do you know it's a false citation? You should start with assuming good faith from the other editor. SunCreator (talk) 19:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The last time I dealt with someone using false citations, I knew they were false because I had the book in question open in front of me, and the page they were citing was on a totally different subject. It's hard to assume good faith when you've got proof that the person is lying to you. --Carnildo (talk) 19:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The book is a little known book unavailable in the West, but I was able to get the content on Google books. Please see Wikpedia rules broken? Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Be aware with books that you can have the same page saying two different things with different editions. Recommend that edition, year of publication and ISBN is checked. SunCreator (talk) 20:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, all the information on the book in various catalogs is about the 1980 edition (one that I have looked at). I have now requested information about this 2001 edition (please see: ISBN for 2001 edition), and am awaiting a response. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Two People/Same Name

I was going over the history of Guns N Roses and then wiki'd over to Hollywood Rose and was curious to see how that was covered. I saw my friend Jimmy Swan had been included in the article as he should and when I clicked the link I got a totally different person. Same name, but different person.

Fast forward to today and he has posted a message asking how to get that flaw fixed. I told him I would look into it.

How is the istance of two people with same name handled?

Thank you very much.

--Qwiksilver (talk) 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Qwiksilver, two people with the same name, if they both have articles here (or merit articles), are usually solved with a disambiguation page. Are there two Jimmy Swan articles? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

So far there is only one Jimmy Swan. I need to look at the disabiguation page to see how I can use it to redirect to the correct one after I get the correct one written. Thank you for jogging my memory about disambiguation.

--Qwiksilver (talk) 22:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

User Talk Page

I recently proposed the following change to WP:User talk page. Another user disagreed so I have brought it here:
I suggest changing the fact that users may remove warnings to:
Users may remove incorrect warnings instantly, but correct warnings can be deleted after a period of 31 days. It is preferred that a record of blocks be kept but this is not necessary.
Or similar. What does anyone else think? George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 22:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Blocks for vandalism should not be removable from a User Talk Page. Such Block notices could function as a criminal record. If that editor again commits vandalism, it should be easy for everyone to know that such an editor is a repeat offender. SMP0328. (talk) 01:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree--the greater good here is letting users have control over their user talk page. Block messages can stay up for the duration of the block, then get removed by the user at their discretion. The custom is that the removal of a warning is an acknowledgement of having read the warning. Darkspots (talk) 01:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Users are allowed to remove warnings from their page. Removing them is considered acknowledgment that they have been read. I don't see any real point in attempting to force users to leave them on the page for an arbitrary amount of time. -- Kesh (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, as a vandal fighter - I don't have time to check the page history for warnings this month just so I know which level to give them. If somebody has a better proposal, it would be very welcome. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 08:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I would use great care with that statement Dendodge. Saying you do not have time to do what is right is like a judge saying he does not have time to review the applicable law. A slippery slope which leads away from WP core principals. Perhaps a better analogy is police officers who arrest criminals. Yes, they probably could "catch more bad guys" if they didn't have to fill out arrest reports afterwards ... but policework is not only streetwork, it also is officework. I don't think you realize that what you are proposing is like asking suspects to complete their own arrest reports, and if they fail to do so then charge them with the additional crime of not doing your work for you.

It's not all bad news however. What you could do is ask for a bot to be created (for use by all "vandal fighters") that could extract the warning history for you. Bots are good at drudge tasks and they do not require making policy changes or the cooperation of the offenders. -- Low Sea (talk) 16:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds great! If someone could program that (I didn't even understand how to set up Python, so I can't) it'd be perfect! I'll put in a request now. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 17:18, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

When placing warnings, use adequate edit summaries. If you do that, page history is one click away, and gives you a perfectly good date-sorted overview of previous warnings. If you do not use adequate edit summaries, you get what's coming to you. ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC) In fact, you should always use good edit summaries, not just when placing warnings. ;-)

This is just going to hurt people who are here to build an encyclopedia but end up revert warring and getting blocked for 24 hours, but otherwise abide by the rules - now they have to keep the 3RR warnings on their talk page for a month? While the users it is supposed to affect, vandals, are going to continue not caring about any of our rules (having a rule against vandalism sure doesn't do much to stop it) and continue to remove the warnings. The only difference will be that vandal patrollers will have a reason to revert them. Mr.Z-man 17:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I was totally opposed to that, why are you replying to me? :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, Mr Brunning, one does not necessarily suffer by one's own inadequate summaries; although I am not involved in vandal-fighting affairs, it is quite obvious to me that vandals are not the responsibility of specific patrollers, or at least not always. If all could write helpful summaries, that would be good, but not all do, therefore summaries are unreliable. Waltham, The Duke of 10:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

My summaries are all the default Twinkle ones. I've put in a request for a user script. ...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 10:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle is popular and useful, but there is no requirement for all administrators to use it, so I guess some of them don't. As I said, I don't think we cannot rely on everyone's writing good summaries. Waltham, The Duke of 12:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I've requested a user script, which - if created - would alleviate most of your concerns and allow for the page to stay how it is. ...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 12:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Waltham: So whack the people who don't put nice edit summaries :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC) You could even make a nice template for it!

Wiki Project biography

Is it just me or does the "Wiki Project Biography" icon guy (with hair falling down,and tie) look like Adolf Hitler? I know not a true likeness since the face isn't delineated, but the image just reminds one of Hitler. Take a look and you'll see what I mean. Is there something we should or could do to address this? JeanLatore (talk) 03:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It's Image:Crystal personal.svg. You can post to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography if you want to change it. I don't think the village pump should decide which image a WikiProject uses unless there is a serious problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Without the moustache, that cannot possibly be Hitler. --Carnildo (talk) 05:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen Hitler in blue. Waltham, The Duke of 10:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

spam protection filter: too zealously?

Hello,

I tried to save a new version of Beagle conflict and got following message:

... The following link has triggered our spam protection filter: http://www. la nacion . com

Either that exact link, or a portion of it (typically the root domain name) is currently blacklisted. ...

La Nación is really fundamental as source for many articles over Argentina and I can't believe that "La Nacion" is sending spam.

Can any Admin checks the reason?

Bye, --Keysanger (talk) 07:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Report this at Wikipedia talk:Spam blacklist. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 08:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It's actually blocked at meta:Spam blacklist probably under nacion dot com - I'll go and see if we can get the rule reconfigured. x42bn6 Talk Mess 11:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Listed, obviously can't link it here as it is blacklisted and the url is the section link, but see [11]. x42bn6 Talk Mess 11:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed on Meta - apologies for the inconvenience --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Overcategorization/User categories has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Overcategorization/User categories (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Move-protect policy pages?

Per this round of vandalism page moves, which apparently weren't such simple things to fix, perhaps move-protecting policy pages would be a good idea, unless we can come up with a better method of reverting moves. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:57, 17 Apr 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should move-protect nearly all pages or at least all FAs and policy pages, if a move was badly needed an admin could move them, legitimate moves don't happen that often do they? The Dominator^Talk_Edits 22:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, when you legitimately do need to do a page move, having to go through the bureaucracy of an admin request is as bothersome as having to do {{editprotected}} requests. Move-protecting policy pages seems prudent to me -- but not guideline pages unless there's a demonstrable problem. FAs? Mayyyyybe. You should probably do a requested move on an FA anyhow.--Father Goose (talk) 06:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Be cruel

I'd like to put a new guideline up for discussion: Be cruel. It is actually not new, but a translation of the German guideline/help page de:Wikipedia:Sei grausam, which seems to be accepted on the same level as AGF and the likes. The dutch and slovak wikipedias have also adopted this useful concept. --Dschwen 22:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I made a few minor copyedits. I think this has the potential to be a useful companion to things like WP:AGF and WP:NOSPADE, though you may have an uphill battle here. MastCell ^Talk 22:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Right now there seems to be neither hill nor battle, just mostly indifference. Thanks for the numerous copyedits though (by you and other users)! --Dschwen 18:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

American

Input would be appreciated at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#American. Question regarding use of "American" to describe persons from the United States. – Luna Santin (talk) 22:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

UberScience...UberBoring - too prevalent on wikipedia

Okay - Wikipedia wants to be an encyclopaedia that covers everything. But please - can we hold back some on the uberscience spouting forth way too early on too many articles? Science is already the new religion, but please can we stop it overcoming easy reading and easy access to information, which should be an encyclopaedias foremost aim?

Cant the UberScience squad be relegated to a sub-section of article structure? For example: introductory explanatory section, followed by 'The Science' or something like that, so that normal human beings who dont want technicalities and scio-pedantica (yes, i made that term up) shoved down their throats every time we want to casually browse wikipedia? It would make the information far more accessible to a broader range of people.

i find it occurring way too often on wikipedia. And i do mean even on terms which may be considered scientific. It may surprise the scio-pedantics, but some people just want casual, plain english explanations and understandings. They REALLY dont want, or, very importantly, need, to be overloaded with techno-babble in the opening paragraphs and laden with complex diagrams etcetera etcetera in the top third of the page, regardless of its accuracy (how about a simple picture first, complex detail second?). And yes - i do mean even when referring to organic compounds and scientific items.

I know attention to detail is the pet-love of science, but it is possible to retain the attention to detail but in plain english, and then unlease the full force of the scientific mind a little later, when the lay person has already more-than-likely got what they need from the basics.

the structure suggested above allows all the current information to remain, but puts it in a specific section of article structure, meaning people can access information, and be able to read it comfortably and share it with non-scio-pedantics without being overwhelmed with oft-unecessary information.

What say ye all?— Preceding unsigned comment added by The Living Stone (talk • contribs) 00:09, April 18, 2008 (UTC)

• First, science is not a religion. Second, your essay here has very rude language that isn't exactly going to win people over. Finally, you don't actually give any examples of the problem, just vague generalties. If the science is too technical, there are places like the Simple English Wikipedia that make it a lot easier to digest. Wikipedia is supposed to be encyclopedic, so it's going to be detailed, and science articles are rather easy to verify. -- Kesh (talk) 01:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

First point taken, though i would not be the first to suggest such a thing. Second point - It wasnt meant to 'win people over', it was meant to make a point, but i have edited out a sentence or two you may have been upset by, since that wasnt my intention - I may be the first to mention this, but im fairly certain im not the first to feel it - perhaps i voice the frustration of many? My point is that 'encyclopaedic' doesnt have to mean 'scientific paper', which is what many wikipedia articles seem to have become. If you had not taken offense, you would have seen that I suggested retaining all content, but altering the structure to make wikipedia more welcoming.

Here are my examples (though my frustration has been accumulating over time over various articles, this is my first comment).

I was explaining to my sister and niece about why chocolate makes her (my niece) hyper and then grumpy. I was explaining about caffeine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine) and theobromine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine) found in chocolate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate). Lets look at the caffeine example first: Paragraph one follows my complaint above, opening with an off-putting "Caffeine is a bitter white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a psychoactive stimulant drug and a mild diuretic (speeds up urine production)[2] in humans and other animals." The remainding paragraphs are far more approachable, but my niece (and even my sister), had they been unsupervised, would never have got to them because they would not have even got to the end of the first sentence without assuming the whole article was going to be beyond their reach and going elsewhere. The theobromine article offers very little in the way of approachability when a very nice paragraph could have been written about its history and its effects on, and use by, humans eg centred around the roots of its name as 'food of the gods' and the use of its primary carrier, the cacao/cocoa bean as being actual currency to the ancient mesoamericans because of its constituent drugs and their uses of it, and the following uses of it around the world. The chocolate article is handled much more approachably, simply because scio-speak has been kept managed, but it does not give enough detail on its primary components which make chocolate what it is - namely caffeine and theobromine. Just because these are 'drugs' it doesnt mean they need to be written about as science papers.

My intention was not to cause offense, but to raise what i feel is a highly relevant point - If wikipedia is going to come up first-page on most search engines for most subjects, shouldnt approachability be priority? There is no loss of quality or content with this, only a careful attention to structure. Lets look at the caffeine opening sentence again - what does that actually tell us? Its bitter. its white. Its a drug. crystalline-xanthine-alkaloid-diuretic are not informative terms to the vast majority of people, despite scientific accuracy, and instead of informing, they put off. Caffeine is a bitter white drug ...discovered by (the following sentence leading in). There is no loss of basic infomation, even 'psychoactive and 'diuretic' could be left in for extra detail, but that information is enough for the vast majority of enquirers, along with the remainder of the article. The scientific technical terms only inform the minority of searchers, and most of them already have alternative resources where this information is readily avaialable - non-scientists do not. All I am suggesting is that instead of getting first-dibs on the article, the technicalities should be put in a technical sub-section. All enquirers would have access to exactly the same information, is just that no-one would be put off, whereas just now, i am sure they are. These articles are just small examples, but they are not isolated, just prevalent in my attention. i am happy to return here with a vaster list if its required, but the only point im suggesting is one of structural re-consideration for editorial guidelines. --The Living Stone (talk) 02:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate where you are coming from. Unfortunately, one resource cannot be all things to all people. If you look at Encyclopedia Britannica for example, they have at least 6 levels of encyclopedia products, covering people from 5 or 6 years of age up through postgraduate level. Wikipedia does the same. We start with Simple English Wikipedia. We then have some Introductory articles; still very few, but we are working on it (see [12] andWikipedia:Make technical articles accessible). Then WP:LEADs are supposed to be more accessible. Then the main body of the Wikipedia general articles, and finally the LEADs and bodies of the more detailed and sophisticated Wikipedia articles on more narrow topics. We do not have as many levels yet as EB, and we have a long way to go before we are as organized, but people are aware of the problem and are trying to slowly address it with a limited number of volunteer resources. Also, I might point out that even though I and some of my colleagues believe in accessiblity, I cannot "dictate" this; I have to fight for it. It can be a viscious bruising brutal fight to make articles accessible, and I do not always win. The way to make progress in this area? Come and help us.--Filll (talk) 02:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It might be appropriate to set an arbitrary target "grade level" to the introduction of a technical article. There isn't, as far as I know, a statement on the "wikipedia is not a..." involving textbooks, but many of the articles are written in that fashion. "Plain Language" is very important, because if it can only be understood by someone who already knows it, you might as well not write it. For the record, science can be a religion (it has all the dogma and rituals) or a process. It might be worthwhile to do a project on "famous experiments" that show why we believe various scientific theories, rather than simply stating them as dogma.Somedumbyankee (talk) 17:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the idea is that anything you might not know you can easily discover by simply clicking it (all those technical terms are links). So as long as it is readable... Prodego ^talk 21:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmm... perhaps a sister project directed at kids? Same stuff, only written in more more approachable language? Wiki-kids or something? Blueboar (talk) 00:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Well we already mentioned the simple English wikipedia. Also, I wouldn't recommend you let your niece use wikipedia unsupervised. While I'm not sure of her age, be aware that there are a lot of contents that might be shocking to her, for example we cover the various horrific things humans have done to each other in a great amount of detail. Finally be aware that as anyone can edit wikipedia, they can easily add things you may consider inappropriate even to an innocous article like caffein. Wikipedia English is unlikely to ever be suitable for the unsupervised use of kids. Nil Einne (talk) 13:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure it is realistic to say that Nil. While in theory monitoring children while they are on Wikipedia is great, Wikipedia tends to be at the very top of search results, so you would really need to monitor all the time. People don't tend to browse through Wikipedia, they just visit one page, so that we have some inappropriate content isn't a problem unless you look for it. Regardless, there are far worse things on the internet then are on Wikipedia, so watching caffeine for possible vandalism should be the least of ones worries. Prodego ^talk 13:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a parent or a psychologist, but I would say monitoring all the time is required, particularly for young children (it's also what I always here whenever people do reports on kids internet usage). Maybe not physical monitoring but at least with well set up software. Note also that monitoring doesn't necessarily mean you have to be there all the time, but could include other stuff like ensuring you're available if your child has questions, teaching your child how to use the internet to find stuff (which will likely include, depending on the age, using sources better suited for their level then wikipedia), and perhaps having a look through what your child has been doing after the fact and talking to them if there is something that concerns you. I don't exactly see how the Google position affects anything, a lot of sites worse then wikipedia are going to show up near the top of searches and in any case, unless you teach your kid to only look at the first page of a search page it's most irrelevant, don't assume your kid is not going to come across something accidentally. Then of course there are things like MySpace, forums and chat rooms. Also, kids tend to be a lot smarter then adults realise, always very curious and a lot more comfortable and used to technology (including searching and links), you'd be wrong to assume they are not going to come across something that they might not yet be ready to deal with even if they start off from caffeine (or whatever). Note that other then stuff like the holocaust, wars, slavery etc, there are a lot of other things like health related stuff which a child may have difficult dealing with on their own. So I stick by my claim, wikipedia (the website) is by definition not suitable for the unsupervised use by young kids, and there are far worse problems then their inability to understand a lot of the stuff we write. Sure in the future we may have stuff like checked revisions, restricted content etc, but this never going to be the main part of wikipedia. Nil Einne (talk) 14:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I am just saying the Internet as a whole is not suitable for unsupervised use, I wouldn't focus in on Wikipedia. Prodego ^talk 01:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Policy on redirects?

A little while back I wrote an article on AABB, formerly the American Association of Blood Banks (now international and dealing with more than just blood, the acronym no longer stands for anything). The page was originally a redirect to a computer graphics term. Given the users on wikipedia, I'm guessing that the original article was more likely to be noteworthy to most readers, but is there anything written on what "leads" in disambiguation? A full disambiguation page seems excessive for two articles.Somedumbyankee (talk) 17:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The current set-up—AABB as an article about the organization, with a hatnote to the computer graphics term—seems fine. AABB is the official name of the organization, whereas AABB (axis-aligned bounding box) is just a subtopic of bounding volume. The only thing to check is that there are no links to AABB referring to the box, and it appears that there aren't. Gracenotes^T § 21:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Not quite sure how (or if) to correct it, but the German wikipedia "AABB" is for the graphics term, so users switching between languages will see two very different articles.Somedumbyankee (talk) 21:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

That just means you need to set up the interwiki links properly. --Carnildo (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:PD

• Discussion moved from WP:AN#Template:PD per suggestion.

For those interested in copyright issues, I have proposed a change to {{PD}}, a deprecated tempate, in which new images uploaded with this license tag after 1 May 2008 would be eligible for speedy deletion in accordance with {{nld}}. I think this is necessary because the template has been deprecated for over two years and we still get new images with this license tag. This may be controversial due the fact of this template's usage on hundreds, if not thousands, of images, and I definitely welcome any comments on this approach, which is similar to the one which was used for {{Military Insignia}}. Any comments or feedback are welcome. If this announcement was more appropriate to another forum, please feel free to move it there and let me know. Kelly ^hi! 01:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Where did you make this proposal? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 02:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Template talk:PD#Edit request. Kelly ^hi! 03:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I would be slow to implement this. For one thing, people might delete images older than it by mistake. Perhaps we could batch migrate {{PD}} images to {{PD-deprecated}} (or some other template to be created) and then make new {{PD}} images subject to deletion. Stifle (talk) 08:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the approach of getting a group of people together to clean-up the images with old PD tags instead of using the deletion process to clear the backlog? A good start would be doing the work needed to find out how many of these images there are. Category:PD tag needs updating has 11,888 images in it, but we really should be wary of throwing out potentially free content. That would actively harm the m:mission. Carcharoth (talk) 10:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to fragment the disussion at Template talk:PD#Edit request; I had really just posted here as an announcement in the hope of drawing the opinion of knowledgeable people. I have been working my through these images to try to fix the bad licenses. But new ones keep getting added faster than I can clean up old ones. Kelly ^hi! 11:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I worked on that category (and images in general) quite a lot in yesteryears (I seconded the edit request that added the category) and, I must say, it is difficult work. I was not collaborating with anyone, or having anyone check my work, so naturally it was exhausting and stressful.

That said, I think it would be feasible if there were several editors working in collaboration. It would be ideal if there were some way of "tagging" that the images had been reviewed and/or checked by someone else - I don't mean tagging as in adding a template, I mean purely meta-data, stored (for a hypothetical example) on the ToolServer. Then if we could get editors willing to collaborate and learn copious amounts of copyright law (;-)), I think it would go a lot quicker. :-) --Iamunknown 14:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a better place to bring this up would be the Wikipedia:Village pump. --Apis 00:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Relevance proposed guideline - terse version

I have made a proposal for a guideline on Wikipedia:Relevance. I have been extensively involved with many attempts to come up with a guideline for this (formerly as User:WikiLen). All attempts have failed to achieve consensus, even as simple as a disambiguation page. This is the first attempt with a terse version -- in the style of WP:IAR. It seems like a reasonably good compromise for all the concerns expressed by editors. For those new to this, a list of issues:

• Pressure exists for a Relevance policy to help solve problems with trivia and in-popular-culture stuff.
• Some assert a Relevance policy is not needed.
• I say, something is needed -- should not be left unsettled; redirects is not a solution.
• Things have been quiet for a few months, but the current redirect to an essay is not right.
• My take: Historically, many things proposed as Relevance policy really belong in a style guideline -- at least for the verbose things. Example: Stay on topic.

Additional talk page comments can be found here. —Len Raymond (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Style guides

Is Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines part of the official Manual of Style? If so, shouldn't it be moved to a title such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style (films) and listed as an MOS guideline in Template:Style?

On a related note, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide is listed as an MOS style guideline. If consensus supports its use as a style guideline, shouldn't it be moved to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (military history) (and stripped of its project-specific tags) instead of remaining as a WikiProject subpage? Vassyana (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

See the discussion that led to MILMOS getting the style guide tag. It didn't actually come up though I don't see how it makes a difference personally. Woody (talk) 19:54, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Flagging edits for COPYVIO, BLPVIO, etc.

I would like to be able to flag individual individual edits for concealment by administrators. In particular, things which are edit-analogs to legally-required WP:SPEEDY criteria, including:

• A10/disparagement, particularly in BLP
• A12/confirmed or obvious copyvio

Plus G7/Author requests deletion but only if the content could put the author in personal or legal jeopardy, e.g. "oops I accidentally posted my social security number."

Please consider adding this feature to Wikipedia. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

For such an edit to be removed, it needs to be reverted as quickly as possible, then see WP:OVERSIGHT. --Random832 (contribs) 02:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I was under the impression that there were two levels of hiding an edit: one level that admins could see but non-admins could not, and the second oversight level. My mistake. In any case, a one-button "this needs hiding" would be helpful. I would expect due to the sheer use an easy-to-use button would get, it would not be acted upon unless it was first vetted by an admin and/or several people clicked on the same button. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually there are two levels of hiding IIRC. Basically, an admin (or sysop?) can delete an edit/revision. The deletion log will show the edits were deleted (to anyone) and admins can undelete the deletions. For proper removal we usually prefer oversight in which case nothing will show to anyone that something was deleted. Nil Einne (talk) 13:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Sometime in the near(?) future the experimental Special:Revisiondelete, which is precisely what this is, will go live (don't ask me, I can't tell). MER-C 03:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Style guide no longer marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Style guide (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Adminship poll

It's the time of the year again. I've started a survey on adminship and its procedures, to find out the general sentiment on our UserRight procedure or precedent. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated! And yes, this time round it has got less questions on the table (possibly a good sign?). - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 19:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I support mandatory de-admining and re-selection every 6 months. JeanLatore (talk) 20:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• It was shot down before. - Mailer Diablo 20:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah bro but that was two years ago...It's time for a new look at the proposal. JeanLatore (talk) 22:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and also, Mr. Diablo, I thought you retired from all wikipedia internal processes. I, however, am just starting. I am trying to become an expert on policy both evolving and historical so I can be an admin. JeanLatore (talk) 01:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Image ripped from Google Books

I'd like to use a public-domain image from Google Books. (It's an illustration by John Tenniel for use in Self-parody.) The GB document starts with a statement that it's public domain but "We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes." Should that stop me? I hate to get GB mad, since I've used their service so much for WP and other things.

(I've also asked at Commons. Sorry if anyone sees this twice.) —JerryFriedman (Talk) 01:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Photographer credits in captions

People may like to know that a "concensus" of three editors, with older comments opposing the suggestion, at Wikipedia_talk:Captions#Credits_of_photos. has been used to justify changing that part of the MoS so that it says that photographers whose licences require attribution should be credited in the picture caption. Johnbod (talk) 03:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)